(Current Affairs) National Events | November + December: 2015

National Events

In the Eyes of World Bank Gujarat is the best state for ease of business

  • Gujarat, the state Prime Minister Narendra Modi ran for more than a decade, is India’s best place for conducting business, the World Bank said on Monday, in a report that ranks the country’s states in an effort to encourage them to cut red tape.

  • The report, prepared with support from KPMG on the request of the Modi government, gains importance by coming before the World Bank’s annual Doing Business report, which ranks nations and is expected to be released next month.

  • Since taking charge in May 2014, Modi has set an ambitious target of improving by 2017 India’s national ranking from a woeful 142 of 189, below Pakistan and Iran, to the top 50.

  • Last year, India slipped two spots in the report, and was ranked lower than Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa - mainly because of delays in approvals for starting a business, tax payments, getting bank loans and property registration.

  • Monday’s report suggested that such steps as offering single-window clearances for administrative approvals, if followed by all states, could improve India’s global ranking.

  • It said that states — including the top five, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh — had implemented reforms in online tax payments, construction, permits, electricity connections and environmental clearances in a specified time.

Smart Cities rank low in swachh bharat ranking

  • Many cities selected for new urban initiatives under the Centre’s flagship programmes are found to be wanting on the sanitation front and are low on swachh bharat ranking causing concern for the government.

  • With the states on course of preparation of city level plans under the flagship new urban initiatives of Smart City Mission, Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY), the common underlying concern is ensuring sanitation under all these schemes.

  • Concern over cleanliness in urban areas is highlighted by the fact that only 3 of the 98 cities selected so far under Smart City Mission figure among the top 10 clean cities and most of the 12 HRIDAY cities ranked very low in Swachh Bharat Rankings, according to the data prepared by the Urban Development Ministry for 476 Class-1 cities of the country.

  • UD Ministry is currently conducting workshops for states and urban local bodies for their understanding of various aspects of preparation of city level smart city plans.

  • Of the 98 cities identified, 88 of them were given swachh bharat rankings. Of these, only 3 cities Kochi, Tiruchirapally and Navi Mumbai are among the top 10 clean cities in the country.

  • While 29 of these 98 figured among the top 100 cities, in a matter of concern, 38 smart city nominees were ranked beyond 200, including 20 between swachh bharat rankings of 301-476.

  • Of the 12 HRIDAY Cities, 8 were given swachh bharat rankings. Of these, only Warangal (Andhra Pradesh) got a good swachh bharat rank of 33 while the remaining 7 were ranked between 290 (Kanchipuram) and 430 (Amritsar). Swachh Bharat Ranking of other HRIDAY cities, which are of cultural and tourism importance are Mathura (299), Gaya (334), Puri (398) and Varanasi (418).

  • Accordingly, sanitation has been made an integral component of all new schemes like Smart City Mission, AMRUT and HRIDAY besides launching Swachh Bharat Mission.”

  • He said under AMRUT, focus is on ensuring clean water supply and sewerage connection to all urban households besides storm water drains while under Smart City Mission the emphasis is on decentralized water and solid waste management and application of smart solutions.

  • Under Swachh Bharat Mission, the principal objective is to eliminate open defecation and 100 per cent door-to-door collection, transportation and scientific disposal of municipal solid waste. Convergence of these schemes in implementation should help in achieving intended results including sanitation.”

  •  He also said that the purpose of setting up a meeting of about 100 Swachh Bharat Ambassadors with President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday was to further galvanise awareness generation activities about cleanliness.

  • Contrary to the popular adage that small is beautiful, it turned out that small cities are not necessarily the clean cities. Of the 482 towns and cities with a population of above one lakh each identified as AMRUT cities, 245 have a population between one and two lakh each.

  • Of these, only 3 cities Hassan (Karnataka), Gangtok (Sikkim) and Halisahar (West Bengal) figured among the top 10 clean cities and 40 among the top 100 clean cities.

  • 106 of these 245 cities were ranked low between 300 and 476.

  • Central Government has provisioned central assistance of Rs 48,000 cr for Smart City Mission, Rs 50,000 cr for AMRUT for the next five years and Rs 500 cr for HRIDAY during 2015- 17.

  • Under Smart City Mission, Rs 100 cr central assistance will be provided to each of the 100 selected cities per year with states and urban local bodies providing matching funds.

  • Sanitation projects including solid waste management have to be taken up with resources from other sources including borrowings and PPP.

  • Under AMRUT, Centre will provide 50 per cent of the project cost for universal coverage of water connections and sewerage networks for cities with population of up to 10 lakhs with states requiring to meet at least 20 per cent of project cost and mobilizing the rest from the resources of urban local bodies and other sources. Central assistance will be 30 per cent for cities with population of more than 10 lakhs each.

  • Swachh Bharat Mission has been launched in urban areas last year at an estimated cost of Rs 66,009 cr out of which central share is Rs 14,623 cr. Under this Mission, Centre will provide an assistance of Rs 4,000 each for construction of household toilets, 4 per cent of cost as Viability Gap Funding for construction of community toilets and 20 per cent of cost as Viability Gap Funding for solid waste management projects.

  • Physical targets under Swachh Bharat Mission in urban areas include-construction of 1.04 crore individual household toilets, over 5 lakh community and public toilets and assisting 30 crore urban people with solid waste management services. 100 per cent door-to-door collection of solid waste, its transportation and scientific disposal in 83,000 urban wards by 2019 are envisaged under the Mission.

Rail ministry to appoint consultant for HR audit

  • The rail ministry is set to appoint an outside and independent Human Resource (HR) consultant who will conduct Indian railways’ HR audit to identify gaps in HR-related policies and the lacunae faced in their implementation.

  • The consultant will take up auditing jobs of various HR functions including recruitment, selection and promotion for non-gazetted employees and interact with the committee on HR issues headed by the executive director-training.

  • The railway board is looking for “dynamic, experienced and result-oriented professionals” for engagement on contract basis for an initial period of one year, which is extendable based on performance and quality output. Post interviews for selection of candidates, who are required to be below 45 years, the consultant will be posted at the railway board on a monthly remuneration of Rs 50,000.

  • The railway board’s decision is in line with the budget promises made by rail minister Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu in February. Asserting that the 1.3 million strong workforce of Indian railways is its strength, Prabhu had said in his budget speech in February, “To prepare them (employees) for the future and for enhancing organisational performance, systematic HR audit will be undertaken.”

World Hindi conference in Bhopal

  • The 10th World Hindi Conference in Bhopal saw a conflict of sorts, perhaps inadvertently, between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, as suggested by their speeches during the inauguration of the conference by the PM.

  • Even as Sushma Swaraj expressed her concern over English’s growing effect on Hindi, the PM’s speech was liberally peppered with English words.

  • During the inauguration session, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, her deputy VK Singh and chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan made efforts to use pure Hindi words in their speeches even if they found some words difficult to pronounce.

  • Sushma Swaraj said, “I am pained to say that today, not only do we have to think of promotion (Sanvardhan) of Hindi but also its protection (Sanrakshan). The way English’s growing effect is reflected in Hindi, the language is losing its identity (Asmita).”

  • Sushma Swaraj who consciously chose to stick to Hindi words, accidentally used English word ‘report’ once after mentioning ‘rapat’ (the Hindi word for report) at least twice. However, she corrected herself and stuck to Hindi.

  • However, when the Prime Minister Narendra Modi rose to speak, he used English words several times in his speech. The English words that his speech featured included ‘agencies’, ‘Gandhian’, ‘stethoscope’, ‘thermometer’, ‘drainage’, ‘electrifying effect’ ‘secretariat’, ‘dictionary’, ‘Russia’, ‘Russian’, ‘requirement’ ‘technology’, ‘acknowledge’, ‘aspiration’, ‘values’, ‘digital world’, ‘message’, ‘convey’, ‘software’, ‘expert’, ‘app’, ‘market’, ‘modern’, ‘exclusive’, ‘inclusive’, ‘mobile phone’, ‘contact list’ etc.

  • The PM’s frequent use of English words appeared to be in sync with the message he imparted through his speech on Hindi language, in which he stressed the need for organising workshops in Hindi and other Indian languages and including words from them in Hindi.

  • Modi, however, didn’t talk of assimilating foreign languages in Hindi, but his speech sent out a message that Hindi needed to be made flexible.

Moody’s raises a valid question

  • Global rating agency Moody’s has raised a few questions on the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decision to award the domestic systemically important banks (D-SIBs) status to only two banking entities.
  • The agency has said the central bank’s approach on D-SIBs or ‘too-big-to fail’ entities is ‘less stringent’ than other jurisdictions, hence credit negative.
  • Last week, the RBI named the country’s largest lender, State Bank of India (RBI) and ICICI Bank as D-SIBs.
  • This surprised some banking industry observers since the central bank, in its July 2014 framework for D-SIBs, had said it expects that about 4-6 banks may be designated as D-SIBs under various buckets.
  • This was, however, based on the 31 March 2013 numbers. Moreover, SBI and ICICI Bank were sure picks as they are the biggest banks in the industry.
  • In simple terms, D-SIBs are those interconnected entities, whose failure can impact the whole of the financial system and create instability.
  • The criterion to decide the primary sample of D-SIBs was done by selecting banks with asset size beyond 2 percent of GDP.
  • Going by this methodology, at least 13 banks fall under this category.
  • These include Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, PNB and HDFC. To be sure, the 2 percent cut-off is used to select the primary sample.
  • The RBI would further scrutinise this list of banks based on interconnectedness, lack of readily available substitutes or financial institution infrastructure and complexity.
  • The RBI can exercise its discretion on the final list and hence the central bank can justify the selection of only two banks from about 27 public sector banks, 19 private sector banks and 43 foreign banks. But, according to Moody’s, the Indian central bank has taken a ‘less stringent approach’ in categorising the D-SIB category.

Government to modernize Nehru Museum

  • The National Implementation Committee constituted by the government has recommended plans for modernization of the Nehru Museum in New Delhi as part of the 125th Birth Anniversary of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
  • The recommendations were made with a view to spread the Nehru’s ideas and awareness about freedom struggle and history of modern India.
  • “There will be a special focus on the governance of India under Jawaharlal Nehru as the first Prime Minister of India which has been largely left out in the present exhibition,” a statement from Nehru Museum said.
  • The modernization plan includes the Teen Murti Bhavan, home of Nehru as the prime minister.

Govt find new way to resolve call drops

  • The Department of Telecom may go slow for auction of spectrum next year if operators do not invest in infrastructure to make optimum use of available airwaves and improve quality of services, sources said.
  • According to official sources, the DoT is of the view that despite auctioning the largest amount of spectrum earlier this year, operators are not investing in infrastructure, as required, which is leading to call drop problem.
  • The DoT had planned to conduct the auction early next year but is now reconsidering on the timeframe.
  • The DoT has already written to sectoral regulator TRAI for seeking reserve price of various bands including 700, 800, 900, 1800, 2100 and 2300 MHz that can be used for 2G, 3G and 4G services.
  • The government expects a revenue Rs 42,865.62 crore from communication services in 2015-16, which include proceeds from spectrum auction and other charges levied by the DoT.
  • An audit by DoT recently found out lack of investment in infrastructure along with operators putting more equipment for 4G services than for 2G or GSM as the main reasons for call drops.

HC allows permanent commission for women in Navy

  • In a major relief for women naval officers, Delhi High Court on Friday allowed a bunch of pleas seeking permanent commission for them in the force, saying “sexist bias and service bias” would not be allowed to block progress of women.
  • The court, while granting their plea, said the “women are here to stay” and since they “work shoulder to shoulder” with their male counterparts, it would “frown upon any endeavour to restrain the progress of women”.
  • While the Army and Air Force allow permanent commission for women, the Navy has limited women officers only to short service commission of 14 years.
  • A bench of justices Kailash Gambhir and Najmi Waziri also allowed the women naval officers’ plea seeking retirement benefits like pension.
  • Women naval officers were not eligible for pension as it required 20 years of service.
  • The order came on the plea of several naval women officers, both retired and serving, from the logistics, education and air traffic control departments of the Navy.
  • The women naval officers in their pleas in the high court had sought similar rights as their counterparts in the other two wings of the armed forces.
  • They had also alleged gender discrimination, saying while women officers were only entitled to short service commission, men were entitled to both short service as well as permanent commissions.

India has added 52 million Internet users in first six months

  • India has added 52 million Internet users in first six months of the year, taking the total user base to 352 million as on June 30, 2015, industry body IAMAI today said.
  • Interestingly, 213 million (over 60%) users accessed the worldwide web through mobile devices.
  • The number of Internet users has grown over 26% from 278 million in October 2014. The number of mobile Internet users has also grown about 40% from 159 million users in October last year.
  • “The Internet in India took more than a decade to move from 10 million to 100 million and 3 years from 100 to 200 million. However, it took only a year to move from 200 to 300 million users. Clearly, Internet is mainstream in India today,” it said.

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