THE HINDU – CURRENT NOTE 22 February
India, Rwanda sign aviation, visa deals
Rwandan Airways to begin direct flights between Kigali and Mumbai in April
India and Rwanda have concluded a bilateral air services agreement enabling direct flights between the two countries. This is among the three memorandums of understanding (MoUs) concluded during Vice-President Hamid Ansari’s visit to the African nation. In the words of Amar Sinha, Secretary, External Affairs Ministry, it was a visit from which India learnt a lot.
Rwandan Prime Minister Anastase Murekezi and Mr. Ansari witnessed the signing of the MoU by Mr. Sinha and Alexis Nzahabwanimana, Rwandan Minister of State for Transport.
“With direct flights between the two countries, we expect our exchanges to be more fruitful,” Mr. Murekezi said.
Rwandan Airways will begin direct flights between Kigali and Mumbai in April.
The other two MoUs pertained to the setting up of an entrepreneurial development centre in Rwanda and exemption of visa for entry of diplomatic and official passports.
The agreements were signed in the presence of a large business delegation from India at the newly constituted India-Rwanda Business Forum organised by the FICCI and the Rwandan government.
Briefing the media at the conclusion of the visit, Mr. Sinha said while there was much to discuss what the Rwandan government wanted from India, including the desire of many pharmaceutical companies to open shop in the country and to have Bollywood films shot in Kigali, Mr. Ansari too had several questions on the many Rwandan initiatives.
Encourage tourism
“The Rwandan government wants to encourage tourism. With the air services agreement, that should happen. But they also want Bollywood films to be shot here, because they have noticed how tourism to New Zealand picked up after Bollywood started shooting films there,” Mr. Sinha said.
He said Mr. Ansari had many questions about President Paul Kagame’s governance model that had helped Rwanda become one of the cleanest, most well-run states in the region.
“It’s a visit where we too had a lot to learn ... the reconciliation of various groups, to be conscious of a colonial policy of divide and rule and to try and overcome it, and how they are overcoming ethnic majoritiarianism by concentrating on a shared linguistic and cultural heritage.”
India and Rwanda have concluded a bilateral air services agreement enabling direct flights between the two countries. This is among the three memorandums of understanding (MoUs) concluded during Vice-President Hamid Ansari’s visit to the African nation. In the words of Amar Sinha, Secretary, External Affairs Ministry, it was a visit from which India learnt a lot.
Rwandan Prime Minister Anastase Murekezi and Mr. Ansari witnessed the signing of the MoU by Mr. Sinha and Alexis Nzahabwanimana, Rwandan Minister of State for Transport.
“With direct flights between the two countries, we expect our exchanges to be more fruitful,” Mr. Murekezi said.
Rwandan Airways will begin direct flights between Kigali and Mumbai in April.
The other two MoUs pertained to the setting up of an entrepreneurial development centre in Rwanda and exemption of visa for entry of diplomatic and official passports.
The agreements were signed in the presence of a large business delegation from India at the newly constituted India-Rwanda Business Forum organised by the FICCI and the Rwandan government.
Briefing the media at the conclusion of the visit, Mr. Sinha said while there was much to discuss what the Rwandan government wanted from India, including the desire of many pharmaceutical companies to open shop in the country and to have Bollywood films shot in Kigali, Mr. Ansari too had several questions on the many Rwandan initiatives.
Encourage tourism
“The Rwandan government wants to encourage tourism. With the air services agreement, that should happen. But they also want Bollywood films to be shot here, because they have noticed how tourism to New Zealand picked up after Bollywood started shooting films there,” Mr. Sinha said.
He said Mr. Ansari had many questions about President Paul Kagame’s governance model that had helped Rwanda become one of the cleanest, most well-run states in the region.
“It’s a visit where we too had a lot to learn ... the reconciliation of various groups, to be conscious of a colonial policy of divide and rule and to try and overcome it, and how they are overcoming ethnic majoritiarianism by concentrating on a shared linguistic and cultural heritage.”
The Saeed test
Why we shouldn’t read too much into Pakistan’s action against the LeT chief, yet
The flurry of actions by the Pakistan government on Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed gives the impression of movement on an issue that has been a point of contention between India and Pakistan. For the past two weeks, Saeed, who is on the UN Security Council’s terror list, has been under “preventive detention” and “house arrest”, along with four other members of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an avatar of the LeT. All five are on the “export control list” for travel. A few days ago the authorities put Saeed on its Anti-Terrorism Act list as well, and on Tuesday followed that up by revoking weapon licences issued to Saeed and others. Although details have not been shared, Pakistani officials said they have placed restrictions on the functioning and funding of Saeed’s JuD and its ‘charity arm’, the Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation. In addition, Pakistan’s military gave Saeed’s detention its full backing by calling it a “policy decision in the national interest”, while Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told an international audience at the Munich Security Conference that Saeed was a “security threat” to Pakistan. It would seem that even the Indian government has given the action against Saeed a half thumbs-up, with the Ministry of External Affairs calling it a “logical first step”.
As observers of Pakistan know, the action against Saeed is not a new step or even the most serious measure taken against him over the past two decades. Since 2001 he has been in and out of detention at least five times, and released by the courts on a number of occasions. Besides, unlike in 2008 and 2009 when he was detained for the 26/11 Mumbai attacks case, this time there has been no First Information Report registered, or any specific reason given. If Pakistan were indeed serious about the UN list, these actions should have been carried out in 2008, when Saeed and the JuD were put on the list. It is more than likely that Pakistan’s action is actually timed for the Financial Action Task Force’s officials meeting in Paris this week where a report on Pakistan’s terror funding record is being presented. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif may even be attempting to show ‘good faith’ to both U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi by the action, even as he faces domestic pressure to act against terrorists in the wake of a slew of bombings recently in Pakistan, including at the Sehwan shrine in Sindh. It is too early to fully assess what the action against Saeed means, and what signal Pakistan may be sending to India. For New Delhi, steps towards a resumption of bilateral dialogue may be more purposeful than simply gauging which way the wind is blowing.
Necessary limit
Price control for cardiac stents is inevitable to promote access to treatments
Capping the prices of medical stents, which are used to treat coronary artery disease, by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) is an extreme regulatory measure necessitated by the market failure that afflicts the overall delivery of health care in India. Rising costs have led to impoverishment of families and litigation demanding regulation. Given the overall dominance of private, commercial, for-profit health institutions, and the asymmetry confronting citizens, correctives to bring about a balance are inevitable. Two important pointers to the need for cost regulation are available from research published in The Lancet in December 2015: nearly two-thirds of the high out-of-pocket expenditure on health incurred by Indians went towards drugs; even the meagre research data available showed that there was irrational use of medical technologies, including cardiac stents and knee implants. Regulated prices can, therefore, be expected to make stents more accessible to patients who really need them, helping them avoid using up the weak insurance cover available, while also reducing the incentive for unethical hospitals to use them needlessly. It is worth recalling that there are over 60 million diagnosed diabetics in the country, and the average age at which the first heart attack strikes Indians is 50, a decade earlier than people in developed nations. At appropriate prices, and with a health system that pools the cost among all citizens, it would be possible to provide access to stents and other treatments for all.
Health-care providers often demand market-determined pricing of medical technologies on the ground that newer ones will not be available under a regulated regime. In the case of cardiac stents, this argument does not hold water since stakeholder consultations held by the NPPA in January revealed that there are ‘huge unethical markups’ in the supply chain. It would serve the cause of medical innovation if costing is transparent, and a system of risk pooling is introduced to help patients get expensive treatment without high out-of-pocket spending. It was estimated five years ago by the Planning Commission’s expert group on universal health coverage that raising spending on public procurement of medicines to 0.5% of GDP (from 0.1%) would provide all essential medicines to everyone. What is necessary, then, is for a two-pronged approach to improve access to medicines and technology. The Centre should monitor expenditures jointly in partnership with the community, use regulation where needed, and raise public spending on health. Several developing countries have moved ahead on this path. Well-considered price control is a positive step, but more needs to be done. The latest measure provides an opportunity to expand the availability of stents, and by extension angioplasty procedures, in the public health system. District hospitals should offer cardiac treatments uniformly. This should be a priority programme to be completed in not more than five years.
Private sector gratuity to soar
Workers in private firms could see maximum payout double to Rs. 20 lakh
Soon private sector workers could receive gratuity up to ₹20 lakh, doubling the present maximum payout of ₹10 lakh that they are eligible to get after leaving an organisation after five years of continuous service.
The move is aimed at bringing parity between public and private sector workers after the gratuity limit was raised for central government employees from ₹10 lakh to ₹20 lakh as part of the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations accepted by the Centre in July 2016.
Consultative meeting
The labour ministry has called a meeting with trade unions, industry and State governments on Thursday to discuss the proposal to increase the gratuity ceiling by amending the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972.
“With implementation of the Seventh Central Pay Commission, (gratuity) ceiling now is ₹20 lakh. In the past, the ceiling amount of gratuity under the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972, has followed the Pay Commission recommendations,” the Union labour ministry said in its proposal dated February 15.
“Therefore, considering the inflation and wage increase, even in case of employees engaged in private sector, the entitlement of gratuity needs to be revised.”
At present, employees who complete five years of continuous service are eligible to receive gratuity when they leave the organisation. The gratuity ceiling was last revised from ₹3.5 lakh to ₹10 lakh in 2010 after the Sixth Pay Commission recommendation had raised the limit for central government employees.
Following the stakeholders’ discussion, the proposal will go to the Union Cabinet and be subsequently tabled in the Parliament. In a bid to avoid Parliamentary hurdles, the Centre has further proposed empowering itself with changing the gratuity ceiling through a notification in future.
Union demand
“We will raise two issues in the meeting,” said Pawan Kumar, zonal organising secretary at RSS-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS). “One, the calculation for gratuity payment should increase from 15 days to 30 days. This will help the low wage workers, too. Second, the gratuity should be given to workers who have completed three years of continuous service instead of five years at present,” he said. At present, gratuity is computed at 15 days salary for each completed year of service.
All India Trade Union Congress Secretary D.L.Sachdev said the gratuity payment ceiling should be increased retrospectively from January 1, 2016, as was done for central government employees.
India, Japan ink pact on rail safety
India signed an agreement with Japan last week on enhancing railway safety in the Indian Railways with focus on railway track and rolling stock safety, a press statement said on Tuesday.
The Memorandum of Cooperation was signed here on February 17 between Railway Board Chairman A.K.Mittal and Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan Vice-Minister Hiroshi Tabata.
The areas of cooperation include rail inspection, rail wielding and providing automatic railway track safety inspection, maintenance of rolling stock and “any other relevant railway safety matters jointly determined by both sides” with the aim to prevent major rail accidents.
The agreement with Japan comes at a time when the train derailments are on the rise. In 2016-17, the number of consequential train accidents remained the same level as last year at 95 while derailments rose from 56 to 74. Unmanned level crossing accidents fell.
Withdrawal of funds from EPF to get easier
Single page claim form enough
Banking on your provident fund savings for critical contingencies will now become far simpler with the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) introducing a single page composite form for such withdrawals before retirement age.
Over eight crore Employees’ Provident Fund account holders will no longer be required to submit evidential documents for withdrawing PF for availing housing loans, grant of advances in case of factory closure, marriage, higher education of children, among other things.
Till now, employees were required to fill and submit three different forms to EPFO for withdrawing provident fund for various purposes. “To add convenience, these forms have now been further simplified and replaced with a single page composite claim form,” EPFO said.
The EPFO has introduced forms in two categories – one, for those whose Aadhaar number is seeded with Universal Account Number (UAN) – a common number for all PF accounts, and the other for those without an Aadhaar number. Employees whose Aadhaar number is seeded will not be required to get employer’s attestation for withdrawing PF but employees without the seeded Aadhaar number will need the employer’s approval on their forms before submitting it to the EPFO.
Further, a single form signed by the employee will be treated as ‘self-certification’ instead of the present requirement of submitting various documents. However, in case PF is being withdrawn for medical purposes, a doctor’s certificate will still be required.
