📰 Contempt pleas against Prashant Bhushan: Supreme Court may curb advocates from speaking on cases
Freedom carries with it responsibility, says Bench.
•The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to examine the possibility of imposing curbs on advocates airing their views in the media about pending cases and the judges handling them, during a hearing on contempt petitions filed by the government and the Attorney General of India against civil rights lawyer Prashant Bhushan.
•A Bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Navin Sinha agreed that “though the flash of cameras and media attention may seem irresistible to some, a line needed to be firmly drawn.”
•The temptation to talk was hard to get over when cameras were trained on you, the Bench observed.
•Observing that “freedom carries with it a responsibility”, it noted that some lawyers even used air time to attack judges, whose code of conduct did not allow them to go public. Only one version of the matter was thus heard.
•“The judiciary should be protected,” Justice Mishra said. “If the Bar is out to kill the judiciary, what can be done.”
•The bench also observed that some lawyers rushed to the media as soon as their petition was filed. While the petition may contain all manner of allegations, and was even likely to be later withdrawn in court, the damage, however, had been done by that time.
•“When a matter is sub judice, what is expected of lawyers? Should they go public and be part of media and TV debate,” the bench asked.
•The court asked Mr. Bhushan, who was present in court, to file his reply to the contempt petitions.
•Both the government and Attorney General K.K. Venugopal termed as “scandalous” Mr. Bhushan’s February 1 tweets alleging that the government — via the top law officer — misled the apex court about the appointment of M. Nageswara Rao as interim CBI Director. Mr. Bhushan tweeted that the government, through Attorney General K.K. Venugopal, perhaps presented “fabricated” minutes of the high-powered committee meeting of January 9-10.
•The government contended that the tweets “wilfully and deliberately” made a false statement in a case pending in court.
•“The attack on the Attorney General in such a brazen, wilful and malicious manner would tend to shake the very foundation of the justice delivery system,” Mr. Venugopal contended.
•While Mr. Venugopal said he did not want the court to impose any punishment on Mr. Bhushan, the government, represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, was of the opposite opinion.
•“Everyday, we see just after a judgement is pronounced it is publicly proclaimed that it is a black day, bringing disrepute to the institution,” Mr. Mehta submitted.
•A rare occurrence of the Centre and the Attorney-General of India moving back-to-back contempt petitions against noted civil rights lawyer Prashant Bhushan for his tweets saw the Supreme Court on Wednesday agree to examine the possibility of imposing curbs on advocates airing their views in media about pending cases and the judges who decide them.
In a U-turn, Kerala's Travancore Devaswom Board supported entry of women of all ages
•The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved its verdict on a batch of petitions seeking review of its judgment which lifted the bar on menstruating women from worshipping at Sabarimala temple in Kerala.
•A Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi presided over a day-long clash over its September 28, 2018 judgment.
•A whopping 65 petitions, including review pleas and writs, challenged the authority of the Supreme Court to intervene with a “centuries’ old” belief that the Sabarimala deity is a Naishtika Brahmachari whose penance should not be disturbed by the entry of women worshippers of the menstruating age of 10 to 50 years.
•On the other hand, senior advocate Indira Jaising, representing Bindu and Kanakadurga — the two women who fought the odds to enter the Sabarimala premises, said it was the fundamental duty of citizens under Article 51A (h) of the Constitution to “develop scientific temper, humanism, spirit of enquiry and reform”. That is what the Supreme Court judgment urges citizens to do.
•“What about Article 51A (e)? To promote harmony and common brotherhood...” Justice Rohinton Nariman on the Constitution Bench asked.
•“It hurts a woman very, very deeply to say she is polluted because she menstruates. The hurt caused by such discrimination goes to the heart of the Constitution,” Ms. Jaising submitted to the Bench.
•The majority judgment in September 2018 concluded that the exclusion of menstruating women from Sabarimala temple was akin to treating them as the children of a “lesser God”. It had said exclusion of any kind, especially based on a biological attribute, amounted to practice of untouchability, an abolished social evil.
•But on Wednesday, Nair Service Society (NSS), represented by veteran lawyer K. Parasaran, sought a review of the verdict on the ground that the exclusion at Sabarimala temple was not based on gender or sex, but on religious faith in and character of the deity.
•The temple’s chief priest Rajeevaru Kandararu, who is the main review petitioner, argued that “every devotee has a fundamental right to worship in a temple in a manner which is in sync with the character of the deity”.
•“Thanthri [priest] is the father of the deity. Every deity has a character. The Sabarimala deity, unlike in other Ayyappa temples, has the peculiar character of a Naishtika Brahmachari. The essential religious nature of Sabarimala deity is affirmed and perpetuated everyday by the offerings/pujas conducted in the temple. All this rests on this unique character of the deity. Exclusion of women of a certain age is nothing on moral or immoral,” senior advocate V. Giri argued for the priest.
•Senior advocate A.M. Singhvi for the former chairman of Travancore Devaswom Board, which controls the temple, said “In Hindu religion, god is worshipped in different manifestations... Devotees have to worship in sync with characteristics of that manifestation to attain salvation.”
•“What is the effect of your Sabarimala judgment? It is a mandamus given to a particular religious community that you shall not hold this belief!” asked senior advocate Shekhar Naphade.
•“Hinduism is the most diverse religion on planet Earth. And here, you want to allow only practices or customs which are ‘universally ethical’ to all Hindus? Is it possible? Surely, that’s not the right approach to take in such a diverse religion?” Mr. Singhvi went on to criticise the September judgment.
•But Kerala government countered the review petition, saying courts can set aside religious practices which oversaw fundamental rights like dignity of women. “Touchstone of our Constitution is ‘you will not discriminate or exclude’,” senior advocate Jaideep Gupta submitted for the State.
•The Travancore Devaswom Board supported the State, saying the spirit of the Sabarimala judgment is equal entitlement for man and woman in society.
•But Ms. Jaising said her two clients have faced death threats and social exclusion for daring to worship at Sabarimala.
📰 Expert panel defers clearance to Andamans resort project
‘It doesn’t account for the biodiversity of the islands’ coast’
•An expert committee of the Union Environment Ministry has “deferred” clearance to a ₹100 crore proposal by the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation Limited (ANIIDCL) to develop an island resort, as well as put up “premium tents” and “tree houses”, on the grounds that it doesn’t account for the biodiversity of the islands’ coast.
•The Centre has been working on a long-term plan to make several of the A&N islands more conducive to tourism. Last year the Home Ministry revived an Island Development Agency that would coordinate infrastructure projects to aid tourism in the A&N islands as well as Lakshadweep.
•The ANIIDCL presented plans for the development of a premium Island Resort at Lalaji Bay, Long Island, A&N islands to an expert committee of the Environment Ministry tasked with evaluating infrastructure proposals along India’s coasts.
•Last month the Environment Ministry approved a new set of rules for infrastructure development along coasts that, in general, gives greater flexibility to development and infrastructure projects.
•“..The committee observed that as the area where the premium resort is proposed seems to be in an ecologically very fragile and biodiversity rich, a sub-committee shall undertake a site visit to assess the likely impact of tourism activities on the eco-system…the proposal in its present form is premature for its consideration for appraisal…and therefore deferred,” reads the minutes of the meeting conducted on January 25. The committee also expressed “concern” over the management of solid waste collection, treatment and disposal
•There were similar concerns with the proposal to set up luxury tents. “About 5.4 metric tons (MT) /month of solid waste would be generated during operation phase, out of which 3.2 MT would be biodegradable and 2.2 MT non-biodegradable,” the minutes of the meeting outline.
•The arrival of domestic tourists in A&N islands rose from over 2.02 lakh in 2011 to over 3.84 lakh in 2016, the inflow of foreign tourists was stagnant at around 15,000, according to the NITI Aayog in a presentation in August 2018.
•When the latest CRZ rules were announced in December, environmentalists had raised concerns that the A&N—already vulnerable to soil erosion and threat of climate change—would be further susceptible to environmental challenges from infrastructure development along the coasts.
📰 Tough-talking: On Taliban reconciliation process
India must ensure it’s not cut out of the resolution process with the Taliban
•The Taliban reconciliation process is moving at a faster pace than was anticipated. Talks facilitated by Russia in Moscow this week, with mainstream Afghan politicians sitting around the table with Taliban leaders, are similar in their approach to the recent U.S.-Taliban talks in Qatar, though the two are rival processes. The U.S. and Russia have accepted the idea that peace in Afghanistan is not possible without major concessions to the Taliban, including dialogue without insisting on a cessation of violence. In the duration of the Moscow conference alone, Taliban fighters killed 47 security forces personnel in attacks in Kunduz, Baghlan and Samangan provinces. The U.S. and Russia have, in separate processes, agreed to sidestep the Ashraf Ghani regime in Kabul, and accepted the Taliban’s condition that it will not negotiate with the elected Afghan government at this stage. And both the Russian and U.S. processes are dependent on cooperation from Pakistan, which retains its influence over the Taliban leadership. Clearly, the current talks with the Taliban are not within the “red lines” agreed to by all stakeholders in the past: they are not Afghan-led, owned or controlled, and the Taliban has not abjured violence, or sworn allegiance to the Afghan constitution before joining talks.
•However, despite the deep and obvious misgivings in New Delhi, it would be pointless to ignore or reject the outcomes of the talks, where some progress has been made. The U.S. has managed to bring senior Taliban leaders to the table, and is discussing the contours of its ultimate withdrawal from the Afghan war. The Taliban has unequivocally renounced ties with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, and committed to preventing Afghan soil from being used by foreign terrorists. For its part, Russia has hosted conferences where Taliban leaders sat down with members of the Afghan High Peace Council and senior Afghan politicians, including some contesting in this year’s presidential elections. While India’s principled position that it will not directly or publicly talk to the Taliban until it engages the Afghan government remains valid, it is necessary that India stays abreast of all negotiations and isn’t cut out of the resolution process. It is hoped that a robust channel is open between Indian intelligence agencies and all important groups in Afghanistan, including the Taliban, in order to ensure that Indian interests, development projects and citizens are kept secure. New Delhi must intensify its dialogue with regional and global stakeholders, and impress upon them that any dialogue with the Taliban must not come at the cost of the hard-fought victories of the Afghan people in the past two decades: on establishing constitutional democracy and the rule of law, and securing the rights of women and minorities.
📰 Checks and balance: On EVMs
Seeking a count of 50% of VVPAT slips is too much; the focus should be on ending glitches.
•In a significant and welcome change from their earlier demand for a return to paper ballots, representatives of a large section of the mainstream Opposition parties met the Election Commission (ECI) to demand changes to the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail counting process during the general elections. Returning to paper ballots will be regressive. The Electronic Voting Machine process, despite the plethora of grievances about its functioning from the Opposition parties, is a major improvement over paper-based voting. There has been no evidence of EVM-tampering as claimed by some parties, and administrative and technical safeguards instituted by the ECI and EVM manufacturers have held steady since the introduction of the EVM. Despite this, the ECI had fast-tracked the implementation of the VVPAT, an adjunct to the EVM that allows for a paper trail for voting and later verification of the electronically registered mandate in the ballot unit of the EVM. VVPATs are now deployed in all Assembly and parliamentary elections with EVMs. This implementation has not been without some misgivings. The Opposition’s demand for a count of 50% of the VVPAT slips, as opposed to the current system of counting VVPAT slips in one randomly selected booth of each constituency, is aimed at ensuring that EVMs have not been tampered with. ECI safeguards are robust enough to prevent this, but VVPAT recounts could eliminate any remaining doubt about possible “insider fraud” by errant officials or manufacturers.
•While the demand to count half of all the slips is an over-reaction, as a scientifically and randomly chosen sample of booths is a reasonable enough verification for the process, there remains the question whether counting one booth per constituency is a statistically significant sample to rule out errors. A more robust sampling technique that factors in the average size of the electorate in any constituency for each State and voter turnout, involving the counting of more than a single booth in some States, may be a better method. The ECI’s response that it is waiting for a report on this from the Indian Statistical Institute should be encouraging. The other issue with the VVPAT is more significant: machine glitches. During the parliamentary by-elections in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and Assembly elections in Karnataka in 2018, VVPAT glitches resulted in machine replacement rates rising to 20% and 4%, respectively. Glitches in the VVPAT machines were largely due to spooling issues in the print unit, which was sensitive to extreme weather. Some hardware-related changes were introduced, which improved its functioning in the recent elections in five States. Machine replacement rates due to VVPAT failures came down to 1.89% for Chhattisgarh. Deployment of improved machines should help curb glitches in the Lok Sabha elections.
📰 We need a leap in healthcare spending
India’s per capita expenditure on health remains among the lowest in the world
•It’s a fact that sticks out starkly: 10.6% of the total amount in the Interim Budget is allocated to defence, while only 2.2.% is allocated to healthcare. Funding need not be redirected from current allocations to preventive care, but surely India can make health spending a priority, much like defence? Despite several innovations in the healthcare sector in recent times, in line with India’s relentless pursuit of reforms, the government remains woefully short of its ambition to increase public health spending to 2.5% of GDP. At present, health spending is only 1.15-1.5% of GDP.
•While the Interim Budget is responsive to the needs of farmers and the middle class, it does not adequately respond to the needs of the health sector. The total allocation to healthcare is ₹61,398 crore. While this is an increase of ₹7,000 crore from the previous Budget, there is no net increase since the total amount is 2.2% of the Budget, the same as the previous Budget. The increase roughly equates the ₹6,400 crore allocated for implementation of the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY).
Per capita spending on health
•According to the National Health Profile of 2018, public per capita expenditure on health increased from ₹621 in 2009-10 to ₹1,112 in 2015-16. These are the latest official numbers available, although in 2018 the amount may have risen to about ₹1,500. This amounts to about $20, or about $100 when adjusted for purchasing power parity. Despite the doubling of per capita expenditure on health over six years, the figure is still abysmal.
•To understand why, let’s compare this with other countries. The U.S. spends $10,224 per capita on healthcare per year (2017 data). A comparison between two large democracies is telling: the U.S.’s health expenditure is 18% of GDP, while India’s is still under 1.5%. In Budget terms, of the U.S. Federal Budget of $4.4 trillion, spending on Medicare and Medicaid amount to $1.04 trillion, which is 23.5% of the Budget. Federal Budget spending per capita on health in the U.S. is therefore $3,150 ($1.04 trillion/ 330 million, the population).
•In India, allocation for healthcare is merely 2.2% of the Budget. Per capita spending on health in the Budget in India is ₹458 (₹61,398 crore/ 134 crore, which is the population). (Medicare and Medicaid come under ‘mandatory spending’ along with social security.) Adjusting for purchasing power parity, this is about $30 — one-hundredth of the U.S.
•Admittedly, this runaway healthcare cost in the U.S. is not to be emulated, since comparable developed countries spend half as much per capita as the U.S. Yet, the $4,000-$5,000 per capita spending in other OECD countries is not comparable with India’s dismal per capita health expenditure. The rate of growth in U.S. expenditure has slowed in the last decade, in line with other comparable nations.
•The ₹6,400 crore allocation to Ayushman Bharat-PMJAY in the Interim Budget will help reduce out-of-pocket expenditure on health, which is at a massive 67%. This notwithstanding, per capita Budget expenditure on health in India is among the lowest in the world. This requires immediate attention.
Health and wellness centres
•Last year, it was announced that nearly 1.5 lakh health and wellness centreswould be set up under Ayushman Bharat. The mandate of these centres is preventive health, screening, and community-based management of basic health problems. The mandate should include health education and holistic wellness integrating modern medicine with traditional Indian medicine. Both communicable disease containment as well as non-communicable disease programmes should be included. An estimated ₹250 crore has been allocated for setting up health and wellness centres under the National Urban Health Mission. Under the National Rural Health Mission, ₹1,350 crore has been allocated for the same. The non-communicable diseases programme of the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke has been allocated ₹175 crore, from ₹275 crore. Allocation to the National Tobacco Control Programme and Drug De-addiction Programme is only ₹65 crore, a decrease of ₹2 crore. The allocation for each of the wellness centres is less than ₹1 lakh per year. This is a meagre amount.
•History shows that where there is long-term commitment and resource allocation, rich return on investment is possible. For instance, AIIMS, New Delhi is the premier health institute in India with a brand value because of resource allocation over decades. AIIMS Delhi alone has been allocated nearly ₹3,600 crore in the Interim Budget, which is a 20% increase from last year. Similar allocation over the long term is needed in priority areas.
Prevention and its link to GDP
•NITI Aayog has proposed higher taxes on tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy food in order to revamp the public and preventive health system. This has not found its way into the Interim Budget. A focused approach in adding tax on tobacco and alcohol, to fund non-communicable disease prevention strategies at health and wellness centres, should be considered. Cancer screening and prevention are not covered. There is no resource allocation for preventive oncology, diabetes and hypertension. Prevention of chronic kidney disease, which affects 15-17% of the population, is not appropriately addressed. The progressive nature of asymptomatic chronic kidney disease leads to enormous social and economic burden for the community at large, in terms of burgeoning dialysis and transplant costs which will only see an exponential rise in the next decade and will not be sustainable unless we reduce chronic kidney disease incidence and prevalence through screening and prevention.
•Due to lack of focus in preventive oncology in India, over 70% of cancers are diagnosed in stages III or IV. The reverse is true in developed countries. Consequently, the cure rate is low, the death rate is high, and treatment of advanced cancer costs three-four times more than treatment of early cancer. The standard health insurance policies cover cancer but only part of the treatment cost. As a consequence, either out-of-pocket expenditure goes up or patients drop out of treatment.
•Increase of GDP alone does not guarantee health, since there is no direct correlation between GDP and health outcomes. However, improvement in health does relate positively to GDP, since a healthy workforce contributes to productivity. The 1,354 packages for various procedures in PMJAY must be linked to quality. For various diseases, allocation should be realigned for disease management over a defined time period, not merely for episodes of care. Since a major innovation in universal healthcare, Ayushman Bharat, is being rolled out, it must be matched with a quantum leap in funding. Only if we invest more for the long-term health of the nation will there be a similar rise in GDP.
📰 A worrying approach
Will Ayushman Bharat hurt the spirit of cooperative federalism?
•With West Bengal, Telangana, Delhi and Odisha not joining Ayushman Bharat, the question arises whether the scheme is hurting the idea of cooperative federalism. The Seventh Schedule of the Constitution makes States responsible for hospital services. The States have their own schemes to provide financial risk protection to those seeking medical relief. Based on the ongoing centrally sponsored scheme, the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, the Central government launched an improved version in 2018 called the National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS) for a sum assured of ₹5 lakh per family per year.
•The insistence to prefix Ayushman Bharat to existing State names and the despatch of a personalised letter to 7.5 crore families with only the Prime Minister’s photograph were seen as attempts to attribute the entire credit to the current administration, though State governments are equal partners — funding 40% of the scheme, bearing the responsibility of its implementation and covering double the number of beneficiaries.
•Given that the Central government transfers funds to States through the Finance Commission, Central Sector Schemes and the Centrally Sponsored Schemes, it is expected of the National Health Agency (NHA) to build an institutional architecture, standardise procedures, costs and access all data for effective monitoring. This is important as it is accountable to Parliament and the Comptroller and Auditor General for the proper utilisation of allocated funds. But such standardisation can stifle innovation and entail costly structures that may not accommodate local conditions, preferences, and cost-effective solutions. Instead, when funds are provided, subject to achieving certain goals, States have scope to innovate, model the design to fit their context, resource base, epidemiological status, level of development, take total ownership and be accountable for outcomes.
•The NHA’s approach does not appear to be built on consensus. Its model consists of outsourcing the vital functions of pricing services, pre-authorisations, scrutiny of bills, grievance redressal, and fraud detection to private companies and third-party administrators. This may increase administrative costs from the current 6% to 30%, as seen in the Medicare scheme of the U.S.
•Besides, the policy of providing fiscal incentives to the private sector to establish hospitals in deficit areas without insulating government-owned facilities or the small and marginal hospitals that together provide 95% of hospital care will tighten the grip of corporates on secondary and tertiary markets. This will result in cost escalations — more so because of the rapid consolidation and aggregation of tertiary hospitals by foreign financial conglomerates and private equity funding agencies, impacting prices, access to tertiary care and the very sustainability of the NHPS.
📰 Govt. diktat may cost privacy in WhatsApp
Firm says proposed changes ‘overbroad’, may require it to re-architect itself into a different product
•The Indian government’s proposal to make it mandatory for online platforms to trace the origin of unlawful messages is ‘overbroad’ and will require WhatsApp to re-architect the product into one without privacy, a spokesperson for the instant messaging app said on Wednesday.
•The firm, however, did not elaborate on the plans for India, its largest market with over 200 million users, if the proposal is accepted.
•“The proposed changes are overbroad and not consistent with the strong privacy protections that are important to people everywhere, not just in India but around the world,” Carl Woog, head of communications at WhatApp, said in reply to a question.
•He added, “What is contemplated by the rules is not possible today, given the end-to-end encryption that we provide and it will require us to re-architect WhatsApp, leading to a different product — one that will not be fundamentally private. Imagine if every message that you sent was kept with a record of the fact that you sent it and record of your phone number. And that would not be a place for private communication.”
•The government and WhatsApp have been at loggerheads over the issue of tracing the origin of fake messages. The Facebook-owned instant messaging platform has said on multiple occasions that it would not comply with the government’s demand as it would undermine the privacy of WhatsApp users.
•The government, on the other hand, said that it did not want WhatsApp to decrypt and read messages, but insisted that it should be able to trace the origin of messages that lead to serious crimes. Mr. Woog stressed that WhatsApp ‘cares deeply about creating a space for private conversations online’ and that it was a private messaging platform. Asked if the company would quit India if the proposed norms are adopted, Mr. Woog said the company would take one step at a time.
Limits on group sizes
•Matt Jones, a software engineer at WhatsApp, stressed that the platform was built for private messaging. “We are not here to give people a microphone, we are here for private messaging…We place limits on group sizes and how users send messages,” he said,
•elaborating that the platform used machine learning to crackdown on automated and bulk messaging.
•WhatsApp, which has 1.5 billion monthly active users, bans about 2 million accounts every month.
•Mr. Woog said that over the past several months, the U.S.-based firm had also been engaging with political parties to explain that WhatsApp was not a broadcast platform. “It is not a place to send messages at scale and also to explain to them that we will be banning accounts that will engage in automated robot behaviour.”
•“We will expand this effort and work with the Election Commission of India in the lead up to the national election in 2019,” the messaging platform said. On Thursday, the Parliamentary Committee on IT will meet representatives of the IT Ministry and Twitter to discuss issues related to ‘safeguarding citizens’ rights’ on such platforms.
📰 Unregulated deposit schemes to be banned
Cabinet approves changes to Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Bill pursuant to the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Finance.
•The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the official amendments to an Act that classifies any deposit scheme not registered with the government as an offence and bans it, the government announced.
•“The Cabinet has given its approval to move official amendments to the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Bill, 2018, pursuant to the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Finance,” the government said in a release. “The amendments will further strengthen the Bill in its objective to effectively tackle the menace of illicit deposit-taking activities, and prevent such schemes from duping poor and gullible people of their hard-earned savings.”
•Among the provisions is one that bans deposit takers from promoting, operating, issuing advertisements or accepting deposits in any unregulated scheme. “The principle is that the Bill would ban unregulated deposit taking activities altogether, by making them an offence ex-ante rather than the existing legislative-cum-regulatory framework that only comes into effect ex-post with considerable time lags,” the government said.
•The Bill creates three different types of offences: (i) running of unregulated deposit schemes, (ii) fraudulent default in regulated deposit schemes, and (iii) wrongful inducement in relation to unregulated deposit schemes.
•The government said the Bill provides for “severe punishment and heavy pecuniary fines” to act as a deterrent.
•Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said penalties could involve jail term as well as the sale of the offenders’ assets to pay back the defrauded party within set timelines.
•“The Bill has adequate provisions for disgorgement or repayment of deposits in cases where such schemes nonetheless manage to raise deposits illegally,” the release said. “The Bill provides for attachment of properties/assets by the competent authority, and subsequent realisation of assets for repayment to depositors.”
•“‘Deposit Takers’ include all possible entities (including individuals) receiving or soliciting deposits, except specific entities such as those incorporated by legislation,” the release said.
•The Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Bill 2018 was introduced in Parliament on July 18, 2018 and was referred to the standing committee, which submitted its seventieth report on the Bill to Parliament on January 3, 2019.
📰 First career portal for students launched in Rajasthan
Will address the needs of students for information on scholarships and career choices
•India’s first “career portal”, addressing the needs of secondary and higher secondary students for information on scholarships and career choices, was launched with the support of United Nations Children’s Fund here on Wednesday. The portal is expected to help the students take “informed decisions” about their academic and professional pursuits.
To benefit lakhs
•Minister of State for Education Govind Singh Dotasra and UNICEF-Rajasthan chief Isabelle Bardem inaugurated the portal, set to benefit about 23 lakh students, at Dr. Radhakrishnan Shiksha Sankul here in the presence of school principals, teachers and senior officials.
•Mr. Dotasra said the portal would promote employment-oriented education in the State and provide information on 200 vocational and 237 professional careers, 455 employment avenues, 960 scholarships, 955 competitive examinations and 10,000 institutions of higher education to the students from Classes IX to XII.
•Experts in UNICEF have developed the portal after an assessment of needs, awareness and perspective of students, teachers and system functionaries. Dr. Bardem said the assessment had indicated that most of the boys and girls in the State were keen to join the workforce as soon as they finished Class X or XII. Besides, the assessment revealed a substantial progress in terms of gender equality among the students.
•“The career portal will serve the needs in the educational stream, enabling the students to choose their career path matching with their aspirations, interest, inclination and aptitude,” Dr. Bardem said, adding that this would reduce dropouts at various stages in schools and improve retention in jobs. UNICEF had selected Rajasthan for launching the portal because of its track record in employment-oriented education, she said.
•Mr. Dotasra also announced setting up of the Rajiv Gandhi Career Counselling Cell for adolescents and youths on the occasion. The cell will link school and college students with skill development programmes and internship opportunities in the pursuit of their career choices.
Career information
•UNICEF’s studies in Rajasthan have highlighted that two largest sources of career information for students are teachers and family members. About 69% of students mentioned that they were using Internet for their career-related queries, which indicates that the adolescents will quickly learn to use the career portal.
📰 Pension for informal workers
What is the scheme?
•A major announcement in the Interim Budget 2019-20 was the creation of the Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Mandhan, a pension scheme for informal workers. Under this scheme, subscribers will receive an assured monthly pension of ₹3,000 per month from the age of 60 onwards. Towards this, they will have to contribute ₹55 a month (if they join at the age of 18 years), or ₹100 a month (if they join at the age of 29 years). The government will match these contributions. The government has reportedly set a cap on the age of joining at 40 years, but this is yet to be officially confirmed by the Labour Ministry.
Whom does it include?
•In his Budget speech, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said half of India’s GDP comes from the work done by 42 crore workers in the unorganised sector, such as street vendors, rickshaw pullers, construction workers, rag pickers, agricultural workers, beedi workers, those engaged in the handloom and leather industries, and domestic workers. He said the government must provide these workers with a “comprehensive social security coverage” in their old age. The Shram Yogi Mandhan scheme is aimed at achieving that, and therefore includes all informal sector workers with an income of less than ₹15,000 per month. According to the government, this works out to 10 crore people.
•Finance Ministry officials have suggested that the pension payouts could be made directly in the workers’ accounts, which would be Aadhaar-linked.
What will the government spend?
•So far, the government has allocated just ₹500 crore for the scheme, but this is likely to be increased in the full Budget that will be presented in July. An analysis of the Interim Budget documents shows that the allocation for the Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Mandhan could possibly come at the expense of an existing pension scheme — the National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) — announced last year to benefit more than three crore poor senior citizens, disabled people, and widows.
•The NSAP had originally been allocated ₹9,975 crore in the 2018-19 Budget, which was reduced to ₹9,200 crore in the Interim Budget 2019-20, which is a drop of ₹775 crore.
Will the scheme work?
•Social sector workers have pointed out that creating a voluntary contributory pension scheme for informal sector workers is not likely to work as their salaries are low. The argument is that they already pay large amounts as indirect taxes.
•Further, for a salaried worker, the pension contribution can be cut from the salary. A daily wage earner or migrant labourer will, however, have to regularly deposit her income each month, which is an uncertain proposition.
What lies ahead?
•The government is silent on what happens to the scheme if an informal sector worker misses a contribution. Does the worker become disqualified from the scheme? If so, what happens to the amount already contributed? Will the government refund the worker that amount, or will that amount be forfeited? Another matter to be considered is what happens to a worker who transitions to the formal workforce. Answers are awaited on all these questions.
