Union Government launches HRIDAY scheme

Union government has launched a Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY) scheme to preserve and rejuvenate the rich cultural heritage of the country.

Union governments ambitious Rs 500 crore HRIDAY project was launched by Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu in New Delhi.

In the initial phase, 12 heritage cities have been identified which will be rejuvenated and developed under HRIDAY.

The 12 cities are: Amritsar, Varanasi, Gaya, Puri, Ajmer, Mathura, Dwarka, Badami, Velankanni, Kanchipuram, Warangal and Amaravati.

HRIDAY- Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana:

• It aims to bring urban planning, economic growth and heritage conservation together for heritage cities.

• It also seeks beautification in an inclusive and integrated manner with focus on cleanliness, livelihoods, skills, safety, security, accessibility and faster service delivery of heritage cities

• Heritage management plan (HMP) will be prepared for the identified cities which will outline heritage resources and develop policies to guide their conservation, restoration, future use and development.

• It will seek to improve last-mile connectivity heritage sites by documentation, conservation of areas, providing more facilities for women, senior citizens and differently abled citizens.

• HRIDAY will be dovetailed with the Tourism Ministry’s Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Augmentation Drive (PRASAD) scheme which has an outlay of Rs 100 crore for augmentation of infrastructure at pilgrimage sites across the country.

Maharashtra government declares Chandrapur as dry district

• Maharashtra Government has declared mineral rich Chandrapur district (in Vidarbha region) as dry district.

• Thus imposing ban on the sale, purchase, production and consumption of liquor in the district.

• In this regard, state government has cancelled all alcohol permits in Chandrapur district and henceforth will be shifted to other districts.

• Chandrapur district is third district in state to be declared dry district. The demand for banning liquor in Chandrapur was made in late 2010, following which a committee was set up by state government. Thus, this decision was taken that in the interest of health of the people of Chandrapur, liquor consumption must be prohibited.

• Earlier, Wardha and Gadchiroli districts from same region were declared dry districts.

• Wardha was declared dry district as it is closely linked to Mahatma Gandhi with his ashram situated in Sevagram.

• While, in the case of Gadchiroli the decision to declare it as a dry district was taken in 1992 owing to a public outcry to ban alcohol in view of growing Naxal movement.

Punjab government launches e-stamping project

Punjab government has launched e-stamping project in the state. It was launched by state Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal.

This project seeks to computarise revenue departments of the state in order to remove malpractices and end leakage of government revenue. It also seeks to make revenue transactions safe and secure.

Key facts:

• At present, e-stamping has been initiated as a pilot project in five districts of state. They are Mohali, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Bathinda.

• All districts of state will be covered under this project by 31 March 2015.

• This project will help citizens to pay the exact fee through a wire transfer, a draft or even a cheque for stamp instead of buying it from middlemen at higher cost.

• E-stamps have various safety features which includes a unique ID generated by computer and could be verified online and also UV, ultra violet, micro film and thermal fixtures besides an encrypted 2 D bar code.

India ranks 78th globally in Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) 2014

India ranked 78th globally in Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) 2014 list of 93 countries in terms of talent competitiveness of its human capital.

This GTCI list was compiled by INSEAD business school in partnership with Adecco and Human Capital Leadership Institute of Singapore (HCLI).
GTCI measures a nation’s competitiveness based on the quality of talent it can produce, attract and retain.

Key facts of Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) 2014 list:

• Top twenty scoring countries in the GTCI 2014 are all high-income countries. While, the top rankings were dominated by European countries, with only six non-European countries in the top 20 which included Singapore (2nd), the United States (4th), Canada (5th), Australia (9th), New-Zealand (16th) and Japan (20th).

• Rich countries were able to top in the list, since they tend to have better universities and a greater ability to attract foreign talents through higher quality of life and remuneration, making them more talent competitive.

• Top 10 in GTCI list: Switzerland (1st), Singapore (2nd), Luxembourg (3rd), United States (4th) and Canada (5th), Sweden (6th), United Kingdom (7th), Denmark (8th), Australia (9th) and Ireland (10th).

• India’s lower position indicates acute shortage of skilled workforce. It also ranks at last among BRICS members.

• India’s neighbuors in GTCI list: China (41th), Sri Lanka (76th), Pakistan (89th), Bangladesh (90th).

Twitter buys Indian start-up ZipDial

Leading social networking website Twitter has bought Indian mobile marketing start-up ZipDial. It will be first Indian technology product startup to be bought by Twitter.

This deal is expected to cost Twitter around $34-35 million (Rs 215 crore).

About ZipDial:

• It is Bengaluru based startup, founded in 2011. It is co-founded by Valerie Wagoner, an American origin entrepreneur who graduated from Stanford University.

• ZipDial’s mobile marketing platform gives information about businesses to users when they place a missed call.

• This interaction information is useful in areas where people aren’t always connected to the Internet or can access data only through intermittent Wi-Fi networks

• Its mobile mobile marketing platform has nearly 60 million users, which includes the world’s leading brands and media companies.

Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana features into Guinness book of World Records

NDA government’s flagship scheme Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) has entered into Guinness book of World Records.

Guinness book of World Records has given certificate stating it as most bank accounts opened in one week.

In one week, 18,096,130 bank accounts were opened as part of the financial inclusion campaign from 23rd to 29th August, 2014. It was achieved by the Department of Financial Services (Government of India).

Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY):

• It was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the goal of eradicating financial untouchability of the poor by opening at least one bank account for every family in the country in less than six months.

• It seeks to financially empower the poor by providing them access to formal banking system.

• It also seeks to provide platform for Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) which will curb leakages in government subsidies and thus saving government exchequer.

• Initially, after its launch the scheme had a target of opening 7.5 crore bank accounts by 26 January, 2015, but later it was revised and raised to 10 crore bank accounts.

• As on 17th January 2015, PMJDY has achieved feat of opening of 11.50 crore bank accounts under it in the short span of 5 months since it was launched against the original target of 7.5 Crore by 26th January, 2015.

Cyberabad CP awarded by ECI for Best Electoral Practices-2014

Cyberabad Police Commissioner (PC) CV Anand has been conferred with the Election Commission of India’s (ECI’s) National Special Category Award for the Best Electoral Practices- 2014.

He has been bestowed this award for the commendable election related measures taken by him in the area of‘Expenditure Monitoring and Tackling Money Power during the General Elections of 2014.

He will receive the award in Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi on January 25 on the occasion of National Voter’s Day Function.

ECI’s National Special Category Award:

• It was instituted in 2011.

• It recognises the efforts and innovations of the officers and to commend and encourage individual and team accomplishments in diverse fields of election management.

• It carries a cash reward of Rs 50,000 along with a plaque and citation.

• Lok Sabha election 2014 was the first General Election after Institution of the award.

[The Big Picture] J&K Government : How long can it be stalled?

Summary:

• It has been nearly a month since the J&K assembly result has been out and stalemate continues over the formation of government.

• The results of the assembly elections threw up a hung assembly in Jammu and Kashmir with the PDP emerging as the single largest party bagging 28 seats. The BJP came second with 25 seats while National Conference bagged 15 seats followed by Congress with 12 seats and others winning 7 seats.

• The main reason behind the continuing deadlock is the reluctance of two major parties, namely PDP and BJP, to budge from their rigid stands on contentious issues like Article 370, Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), delimitation issues and the chief minister’s tenure. PDP has sought assurances from BJP on these contentious issues but the BJP is worried over the backlash that it may have to face if PDP’s demands are conceded.

• The BJP, on the other hand, is keen to participate in the new government as it has emerged the second largest party in Assembly elections.

• The state is under governor’s rule now. If no government is formed the governor’s rule would continue under the provisions of the state constitution.

• The onus is more on the BJP now because it is ruling at the centre.

• The upcoming Rajya Sabha polls have forced the parties to expedite negotiations. The 4 vacant Rajya Sabha seats have to be filled.

• BJP is keen to increase its strength in the Rajya Sabha where the government is in minority and the Centre had to take the ordinance route for enacting certain laws in view of stiff opposition in the upper house of the Parliament.

• The BJP is of the view that government formation in J&K ahead of Delhi assembly polls will send a positive message to the electorate, and thus will garner more support than it is expecting.

Source : Rajya Sabha TV

[LokSabha TV Insights] Air Pollution in Delhi

20/01/2015

• Submit level discussion will be held between PM Narendra Modi and US President Obama, where it is expected that US help for Delhi’s air pollution will be sought. Delhi is considered to be most polluted city in World. Concentration of Nitrogen Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide, and Particulate Matter 10 & 2.5 is many times higher than WHO safety standards. Pollution in Delhi is mainly vehicular and as a result source of emissions is extremely close to people. Fact that 55% of Delhites live within 500 m from roads make situation more dangerous.

• Delhi’s pollution was declining due to introduction of CNG for public transport till 2004-2005, but now situation has reversed. This is due to rapidly increasing purchasing power, Better roads and infrastructure, safety concerns, immigration and overall growing economy in the capital. Spread of metro has made little difference as it fails to provide last mile connectivity. Further, routes of metro are being planned as per existing road routes. Focus should be on to connect places which were earlier not connected. There are also safety concerns which make people prefer private vehicles. As a result per day registration is Delhi has shot up to 1400 vehicles in 2014 from 500 in 2005. In last decade Delhi saw phenomenal growth in flyovers, under bridges etc. This has resulted tremendous increase in private vehicles.

• Surprisingly, Delhi has just 11 air monitoring centers and these too are unplanned. So we can’t have overall air pollution estimates for Delhi. Further, these are manually operated which leaves ample scope of negligence and faulty results. Vehicular air pollution norms are flouted as no actual inspection of emission is done while giving air pollution certificates. Government has outsourced this to private players who just charge money in return for certificate. We need atleast one air monitoring station for every few square kms and also road sides or mobile air monitoring stations.

• Delhi’s parking charges are quite low as compared to other parts of world. Parking charges should be increased to discourage people from using private vehicles. Same goes for taxation. Cars are taxed only once, while buses are taxed quarterly. Revenue from these taxes and collections should go to fund clean fuel technologies. China has put limit on number of cars that can be registered (and bought) in Beijing and this has worked, but India can’t do this. So progressive taxation, as per polluter pays principle is best bet.

• Delhi, as we know is ancient city and it is developed in many stages of history. Its development was non coherent, piecemeal and unplanned. This has resulted in wasteful travel time as many of interior areas are choked. So further planning should more concentrate on planning of public transport. Further, there has to be adequate waste disposal technologies. There should be winter homes for homeless people; otherwise they are forced to burn whatever they find.

• Environment is common resource pool for everyone, but it is victim of what is called ‘tragedies of commons’. Everyone needs clean one and ample of it, but it is available for free, so no one cares for it. When an industry pollutes environment, profit by its activities is reaped by investor, but price in sense of degradation of environment (Air, Water, Soil) is paid by whole mankind. Now, vehicles in Delhi are owned by upper few percentiles, but major cost is paid by people who live on footpath. These people already have extremely low nutritional levels and they are more vulnerable to pollution. But unfortunately, despite their large numbers, they fail to demand healthy environment in democratic discourse. This is perhaps because they are more worried about immediate concerns such as food, clothing, shelter, employment etc.

Unnatural Sciences

• In Shakespeare’s “As You Like It”, Orlando finds himself in a state of increasing debilitation, lovelorn as he is. Wracked by love, he seeks a cure for his malady. His disguised beloved, Rosalind, meanwhile delights in taunting him about his state. “Love is merely a madness”, she says, echoing a familiar sentiment, “and deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do”. Love is, by many accounts, a bit of an affliction.

• Of course, when Goa’s Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Ramesh Tawadkar announced a plan to provide medication for LGBT youth in the state, he wasn’t quite speaking from within this tradition. No, when the minister spoke of making the youth “normal”, he was echoing an obsession that segments of the medical establishment in the country have nurtured for a while.

• Health professionals in many places continue to administer behavioural therapy, including electric shock treatment, psychiatric drugs and hormones in order to “cure” patients of homosexual desire. Interviews with psychiatrists in Bangalore, for instance, have highlighted their belief in the possibility of discovering the gene that determines sexual preference and scientifically suppressing it. Three years ago, I myself sat before a reputed psychiatrist in Indore who calmly gave me a multi-pronged diagnosis: “One, your homosexuality might be caused by hormonal imbalances. Two, it could be the result of a tumour in the brain. Or three, it could be caused by some other mental disorder.” Both him and Ramesh Tawadkar are, of course, distressingly incorrect.

• The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders back in 1973. The World Health Organisation followed suit in 1990, with its International Classification of Diseases. Following the Delhi High Court judgment decriminalising homosexuality in 2009, the Indian Journal of Psychiatry — the official publication of the Indian Psychiatric Society — took a stand on the issue in an editorial in 2012. The journal acknowledged homosexuality as a natural variant of human sexuality and denounced unethical and unwarranted attempts at conversion therapy. This was followed by an unequivocal statement on its website reiterating the same in 2014.

• In December 2013, the Supreme Court went against this scientific consensus. Its judgment in Suresh Kumar Koushal and another vs Naz Foundation and others, which recriminalised homosexuality, implicitly endorsed, or at the least left completely unchallenged, the notion of homosexuality as pathology.

• Paragraph 15 of the judgment lists the different intervenors who supported decriminalisation. The absence in the substantive portion of the judgment of the contents of the interventions filed by mental health professionals was notable. Thirteen affidavits of psychiatrists and doctors from across the country were brought together. They testified that homosexuality was not a mental disorder, that it was natural and normal, and that efforts at conversion therapy would prove to be damaging and futile. These arguments are left unchallenged. This is a silence that becomes significant when one notes how Koushal goes on to hold Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code as not violative of constitutional equality since it makes a distinction between carnal intercourse “against the order of nature” and other kinds of carnal intercourse. This conclusion effectively places homosexuality outside the domain of the natural, a position that is not supported by the evidence placed before the court.

• Tawadkar’s statement was met with swift reprisal from the community and an almost instantaneous apology and clarification. While Tawadkar himself said he was referring to sexually abused youth (who don’t exactly need “normalising” either), Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar took the route of unconditional retraction, even maintaining that “homosexuality is a natural gift”. This brings us right back to the order-of-nature question — clearly it would be difficult to reconcile this “natural gift” with a legal framework that places it outside the order of nature.

• In many ways, the natural-unnatural debate is a fig leaf — the relevant framework, as the Delhi High Court had established back in 2009, is whether the law passes the test of constitutional morality. Notions of right and wrong as embodied by popular morality are constantly in flux; if there is a bedrock, it is our constitutional commitment to justice, liberty, equality and fraternity. Regardless of what scientific opinion may have had to say on the matter, sexuality comes down to a fundamental core of individual identity. Any serious commitment to constitutional morality would then see the existence of Section 377 as deeply contradictory. If there’s been anything productive emerging from Tawadkar’s gaffe, it was the televised statement of BJP spokesperson Shaina NC expressing the government’s commitment to decriminalising homosexuality.

• It is crucial that the government proceed on this front, without falling back on the claim that the matter is sub judice. While it is true that a curative petition is pending before the Supreme Court, a positive ruling would simply reiterate a point that the government has already seemingly conceded and would, at most, result in a reading down of the law. The real malady is the continued existence of this section in our statute books, and the only cure, a complete repeal.

India’s World – Europe and spread of Jihad

Summary:

• Muslim communities have existed in Europe for centuries.

• Guest worker agreements and relaxed immigration policies in the 1960s brought waves of Muslim immigrants from Turkey into Germany, from Algeria into France and from Pakistan into the UK.

• However, it is only in the last decade that youngsters born and educated in Europe have tended to become radicalised.

• It is now a well- known that both European converts as well as Muslim immigrants have gone to fight in Syria.

• France has the largest Muslim population of any European country. It also has the largest number of citizens fighting in Syria with ISIS followed by the citizens of the UK, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy.

• There are also US and Australian citizens fighting with the Syrian opposition but in much smaller numbers.

• There are fears that when these fighters return home more radicalised than ever before they could incite other volunteers towards terrorism.

• The recent attack in Paris is seen as a result of both tension between the state imposed secularism in France which is seen as anti- Muslim and the developments in the Middle East.

• It is also being said that the Muslim community in the central European countries is being alienated. Marginalization and alienation make such groups radicalised.

• Social transformation within the society in Europe is adding to the problem.

• It is also an attack on the freedom of expression.

• The slow process of radicalisation which is taking place in the European countries has posed a greater challenge to the European governments.

• Social media has played a greater role in recruiting Jihadists by making their job easier.

• Terror has no religion.

• Turkey has become the gateway for Jihadists to Iraq and Syria.

Source : Rajya Sabha TV

'India's messy democracy impediment in race against China'

India faces serious developmental challenges including its "messy" democracy before it can think of overtaking China, an article in state-run media here said asking India to shed its "Cold War mindset" to improve ties.
"More importantly, democracy, which the nation is so proud of, has become a burden for development. For example, building a railway in India takes much more time than it does in China," the article in Global Times titled "India faces tests before it can overtake China" said referring to reports by the World Bank and other institutions that India will overtake China economically in the next few years.


"Whenever policymakers decide to go in for large-scale construction, protests will be raised against it, mostly by opposition parties and groups. The messy democratic tradition in India has made it hard to deliver a coherent approach to get every piece of big projects done," it said.

"In addition, the country has not found a way yet to get around the problem of the polarisation of wealth and corruption remains rampant," it said.

"As a matter of fact, China is now providing a chance for both of the countries' economic strength to ride high. The initiatives of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, which were unveiled by Chinese President Xi Jinping, would build a massive trade and infrastructure network connecting East Asia with Europe, and pose an opportunity for a win-win bilateral cooperation.

"But many people in India are still stuck with a Cold War mentality toward China. Apart from the remaining border disputes, they do not think the network, or any connection with China would benefit India. On the contrary, they are extremely vigilant, believing that the Chinese army may invade once a railway is built through the two states," it said.

"What's more, they always doubt that China will interfere in the affairs of northeast India by supporting separatist militants. To be frank, they should stop over-thinking. China has no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of any other countries," it said.

"If India could give up its Cold War mindset, China-India cooperation will be promising. Even if India does outrun China some day in the future, Beijing will give New Delhi its warmest congratulations," it said.