Collegium system on its way out as Cong backs bill for new panel

New Delhi: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





The collegium system of appointing judges to the SC and HCs is set to become history with the Congress deciding to support the NDA 's Constitution amendment bill to create the National Judicial Appointments Commission.The bill, which seeks to replace the judges-appointingjudges system with a six-member commission, found backi ng from regional parties and the Left. The Congress realized that it did not have the numbers to stall the bill, and decided to record its concerns while voting in its favour. It is opposed to two provisions—giving “veto” to panel members to nix names proposed for judgeship and requiring unanimity if a name returned by the President is reiterated. With the Congress too supporting the bill to create the National Judicial Appointments Commission, the legislation is expected to get the nod without much problem. The first day of the debate in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday , after law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad sought support for the bill, removed any doubt about the outcome, with members across political parties taking potshots at the judiciary and complimenting the minister for putting in place a panel to appoint judges.
“The government has got no intentions whatsoever to intervene in the rights, jurisdiction, authority , constitutional powers of the Supreme Court and high courts of India,“ Prasad said to reassure the judiciary . The legislation is set to clear the Lok Sabha on Wednesday and the government will look to bring it to the Upper House either before the end of the Budget session on August 14 or by extending the session, as suggested by treasury benches.
Backing the bill, regional parties went a step ahead by seeking separate state-level commissions to appoint judges to high courts, as proposed by AIADMK leader M Thambidurai. It found support from the Samajwadi Party with Dharmendra Yadav making the same demand as also Shiv Sena. Thambidurai said his party would support the bill only if his amendment for state-level commissions was accepted.
The Congress's opening speaker Veerappa Moily pointed to the veto powers to argue, “The judiciary may be worried about it. This may give rise to conflict between the executive and the judiciary .“ He added that the Chief Justice of India could have been given extra influence to assure the judiciary.
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Source::::: The Times of India, 13.08.2014, p.01.  http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31804&articlexml=Collegium-system-on-its-way-out-as-Cong-13082014001100

Flipkart launches e-learning category; offers a range of e-learning material, certification courses, online tests

Bangalore: Homegrown online marketplace Flipkart today announced the launch of its E-learning category. 

With over 1900 products and titles, this category will offer a range of e-learning material, certification courses and online tests catering to students with a variety of requirements, Flipkart said in a release. 

With this announcement, Flipkart will be extending its virtual academic books category to feature a selection of offerings for students in schools, colleges as well as those students appearing for competitive exams, it added. 

Flipkart said study material from reputed brands like Career Launcher, Edurite, EduKart, Merit Nation, TCY Online and Practice Guru, will be a part of this selection. 

Also, Flipkart will continue to expand its E-learning portfolio with exclusive offerings for students with varied needs, it stated. 

"The availability of eBooks, certificate courses and online tests - all on one platform, will make the entire process of buying/accessing e-learning material very easy for students who form a significant part of our customer base today," Flipkart Senior Director (Retail) Nipun Mehra said. 

Source | http://ibnlive.in.com/

Ration card out, Aadhaar in for new a/cs





The ration card is no lo nger an officially valid document for opening of a bank account, reports Mayur Shetty. The place of pride goes to the Aadhaar card which is now the single universal document for a banking relationship. The RBI has listed Aadhaar, voter ID and PAN cards apart from driving licence, passport, NREGA card as six officially valid documents.

Source:::: The Times of India, 23.07.2014,  p.01,    http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31804&articlexml=Ration-card-out-Aadhaar-in-for-new-acs-23072014001083

Poor sanitation may afflict well-fed kids





He wore thick black eyeliner to ward off the evil eye, but Vivek, a tiny 1-year-old living in a village of mud huts and diminutive people, had nonetheless fallen victim to India’s great scourge of malnutrition. His parents seemed to be doing all the right things. His mother still breast-fed him. His family had six goats, access to fresh buffalo milk and a hut filled with hundreds of pounds of wheat and potatoes. His home state has for years grown faster than almost any other. His mother said she fed him as much as he would eat and took him four times to doctors, who diagnosed malnutrition. Just before Vivek was born, the family even got electricity.So why was Vivek malnourished? It is a question being asked about children across India, where a long economic boom has done little to reduce the vast number of children. Now, an emerging body of scientific studies suggest that Vivek and many of the 162 million other children under the age of 5 in the world who are malnourished are suffering less a lack of food than poor sanitation.
Like almost everyone else in their village, Vivek and his family have no toilet,
and the district where they live has the highest concentration of people who defecate outdoors. As a result, children are exposed to a bacterial brew that often sickens them, leaving them unable to attain a healthy body weight no matter how much food they eat. “These children's bodies divert energy and nutrients away from growth and brain development to prioritize infection-fighting survival,“ said Jean Humphrey , a professor of human nutrition at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “When this happens during the first two years of life, children become stunted. What's particularly dis turbing is that the lost height and intelligence are permanent.““Our realization about the connection between stunting and sanitation is just emerging,“ said Sue Coates, chief of water, sanitation and hygiene at Unicef India. “ At this point, it is still just an hypothesis.“
Achild raised in India is far more likely to be malnourished than one from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe or Somalia, the planet's poorest countries.
Stunting affects 65 million Indian kids under 5, including a third of those from the richest families. Half of India, or at least 620 million people, defecate outdoors. And while this share has declined slightly in the past decade, an analysis of census data shows that rapid population growth has meant that most Indians are being exposed to more human waste than ever before.
“The difference in average height between Indian and African children can be explained entirely by differing concentrations of open defecation,“ said Dean Spears, an economist at the Delhi School of Economics. “There are far more people defecating outside in India more closely to one another's children and homes than there are in Africa or anywhere else in the world.“ NYT NEWS SERVICE

Source:::: The Times of India, 18.07.2-14, p.10,   http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31804&articlexml=Poor-sanitation-may-afflict-well-fed-kids-18072014010048

Vouchers for poor? UN in talks with govt on zero-hunger goal



Lack Of Nourishment, Hygiene Threaten An Entire Generation

World Food Programme (WFP) executive director Ertharin Cousin said she was in talks with the Indian government and states to explore food vouchers for the poor facing starvation and malnourishment in the country .Cousin said vouchers were important in taking food to those facing shortage. “We are talking to India on how food vouchers can be used to make food available to vulnerable groups,“ she told TOI on the sidelines of the B-20 Australia Summit that has brought big business together in a lead-up event ahead of the November’s G-20 Summit.
The comment from the head of the world body adds another dimension to the Right to Food law that awaits implementation. RTF was passed by Parliament in UPA-2 and is likely to be rolled out soon by the Narendra Modi government. Subsidized food versus vouchers is a debate that was thought to have been settled with the food guarantee Act, a polarizing issue among civil society.
Cousin refused to be drawn into an either-or situation but stuck to vouchers by arguing that different modalities could be employed in the course of achieving food security, with
zero-hunger being one of the key Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).She said the world faces problems of food shortage and also of food being available but being out of reach of certain weak communities. “In certain places and with certain communities, the vouchers, we believe, can be the right idea and can serve the purpose of helping the vulnerable groups,“ she said. She has been invited to the global business gathering for talks on how food security converges with business growth.
Referring to the stress on food security in India, she said the country was an example for the world. “We have a lot to learn from India that recognizes that economic growth is not being felt across all social groups,” she said.
Addressing reporters at the B-20 Summit, she said economic growth did not automatically guarantee the end of hunger and top economies like the US had “safety nets” and programmes to buffer vulnerable groups.
She told reporters that China had benefitted the most from WFP efforts while India, despite massive economic development, had the largest number of children facing malnourishment. Cousin said no government or organization alone could achieve zero-hunger and there was need for help from private sector, which has to go beyond providing money for technological capabilities.

FOOD THAT DIDN'T REACH THE PLATEThe Targeted Public Distribution System launched in 1997 seeks to provide highly subsidized grain to the really poor. The system is operated jointly by the Centre and states. The Centre, through FCI, procures, stores and transports grain.
States are responsible for identifying eligible families, issuing ration cards and functioning of fair price shops. About 652 lakh below poverty line families are entitled to subsidized grain. These apart, it is estimated that about 5% of people in India sleep without two square meals a day. These 2.4 crore people, the poorest of the poor, and households headed by widows, terminally ill or disabled persons and persons aged 60 years or more with no assured means of subsistence or societal support are covered under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY). Data shows in 2013-14, the grain lost in transit, storage and so on could have been enough for the monthly PDS ration of 17% of BPL families or 45% of those under AAY

Source:::: The Times of India, 18.07.2-14, p.10,   http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31804&articlexml=Vouchers-for-poor-UN-in-talks-with-govt-18072014010037

Delay in giving alimony violates rights, says SC





The Supreme Court has ruled that family courts cannot delay grant of maintenance to an estranged wife and said there was no escape for a husband from the onus of giving sustenance money to his wife despite soured relations.Dealing with a case where grant of maintenance had been delayed by nine years, a bench of Justices Dipak Misra and V Gopala Gowda said, “This delay in adjudication by the family court is not only against human rights but also against the basic embodiment of dignity of an individual.“
When a marital dispute is pending before a family court, “the husband cannot take subterfuges to deprive her of the benefit of living with dignity“, said Justice Misra, writing the judg ment for the bench.
“Regard being had to the solemn pledge at the time of marriage and also in consonance with the statutory law that governs the field, it is obligation of the husband to see that the wife does not become a destitute, a beggar,“ the bench said.
It added that the husband could not be permitted to exploit the slow justice delivery system to deny what was legitimately due to the estranged wife for her and their children's sustenance.
“It is the sacrosanct duty to render financial support even if the husband is re quired to earn money with physical labour, if he is able bodied. There is no escape route unless there is an order from the court that the wife is not entitled to get maintenance from the husband...,“ it said.
Meena and Bhuwan Mohan Singh got married in 1997 and a son was born to them the next year. Meena later had to leave the matrimonial home. In 2002, she filed for maintenance of Rs 6,000 before a court in Jaipur. Nine years later, the family court granted her a monthly maintenance of Rs 2,500 and her son Rs 1,500.

Source::: The Times of India, 17.07.2014, p.6,  https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6579410692213101445#editor/target=post;postID=2794426168793356786

1/3rd of world's extreme poor in India: UN study





India is home to the largest number of poor with one-third of the world’s 1.2 billion extreme poor living here. It also had the highest number of under-five deaths in the world in 2012, with 1.4 million children dying before reaching their fifth birthday, according to the UN Millennium Development Goals report 2014.

Poverty rates in Southern Asia fell from 51% in 1990 to 30% two decades later with China leading the way. Extreme poverty in China came down from 60% in 1990 to 16% in 2005 and 12% in 2010. In India poverty reduction was sluggish in comparison coming down from 49.4% in 1994 to 42% in 2005 and 32.7% in 2010.

Two-thirds of the extreme poor (those who lived on income less than $1 a day) live in India, China, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Congo.

Commenting on the report, minority affairs minister Najma Heptulla said its findings present a challenge to the government under Narendra Modi and that it would be able to surmount it. “Good days will come,” she said. “We don’t have to be proud of what we have done. Poverty is the biggest challenge... I am sure when the next report comes, we will have done much better,“ she said. Heptulla stressi ed on the Prime Minister's commitment to poverty elimination and his mantra of “sab ka saath, sabka vikas (With all, development for all)“.

The report said almost i 60% of the people who defecate in open reside in India. The country also accounted for 17% of global maternal deaths. South Asia has halved its under-five mortality but in h 2012 it accounted for 2.1 million of the 6.6 million deaths in children under five worldwide % and has the second highest under-five mortality rate among all regions with sub-Saharan Africa being the worst.South Asia, of which India. is the largest and most populous country , has fared worse than other Asian regions in most parameters. The region has, however, done well in school enrollment.

UN Resident Coordinator Lise Grande said India's role in global development is very important and the Millennium Development Goals can't be reached globally if they're not reached here. South Asia did see sharp increase in youth literacy rates between 1990 and 2011, which increased from 60% to 80%.

Source::: The Times of India, 17.07.2014, p.6,    http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31804&articlexml=13rd-of-worlds-extreme-poor-in-India-UN-17072014008057