20 Friday Nov 2015
Posted in Current Affairs, Education, NATIONAL NEWS
The BJP MP from Gorakhpur was to inaugurate a new building in Allahabad University on the invitation BJP’s students wing but the president of the union called for protests.
Source: In pictures: Allahabad University students protest to stop Yogi Adityanath from entering the campus
20 Friday Nov 2015
Posted in CHINA, Economics, INTERNATIONAL NEWS, Opinion
Tags
The Asian dragon has emerged from typical developing country backwardness to the second largest economy in the world within four decades, regularly posting double-digit economic growth rates.
Of course not all of China’s reforms are applicable to African countries. The specific country conditions are different. Furthermore, within China there is not a consensus over what exactly the Chinese developmental ‘model’ is, except over some of the broad outlines. Nevertheless, African countries can benefit richly from studying some of the key Chinese development approaches.
China has done this by a combination of introducing catalytic new policies and institutions, overhauling the structure of the economy, changing the societal distribution of resources, opening access to land and improving human and physical capital.
China made sustaining high economic growth rates as a core pillar of economic policy. African governing parties and leaders since independence appeared ambivalent – others still do – about pushing all out to raise economic rates.
The question should not be about whether to go for growth, but how to make growth inclusive. Inclusive growth is whether economic growth positively affects the widest number of people in a country, not just small elites.
China focused on building a labour-intensive agricultural sector. In developing countries with mass poverty combined with low skills, sustained agricultural growth has a big potential to reduce poverty.
It dismantled the traditional Chinese feudal system, whereby a few families owned the land and an army of poor peasants worked for them for a pittance. The Chinese government distributed land among all rural peasants.
This was different from many examples of the African land redistribution. For example in Zambabwe, land was taken from white farmers and then mostly given to the elite of ruling Zanu-PF leaders, their families and allies.
But also as important, the Chinese government abolished the power of the traditional chiefs and authorities, who had control over land, patronage and the social values. The Chinese set out a program to equalize the status between traditional leaders and authorities and ordinary peasants, setting new common rules of behavior.
In many post-independence African countries, traditional leaders and authorities retained their power over communal land, their ‘subjects’ and traditional culture. They more often than not abused such powers for their own enrichment, leaving the vast majority of Africans living in rural areas into feudal ‘subjects’, living in abject poverty, as well controlling almost every part of their lives, and even who they should vote for.
In return for having untrammeled feudal power, African traditional chiefs and authorities made sure that their ‘subjects’ voted for the ruling party, repressed and isolated critics of the unequal system, accusing them of wanting to be ‘white’, of ‘rejecting’ their own culture and of being ‘agents’ of the colonial or Western powers.
The Chinese also introduced a greater measure of gender equality – than any African liberation movement – opening up education, skills and labour market opportunities for women.
They introduced industrial policies, which emphasized labour-intensive manufacturing aimed for export and linked to the country’s comparative advantage. This created mass jobs, wealth and slashed poverty. For most of the 50 years following independence, African countries remained stuck in exporting raw materials – which create few jobs and wealth only for a select few – without adding any value to them, or beneficiating or leveraging them to create new industrial sectors.
China put an extraordinary emphasis on developing human capital – quality, technical and research skills – given that they have few natural resources. It introduced nine years compulsory education, as well as rolled out preventative primary healthcare programs.
In fact, the government targeted poor households by providing them with assets (land), education and skills, to help them secure opportunities. Furthermore, it dramatically beefed up tertiary education, introducing a mix of artisan, technical and agricultural training institutions and high quality universities – channeling students according to their aptitudes to these different professional streams.
The country accelerated physical ‘capital’, such as infrastructure across the country – rolling out special programs in historically poor areas – linked to industrialization, human capital development and giving the poor access to markets.
China over time managed to make workers across the economy more productive – whether through new education, skills and health.
The Chinese Communist Party also focused on lifting the widest number of Chinese out of poverty, not one ethnic group, region, or political faction; unlike many African independence government, who in spite of the rhetoric to the contrary, often looked after their ‘own’ ethnic group, region or political constituency.
China introduced a reasonabl sense of meritocracy in its political, economic and social system – not favouring one ethnic group, region or constituency. This unleashed the energy of vast numbers of people, who may have opposed the communist political ideology, but who believed if they worked hard enough they would fairly gain opportunities.
China also effectively used fiscal – using governing spending and taxes and monetary – adjusting the money supply and interest rates – policies to stimulate growth, create jobs and maintain economic stability.
During downturns when demand in the economy was low, the Chinese government actively intervened and increased spending, especially on infrastructure, and reduced taxes. The Chinese have been often accused of keeping the country’s currency artificially low, to help its exporters.
China planned development better: their long-term plans were detailed – typically with specific targets, assigning who is accountable for what, and when, and robust monitoring mechanisms.
China, although led by the Chinese Communist Party, has been more pragmatic, less ideological in learning from other development experiences, whether from Japan, its ancient foe, or the US, its more recent adversary.
Some African governments and leaders were either trying to be more Marxist than the Soviet Union; more Maoist then China; or more neo-liberal than the US under Ronald Reagan or the UK under Margaret Thatcher.
Alternatively, some African countries implemented a hotchpotch of so-called ‘African socialism’, or African ‘communalism’, supposedly the ancient way in which Africans conducted economic transactions. Such efforts not surprisingly mostly failed.
China also policed public corruption, mismanagement and waste better than their African independence movement government peers.
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/96034
20 Friday Nov 2015
Posted in INTERNATIONAL NEWS, Opinion
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10 November 1995 was – to mix lingos – a dies horribilis par excellence for me! (A horrible day to beat all horrible days).
It was my wife’s birthday, and I had planned a nice little outing for just the two of us.
But no sooner had I woken up than the telephone rang to usher me into unknown territory.
The caller was someone from BBC World Service Television. Would I be available for a live discussion about the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Auckland, New Zealand, later that morning? he asked.
“Yes”, I said.
“Okay, we shall send a car for you at 10 a.m. The programme will be telecast from the Foreign Correspondents’ Club at Pall Mall. It shouldn’t take you more than 30 minutes to get there.”
I began my preparations. I would go in a nice Nigerian outfit I had bought in Lagos, I decided. Nigerian outfits are good everywhere – the three-piece agbada can stand the cold of winter, and in the summer, one could make do with just the up-and-down (trousers and long shirt) without the big gown. Getting the cap into the correct shape to make it look stylish takes skill. But there are so many variations in the way of doing it that even a botched attempt can appear like a “new style.” So, when I strode out in full gear, I was confident that I would get the usual compliments, which went something like this: “agbada was made for tall people like you!”
But had I known it, fate itself was what was dictating my attire. Nigeria was indeed to invade and ruin my world for the rest of the day. However, when the car came and I sat in the back, going over my notes of the CHOGM agenda, I was thinking of economic co-operation within the Commonwealth, human rights issues, the Commonwealth Games and how they enable members of the Commonwealth to get to know one another – that sort of thing.
I got to the venue in time and the programme began. With me was an Indian diplomat from the Commonwealth Secretariat. We didn’t contradict each other too much, and I was enjoying myself, recounting, in an engaging manner, how, at international conferences, Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians as well as the Afro-Asian members of the Commonwealth, managed to get on better than any other group, apart from, probably, the delegates from Francophone Africa.
Suddenly, the presenter’s eyes widened. He put his hands to his ears and planted the ear-piece he wore more firmly on, whilst he nodded now and then. Obviously, he wasn’t listening to what we were saying any longer.
In fact, he cut us off in mid-sentence to say: “I have just been told that the Nigerian environmental activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, and eight other activists from Ogoniland in Nigeria, have been hanged by the Nigerian Government of General Sani Abacha!”
WHAAAAAT? We both shouted. To say that we were astonished would be an under-statement. We were shocked clean out of our minds. The cameras focused on us and conveyed our stricken appearance to the watching world.
The presenter asked me to comment on the terrible news. I gave the background to the Ogoni struggle – how Shell Petroleum was digging oil out of the place – in the Niger Delta – and had carelessly polluted its rivers, streams and lagoons by spilling crude oil into them. Human rights groups like Greenpeace had documented the proliferation of broken pipelines in Ogoni and other localities in the oil-rich Delta. Many pipelines were old and not fit for purpose. In addition, poverty amongst the people impelled some of them to dig up some of the pipelines deliberately, in order to harvest crude oil to sell. Such practices caused fires, and the ash from the fires, added to poisonous debris from flared gas, had brought many diseases, such as cancer, to Ogoniland, I explained.
I added that after many years of appealing to an unresponsive Shell and its partner, the Nigerian Federal Government, to cease the oil spills and compensate the people for ruined farm and fishing grounds, the Ogoni, under Ken Saro-Wiwa’s leadership, had formed the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) with which they had mounted a campaign for self-rule in Ogoniland. But instead of trying to come to an accommodation with them, Shell had incited the Nigerian Government to send its fearsome “Mobile Police” – known locally as the “Kill-and-go” mob, to Ogoni to brutalise the people. It was in the course of campaigns protesting against this brutality that Ken Saro-Wiwa was arrested and charged with causing the death of some Ogonis who didn’t agree with the MOSOP campaign .
“But Ken Saro-Wiwa was not even at the rally at which the people lost their lives,” I emphasized. “Nor was there any direct, conclusive evidence that the eight others executed with him had a hand in the killings. This is the sort of inhuman “common purpose law” with which the apartheid operators in South Africa got so many people sentenced to death or sentenced to long imprisonment: if you were deemed to have a mentality that would have made you approve of a violent deed, then you were guilty of a crime even if you took no direct part in causing violence. It’s absolutely unjust; totally illegal, in terms of Nigerian law and international jurisprudence!”
It wasn’t by accident that I knew so much about the Ogoni people’s struggle.
I first met Saro-Wiwa himself in 1986, when I was working for a posh magazine called South, based in London.
He’d just published a novel called ‘Soza Boy’, which he described, with self-mocking aplomb, as “a novel in rotten English”.
Rotten English, as Saro-Wiwa rendered it in ‘Soza Boy’, was totally eccentric. It was based on what we in West Africa call “pidgin English”, but it was better. You could see that every sentence had been deliberately crafted to make you laugh. One sentence that sticks to my mind is “Ah, how government go catch government?”(This was the hero’s explanation of how so many government officials “ate” the people’s money with impunity in Nigeria. How could government officials arrest and imprison other government officials who did the same thing as they did?)
It was the fun in the book that made me take notice of it, for it had landed on my desk by way of a public relations outfit based in London, and I had snootily decided that any novelist who used a PR firm should not be taken seriously. It occurred to me, however, on better reflection, that if an “unknown” Nigerian published his own novel and sent it to the London media for review, it would be difficult to get it noticed if he just naively sent it to snobbish literary editors, and relied on their professed love for literature to induce them to pass it on to their regular reviewers.
So I decided to interview Saro-Wiwa. He came to see me at the offices of Index On Censorship in Islington, where I was to be found when I was not at South.
My first impression of him was not at all favourable. He smoked a pipe, and as I am allergic to tobacco, I put the worst possible construction upon this. “Pretentious” was the word that came readily to my mind.
But talking to Saro-Wiwa immediately put me at my ease. He declared himself an unashamed capitalist – he casually let drop the fact that he dealt in commodities and was making money from it!
“He knows about ‘derivatives’!” I told myself. Until I became a correspondent for the Financial Times in Accra, that area of knowledge was completely alien to me. But Ken was not only aware of it but an actual participant in that esoteric activity. Respect!
The guy was also full of wit. When I asked him why he had “betrayed” the Biafran cause during the Nigerian civil war (1967-70) and joined the federal side, he told me that his ethnic group, the Ogoni, is so puny in numbers that “everyone oppresses us”. He implied that the relationship between the Ogoni and the Igbos who formed the majority in the break-away state of Biafra, had not been any more harmonious than their relationship with the ethnic groups in the federal side – such as the Yorubas and the Hausas. The latter, in fact, put him in charge of the former Eastern Region after they defeated Biafra, and he seemed to have been relatively successful in resettling some of the former Biafrans.
Ken and I kept in touch after my favourable review of ‘Soza Boy’ appeared in South magazine. Then I noticed from pieces he was sporadically publishing in West Africa Magazine that he was becoming militantly anti-Federal Nigeria. Next thing I knew, he’d shown up in my house to persuade me to publicise a movement he was leading to achieve Ogoni “independence” for the Ogoni. He showed me an Ogoni national anthem he had written, and a potential flag!
I was immediately scared for him. “Hey man,” I warned him, “these military rulers of yours are going to charge you with treason if you’re not careful.”
He said, “Let them do their worst. We are tired. They have just been taking billions of dollars of oil money from our land but have neglected to give the people any of it. We have no schools, no health facilities, and no clean water. But people who do not know what crude oil looks like have become millionaires out of oil. We are left with diseases including cancer and respiratory ailments. How much longer can we take it?”
Alas, as I had warned, he was inevitably arrested. Fortunately, in those days, The Observer newspaper in London had people who were very interested in Africa. So, the Foreign Desk proposed that I should do a big profile of Saro-Wiwa. From then on, The Observer devoted many column inches to articles I wrote about the Ogoni people’s struggle against Shell and the Nigerian Federal Government. An investigative piece of mine, which appeared on the front page revealing that Shell purchased guns for the Nigerian police who guarded its installations in Ogoniland, caused a world sensation and was reprinted in many countries.
We were outraged when Ken and the eight other Ogonis were sentenced to death, and we made it clear to the world that the nature of the Abacha regime was such that there was a real possibility of his being executed.
One night during the days when we were campaigning for Ken’s freedom, I had a most vivid dream, in which I heard Saro-Wiwa’s voice asking me plaintively, “Cameron, why are you allowing them to kill us?”
I was extremely scared by the dream and took the matter most seriously. I realised that Ken had a very strong spirit, and had been able to contact me, through metaphysical communication of sorts, from his prison cell. The end-result was that I became a campaign journalist on his behalf – despite the fact that my school of journalism frowns upon too much personal involvement with stories. The publicity we generated on behalf of Ken was of such strength that we thought Sani Abacha would never dare to execute him and his companions in jail.
But Abacha had slaughtered them! It was unbelievable, especially because he had chosen the day the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting opened in Auckland, to do it. His Foreign Minister, Tom Ikimi, who was at the CHOGM conference, had been telling newsmen in diplomatic language that General Abacha was carefully considering appeals that had been made to him from Commonwealth leaders to spare Ken and his companions, and everyone had been hopeful that these appeals would be heard by the General. But instead, he had slapped the other Commonwealth heads of government in the face, by killing his captives before his fellow heads of government they could make a pronouncement, as a body, on the issue. How cynical!
The BBC kept me in its TV studios talking about the executions all day. By the time I got home, I was so tired and overcome with grief that my wife’s birthday celebration went by the board and had to be postponed.
In the aftermath of the executions, the London press generally tried to make President Nelson Mandela of South Africa a scapegoat for Abacha’s butchery. He had said, when asked, that he had been making contact with General Abacha on the issue of the Ogoni death sentences. But some journalists felt that he had not been vociferous enough about it. So they went to town about him after the executions. The London Independent, in particular, was very scathing: it described Mandela as “’the man who wasn’t there”. It did not, however, explain how Mandela, could at the same time as he was sending private messages to Abacha, pleading for mercy for the condemned men, also be excoriating Abacha in public and expect his mercy pleas to be effective!
I felt that the trap in which Mandela found himself was not appreciated by the journalists who were tearing his reputation to shreds. I was, in fact, privy to secret attempts Mr Mandela had been making to influence Abacha, not only on Saro-Wiwa’s behalf, but also on behalf of Chief Moshood Abiola, the winner of the Nigerian presidential election of June 12, 1993, whom Abacha had unjustly imprisoned. Mandela sent Archbishop Desmond Tutu to see Abacha; then Vice-President Thabo Mbeki. And finally, he went to Abuja himself. Abacha made sympathetic noises promising action at each of these meetings. But once his visitors had left, he brushed their pleas aside.
I thought Mr Mandela would like to explain his side of the matter to the world, so I faxed his office one Tuesday, asking for an interview. We’d met a few times before, but even so, I was surprised to receive an appointment for the Friday. I hastily flew down to Johannesburg from London.
Mr Mandela exploded on hearing Abacha’s name: he called Abacha all sorts of names; he was a man who “had no respect for facts”; Abacha’s action was “barbaric”; Abacha was “a brutal dictator who had used a ‘kangaroo court’ to try and execute human rights activists.” Looking calmly at me, and without raising his voice, Mr Mandela said: “Abacha is sitting on a time bomb, and I am going to explode it underneath him!” He then called on the Nigerian opposition to “learn “from the experience of the ANC in South Africa and intensify their struggle against Abacha’s dictatorship.” He added that he would urge the rich members of the Commonwealth to impose sanctions on Abacha’s government.
The interview was brimful of incendiary stuff. It marked the first time, to my knowledge, that a sitting African head of state had publicly gone against “trade union rules” and publicly insulted a fellow “card holder.” It was therefore a unique interview and I splashed it on the BBC (which made it a lead story), The Observer, The Sunday Independent in Johannesburg and De Volkskrant in Amsterdam.
Thus it is that on 10 November 2015, I shall have a double reason to down many beers – in memory of my dear wife, Beryl, who is no longer here to celebrate her birthday, and also of Ken Saro-Wiwa ad his fellow campaigners. I cannot get over the fact that a very fine writer (whose television soap operas had delighted many of his fellow citizens) had his life cruelly snuffed out, by the thievish, inhuman dictator called Sani Abacha, whose only claim to fame in Nigeria was that he salted away over $2 billion of its oil money: money which the Swiss Government has been tracing and sending back to the Nigerian government – in tranches.
* Cameron Duodu is a veteran Ghanaian journalist and writer.
20 Friday Nov 2015
Posted in Current Affairs, Economics, INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Japanese retail investors chasing higher yields and resilient assets will provide Indian corporates another source of capital at a time of when capital inflows are peaking ahead of a widely-expected U.S. interest rate rise.
Fund managers say the increased interest from Japanese investors is also a vote of confidence in the fiscal and market reforms of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, voted into office in May 2014.
Just the year before that, worries about India’s record current account deficit sent the rupee to a record low.
The reforms that have opened up India’s markets to foreigners were game changers for the so-called “Mrs. Watanabe” – Japanese retail investors driven by their country’s policy of zero interest rates to seek yield offshore.
Japanese retail investment into India through investment trusts in October was 462 billion yen ($3.76 billion), its highest level in 7 1/2 years and more than doubling the amount invested at the time Modi came to power. That’s in stark contrast to markets such as Brazil that have experienced heavy outflows from Japanese investors.
“People realised something big had happened and money flew into equity funds and so on,” Ai Fujiwara, senior fund manager at Eastspring Investments in Tokyo, said of Modis election.
“And now as India is starting to look better compared to other emerging countries, there’s a renewed focus on it.”
Japanese retail investors have pumped $1.8 billion into funds investing in Indian bonds in the first nine months of the year, compared with $489.6 million a year earlier, and now hold a total $2.3 billion of bonds, data from Thomson Reuters Lipper shows.
Japanese investors have historically favoured destinations such as Brazil and Turkey for growth. But with India now bringing inflation under control and posting among the fastest emerging markets economic growth rates, fund flow direction has shifted toward the subcontinent.
“During the recent market selloff, Indian markets were doing relatively well even as other Asian countries were badly hit. So for sales staff, it is easier to sell India,” said Tomoaki Maebashi, the head of investment trust marketing and promotion at Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management.
In the third quarter, Japanese bond funds that invest in Brazil, Indonesia and Turkey saw a combined net outflow of $296 million, while those investing in Indian bonds saw $290 million in inflows.
Brazil, by far the most popular investment for Japanese retail investors, has been especially hit by the exits: investment trusts’ holding of Brazilian bonds have almost halved in the past year to 427 billion yen ($3.52 billion).
ONCE BITTEN…
The last time Japanese investors piled into India, it ended badly. After investing 612 billion yen ($4.97 billion) by the end of 2007, many suffered heavy losses after Indian shares dropped about 73 percent in yen terms as the world plunged into financial crisis.
But this time, fund managers believe it will be different.
Holdings by Japanese investments trusts in Indian equities hit a five-year high of 315 billion yen ($2.56 billion) with many investors seeing India’s resilient growth profile as offering an appropriate combination of returns and safety.
India is seen as better placed to withstand any global market volatility from U.S. rate hikes thanks to hefty foreign exchange reserves of $351 billion from $296 billion at the end of 2013.
Japanese bond funds investing in India have gained on an average 12.6 percent in yen terms in the last one year, while those that invest in Brazil have lost an average 27.6 percent and Turkey an average of 15.8 percent, according to Lipper.
Meanwhile, India is expected to especially benefit from falling crude prices, given the country imports around two-thirds of its energy requirements.
“I own Indian shares because they should benefit from the fall in oil prices,” said a 51-year-old office worker who owned Indian shares through exchange traded funds.
Foreign investors have sold a net $993.4 million in debt and equities this month but remain heavy buyers for the year, with net purchases of $13.8 billion so far this year and $42 billion last year.
Japanese fund houses are also searching for opportunities in India’s asset management sector, with Nippon Life paying $184 million to raise its ownership stake in Reliance Capital Asset Management to 49 percent from 35 percent.
“Japanese retail money is stickier, which always helps. We have expanded our sales and distribution tie-ups in the country to tap on the demand,” said the chief executive of an Indian asset management company.
($1 = 122.97 yen)
20 Friday Nov 2015
Posted in Economics, NATIONAL NEWS, Prices
The international crude oil price of Indian Basket as computed/published today by Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas was US$ 40.03 per barrel (bbl) on 18.11.2015. This was lower than the price of US$ 40.27 per bbl on previous publishing day of 17.11.2015.
In rupee terms, the price of Indian Basket decreased to Rs 2646.82 per bbl on 18.11.2015 as compared to Rs 2657.22 per bbl on 17.11.2015. Rupee closed weaker at Rs 66.11 per US$ on 18.11.2015 as against Rs 65.98 per US$ on 17.11.2015.
20 Friday Nov 2015
Posted in Current Affairs, employees, Pensioners
Tags
Commission recommends that HRA should be rationalized to 24 percent, 16 percent and 8 percent of the Basic Pay for Class X, Y and Z cities respectively.
Commission also recommends that the rate of HRA will be revised to 27 percent, 18 percent and 9 percent when DA crosses 50 percent, and further revised to 30 percent, 20 percent and 10 percent when DA crosses 100 percent
The 7th cpc recommendation about HRA is given below
The Commission also took note of the link between increase in HRA and increase in house rent. There was a sharp rise in the index from the first half of 2009, immediately following VI CPC recommendations. The All India House Rent Index32 chart given below demonstrates this:
8.7.15 Considering all these factors, and in line with our general policy of rationalizing the percentage based allowances by a factor of 0.8, the Commission recommends that HRA should be rationalized to 24 percent, 16 percent and 8 percent of the Basic Pay for Class X, Y and Z cities respectively. However, the Commission also recognizes that with the current formulation, once the new pay levels are implemented, the compensation towards HRA will remain unchanged until such time as the pay and allowances are next revised. Going by the historical trend this event is likely to be a decade away. Some representations have been received stating that towards the later part of the ten year period the HRA compensation falls considerably short of the requirement. Having regard to this, the Commission also recommends that the rate of HRA will be revised to 27 percent, 18 percent and 9 percent when DA crosses 50 percent, and further revised to 30 percent, 20 percent and 10 percent when DA crosses 100 percent.
8.7.16 Currently, in the case of those drawing either NPA or MSP or both, HRA is being paid as a percentage of Basic Pay+NPA or Basic Pay+MSP or Basic Pay+NPA+MSP respectively. HRA is a compensation for expenses in connection with the rent of the residential accommodation to be hired/leased by the employee and is graded based on the level of the employee, and therefore should be calculated as a percentage of Basic Pay only. Add-ons like NPA, MSP, etc. should not be included while working out HRA.
20 Friday Nov 2015
Posted in Current Affairs, employees, Pensioners
This fitment factor of 2.57 is being proposed to be applied uniformly for all employees
Actual hike in the basic pay is 14.29 %
5.1.27 The starting point for the first level of the matrix has been set at ₹18,000. This corresponds to the starting pay of ₹7,000, which is the beginning of PB-1 viz., ₹5,200 + GP 1800, which prevailed on 01.01.2006, the date of implementation of the VI CPC recommendations. Hence the starting point now proposed is 2.57 times of what was prevailing on 01.01.2006. This fitment factor of 2.57 is being proposed to be applied uniformly for all employees. It includes a factor of 2.25 on account of DA neutralisation, assuming that the rate of Dearness Allowance would be 125 percent at the time of implementation of the new pay. Accordingly, the actual raise/fitment being recommended is 14.29 percent.
5.1.28. The fitment of each employee in the new pay matrix is proposed to be done by multiplying his/her basic pay on the date of implementation by a factor of 2.57. The figure so arrived at is to be located in the new pay matrix, in the level that corresponds to the employee’s grade pay on the date of implementation, except in cases where the Commission has recommended a change in the existing grade pay. If the identical figure is not available in the given level, the next higher figure closest to it would be the new pay of the concerned employee. A couple of examples are detailed below to make the process amply clear.
5.1.29 The pay in the new pay matrix is to be fixed in the following manner: Step 1: Identify Basic Pay (Pay in the pay band plus Grade Pay) drawn by an employee as on the date of implementation. This figure is ‘A’. Step 2: Multiply ‘A’ with 2.57, round-off to the nearest rupee, and obtain result ‘B’. Step 3: The figure so arrived at, i.e., ‘B’ or the next higher figure closest to it in the Level assigned to his/her grade pay, will be the new pay in the new pay matrix. In case the value of ‘B’ is less than the starting pay of the Level, then the pay will be equal to the starting pay of that level.
Example I
i. For example an employee H is presently drawing Basic Pay of ₹55,040 (Pay in the Pay Band ₹46340 + Grade Pay ₹8700 = ₹55040). After multiplying ₹55,040 with 2.57, a figure of ₹1,41,452.80 is arrived at. This is rounded off to ₹1,41,453.
ii. The level corresponding to GP 8700 is level 13, as may be seen from Table 4, which gives the full correspondence between existing Grade Pay and the new Levels being proposed.
iii. In the column for level 13, the figure closest to ₹1,41,453 is ₹1,41,600.
iv. Hence the pay of employee H will be fixed at ₹1,41,600 in level 13 in the new pay matrix as shown below
Example II
i. Take the case of an employee T in GP 4200, drawing pay of ₹20,000 in PB-2. The Basic Pay is ₹24,200 (20,000+4200). If there was to be no change in T’s level the pay fixation would have been as explained in Example I above. After multiplying by 2.57, the amount fetched viz., ₹62,194 would have been located in Level 6 and T’s pay would have been fixed in Level 6 at ₹62,200.
ii. However, assuming that the Commission has recommended that the post occupied by T should be placed one level higher in GP 4600. T’s basic pay would then be ₹24,600 (20000 + 4600). Multiplying this by 2.57 would fetch ₹63,222.
iii. This value would have to be located in the matrix in Level 7 (the upgraded level of T).
iv. In the column for Level 7 ₹63,222 lies between 62200 and 64100. Accordingly, the pay of T will be fixed in Level 7 at ₹64,100.
20 Friday Nov 2015
Posted in employees, NATIONAL NEWS, Pensioners
Recommended Date of implementation: 01.01.2016
Minimum Pay: Based on the Aykroyd formula, the minimum pay in government is recommended to be set at ₹18,000 per month.
Maximum Pay: ₹2,25,000 per month for Apex Scale and ₹2,50,000 per month for Cabinet Secretary and others presently at the same pay level.
Financial Implications:
The total financial impact in the FY 2016-17 is likely to be ₹1,02,100 crore, over the expenditure as per the ‘Business As Usual’ scenario. Of this, the increase in pay would be ₹39,100 crore, increase in allowances would be ₹ 29,300 crore and increase in pension would be ₹33,700 crore.
Out of the total financial impact of ₹1,02,100 crore, ₹73,650 crore will be borne by the General Budget and ₹28,450 crore by the Railway Budget.
In percentage terms the overall increase in pay & allowances and pensions over the ‘Business As Usual’ scenario will be 23.55 percent. Within this, the increase in pay will be 16 percent, increase in allowances will be 63 percent, and increase in pension would be 24 percent.
The total impact of the Commission’s recommendations are expected to entail an increase of 0.65 percentage points in the ratio of expenditure on (Pay+Allowances+ Pension) to GDP compared to 0.77 percent in case of VI CPC.
New Pay Structure: Considering the issues raised regarding the Grade Pay structure and with a view to bring in greater transparency, the present system of pay bands and grade pay has been dispensed with and a new pay matrix has been designed. Grade Pay has been subsumed in the pay matrix. The status of the employee, hitherto determined by grade pay, will now be determined by the level in the pay matrix.
Fitment: A fitment factor of 2.57 is being proposed to be applied uniformly for all employees.
Annual Increment: The rate of annual increment is being retained at 3 percent.
Modified Assured Career Progression (MACP):
Performance benchmarks for MACP have been made more stringent from “Good” to “Very Good”.
The Commission has also proposed that annual increments not be granted in the case of those employees who are not able to meet the benchmark either for MACP or for a regular promotion in the first 20 years of their service.
No other changes in MACP recommended.
Military Service Pay (MSP): The Military Service Pay, which is a compensation for the various aspects of military service, will be admissible to the Defence forces personnel only. As before, Military Service Pay will be payable to all ranks up to and inclusive of Brigadiers and their equivalents. The current MSP per month and the revised rates recommended are as follows:
| Present | Proposed | ||
| i. | Service Officers | ₹6,000 | ₹15,500 |
| ii. | Nursing Officers | ₹4,200 | ₹10,800 |
| iii. | JCO/ORs | ₹2,000 | ₹ 5,200 |
| iv. | Non Combatants (Enrolled) in the Air Force | ₹1,000 | ₹ 3,600 |
Short Service Commissioned Officers: Short Service Commissioned Officers will be allowed to exit the Armed Forces at any point in time between 7 and 10 years of service, with a terminal gratuity equivalent of 10.5 months of reckonable emoluments. They will further be entitled to a fully funded one year Executive Programme or a M.Tech. programme at a premier Institute.
Lateral Entry/Settlement: The Commission is recommending a revised formulation for lateral entry/resettlement of defence forces personnel which keeps in view the specific requirements of organization to which such personnel will be absorbed. For lateral entry into CAPFs an attractive severance package has been recommended.
Headquarters/Field Parity: Parity between field and headquarters staff recommended for similar functionaries e.g Assistants and Stenos.
Cadre Review: Systemic change in the process of Cadre Review for Group A officers recommended.
Allowances: The Commission has recommended abolishing 52 allowances altogether. Another 36 allowances have been abolished as separate identities, but subsumed either in an existing allowance or in newly proposed allowances. Allowances relating to Risk and Hardship will be governed by the proposed Risk and Hardship Matrix.
Risk and Hardship Allowance: Allowances relating to Risk and Hardship will be governed by the newly proposed nine-cell Risk and Hardship Matrix, with one extra cell at the top, viz., RH-Max to include Siachen Allowance.
The current Siachen Allowance per month and the revised rates recommended are as follows:
| Present | Proposed | ||
| i. | Service Officers | ₹21,000 | ₹31,500 |
| iii. | JCO/ORs | ₹14,000 | ₹21,000 |
This would be the ceiling for risk/hardship allowances and there would be no individual RHA with an amount higher than this allowance.
House Rent Allowance: Since the Basic Pay has been revised upwards, the Commission recommends that HRA be paid at the rate of 24 percent, 16 percent and 8 percent of the new Basic Pay for Class X, Y and Z cities respectively. The Commission also recommends that the rate of HRA will be revised to 27 percent, 18 percent and 9 percent respectively when DA crosses 50 percent, and further revised to 30 percent, 20 percent and 10 percent when DA crosses 100 percent.
In the case of PBORs of Defence, CAPFs and Indian Coast Guard compensation for housing is presently limited to the authorised married establishment hence many users are being deprived. The HRA coverage has now been expanded to cover all.
Any allowance not mentioned in the report shall cease to exist.
Emphasis has been placed on simplifying the process of claiming allowances.
Advances:
All non-interest bearing Advances have been abolished.
Regarding interest-bearing Advances, only Personal Computer Advance and House Building Advance (HBA) have been retained. HBA ceiling has been increased to ₹25 lakhs from the present ₹7.5 lakhs.
Central Government Employees Group Insurance Scheme (CGEGIS): The Rates of contribution as also the insurance coverage under the CGEGIS have remained unchanged for long. They have now been enhanced suitably. The following rates of CGEGIS are recommended:
| Present | Proposed | |||
| Level of Employee | Monthly Deduction
(₹) |
Insurance Amount
(₹) |
Monthly Deduction
(₹) |
Insurance Amount
(₹) |
| 10 and above | 120 | 1,20,000 | 5000 | 50,00,000 |
| 6 to 9 | 60 | 60,000 | 2500 | 25,00,000 |
| 1 to 5 | 30 | 30,000 | 1500 | 15,00,000 |
Medical Facilities:
Introduction of a Health Insurance Scheme for Central Government employees and pensioners has been recommended.
Meanwhile, for the benefit of pensioners residing outside the CGHS areas, CGHS should empanel those hospitals which are already empanelled under CS (MA)/ECHS for catering to the medical requirement of these pensioners on a cashless basis.
All postal pensioners should be covered under CGHS. All postal dispensaries should be merged with CGHS.
Pension: The Commission recommends a revised pension formulation for civil employees including CAPF personnel as well as for Defence personnel, who have retired before 01.01.2016. This formulation will bring about parity between past pensioners and current retirees for the same length of service in the pay scale at the time of retirement.
The past pensioners shall first be fixed in the Pay Matrix being recommended by the Commission on the basis of Pay Band and Grade Pay at which they retired, at the minimum of the corresponding level in the pay matrix.
This amount shall be raised to arrive at the notional pay of retirees, by adding number of increments he/she had earned in that level while in service at the rate of 3 percent.
In the case of defence forces personnel this amount will include Military Service Pay as admissible.
Fifty percent of the total amount so arrived at shall be the new pension.
An alternative calculation will be carried out, which will be a multiple of 2.57 times of the current basic pension.
The pensioner will get the higher of the two.
Gratuity: Enhancement in the ceiling of gratuity from the existing ₹10 lakh to ₹20 lakh. The ceiling on gratuity may be raised by 25 percent whenever DA rises by 50 percent.
Disability Pension for Armed Forces: The Commission is recommending reverting to a slab based system for disability element, instead of existing percentile based disability pension regime.
Ex-gratia Lump sum Compensation to Next of Kin: The Commission is recommending the revision of rates of lump sum compensation for next of kin (NOK) in case of death arising in various circumstances relating to performance of duties, to be applied uniformly for the defence forces personnel and civilians including CAPF personnel.
Martyr Status for CAPF Personnel: The Commission is of the view that in case of death in the line of duty, the force personnel of CAPFs should be accorded martyr status, at par with the defence forces personnel.
New Pension System: The Commission received many grievances relating to NPS. It has recommended a number of steps to improve the functioning of NPS. It has also recommended establishment of a strong grievance redressal mechanism.
Regulatory Bodies: The Commission has recommended a consolidated pay package of ₹4,50,000 and ₹4,00,000 per month for Chairpersons and Members respectively of select Regulatory bodies. In case of retired government servants, their pension will not be deducted from their consolidated pay. The consolidated pay package will be raised by 25 percent as and when Dearness Allowance goes up by 50 percent. For Members of the remaining Regulatory bodies normal replacement pay has been recommended.
Performance Related Pay: The Commission has recommended introduction of the Performance Related Pay (PRP) for all categories of Central Government employees, based on quality Results Framework Documents, reformed Annual Performance Appraisal Reports and some other broad Guidelines. The Commission has also recommended that the PRP should subsume the existing Bonus schemes.
There are few recommendations of the Commission where there was no unanimity of view and these are as follows:
The Edge: An edge is presently accordeded to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) at three promotion stages from Senior Time Scale (STS), to the Junior Administrative Grade (JAG) and the NFSG. is recommended by the Chairman, to be extended to the Indian Police Service (IPS) and Indian Forest Service (IFoS).
Shri Vivek Rae, Member is of the view that financial edge is justified only for the IAS and IFS. Dr. Rathin Roy, Member is of the view that the financial edge accorded to the IAS and IFS should be removed.
Empanelment: The Chairman and Dr. Rathin Roy, Member, recommend that All India Service officers and Central Services Group A officers who have completed 17 years of service should be eligible for empanelment under the Central Staffing Scheme and there should not be “two year edge”, vis-à-vis the IAS. Shri Vivek Rae, Member, has not agreed with this view and has recommended review of the Central Staffing Scheme guidelines.
Non Functional Upgradation for Organised Group ‘A’ Services: The Chairman is of the view that NFU availed by all the organised Group `A’ Services should be allowed to continue and be extended to all officers in the CAPFs, Indian Coast Guard and the Defence forces. NFU should henceforth be based on the respective residency periods in the preceding substantive grade. Shri Vivek Rae, Member and Dr. Rathin Roy, Member, have favoured abolition of NFU at SAG and HAG level.
Superannuation: Chairman and Dr. Rathin Roy, Member, recommend the age of superannuation for all CAPF personnel should be 60 years uniformly. Shri Vivek Rae, Member, has not agreed with this recommendation and has endorsed the stand of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
The full report is available in the website, http://7cpc.india.gov.in.
20 Friday Nov 2015
Posted in Gujarat, STATES NEWS
Tags
20 Friday Nov 2015
Posted in Science
Apple trees pollinated by bumblebees exposed to neonicotinoid pesticides contained 36 per cent fewer seeds than those pollinated by unexposed bees.
The results are the first to show that neonicotinoids impair the insects’ ability to pollinate plants.
Previous studies have found that the controversial pesticides can affect bees and bumblebees, but haven’t measured whether it disrupts their ability to pollinate plants.
About 30 per cent of agricultural crops depend on pollination by insects or other animals, with an estimated global value to farmers of $360 billion a year.
“Our work highlights the importance of pollination services, and including that in the debate about whether to ban or restrict neonicotinoids is very important,” says Dara Stanley of Royal Holloway, University of London.
Pollen decline
Stanley and her colleagues exposed colonies of bumblebees to nectar that either contained a type of neonicotinoid known as thiamethoxam at levels typically found in nectar and pollen from treated crops and contaminated wild flowers. The bees exposed to neonicotinoids collected less pollen from apple trees and visited apple flowers less frequently than the other group.
This behaviour resulted in a reduction in the number of seeds found in the apples, an important indicator of the extent of pollination.
For several years, debate has raged about the size of the effect neonicotinoids have on bees. A temporary moratorium on their use on certain crops pollinated directly by bees – such as oilseed rape – is in place in Europe while the European Food Safety Authority undertakes a review of all the evidence.
In the US, a court ruling in September overturned the US Environmental Protection Agency’s earlier approval of a newer type of neonicotinoid.
“With apples, we consumers don’t care if it has fewer pips, but it’s very important for apple growers as there is evidence linking the number of seeds with apple quality,” says Stanley. And if neonicotinoids are disrupting pollination of apples, they are likely to also be disrupting pollination of many other crops, including strawberries, raspberries, oilseed rape, field beans and peas, as well as wild flowering plants.
Artificial conditions
“The obvious conclusion is that farmers using these chemicals could potentially experience reduced crop yields, as could their neighbours who may not be using the chemicals,” says Dave Goulson of the University of Sussex, UK. “There may also be knock-on effects for pollination of wild flowers growing on or near farms.”
Syngenta, a company that manufactures thiamethoxam, says the design for the experiment, with bee colonies only allowed to forage for an hour a day and apple trees placed in experimental tunnels, didn’t represent real-life conditions.
This means the results are not conclusive, says Peter Campbell of Syngenta. “They are premature and only representative of a single experiment conducted under artificial conditions both for the apple trees being pollinated and the method of exposing the bumblebees,” he says.
Another paper published this week by French researchers found that while neonicotinoid pesticides harm individual honeybees, whole colonies were able to recover in the wild.
Mickael Henry of the French National Institute for Agricultural Research in Avignon and his team found that honeybees foraging around treated crops die off at a faster rate than normal – but colonies were able to make up by boosting the number of worker bees in the hive.
Journal reference: Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature16167; Royal Society journal Proceedings B; DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2015.2110
