Jumbo Scam Surfaces.

Nitin Sethi reports in Sunday Times of India on March 10, 2013 that the Chhattisgarh government fudged records, concealed facts, changed policy and altered decisions while the union environment ministry overlooked all such illegalities to open up 1,899 hectares for mining in Hasdeo Arand, one of the best patches of forests. It is strange that when a tug of war was going on between forest department and the mining department of Chhattisgarh, the State Government claimed that the patch containing the coal blocks at Parsa East and Kante Basan in Sarguja District was rarely visited by elephant herd and maintained that the forest patch had no particular wild life species of value and accordingly had recommended the case to the union environment ministry for handing over the forest patch to the miners for getting forest clearance. It is reported that the region’s Divisional Forest Officer, on a site visit held just four days before this recommendation, noted that the area had not just elephants but also other protected species such as bear, wild boar, cheetah, barking deer, Sāmbhar and leopards. Such reporting and recommendations contrary to each other resorted to under political or bureaucratic pressure are a common development in Chhattisgarh for the last few years. If a probe is ordered and the same is taken up in right earnest many skeletons would emerge out of State Secretariat’s cupboard.
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History Scripted by British Queen

After 1781 is for the first time the British Monarch attended a cabinet meeting in 10 Downing Street, London as a participant in the capacity of a listener and observer without taking part in deliberations. This happened on Tuesday, December 18, 2012. There has been an exception of course during World War II when her father George VI attended a similar cabinet meeting. This event also has been arranged as a special occasion during the Diamond Jubilee of her ascension to the throne.


At times, though rarely, conventions are broken and new trends are set for the working of the world’s oldest Parliamentary democracy. One should hail the British Monarch on this occasion!
19-12-12
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Humiliated 13 year-old girl kills self for not paying school fees!

After returning from school M.Pooja hanged herself at home located near Manali in Chennai on Friday, March 21, 2014 due to humiliation heaped on her by the teacher who made her stand outside the classroom.

Looking to the inability of parents and the inhuman behaviour of the teacher made this young girl commit suicide. Who is responsible for this murder in the society?
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Shunned for years, Vrindavan widows returned ‘home’ last puja.

When Air India flight AI 20 from New Delhi landed in Kolkata on Sunday afternoon, it had on-board an unusual group of first-time flyers - women who were forced out of Bengal decades ago under tragic circumstances. But their return, though for a week, turned up to be a happier one. They were welcomed at the Kolkata airport by a group of dhakis and women blowing conch shells.



For the group of 50 widows from Vrindavan being flown to Kolkata by an NGO to witness and participate in the Durga festivals, the trip held the promise of a lifetime. This was the first time they were returning ‘home’ after being cast away by their families. This was also the first time they were participating in any kind of festivity. Naturally on the eve of their trip, they were agog with child –like excitement.
[The times of India, Chennai. Monday, October 7, 2013]
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5 crore moved out of poverty: Government

The times news network reported on march 20,2012 that as per data released by the Planning Commission showed that the poverty level had significantly declined between 2004–05 & 2009-10. The new estimates are based on the poverty line that averages RS.672.8 per month (RS.22.43 per day) in rural areas and RS.859.6 per month (RS.28.65 per day) in urban areas for 2009-10. In a state like Delhi, the urban poverty line translated to RS.34.67 per person per day in the Supreme Court, the government had earlier submitted that the updated poverty line was likely to be RS.26 per day in rural areas & RS.32 per day in the towns in June 2011. As things stand, a lot of centrally sponsored social security schemes for the poor exclude those above these poverty lines from availing of the benefits under the scheme. By the lowered bench marks, poverty across the country declined by 7.3%. That Bihar under Nitish Kumar grew at over 10% between2004-05 & 2009-10 is now well known.
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Government messed up, admits Pitroda.

Sam Pitroda, who advices the Prime Minister on innovation, on Wednesday March 19, 2014 admitted that UPA Government “messed up” and took some wrong decisions, including on Vodafone. It is amazing to see an insider and the confidante of the Manmohan Singh government and Congress Party talking in such terms.




Speaking at a meet organized by Congress in Mumbai, Pitroda pointed out that the needed administrative, labour, political and legal reforms – couldn’t be implemented because of a “lack of political will”. Hell with such a man who exploited the perks of office all these years and trying to pass on the blame to the head of the government at the end of his tenure! Who prevented him from advising the PM on this or leaving the job earlier on his failure of carrying conviction with the powers that be?



Pitroda also lamented and referred to how the bureaucrats get shuffled at frequent intervals, before they can get a chance to settle in and be held accountable. A great discovery from a system’s man! This gentleman had no courtesy of acknowledging the letters suggesting innovation in administration from senior and sincere citizens of this country despite personal reminders. Better we recover the perks enjoyed by him in office after an enquiry into his omissions and commissions.
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Long Wait for Govt. Jobs?

The number of the applicants who registered their names and kept alive on the live register in the state of Tamil Nadu as on March 31, 2011 were about 67 lakhs including 36 lakhs women. The number of post-graduates stood at 3 lakhs. In the last quarter (October-December) of the year 2010 only 7096 persons could be placed. A random enquiry from the applicants reveals that almost 40-50 per cent of them are already employed in the private sector but the reason for the renewal of their registration for years is to get a government job – may be due to the attraction of security of the job and the surety of the full and fair pay & perks.



But then what is the big use of keeping an entire machinery of National Employment Service? - just meant to register only the aspirants and being unable to serve as the sole source of employment to govt. jobs both in the central and state governments as well as the public undertakings except of course for recruitment to All India Services through U.P.S,C and class One services for state governments through State P.S.Cs.



The Directorate General of Employment and Training, New Delhi had directed the employment exchanges in the country to sponsor candidates @ 5:1 to the vacancies notified by the employers till the year 1983 but due to the initiative taken by the Directorate of Employment and Training, Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh headed by the undersigned, the DGE & T revised the formula and enabled the agency to sponsor as many as 20 candidates to every one vacancy reported by the employers. But the heavy load of aspirants is ever on the increase.



If at all this employment service is to serve as not only a registering authority but also a recruiting agency, it should be made compulsory for all the employers both in the private and public sector to notify their vacancy to the exchanges first and utilize the service before advertising in the media. Only a few exceptions could be permitted by the Governments as and when necessary. Or else the government can wind up this net-work and entrust the work of registration to some other wing of government already under-utilised.

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Sex and the V.I.P

A year and a half back the latest casualty linked to sex-based misconduct on the part of a VIP was the Head of American Intelligence David Patrias who resigned under moral pressure. The US President Barack Obama accepted it although many an official in the administration felt bad looking to his ability and contribution to US military as its head and the Chief of US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for quite some time. His own regret over the illegal relationship developed with Paula Bradwel, a researcher from Harvard University writing on the General’s life during his stay in Afghanistan was conveyed through an e-mail to the people concerned. He felt ashamed of his own conduct – a man having married life of 37 years with a lady and being the head of an organization at the national level. One should admire his step after all. There are many other individuals in public life who care little about such affairs till they are literally pushed off from their positions.




However a moot point to be raised and discussed here is why should people occupying very high positions in life or exhibiting extraordinary qualities and high achievers fall a pray to such passions and become an easy victim to female beauties like some saints and celebrities. Probably such individuals are not satisfied with one female in their life and likely to develop relationship with a female companion in their weak moments at their work places. It is human weakness and a necessity at some points of time in their life. How do you explain otherwise the strength of a harem in a King’s palace being discussed in history books or the modern leaders of public life practicing polygamy with impunity even now in certain places?
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Bad loans afflicting PSBs

As usual worried over a further rise in bad loans against large companies, finance minister P Chidambaram recently exhorted public sector banks (PSBs) to effectively deal with non-performing assets (NPAs). According to him, the NPAs are high in the large corporate sector as well as in the SSI and MSE sector.




He said the efforts have yielded some results as PSBs recovered Rs.18, 933 crore of bad loans during the nine months through December 2013. Bad loans of PSBs rose 28.5% to Rs.1.83 lakh crore in March 2013 over the preceding September.
What is the remedy and in what manner one can assure the depositors that their money is safe with the Public Sector Banks (PSBs)? The minister is on his way out. This concern of his at this juncture is not going help any one.




[ TOI, Chennai, 6 March, 2014]

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Discovery of new planets

715 new worlds found - a great discovery indeed!


NASA’s Kepler mission has found 715 new planets at one go. Nearly 95% of them are smaller than Neptune. These newly-verified worlds orbit 305 stars revealing multiple-planet systems much like our own solar system.
It also brings the confirmed count of planets outside our solar system to nearly 1,700.
Four of these new planets are nearly 2.5 times the size of Earth and orbit in their sun's habitable zone defined as the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of a planet may be suitable for life.
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Medical Mafia has taken over MCI: AAP

Training its guns against former Medical Council a of India (MCI) chief Dr Ketan Desai, Aam AadmI Party (AAP) leader Prashant Bhushan on Friday alleged that "medical mafia" had taken over the Council with the patronage of Gujarat CM Narendra Modi, SP chief Mulayam Singh and health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.


Desai was arrested in April 2010 by the CBI for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 2 crore from a medical college.
However, the MCI was restored again in October 2013 by the government ignoring its earlier commitment to Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha to establish an overarching body—the National Commission for Human Resources for Health.


Bhushan said the Gujarat University, at the behest of the Modi government, nominated Desai as a member of the MCI despite two cases pending against him in the court of law. In fact, the health minister Azad even chose to transfer the health secretary Keshav Desiraju after the latter objected in writing to Desai's re-entry," he said.
This just reveals how political parties are patronizing a corrupt person in complete disregard to healthcare and medical education in the Country,” the senior SC lawyer added. [TIMES OF INDIA, CHENNAI, MARCH 1, 2014]


My Comment:
Integrity and the practice of honesty are party-neutral. Interpretation of others’ conduct goes as per the convenience of individuals and parties involved. Hey Ram!
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New Tech to Help Rebuild People's Faces

Hats off to the scientists!

British doctors will undertake a path-breaking procedure to reconstruct people's faces with stem cells taken from their fat. The team has successfully grown cartilage in the laboratory and believe it could be used to re-build ears arid noses.


Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and the UCL Institute of Child Health (ICH) say the effectiveness of human stem cell therapies for facial reconstruction has been effectively investigated and shows how stem cells could provide a viable alternative to current approaches to facial cartilage reconstruction such as ear and nose reconstruction. GOSH is world renowned for treating patients malformed or missing ear, a condition known Microcia.


[THE TIMES OF INDIA, CHENNAI WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 2014 ]

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Growth Vs Employment

It is a paradox that despite a robust rate of economic growth during the period 2000 -2012 the employment market registered a growth of only 2.2% per year (NSSO’s latest survey). While agriculture sector contributed hardly any growth, the manufacturing sector provided jobs @ 4% per annum only. A satisfactory growth emerged from the services sector esp. in retail trade, construction and personal services offering low-paying and tough jobs.
Agriculture and industry should have generated more number of jobs as they enjoy reasonable and adequate sums of money in the annual budgets of both central and state governments. It appears millions of man-day’s created through MNREGA only provided mostly temporary and semi-permanent assets in the country side while large chunks of public funding have had been channelized through panchayat institutions. Services sector too provide temporary and informal employment in the unorganized market for those workers who are largely at the mercy of employers.


It is no doubt a challenge to all the political parties facing general elections to Lok Sabha in 2014 summer to indicate specifically the manner in which they would ensure jobs to all the unemployed persons in the next decade.
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Linking of rivers within Tamil Nadu State

A report prepared of late has proposed Rs.13, 560 crore for works in the next decade to rectify the system of water resources. Around 130 TMCFT of water flows into the sea from at least 10 rivers, including the Cauvery, it said. Compare this to Chennai’s drinking water needs – one TMCFT every month.


Sedimentation has reduced the capacity of several reservoirs between 2% and 59%. Built in 1934, Mettur reservoir, the life line of Cauvery Delta, loses 11 million cubic metres of storage capacity a year due to sedimentation. The water tanks lose 40 – 50 million cubic meters of storage capacity every year. The report emphasized the need for consistent efforts to desilt water bodies. The silt can be used either for construction, agriculture or river restoration, it said.


The report suggested it would be prudent to link the rivers within the state by short canals to divert the occasional flood s flows to the adjoining basins. The state often witnesses a situation in which one river is in spate and other is bone dry.


The state will now be compelled to augment the capacity of existing storage structures in coastal regions, construct check dams and a new reservoirs and link rivers, wherever possible, as suggested by the report.“Unless this is done, the future looks pretty bleak. With a majority of the rivers being interstate, dependence on neighboring states should end”, a member of the study team said. The good news that the 41 – year data shows there is no dramatic change in the trend in the onset of the North – east monsoon.


The study further says that the State faces 11% water deficit, but overflows alone can meet drinking needs. Julie Mariappan [Times of India Chennai, dated April 6th 2013] reports that while the current total water demand in the state, for domestic, irrigation, livestock and industrial needs, is 1,867.85 TMCFT(thousand million cubic feet) year, the total availability, from all resources, is only 1,681.78 TMCFT.


This deficit will rise to 17% by 2045, said the report, jointly prepared by several central and state governmental agencies, including Tamil Nadu public works department and central water commission.Tamil Nadu, which had three reservoirs, in the pre independent era, has added 82 reservoirs in the last six decades and boasts of 39,200 tanks now. At least 17, 879 of them, big and small, are on the coastal belt, and their status is either ‘good’ or ‘normal’. But an alarming 80% overflows for river is wasted, said the report based on the study on ‘Effective utilization of northeast monsoon’.

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