‪#‎ukpcsmains‬ news

‪#‎ukpcsmains‬ news

After listening to the INTERVENTION APPLICATION filed in by different people (8 in total) , the divisional bench of Justice ALOK SINGH & Justice SERVESH KUMAR GUPTA , has given a week's time to the respondent (Govt ) and has scheduled the next hearing ON 29TH OF MAY (next friday) FOR "FINAL DISPOSAL"

#IAS2015PRE NOTIFICATION IS OUT

#IAS2015PRE NOTIFICATION IS OUT

http://www.upsc.gov.in/exams/notifications/2015/CSP_2015/CSP_2015_eng.pdf

A new manual for diplomats

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi completes the first year in office, his greatest momentum has been in the least expected domain — foreign policy. As a state chief minister with limited exposure to the world of international relations, Modi, it was widely believed, might face a handicap on the diplomatic front and would concentrate on his presumed strength in economic management.

If Modi’s performance on the economic front has drawn mixed reviews, many have acknowledged the vigour and purpose he has brought to India’s renewed engagement with the world. Modi’s frequent high-profile travels abroad have, in fact, generated some concern among the PM’s supporters that he is spending far too much time abroad at a time of slipping domestic primacy.

Over the last one year, Modi has shown a surprising personal enthusiasm for diplomacy and revelled in the international attention he has got. While following the broad foreign policy direction set by his predecessors, Manmohan Singh and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Modi has been bold enough to make some important departures.

C. RAJA MOHAN

The PM’s main foreign policy objectives have been revitalisation of the stalled partnership with the United States, better management of the China challenge, more productive engagement with neighbours in the subcontinent and Asia, leveraging India’s inherent strengths in soft power and moving New Delhi towards pragmatic internationalism.

In two summits with President Barack Obama, Modi moved quickly to address differences with the US on food subsidies and nuclear liability, inject new energy into defence cooperation and signal flexibility on climate change. Discarding the defensiveness that had crept into relations with the US during the second term of the UPA, Modi, despite his visa problems with Washington, has put America at the heart of India’s international strategy. For the first time since 2005, when the UPA government signed the historic but controversial defence and nuclear agreements with America, there is renewed optimism about the future of Indo-US relations.

Just as he put ties with America back on track, Modi has begun to reset India’s relations with China. He has sought deeper economic ties with Beijing, while prudently managing the border dispute. Unlike the UPA, Modi does not view the relationships with the US and China in terms of non-alignment. He has laid out a framework of greater security cooperation with America and a strong economic partnership with China.

In the neighbourhood, Modi has got trapped in the familiar roller-coaster with Pakistan. Though he reached out to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif immediately after the elections last year, Modi later suspended talks with Pakistan, objecting to political contacts between Islamabad and separatist groups in Kashmir. If his Pakistanpolicy seemed to flip and flop, Modi has moved decisively to improve relations with smaller neighbours like Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. He has connected directly with the political classes and people in the neighbouring countries. Above all, he has shown the will to resolve long-pending problems with them — whether it is through the development of shared water resources with Nepal or getting Parliament to approve the historic land boundary agreement with Bangladesh.

Modi has rebranded India’s “Look East” policy as “Act East”, with special emphasis on strengthening economic and security ties with Asian neighbours like Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, Australia and Mongolia. His concept of the extended neighbourhood also includes the maritime domain, as he travelled to the far seas — from Fiji in the South Pacific to Seychelles in the Western Indian Ocean.

An intensive outreach to the diaspora and promoting India’s religious and cultural links with the neighbours have been special features of Modi’s diplomacy. Although the engagement with the diaspora had begun to gain some traction since the Vajpayee years, Modi has elevated it to a new level. Equally important has been his emphasis on the projection of Indian culture abroad.

Modi’s most significant contribution could turn out to be his effort to build a new foreign policy identity for India. If India, obsessed with the notion of “strategic autonomy” in recent years, has been able to dump the residual ideological baggage on it, Modi has now begun to develop the idea of India as a “leading power”.

For decades, India saw itself as a balancing power trying to limit the West or the Chinese. Modi is now suggesting that India, with its growing national capabilities, must view itself as a power that takes greater responsibility for the construction and maintenance of the global order.

This has translated into a more self-confident engagement with the other great powers. It has also resulted in a more positive Indian approach to dealing with such global challenges as climate change, where the country was long looked at as part of the problem rather than the solution.

As a leader with a strong mandate, Modi has been well placed to impart a new momentum to India’s diplomacy. But it is by no means clear, in the middle of 2015, if Modi can engineer structural changes in the way the bureaucracy and political classes think and deal with the world. The slow pace of reforms and limited institutional capability to deliver on promises made to foreign interlocutors could re-emerge as important constraints on Modi’s diplomacy. As at home so abroad, Modi has generated expansive expectations. The current global warmth towards Modi could begin to fade if India is seen as returning to a defensive and non-performing mode.

Meanwhile, there are threats to internal peace and harmony that have not gone unnoticed in the rest of the world. The Modi government’s tolerance of the BJP’s extremist fringe and its crackdown on liberal civil society groups have begun to draw criticism, especially in the US. Unless checked decisively, the negative dynamic on the domestic front will, sooner rather than later, cloud Modi’s efforts to project India’s cultural strengths and democratic values. At the end of the first year, Modi faces a paradox: his success in creating significant external opportunities for India could easily be undermined by potential failures on the domestic front.

Time For School

We live in a world where every seventh person is illiterate. Six crore kids have never been to school, and almost 12 crore left within two to three years. Even those who are in school have shameful standards of education. Twenty-five crore of them cannot read simple sentences and fail at basic arithmetic. It is with this upsetting knowledge that world leaders, education ministers and NGOs are meeting in Incheon, South Korea, at the World Education Forum (WEF), which ends on May 22. At the last such forum held in Dakar in 2000, six goals were agreed upon, the most significant being that by 2015, each child would get access to primary education and no child would be out of school.

Fifteen years later, we’re still miles away from achieving those goals. Those who recognise the power of education are not advancing with the same urgency as the negative forces that want to muzzle education. Anarchists and anti-development agents are so threatened by the power of education that they are willing to kill and get killed to crush it. Almost half of the 200 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram in Nigeria last year are still missing. A few months ago, 132 children were gunned down in their classrooms in Peshawar. Last month, terrorists attacked a college in Kenya, killing more than 150 students. That negative forces have taken to unmitigated violence is proof that they are petrified of an educated world.

There is no tool as powerful as education to break the shackles of human slavery. When a child picks up a pen, the power of a gun in the hands of a soldier weakens. When one wall of a classroom is built, millions of walls that divide humanity collapse. Where even one child is bereft of the right to education, no society can prosper. To attain sustainable and inclusive growth, quality education for each citizen is paramount.

Evaluation of practices that have been successful in furthering education is the first step. There are countries where more children are going to school because governments have made education free and abolished hidden costs. There are societies that are closer to achieving literacy for all as they have allocated more funds to raise the quality and utility of education. There are villages where children are brimming with ideas and knowledge because their schools have enough trained teachers and a conducive learning environment.

Apart from this, regular and adequate aid from developed nations to poorer countries has also ensured education for crores. However, providing education to all is still riddled with challenges — the biggest being the unwillingness of nations to contribute funds to the cause of education. Today, less than 4 per cent of global aid goes to education. We need $22 billion to send every child to school. This is only 4.5 days of annual military expenditure. The world needs almost 1.45 crore qualified teachers, but we are investing in fortifying our armies instead of enriching our schools. Syria has 2.5 times more soldiers than primary teachers, Israel almost three times more, and Uganda four times more. Is it too much to ask that all children have a teacher, or for the number of teachers to exceed the number of soldiers?

Another challenge is to make the education we provide inclusive and egalitarian. Our current standards have made education a business and a privilege of the rich. It is no more a human right, but a thing to be sold and bought. A knowledge apartheid will only exclude the marginalised further, leading to social unrest. Bringing education to the hardest to reach children is another challenge. There are almost 17 crore child labourers in the world. Around 23 crore are caught in armed conflicts and are victims of terrorism and insurgencies. Nine to 15 crore are physically or mentally challenged. As long as our political and social systems do not include them, achieving education for all is impossible.

No country can progress without equal opportunity for education and social justice. Education is not just a human right, but also a key to other rights. To devote a larger share of funds to education, then, is not asking for the moon. It is evident that what is truly compromising delivery of education is not poverty, but lack of political will. This is why the WEF is a landmark meet. The decisions there will determine not just the next 15 years, but the collective future of coming generations.The writer is a Nobel Peace Laureate for 2014.

Art of the state

There is a Seventh Schedule to the Constitution, with Union, concurrent and state lists. Governments are elected to deliver governance.

Other than processes, and legislative and regulatory content, governance is about the delivery of public goods and services, with “public goods” not defined in the classic economist’s sense. Thus, the Seventh Schedule tells us who should do what. There is an optimal layer of government at which these should be delivered. A higher layer is suboptimal, and so is a lower layer. There are both economies and dis-economies of scale. The Seventh Schedule is not cast in stone. Today’s Seventh Schedule is not what it was in 1950: The Union list has expanded, as has the concurrent list, while the state list has shrunk.

The Constitution doesn’t use the word “Centre”. It uses the word “Union”. But, unfortunately, the expression Centre-state has entered the discourse. These changes in the Seventh Schedule reflected greater centralisation. There wasn’t a single amendment in the reverse direction, the direction of decentralisation and devolution. This tendency to over-centralise, and not just through changes in the Seventh Schedule, has been commented on in several reports. The 2010 report of the Commission on Centre-State Relations is one such. It is to be hoped that there will be a Seventh Schedule that is different, with decentralisation to the third tier of governance. Twenty-nine “public good” items should be on a panchayat list and 18 on a municipality list.

BIBEK DEBROY

Yes, in 1968, the first Administrative Reforms Commission didn’t want a review of the Seventh Schedule. But the Rajamannar Committee of 1971 did, and the world of 2015 is different from that of 1968. Do we want decentralisation and devolution? The question isn’t merely a fiscal one. If you go by some elements of the current discourse, we don’t want decentralisation/ devolution. We want the “Centre” to do assorted things. Witness the criticism, after the Union budget of 2015-16 was presented, of the Centre not spending enough on health.

Why should the Union government spend on health? Health doesn’t figure in the Union list. Medical education and professions figure in the concurrent list. Do we then want the Centre to spend money on the Medical Council of India? I am not being facile. There is indeed a sub-group of chief ministers and it will recommend the rationalisation of Central schemes. It is perfectly possible that this sub-group will recommend the continuation, of some variety, of a national health mission. The limited point is that health is not the Union government’s natural constitutional mandate. It is in the state list, under Entry 6.

There is a furore over land as well. Entry 18 on the state list makes land squarely a state subject. Show me where land figures in the Union list. I am not suggesting the debated Central land legislation is illegal. Far from it. But how is it justified? It is justified under Entry 42 of the concurrent list, which is about the “acquisition and requisition of property”. Read Entry 6 in the concurrent list, too, which is about the “transfer of property other than agricultural land”. It doesn’t seem that the definition of property under Entry 42 was meant to cover agricultural land, in the spirit of the Seventh Schedule. Sure, the legality has been tested many years ago, including in a case involving the government of West Bengal.

Even with the present, and not future and amended, Seventh Schedule, I think the Union government should legislate on items in the Union list. If it is an item on the concurrent list, the Union government should only legislate when state governments ask it to, not otherwise. Just as there are problems in devising Delhi-driven centralised templates for Centrally sponsored schemes, there are issues with Central laws in factor markets (add labour, too) that ignore India’s heterogeneity.

In international negotiations, be it labour standards or environmental norms, our argument has been the following. Do not impose standards evolved in developed countries. Different countries are at different levels of development. By the same token, different states are at different levels of development. Their land, labour and natural resource markets differ. So what is wrong with allowing states to decide? What’s wrong with Delhi letting go? What’s wrong with labour moving to the state list? As long as the present Seventh Schedule continues, there is great temptation for Parliament to legislate on items on the concurrent list. That’s the reason it is important to amend the Seventh Schedule and reverse the trend, witnessed especially in the mid-1970s, of moving items from the state list to the concurrent list, and from the concurrent list to the Union list. Because of the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission, some fiscal devolution has automatically happened. The fiscal devolution isn’t only Union to state. It is also about state to local bodies and intra-state differences. Decentralisation and devolution aren’t purely fiscal. The non-fiscal elements are more important and also require a change in mindset. I don’t think that’s happened. We, or at least some participants in the discourse, somehow prefer Central planning and direction.

After one year, where is the big bang?
The answer depends entirely on what one’s subjective preference and definition of “big bang” is, oblivious to the fact that the world, and the universe, are steady state, not big bang. But if one is going to use the expression “big bang”, I don’t think there can be a bigger bang than what’s occurred and is going to happen even more — decentralisation to the states that goes way beyond fiscal devolution. This will completely overhaul the way we have institutionally looked at the delivery of public goods and services and the layer of government at which they are delivered. For various reasons, countervailing citizen pressure has resulted in a demand for better goods and services, often at the local body level.

These supply-side changes require the kind of institutional change that is just beginning.

India‘s Moribund power witnesses sea change after Modi launches major initiatives

 Infrastructure bottleneck is the single most problem that impedes India’s rapid economic growth especially power generation and Prime Minister Narendra Modi government aware of this constraint has given topmost priority to the sector and taken a slew of initiatives starting with clearing the mess created by the previous UPA in coal auction. The coal scam alone has retarded power development in the country by several years. India’s power generation stood at 266 MW and the demand is likely to more than double in the next 4-5 years commensurate with expected 8-9 per cent annual GDP growth. To meet power demand is going to be gigantic task as more power would be required not only for increased industrial and agricultural activity but also the domestic consumption with improving standard of living and growing middle class numbering over 300 million.

            The Government, which is spending $1 trillion in infrastructure development, is expected to spend at least $300 billion in the power sector in the next five years. Funding is not an issue as in the past but skilled manpower could come in the way which is now being tackled adequately by the new government. The Public Private Partnership has however not worked well in the infrastructure sector and it may require some tweaking. It is for this reason the union Budget presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced setting up of five ‘plug and play’ ultra mega power plants to generate 20,000 Mw of thermal power with an investment of around Rs one lakh crore. The first of these five 4000 Mw power plants is to be set up in Odisha followed by another in Tamil Nadu.

            The successful coal auction for re-allocation of some of the 204 coal blocks de-allocated by Supreme Court following Rs 1.86 lakh crore coal scam during UPA government, fetched a whopping Rs two lakh crore to the government kitty and helped kick-starting at least 20,000 Mw of completed thermal power projects stuck for want of coal linkage. This would give immediate relief to power shortage in some parts of the country but lack of grid connectivity may perhaps be an impediment in the short term to transfer this surplus power to deficit states in Southern and Eastern India.

            Apart from the growing need of the industry, the Modi government has embarked upon a massive programme to provide 24 into 7 power across the country by 2019. This meant connecting to the grid 1,25,000 of the six lakh villages in the country. These 1.25 lakh villages have not yet been connected. Providing 24 into 7 power also meant lot of other innovative steps. Conscious of this fact, several landmark decisions have already been taken in thermal power generation, hydel and nuclear power and more importantly in solar, wind and other green energy besides strengthening of transmission and distribution, separation of feeder and metering of power to consumers.

            Special focus has also been given to north east by giving approval to the north eastern power system improvement project and comprehensive scheme for strengthening of transmission and distribution in the north eastern states.

            In the reform and restructuring front, various amendments are being brought in the Electricity Act and Tariff policy. Comprehensive state-specific action plans for 24x7 power to all homes is being prepared in partnership with respective states, encompassing generation, transmission and distribution. The power ministry has already signed a memorandum of understanding with the Andhra Pradesh government under its 'Power for all' initiative that aims to cover the entire state by October 2016. Plans for Delhi & Rajasthan are complete and are being readied for other states. Government was also implementing an ambitious Rs 43,033 crore plan to supply separate electricity through separate feeders for agricultural and rural domestic consumption to ensure round-the-colck power rural households. Also, Rs.32,612 crore  integrated power development initiative has been launched for strengthening sub-transmission and distribution systems. Plan are afoot to reduce transmission losses by 5 per cent, which is significant and it stood at around 27 per cent. A five per cent saving in transmission losses meant that India has additional 15,000 Mw of power without any fresh investment. Creating new power generation capacity of one Mw of power meant and investment ranging from Rs 5-7 crore and 15,000 mw reduction losses meant an additional RS 75,000 to Rs 1.05 lakh crore is available other investments.

            The Modi government has initiated National Smart Grid Mission to make the Indian Power infrastructure cost effective, responsive and reliable. Smart grids use sensors, meters, digital controls and analytic tools to automate, monitor and control the two-way flow of energy across operations—from power plant to plug. A power company can optimize grid performance, prevent outages, restore outages faster and allow consumers to manage energy usage right down to the individual networked appliance.

            Smart grids can also incorporate new renewable energies such as solar and wind power, and interact locally with distributed power sources, or plug-in electric vehicles. This is a very ambitious programme and the 100 smart cities to be set up will also have smart grids resulting in sizeable savings in power.

  

            All central ministries and departments have been asked to replace CFL and Incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs. Finance ministry has issued directives to all departments in this regard.

After the recent devastating Hudhud cyclone in Vizakhapattanam,  Energy Efficiency Services Limited  has replaced 91,000 street lights with LED lights. Chennai and Mumbai municipalities too have started replacing CFL and sodium vapour lamps with LED street lights in certain areas. A city like Chennai can save  up to 20 Mw of power in street lights and Mumbai about 30 Mw. LED conversion is a Rs 75,000 crore industry and it can bring about saving of over 1000 Mw in entire country on street lights alone, which can be powered by solar photovoltaic power as well.

            With Modi government stepping up renewable energy power generation target to one lakh Mw of solar power and 60,000 Mw of wind power by 2022, Rs 10 lakh crore investments are expected to pour in to the renewable energy sector in the next seven years. Apart from efforts to quickly to restart stalled hydel projects, government has stepped up budget allocation for renewable energy by 65.8 per cent and is in the process of coming out with new renewable energy policy for solar and wind power.

            As part of its blueprint for energy security, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government plans to float five funds of $5 billion each, targeted at promoting green energy sources.

            The new and renewable energy (MNRE) ministry plans to get the help of state-owned and private sector financial institutions such as Power Finance Corp. Ltd (PFC), Rural Electrification Corp. Ltd (REC), Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA), IFCI Ltd, SBI Capital Markets Ltd and ICICI Bank Ltd to create a corpus of $25 billion. The government’s renewed focus on green energy comes in the backdrop of the US and China inking a climate change deal wherein the US will reduce its emissions by 26-28% below its 2005 level by 2025 and China will reach the peak of its harmful carbon dioxide emissions in around 2030.

            The new measures announced by the government give top priority for domestic players and the Rs 100,000 crore worth of orders placed in power sector in the recent months by NTPC, Coal India, Energy Efficiency Services, Power Grid Corporation will boost local manufacturing giving boost to make in India campaign of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Also domestic solar and wind large orders have been placed on local manufacturers to make them price competitive by increasing capacity and getting world class technology. Government organizations will buy 1000Mw worth solar projects with special provision so for use of only domestically produced cells and modules. Defence establishments will buy 300 Mw solar plants. Government has also planned to save 10 per cent energy through conservation. As much as 10,000 crore units are to be saved, which can light up 11 crore lives and save Rs 40,000 crore.

            The government’s strategy to focus on renewable also stems from the fact that India has an energy import bill of around $150 billion, which is expected to reach $300 billion by 2030. India imports 80 per cent of its crude oil and 18 per cent of its natural gas requirements. As of April 2014, total thermal installed capacity stood at 168.4 GW, while hydro and renewable energy installed capacity totaled 40.5 GW and 31.7 GW, respectively.  Wind energy market of India is expected to attract about Rs 20,000 crore (US$ 3.16 billion) of investments next year, as companies across sectors plan to add 3,000 MW of capacity powered by wind energy.

            Around 293 global and domestic companies have committed to generate 266 GW of solar, wind, mini-hydel and bio-mass based power in India over the next 5-10 years. The initiative would entail an investment of about US$ 310-350 billion. The industry has attracted FDI worth US$ 9,548.82 million during the period April 2000 to February 2015.

            India’s  natural gas production from hydrocarbon resources is expected to rise 52 per cent in the next three years, outstripping the growth in demand from power and fertilizer firms during the same period, according to the oil ministry. India’s natural gas output is projected to increase to almost 230 million metric standard cubic metres per day (mmscmd) by 2017-18 from the current 138.33 mmscmd as at the end of 2014-15, a growth of 52 per cent. This is against a growth in demand of 27 per cent from the core natural gas consuming sectors—power and fertilizer. This is a welcome development for the energy sector as in the past India had been a laggard in even meeting its natural gas production target with the production at 3.365 billion cubic metres (bcm), down 5% from 3.54 bcm produced in 2013-14 and down 8.1% from the target production of 3.66 bcm. In the last 10 years, while India’s domestic production has grown by 10%, India’s imports of R-LNG has grown by 335% due to a major growth in demand, which has risen by almost 46%, according to PPAC.

The result of these developments would, however. might not be immediate as there will be some lag before these projects go on stream. With investment climate improving, inflation moderating, growth picking up in the face of stable government, the outcome of these initiative will become visible on the ground in the coming months and years.

Setting up of a new Ammonia-Urea Complex at Namrup in Assam on Public Private Partnership (PPP) basis

Setting up of a new Ammonia-Urea Complex at Namrup in Assam on Public Private Partnership (PPP) basis

Financial restructuring of Brahmaputra Valley Fertilizer Corporation Limited

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, today gave its approval for setting up of a new Ammonia-Urea Complex of 8.64 Lakh Metric Tonnes annual capacity with an estimated investment of Rs. 4500 crore at Namrup in Assam on Public Private Partnership (PPP) route by a Joint Venture (JV). In the proposed JV, a PSU of Department of Fertilizers namely Brahmaputra Valley Fertilizer Corporation Limited (BVFCL), Government of Assam and Oil India Limited (another PSU) shall have 11%, 11% and 26% equity holding respectively and balance 52% by private/public sector entity(ies) which would be inducted through a competitive bidding process.

The Cabinet also approved the financial restructuring of BVFCL by waiving off entire cumulative interest (Rs. 774.61 crore as on 31.03.2015) till date accrued on GOI loans & a loan of Rs. 21.96 crore and conversion of GOI loans of Rs. 594.71 crore as interest free loan. It will enable the BVFCL to participate as equity partner in this project and will sustain the operation of the existing plants during the interim period till the new plant comes into operation.

The setting up of a new Ammonia-Urea Complex will meet the growing demand of urea of North-East, Bihar, West Bengal and Jharkhand. It will also ease the pressure on infrastructure due to long distance transportation of Urea from Western and Central Regions and thereby saving in govt. subsidy on freight. It will accelerate the economic development of the region. The proposed plant will open new avenues for the people of the North-East.

The annual consumption of Urea in the country is approx. 310 LMT, out of which 230 LMT is produced indigenously and rest is imported. To enhance the production of urea indigenously, Govt. has earlier approved the revival of Talcher (Odisha) & Ramagundam (Telangna) units of Fertilizer Corporation of India Limited (FCIL) by PSUs through ‘nomination route’ and Barauni unit of Hindustan Fertilizer Corporation Limited (HFCL) & Gorakhpur unit of FCIL through ‘bidding route’. These four units will produce about 52 lakh MT of urea annually.

The new plant will be highly energy efficient unit of international standard with latest technology and with same amount of natural gas available to the existing units, the production of urea from the new unit will be more than double i.e. 3.6 to 8.64 lakh Metric Tonnes annually. With this, India is likely to start export of urea. Govt. would save about Rs. 600 crore annually due to reduction in cost of production and import substitution. The entire production of urea from this unit shall be neem coated so that benefits of neem coating are available to the farmers of the North-Eastern region also