News Gist:28th Oct

Governance and vulnerable group:

Scrap quota in higher education institutions: SC

SC held that national interest requires that all forms of reservation in higher education institutions should be done away and asked the Centre to take effective steps “objectively”.
Regretting that some “privileges remains unchanged” even after so many years of independence, SC recommended priority should be given to merit over quota in super-speciality courses.

Govt. sought review of judgement banning photographs in ads:

Centre sought review of judgment and asked to include CM and Governors photo in ads as it was contrary to the federal structure of governance envisioned in constitution.
Earlier SC in May,2015 judgement ruled that publication of photographs of politician(including CM) in govt. ads defeat the public interest and encourage “personality cults”.

Women group seek special policy for single women :

Women groups are demanding special policy from govt. specially focussing on welfare of single women(as many lacking land rights, deprivation in farming,housing etc).
According to census 2011 single women-which includes widowed, divorced ,separated ,older unmarried women-comprise 8.6 percent of total female population of India.

Nobel laureate calls for fighting apathy and fear:

Need of fighting against growing intolerance,apathy,fear to realise the dream of safe environment for children.

Disturbing facts:

Almost 41% of country’s population comprises persons below 18 years of age but the budgetary expenditure is abysmal 4%.
According to National Crime Records Bureau 8900 cases were registered under POCSO Act,but only 1% of them resulted in conviction.
Today children are the worst victims of ills,ranging from servitude, polity, violence ,social discrimination.

ITBP(Indo-Tibetan Border Police) also inducted women in combat roles(women empowerment and gender equity)

ITBP has decided to deploy women personnel at its high altitude posts along Indo-China border.
This is for the first time women personnel are deploying in full combat role alone the border.

International Relations:

Indo-Africa Forum Summit:

Major demands by African counterpart:

Cooperation in counter terrorism(especially fighting against Boko Haram which has spread in Nigeria and several neighbouring countries).
Asked for help in infrastructure development( reconstruct of an island destroyed in volcanic eruption and construction of hospitals).
Cooperation in cattle management(As India hosts millions of cattles)

India’s agenda:India apart from improving bilateral relations will raised agenda for permanent seat in UNSC.

Nuclear Pact and CECA with India to be ready soon:

According to Australian minister Civil nuclear agreement (which will allow Australia to supply Uranium to India) will be ratify soon by Parliament. Australia has third largest recoverable uranium deposit in the world.
Apart from it CECA(Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement) which will focus on service and investment will be ready soon.

Economy:

India improved its “ease of doing business” ranking:

According to World Bank Doing Business report, India improved its position from last year(134) to 130 this year.
WB Doing Business report (started in 2002) review business regulations and their enforcement across 189 countries.

Panel has been set up to simplify Income Tax Act,1961:

In a bid to improve ease of doing business govt has set up a panel to be chaired by Justice R.V Easwar to review the Income Tax Act.
Committee’s objective is to study and identify the ambiguous provisions which often led to litigation.
Moreover it also tasked to suggest provisions to bring about predictability and certainty in tax laws.

Govt. launched a pilot project “e-Sahyog”:

It is an online portal set up by Income tax department to to help taxpayers to resolve nay mismatches any returns w/o visiting the offices.
It will provide e-service through SMS,emails to inform taxpayers about mismatch.

xamIAS