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Narendra Modi led government on Tuesday eased FDI norms in 15 major sectors, including mining, defence, construction, real estate, civil aviation, broadcasting and LLPs to boost growth and drum up investment. It also raised FIPB approval limit to Rs 5,000 crore from Rs 3,000 crore. “The crux of these reforms is to further ease, rationalise and simplify the process of foreign investments into the country and to put more and more FDI proposals on automatic route instead of government route where time and energy of the investors are wasted,” the government said. While 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) has been allowed in DTH, cable network and plantation crop, overseas investment limit in uplinking of news and current affairs TV channels has been raised to 49 per cent from 26 per cent. The government relaxed conditions for FDI in single-brand retail and allowed 100 per cent FDI under automatic route in duty-free shops and Limited Liability Partnerships (LLP) an...

The right to just be such as to enjoy a public space without being asked questions or harassed is denied to the majority of women. Why? With her shock of flaming red hair, you cannot miss Mona Eltahawy. This gutsy young Egyptian journalist, author and feminist, was by far the most striking presence at the recent Tata Literature Live in Mumbai. But more than her appearance, it’s what she said that struck a chord. As a journalist and an activist demanding democracy and freedom, Mona was one of the thousands who flocked to Cairo’s Tahrir Square in 2011 in what came to be known as the Arab Spring. But the promise of freedom was never realised. Worse, as Mona said, “During the revolution in Egypt, men and women came and fought together. But once it was over, women went back to being oppressed.” Kalpana Sharma Mona was one of several women at the receiving end of physical and sexual assault at the hands of the police. But what disappointed her more was the attitude of some of th...

Women plus maths plus what Chanda Kochhar’s saying about MBA entrance exams Chanda Kochhar walked into the eye of a storm when, at a CII summit on human resources, she said, “The MBA entrance exams are so quantitative-oriented that it keeps out more and more women from joining the MBA classes. If we were to make the entrance exams more all-rounded, you could see more participation.” This is the era of outrage and within minutes of this report, predictably, most champions of gender equality were outraged. Some women dusted off twenty 20-year-old report cards and pointed to their near perfect score in mathematics, while others snorted at Kochhar’s suggestion and advised that deeply ingrained sexism that discourages ambition, assertiveness and self-worth are the reasons for the lack of women in business schools. Both of these arguments are correct — there are women who consistently ace mathematics, and there certainly exists sexism that discourages ambition in girls — yet th...

  Political pundits are of the view that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat’s views on reservations — that they should be ‘reviewed’ — played a role in the BJP’s loss in Bihar. To be fair to Bhagwat, he has a point, except that he is the wrong person to talk about the subject. The RSS lacks the credentials — with its upper caste leadership and sensibility — to openly discuss social justice in contemporary India. However, the question of whether reservations, in jobs, higher education and legislatures, should be fine-tuned in keeping with changing socio-economic realities has been raised earlier. For instance, a paper,  Redesigning Affirmative Action  by Yogendra Yadav and Satish Deshpande ( Economic and Political Weekly , June 17, 2006) argues for a nuanced, multiple-indicator-based approach to deprivation in the case of ‘other backward classes’. While OBCs as a whole are a disadvantaged category, they are also a heterogeneous lot, with divergences betw...

Officials brace for protests over Gujarat riots Prime Minister Narendra Modi will arrive in London on Thursday for a three-day visit, focused on defence and strategic ties between India and the U.K. as well as economic relations. Deals worth a reported $18 billion are expected to be signed during the visit. The highlight of the visit, however, is expected to be the address to Indians and NRIs at London’s Wembley stadium, with over 60,000 expected to attend. Significantly, Mr. Modi will be introduced at Wembley by U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron who will also accompany him through most of the visit, Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar said. Mr. Modi’s visit to the U.K. comes days after the Bharatiya Janata Party’s crushing defeat in the Bihar elections. But the government on Tuesday announced 15 key reforms in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). “While a big win in Bihar before the Wembley event would have been amazing, there is no doubt the PM’s address will enthuse his supp...

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would be visiting India “soon.” Mr. Netanyahu will be the second Israel PM to visit India. In 2003, the then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had travelled to India and it took 12 years before India reciprocated in the form of President Pranab Mukherjee’s visit to Israel last month. Mr. Mukherjee had invited Mr. Netanyahu to India. Mr. Netanyahu’s reference to visiting India came while answering a question about his vision for Israel at the Center for American Progress on Tuesday. “There are three things other countries want from Israel…..first, Israeli technology, second, Israeli technology and third, Israeli technology. Whether it is India, which I will be soon going to visit, or any other country,” he said, adding that his plan was to make Israel into a technological powerhouse. India-Israeli relations have turned more intense and demonstrative ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in May 2014. Mr. Modi plans to vis...

Go as far as you can see, and when you get there, you’ll see farther, goes a saying attributed to Thomas Carlyle. The Supreme Court has gone as far as invalidating an attempt to provide a legislated  alternative to its own collegium system  of judicial appointments. After restoring the judge-made system, it has to necessarily see farther and come up with improvements that will enhance transparency in appointments and provide reasonable eligibility criteria for prospective judges. Having both struck down the Constitution amendment to set up a National Judicial Appointments Commission and admitted to serious shortcomings in the system it has been implementing for over two decades, the court has to take the next logical step of reforming the existing mechanism. It has embarked on a unique process to involve the entire society in the exercise by inviting suggestions from the public. For the first time, the average citizen will be involved in a process hitherto seen as arcane and...

Telecom satellite GSAT-15 launched The 3,164-kg spacecraft will replace the ageing Insat-3A and 4B spacecraft that are in the same orbital slot when they expire.  GSAT-15, the nation's newest communications satellite, was launched in the wee hours of Wednesday from Kourou in French Guiana in South America. The 3,164-kg spacecraft will replace the ageing Insat-3A and 4B spacecraft that are in the same orbital slot when they expire. Its 24 transponders in the Ku-band will mainly cater to public and private direct-to-home broadcasters besides VSAT operators. (A majority of private operators use capacity leased on foreign spacecraft). GSAT-15's lone GPS-augmentation or GAGAN transponder in the L1 and L5 bands will ensure back up for GPS-based satellite navigation across the region. The Indian Space Research organisation said GSAT-15 was put into space at 3.04 a.m. IST by the European launch vehicle Ariane VA-227; it had Arabsat-6B as a co-passenger. The initial e...

The clear mandate for the Grand Alliance of the Janata Dal (United), the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress in Bihar is not only a vote for social welfare and economic development, but also a vote against all forms of divisive politics of communal hate and religious intolerance. Between the  Lok Sabha election of 2014  and this year’s Assembly election, politics in Bihar saw unprecedented churning, bringing together parties of different ideologies and social bases in the face of a rising tide of aggressive majoritarianism stirred up by the Bharatiya Janata Party. Indeed, for the BJP, its very success in last year’s Lok Sabha election in Bihar proved to be its undoing. As fringe elements allied to the party and within the Sangh Parivar misinterpreted the 2014 verdict as public endorsement of their hidden agenda, opposition parties realised that they stood no chance if they did not jointly resist this common threat. As a matter of fact, the seeds of the BJP’s defeat in Bi...

One Rank One Pension (OROP) has been the subject of debate over the last few months with accompanying media glare highlighting the struggle of veterans. OROP is symptomatic of perceived denial of justice after drop in pension percentages from 70 to 50 per cent for soldiers (term includes servicemen from all services), and a corresponding increase for civilian government employees from 30 to 50 per cent. The anomaly of ‘soldiers holding same rank not getting same pension, regardless of the last pay drawn, years of service and years served in a particular rank’, though unacceptable, has been a reality for the last 42 years. The inadequacy of the pension to meet the basic needs of soldiers and their family, as soldiers are denied the benefit of serving till 60 years of age, combined with lack of alternate career options after retirement, compounds the problem. Favourable OROP (whenever implemented) notwithstanding, transition to a suitable second career is soldiers’ primary concern, mer...

  In line with the Modi government’s Digital India initiative, Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry today launched a number of mobile apps and web-based platforms allowing students to access study material online, and parents to keep a track of the performance and attendance of their children. Elaborating about the initiatives, HRD minister Smriti Irani said through mobile apps and website ‘E-pathshala’ students, parents and teachers can access study material online. Another initiative for CBSE schools ‘Saransh’, which was launched at an event at Vigyan Bhawan here, will help parents to compare subject-wise learning outcome of their children, with others at district, state and national levels. “We are trying to leverage technology not only to bring more transparency in school education system but also to create new learning opportunities for the children,” Irani told reporters while speaking about the initiatives. She said her ministry, along with some state govern...

Dreaded till recently by everyone, the Income Tax Department officials now appear to be heading towards a strict discipline in their operation under a constant watch of Prime Minister  Narendra Modi . Though it has been apparent in the last few months that the Income-Tax Department has been taking steps which indicated that the days of high-handedness in picking up cases and assessment orders which were unlikely to stand the legal scrutiny may soon be a thing of the past, the whole exercise nevertheless appeared to be a part of the reform exercise of the Central Board of Direct Taxes. But, it is clear now, who is the driving force here. Inaugurating the Delhi Economics Conclave, organized by the finance ministry, PM Modi said: “I have asked the Income-Tax Department to move to a system where not only returns but also scrutiny is done without having to go to the office. Queries could be raised and answered online or by email. There should be a visible electronic trail of wha...

For a scheme meant to be used by the poorest of the poor in their leanest times, it is unconscionable that the government owes Rs.3,200 crore to beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). Yet that is exactly where matters have reached with the ten-year-old scheme,  a fact the Supreme Court took notice of earlier this week.  The scheme was launched by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in its first term and delays in wage payments preceded the change in government, but matters have come to a head over the last year, resulting in a decline in the number of people participating. The number of households that got the legally guaranteed 100 days of work fell from 51.73 lakh in 2012-13 to 46.73 lakh in 2013-14 (under the UPA), and then dipped sharply to 23.24 lakh in 2014-15 (under the NDA). Funds sanctioned for the scheme show a similar steep decline under the NDA government, from Rs.27,484 crore in 2013-14 to Rs.17,074...

A new era in monetary policy formulation is set to start with the Union Finance Ministry releasing the revised draft of the Indian Financial Code (IFC). It provides for the setting up of a Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to debate on monetary affairs and decide the policy rate. This move is in line with practices in many of the developing countries where the central banks have pursued the committee approach to address monetary policy issues. Currently, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the monetary policy regulator, goes by the views of a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) on such issues. The TAC comprises officials from the RBI besides a few external experts. It advises the central banker on the monetary policy stance based on macro-economic and monetary developments. However, the RBI Governor has the last word, and the right to veto any decision of the TAC. The draft IFC, submitted by the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC) headed by former Supreme Court judge B....

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