Nearly 13 months ago on June 26, 2014, central government had convened a meeting of all state chief ministers where almost all of them had expressed serious reservations over the “Consent” and “Social Impact Assessment [SIA]” clauses in the Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation & Resettlement [LARR] Act passed in 2013. They felt that these two clauses were major stumbling blocs in the way of acquiring land for development and infrastructure projects and pressed for necessary amendment in LARR [2013]. Modi – government which had taken charge only a month back [having got a resounding mandate to deliver on its development agenda] responded positively. It came up with amendments to exempt 5 critical areas viz., defence, rural infrastructure [including electrification], affordable...
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Category: Governance reforms
Land bill – legal conundrum
Thus far, Congress and other like minded opposition parties have leveraged the vulnerability of ruling BJP in Rajya Sabha [where the latter is in minority] to stall the land bill brought by Modi – government that seeks to amend the Land Acquisition Act [LAA] [2013] by exempting projects in 5 crucial areas of ‘strategic’ importance like defence or critical to development from “Consent” and “Social Impact Assessment [SIA]” clauses. Faced with a stalemate, in a recent meeting of the NITI [National Institution of Transforming India] Aayog Governing Council [GC], chief ministers of the BJP ruled states proposed that the state governments may enact their own legislation suiting their requirements. The central government concurred this being a pragmatic approach as individual...
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PM Jan Dhan Yojna – panacea to end farmer suicide
Close to seven decades since independence, Indian society continues to suffer from the stigma that ‘farmers feed the whole country but are unable to feed themselves’. The proof of pudding is in eating as thousands of them are forced to commit suicide every year. During the last one-and-a-half decade or so, about 300,000 farmers have committed suicide and the numbers continues to increase unabated. Invariably, analysts attribute this to their inability to generate adequate income [on an average, a farmer earns just about Rs 5000-6000 per month from cultivating land] because of generally low crop yield on one hand and un-remunerative price for agricultural produce on the other. When, viewed in the backdrop of government giving huge subsidies on inputs...
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Unburden judiciary, boost revenue
Time and again, top brass in the government has lamented at the woefully inadequate infrastructure at all layers in the judicial hierarchy vis-a-vis the ‘mindboggling’ number of pending cases [and still ever increasing]. Accordingly, the ministry of law justice and company affairs has asked the Supreme Court [SC] and all High Courts to fill existing vacant positions besides increasing the bench strength to fill the void. But, has the government ever bothered to examine as to why the cases have proliferated? In how many cases, the state or any of its organizations are involved? Could the authorities have prevented cases from moving to court? Is a maze of ambiguous laws and rules/regulations alone responsible for this? Or is there something...
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Development on ‘leased’ land – a dangerous idea
Even while the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act [LAA] brought by the then UPA – government in 2013 were being debated, some sections including chief ministers from Congress ruled states had expressed serious concerns over its efficacy in ensuring smooth acquisition of land. After the Act came in to force from January 1, 2014, those apprehensions came true as during the 18 months since then, only a few hundred acres of land has been acquired. Meanwhile, in a meeting convened by Nitin Gadkari [then in charge of rural development ministry] on June 26, 2014, majority of the states and union territories including from Congress ruled states viz., Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Haryana had pressed for deletion of the “consent”...
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Illicit funds in foreign accounts – noose tightened
Not long ago, Indian residents fancied the idea of opening a foreign bank account [FBA] in the so called tax haven jurisdictions viz., Switzerland, Cayman Islands, Lichtenstein, British Virgin Islands et al. An FBA offered a convenient opportunity to the tax evader transfer his illicit wealth and income generated in India. It was considered to be a status symbol too. During the last 10 years, such accounts and the money lying therein proliferated as on one hand, the policy and regulatory environment here in India enabled generation of illicit wealth at a rapid pace [shall we say,‘push’] and on the other, the ‘secrecy laws’ in aforementioned jurisdictions provided a shield – or shall we say a China wall that no...
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Indian economy – poised for robust growth in 2015-16
During the first year of its tenure, Modi – government focused on filling the pot holes in a dilapidated economy left over by a decade of mis-governance and policy paralysis under erstwhile UPA – regime. More importantly, it laid the foundation for putting India on an accelerated growth trajectory. For details, pl read:- Modi delivers ‘scam-free’ India Continuing its relentless drive to take things forward in every area [not letting even minute things go off the hook and ensuring full synergy with macro thrust on ‘development’ and ‘good governance’], Team Modi has kept up the momentum during the current fiscal. One clearly sees some green shoots particularly in critical areas like core industries, public investment and fiscal deficit [all 3...
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Repo rate cut – transmission can’t be automatic
Last year 2014, RBI governor Raghuram Rajan had conducted 6 monetary policy reviews and each time refrained from any reduction in the repo rate [commonly termed as the policy rate] – interest rate at which the apex bank lends money to commercial banks. Each time, governor argued that the underlying fundamentals primarily retail inflation [represented by consumer price index (CPI)] were not such as would warrant reduction. Pertinently, even in December, 2014 review when CPI was at a low of 4.3% in previous month or almost half of the 8% target set by RBI for January, 2015, he did not budge. In 2015 however, Rajan has given up his stubborn stance having reduced the repo rate three times by 0.25%...
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Corruption – Modi catches bull by horn
In his recent international visits, prime minister, Modi in his characteristics style observed that “he wants the country to be recognized as ‘Skill India’ in sharp contrast to the tag of ‘Scam India’ a dubious distinction it earned during a decade of erstwhile UPA – dispensation. The grand old party has taken strong objection to the observation which its senior leaders allege is tantamount to diplomatic misdemeanour and sullies India’s reputation in the comity of nations. This exposes its perverted mindset that perceives mere mention of scams as disturbing but not their actual happening [which is a hard fact, even the Supreme Court had given orders and sent ministers to jail]. Having presided over a plethora of scams, it is...
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Indian economy on ‘fast track’ – jobs will follow
In an open letter addressed to Prime Minister, Mr P Chidambaram, former finance minister in the erstwhile UPA government has taken pot shots at Modiji for his ‘alleged’ failure to create jobs. He laments that during 2014-15, jobs were generated at a measly rate of 100,000 per quarter which works out to 400,000 in the whole year. Mr Chidambaram’s observation is reminiscent of a phrase coined by ex-Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh “money does not grow on tree”. Dr Singh was alluding to efforts-led creation of wealth even as right under his nose, people witnessed a contrasting spectre of huge amount of national wealth being plundered and given to close contacts/favourites of political bosses in the grand old party. However,...
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