Cong eyes entry in Modi turf as BJP infighting intensifies

Sanjay Pandey Lucknow, Feb 1, 2017, DHNS

As the infighting within the BJP over distribution of tickets in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency of Varanasi intensified further, the Congress is apparently sniffing an opportunity. The grand old party held hectic parleys with the Samajwadi Party (SP), its alliance partner, for contesting the three Assembly seats in the constituency.

According to sources in the Congress here, the party could be given the North, South and Cantonment seats in the city. Local leaders of the Congress and SP held parleys to identify the seats. Congress leaders here said that there was large-scale resentment within the local BJP unit and the party stood a “fair chance” on these seats.

“A good performance in the city will be a big morale booster for the workers and will put BJP under pressure in 2019 Lok Sabha polls,” said a senior Congress leader here. Apparently anticipating the Congress’ strategy, the BJP on Tuesday rushed two central ministers, Manoj Sinha and Mahendra Nath Pandey, to resolve the differences. 

Shivpal to form new party after election

Lucknow, Feb 1, 2017, DHNS

Former state unit president of the Samajwadi Party Shivpal Singh Yadav on Tuesday declared that he would form a new party after poll results on March 11. Emboldened by SP patron Mulayam Singh Yadav’s call to the party ‘rebels’ to contest against the SP’s alliance partner Congress’ nominees, Shivpal said that Mulayam would also be part of the new party.

“You (Akhilesh) form the government...I will form a new party,” Shivpal announced while addressing his supporters after filing his nomination papers from Jaswant Nagar Assembly seat in Etawah district. “You (Akhilesh) did me a great favour by giving me the party ticket...otherwise I would have contested as an independent,” he said with sarcasm.

“Netaji (Mulayam) will also be with us after March 11...he has been humiliated by those who owe their rise in politics to him,” Shivpal said, apparently referring to Akhilesh and his other uncle Ram Gopal Yadav. He said that he had told Akhilesh to let Mulayam remain the SP national chief. “I had asked him not to oust Netaji, but he did not listen to me,” he said.

Shivpal said that the alliance would only benefit the Congress. “Congress could not have won more than four seats on its own...the alliance will weaken the SP and make Congress stronger,” he added. He also said that he would campaign for the SP rebels, if they jumped into the fray against the official nominees. A large number of Shivpal and Mulayam supporters had been denied nomination by Akhilesh. 

'Women, children at receiving end of poor healthcare system'

New Delhi: Feb 1, 2017, DHNS

Women and children continue to bear the brunt of India’s poor healthcare delivery system, the 2016-17 Economic Survey has reaffirmed. While reviewing three health indicators, the Survey found that most states performed poorly on the infant mortality rate (IMR) reduction when compared with international standards. But that was not the case in other two health indicators – life expectancy and fertility.
“Children and women perhaps bear the burden of deficient systems of health delivery. The IMR has scope for improvement in most of the states. Also this is consistent with last year’s Survey findings,” the new report said. This suggests that the steps taken to improve women and child healthcare schemes by the Union health ministry have failed to meet the target audience in the last 12 months.

“With regards to life expectancy, the Indian states are close to where they should be, given their level of income. However, this is not true of IMR, suggesting that the ‘mother and child’ bear the brunt of weaker delivery of health services,” it said.

Decline in fertility rate
“What really stands out in the international comparison is fertility and how much better the Indian states are performing than their international counterparts on that metric. This unusual large decline in fertility has strong and positive implications for India’s demographic dividend going forward,” it added.

The findings come days after some of the world’s top policy makers wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing their concerns over the government’s failure to implement universal health coverage.

“India has made good progress in improving some health indicators in recent years, particularly concerning infectious diseases, but that many of its people still lack effective health coverage,” wrote the Elders, which include Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the United Nations, and Gro Harlem Brundtland, former director general of the World Health Organisation.

'Introduce biometric system in primary schools to check teachers' absenteeism'

NEW DELHI, Feb 1, 2017, DHNS

Survey says local communities should monitor attendance

The Economic Survey has suggested introduction of biometric attendance system for teachers in all primary schools. The Survey has identified ‘teacher absenteeism’ as one of the main causes behind the fall in the learning outcome of students. The Survey report, tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday, recommended that electronic record of the arrival and departure of the primary school teachers be maintained for each scheduled class, lecture or session.

“A pilot project in one district of every state may be commenced for six months to be extended to all districts in three years,” the Economic Survey 2016-17 added. The recommendation of the Survey assumes significance as the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry is working on laying down certain parameters to evaluate the performance of the school- teachers. Students’ feedback will be one of the key indicators for evaluation of teachers’ performance, HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar recently said while addressing an event here.

“While there has been improvement in access and retention, the learning outcome for a majority of children is still a cause of serious concern. Some of the underlying causes contributing to low quality of education in the primary sector are teacher absenteeism and the shortage of professionally qualified teachers,” the Economic Survey underlined.

Though the share of teacher component in total Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) budget has been increasing over the years from 35% in 2011-12 to 59% in 2014-15, teacher absenteeism and the shortage of professionally qualified teachers “remain an issue to be addressed,” it added.

“An option to address teacher absenteeism that can be explored is biometric attendance of all teachers in primary schools for each scheduled class/lecture/session/ distinct from the present system, where it is morning and evening to ostensibly record arrival and departures with little control on activities during the working hours,” the Survey suggested.

The biometric attendance should be regularly monitored by the local communities and parents, it said. “It should also be put in public domain,” it added. The introduction of the biometric attendance system should be backed by “adequate teaching aids, recorded lectures, etc. to fill in for absentee teachers,” the Survey suggested.

“The scope of implementation should leave room for flexibility at the local level so the same does not end up as top driven Model Schools. The pilot of biometric attendance of teachers should be accompanied with an evaluation of learning outcomes,” it added.

Note ban curbed many ills: Survey

NEW DELHI, Feb 1, 2017, DHNS

'Long-term benefits will follow short-term pain'

Stressing that demonetisation was aimed at signalling a regime change, the Economic Survey 2016-17 on Tuesday said the note ban was instrumental in curbing many ills, including real estate prices. Demonetisation can have profound impact on the real estate sector. In the past, much of the black money accumulated was ultimately used to evade taxes on property sales, the Survey said.

While the Survey did not rule out short-term pain due to demonetisation, it said long-term benefits were immense. “These may not necessarily manifest in the next six months but evidence should start trickling in over a one-year horizon and beyond. And it is not difficult to identify the future markers of success,” the Survey said.

It brought out changes in the use of digital payment methods across the three categories of digital access identified earlier, namely smart phone users, regular phone users and the phoneless. The second advantage of demonetisation would be a decline in the cash to GDP ratio as more saving is channelled through the formal financial system and black money eradicated. On one estimate of black money, the cash-GDP ratio could decline permanently by about 2 percentage points, it said.

Increase in taxpayers
“Perhaps the most important marker of success will be taxes. The number of new income taxpayers as well as the magnitude of reported and taxable income should go up over time,” the Survey said. The Survey, however, cautioned that the transition to digitisation must be gradual and take full account of the digitally deprived.

The Survey also emphasised that success of digitisation would depend considerably on inter-operability of the payments system, and advised banks to facilitate and “not thwart” inter-operability.

Demonetisation effect may linger on agri-commodities

New Delhi, Feb 1, 2017, DHNS:

Sounding a word of caution, the Economic Survey has said the effects of demonetisation could linger on supplies of agricultural commodities such as milk, sugar, potatoes and onions. Vigilance is essential to prevent other agricultural products becoming in 2017-18 what pulses were in 2015-16, according to the Economic Survey 2016-17 tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
It said milk procurement had been low due to currency shortage and sugar supplies could be hit as drought in southern states would restrict production of cane. It pointed out that sowing for onions and potatoes had been low which could affect their supplies. The Survey, however, pegged agricultural growth at 4.1% – the same as the Central Statistical Organisation estimated – on the back of a good monsoon after two successive drought years. Last year, the farm sector grew at a dismal 1.2%.

At 84%, the farm credit growth has been impressive when compared with 59% achieved by September 2015. The credit target for 2016-17 was fixed at Rs 9 lakh crore as against Rs 8.5 lakh crore set for 2015-16, it said. It pointed out the challenges facing the sector like regulation on farm trade, issues related to IPR in seeds and frequent recourse to stock limits among others creating “uncertainty” for farmers.

Congress slams President's speech

New Delhi: Feb 1, 2017, DHNS

The Congress on Tuesday slammed the Modi government for failing to deliver on promises of economic growth and job creation. The Congress also dubbed President Pranab Mukherjee’s address to Parliament “verbose” with the Modi government “filling it with every possible word available in the dictionary to project a pro-poor” image.
“The government has not spared any word in the dictionary – Dalits, exploited, suffering, deprived, farmers, soldiers, youth have been used in the President’s address,” Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress leader in the Lok Sabha, said at a press conference here.

Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad said under the Modi government, the election slogan ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ has turned hollow. Modi’s actions have led to ‘RSS ka Saath, BJP ka Vikas’, Azad said.

Azad made it clear that there was nothing wrong in criticising the President’s address as it is written by the government. “When we criticise it, we are not criticising the President, but finding fault with the government,” he said.

In a separate statement, Congress chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala said the Economic Survey made it clear that the Indian economy was in the “doldrums” and on a “downword trajectory” on account of mismanagement by the Modi government.

“Lack of financial acumen and understanding of Indian economy’s strength and fault lines by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his team have led to the sorry state reflected in the Economic Survey of falling exports, vanishing jobs, reduction in credit growth, depleting capital formation and massive downslide in demands and corporate sales,” Surjewala said.