Jul 09 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

India's green cover grows 5,871 sq km in 2 yrs

New Delhi:





India recorded an increase of 5,871 sq km in its forest cover in the past two years with West Bengal contributing over 60% of the total rise in green area.Odisha, Kerala, Jharkhand and Bihar were some of the other states which contributed to this marginal increase. Hilly and tribal districts of the country registered an increase in forest cover of 40 sq km and 2,396 sq km, respectively .
The northeastern states, which account for one-fourth of the country's forest cover, recorded a net decline of 627 sq km in 2013 compared to the assessment of green cover in 2011. Among bigger states, Andhra Pradesh lost the maximum 273 sq km of forest cover whereas Madhya Pradesh lost 178 sq km of green patch in two years.
These facts emerged out of the latest `India State of Forest Report' (ISFR), which was released on Tuesday by environment and forests minister Prakash Javadekar.
Though India continues to be far behind its target of having 33% of its geographical area under forest, the marginal increase is a positive sign.
Javadekar said, “Decline of forest cover in our northeastern states is, however, a matter of concern. We should not allow this to happen.“
Assuring that his government would work hard to further increase the forest cover, he said, “We will make it a mass movement where people would come forward to not only protect the existing green cover but also plant more and more trees across the country .“
While there is an increase in total forest cover in the country, there is a decrease in the `growing stock' both inside and outside forest area.
This along with decline in forest cover in northeastern states is also a matter of concern.
The report said even in the `moderately dense' forest section, the net change in forest cover between 2011 and 2013 assessments shows a decline 0.62%.
Forest Survey of India (kFSI) has been assessing the forest and tree resources of the country on a biennial basis since 1987.
The results of the assessment are published in its ISFR. Although survey is primarily based on satellite data and its authenticity is widely debated, the FSI director general Anmol Kumar on Tuesday claimed, “The satellite interpretation is followed by extensive and rigorous ground truthing“.
For the full report, log on to http://www.timesofindia.com

Jul 09 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

After 50 yrs, Raju no more a slave

Ishita.Mishra@timesgroup.com

Agra:





An elephant that had been chained throughout its 50-year life and subjected to severe abuse was recently rescued from Farah in UP recently. Raju is now at the Elephant Care and Conservation Centre here run by NGO Wildlife SOS in collaboration with the state forest department. The NGO was also instrumental in rescuing the tusker.The forest department seized the elephant, a male, after its ‘owner’ was found not to have documents for its possession. The entire process took nearly an year.
Raju was used for begging, joy rides and to perform tricks. Veterinarians attending to it said it had been poked with spikes and had wounds in several parts of its body. It had even been fed paper and plastic. Raju’s taste buds have been damaged and it cannot taste food, the vets said. Its digestive system will take a long
time to recover.“It will be long before the elephant’s health is restored. The next six months could prove especially challenging,” one of the vets, Yaduraj Khadpekar, said.
Although friendly to animals, it remains deeply suspicious of human beings, Khadpekar said. The team that rescued Raju claimed that it had tears streaming down its eyes as the chains were removed.
Members of the NGO said it was probably taken from a forest as a calf and then sold several times.

Jul 09 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

`Mind-boggling' number of NGOs in India: CBI

New Delhi: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





The CBI on Tuesday informed the Supreme Court that the country has a ‘mind-boggling’ number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and counting them has become a difficult task as most do not file fund audit reports with authorities.Appearing for the CBI, additional solicitor general L N Rao told a bench of Justices H L Dattu, R K Agrawal and Arun Kumar Mishra that in West Bengal, there were around 2,34,000 NGOs but only 16,000, that is about 8%, had filed their audited reports on receipt of grants and expenditure.
The court had in September last year entrusted the CBI with the gigantic task of compiling information about all registered NGOs in the country, their funding and audit reports after advocate M L Sharma filed a PIL alleging irregularities in an NGO linked to social activist Anna Hazare.The CBI, through senior advocate K Radhakrishnan, told the court that ‘the infor
mation received so far from the states ran into lakhs of pages and the work involved is extremely voluminous’.The CBI said ‘no information has so far been received from Gujarat and Tamil Nadu in spite of reminders’.
The bench asked, “Has the CBI done anything about the NGOs which have been identified and data about whom have been compiled?” It said the CBI must find out how many of the NGOs have submitted audit report of their expenses. Rao sought three more months to complete the exercise. The bench agreed and asked the agency to compile the information sought by the court and file a report in three months.

Jul 08 2014 : Mirror (Pune)

Heath schemes fail to take off : TISS

Pune Mirror Bureau punemirror.feedback@gmail.com TWEET @ThePuneMirror





Barely 30 per cent of the population in 22 districts of Maharashtra studied by Tata Institute of Social Studies (TISS) is aware of the health insurance and benefit schemes — Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) and Rajeev Gandhi Jeevandayi Arogya Yojana.The TISS scholars covered 6,000 households and interviewed as many as 30,000 people as part of their study and came up with this revelation. If this was not dismal enough, the study found that the penetration of the smart cards, required to avail of these schemes, was only 11 per cent of the eligible population and of these too only 1.5 per cent had actually availed of the schemes using the card.
“This reflects a bad performance by RSBY launched in 2008 and the failure can be directly attributed to the insurance companies not doing their bit in making the people aware of the empanelled hospitals. The registration of beneficiaries was naturally minimal,” pointed out Dr Abhijit More, state co-convenor of Jan Aarogya Abhiyan (JAA), a network of healthrelated NGOs.
Reacting to the study, he added JAA will approach the government to fix onus of this failure on the insurance companies and have them fired from the schemes. “By now, the implementation of the schemes should have been 100 per cent. There should be proper monitoring and grievance cell too. The insurance companies should be ousted and autonomous public bodies should take over the management of these schemes,” More said.

Jul 08 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

Social Media to Guide Govt's Policy Matters

NEW DELHI OUR POLITICAL BUREAU





If you are the world's third most followed leader on Twitter, and have 18.8 million `likes' on Facebook, the t internet not only has to be the centre of your governance model, but it also has to be the key means to interact with the public, listen to their views and, wherever possible, redress their grievances too. This is what Prime Minister Narendra Modi is keen on doing now. People interested in sending their grievances, feedback and messages to Modi will soon have a dedicated forum to do so.
The BJP's IT cell is in the process of creating at least two dedicated ids for people to send in suggestions to the Prime Minister's Office.Considered part of the Prime Minister's `Social Media in Nation Building,' the IDs will have a dedicated team monitoring the letters which will be forwarded to he PMO once in 15 days.
“We want to leverage the power of social media for healthy interaction be ween the government and people. We are in the process of setting up a strong server for the systems to start receiving emails,“ said Vinit Goenka, National Co-Convener, BJP IT Cell.Depending on the nature of he letters, they will be forwarded to the respective cell n the PMO and acknowledged with replies, Goenka added. The mails could range from feedback to schemes to major grievance against policy decisions.
Goenka said the grievance redress system was not con ined to emails alone. “All BJP offices have been asked o get a grievance cell up and running, and collect letters of feedback and complaints rom people and send it to us. We can forward them to he PMO,“ Goenka said.

Jul 08 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

66,000 RTI complaints pending in 6 info panels

Anahita Mukherji





The aam aadmi’s favourite law, the Right to Information Act, turns nine this year.Information commissions were set up to decide on complaints and appeals filed by people against government authorities for blocking access to information. How have they performed? At present, over 66,000 complaints and appeals are pending at six information commissions.
Maharashtra tops the list with 34,158, followed by the Central Information Commission (CIC; Delhi). Kerala, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Jammu & Kashmir are next. The states are the only ones to provide pendency figures besides Sikkim and Tripura, which showed no pendency.
The findings are by the nonprofit Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI). The data raises questions about the composition of the commissions.
While much has been said about the need for more women in parliament, their representation
in the commissions is abysmal.Goa is the only state whose commission is headed by a woman.
A woman information commissioner in Tripura is serving as the acting chief information commissioner. Only 11 of 93 information commissioners in India were women as of May 2014.
Ironically, there are transparency issues as well. A former direc
tor of the Intelligence Bureau now heads the CIC, the country's apex decision making body on RTI appeals. IB is one of the few organizations exempt from providing information under RTI, except in cases of corruption and human rights violation.“The problem with a former IB director heading the CIC is that such an individual has no experience of embedding transparency in administration. The RTI is pathbreaking because it aims to replace a regime of secrecy with one of transparency . But IB has deliberately been kept out of RTI purview.
Will a person with a background in IB be adequately able to champion transparency?“ asks RTI activist Venkatesh Nayak, who headed CHRI research on information commissions. That the vast majority of information commissioners are retired civil servants raises fears of the information commissions turning into a geriatric bureaucratic ward; 69% of CICs are retired IAS officers.
For the full report, log on to http://www.timesofindia.com 14% VACANT POSTS Maharashtra tops the list of pending complaints/ appeal with 34,158 90% of information commissions continue to be headed by retired civil servants, Jharkhand being the lone exception, whose commission is headed by a retired HC judge Goa is the only state with a woman chief information commissioner 14% of posts of info comissioners lying vacant

Jul 08 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Factories Act revamp may signal labour law reforms

New Delhi: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





Markets Surge Ahead Of Budget As Govt Gets Cracking On Economy

Just days before the 2014-15 Union Budget, the Centre on Monday said it planned to amend the archaic Factories Act, 1948 -the first move in more than a decade to revamp labour laws. Most governments have avoided labour reforms for fear of a backlash from the politically powerful labour lobby .Firms have cited obsolete labour laws as a key hurdle to doing business; the government's move is expected to send out a positive signal as it gets down to the business of attracting investment. It also sits well with its pledge to ease the processes of doing business and make India an attractive destination, revive manufacturing and create jobs.
Minister of state for mines, steel and labour Vishnu Deo told the Lok Sabha in a written reply that the proposed major amendments would include relaxing restrictions on night duty for women in factories subject to certain conditions and increase in the limit of overtime to 100 hours (existing 50 hours) in a quarter.
It would also include provision of protective equipment for safety of workers and more precautions against fumes and gases. The central government would be empowered to make rules, a departure from the current practice where states frame the rules.
Experts said the proposed changes to the Factories Act would ensure employees' health safeguards. The plan to allow women to work in night shifts would benefit sectors such as textiles and garments.
“Changes to the Factories Act will help reduce red tape, end inspector raj and bring in transparency for workers and employers,“ said Sanjay Bhatia, president, Ficci Confederation of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.
The intention to amend the Act comes after the BJP government in Rajasthan moved to amend four central laws which include the Industrial Disputes Act, the Contracts Labour Act, the Factories Act and the Apprenticeship Act.
Current rules stipulate that the Factories Act would be applicable to manufacturing units employing at least 10 workers and operating on power, and 20 employees for those units without power.
“The final version of the amendments should be discussed with the trade unions,“ said A K Padmanabhan, president of CITU. Retail giant Carrefour announces India exit F rench major Carrefour, the world's second largest retailer, on Monday announced its exit from India, months after the ruling BJP made it clear that it was opposed to FDI in multi-brand retail . “Carrefour today announced its intention to close its five cash-and-carry stores in India, where it has operated since 2010. The closure of Carrefour's business in India will be effective at the end of September 2014... “ the company said in a statement on its website late Monday evening. P 25