Dec 09 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

How to Revamp the Planning Commission





Let the Centre stop borrowing for the states

The Planning Commission itself has been working on changing with the times, for some time. It has been pruning and merging centrally-sponsored schemes, focusing on scenario building and incentive funds for good economic conduct, such as in the power sector, rather than on sectoral allocations. But all this has not fundamentally changed the nature of the commission as an overlord of central funds whom the states resent but must heed if they want those funds. The way to radically overhaul the Planning Commission is for central funds to devolve to the states almost entirely through the Finance Commission mechanism, instead of half the funds going through the Planning Commission as of now.In the kind of federal autonomy that the states seem to desire, there is no room for the Centre to borrow just for lending on to the states. The states have their areas of constitutionally given responsibility and sources of revenue, soon to be supplemented and fortified with a goods and services tax. If they want to finance projects they cannot fund with their own resources, including the central devolutions that are their due, they have the freedom to tap the bond market. The states cannot expect the Centre to borrow money and pass it on to them without asking questions about how the money would be spent and later monitoring compliance with stated intent. The best way to end such central intrusion into federal autonomy is to end central Plan assistance out of borrowed funds. Non-borrowed resources will be devolved through the Finance Commission, in any case.
Once the commission divests itself of the function of allocating Plan funds across states and schemes and subsequent monitoring, it can focus on creating long-term policies for different sectors of the economy and drawing up alternative frameworks in which these policies find coherence. The task of constantly suggesting updates for regulatory frameworks for different sectors can also be performed by the agency . Let it become a think tank, and stop being an ATM for the states.

Dec 09 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

Facebook, Twitter Current Status: Hirers are Watching You Closely

Sneha Shah & Rica Bhattacharyya

Mumbai





Prospective employees who post radical views on various subjects, get tagged in inappropriate pictures face risk of rejection

Sachin Keshav's (name changed) rile about a past employer on his Facebook page might have earned him many likes and forwards, but it has spoilt his chances of landing a better job next time.Keshav, a mid-level employee of an information technology firm, is among scores of prospective employees whose Facebook and Twitter accounts are under close employer scrutiny. Candidates who post radical views on various subjects apart from negative comments about previous employers face the risk of never being called for an interview or receiving job offers. Having a clean image on social media is equally important, according to executive search industry experts.
“A profile on a social medium like Facebook is normally woven in with traditional recruiting programmes. This helps HR personnel to do background checks and screen profiles of potential recruits,“ says Manoj Biswas, managing director, HR for Accenture in India.
Though Facebook is meant to be a leisure activity, it is important to keep a professional profile while looking out for a job. “Employers, to a great extent, have second thoughts on an individual who appears to be insensitive and tactless on such an open forum,“ says Biswas.
While more than 90% of hiring managers use professional networking site LinkedIn as a tool to source candidates, in certain industry sectors, such as IT, more than 50% of hiring managers scan candidates' profiles on Facebook and Twitter before shortlisting them.
“An online scan does not just save time, but also helps get an insight into the candidates' personality traits which is critical for assessing their cultural fit with the organisation,“ says Prashanth Nair, managing partner and country head of Inhelm Leadership Solutions, a global headhunting firm.
According to Nair, even blogs and comments on various public groups are scanned. Everything on social networking sites -being tagged in inappropriate pictures, communication skills in comments and blog posts, negative comments on an issue, comment bombing or having an opinion on everything, friends and followers and even the posts shared -can come in the way of prospective employment with a company .
Such scanning of social networking sites could be mostly for role-specific hiring for managers at the middle level though not for CXO-level hiring as most of them are not present on FB, says Sinosh Panicker, associate principal at executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles. However, Rohit Karnatak, senior director, Asia for Pinkerton, a corporate risk management services provider, says there are cases of such scanning even for senior and top-level hiring.
“A firm is more worried about the image the top-level executive will create about the company and hence such checks are rampant in that league,“ he says.
“People should be careful of not sharing information online that the company treats as confidential, controversial or proprietary, no matter how exciting it is -even long after leaving the organisation,“ says Karnatak.
Karnatak's firm, which helps companies perform background verification checks on candidates, has seen a steady rise in such mandates. “Earlier if one in every hundred clients asked for such a check to be carried out, today there are ten in hundred. We definitely are witnessing an encouraging upward trend here,“ he says.
There are a couple of other dos on social media networks that prospective employees need to keep in mind.
One: Consistency in information about educational background and employment history. “I did not bother to update my Facebook and LinkedIn about employee history. Some of the information did not match with information provided in the resume. I was almost rejected by my employer had they not sought a clarification,“ says the vice-president of an information technology company.
Two, when using Facebook to land a job, you need to modify your profile so it reads like a resume. It is imperative to list your education, former employers and volunteer organisations you have worked for. “This gives the employer an overview into the kind of work you previously performed as well as some credentials,“ says Biswas.
Importantly, keep pictures on your profile to the bare minimum. You can also highlight your accomplishments through some good photographs. Ensure that the captions are concise and adequate.
Expect the employer to read your profile, and edit it carefully. Make it professional, informative and well written. “Networking has always played an important role for job seekers. Social media just takes traditional networking to a new technological level,“ says Biswas.
Besides “behaving well“ on public social networking sites it is important to keep your privacy settings in place. Also, you need to search your name on search engines from time to time to see what comes up.
It's not just enough to walk tall in the real world. What you do, say, and above all, how you project yourself in the online world is key.

Dec 09 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Data transfer via light can speed up PCs

Washington: PTI





New Device To End Use Of Wires

Stanford engi neers have inched closer to de veloping faster and more effi cient computers that use light instead of wires to carry data. Researchers have designed and built a prism-like device that can split a beam of light in to different colours and bend the light at right angles. The development could eventually lead to computers that use optics, rather than electricity, to carry data. Researchers used optical link -a tiny slice of silicon etched with a pattern that resembles a bar code.When a beam of light is shined at the link, two different link, two different wavelengths of light split off at right angles to the input, forming a T-shape. This is a big step toward creating a complete system for connecting computer components with light rather than wires.
“Light can carry more da ta than a wire, and it takes less energy to transmit photons than electrons,“ said re search leader Jelena Vuckov ic. In previous work her team developed an algorithm that did two things: It automated the process of designing optical structures and it enabled them to create previously unimaginable, nanoscale structures to control light. Now, she and lead author Alexander Piggott have employed that algorithm to design, build and test a link compatible with current fibre optic networks.
The structure was made by etching a tiny bar code pattern into silicon that split waves of light like a prism.
The effect followed the principle that speed of light changes as it passes through different materials.

Dec 09 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Facebook signs IIT-B undergrad girl for Rs 2 crore





In probably the highest package offered to an undergrad in recent times in the country , Aastha Agarwal, 20, an IIT-Bombay student from Jaipur, has bagged a Rs 2-crore offer from Facebook, reports Ashish Mehta. She is in her third year pursuing computer science and will join FB by next October. She had trained with the firm earlier this year.





Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Contents

In the Making - An Asian NATO?

Vol - XLIX No. 49, December 06, 2014 

• Editorials

The devious game New Delhi is playing alongside Washington, Tokyo and Canberra.

• Read more
• 0 Comments

Editorials For They Know What They Do Hate propaganda and attacks against Christians in Bastar are deeply disconcerting. Read more	Margin Speak Recurring Shame of Maharashtra Anand Teltumbde The least one can do is to spare Phule and Ambedkar from the caste cauldron. Read more
Commentary A Blindness about India Rajan Gurukkal The attack on history and Indian historians by votaries of Hindu historiography has only sharpened in recent times. There is an attempt to use S N Balagangadhara's critique of history writing as an expression of the "colonial... Read more	Commentary The Politics of Secular Sectarianism Ajay Gudavarthy, Nissim Mannathukkaren The rise of right-wing politics in India is built on the fragmented nature of the struggles waged by the oppressed who constitute the vast majority of the population: "lower" castes, adivasis, working classes and peasants, women,... Read more
Commentary Clean Air, Federalism and Democracy Lessons from a US Court Judgment Ravindra Pratap The United States Supreme Court's 29 April 2014 opinion has in it the elements of both further pressure on India for providing greater access to US markets for renewable energy technologies and relevance for the resolution of India's... Read more	Commentary A Tribute to Rajani Thiranagama A Beacon for the Left Rohini Hensman A tribute to the Tamil doctor, feminist and human rights defender of Jaffna, Rajani Thiranagama, on her 25th death anniversary. She was killed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. This is an occasion to revisit the issues of self-... Read more
Interview Towards a 'Human Economy' An Interview with Keith Hart A R Vasavi Keith Hart is an academic with multifaceted interests. He developed the idea of the "informal economy" and is now working on the "human economy". He has also written on money, the internet, and the European Union. He has an... Read more	Book Reviews Adivasi Women Workers in Tea Plantations Sharit K Bhowmik Witches, Tea Plantations, and Lives of Migrant Laborers in India: Tempest in a Tea Pot by Soma Chaudhuri (New Delhi: Foundation Books), 2014; pp xiii + 193, Rs 695. Read more
Book Reviews Reading the Nation from the Transnational Paulomi Chakraborty Violent Belongings: Partition, Gender, and National Culture in Postcolonial India by Kavita Daiya ((Delhi: Yoda Press), 3rd edition; first published in 2008 by US: Temple University Press), 2013; pp 272, Rs 405. Read more	Perspectives Should Muslims Fear the Kiss? Body as Resistance in the Times of Hindutva P K Yasser Arafath This article questions the ways in which certain Muslim/Islamist groups engaged with the "Kiss of Love" protests in Kerala. These protests openly challenged certain dominant perspectives about the "body", sex and morality,... Read more
Special Articles Negative Returns of Ambivalence Electoral Politics of the Farmers’ Movement, 1980-2014 D N Dhanagare Social movements that succeed in mobilising the masses subsequently attempt to institutionalise themselves. Moving from the domain of civil society into the realm of state politics, the leadership can change its goals and transformative... Read more	Special Articles Emergence of India as the World Leader in Computer and Information Services Sunil Mani The paper analyses the changing leadership in computer and information services exports in the world. Leadership, measured in terms of export shares, appears to have moved from the United States, United Kingdom and Germany to Ireland and then to... Read more
Special Articles Changes in Transmission Channels of Monetary Policy in India Nandini Sengupta The introduction of the Liquidity Adjustment Facility as an operating procedure for monetary policy in the post-reform period is a landmark event for monetary policy. This paper finds a structural break in the post-reform period corresponding to... Read more	Notes Open Defecation in India Assa Doron, Robin Jeffrey This study identifies 11 issues that have inhibited the spread of a comprehensive sanitation programme. It emphasises the complexity of issues and helps avoid the facile targeting of the poor as

Test Quality of Mid Day Meals: Centre to States

The central government has requested all the states and Union Territories for testing of the meals provided to school children under Mid Day Meal Scheme from accredited labs. The states and UTs Government may involve Food Inspectors to collect the food samples for testing on quality parameters.

The Governments of NCT Delhi and Punjab have engaged accredited labs for testing of samples in their State.

Mid Day Meal Scheme covers 10.80 crore children in 11.58 lakh schools during 2013-14. The Scheme provides for a mechanism to deal with complaints and grievances of the stakeholders. The Ministry of HRD has been issuing instructions from time to time for effective implementation of the Scheme.

Under Mid Day Meal Scheme, only hot cooked meals are served to the children as per the direction of the  Supreme Court of India.

- See more at: http://digitallearning.eletsonline.com/2014/12/test-quality-of-mid-day-meals-centre-to-states/#sthash.AWT5cImh.dpuf

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