G-20 Summit

G-20 Summit

Introduction:

·         G-20 summit is a forum for international cooperation between the most advanced and emerging economies.            ·         It is a meeting that concentrates on the most important aspects of international cooperation and financial agenda.

The Origins and Evolution of the G-20:

·         It was originated due to the financial crises occurred during 1990s in the emerging economies.            ·         In 1999, the financial ministers and the central bank governors of the developed and the emerging economies met in Berlin, Germany to discuss the key issues for global economic stability. This is then the finance ministers started meeting annually.            ·         In 2008, during economic global crisis the summit was held in the Washington D.C to discuss the causes of the global economic and financial crisis and to implement an action plan around three main objectives. 1.      Restoring global growth. 2.      Strengthening the international financial system. 3.      Reforming international financial institutions.

Who are the members of the G-20?

·         The G-20 includes 19 countries plus the European Union.           ·         These include both developed and the developing nations           ·         The summit is held for two main reasons that transform the international relations 1.      The role of the increasing influence of the emerging economies on the political and economic affairs. 2.      The collective response from all the members to find the innovative forms of cooperation to meet the new global challenges.           ·         The 19 countries are Argentina, France, Japan, South Africa, Australia, Germany,   Mexico, Turkey, Brazil, India, Republic of Korea, United Kingdom, Canada, Indonesia, Russia, United States, China, Italy, Saudi Arabia and the European Union.           ·         The G-20 contribution in the world economy is around 90% of global GDP, 80% of global trade and two-thirds of the world’s population.

What are the objectives of the G-20 Summit?

1.      The Policy coordination between the countries to achieve the global economic stability         and sustainable growth.              2.      Promote financial regulations that reduce risks and prevent future financial crises.              3.      To create a new international financial architecture.

Preparatory process of Summit:

·         The Preparatory process is conducted through the Sherpa and the Finance tracks which prepare and follow up on the issues and commitments adopted in the leaders’ summits.           ·         The Sherpa’s track focuses on the non-economic and non-financial issues (like development, terrorism, anti-corruption etc., ) and also addresses internal aspects of the summit like procedural rules for the G-20 process.           ·         The Financial track focuses on the economical and financial issues. These issues include providing economic solutions to the current economic problems, economic stabilization and structural reforms, increasing international coordination for crisis prevention, correction of external, fiscal and financial imbalances, providing resources to increase global liquidity and strengthening the international financial system.                o   The Financial Track system is organized as :                    1.      Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth Working Group (co-chaired by Canada and India).                    2.      Financial Regulation.                    3.      Financial Inclusion, Financial Education and Consumer Protection.                    4.      International Financial Architecture Working Group (co-chaired by Australia and Turkey).                    5.      Energy and Commodities Markets Working Group (co-chaired by Indonesia and UK).                        a.      Commodities Markets Subgroup (co-chaired by Brazil and UK)                        b.      Energy and Growth Subgroup (co-chaired by Korea and US)                    6.      Disaster Risk Management.                    7.      Climate Finance Study Group (co-chaired by France and South-Africa).            ·         In addition, agenda for the summit is discussed through the organization of the meetings such as meetings of the finance ministers, deputy-finance ministers and the governors of the Central Banks.

G-20 Summit 2012:

·         The Mexico hosted the Presidency of annual G-20 summit in 2012. This was the second emerging country and the first in Latin America to host the summit.            ·         Prior issues of the Mexican G-20 summit are:                        1.      Economic stabilization and Structural reforms as foundations for growth and employment.                        2.      Strengthen the financial system and foster financial inclusion to promote economic growth.                        3.      Improving the international financial architecture in an inter-connected world.                        4.      Enhancing food security and addressing commodity price volatility.                        5.      Promoting sustainable development, green growth and the fight against the climate change.             ·         The guest countries invited to the summit are: Spain(permanent member), Benin, Cambodia, Chile, Colombia, Ethiopia.             ·         The International Organizations that participated are: IMF (Permanent basis, International Labor Organization, The World Bank (Permanent member), The Organization of Economic Cooperation, The Financial Stability Board, The World Trade Organization, Food And Agricultural Organization, The United Nations.            ·         The Working Groups: 1.       The Sherpa’s Track of 2011-12 issues include: Employment and Social Dimension of Globalization, Food Security, Development, Anti-Corruption and Multi-lateral Trade. 2.      The Financial Track of 2011-12 issues include: Framework for Growth, Strengthening the International Financial  System, International Financial Architecture, Energy and Commodity Markets, Climate Finance,

Janani Suraksha Yojana

1.     The JananiSurakshaYojana (JSY) — conditional cash transfer scheme to encourage women for institutional deliveries — appears to have led to a huge increase in the proportion of women choosing institutional delivery.

2.    however, it has substantially deflected attention from what happens to women who do not or cannot reach hospitals. There is also inadequate assessment of the capacity of hospitals to handle this large volume of cases, and whether providers actually manage to provide skilled attention to women who need emergency obstetric care. The issues were raised by participants of a seminar ‘Chronicles of Deaths Foretold — Using Maternal Death Reviews to prevent Maternal Mortality and Morbidity in India’ in the Capital recently.

3.  Discussing the Maternal Death Reviews from Rajasthan, U.P., Jharkhand and Gujarat, JashodharaDasgupta of National Alliance for Maternal Health and Human Rights (NAMHHR) said a common factor in all the reports above is that most of the women approached institutions during labour (as encouraged by the government through JSY) and most of these deaths could have been prevented if adequate skilled medical attention had been provided.

4.   It was also pointed out that while JSY was popular, there was lack of awareness about the JananiShishuSurakshaKaryakram that entitled pregnant women to free delivery and the mother and new born babies to free treatment and food in public health institutions up to a month in addition to free pick up and drop from home to the health facility and back or to a referral hospital as the case may be. Even the staff was unaware of the scheme in the hospitals, thereby depriving the women of this entitlement.

5.    Poor tribal women showed that many had died of malaria or hepatitis or severe anaemia that could not be prevented only by hospital care during childbirth

6.    Haemorrhage is one of the main causes of maternal death followed by unsafe abortion, severe anaemia, sickle cell disease, hypertension, sepsis, hepatitis and malaria. Lack of transport or delay in arranging for transport has also resulted in women dying en route to a health facility.

National programme for health care for elderly

1.      The elderly people will reach by 350 million by 2050 and a large population would be women  and currently the elder people are 90 million. So the 12^th year plan has  host of provisions  to provide health services at various levels

2.      The ambitious National Programme for Health Care for Elderly (NPCHE) in 2010-11 to provide separate and specialised comprehensive health care to the senior citizens, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare proposes to develop two National Institutes of Ageing in the 12th Five Year Plan

3.      The two institutes will be set up at the Madras Medical College and AIIMS, New Delhi with an objective to undertake research on ageing in addition to other things like providing health care to the senior citizens

4.      The institutes are part of the NPCHE which also proposes geriatric departments in eight regional medical institutions and State Medical Colleges

5.      The programme also provides for dedicated health care for elderly persons in 91 districts of 20 States with a geriatric unit at the district hospitals, rehabilitation units at community health centres and weekly geriatric clinic at primary health centres

6.      Under the 12{+t}{+h}Plan, it is also proposed to develop 12 additional Regional Geriatric Centres in selected medical colleges of the country (in the first three years) while covering the remaining districts in a phased manner.

7.      The NPCHE had been approved in 2010 at an expenditure of Rs. 288 crore for the remaining period of the 11{+t}{+h}Five Year Plan. This includes 20 per cent share of the State governments (excluding the expenditure on Regional Medical Institutes) amounting to Rs. 48 crore while the remaining is to be borne by the Centre

8.      As of now, the programme has been implemented in 70 districts and is expected to cover the entire country during the 12th Plan. Its main objective is to provide preventive, curative and rehabilitative services to the elderly persons at various levels of health care delivery. It also aims at strengthening referral system to develop specialised manpower and to promote research in the field of diseases related to old age.

9.      The regional institutions are expected to provide technical support to the geriatric units at district hospitals whereas district hospitals supervise and coordinate the activities at the community health centres, primary health centres and sub-centres.

10. Close to 65 per cent senior citizens suffer from a chronic ailment of which arthritis/rheumatism, hypertension, cataract and diabetes are the most prevalent. About one-third suffer from two or more chronic ailments simultaneously. In general, morbidity levels tend to be higher among females across all age groups of elderly and also associated with socio-economic classes with expected rural-urban differentials

NATIONAL INVESTMENT BOARD

·        National Investment Board, a proposal made by the Finance Minister P.Chidambaram is widely approved by the corporate sectors(marketing, industry and infrastructure)

·        Why this NIB?

o   For any project to be approved by the govt. of India is a huge task.

o   The project has to be approved by various govt. departments/ministries for clearance.

§  For example, a thermal power project in order to be cleared nearly 17ministries have to approve it through 65 clearances. This is a rigid task which takes more time to approve the project.

o   The clearances involve various approvals in the same ministry.

§  For example, the Environment ministry involves clearances/approvals from environment dept. and forest dept. too.

o   So it consumes more time for the project to be cleared and the projects are prone to delay which is a serious matter for the development/growth of the country.

o   So some industries asked for the constitution of a body that gives the approvals in a less span of time with due considerations and constraints. So far, there have been four models discussed: first, a Fast Tracking Board under Cabinet Secretary. Second, an Infrastructure Ministry. Third, a Foreign Investment Promotion Board(FIPB) and lastly, a high-powered institution like National Development Council(NDC) that also includes even the presence of Chief Ministers in the clearance and approval of the projects. Finally, the Govt. has decided to constitute an NIB which is a combination of both Fast-Tracking Board and FIPB.

o    NIB is obligated to reduce the time consumed for the clearances and there by speed up the process of the approval of the projects.

·        How NIB is constituted?

o   The NIB is chaired by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and an empowered standing committee of Cabinet Secretary. The Board also includes key ministries like Finance and Law & Justice as its members.

·        What does NIB do?

o   NIB handles the projects of above Rs.1000Cr. and it initially focuses on the projects that are run for a long time like roads and petroleum etc.,

o   The Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) of Secretariat identifies such projects and assigns them to the NIB.

o   It also deals with the projects that are delayed for a long time and takes an appropriate decision in the approval of the projects. (If the deadlines for the particular ministry are crossed and still it is unable to take a clear statement about the clearance of the project in that respective dept. then the ultimate decision is left to NIB)

o   NIB meetings are held at least once in a month.

·        What are the drawbacks in the constitution of the Board?

o   The autonomous decision for the concerned ministry will be lost if the project clearance deadline is not met. (The reason is that there is lack of the staff and it takes more time to clear as it considers various issues of the subject).

o   There may be lack of consensus between the ministries.

NATGRID

National Intelligence Grid also known as NATGRID, the idea born in the mind of The Minister of Finance P.Chidambaram after 26/11 attacks took place in 2008.

What is NATGRID?
   There are wide range of terror attacks in our country. There is immense security to protect the innocent lives from these attacks and yet our country lacks some measurable element that tackles with the terrorism.
   First of all let us think of how terror attacks happening in our country?
Say for example, a terrorist 'x' wanted to attack a country. For this he has to do the back ground work. He has to know the details of the country to launch an attack. So at most he can use four components to get the information. They are human material (to carry out the information about the country), finance, communication (it can be any technology), travelling. So these four factors play an important role. After knowing the detailed information he will proceed further. So,this is the way attacks are taking place.
NATGRID is an agency that carries pro-active measurements like checking all kind of information neede to handle the terror attacks and taking appropriate measures. This NATGRID works under the Department of Home Affairs.

What does NATGRID do?
    NATGRID grids or integrates various mechanisms or departments of Center and various States and accumulates the information from these departments. This is a tool more than a department or agency to handle the issues. The Cabinet Committee gave nod for this project. The project is carried in four phases. In the first two phases the information from various departments is integrated and in next two phases various amendments have to carried out in the bills for access to the Confidential information of State and Central Governments.

    It integrates nearly 21 departments of the Government like finance, banking sector, tourism etc., and provides information to 11 agencies like National Investigative agency, Central Bureau of Investigation, Enforcement Directorate, Narcotics agency etc.,

Who is the Chief Executive of this NATGRID?
    Chief Executive Officer of NATGRID is P. Raghu Raman who is proficient in three facets Intelligence, Defense, Security. These qualifications made the selection of P. Raghu Raman as the CEO of NATGRID. The whole work of this project is under the direction of this eminent personality.

What are the critical issues related to NATGRID?
    Many States are opposing the idea of integration of the information into a single entity because the information is sensitive and confidential to share any and it may violate privacy of the individual.

The President

The President of India is also known as the First Citizen Of India. He is the head of the Executive Branch. 

What is the Election process of the President?

    President is a nominal candidate. That is, elected representatives of Parliament(both the houses) and Legislative Assembly elects the President. Nominated members who are elected by President i.e., 2members for Loksabha and 12members for Rajyasabha are not eligible to vote for President. And the election is a single vote process carried in a secret ballet, just like election of a representative. This election process must be carried before the tenure of the present President completes. The oath of Office is administered by the Chief Justice of India.

Qualifications required for a Presidential candidate?

    The members who are contesting for a Presidential candidate should give their nominations to the Returning Officer. The officer checks for the eligibility of these candidates and finalizes the list.

The qualifications required for the Presidential candidate are:

1. He should be the citizen of India.
2. He should complete 35 years by the time of contesting the election.
3. He should not hold any office of any Central or State Government.
4. He should not be the member of any of the Houses or any Legislative Assembly.

Who are the people elected by the President?

    The President has the Powers to nominate or appoint 

1. Prime Minister and other ministers(12ministers for Rajyasabha and 2ministers for Loksabha).
2. Attorney General of India.
3. Chief Election Commissioner.
4. Comptroller and Auditor General.
5. Chief Justice of India.

What is the removal process of the President?

    The President of India can't be removed directly. There are two things to consider the removal of the President.

1. He voluntarily can resign from, by submitting the resignation letter to the Vice-President.
2. Through a process called Impeachment. Impeachment process to be active, should have one-third of the members of the Parliament sign to introduce in the parliament. After this process completes, the Impeachment bill is introduced in the Parliament. With the vote of two-third of members of each House, the bill will be passed and the President is said to be removed.

What after the removal of the President?

    The vacancy for the President office should be filled within 6months of the removal of the President. The process of filling in the vacancy is also carried for the resignation or death of the President.

Regional Administration in India

India is a diverse country with 28 states and 7 union territories. The Administration is managed at various levels in India. But there are three main levels of Government Administration. They are Central, State and Local Bodies. Local level in turn is divided into a number of districts and villages etc., Local level is a transparent than other two levels as it is directed by the people in that region. People in that region participate actively in decision-making.

Regional Administration is a local governing body that lies below the State level and above the District level. The State is divided into number of Divisions or Regions where each region contains a regional headquarter. This type of administration eases the functioning of the Government. These are maintained by regional or divisional officers.

   The regional officers inspects the functioning of the districts under his region. Functions of the regional officers include:

1. undertakes various issues at the regional level and inquire the reports of the districts.
2. instruct the officers at the district level and ensure the proper regulation in the region.
3. giving technical guidance to the district officers in the administration.

Neo-Liberalization

We'll discuss the concept of Neo-Liberalism and its impact on developing countries.

Evolution of Neo-Liberalism
    Neo-Liberalism is an economic policy adopted by the Developed Countries to improve their profits and to spread their influence throughout world.
  Neo-Liberalization is the thing that is related to the beneficiary of the corporate sector. It came into existence after the second-world war. World economic institutions like WTO, World Bank and IMF being influenced by the corporate regime of mostly developed countries injected this policy into their organization. We know the fact that the developing countries depend on these organizations for economical assistance to meet their county needs because of the lack of sufficient economic inflow in their country.  So, what these economic institutions does is that make compulsion of these regulations in order to provide any assistance in the development of the third world countries.

What is Neo-Liberalism?
    "Neo" means the new and the "Liberalism" term means reforms and these reforms are mostly economical and these economical reforms in turn effect the political system. I'll discuss this shortly. Liberalization means the capitalist regime and privatization of all available resources that are under government sphere. This include removing the barriers to make the trading system free. This system removes the gap between the nations and there will be free import and export of the resources in these nations. The main motto of this policy is to earn more and more profits and this profits limits only to the industries that are leading the corporate sector.

How Neo-Liberalization effects the developing nations?
   As the Neo-Liberalization fills the gap between the nations in trading and the foreign nations establish their industries in the developing countries. While there exist a vast unemployment in these poor and developing nations, the people here will be ready to do or accept the job even under non-safety conditions. Even for low pays they are ready to work. So this attracts the foreign nations to establish their units here. This creates an assumption that the policy will improve employment rate and will benefit the country. What actually the process is the industries employ the workers for low salaries and make these people work for more hours and earn profits.
  And due to the flow of these foreign resources, the domestic and small scale industries are prone to losses as they can't compete with the giant industries and thus leads to the shutting down.

How does Neo-Liberalism in turn effect the political system?
   As the governments of the developing nations depend on the economic support of the World institutions, they are restricted to demolish certain regulations which bars the foreign institutions to trade their resources freely.
  So the government deregulates the policies framed to protect the national institutions from the extraneous forces. This in turn effects the economic growth of the country.

Neo-Liberalism is introduced to introduce the competitive environment in the country but this in turn lead to the  ruining of the country's development. So, this policy is opposed by many countries and still many countries are protesting for the abolition of this policy.

 

National Commission for Protection of Child Rights

What is NCPCR?

   The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights is a commission set up in 2007 under the Commission for Protection of Child Rights,2005.
There are many policies implemented and new policies are emerging to protect the rights of children in the age group between 0-18 years. These policies does not reach to every child in the State or in the Country and these are sometimes being violated without giving proper justice to the children. The children themselves cant fight with these issues as they are not enough to bring these issues into the society and fight for their rights. So NCPCR is introduced to govern these issues and ensure that every child irrespective of his/her background enjoy the rights provided.

What are the functions of the NCPCR?

1. The commission reviews the existing laws and make recommendations of laws that will lead to the effective implementation of the child rights.
2. Submit annual or timely reports to the Central or respective State Governments.
3. Study the factors that effect the children from enjoying their rights. These factors include natural disasters, communal violence, terrorism, domestic violence etc., and the commission recommends for proper measures to protect the child from these social evils.
4. The commission investigates on the violation of the child rights and recommend for the initiation of the proceedings.
5. Create awareness in the people about the rights of the children.

Who are the members of the Commission?

    The Commission constitutes a Chairperson and six members who are prominent in child welfare. Present Chairperson of the commission is Shantha Sinha. She was awarded the Padmasri in 1998 and the Ramon Magsaysay award for Community Leadership in 2003.

Delimitation Commission of India

What is Delimitation Commission of India?
Delimitation Commission or Boundary Commission is set up by the Government of India under the rules of the Constitution. Delimitation Commission is an independent commission that sets the size, boundary of Constituencies in India.

What is Delimitation?
Delimitation means the act or process of fixing limits or modifying the limits of any Constituency.

What is a Constituency? 
Parliament consists of legislative houses. The lower house is called the Lok Sabha. The elections to this house is conducted by Election Commission of India. For this process, the country is divided into nearly equal sized provinces and these provinces are called Constituencies. Our country has 543 constituencies and each of these will have a representative in the Lok Sabha. These members will participate from their respected Constituencies.

When will the Commission conduct the survey?
The Commission takes the step every ten years based on the Census of India which gives result once in every ten years. Under the Delimitation Commission Act, the Commission was set up by Country in 1952, 1963, 1973 and 2002.

What does the Commission do?
The Commission after every ten years conducts the survey and modifies any province if any increase or decrease in the population in that area and submits its report to the legislative assembly. The orders of this Commission are supreme that no one can challenge this order in any court. The orders must be followed by the Executive and accordingly the Constituencies will undergo elections.

What happened between the 1973 and 2002? Why no reports are generated during this period?
The Government of India suspended the Delimitation Commission in 1976 keeping in view that the "family planning" program would effect their elections. But some irregularities were developed in the population leading to misleading of the election process. Hence, again under the Chairperson Justice. Kuldip Singh the Commission was again resumed in 2002.

Who are the members of the Commission?
The Commission consists of the Chief Election Commissioner of India and two judges of Supreme Court or any of the High Courts in India.

References: Official Website, Wikipedia

Mars Orbiter Mission India

On the eve of Independence day, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has formally declared the Mars Mission project. This will lead India place itself in the mark of landing on the Red Planet. India will be the sixth country after US, Russia, Europe, Japan and China, and If the mission is successful India will be the first country from Asian region to successfully land on the Mars as missions of Japan and China failed to reach the destination.

    The project is approved by the Cabinet. The mission is likely to be put in space by the next year. For this, a budget of Rs.450 Crore is allocated. The mission will be sent into space with the help of an extended version of ISRO's warhorse rocket, Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle(PSLV) and with a payload of 25kg. This will take place in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The space craft will take 300 days to reach the orbit of the Mars. The Space Craft will study various factors of the Planet Mars like the geology, climate, sustainability and life etc.,

Reference: The Hindu

PMGSY Scheme

Before discussing the PMGSY scheme, let me go in brief about how this scheme has evolved.

Bharat Nirman: Our former President A.P.J.Abdul Kalam on 25th February 2005 announced a plan for rural hood development programme called Bharat Nirman. The Finance Minister in the Budget session of same year discussed for the development of Rural Roads one of the six components of Bharat Nirman. From this the PMGSY scheme came into action.

What is PMGSY scheme?
    Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadhak Yojana scheme is a 100% Central Sponsered scheme launched on 25th December, 2000. The main aim of the scheme is to provide all-weather roads to rural areas of the country.

What is the target of this scheme?
    The program connects all habitations with a population of 500 and above in plain areas and 250 and above in hilly areas. Recently, Left Wing Extremist affected areas are also included in this scheme. Besides connecting these areas, the Government is intended to develop the socio-economic conditions of these people. The program takes care of Building/Upgradation of the roads in these regions.

Who will handle this scheme?
    National Rural Road Development Agency(NRRDA) is responsible for handling this project and State Rural Road Development Agency(SRRDA) is created as rural road program belongs to the State matter.

Planning Mechanism: 

• Based on guidelines and budget, proper planning has to be made to implement the scheme effectively.
• Discussions with State Governments and other agencies gives a broad view of planning to the scheme and implementing in an effective manner.
• Seek sufficient budgetary.
• Meetings of Performance Review Committee for periodic reviews of the project.

Executive Mechanism:

   This work is carried out in three levels

1. At the Central level (NRRDA)
2. At the State level (SRRDA)
3. At the District level. In this the project is carried out by one or more Programme Implementation Units(PIU)

Information Board:

   State Governments have been advised to provide Citizen Information Boards at the construction areas which gives information about the project in that area to provide transparency in the project implementation. The information is provided in local language.

 
CPGRAMS: Centralized Public Grievance Redressal and Monitoring System handles the grievances that are received and processed and the reports are forwarded to NRRDA and its respective SRRDA.

Reference: PMGSY official website