IMPORTANT ARTICLES
FROM OTHER NEWSPAPERS –gs-today
Black
Money Bill (Business standard)
·
The Union Cabinet on Tuesday approved
a Bill that seeks harsh penalties and rigorous imprisonment for those having
unaccounted money abroad.
·
The Bill, seeking to tighten the
noose even on banks and financial institutions abetting such offenders
·
it imposes a penalty of 300 per cent
of wealth hidden abroad on offenders and up to 10 years of rigorous
imprisonment for them.
·
Gives a “short window” to offenders
to declare wealth, pay taxes & penalty and escape prosecution
Aadhar
Analysis (Indian Express)
Positives:
·
Providing Indian residents with a
convenient way of identifying themselves would certainly be doing a great
service to millions of people who lack adequate identity documents.
Negatives:
·
MISUSE : Aadhaar creates a vast infrastructure of social control that could
be misused.
·
LEGALITY : the entire project is being rolled out without any legal
framework. While Aadhaar is effectively being made compulsory, no law defines
or protects the rights of the subjects of this compulsion.
·
PRIVACY : in the absence of any privacy laws worth the name, people have no
protection against possible abuse of the data they part with — including
biometrics — at the time of UID enrolment.
(Privacy is not only an important liberty
in its own right, it is also essential for the exercise of other liberties,
such as the freedom to dissent)
·
TECHNICAL ISSUES :
Aadhaar requires four imperfect technologies to work together: biometrics,
computers, mobiles and the internet. Even a small risk of one of them being out
of order can lead to considerable hardship for users.
·
COVERAGE : coverage of Aadhaar is still far from complete. Enrolment
agencies, paid on piece rates, have drained the more accessible ponds, but
those who fell through the net will be harder to catch.
“A recent World Bank report
notes, identification systems can easily turn into a source of social
exclusion”
Educational
Reforms : Setting the Priorities (Live Mint)
Myth
: government school teachers in India mostly are usually absent from
schools.
Reality : The
Annual Status of Education Report 2014 estimates teacher absence at 15%, but
that includes those on approved leave and out of school on any other official
work. Absenteeism i.e. absence without permission is probably between 6-8%.
Conclusion : Teacher Absenteeism is not as big a problem as we think it is.
Analysing the
Causes of low absenteeism :
·
NATURE OF JOB : nature
of a school is such that even a day’s absence of a teacher is obvious.
·
Habitual absence creates complete
disruption, especially since a very large number of schools have small teams of
three or less teachers.
·
FORMAL AND INFORMAL CONTROL : formal, through school monitoring committees (even while they are
not very effective), and informal engagement of the local community with the
school, it becomes hard for teachers to be absent for long periods.
So what should
be our highest priorities in educational reforms?
·
RECRUITMENT : Recruitment of teachers should be centralized at the state level, with
the State Public Service Commissions—will address the matter of quality of
intake + The recruitment should be specifically for each district (or region),
to help areas with teacher shortage.
·
ORGANISATIONAL ISSUES : Third is organizational. The Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan structure currently runs in parallel with the state
government’s education department structures, building inefficiencies and
hindering operations. Both must be integrated for effective functioning
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