Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan jumped the gun with the announcement to create “a ministry of happiness”, with no groundwork for its implementation.
Inspired by Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness index — which calculates happiness based on ecology, health, time use, education, living standards, cultural diversity, communal vitality and psychological well-being — Chouhan made the announcement of this first of its kind ministry in the country during the BJP’s executive meet on Thursday.
He said worldly possessions and development through statistics were not the only measure of happiness, and that the ministry would work towards keeping people “genuinely happy”. But other than the inspiration, there is little in terms of foundation.
“We will work on the announcement now,” said a high-ranking government official, who did not want to be named.
The announcement comes at a time when the state is facing agrarian and financial crises, with reports of farmer suicides making headlines. In addition, at least 27 students killed themselves this year under the pressure of exams.
The 2014 National Crime Records Bureau report shows that Madhya Pradesh had the highest number of rapes at 5,076, and also topped the chart in terms of crimes against children — 16.9% of all crimes reported. Malnutrition, Infant Mortality Rate and Maternal Mortality Rate also remain alarming high.
In fact, India ranked a dismal 117th for 2012-14 in the World Happiness Report 2015, a report published by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
Even when implemented, India will not be the first to have such a ministry. Bhutan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Venezuela among others have similar ministries.
The UAE appointed its first minister of state for happiness in February. Media reports said its Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum underlined his vision in his tweet: “A new post, minister of state for happiness will align and drive government policy to create social good and satisfaction”.
“The (MP) government will study workings of the ministry in different countries and create its own model,” a source said.
State BJP vice-president Vijesh Lunawat touted it as another step to make the people of the state happier — after achieving “tremendous growth” and recording the highest agriculture growth rate in the country, winning the Centre’s Krishi Karman award four years in a row.
@Agency report.
Mexico City, Apr 2 ,2016: Experts have found evidence of a large fire in which at least 17 bodies were burned at a dump in southern Mexico, a member of the investigating team said, in the latest twist in the case of 43 missing teachers’ college students.
Ricardo Damian Torres, speaking from the offices of Mexico’s attorney general, said tests would be conducted in the coming weeks to determine whether it would have been possible to burn all 43 at the dump in the town of Cocula in Guerrero state, where the government has said the students’ bodies ended up after disappearing in nearby Iguala on Sept.26, 2014.
Relatives of the missing students have fiercely disputed the government’s version of events and multiple investigations by other teams of experts have concluded they could not have all been burned at the Cocula dump. The government’s perceived mishandling of the symbolic human rights case has dogged the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto.
In yesterday’s brief press conference, Torres did not say when such a fire occurred or offer any explanation as to how the team conducted its research and reached its conclusion.
“There is sufficient evidence, including physically observable, to affirm that there was a controlled fire event of great dimensions in the place called the Cocula dump,” he said, speaking for the six-member fire-expert team and sitting beside Mexico’s deputy attorney general for human rights, Eber Betanzos. He took no questions.
In an interview with Milenio TV, Vidulfo Rosales, a lawyer representing the families, said they had not reviewed the experts’ report and could not discuss it. However, he expressed concern about the way the attorney general’s office was handling the investigation.
@ Agency report.
According to a notification, public institutions like post offices, employees provident fund organisation (EPFO) will be required to assess the unclaimed amounts and transfer them to ‘Senior Citizens Welfare Fund’ before March 1 every year.
The money will be utilised to promote financial security of senior citizens, old age pension, healthcare, health insurance and welfare of elderly widows. It will also fund schemes related to old-age homes, day care of senior citizens and research activities related with ageing.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Budget 2015-16 had announced creation of a fund using unclaimed deposits of about Rs 3,000 crore in the PPF, and Rs 6,000 crore in the EPF corpus.
The Fund, he said, “will be used to subsidise the premiums of vulnerable groups such as old age pensioners, BPL card-holders, small and marginal farmers and others”.
The number of senior citizens in the country is over 10.5 crore, out of which over one crore are above the age of 80 years. 70 per cent live in rural areas and a large number are in the BPL category.
As per the notification, the unclaimed amounts will be transferred from small savings and other savings schemes of the central government including the Post Office Savings Accounts, Recurring Deposit Accounts, Time Deposit Accounts, Monthly Income scheme, Senior Citizens’ Savings Scheme Accounts, Kisan Vikas Patra, National Savings Certificates, Sukanya Samriddhi Accounts and discontinued Small Savings Schemes.
Besides, unclaimed deposits in Public Provident Fund (PPF) and accounts of Employees Provident Fund will also be transferred to the newly created Fund.
However, before transferring the Fund, the institutions will try to contact each of the account holder of the unclaimed amount, including by way of written notice, e-mail and telephone, twice within a period of 60 days.
The institution will display the list prepared for the general information of the public, on the notice boards of the relevant offices and on the website of the Institution concerned for at least a period of 60 days, inviting claims, if any, the notification said.
The Fund, to be set up under the aegis of Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, will be managed by a committee headed by the Secretary of the Ministry. It will have representatives from Ministries of finance, labour, health, rural development and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation. The Committee will meet at least twice a year.
@ Agency report.
New Delhi, 2016 ,Apr 1 : Consumer loans today became cheaper with banks moving to a new way of setting lending rates following RBIs diktat to ensure faster and effective transmission of its policy rate cuts to borrowers. A number of banks, yesterday said that they would move to new methodology for setting lending rates from April 1.
RBI had asked banks to price fixed rate loans of up to three years based on marginal cost of funds from April 1. The lending rate based on marginal cost of funds is lower than base rate in some cases resulting in lower EMIs for borrowers. Most of the banks were deciding lending rates based on their average cost of funds. Experts have said implementation of Marginal Cost of Funds-based Lending Rate (MCLR) would bring down lending rate by up to 1 per cent in some cases. ICICI Bank in a statement said that it has fixed lending rate of 9.10 per cent for three-month loan, 9.15 per cent for six months and 9.20 per cent for one year loan. The base rate or the minimum lending rate of ICICI Bank is 9.35 per cent. Similarly, after implementing MCLR, Kotak Mahindra pegged lending rate at 9.60 per cent for one-year loan and for 3 years at 9.65 per cent. Kotak Mahindra Bank has fixed its base rate at 9.50 per cent. The MCLR is expected to address the RBIs primary objective of expediting monetary policy transmission along with augmenting uniformity and transparency in the calculation methodology of lending rates, ratings agency Ind-Ra has said.
@ Agency report.
New Delhi, Apr 1 : Experts and officials from state and central governments will gather here to chalk out plan to deal with the problems of drop-outs, non-enrolment and low attendance of children in schools.
The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) is organising a two-day review meeting in collaboration with Human Resource Ministry and NCERT here on April 4 and 5.
“The problem of Out of School Children (OoSC), non- enrolment of children in schools, low attendance and drop- outs require urgent intervention and devising of strategies to counter the issue. For this, we are organising a consultation to review and prepare an action plan for dealing with this issue,” said Priyank Kanoongo, NCPCR Member Education.
NCPCR Chairperson, Stuti Kacker said deliberations and presentations on the factual position of OoSC, gaps, challenges, best practices prevalent within states and UTs will be held during the consultation.
The recommendations will be forwarded to Central Advisory Board of Education for devising effective policies.
“The issues, challenges, gaps, best practices and recommendations emerging from this consultation will be presented to the CABE committee meeting for consideration,” she said.
The Commission said emphasis should be on understanding and strengthening the preventive strategies in this regard.
“All the programmes, policies and related interventions of the government should be in consonance with prevention of OoSC which could be a first step towards combating the problem of school drop outs, non-enrolment, low attendance,” Kacker added.
@ Agency report.
Brussels, Mar 31 : India and the EU have failed to arrive at any understanding on the four-year dispute involving two Italian marines accused of murdering two Indian fishermen, with the Indian side stressing the need for rendering due justice for the families of the deceased.
The joint statement, issued after the 13th India-EU Summit here late last night which was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and EU leaders, said the EU shares Italy’s concerns to find an expeditious solution for the prolonged restriction of liberty of the two Marines.
Both the sides stuck to their respective position and expressed their confidence in the arbitration procedure on the Italian Marines case currently underway in the framework of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to which India and Italy are strongly committed.
“Both sides will contribute to settling the case on this basis, enabling the cause of justice to be served for all those affected. The EU shares Italy’s concerns to find an expeditious solution for the prolonged restriction of liberty of the two Marines. India stressed the need for rendering due justice for the families of the Indian fishermen who were killed,” the statement said.
The statement came on a day when Italy asked the judges at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the Hague to order India to release its detained marine Salvatore Girone, saying otherwise he risks four more years in India without any charges being made which would amount to “grave violation of his human rights”.
The PCA is hearing oral arguments by the two sides.
The arbitration “could last at least three or four years” which means that Girone risks “being held in (New) Delhi, without any charges being made, for a total of seven-eight years”, Italy’s representative had told the court.
Girone is one of two Italian marines accused by India of killing two of its fishermen during an anti-piracy mission in 2012. He has not been able to leave India, aside from a few brief permits, since the incident. The other marine, Massimiliano Latorre, is back in Italy after a stroke in 2014.
The Italian government has taken the marines case to international arbitration after repeated delays in the trial in India.
The India-EU joint statement also said that “the EU hoped for a swift solution, through the due process of law in India in the case of MV Seaman Guard Ohio, which concerns fourteen Estonian and six UK citizens sentenced to prison by an Indian court.
@Agency report.
New York: People infected with a common brain parasite transmitted through the faeces of infected cats, undercooked meat or contaminated water may be at increased risk of getting involved in road rage, new research published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry suggests.
Studying 358 adults, the researchers found that toxoplasmosis, a relatively harmless parasitic infection carried by an estimated 30 per cent of all humans, is associated with intermittent explosive disorder and increased aggression.
“Our work suggests that latent infection with the toxoplasma gondii parasite may change brain chemistry in a fashion that increases the risk of aggressive behaviour,” said senior study author Emil Coccaro, professor at University of Chicago. “However, we do not know if this relationship is causal, and not everyone that tests positive for toxoplasmosis will have aggression issues,” Coccaro added.
“We don’t yet understand the mechanisms involved. It could be an increased inflammatory response, direct brain modulation by the parasite, or even reverse causation where aggressive individuals tend to have more cats or eat more undercooked meat,” Royce Lee, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioural neuroscience, University of Chicago, noted.
@ Agency report.
NEW DELHI : Interest rate on small savings schemes, including PPF, Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) and senior citizen deposits, will be cut by up to 1.3 per cent from tomorrow as the government moves towards quarterly alignment of rates with the market.
Interest rate on Public Provident Fund (PPF) scheme will be 8.1 per cent for the period April 1 to June 30, down from 8.7 per cent.
On KVP, it will be reduced to 7.8 per cent from 8.7 per cent while senior citizen savings scheme of five years would earn 8.6 per cent interest compared to 9.3 per cent.
Girl-child saving scheme, Sukanya Samriddhi Account will see interest rate of 8.6 per cent as against 9.2 per cent, according to a Finance Ministry order.
However, unlike previous years when interest rates were set for the full year, the government will from now on set them every quarter, based on the previous 3-month yields on Government-Securities or G-Sec.
While the interest rate on Post Office savings has been retained at 4 per cent, the same for term deposits of one to five years has been cut.
The popular Five-Year National Savings Certificates will earn an interest rate of 8.1 per cent from April 1 as against 8.5 per cent, at present.
A five-year Monthly Income Account will fetch 7.8 per cent as opposed to 8.4 per cent.
Post Office term deposits of one, two and three years command an interest rate of 8.4 per cent but from April 1, a one-year time deposit will get 7.1 per cent, two-year time deposit will earn 7.2 per cent and 3-year time deposit will attract interest of 7.4 per cent.(Agencies).
@Agency report.