New Delhi : A plea has been moved in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of the recently-passed juvenile law that allows delinquent minors of 16 years of age and above to be tried as adults if they commit heinous offenses like rape and murder.
The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, cleared in the winter session of Parliament, repeals and recasts the old Act.
The PIL, filed by Congress leader and activist Tahseen Poonawalla, said that the new law is unreasonable, arbitrary and in violation of Article 14 (right to equality) of the Constitution.
It challenges section 15 of the new Act which says in case of a heinous offense alleged to have been committed by a child, who has completed or is above the age of 16 years, the Juvenile Justice Board shall conduct a preliminary inquiry to determine whether a juvenile offender is to be sent for rehabilitation or be tried as an adult.
The plea said the impugned amended Act is “draconian and unconstitutional” which instead of providing care and protection to children deems them as adult in cases where the alleged commission of crime by them is heinous in nature.
It further said that the amendment goes against the letter and spirit of The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and is against the protection accorded to Child and adolescent criminals since 1800s.
On January 4, the President of India has accorded his assent to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.
The Act also allows that any 16-18-year-old who commits a less serious offense may be tried as an adult only if he is apprehended after the age of 21 years.
As soon as a child alleged to be in conflict with the law is apprehended by police, such a child shall be placed under the charge of the special juvenile police unit or the designated child welfare police officer who shall produce the child before the Juvenile Justice Board without any loss of time but within a period of 24 hours of apprehending the child.
@Agency report.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Transgenders, who are striving hard to find a place in mainstream society, will soon turn entrepreneurs in Kerala with the launch of a taxi service which will be owned and operated by them, a first in the state.
@Agency news.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force advice that all American adults should be screened for depression as part of their normal health-care routine. The Task Force also singled out maternal mental illness for the first time by suggesting that women be screened during pregnancy and after childbirth.
The new guidelines, updated for the first time since 2009 and published in the journal JAMA, are a recognition of the devastating toll mental illness is taking around the world. Researchers have noted a surge in diagnoses in recent years related to the stress of modern life and fears of terrorism, violence and poverty. The World Health Organization has predicted depression could jump from the fourth leading cause of death and disability to second place by 2020.
The task force, an independent body appointed by the Department of Health and Human Services, noted that major depressive disorder is associated with suicide and impaired ability to manage other health issues. An estimated $22.8 billion was spent on depression treatment in 2009, it said, and lost productivity cost an additional estimated $23 billion in 2011.
“Depression has a major effect on quality of life for the patient and affects family members, especially children,” the group noted in its report.
Screening for depression typically involves starting with a series of questions about individuals’ feelings about their lives.
If these initial screening tests show elevated risk for depression, providers are asked to conduct additional assessments to look for other issues such as anxiety panic attacks, substance abuse or other medical conditions.
The report recommends screening each adult at least once, but it notes that the “optimal frequency of such screening has not been established.”
The guidelines also go into significant detail about the risks for women during and after pregnancy — underscoring new research about just how big an effect postpartum depression can have on the well-being of a mother and her child. Risk factors listed for maternal depression include poor self-esteem, child-care stress, prenatal anxiety, life stress, decreased social support, single relationship status, history of depression, difficult infant temperament, lower socioeconomic status and unintended pregnancy.
For the first time, scientists have pinned down a molecular process in the brain that helps to trigger schizophrenia. The researchers involved in the landmark study, which was published Wednesday in the journal Nature, say the discovery of this new genetic pathway probably reveals what goes wrong neurologically in a young person diagnosed with the devastating disorder.
A number of people across the world suffer from schizophrenia – a disease characterised by hallucinations, emotional withdrawal, and a declining cognitive function, beginning in adolescence or early adulthood.
This might be one of the biggest medical breakthrough of this century. Scientists on 27 January said they have identified a specific gene and molecular process in the brain that helps to trigger schizophrenia.
The feat was achieved by genetic analysis of nearly 65,000 individuals.
Despite decades of research, scientists have made very little progress in treating schizophrenia – partly because it has been so difficult to narrow in on the cause.
The drugs available to treat schizophrenia soften some of its symptoms but do not touch the underlying cause.
According to the researchers, the new results provide the first ever biological clue on the ancient disorder. The findings may also help solve other mysteries – including why the disorder often begins in adolescence or young adulthood.
Researchers have found that people who carry a gene that speeds up or strengthens the normal developmental process of “synaptic pruning” in the brain are at a higher risk for developing schizophrenia.
Typically, the brain uses this process to shed weak or unneeded neural connections as it matures. This happens primarily during adolescence and young adulthood, and is concentrated in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is associated with high-level thinking, planning and decision-making.
But in people with schizophrenia, the synaptic pruning process goes into overdrive. This may explain why those individuals have been shown to have fewer neural connections in their prefrontal cortex, and why the disorder almost always shows up during adolescence or young adulthood.
“The great majority of schizophrenia cases present between the ages of 16 and 25, which has always been one of the mysteries of the illness,” Dr Steve McCarroll, the co-author of the research told the Huffington Post. “Why would it strike at this particular time in life?”
The researchers found that the gene associated with aggressive tagging of weak neural connections – meaning that more of these connections are eaten away by proteins than they are in a healthy brain – also carries the protein C4. The C4 protein tells another protein to attach to synapses, or neural connectors, in the brain.
“C4 is essentially placing the Post-it note on synapses that says ‘eat me,'” said McCarroll said.
Researchers say the findings will pave the path for more effective treatments and screening protocols for the disease – such as a test or a drug that could target runaway synaptic pruning.
However, they said the findings do not mean a new treatment will be found soon.
The Bank of Japan (BOJ) cut its benchmark interest rate below zero for the first time. The benchmark rate now stands at -0.1 per cent.
1. What does negative interest rate mean?
A negative interest rate means the central bank and perhaps private banks will charge negative interest: instead of receiving money on deposits, depositors must pay regularly to keep their money with banks.
Negative interest rates will be adopted on the basis of a three-tier system. The current account that each financial institution maintains at the BoJ will be divided into three tiers, on which a positive, zero and negative interest rate will be applied.
2. Which other central banks have pursued a similar policy?
In June 2014, the European Central Bank became the first major central bank to adopt negative interest rates. It charged banks 0.3 per cent for holding their cash overnight. Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland also have deposit rates below zero.
3. Why has BoJ adopted such an unconventional monetary stance?
BoJ seems to be worried about a slide into deflation territory. Consumer prices have remained stubbornly low, suggesting that demand continues to remain muted with consumers postponing purchases. This could derail the recovery.
According to analysts, collapsing inflation expectations is the key reason for the unexpected move. While the BOJ governor is previously reported to have said that it would hit the two per cent mark by 2016, BoJ now forecasts core inflation to average 0.2 to 1.2 per cent between April 2016 and March 2017.
4. What will be the impact of this unconventional policy move?
By charging banks for holding their money, BoJ is hoping that it will spur banks to lend. Theoretically, if bank lending expands, it could boost consumption and investment, and push growth.
Lower rates could also help push down the Yen which could help boost Japanese exports. It might also trigger another round of competitive devaluations as countries try to increase their share in global trade.
5. How have banks behaved while in a negative interest rate scenario?
Many fear that in practice if banks make their customers pay to hold their money, it might lead to a situation where consumers hold on to cash.
It is equally possible that banks may not pass on the charge to their customers. According to economists at the Deutsche Bank, banks in Europe have not passed these costs onto customers and have preferred to lower their profit margin between lending and deposit rates.
A broad risk is that a negative return on parking funds with the central bank might encourage banks to invest in riskier assets to secure a return, potentially driving new asset bubbles and more pain further down the line.
Sweden and Denmark have introduced negative deposit rates on a temporary basis in recent years. In Denmark, the aim was to cap an unwanted rise in its currency, which was pushed higher when foreign money flooded into the country as investors looked for safe havens outside the crisis-ridden Eurozone. The move to negative deposit rates did not cause financial meltdown, with the Danish central bank issuing plenty of advance warning. Nor did it lead to a noticeable change in the interest rates charged by banks for bank loans.
@Based on agency reports.
New Delhi : The Centre’s fiscal deficit touched Rs 4.9 lakh crore by the end of December 2015, constituting 87.9 per cent of the budgeted Rs 5.5 lakh crore, official figures showed on Friday.
This meant that the government would need to limit its excess its expenditure over revenue by Rs 60,000 crore in the next three months. However, the target of the deficit is not only in absolute terms, but more importantly as 3.9 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). With revision of GDP numbers on Friday and expected lower nominal growth than over 11 per cent assumed in the Budget for 2015-16, would require the government to limit the deficit by another Rs 29,000 crore, economists said.
The deficit had surpassed the Budget estimate by this time a year ago. The fiscal deficit was 87 per cent of the estimate till November.
The government’s capital expenditure rose 33.45 per cent to Rs 1.9 lakh crore till December from Rs 1.4 lakh crore in the corresponding period of 2014-15. Revenue expenditure was up three per cent to Rs 11.3 lakh crore from Rs 10.9 lakh crore a year ago. Of this, Rs 27,000 crore increase went to interest payments and non-interest revenue expenditure was up just Rs 3,000 crore because of lower fuel subsidies. Total receipts at Rs 8.2 lakh crore accounted for 67.6 per cent of the Rs 12.2 lakh crore Budget estimate. This was much higher than in the corresponding period of 2014-15 when receipts were 55.7 per cent of those budgeted.
Tax revenue swelled to Rs 6.2 lakh crore till December, 67.6 per cent of the Rs 9.2 lakh crore estimated. By December 2014 tax revenue accounted for 55.8 per cent of estimates. This is despite a likely shortfall of Rs 25,000-Rs 30,000 crore in direct taxes in 2014-15. Non-debt capital receipts were Rs 22,000 crore, 27 per cent of the budgeted Rs 80,000 crore for 2015-16. The government could not even start strategic sales, which were budgeted to generate Rs 28,500 crore. Disinvestment has so far not yielded half of the budgeted Rs 41,000 crore.
The government’s non-tax revenue was Rs 1.8 lakh crore, 90 per cent of the budgeted Rs 2.2 lakh crore, and higher than the 70 per cent of estimates during the first nine months of 2014-15.
The government has budgeted for a fiscal deficit of 3.9 per cent of the GDP in 2015-16. While economists say the deficit will be reined in at Rs 5.5 lakh crore as budgeted, it will be higher than 3.9 per cent of the GDP because the nominal economy did not grow as expected. Besides nominal GDP for 2014-15 was revised down to Rs 124.9 lakh crore in 2014-15 from Rs 125.4 lakh crore estimated earlier.
NEW DELHI: BlackBerry is likely to abandon its BlackBerry 10 (BB10) operating system and switch to Google’s Android for its mobile phones in the future, a move aimed at reviving its ailing hardware business, which contributes a majority of its revenue globally.
The company indicated the change at the launch of its first Android-based phone, PRIV, in India on Thursday.
New Delhi : Government of India has marginally revised downward the economic growth for 2014-15 to 7.2 per cent from the earlier estimate of 7.3 per cent after factoring in latest data on agriculture and industrial production.
“The real GDP or GDP at constant (2011-12) prices for the years 2014-15 and 2013-14 stands at Rs 105.52 lakh crore and Rs 98.39 lakh crore, respectively, showing growth of 7.2 per cent during 2014-15, and 6.6 per cent during 2013-14,” said Central Statistics Office’s (CSO) revised estimates of national accounts released on Friday.
GDP growth rate for 2013-14 has also revised downwards to 6.6 per cent from earlier estimate of 6.9 per cent.
According to the statement, estimates of GDP and other aggregates for the years 2011-12 to 2013-14 have also undergone revision due to use of latest available data on agricultural production and industrial production.
Last year, the CSO had estimated the GDP growth rate for 2014-15 and 2013-14 at 7.3 per cent and 6.9 per cent, respectively.
The office said in terms of real GVA (Gross Value Added) at constant (2011-12) basic prices, there has been a growth of 7.1 per cent in 2014-15 as against growth of 6.3 per cent in 2013-14.
The GVA for 2014-15 was earlier estimated at 7.2 per cent.
GVA as a concept was introduced by the CSO last year to measure value addition in the economy.
The downward revision in GVA for 2014-15 is on account of subdued performance of secondary sector comprising manufacturing, electricity, gas, water supply & other utility services, and construction.
The growth rate in secondary sector estimated at 5.4 per cent down from earlier projection of 6.3 per cent. However the growth rate for the primary (farm and allied activities) and tertiary (services) sectors have been revised upwards to 1.3 per cent and 10.3 per cent, from earlier estimates of 0.3 and 10.2 per cent respectively.
@ Agency report