Newspaper Must Read Articles of The Day– 20 November 2015

Newspaper articles bearing
relevance to Civil Services preparation

The Hindu

National

• Pay panel moots 23.5% hike, to cost govt. Rs 1.02 lakh cr.: In its report, the Seventh Central Pay Commission has recommended an overall increase of 23.55 per cent in pay, allowances, and pension for government employees. Within this, the Commission’s report recommends a 16 per cent increase in basic pay, a 63 per cent increase in allowances and a 24 per cent hike in pension. The recommendations are to come into force on January 1, 2016.(Central Pay Commission – GS Paper II)

• India and China link Home Ministries to counter terror: India and China have decided to establish a ministerial mechanism that would, for the first time, link the two home ministries, filling a vital gap in the overall institutional architecture of the bilateral ties.(Terrorism – GS Paper III)

• SC banks on collegium to fill judicial vacancies:With judicial vacancies in the High Courts mounting and transparency yet to kick in over appointments, the Supreme Court on Thursday turned to the very collegium process it wants to reform to appoint judges, at least for the time being. The Constitution Bench headed by Justice J.S. Khehar said judges would continue to be appointed under the prevailing collegium system, which was restored when the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) laws were struck down as “unconstitutional” by the Supreme Court.(Judicial Appointments  – GS Paper II)

• First batch of enclave residents from Bangladesh arrives in West Bengal:Sixty-two persons belonging to 19 families were greeted by the district administration at the international border check-post at Changrabandha in the Cooch Behar district.Under the Land Boundary Agreement between the two countries and subsequent protocol, the Bangladeshi enclaves in India and Indian enclaves in Bangladesh were transferred on July 31, 2015.(Union & State – GS Paper II)

• Pak. beats India in curbing terror funding: Pakistan has beaten India in cracking down on entities and individuals involved in terrorist financing, a report by a global anti-financial terror body has said.While India took action against 37 entities and individuals till August this year, Pakistan booked 117 people, the report by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said. China took action against 29 entities, while Sri Lanka cracked down on 437 individuals. (Terrorism Financing – GS Paper III)

• Absence of plan panel will hurt India: Manmohan: Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said that the country’s economic policy had gone wayward since the BJP came to power. He said the disbanding of the Planning Commission would hurt the country in the long run.(Planning  – GS Paper III)

• Ice melt scenarios ‘not plausible’: Scientists say the contribution of a melting Antarctica to sea-level rise this century will be significant and challenging, but that some nightmare scenarios are just not realistic.Their new study models how the polar south will react if greenhouse gases rise at a medium to high rate. The most likely outcome is an input of about 10cm to global waters by 2100.But the prospect of a 30cm-or-more contribution — claimed by some previous research — has just a one-in-20 chance.(Environment – GS Paper III)

International

• Wigneswaran, TNA to iron out strains: Northern Province’s Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran will soon hold a meeting with the leadership of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to sort out differences on key issues.(International Affairs – GS Paper II)

• Life-saving medicines in short supply in blockade-hit Nepal:Nepal imports 60 per cent of its medicine from India.The remaining locally made drugs also get most of the raw material and packaging from India. Most of the fuel comes from India, and the restriction has led to severe shortages in Nepal. Fuel rationing has led to buses and trucks cutting down services.(India & her Neighbors – GS Paper II)

• What’s next for Syria’s Assad?: The tide of global rage against the Islamic State group lends greater urgency to ending the jihadists’ ability to operate at will from a base in war-torn Syria. That momentum could also force a re-evaluation of what to do about President Bashar Assad and puts a renewed focus on the position of his key patrons, Russia and Iran.The Syrian leader has lost much of the country to the IS and other groups in the four-year war; half the population has been displaced, many areas have been levelled, and masses of refugees are flooding Europe.(International Affairs – GS Paper II)

Business

• Govt. to introduce portal to support innovation: Aiming to push innovation in the country, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday said a separate portal would be established under Department of Electronics and IT (Deity) through which innovators can seek government support for their ideas and products.(Indian Economy – GS Paper III)

Opinion-`Editorial

• Holding power to account : The RTI Act has completed 10 years of implementation. According to a conservative estimate based on the Information Commission’s annual reports, there are at least 50 lakh RTI applications filed in India every year. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative used the data to estimate that just under 1% of the electorate uses the RTI every year. Over the last decade, at least 2% of the Indian population has used the law.(Right to Information Act- GS Paper II)

•  A way to judicial independence :Under the scheme of the Constitution, the final interpreter of the law is the court, not the legislature or the executive. Judicial independence is, therefore, central to democracy because it is the judiciary which helps the realisation of the Rule of Law and protection of human rights. But the concept of independence is a complex one which subsumes in it concepts like impartiality, accountability, efficiency and respect for other institutions of governance.(Judicial Appointments – GS Paper II)

• Planning for the next flood :Cyclonic storms on Tamil Nadu’s 1,076-km coastline are not unusual, and at least once in two years there is some disaster or the other. Compounding the problem of urban waste clogging drains was widespread encroachments that have whittled down the carrying capacity of many water channels.A big factor behind the flooding is the rampant construction of buildings on water bodies, wetlands and areas that were originally floodplains.(Disaster Management – GS Paper III)

Indian Express

•  Perfect storm :The time has come to institute a proper farm income insurance scheme, protecting against both crop loss and adverse price movements. The payouts here should be automatic, linked to measurable area-specific weather and price parameter deviations. The premiums on these are worth subsidising more than urea, water or electricity.(Economic development- GS Paper II)

 Live Mint

• Is access to transport slowing participation of women in India’s workforce?: It is widely acknowledged that gender gap in employment is an important fetter for India in realizing its full economic potential. The McKinsey Global Institute, for instance, estimates that India’s economic output in 2025 can be higher by as much as 60% if women’s participation in the economy were on par with that of men.(Women & Economy- GS Paper I & GS Paper III)

• Cleaning up the cess: India needs FDI. The country runs a current account deficit (CAD). Its imports are of the essential variety, and its exports are constrained by global growth prospects, which are dimming by the day. So, the country has an inherent tendency to run a CAD. India’s national savings rate peaked at about 37% in 2007 and is now just above 30%.(Indian Economy – GS Paper III)