New Delhi, Oct 17 : Joining the debate on job reservations, Niti Aayog vice chairman Rajiv Kumar has said he is against extending the policy to the private sector, while admitting that more efforts are needed to generate more employment.
Several political leaders are advocating job reservation for SC/ST in private sector.
“There should not be job reservation in the private sector,” Kumar said when asked to comment on the contentious issue.
He however made a case for generating more employment, saying that the government is able to provide employment to 10 -12 lakh youths, though 60 lakh young people join the labour force every year.
Many people used to find some kinds of jobs in informal sector but that has reached a point of saturation, resulting in complaints from different sections of people, Kumar said.
The Lok Janshakti Party led by Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan has recently demanded job reservations in private firms. Similar demand has been made in the past by other political outfits as well.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had made a case last year for extending the reservation policy to the private sector.
“It is high time to think about reservation in private sector. It should be achieved through debate and dialogue,” he had said.
Bihar chief minister and senior JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar had also made a strong case a few months ago for extending reservation in private sector.
“In today’s time of economic liberalisation if reservation is not provided in private sector then it would be playing a joke with the concept of social justice,” he had said.
However, several industry associations have maintained over the years that introducing reservations could create hurdles in growth due to dearth in skilled labour and hurt chances of attracting investments in the state.
New Delhi, Oct 13: Tata Teleservices will merge with Bharti Airtel as the Tata group firm looks to tide over its financial woes by exiting the mobile telephony business.
The companies said the deal is on a no-debt, no-cash basis, implying Airtel is not taking over any of the about Rs 40,000 crore debt with Tata Teleservices and is neither paying any cash.
Even 70-80 per cent of the Rs 9,000-10,000 crore deferred payments for spectrum that TTSL holds, will be paid by Tatas.
The deal, subject to regulatory approvals, will see over 40 million customers of Tata Teleservices (TTSL) and Tata Teleservices Maharashtra (TTML) joining Bharti Airtel and mark further consolidation in one of the world’s largest telecom markets.
The merger will be on a debt-free, cash-free basis and all past liabilities and dues to be settled by Tata, the companies said in a statement.
“This is a significant development towards further consolidation in the Indian mobile industry… The acquisition of additional spectrum made an attractive business proposition,” Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said.
The transaction will create substantial long-term value for shareholders given the significant synergies, he said.
Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran said the agreement is the “best and most optimal solution” for the Tata Group and its stakeholders.
“We have evaluated multiple options and are pleased to have this agreement with Bharti,” he added.
In March this year, Airtel’s rivals — Vodafone India and Idea Cellular had announced merger plans to create India’s largest telecom firm.
As part of the agreement, Bharti Airtel will absorb Tata CMB’s operations in 19 telecom circles (17 under TTSL and 2 under TTML). It will also assume a small portion of the unpaid spectrum liability of Tata towards the Telecom Department, which is to be paid on deferred basis, the statement added.
The merger will bolster Bharti Airtel’s spectrum pool with significant additional 178.5 MHz spectrum in 1800, 2100 and 850 MHz bands, all widely used for 4G.
“The proposed merger will include transfer of all the customers and assets of Tata CMB to Bharti Airtel, further augmenting Bharti Airtel s overall customer base and network,” the statement said.
Tata and Bharti Airtel will work together to further explore other mutual areas of cooperation, that will be value accretive for both the groups.
“The employees of Tata will be demerged on the lines of the two businesses ie CMB and EFL (Enterprise and Fixed Line and Broadband), and post an optimal manpower planning will be moved accordingly,” it added.
Tata is also in initial stages of exploring combination of its enterprise business with Tata Communications and its Retail Fixed Line and Broadband business with Tata Sky.
Any such transaction will be subject to respective boards and other requisite approvals.
Tata will also retain its stake in Viom, and will take care of the liabilities associated with it.
The Boards of Bharti Airtel, Tata Sons, TTSL and TTML have approved the transaction.
Chandigarh, Oct 13: Concerned over the pollution from fireworks, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today issued notices to the two states and the Union territory of Chandigarh asking them to furnish by tomorrow details of licences issued for sale of crackers.
The development comes days after the Supreme Court banned the sale of firecrackers in Delhi-NCR till November 1.
A high court bench of justices A K Mittal and Amit Rawal sought the response of the authorities while taking note of the issue of pollution caused by firecrackers.
“While taking suo motu notice, the division bench has sought details about temporary licences issued for firecrackers from Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh,” said senior advocate Anupam Gupta here today.
The court has asked them to provide detail by tomorrow, he said.
The bench has appointed Gupta as amicus curiae (court’s friend) to assist it in the matter.
Washington, Oct 12: Despite a sharp fall in inequality around the world, the US, China and India have witnessed upward trends in its level, the IMF said today.
The International Monetary Fund said that despite the relevance of education, health and progress in recent years, gaps of access to quality education and healthcare services between different income groups in the population remained in many countries, including in advanced economies.
“If one focused on citizens around the world, global inequality has trended down sharply in recent decades, and that is a change from the upward trend since the beginning of the 19th century,” Vitor Gaspar, the Director of the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department, told reporters on the occasion of release of the annual Fiscal Monitor report here.
Declining global inequality reflects mainly catching up across countries, he said, adding that differences in per capita income between countries account for about two-thirds of global inequality in 2015.
In contrast, if one looks at inequality country by country, it become obvious that most people around the world live in countries where inequality has increased.
“It is important to emphasise that inequality has increased in the largest countries in the world: China, India and the United States,” he said.
“More broadly, if we focus on inequality within countries, we observe that over the past three decades inequality has increased in about half of the countries around the world, particularly in advanced economies,” Gasper said.
Investments in education and health help reduce income inequality over the medium term, address persistent poverty across generations, enhance social mobility, and ultimately promote sustainable and inclusive growth, the IMF official said.
Building human capital is perhaps the best insurance against job insecurity due to rapid technological change, he said.
“Fiscal policy is a powerful instrument for inclusive and sustainable growth. Fiscal policy can make the difference,” Gasper said.
According to the report, global inequality measured across all citizens of the world by abstracting from national borders has been declining in recent decades, reflecting strong income growth in some large emerging market economies such as China and India.
However, the picture of inequality within countries is mixed. While income inequality has increased in most advanced economies, trends in other economic groups have been more varied.
In fact, inequality has declined in almost half the countries for which data are available, the report noted.
Asserting that economic growth is fundamental, the IMF said that in many countries, growth has ensured that increases in inequality are compatible with improving living standards for households across all deciles of the income distribution, although there are significant differences across countries regarding the extent to which growth has been inclusive.
Manila, Oct 12: President Rodrigo Duterte said today Russia was giving 5,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles to the Philippines in what is believed to be the first ever shipment of Russian weapons to the US ally.
Duterte, who briefly visited Moscow in May as part of a pivot away from Washington, said the arms would soon arrive by ship.
The United States has traditionally been the main supplier of arms to the former American colony.
But the Philippine armed forces, who have been battling both communist insurgents in rural areas and Muslim extremists in the troubled south, remain among the weakest in the region.
“As part of what I got from Russia when we were there for almost 24 hours, we will have the Kalashnikovs,” Duterte told a gathering of soldiers and police near Manila.
The Russian embassy declined to comment on Duterte’s announcement.
Duterte did not say which types of rifles from the Russian manufacturer are being shipped to Manila.
“As far as I can remember, the Russians have never supplied us with any form of mat riel in the past,” defence department spokesman Arsenio Andolong told AFP.
Duterte, who took office last year, has shaken the Philippines’ 70-year-old alliance with the US as he moves to strengthen ties with China and Russia.
The firebrand leader has sought out other sources of weapons as he angrily rejected US criticism of his deadly war on drugs that has left thousands dead.
China this year donated about 6,000 rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition to Manila.
Dhaka, Oct 11: Bangladesh said today the Rohingya crisis was no longer Myanmar’s internal issue and had become a “regional catastrophe” as it appealed to the international community to take “crucial decisions” to press Naypyitaw to take back about 500,000 refugees living in the country.
Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali said about 500,000 Rohingyas had fled to Bangladesh out of the total 900,000 that have left Myanmar after an army crackdown on the minority community in the Rakhine State on August 25 following a terrorist attack on the country’s security outposts.
He said a total of 3,000 Rohinya Muslims had been killed so far since the army crackdown was launched and Human Rights Watch has got evidence of 284 villages of having been bulldozed.
Ali said Rohingya crisis was no longer an internal issue of Myanmar’s and has become a “regional catastrophe”.
“It’s (also) not a bilateral problem of Bangladesh and Myanmar. Bangladesh didn’t play any role in creating this crisis. The center of the crisis is in Myanmar and the solution lies with Myanmar as well,” he said.
“Even the international pressure has so far failed to refrain Myanmar military from implementing its long term depopulation plan for Rohingyas,” he said.
Ali said, for the first time in history, a majority of Rohingyas had come to Bangladesh.
“Virtually only 400,000 to 500,000 of them out of some 1,800,000 Rohingyas now remain in Myanmar,” Ali said.
He said Myanmar had launched a large-scale military operation codenamed “Area Clearance” to confront “terrorists”, but under the cover of anti-terrorism campaign continued to carryout ruthless atrocities on Rohingyas by mobilising the troops one month ahead of the crackdown.
Ali’s comments came as fresh influx of Rohingyas hit Bangladesh, a week after Myanmar agreed to take back their forcibly displaced people and sent a senior minister to Dhaka to open talks amid mounting global outrage against the country’s treatment of the minority population.
Ali, however, said the Myanmar’s proposal was actually a tactic to defuse the mounting international pressure, which he said should be kept on to force the country to revise its approach towards Rohingyas.
He said Bangladesh expected European Union foreign ministers meeting to take “some crucial decisions against the Myanmar Military” as they are scheduled to meet on October 16 in Brussels to discuss the Rohingya crisis.
Bangladesh disagreed with Maynmar’s proposal for Rohingya repatriation under a verification system set out in 1992 in view of changed scenario and reality and rather proposed a joint Bangladesh-Myanmar verification strategy, he said.
“We proposed Myanmar to take back all Rohingyas without considering their arrival date into Bangladesh as well as to involve UN and international agencies at every level of repatriation,” Ali said.
On October 2, Bangladesh proposed a bilateral agreement to facilitate the repatriation process and handed over a draft of the proposed deal to Myanmar’s visiting minister in Dhaka.
Ali also criticised Myanmar’s government-sponsored media for portraying the entire issue as “Islamist terrorism” or “radical Bangali terrorism”.
He said the media did it to confuse some of the neighbouring countries despite repeated requests from Bangladesh not to use the term “Bangali” to refer to the Rohingyas.