A 50 year old Specific Relief Act which is being REVIEWED for EASE of Doing Business

Specific Relief Act....why is it in news ?

• A law ministry panel will review the Specific Relief Act, 1963, keeping in mind the present scenario involving contract-based infrastructure, PPP and other public projects.

WHY the review ?

• 50 year old ...time has changed ...need to be amended.
• EASE of DOING BUSINESS

Ok, but what is this ACT all about ?

• The 'Specific Relief Act 1963' is an Act of the Parliament of India large number of remedial aspects of law. It came in the replacement of the earlier Act of 1877. 
• Protection of life and property cannot be assured by a simple declaration of rights and duties. 
• The enumeration of rights and duties must be supplemented by legal devices which help the individual to enforce his rights. 
• Social redress must be provided to every person who is injured in the social process.
• Basically, the mission of the Specific Act is to assure that whenever there is a wrong there must be a remedy.
• Specific relief is only provided for the violation of a legal right.

Getting deeper into this ACT !

• The Act is based on the principle of equity and is used for granting specific relief for enforcing civil rights. It has no application in enforcing penal laws. 
• From the preamble of the Act, it is clear that the Act was not an exhaustive one. 
• It only deals with certain kinds of specific reliefs and there are other reliefs about which the Act was silent and are used by the courts.

The Act is a procedural law and provides a network of reliefs. The plaintiff, under the Act gets his relief in specific. The reliefs contained in the Act include,

1.     Recovery of Possession of Property,

2.     Specific Performance of Contracts,

3.     Rectification of Instruments,

4.     Rescission of Contracts,

5.     Cancellation of Instruments,

6.     Declarative Relief, and

7.     Preventive Reliefs ( Injunctions).

Climate + Violence = CLIMATE VIOLENCE !!

What is CLIMATE VIOLENCE ?

• Violence caused on the environment and climate due to various ecological disputes and conflicts among human beings even for the basic resources such as water and forests is called climate violence.

• India has been said to be at the top of climate violence as maximum number of conflicts have been reported from here.

• Some of these conflicts are related to water management,fossil fuels and climate justice,industrial and utilities conflicts,tourism recreation and biodiversity conflicts.

India , Nigeria and Colombia rank among TOP in CLIMATE VIOLENCE !!

REASONS FOR CLIMATE VIOLENCE IN INDIA-

1.Population-

• With a population of 125 crores and scarcity of resources conflicts are bound to arise as people are struggling for survival.
• For examples,poor people in Delhi's winter will definitely make use of bonfire no matter if it is polluting cities and causing breathing problems in others.

2.Thrust on Industrialization-

• Due to competition and various relaxed norms industries are booming up resulting into violence.for example-leather industries in Kanpur are polluting Ganga.
• Now,if Ganga's water is not potable,then people will shift to other water resources and hence polluting them.
• Also people of nearby industries will have to be relocated to other regions leading to many construction activities and hence pollution.

3.Industrial units exploiting loopholes in environmental clearances-

• Unholy nexus between bureaucrats,politicians and industrialists for getting EIA done is also contributing factor in such violence.

4.Bad management of resources-

• Resources are few and demand are many leading again to conflicts.for example,scarcity of water resources has led to shortage.
• This resulted into appropriation of water sources and channels by industrial units with political nexus.

A panel for HOLISTIC financial INCLUSION !

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 15 July 2015 constituted a committee to work out a five-year (medium-term) action plan for financial inclusion. The 14-member panel headed by RBI executive director Deepak Mohanty presented its report.

Panel recommends various aspects as follows :- 

• Banks have to make special efforts to step up account opening for females, and the Government may consider a deposit scheme for the girl child – Sukanya Shiksha - as a welfare measure.

• Given the predominance of individual account holdings (94 per cent of total credit accounts), a unique biometric identifier such as Aadhaar should be linked to each individual credit account and the information shared with credit information companies to enhance the stability of the credit system and improve access.

• To improve ‘last mile’ service delivery and to translate financial access into enhanced convenience and usage, a low-cost solution should be developed by utilisation of the mobile banking facility for maximum possible G2P payments.

• In order to increase formal credit supply to all agrarian segments, digitisation of land records is the way forward. This should be backed by an Aadhaar-linked mechanism for Credit Eligibility Certificates to facilitate credit flow to actual cultivators.

• To phase out the agricultural interest subvention scheme which has distorted the agricultural credit system and ploughing the subsidy amount into an affordable technology aided universal crop insurance scheme for marginal and small farmers for all crops with a monetary ceiling of Rs.200,000 at a nominal premium to end agrarian distress.

• A scheme of ‘Gold KCC’ (kisan credit card) with higher flexibility for borrowers with prompt repayment records, which could be dovetailed with a government-sponsored personal insurance, and digitisation of KCC to track expenditure pattern.

• Encourage multiple guarantee agencies to provide credit guarantees in niche areas for micro and small enterprises (MSEs), and explore possibilities for counter guarantee and re-insurance.

• Introduction of a system of unique identification for all MSME borrowers and sharing of such information with credit bureaus.

• Establishing a system of professional credit intermediaries/advisors for MSMEs to help both the sector banks in credit assessment.

• To further step up financing of the MSE Sector a framework for movable collateral registry may be introduced.

• Commercial banks may be enabled to open specialised interest-free windows with simple products like demand deposits, agency and participation certificates on the liability side and cost-plus financing and deferred payment, deferred delivery contracts on the asset side.

• An eco-system comprising multiple models should be encouraged with will foster partnerships amongst national full-service banks, regional banks of various types, NBFCs, semi-formal financial institutions, as well as the newly-licensed payments banks and small finance banks.

• Banks’ business model to integrate Business Correspondents (BCs) with appropriate monitoring by designated link branches and greater mix of fixed location BC outlets to win the confidence of the common person.

• Introduction of a system of online registration of BCs, their training and monitoring their activity including delinquency, and entrusting more complex financial products such as credit to trained BCs with good track record.

• A geographical information system (GIS) to map all banking access points.

• To step up the self help group (SHG)-bank linkage programme (SBLP) initiated by NABARD with the help of concerned stakeholders including government agencies as a livelihood model.

• Corporates should be encouraged to nurture SHGs as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives.

• Provision of credit history of all SHG members by linking with individual Aadhaar numbers to check over-indebtedness.

• To restore tax-exempt status for securitisation vehicles for efficient risk transfer.

• More ATMs in rural and semi-urban centres, interoperability of micro ATMs and use of application-based mobiles as point- of- sale (PoS) for creating more touch points for customers.

• National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to develop a multi-lingual mobile application for customers who use non-smart phones, especially for users of national unified USSD platform (NUUP).

• Permit a small-value cash-out with adequate KYC along for non-bank prepaid payment instruments (PPIs) to incentivise usage.

• To allow PPI interoperability for non-banks.

• Levying a surcharge on credit card transactions by merchant establishments should not be allowed.

• Banks to complete the task of linking of deposit accounts with Aadhaar in a time bound manner so as to create the necessary eco-system for social cash transfer.

• Financial Literacy Centre (FLC) network to be strengthened to deliver basic financial literacy at the ground level. Banks to identify lead literacy officers to be trained by the Reserve Bank in its College of Agricultural Banking (CAB) who in turn could train the people manning the FLCs.

• The Reserve Bank to commission periodic dipstick surveys across states to ascertain the extent of financial literacy.

• All regulated entities should be required to put in place a technology-based platform for SMS acknowledgement and disposal of customer complaints.

• To strengthen the Information Monitoring System for District Consultative Committees (DCC) and State Level Bankers Committee (SLBC) deliberations.

• The responsibility of the SLBC/lead bank scheme to be rotated among to instil a spirit of competition.

• SLBCs to focus more on inter-institutional issues, livelihood models, social cash transfer, gender inclusion, Aadhaar seeding, universal account opening, and less on credit deposit ratio which is a by-product.

• As a part of second generation reforms, the government can replace the current agricultural input subsidies on fertilisers, power and irrigation by a direct income transfer scheme.

 ************************************************************************************

Analysis ka part !

• The panel has done well to take a systemic approach, instead of confining itself to banking channels. 
• This, of course, runs the risk of converting the report into a broad narrative of needed reform across the real economy, and being added, with nods of weighty approval, to the shelf of expert reports that need to be acted on sometime this century. 
• But it has the benefit of bringing out the interconnectedness of popular access to formal finance with institutions and practices relating to the real economy, whether land records and agricultural subsidy or the tax treatment of securitisation vehicles. 

• The Supreme Court stands to gain much clarity on the utility of Aadhaar as it ponders the legitimacy of its use in assorted government schemes, if it were to glance through just the summary recommendations of the panel.

Need of the hour is !

• While the report deserves broad endorsement, some specific recommendations stand out. 
• The panel wants to remove the eight-percentage-point maximum mark-up on the interest rate charged to the end-borrower by financial intermediaries over their cost of borrowing from a bank. This would encourage inclusion of remote areas and communities. 

• The recommendation to liberalise the norms for banking correspondents, while streamlining their regulation, and use mobile technology to cover the last mile, instead of asking banks to open yet more unviable rural branches, is hugely welcome. 

• The focus should be on smartphones and their applications, as these will replace feature phones even in rural areas with remarkable speed not anticipated by the committee.

On AADHAAR !!

• The committee does well to endorse direct cash transfers to administer subsidies. 
• The use of Aadhaar to tag bank accounts of the beneficiaries will help reform the country’s subsidy administration and cut graft. 
• The panel’s recommendation to link Aadhaar to each individual credit account and share the information with credit rating agencies makes sense. 
• However, India must enact a robust privacy law to prevent any abuse of Aadhaar.

Moral of the Story !!

The committee sets a much wider vision of financial inclusion as ‘convenient‘ access to a set a basic formal financial products and services that should include savings, remittance, credit, government-supported insurance and pension products to small and marginal farmers and low-income households at reasonable cost with adequate protection progressively supplemented by social cash transfer besides increasing the access for micro and small enterprises to formal finance with greater reliance on technology to cut costs and improve service delivery, such that by 2021 over 90 per cent of the hitherto undeserved sections of society become active stakeholders in economic progress empowered by formal finance.

Japan, South Korea and ‘comfort women’

Who are COMFORT women ?

• Comfort women is a euphemism for the females serving as prostitutes to the Japanese military during World War II. 
• approximately 200,000 women who were recruited as prostitutes by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. 
• Many of the young women were forced into servitude and exploited as sex slaves throughout Asia, becoming victims of the largest case of human trafficking in the 20th century.
• In Asia, the comfort women issue remains taboo and controversial, while at the same time, it is almost unknown in the West.
• The plight of these women has been the subject of endless political and diplomatic dispute, with some even attempting to deny the reality of their ordeal. 

So why is it in news ?

• In a landmark agreement,­ seventy years after the end of the Second World War, Japan and the Republic of Korea  appear to have finally resolved the longstanding issue of the “comfort women” that has hitherto plagued relations between the two nations.  

• Japan has issued a “most sincere” apology and will pay 8.3 million U.S. dollars to the surviving victims.  

• In return, South Korea has promised to “finally and irreversibly” end the dispute and endeavor to secure the removal of a comfort women statue in front of Japan’s Embassy in Seoul.  

• Both nations also agreed to mutually refrain from further public criticism in terms of the issue.  

• A symbolic telephone call made by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to President Park Geun-hye, in which he conveyed his apologies, cemented the agreement.

• The deal has been largely welcomed.  Although there are opponents, notably in South Korea, including activists who support the comfort women and some comfort women themselves, who dislike the deal, the agreement met with wider acclaim in Japan.

• In the larger scheme of things, the agreement is a win for both countries, and a personal diplomatic triumph for both Abe and Park.  The comfort women issue tainted relations so severely that summit talks between the two leaders have not taken place since 2012. Sharing so much, the countries simply needed to move on. 

Moral of the Story !!

Laying some of the ghosts of the past to rest can help create a basis for such cooperation in a region where territorial disputes and nationalist tensions can threaten stability at any moment. Squarely confronting its colonial and military past is essential if Japan wants to build new relations with nations upon which its army inflicted such terrible damage before and during the second world war.

JAPAN's '-ve %'

Japan introduced negative interest rate to boost economy. Japan’s central bank just set interest rates below zero for the first time ever, in an attempt to plug its leaking economy. 

It announced that it would charge a fee of 0.1 percent for certain categories of current accounts. Charging a fee for some accounts means you will be paying the central bank for keeping your money with it. 

Japan is not the first one to do such an endeavour...Europe has done something similar to this !

************************************************************************************

But what does a negative interest rate mean for a central bank of JAPAN in the first place?

Normal case me aisa hota hai !!

• In a nutshell, central banks allow financial institutions to borrow money overnight from one another to make sure they have enough cash in reserve. 
• A bank that has extra cash at the RBI (in India for example) can lend it to another bank that’s short of its cash reserve requirements and earn the RBI’s interest rate.
• When these rates are high, banks are disincentivized from borrowing from each other. 
• This chills the economy because less borrowing between banks means less money passed on to the borrowing public, and higher interest rates apply to whatever borrowing is taking place.

On the flip side, when interest rates are low, banks get interested in borrowing more, and the public, in turn, borrows more from the banks. This stimulates the economy.

Lekin JAPAN k case me kya hua?

• However, this hasn’t worked well for Japan’s central bank. 
• Low interest rates haven’t done much to help, nor has quantitative easing, which the Bank of Japan has done by buying up tons of bonds and other debt, pumping money into the economy. 
• But the economy didn’t improve much.

toh,,,toh kya ,.,,waha k central bank Governor ne MENTOS  khaya !!

• the bank pushed the rates below zero. 
• Now, a financial institution that has a surplus of money in Japan’s central bank earns negative interest. 
• In other words, the bank has to pay a fee to park its cash reserves there. 
• In theory, this means it’s expensive for a bank to sit on its money. 
• Therefore, banks are more likely to go out and lend that money to someone else—companies, most obviously. 
• Putting that money into companies, and the general public, is supposed to reinvigorate the economy.

dimaag ki batti jali na !!

Impact on India?

• Indian investors were seen hopeful of an interest rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India during the upcoming monetary policy review slated for February 2, which expectations were backed up by BoJ's decision to go in for a negative interest rate to support the Japanese economy.

Chalo Ab ANALYSIS karte hai IMPLICATIONs on world !!

• First, it means that monetary policy is not working. There is something more fundamentally wrong with their economies, and trying to make money cheaper may not get growth rates up.

• Second, in a world where central banks are trying to force banks to lend and people to save less, it is doubtful if the US Fed can go in the opposite direction. If Japan will give you money for nearly free, who will borrow in dollars in the US?

• Third, we are probably close to another global recession. Japan, Europe and China are all slowing down, and US may be getting there. Clearly, the slack in the world cannot be fixed just by easy money.

• Fourth, India will get no help from a reviving global economy, but cheap money can now flow into Indian stocks and debt, as Indian assets are looking cheaper. But this depends on how risk-averse global investors are. India’s growth will thus depend on what we do here, not what happens abroad. Ironically, even as our central bank frets about the possibility of fiscal deficits and inflation, Japanese and ECB moneymen are praying for higher inflation. In this scenario, keeping our rates high in relative rates may not be necessary (Rajan stop giving speeches and act! )

• Fifth, clearly, the world’s major economies should shift the focus of revival efforts to the fiscal side, and also to enacting more fundamental reforms.

Moral of the Story!!

The world is back to a situation where there are no clear answers to economic issues. Neither the snakeoil of Keynesianism nor the frankincense of monetarism is working. New solutions are needed.

kissaaa ARUNACHAL PRADESH ka !!

pehle kahaani k mukhya KIRDAAR jan lete hai !!!

        

Aruanchal Governor - Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa

Speaker Nabam Rebia

what is the Arunachal crisis all about?

• Dissent within the Congress government in Arunachal Pradesh has been brewing for some time now. 

• In October for instance, four top level officials resigned from their posts, accusing the incumbent state government of breeding corruption and nepotism.

• In their resignation letter, the top officials - which included Mineral Development and Trading Corporation Ltd chairman Techi Lama, Hydro Power Development Corporation Chairman Tani Loffa and Monitoring and Vigilance Committee chairman Toko Anil - accused Chief Minister Nabam Tuki of mismanaging finances and favouritism.

• In early November, two others resigned - trade & commerce and geology & mining parliamentary secretary Phosum Khimhun along with Arunachal Pradesh Bamboo Resource Development Agency (APBRDA) chairman Chau Zingnu Namchoom - citing lack of resources and negligence on the chief minister's part.

Ok then what about the role of the GOVERNOR?

• On 12 May 2015, Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa was appointed the governor of Arunachal Pradesh by President Pranab Mukherjee. 

• On 9 December, Rajkhowa sent a message to the state legislative assembly issuing terse instructions for its functioning. The Indian Express reported that the instruction mandated the termination of Nabam Rebia from the Speaker's position. It "shall be the first item on the agenda of the House," the instruction read.
• While the governor's message said that the Deputy Speaker should be presiding over the Assembly's proceedings from the first sitting, some of the Congress MLAs from the state had allegedly given a notice in November for his removal for anti-party conduct.
• Soon after, BJP MLAs from the Opposition asked for removal of the Speaker.

phir kya hua ?

• The Assembly's winter session was initially scheduled for 14 January but was rescheduled to 16 January by Rajkhowa. However, on the first day of the Assembly in Itanagar, chaos ensued when supporters of Nabam Tuki blocked the entrance, prompting the Speaker to seal the Assembly premises. (isko bolte hai INTOLERANCE )

phir kya kare.... kya kare ?

• The dissenting MPs - 11 BJP MLAs, 2 Independents, and 21 Congress dissidents, including Deputy Speaker T N Thongdok - met elsewhere (HOTEL me ...) and passed an impeachment motion on Wednesday against Speaker Nabam Rebia.

phir kya hua ?

• MADAMji along with her chamchas met the President over the issue.
• They accused the BJP of conspiring to "destabilise" the elected government in Arunachal Pradesh and urged Mukherjee to issue "appropriate directions" to uphold the sanctity of the Constitution.

chand ghanto baad ....kuch toh jabardast hua ARUNACHAL PRADESH me ? ...kya ?

• 33 of the 60 members of the Arunachal Legislative Assembly met at a community hall in Naharlagun and passed a no confidence motion against Chief Minister Nabam Tuki through signatures and voice vote.
• Further, they chose a "rebel" Congress leader Kalikho Pul as the new chief minister. The session was chaired by Deputy Speaker T Norbu Thongdok.

Hungama toh banta hai ?

• Tuki and 26 other Congress MPs boycotted this "makeshift" Assembly citing them as "illegal and unconstitutional".

phir love letter likhne ka kaam chalu !!

• Nabam tuki has wrote to the Prime Minister and President, calling the move a "murder of democracy and bypass of a democratically elected government".

KHAIR upar ka sab POLITICS ....ab PRESIDENT RULE lag gaya hai ARUNACHAL me !!

Analysis k part pe aate hai 

• Political stability is crucial for the militarily strategic state that China has been staking claim to.
• Tuki’s reign hit turbulence towards the end of 2014 as the state ran up debts amid allegations of fiscal mismanagement and diversion of central funds for allegedly dubious payments. 
• The skeletons began tumbling out of the cupboard after Kalikho Pul, the now dissident leader, was dropped as health and family welfare minister in December 2014.
• Tuki dismissed four more ministers; some MLAs quit in the next few months. The dissidence gathered momentum after ex-Assam chief secretary JP Rajkhowa was appointed state’s governor in June last year.

Latest position kya hai ?

• The ruling Congress Legislature Party on the other hand continues to remain split, with 21 of its 47 members sticking to their guns for removal of Nabam Tuki from the chief minister’s post.

Politically Speaking !!

• It is time for Congress to introspect...rather than crying FOUL

One serious question to CM Tuki !!

Has he not created a constitutional crisis by not allowing convening of an Assembly session even as six months have passed since the time last Assembly session was convened. The deadline for convening assembly session passed on 21 January. Last assembly session was held on 21 July.

and this very question ...provides for the JUSTIFICATION of imposing a PRESIDENT's rule in ARUNACHAL PRADESH !! How ? read below !

• Article 174 (1) of Indian Constitution says: "The Governor shall from time to time summon the House or each House of the Legislature of the State to meet at such time and place as he thinks fit, but six months shall not intervene between its last sitting in one session and the date appointed for its first sitting in the next session." 
• The crux of this Constitutional provision is that six months shall not intervene between the last sitting of the Legislative Assembly in one session and the date appointed for its first sitting in the next Session. 
• In case of Arunachal this critical provision has clearly been flouted and forms one of the principal reasons why Modi government, based on report of Arunachal Pradesh Governor has sought imposition of President's Rule and the latest being that PRESIDENT has given APPROVAL for the same !!!

What constitutional experts say on the role of Governor for recommending President's rule ?.

• Constitutional expert Dr Shubhash C Kashyap said, “Governor is free to make recommendation for a President rule in the state and it depends on the Cabinet whether it accepts it or not. In the present case, the legitimacy of the Arunachal Pradesh government is in question. As per available reports, the present Arunachal Pradesh government doesn’t enjoy support of the majority in the state assembly. In this context, the Governor can recommend President’s rule.”