Whispers Forum

An Honest officer transferred who made the first GST arrest in her zone and collected evaded revenues for central govt. Everyone knew she was an epitome of honesty hence must have been sour tooth for many in department and evasion circle. Her transfer comes as a surprise as she was investigating few big files where many corrupt influential people were involved. Raises eyebrows if it was just a routine transfer or a conspiracy to remove her from the post so that the looted booty can be shared. Hope CBIC members team read this and transfer people only after thorough verification of IRS officers and their contribution to the job they are entitled. Wishing her good luck in future. Corruption seeds is what we sow and in the end corruption is what we reap.
A Visitor
Large number of promotion files pending with EO/ACC
A large number of promotion files of various departments are pending with EO/ACC since February. Why no one bothers to clear those pending files in chronological order whereas the files of influential officers travel at speed of light and get ACC clearance in a few seconds? Is this still a suit boot sarkar?
Amit

The spike in COROA-19 cases in India is due to the distortion of constitutional spirit of a unitary system in a federal scheme under the Constitution of India. Today, it is the judiciary that is issuing advisory/direction to the federating units instead of the Government of India. Had the states complied with the central directives to contain the spread of the infection in letter and spirit, India would not have crossed the figures of even thousands. But the defiance, resistance, obduracy, flippancy, assertiveness and politics of some states has brought about this situation. What for are the Emergency provisions of the constitution? Is the central government authorized by the constitution to issue advisory to state(s) government? Is the state government obliged to implement the central directives in toto? War or internal strife alone are not Emergency, COVID-19 like medical infections too are. Can a state government ignore the central government directives, refuse to discharge its constitutional responsibility for public health and thrust the population in to a community infection of Corona/ Corona like epidemic? What can the central government do? Should it go to the court? For the present, nobody is prepared to give a clear verdict on the issue. But it is costly to decide the course of action in emergencies on a case to case basis. Unless the Court reviews its verdict in the S.R. Bommai case to meet the exigencies like COVID-19 effectively, the unitary features of the constitution of India will lie in a limbo.
M L Gupta

Draft of New Education policy 2020,is highly ambitious, focussing on promoting multi-dimensional development of personality of students from school to college level.
Doing post graduation would be almost history under the new dispensation. One has to complete graduation, pursue studies further, if interested, and go straight for the Research. M Phil would be redundant.
Introducing 360 degree assessment system for students is fantastic. The students will have to self-assess their performance before getting assessed by the peer groups.
Will the students be intelligent and fair enough to grade their assessment. A plebeian suggestion, that needs a re-think.
Learning music, painting, sculpturing and other works of Art etc. with Science and humanities subjects, no doubt, will give flexibility to students to fine-tune and promote their hobbies and educational predilections.
Another noteworthy feature of new policy is to make it mandatory for students to study upto class 5th in their mother tongues. During my schooling in a sarkari school, I started learning English language from class 6th onwards.
Earmarking 6% of GDP for Educational sector, as against 4% at present, was long overdue. Fair enough. But, the first priority remains jobs creation. A multi- faceted personality and absence of jobs, will lead to a contradictory situation like : “Padhey Farsi, Bechey Tel”.
Do we have trained teachers and infrastructure to cope up with new Education policy, which will have to pass through many tests and hurdles.
Keeping standards of new education policy at par in all States is not so easy as perceived by the draft New Education policy. This has anti- rural bias.
Success of the new policy will depend how soon we overcome the Implementational road blocks. Possibility of chaos. A mechanism will be needed to bring order into chaos by grasping the inherent factors, harmonise them in right proportion to achieve the objective.
The outcome of the new policy will determine its success or failure.
The policy will take several years to operationalise. Not a matter of one or two years.
As stated earlier, we are living in a highly competitive world. Knowledge of English is the sine qua non in global jobs competition.
Changing Syllabii of subjects will require substantive efforts. This will remain a subject of perennial controversy between the elite schools and sarkari- schools and will further sharpen the urban divide. The impact on municipal schools in rural areas will be disastrous.
All things considered , the new draft Education policy is a welcome change for the sake of change. Fulfillment of BJP Manifesto promised in 2014, is , no doubt, creditable. But, it could be fraught with political undertones and overtones.
A K Saxena (A former civil servant)
Has Modi govt gone intellectually bankrupt ?
What is the urgency for any extensions ? So, the bankruptcy of ideas in Modi Govt is to the extent of (1) second extension to the incumbent, (2) extension to new chap even before vacancy arises. Aren’t there others ? No wonder this govt is earning epithets and ridicules.
Vijay Kumar
Congrats – new DG, AIR News
Congratulations Sir. I hope you will give a new dimension to All India Radio
Matosh Chander

China’s eyes now seem to be set on the island of Hawaii in the United States in the Pacific Ocean. The recent re-election of the pro-Beijing Taneti Maamau as the President of Kiribati in June this year, according to Christopher Pala in his report filed with the FP News on June 19, will raise the “tantalizing possibility of China getting a foothold in Kiribati’s Christmas Island, which is the world’s largest atoll with a land area of 150 square km, located 1300 miles south of Honolulu, home to the US Pacific Command. “
While the ostensible reason for building port facilities on the Christmas Island could be tourism, it could very well be used to park the Chinese warships. Incidentally an analysis by a retired US Rear Admiral Michael McDevitt Chinese Navy will be the Largest in the World in 2035 has warned both the US and its ally Australia about the growing naval capabilities of China.
While Japan used air planes to attack the Pearl Harbour in 1944, state of the art technology could enable China to attack Hawaii from the Christmas Island. That this development has raised concern for the US military is evident from the hush-hush meeting held by the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in June with a key Chinese Foreign Ministry Official Yang Jiechi in Hawaii. During this meeting Yang is reported to have told the Secretary of State that the US should respect Chinese positions on key issues, stop interfering in the matters like Hong Kong, Taiwan and Xinjiang.
The message was loud and clear. If there were to be an attack on Honolulu that could trigger worldwide repercussions. Retaliation has no meaning as only Kiribati will suffer. Even when the world is still reeling under the onslaught of the corona virus, it neither wants the repeat of an attack on Pearl Harbour nor another Hiroshima and Nagasaki after seven decades. The telling fact, however, remains that the sky seems to be the limit for the territorial ambitions of China.
Dr Sitharam Gurumurthi IAS (Retired)
Chennai
In CSS, stagnation galores
This is on account of cadre restructuring of various All India Service Cadres. In the Central Staffing Scheme they continue to stagnate in the posts in which they are at the level of Director and Joint Secretary. Whereas their batch-mates in their own cadre become Joint Secretary level and Additional Secretary level. Why will one like to loose financially ?
BBS

This is not surprising to know that the biggest causality happened with Middle Class families specially those were working with private companies/organisations during the continuing Pandemic period. Not a single Govt. facilities have been classified to benefit them either State/Central. They are righteous/honest Income Tax payers & their contribution is significant. They are under tremendous pressure to meet their family obligations related to Child education, Marriage, Keeping parent care, Home loan etc. kinds of responsibilities to continuously bear/maintain. In this circumstances, they are under going situation like this: -----Job loss. -----Salary cut. ----- Working in strenuous condition facing tension of job loss/threat from employer do it or leave it. Beside the above, most harassing part is Non-payment of Full-final Settlement amount by the companies after forced resignation or pressurized to leave the job. Would like to elaborate that even an amount in between 5 lakhs to 10 lakhs are delayed and those who has worked more than 10 years involves amount more than 15 lakhs & above have kept waiting in this difficult time and still these are not reimbursed. As you all aware, Legal course or action inadvertently delay considering the present day constrained in operations of the Courts. You can think about them how much they are mentally seek & desperate so that they are unable to follow-up even to handle family responsibilities, search for new job,dried-up earning, maintaining through savings and sending reminders to the Company for reimbursement. And nothing is happening. You know after going through this painstaking write-up compliant, so many suggestions will pour in ,but my humble request with folded hand to the DECISION MAKERS that please do take some urgent action and ask each of the private company/organisation to furnish the details of retrenchment of Staff & seek explanation about delay/Non-payment in Final Settlement amount and last Income Tax Department to force them to release by paying TDS amounts so that Ex-employees can submit their Income tax Return in time-some bungling is going on in issuance TDS certificates please do take action. -------A poor middle class without work/job to whom nobody is ready to help.----PLEASE DO HELP US---- AN INDIAN.
Sachidanand
Carrot and stick policy to get rid of an Election Commissioner
Modi is using carrot and stick policy to get rid of Lavasa as Election Commissioner who is in line to become CEC. Stick did not work. Now the carrot of ADB will work or not? If Lavasa goes, Modi can fill the commission with his yes men/women.
Amit