Euthanasia

Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 has been repealed. The Supreme Court, in P. Rathinam (1994), stated that the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution included the “right not to live a forced life”, thus holding the provision unconstitutional. But subsequently, in Gian Kaur (1996), a five-judge bench overruled P. Rathinam, upholding the validity of Section 309. Gian Kaur stated that sanctity of life was a significant aspect of Article 21, and “by no stretch of imagination can extinction of life be read to be included in protection of life”. Similarly, the Law Commission of India in its 42nd Report (1971) recommended the repeal of Section 309, while in the 156th Report (1997) recommended retention, based on Gian Kaur. The Commission’s 210th Report (2008) again recommended a repeal of the law, which was favourably reiterated in Parliament and decided upon recently.

NITI Aayog

National Institution for Transforming India. 

Cons of PC: Non-constitutional,non-statutory body,Domination of Prime Minister, bypassing the cabinet,it overshadowed the role of Finance Commission, there was no direct accountability.

Do we still need planning then?Sustainable development; balanced regional development.

This new economic think-tank, manned by domain experts, has been constituted to provide strategic and technical advice to the Centre and the State governments on key policy matters. The Planning Commission also did this but allegedly in a heavily centralised, big-brother way suited to a command economy. It hopes to replace the one way Centre-to-State flow of policy with ‘cooperative federalism’ making development a process based on partnership of states. Importantly, unlike the Planning Commission, the NITI Aayog does not have the power of allocating central funds to States. This will now be done by the finance ministry.After the scrapping of PC, the role of formulating annual plans and fund allocation is being currently undertaken by the Finance Ministry.The governing council of the NITI Aayog has on board the chief ministers of all the States and lieutenant governors of the Union Territories. This council, in its first meeting, decided to undertake a review of centrally sponsored schemes — whether they should be continued, transferred to States or scrapped.It will also develop mechanisms for village-level plans.

Structure of NITI Aayog-Prime Minister of India as the Chairperson,Governing Council,Regional Councils,Experts,Vice-Chairperson(Arvind Panagariya): To be appointed by the Prime Minister.

Cons of NITI: Lack of clarity regarding the ongoing plans and the fate of Centrally Sponsored Schemes,After getting fiscal discretion,states may not spend on social sector.Some of the newly formed states who at this moment might not be financially viable and are dependent on the Union govt. for guidance and monitoring.The opposition parties has labelled it as a mere "name-change" exercise!

Planning Commission was seen as a vestige of the socialist era.The new body, conceived more in the nature of a think-tank will provide strategic and technical advice.The NITI Aayog seeks substitute centralised planning with a ‘bottom-up’ approach where the body will support formulation of plans at the village level and aggregate them at higher levels of government. In short, the new body is envisaged to follow the norm of cooperative federalism, giving room to States to tailor schemes to suit their unique needs rather than be dictated to by the Centre. This is meant to be a recognition of the country’s diversity. The needs of a State such as Kerala with its highly developed social indicators may not be the same as that of, say, Jharkhand, which scores relatively low on this count.

Under the NITI Aayog, the Govt. plans to adopt a ‘Bharatiya’ approach to development.The maturing of our institutions and polity also entails a diminished role for centralised planning, which itself needed to be redefined. NITI Aayog would comprise of Governing Council and regional councils in place of the NDC of the Planning Commission. States do not want to be mere appendages of the Centre… They seek a decisive say in determining the architecture of economic growth and development.India no longer seeks the alleviation of poverty, states the resolution, but rather its elimination. Non-Resident Indian community spread across more than 200 countries is a significant geo-economic and geo-political strength. “Future national policies must incorporate this strength in order to broaden their participation in the new India beyond just their financial support.”Policy-making must focus on providing necessary support to the more than 50 million small businesses, which are a major source of employment creation, in terms of skill and knowledge upgrades and access to financial capital and relevant technology. 

Eurozone Crisis

The ongoing Eurozone Debt Crisis started in Greece in May 2010. Greece became the first developed country to default on the IMF as it failed to transfer 1.55 bilion pounds? For a country of the EU to enter the Eurozone, it must meet the criterion of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty. In Greece, the primary drivers of the initial impressive growth rates were easy,credit-fuelled government spending. Unfortunately, a significant portion of the credit-fuelled government spending was for non-productive purposes such as the 2004 Athens Olympics and military needs, notably on German ships and tanks, which was about 3 per cent of the GDP in the period — the highest in Europe. Then came the Great Recession in the United States, which lasted from January 2007 to June 2009. Further, in June 2007, the ongoing Global Financial Crisis hit the U.S. When Lehman collapsed in September 2008, both the financial crisis and Great Recession became global. Under these conditions, the private capital flow surge that started in 2002 from the centre to the periphery suddenly reversed in 2008. Both these events adversely affected not only the Greek economy, but also its ability to roll over its debts. Unlike non-eurozone peripheral countries with their own domestic currencies, Greece was unable to devalue its currency and raise the interest rates to weather the storm. Soon, Greece found itself in trouble. Greece has gone through two “bailout” programmes. Greece has been in depression since the beginning of 2009. Currently, youth unemployment is above 60 per cent, and the Greek debt to GDP ratio is about 180 per cent. In return for these programmes, the Troika demanded a variety of austerity measures including cuts in social benefits. Some ardent believers of the neoclassical economic orthodoxy argue that despite that the government and households spending less, the economy can pick up the slack, because production may become more profitable under austerity and labour market flexibility — that is, there will be an obedient work force. Since, under the euro, Greece lacks a central bank that can provide liquidity to its banks independently of the ECB, Greece’s banks are in the hands of the Troika.

Sugar Crisis

Sugar prices had been declining while the price of sugarcane had been steadily increasing rendering the operations of sugar mills unviable.Ethanol, which is a plentiful product in the sugar manufacturing process and is blended with petrol, can be a vital revenue earner for the mills.Currently ethanol blending is only at around 3 per cent. It could easily be raised to 10 per cent which would reduce sugar surplus and reduce sugar prices.he government should buy 3 million tonnes of sugar at cost of production to reduce supply and store it as a buffer. The sugar industry feels that increasing the import duty on sugar from the current 25 per cent to 40 per cent will be a solution for the longer-term.Decreasing import and promoting export of sugar is the key to curb supply.

To help resolve the sugar crisis, Centre has asked states to reschedule the repayment of interest-free loans by the industry to seven years instead of five and extend financial assistance from the Sugar Development Fund to industry for modernisation and ethanol blending, apart from raising the import duty to 40 per cent. Create a buffer stock to absorb the surplus sugar which has resulted in price fall. The States were divided on this issue: some of them wanted financial assistance to be given to mills to enable them to clear arrears, while some others wanted the farmers to be assisted directly by the government.

Union Cabinet decided to hike the import duty on sugar to 40 per cent from the current 25 per cent to check the slide in domestic prices of the sweetener and enable the industry to clear cane arrear.

Social Inequality

The two fundamental axes of social inequality in India are caste and gender.
A major challenge to religious discrimination was the bhakti movement.
Gandhi and Ambedkar conducted their own heroic struggle against caste discrimination.
Constitutional provisions regarding affirmative action, reservation for women in local bodies.

Recent Event:
Tragic suicide of Rohith Vemula.

Way ahead:
However, gender discrimination persists in the domain of family and personal law. India desperately needs a gender-sensitive common civil code.
Indians need to press the managements of the country’s temples, mosques, churches and gurdwaras towards less discriminatory practices, so that women can enter and worship in any part of a shrine.

Tax reforms

• Easwar Committee report recommends that tax regime must be made simpler, more friendly to taxpayers, especially for start-ups. 
• Predictability must be brought in the tax regime.
• The committee has recommended raising the threshold for Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) and reduction of TDS rates from 10 per cent to 5 per cent for individuals. 
• Do changes in law to avoid delay in the issue of tax refunds. 
• Encouragement of electronic filing and measures to reduce the compliance burden. 
• Tax to GDP ratio is still a tad over 10 per cent.
• Make sure the GST kicks in.

Smart City

Challenges:The key issue is whether our cities will be empowered with finances and capacity by the state governments and helped by the government of India. Without this, private funds will not come forth to supplement the limited funds of the government and the hope of public-private partnership will not materialise.

We need to provide greater autonomy to the elected urban local governments in the running of city affairs.
We need reforms in Urban planning. City govts. should be permitted to raise service charges without approval from the state governments. Assign the function of town planning to urban local bodies which has been retained by state govts. till date. The state finance commissions have not followed the high standards set by the Central Finance Commission. Property tax is a major source of revenue for municipalities, but both the rates and exemptions are set by the state government.


Smart Solutions:

E-Governance and Citizen Services:
Public Information, Grievance Redressal.
Electronic Service Delivery
Video Crime Monitoring.

Waste Management:
Waste to energy and fuel.
Recycling of waste.

Water Management:
Smart meters
Water Quality Monitoring.

Energy Management:
Smart meters.
Renewable energy sources.
Energy efficient and green buildings.

Urban Mobility:
Pedestrian friendly roadway.
Smart Parking.

Others:
Tele-medicine.
Smart Maps.
Digitised land titles.