CA 17/09/15

To ensure probity among government servants

Ethics: Probity

• The government plans to ship out “non-performing” babus by forcing them to compulsorily retire from service.
• For every review, the entire service record will be considered.
• DoPT said that the expression ‘service record’ will take in all relevant records and, hence, the review should not be confined to Annual Confidential Report (ACR) or Annual Performance Appraisal Report (APAR) dossier.
  
• Under the relevant laws, the government has the “absolute right” to retire, if necessary in the public interest, any Group A, B and C officers under certain age and service limits.

What do you understand by the term probity?

What is probity in public life and probity in governance?

What do you understand by ‘probity’ in public life? What are the difficulties in practicing it in the present times? How can these difficulties be overcome? [Mains 2014]

Visit mrunal.org ethics

USA-China relations: President Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States

GS 2: Bilateral groupings affecting India’s interest:

Chinese Concerns

• President Barack Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” doctrine [Rebalance doctrine]: Chinese perceive the policy as an attempt aimed at the “containment” of a rising China.
• Chinese have been alarmed at the accumulation of the U.S. forces in the Pacific, under President Obama’s “Pivot to Asia”.

USA’s concerns

• China’s activism in the South China Sea is a concern for USA and it’s allies.
• Washington has been accusing Beijing of cyber-theft and theft of crucial technologies.

BBIN

• The Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal (BBIN) Initiative is a sub regional architecture for regional integration.
• It operates through Joint Working Groups (JWG) to formulate, implement and review quadrilateral agreements.

Areas of cooperation include

1. water resources management,
2. connectivity of power grids,
3. multi-modal transport,
4. freight and trade infrastructure.

Background

• Council of Ministers in 1996 approved a sub regional body of Bhutan, Nepal, north east India and Bangladesh as the South Asian Growth Quadrangle (SAGQ).

Recent developments

• The Cabinet has approved signing of the BBIN Motor Vehicle Agreement for the Regulation of Passenger, Personal and Cargo Vehicular Traffic amongst BBIN.
• Signing of the BBIN agreement will promote safe, economical efficient and environmentally sound road transport in the sub-region.
• It will further help each country in creating an institutional mechanism for regional integration.
• The Union Cabinet had approved a proposal to sign the SAARC MVA during the SAARC Summit in Kathmandu in November 2014.
• Unfortunately, it could not be signed due to reservations of Pakistan.
• The agreement finally came into effect recently (Sep 2015)

RBI allows 10 companies to set up small finance banks

• Until a regular licence is issued, the applicants cannot undertake any banking business.
• RBI said that it intends to use the learning from this licensing round to appropriately revise the guidelines and move to giving licences more regularly.
• The scrutiny involved assessment of financial soundness, proposed business plan, fit and proper status based on due diligence reports received from the regulators, investigative agencies and banks.
• An important factor was proposed reach into un-banked areas and under-served sections of the population.

More details Here http://mrunal.org/2014/12/banking-rrb-amendment-bill-regional-rural-banks.html

Fruitless struggle for “equitable representation”: Reform eludes UN Security Council

Recent negotiations revolved around

• categories of membership,
• veto,
• regional representation,
• size of the enlarged Council and
• the relationship between the Security Council and the General Assembly

Opposition to expanison

The setback to the whole exercise came from China, Russia, the U.S. and some others, including the Uniting for Consensus Group (opponents of expansion).

The positions of China, Russia and the U.S. came as a shock to India that believed it had the support of these countries in one form or another.

Country	Stand	Comments
China	time had not come for any serious negotiations but it would support necessary and reasonable reform (greater representation for developing countries)	Vague
Russia	supports reasonable expansion of council. But doesn’t accept any change in the veto.	Vague
USA (similar to Russia)	favoured a “modest expansion”. no alteration or expansion of the veto	Vague
France	favoured the inclusion of India, Brazil, Japan and Germany (G-4) and an African representative as permanent members and expansion of the non-permanent category of members France even expressed no objection to the veto power being extended to the new permanent members	Some relief to India, Brazil etc.
UK	The U.K. supported G-4 as the new permanent members, but without veto.	Okay, give them nuts but not the teeth.

Stumbling blocks

• India’s position on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its border “disputes” with Pakistan and China might be impediments to its permanent membership
• The India-U.S. nuclear deal was expected to give de facto recognition to India’s nuclear status, but its non-NPT status came in the way of its entering the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

Related Quote: A very meaningful one

• An Indian Foreign Secretary had once remarked that “India had the choice of either acquiring real power through the manufacture of nuclear weapons or pursuing illusory power by seeking to become a permanent member of the Security Council.
• Having acquired real power, India could as well give up the pursuit of illusory power”.
• But present governments “power push”, our quest for permanent membership will continue. But the best we can get, if at all, may be a semi-permanent status, requiring us to get elected every few years.

Malnutrition in children in India

Sustainable Development Goals, Goal 2.2: seeks to end all forms of malnutrition by 2030, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under five years of age.

Paramater	Rapid Survey on Children (RSoC) data that was collected in 2013-14	National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) data collected ten years ago
Underweight (low in weight for their age)	~30 per cent	40 per cent
Wasted (low weight for their height)	15 per cent	23 per cent
Stunted (low in height for age)	~39 per cent were	45 per cent

• Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s once asserted that malnutrition is a “national shame”.
• Declare malnutrition as a medical emergency to save India’s children dying of hunger.
• Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) has been triggered by acute crises, such as drought, crop failure and civil wars (Common in Africa).
• There is an urgent need for promoting practices to improve the quality of local diets, improving child-feeding practices, reducing exposure to illnesses, and paediatric care services.
• The National Nutrition Mission (a multi-sectoral programme earmarked for 200 high-burden districts) has not taken off in any meaningful manner.

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