NEW DELHI: As former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda faces the heat of ongoing Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe, political circles in Haryana are talking about future course of action and alternatives available to the Congress.

The significance of last month’s chance meeting between Mr. Hooda and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Parliament House is also not lost. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won a majority in Haryana in last assembly polls held in October 2014 and formed the government.

The general perception going around in the State is that the BJP has failed to make an impressive impression among the people so far as governance is concerned and the party would be open to having electoral understanding with smaller regional outfits in the next assembly elections.

Though Mr. Hooda himself played down his recent meeting with Mr. Modi, speculation is rife about his political move amid the CBI probe into land deals during his tenure. Mr. Hooda sought to explain his meeting with Mr. Modi by saying that they used to meet up as chief ministers whenever a meeting was held in the national Capital.

As the BJP chief Amit Shah is criss-crossing the country to widen the base of the party, already touted as the largest political party, he would like to further strengthen the party by roping in a tall Jat leader. The million dollar question then remains: Will Mr. Hooda fit into the scheme of things of the BJP? As there is the question of probity and the CBI investigation against him, the BJP might encourage Mr. Hooda to form his own regional outfit and then take his support. But these possibilities remain in the realm of speculation.

Jats are influential in Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan and the BJP President Amit Shah is known for working minutely into all details, there is a possibility that the party would try and lure a Jat leader of some stature into its fold. Mr. Hooda’s family is well known and entrenched and his “Kisan Panchayats’’ in the recent past have managed to get good numbers.

However, the delicate task would be to achieve a balance between Jats and non-Jats in Haryana. If indications are to be believed, a new political equation may emerge in the State in the coming months. The Congress may, after the return of the party vice president Rahul Gandhi from his U.S. tour, try and inject a new life in the workers by reshuffling the pack in the party set-up in Haryana.

Is the extended honeymoon of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the people beginning to wear off. There is widespread discontent that not a single promise among the multitude made by him has materialised so far. 

What is surprising is that he is at the receiving end from one of his own senior party colleagues — former Union Finance minister Yashwant Sinha. It has not only sent shock waves in the BJP and gladdened the cockles of those concurring with Sinha’s unbiased assessment underlining the need for immediate course correction. 

Credit must be given to the senior BJP leader who has found it imperative to “speak up in national interest against the mess created by the Union Finance Minister (Arun Jaitley)”. He was of the firm view that the economy was on a “downward spiral and poised for a hard landing”. 

This is the best that Yashwant Sinha could have done under the circumstances as Modi’s diktat is that anyone above 75 years of age should bid adieu to active politics and take on the role of being an adviser. 

The common man has shown tremendous patience all along which appears to be wearing thin with barely 18 months remaining for the 2019 general elections. At the same time the Modi government is on terra firm and remains in the public gaze with a major announcement every now and then for the uplift of the poor. 

It is anybody’s guess how long the Head of Government’s charisma will last and sway the masses as evidenced from the time he campaigned in the run up to the April-May 2014 general elections. The Lotus party secured a majority on its own for the first time in the Lok Sabha. 

Is Modi keen to overcome the downturn in the economy as it is claimed to be a passing phase. The saving grace for the Modi government so far compared to the Congress led UPA regime is that there are no financial scandals or other skeletons falling out of the cupboard. 

There is hardly any opposition to Modi at this juncture which has the portends of compelling the masses to sit up and take note. For this to happen the opposition has to come forward with a cogent alternative to Modi’s economic policy. This is where the opposition has come a cropper so far.

By and large people, particularly the traders, have begun wondering if Modi’s much talked about slogan of “sab ka saath, sab ka vikas” is coming apart as the problems have got compounded with the GST. A large number of them aver they are surviving because of their savings and cautioned this situation cannot continue indefinitely.

The question being asked out of frustration is about the chances of Modi’s pledges becoming a reality at all. It is in this context that Yashwant Sinha’s article underlining the need for taking corrective action without delay assumes importance. 

In the prevailing circumstances it does not make any sense in pitting minister of state in the Modi government Jayant Sinha against his father Yashwant Sinha. The discriminating in the Modi government and outside concur with Yashwant Sinha’s contentions that the Centre urgently needs to take corrective measures rather than launch a frontal attack against him as evidenced by Union Finance minister Arun Jaitley. 

Claiming that the NDA government had taken decisive measures for stimulating the economy, Jaitley said while demonetisation had a short-term slowdown impact it would prove to be beneficial in the long term. 

At least two others in S Gurumurthy and Subramanian Swamy have expressed doubts about the demonetisation unleashed on November eighth last year having the desired impact. It had caused immense hardship to the people in withdrawing their own money from the ATMs. The serpentine lines in front of banks resulted in tension and avoidable harassment leading to no less than a 100 avoidable deaths. 

Yashwant Sinha has questioned the ability of the Modi government to take good economic decisions. In a subsequent interview to the Indian Express, Yashwant Sinha explained the government did not admit there “is a problem. Month after month, quarter after quarter they kept singing praises of their own performance, kept patting their own backs while the problems kept building up. And they were not attending to the problems which got accumulated over time. It was clearly a lack of application of mind to the tasks at hand”, he emphasised. 

The former Union Finance minister’s observations were preceded by criticism on the economic slowdown by the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh and the Swadeshi Jagran Manch as well.

(The views of author are personal.)

Several breakthrough reforms with pertinence to the Indian real estate sector saw the light of the day over the last one year. Be it demonetization – the Government’s ‘surgical strike’ against black money – the revolutionary RERA or the unified tax regime of GST – all bore the power of rendering the Indian real estate sector more transparent and professional.

The upward trajectory of consumer sentiment is a strong indicator that the market has responded well to these reforms. The incumbent Government has embarked on a determined journey to transform the Indian realty sector into a more wholesome industry.

While the primary and secondary residential markets undoubtedly benefited from the plethora of reforms, the rental market has also received a shot in the arm. Various reforms and announcements made over the last one year can potentially boost this crucial segment of the Indian real estate sector:

• April 2017: An End to Fake Rent Receipts

Under Section 10(13A) of the Income Tax Act, employees can avail tax exemption under House Rent Allowance (HRA). Hitherto, employees merely needed to submit rent receipts to avail this benefit, along with the landlord’s PAN details if the rent amount exceeded Rs 1 lakh per annum.

However, with its decision to cap the loss on second property purchased with a home loan, the Government has effectively plugged a tax loophole used by innumerable employees for tax exemption. As per the recent tribunal ruling, the assessing officer can now demand proof – such as the leave and licence agreement, and a letter to the housing co-operative society informing about the tenancy, electricity bill, water bill, etc.

This new ruling has cracked down on the practice of salaried employees submitting sham rent receipts.

• June 2017: Withholding Tax

The new section (194IB) introduced in the Income Tax Act makes it mandatory for individuals paying monthly rent of more than Rs 50,000 to withhold taxes at 5% on rental payments, and to deposit this amount within a prescribed time. Prior to this amendment, individuals were not required to withhold such tax. This new section has been inserted to widen the scope of TDS (tax deducted at source).

With this, landlords receiving higher income as rent will come under the tax scanner. They will now be liable to report the full rental income in their tax returns in order to claim benefit of the TDS amount. Moreover, with the recent linking of PAN and Aadhar numbers, the chances of malpractices going unnoticed have reduced drastically.

The winds of change have clearly started to blow post-demonetisation. Both tenants and landlords now prefer to keep their transactions clean by not indulging in any cash payments. Moreover, tenants have also become more vigilant regarding the rental agreement and rent receipts.

• July 2017: Model Tenancy Act

To replace the obsolete five-decade old Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, the State Cabinet of Tamil Nadu announced its intention to bring in a law based on the Model Tenancy Act circulated by the Central Government. The new law aims to balance the rights and responsibilities of both the landlords and tenants.

Some of the salient features of the law:

• Mandatory registration of all rental agreements over 11 months
• Restriction of security deposit amount to three months’ worth of rent
• Limiting of tenants’ right to continue residing after the lease period to six months.

With a balanced law in place, many more home owners are expected to come forward and let out their properties.

Over the past few years, the country has seen a cultural and socio-economic shift. From 5.5 million to 9 million a year, migration of people in pursuit of better education and career opportunities in Indian cities from rural and peri-urban areas has almost doubled in the last ten years. This directly pushes up the demand for rental housing.

Also, it by now is an emerging market reality that many of India’s millennials prefer to rent rather than buy homes – largely because the property prices in most of the metropolitan cities are not affordable, and also because the rental option can provide better location advantages. Apart from the economic factors, rental housing comes with the benefit of ease and flexibility for the fast-paced Ola and Uber generation.

The Government, with its ambitious ‘Housing for All by 2022’ mission, is also half way through its tenure, and the pace of housing construction is still far behind schedule. It is a distinct Indian paradox that despite the acute housing shortage, approximately 11 million units lie vacant and unused. Clearly, efficient use of this existing inventory via rental housing (in markets where trunk infrastructure is in place) would ease some of the pressure.

In fact, the draft National Urban Rental Housing Policy aims to alleviate housing shortage in urban areas by encouraging renting out of these vacant homes across the country. Residential REITs are can also ease the mounting unsold inventory, as they have done in countries like the United States.

The Central Government is now planning to launch a ‘rent to own’ scheme under the National Urban Rental Housing Policy which will let people rent homes from Government institutions. Under this scheme, people will have the option to buy the home they have rented by paying the full price in easy instalments.

While the Government has started the engine, it is now high time to floor the accelerator and fully explore and unbox the massive potential of rental housing in India…

(The author is Chairman of Anarock Property. The views expressed are personal.)

Washington – Exercise Yudh Abhyas – 2017, a joint military exercise between Indian and US armies, commenced at Joint Base Lewis McChord, Washington, US September 16 with a brief and impressive opening ceremony.     

The US contingent was represented by Company of 5th Infantry Battalion from 20 Infantry Regiment of the US Army while the Indian side was represented by soldiers of Gorkha Rifles from the Surya Command.  

Major General Willard M Burlesan, GOC 7th Infantry Division, US Army welcomed the Indian soldiers. In inaugural remarks, he highlighted the common shared beliefs of democracy, freedom, equality and justice that are precious to both the nations.
During the two week long exercise soldiers from both countries will hone their tactical skills in counter insurgency and counter terrorist operations under a joint brigade headquarter. 

Both sides will jointly train, plan and execute a series of well-developed tactical drills for neutralization of likely threats that may be encountered in UN peace keeping operations.  Experts from both sides will hold detailed discussions to share their experience and expertise on varied operational topics. Exercise Yudh Abhyas is one of the largest joint running military training and defence corporation endeavours between India and US. 

The exercise held from Sep 14-27 is the 13th edition of the joint exercise hosted alternately between the two countries. Last year exercise Yudh Abhyas was held at Chaubattia Military Station, Ranikhet, .Uttarakhand.

More people in the world are hunger now and the number is steadily increasing with the estimated number of undernourished people increasing from 777 million in 2015 to 815 million in 2016.

After steadily declining for over a decade, global hunger appears to be on the rise, affecting 11 percent of the global population, a new report says. These recent estimates are a warning signal that the aim of a world without hunger and malnutrition by 2030 will be challenging, and that accomplishing it will require sustained commitment and efforts to promote the adequate availability of and access to nutritious food, it warns.

The food security situation visibly worsened in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, South Eastern and Western Asia. This was most notable in situations of conflict, in particular where the food security impacts of conflict were compounded by droughts of floods, linked in part to El Niño phenomenon and climate-related shocks, according to the UN report on “State of the Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017.’’

Over the past ten years, the number of violent conflicts around the world has increased significantly, in particular in countries already facing food insecurity, hitting rural communities the hardest and having a negative impact on food production and availability.

The situation has also deteriorated in some peaceful settings, particularly those affected by economic slowdowns. A number of countries heavily dependent on commodity exports have experienced dramatically reduced export and fiscal revenues in recent years. Thus, food availability has been affected through reduced import capacity while access to food has deteriorated in part due to reduced fiscal potential to protect poor households against rising domestic food prices, the report says.

The worrisome trend in undernourishment is, however, not yet reflected in nutritional outcomes since evidence on various forms of malnutrition points to continuous decrease in the prevalence of stunting among children.

Stunting still affects almost one in four children under the age of five years, increasing their risk of impaired cognitive ability, weakened performance at school, and dying from infections. At the same time, various forms of malnutrition are still cause for concern worldwide. Stunting still affects 155 million of children under the age of five years.

The report further says overweight among children under five is becoming more of a problem in most regions, while adult obesity continues to rise in all regions. Multiple forms of malnutrition therefore coexist, with countries experiencing simultaneously high rates of child under-nutrition and adult obesity.Undernutrition, overweight and their associated non-communicable diseases now coexist in many regions, countries and even households. Six nutrition indicators – three that form part of the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) monitoring framework, and three that refer to global nutrition targets agreed by the World Health Assembly, are described below to better understand the multiple burden of malnutrition, which affects all regions in the world.

While the prevalence of child stunting seems to be decreasing for both global and regional averages, in 2016 close to 155 million children under five years of age across the world suffered from stunted growth, increasing their risk of suffering impaired cognitive ability, weakened performance at school and work, and dying from infections. Globally, the prevalence of stunting fell from 29.5 percent to 22.9 percent between 2005 and 2016 .

From 2005 to 2016 most regions achieved reductions in stunting, with the rate of improvement fastest in Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. The prevalence of stunting also declined in all sub-regions in Africa, but at a much slower rate. In fact the rate of decline has not kept pace with population increases, resulting in a high number of stunted children overall.

In 2016 wasting affected 7.7 percent of children under five years of age worldwide. About 17 million children suffered from severe wasting. Southern Asia stands out with a high prevalence of 15.4 percent. At almost 9 percent, South-Eastern Asia is also far off the targets set by the internationally agreed global nutrition target. While the prevalence is somewhat lower in Africa, it still stands above the global nutrition target. Childhood overweight is a growing problem in most regions. Worldwide, an estimated 41 million children under five were overweight in 2016, up from 5 percent in 2005. Adult obesity continues to rise everywhere, representing a major risk factor for non-communicable diseases including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and some forms of cancer.

The global prevalence of obesity more than doubled between 1980 and 2014. In 2014, more than 600 million adults were obese, equal to about 13 percent of the world’s adult population.

The most recent estimates for 2016 indicate that anaemia affects 33 percent of women of reproductive age globally (about 613 million women between 15 and 49 years of age). In Africa and Asia, the prevalence is highest at over 35 percent. It is lowest in Northern America, Europe and Oceania (below 20 percent).

GUWAHATI:  For the first time, ecosystem resilience map of India from 2000-2014 have been prepared using high resolution remote sensing satellite data for all river basins. This study found that two-third of the India’s terrestrial ecosystems is not resilient to drought. 

The maps were developed by a team led by Dr. Manish Kumar Goyal from the Civil Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, Assam. The results were published in Global Change Biology, a journal from the Wiley group.

The Central India was found to be the most vulnerable to climate change and water limiting conditions. An increasing trend in the droughts in India, witnessed over the recent years, is expected to increase both in terms of frequency and severity in future under climate change. 

“The non-resilient characteristics shown by ecosystems in India may result in to the reduction in primary production in future, which could pose a serious challenge in terms of carbon sequestration, crop production, and food security”, Dr. Goyal says. Parts of northwestern, northeastern and southern India are found resilient, leaving rest of the country non-resilient to droughts. 

Analysis of data makes it clear that forests have higher resilience to withstand the climatic disturbances. The deforestation activities, in the name of economic development and expansion of agriculture, will result in making country more vulnerable to climate change. 

Low-fat and fat-free food products are gaining popularity among health conscious people. But regular consumption of such food items may result in deficiencies of certain vital nutrients like vitamins and essential fatty acids. Being ‘fat soluble’, such vitamins get removed along with fat when food products are made fat-free.

Scientists are working on ways to keep nutritional content of food products intact even when they are made fat-free or low-fat. Researchers at the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal, have developed a method to enhance nutritional content of fat-free milk by preparing Vitamin A and milk protein complexes.

Vitamin-A is one of the four fat-soluble essential vitamins, the others being D, E and K. The deficiency of Vitamin-A, which is the leading cause of preventable childhood blindness is a major public health problem in India.

Researchers modified casein – a major protein present in milk- with a chemical called succinic anhydride (SA) and prepared succinylated casein-Vit A complexes. They evaluated different combinations and found sodium caseinate-Vit A and succinylated sodium caseinate-Vit A complexes had high Vitamin-A binding ability and solubility. Hence these complexes may be used to retain essential micronutrients in milk.

It has been suggested that casein owing to its unique properties can be easily used as a delivery vehicle for Vitamin-A in milk. Since SA is classified as ‘generally recognized as safe’ substance by the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA), modifications of casein using SA is considered safe for human consumption.

The new method developed by NDRI team could be used in future for fortification of milk, which is now permitted by Indian regulatory agencies. “The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has already approved addition of vitamins A and D to milk. These vitamins are being used for fortifying milk by Mother Dairy, Amul and many state cooperatives at the moment”, pointed out Dr. Sumit Arora, who led the research team.

The team led by Dr. Sumit Arora included Chitra Gupta, M.A. Syama and Apurva Sharma at the Dairy Chemistry Division, NDRI. This work was published in journal Food Chemistry and was funded by Department of Biotechnology. 

New Delhi. India has made a remarkable progress in building indigenous defence capabilities in recent years, and the design and development of Trawl System by the country’s premier organisation, under the Ministry of Defence (MoD), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is one of them.

The Research & Development Establishment (Engineers), a premier system engineering laboratory under Armament & Combat Engineering (ACE) cluster of DRDO has recently undertaken the design and development of Trawl System for the minefield area in the battle zone to meet the operational requirements of Indian Army.

The Trawl System is employed for breaching of land mines and creating a vehicle safe lane, through a minefield for the advancing columns of mechanized forces in combat zone. 

The equipment consists of Trawl roller, track width mine plough and electro- magnetic device (EMD), which caters to the need of all types of mines usually encountered by the battle tank in such a scenario. The Trawl System developed by DRDO is capable of breaching a variety of land mines including passive and active influence mines.

The indigenously-designed system recently crossed a major milestone with the successful completion of blast trials in collaboration with High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL) Pune, which demonstrated the survivability of the equipment, when subjected to successive series of blast directly underneath it. 

The fieldable prototype of the Trawl System is in final stage of realization and would be shortly ready for conduct of User Evaluation Trials by the Army.

The indigenous development of Trawls by DRDO is an important step towards achieving self-reliance in area of critical military equipment under ‘Make in India’ initiative, and would result in saving of precious foreign exchange for the country.

NEW DELHI: Partnering in one of the most prestigious and important national projects, public-sector undertaking Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) has supplied 80% steel needed for the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Project in Gujarat.  It was inaugurated by Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi on Sunday. 

SAIL supplied around 85,000 tonnes of steel (TMT) for the entire Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd. (SSNNL) project which comprises all the canals throughout Gujrat which are connected to Narmada River and Dam. This Sardar Sarovar project is the second largest concrete gravity dam (by volume) and has the world’s third largest spillway discharging capacity.   

The Sardar Sarovar Dam is a gravity dam built on Narmada river near Navagam, Gujarat, which will benefit four states — Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharastra and Rajasthan. A part of the Narmada Valley Project, it will help in irrigation and electrical power supply. It is a part of a large hydraulic engineering project involving the construction of a series of large irrigation and hydroelectric multi-purpose dams on the Narmada river. One of the 30 dams planned on river Narmada, Sardar Sarovar Dam (SSD) is the largest structure to be built. The project will irrigate more than 18,000 m2 (190,000 sq ft), most of it in drought prone areas of Kutch and Saurashtra. The total installed capacity of the power facilities is 1,450 MW. 

A number of prestigious projects of the Government have received uninterrupted supply of steel from SAIL, a key requirement in fast paced fast paced infrastructure development of the country.

The Rohingya in Myanmar being virtually disenfranchised. This ethnic cleansing has adversely affected Aung San Suu Kyi’s image

Should India adopt a hardline approach of deporting the Rohigya refugees from Myanmar? That is the poser amid voices that New Delhi should adopt a sympathetic approach. Sending these refugees back to Myanmar runs counter to the country’s obligations under the  domestic and international law. Being part of the troubled state of Rakhine in Western Myanmar, the Rohingya are on the run with the army firing bullets on the villagers and burning down their dwellings. Despite living centuries in Myanmar the Rohingya being mostly Muslims have been denied citizenship and rendered stateless. 

There are an estimated 40,000 Rohingya Muslim immigrants in this country who are viewed as a security risk. If and when a decision is taken to deport these illegal immigrants it will be in public interest as well as national security. 

There is also the disturbing aspect that some of the Rohingya refugees have terror links. It is believed the Islamic State and extremist groups from Pakistan and Bangladesh might use these immigrants from Myanmar to whip up sectarian violence in this country. External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj telephoned Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina assuring all assistance in the wake of the influx of Rohingya refugees in the neighbouring country. 

Fifty tonnes of relief supplies have already been airlifted to the relief camps in Bangladesh. Prior to that such relief had been despatched to the home province occupied by the Rohingya in Myanmar. However, New Delhi cannot address the cause of the crisis or reduce the poverty in the Rakhine province. The crisis is driven by racism and religious intolerance. 

New Delhi has not only rendered humanitarian aid in India’s neighbourhood including Nepal struck by a devastating earthquake but also undertaken evacuation of Indians and foreign nationals from the trouble torn Arab world like Syria, Libya and Somalia among other countries. 

Impartial observers maintain that the Rohingya need full international support so that they do not get entangled with the radicals. Simultaneously, Myanmar needs to introspect buying fighter aircraft from Pakistan which is fuelling unrest in that country.  

The Rohingyas have fled to Bangladesh seeking refuge there fearing persecution in their own land. The Arakan Road which connects Bangladesh’s southernmost tip to the town of Cox Bazar has become the lifeline not for Bangladeshis alone but the fleeing Rohingya refugees as well. Earlier this week on Monday, the UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein urged Myanmar to put an end to this “brutal security operation”. He described the state’s actions against the Rohingya as a “textbook example” of ethnic cleansing. Union minister of state for Home Kiren Rijuju had spoken about deporting the illegal Rohingya refugees in the face of political persecution and terror. This led to serious concern being expressed within the country and abroad. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Myanmar came after the BRICS summit in China at a time when the Rohingya crisis was at its peak. The ethnic cleansing was more as a reprisal for a Rohingya militant group attacking and killing policemen and troops in attempts to overcome their own frustration. 

The military and police retaliation was swift and telling. Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who shares power with the military, emphasised she could not be held responsible for trying to resolve a highly contentious issue in the last 18 months that she has been in power. 

Left with no option, Hundreds and thousands of Rohingya had to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. The all out attack against the Rohingya has adversely affected the image of Suu Kyi having waged a long struggle against her country’s military  rulers. 

What is sad is that Myanmar should disenfranchise millions of people who have lived in that country away from the mainstream for centuries. 

(The views are personal)