Toulouse, France, Â– Airbus has delivered the first A320neo to Vistara, a Delhi based full service airline and joint venture between Tata Sons Ltd. and Singapore Airlines (SIA). The delivery is the first of seven aircraft to be leased from BOC Aviation. The aircraft sports a unique A320neo Vistara star symbol livery on its underbelly.

The CFM powered aircraft is configured in a three class layout with 158 seats (8 business class, 24 premium and 126 economy class). Vistara has taken inputs from its growing number of frequent fliers and redesigned the cabin with even more comfort and relaxing features such as mood lighting and increased seat pitch.

Vistara currently operates 13 A320 aircraft on domestic India routes. The increased range of the NEO provides greater reach as Vistara spreads its wings internationally in the future.

The A320neo Family incorporates the very latest technologies including new generation engines and Sharklets, which together deliver more than 15 percent fuel and CO2 savings from day one and 20 percent by 2020 as well as 50 percent noise reduction. With more than 5,000 orders received from 92 customers since its launch in 2010, the A320neo Family has captured some 60 percent share of the market. With this delivery, Airbus has delivered more than 110 A320neo aircraft to 24 operators.

The much touted slogan of “acche din aane wale hain” continues to elude the Narendra Modi government on completing three years in office on  Friday, May 26, 2017. The focus on development through “sab ka saath, sab ka vikas” has been poor. It has also been found lacking on the human development front. 

The Centre has geared up for a fortnight long publicity blitzkrieg with ministers and BJP leaders travelling all over the country outlining the policy successes and vision in the run up to the next general elections in 2019.

Modi himself will set the ball rolling from Guwahati in Assam far away from the national capital where it is in power for the first time. Needless to say all the encomiums will be for Modi and Modi alone.  

The BJP led NDA has struggled to achieve success on crucial development spheres like farmer incomes and job creation. Modi has demonetised high currency notes in an effort to clean the system. Economists are divided on its merit besides the confusion and suffering it caused to the poor. 

A confident Modi laid the opposition low and rode to power in 2014 on the theme of development for all. For the first time the Lotus party formed in 1980 secured a majority on its own in the Lok Sabha. In the last three decades no single party crossed the magic figure of 272 for a simple majority in the 543-member House of the people. 

Modi’s decisiveness is not in doubt though he cannot be singled out as the only Head of Government having that quality. Initially, the catchy slogan of “aache din aane wale hain” caught the imagination of the people but after a year-and-a-half it started irritating the people as none of the multitude of promises made during the 2014 election campaign was nowhere near fruition.   

The BJP is on a high after its stunning victory in the recent assembly elections in crucial Uttar Pradesh. 

The Prime Minister’s dream of transforming India as the ‘skills capital of the world’ Â– generating adequate jobs in the process – seems to have run out of steam. The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship in its report expressed serious concern about the huge shortage of “qualified trainers”. It recommended reorientation of the programme to “concentrate on quality of training” and focus on the twin objectives of meeting skills required by industry and employment of the youth. Other reports suggest that less than 12% of those trained under Skill India programme got jobs. 

This shows that the promise of massive job creation has been largely belied. Modi has had to undertake a delicate balancing act with the RSS which as BJP’s mentor wants to establish a Hindu Rastra. This is irrespective of what the Constitution might say. 

On his part Modi has assured going strictly by the provisions of the Constitution in ensuring the rights of every citizen. 

The increasing incidents of intolerance in various parts of the country is a matter of serious concern. Wanton lynching of people to death by alleged gau rakshaks in different parts of the country including the crucial state of UP where the BJP won a stunning victory recently, is causing palpable fear and insecurity not only among the minority Muslims but the Dalits as well.

Taking strong exception to rising intolerance in the country, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said Lawlessness aided and abetted by the state has become the new India of today. 

There is intolerance galore which has become the new normal with innocents being targeted, he added.  

Last Sunday the national capital witnessed a gathering of the apolitical Dalit force under the umbrella of the Bhim Army led by a young lawyer Chandrasekhar which has disowned Mayawati and her BSP. 

They were protesting the excesses against them by the upper castes which was on the rise in Uttar Pradesh after Yogi Adityanath became the chief minister. Saharanpur had witnessed the third eruption of Dalit rage amid an open pursuit of majoritarian politics.  

Apart from the Muslims the Dalits are seeking the cooperation of the Yadavs, Valmikis and other OBCs as they see a common adversary in the upper caste led BJP.  

Consequently, BJP ruled states are becoming unsafe to live following cow vigilante groups attacking people mercilessly for transporting cows and buffaloes even with valid papers. The law and order machinery is vary of coming down hard against these so called vigilantes. 

The discriminating believe the RSS might be living in a different world altogether. It wants to implement its three point agenda of building a Ram temple, having a uniform civil code and abrogating Article 370 of the Constitution according special status to Jammu and Kashmir. 

Being from the RSS stock, can Modi side step the mentor as evidenced during his chief ministership of Gujarat. That might be a difficult proposition as RSS activists have been made chief ministers in the states where the BJP has won assembly elections since it regained power at the Centre three years back. 

This is being viewed as outflanking the Prime Minister by hardliners along with the RSS keeping a close watch on Modi. It assumes significance with the BJP strong man keen on making a determined bid for a second consecutive term as Prime Minister.   

Former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee remained free from the RSS calling the shots. 

This was because the 26-party disparate coalition of the NDA with the BJP in the vanguard from 1999-2004 had adopted an agenda of governance which scrupulously steered clear of the RSS agenda.

( T R Ramachandran is senior journalist and commentator. The views are personal.) 

New Delhi – It is still hazy to see the desperation of the union government to imposing the Aadhaar Card mandatory when matters related to Aadhaar Card are already sub judice. The constitutionality of Aadhaar is yet to be decided by the Supreme Court, however, the enrolment of Aadhaar has reached the mark of more than one billion. Recently, the government declared Aadhaar mandatory to file Income Tax Return (ITR) while the Supreme Court is opined not to treat Aadhaar mandatory, but voluntarily. Now it is imperative of the government to confide the citizens that the Aadhaar information- demography and biometrics-are in safe hands, a debate which has been heating up, and the contempt of the court’s decision by the government is for greater good. But the uproar against the speculation of identity revelation threat and possible misuse of Aadhaar details by the government-corporate nexus, plausible reasons to doubt the security of privacy, which is a fundamental right of Indian citizen. Ironically, after the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley defended the ‘Aadhaar Money Bill controversy’ filed by former congress MP Jairam Ramesh in the court, the Supreme Court is in dilemma and yet to decide whether ‘Right to Privacy’ is a fundamental right or not.Why Aadhaar Card Mandatory?Nandan Nilekani, the co-founder of Infosys and the ideologue of Aadhaar, said that Aadhaar will change the PDS system in India since it ensures no ghost or fake beneficiaries to avail unentitled benefits of the various welfare schemes and subsidies. Nilekani also says that there might be margin of error up to 5 per cent in distributing the subsidies or benefits of various welfare schemes to the masses. The top-honcho technocrat has also defended Aadhaar that any breach of privacy of citizens is not possible as the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is efficient to secure the public data under CIDR. The government claims that the corruption-mounted Public Distribution System (PDS) in India is reformed due to the introduction of the 12 digit unique identification number. More than 40000 crore have been saved in the form of exchequer due to curb of fake and ghost beneficiaries in the PDS system. Now if we believe Nilekani claim of 5% error, then more than 5 crore beneficiaries would be losing their benefits due the error in the biometric identification. The Infosys co-founder later said that if there is a margin of error then ‘One Time Password’ (OTP) comes in. However, he didn’t define what if there is a congestion of network in the remotest Indian villages where phone signals are rare? Standing on the PDS shop waiting for food grains and network, is certainly not an ideal way to avail the benefits of the government welfare schemes. In 2011, activist and writer Ruchika Gupta said in an interview to Tahalka, “The UID cannot address the bulk of delivery problems in the two of the biggest social sectors programmes like MGNREGA and PDS. Linking UID with social sector legislation is completely baseless.”

PAN Card Linked with Aadhaar Card?The government has directed the Reserve Bank of India to make Aadhaar mandatory for Income Tax Return filing. Currently, there are approximately 24.37 crores PAN holders in India, however 3.8 crore people file income tax return every year. There have been cases of people owned not more than one but 100 PAN Cards with them. PAN cards in India are mostly used by the citizens as a proof of identity. The government believes that PAN card linking with Aadhaar will curb the tax evasion. 

How Safe Is Your Data In This Panopticon Model Of Mass Surveillance?

In the late 18^th century, the well-known English social reformer and jurist Jeremy Bentham wanted to build a ‘panoptican’ for a mass surveillance of the prisoners in England. He advocated designing an institutional building be used to keep an eye on all the jail inmates by a single watchman. Very similarly, India is witnessing the biggest surveillance program ever under the name of single identity and availing benefits of governments’ schemes. Another logic behind enrolment of Aadhaar is the ‘national security’. National security? How can any government ensure national security backing Aadhaar, when international companies have been hired in consortium to collect residents’ biometric and demography details? In 2010, Accenture, Mahindra-Satyam Morpho and L1 identity solutions were pooled in by UIDAI for leveraging de-duplication exercise of Aadhaar and data collection.  L1 Identity Solutions’ top brasses are the former Director CIA George Tenet and former Homeland Security deputy secretary Adm James. With its headquarters in Connecticut, this company is one of the biggest defence contractors specialised in facial recognition and biometrics. L1 Identity Solutions and Accenture work in a close affinity to US intelligence agencies. This is an age of information. Corporate houses and big telecom players are dying to get details of consumers. Obvious are the concerns about the safety and security of the people’s data. It is feared that the database can be used for various marketing and business purposes.

 
CIDR, A Single Database Of People’s DataCentral Identities Data Repository (CIDR) is a data management and storing agency in India which is initiated for the Aadhaar project. It is regulated by the statutory body of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). This centralised database is probably one of the biggest repositories on this planet.In 2010, experts had claimed that more than a thousand government sites and portals were attacked more than 4000 times by China alone in one year. In April 2011, 77 million Sony Playstations and digital media delivery service Qriocity were hacked which resulted into a shutdown of the network for a week. The London School of Economics also reported that a central database of vulnerable to hacking and other terrorist and cyber crime activities. Recently Wannacry Ransomware virus hits the globe. More than 99 countries were affected. Building one single repository for billions of Aadhaar Card data seems to be a big risk in the most vulnerable country where dat breach is at most. 
Data Leak CrisisUIDAI has so far spent approximately 5982.62 crores for more than a billion enrolments of Aadhaar Cards. 1615.34 crores have been spent between the financial year 2015-2016. Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru-based organization (CIS) has learned that data of more than 130 million Aadhaar card holders has been leaked from four government websites. They are National Social Assistance Programme, National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Chandranna Bima Scheme and Daily Online Payments Reports of NREGA. It also includes Bank details and other confidential details of millions of residents.
What is Next?The Lok Sabha has passed the Aadhaar Bill as Money Bill. Mukul Rohatgi said in the Supreme Court that according to Article 110 of the constitution, there is use of consolidated funds of India so the bill is a Money bill. Chief Justice Khehar said, “Your object might be good but whether it is a ‘Money Bill’ or not is the question.” Justice Ramana referred to a 2014 judgment passed by the Apex court that courts had no jurisdiction over procedurals matters of legislative.” In response P. Chidambram, the counsel for Jairam Ramesh said, “This petition is not about a procedural matter. There has been substantive infraction.”

An Indian woman who alleged she was forced and duped into marrying a Pakistani man was repatriated to her country through the Wagah border on Thursday, a day after the Islamabad High Court permitted her to travel home.
 Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj welcomed Uzma Ahmed to India, minutes after she crossed into India from the Wagah border in Amritsar.   “Uzma – Welcome home India’s daughter. I am sorry for all that you have gone through,” Sushma Swaraj tweeted.  Uzma travelled to Lahore from Islamabad and was accompanied by Indian Deputy High Commissioner J.P. Singh, who bid her farewell at the border. She had stayed in Pakistan for 25 days.  Uzma, who was escorted by Pakistani security personnel till the Wagah border crossing, was debriefed by Indian officials for a while.  The woman claimed she was forced to marry Buner resident Tahir Ali at gunpoint. During the court hearing, Pakistani judge Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani asked Uzma if she wanted to meet her husband in the chamber but she refused the offer, saying she did not want to talk to him.  The High Court ordered that Uzma can go back to her country and the case will be processed in her absence.  Uzma had taken refuge at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad because she felt threatened, and wanted to return to her country of birth.  Ali had filed a petition claiming that she was being forcibly kept at the Indian High Commission and that the marriage was not under coercion.  Uzma, who belongs to New Delhi, and Ali “fell in love” in Malaysia, after which she travelled to Pakistan on May 1, via the Wagah border.

Lucknow – A special CBI court in Lucknow, which is conducting daily hearing of the 1992 Babri demolition case, on Thursday directed BJP leaders L.K. Advani, Uma Bharti and Murli Manohar Joshi to appear personally before it on May 30.
  The BJP leaders had moved court seeking exemption from personally appearing in the court for the hearing of their role in the conspiracy to raze the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992.

NEW DELHI: Being a unique nation with a huge population to feed, India cannot emulate the model of other countries in managing its water resources and dealing with environmental issues, a top Government official said here on Wednesday. 

“India cannot look at the model of countries as it is a unique country with a huge population to feed. The country is looking at what can be the best method in environment and water management,” Amita Prasad, Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Environment said. 

Speaking at a symposium “Too much or Not enough, Managing Water in a Changing Climate” organised jointly by the Canadian High Commission and the Press Club of India.  She said that there were several environmental issues  and wetland was one of them.The government was carrying out real time monitoring and maintaining data of wetland sources whether it were tanks, reservoirs or canals, Ms Prasad said.    

She said that conserving water does not need big technologies and small technologies need to be given priority. Citing example of sugarcane crop which needs lots of water, she said that several sugarcane growing areas have switched to drip irrigation, adding that such type of irrigation needs to be adopted on a large scale. 

Replying to question on adopting traditional methods of water conservation, Ms Prasad felt that traditional knowledge was being ignored. It was time that such storehouse of knowledge was protected and put to use.

Earlier, Dr Mark Johnson, an Ecohydrologist from Canada made a detailed presentation on managing water in the scenario of changing climate.

Speaking about the depletion of ground water in several parts of India, Dr Johnson said that Northern India was showing depletion in ground water.

He also cited the World Health Organisation report which stated that two billion people were drinking contaminated water. He said that food production was having the largest human impact on environment and agriculture was the biggest water user. 

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will be the next Director-General of the World Health organization. He was nominated by the Government of Ethiopia, and will begin his five-year term on 1 July 2017.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will succeed Dr Margaret Chan, who has been WHO’s Director-General since 1 January 2007. The announcement was made at the ongoing World Health Assembly at Geneva.

Prior to his election as WHO’s next Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus served as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ethiopia from 2012-2016 and as Minister of Health, Ethiopia from 2005-2012. He has also served as chair of the Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; as chair of the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership Board, and as co-chair of the Board of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, a WHO statement said. 

As Minister of Health, Ethiopia, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus led a comprehensive reform effort of the country’s health system, including the expansion of the country’s health infrastructure, creating 3,500 health centres and 16,000 health posts; expanded the health workforce by 38,000 health extension workers; and initiated financing mechanisms to expand health insurance coverage. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, he led the effort to negotiate the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, in which 193 countries committed to the financing necessary to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

As Chair of the Global Fund and of RBM, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus secured record funding for the two organizations and created the Global Malaria Action Plan, which expanded RBM’s reach beyond Africa to Asia and Latin America.

Welcoming the choice, Women Deliver has said his appointment comes at a time when the world needs a fierce and proactive advocate for gender equality and the health, rights and wellbeing of girls and women more than ever.

“Dr Tedro’s track record of strengthening health systems and training community-based female health workers to expand reproductive and maternal health in Ethiopia, including family planning services, gives us hope that he will be the unwavering champion for girls and women the global development community wants and needs, Throughout his campaign, he pledged to make the health of women, children, and adolescents a focus of his tenure.

“The world’s most powerful health agency needs a leader who advocates for gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights as a net positive for all. He must consistently prioitise girls and women as powerful agents of change and drivers of development. Equally important, he must strengthen the WHO’s gender balance and engagement with young people and civil society not just because of it is the right thing to do, but the sound thing to do,’’ said Katja Iversen, president/CEO of Women Deliver.

NEW DELHI: Giving a thrust to its ambitious flagship programme of “Make in India”, the Modi government will encourage private sector participation to ensure indigenous production of fighter aircraft, helicopters, submarines, armoured fighting vehicles and main battle tanks, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said here. 

In his media briefing after a meeting of the Union Cabinet, Mr. Jaitley said the Cabinet was informed of the proposal of the Defence ministry for going ahead with such a move.

Under the “Strategic Partnership” model, the government will shortlist and then pick Indian companies to collaborate with foreign firms to supply fighter jets, helicopters, and such high-tech equipment, Mr Jaitley said. “For each platform, one private sector strategic partner will be chosen”. 

Mr. Jaitley said the Cabinet took  “full report” about strategic partnership model from the Defence Ministry. A special committee had made some recommendations regarding some sub sectors — helicopters, armoured vehicles, submarines, fighter aircraft, and tanks. These platforms will be manufactured under the government’s flagship “Make in India” programme and one private sector strategic partner for each of these sector will be chosen. 

“We will start building up capacities of private sector companies in defence manufacturing, Private and foreign companies will co-exist with defence PSUSs,” Mr. Jaitley said. He said the strategic partnership process would begin as soon as possible adding that the government funding in defence sector was going to increase substantially. 

The new long-awaited policy, which was developed through extensive stakeholder consultations with Indian industry, envisages the establishment of long-term strategic partnerships with qualified Indian industry majors through a transparent and competitive process wherein the Indian industry partners would tie up with global Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to seek technology transfers and manufacturing know-how to set up domestic manufacturing infrastructure and supply chains.  

The policy will give a boost to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet ‘Make in India’ programme in the Defence sector and set Indian industry on the path to acquiring cutting-edge capabilities which will contribute to the building of self-reliance in the vital sector of national security requirements.

In future, additional segments may be added. Appropriate institutional mechanisms will be set in place to implement the policy. Mr. Jaitley said the policy aimed at encouraging manufacturing as the selected companies would be assured of future orders. Several foreign manufacturing giants like Airbus, BAE Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Saab have indicated their willingness to explore the possibility of setting up manufacturing bases in India. 

NEW DELHI: The Government is working towards progressively reducing dependency on foreign manufacturers and developing the defence capabilities indigenously, Minister of State for Defence Dr Subhash Bhamre has said. 

He was addressing a seminar, jointly organised by the Indian Air Force (IAF) and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), here on Tuesday. . 

“We have included a new procurement category called the Buy Indian – IDDM (Indigenously Designed, Developed and Manufactured) category in the DPP [Defence Procurement Procedure]. This would be the most preferred category for procurement and it is expected to promote indigenously designed products and bring significant investment in defence R&D,” the Minister said. 

Speaking of partnership with defence industry, Dr Bhamre said the Government has been working on formulating a ‘Strategic Partnership’ model for creating capacity in the private industry on a long term basis.

The Government had constituted a task force with experts from various fields to recommend criteria and prescribe methodology for selection of Strategic Partners. The report submitted by the task force has been examined at length and Government shall be issuing the policy for selection of strategic partners shortly, he said. 

Alleviating concerns of the industry, the Minister said, the exchange rate variation protection has been made applicable for the Indian private sector at par with public sector undertakings for all categories of capital acquisitions. The preferential treatment given to DPSUs in excise duty/custom duty has been discontinued, as per the revised policy; all Indian industries (public and private) are subject to the same kind of exercise and custom duty levies. “This would ensure a level playing field between the private and public sector. Another step that the Government has taken is to remove the custom duty exemption on import of defence equipment to encourage ‘Make in India’, he said. 

Indian Air Force Chief Air Chief Marshal B S Dhanoa, while giving keynote address, said, “the modernisation plan of the IAF is being pursued with an aim to give impetus to ‘Make in India’ and to beef up the defence manufacturing base. We in IAF are keen to see that ‘Make in India’ initiative gets converted to a reality.” 

Speaking about self-reliance the Air Chief Marshal B S Dhanoa said, a high degree of indigenisation has been achieved in the field of radars and all the radars planned for induction in future are from Indian firms. The IAF is completely self-reliant in the field of software applications and a number of projects are functioning successfully on software developed by Indian firms. 

The CII National Defence Committee member Pratyush Kumar also addressed the gathering.

After 22 years, former Rashtriya Janta Dal Member of Parliament Prabhunath Singh has been convicted in the murder case of former Janta Dal United (JDU) MLA Ashok Singh, on Tuesday. 
Ashok Singh was killed in the broad daylight in Patna at his residence. He was elected from Mashrak Assembly (Saaran) defeating Prabhunath Singh in 1995. The case was transferred by the Apex Court from Patna to Hazaribagh Court, accepting a plea by the assassinated relatives, as they feared the case proceedings might be influenced by Prabhunath Singh and his henchmen.
Prabhunath Singh was the prime accused in the 1995 murder case. Hazaribagh Additional District Judge Surendra Sharma pronounced his life imprisonment. Prabhunath Singh’s brothers, Dinanath Singh and Ritesh Singh are also convicted by the court. 
“Prabhunath had openly said that my brother will be killed within 90 days of becoming legislator and was killed on the 90th day,” Tarkeshwar Singh, Ashok Singh’s brother, told a news channel. Prabhunath Singh is believed to be a close aide to Fodder Scam convict and RJD Supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav.