DA INCREASE OFFICE MEMORANDUM...

No.1(6)/2009-E- (B)

Government of India

Ministry of Finance

Department of Expenditure

------

NewDelhi,Dated 18th September,2009.

Subject:- Payment of Dearness Allowance to Central Government employees - Revised Rates effective from 1.7.2009.

The undersigned is directed to refer to this Ministry's Office Memorandum No.1(6)/2009-E- (B) Dated 13th September,2009 on the subject mentioned above and to state that the President is pleased to decide that the Dearness Allowance payable to Central Government employees shall be enhanced from the existing rate of 22% to 27% with effect from 1st July, 2009. 


2. The provisions contained in paras 3, 4 and 5 of this Ministry's O.M.No.1(6)/2009-E- (B) Dated 29th August,2008 shall continue to be applicable while regulating Dearness Allowance under these orders. 


3. The additional installment of Dearness Allowance payable under these orders shall be paid in cash to all Central Government employees. 


4. These orders shall also apply to the civilian employees paid from the Defence Services Estimates and the expenditure will be chargeable to the relevant head of the Defence Services Estimates. In regard to Armed Forces personnel and Railway employees separate orders will be issued by the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Railways, respectively. 


5. In so far as the persons serving in the Indian Audit and Accounts Department are concerned, these orders issue after consultation with the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

http://finmin.nic.in/the_ministry/dept_expenditure/notofication/da01072009.pdf

IPS officials to man CRPF battalions

Some of the top posts in the CRPF battalions, that have been increased, will be manned by the IPS.

Meet on Chinese intrusions put off

The ruling establishment appears to be divided over the policy to be adopted to deal with recent Chinese incursions into the Indian territory.

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the External Affairs Ministry seem to be on one side seeking to downplay these incursions while the Defence Ministry and the Home Ministry will like India to do some posturing in the wake of the border violations.

A much-awaited high-level meeting slated for today to take stock of the situation arising from the Chinese incursions became a casualty of the differences among key ministries on the threat from China.

The meeting, convened by National Security Adviser (NSA) MK Narayanan, was to be attended by Cabinet Secretary KM Chandrasekhar, Defence, Home and Foreign secretaries, service chiefs and top intelligence officials, was put off without assigning any reason.

Officials, who had tipped the media about the meeting, were tightlipped today. Various theories were doing rounds in official and media circles over the postponement of the meeting. There were reports that the NSA was incensed how the media came to know about the proposed meeting that was to be kept a closely guarded secret. He was reportedly of the view that such meetings should be held away from media glare.

The Defence Ministry is learnt to be in favour of India adopting an assertive approach in view of the frequency of the Chinese incursions. It also wants curbs on Army patrolling along the line of actual control (LAC) to be lifted.

Meanwhile, India has started sending some definite signals to China over the incursions. It has rejected China’s opposition to Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama’s proposed visit to Arunachal Pradesh in November.

Another important signal is that President Pratibha Patil’s visit to China later this year has been put on hold.

The then Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon had announced in June that the President would visit China later this year. Now the officials say the visit might not take place this year because the two countries were not finding mutually convenient dates for it.(TRIBUNE)

Myth and reality in India-China relations

Some myths are frightening and need to be exploded. Some realities are potentially so dangerous that we can ignore them only at our peril.

India and China are neighbours — each with a billion-plus population, together accounting for 38 per cent of the world’s population, with the fastest GDP growth rates for large economies, with China already (in PPP terms) the world’s second largest economy and India set to become the third largest in the intermediate future. How the two big neighbours bond together in the future is crucial for global order. Further, how they interact with the United States will determine the international trends of the foreseeable future.

For at least two millennia, and until about 300 years ago, these two countries were considered by the then prevailing criteria as the most developed in the world, accounting for about 50 per cent of the world’s GDP. However, owing to similar experiences with foreign aggression, imperialism, and internal orthodoxy, India and China underwent a two-century long decline whereby by the mid-20th century, they became the world’s poorest nations.

Despite being neighbours and having flourishing economies over centuries, the two nations until 1962 neither ever went to war, nor took advantage of local civil wars. This is a most extraordinary and unparalleled experience of neighbourly peace in world civilisational history. Contrast this with what happened in Europe, West Asia, and North Africa.

The two peoples traded goods, exchanged visitors, borrowed ideas, and generally respected each other at the ruler and ruled levels — until foreign invasions and imperialism cut off normal interactions and relations became frozen. They were revived only in 1950, but fizzled out by 1959. War followed in 1962, for the first time in millennia.

It took a lot of effort thereafter to restore some modicum of good relations, in which this writer, with the encouragement of the Sankaracharya of Kanchi Mutt, Sri Chandrashekharendra Saraswati, played some shaping role.

When the Janata Party government came to power in 1977, Prime Minister Morarji Desai asked me to go to China to explore the situation and see if normalisation of relations would be possible. He chose me to go first, despite peer jealousies and objections in the party, because I knew Mandarin, had researched and taught courses (at Harvard) on China, and also because, as Morarji told me, I viewed China, “without wearing rose-tinted glasses.”

My initiative in September 1978 produced enough of a thaw for Morarjibhai to clear the way for External Affairs Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to make a trip in February 1979, the first by any Indian Minister since 1960. But the outcome of the visit was, alas, scuttled by mishandling the fallout of the Sino-Vietnam war that was launched when he was there, and Mr. Vajpayee had to cut short his stay in China.

In 1981, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sent my good friend and External Affairs Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, to request me to visit China again, and in a back-channel format obtain some clarifications about China’s attitude to the re-opening of relations with India, as also its intentions about some extremist leaders of the All Assam Students Union (AASU) who were planning to visit China clandestinely to obtain weapons.

In April 1981, I did visit Beijing and was received by Deng Xiaoping. It was during that meeting that he announced that Foreign Minister Huang Hua would go to India, and that China was open to a negotiated settlement on the Sino-Indian border dispute.

Border delineation discussions began thereafter and are still continuing on preliminaries! Deng Xiaoping conceded my demand, then pending for three years, for re-opening the Kailash-Manasarovar route in Tibet but only for Hindu pilgrims (China’s condition). I led the first delegation of 20 pilgrims in the freezing cold weather of September 1981, and since then Hindu pilgrims in batches have continued to go to Kailash-Manasarovar without any hitch till today.

In December 1988, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi finally cut the Gordian knot in his wide-ranging talks with Deng Xiaoping by declaring that the Sino-Indian border was, in parts undemarcated and in parts disputed, thereby putting on hold (although not undoing) the consequences of the 1962 Parliament Resolution. Undoing, however, can be done only by a new Resolution in Parliament for which the time will come if there is a satisfactory end to the border dispute.

After this landmark visit, Prime Ministers Narasimha Rao and Deve Gowda contributed by signing agreements for various confidence-building measures. In 2003, as Prime Minister, Mr. Vajpayee visited China and reiterated India’s commitment to regarding Tibet as an inalienable part of China.

That commitment had already been made by Jawaharlal Nehru, and formalised in a treaty in 1954. Was the reiteration to build further confidence in the relations? I am not sure since I have not been able yet to fathom it. But Prime Minister Vajpayee’s reiteration means now (his then Cabinet Minister Arun Shourie’s recent polemics notwithstanding) that in India there is bilateral political commitment to regard Tibet as a part of China. It would require an audacious break with the past or an extraordinary paradigm-changing event to alter that reality.

Since 2007, relations between India and China have begun to cool. Outside government, but in the penumbra of officialdom, there is now a developing hysteria about our heading for war with China, or more precisely, about China planning to attack India. This hysteria mystery needs to be unravelled because neither can we be complacent about China’s capacity to inflict damage on us, nor should we have a fevered imagination about China’s alleged evil intentions to harm us.

Both dimensions of our attitude to China are dangerous. As a China watcher of long standing, I am curious about how this huge bilateral consensus, built over three decades, on the desirability or possibility of good relations with China, is weakening so fast. Who are the catalysts in this, what are the dynamics behind this change of this attitude, and how will it end? Is this projected Chinese threat real or just a myth?

We need to separate the myths and realities in our relations with China. Some myths are frightening and need to be exploded. Some realities are potentially so dangerous that we can ignore them only at our peril.

The most frightening myth in currency today is that China and Pakistan will co-ordinate an invasion of India, and balkanise the nation, or at least destroy our economy. This is expected no later than 2012, as precise as that! This we are hearing in some think tanks of Delhi populated by former officials of the government.

This mythical scenario is bogus because, first, China and the rest of the world learnt by the events of 1962, and by subsequent unconnected events, that if anything, the Indian people unite and India nationally consolidates when attacked from abroad. This Chanakya had noted as the concept of Chakravartin. Secondly, with Tibet and Sinkiang simmering, attacking India is not a one-way street or a picnic. On our borders and contiguous areas, moreover, the Indian Air Force is far superior while the terrain on our side of the border provides a much shorter and friendlier supply chain. China’s is very long and through more hostile terrain. Invasion therefore cannot be in the mind of the rational Chinese strategist. Most of these inflamed reports and the surrounding hysteria in India is because the propagators have been brought up on the British Imperialist version of our history, which is that India is a sitting duck for anyone who wants to invade the country.

The most potentially dangerous reality of the Sino-Indian relation today is India’s abdication of vital national interests for the domestic political survival of ruling coalitions. To counter China, some in India are advocating strategic bonding with the U.S. This is not in our national interest because the U.S. will then make us another Australia or Japan, a concubine, so to speak. The bottom line in U.S.-China relations at present is that China has a veto over U.S. actions in South Asia. Unless we can change that bottom line, the U.S. partnership is not going to mitigate our hysteria about China. In the meantime, China has us ringed in like a circus lion. It does not need to invade us when we are in such a state of impotence.

Shorn of the myths, the realistic and appropriate policy course for India is to match Chinese military capacity by concrete action (for example, spending 7 per cent of GDP on defence) and be conciliatory in policy, attitude, and words. Or to put it bluntly, take full care of national security but work for peace and good neighbourliness. At present we are doing precisely the opposite.(HINDU)

(The author is a Harvard-trained economist and China scholar and has made significant contributions to promoting India-China relations since 1978. He is a former Union Law Minister.)

Russian fighter jets for Indian tender to have new radar

MOSCOW, September 17 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Phazotron NIIR corporation said on Thursday it has developed a new-generation airborne radar for MiG-35 fighter jets which participate in the Indian fighter tender.

Six major aircraft makers - Lockheed and Boeing from the United States, Russia's MiG, which is part of the UAC, France's Dassault, Sweden's Saab and the EADS consortium of British, German, Spanish and Italian companies - are in contention to win the $10 billion contract for 126 light fighters to be supplied to the Indian Air Force.

One of the selection criteria in the tender is that the fighter's radar must have an active phased array radar with a target detection range of at least 130 kilometers (about 80 miles).

"We have met this requirement of the Indian tender and built the Zhuk-AE active phased array radar with a proven range of 148 kilometers," said Vyacheslav Tishchenko, the company's general director.

The X-band radar can track 30 aerial targets in the track-while-scan mode, and engage six targets simultaneously in the attack mode.

Tishchenko said the detection range could be increased up to 200 km (125 miles).

Russia's MiG-35 Fulcrum-F, an export version of the MiG-29M OVT is a highly maneuverable air superiority fighter, which won high international acclaim.

The fighter is powered by RD-33 OVT thrust vectoring engines. The RD-33 OVT engines provide superior maneuverability and enhance the fighter's performance in close air engagements.

The first demonstration flights of two MiG-35s in the Indian tender will be carried out in late October-early November in north-eastern India.

The aircraft will conduct live-firing tests of on-board weaponry on a testing range in southern Russia in March-April 2010.(MILITARY NEWS)

Himalayan conflict centres on Tibet

There is perhaps no country more feared and less understood in India than China. In recent weeks Delhi newspapers and television have been awash with stories about the People's Liberation Army crossing the Himalayas to daub rocks with Chinese characters, making daredevil helicopter raids to drop (stale) tinned food on hapless farmers and trading fire with Indian soldiers.

India's Kashmir state government, apparently, said its territory was being taken "inch by inch" through such incursions. Ominously, authorities last week in Kolkata impounded a plane carrying arms from the Middle East to China.

While the foreign ministries in both countries play down the reports, there are concerns that left unchecked, things could spiral out of control.

The spat began in June. Chinese bloggers vented their fury when India abruptly announced that it would be sending 60,000 troops to bolster tens of thousands of soldiers to Arunachal Pradesh – an Indian state that Beijing claims as its own. One online poll in China claimed that 90% of respondents thought Delhi's actions posed a "threat".

At the heart of this dispute lies the Tibetan question. Historically, China says Arunachal Pradesh's 35,000 square miles was part of "outer Tibet". In a short bloody war, Chinese troops overran Indian positions in the Himalayas in 1962 before retreating. Since then the two sides have tried to discuss their way out of a problem. More than dozen rounds of talks have yielded little.

For years the dispute has rumbled on, attracting little international attention. However, that changed this summer with the arrival of fresh troops – and an Indian airforce squadron of advanced fighters – which analysts say were needed to cope with China's rising military might, especially in Tibet.

The Indian defence magazine Force points out that the PLA could mobilise four divisions – about 50,000 men – in 24 hours to the Sino-Indian border. "Awesome military projection capability by any standards," says the magazine in its latest edition.

To get a taste of how difficult things might be for India, in a diplomatic first, China "internationalised" the issue of Arunachal Pradesh, highlighting its disputed status in July. Beijing formally objected to a $60m loan for India because it would fund irrigation projects in Arunachal Pradesh. Although the loan was later approved, Chinese experts say there is still "room to change" the project.

Arunachal Pradesh has been slowly integrated into the Indian state since Delhi sent troops in 1950 carrying papers signed by the Tibetan government in Lhasa, which transferred 35,000 square miles of the Himalayas to India. Beijing rejects Delhi's claim, saying the region was subject to a crafty piece of real estate theft by British imperialists in 1914 when China was in chaos.

A solution has always been in sight: Beijing relinquishes its claim to Arunachal Pradesh and Delhi gives up its demand for 15,000 square miles of stragetically important Chinese-held mountainous land bordering Kashmir.

But Arunachal Pradesh for China is not just a territorial issue but an existential one. The state is home to the town of Tawang, birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama, where Tibetan Buddhism's biggest monastery, after the Potala palace in Lhasa, sits.

Tawang is also the repository of perhaps the last vestige of a Tibet submerged by China's rise – sustaining the idea of religious freedom for the diaspora and keeping alive a centuries-old culture and language. In conversation, the Monpa people who dominate the local area will tell visitors that Tawang could be Tibetan Buddhism's new Rome, a base from where to spread the faith.

China is alarmed by such talk. Beijing sees Tawang not as a place of serenity but as a spiritual spy camp – ultimately challenging the ruling Communist party's control in Tibet. These feelings were heightened when the Indian government said this week it would allow the Dalai Lama to travel to Tawang, adding he was "free to go anywhere in India".

The present Tibetan leader has not been a regular visitor to the town. He passed through when he fled Tibet in 1959 but he has only been allowed back twice since: once in 1982 and then again 2003. This time around he will open a hospital he funded.

The Indian backing to the Dalai Lama comes at a critical time. The Obama administration said this week that the president would not meet the Tibetan leader during his upcoming trip to Washington – a break with tradition. George Bush and Bill Clinton met the Dalai Lama when he arrived in the American capital. Afraid that the White House was now kowtowing to Beijing before the president's visit this November to China, Tibet's government in exile openly said even the US was now "appeasing" China. This is a breakthrough for China – which is unafraid of criticising any head of state for meeting the Dalai Lama, who they see as a man determined to "split the motherland". So far 170 countries out of 193 in the United Nations have acceded to China's demands.

This leaves India in a difficult, lonely position. It already sees Chinese ports and military bases strung across the Indian Ocean – the so called "string of pearls" strategy designed to check Indian influence in its backyard. Delhi has been outbid for vital oil and gas resources by its bigger, richer neighbour. On most measures of hard power – number of nuclear weapons, economic size, population – India lags behind.

China is not afraid to flex its muscles: it blocked India's bid for a UN security council place and tried to shoot down a groundbreaking US-India nuclear deal.

Delhi says it is in the nature of development for the two large Asian nations to compete and co-operate for resources, cash and technology. China is India's largest trading partner, with two-way trade volumes crossing $50bn in 2008. The two countries, which are both home to millions of poor people, have worked together in trade and climate change – fending off advances from the advanced nations.

For both, Tibet makes it easier to be antagonists rather than collaborators. Unless both manage to work together to resolve their differences there is a chance the two populations will get bogged down in adversarial nationalism. The media war could then explode into bloodier conflict on the roof of the world.(RANDEEP RAMESH, GUARDIAN.CO.UK)

Indian Army mulls ambitious war plan

NEW DELHI: With instability in the neighbourhood and terrorists gaining ground in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Indian Army is considering the need to make its infantry capable of being an "expeditionary force" in case of an "out of area contingency". 

This bid, in line with the US Marines engaging in battle in war theatres situated in remote locations at short notice, indicates an ambitious intent. This would still need adequate platforms like large transport aircraft and possibly naval support but shows a preparedness to think ahead. 

US forces are the only ones capable of real-time power projection and India is still way behind other armed forces as well. But with a large army and an unstable neighbourhood, Indian military planners might be shedding some of the traditional reluctance to look behind the borders. 

So far, India has steadfastly refused to commit its troops in Afghanistan -- where US would anyway be careful of Pakistani sensibilities -- and stuck to building roads and other infrastructure. 

The top Army commanders discussed how the force can be made more "lean, agile and versatile capable of conducting operations at short notice across an entire spectrum", Army sources said. 

A three-day infantry commanders' conference in Mhow, which concluded on Thursday with Army chief Deepak Kapoor and all the top commanders and battalion heads in attendance, took stock of the force's war-waging materials and deliberated on how it can be prepared for an "out of area" role. 

A major part of the three-day deliberations, held at the Infantry School, was spent on discussing the future outlook of Indian Army. The commanders stressed the need to review the training of middle-level officers and the need to improve the force's future firepower and surveillance mechanism. 

Senior infantry officers from operational theatres shared their personal experiences pertaining to transformation of infantry to meet new challenges. The main emphasis was on adaptation as per the changing geopolitical environment, threat perception and emergence of new technologies and dovetail the same into the transformation process, a senior officer added. 

The conflict in Afghanistan with spillover of battle-hardened terrorists from the Af-Pak theatre into India has already been engaging the armed forces considerably at home soil. 

The Army has intensified its counter-insurgency operations in the higher reaches along the Line of Control in J&K with increased attempt of militants to infiltrate on the Indian side from across the border. It is estimated that about 300 militants are waiting at launch pads, a senior Army officer said here. 

In the last two months, at least 10 to 12 infiltration bids have been made in each month, an Army officer said. In fact, India has taken up the matter with the US -- which is highly engaged with Pakistan with its anti-Taliban operations -- to put pressure on the latter to dismantle terrorist training camps in PoK. 

Terrorist handlers from across the borders have made multiple launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) to divert attention of Indian troops while trying to push in militants inside India.(TOI)

Pak set to rake up Kashmir at UNGA meet

NEW DELHI: A meeting between foreign ministers of India and Pakistan, during the UN General Assembly (UNGA) session in New York later this month, is unlikely to see a breakthrough as Pakistan has been pushing for unconditional talks. 

The Pakistani position leaves no chance for breaking the impasse as New Delhi is clear that bilateral talks can be held only after Islamabad takes action on terror. Due to the heavy domestic criticism following the Sharm-el-Sheikh effort, New Delhi is in no position to give Islamabad any leeway on any aspect of the bilateral relationship till there is `credible' action against terrorists and terrorism. 

Though India has continued to pressure Pakistan to cooperate on investigations into the Mumbai terror attacks, and to dismantle the terror infrastructure, it has only been met with defiance and indignance from the Pakistani side. 

"We want a dialogue (with India) but we are not willing to accept any conditions... We want talks in an open and friendly atmosphere. They (India) are mistaken if they think they can achieve anything by putting pressure on Pakistan," foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi was quoted as saying. 

He accused India of issuing statements and taking up issues like terrorism with the world community to "put Pakistan on the defensive." He claimed that this move was prompted by India's `internal political compulsions' and that Islamabad would not be affected by it. Islamabad's posturing ahead of the talks has not gone down well with New Delhi where frustration is growing with Pakistan. 

As a counter to Indian pressure, Islamabad has already stated that it will use the opportunity in New York to rake up the Kashmir issue in bilateral and multilateral meetings. Islamabad is planning to raise the Kashmir issue at, apart from UNGA, a meeting of the Kashmir contact group of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to be held in New York. Mr Qureshi warned that India's decision to not continue efforts to resolve issues like the Kashmir problem through a composite dialogue would have consequences. 

"We strongly believe a just and fair settlement of the Kashmir issue is essential for lasting peace in the region. We will again pitch for the issue in New York. We hope our efforts will gather some momentum and get support in the international community," foreign office spokesman Abdul Basit was quoted as saying.(ET)

Chinese incursions seen as 'pinpricks'

NEW DELHI: The recent incursions by China’s People’s Liberation Army into Indian territory are not being viewed with too much concern by security agencies, which see them as ‘pinpricks’ by China to assert its presence in areas such as Arunachal Pradesh and not a precursor to any military confrontation. 

Also, even as Chinese transgressions beyond LAC are nothing new, their higher frequency of late is possibly an outcome of the facilitated troop movement on the other side due to the strong infrastructure, particularly the excellent road network, that has come up in the Chinese border areas. 

This assessment was shared by the Central security establishment with state police chiefs on the concluding day of DGP/IGPs meet here on Thursday. The police heads were told that the higher frequency of Chinese transgressions into the Indian side were not surprising as better road and other linkages on their side meant stronger presence and easier movement for Chinese troops. 

Though senior security officials, in their briefing to DGPs conference, sought an alert on the Sino-Indian border, they did clarify that the agencies were not seeing transgressions blowing up into a military confrontation. The assessment stems from the fact that China aims to overtake the US as a global leader by 2050 and would not like to be slowed down by a war-like situation. The incursions, the security bosses explained, were also to establish China’s dominance in South Asia. 

Interestingly, though MEA is keen on playing down the transgressions as routine, a section of the security establishment is getting restless over such a response as it strongly feels that ignoring frequent incursions into its territory would only embolden the neighbour to get more aggressive. 

Though a meeting of the China study group was to be held on Thursday to discuss the recent Chinese misadventures on the border, it was called off at the eleventh hour to beat the media hype generated by the rising incursions by PLA troops. The meeting will now be held at a later date, hopefully away from the media glare. 

For now, the dominant view in the government is to focus its energies on strengthening the infrastructure on our side of the Sino-Indian border. This will not only fortify our defences but also help us establish our claim over the disputed border areas developed by us, a senior Union government official told ET. 

The police chiefs were also briefed by the R&AW experts on the continuing threat from Pakistan-based terrorists outfits, particularly the Lashkar e Toiba (LeT). A presentation explained how terror outfits such as Al-Qaeda, LeT and Jaish e Mohammed, etc, were working in tandem and making use of each other’s network to carry forward their subversive agenda. India, the security agencies warned, was particularly vulnerable as LeT has built a huge network with local Indian elements, including organisations like Simi and Indian Mujahideen, to spread its tentacles far and wide. 

The police chiefs were warned that banned outfits like Simi and even IM were reinventing themselves by taking on different nomenclatures. Some of the ex-Simi cadres were now part of the newly-founded political formations. The states were told to keep an eye on all such re-invented fundamentalist groups that may be linked with LeT or other terrorist groups. Particular attention must be given to prevent communal tension to linger in sensitive areas as it may serve as a breeding ground for prospective LeT sympathisers, the DGPs were told. 

The Centre, according to sources, is particularly concerned about the LeT strengthening their local linkages in Maharashtra and Gujarat, given the more frequent communal outbreaks there, and has asked the DGPs to ensure that a major communal situation was averted.(ET)

Post of lecturer abolished in IITs ( PAY REVISION ISSUE)

MUMBAI: Tweaking the original notification, HRD ministry has come up with a second version of payscales for staff and faculty of centrally-funded institutes. As per the new rules, lecturers won’t be part of the regular faculty cadre in these institutes. 

The notification restored earlier practice of allowing central institutes to appoint post-doctoral fellows as assistant professors, however only on contract basis. IIT and IIM faculty, not very ‘excited’ about the development, picked problems with points ‘detrimental for institution building’. 

"It is very difficult to attract bright people to the teaching profession. The IITs have always had the freedom to decide whether someone should be appointed on contractual basis or taken in as permanent staff," said Bharat Seth, president of the IIT-Bombay faculty federation. 

Moreover, staff across central institutes want to hold on to the freedom they have enjoyed in having a flexible cadre. However, the ministry prescribes the percentage of people that each campus must have at every level. For instance, the notification stipulates that 10% faculty must be of assistant professors and a maximum of 40% professors can be promoted to senior grade depending on their performance. 

S S Murthy, president of the All India IIT Faculty Federation, told agencies that such a cap was "illogical". 

Scholastic pay, on par with allowance given to scientists in all government research bodies, was demanded by faculty from across IITs, IIMs and IISc. The new HRD notification is silent on that issue. 

One of the amendments though has been the HRD ministry’s decision to allow assistant professor to move from pay band three to a higher salary, a clause that was not permitted earlier.(TOI)

CVC names corrupt govt officers

NEW DELHI: In A first, the Central Vigilance Commission has disclosed the names of 123 government officials, which includes three IPS officers, against whom it has suggested sanction for prosecution or imposition of penalty for alleged corruption. 

Complying with the provisions under the Right to Information Act, the commission has posted the names of the officials who are accused of corruption on its website. Out of the 123, the anti-corruption body has recommended imposition of penalties against 101 officials working in a cross section of government ministries, banks and PSUs. Out of the 101 officials, 17 work in nationalised banks, 13 in Delhi Development Authority and 11 in Municipal Corporation of Delhi. 

Out of the 22 officers against whom prosecution proceedings have been advised, seven are from the home ministry, seven from central board of direct taxes, two from Indian Forest Service, one each from the department of health and department of agriculture. The commission has advised issuance of sanction for prosecution against three IPS officers from the ministry of home affairs, which includes Srikantappa Shri, Ajay Singh and Garcha Davinder Singh. 

Every month the commission takes out a list in which it gives the number of government officials against whom it has recommended corruption proceedings. But earlier monthly reports did not name officials but identified the government departments or ministries. The commission said that the move to post the names of the officials is “in furtherance of the transparency initiatives and the spirit of the RTI Act, 2005.” 

A note posted by the CVC further said that commission has decided to regularly post information and details of cases that have been pending for over four months with various organisations and departments for sanction for prosecution. The commission has also decided to post cases where it has advised issuance of sanction for prosecution during the month and cases where imposition of suitable major penalty has been advised. 

The anti-corruption body has also recommended that heavy penalties should be imposed against nine officials each from the ministry of railways and the New India Assurance Company Ltd, and 11 from ONGC. In its monthly report, the commission has further said that 522 cases, which were referred to it for advice, have been disposed off and recoveries to the tune of Rs 90 lakh were made after the commission conducted technical examination of some departments.(ET)