NAPM unequivocally condemns ‘Emergency Regime’ and
assault on independence of the media
Curbs on NDTV as well as press in Kashmir, Chattisgarh and all questioning elements in a democracy unacceptable
7th Nov, 2016: The National Alliance of People’s Movements unequivocally condemns the high-handedness of the BJP-led Central Govt. for its unprecedented assault on the freedom of press, latest being the one-day selective ban on NDTV-India, and thereby assault on the country’s right to know, right to question, right to dissent and the very right to democracy.
The nation knows quite well that the NDTV ban has little connection with the allegation of the channel divulging sensitive information on the Pathankot terror-strike airbase and more to do with the channel’s, particularly Mr. Ravish Kumar’s scathing critique of the undemocratic and Sangh-driven policies and politics of the BJP. This clearly explains why NDTV-India has been prejudicially singled-out even as similar ‘objectionable’ content was aired by numerous channels around the same time.
The ban, at best, is vague, arbitrary and prima facie lacks substance and merit. Even assuming there has been a rule violation (which is not discernable in the circumstances), the Govt. could have resorted to other legal remedies, but it chose to go the ‘ban-way’ thereby trying to ‘test the waters’ and give out a message to all ‘noise-makers’ in the country that if this can happen to NDTV, the rest are small fry. This is a dangerous precedent and must be condemned by the media fraternity, civil society and citizenry alike. It is in this context NAPM demands that the ban imposed for one day on 9th November, 2016 should be withdrawn forthwith.
Having stated this, we would also like to highlight that in places such as Kashmir and Chattisgarh, not only freedom of press goes for a toss on a daily basis, but the very security of persons/agencies who report unsavory truth are shut down, targeted, harassed and even killed. All of this has been happening for a very very long time and continues to this day where the Govt. wants to wage its Wars without Witnesses. While, sadly, these violations have not caught national imagination as much as the NDTV ban has, we wish to state that all these violations are equally condemnable and must be seen as part of a cohesive devious right-wing politik to subvert democracy and constitutional rule of law.
As for the big media, it is indeed a wake-up call and a serious occasion for re-think. Be it Outlook, Indian Express and now NDTV, all have faced the ire of the successive governments; not to speak of the countless cases of routine, unreported attacks on stringers, photographers, journalists. It is about time the media stands united for freedom of press and expression in its entirety and speaks up for any violation. But how much of this would be possible, especially by conscientious journalists in an overwhelming atmosphere of corporate-driven media is a challenge of our times. How much of this outrage would bring about an actual change in editorial policies in the interests of professional ethics and constitutional propriety is also uncertain, but we all must act with due vigilance and resist any attempts at erosion of democratic values.
Medha Patkar – Narmada Bachao Andolan and the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM); Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey and Shankar Singh – Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan and National Campaign for People’s Right to Information, Prafulla Samantara – Lok Shakti Abhiyan & Lingraj Azad – Samajwadi Jan Parishad – Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti, NAPM, Odisha; Dr. Sunilam, Aradhna Bhargava – Kisan Sangharsh Samiti Suniti SR, Suhas Kolhekar, Prasad Bagwe – NAPM, Maharashtra; Milind Champanerkar,Editorial member, Andolan Magazine, Pune; Gabriele Dietrich, Geetha Ramakrishnan – Unorganised Sector Workers Federation, NAPM, TN; C R Neelkandan – NAPM Kerala; P Chennaiah,Ramakrishnam Raju, Meera Sanghamitra, NAPM Telangana-AP, Arundhati Dhuru, Richa Singh, Nandlal Master – NAPM, UP; Sister Celia – Domestic Workers Union & Rukmini V P, Garment Labour Union, NAPM, Karnataka; Vimal Bhai – Matu Jan sangathan & Jabar Singh, NAPM, Uttarakhand; Anand Mazgaonkar, Krishnakant – Paryavaran Suraksh Samiti, NAPM Gujarat; Kamayani Swami, Ashish Ranjan – Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan & Mahendra Yadav – Kosi Navnirman Manch, NAPM Bihar; Faisal Khan, Khudai Khidmatgar, J S Walia, NAPM Haryana; Kailash Meena, NAPM Rajasthan; Amitava Mitra & Avik Saha, NAPM West Bengal; Bilal Khan, Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan, Mumbai, Bhupender Singh Rawat – Jan Sangharsh Vahini & Rajendra Ravi, Madhuresh Kumar, NAPM, Delhi
Naresh, I’m not going to pretend
Before tomorrow.
|
Naresh — Before Election Day,
7 Nov at 11:27 PM
|
Naresh — You’re part of the incredible team
Today at 7:44
Are you ready?
|
Ease of doing business ranking: How Delhi, Mumbai skew the results
The department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP), ministry of commerce and industry, in partnership with The World Bank Group released the results of the Assessment of State Implementation of Business Reforms 2015-16 on Monday.
>By: Rajiv Kumar and Palakh Jain | New Delhi | The Financial Express | November 3, 2016
The department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP), ministry of commerce and industry, in partnership with The World Bank Group released the results of the Assessment of State Implementation of Business Reforms 2015-16 on Monday.These are ranks and scores based on evidence submitted for implementation of 7,124 reforms by states/UTs on a 340-point Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP) covering period from July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016 for 32 states and UTs. These submissions were reviewed by The bank’s team and validated by DIPP on real-time basis. The states were ranked on six key reform areas: single-window systems, tax reforms, construction permits, environment and labour reforms, inspection reforms, and commercial disputes and paper-less courts.Last year, the implementation average was 32% which is significantly lower than 48.93% for this year. The results of the assessment show that states have progressively made efforts to making it easier to do business. Further, last year, not a single state implemented more than 75% of reforms, this year, 16 states implemented more than 75% of the reforms. There are a few interesting things to note:First, Haryana, Telangana and Uttarakhand have improved the most in DIPP-World Bank Ease of Doing Business ranks. While the three states have done well on all parameters, these have missed out in areas such as digitisation of land records at local municipality office, integrating land record database, judicial reforms pertaining to filing of vacancies in district courts etc.
Second, though the correlation between investment rank and ease of doing business rank seems good, there is an outlier. Karnataka scores maximum in terms of investment. However, it ranks 13 on ease of doing business with a score of 88.39%. This is so because the state has not made good progress in tax reforms and single window system. These are two areas where the other states have performed better than Karnataka. Also, within Karnataka, only Bangalore seems to have attracted investment versus the other cities. Hence, the ease of doing business ranking seems more holistic.Third, it is interesting to explore the source of the high scores for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. As expected, the south Indian states have done phenomenally well in terms of implementation of single window clearing and tax reforms. Active private sector participation and focus on infrastructure in Andhra Pradesh and IT exports in Telengana seem to have paved way for their success. On the other hand, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana could not achieve a 100% score as they lacked in land records data integration at various levels and in failing to design and implement a system that allows for e-summons and digitally signed court orders for commercial disputes in courts.Fourth, Chandigarh, Jammu & Kashmir, Meghalaya, Lakshwadeep and Andaman & Nicobar Islands have scored the least. Their score of 0.30 shows that the reform process is very slow. This is an outcome of unwillingness on the part of government to give priority to the reforms. To speed up the process, these states/UTs require additional mentorship from the central government. They need to learn from the best practices adopted by other states.While it is interesting to note the healthy competition among states, it remains to be seen whether PM Narendra Modi’s dream of ensuring India’s place in the top 50 countries will come true or not. Currently, India’s rank is 130 which has moved up by just one spot from 131 last year. As mentioned by country director of the bank, one size does not fit big and diverse countries like India, there is a clear cut need to consider reforms undertaken across the country while calculating India’s position. Currently, only Delhi and Mumbai are considered while calculating Ease of Doing Business Index for India as a whole. This clearly is an incomplete picture.Overall, these results help the states know the situation of ease of doing business. It might be a good idea to have the reform recommendations in line with the best international practices. Further, each reform recommendation should have a clear vision of a desirable end goal. This vision should be communicated to the states at the outset of the reform process so that there is a shared objective. DIPP may engage with state governments on a regular basis to discuss the reform action plan, agree on key next steps and monitor the progress of reforms. To allow for impact of these reforms to be felt on ground, there is a need to properly communicate, monitor and evaluate these reforms.There is also a lesson to be learnt from this assessment. The assessment results are based on an online dashboard created by the DIPP that tracks implementation in real time. The dashboard updates rankings every time a response by a state is validated by the DIPP. This kind of real time data collection should be adopted for compiling other statistics such as employment data.Kumar is senior fellow, CPR and founding director, PahleIndia Foundation, while Jain is senior fellow at PahleIndia Foundation.Views are personal.
Second, though the correlation between investment rank and ease of doing business rank seems good, there is an outlier. Karnataka scores maximum in terms of investment. However, it ranks 13 on ease of doing business with a score of 88.39%. This is so because the state has not made good progress in tax reforms and single window system. These are two areas where the other states have performed better than Karnataka. Also, within Karnataka, only Bangalore seems to have attracted investment versus the other cities. Hence, the ease of doing business ranking seems more holistic.Third, it is interesting to explore the source of the high scores for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. As expected, the south Indian states have done phenomenally well in terms of implementation of single window clearing and tax reforms. Active private sector participation and focus on infrastructure in Andhra Pradesh and IT exports in Telengana seem to have paved way for their success. On the other hand, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana could not achieve a 100% score as they lacked in land records data integration at various levels and in failing to design and implement a system that allows for e-summons and digitally signed court orders for commercial disputes in courts.Fourth, Chandigarh, Jammu & Kashmir, Meghalaya, Lakshwadeep and Andaman & Nicobar Islands have scored the least. Their score of 0.30 shows that the reform process is very slow. This is an outcome of unwillingness on the part of government to give priority to the reforms. To speed up the process, these states/UTs require additional mentorship from the central government. They need to learn from the best practices adopted by other states.While it is interesting to note the healthy competition among states, it remains to be seen whether PM Narendra Modi’s dream of ensuring India’s place in the top 50 countries will come true or not. Currently, India’s rank is 130 which has moved up by just one spot from 131 last year. As mentioned by country director of the bank, one size does not fit big and diverse countries like India, there is a clear cut need to consider reforms undertaken across the country while calculating India’s position. Currently, only Delhi and Mumbai are considered while calculating Ease of Doing Business Index for India as a whole. This clearly is an incomplete picture.Overall, these results help the states know the situation of ease of doing business. It might be a good idea to have the reform recommendations in line with the best international practices. Further, each reform recommendation should have a clear vision of a desirable end goal. This vision should be communicated to the states at the outset of the reform process so that there is a shared objective. DIPP may engage with state governments on a regular basis to discuss the reform action plan, agree on key next steps and monitor the progress of reforms. To allow for impact of these reforms to be felt on ground, there is a need to properly communicate, monitor and evaluate these reforms.There is also a lesson to be learnt from this assessment. The assessment results are based on an online dashboard created by the DIPP that tracks implementation in real time. The dashboard updates rankings every time a response by a state is validated by the DIPP. This kind of real time data collection should be adopted for compiling other statistics such as employment data.Kumar is senior fellow, CPR and founding director, PahleIndia Foundation, while Jain is senior fellow at PahleIndia Foundation.Views are personal.
The MoS for Commerce & Industry, Nirmala Sitharaman, interacting with the media on the EoDB report – State ranking, in New Delhi.
|
PHD Swachh Paryavaran Campaign Press Meet
Invitation – PHD Chamber of Commerce & Industry invites you for PHD Swachh Paryavaran Campaign Press Meet On Tuesday, 8th of November @ PHD House, Siri Institutional Area, August Kranti Marg, New Delhi
From: UNIC India <unic.india@unic.org> on Tue, 08 Nov 2016 10:29:17 Add to address bookTo: You & 1 other | See Details
1 attachment
Invitation for Press Meet
Greetings for the day!!
We would like to invite you on behalf of PHD Chambers of Commerce & Industry for a Press Meet for PHD Chamber Swachh Paryavaran Campaign.
Date – Tuesday, 8th of November 2016
Time – 3: 00 pm
Venue – PHD Chambers of Commerce & Industry, No. 4/2, Siri Institutional Area, August Kranti Marg.
The talk point for the Press Meet would be the following –
- Announcement of the campaign PHD Swachh Paryavaran – An awareness driven campaign with the primary aim to elucidate the importance of CLEAN ENVIRONMENT through the school children and youth
I hope you can make it and look forward to hearing from you.
The E – Invite is enclosed above for your perusal
Regards
Garima
Media RSVP
Rashi Rohatgi Khan
For Further Information Contact
Vineet @ 9818119569
Pooja Saha @ 9871810341
Bhavika Arora @ 9817832923
| RAJIV CHANDRAN
National Information Officer
United Nations Information Centre
for India and Bhutan
55, Lodi Estate, New Delhi 110003
Tel: 91 11 46532237
M: 9810606833
|
Comments
Post a Comment