Building hostels for women, orphans to be CSR activity

New Delhi: Setting up of hostels for women and orphans as well as efforts that benefit armed forces veterans, war widows and their dependents will come under the 'Corporate Social Responsibility' spending ambit.

With the government notifying norms for CSR spending by companies, Corporate Affairs Minister Sachin Pilot on Thursday said the rules have been finalised after extensive discussions with all stakeholders.

The new CSR regime, part of the Companies Act 2013, requires certain class of corporates to shell out at least two per cent of their three-year annual average net profit towards social welfare spending activities.

Besides setting up homes and hostels for women and orphans, setting up old age homes, day care centres and such other facilities for senior citizens would be considered as CSR activities by the government.

Significantly, "measures for reducing inequalities faced by socially and economically backward groups," would also come under CSR ambit.

Further, measures initiated by companies for the benefit of armed forces veterans, war widows and their dependents would be classified as social welfare spending by companies.

Both domestic and foreign companies having net worth of at least Rs 500 crore or having minimum turnover of Rs 1,000 crore or those with at least net profit of Rs 5 crore, have to make CSR spend.

Another area included in the CSR framework is promoting preventive health care and sanitation and making available safe drinking water.

Commenting on CSR rules, Pilot further said they "provide for the manner in which CSR Committee shall formulate and monitor the CSR Policy, manner of undertaking CSR activities, role of the Board of directors therein and format of disclosure of such activities in the board's report".

As per the notified rules, ensuring ecological balance, protection of flora and fauna, animal welfare, agro-forestry, conservation of natural resources and maintaining quality of soil, air and water can also be CSR initiatives.

In addition, livelihood enhancement and rural development projects would be under CSR framework.

Other areas covered include protection of national heritage, art and culture, setting up public libraries, promotion and development of traditional arts and handicrafts, training to promote rural sports, nationally recognised sports, paralympic sports and Olympic sports.

"Contributions or funds provided to technology incubators located within academic institutions which are approved by the central government," would also be considered as CSR activities, according to the rules.

OROP for ex-servicemen to be implemented from April 1

New Delhi: Defence Ministry on Thursday issued orders for implementing the 'One Rank One Pension' decision of the government from April 1 and assured the Services that it will provide all necessary funds for it.

The Defence Ministry has issued the orders for implementing OROP for exservicemen from April 1, a Defence Ministry spokesperson said.

Defence Minister A K Antony has assured the Services that the Government was fully committed to implement the OROP policy and required funds will be made available to ensure its implementation, he said.

Chairing a meeting of the top brass of the Services and senior officials, Antony said the Finance Minister had clarified that the figure of Rs 500 crores made available to implement the scheme was only "indicative".

The meeting was convened by Antony to discuss the modalities for implementation of OROP. Minister of State for Defence Jitendra Singh, Defence Secretary RK Mathur, Secretary Ex- Servicemen's Welfare Sangita Gairola, Secretary Defence Finance Arunava Dutt, the three Service Vice Chiefs and AG from the Services Headquarters also attended the meeting.

"It was noted that OROP implies that uniform pension be paid to the Armed Forces personnel retiring in the same rank with the same length of service irrespective of their date of retirement and any future enhancement in the rates of pension to be automatically passed on to the past pensioners," the Ministry said.

"This implies bridging the gap between the rate of pension of the current pensioners and the past pensioners, and also future enhancements in the rate of pension to be automatically passed on to the past pensioners," it added.

Include 'no arrest policy' in manifesto, fishermen tell Modi

Ahmedabad: In a memorandum to BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on Thursday demanded that the party's manifesto include how issues related to fishermen would be addressed.

The memorandum demanded that the BJP should include in its manifesto a policy of not arresting Pakistani fishermen, which would in turn lead to no arrest of Indian fishermen by that country.

Pondicherry-based NGO called National Fisherworkers' Forum (NFF) and a Delhi-based NGO called 'Pakistan-India People's Forum for Peace and Democracy' (PIPFPD) sent their memoranda to BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi today through registered post.

"We demand incorporation of the fishing community's demands in your party's manifesto or else the community will boycott the next general elections," the NFF's M Ilango said.

Gujarat has the longest sea coast (1,600 km) in the entire country with lakhs of fishermen voters.

The NGO groups which made a memoranda of demands under a joint forum, requested reddressal of long-pending issues of the fishing community. 

Fishermens' fora in Pakistan and India have also demanded implementation of a 'no arrest policy' under an agreement signed by both governments during the 1999 Lahore summit.

"We demand declaration of a 'no arrest policy' for Pakistani fishermen and boats, so that there is prompt reciprocal action by the Pakistan government on this issue," the joint NGO forum said.

"There are 232 Indian fishermen in Pakistani jails and 139 Pakistani fishermen in Indian prisons. They should be released immediately," Jatin Desai of the PIPFPD said.

Modi, Rahul Gandhi, Kejriwal dominate Google's search trends

New Delhi: As India inches closer towards general elections, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Aam Aadmi Party founder Arvind Kejriwal and Congress vice- president Rahul Gandhi have emerged as the most searched politicians online, Google said on Thursday.

According to Google Trends, on a scale of 0-100, Modi scored 65 points, followed by Kejriwal (52 points) and Gandhi (41 points) for the month of February so far.

In January this year, Kejriwal (72 points) was ahead of Gandhi (64 points) and Modi (56 points) in terms of search on Google, the world's largest search giant.

Google Trends records search queries containing keywords related to Modi, Kejriwal and Gandhi and shows the data using graphs. The query numbers are plotted on a scale of 0-100.

"The world's largest democracy is all set for the 2014 General Elections for the 16th Lok Sabha and three leaders who are dominating the national political scenario and trending the most on online search are Modi, Gandhi and now Kejriwal," Google said in a release.

Interestingly, searches on Modi for PM (Prime Minister) were "more than three times" compared to that of Rahul Gandhi for PM.

These elections are likely to be unique because it is no longer a clash between Modi on the one hand and Gandhi on the other. The dark horse -- Kejriwal -- now features prominently as is evident by search queries, it added.

"Age is also revealing itself as a search trend. Interestingly, Gandhi's age is the most searched, that could be because he is constantly been projected as a youth leader," the US-based company said.

Google said Gandhi remained the most searched among the youth brigade in Indian politics with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav securing the second spot, followed by Priyanka Vadra, Sachin Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Naveen Jindal.

Some of the lesser known youth leaders, including Supriya Sule, Priya Dutt, Milind Deora and Dushyant Singh also found their place in the top 10 on Google Search, it added.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, BJP leader L K Advani, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav also received a significant number of search queries in the past three months, it added.

Cabinet meet tomorrow to clear populist measures

New Delhi: The Union Cabinet on Friday will decide on a series of populist measures and some ordinances on anti-graft and protection of rights bills at a meeting possibly the last before the model code of conduct could come into force for coming Lok Sabha polls.

A proposal to increase the poll expenditure cap up to Rs 70 lakh per contestant from Rs 40 lakh now is also on the table of the cabinet meeting.

The cabinet will also decide on hiking dearness allowance to 100 per cent from existing 90 per cent, benefiting 50 lakh employees and 30 lakh pensioners.

The hike in DA would be effective from January 1 this year. Another proposal which will bring cheers to pensioners is to ensure Rs 1,000 minimum monthly pension under the pension scheme run by retirement fund body EPFO, which would immediately benefit 28 lakh pensioners.

The cabinet is likely to consider a clarification on the decision for supply of 12 subsidised LPG cylinders per household in a year.

The government had last month raised the cap on supply of cheaper LPG from 9 to 12 cylinders of 14.2-kg each. It was inferred that this meant one cylinder in a month.

The ministry has proposed to the cabinet that consumers should have the freedom to book a refill after 21 days with an overall cap of 12 subsidised bottles in a year.

When the model code of conduct goes into force with the announcement of the election schedule, no populist measure can be made public and any policy decision can be announced only with the clearance of the Election Commission.

Sources said the cabinet may also consider raising the retirement age of government employees from 60 to 62 years. The raising of superannuation age was originally a part of the Terms of Reference of the Seventh Pay Commission.

Since the Commission report is expected not before 2017, a decision on raising the retirement age cannot happen before that.

So, the reference to retirement age has been removed from the ToR of the 7th Pay Commission and it is speculated that the same may be brought as a supplementary agenda.

Sources have not ruled out a proposal before the cabinet to provide 'special category' status to Andhra Pradesh for development of Seemandhra region on the ground of revenue loss following the bifurcation.

The sources said Planning Commission's Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia had met Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh recently to fine tune the proposal.

The cabinet could also approve six ordinances on bills pending in Parliament. Three ordinances which had lapsed last month could also be re-promulgated.

Three anti-corruption bills -- Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, Right of Citizens for Time-Bound Delivery of Goods and Services and Redressal of their Grievances Bill and the Public Procurement Bill -- are likely to be approved as ordinances.

Along with these, the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Bill, Rights of Persons with Disability Bill, Security Laws (Amendment) Bill, ordinances on Medical Council of India and another which gives Election Commission limited powers to make changes in Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe constituencies, where some castes have been either excluded or included between the 2001 census and May 2012, are also likely to be approved by the cabinet.

An ordinance seeking to enhance the pecuniary jurisdiction of civil suits of the Delhi High Court from existing Rs 20 lakh to Rs 2 crore will also come up.

The Delhi High Court (Amendment) Bill, 2014, introduced in the Rajya Sabha recently, aims at reducing workload of the Delhi High Court by transferring thousands of civil suits, valued up to Rs 2 crore, to the nine district courts in Delhi.

Uma Bharti asks Sonia to clear Cong stand on Khurshid's remark

Indore: BJP vice-president Uma Bharti on Thursday asked Congress president Sonia Gandhi to clarify her party's stand on the "impotent" barb against BJP's PM nominee Narendra Modi by External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid.

"In the last many years, nobody has made such intemperate comment against any politician. The Congress president should clarify whether her party approves of the comment made by Khurshid or whether the observation on Modi was Khurshid's personal view," Uma told PTI/Bhasha.

"Has Congress became so uncultured that its leaders (have) started making such kind of statements," she asked.

"On a number of occasions, Congress had distanced itself from its general secretary Digvijay Singh's controversial statements, I feel Congress should distance itself in Khurshid's case as well," Uma said.

The BJP leader said this below the belt comment by Khurshid will ensure that Congress will land in abyss post elections.

In the wake of furore caused by Khurshid after describing Modi as "impotent" in handling of the 2002 Gujarat riots, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi today expressed his disapproval for such language.

Responding to a query on contesting Lok Sabha polls, Uma said as she was occupied with the Ganga river conservation programme, she would not be able to spare time for her constituency.

"However, if BJP president Rajnath Singh asks me to contest, I am ready to fight the election from any given constituency," she said.

When asked about the change of guard in Uttarakhand, Uma, also the BJP's in-charge of the hill state, said Congress will achieve nothing by replacing Vijay Bahuguna with Harish Rawat as chief minister.

"...Despite Rawat assuming the reins of Uttarakhand, Congress will lose polls in the hill state and BJP would win all the five (Lok Sabha) seats," she added.

Narendra Modi hits back at Chidambaram on postage stamp barb

New Delhi: Hitting back at Finance Minister P Chidambaram for his postage stamp barb, BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Thursday said his economic knowledge can be confined to one word, which is "trustee."

"My knowledge about finance and economy will not occupy even a postage stamp. My whole knowledge can be confined to one word, that is trustee," he said, recalling Mahatma Gandhi's concept of trusteeship.

Modi, who invoked the Father of the Nation several times in his hour-long speech at a seminar on new growth paradigm, said that according to the concept of trusteeship propounded by Gandhiji, those in power should act like trustees of public goods and not behave like owners.

Admitting that he lacks the knowledge confined in books, Modi said he can always hire those who are well-versed with economic issues.

Modi was commenting on remarks made by Chidambaram, who in an interview to BBC said Modi's knowledge of economics can be written on the back of a postage stamp.

"What he (Modi) knows about economics can be written on the back of a postage stamp...He has said nothing about the fiscal deficit, nothing about the CAD (current account deficit), nothing about monetary policy," Chidambaram had said.

Modi retorted by saying that the country is suffering not only from a fiscal deficit but also "from governance deficit, trust deficit, security deficit, moral deficit and deficit of democratic institutions."

Gujarat had a revenue deficit when he took over as chief minister in 2001, Modi said, adding, "Since then, the state has been posting revenue surplus."

Special status for Bihar: Nitish Kumar calls bandh on March 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday gave a call for a statewide bandh on March 2, terming as "betrayal" the UPA government's decision to grant special category status to Seemandhra while "ignoring" a similar demand made by his government.

Addressing a press conference in state capital, Kumar said, “I am extremely grateful to several parties for extending their support to our demand for special status for Bihar. We have called a Bihar bandh on March 2 against the Centre's betrayal in this regard.”

“The fight for special status for Bihar is an old demand,” added Nitish Kumar.

Kumar had at first called the strike on March 1 but later decided to defer it by a day to March two considering the examinations in the state on March one, reports said.

Launching an attack on the Congress-led UPA government for according special category status to Seemandhra after creation of Telangana while "ignoring" Bihar's plea, he told reporters "this is betrayal of Bihar and other backward states.

The Chief Minister also appealed to all political parties and the people to observe the bandh to protest the UPA government's 'betrayal'.

Five killed, 35 injured in China bus fire

Beijing: At least five persons were killed and 35 others injured when a fire engulfed a moving bus in southwest China on Thursday.

The fire broke out at 1 pm (local time) when the bus was passing by a primary school at Guiyang City of Guizhou Province, provincial information department said.

The number of injured has risen to 35 from 30, it said.

The injured were admitted to four different hospitals, state news agency Xinhua reported. The driver of the bus said there were about 50 people on board the bus when the fire broke out. "I opened the door at once out of instinct, so that people could get off as soon as possible," he said.

Pictures posted on China's Twitter-like microblogging site Sina Weibo showed the bus was engulfed in flames with thick black smoke surging toward the sky.

The information department said since January last year all 1,850 buses operating in the province had started using liquefied natural gas instead of gasoline for green purposes.

Philippines asks neighbours to join case vs China

Manila: The Philippines is calling on Malaysia, Vietnam and other neighbours to join its legal challenge to China's massive territorial claim in the South China Sea.

Solicitor-General Francis Jardeleza said today Malaysia, Vietnam and two other governments could either join the complaint filed by the Philippines last year before an international tribunal or lodge their own cases against China.

Jardeleza says smaller countries can only have a chance to peacefully defend their territories against the Asian superpower in a legal arena.

China, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have overlapping claims across the busy South China Sea.

The disputes have periodically erupted into dangerous confrontations, sparking tensions and straining ties.

Ex-Murdoch editor Brooks: "I sanctioned payments to officials"

London: Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch's former British newspaper boss, told a London court on Thursday she had sanctioned payments to public officials but denied authorising illegal sums for which she is on trial.

Brooks is accused of authorising almost 40,000 pounds in illegal payments from a reporter on Murdoch's Sun tabloid to a Ministry of Defence official while she was editor of the paper.

She denies the charge, and other offences of conspiracy to hack phones and perverting the course of justice.

Asked by her defence lawyer on Thursday if she had ever sanctioned payments to public officials, something which is illegal, Brooks replied: "Yes, probably since I was deputy editor of the Sun ... a handful of occasions, half a dozen."

Her lawyer Jonathan Laidlaw said he would return to the issue later to give further explanation.

Earlier, Brooks had said her view was that "there had to be an overwhelming public interest to justify payment" and only in "very narrow circumstances."

Giving evidence for a fifth day, Brooks was asked about the specific charge relating to authorising illegal payments. She had said she did not know who the reporter's source was for a number of stories about Britain's military nor that the source was a public official.

Asked if the journalist should have raised this with her, she told London's Old Bailey court: "He probably should have brought it to my attention, absolutely."

MISTAKES

Earlier Brooks, who edited Murdoch's News of the World and Sun tabloids from 2000 to 2009, told her trial that she had made lots of errors and regretted some stories and headlines, saying some were cruel, harsh and "just wrong".

"I personally made lots of mistakes", said the 45-year-old, who was the boss of News Corp's British paper arm until 2011.

The jury were shown a series of newspaper stories from the Sun, Britain's biggest-selling daily, where Brooks said the "speed of decisions" at the helm had led to lapses in judgement.

The first concerned former British heavyweight boxer Frank Bruno and the headline above a story about him which read "Bonkers Bruno locked up".

"This day I had been involved in many, many meetings," she said. "It was a terrible mistake I made."

She said she had immediately had the headline changed after her ex-husband had pointed it out to her when she got home.

Another incident where she had "gone too far" was a personal attack on former Labour minister Clare Short over her opposition to daily pictures of topless models on page three of the Sun, a traditional feature of the paper since 1970.

The Sun responded to Short by publishing a doctored photograph of her bare-breasted, accused her of being "jealous", and parked a busload of models outside her house.

Brooks said this had been "cruel" and "harsh". "It was just too personal, it was just wrong," she added.

Earlier she told the court she had been brought to the Sun from the News of the World Sunday tabloid, because of her zeal for campaigning.

"Mr Murdoch had been quite pleased with the campaigning tone of the News of the World and wanted to take that to the Sun," she said.