The monsoon forecast should galvanise the country to make the most of a good season.

The ‘normal’ monsoon forecast of the India Meteorological Department brings the promise of a year of growth and good health for India’s economy and ecology. If correct, India will have a second consecutive year of normal rainfall, after two years of drought. The prospect that 2017 will be a good year boosts the prospects of enhanced agricultural output, healthy reservoir levels, more hydropower and reduced conflicts over water. It will also test the efficacy of the expensive water management initiatives launched during 2014 and 2015 by the Centre and the State governments to harness rainfall and build resilience for future drought cycles. As the IMD’s experience shows, forecasting the all-India summer monsoon rainfall is fraught with uncertainties and has often gone off the mark. The dynamic model that it is using this year to make a forecast that includes an assessment of two phenomena — a possible late onset El Niño in the Pacific Ocean and variations in sea surface temperatures that create the Indian Ocean Dipole — will be keenly watched. Given that El Niño is expected only in the later part of the year when the monsoon is in its final stages, the expectation of normal rainfall is reasonable. A confirmation could come in June.

When more than half the population is sustained by agricultural livelihoods, highly efficient water utilisation holds the key to higher farm productivity. In fact, preparing for drought remains a top priority today, in spite of a big increase in outlays for irrigation made over successive five-year plans. Data on five decades of grain output from 1951 show that the negative impact of drought on productivity is disproportionately higher than the positive effects of a normal or surplus monsoon. This underscores the need to help farmers with small holdings to look ahead. As agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan pointed out during the drought a couple of years ago, the focus has to be on plant protection, water harvesting and access to post-harvest technologies. The NITI Aayog has also been calling for ways to cut water use, since India uses two to three times more water per tonne of grain produced compared to, for example, China, Brazil and the U.S. The way forward is to create ponds, provide solar power for more farms, mechanise operations and expand drip irrigation coverage. Aiding small farmers with the tools and providing them formal financing can relieve their cyclical distress. The area under drip irrigation, estimated to be less than 10% of net area sown, can then be expanded. A normal monsoon will also relieve water stress in the cities if they prepare catchments and reservoirs to make the most of the season and incentivise residents to install scientific rainwater harvesting systems.

The National Green Tribunal

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has ordered an immediate and complete shutdown of all industries around Bengaluru's Bellandur Lake where a mound of garbage was set on fire in February this year. Slamming the local civic bodies for inaction, a bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar also banned dumping of any kind of municipal solid waste around the lake. The Tribunal has directed the state Government to clean the lake within one month. More from our Correspondent .

National Green Tribunal Act, 2010 (NGT) is an Act of the Parliament of India which enables creation of a special tribunal to handle the expeditious disposal of the cases pertaining to environmental issues.^[3] It draws inspiration from the India's constitutional provision of Article 21, which assures the citizens of India the right to a healthy environment.

The legislate Act of Parliament defines the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010 as follows,

"An Act to provide for the establishment of a National Green Tribunal for the effective and expeditious disposal of cases relating to environmental protection and conservation of forests and other natural resources including enforcement of any legal right relating to environment and giving relief and compensation for damages to persons and property and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto"

On 18 October 2010, Justice Lokeshwar Singh Panta  became its first Chairman. Currently it is chaired by Justice Swatanter Kumar  since 20 Dec 2012.

The Tribunal's dedicated jurisdiction in environmental matters shall provide speedy environmental justice and help reduce the burden of litigation in the higher courts. The Tribunal shall not be bound by the procedure laid down under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, but shall be guided by principles of natural justice. The tribunal is mandated to make and endeavour for disposal of applications or appeals finally within 6 months of filing of the same.Initially, the NGT is proposed to be set up at five places of sittings and will follow circuit procedure for making itself more accessible; New Delhi is the Principal Place of Sitting of the Tribunal and Bhopal, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai shall be the other 4 place of sitting of the Tribuna. . . 

Defence Minister Arun Jaitley assures Indian Air Force that acquisition of fighter jets would be expedited

Amid concerns over the changed H1B visa programme in the United States, India has said, it was in touch with the Trump administration and was making a full assessment of its impact on Indian professionals. External Affairs Ministry spokesman Gopal Baglay said, the H1-B visa cap has remained at 65,000 since December 2004 when the H1-B Visa Reform Act was enacted by the US Congress.

US President Donald Trump had recently signed an executive order for tightening the rules of the H-1B visa programme to ensure that the visas are given to what he called the most-skilled or highest paid petitioners.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had also said, his government will abolish a popular work visa used by over 95,000 foreign workers, a majority of them Indians, to tackle the growing unemployment and replace it with a new programme requiring a higher English-language proficiency and job skills.

The External Affairs Ministry spokesman said, India was also in touch with the Australian government. He, however, said senior Australian officials have conveyed to India that the impact of the changes will be negligible on Indian workers, most of whom fall in high skill category.

Defence Minister Arun Jaitley has assured the Indian Air Force (IAF) of expediting acquisition of fighter jets and other critical systems as part of its modernisation programme. In his inaugural address at IAF commanders' conference in New Delhi yesterday, Mr Jaitley also talked of what he called uncertainties in the region as well as on the security challenges facing India due to the rapidly-changing geo-political situation.

The Minister complimented the Air Force for having successfully conducted various military exercises and operations towards humanitarian assistance and disaster relief both within and outside the country.

The three-day conference will deliberate on a range of critical issues including modernisation of IAF, its futuristic plans and ways to enhance the overall capability of the force.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi says red beacon symbols are out of touch with the spirit of new India as every Indian is special and a VIP..

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said, red beacon symbols are out of touch with the spirit of new India as every Indian is special and a VIP. Replying to tweets over the government's  decision to bar the use of red beacons atop vehicles, Mr Modi said, these should have gone long ago. The Prime Minister said, he is glad that a strong beginning has been made.

The cabinet had yesterday banned Ministers and officials in the Central and state government from using red beacons on their official vehicles from the 1st of next month.

The decision was taken in a Cabinet meeting chaired my Mr Modi in New Delhi.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters that the government views red beacons as a symbol of the VIP culture which has no place in a democratic country.

Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari informed that the notification in this regard will be issued soon.

The expert panel’s recommendation to review the fiscal responsibility law is timely...

Thanking you for proving me extra energy to sacrifice myself for god.

The advice of the expert committee to review the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act of 2003 requires attention, given India’s track record. This is all the more so given the born-again political conviction that promises of random largesse to voters is just fine. Excessive and unsustainable borrowing by the government is obviously perverse as it entails a cost on future generations while crowding out private investment. In the past, fiscal irresponsibility has cost jobs, spiked inflation, put the currency in a tailspin and even brought the country to the brink of a default. The possibility of default may have resulted in the liberalisation of the economy in 1991, but the key trigger was irrational public spending on borrowed money in the late-1980s. Less than a decade later, with fiscal discipline faltering and the deficit shooting up to 10% of GDP, the FRBM law was enacted to ‘limit the government’s borrowing authority’ under Article 268 of the Constitution. But the target to limit the fiscal deficit to 3% of GDP (by 2009) was abandoned after the 2008 global financial crisis as a liberal stimulus reversed the gains in the fiscal space, creating fresh macro-level instability. The FRBM Act’s deficit target is now only likely to be met next year.

Such damage transmissions from the political economy to the real economy need to be checked forthwith. The committee’s proposal to maintain the 3% target till 2019-20 before aiming for further reduction is pragmatic, as the ‘extraordinary and unanticipated domestic development’ of demonetisation happened during its tenure. Such an event, the committee has said, could trigger an escape clause from fixed fiscal targets in its proposed rule-based framework. Instead of focussing purely on the fiscal and revenue deficit numbers, which should be brought down to 2.5% and 0.8% of GDP respectively by 2023, the panel has called for paring India’s cumulative public debt as a proportion to GDP to 60% by 2023 — from around 68% at present. The latter, a simpler measure for solvency purposes, should inspire confidence among rating agencies. Though this has put paid to the government’s hope that a fiscal deficit range could be targeted instead of absolute numbers, the Finance Minister has committed to the 3% target for the next two years, from the 3.2% target for 2017-18. A clear fiscal policy framework in tandem with the monetary policy framework already adopted could act as a powerful signal of commitment to macroeconomic stability. The Centre must swiftly take a call on the panel’s recommendations — including for a new debt and fiscal responsibility law, and the creation of a Fiscal Council with independent experts that could sit in judgment on the need for deviations from targets. It is equally critical that States are brought on board, as the 60% debt target includes 20% on their account. Their finances are worsening again even as the clamour for Uttar Pradesh-style loan waivers grows.

The inclusion of paper audit trails to the EVMs is costly but perhaps unavoidable, . . . . .

Thanks you God ,for providing me chance to elaborate my idea to all human being.

In the face of extreme and unreasonable complaints against Electronic Voting Machines by a number of political parties, the Election Commission perhaps had no choice but to have the working of the machines corroborated by a paper audit trail. To have such a facility ready for all constituencies by the 2019 Lok Sabha election is expensive (an estimated ₹3,174 crore) and also unnecessary (paper trails are at best required in a few constituencies to corroborate results). Itsrequest to the Law Ministry to release funds for the procurement of voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines for the 2019 Lok Sabha election should be interpreted in this context. As many as 16 lakh VVPAT machines will be required and only an urgent release of funds will allow the machines to be ready in time for 2019. It was possible for the EC to brush off the complaints from the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Aam Aadmi Party following their defeat in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab respectively, but it clearly became increasingly difficult for it to ignore the clutch of parties that joined the chorus, some demanding a return to paper ballots.

The EC has repeatedly assured voters that there are enough procedural and technical safeguards to prevent large-scale tampering or manipulation of EVMs. Since 2006, elections have witnessed the use of upgraded EVMs — Model 2 machines, with security features such as dynamic coding of key codes on ballot units and their transfer as messages to the control unit in an encrypted manner. EVMs feature encoded software that is burnt one-time on to programmable chips, enabling them to be used as stand-alone machines rather than computer-connected units, thus preventing any hacking by remote devices. Model 3 machines produced after 2013 have additional features such as tamper detection. The EC has laid down procedural rules of locking and storing EVMs before and after polling, besides functional checks and tests in the presence of representatives of political parties. The addition of the VVPAT machine to the process is to allow for cross-checking of EVM results through a paper audit, completing another layer of accountability to the indigenously produced machines (only the microchip is manufactured outside the country with the machine language embedded on it). Contrary to glib claims about tampering, studies show the introduction of EVMs has resulted in a drastic reduction in electoral fraud (rigging, stuffing of ballot boxes, etc.) and allowed for greater voter participation. Since reverting to the older paper ballot system will be regressive, the only option in the face of the protests is to have a back-up in the form of a paper trail — something that will hopefully put a quietus to the controversy.

Babri demolition case: After 25 years, and two more in the offing, there is no closure on this

The mills of the gods grind slowly but they grind exceedingly fine is a dictum meant to bring comfort for those who wait long for justice. But in the Babri masjid case, the course of justice while being excruciatingly slow has not been particularly productive so far. The Supreme Court’s decision to reopen the criminal conspiracy charges against senior BJP leaders such as LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti – Kalyan Singh being a governor has immunity for the duration of his term – comes nearly a quarter of a century after the fateful day on which the ancient mosque in Ayodhya was razed to the ground by frenzied Hindu mobs. This singular act of violence changed India’s political landscape forever, deepening the faultlines of polarisation and communalisation. The deadly riots which followed Mr Advani’s rath yatra brought a militant Hindutva to the fore and claimed the lives of over 2,000 people.

Despite an overwhelming amount of evidence and various commissions, the most notable presided over by Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan, which was set up 10 days after the event, justice has never been seen to be done in the case. The Liberhan commission clearly stated when it finally submitted its report seven years later that BJP politicians involved were to blame. Yet the case has dragged on and now the Supreme Court has given the proceedings another two years. Many of those named in the cases relating to the destruction of the mosque have died, others have been let off.