1. GDP expanded 6.1% in 2022-23’s last quarter
Full-year manufacturing GVA slid to 1.3% from 11.1%; only three of eight sectors, including farming and services, recorded higher GVA for FY23; despite Q4 uptick, consumption remained tepid
India’s GDP growth accelerated to 6.1% in the January to March 2023 quarter, lifting the economy’s expansion in 2022-23 to 7.2% from 7% estimated earlier, according to the provisional national income data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Wednesday.
The Gross Value Added (GVA) in the economy is reckoned to have risen 7% in 2022-23, compared with 8.8% in 2021-22. Manufacturing GVA growth slid to just 1.3% from 11.1% a year earlier, despite a 4.5% rebound in the final quarter after six months of contraction.
Economists noted that though several sectors delivered a positive surprise, especially in the last quarter of the year, consumption remained tepid and the overall growth pattern remains uneven.
Farm, services growth
The farm and services sectors buoyed economic outcomes as just three of eight broad economic activity segments recorded higher GVA growth than in 2021-22.
The agricultural GVA grew 4%, up from 3.5% in the previous year. The financial, real estate and professional services sectors saw their GVA grow 7.1%, compared with 4.7% in 2021-22. The GVA of the trade, hotels, transport, and communication sectors, as well as services related to broadcasting grew 14%, marginally faster than in the previous year.
Revised GDP, GVA
The NSO also revised GDP and GVA numbers lower for the first half of last year but bumped up the third quarter figures slightly. The first quarter’s GDP growth in 2022-23 is now pegged at 13.1%, followed by a 6.2% rise in the second quarter and 4.5% growth in the third, higher than the 4.4% estimated in February.
In GVA terms, the final three months of 2022-23 recorded a three-quarter high of 6.5%.
The growth estimates for the first and second quarters were pared to 11.9% and 5.4% respectively, while the third quarter GVA growth was revised higher to 4.7%, from the 4.6% reckoned earlier.
“While growth in private final consumption expenditure witnessed a slight uptick to 2.8% in Q4 from 2.2% in Q3, it remained muted, belying the uptick in consumer sentiments as per the RBI’s consumer confidence survey,” ICRA chief economist Aditi Nayar pointed out.
The higher-than-expected GDP growth last year could also temper growth expectations for this year, which the government and central bank expect to be around 6.5%, said Madan Sabnavis, the Bank of Baroda’s chief economist. Amid a global slowdown, maintaining growth over 6% will be challenging, he reckoned.
Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) V. Anantha Nageswaran was more optimistic and said the growth momentum continued across agriculture, industry and services sectors. India’s 6.1% GDP growth was the fastest among major economies, he asserted, adding that prospects look better for this year than they did four months ago.
“We are prepared to stick our necks out and say that the risks to a 6.5% growth projection for this year are more evenly balanced now, than at the time of the Economic Survey’s presentation when we felt that downside risks dominate,” Mr. Nageswaran said.
2. Amend law to make necrophilia an offence, says HC
Observing that the attendants appointed to guard the bodies in mortuaries of many government and private hospitals indulge in “sexual intercourse” on the bodies, the High Court of Karnataka has recommended that the Union government amend the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to bring necrophilia under the definition of offence of unnatural sex or introduce new provision in IPC to make necrophilia an offence.
Referring to laws in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa where necrophilia is an offence, the court said “unfortunately in India no specific legislation is enacted, including under the provisions of IPC for the purpose of upholding dignity and protecting rights and crime against the body of the woman.”
A Division Bench comprising of Justice B. Veerappa and Justice Venkatesh Naik T. passed the order while acquitting Rangaraju from the charges of raping a 25-year-old woman after murdering her. The trial court in Tumakuru had convicted him for murder and sexually assaulting her body after murdering her. Though the High Court confirmed his conviction for murder, it set aside the conviction on the charges of rape while pointing out that the act of sexual assault on the dead body cannot be termed as rape under Sections 377 (unnatural sex) and 376 (rape) the IPC.
Unfortunately these provisions of the IPC do not include the term ‘dead body,’ the Bench said while pointing out that necrophilia does not attract the provision of rape under Section 376 of IPC.
“It is high time the Union government, in order to maintain right to dignity of the dead person/woman, amend the provisions of Section 377 of IPC to include body of any man, woman or animal or introduce a separate provision as offence against dead woman as necrophilia or sadism” as has been done in other countries to ensure dignity of the dead person including woman, the Bench observed.
Mortuary monitoring
Meanwhile, the Bench directed the State government to ensure CCTV cameras are installed, mortuaries are regularly cleaned so that body is preserved in a proper manner to maintain its dignity and that staff of mortuary are sensitised to handle bodies with care in the mortuaries of all the government and private hospitals, to prevent offence against dead, particularly of women, within six months.
The postmortem room should not come under the direct line of sight of the general public/visitors for maintaining privacy; and mortuaries should have all basic infrastructure as per the Indian Public Health Standard guidelines for the district hospitals for management of the bodies, the High Court Bench said.
3. Biodiversity is us and we are biodiversity
Kamal Bawa is President Emeritus of the Bengaluru-based Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) and the Convener of Biodiversity Collaborative.
The engagement of all citizens will be key to the enhancement and protection of the world’s natural heritage
The observance of International Biodiversity Day (May 22) was yet another reminder of the pivotal role our natural world plays in resolving the climate change crisis, which, along with the decline of biodiversity, poses an existential threat to our future. Biodiversity, the rich variety of life forms and their interconnections with each other and the environment, is everywhere: inside our bodies as ubiquitous microbiomes, in our backyards, villages, towns, and cities, and in remote wild places as well-organised ecological communities and ecosystems. Maintaining and enhancing biodiversity on land and in oceans is perhaps the least expensive mechanism to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere so as to cool our land and oceans.
Mitigation of climate change is but one of the several benefits we derive from biodiversity. It also fulfils our basic needs for food, shelter, medicines, mental health, recreation, and spiritual enrichment. To face the continuing decline in the quality of our environment, we will need to rely more and more on solutions that draw upon biodiversity or nature, also called nature-based solutions to secure our future. It is biodiversity that will restore our degraded lands and polluted rivers and oceans and sustain our agriculture in the face of climate change. It is biodiversity that will form the basis of a new sustainable green economy. And it is biodiversity that will inspire our children to opt for a more humane, just, and hopeful future, which accords primacy to the living world.
Despite the importance of biodiversity that ultimately sustains all human endeavours, we have been poor stewards for caring and nurturing life on earth. Globally as well as in India, we have failed to adequately conserve and manage our precious, irreplaceable natural heritage. Biodiversity is declining worldwide, and our last remaining, largely isolated ecosystems are degrading due to changes happening around them, such as loss of species, climate stressors, and continuous human pressures.
In India, the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill will further weaken our resolve to sustain the remaining biodiversity.
Nurturing and managing biodiversity
In many ways, biodiversity is us and we are biodiversity. Thus, civil society must play a critical role in sustaining our biodiversity. A paradigm shift in the care of biodiversity, long overdue, must begin now, flowing from this International Biodiversity Day.
Let us first change the way we manage our biodiversity. Currently, the main custodian of the natural world is the Indian Forest Service. But the term “Forest” to describe our immense and unique natural heritage is flawed. India’s biodiversity is not only on land but also in waterbodies, rivers, deltas, and oceans. A rich array of our ecosystems is in the form of grasslands, savannas, alpine pastures, deserts, and other types of ecological communities. Even in the 20th century, people had started to talk about living organisms and the interconnectedness manifested as ecosystems and ecosystem services in multifunctional landscapes dominated by humans. In the 21st century, the basic terms “forests” and “wildlife” have limited meaning or usefulness.
We must think of multifunctional landscapes, where aspirations, beliefs, traditional knowledge, and direct participation of local communities are central to the notion of conserving and sustaining life on earth. In 2006, policymakers in India enacted the Forest Rights Act, that called for an increase in the stake of indigenous groups in ownership as well as management of biodiversity. However, the Act largely remains on paper, yet to be implemented on the ground. Seventeen years later, it is time to even move beyond the Act’s steps to fundamentally alter the way we manage our biodiversity. If biodiversity is everywhere, as it is, we must mainstream it into our daily actions — in every development programme, in every government department, in every public and private institution. And it is time to decentralise the management of biodiversity by bringing together multiple stakeholders, especially local communities, through gram sabhas and biodiversity management committees.
Mainstreaming biodiversity
This very mainstreaming of biodiversity is the goal of the proposed National Mission on Biodiversity and Human Wellbeing, an idea this writer has referred to in earlier columns. India’s leading conservation biologists, working under the umbrella of the Biodiversity Collaborative based in Bengaluru, conceptualised the idea and developed a road map for the Mission approved in principle by the Prime Minister’s Science, Technology, and Innovation Council.
The Mission will enable our country to meet critical challenges in climate change, natural and regenerative agriculture, and ecosystem and public health using biodiversity and ecosystem services — usually referred to as nature-based solutions. The ultimate goal is to enhance and conserve biodiversity to foster human well-being; more specifically, to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals related to poverty alleviation, nutrition and health, and environmental protection, and support an era of new green economy.
People will be at the centre of the Mission, the goal of which is to have all citizens engaged in the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, embed consideration of biodiversity in every development-oriented programme of the public and private sectors, and arouse curiosity about nature and a sense of responsibility for safeguarding biodiversity — and our very future — in the minds of every child and every student. Undertaking such a pledge would be a fitting celebration of our precious and irreplaceable natural world.
4. A parliamentary democracy or an executive democracy
Gautam Bhatia is a Delhi-based lawyer.
Last week, a new Parliament building was inaugurated with both fanfare and controversy. In particular, the exclusion of the President of India — the formal head of the executive — from the inauguration, and the symbolism around the Sengol — a sceptre originally used to signify the transfer of power between Chola rulers — generated significant debate. Submerged beneath this debate, however, is an overlooked fact: the increasing subordination of the “Parliament” in India’s “parliamentary democracy.”
Parts of this story are familiar: we know that Bills are passed with minimal or no deliberation. We know that Parliament sits for fewer and fewer days in a year, and parliamentary sessions are often adjourned. We know that presidential ordinances have become a parallel if not dominant form of law-making.
By constitutional design
It is tempting to attribute all of this to unscrupulous or callous politicians. What that misses, however, is the understanding that the growing irrelevance of Parliament is not because of individual actions but a matter of constitutional design. In other words, the Indian Constitution, by its very structure, facilitates and enables the marginalisation of Parliament, and the concentration of power within a dominant executive.
How does this happen? Consider the various safeguards that parliamentary democracies generally tend to put in place against executive dominance or abuse. First, in order to enact its agenda, the executive must command a majority in Parliament. This opens up the space for intra-party dissent, and an important role for ruling party parliamentarians — who are not members of the cabinet — to exercise a check over the executive. Occasionally, ruling party backbenchers can even join forces with the Opposition to defeat unpopular Bills (as was the case with various Brexit deals in the U.K. House of Commons between 2017 and 2019). Second, the Opposition itself is granted certain rights in Parliament, and certain limited control over parliamentary proceedings, in order to publicly hold the executive to account. Third, the interests of Parliament against the executive are meant to be represented by the Speaker, a neutral and independent authority. And fourth, certain parliamentary democracies embrace bicameralism: i.e., a second “Upper House” that acts as a revising chamber, where interests other than those of the brute majority are represented (in our case, that is the Rajya Sabha, acting as a council of states).
When these features function as they should, it becomes very difficult for the executive to ride roughshod over Parliament and, in turn, opens up space for Parliament to act as the deliberative and representative body that it is meant to be.
A dilution, erasure
In India, however, each of these features has been diluted or erased over the years.
First, the possibility of intra-party dissent within Parliament has been stamped out by virtue of the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution, popularly known as the “anti-defection law”. Introduced through a constitutional amendment in 1985, the Tenth Schedule penalises disobedience of the party whip with disqualification from the House altogether. Ironically, as recent events have more than amply demonstrated, the Tenth Schedule has failed to fulfil the purpose for which it was enacted, i.e., to curb horse-trading and unprincipled floor-crossing. What it has done, however, is to strengthen the hand of the party leadership — which, in the case of the ruling party, is effectively the cabinet/executive — against its own parliamentarians. Intra-party dissent is far more difficult when the price is disqualification from Parliament.
Second, right from its inception, the Indian Constitution did not carve out any specific space for the political Opposition in the House. There is no equivalent, for example, of Prime Minister’s questions, where the Prime Minister has to face direct questioning of their record from the Leader of the Opposition as well as by other politicians. In other words, the manner of proceedings in Parliament are under the complete control of the executive, with no real constitutional checks upon how that control is exercised.
Third, this is exacerbated by the fact that the Speaker, in our system, is not independent. The Speaker is not required to give up membership of their political party, and is not constitutionally obligated to act impartially. This has led to an increasing trend, at both the central and the State levels, of Speakers acting in a blatantly partisan manner in order to advance the interests of the executive over the interests of the House. Not only does this affect the quality of the deliberations in the lower house (as the Speaker has control over the conduct of the House) but it also has a knock-on effect on the Upper House: as has been seen of late, when the ruling party wishes to avoid effective scrutiny in the Rajya Sabha over Bills, the Speaker simply classifies the Bill as a “money bill”, thus depriving the Rajya Sabha of the right to make amendments. This was seen most vividly in the case of the Aadhaar Act, where Rajya Sabha scrutiny was avoided in this precise manner, and many important, rights-protecting amendments could not be passed.
Role of the Upper House
Fourth, the role of the Upper House is undercut not only by the Speaker’s misclassification of Bills but also by the constitutionally-sanctioned ordinance making power. An ordinance is nothing more than executive legislation; and while, in theory, it is meant to be used only for an emergency, while Parliament is not in session, in practice, it is used as a parallel process of law-making, especially when the executive wants to bypass the Upper House altogether, at least for a period of time, and create a fait accompli.
When we put all of this together, what emerges is a picture where the only effective check upon the executive is one where the electorate has thrown up a fractured mandate and the ruling party is forced to govern in a coalition with allies with whom it does not always see eye-to-eye. In such a scenario, coalition partners can exercise something of a check upon the executive in Parliament.
However, when there is a single, majority ruling party, whether at the Centre or in the States, there is very little that Parliament can do. The anti-defection law wipes out intra-party dissent. The political Opposition’s scope for participation depends upon the discretion of the executive. Partisan Speakers further ensure that the executive is insulated from public embarrassment at the hands of the Opposition, by controlling the debate. And the Upper House is taken out of the equation, either by the misclassification of money Bills or by the use of ordinance power.
It is no wonder, then, that the quality of parliamentary deliberations has declined: it is simply a mirror of Parliament’s own structural marginalisation under the Constitution. Instead, what we have is greater and greater executive power: a situation that resembles presidential systems with strong executives, but without the checks and balances and veto points that those systems have; in effect, the worst of all worlds.
Therefore, even as the new Parliament is inaugurated, the urgent question that we must ask is whether in formal terms, India can continue to be called a parliamentary democracy, or whether we have gradually morphed into an executive democracy. And if, indeed, we want to return to parliamentarianism, what manner of constitutional changes and reforms that it would require.
Even as the new Parliament has been inaugurated, what is overlooked is the increasing subordination of ‘Parliament’ in India’s ‘parliamentary democracy’
5. China’s military diplomacy in Southeast Asia
What is causing China’s growing influence in Southeast Asia? How does the Global Security Initiative challenge the ASEAN countries? Why is the increasing proximity of the U.S. with the Philippines worrisome for China?
The story so far:
Due to its intensifying geopolitical competition with the U.S. and its own security interests in the region, China is expanding its military outreach to Southeast Asian countries. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA)’s global activities and influence campaigns are part of its broader reform process initiated by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2015, and form a fundamental element of China’s overall foreign policy. In this light, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has become a priority target for the People’s Liberation Army’s military diplomacy.
What is the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) currently undertaking?
The PLA and the Laotian People’s Armed Forces (LPAF) have recently concluded their bilateral military exercise, Friendship Shield 2023. The drills aim to foster interoperability to effectively “counter transnational armed criminal groups based in jungles and mountains.” This week-long exercise comes on the heels of Laos’ Foreign Affairs Minister Saleumxay Kommasith’s visit to China last month. The PLA Southern Theatre Command (PLA STC) is leading a massive delegation to the LPAF’s Kommadam Academy for the exercise.
This includes 200 troops from the 75th Group Army’s combined-arms brigade, assault vehicles such as the 4×4 MRAP Dongfeng CSK141 (Mengshi), as well as equipment for maritime replenishment, mine clearance, explosive disposal, and epidemic prevention.
Before this, in 2023, the PLA STC conducted the ‘Golden Dragon’ drills with Cambodia from late March to early April. This too came on the heels of a high-level meeting held between Zhang Youxia, Vice-Chairman of the Chinese Central Military Commission (CMC) and the army commander of the Royal Cambodian Army, Hong Manai, in February this year.
The drills saw the participation of over 200 troops from the PLA STC’s Army, the Navy, and the Logistical Support Force, who arrived in Cambodia aboard a Type 071 comprehensive landing vehicle, Jinggangshan. The exercise entailed joint anti-terrorism and humanitarian aid operations.
A few weeks later, in late April, the PLA STC conducted a joint exercise with the Singaporean Navy. Both sides deployed minesweepers (PLA Chibi and RSS Intrepid) and frigates (PLA Yulin and RSS Punggol) for shore and sea operations.
All of these joint military endeavours were preceded by a visit from a working group of the Chinese Ministry of National Defence to Laos, Vietnam and Brunei, where the two sides discussed “the relationship between the two militaries and regional security issues of common concern”.
These are a few of the many instances of China’s military diplomacy with Southeast Asian countries. And in the past couple of months, the frequency of Chinese military drills with its ASEAN partners appears to have increased for two primary reasons. Firstly, Xi Jinping has put excessive emphasis on defence diplomacy under his flagship Global Security Initiative (GSI).
Second, China’s threat perception of expanding the United States military engagement with countries in the Asia-Pacific region, especially those countries that China has disputes with in the South and East China Seas region.
How does the GSI challenge the ASEAN’s cohesiveness?
The GSI invited varied responses from the ASEAN, which reflect the classic divergences in intra-association stances on bandwagoning and hedging between China and the U.S. First, in November 2022, during the ASEAN-China Summit in Cambodia, all parties cautiously agreed to “take note of the GSI proposed by China with core elements consistent with the principles and spirit of the Treaty of Amity,” and “looked forward to further details of the GSI.”
Over the past few months, the divergences have become visible. As per ISEAS’s ‘State of Southeast Asia Survey 2023’, on average, 27% of those surveyed in the 10 ASEAN place confidence in the GSI. However, of those surveyed in countries such as Cambodia and Brunei, nearly 50% are confident about the Initiative. On the other hand, of those surveyed in countries such as Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar, well over 50% place little to no confidence in it.
These figures, alone, however, are not enough to determine how ASEAN countries are responding to China’s expanding comprehensive national power. For example, China’s heavy Belt and Road investments have been welcomed by Indonesia. Moreover, despite tensions in the South China Sea, Indonesia has been proactively applauding Chinese support in the advancement of its vaccine programme and its high-speed rail network.
Similarly, despite Vietnam’s mistrust of the GSI, analysts suggest that it maintains a relatively neutral stance in its relations with China, which indicates that there is neither rapid progress nor significant deterioration in bilateral relations. This may be because a cautious Vietnam may not want to invite hostility from a significantly larger power in its neighbourhood. Additional factors may include shared socialist values between the central committees of the Communist Parties of Vietnam (CPV) and China (CPC), as well as the success of the Sino-Vietnamese ‘Two Corridors and One Economic Circle’ Belt and Road project.
On the other hand, in Myanmar, despite a majority of observers placing little to no confidence in the GSI, China is making political, military and economic inroads. Since the takeover of the junta, the development of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor has only accelerated, while new satellite imagery is showing China building a surveillance military base on Great Coco Islands in Myanmar. This also impacts India because the Great Coco Islands lie just 55 km north of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and their militarisation by China poses a strategic threat to India’s national security.
Why is the Philippines’ tilt to the U.S. worrisome for China?
China continues to face competition from the U.S. in its bid to establish a sphere of influence over Southeast Asia. The increasing proximity of the U.S. with the Philippines, with whom China shares a disputed maritime border in the Luzon Strait in the South China Sea, is worrisome for China. What has perhaps recently irked China the most is the Philippines’ decision to provide the U.S. with access to four military bases in addition to the five bases the U.S. already had access to, under the 2014 Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement between the two sides.
China has accordingly structured the message around its exercises with Cambodia, Singapore, and Laos as a warning to the Philippines, with a Chinese military commentator Fu Qinghao saying that these exercises “make a model for other countries in the region, including the Philippines, which has been leaning toward the U.S.”
To add fuel to the fire, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said that “tensions across the Taiwan Straits seem to be continuing to increase, and so these EDCA sites will also prove to be useful for us should that terrible occurrence come about”.
Of course, in tandem with other leaders hedging in the ASEAN, Marcos has since clarified that Washington “cannot use bases in his country for ‘offensive action’ against China in the event of a conflict over Taiwan.” This does not, however, change the fact that the bases are advantageous for the U.S. during an offensive against China, as they help fulfil purposes such as refuel and resupply for warships, intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance (ISR), and blocking Chinese trade through critical chokepoints in the South China Sea.
To defend its claims and interests in the region, China is likely to pursue both aggressive military posturing and diplomacy in Southeast Asia. In early May, for example, Chinese surveillance vessel Xiang Yang Hong 10, accompanied by a contingent of eight other maritime vessels, attempted to intimidate the navies of India and ASEAN countries engaged in the first edition of a multilateral naval drill in the South China Sea. Satellite intelligence also shows China preparing a new naval base in the Ream region of Cambodia.
However, despite China’s military and economic inroads in the region, it needs to prove to ASEAN countries sitting on the fence that it has the capability to exercise restraint and act in accordance with the provisions of a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea (which is yet to come into force). This is also essential for it to win the ASEAN’s confidence for the GSI, which will otherwise, and for good reason, continue to cautiously hedge and balance between American and Chinese influence operations in the region.
(Anushka Saxena is a research analyst with Takshashila Institution’s Indo-Pacific Studies Programme)
THE GIST
Due to its intensifying geopolitical competition with the U.S. and its own security interests in the region, China is expanding its military outreach to Southeast Asian countries.
China continues to face competition from the U.S. in its bid to establish a sphere of influence over Southeast Asia. The increasing proximity of the U.S. with the Philippines, with whom China shares a disputed maritime border in the Luzon Strait in the South China Sea, is worrisome for China.
China has structured the message around its exercises with Cambodia, Singapore, and Laos as a warning to the Philippines, with a Chinese military commentator Fu Qinghao saying that these exercises “make a model for other countries in the region, including the Philippines, which has been leaning toward the U.S.”
6. OTT platforms mandated to show anti-tobacco warnings
OTT platforms will be required to display anti-tobacco health spots at the beginning and middle of the programme. REUTERS
If the streaming apps fail to comply, a notice shall be issued to explain such failure, says Centre’s notification; industry executives complain that they were not consulted before the decision
BINDU SHAJAN PERAPPADAN
It’s now mandatory for over-the-top (OTT) streaming platforms to display anti-tobacco warnings as seen in movies screened in theatres and TV, as per a Union Health Ministry notification on Wednesday amending the rules under the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA), 2004.
OTT platforms like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hotstar and ZEE5 did not respond to The Hindu’s request for comment, but an industry executive said that the companies would collectively reach out to the government to articulate their view that static smoking warnings on small screens for content that is explicitly being requested by users may not be appropriate.
“The streaming industry was not consulted before the notification,” the executive said.
Prominent warnings
Meanwhile, as per the notification released on World No Tobacco Day, publishers of online curated content displaying tobacco products, or their use will be required to display anti-tobacco health spots at the beginning and middle of the programme.
They shall also be required to exhibit an anti-tobacco health warning as a prominent static message at the bottom of the screen when tobacco products or their use are displayed during the programme.
It added that the anti-tobacco health warning message as specified in clause(b) of sub-rule (1) shall be legible and readable, with font in black colour on white background and with the warnings ‘Tobacco causes cancer’ or ‘Tobacco kills’.
Besides warning messages, health spots and audio-visual disclaimers will have to be in the same language as used in the show.
“Additionally, if the publisher of online curated content fails to comply with the provisions, an inter-ministerial committee shall issue notice giving reasonable opportunity to explain such failure and make appropriate modification in the content,” the notification said.
The expression “online curated content” means any curated catalogue of audio-visual content, other than news and current affairs content, which is owned by, licensed to, or contracted to be transmitted by a publisher of online curated content, and made available on demand, including but not limited through subscription, over the internet or computer networks, and includes films, audiovisual programmes, television programmes, serials, series and other such content.
7. Treatment worth ₹61,501 cr. provided under PM-JAY scheme
Cancer treatment, emergency care, orthopaedic and urology (kidney-related ailments) top the tertiary care specialities treatment availed by beneficiaries under the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) till date, as per data released by the Health Ministry on Wednesday. The yojana has now recorded five crore hospital admissions amounting to ₹61,501 crore under the scheme.
Approximately 49% of Ayushman card recipients are women and over 48% of total authorised hospital admissions under the AB PM-JAY scheme have been availed by women, noted the data.
“Also, over 141 medical procedures under the PM-JAY are exclusively earmarked for women,” it said, adding that AB PM-JAY beneficiaries can avail treatment corresponding to a total of 1,949 procedures under 27 different specialities The flagship scheme being implemented by the National Health Authority (NHA) provides health cover of ₹5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation to 12 crore beneficiary families.
The AB PM-JAY is being implemented in 33 States and Union Territories except Delhi, Odisha, and West Bengal. Till date, 23.39 crore beneficiaries have been verified and issued Ayushman cards for availing free treatment under the scheme.
The PM-JAY empanelled hospital network consists of 28,351 hospitals, including 12,824 private hospitals, across the country.
A senior Health Ministry official said the AB PM-JAY was launched with the vision to achieve Universal Health Coverage.
The scheme being implemented by the NHA provides health cover of ₹5 lakh
per family per year
8. World’s largest grain storage plan: Centre to implement pilot project in 10 districts
Farmers could sell their crops to PACS by receiving some advance payment at the Minimum Support Price.NAGARA GOPAL
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the constitution and empowerment of an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) for facilitation of the “world’s largest grain storage plan in cooperative sector” by convergence of various schemes of the Ministries of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Food Processing Industries.
A government statement said that to ensure timely and uniform implementation of the plan in a professional manner, the Ministry of Cooperation would implement a pilot project in at least 10 selected districts of different States.
The committee will be chaired by Cooperation and Home Minister Amit Shah. It will lay guidelines for creation of infrastructure such as godowns, for agriculture and allied purposes, at selected ‘viable’ Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS).
The plan would be implemented by utilising the available outlays provided under the identified schemes of the respective Ministries.
Fair price
Welcoming the decision, Mr. Shah said in a tweet, “Lack of agricultural storage capacity leads to wastage of food grains and farmers are forced to sell their crops at low prices. With this decision, farmers will now get modern grain storage facilities in their blocks through PACS, so that they will be able to get fair price for their grains.”
He said PACS were an important pillar of the rural economy. “With this plan, the country will get food security and crores of farmers associated with cooperatives will be benefited,” he said.
The statement said that farmers could sell their crops to PACS by receiving some advance payment at the Minimum Support Price (MSP), and get the balance after the PACS sold the food grains in the market.
