03 January 2014

National:

Ganguly issue: Cabinet clears Presidential Reference
The Union Cabinet gave its nod for making a Presidential Reference to the Supreme Court for removal of
J ustice A.K. Ganguly as Chairperson of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission. The process will be
set in motion once the Reference under Article 143 is sent to the court for its advisory opinion. Under
Article 143, the President may refer a dispute of any kind to the Supreme Court for its opinion and it may,
after a hearing as it thinks fit, report to the President. The Terms of Reference are: will the prima facie
indictment by a three-judge probe panel that J ustice Ganguly made unwelcome sexual advances
towards a law intern amount to proven misconduct? If the answer is yes, can it be a ground warranting
his removal under Section 23 (1A) of the Protection of Human Rights Act? J ustice Ganguly has the option
of resigning before the completion of the hearing. In that case, the Reference will become in fructuous.
On receipt of the Presidential Reference, the court will hear the matter in open court.

Cabinet approves GPS, CCTVs in public transport
The Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs approved the ambitious proposal for installing CCTV
cameras and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) in public transport vehicles to ensure womens safety.
The unified system will be set up at the national level (National Vehicle Security and Tracking System)
and the State level (City Command and Control Centre). The Rs. 1,405 crore project is part of the
Nirbhaya Fund, set up after the gang rape of a student in Delhi in December, 2012. The scheme, drafted
by the Road Transport Ministry, will cover 32 cities and towns, each with a population of over one million.
Under the proposal, public transport vehicles will have GPS for easy tracking, CCTVs and more women
drivers and conductors. The scheme will also involve mapping of roads and routes assigned to public
vehicles and all vehicles would be monitored to ensure that they do not deviate from the allotted routes.

AAP government wins confidence vote
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government proved its majority on the floor of the House with the backing of
the Congress, J D(U) and an independent legislator. All the apprehensions of Chief Minister
ArvindKejriwal were put to rest when all seven Congress legislators stood up in unison with the AAP
legislators in support of the confidence motion. A total of 37 members of the House backed the motion
tabled by the PWD Minister, that included 28 AAP legislators, seven Congress MLAs, one J D(U) legislator
and one Independent. The remaining 32 who voted against the motion included 31 BJ P legislators and
one Shiromani-Akali Dal legislator.

Lookout circular issued against Michael Ferreira
The Mumbai police issued a Lookout Circular against former world billiards champion and Padma
Bhushan awardee Michael Ferreira, for his alleged role in a multi-crore marketing scam. According to the
police, a Hong Kong-based multi-level marketing company Q Net Ltd, through its Indian franchise Vihaan
Direct Selling (India) Private Limited, floated a scheme, duping its investors using the banned binary
pyramid business model.

India signs labour pact with Saudi Arabia
India signed a labour cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia that will cover about a quarter of the 28
lakh Indian expatriates working there and could be the stepping stone for a more comprehensive pact
covering all Indian workers in the Gulf Kingdom. The agreement regulates contractual relations between
employers and domestic workers, ensures authenticity and implementation of the employment contract,
promises action against recruitment agencies violating laws and seeks to establish a mechanism to
provide 24-hour assistance to domestic workers. A standard employment contract would set out minimum
wages, working hours, paid holidays and a dispute settlement mechanism.



03 January 2014
CCEA nod for additional food grain to States
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) gave its nod for additional allocation of food grain to
States, subject to availability in the central pool, at the prevailing minimum support price. In addition to the
entitlement of States under the National Food Security Act, the Centre, from time to time, makes available
non-Public Distribution System food grains for festival seasons or during a calamity. Earlier, this allocation
used to be at the economic cost. The support price for wheat for the 2013-14 marketing season is Rs.
13.50 paise per kilogram as against the economic cost of Rs. 20.00 per kg. As against the economic cost
of Rs. 26.00 per kg, the support price of common variety rice for 2012-13 is Rs. 12. 50 paise per kg while
for Grade A it is Rs. 12.80 paise per kg.

Maldives for out-of-court pact with GMR on airport project
Maldives is in talks with GMR, whose over $500-million Male airport project was scrapped, for an out-of-
court settlement and not through arbitration, Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen said. However, he
appeared to rule out Indian infrastructure giants comeback in the Male airport project, saying it was
highly politicised case in Maldives.

Gogoi's plan to reset Assam clock to make best of daytime gets widespread support
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has a peculiar New Year wish to bring the clock forward by an hour
and create a "local time", so that people in the state do not have to wait till the rest of India wakes up and
starts working. But Gogoi is not the first person in recent times to moot this idea. While filmmaker J ahnu
Barua has been working on this possibility for the past two decades, a four-member committee
constituted by the department of science & technology (DST) in 2001 had also examined the feasibility of
a separate time zone for the Northeast. In 2007, the parliamentary standing committee on energy
considered the issue.

Business and Economy

Govt plans to tweak revenue model in private airports
Flying out of all six airports that are in the process of being privatized, Chennai, Kolkata, J aipur, Lucknow,
Guwahati and Ahmedabad, is likely to get expensive once the privatisation process is through as the civil
aviation ministry has decided to follow the 'hybrid till' model and set aside a portion of non-aeronautical
revenues for the airport operator. Not all revenues aeronautical and non-aeronautical collected at
these airports will be accounted for during the calculation of charges by the airport regulator under the
'hybrid model' than under the 'single till' model followed currently, where collection from both streams are
taken into account. By apportioning a part of the revenue stream to the operator under the 'hybrid till'
model, the user charges would consequently go up. However, compared to the Delhi and Mumbai
airports, the new set of six airports are likely to be less expensive as in both the airports that were
privatised earlier, only 30 per cent of non-aeronautical charges are taken into account.

Cabinet clears changes to Mega Power Policy
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) relaxed the criteria for power generation projects to
qualify as mega power projects. This will qualify 15 additional projects for the benefits under the mega
power project policy. To avail of the benefits under the (Mega Power) policy, the developer must tie up at
least 65 per cent of the installed capacity through competitive bidding. The balance 35 per cent of the
installed capacity should be through the regulated tariff according to the host States policy. The Mega
Power Policy allows thermal power projects of 1,000 MW and above capacity and hydro power projects of
500 MW and above to import equipment duty-free. To avail of these benefits, project developers must
submit provisional the mega power project status certificate along with a fixed deposit receipt from any
scheduled bank as a security for a term of 36 months. The CCEA also relaxed this time period. The
maximum time period has been extended to 60 months instead of current provision of 36 months from the
date of import of provisional mega projects for furnishing final mega certificates to the tax authorities. The
Mega Power Policy was introduced in November, 1995, to incentivize large power projects.

03 January 2014
Conversion of preference shares into equity in 3 banks approved
The government approved conversion of perpetual non-cumulative preference shares (PNCPS) of three
public sector banks into equity, a move that would raise its holding in these lenders. This would apply to
three banks: Indian Bank, UCO Banks and Vijaya Bank.

Centre clears Rs.990-cr programme for leather sector during XII Plan
The government approved the Indian Leather Development Programme (ILDP), entailing expenditure of
about Rs.990 crore, for implementation during the XII Plan (2012-17) for the overall development of the
sector. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved the Central sector scheme, ILDP, for
implementation during the XII Plan, aiming at overall development of the leather sector. The ILDP was
implemented in the XI Plan under 13 sub-schemes and an expenditure of Rs.669.02 crore was incurred
during the period.

Power System Development Fund gets Cabinet nod
The Central Government approved the proposal of the Ministry of Power for operationalisation of the
Power System Development Fund. Power System Development Fund (PSDF) will be utilised for creating
necessary transmission systems of strategic importance based on operational feedback by Load Dispatch
Centres for relieving congestion in Inter-State Transmission Systems. The fund will also be utilised
towards installation of shunt capacitors, series compensators and other reactive energy generators for
improvement of voltage profile in the grid, installation of standard and special protection schemes, pilot
and demonstrative projects, and for setting right discrepancies identified in protection audits on regional
basis and renovation and modernisation (R&M) of transmission and distribution systems for relieving
congestion and any other scheme or project in furtherance of the above objectives, such as, conducting
technical studies and capacity building.

Import tariff value of gold, silver lowered
The government has reduced the import tariff value of gold and silver to $392 per ten grams and $638 a
kg, respectively. The import tariff value is the base price at which the customs duty is determined to
prevent under-invoicing. The tariff value on imported gold earlier stood at $398 per 10 grams, while on
silver at $643 a kg.

FIIs allowed to raise stake in KVB to 40 %
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have been allowed to raise stake in KarurVysya Bank (KVB) to up to
40 per cent, Reserve Bank of India said in a release. As per data on the Bombay Stock Exchange, the
stake of FIIs in the bank stands at 24.89 per cent as of September 2013. KVB scrips closed 1.88 per cent
lower at Rs.344.90 a share on the BSE.