{"id":228758,"date":"2023-11-19T00:42:45","date_gmt":"2023-11-18T19:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/?p=228758"},"modified":"2023-11-19T00:42:45","modified_gmt":"2023-11-18T19:12:45","slug":"bills-returned-gets-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/2023\/11\/19\/bills-returned-gets-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"Bills returned, gets worse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Round The States<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Insaf<\/strong><\/p>\n

Governor-government tussle in Tamil Nadu\u2019s is getting worse. On Thursday last, Governor RN Ravi returned 10 pending bills to the ruling DMK government. Within hours, a special session of the Assembly has been called on Saturday (today) and according to Speaker M Appavu these Bills, including the power of the state government to appoint university VCs, one on anti-corruption measures and early release of prisoners would be taken up. Apparently, the Raj Bhavan has chosen to ignore the Supreme Court\u2019s \u2018serious concern\u2019 a few days ago about Governors not acting on Bills. Or would it argue, it hasn\u2019t sat on these and acted promptly by returning them? Whatever inferences are made, the big question is Ravi\u2019s action triggersa constitutionaldilemma. Once the Assembly passes these Bills again, Ravi will be bound to approve them, says Appavu. However, recently at an even at Raj Bhavan, Ravi had said if a bill doesn\u2019t get his assent, it means that the bill is dead.While that needs to be watched, the sheer returning of the Bills en masse puts the spotlight about his role and powers. Is he over stretching it? For while, a Governor is expected to approve Bills passed by Assembly, returning these, raise questions about the balance of power between the state and the Central authorities. In this case, there is need to set that glaring imbalance right. Enough is enough.<\/p>\n

Muscle & Money Power
\nThe Election Commission has a long way to go before it can rein in \u2018money and muscle power\u2019 in elections. Details of candidates in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh Assembly polls are the recent most examples to confirm the misgivings of the democratic system being \u2018free and fair\u2019. As per Association for Democratic Reforms data, of the 2,534 candidates in MP, where polling took place on Friday last, 472 candidates have declared \u2018criminal cases\u2019 against them: Congress (291), BJP (65), AAP (26), SP (23), BSP (22) and Independents (215). Worse, 291 have declared \u2018serious criminal cases\u2019: Congress (61), BJP (23), AAP (18) and BSP and SP both 16 each, Ind (157). In Chhattisgarh, which too wrapped up its 2nd phase of polling it\u2019s no different: of 958 candidates, 100 declared criminal cases: 13 of Congress, 12 each of BJP and AAP, JCC-J, 12, BSP 2 and Ind 50. Of the 56 \u2018serious criminal cases, Congress has 7, BJP and JCC-J 4 each, AAP, 6, BSP 1 and Ind 34. Next is the \u2018crorepati\u2019 list in MP which reveals 727 are in the fray: 200 fielded by BJP, 196 by Congress and rest belong to other political parties. In Chhattisgarh 253 crorepati\u00a0candidates are contesting: 60 candidates by Congress, 57 by BJP, the rest from other parties. People\u2019s representatives, is what they are known as?
\nNow Bureaucratic Scam
\nAll eyes are on the latest rift between the Delhi government and the Centre. On Thursday last, Delhi vigilance minister Atishi wrote to the ED and CBI, seeking a probe into Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar viz alleged financial irregularities in the acquisition of land for the Dwarka expressway. The scam has led to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal writing to LG Saxena recommending Naresh\u2019s immediate removal and sending the 670-page to CBI or ED for further investigation.Atishi has said the investigation found that the Chief Secretary benefited a company linked to his son with over\u00a0R.850 crore of \u201cillicit profits\u201d. \u201cA clear nexus has been found between Naresh Kumar, his son Karan Chauhan and the beneficiary land owners who were provided a windfall gain of\u00a0Rs.897.1 crores at the cost of public exchequer…\u201d\u00a0it read. She also recommended removal of Divisional Commissioner Ashwani Kumar to ensure a fair investigation. Expectedly, Naresh has denied all charges, claiming he was being targeted for ordering probes into several cases, including Kejriwal\u2019s home renovation and alleged excise policy scam. Be that as it may, the truth must come out and not be pushed under the carpet as one of the ongoing brawls the ruling AAP has with the Centre over control of the bureaucracy.<\/p>\n

Tunnel Tragedy & Warning
\nThe Silkyara tunnel tragedy in Uttarakhand, trapping 40 labourers sadly reinforces the government brazenly ignoring the eco-warning time and again. The tunnel near Uttarkashi, whose portions caved in on Sunday last is part of the controversial Rs 12,000-crore Char Dham all-weather road project involving four-laning of hillside highways. These mountains said Minister of State of Road Transport and Highways V K Singh \u2018are young and fragile\u2026according to data, it (tunnel) was stable for four-and-a-half years. But for some reason, the cave-in occurred.\u201d Absurd, to say the least as the government and National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd failed to heed to environmentalists and scientists\u2019 warning that excavating such highways and building many tunnels in the name of development of backward regions is a recipe for engineering disaster at high altitudes. \u2018For the future, we will review wherever such tunnels are being constructed,\u201d was Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami response to not heeding to warnings and playing around with the fragile ecosystem in the Himalayas. No solace for the families of the labourers.<\/p>\n

Southern States Firm
\nFive southern States have forced the National Medical Commission to put on hold its decision to limit number of MBBS seats to 100 per 10 lakh population in every State.On Wednesday last, the apex medical education regulator announced that these \u201cGuidelines for undergraduate courses under the establishment of new medical institutions, starting new medical courses, increase of seats for existing courses, and assessment and rating Regulation 2023\u201d will now be implemented for 2025-26 academic year, only after there\u2019s consensus following further stakeholder consultations. While the restriction would have allowed 40,000 more MBBS seats in states such as Bihar and Jharkhand, where there\u2019s over 70% deficiency as per new seats-to-population ratio norm, the States of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana and Kerala, would have been barred from raising their medical seat capacity, which they all plan, for the next academic session (2024-25), as these have already exceeded the ratio. The Commission must tread carefully for not only States, but students too mustn\u2019t be penalised!<\/p>\n

Curbing Female Student Dropouts
\nThree cheers to the Supreme Court! It has sought to ensure that adolescent females between 11-18 years, hailing from poor families, don\u2019t drop out of schools because of lack of basic facilities such as toilets and sanitary towels. It has asked the Centre to put down a \u201cnational model for ratio of number of girls\u2019 toilets per female student population across government-aided and residential schools in the country\u201d, before finalising the draft National Menstrual Hygiene Policy, 2023. Besides, it must bring about uniformity in modalities to be followed for distribution of sanitary napkins by considering practices followed in States. The top court was dealing with a PIL seeking free sanitary pads to every female student in classes 6-12, separate toilets for females in all government-aided and residential schools and awareness programmes on maintenance of toilets and spread of awareness. Earlier, it asked the Centre to engage with all State governments and UTs to ensure a uniform national policy is formulated with sufficient leeway for them to adjust based on prevailing conditions. This would aid the National Health Mission steering group to reevaluate national guidelines. Sooner the better. \u2014 INFA<\/p>\n

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Round The States By Insaf Governor-government tussle in Tamil Nadu\u2019s is getting worse. On Thursday last, Governor RN Ravi returned 10 pending bills to the ruling DMK government. Within hours, a special session of the Assembly has been called on Saturday (today) and according to Speaker M Appavu these Bills, including the power of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-228758","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-features"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228758\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}