Karnataka cadre (1997 batch ) IAS officer S Selvakumar to join as Director with Prime Minister’s Office.
Anjani Kumar Singh to be Chief Secretary of Bihar
Bihar government has appointed 1980-batch IAS officer Anjani Kumar Singh as the new Chief Secretary. According to a government notification issued, Singh, currently posted as Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, will take charge after the present chief secretary Ashok Kumar Sinha retires on June 30.
DoPT tells 300 officers to share asset details
The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has made a list of 300 officers working with various Central government ministries to file the Immovable Property Returns(IPR) online. If they do not, the vigilance enquiry on matters related to promotions, deputations, and deployment will be stopped.
The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has directed the DoPT to appoint officers with prior experience in respective ministries. Earlier, the Cabinet Committee for Appointments had barred officers, who have worked as personal secretaries of UPA government ministers, from working in the new ministries.
FCI on a new path
In an Indian Bureaucracy PSU news update, there are many a crossed fingers to unknot and bureaucratic hurdles to leap before the infamous starvation pictures recede from our collective memory. Electronic public distribution system (e-PDS) is working on improving the supply side of TPDS. Under this mission mode project (MMP), a module to integrate release orders of FCI with TPDS is being developed. Release orders are official documents that authorise departments to source grains from the FCI godowns according to their requirements.
The integration will enable transparency between state governments and others (the demand side) with FCI (the supply side) as far as grain collection is concerned. It will help curb misuse by enabling the corporation to ascertain the amount of grain collected from godowns under the PDS scheme. “Our release order module will ensure all demands are made only through the system. The TPDS officials would be given login IDs access to our systems through which they will project their requirement to us. Similarly, when we issue our release orders it will be communicated to them,” said Abhishek Singh, executive director (engineering/IT/S&C and silo), FCI.
The software for the module is being developed by the national informatics centre (NIC), Delhi. “It would be ready in six to eight months,” said Ranjana Nagpal, scientist-G, agriculture, food and consumer affairs, NIC. “It would be implemented at all 195 FCI offices simultaneously.” This integration is expected to change the image of FCI as a place of foodgrain diversions. “Our storage losses are 0.22 percent and transportation losses are 0.43 percent. Considering we manage 200 lakh metric tonnes of grain every year these losses are miniscule. They are comparable with similar operations elsewhere in the world,” said Singh.
With a major task done, a host of other e-governance applications at FCI will ensure that grains are procured, stored and distributed without any bottlenecks. Singh revealed plans about a local area network that will connect all depots with software to indicate stock positions in real time. “We can get to know the stock positions online at any point in time through the IISFM rapid reporting system (IIRS) solution. It also tells us about the inflow and outflow of food grains and how much has come from which scheme and district. This precise information helps us in chalking out our movement plans for where grains need to be sent,” he added. The FCI is also additionally creating a wide area network (WAN) for all their 195 region offices for dedicated information exchange.
The biggest challenge of all e-governance projects is their interlinking and the lack of their ‘talking to each other’. Different modules are automated, but hardly a thought is spared for them to be connected for data and information sharing. “We are planning to integrate the stock, depot and release order management module on an integrated logistics ERP solution. This will ensure we optimally utilise all our storage capacities and send food grains only to godowns where there is capacity and requirement of food grains,” he said.
Singh explained that there are 2,100 FCI godowns in India situated in consuming states and producing states (with surplus grains). The procurement from some states is only for some months but consumption for every state is on a monthly basis in all districts. To achieve this, grains have to be moved back and forth across India. “Thus an ERP-based logistics management system will help optimise the movement and storage of the food grains in the most economic and efficient manner,” he said.
These changes are expected to take around 18-24 months. Currently the FCI is in the process of selecting a consulting agency to undertake a study of the entire processes of the organisation. “It is only after we study the present processes that we would know how to re-engineer them for an integrated system,” he said. The study, aptly named ‘To build a strategic roadmap for IT intervention in FCI’ will prepare a five-year roadmap for modernising the organisation. The most critical findings of the study will be implemented in the first two years. “Changing the processes is very important. For example, we still have the challan system for procurement of grains, which needs to become electronic. We need to have least human intervention at all levels of procurement, storage and distribution to increase efficiency,” said Singh.
Credit : GovernanceNow
Rohatgi appointed Attorney General of India
The Narendra Modi government on Thursday appointed senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi as the new attorney general of India.
Rohatgi, who appeared for the Gujarat government in several 2002 post-Godhra riot-related cases, will serve as attorney general of India for a period of three years, a statement said.
He succeeds G.E. Vahanvati who resigned following the rout of the Congress-led UPA in the 2014 general election.
Environment ministry clearances to be ‘policy based’
New Delhi, June 12 (IANS) Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar on Thursday said the government will evolve “policy based solutions” for the pending environment clearances, adding the delay in clearances for defence projects has been due to their case-by-case consideration.
“We are evolving new ways of solutions to the existing problems of environment clearances by evolving policy based solutions,” Javadekar told reporters here.
“Delay in the defence projects were due to case-by-case decision making process. We will put policies in place and make policy based decisions,” he said.
The environment minister said giving clearance to defence projects will be the priority for his ministry.
Javadekar said he will meet the defence secretary and discuss the pending projects.
As the environmentalists were concerned over the clearance to proposed radar station in Narcondam island of Andaman and Nicobar, the minister said environment protection will be kept in mind while framing the policies.
“In Narcondam and other areas, we will ensure complete protection of nature, including of hornbills. We won’t compromise on environment protection,” Javadekar said.
He also said forest clearances along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the working boundary line between India and China, will be given by the concerned state government.
“The 100-km area within the LAC is for defence purpose, but you need forest clearance… It will be brought under general approval mode (under state government) so that defence projects can be expedited and forests can also be conserved,” said Javadekar.
The minister said he will discuss the issue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley.
India committed to collaborating with Germany
New Delhi, June 11 (IANS) Human Resource Minister Smriti Irani said Wednesday India is committed to collaborating with Germany in the field of higher education.
In a meeting with German ambassador Michael Steiner, who called on Irani here, the minister reiterated India’s commitment to collaborate with Germany and appreciated the Indo-German Strategic Partnership (IGSP) in higher education.
The ambassador mentioned the demographic advantage of India and reiterated his country’s commitment to strengthen partnerships with India in higher education, research, vocational education and training, said a statement.
He also reinforced the need to further expand the current IGSP in higher education, it added.
Beas tragedy: NHRC notice to Himachal government
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Wednesday issued notice to the Himachal Pradesh government over the drowning of 24 students in the Beas river. “The National Human Rights Commission issued notices to the chief secretary, Government of Himachal Pradesh and to the deputy commissioner, Mandi, calling for a report in the matter within two weeks,” a statement said here.
A wall of water washed away 24 engineering students and a tour operator Sunday evening after water was released into the river without a warning from a nearby hydropower project. Over 60 students and faculty members of the V.N.R. Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering and Technology in Hyderabad were on an excursion to Manali.
“The state government admitted that the authorities did not follow the right protocol on use of hooters and other warning signals on the release of the water from the Hydel Project,” it said.
Addiction could become a manageable disease
Washington, June 10 : Researchers are saying that they are making important progress in changing the perception of addiction as they identify new therapeutic interventions that could render addiction into the equivalent of a manageable disease like diabetes.
A group of addiction researchers, for one, recently recommended to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, part of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, that the problem of substance use disorders-a term that refers to what most people think of as addiction-should be approached as a medical, not a legal, issue.
In this vein, New York City’s police department has begun to equip its officers with naloxone, a medication that can be used to save lives in the event of a heroin overdose. What have scientists discovered about addiction that led them to consider it as a disease rather than due to users’ lack of willpower?
In a “roundtable” discussion convened by the Kavli Foundation, Marina Picciotto, Charles B.G. Murphy Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University in New Haven, CT, and a member of Yale’s Kavli Institute for Neuroscience, put it this way: “Drugs of abuse change the brain in a significant way such that decision making is permanently, or at least on a fairly long-term basis, impaired. And therefore free will as we know it is not gone, but it is so severely modulated that someone who is not addicted has a hard time understanding that loss of volitional control.”
The stigma directed toward drug addicts is similar to the stigma that surrounds those who are obese. Research on both substance use disorders and obesity shows that the biology behind the two diseases overlaps, resulting in a change in the sensitivity of the reward systems in the brain to food and drugs of abuse.
“That overlap makes a lot of sense, because these circuits did not evolve for us to take drugs,” said Nora D. Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. “These circuits evolved to ensure that we eat properly. What we are seeing in addiction are drugs literally hijacking systems that took millions of years of evolution. And that’s why there is no surprise that we see so many similarities in the behavioral expression of compulsive overeating and loss of control and that associated with compulsive drug taking in addicted individuals.” (ANI)
Civil Services Exam 2013 result declared
The successful candidates are appointed in Indian Administrative Service, Indian Foreign Service, Indian Police Service and Central Services, Group ‘A’ and Group ‘B’.
Out of total 1122 successful candidates, 517 candidates are from General Category, 326 OBC, 187 SC and 92 are from ST category. The number of vacancies reported by the government to be filled are 1228.
Gaurav Agrawal tops UPSC Civil Services Exam 2013, 1122 candidates clear it
The successful candidates are appointed in IAS, IFS, IPS and Central Services, Group ‘A’ and Group ‘B’.
There are 180 vacancies in IAS (General 90, OBC 49, SC 27, ST 14), 32 in IFS (General 17, OBC 9, SC 4, ST 2) , 150 in IPS (General 75, OBC 43, SC 24, ST 8), 710 in Central Services Group ‘A’ (General 369, OBC 188, SC 103, ST 50) and 156 in Group ‘B’ Services (General 71, OBC 37, SC 30, ST 18).
Major reshuffle in Uttar Pradesh, 36 IAS officers transferred
In a significant Indian Bureaucracy News, Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday transferred 36 IAS officers including district magistrates after a review of the law and order situation by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.Anil Kumar Gupta, who was shifted from the post of Principal Secretary (Home) on June 2 after the state government came under fire over the Badaun gangrape and murder of two teenage cousin sisters, has got the less important post of Member, UP Revenue Board.
A total of 66 IAS officers were shifted on Saturday. Facing flak over the law and order situation in the state, Yadav referred to the rape incidents in Badaun and Kannauj and said the district administration there should have taken “appropriate steps”. The Chief Minister held a meeting with top officials here and said the kind of work expected from the police and administration was not being done.
Yadav said that it was the duty of divisional and district level officers to keep a close watch on the development works. The Chief Minister assured the meeting that while hardworking and honest officers would be protected, stern action would be taken against lax and corrupt ones. He said the local administration should not let the image of the state or the government be affected.
Narendra Kothari takes charge as new NMDC CMD
In an Indian Bureaucracy PSU news update, Shri Narendra Kothari took over as new Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of the country’s top iron ore miner NMDC. Kothari replaces SAIL Chief Shri C S Verma, who held the additional charge of CMD NMDC.
The NMDC (National Mineral Development Corporation) Limited (BSE: 526371, NSE: NMDC) is a state-controlled mineral producer of the Government of India. It is owned by the Government of India and is under administrative control of the Ministry of Steel.
It is involved in the exploration of iron ore, copper, rock phosphate, limestone, dolomite, gypsum, bentonite, magnesite, diamond, tin, tungsten, graphite . It is India’s largest iron ore producer and exporter producing about 30 million tons of iron ore from 3 fully mechanised mines in Chhattisgarh and Karnataka. It also operates the only mechanised diamond mine in the country at Panna in Madhya Pradesh.