SC sets up three members panel to oversee MCI functioning

Taking a dim view of the functioning of the Medical Council of India, the Supreme Court on Monday set-up a three member committee to oversee its functioning including statutory functions and vet all its policy decisions.

“The committee will have the authority to oversee all statutory functions under the MCI Act. All policy decisions of the MCI will require approval of the Oversight Committee. The Committee will be free to issue appropriate remedial directions,” said a constitution bench of Justice Anil R. Dave, Justice A.K.Sikri, Justice R.K.Agrawal, Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel and Justice R. Banumathi.

The three member committee comprising former chief justice of India R. M. Lodha, former comptroller and auditor general Vinod Rai and Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences director Shiv Sarin “will function till the central government puts in place any other appropriate mechanism after due consideration of the Expert Committee Report”.

Directing the central government to “consider and take further appropriate action in the matter at the earliest”, the bench said: “Initially the Committee will function for a period of one year, unless suitable mechanism is brought in place earlier.”

The court decided to set-up the committee to oversee the functioning of the MCI including its statutory functions as it sustained the May 15, 2009, Madhya Pradesh High Court decision upholding a 2007 state law providing for common entrance test and fixation of fee in colleges imparting professional courses.

Pointing to the “urgent need to review the regulatory mechanism for other service oriented professions also”, the bench said: “We do hope this issue will receive attention of concerned authorities, including the Law Commission, in due course.”

Constituting the three member committee, the bench noted the sorry state of affairs pointed out by the group of experts headed by Ranjit Roy Chaudhary in their report submitted on September 25, 2014.

The court also noted that even the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare which examined the existing “architecture of the regulatory oversight of the medical profession” had observed that the “MCI was repeatedly found short of fulfilling its mandated responsibilities. Qualify of medical education was at its lowest ebb, the right type of health professionals were not able to meet the basic health need of the country”.

The report of the parliamentary committee submitted to RajyaSabha and LokSabha on March 8, the court noted, had said that the “MCI was not able to spearhead any serious reforms in medical education. The MCI neither represented the professional excellence nor its ethos. Nominees of central government and state governments were also from corporate private hospitals which are highly commercialised..”

Source : IndianMediaBook - Current Affairs

Antony cuts Kerala poll campaign, rushes to Delhi

As the standoff between the Congress and the BJP over the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal intensified, former defence minister A.K. Antony on Monday cut short his election campaign in Kerala and rushed back to Delhi to attend parliament on Tuesday.

A statement issued on Monday evening by the Congress headquarters here said Antony was cutting short his election campaign for three days starting Tuesday till May 5, as he was returning to attend the ongoing parliament session.

The statement said he will return to Kerala to continue his campaign from May 6 till May 14.

Kerala goes to the polls to elect 140 legislators on May 16.

For the past two days, Antony had been going hammer and tongs against the BJP over taking action against the wrongdoers in the deal.

Source : IndianMediaBook - Current Affairs

1,203 candidates to fight for Kerala’s 140 assembly seats

A total of 1,203 candidates were left in the fray and will now fight for the 140 Kerala assembly seats on May 16, officials said on Monday, the last day for withdrawal of nominations.

The principal fight is between the ruling Congress-led United Democratic Front and the CPI-M-led Left Democratic Front. The BJP-led NDA is also in the fray.

The maximum number of 145 candidates is in Malappuram district, which also has the maximum number of constituencies (16).

The hilly district of Wayanad with just three assembly constituencies has the least number of candidates (29).

Of the 1,203 candidates, 109 are women.

Source : IndianMediaBook - Current Affairs

Escaping Vietnam/Afghanistan quagmires: when the superpowers sought India’s advice

Could America have stopped going down its ruinous road in Vietnam if Jawaharlal Nehru had responded to president John F. Kennedy’s plea for advice in 1961? Or South Asian history could have been different if the Soviet leadership had accepted Indira Gandhi’s advice on ending their Afghan imbroglio in 1982?

Former Indian foreign secretary M.K. Rasgotra, in his autobiography “A Life in Diplomacy” (Penguin India, Rs.699), offers a tantalising glimpse of how the course of history could been been changed had Nehru, who was well showing his age, been a little more forthcoming, or Mrs. Gandhi less cryptic.

Rasgotra, who was a member of the Indian mission to the UN when Nehru met “his long-time admirer” (Kennedy) in Washington during his 1961 visit, says “from all accounts, Indian and American,” the meeting was an absolute failure.

Citing then envoy to the US, B.K. Nehru, who was also present, he says that the prime minister “just did not react to Kennedy’s repeated pleas for his advice as to what he should do, or not do, in Vietnam; there were pressures on him to rush in there with military force, he did not know Asia well and he wanted the great Asian statesman’s personal advice as a guide for his action”.

But, the “president never received the word of advice directly from the prime minister that might have prevented America’s disastrous involvement in Vietnam”.

However, trying to make amends, Nehru next day told foreign secretary M.J. Desai to meet his State Department counterpart or the secretary of state and “tell them that the US should not get involved in Vietnam; that they will get bogged down there with no good result”.

“This was sound advice, which might have saved the US a long war and a morale-shattering defeat,” says Rasgotra, but adds that the “American bureaucracy was not inclined to accept from Desai what the prime minister had himself failed to convey to the president”.

As to the Soviet Union, he says Mrs. Gandhi was asked by then General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, during her 1982 visit, how his country could extricate itself from its Afghan misadventure.

“Brezhnev told Gandhi: (Then Afghan leader Noor Mohammad) Taraki kept asking me for 10,000 troops; and I kept refusing, After much hesitation I sent 10,000 Russian soldiers to Afghanistan in 1979. Now there are 110,000 soldiers in Afghanistan! I do not know what they are doing there. I want to get out of Afghanistan. Madam, you know that region well! Show me a way to get out of Afghanistan.”

“Silence followed. Indira Gandhi did not show the slightest inclination to react to Brezhnev’s plea. Brezhnev then repeated his little speech in Russian; the interpreter read out the English version from his notes” but she sat silent, till Ragotra and her principal secretary P.C. Alexander, sitting beside her, whispered to her to say something.

“Reluctantly she obliged with a nugget of wisdom born out of long reflection: ‘Mr general secretary, it is a good idea to withdraw your forces from Afghanistan. The way out is the same as the way in’,” recalls Rasgotra, who was saddled with the task of explaining her meaning to the Soviets, despite not being given an explanation and “knowing better than to ask”.

The veteran diplomat also recalls that he was himself asked, during his US stint when the anti-Vietnam protests were at their height, by then National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger for his views.

“There is a declaration every day from new Delhi criticizing us over the war in Vietnam. We want to end the war. What should we do?” he asked. As Rasgotra gave his “honest opinion as a friend of the United States” ending with a suggestion that “you should negotiate a ninety- or a hundred-day ceasefire, declare victory and withdraw your forces from the country”.

“Dr Kissinger looked at me in utter disbelief and asked,’ What kind of thinking is that?’ ‘Indian’, I said and I could see that he was not amused.”

Source : IndianMediaBook - Current Affairs

Light rains on Tuesday may reduce heat in Delhi

Light rains and thundershower, likely to occur in some areas in Delhi, might help dropping the temperature on Tuesday, the weather office said.

It was a cloudy morning with the minimum temperature recorded at 30.0 degrees Celsius, the office said.

“The sky would remain cloudy throughout the day with light rains and thundershower likely to occur in some areas. This could help in dropping the maximum temperature as compared to yesterday (Monday),” an official of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

According to the Met office, maximum temperature is likely to hover around 40 degrees Celsius.

The humidity at 8.30 a.m. was 37 percent while the visibility stood at 2,500 metres.

Monday’s maximum temperature settled at 44 degrees Celsius, five notches above the season’s average, while the minimum temperature was recorded at 23.8 degrees Celsius, a notch below the season’s average.

Source : IndianMediaBook - Current Affairs