Policy Update: August 24- August 31

Supreme Court asks defence ministry why these officials should not be recalled for fresh punishment commensurate with their offence. The guilty officers were let off with just reprimands.

 

The .Bharat domain name in devanagari script will cover eight languages including Hindi, Konkani and Marathi. 

 

The Supreme Court strongly advises Prime Minister and Chief Ministers not to induct in their ministry people against whom charges have been framed in criminal and corruption cases. 

 

The government's massive financial inclusion programme aims to take banking facilities to 75 million households by January 26, 2015. Account holders will get a life cover of Rs 30,000, a RuPay debit card, in-built accident insurance cover of Rs 1 lakh and an overdraft facility of Rs 5,000, subject to satisfactory operations of the account for at least six months.

 

The allocations were done in arbitrary, non-transparent manner and were against public interest. The court allowed the coal block allocations to ultra mega power projects to continue but barred them from using the coal for commercial exploitation. Captive consumption allowed. 

 

The MoU signed on PM Modi's visit talks about development on lines of Kyoto and cooperation in heritage conservation, city modernisation and fields of art.

 

Earlier only one domestic LPG cylinder was allowed per month per household. The overall cap of 12 subsidised cylinders per year was, however, retained.

 

Fund announced for celebration of RTI Week (October 5-12), innovative awareness generation programme and for setting up helpline for answering queries of the general public regarding the RTI Act in their respective regional language.

 

The Ministry is processing only the Kasturirangan committee report, which effectively means that the earlier report prepared by renowned environmentalist Madhav Gadgil has been rejected, according to the legal counsel for the Goa Foundation that has filed a petition in the National Green Tribunal (NGT). The NGT had earlier found the MoEF's affidavit on the issue was "vague." 

 

Centre tells Delhi High Court that the case of the boxer will be placed before the panel again and irrespective of its decision, the Sports Ministry will consider his eligibility for the award. The committee had mistakenly believed that Manoj was involved in a doping case.

 

Fund transfer, balance inquiry in savings account, change of PIN, mini statement, cheque book request, etc, will be possible with simple text messages from ordinary handsets and without accessing the Internet.

 

Transgenders and economically weaker sections will be helped in urban areas through enhanced credit flow.

 

Food Processing Industries Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal asked PepsiCo Chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi to bring down the sugar content in the company’s soft drinks. 

 

Exemption has been provided to "services by a specified organisation in respect of a religious pilgrimage facilitated by the Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India, under bilateral arrangement".

 

Calls the petitions premature and refuses to intervene at this stage on the issue of constitutional validity of the amendment by which collegium system for appointment of judges in higher judiciary was scrapped and a new mechanism under National Judicial Appointment Commission (NJAC) was proposed to be put in place. 

 

But the bench made it clear it was not expressing any opinion with regard to the alleged violations by former IPL chief under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), which are being examined separately by the authorities.