26 APRIL 2016

Ø  In an about-turn, India cancelled the visa issued to the exiled Uighur-Chinese leader Dolkun Isa, even as the Citizen Power for China, the Washington DC-based organisers of the April 28-May 1 event that Mr. Isa was to attend in Dharamshala told The Hindu that the event may not take place in the way planned. the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) distanced itself from the setback over Mr. Isa’s visa and the diplomatic setback. It put the blame on the glitches of the electronic visa system of the Ministry of Home Affairs. Describing the cancellation of his visa and the changes in the event as “disappointing”, Mr. Isa who has been at the centre of a controversy, after China criticised the Indian move to grant him a visa to attend the conference, despite an Interpol Red Corner notice against him, said that he believed “India had bowed to Chinese pressure.”

Ø  Starting next year, all mobile phones sold in India will come with a dedicated ‘panic button’ that can be used to send out a signal in case of distress.

Ø  Secret allowance, family planning allowance, desk allowance, cash handling allowance, metropolitan allowance and headquarters allowance are among 52 of the nearly 200 allowances which the government could scrap soon. The Seventh Pay Commission found inadequate the justifications offered by the Ministries for these allowances. The government was asked to suggest rationalisation of a variety of allowances. A committee is examining the Commission’s recommendations. The Commission found the entire system of nearly 200 allowances “haphazard”. There are 13 for travel, 14 for additional duty, 51 for risk and hardship, nine for uniform, 4 for good services, 5 sumptuary allowances, 2 for training and 3 for knowledge update. Many were meagre cash payments and lost significance, it concluded. Rejecting the demand for doubling the family planning allowance — ranging from Rs. 210 to Rs. 1,000 a month depending on grade pay — for those who adopt family planning norms after one child, the Commission recommended that it be abolished as a separate allowance was no longer needed. Also to be abolished is the “meagre and outdated” Rs. 90 a month cycle allowance to postal officials. The briefcase allowance, paid once in three years and covering expenditure of up to Rs. 10,000 on handbags, could be enhanced. Allowances are paid to employees — both in civil and defence jobs — over and above the basic pay, either as a percentage of it, or as a specified amount, which usually varies with employees’ “level or status.”

Ø  Pakistan Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry will meet Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar for bilateral talks with their delegations on the sidelines of the Afghan donor ‘Heart of Asia’ conference to be held in N Delhi. Officials of both countries confirmed to The Hindu that the initiative for the meeting came from the Indian side. A senior Pakistani diplomat said the decision to send Mr. Chaudhry in place of an official in the rank of Joint Secretary was taken a week ago after India evinced interest in heightening the profile of the meeting. In a statement issued in Islamabad, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Mr. Chaudhry would hold “bilateral meetings with other leading delegations attending the [‘Heart of Asia’] meeting.” A government source confirmed that the bilateral meeting might include discussions on the Pathankot airbase attack and a possible visit by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to Pakistan to probe the plot behind the attack. It is said that a modern society would ideally need 50 judges per million population. However, the Law Commission, in its 245th report two years ago, had pointed to the impracticability of using the number of judges per million population (the official figure for India in 2013 was 16.8) as a criterion to assess the required judicial strength. Instead, it had suggested a ‘rate of disposal’ method by which the number of judges required at each level to dispose of a particular number of cases could be computed based on analysis. The Centre and the judiciary should collaborate on finding practical solutions: appointing more judges, including retired judges as ad hoc judicial officers, based on periodic needs assessments, increasing their retirement age, and deploying judicial resources efficiently.