India Post Payments Bank launches account opening campaign

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February 14, 2020

The India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) has launched an account opening campaign where people can open a savings account with the bank at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) and other areas of the country. (IPPB) is a 100 per cent government owned Public Sector Bank operating with the Department of Posts under the Ministry of Communications which aims to utilise all of India’s 155,015 post offices as access points and 3 lakh postal postmen and Grameen Dak Sewaks to provide house to house banking services.

The first phase of the bank, with 650 branches and 3,250 post offices as access points, was inaugurated on September 1 2018. Over ten thousand postmen have been roped into the first phase.

Mr Lakshman Kokata post office staff member said, “A customer can pay electricity bill, light bill. A customer is entitled to an insurance of Rs 1 lakh deposited with India Post Payments Bank. Customers can transfer money to other accounts on line. Postmen will deliver the money to customers who need the same.”

IPPB would be like any other bank, but it will operate at a smaller scale without involving any credit risks, but can’t issue advance loans or issue credit cards.

Avinash, BMC staff member said, “We have faith in money deposited in government banks as we are entitled to get our money back.”

Political Analyst Bhushan Jadhav said, “Indian Post Payment Bank is a wholly-owned government bank. Bank services are not available in interior areas of the country. However post offices have their presence in every nook and corner of the country. 3 lakh postmen and 1.5 lakh post offices are operating in the country. Postmen will work as bankers. They will have hand held devices and will go to people’s houses to open accounts. A pilot project was started in Ranchi and Raipur which has become successful. The services will be expanded across the country. The money of government welfare schemes will be directly transferred to people’s account.”

-By Vijay Salgaonkar

Dabbewalas to get own shelter

By

Afternoon Voice

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February 14, 2020

Bowing to the constant demand of the dabbawalas, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar has ordered concerned departments to provide houses to them under the PM Awas Yojana. Pawar has called for immediate action to resolve the housing needs of dabbawalas. Since 2005 dabbawalas have been demanding for home in Mumbai. Pawar also announced that Dabbawala Bhawan will be constructed in the city to showcase the work of dabbawalas. The housing scheme was launched in 2015 with an objective of providing affordable housing for all in urban areas by year 2022.

There are nearly 5,000 Dabbawalas in the city who charges around Rs 1000 a month from a customer to pick up and deliver home-cooked meals at their offices.

Dabbawalas have welcomed the announcement. When asked, Dr. Pawan Agrawal ,CEO of the Mumbai Dabbawala Association, told AV, “The move is quite appreciable, the dabbawalas are in thousands and all can take advantage of this scheme because most of them are from lower middle-class families and their ancestors too have no properties of their own. As an organization, if these people get benefit, many other organizations like us can approach for the same.”

A delegation of the association met Ajit Pawar, along with labour and excise department minister Dilip Walse-Patil, in Mantralaya. Following the meeting, the deputy CM directed the officials to work out a plan for the same. The Dabbawala association’s spokesperson Subhash Talekar said, “We welcome the decision as it was our demand since 2005 as most of us hail from villages in Pune. Like mill workers and Mathadi kamgars, we also want homes in Mumbai. We now hope that we will get homes.”

“It is good news. We thank Ajit Dada for taking such a decision. It will be really good for the welfare of dabbawalas,” he added.

Mumbai’s dabbawalas are famous across the world for their management skills and unique system of marking which enables them to collect lunch boxes from homes of working professionals and deliver them on time in their offices. They deliver two lakh lunch boxes everyday but struggle with their own housing needs in Mumbai.

The housing for dabbawalas will be provided under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana or PMAY scheme that was launched in 2015 with the aim of providing housing for all in urban areas by year 2022. Through the scheme, the centre provides assistance to the implanting agencies through the states union territories and central nodal agencies fro providing house to all eligible families.

As per a report, the large number of dabbawalas comes from the Varkari community of Maharashtra. The dabbawalas work on a system of colour code which determines where the box is picked up, sorted and delivered. Also, if the one dabba picked up from a home then the dabba goes through six dabbawalas before it reaches the consumer. The same rule applies for its return trio.

Soon Mumbai to house Dabbawala Bhavan

By

Vaidehi Taman

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February 14, 2020

In 1890 Bombay’s Mahadeo Havaji Bachche started a lunch delivery service with about a hundred men working under him. In 1930, he informally attempted to unionise the dabbawalas. Later, a charitable trust was registered in 1956 under the name of Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Trust. The commercial arm of this trust was registered in 1968 as Mumbai Tiffin Box Supplier’s Association. Dabbawalas constitute a lunchbox delivery and return system that delivers hot lunches from homes and restaurants to people at work in India especially in Mumbai. Lunchboxes are picked up in the late mornings, delivered predominantly using bicycles and railway trains and returned empty in the afternoon. Dabbawalas are also used by meal suppliers in Mumbai who pay them to ferry lunchboxes with ready-cooked meals from central kitchens to customers and back. Gradually these unions become the need of the Mumbaikars. I am sure in 1890, they never thought they will become such integral part of Mumbaikar’s life.

The service was born during the British Raj in the 1890s out of sheer necessity. With more and more migrants of varying communities reaching the big city in those days and no fast food culture and office canteens around to calm the hunger pangs at noon, there was a lack of an effective system to ensure that office-workers could eat at lunchtime. There was also a supply of illiterate workers who had travelled to the cities due to agriculture not being able to support them. With insufficient education to work as clerks in British homes, but with enough sinew and energy to undertake any hard work, the idea of delivering home-made food was born. Most tiffin-wallahs are related to each other belong to the Varkari sect of Maharashtra and come from the same small village near Pune. Tiffin distribution is suspended for five days each March as the tiffin-wallahs go home for the annual village festival. These dabbawalas soon became world famous by sending gifts to London’s queen and Kings. They have huge existences. Hundreds of documentaries are made on them and several Bollywood movies are dedicated to them.

These world famous Mumbai dabbawalas will now have homes in the city as Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar has ordered concerned departments to provide houses for them under the PM Awas Yojana which aims to provide housing for all as soon as possible. Most dabbawalas are originally from outside the city and they serve Mumbai with a level of efficiency that has impressed management experts across the world. This particular Union and community itself is a huge vote bank too. This was long pending demand of them. Apart from housing for dabbawalas, Mr Pawar has also cleared a proposal for a ‘dabbawala bhavan’ which will function as a central office and showcase their skilful yet simple and ingenious system. The dabbawalas are known for their error free delivery system and they’ve been studied by Harvard professors and visited by royals from all over the world. Two of them have even attended the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005 as representatives of the dabbawalla community on an invitation from the royals. Mumbai’s dabbawalas are famous across the world for their management skills and unique system of marking which enables them to collect lunch boxes from homes of working professionals and deliver them on time in their offices. They deliver two lakh lunch boxes every day but struggle with their own housing needs in Mumbai.

The housing for dabbawalas will be provided under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana or PMAY scheme that was launched in 2015 with the aim of providing housing for all in urban areas by year 2022. Through the scheme, the centre provides assistance to the implementing agencies through States/Union Territories (UTs) and Central Nodal Agencies (CNAs) for providing houses to all eligible families/ beneficiaries. In an age of computer-controlled food delivery apps, dabbawalas have managed to hold their own in the Maximum City where housing has often been a challenge for many of them. A 2010 study by the Harvard Business School graded their system as “Six Sigma”, which means the dabbawalas make less than 3.4 mistakes per million transactions.

(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@www.afternoonvoice.com)

Protests are vital for Democracy

By

Faheem Usmani Qasmi

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February 14, 2020

India has been witnessing a massive movement for few weeks after the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) was passed by the Parliament as it can be titled the largest movement in the 21^st century in India so far. The Indian people, cutting off their religious and political boundaries and limitations, took to the street to protest against the CAA which they believe is discriminatory and against the Constitution.

The protest is the only way in a democracy that people can exercise beyond button clicking of a machine – Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) once every five year. It is believed by political scientists that protest is vital to a democracy, giving a voice to those with no platform or privilege.

The issue of protest arises when serious challenges to existing social structures, democratic values, and fundamental rights are made by those in power against the members of the weaker group in society, such as workers, unlettered people and minorities. Such challenges are made for special attention and with a good intention but have dangerous consequences within the society.

When the people of a democracy see their democratic values being mashed up and minorities being deprived of their rights, the individuals in a public rally show their personal concern by their presence and their collective concern by their numbers. Those who are involved in the protests or stand against the government policies cannot necessarily be malevolent for the country as the government tries to show their image as anti-nation ones or not healthy elements for the country.

One more assumption about the protest is that those are not participating in the protests, they do stand with the government as this narrative is widespread through media outlets to show them as supporters of the government. It is quite possible that they are not taking to the street but are against the government policy because very few government employees will take a strong public stand on an issue which might jeopardize their career. Since an alarming bell was given to the government employees in some states for taking part in activity against the government and its policies, mostly they did not engage with such activities.

People can’t be radicalized just for speaking up against the government and their dissent can’t be criminalized. Protest either of a political nature or of a common nature can’t be greeted with harsh legal penalties and excessive punishments to repress the protests. The protesters can’t be titled with jihadists or anti-nationalists.

The Indian history shows that the protest always played a vital role in changing the perception of the people whether it is the movement of Anna Hazare in 2011 to alleviate the corruption in the Indian government through introduction of the Jan Lokpal Bill or the Bihar movement initiated by the students of Bihar in 1974 and led by the veteran Gandhian socialist Jayaprakash Narayan known as JP movement against misrule and corruption in the government of Bihar.

In a protest, both civilians and the government-controlled administrative institutions are equally responsible to maintain peace and calm during the protest as the severe clashes have been reported in some states because of non-cooperation.

The anti-CAA protests occurred all over India and abroad as well. According to report of a leading newspaper close to 48% protests recorded at least one violent incident or police action such as detention, lathi charge or both. Death of at least 31 people were related to the violence that ensued during the protests.

Map shows districts which recorded at least one violent incident or police action or both and those that didn’t. At least 24 districts in U.P. witnessed protests, of which 90% recorded violent incidents or police action or both. Among the metros, only Mumbai witnessed protests where no violence or police actions were recorded to have taken place. Delhi witnessed violent incidents, police action and detention as did Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Of all CAA protest-related deaths, 70% were recorded in UP followed by 20% in Assam.

(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)

Letters to the Editor: 14 February, 2020

By

Web Team

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February 14, 2020

1Polling campaigns should focus on voters

The results of the recently concluded assembly elections in Delhi turned out to be a low-key affair for national parties. Of late, the trend of regional parties to set a surprise comeback in assembly polls is emerging, while obtaining a clear majority otherwise in Assembly polls remains a challenge even for popular national parties. The voters on the other hand only look forward for any government only to come back on its toes at the earliest.

Polling campaigns should extensively focus on voters as a priority by promising a better governance for the next five years. A deep focus on specific issues in Delhi on curbing air pollution and resolving traffic woes is highly essential for the newly elected government.

Varun Dambal

2Logic of notification issued about new one-rupee note

It refers to Gazette Notification GSR 95(E) dated February 7, 2020 -printing of one rupee currency notes rules, 2020- issued by Union Finance Ministry regarding further issue of yet another new one-rupee note, even though the earlier one issued on March 6, 2015 with several re-prints have never been in actual circulation, and its packs of 100 are mostly available at heavy premium multiple times face-value of the pack. Interesting fact remains that one-rupee note discontinued long back about quarter-century ago subsequently later with those of rupees two and five because of their high printing cost and low life with coins in these circulations having become popular.

One-rupee note is issued evidently because of bureaucratic craze of printing their signatures. Notes of rupees two and five were not introduced after once discontinued to be printed because notes of these denominations bore signatures of Governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) like the one that exists on notes of rest other denominations.

Even majority of bank-employees have not seen re-issued one-rupee notes being issued ever since March 6, 2015. System should be that either note or coin may be issued in any of the denomination. Moreover guidelines should be changed so that one-rupee note may also bear signature of RBI governor to avoid huge wastage of public-money on printing one-rupee notes only because of bureaucratic craze of printing signature of Secretary to Government of India on these one-rupee notes.

Madhu Agrawal

3RTI fees and payment-mode should be uniform in entire country

It refers to reports about Madhya Pradesh government raising RTI fees from present Rs 10 to Rs 100 with additional raised fees for filing First Appeals and Second Appeals at Rs 500 and Rs 1000.

But RTI fees cannot be more than Rs 50 according to court-verdict. Rather Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) should notify that RTI fees and payment-mode should be uniform for all states and Competent Authorities. Earlier several Competent Authorities and states had fixed abnormally high RTI fees at Rs 500 according to power given to them under sections 27 and 28 of RTI Act. But negligible RTI fees of just Rs 10 fixed long back in the year 2005 by DoPT has lost relevance being one of the reasons for misuse of RTI Act.

Uniform RTI fees of Rs 50 inclusive of copying charges for first 20 copied pages should be there for all public-authorities and states. It will save man-hours and postal-charges for both public-authorities and RTI applicants in demanding and remitting copying charges. But additional RTI fees for First Appeals and Second Appeals must not be there.

It is senseless to burden postal-department and banking-system with excessively high handling cost of about Rs 50 for postal-department alone for a postal-order worth Rs 10 submitted as RTI fees, DoPT should ask postal-department to abide by repeated CIC-directives to issue special RTI stamps in denominations of Rs 2, 10 and 50 like erstwhile stamps issued for TV and radios.

However facility to submit post-free RTI applications addressed to central public-authorities can be made available at all about 160000 post-offices of the country rather than present just about 4500 post-offices. Fake RTI applications should be prevented by abiding with verdict of Punjab-Haryana High Court to make it compulsory to file ID proof with every RTI application, First Appeal and Second Appeal.

Subhash Chandra Agrawal

(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)

Murthy son-in-law appointed UK finance minister

By

Afternoon Voice

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February 14, 2020

In a good news to Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy, his son-in-law Rishi Sunak has been appointed as UK’s new finance minister by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in an extensive Cabinet reshuffle amid reports of serious differences within Downing Street.

The 39-year-old Rishi will join Priti Patel on the top government bench after she held on to her post as Home Secretary. Outside the Treasury office soon after his promotion, A delighted Rishi told reporters thatthe was “delighted to be appointed” Chancellor and had “a lot to get on with”.

Pakistani-origin Sajid Javid resigned as Chancellor in a shock move in one of the biggest shake-ups since Johnson won a thumping majority in the December 2019 General Election.

According to sources close to the former Chancellor, he refused to give in to Johnson’s demand to get rid of all his special advisers at No. 11 Downing Street for the advisory teams of No. 10 and 11 Downing Street to work more closely aligned as one team.

It followed reports of growing tensions within Javid’s team and the Prime Minister’s Chief Special Adviser Dominic Cummings.

Javid is replaced by Sunak, who was until now Javid’s junior as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and seen as a rising star within the Cabinet.

Sunak is set to move into No. 11 Downing Street, next door to the Prime Minister’s office as he takes charge of the second most important government position as the finance minister.

He will have to hit the ground running as the UK Budget is due to be tabled next month. The Prime Minister and Chancellor are traditionally seen a double act in British politics, working close together and also living as neighbours on Downing Street.

“The Queen has been graciously pleased to approve the appointment of Rt Hon Rishi Sunak as Chancellor of the Exchequer,” Downing Street said in the official announcement on the elevation of the three-time MP.

The MP for Richmond in Yorkshire, married to Murthy’s daughter Akshata, first entered the UK Parliament in 2015 and has fast risen up the Conservative Party ranks as a staunch Brexiteer who had back Johnson’s strategy to leave the European Union (EU).

Sunak campaigned for Leave in the EU referendum, and his constituency voted 55 per cent Leave.

He voted for former prime minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal on all three occasions, and was an early supporter of Johnson.

Sunak is seen as a rising star in the Conservative Party, with endorsements from people including former Conservative leader Lord Hague of Richmond, who has described him as an “exceptional individual”.

Mumbai zoo now houses a pair of tigers

By

Web Team

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February 14, 2020

Mumbai’s Veer Mata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan welcomed two Royal Bengal Tigers (a male and a female) on Wednesday. The two apex predators were got from Aurangabad’s Siddharth Zoo under the Central Zoo Authority of India’s animal exchange programme. Though they have arrived on Wednesday, they are currently under quarantine and will soon be available for public viewing.

The pair belongs to Panthera Tigris species that are declared endangered species by organization IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature).

While the tiger aged 4 years is named ‘Shakti’ while the tigress ‘Karishma’ is of six years. The pair belongs to Panthera Tigris species that are declared endangered species by organisation IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature).

In exchange for the tigers, the Mumbai Zoo has sent two pairs of spotted deer and two pairs of painted storks to the Siddharth Zoo.

The Byculla Zoo had not housed any tigers since 2006 and the civic body is hoping that the new arrivals will attract more tourists.

Passengers can soon book ticket via app for BEST bus

By

Hema Singh

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February 14, 2020

Soon the passengers can book the ticket via app for Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) and enjoy the cashless ride. On Thursday the BEST committee cleared a proposal to include three new digital payment systems to book mobile tickets through an app to travel on red buses in future on the streets of Mumbai.

In the proposal the BEST cleared that the Passengers can make payment through Phonepe Pvt Ltd, Pay Point India Network Pvt Ltd and One97.

Currently, the BEST issues tickets through hand-held electronic machines which will now help generate e-tickets on cellphones. As per an official of BEST , they want to have more digital application service providers for ticketing via digital payment.

According to a latest report, the everyday ridership of BEST increased by almost a lakh following the introduction of a fleet of wet-leased buses. Reportedly, the daily passenger strength touched 34 lakhs thus matching the strength of the years 2014-15. Also, the BEST wants to increase its strength in many areas of the city which is operated by auto-rickshaw and taxi drivers.

SC hears two petitions regarding hanging of four convicts of Nirbhaya murder

By

Afternoon Voice

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February 14, 2020

Two petitions related to the hanging of the four convicts of Nirbhaya came up for hearing in the Supreme Court on Thursday when a bench of Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan and A S Bopanna found themselves dealing with the two petitions. While one was filed by the Union government that sought separate hangings of the four convicts (Mukesh Kumar, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Akshay Thakur) as and when their mercy petitions were dismissed by the President the other was a petition by Sharma challenging the President’s rejection of his mercy plea.

The SC reserved its verdict on Vinay’s petition and said it would pronounce judgment on Friday, when it will also hear the counsel for all four deathrow convicts on the Centre’s plea for their hangings to be separated. So, no one knows when the death row convicts will be deemed to have exhausted their legal remedies and a finality reached about the date when they will be hanged.

It may be remembered that after the SC rejected review and curative petitions of the four convicts, Pawan had filed a plea in Delhi High Court claiming to be a juvenile at the time of crime on December 16, 2012. His plea was dismissed by the court. His appeal was rejected by Supreme Court as well. Mercy petitions of other three viz Mukesh, Vinay and Akshay who invoked the President’s mercy powers for commutation of death penalty to life imprisonment were also turned down.

The Centre is challenging a Delhi HC order of February 5 declining the plea for the convicts to be hanged separately by delinking those who have already exhausted all their remedies from those who have not. The HC had set a deadline of 7 days for the convicts to exhaust all options.

The SC is aware of the delaying tactics, but can do little except hear the petitions filed through advocates as these were within the convicts’ rights. Once the seven-day period granted by the HC got over, Vinay filed a petition in the SC challenging rejection of his mercy plea by the President.

Vinay’s counsel kept repeating his arguments for two hours, leaving the judges exasperated. Solicitor general Tushar Mehta took 15 minutes to show the files of the home ministry and the Delhi government to point out that each and every aspect and fact narrated in the mercy petition were carefully scrutinised and considered.

Tainted Politicians needs to provide reason to contest

By

Hema Singh

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February 13, 2020

Expressing concern over the alarming rise of criminalisation of politics, the Supreme Court(SC) on Thursday ordered that political parties should publish the criminal history of their candidates for Assembly as well as Lok Sabha polls along with reasons for selecting persons with criminal antecedents over decent people.

GM ADR Amit Verma said, “I don’t think that this move will benefit a lot because even in the earlier judgment, the SC had asked political parties to publish details of their candidates with a criminal background in newspapers, electronic media, thrice during campaigning. However, the diktat was also not followed by political parties. Even if it is mandatory, I am wary that all parties will follow this. We are not satisfied with the judgment of the SC as the main request of the PIL was to not give tickets to those candidates who have a criminal background but SC is avoiding giving that sort of a ruling.”

A bench of Justices R F Nariman and S Ravindra Bhat said that a political party will have to provide reasons for giving tickets to a candidate with criminal background instead of picking a person with a clean image.

As per the SC, it would be mandatory for parties to upload the details of criminal history of their candidates on their particular website, on social media and in newspapers within 48 hours of selection. The court orders, “Political parties will have to specify reasons for selecting candidates having pending criminal cases against them on their website,” it stated.

Apart from carrying details on their website, the parties must submit the same details to the Election Commission (EC) of India within 72 hours. “The reason to select candidates should be based on merit and not winnability. Winnability can’t be the only justification,” the top Court said.

The Court also mentioned that if political parties failed to give the details of their candidate or the ECI was unable to implement the directive, it would be considered contempt of Court. The judgment signified the Court’s alarm over the unimpeded rise in the accommodation of criminals often facing heinous charges like rape and murder in the political arena.

Earlier the ECI had urged the Supreme Court , that political parties should not give tickets to candidates with criminal background. ECI also said that 46 per cent of Members of Parliament have criminal records. The Supreme Court’s long strings of judgements against criminalisation of politics have hardly scratched the surface of the deep rot.

The verdict comes on contempt petitions filed by lawyer Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay and others. In her submission, Upadhyay had alleged that the ECI as well as the Central Government that no serious efforts were made to stop the criminalisation of politics despite the Court order. The petitioner had alleged that the Election Commission had not attempted to implement this order effectively.

A five-judge constitution bench in September 2018 had asked the Central government to immediately enact laws to ban those involved in serious crimes from contesting elections and becoming party officials.

The Court had earlier even ordered that candidates should publish their criminal details in newspapers, electronic media thrice during the campaign season.

After the order by SC, political leaders says it is hard for them to tell whether today’s decision on merit over winnability can be realistically enforced.