1. Lodha Committee to fix BCCI
  2. Rail Development Authority of India
  3. NDC Gone with the Wind
  4. Labour reforms
  5. GS2: RPA/Election reforms
  6. Polity: Rights issues & federalism
  7. History- Pt. Tarkalankar

Lodha Committee to fix BCCI

Justice Lodha Committee BCCI IPL

  • 2015: SC appointed Lodha Committee to improve cricket administration in India.
  • 3 Members: (Ex CJI) Justice R.M. Lodha, Justice Ashok Bhan and Justice R.V. Raveendran.

Recommendations of Lodha Committee

Org.
  • imposes age limit, term limit, restriction on ministers and bureaucrats from entering.
  • BCCI daily-management by professional CEO and managers with corporate work-experience.
  • BCCI-Apex Council to have 9 members viz. BCCI president, vice-president, secretary, joint secretary and treasurer and 4 councilors. Provisions to give representation to woman and CAG- to ensure financial transparency
  • IPL governing council with 9 members, limited autonomy, including BCCI secretary etc.
Betting and match fixing
  • criminalize match-and spot-fixing
  • legalize betting by licensed betting houses. Players-officials can’t do it.
State associations
  • Only one vote per state. One association per state. Uniformity in structure-functioning of state cricket associations.
  • non-territorial units like Services, Railways, Universities etc. be given non-voting associate membership
  • Make The Players’ Association
Transparency
  • parliament should update law to bring BCCI within RTI-ambit
  • Players, officials have to give asset reports to BCCI

Lot more dissension can be done but BCCI maintains report not binding in nature and sports not a direct topic under UPSC so cost benefit declines. This much content sufficient for 200 words.

Rail Development Authority of India

To be setup through an executive order, just like UIDAI.
→ recommend fares for transporting men and material
→ give level-playing field for private investments in Railways
→ maintain performance standards
→ release statistics and forecasts related to Railways.

NDC Gone with the Wind

1952: National Development Council (NDC) setup by cabinet resolution as “the highest decision-making authority” for Development matters and inter-state cooperation. Later on reconstituted on 1st ARC recommendations. Functions- (1) decide special category states as per part of the Gadgil-Mukherjee pattern (2) decide norms for giving financial support to states.
→ Membership: PM, state-CM, Delhi’s Lt.Gov, UT Administrators.
→ last meeting in 2012, now Modi decides to scrap it down and handover functions to NITI Ayog council. More about Niti Ayog in this article. More NDC theory in Laxmikanth.

Labour reforms

→ Article 19(1) (c) grants all citizens the right to form a union. But Corporates don’t like it because trade union start collective bargaining for better work and pay conditions.
→ Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970- contract workers can’t be employed for core industrial work. But corporates want the opposite, they usually get a contractor to supply them labours. So no tension of giving social security or entertaining trade unions.
→ 2012- Maruti started “company temps” i.e. you work for 6 months, then laid off for 5 months, then again called back for work. Good:- company temps get all direct benefits from company since no contractor involved. Bad:- they get far less salary than regular employees.
→ labour reform should address two things (1) allow independent positive trade unions (2) don’t let company keep temporary workers permanently ‘temporary’.

GS2: RPA/Election reforms

Election reforms to consider:
→ Rajya Sabha election has open-ballot voting i.e. Party can know which MLA gave vote to which Rajysabha candidate. Similar system should be adopted for Vidhan Parishad election too. Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Bihar ready.
→ in some states 1/3rd Vidhan Parishad members not retiring each 2 years. Need to amend law.
→ amend law to permit EVM-Totalizer. More in this article
→ only 18 years or above person can get voters ID card. But date counted only in 1st January. There should be 4 different dates (1st January, 1st April, 1st July and 1st October) for enrolment so that maximum number of people can be enrolled each year.
→ Amend Form-24-A so political parties have to disclose even donations less than 20,000 rupees.
→ At present Electoral trusts can accept foreign donations but they siphon it to political parties. Need to fix RPA act to stop this.
→ give Independent Secretariat for the Election Commission and its budget should be ‘charged’ on consolidated fund of India- just like CAG  and UPSC.

Polity: Rights issues & federalism

Federalism J&K can’t host state flag on buildings says HC. earlier someone filed petition to allow J&K state flag parallel to Indian flag in all Government offices and vehicles
Rights Madra Highcourt judge prescribed Dress Code for temple visitors. Anti-arguments
→ only men can wear trousers, women can’t. so gender discrimination
→ not feasible to impose on foreign tourists and children.
→ HC can’t issue mandamus in this case.
Rights Petition filed in SC to ban websites containing jokes on Sikh. Matter ongoing.
Rights Santhara- is fast unto death ritual of Jains. Jaipur film festival showcasing a movie on it. Last year, SC refused to consider Santhara as “suicide”.
Rights Central employees with kids having physical or mental disability are exempted from transfers and remote posting. Two new diseases added in that list- Thalassemia and Haemophilia
Rights Rajasthan High Court concerned about  coaching factories of Kota leading to suicide of kids.
→Collector to start helpline, and instructed the classes to give counselling before admission and holiday during classes.
→ remains to be seen how many suicides required in Delhi to initiate the same.
Rights Adnan Sami gets Indian citizenship through process of naturalization, under Citizenship Act, 1955. Read Laxmikanth citizenship chapter for more theory.
Rights-Women Kerala was the first Indian state to have women in police (1933).
→At present less than 10% of police are women.
→So Home ministry provided for 33% reservation to wome in constable posts in Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) and 15% of the border guarding posts will be manned by women.

History- Pt. Tarkalankar

  • Pandit Madan Mohan Tarkalankar a social reformer and girl education rights champion of 13th century Bengal’s Nadia District.
  • He wrote first Bengali Primary school text book known as “Shishusiksha” and sent his two daughters to Calcutta Female School to set an example.
  • 200th birth anniversary on January, 6, 2016.