Central Universities discriminate the most against the STs in the recruitment: 101 crimes were committed every day against SCs and STs during 2001 to 2012

Central Universities discriminate the most against the STs in the recruitment:

101 crimes were committed every day against SCs and STs during 2001 to 2012

New Delhi: Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) in its report, “India’s Unfinished Agenda for Inclusion: A study on denial of reservation to the tribals in the government services and posts” (http://www.achrweb.org/reports/india/UnfinishedAgenda.pdf) released today stated that the Scheduled Tribes (STs) are the most deprived in the government employment. As of 8 May 2013, the maximum number of backlog vacancies with the Central Government was 12,195 posts for the STs, followed by 8,332 posts for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and 6,961 posts for the Scheduled Castes (SCs).

Central Universities discriminate the most:

“According to information provided by the University Grants Commission (UGC) under the Right to Information Act, the representation of the STs in the post of professors has come down from 3.88% (46 STs against total of 1,187 professors) in 2006-07 to 0.24% (4 STs against total sanctioned posts of 1,667 professors) in 2010-11; from 1.03% (18 STs against total of 1,744 Readers) in 2006-2007 to 0.32% (10 STs against total sanctioned posts of 3,155 Readers) in 2010-11 in the post of Readers; and from 4.43% (129 STs against total of 2,914 Lecturers) in 2006-07 to 3.63% (193 STs against total posts of 5,317) in 2010-11 in the post of Lecturers. In fact, there is better representation of the STs in the top echelons of the Central Government of India than in the Central universities. During 2010-11, at the level of the Secretary to the Central Government, the representation of the STs was 2.68% while representation of the STs at the level of Professor in the Central Universities was mere 0.24%. During the same period, at the level of the Additional Secretary and Joint Secretary to the Government of India, the combined representation of the STs was 2.5% while the representation of the STs at the level of Readers in the Central Universities was mere 0.32%.”- stated the study.

“The data provided by the UGC shows that India’s higher educational institutions remain the most casteist, possibly a reflection of the opposition to the reservation policy.” – stated Mr Suhas Chakma , Director of Asian Centre for Human Rights.

Parliamentary panel's order for inquiry into the CBDT's refusal to promote the STs: 

The officials holding positions of power on appointments in the posts and services of the government have adopted certain modus operandi to deprive the STs and others’ access to the reserved seats. The posts in the reserved seats are kept vacant for certain years, and later dereserved on the ground of public interest as “no suitable candidates found” even if many ST and other reserved category candidates meet all the eligibility criteria for the specific posts. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in its Twenty Fourth Report titled “Reservation for and employment of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT)” presented before the Parliament on 26 November 2012 noted “every year a good number of SC/ST candidates qualify the examination for promotion but only handful are promoted” by the CBDT and “despite having SC/ ST candidates who are eligible for promotion posts, the CBDT has been depriving these candidates of rightful promotion.” While rejecting the contention of the Finance Ministry about “non-availability of eligible candidates is the major reason for backlog”, the Parliamentary Standing Committee recommended that “an enquiry should be initiated for such cases in various Directorates to determine the reasons for keeping promotion posts vacant despite availability of SC/ST candidates, who have already qualified in the examination for promotion”.

101 crimes commited daily against SCs and STs during 2001 to 2012: The National Crime Records Bureau

“The caste system is the root cause of economic, social and political exclusion and the reservation policy is an attempt to ensure inclusion of those who from time immemorial have been excluded and subjected to violence. However, there is no improvement of the situation. As per the National Crime Records Bureau, a total of 4,40,691 crimes were committed against the SCs and the STs from 2001 to 2012. This implies at least 101 crimes were committed every day against the SCs and the STs during the same period. The figures of the NCRB are only tip of the iceberg as most crimes against the SCs and the STs are not reported to and/or registered by the police. That the Rajya Sabha passed the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Bill, 2013 only on 7th September 2013 reflects how far away India is from addressing caste specific tasks and caste based discrimination.”- further stated Mr Chakma.

Lamenting the Supreme Court, Asian Centre for Human Rights stated “A string of Supreme Court rulings against reservation including in the case of Indra Sawhney Vs Union of India assume that untouchability has indeed been done away with following its abolition as per Article 17 of the Constitution of India, and there is no caste bias among the people in India. More fundamentally, these judgements overlook and undermine extraordinary level of caste violence as reflected in the data of the NCRB.”

Justifying the reservation policy, ACHR stated,  “Without reservation, the SCs and the STs, who are not allowed to enter houses and villages of the dominant castes, not to mention about the temples and other public places even today, would not have had access to educational institutions, government employment, State Assemblies and parliament; and India surely would have remained more divided and fragmented; and the existence of the country would have been more at risks in the face of violence and conflict as a direct consequence of caste based discrimination and exclusion”.

Asian Centre for Human Rights recommended to the Government of India to (1) centrally maintain details of vacancy position in respect of reserved posts and details of backlog vacancies and direct the Liaison Officers appointed in each Ministry/Department to update the same every three months in the centralized website; (2) issue Office Memorandum by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) of the  Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions instructing each Ministry/Department to provide that reserved seats for the SCs, the STs and others cannot be dereserved under any circumstances; (3) issue Office Memorandum by the DoPT instructing each Ministry/Department to provide that no reserved seat can be kept vacant on the “ground of no suitable candidates found” if any SC/ST candidate fulfill the basic eligibility criteria for the specific post; and further for keeping a particular post vacant, prior permission be sought from the concerned authorities, among others, by providing details of qualification of each candidate vis-a-vis the eligibility criteria in the previous recruitment process;(4) direct the Human Resources Development Ministry to launch special drives for recruitment of the STs and other reserved categories in the Central Universities and other higher educational institutions run and/or aided by the Government of India; and (5) amend the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 to include non-filling up of reserved seats despite availability of candidates from the SCs and the STs meeting the eligibility criteria as an offence under the Act. [Ends]

"$peed money" / Corruption Puts Brakes on India's Retail Growth

"$peed money"(Corruption) Puts Brakes on India's Retail Growth
By Nandita Bose
MUMBAI | Mon May 6, 2013 1:05pm IST

Customers exit a V-Mart retail store in New Delhi April 6, 2013. Picture taken April 6, 2013.
REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
(Reuters) - Hong-Kong entrepreneur Ramesh Tainwala spent 18 months operating branded clothing retail stores in India before deciding it was impossible to succeed without paying bribes.
Tainwala, a 55-year-old expatriate Indian, owns Planet Retail, which held the India franchise rights for U.S. fashion labels Guess and Nautica as well as UK retailers Next and Debenhams. He sold the brands last September to various Indian businesses.

"Right now it's not possible to do business in India without greasing palms, without paying bribes," said Tainwala, who is also luggage maker Samsonite's president for Asia Pacific and West Asia. Tainwala said he himself refused to pay bribes to licensing officials, though that could not be independently confirmed.
India is the next great frontier for global retailers, a $500 billion market growing at 20 percent a year. For now, small shops dominate the sector. Giants from Wal-Mart Stores Inc to IKEA AB have struggled merely for the right to enter, which they finally won last year.
But a daunting array of permits - more than 40 are required for a typical supermarket selling a range of products - force retailers to pay so-called "speed money" through middlemen or local partners to set up shop.
In interviews with middlemen and several retailers, Reuters found the official cost for key licenses is typically accompanied by significant expenses in the form of bribes. The added cost erodes profitability in an industry where margins tend to be razor-thin. It also creates risk for companies by making them complicit in activity that, while commonplace in India and other emerging markets, is nonetheless illegal.
That creates a handicap for foreign operators such as U.S.-based Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, and Britain's Tesco Plc and Marks and Spencer Plc, which must comply with anti-bribery laws in their home countries even while operating abroad.
A Wal-Mart spokesperson said the company is strengthening its compliance programs, part of a global compliance review that has cost more than $35 million over the last 18 months. IKEA, which is awaiting final approval to enter India, has started assessing the market, a spokeswoman said, adding the group has "zero tolerance" for corruption in any form.

"HARASSED FOR MONEY"
Retail is especially prone to bribery because stores sell multiple types of merchandise, which in India increases the number of licenses and permits needed - a legacy of the so-called "Licence Raj" that was largely dismantled during the country's early 1990s economic reforms.
The World Bank's Ease of Doing Business survey ranks India 173rd out of 185 countries when it comes to starting a business, behind Malawi, Niger, Sudan and Guatemala. Transparency International in 2012 ranked it 94th out of 174 countries on its corruption table - a fall from 72nd five years earlier.
"Even for a simple thing like putting up signage in front of your store you are harassed for money," said Tainwala. "There are many bodies regulating that and the permits needed to set up one shop are baffling."
The License Raj, he said, substantially increases costs in a market where sluggish consumer demand, high rentals and a depreciating currency for over a year have made it hard for retailers like him to operate profitably. He plans to return when there is more order in the way business is done.
Ais Kumar, head of the western region for the Food Safety & Standards Authority of India (FSSA), acknowledged that graft exists across government ranks and departments. Many government departments also have staff shortages that cause delays.
"These licenses are required for compliance and safety and not because the government wants to delay or complicate things for anyone. It's the law of the land and it must be followed," he said, adding the government is striving to put licensing systems online to streamline the process and make it more transparent. Checks with three retailers, however, showed the online forms still need to be physically delivered to the respective licensing departments.

UNDER THE TABLE
Permits needed to open a store range from the mundane, such as a trade license, to the petty: lighted shelves require a separate permit, and even a shop window needs a license.
Want to play music in the store? That requires a license. So does selling cosmetics or providing valet parking.
A convenience store that sells basics such as milk, vegetables, cereal, bread, eggs, meat and baby food will require a minimum of 29 licenses from nearly 20 different authorities, according to a list of licenses compiled by the Retailers Association of India and obtained by Reuters.
Those include a food license; a license for sale, storage and distribution; a food-handler's certificate; a license for milk products and another for frozen non-vegetarian food. All those licenses comes from the state-level FSSA, but require separate applications.
But the FSSA does not give permission for operating freezers and chillers. That requires a separate license from a municipal body. Selling baby food requires a permit from a state Controller of Food and Supply. The state Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee must give permission to sell vegetables; the central Directorate of Marketing and Inspection gives permission to grade and sort those vegetables; the Controller of Rationing grants licenses for selling essential commodities like rice.
All those licenses need to be renewed, sometimes annually.
The Directorate of Marketing and Inspection declined comment, while the other departments were not available.
Most of the licenses required can either be done away with completely or combined into one, said Lalit Agarwal, chairman of V-Mart Retail. "Every day, you have new licenses added to the list, but nothing ever gets deleted."
It's not just the red tape of getting those licenses, it's also the under-the-table money that retailers typically have to pay on top of the official fees.
In Bandra, a high-end suburb of Mumbai, a state-issued trade license for a 10,000-sq ft (930 sq meter) store - very large by Indian standards - officially costs US $ 800. But there is an "additional charge" of US $20,000, according to documents obtained by Reuters from the Employee State Insurance, Provident Fund and Industrial Law Practitioners Association of India (EPILPA), which assist retailers in obtaining permits.
EPILPA said their members, who are consultants, collect the "speed money" from retailers and pass it on to the government officials. They act as middlemen who do not take a cut and hence should not be held responsible for the bribes being paid.
"In India, you don't need to ask retailers if you need to pay bribes," said Punit Agarwal, CEO of Promart, a mid-sized multi-brand clothing retailer. "It's known. Here you have a price tag for everything."
He said his company hires middlemen and pays their fees because he knows bribes have to be paid, but does not want his company to get directly involved.
SPEED MERCHANTS
Middlemen sell speed. They provide access to government officers who can sign off on permits as soon as they are paid. The middleman negotiates the bribes, thus keeping company officials from being directly involved.
Take the case of British footwear retailer Clarks. It entered India through a partnership with Future Group, which runs the country's largest listed retail entity, Future Retail. Clarks has hired consultants and, according to one of them, is negotiating with municipal officials for a 365-day license that would allow it to open three of its five stores in Mumbai every day of the year.
For each of the three stores, the company was asked to pay US $1,100 per officer for the eight officers involved in its case - a total of US $9,000 per store, said Oovesh Sarabhai, of Atlas AVA Consultants, who is working with Clarks to secure the licenses. The official fee is about US $ 110 per store, he said.
The government officials involved in issuing the license declined to comment when contacted by Reuters. Future and Clarks declined to comment.
A senior Clarks official, who declined to be identified, confirmed the company had applied for a 365-day license for the three Mumbai stores in January 2012 and received notifications from the government related to this, but has so far failed to receive the licenses. "It's stuck because of the bureaucracy," the official said.
No high-level official dealing with licenses ever accepts a bribe directly, said Raichand Jiwani, owner of Emkay Consultancy Services, who is a member of EPILPA and helps several top Indian retailers to procure licenses. Officials use subordinates to collect the money and only from trusted people. The payment is then shared by junior and senior officers and up the bureaucratic chain.
"The nexus runs far deeper than just a few corrupt officials at the local level," said Jiwani, noting that if a retailer approaches an official directly he will not be told about the bribe, but his papers will take months to be approved.
IS INDIA WORTH IT?
While India holds vast promise for retailers, with its growing spending power and rising middle class, most local supermarket chains lose money due to low prices, poor supply chains and high rents. Wal-Mart has said it aims to turn a profit in 10 years, something it hasn't managed in China after 12 years.
Tainwala thinks India offers miniscule retail returns for the massive investment of time and energy that is needed. Fast expansion requires paying speed money, he said.
Tainwala recalls he was asked to pay either a US $ 400 monthly fee to have signage outside his store in Mumbai's plush Atria mall, or a US $ 40 bribe every month to circumvent it. He said he chose to pack up rather than bribe the municipal officials needed to get his signs approved.
"My people said we have to close the stores, and we decided to do that," he said. "You get excited about the Indian middle class but then you wonder - is it really worth it?"
(Editing by Tony Munroe, Bill Tarrant and Ian Geoghegan)
http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/05/06/india-retail-idINDEE94402K20130506