bills

Rajya Sabha Select Committee suggests changes to Lokpal bill
• The Rajya Sabha Select Committee, looking at the Lokayukta and Lokpal Bill, 2011, has given following
suggestions:
- It shall be made mandatory for states to constitute Lokayuktas through enactment of law within one
year of the notification of the Lokpal Act. But the States are enabled to exercise the option of not
including Chief Ministers or legislators within the ambit of the Lokayuktas.
- The CBI Director should be appointed for a fixed tenure by a collegium comprising the Prime Minister,
Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice. (Do you know how CBI director is appointed now?)
- The CBI should have a separate Directorate of Prosecution whose chief is to be appointed by the Chief
Vigilance Commission, also for a fixed period.
- Lokpal to have the power of superintendence and transfer of officers on cases referred by it to CBI.
- For Lokpal referred cases the CBI may appoint a panel of advocates independent of the government
with the consent of the Lokpal.
- Deletion of the clause that allows a public servant an opportunity of being heard during the inquiry
stage.
• The report will be tabled in Parliament and will thereafter be placed in the Union cabinet for approval

Wakf Board Amendment Bill to be taken up in Winter Session

• The Wakf Board Amendment Bill proposes to give directive powers to Central Wakf Council and
prescribes penal provisions against encroachment on Wakf land.
• It also proposes setting up a tribunal to solve issues between Centre and states over disputes on Wakf
properties and their management.

LS passes Unlawful Activities Amendment Bill 2011

• The Lok Sabha has passed the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2011.

• The Bill will be a step towards fulfilling commitments made at the Financial Action Task Force, which is

an international organization to combat money laundering and financing of terrorism.

• The Bill enhances the period for which a group can be declared as unlawful from two to five years.

• More criminal activities including threat to the economic security of the country and peddling high

security counterfeit currency will come under its purview.

Corporate firms to spend 2 percent of their net profit on CSR
• The Centre has made it mandatory for corporate firms to spend two per cent of their net profit on Corporate
Social Responsibility, CSR.
• The Companies Bill 2011 in the present form specifies that companies make every endeavour to ensure
that the stipulated percentage of sum is spent on services, like sanitation and building toilets in schools.







protection of women against sexual harassment at work bill--2010

Land Acquisition Bill finalized by Ministry of Rural Development

November 27th, 2012

The Ministry of Rural Development finalized the draft of Land Acquisition bill. As per the draft bill the government will require consent from 80% of the land owners for acquiring land for any project, be it owned by state or the private industry or under a PPP.

The bill is expected to be tabled in the running winter session.

“Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill”: To regulate infertility clinics

November 4th, 2012

Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill which is aimed at regulating the functioning infertility clinics in the country is awaiting approval of the Union Cabinet and Parliament.

The Bill seeks to allow surrogate parenthood, which was not yet permitted in many Western countries. Around 15 % of the couples in the world were childless and the problem was similar in the country but underestimated.

What is Surrogate Parenthood?

Some terms related to Surrogate Parenthood:

Surrogacy: An arrangement in which a woman carries and delivers a child for another couple or person. Thus, Surrogate parenting is an arrangement in which one or more persons, typically a married infertile couple (the intended rearing parents), contract with a woman to gestate a child for them and then to relinquish it to them after birth. Surrogate parenting is also sometimes referred to as “Contract Pregnancy”.

Surrogate Mother: The woman who carries and delivers a child for another couple or person.

Traditional Surrogacy: If the surrogate mother is the child’s genetic mother then it is called traditional surrogacy. In a traditional surrogacy, the child may be conceived via home artificial insemination using fresh or frozen sperm or impregnated via IUI (intrauterine insemination), or ICI (intracervical insemination) performed at a health clinic.

Gestational Surrogacy: If the surrogate mother is genetically unrelated to the child then this is called gestational surrogacy. A gestational surrogacy requires the transfer of a previously created embryo, and for this reason the process always takes place in a clinical setting.

Commercial Surrogacy: If the surrogate receives compensation beyond the reimbursement of medical and other reasonable expenses, the arrangement is called commercial surrogacy. Commercial surrogate parenting arrangements involve monetary payments both to the surrogate and to other third parties.

Noncommercial or Altruistic Surrogacy: Non-commercial surrogacy involves an arrangement where the intended rearing parents use the services of a family member or a friend. The surrogate’s compensation supposedly consists in the satisfaction she derives from giving the gift of a new human life to people for whom she personally cares.

Who is the real mother of the child?

The surrogate parent is not considered to be the child’s mother.  Rather, the other person or couple is intended to be the legal parents of the child born to the surrogate parent.

What is the difference between Surrogate Parenting and Adoption?

• In a domestic adoption, the birth mother usually has an unexpected pregnancy and thus usually selects an unrelated family to adopt her child. 
• In a surrogacy, however all things are planned in advance of the pregnancy, and the child usually has a biological relationship to the intended family.  Also, the financial and legal issues are also very different in surrogate parenthood.

Land Acquisition Bill

November 1st, 2012

New modifications in Land Acquisition Bill draft

The government has brought some fresh changes in the draft Land Acquisition Bill . As per new changes, the level of consent of landowners for acquiring land for private purpose has been made stiffer.
Following these changes, the percentage of land owners, whose consent is a must for acquiring land for private purpose will be 80 % instead of earlier approved 67 %. Consent of land owners was not required for acquiring land for public purpose

DRAFT ELECTRICITY BILL 2001 SEEKS TO REPLACE INDIAN ELECTRICITY ACT,1910
ELECTRICITY SUPPLY ACT 1948
ELECTRICITY REGULATORY COMMISION ACT 1998
IT DOESNT REPLACE STATE ELECTRICITY BOARD




Indian Forest Amendment Bill, 2012 introduced in RS
Indian Forest Amendment Bill, 2012 introduced in the Rajya Sabha by the Forest and Environment
Minister Jayanti Natrajan.
The Bill intends to insert a fresh sub-section in section 68 of the Indian Forest Act, 1927 to make it
compulsory for the Forest officer to obtain and record the news of Gram Sabha before
compounding the offence. The objective is to ascertain the transparency in compounding of the
offences and participation of the people at Gram Sabha level.
Section 68 of the Indian Forest Act, 1927 has provisions for compounding of offences. It bestows the power upon a
Forest officer appointed by the State Government, to accept from any person against whom a fair suspicion exists that
he has committed any forest-offence, a sum of money by way of compensation for the offence which such person is
alleged to have committed.









Sexual Offences against Children Bill approved with stringent
punishment for crime
The Union Cabinet sanctioned a bill dealing entirely with sexual offences against children. The ‘Sexual Offences
Against Children Bill’ aims rigorous punishment for sexual intercourse or contact with sexual intent with a child below
18 years.
Current Affairs Published on www.gktoday.in from January 1, 2012 to
September 10, 2012
 The punishment ranges from 3 years’ imprisonment to life term for a person who commits sexual harassment,
sexual assault, penetrative sexual assault or aggravated penetrative sexual assault.
 The Bill recommends 10 years of imprisonment extendable to life imprisonment and fine for aggravated sexual
assault.
 It will be treated as an aggravated offence where the child victim is below 12 years or has mental or physical
disability or the sexual offence causes grievous hurt or injury to the child with long term adverse effect on the
child’s mind and body.

GTA Bill: President gives her assent

The President Ms Pratibha Devisingh Patil gave her assent to the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) Bill.

The Bill permits for setting up a new hill council in Darjeeling

hills of West Bengal.

The process of the formation of the GTA will commence after

issuance of Gazette notification from Raj Bhavan.

Whatever was in the agreement of the GTA has finally been

retained in the bill. The election to the GTA will be completed

within 3 months from the date of publication of Gazette

notification.

Current Affairs Published on www.gktoday.in from January 1, 2012 to

September 10, 2012

The GTA Bill was passed in the West Bengal assembly in September 2011. In July 2011 in the presence of HOme

Minister P. Chidambaram, State Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Gorkha Jana Mukhti Morcha Chief Mr. Bimal

Gurung, the tripartite agreement on GTA was inked.

Government wants to plug leakages in PDS

 The government aims to plug loopholes in the Public Distribution System (PDS) before it implements the

ambitious National Food Security Bill and has asked states to complete the process of computerization of data of

beneficiaries by October 2012

 The proposed bill aims to provide legal right to low-priced food grain to 63.5 % of the population.

 States are advised to complete digitization of the Supply Management System by 2013 and connect all the Fair

Price Shops (FPS) online by 2014

 Around 180 million households – 65 million BPL and 115 million APL households – avail subsidized rations under

the PDS through the FPS

 Planning Commission study showed that in 2005 about 58 % of the subsidized food grains released from the

central stock did not reach the BPL families because of identification errors, non-transparent operation and

unethical practices in the implementation of the PDS.

 Computerization of the PDS will be done on a cost-sharing basis in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17)

 Digitization of PDS beneficiary database has been completed in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Delhi, Kerala,

Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and Chandigarh

 To utilize the experience of the United Nations World Food Programme(UNWFP), the food ministry has signed an

MoU with the UNWFP for development and implementation of additional PDS pilot projects in Rayagada district

of Odisha

 A team, formed by Food Ministry, is supervising implementation of the information technology infrastructure for

digitization of the PDS network

Rights To Disabled: Final draft submitted to the Central Government

Final draft of "The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2011" to Union Minister for Social

Justice and Empowerment by a Committee appointed by the Ministry

Expert Committee's Chairperson: of Dr (Mrs) Sudha Kaul, Vice Chairperson, Indian Institute for

Cerebral Palsy, Kolkata

Objective:

1. Proposed new legislation ensures wide-ranging rights to disabled persons as per International

Standards

2. The new legislation to replace the existing: 'Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities,

Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act,1995'

3. The suggested Law attempts to revoke the 1995 Act to substitute it with a comprehensive rights

based law as per the provisions of the UNCRPD (United Nations Convention on the Rights of

Persons with Disabilities)

Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment: Mukul Wasnik

Report on Bill to Amend Forward Contracts Regulation Act 1952 submitted to the Parliament

The Parliamentary Standing Committee submitted its report on a bill to amend the Forward Contracts Regulation Act 1952. Parliamentary Standing Committee on consumer affairs, food and public distribution, chaired by Congress MP Vilas Baburao Muttemwar, submitted its report on the FCRA (Amendment) Bill 2010 to Parliament on 22 December 2011.

The current department-related standing committee (DRSC), set up in 2009, was asked by the Lok Sabha speaker in December 2010 to prepare a report on the bill and submit it to the Lok Sabha Secretariat.

The committee in its report recommended a doubling of the maximum penalty for trading rule violations to Rs 50 lakh. 
The standing committee report suggested raising the upper limit on penalties for offences like insider trading to Rs 50 lakh from Rs 25 lakh stipulated in the Forward Contracts Regulation Act (FCRA) Amendment Bill 2010. Insider trading involves using unpublished price sensitive information for personal gain.

The bill seeks to empower commodity futures market regulator Forward Markets Commission on par with its securities markets counterpart. It is seen as the single-most important reform in the eight-year-old commodity exchange market.

The Report

The report recommended that options be introduced for the benefit of stakeholders. The inclusion of the clause was one of the reasons why the bill in its earlier avatar during the UPA I regime faced resistance. Those who had opposed the bill then especially the Left parties argued that options would increase speculation in commodities.

The report suggested that options will actually make it easier for farmers and smaller users to participate in the derivatives market as trading lot sizes will be lower than in futures contracts, where the minimum traded quantity for most farm products is 10 tonne. 
investing in an option also tends to minimise losses as only the premium to buy (call option) or sell (put option) is forgone in the event of prices moving adversely. a futures position taken by a trader is on the other hand marked to market daily. Marking to market involves daily settlement of the difference between the prior agreed price and the daily futures price. It can thus lead to huge losses alongside supernormal profits.

All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (Amendment) Bill, 2012
An ordinance was promulgated by the President of India using the power of Ordinances via article 123 of the
Constitution.
The ordinance allowed the six AIIMS—like institutes to become
operational from September 2012. Accordingly, the All-India
Institute of Medical Sciences (Amendment) Bill, 2012,was
introduced in the Lok Sabha on August 27,2012. Lok Sabha has
passed the AIIMS (Amendment) Bill, 2012 on August 30, 2012.
The proposed measure will help the Centre change the status of the six new AIIMS registered under the Indian Societies
Registration Act to be autonomous body corporate on the lines of the existing AIIMS in Delhi. AIIMS(Amendment)
Bill,2012 was introduced in Rajya Sabha on September 3,2012.
Rajya Sabha has also passed the AIIMS (Amendment) Bill, 2012 on September 4, 2012. The Bill will confer powers upon
the Centre to establish AIIMS-like institutions by notification in the official gazette.With this enactment, 6 new AIIMS like institutes will start under the Pradhan Mantri Swastha Suraksha Yojana at Bhopal,
Bhubaneshwar, Jodhpur, Patna, Raipur and Rishikesh.

Ordinance Making Power of President
Article 123 mentions that when both Houses of Parliament
are NOT in session, and the President is satisfied that -
circumstances exist which render it necessary for him to
take immediate action; he may promulgate such
Ordinances as the circumstances appear to him to require.
Such ordinance should be laid before both Houses of
Parliament and shall cease to operate at the expiration of
six weeks from the reassembly of Parliament.



Karnataka Land Revenue (Amendment) Bill-2012
Karnataka Land Revenue (Amendment) Bill-2012 seeks to regularise unauthorised construction of houses on
government lands in rural areas.
• The bill was passed in August 2012 by the state assembly.
• As per the bill, all dwelling units unauthorised built on government land prior to January 1, 2012 would be
covered under the law for regularisation.
• However, houses built unauthorisedly on government land coming under Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike
(city corporation), city municipal corporations and town municipal corporations would not be regularised.
However, in the last week, the Governor H.R. Bhardwaj returned the bill on the grounds that the “policy of
regularisation of encroachment of government land directly encouraged illegal occupation of government land. The
communique from the Rajbhavan said that the Amendment Bill does not specifically prohibit grant or regularisation of
common land. This amendment does not serve any public good or social cause. On the other hand, it may lead to illegal
grabbing of government land and may cause inroads into Rule of Law".
Governor has returned the Bill as per Article 200 of the Constitution for reconsideration of the Legislative Assembly
and the Legislative Council.


National Vocational Education Qualification Framework (NVEQF)
Introduction
India is a nation of young people - out of a population of above 1.1 billion, 672 million people are in the age-group 15
to 59 years, - which is usually treated as the “working age population”. Over the next 30 years, it has been predicted that
India will see a sharp decline in the dependency ratio over, which will constitute a major ‘demographic dividend’ for
India. In 2001, 11% of population of the country was in age group of 18-24 years which is expected to rise to 12% by
the end of XI Five Year Plan. To reap the demographic dividend, the young population should be considered as an
invaluable asset which if equipped with knowledge and skills, can contribute effectively to the development of the
country's economy.
Background : Vocational Education in India
• The Report of the Kothari Commission of Education (1966), which was titled ‘Education and National
Development’ had set a number of goals to be pursued. One of them was “to vocationalise secondary
education.” This led to establishment of the ITIs in India.
• In 2007 it was announced by PM that Hon’ble Prime Minister of India addressing the nation on Independence
Day (2006), spoke of the need for a Vocational Education Mission and in 1600 new industrial training institutes
(ITIs) and polytechnics, 10,000 new vocational schools and 50,000 new Skill Development Centres would be
opened to ensure that annually, over 100 lakh students get vocational training, which would be a four-fold
increase.
• In India, the technical education revolves around the technical and vocational education and training system
(TVET). TVET develops human resource through a three-tier system:
1. Graduate and post-graduate level through IIT, NIT and Engineering Colleges
2. Diploma-level graduates through Polytechnics as technicians and supervisors.
3. Certificate-level for higher secondary students in the vocational stream and craft people trained in
ITIs as well as through formal apprenticeships.
• However, it is a fact that Indian workforce is largely in informal employment in unorganized sector - with low
levels of literacy and numeracy- no mechanism available for them to enter formal education system. There was
a long standing desire to focus on the educational component to build a sound TVET system and build a
general education element into VE, and vice versa, to ensure a holistic approach to human resource
development.
NVEQF
The National Vocational Education Qualification Framework (NVEQF), which has been recently launched by AICTE and
Ministry of HRD mainly focuses on general education element into VE, and vice versa. It bring the vocational education
program in schools that will offer new career choices to students and make them better prepared for the world of work.
The Scheme envisages Seven certificate levels with each certificate level with approximately 1000 hours each
certificate, with each 1000 hours being made of certain number of hours for vocational competency based skill modules
and the rest for general learning simultaneously integrated and providing a Diploma for vocational education after the
certificate level five or leading to a Degree for vocational education after level seven in the university system, subject to
their statutory approval, is highlight of the scheme.
The framework will be implemented in polytechnics, Engineering Colleges and other colleges in the University systems
from 2012-13. The programmes are sector specific and the sectors like IT, Media, Entertainment, Telecommunications,
Mobile Communications, Automobile, Construction, Retail, Food Processing, Tourism, Hotels, Jewellery Design and
Fashion Design and many other have been identified for implementation.
How it will benefit?
• A student can choose to avail of competency based skill learning along with general education in this scheme
without losing the possibility of changing course and moving at any certificate level into a formal system of

education and vice versa. This would ultimately provide a full multi-entry exist system between vocational
education, general education and the job market.
• AICTE would seek to provide the requisite statutory approvals to any institutions wishing to conduct these
programmes from the Academic Year 2012 throughout the country. The institutions can choose a maximum of
500 students per institute in any five sectors, 100 students per sector.
• This is expected to cater to at least 5 million students for vocational degree and diploma every year, which can
provide self-employment or being meaningfully employed if even 1/3 of the institutions are approved to
conduct these programmes.
• NVEQF is a great initiative by MHRD that needs to be propagated and followed throughout the country that has
a potential to increase the GER from 15 to double this value by the end of 2020, simultaneously providing
meaningful employment.