press trust of india
New Delhi, July 19: The government Wednesday said it is “pro-actively” considering the matter of having two separate time zones in the country.
The issue was raised in the Lok Sabha by BJD member B Mahtab who highlighted that there was a gap of nearly two hours in sunrise timings between the eastern and the western parts of the country. “Sun rises at 4 am in Arunachal Pradesh while offices open at 10 AM. The Ministry of Science and Technology has also done a study on this in the past,” Mahtab said. He said some 2.7 billion units of electricity could be saved if there are two separate time zones and added that only the Centre can take a call on office timings.
Not imposing any language
The government Wednesday assured Parliament that it was not trying impose any language “on anybody” in the country as it respected all Indian languagues. Responding to the issue raised by CPI member D Raja in the Rajya Sabha during Zero Hour, HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said the government’s policy is to promote all Indian languages.
“We respect all Indian languages and our effort will be to further the cause of all Indian languages. And we are not going to impose any language on anybody,” he said. He was responding to Raja who had said there were reports regarding transfer of the functions of Central Institute for Classical Tamil, Chennai to Thiruvarur Central University.
No information about turf war
The government has no information to suggest that terror groups al-Qaeda and Daesh (ISIS) are engaged in a turf war in India, the Rajya Sabha was informed Wednesday. “There are no inputs available to suggest a turf war between al-Qaeda and Daesh (ISIS) in India,” Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir said in reply to a written question.
However, the minister said, in order to counter terror activities, there exists close and effective coordination between intelligence and security agencies at the Centre and the states. “The cyber space is being closely monitored to keep a close watch on the activities of terrorist groups. The central intelligence and security agencies are regularly alerting the state police for taking precautionary and proactive measures to counter any terrorist act,” he said.
No proposal to cut maternity benefits
There is no proposal by the government to cut down maternity benefits in the draft on Labour Code on Social Security, Parliament was informed today. The labour ministry has prepared a draft on ‘Labour Code on Social Security and Welfare, 2017′ and placed it on ministry’s website in March this year, inviting comments from public and stakeholders. “However, there is no such proposal in the draft code…for cutting down maternity benefits,” Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya said in a written reply in Rajya Sabha. Therefore, trade unions’ concern on this does not arise, he added.
20% positions vacant in CBI
The CBI has about 20 per cent positions vacant and the vacancies have not affected the performance of the agency adversely, Lok Sabha was informed today. In a written response, Minister of state for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh presented data which showed that as against 7,273 sanctioned strength there are 5,868 officers in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which comes to a vacancy of about 20 per cent.
“With effective use and optimal deployment of existing personnel, the vacancies have not affected the performance of the CBI adversely,” he said. The data shows that there is about 18 per cent shortage in executive ranks, about 27 per cent shortage of law officers, about 56 per cent shortage of technical officers, about 18 per cent in ministerial staff and 44 per cent shortage in canteen posts.
No plans to terminate AIR’s subscriptions
The government said today that it has no plans to terminate All India Radio’s longstanding subscriptions of PTI and UNI news services. Replying to a written question in Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore said the services of the two news agencies are used to supplement the news requirement of AIR.
“No, madam,” Rathore said in a written reply to a question by Chintaman Navasha Wanaga of BJP. His question was whether the government had any plan to stop the Press Trust of India (PTI) and United News of India (UNI) news services in AIR, and obtain news from Hindustan Samachar in Indian languages as well as English and Hindi in one or two months.