The resistance of the corporate sector to reserve five per cent jobs for members of scheduled castes and tribes may sound eerily similar to the opposition put up by the Bombay Club in the early days of liberalisation.
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An indication of this was recently provided by a directive sent out asking corporate India to file quarterly reports on the number of jobs created for scheduled castes and other weaker sections to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP). Until now, this report was an annual requirement. The move has come after the three representatives of corporate India met with TKA Nair, principal secretary to the Prime Minister, on the issue. Clearly, we've not heard the PM's views on the issue, especially when politics tries to intrude into a hitherto "private" domain.
Spectrum speculation
Spectrum has been at the centre of nearly every recent controversy in the telecom sector. Recent indications are that the telecom and defence ministries are close to an agreement that may finally ease the way for the much-delayed allocation of spectrum. But at the same time, it does seem to appear that the government is going soft on security after it failed to get telecom operators to implement upgradation of their networks in order to allow security agencies to intercept emails, despite a deadline.
Many in Dilli see this is as a climbdown from the government's earlier aggressive stance when it threatened to cut off BlackBerry services in the country for not complying with its demand for access to encrypted e-mails. Is it a mere bureaucratic glitch, which prevented the telecom authorities from ensuring compliance, or is it that the security environment has "improved", which may have escaped public notice? You decide.
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