Aided school teachers: Kerala HC asks govt to provide details of steps needed for fair selection process
Justice D K Singh gave the order on a petition filed by certain higher secondary school teachers challenging the deduction of a levy towards the contributory pension under the National Pension Scheme (NPS) from their salaries.
In its interim order, the bench observed that, as of now, managers have absolute discretion to appoint any qualified individual as a teacher without following any formal selection process or advertising the posts.
The court also questioned how such appointments are being approved by the educational authorities despite the absence of a due selection procedure. Prima facie, the court noted that there appears to be a nexus between school managements and educational authorities, enabling appointments not based on merit but on considerations other than merit.
The court further directed the DGE to file an affidavit outlining steps to streamline a fair selection process for the teachers' appointment in govt-aided schools and to curb the malpractices currently prevalent in such appointments.
by Taboola
by Taboola
Sponsored Links
Sponsored Links
Promoted Links
Promoted Links
You May Like
Het meest ontspannende boerderijspel van 2025. Geen installatie
Taonga: la fattoria sull'isola
Play Now
Undo
The affidavit must also clarify the nature of the selection committee constituted, whether the manager has absolute authority to constitute it, and whether the govt has any role in the process.
If the affidavit is not filed before the next posting date of the petition, the DGE shall appear in person before court.
The bench also directed that an affidavit from the principal secretary of general education be filed on the same issues before the next posting date, and adjourned the matter to June 20.
Follow more information on
Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad here
. Get
real-time live updates
on rescue operations and check
full list of passengers onboard AI 171
.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
29 minutes ago
- Business Standard
Centre to collect signatures of MPs for motion to remove Justice Varma
He said the government is yet to decide whether the motion would be brought in the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha Press Trust of India New Delhi Prominent opposition parties have given their in-principle approval to support the motion to remove Allahabad High Court judge Yashwant Varma and the process of collecting signatures could begin soon, Union minister Kiren Rijiju said on Thursday. He said the government is yet to decide whether the motion would be brought in the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha. For Lok Sabha, signatures of a minimum 100 MPs is required. For the Rajya Sabha, the requirement is the support of at least 50 MPs. He said the signatures will be collected after the government decides on the House where the motion will be brought. The Monsoon session will commence from July 21 and end on August 21. According to the Judges (Inquiry) Act of 1968, once a motion to remove a judge is admitted in any of the houses, the speaker or the chairman, as the case may be, will constitute a three-member committee to investigate the grounds on which the removal (or, in popular term, impeachment) has been sought. The committee consists of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) or a Supreme Court judge, the chief justice of one of the 25 high courts and a "distinguished jurist." Rijiju said since the matter involves corruption in the judiciary, the government wants all political parties to be on board. On being asked about the report of the in-committee which proved the cash discovery incident at Justice Varma's official residence here, he said the report of the three-judge panel had not indicted Justice Varma and was meant to recommend future course of action as Parliament can only remove a judge A fire incident at Justice Varma's residence in the national capital in March, when he was a judge at the Delhi High Court, had led to the discovery of several burnt sacks of banknotes in the outhouse. Though the judge claimed ignorance about the cash, the Supreme Court-appointed committee indicted him after speaking to a number of witnesses and recording his statement. Then-CJI Sanjiv Khanna is believed to have prodded him to resign but Justice Varma dug in his heels. The apex court has since repatriated him to his parent court, the Allahabad High Court, where he has not been assigned any judicial work. Justice Khanna had written to the president and the prime minister, recommending the removal, which is the procedure for axing members of the higher judiciary from service.
Time of India
35 minutes ago
- Time of India
Trump aims to shut trade loopholes China uses to evade tariffs
US President Donald Trump's two-tiered trade deal with Vietnam aims squarely at practices China has long used to skirt US tariffs: The widespread legal shifting of production to Southeast Asian factories and the murkier and illegal 'origin washing' of exports through their ports. The agreement slaps a 20% tariff on Vietnamese exports to the US and a 40% levy on goods deemed to be transshipped through the country. With details still scarce, economists said much will hinge on the framework Washington establishes to determine what it sees as 'Made in Vietnam' and what it sees as transshipments. Complicating matters is the fact that Chinese businesses have rushed to set up shop across Southeast Asia since Trump launched his first trade war back in 2018. The lion's share of Vietnam's exports to the US are goods like Airpods, phones or other products assembled with Chinese components in a factory in Vietnam and then shipped to America. That's not illegal. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 2025 Top Trending local enterprise accounting software [Click Here] Esseps Learn More Undo Also Read: Beijing wary as US plots quiet trade war to isolate China; India in negotiation room 'A lot will depend on how the 40% tariffs are applied. If the Trump administration keeps it targeted, it should be manageable,' said Roland Rajah, lead economist at the Lowy Institute in Sydney. 'If the approach is too broad and blunt, then it could be quite damaging' for China, Vietnam and for the US, which will have to pay higher import prices, he said. Live Events The think tank estimates that 28% of Vietnamese exports to the US were made up of Chinese content in 2022, up from 9% in 2018. Pham Luu Hung, chief economist at SSI Securities Corp. in Hanoi, said a 40% levy on transshipped goods would have limited impact on Vietnam's economy because they aren't of Vietnamese origin in the first place. Re-routed exports accounted for just 16.5% of Vietnam's shipments to the US in 2021, a share that's likely declined over the past couple of years amid stronger enforcement actions by both governments, Hung said. 'An important caveat is that the rules of origin remain under negotiation,' Hung said. 'In practice, these rules may have a greater impact than the tariff rates themselves.' Devil in Details Duncan Wrigley, chief China economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said he's skeptical the latest deal will be effective in stamping out Chinese exports via Vietnam to the US. 'The devil is in the details, but I think China's exports will either go via other markets to the US, or some value-added will be done in Vietnam so the product counts as made in Vietnam, rather than a transshipment,' he said. As officials across Asia rushed to negotiate lower US tariff levels with their US counterparts this year, Chinese businesses have been just as quick to ramp up their exports through alternative channels in order to skirt punitive US levies. Shipments from China to Southeast Asia have reached record highs in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam this year. And there's been a 'significant increase in correlation' to the region's increase in exports to the US during the same period, Citigroup Inc. economists said in a recent report. Bloomberg Much of that is likely due to the shifting of legitimate production across the region. Goods destined for the US market may be sent from their factories in Southeast Asia, and what they make in their factories in China will be sent to the rest of the world, said Derrick Kam, Asia economist at Morgan Stanley. 'If you try to represent that in the trade data, it will look exactly like rerouting, but it's not,' Kam said. 'It's essentially the supply chain working itself out.' But it's transshipment that's been a major concern for Trump's top trade advisers including Peter Navarro, who described Vietnam as 'essentially a colony of communist China' during an April interview with Fox News. And it's not just been happening in Vietnam. Not long after Trump unveiled his 'Liberation Day' tariffs on April 2, garment makers in Indonesia started receiving offers from Chinese companies to be 'partners in transshipment,' said Redma Gita Wirawasta, chairman of the Indonesian Filament Yarn and Fiber Producers Association. Chinese products would be rerouted to Indonesia, undergo minimal processing like repacking or relabeling, then secure a certification that they were made in the Southeast Asian country, Wirawasta said. Bloomberg When the goods are then exported to the US, they'd be subject to the 10% universal levy that Trump has imposed on nearly all countries, instead of the tariff for China that still equates to an effective level of over 50%, even after a recent 'deal' that lowered levies from a peak of 145%. With the huge scope for arbitrage, coupled with little policing, that process will prove tough to stamp out. 'Chinese exporters and their affiliates and partners in Southeast Asia are highly skilled at adapting to changing rules, identifying loopholes, and sometimes overstating the extent of value-add by non-China countries,' said Gabriel Wildau, managing director at advisory firm Teneo Holdings LLC in New York. Some final assembly or transshipment may shift to rival Southeast Asian transshipment hubs like Cambodia, Thailand and Singapore, or farther afield to Turkey, Hungary or Poland, Wildau said. 'Another possibility is that the definitions and enforcement mechanisms are fuzzy, rendering the latest deal cosmetic and toothless,' he said. 'Rigorous enforcement would also require a significant boost of resources to enable US customs to verify compliance with the tougher rules of origin.' There have been efforts across the region to at least be seen to be making an effort to curb the practice. Indeed, Vietnam has made a big deal about cracking down on trade fraud and illegal activity in recent months. In April, South Korea said it seized more than $20 million worth of goods with falsified origin labels — the majority of which were destined for the US. The Airfreight Forwarders Association of Malaysia issued a warning in May as Chinese brokers promoted illegal rerouting services on social media. Malaysia has centralized the issuance of certificates of origin with its Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry, while tapping its customs agency to help curb transshipment. Thailand has expanded its watch list for high-risk products, including solar panels, cars and parts, and is mulling stricter penalties for violators. Red Tape Casey Barnett, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Cambodia, is already seeing the changes in action. One factory that exports to major US retailers, including Walmart, Home Depot and Lowe's, said that customs officials were very carefully reviewing their products before being sent to the US, he said. 'It's creating some additional paperwork and a little bit of red tape here,' Barnett said. A senior manager at a logistics company in Cambodia, who asked not to be identified because the matter is sensitive, said export processing time has now stretched to as much as 14 working days — double what it was before. But in Indonesia, getting a certificate of origin is fairly quick and painless when goods are marked for export, often just requiring a product list and a letter to the provincial trade office, according to Wirawasta. Authorities prioritize checking products that enter the country to ensure they pay the right duties and comply with regulations, he explained. It's rare for them to inspect factories where an export good was supposedly made. So much so that sometimes, Chinese companies don't even need to muster up some local processing. 'The T-shirt could be finished in China, with a 'Made in Indonesia' label already sewn on,' Wirawasta said. 'Some traders won't even bother to unload the goods from the shipping container,' he added. 'Unloading costs money.'
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Debate over renaming Dakshina Kannada district resurfaces
- MANGALURU: The Karnataka Cabinet renamed Bengaluru Rural to Bengaluru North, sparking renewed debate over the nomenclature of Dakshina Kannada district. People's representatives, political party leaders, and various organisations are advocating for the coastal district to be renamed 'Mangaluru'. While the demand for a change of the district's name is widely discussed on social media, an online meeting was also held recently involving leaders from political, religious, and social organisations. Dakshina Kannada MP Capt Brijesh Chowta told TOI that normally all districts are named after the name of their district headquarters. 'Mangaluru has its own significance when it comes to its historical background. The city is known as Mangaluru because of Goddess Mangalambike. People across the world identify residents of the coastal district as Mangalureans. Hence, calling our district 'Mangaluru' is better,' the MP said. KPCC General Secretary Padmaraj R Poojary said that the coastal city has several names, including Kudla, Kodiala, Maikala, Mangalapuram, and Mangalore. 'Naming Dakshina Kannada as 'Mangaluru' is an ideal suggestion. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Pensia Pilon 3 NN Pensia Facultativă NN Vezi oferta Undo Since Tulu is widely spoken in the district and the coastal city is also known as Kudla, the district headquarters may be called 'Kudla'. Many who participated in the Google Meet also expressed similar views, and according to me, 'Mangaluru' is an ideal name for the district as globally we are identified as 'Mangalureans',' he said. The seer of Gurupura Vajradehi Mutt, Sri Rajashekarananda Swamiji, said a new name for Dakshina Kannada should reflect the identity of the region since the district has its own cultural history. Mangaluru City South MLA D Vedavyas Kamath said that renaming Dakshina Kannada as 'Mangaluru' is a necessity. Extending his support to the demand, he also mooted the idea of the region being known as 'Tulunadu' instead of 'Karavali'. Mangaluru City North MLA Dr Y Bharath Shetty, former Chairman of the Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy Dayanand Kattalsar, Tulunada Rakshana Vedike founder President Yogish Shetty Jeppu, and others also support the demand for a change in the name of the coastal district.
