Morning Brief: New Parliament Calendar; Yogi Dutt’s Bronze To Turn Silver; Tata, Nilekani Start MFI

New Parliament Calender

The Union government is planning to move to a new Parliamentary calendar. It will soon propose to advance the winter and budget sessions by a few weeks.

Currently, as the annual budget exercise extends beyond the start of the new fiscal year, i.e. 1 April, the Parliament is not able to vote on it. This means that the government has to obtain the Vote of Parliament for a sum sufficient to incur expenditure for a couple of months every year. If the budget session is advanced by a few weeks, this process can be done away with.

Also, the government wants to roll out the GST from 1 April 2017. So, advancing the budget session will give both the centre and the states more time to make preparations.

Midday Meal Tragedy

Gandaman primary school principal Mina Devi was sentenced to 10 and 7 years imprisonment by a Chhapra court yesterday in connection with the 2013 midday meal tragedy, in which 23 children had died.

Devi was found negligent of storing mustard oil in a container having insecticide which led to the deaths.

The effective jail term for the convicted principal is 17 years as the court has decided to run the punishment consecutively, not concurrently. A total fine of Rs 3.75 lakh has also been slapped on the convict.

New Venture

Ratan Tata, Vijay Kelkar and Nandan Nilekani are coming together to start a microfinance institution (MFI), named Avanti Finance. This company’s aim will be to deliver affordable and timely credit to under-served and un-served segments in India. It is expected to get off the ground by the end of this financial year.

According to a statement released by Tata trusts, Tata and Nilekani are investing in setting up this microfinancier from their respective philanthropic capital and any gains will be reinvested in philanthropic causes.

Bronze To Silver

London Olympics bronze medalist, Wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt’s medal is now set to be upgraded to Silver. This has been triggered by a positive dope test of the silver winner in the 60 Kg freestyle event in London, Russia’s Besik Kudukhov.

Though Kudukhov died in a car accident in 2013, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) re-tested his sample ahead of the Rio games. The sample was collected during the last games. The samples are stored for up to 10 years to allow the use of advanced testing methods to weed out dope cheats.

India-Myanmar

President Htin Kyaw of Myanmar is on a state visit to Delhi. Both countries signed two pacts yesterday to expedite the construction of the trilateral highway, which aims to connect India with Thailand via Myanmar. This is expected to be completed by 2020.

Myanmar President’s visit to India comes within a week of foreign minister Sushma Swaraj’s visit to Naypyidaw for talks with Suu Kyi, who is a state councillor and foreign minister in Htin Kyaw’s government.

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