American Presidential Contender : Donald Trump

QUICK FACTS

NAME

Donald Trump

OCCUPATION

Business Leader, Reality Television Star

BIRTH DATE

June 14, 1946 (age 69)

EDUCATION

New York Military Academy, Wharton School of Finance, Fordham University

PLACE OF BIRTH

Queens, New York

FULL NAME

Donald John Trump

ZODIAC SIGN

Gemini

Republican presidential nominee hopeful Donald Trump is a billionaire real estate mogul and television personality.

Real estate developer Donald John Trump was born June 14, 1946, in Queens, New York. In 1971 he became involved in large, profitable building projects in Manhattan. In 1980, he opened the Grand Hyatt, which made him the city's best known and most controversial developer. In 2004 Trump began starring in the hit NBC reality series The Apprentice, which also became an offshoot for The Celebrity Apprentice. In 2015 Trump announced his candidacy for president of the United States and shortly after the first Republican debate became the party's front-runner.

Early Life and Education

Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946, in Queens, New York, the fourth of five children of Frederick C. and Mary MacLeod Trump. Frederick Trump was a builder and real estate developer who came to specialize in constructing and operating middle-income apartments in Queens, Staten Island and Brooklyn. Donald was an energetic, assertive child, and his parents sent him to the New York Military Academy at age 13, hoping the discipline of the school would channel his energy in a positive manner.

Trump did well at the academy, both socially and academically, rising to become a star athlete and student leader by the time he graduated in 1964. He then entered Fordham University and two years later transferred to the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in 1968 with a degree in economics.

New York Real Estate Developer

Trump seems to have been strongly influenced by his father in his decision to make a career in real estate development, but the younger man's personal goals were much grander than those of his senior. As a student, Trump worked with his father during the summer and then joined his father's company, Elizabeth Trump & Son, after graduation from college. He was able to finance an expansion of the company's holdings by convincing his father to be more liberal in the use of loans based on the equity in the Trump apartment complexes. However, business was very competitive and profit margins were narrow.

In 1971 Donald Trump was given control of the company, which he later renamed the Trump Organization. He also moved his residence to Manhattan, where he began to make important connections with influential people. Convinced of the city's economic opportunity, Trump soon became involved in large building projects in Manhattan that would offer opportunities for earning high profits, using attractive architectural design and winning public recognition.

When the Pennsylvania Central Railroad entered bankruptcy, Trump was able to obtain an option on the railroad's yards on the West Side of Manhattan. When initial plans for apartments proved unfeasible because of the poor economic climate, Trump promoted the property as the location of a city convention center, and the city government selected it over two other sites in 1978. Trump's offer to forego a fee if the center were named after his family, however, was turned down, along with his bid to build the complex, which was ultimately named for Senator Jacob Javits.

In 1974 Trump obtained an option on one of Penn Central's hotels, the Commodore, which was unprofitable but in an excellent location adjacent to Grand Central Station. The next year he signed a partnership agreement with the Hyatt Hotel Corporation, which did not have a large downtown hotel. Trump then worked out a complex deal with the city to win a 40-year tax abatement, arranged financing and then completely renovated the building, constructing a striking new facade of reflective glass designed by architect Der Scutt. When the hotel, renamed the Grand Hyatt, opened in 1980, it was instantly popular and proved an economic success, making Donald Trump the city's best known and most controversial developer in the process.

Expanding His Empire

In 1977, Trump married Ivana Zelnickova Winklmayr, a New York fashion model who had been an alternate on the 1972 Czech Olympic Ski Team. After the 1978 birth of the couple's first of three children, Donald John Trump Jr., Ivana Trump was named vice president in charge of design in the Trump Organization and played a major role in supervising the renovation of the Commodore.

In 1979 Trump leased a site on Fifth Avenue adjacent to the famous Tiffany & Company as the location for a monumental $200-million apartment-retail complex designed by Der Scutt. Opened in 1982, it was dubbed Trump Tower. The 58-story building featured a six-story atrium lined with pink marble and included an 80-foot waterfall. The luxurious building attracted well-known retail stores and celebrity renters and brought Trump national attention.

Meanwhile Trump was investigating the profitable casino gambling business, which was approved in New Jersey in 1977, and in 1980 he was able to acquire a piece of property in Atlantic City. Trump brought in his younger brother Robert to head up the complex project of acquiring the land, winning a gambling license and obtaining permits and financing. Holiday Inn Corporation, the parent company of Harrah's casino hotels, offered a partnership, and the $250 million complex opened in 1984 as Harrah's at Trump Plaza. Trump bought out Holiday Inn soon thereafter and renamed the facility Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino. Trump also purchased a Hilton Hotels casino-hotel in Atlantic City when the corporation failed to obtain a gambling license and renamed the $320 million complex Trump's Castle. Later, while it was under construction, he was able to acquire the largest hotel-casino in the world, the Taj Mahal at Atlantic City, which opened in 1990.

Back in New York City, Donald Trump had purchased an apartment building and the adjacent Barbizon-Plaza Hotel in New York City, which faced Central Park, with plans to build a large condominium tower on the site. The tenants of the apartment building, however, who were protected by the city's rent-control and rent-stabilization programs, fought Trump's plans and won. Trump then renovated the Barbizon, renaming it Trump Parc. In 1985 Trump purchased 76 acres on the West Side of Manhattan for $88 million to build a complex to be called Television City, which was to consist of a dozen skyscrapers, a mall and a riverfront park. The huge development was to stress television production and feature the world's tallest building, but community opposition and a long city-approval process delayed commencement of construction on the project. In 1988 he acquired the Plaza Hotel for $407 million and spent $50 million refurbishing it under his wife Ivana's direction.

Ups and Downs of Business

Expanding his empire to the south, around this time Trump developed a condominium project in West Palm Beach, Florida, and in 1989 he branched out to purchase the Eastern Air Lines Shuttle for $365 million, which he later renamed the Trump Shuttle. In January 1990, Trump flew to Los Angeles to unveil a plan to build a $1 billion commercial and residential project featuring a 125-story office building.

It was in 1990, however, that the real estate market declined, reducing the value of and income from Trump's empire; his own net worth plummeted from an estimated $1.7 billion to $500 million. The Trump Organization required a massive infusion of loans to keep it from collapsing, a situation which raised questions as to whether the corporation could survive bankruptcy. Some observers saw Trump's decline as symbolic of many of the business, economic and social excesses that had arisen in the 1980s.

But Donald Trump climbed back from nearly $900 million in the red to a reported worth of close to $2 billion by 1997.

Personal Life, Politics and Reality TV

Donald Trump's image was tarnished by the publicity surrounding his controversial separation and 1991 divorce from his wife Ivana. But in 1993 he married again, this time to Marla Maples, a fledgling actress with whom he had been involved for some time and already had a child. Trump filed for a highly publicized divorce from Maples in 1997, which became final in June 1999. A prenuptial agreement allotted $2 million to Maples. In January 2005, Trump married for a third time in a highly publicized wedding to model Melania Knauss, who gave birth to a son, Barron William Trump, in March 2006; it was her first child and Trump's fifth.

Amidst his personal upheavals, on October 7, 1999, Trump announced the formation of an exploratory committee to inform his decision of whether or not he should seek the Reform Party's nomination for the presidential race of 2000. However, after a poor showing during the California primary, Trump withdrew his candidacy. It would not quell his political aspirations, however.

Back in the business world, on August 3, 2000 a state appeals court ruled that Trump had the right to finish an 856-foot-tall condominium. The Coalition for Responsible Development had sued the city, charging it was violating zoning laws by letting the building reach heights that towered over everything in the neighborhood. The city has since moved to revise its rules to prevent more such projects, but the failure of Trump's opponents to obtain an injunction allowed him to continue construction.

In 2004 Trump took advantage of his high-profile persona when he began starring in the NBC reality series The Apprentice, which quickly became a hit. The success of the show resulted numerous spin-offs, including one that showcased well-known figures as contestants, airing under the revised name The Celebrity Apprentice.

In 2012 Trump's flirtation with politics returned when he publicly announced he was considering running for president again. However, his association with the "Birther" movement, a fringe group that staunchly believed President Barack Obama was not born in the United States, seemingly discredited his political reputation. Regardless, Trump has continued to be a vocal critic of President Obama—not only regarding his place of birth—but also on a variety of his policies.

Presidential Contender, Derogatory Remarks

On June 16, 2015, Trump made his White House ambitions official when he announced his run for president on the Republican ticket for the 2016 elections, joining a crowded field of more than a dozen major candidates. "I am officially running for president of the United States," Trump said during his announcement at Trump Towers in New York City, "and we are going to make our country great again." He added with his signature bravado: "I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.”

Upon Trump's announcement to run for president, his scathing, derogatory remarks about Mexicans and immigration caused NBC to sever business ties with him. “Due to the recent derogatory statements by Donald Trump regarding immigrants, NBCUniversal is ending its business relationship with Mr. Trump,” NBC responded in a statement. "To that end, the annual Miss USA and Miss Universe Pageants, which are part of a joint venture between NBC and Trump, will no longer air on NBC."

The statement added: "In addition, as Mr. Trump has already indicated, he will not be participating in The Celebrity Apprentice on NBC. Celebrity Apprentice is licensed from Mark Burnett's United Artists Media Group and that relationship will continue."

In response to NBC, Trump was unapologetic and defiant, filing a $500 million dollar lawsuit against the company, with his daughter Ivanka stating that her father's comments were distorted by the media. Yet among great social outcry, other organizations have withdrawn from associations with Trump as well: The Professional Golfers Association of America pulled plans for its fall Grand Slam tournament to be held at Trump National Golf Club in Los Angeles, while representatives for Macy's announced that the retail chain would no longer carry Trump's menswear collection.  

A Controversial Candidate

On July 18, 2015, Trump set off another media maelstrom with comments made at the Christian-oriented Family Leadership Summit in Iowa, calling out Senator and one-time Republican presidential nominee John McCain's reputation as a military hero. "He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured," Trump said, referring to McCain having been detained during the Vietnam War for several years after being gunned down as an airman, surviving multiple broken limbs and torture. Military veteran groups and advocates have generally denounced Trump's statements.

Despite these and his many other controversial remarks, a national phone poll completed by late July 2015 saw Trump in the lead for the Republican nomination, with ex-governor of Florida Jeb Bush slightly behind and within the poll's margin of error. More than half of Republican voters polled said that they were still unsure about which candidate from the large pool of contenders they would ultimately support.

Nonetheless, having garnered major media attention, Trump was one of the ten top candidates who participated in a Fox News presidential debate in early August. While the mogul continued a tone set in earlier appearances, he was critiqued and questioned on everything from his business practices to demeaning, sexist comments made about women via television and social media. Trump later made highly insulting remarks about moderator Megyn Kelly for the nature of her questions, and was hence disinvited from an Atlanta speaking engagement. He also initially maintained that he might opt for a third-party candidacy if running on the Republican ticket wasn't viable, but later signed a loyalty pledge stating he wouldn't do so.

Though Trump did not fare as well in a televised debate held a month later, as of the middle of September 2015, numerous polls indicated that he still held a significant lead over his rival candidates

The National Herald Case

What is The National Herald ?

The National Herald was an Indian newspaper established in 1938 by Jawaharlal Nehru. The paper finally ceased operations in 2008. Begun by Nehru at a time when he seemed unable to make an impact on the reactionary tendencies of the Congress Party it served as his mouthpiece allowing him to address and endorse unpopular stances that he would not have been able to defend as a politician through his editorial pieces for the paper. While the paper suffered from financial troubles from the outset and was shut down briefly in the 1940s and 1970s, it finally ceased operations in 2008.

What is the National Herald case?

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy had filed a complaint before the trial court in 2012, alleging that Congress leaders were involved in cheating and breach of trust in the acquisition of Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) by Young Indian Pvt Ltd (YIL), as assets worth crores of rupees had been transferred to YIL.
Swamy has alleged that YIL, which has Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi on its board of directors, had “taken over” over the assets of the defunct print media outlet in a “malicious” manner to gain profit and assets worth over Rs 2,000 crore. Apart from the Gandhis, Congress treasurer Motilal Vora, general secretary Oscar Fernandes, journalist Suman Dubey and technocrat Sam Pitroda were also named in the case.

Swamy has alleged that YIL had paid just Rs 50 lakh to obtain the right to recover Rs 90.25 crore that AJL had owed to the Congress party, given earlier as a loan to start the newspaper. According to documents, 76 per cent of shareholding of YIL is with Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, while the remaining 24 per cent vests in the others named in the case. The complaint has also alleged that the loan given to AJL was “illegal”, as it had been taken from party funds.

What has happened in the trial court so far in the case?

The Delhi court had examined four complainant witnesses during the pre-summoning stage. The complainant witnesses examined were Subramanian Swamy, the complainant in the case, R Venkatesh, practising chartered accountant, Gulab Chand, an official from the Office of the Registrar of Companies, NCT of Delhi and Haryana, and J Gopikrishnan, journalist with The Pioneer. The pre-summoning evidence was closed and arguments were heard on the point of summoning of those named in the complaint. On June 26, 2014, the court summoned Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandes, Suman Dubey and Sam Pitroda.

What did the trial court say while summoning these six persons?

While summoning them, Metropolitan Magistrate Gomati Manocha said that from the complaint and the evidence so far, “it appears that YI was in fact created as a sham or a cloak to convert public money to personal use” in order to acquire control over Rs 2,000 crore worth of assets of AJL. The court noted that all accused persons had allegedly acted “in consortium with each other to achieve the said nefarious purpose/design”.
However, the court had noted that this was “only the stage of summoning”, and when the accused persons appear before the court, “they shall be at liberty to refute the allegations of the complainant, cross-examine the complainant’s witnesses, and to lead evidence in their defence.”

What has the Congress said in its arguments to the High Court?

The trial court had asked all accused to appear before it on August 7, 2014. On July 30, 2014, however, the Congress leaders moved the High Court which stayed the summons. The Congress has claimed that YIL had been created “with an aim of charity” and was not getting any profit. They also claimed that there was “no illegality” in the transaction, as it was “merely a commercial transaction” for transferring shares of the company. It also raised objections to the complaint filed by Swamy, labelling it as “politically motivated”.

What has the High Court said?

The judgment of the High Court has noted that the “probity of the legendary national political party” was “at stake” in the case, as the officebearers of the party held the funds in trust. The Bench dismissed the appeals filed by the Congress leaders, observing that prima facie the case “evidenced criminality”. The court has also raised questions regarding the legality of the initial loan granted to AJL by the Congress party.
The court has noted that officebearers of the Congress were directors at AJL, and also the majority shareholders at YIL, while all decisions were taken without the involvement of the other shareholders of AJL.
The High Court has said that questions including reasons for grant of loan to AJL, modus operandi of the transfer of the loan to YIL, and the related transactions would have to be examined minutely by the trial court. It has also dismissed the objections raised against Swamy’s involvement, stating that locus standi “cannot be restricted” in corruption cases.

events in world news for the month of November 2015.

Here are the key events in world news for the month of November 2015.

China and Taiwan Leaders Will Meet After Sixty-Six Years (Nov. 4): 

A meeting is announced between the presidents of Taiwan and China. They will meet this weekend for the first time since 1949, when the Chinese revolution ended. A meeting between these two Cold War rivals would have been unthinkable ten years ago, but relations have warmed in recent years. The meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou is seen as a test on the thawing relations between the two countries. The two leaders will meet in Singapore, a neutral territory on good terms with both countries. It may be the last chance for China to push for closer ties economically and politically before Taiwan heads into presidential and legislative elections in January 2016.

Romanian Prime Minister Resigns after Nightclub Fire Protests (Nov. 4): 

Prime Minister Ponta resigns in response to a nationwide protest demanding resignations after an Oct. 30 nightclub fire kills 32 people. Protesters take to the streets upset over the way Romanian authorities grant permits and inspect venues. An estimated 25,000 demonstrators march in Bucharest. Ponta takes responsibility for the nightclub fire and steps down. In a press conference, he says, "I can carry any political battles, but I can't fight with the people." Ponta has ignored all previous calls for his resignation. (Nov. 5): Former Minister of Education Sorin Cimpeanu takes over as an interim prime minister until parliament selected a new government.

Opposition Party Appears to Win Landmark Election in Myanmar (Nov. 8): 

Early results indicate that Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party wins Myanmar's landmark national elections by a landslide. The first official results have the opposition party winning the majority of seats in Yangon, Myanmar's largest city. The country's ruling military-backed party concedes the election. If the results are honored by the military and ruling party, it will be the first time in over fifty years that Myanmar voters are able to freely pick their leaders through an election.

Three Coordinated Attacks by ISIS Kill Dozens in Paris (Nov. 13):

 ISIS launches three coordinated attacks in Paris, killing 129 people and wounding hundreds. Eighty-nine people die in an assault at a concert hall, the Bataclan, where an American rock band, the ironically-titled Eagles of Death Metal, is performing at the time. Dozens of others are killed in attacks on restaurants and a soccer stadium where France is playing a match against Germany. Seven of the eight terrorists die during the attacks. French authorities are still looking for the last remaining attacker. The attacks are the worst violence in France since World War II. French president François Hollande calls the attack "an act of war," and retaliates with airstrikes on Raqqa, Syria, ISIS's self-declared capital. (Nov. 16): The United States joins France in the airstrikes, sending warplanes to Syria. (Nov. 17): Hours after Russia acknowledges that a terrorist bomb brought down the Russian passenger plane on Oct. 31, President Vladimir Putin agrees to join with France in the fight against ISIS. Putin orders a Russian missile cruiser to go to Syria and cooperate with French troops "as with allies." (Nov. 18): Police conduct a raid in a northern suburb of Paris. During the raid, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Belgian terrorist suspected of planning the Paris attacks, is killed. At least one other person dies in the raid. Investigators have found evidence that Abaaoud, an ISIS fighter, has been involved in at least four foiled terrorist plots in France this year, including the train attack in August.

At least 27 Are Killed in Mali Hotel Attack (Nov. 20): 

Islamic extremists storm into the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali's capital. At least 170 people are taken hostage. The militants are armed with grenades and guns. U.S. and French special operation forces work quickly with Malian troops and take back the hotel floor by floor. At least 27 people are killed, including two of the attackers. An extremist group led by Moktar Belmoktar, a former al-Qaeda commander, claims responsibility for the attack. With Mali being a former French colony, France sees it as another attack on its interests, coming just a week after the incidents in Paris.

Russian Warplane Is Shot Down in Turkey (Nov. 24):

 Turkey shoots down a Russian warplane for invading its airspace. At least one of the two pilots is killed. Turkish officials say that the plane ignored repeated warnings as it crossed over into its airspace from Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin calls the act a "stab in the back." He also says that there will be "significant consequences." It is the first time in fifty years that a NATO member has shot down a Russian aircraft.

Several World Leaders Gather for Historic U.N. Climate Talks (Nov. 30): 

The United Nations Climate Change talks begin today at a convention center just north of Paris, France. It is one of the largest gatherings of world leaders in history. For two weeks, 30,000 diplomats and delegates will work to find a new global pact that all countries can agree on, a pact that will ask every nation to take action in reducing their planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. U.S. President Barack Obama, President Xi Jinping of China, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and France's President Francois Hollande are among the leaders present to kick off the talks.

Know about ISIS -Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

To understand the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria — why it exists, what it wants, and why it commits terrible violence of which the Paris attacks are only the latest — you need to understand the tangled story of how it came to be.

The group began, in a very different form, in 1999. In the 16 years since, it has been shaped by — and has at moments helped to shape — the conflicts, physical and ideological, of the Middle East.


Here, then, is a concise history of the rise of ISIS from its earliest origins to the present day. It is the story of one of the richest and most powerful terrorist organizations ever to exist — but it's also a story that reveals the ways in which ISIS has proven much weaker than you might think.

1989–1999: The Soviet war in Afghanistan and the beginning of ISIS


You cannot understand ISIS without understanding al-Qaeda and the history they share, as well as the differences, there at the beginning, that would ultimately divide them. And al-Qaeda's origin story begins with the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Soviet aggression shocked the Muslim world, galvanizing roughly 20,000 foreign fighters to help Afghans resist Soviet forces. That's where Osama bin Laden met a number of other young radicals, who together formed the core of the al-Qaeda network.

The Soviets withdrew in 1988, but they left a puppet regime in place, and the war continued. The next year, a Jordanian man named Ahmad Fadhil Nazzal al-Khalaylah joined them.

Al-Khalaylah would, years later, achieve global infamy under his nom de guerre, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He would found the group that became what we today call ISIS.

When Zarqawi first traveled to Afghanistan, in 1989, he wasn't all that religious: He was, as Mary Anne Weaver writes in a definitive Atlantic profile, something of a petty thug. But once there, he met a man named Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, a leading proponent of violent, fundamentalist Islam. Maqdisi converted Zarqawi to his cause. Zarqawi would not meet bin Laden for years, and the two men built up allies and followers independently from each other — a dynamic that made Zarqawi's network even more extreme than bin Laden's.

"Whereas bin Laden and his cadre grew up in at least the upper middle class and had a university education, Zarqawi and those closest to him came from poorer, less educated backgrounds," Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, writes. "Zarqawi’s criminal past and extreme views on takfir (accusing another Muslim of heresy and thereby justifying his killing) created major friction and distrust with bin Laden when the two first met in Afghanistan in 1999."

2003–2009: The rise and fall of al-Qaeda in Iraq


Zarqawi returned from Afghanistan, and in 1999 in Jordan formed his own group, Jamaat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (JTWJ), or the Organization of Monotheism and Jihad. For the first few years, Zarqawi's group was a bit player among jihadists, overshadowed by al-Qaeda. But this was the group, then little known, that would later become ISIS.

In 2003, the US led its invasion of Iraq and changed, in the world of jihadists, everything.

The American-led war, by destroying the Iraqi state, left much of the country in chaos. Foreign fighters and extremists began moving into Iraq, assisted by Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, which sought to bog down the US. Zarqawi and his group were among them.

The Sunni extremists who arrived found a friendly audience among former Iraqi soldiers and officers: The US had disbanded Saddam Hussein's overwhelmingly Sunni army, which was disbanded in 2003, creating a group of men who were unemployed, battle-trained, and scared of life in an Iraq dominated by its Shia majority.

Zarqawi's group, as it fought in Iraq, grew to prominence, attracting al-Qaeda's attention. In 2004, Zarqawi pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda, for which he would receive access to its funds and fighters. His group was renamed al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and it became the country's leading Sunni insurgent group.

AQI didn't just fight the Americans, it also attacked fellow Iraqis. It bombed Shia mosques and slaughtered Shia civilians, hoping to provoke mass Shia reprisals against Sunni civilians and thus force the Sunnis to rally behind AQI. It worked, and it's a tactic ISIS still uses today. It also helped spark a civil war in Iraq between Sunnis and Shia.

But these methods were too vicious even for al-Qaeda, which warned Zarqawi to cool it. He ignored the warnings, and AQI came to hold a swath of territory in Sunni parts of Iraq, roughly along the lines of what ISIS controls there today. Yet between 2006 and 2009, it all came crashing down:


Starting in 2006, AQI's extremism began to backfire. Sunni tribal leaders, who had always hated living under AQI's harsh and often violent rule, became convinced that the Shias were starting to win Iraq's sectarian civil war. To avoid being on the losing end of a bloody war, they up took arms against AQI in a movement called the Awakening.

Zarqawi was killed in 2006 by a US airstrike, and the US increased its troop presence in Iraq that year and the next. But it was, more than anything else, the Awakening that defeated al-Qaeda in Iraq.

By 2009, almost all of AQI's fighters were dead or in prison, and the group was a shadow of itself. But it had learned a valuable lesson: Dissent from Sunnis under its rule could be disastrous. That's why, years later, ISIS has slaughtered members of Sunni tribes, such as Iraq's Abu Nimr, en masse. It sees brutality as the best way to prevent a replay of the 2006 uprising that led to its downfall.

2010: Iraq begins unraveling, setting the stage for AQI's comeback



ISIS was able to rise from AQI's ashes in no small part because of Iraq's catastrophic internal politics.

"Iraq was the essential incubator," according to Fred Hof, who for part of 2012 served as the Obama administration's special adviser for the transition in Syria.

By 2010, "Iraq finally had relatively good security, a generous state budget, and positive relations among the country’s various ethnic and religious communities," Zaid al-Ali, author of The Struggle for Iraq's Future, wrote in Foreign Policy. But it was squandered. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki stripped political opponents of power, appointed his cronies to run the army, and killed peaceful protestors.

Most importantly, he reconstructed the Iraqi state on sectarian lines, privileging the Shia majority over the Sunni minority. This exacerbated Iraq's existing sectarian tensions: Sunni Iraqis falsely believed themselves to be Iraqi's majority (owing to Saddam-era propaganda) and saw Maliki as depriving them of their rightful control of the state. He only deepened their belief that the Iraqi state was fundamentally illegitimate.

By this time, al-Qaeda in Iraq had a new leader: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi who had a background in serious religious scholarship. Under his leadership, AQI began allying with former officers from Saddam Hussein's army and recruited disaffected Sunnis. Iraq's own government, unintentionally, gave them exactly the opening they needed to regain strength.

"Raw political sectarianism in Iraq was the main causal factor [in ISIS's rise]," Hof writes.

August 2011: AQI's remnants move into Syria — with a little help from Assad



Around this same time, Syria erupted in Arab Spring protests that became a civil war. In March 2011, Syrian demonstrators took to the streets to demand Bashar al-Assad step down. Almost right away, the Syrian regime began slaughtering protestors in an attempt to provoke a civil war.

"It was very much a strategic decision that the regime made, to militarize the conflict right away," Glenn Robinson, an associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, told me in a phone conversation. "I think, in their mind and correctly, if this becomes a political battle where populations matter, the regime probably only has support of a third of the country ... the opposition has the numbers."

Perhaps the most devious part of this strategy was Assad's deliberate effort to promote Islamic extremism among the opposition. In amnesties issued between March and October 2011, Assad released a significant number (exact counts are hard to know) of extremists from Syrian prisons. Hof called this an "effort to pollute the opposition with sectarianism": Assad gambled that if his enemies were Islamic militants, then the West wouldn't intervene against him.

In August 2011, Baghdadi sent a top deputy, Abu Mohammad al-Joulani, to Syria to set up a new branch of the AQI in the country. Joulani succeeded, establishing Jabhat al-Nusra in January 2012. Joulani's fighters quickly proved themselves to be some of the most effective fighters on the Syrian battlefield, swelling their ranks with new recruits.

At this point, Baghdadi's original group was still in Iraq alone. It had not become ISIS. But to understand how it did, you have to see the larger forces that opened his way.

Early 2012: Syrian jihadists get their "angel investors"

Today, ISIS is the world's richest terrorist group, its funding coming mostly from various extortion schemes in the territory it controls. But back in 2012, foreign donations played a crucial role in growing the group from the poor organization it was then into the monster it is today.

In 2012, money flew into Syria from the Gulf Arab states — places like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. The key investments in ISIS didn't come directly from those countries' governments, but rather from private individuals living there who wanted to see the Assad regime fall — and perhaps to promote extremism itself.

"These rich Arabs are like what 'angel investors' are to tech start-ups, except they are interested in starting up groups who want to stir up hatred," former US Navy Admiral and NATO Supreme Commander James Stavridis told NBC last June. "Groups like al-Nusra and ISIS are better investments for them [than moderates]."

Though these donors have since faded in importance, they were invaluable at the time. "The individuals," Stavridis explained, "act as high rollers early, providing seed money. Once the groups are on their feet, they are perfectly capable of raising funds through other means, like kidnapping, oil smuggling, selling women into slavery, etc."

But while the Gulf financiers' intent may have been to hurt Assad, they actually ended up propping him up by playing into his strategy of promoting extremism.

"It was a service of incalculable value to the Assad regime: It enabled him to say — albeit inaccurately — that he was the alternative to terrorism and sectarianism," Hof told me via email.

July 2012: The great ISIS prison break begins


There's one chapter of the story of ISIS's rise that very rarely gets mentioned: its spectacular series of attacks on Iraqi prisons in 2012 and 2013. These prison breaks supplied it with a huge infusion of recruits, and also illustrates how effectively ISIS took advantage of the Iraqi government's weakness.

In July 2012, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi released a statement to his loyalists. "We remind you of your top priority, which is to release the Muslim prisoners everywhere," he said, "and making the pursuit, chase, and killing of their butchers from amongst the judges, detectives, and guards to be on top of the list."

This was, unambiguously, a call to break former Iraqi insurgents out of jail — and ISIS followed their leader's order. Over the next year, they attacked a number of prisons across Iraq, freeing somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 inmates.

These included, former CIA analyst Aki Peretz writes, "many terrorists [that] elite US military forces caught over the years and then handed over to the Iraqi government when the United States turned over custody of its prison facilities in 2010."

People incarcerated for common crimes were also recruited. "Prisoners convicted of criminal charges provide advantages to the terrorist group, because they could have been recruited during their incarceration," Peretz writes. "Even if common criminals were able to resist jihadist persuasion efforts while in prison, they may now feel indebted to their 'liberators.'"

This won ISIS a rapid infusion of manpower — and also illustrates that well before the 2014 crisis, we had signs that the Iraqi state was falling apart in a way that would empower extremists. The ISIS crisis didn't come out of nowhere, in other words: It was a slow motion disaster with plenty of advance warning.

April 2013: ISIS officially becomes ISIS — and divorces al-Qaeda



As all this was happening, Baghdadi's organization was still named al-Qaeda in Iraq. But Baghdadi worried that Joulani — his commander of Jabhat al-Nusra, the group in Syria — was acting too independently and would quit AQI to make Jabhat al-Nusra a separate group.

In April 2013, Baghdadi did something dramatic: He asserted unilateral control over all al-Qaeda operations in both Syria and Iraq. To demonstrate this change, he renamed AQI "the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria" — or ISIS, for short.

This didn't sit well with Joulani, who appealed to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Zawahiri, who'd never really trusted AQI, sided with Joulani — a decision that Baghdadi rejected. ISIS and al-Qaeda eventually split, dividing the jihadist movement in Syria.

This left ISIS to "gradually emerge as an autonomous component within the Syrian conflict," Brookings Doha's Charles Lister writes, by absorbing Nusra fighters and territory in northern and eastern Syria. It ended up taking firm control of much of this territory, establishing a de facto capital in the northern city of Raqqa.

Assad, for his part, was perfectly happy to leave ISIS alone — particularly as it primarily fought other rebel groups. "ISIS almost never fought the Assad regime," Robinson says. "They were much more focused on fighting other opposition groups and gaining land their opponents had already acquired."

By February 2014, Zawahiri had had enough. He formally exiled ISIS from al-Qaeda, leading to what Zelin describes as "open warfare in Syria" between the groups. Today, the groups continue to struggle over territory and ideological control over the global jihadist movement.

This dynamic, in part, drives ISIS's brutality: One of the group's key means of capturing foreign fighters' hearts and minds is through public, over-the-top slaughter that wins their attention.

June 2014: ISIS sweeps northern Iraq and declares a caliphate


This is the moment when everything that had happened before in ISIS's rise came to a head. On June 10, 2014, a force of about 800 ISIS fighters defeated 30,000 Iraqi government troops to capture Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city. In the next two days, ISIS fighters swept through Iraq's heavily Sunni northwestern and central provinces — coming, at their peak, extremely close to Baghdad.

This blitzkrieg built on months of ISIS momentum. In January, ISIS had seized control of Fallujah, a former AQI stronghold in western Iraq. The Iraqi government's repeated inability to retake Fallujah in the following months illustrated the depleted and incompetent state of the Iraqi army after years of Maliki's mismanagement.

The conquest of Mosul and much of northern Iraq led a triumphant Baghdadi to declare his territory a "caliphate" on July 4. By this, Baghdadi meant that ISIS was now a state — and not just any state but the only Islamically legitimate state in the world. All Muslims, Baghdadi said, were obligated to support the nascent Islamic state in its struggle to hold and expand its land.

Establishing a caliphate had long been the goal of the entire jihadist movement. By declaring that he had actually created one, Baghdadi gained a huge leg up on al-Qaeda in the struggle for global jihadist supremacy.

Since then, ISIS has "succeeded in attracting far, far more recruits" than al-Qaeda, Will McCants, the director of the Brookings Institution's Project on US Relations With the Islamic World, told me. This has also has allowed it to gain a following among foreign terrorist groups, with major ISIS franchises in Libya, Egypt's Sinai desert, and Nigeria.

But ISIS had also taken a task with burdens beyond what it can perhaps sustain. By committing to actually governing a swath of territory in Syria and Iraq as a state, ISIS couldn't rely purely on insurgent tactics or hiding among civilians. It needed to engage in pitched conventional battles to defend its land.

"When they declared the caliphate, their legitimacy came to rest on the continuing viability of their state," Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told me last October. In the coming year, this would prove to be a serious problem for the group.

August 2014: ISIS makes its first huge mistake — invading Kurdistan



Ever since its AQI days, ISIS had been prone to ideological and political overstretch.

"To be the caliph, one must meet conditions outlined in Sunni law," Graeme Wood explains in an excellent Atlantic feature on ISIS's theology. One condition is that "the caliph have territory in which he can enforce Islamic law." Once the caliphate is established, "the waging of war to expand the caliphate is an essential duty of the caliph."

Everything we know about ISIS suggests that both its fighters and Baghdadi himself earnestly believe this. This is what led them to attack Iraq's Kurds.

Iraq's Kurdish minority controls a semi-autonomous region in northeastern Iraq, and has a powerful military force known as the peshmerga. For the first half of 2014, they had been content to sit out the ISIS conflict.

But in August 2014, ISIS decided to invade Iraqi Kurdistan, quickly advancing to within several miles of the capital, Erbil. It also launched a genocidal campaign against a minority group known as the Yazidi, who are ethnically Kurdish.

This brought the peshmerga into the war, which have since dealt ISIS a series of stinging defeats. It also drew the United States into the war: President Obama's bombing campaign against ISIS initially began as a limited intervention to protect American personnel in Erbil and stem the slaughter of the Yazidis.

ISIS's progress into Kurdistan was reversed. Pressed by Kurds, a regrouping Iraqi military, Iranian-backed Shia militias, and US aircraft, ISIS began to fall back. By early 2015, ISIS began taking losses: The heavily Sunni city of Tikrit fell to Iraqi forces in April.

"The Islamic State ... will lose its battle to hold territory in Iraq," Douglas Ollivant, the former national security adviser for Iraq under both George W. Bush and Obama, wrote in War on the Rocks this February. "The outcome in Iraq is now clear to most serious analysts."

June 2015: ISIS's capital comes under threat



In Syria, things had long looked better for ISIS than they had in Iraq: the multi-sided civil war meant that there was no unified, reliable force to challenge them. But in mid-2015, Syrian Kurds began threatening ISIS's territory.

ISIS, as in Iraq, had attempted to invade and conquer the territory within Syria that is dominated by Kurdish groups — and came damn close. In October 2014, ISIS nearly seized Kobane, a Kurdish stronghold on Syria's northern border with Turkey.

But the Kurds held out for months. In January, aided by US support and US-led coalition air strikes, they pushed ISIS out of Kurdish territory. Then they kept going, seizing ISIS territory elsewhere in Syria. They advanced to within 30 miles of ISIS's de facto capital at Raqqa.

The Soufan Group, a private intelligence firm focusing on terrorism, described the Kurdish-led advance on Raqqa as the "most serious symbolic and meaningful threat [to ISIS] since it declared itself a caliphate almost one year ago."

These Kurdish victories showed that ISIS was running up against the limits of its military strategy. Since last June, the group has been fighting too many enemies on too many different fronts. Its ability to maneuver rapidly around its territory has been limited by coalition airstrikes. Slowly but steadily, it has been losing ground.

ISIS "lost something like 25 percent of their territory" since its peak last summer, McCants says.

Autumn 2015: ISIS turns to international terrorism


On November 13, terrorists attacked several locations around Paris, killing more than 130 and wounding more than 380. ISIS claimed responsibility, and the French government has said that it believes the group was responsible.

So why, as it slowly loses ground in Iraq and Syria, bit by bit losing the caliphate that has been its primary focus, might ISIS be sending fighters abroad at this critical moment?

ISIS thrives on a narrative of victory. In order to sell itself as the prophesied return of the caliphate, it needs to show that its victories are inevitable and divinely inspired. If it's losing territory, then it needs to sell its narrative through other means. That means claiming "victory" over foreign enemies by hitting them with terrorist attacks. Indeed, Paris wasn't the only foreign attack ISIS has launched: ISIS suicide bombers have hit Kuwait, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia. It also claimed responsibility for taking down a Russian civilian airliner in Egypt's Sinai desert.

"Much of ISIS's ideological support and recruiting strength emanates from a narrative that it is victorious," J.M. Berger, the co-author of ISIS: A State of Terror, explains via email. The Paris attack "changes the conversation from 'ISIS is contained' on November 12 to 'ISIS is rampaging uncontrollably' on November 14."

Moreover, ISIS may believe that terrorist attacks are its best way of striking back against — and maybe, it believes, deterring — foreign attacks. (The French are part of the US-led coalition bombing ISIS in Syria and Iraq). That conclusion would likely be wrong, but ISIS may still believe it.

"I think it has made the calculation that it can no longer pursue its expansion strategy in Syria and Iraq without changing the calculations of the enemies currently halting its expansion," McCants says. "These attacks would be a way of inflicting costs on them."

But here's one final scary twist: ISIS may not have planned it at all. The attack could have been independently undertaken by European ISIS sympathizers or veterans rather than planned from ISIS HQ in Raqqa.

This would be yet another stage in ISIS's evolution: an inspirational symbol for wannabe terrorists around the world.

"If they're not even trying to coordinate this kind of stuff, and their affiliates or fan boys can do it on their own, it's quite troubling," McCants concludes.

India : Highlights of Recommendations of Seventh Central Pay Commission

Recommended Date of implementation: 01.01.2016

Minimum Pay: Based on the Aykroyd formula, the minimum pay in government is recommended to be set at ₹18,000 per month.

Maximum Pay: ₹2,25,000 per month for Apex Scale and ₹2,50,000 per month for Cabinet Secretary and others presently at the same pay level.

Financial Implications:


The total financial impact in the FY 2016-17 is likely to be ₹1,02,100 crore, over the expenditure as per the ‘Business As Usual’ scenario.  Of this, the increase in pay would be ₹39,100 crore, increase in allowances would be ₹ 29,300 crore and increase in pension would be ₹33,700 crore.

Out of the total financial impact of ₹1,02,100 crore, ₹73,650 crore will be borne by the General Budget and ₹28,450 crore by the Railway Budget.

In percentage terms the overall increase in pay & allowances and pensions over the ‘Business As Usual’ scenario will be 23.55 percent. Within this, the increase in pay will be 16 percent, increase in allowances will be 63 percent, and increase in pension would be 24 percent.

The total impact of the Commission’s recommendations are expected to entail an increase of 0.65 percentage points in the ratio of expenditure on (Pay+Allowances+ Pension) to GDP compared to 0.77 percent in case of VI CPC.

New Pay Structure: Considering the issues raised regarding the Grade Pay structure and with a view to bring in greater transparency, the present system of pay bands and grade pay has been dispensed with and a new pay matrix has been designed. Grade Pay has been subsumed in the pay matrix. The status of the employee, hitherto determined by grade pay, will now be determined by the level in the pay matrix.

Fitment: A fitment factor of 2.57 is being proposed to be applied uniformly for all employees.

Annual Increment: The rate of annual increment is being retained at 3 percent.

Modified Assured Career Progression (MACP): Performance benchmarks for MACP have been made more stringent from “Good” to “Very Good”.

The Commission has also proposed that annual increments not be granted in the case of those employees who are not able to meet the benchmark either for MACP or for a regular promotion in the first 20 years of their service.

No other changes in MACP recommended.

Military Service Pay (MSP): The Military Service Pay, which is a compensation for the various aspects of military service, will be admissible to the Defence forces personnel only. As before, Military Service Pay will be payable to all ranks up to and inclusive of Brigadiers and their equivalents. The current MSP per month and the revised rates recommended are as follows:



Short Service Commissioned Officers: Short Service Commissioned Officers will be allowed to exit the Armed Forces at any point in time between 7 and 10 years of service, with a terminal gratuity equivalent of 10.5 months of reckonable emoluments. They will further be entitled to a fully funded one year Executive Programme or a M.Tech. programme at a premier Institute.

Lateral Entry/Settlement: The Commission is recommending a revised formulation for lateral entry/resettlement of defence forces personnel which keeps in view the specific requirements of organization to which such personnel will be absorbed. For lateral entry into CAPFs an attractive severance package has been recommended.

Headquarters/Field Parity: Parity between field and headquarters staff recommended for similar functionaries e.g Assistants and Stenos.

Cadre Review: Systemic change in the process of Cadre Review for Group A officers recommended.

Allowances: The Commission has recommended abolishing 52 allowances altogether. Another 36 allowances have been abolished as separate identities, but subsumed either in an existing allowance or in newly proposed allowances. Allowances relating to Risk and Hardship will be governed by the proposed Risk and Hardship Matrix.

Risk and Hardship Allowance: Allowances relating to Risk and Hardship will be governed by the newly proposed nine-cell Risk and Hardship Matrix, with one extra cell at the top, viz., RH-Max to include Siachen Allowance.

The current Siachen Allowance per month and the revised rates recommended are as follows:


This would be the ceiling for risk/hardship allowances and there would be no individual RHA with an amount higher than this allowance.

House Rent Allowance: Since the Basic Pay has been revised upwards, the Commission recommends that HRA be paid at the rate of 24 percent, 16 percent and 8 percent of the new Basic Pay for Class X, Y and Z cities respectively. The Commission also recommends that the rate of HRA will be revised to 27 percent, 18 percent and 9 percent respectively when DA crosses 50 percent, and further revised to 30 percent, 20 percent and 10 percent when DA crosses 100 percent.

In the case of PBORs of Defence, CAPFs and Indian Coast Guard compensation for housing is presently limited to the authorised married establishment hence many users are being deprived. The HRA coverage has now been expanded to cover all.

Any allowance not mentioned in the report shall cease to exist.

Emphasis has been placed on simplifying the process of claiming allowances.

Advances: All non-interest bearing Advances have been abolished.

Regarding interest-bearing Advances, only Personal Computer Advance and House Building Advance (HBA) have been retained. HBA ceiling has been increased to ₹25 lakhs from the present ₹7.5 lakhs.

Central Government Employees Group Insurance Scheme (CGEGIS): The Rates of contribution as also the insurance coverage under the CGEGIS have remained unchanged for long. They have now been enhanced suitably. The following rates of CGEGIS are recommended:



Medical Facilities: Introduction of a Health Insurance Scheme for Central Government employees and pensioners has been recommended.

Meanwhile, for the benefit of pensioners residing outside the CGHS areas, CGHS should empanel those hospitals which are already empanelled under CS (MA)/ECHS for catering to the medical requirement of these pensioners on a cashless basis.

All postal pensioners should be covered under CGHS. All postal dispensaries should be merged with CGHS.

Pension: The Commission recommends a revised pension formulation for civil employees including CAPF personnel as well as for Defence personnel, who have retired before 01.01.2016. This formulation will bring about parity between past pensioners and current retirees for the same length of service in the pay scale at the time of retirement.

The past pensioners shall first be fixed in the Pay Matrix being recommended by the Commission on the basis of Pay Band and Grade Pay at which they retired, at the minimum of the corresponding level in the pay matrix.

This amount shall be raised to arrive at the notional pay of retirees, by adding number of increments he/she had earned in that level while in service at the rate of 3 percent.

In the case of defence forces personnel this amount will include Military Service Pay as admissible.

Fifty percent of the total amount so arrived at shall be the new pension.

An alternative calculation will be carried out, which will be a multiple of 2.57 times of the current basic pension.

The pensioner will get the higher of the two.

Gratuity: Enhancement in the ceiling of gratuity from the existing ₹10 lakh to ₹20 lakh. The ceiling on gratuity may be raised by 25 percent whenever DA rises by 50 percent.

Disability Pension for Armed Forces: The Commission is recommending reverting to a slab based system for disability element, instead of existing percentile based disability pension regime.

Ex-gratia Lump sum Compensation to Next of Kin: The Commission is recommending the revision of rates of lump sum compensation for next of kin (NOK) in case of death arising in various circumstances relating to performance of duties, to be applied uniformly for the defence forces personnel and civilians including CAPF personnel.

Martyr Status for CAPF Personnel: The Commission is of the view that in case of death in the line of duty, the force personnel of CAPFs should be accorded martyr status, at par with the defence forces personnel.

New Pension System: The Commission received many grievances relating to NPS. It has recommended a number of steps to improve the functioning of NPS. It has also recommended establishment of a strong grievance redressal mechanism.

Regulatory Bodies:  The Commission has recommended a consolidated pay package of ₹4,50,000 and ₹4,00,000 per month for Chairpersons and Members respectively of select Regulatory bodies. In case of retired government servants, their pension will not be deducted from their consolidated pay. The consolidated pay package will be raised by 25 percent as and when Dearness Allowance goes up by 50 percent. For Members of the remaining Regulatory bodies normal replacement pay has been recommended.

Performance Related Pay: The Commission has recommended introduction of the Performance Related Pay (PRP) for all categories of Central Government employees, based on quality Results Framework Documents, reformed Annual Performance Appraisal Reports and some other broad Guidelines. The Commission has also recommended that the PRP should subsume the existing Bonus schemes.

There are few recommendations of the Commission where there was no unanimity of view and these are as follows:

The Edge: An edge is presently accordeded to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) at three promotion stages from Senior Time Scale (STS), to the Junior Administrative Grade (JAG) and the NFSG.  is recommended by the Chairman, to be extended to the Indian Police Service (IPS) and Indian Forest Service (IFoS).

Shri Vivek Rae, Member is of the view that financial edge is justified only for the IAS and IFS. Dr. Rathin Roy, Member is of the view that the financial edge accorded to the IAS and IFS should be removed.

Empanelment: The Chairman and Dr. Rathin Roy, Member, recommend that All India Service officers and Central Services Group A officers who have completed 17 years of service should be eligible for empanelment under the Central Staffing Scheme and there should not be “two year edge”, vis-à-vis the IAS. Shri Vivek Rae, Member, has not agreed with this view and has recommended review of the Central Staffing Scheme guidelines.

Non Functional Upgradation for Organised Group ‘A’ Services: The Chairman is of the view that NFU availed by all the organised Group `A’ Services should be allowed to continue and be extended to all officers in the CAPFs, Indian Coast Guard and the Defence forces. NFU should henceforth be based on the respective residency periods in the preceding substantive grade. Shri Vivek Rae, Member and Dr. Rathin Roy, Member, have favoured abolition of NFU at SAG and HAG level.

Superannuation: Chairman and Dr. Rathin Roy, Member, recommend the age of superannuation for all CAPF personnel should be 60 years uniformly. Shri Vivek Rae, Member, has not agreed with this recommendation and has endorsed the stand of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The full report is available in the website, http://7cpc.india.gov.in.

One Rank One Pension : Notification for Implementation of OROP Issued

Notification for Implementation of OROP Issued

The Government today issued the notification regarding implementation of ‘One Rank One Pension’ in respect of Defence Forces personnel.
Defence Forces of India have a rich history and tradition of bravery and gallantry. Defence forces have not only defend our borders with exemplary courage and valour but have also performed with fearless attitude and empathy in natural calamities and other trying circumstances. Government of India recognizes and respects their contribution.
The issue of One Rank One Pension was a long standing demand. Defence Forces had been demanding it for almost four decades but the issue could not be resolved. However, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi had made a commitment to implement it for the welfare of the ex-servicemen. Accordingly the Government had announced modalities for implementation of OROP on 05.09.2015. The Government Order by Ministry of Defence, which could not be issued due to model code of conduct, has been issued today.
Salient features of the OROP as stated in the Order are as follows:
I. To begin with, pension of the past pensioners would be re-fixed on the basis of pension of retirees of calendar year 2013 and the benefit will be effective with effect from 1.7.2014.
II. Pension will be re-fixed for all pensioners on the basis of the average of minimum and maximum pension of personnel retiring in 2013 in the same rank and with the same length of service.
III. Pension for those drawing above the average shall be protected.
IV. Arrears will be paid in four equal half yearly instalments. However, all the family pensioners, including those in receipt of Special/Liberalized family pensioners, and Gallantry award winners shall be paid arrears in one instalment.
V. In future, the pension would be re-fixed every 5 years.
4. Personnel who opt to get discharged henceforth on their own request under Rule 13(3)1(i)(b),13(3)1(iv) or Rule 16B of the Army Rule 1954 or equivalent Navy or Air Force Rules will not be entitled to the benefits of OROP. It will be effective prospectively.
5. The Govt. has decided to appoint a Judicial Committee to look into anomalies, if any, arising out of implementation of OROP. The Judicial Committee will submit its report in six months.
6. Detailed instructions along with tables indicating revised pension for each rank and each category, shall be issued separately for updation of pension and payment of arrears directly by Pension Disbursing Agencies.
The previous Government had made a budget announcement to implement the OROP and made a provision of Rs 500 Crore. The present Government undertook the task earnestly and realized that the actual additional annual expenditure would be eight to ten thousand crore at present and will increase further in future. Notwithstanding the financial constraints, true to its commitment the present Government has issued the Government order to implement the OROP in true spirit.
Source: PIB News

events in world news for the month of October 2015

Here are the key events in world news for the month of October 2015.

Prime Minister Koirala Resigns After Nepal Passes New Constitution (Oct. 2):

 Prime Minister Sushil Koirala announces he will submit his resignation to make room for a successor. A new prime minister is a provision of Nepal's new democratic Constitution announced and adopted by President Ram Baran Yadav on Sept. 20. Of the new Constitution, Koirala says in a speech to Parliament, "According to my public commitment and the provisions of the constitution I will ask the respected president to take forward the constitutional process to choose the new prime minister." It is widely expected that Chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal, Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli, will become the next prime minister. The decision will be made soon. The new prime minister must be elected by Parliament within a week of the first House session held since the adoption of the new constitution.

U.S. Airstrike Hits Hospital in Afghanistan (Oct. 3): 

An airstrike hits a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in Kunduz, Afghanistan. Twenty-two people are killed, including 12 hospital staff members and seven patients. Soon after the incident, the U.S. military releases a statement confirming an airstrike aimed at Taliban militants in Kunduz, but that "there may have been collateral damage to a nearby medical facility." The United Nations and other international organizations condemn the incident and call for an investigation. (Oct. 5): With the hospital badly damaged, Doctors Without Borders announces it is leaving Kunduz, a city in much need of medical assistance.

Multiple Bombings Kill Dozens in Turkey's Capital (Oct. 10): 

Two separate explosions kill nearly 100 people during a peace rally in Ankara, Turkey's capital. Hundreds more are wounded in what is the deadliest attack in Turkey in years. The two explosions happen 50 meters from each other and are almost simultaneous, happening just seconds apart near Ankara's main train station. No one immediately claims responsibility for the bombings. However, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says that there are "strong signs" that suicide bombers have been behind the attack. The attacks come at what is already a tense time in Turkey, which has taken in more refugees than any other country from its war-torn neighbor Syria. Plus, the renewed fight with the Kurdish rebels in recent months has killed hundreds. After the explosions, protesters take to Ankara's streets to express their outrage over the bombings. (Oct. 12): Prime Minister Davutoglu says that one of the suicide bombers is close to being identified.



Israelis and Palestinians Experience Worst Outbreak of Violence in Years (Oct. 15): 

During the first two weeks of Oct. 2015, 32 Palestinians and seven Israelis are killed in what was the biggest spike in violence the area has seen in recent years. The violence breaks out in part over what the Palestinians see as increased encroachment by Israelis on the al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a site important to both Muslims and Jews. However, the violence quickly spreads beyond Jerusalem. (Oct. 16): At the request of council member Jordan, the United Nations Security Council holds a meeting to discuss the area's increasing unrest. France proposes that an international observer be placed at the al-Aqsa mosque, but that idea is rejected by Israel. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry calls for Israeli and Palestinian leaders to meet and agree on a plan to stop the violence.



Trudeau's Liberal Party Pulls off Upset Election in Canada (Oct. 19): 

In Canada's parliamentary elections, Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party pulls off an upset, stunning Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party. The Liberal Party takes 39.5% of the vote, 184 out of 338 seats, while Harper's Conservative Party takes 31.9% of the vote, or 99 seats. Election observers view the outcome as a result of a public that grew tried of Harper's heavy-handed conservative focus during his nine year reign. Trudeau succeeds Harper as prime minister 47 years after Pierre Elliott Trudeau, his father, held the office. The 43 year-old Trudeau also becomes the country's second-youngest prime minister and the first to follow a parent into the position.



China Ends One-Child Policy After Decades (Oct. 29):

 China announces it will now allow all married couples to have two children as a way to offset the country's aging workforce. The announcement puts an end to China's unpopular one-child policy, which has been in effect for 35 years. At the advice of scholars, China has already relaxed the one-child policy in recent years, allowing more families to have two kids when parents meet certain criteria. The announcement states that the country will "fully implement a policy of allowing each couple to have two children as an active response to an aging population." However, no details of how or when the new policy will be implemented have been shared.

No more direct interviews from January 1, 2016 – Narendra Modi

No more direct interviews from January 1, 2016 – Narendra Modi

“Cancelling the direct interview process will be of tremendous relief to the poor people who desperately look for recommendations, and will reduce the instances of frauds committed by brokers who promise jobs on payment of money.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced that the system of direct interviews for the Group B, C and D posts in Central Government offices shall be cancelled from January 1, 2016 onwards. Henceforth, clearing the written round is all it takes for qualifying. Direct interviews shall not be held anymore. The news has brought great relief to job seekers all over the country.

Here are excerpts from the Prime Minister’s Sunday weekly address to the nation, ‘Mann ki Baat,’ on the radio:

“On my Independence Day address, I had presented a suggestion that the direct interview round for entry-level employees in central government services should be cancelled. Following this, the Central Government has completed all the tasks required to remove the direct interview rounds for lower-level employments. Henceforth, there shall be no direct interview round for jobs of the Group B, C, and D categories in Central Government services. This shall come into force from January 1, 2016 onwards.

Direct interviews encourage irregularities and corruption. The system also leads to the exploitation of the poor by those in power. Money is being looted from the poor in the name of finding jobs for them. Most often, they don’t get the jobs even after paying money.

While pondering over it, I wondered why direct interviews have to be conducted for these recruitments. I have never heard anyone claim that they can completely analyze the behaviour and mindset of a person by simply talking to him or her for a few minutes. Cancelling the process of direct interviews will stop the people of the economically weaker sections from spending huge sums of money for recommendations and bribes to get the jobs. This will save them from the traps of brokers who con them and loot money from them.

Grant of Non-Productivity Linked Bonus (Ad-hoc Bonus) to the Central Government Employees for the year 2014-15

No.7/24/2007/E III (A)

Government of India

Ministry of Finance

Department of Expenditure

E III (A) Branch

New Delhi, the October 16, 2015

                                                        OFFICE MEMORANDUM

Subject: – Grant of Non-Productivity Linked Bonus (ad-hoc bonus) to Central Government Employees for the year 2014-15.

The undersigned is directed to convey the sanction of the President to the grant of Non-Productivity Linked Bonus (Ad-hoo Bonus) equivalent to 30 days emoluments for the accounting year 2014-15 to the Central Government employees in Groups ‘C’ and ‘D’ and all non-gazetted employees in Group ‘B’, who are not covered by any Productivity Linked Bonus Scheme. The calculation ceiling for payment of ad-hoc Bonus under these orders shall continue to be monthly emoluments of Rs. 3500/-, as hitherto. The payment of ad-hoc Bonus under these orders will also be admissible to the eligible employees of Central Para Military Forces and Armed Forces. The orders will be deemed to be extended to the employees of Union Territory Administration which follow the Central Government pattern of emoluments and are not covered by any other bonus or ex-gratia scheme.

2. The benefit will be admissible subject to the following terms and conditions:-

(i) Only those employees who were in service as on 31.3.2015 and have rendered at least six months of continuous service during the year 2014-15 will be eligible for payment under these orders. Pro-rata payment will be admissible to the eligible employees for period of continuous service during the year from six months to a full year, the eligibility period being taken in terms of number of months of service (rounded off to the nearest number of months);

(ii) The quantum of Non-PLB (ad-hoc bonus) will be worked out on the basis of average emoluments/calculation ceiling whichever is lower. To calculate Non-PLB (Ad-hoc bonus) for one day, the average emoluments in a year will be divided by 30.4 (average number of days in a month). This will thereafter be multiplied by the number of days of bonus granted. To illustrate, taking the calculation ceiling of monthly emoluments of Rs. 3500 (where actual average emoluments exceed Rs. 3500/-, Non-PLB (Ad-hoc Bonus) for thirty days would work out to Rs. 3500×30/30.4=Rs.3453.95 (rounded off to Rs.345%)

(iii) The casual labour who have worked in offices following a 6 days week for at least 240 days for each year for 3 years or more (206 days in each year for 3 years or more in the case of offices observing 5 days week), will be eligible for this Non-PLB (Ad-hoc Bonus) Payment. The amount of Non-PLB (ad-hoc bonus) payable will be (Rs.12oox30/30.4 i.e.Rs.1184.21 (rounded off to Rs.1184/). In cases where the actual emoluments fall below Rs.1200/- pm, the amount will be calculated on actual monthly emoluments.

(iv) All payments under these orders will be rounded off to the nearest rupee.

(v) The clarificatory orders issued vide this Ministry’s OM No.F.14 (10)-E. Coord/88 dated 4.10.1988, as amended from time to time, would hold good.

3. The expenditure on this account will be debitable to the respective Heads to which the pay and allowances of these employees are debited.

4. The expenditure to be incurred on account of Non-PLB (Ad-hoc Bonus) is to be met from within the sanctioned budget provision of concerned Ministries/Departments for the current year.

5. In so far as the persons serving in the Indian Audit and Accounts Department are concerned, these orders are issued in consultation with the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

(Amar Nath Singh)

Deputy Secretary to the Govt. of India