Head of Contracts and Procurement Advice Section (CaPAS)

Job Title: Head of Contracts and Procurement Advice Section (CaPAS)

Location: New Delhi

Reporting to: Head of Corporate Services Team (CST)

Background:

DFID India is responsible for the British Government’s development cooperation programme with India. Contract and Procurement Advice Section (CaPAS) was established to provide contract and procurement advisory services and letting contracts. Although CaPAS is directly funded and managed by DFID India, it has a professional reporting line to Department for International Development (DFID) Procurement Group (PrG) based in UK which is responsible for providing contracting and procurement services to DFID outside of South Asia Region.

CaPAS is the largest procurement unit outside the Headquarters of DFID and has delegated authority to issue contracts up to £5 million which is likely to be increased shortly. In 2008/9 CaPAS let 406 contracts with a value of £8.5M. These contracts cover both programme related assignments as well as corporate services.

CaPAS leads on all local procurement activities in Department for International Development India (DFIDI) and works closely with the other development partners (UN, World Bank, etc) and the State and Central Government of India (GoI).

Procurement is an integral component in governance in India; CaPAS is involved in capacity building with GoI and State Governments, particularly in the area of service contracting and systems. CaPAS will be taking on the role of South Asia Procurement Hub early in 2010 and will then provide support to Bangladesh, Nepal and Afghanistan for contracts above the OJEU threshold.

CaPAS forms part of DFID India’s Corporate Services Team (CST) which also includes Financial Management Team, Human Resources Team, Facilities and Estates Team.

Reason for Hire:

To provide leadership, oversight, technical advisory and capacity building support to ensure DFID India and offices in the South Asia region are fully compliant with DFID’s procurement policies and procedures.

Key Roles and Responsibilities:

Contract Management Functions

Ÿ Manage CaPAS so that it provides value adding and cost effective contracting services above OJEU threshold to other DFID Offices within the South Asia Region

Ÿ Carry out the processing of consultancy contract requests up to a contract value ceiling of £5,000,000.

Ÿ Help DFID India to delivery DFID’s Commercial Strategy

Ÿ Refer contracts with a value of £5,000,000 to £10,000,000 to DFID India’s procurement Advisor for approval.

Ÿ Ensure that consultancy firms are given fair consideration for competitive selection processes

Ÿ Carry out or supervise commercial/financial evaluations and have an insight on the technical bids

Management of Staff and the Section

Ÿ Oversee the day to day operations of CaPAS and ensure that it contributes effectively to achievement of overall Corporate Services Team’s Delivery Framework.

Ÿ Effectively line manage CaPAS staff to enable them to utilise their full potential and also contribute to their further development.

Ÿ Represent CaPAS in internal and external meetings.

Ÿ Deliver contract & procurement training to DFID India and potentially other offices in South Asia Region.

Ÿ Undertake post tender negotiation to deliver value for money and achieve annual contractual savings of over £1,000,000.

Ÿ Provide timely and accurate advice on procurement and contracting issues for both programme and TA contracts.

Ÿ Contribute to the policy and strategic development of CaPAS and inputs to the implementation of DFID’s Commercial Strategy.

Ÿ Adapt ‘ways of working’ to support the development of more strategic procurement capability across DFID

Ÿ Liaise with PrG and DFID India’s procurement Adviser on procurement policy issues.

Procurement Advisory

Ÿ Assist Procurement Advisor in mapping procurement to corporate strategy

Ÿ To influence the programme output by being involved at the design stage

Ÿ Manage CaPAS so that it assists DFID India in working closely with Development Partners, GoI and HMG to develop harmonized procurement procedures incorporating best practices.

Ÿ Assist in resolving difficulties in procurement related programme problems.

Ÿ Capacity Building to develop State and GoI procurement systems

Ÿ Proactively participate in the Procurement Professional Cadre

Other responsibilities:

In addition to working with colleagues within the Office, the post holder will need to liaise closely with other Development Partners in India. In addition as part of the Shared Services/Harmonisation Agenda CST works closely with other HMG Departments based in the British High Commission in Delhi, and CaPAS undertakes a significant (and increasing) amount of shared contracting activity.

DFID India is currently located away from the British High Commission but is planning to co-locate in 2012. Head of CaPAS will play an important roll in assisting DFID India in this move, and in subsequent provision of “post co-location” harmonised corporate services.

Key qualifications and skills:

Ÿ Applicant should ideally have MCIPS, or University degree or Masters in Business Management, Materials Management or Business Administration.

Ÿ Have at least 6 - 8 years of extensive relevant procurement and logistics experience

Ÿ Demonstrate the ability to apply technical skills in a team leadership role to resolve and manage complex issues in relation to procurement policies and procedures.

Ÿ Ability to use technical expertise to advise and support Program Teams and Partner Government(s) in procurement planning and design.

Ÿ Have proven and effective negotiation and influencing skills/experience

Ÿ · Have sufficient professional procurement knowledge to be a source of professional advice to DFID in both India and in South Asia Region on issues relating to procurement.

Ÿ A history of personal effectiveness, with a strong ability to communicate and develop effective working relationships with various stakeholders.

Ÿ The ability to work to tight deadlines and deliver quality outputs.

Desirable

Ÿ A broad understanding of public finance management issues.

Ÿ Applicants should understand the broad range of development issues, including the aims and practices of the UK’s and other Donor Partners’ development assistance, and the policy and institutional environment affecting development outcomes.

Nature of employment: Full time Open ended position. To apply, one must either be an Indian national or have necessary employment permit to work in India. DFID is an equal opportunities employer and encourages applications from all parts of the community.

Compensation: The salary for the post will be 12.3 lacs per annum plus other benefits including coverage under accident and medical insurance schemes.

For more details/ Interested candidates can send in their CVs and 3 references to anamika@thirdsectorpartners.com or Contact us at: +91 22 6660 3558/6660 3559. Only short listed candidates would be contacted.

Last date for receiving applications is 19 Oct 2009.

Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

Sophia Centre for Women's Studies and Development offers a Certificate in Health Care

This course has over the years empowered the lives of many women who are now employed as health care personnel for patient management at home and in hospitals. Interested and underprivileged women and girls are invited to register for the same. Scholarship facilities will be provided to deserving candidates.

Duration: 5 Months

Eligibility: 10 pass/fail

Time: 2.00 pm. to 4.00 pm.
(Monday to Saturday)

Fees: Rs. 2000/-

Course commencing on: 23rd November, 2009


Registration forms and information about course content available at:
Sophia Centre for Women´s Studies and Development,
Sophia College,
Bhulabhai Desai Road,
Mumbai-400026,
INDIA
Tel.: 2351 3280


Posted by Lata Pujari latapujari@yahoo.co.in


Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

War And Peace Prizes

I was dismayed when I heard Barack Obama was given the Nobel peace prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on two wars would be given a peace prize. Until I recalled that Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Henry Kissinger had all received Nobel peace prizes. The Nobel committee is famous for its superficial estimates, won over by rhetoric and by empty gestures, and ignoring blatant violations of world peace.

Yes, Wilson gets credit for the League of Nations – that ineffectual body which did nothing to prevent war. But he had bombarded the Mexican coast, sent troops to occupy Haiti and the Dominican Republic and brought the US into the slaughterhouse of Europe in the first World War, surely among stupid and deadly wars at the top of the list.

Sure, Theodore Roosevelt brokered a peace between Japan and Russia. But he was a lover of war, who participated in the US conquest of Cuba, pretending to liberate it from Spain while fastening US chains on that tiny island. And as president he presided over the bloody war to subjugate the Filipinos, even congratulating a US general who had just massacred 600 helpless villagers in the Phillipines. The Committee did not give the Nobel prize to Mark Twain, who denounced Roosevelt and criticised the war, nor to William James, leader of the anti-imperialist league.

Oh yes, the committee saw fit to give a peace prize to Henry Kissinger, because he signed the final peace agreement ending the war in Vietnam, of which he had been one of the architects. Kissinger, who obsequiously went along with Nixon's expansion of the war, with the bombing of peasant villages in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Kissinger, who matches the definition of a war criminal very accurately, is given a peace prize!

People should be given a peace prize not on the basis of promises they have made – as with Obama, an eloquent maker of promises – but on the basis of actual accomplishments towards ending war, and Obama has continued deadly, inhuman military action in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Nobel peace committee should retire, and turn over its huge funds to some international peace organization which is not awed by stardom and rhetoric, and which has some understanding of history.

By Howard Zinn is the author of “A People’s History of the United States,” “Voices of a People’s History” (with Anthony Arnove), and “A Power Governments Cannot Suppress.”

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/zinn101009.htm


Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

Water, sanitation, grave concerns in southern India’s floods: Oxfam

Responding to the unprecedented flood calamity in the southern states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, Oxfam India Wednesday said there are high chances of epidemics breaking out due to the lack of safe drinking water and adequate sanitation facilities in the affected areas.

The organisation has sent out teams to about 8,000 households in Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh and to 4,000 households in Bagalkot, Karnataka, the districts worst hit by the floods.

“Our decision to respond in Kurnool and Bagalkot comes in the wake of the realisation that both these are arid regions and therefore were not well prepared for floods. In fact, till recently these areas were reeling under the impact of drought. The shock is heavy,” Nisha Agrawal, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Oxfam India said in a statement.

Oxfam India, an NGO, has over 200 projects throughout the country and is in partnership with several local organisations.

The rain and flood havoc that began Sep 30 in the northern districts of Karnataka and moved to engulf neighbouring areas in Andhra Padesh have so far claimed around 260 lives and left millions homeless.

“Though water has receded from many areas, most of the people are not returning to their villages as their houses have been damaged and also due to availability of cooked food in these shelters. There has been demand for temporary shelter materials (polythene, bamboo) in the affected areas,” said Agrawal.

The teams found that the situation in urban slums of Kurnool city was also bad as the area was covered with 10 to 15 inches of mud. The lack of adequate water to clean houses and other household materials was emerging as one of the major problems.

“People have lost clothes and other assets (both utensils and clothes) because of the floods. There is slush and many houses are knee deep in mud and waste material. Sewage from open drains and overflowing septic tanks have increased public health risks especially in the urban areas. People are now defecating in the open in both urban and rural areas.”

In Bagalkot, Oxfam said, all water bodies were contaminated and unsafe for consumption.

Teams found that the rural water supply pipelines were damaged in almost all the affected villages leading to further clean water crisis.

All food stocks available with affected families are spoiled by the flood water; people are not left with any commodities for consumption and are depending on the food packets distributed by government and other agencies, said the agency.

“There are very high chances of the spread of epidemics due to the lack of safe drinking water and inadequate sanitation facilities in the affected areas. The toilets in the urban slums are filled with mud and water following which people are forced to opt for open defecation that is polluting the environment. It may lead to health problems if not addressed immediately,” says Zubin Zaman, Oxfam’s humanitarian response manager.

The Karnataka government has estimated the loss to property and crops at Rs.20,000 crore while Andhra Pradesh has put its losses at Rs.12,500 crore.


Source: http://www.sindhtoday.net/news/1/58128.htm


Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

International RTI Film Festival begins

With a documentary highlighting the success stories of Bulgarian journalists in unmasking corruption using the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the International RTI Film Festival (IRFF) started in the capital Wednesday 7th Oct 2009.

The five-day festival, organised by a group of NGOs and civil society groups, was inaugurated by the Central Information Commission (CIC) chief Wajahat Habibullah.

'RTI Act has acted as a tool for silent revolution and it is for all human kind. It is still budding and I hope it will further bloom in the future. People have now started realising the importance and usefulness of this act,' said Habibullah after the inauguration here.

The CIC chief added that he hoped that the festival will spread the message of RTI among people. He suggested that similar kinds of programmes be organised across India and in neighbouring countries.

The first film to be screened was on the experiences of Bulgarian journalists who used the right of access to information to dig out stories exposing corruption. The film focused on the use of access to information act as a successful tool of journalists for obtaining government held information of public interest which would increase transparency and strengthen an open and accountable government.


The film was followed by a panel discussion on how journalists are using RTI in India.


IRFF received over 40 entries from countries like Bulgaria, North Korea, South Africa, Bangladesh, Switzerland and India. Of those, 11 films would be screened during the five-day event.


The films were selected by a screening committee comprising among others of Wajahat Habibullah and Magsaysay award winner RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal.


'RTI and media has a close relationship but still there is a lot which can be done. Journalists in India need to use RTI more for digging out information for exposing corruption through their stories,' said journalist turned RTI activist Manish Sisodia of Kabir NGO, which is one of the organisers of the event.


Source:http://www.bombaynews.net/story/551696


Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

SARVA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN :universalise elementary education

BASIC FEATURES OF SARVA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is an effort to universalise elementary education by community-ownership of the school system. It is a response to the demand for quality basic education all over the country. The SSA programme is also an attempt to provide an opportunity for improving human capabilities to all children, through provision of community-owned quality education in a mission mode.

WHAT IS SARVA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN

• A programme with a clear time frame for universal elementary education.

• A response to the demand for quality basic education all over the country.

• An opportunity for promoting social justice through basic education.

• An effort at effectively involving the Panchayati Raj Institutions, School Management Committees, Village and Urban Slum level Education Committees, Parents' Teachers' Associations, Mother Teacher Associations, Tribal Autonomous Councils and other grass root level structures in the management of elementary schools.

• An expression of political will for universal elementary education across the country.

• A partnership between the Central, State and the local government.

• An opportunity for States to develop their own vision of elementary education

AIMS OF SARVA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN

The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is to provide useful and relevant elementary education for all children in the 6 to 14 age group by 2010. There is also another goal to bridge social, regional and gender gaps, with the active participation of the community in the management of schools.

Useful and relevant education signifies a quest for an education system that is not alienating and that draws on community solidarity. Its aim is to allow children to learn about and master their natural environment in a manner that allows the fullest harnessing of their human potential both spiritually and materially. This quest must also be a process of value based learning that allows children an opportunity to work for each other's well being rather than to permit mere selfish pursuits.

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan realizes the importance of Early Childhood Care and Education and looks at the 0-14 age as a continuum. All efforts to support pre-school learning in ICDS centres or special pre-school centres in non ICDS areas will be made to supplement the efforts being made by the Department of Women and Child Development.

OBJECTIVES OF SARVA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN

• All children in school, Education Guarantee Centre, Alternate School, ' Back-to-School' camp by 2003;

• All children complete five years of primary schooling by 2007

• All children complete eight years of elementary schooling by 2010

• Focus on elementary education of satisfactory quality with emphasis on education for life

• Bridge all gender and social category gaps at primary stage by 2007 and at elementary education level by 2010

• Universal retention by 2010

Read in detail:http://indiansocialworker.blogspot.com/2009/10/introduction-to-sarva-shiksha-abhiyan.html




Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

A Look Inside the Alzheimer's Brain

A Look Inside the Alzheimer's Brain

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Is Democracy Melting?

While we're still arguing about whether there's life after death, can we add another question to the cart? Is there life after democracy? What sort of life will it be? By "democracy" I don't mean democracy as an ideal or an aspiration. I mean the working model: Western liberal democracy, and its variants, such as they are.

So, is there life after democracy?

Attempts to answer this question often turn into a comparison of different systems of governance, and end with a somewhat prickly, combative defense of democracy. It's flawed, we say. It isn't perfect, but it's better than everything else that's on offer. Inevitably, someone in the room will say: "Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia... is that what you would prefer?"

Whether democracy should be the utopia that all "developing" societies aspire to is a separate question altogether. (I think it should. The early, idealistic phase can be quite heady.) The question about life after democracy is addressed to those of us who already live in democracies, or in countries that pretend to be democracies. It isn't meant to suggest that we lapse into older, discredited models of totalitarian or authoritarian governance. It's meant to suggest that the system of representative democracy -- too much representation, too little democracy -- needs some structural adjustment.

The question here, really, is what have we done to democracy? What have we turned it into? What happens once democracy has been used up? When it has been hollowed out and emptied of meaning? What happens when each of its institutions has metastasized into something dangerous? What happens now that democracy and the free market have fused into a single predatory organism with a thin, constricted imagination that revolves almost entirely around the idea of maximizing profit?

Is it possible to reverse this process? Can something that has mutated go back to being what it used to be? What we need today, for the sake of the survival of this planet, is long-term vision. Can governments whose very survival depends on immediate, extractive, short-term gain provide this? Could it be that democracy, the sacred answer to our short-term hopes and prayers, the protector of our individual freedoms and nurturer of our avaricious dreams, will turn out to be the endgame for the human race? Could it be that democracy is such a hit with modern humans precisely because it mirrors our greatest folly -- our nearsightedness?

Our inability to live entirely in the present (like most animals do), combined with our inability to see very far into the future, makes us strange in-between creatures, neither beast nor prophet. Our amazing intelligence seems to have outstripped our instinct for survival. We plunder the earth hoping that accumulating material surplus will make up for the profound, unfathomable thing that we have lost. It would be conceit to pretend I have the answers to any of these questions. But it does look as if the beacon could be failing and democracy can perhaps no longer be relied upon to deliver the justice and stability we once dreamed it would.

A Clerk of Resistance

As a writer, a fiction writer, I have often wondered whether the attempt to always be precise, to try and get it all factually right somehow reduces the epic scale of what is really going on. Does it eventually mask a larger truth? I worry that I am allowing myself to be railroaded into offering prosaic, factual precision when maybe what we need is a feral howl, or the transformative power and real precision of poetry.

Something about the cunning, Brahmanical, intricate, bureaucratic, file-bound, "apply-through-proper-channels" nature of governance and subjugation in India seems to have made a clerk out of me. My only excuse is to say that it takes odd tools to uncover the maze of subterfuge and hypocrisy that cloaks the callousness and the cold, calculated violence of the world's favorite new superpower. Repression "through proper channels" sometimes engenders resistance "through proper channels." As resistance goes this isn't enough, I know. But for now, it's all I have. Perhaps someday it will become the underpinning for poetry and for the feral howl.

Today, words like "progress" and "development" have become interchangeable with economic "reforms," "deregulation," and "privatization." Freedom has come to mean choice. It has less to do with the human spirit than with different brands of deodorant. Market no longer means a place where you buy provisions. The "market" is a de-territorialized space where faceless corporations do business, including buying and selling "futures." Justice has come to mean human rights (and of those, as they say, "a few will do").

This theft of language, this technique of usurping words and deploying them like weapons, of using them to mask intent and to mean exactly the opposite of what they have traditionally meant, has been one of the most brilliant strategic victories of the tsars of the new dispensation. It has allowed them to marginalize their detractors, deprive them of a language to voice their critique and dismiss them as being "anti-progress," "anti-development," "anti-reform," and of course "anti-national" -- negativists of the worst sort.

Talk about saving a river or protecting a forest and they say, "Don't you believe in progress?" To people whose land is being submerged by dam reservoirs, and whose homes are being bulldozed, they say, "Do you have an alternative development model?" To those who believe that a government is duty bound to provide people with basic education, health care, and social security, they say, "You're against the market." And who except a cretin could be against markets?

To reclaim these stolen words requires explanations that are too tedious for a world with a short attention span, and too expensive in an era when Free Speech has become unaffordable for the poor. This language heist may prove to be the keystone of our undoing.

Two decades of "Progress" in India has created a vast middle class punch-drunk on sudden wealth and the sudden respect that comes with it -- and a much, much vaster, desperate underclass. Tens of millions of people have been dispossessed and displaced from their land by floods, droughts, and desertification caused by indiscriminate environmental engineering and massive infrastructural projects, dams, mines, and Special Economic Zones. All developed in the name of the poor, but really meant to service the rising demands of the new aristocracy.

The hoary institutions of Indian democracy -- the judiciary, the police, the "free" press, and, of course, elections -- far from working as a system of checks and balances, quite often do the opposite. They provide each other cover to promote the larger interests of Union and Progress. In the process, they generate such confusion, such a cacophony, that voices raised in warning just become part of the noise. And that only helps to enhance the image of the tolerant, lumbering, colorful, somewhat chaotic democracy. The chaos is real. But so is the consensus.


Read more an article By Arundhati Roy ;http://www.countercurrents.org/roy280909.htm



Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

Indian Corrupt officials listed on CVC website

The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has, for the first time, made public the names of 123 government officials against whom it has suggested prosecution or imposition of penalty for alleged corruption.

The CVC states on its website: “In furtherance of the transparency initiatives and the spirit of the Right to Information Act 2005, the Central Vigilance Commission has decided to regularly post info/details of cases pending for sanctions for prosecution over four months with organisations/departments.”

Earlier, the commission gave out only the number of allegedly corrupt officials, along with their departments.

The list of 123 allegedly corrupt officials was reportedly compiled in July and includes the names of 101 officials against whom the commission has suggested imposition of a major penalty. Of them, 17 work in nationalised banks, 13 in the Delhi Development Authority, 11 in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, nine in the ministry of railways and New India Assurance Company. The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation has 11 officials on the list.

Of the 22 remaining officers against whom prosecution proceedings have been advised, seven are from the home ministry -- four of them IPS officers, seven from the Central Board of Direct Taxes, and two from the Indian Forest Service.

Meanwhile, well placed sources said the Cabinet secretary has asked secretaries in various ministries not to delay sanction for prosecution of corrupt officials, warning that the CVC would make public the names of officials shielded by their departments.

Sources said the CVC is now working on updating the list with the names of officials whose departments have not yet granted sanction for prosecution or from whom the recommended penalties have not been recovered.

The updated lists will be put up on the website as part of the commission’s fight against corruption.


Source: http://infochangeindia.org/200909187949/Right-to-Information/News/Corrupt-officials-listed-on-CVC-website.html


Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

Right to Education to cover all categories of disability

The human resource development (HRD) ministry has admitted that a section of the Right to Education (RTE) Act pertaining to “disadvantaged sections” will have to be changed as it does not cover all disabled children. According to the proposed amendment, the Act will now include children covered under the National Trust Act and any other law that deals with those suffering from mental as well as physical disorders.

This was reportedly conveyed by the HRD ministry to the prime minister’s office (PMO) recently. While the ministry was earlier planning to incorporate enabling provisions in the rules to be framed for the Act, it was later felt that rules alone would not suffice to meet the concerns of the disabled.

After being passed by Parliament in early August, the landmark legislation is now awaiting presidential consent. Indications are that the amendment will be moved later to ensure that all disabilities are covered under the Bill’s definition of “disability”.

Barely a week after the Act was passed, the prime minister’s office wrote to the HRD ministry asking it to ensure that the concerns of the disabled were addressed. HRD Minister Kapil Sibal assured both Parliament and the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) that all categories of disabled children would receive benefits under the RTE Act.

The RTE Act proposes free and compulsory education to all children aged between 6 and 14 years, making it binding on all public and private schools to reserve 25% of their seats for children from “disadvantaged sections”. Section 3 states that “disadvantaged sections” cover children with disabilities as specified under the Persons With Disabilities Act -- an Act that is not very comprehensive as it leaves out several disabilities like cerebral palsy, autism and other mental disorders.

The original Bill was at the centre of a row even before it was tabled in the Lok Sabha, with activists alleging that it deliberately excluded disabled children from its ambit. They claimed the Bill ignored the rights of disabled children by not providing for disabled-friendly facilities, not including “disability” within the definition of “disadvantaged sections”, and not including the mentally challenged within the definition of “disabled”. Activists say that where the Bill does define “disability”, it takes the meaning as given in the Disability Act 1995, which covers people with physical disabilities only.

Activists point out that India was one of the first countries to ratify the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in October 2007, which says: “State parties shall ensure that persons with disability are not excluded from the general education system on the basis of disability and that children with disabilities are not excluded from free and compulsory primary education or from secondary education on the basis of disability.”


Source: http://infochangeindia.org/200909227957/Education/News/Right-to-Education-to-cover-all-categories-of-disability.html



Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.