weekly news and analysis from 2nd to 7th … · 2016-03-12 · 1 weekly news and analysis byju’s...

1 Weekly News and Analysis Byju’s Classes-9873643487 2015CA_002,003,004,005,006,007

WEEKLY NEWS AND ANALYSIS FROM 2nd TO 7th JULY, 2015

INTERNATIONAL NEWS ‘We don’t have to be imprisoned by the past’ U.S. President Barack Obama described the diplomatic deal reached with Cuba as a “historic step forward” that must

be followed by an end to the decades-old U.S. embargo. Cuba’s President Raul Castro confirmed in a letter to President Obama that Washington and Havana will reopen

embassies as early as July 20.

India finds itself in a bind on Maldives For the past few months, India’s relations with the Maldives have been under considerable strain over the Maldivian

government’s actions against former President Mohamed Nasheed. Even so, with the possibility of a U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Presidential statement censuring the Maldives,

India is caught in a familiar bind, between its own disapproval of the Maldivian government’s undemocratic moves

and its resistance to action against a sovereign neighbour — much like it was some years ago over the situation in Sri

Lanka. The latest stand-off has been sparked by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein’s

statement against the Maldives Supreme Court for passing strictures and threatening imprisonment of members of the Maldives Human Rights Commission for submitting a report to the UNHRC.

Nervous about the developments, the Maldivian government has been in diplomatic overdrive, with President Yameen visiting China and Germany in June, while Foreign Minister Dunya Maumoon spoke with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to apprise them of the latest government moves regarding Mr. Nasheed, who has been convicted on “terror charges,” but has now been moved to house arrest pending his clemency appeal, as well as 18 “new human rights legislations” passed by the government.

In a break from its normal stand of not commenting on internal matters, India had criticised the trial against Mr. Nasheed, as well as an alleged assault on him by police forces outside court on February 23.

However, sources concede that if there is international action against the Maldives, India will have to rethink its stand.

Maldives is, after all, a neighbour in the Indian Ocean region, with close ties despite the recent strain. Indian officials also closely watched President Yameen’s visit to Pakistan in May, and don’t want to concede any more

ground either to Islamabad or to Beijing.

BP settles 2010 U.S. oil spill claims for $18.7 bn BP Plc has reached a comprehensive $18.7 billion settlement with the U.S. government and five states, a landmark

deal that effectively ends years of litigation over environmental damage and human casualties caused by the 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill.

It could be the largest settlement with a single entity in U.S. history, the U.S. Justice Department said. The April 20, 2010, rig explosion killed 11 workers and spewed millions of barrels of oil for nearly three months onto

the shorelines of several states. The agreement covers U.S. Clean Water Act fines and natural resources damages, along with claims by Alabama,

Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and 400 local government entities.

Hillary emails reveal plans to push India towards CTBT accession While most of the reporting on the India connection within the publicly-released emails of Hillary Clinton focused on

her attempts to influence Pakistani counter-terrorism policy in the region, another theme of consequence to New Delhi found less mention – the U.S.’ continuing efforts to get India to accede to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) for nuclear weapons.

A close analysis of the emails of the former U.S. Secretary of State, which were published by the Department State under the Freedom of Information Act following a controversy over her use of a private email account, suggests a close

nexus between Ms. Clinton, and Strobe Talbott, former Deputy Secretary of State during the Bill Clinton administration and a renowned India hand.

Between the two of them and other senior State Department officials such as Ellen Tauscher, former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control, the emails revealed an apparently focused effort to persuade India to sign and ratify the CTBT, even though the U.S. itself has not yet ratified the treaty.

The most significant email on the subject involved not only these officials but also current U.S. Ambassador to India, Richard Verma.

Meanwhile the emails published noted that on July 16, 2009, Mr. Talbott wrote a strong opinion piece titled “Clinton can deliver a tough message to India” in the Financial Times, in which he argued that although the Obama administration knew that it “cannot coax or bully India into formally joining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty… [it hoped] that India's Congress party-led government… will join the U.S… bringing the CTBT into force… [and] Indians… need to be persuaded to see the urgency of prompt action.”


The possibility that Mr. Talbott, who currently heads the Washington-based Brookings Institution, was virtually speaking for Ms. Clinton in this case is hard to rule out, especially since he appeared to be close enough to her to directly email her with CVs of certain job applicants and vet an important policy speech that she delivered that month at the Council on Foreign Relations.

India keeps away from vote against Israel in U.N. The government denied what appeared to be a major shift in India’s policy on Israel, particularly on UN votes related

to the Palestinian cause, after it abstained from a vote against Israel at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The resolution (A/HRC/29/L.35) had welcomed the UN Human Rights Council report, which found evidence of

“alleged war crimes” committed by both Israel and Hamas during the Gaza conflict in 2014, particularly calling for accountability of Israeli officials. Significantly, India had voted against Israel and in favour of the UNHRC resolution in July 2014 that had instituted this very inquiry report into the Gaza violence in which more than 2,300 had been killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.

No policy shift: Govt. However the government denied any policy shift, indicating that India abstained because the UNHRC resolution had

included a reference to taking Israel to the International Criminal Court, which India considers “intrusive.” Fortyone countries voted in favour of the resolution against Israel, while only the U.S. voted against. “In the past also, whenever a Human Rights Council resolution had made a direct reference to the ICC, as had

happened in the Resolutions on Syria and North Korea, our general approach had been to abstain. We have followed

the same principle in our voting on today’s Resolution,” said the official spokesperson. In September, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had met his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of

the UNGA, another break from precedent, and last month the government announced that Mr. Modi would become the first Indian PM to visit Israel.

At her press conference in May this year, Ms. Swaraj had denied any shift on Palestine and Israel. “To say that we are tilted towards Israel or we are making any changes in our policy is wrong… with regard to Palestine India’s foreign policy has not undergone any change.” With Friday’s vote, speculation about a change will grow louder.

Tunisia declares emergency Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi declared a state of emergency following last week’s jihadist beach massacre

claimed by IS in which 38 foreign tourists were killed, his office said. An earlier state of emergency was lifted in March 2014, having been in force since long-time President Zine El Abidine

Ben Ali was ousted in a 2011 revolution. The June 26 attack at the beach resort of Port El Kantaoui, near Sousse, was the second deadly attack on tourists in

three months, following a shooting rampage at its national museum in Tunis that killed 22 people.

Greece crisis: exporters asked to diversify In the wake of the current turmoil in Greece, Indian exporters need to look beyond eurozone and explore opportunities

in emerging markets such as Latin America, CIS nations and Africa, Pravir Kumar, Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) said.

The volume of Indian exports in eurozone is 18-19 percent of the country’s total exports. Exporters have been asked to go to Laitin America, CIS nations and Africa.

Endgame in sight in Iran n-talks After months of intense negotiations, global powers and Iran launched into a key weekend of talks amid signs they

may be within sight of a historic nuclear deal to end a 13-year standoff. In signs of a possible breakthrough on one of the thorniest issues still blocking a deal, the IAEA announced that it

may be able to complete a probe into whether Iran has ever sought nuclear weapons by the end of the year. The aim is to finalise a deal which would put a nuclear bomb beyond Iran's reach, in return for lifting a web of biting

international sanctions slapped on the Islamic republic, some of which date back to 1995.

Greeks defy Europe with overwhelming ‘No’ vote Voters in Greece resoundingly rejected creditors’ demands for more austerity in return for rescue loans, backing Prime

Minister Alexis Tsipras, who insisted the vote would give him a stronger hand to reach a better deal. With 87 percent of the votes counted, the “No” side had more than 60 percent. Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said that creditors planned from the start to shut down banks to humiliate Greeks

and force them to make a statement of contrition for showing that debt and loans are unsustainable.

Discord at SAARC literary fest After three days, the SAARC Literary Festival on South Asian Poetry struck a discordant note over the resolutions

framed by the organisers. When a proposal was put forward on the need to give impetus to regional languages and to counter the English

hegemony at present, many members took objection to the intent as well as the manner of presentation of the resolutions.

Poets from Maldives, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bhutan had gathered at the festival that focussed on the themes and future of South Asian poetry.

Kannada poet Chandrashekar Kambar, Malayalam poet K. Sachidanandan and Bengali poet Subodh Sarkar framed the resolutions — the first time since the literary fest started in 2013. However, this did not go down well with some participants.


The Bangladeshi contingent refused to sign the resolutions. A Bangladeshi poet said their primary opposition was that they were framed without taking the delegates into confidence — considering the differing experiences over language in various parts of the region.

FINALLY! UNESCO LISTINGS FOR CHAMPAGNE AND BURGUNDY In a long-awaited decision for the wine industries behind Champagne and Burgundy, UNESCO has granted the

regions world heritage status. World Heritage listing should bring about economic benefits and financial assistance eligibility for preservation work France now has 41 UNESCO World Heritage sites. Burgundy’s climats – or 1,247 vineyard parcels – have been accorded UNESCO heritage status; Champagne vineyard

slopes, production houses and cellars gained UNESCO status in the ‘living cultural landscapes’ category. French authorities are also celebrating UNESCO's recognition of a number of Burgundy's climats, also included in

this year's World Heritage Site additions. All sites on the UNESCO world heritage list, including the Pyramids of Egypt, the Taj Mahal in India and the Grand

Canyon in the U.S., are to be preserved and protected for future generations by the local and international community.

There are more than 1000 sites today in 161 countries with around 20-30 sites added each year. Other wine regions, including the Port-producing Upper Douro, the village of St.-Emilion and Piedmont, home to

Barolo, are already sites on the world heritage list.

Palestine ‘shocked’ at Indian abstention

Hitting out at India’s decision to abstain from the U.N. Human Rights Council vote because of “technical reasons,”

Palestine has said the abstention “marks a departure” from Delhi’s “traditional position.”

The Palestinian Ambassador to India, Adnan Abu Alhaija, said India’s decision has been “affected” by its “burgeoning

military relationship with Israel.”

“We were shocked. The Palestinian people and leaders were very happy with the U.N. resolution, but the voting of

India has broken our happiness,” Ambassador Alhaija said.

Earlier India refused to vote against Israel in a resolution related to strikes in Gaza over a period of two months in

2014 that left more than 2,200 dead, including 1,462 Palestinian civilians.

The vote was on a report, submitted during the UNHRC’s summer session in Geneva a year later, that blamed Israel

for what it called “extensive use of weapons with a wide kill and injury radius.”

It had also criticised the Hamas militant group for the violence against Israeli citizens, six of whom were killed.

The resolution, which said Israel should bring those responsible for human rights violations to justice, also called on

Israel and Hamas to “cooperate fully with International Criminal Court (ICC).”

It was this reference to the ICC that India said it could not support, as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that

created the ICC, and had similarly abstained from resolutions against Syria and North Korea.

In its statement, the Ministry of External Affairs denied emphatically that there was any “change in India’s long-

standing position on support to the Palestinian cause.”

Adnan Abu Alhaija termed India’s explanation of vote (EOV) “unconvincing”, pointing out that other non-signatories to

the International Criminal Court (ICC) like Russia and China had supported the resolution.

India was among five countries which abstained, while 41 countries voted in favour of the resolution, and the United

States remained the only country to vote against it.

“In a scenario where the European Union members, who were once considered steadfast supporters of Israel, voted

against it, India’s abstention stands out as a sore thumb and will send a confusing signal,” Mr. Alhaija said, adding

that the vote would “confuse” supporters of India’s UN Security Council membership bid, and also constitute a “clean

break from the ethos of non-alignment.”

Modi-Netanyahu ties

Israeli newspapers have credited the Indian position to Israeli diplomacy led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,

who called up Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the eve of the vote.

MEA officials did not comment on the sharp comments by the Palestinian Ambassador, but denied that India had

given “any assurances” on how it would vote to either the Israeli or the Palestinian interlocutors.

Mr. Alhaija said despite the vote, Palestine looked forward to Mr. Modi’s visit to the region, sometime “at the end of

this year and beginning of 2016.”

“We will still like to believe that this incident is merely an aberration and doesn’t reflect India’s diplomatic history and

its desire to help the oppressed people of the world. We will still like to believe that this is a one-off incident and not a

trend,” he said.

Chinese ex-FM to be AIIB chief


China named a former Finance Minister as its choice to head the Beijing-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment

Bank (AIIB), which is being seen as a rival to the U.S. and Europe-dominated banking institutions. Former Finance

Minister Jin Liqun has been formally nominated by China as its preferred candidate to head the $100 billion AIIB.

Mr. Jin (65) is currently the secretary-general of the interim multilateral secretariat for establishing AIIB.

He is effectively certain to be appointed as China will initially have a 26.06 per cent share of the votes at the bank,

giving it veto power over the choice of the president, which requires a 75 per cent majority. India by virtue of being the

second largest shareholder may get the post of vice-president.

Significantly, Mr. Jin was the vice-president of Japan-controlled Asian Development Bank (ADB) for over five years

heading its programmes for South, Central and West Asia and private sector operations for five years.

NATIONAL NEWS Top corporates back Digital India Top corporates pledged investments of Rs. 4.5 lakh crore for initiatives to support Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet

project ‘Digital India’, while also promising to create about 18 lakh jobs in the country. Of the investments, which are led by Indian companies, Reliance Industries committed to invest “Rs. 2,50,000 crore

across Digital India pillars”, including roll-out of wireless broadband infrastructure and manufacturing of mobile handsets.

RIL’s chairman Mukesh Ambani said “Normally, the industry moves faster than the government, but with Digital India, the government has moved faster.”

Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Mittal said that his firm would fully support Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Digital India project.

Mr. Mittal said the company would invest in excess of Rs. 1 lakh crore ($16 billion) in the next five years. He said the company would be working with various manufacturers around the world to start production in the

country with an aim to provide electronic products at affordable rates and also reduce the burden of electronics import.

Likewise, the Aditya Birla Group committed to invest a total of $ 9 billion in the next five years. “Our investments in the telecom industry have been in excess of $ 15 billion wherein we have laid 1 lakh km of fibre...to further improve this digital infrastructure. We plan to invest additional $ 7 billion over the next five years in areas such as network roll-out, broadband and wi-fi deployment,” Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla said.

He said the company would invest $ 2 billion in projects falling within the ambit of the Digital India initiative such as electronic manufacturing and development of smart cities.

Tata Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry, while he did not specify any investment road map, said the group’s IT arm, TCS, which employs about 3,00,000 people, plans to hire 60,000 people this year.

Reliance Group, led by Anil Ambani also announced plans to invest about Rs. 10,000 crore over the next few years to expand its presence across digital, cloud computing and telecom space.

Encouraging others to make use of e-government services such as Digital Locker, an online file or digital media storage service, Mr. Ambani said he had already signed up for it.

He said a crucial condition for the success of Digital India was the availability of “unlimited cloud computing power”, the building blocks of which are data centres.

Billionaire Anil Agarwal-led Sterlite Technologies, meanwhile, announced an investment of Rs. 40,000 crore to set up an LCD panel manufacturing plant in the country, generating about 50,000 jobs.

Homegrown handset maker Lava Mobiles, which had previously committed to set up a factory at the cost of Rs. 1,200 crore, has pledged to create employment for one lakh people.

Of the three foreign companies who addressed the audience, Taiwan’s Delta Electronics announced $ 500 million investment over the next 10 years to start electronic manufacturing with an aim to increase its presence in the country.

Easier said than done: Centre, states disagree over laying fibre network The National Optical Fibre Network, a vital component of the Digital India initiative, is flailing amid right-of-way

hurdles. While cascading delays in the flagship scheme that aims at plugging the rural connectivity gap have forced

the Centre to seek the active intervention of states in getting the project back on track, states such as Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat are among those that have made their intervention, conditional to them getting to take up their leg of the project entirely on their own.

According to officials involved in the exercise, the NOFN project — envisaged as a Centre-State joint effort where states were expected to contribute by way of waiving off right-of-way charges — is way behind schedule and unlikely to be completed by its deadline of December 2016.

While in 2014-15, it was planned to execute work for 1 lakh gram panchayats (GPs), which was later scaled down to 50,000 GPs, data up to March 2015 shows that only about 20,000 GPs were covered under the NOFN — just about 40 per cent of the planned target.

A recent review done by the DoT shows that the biggest hurdle is the right-of-way issue. Despite the Centre having agreements with the state governments for getting the right-of-way available free of cost, officers involved in the implementation have reported back that “whenever they go to actually lay the optical fibre, they run into construction and population issues while even in the fields, the farmers have objections”.


As a counter, Andhra Pradesh has come up with a model under which it proposed to float its own corporation that will take up the work of laying the optic fibre cable network. It has communicated to the Centre that the funds earmarked to be spent for this project in their state should be handed over directly to them as support.

They have indicated that they are willing to put in the rest of the money on their own as they want to further scale-up the project and utilise the infrastructure for multiple uses than what was originally envisaged by the Centre.

The Andhra Pradesh proposal has now been accorded a go-ahead by the Telecom Commission, following which Tamil Nadu and Gujarat have come up with a similar proposal for the implementation of the NOFN project, officials involved in the exercise said.

The Centre is now looking at this option as a way to tide over the right-of-way hurdles. Apart from the right-of-way issue, the other big challenge flagged by the implementation agencies is the lack of

availability of contractors who can execute the kind of specialised work required for a project of this scale. To tide over some of these problems, states where the private contractors can take up this project of this scale on their

own have been instructed to set aside the model of the PSU-driven projects and instead the job is handed over on a turnkey basis to these project contractors, officials said.

Other hurdles include the non-availability of PLB ducts at various sites in the states, delay in the finalization of OFC trenching and laying tenders by implementing utilities.

The project, which was initiated in 2011 and was to be funded by Universal Service Obligation Fund with the aim of

providing broadband connectivity to over 2 lakh gram panchayats at a cost of Rs 20,000 crore.

It aimed to leverage the existing fibre optical network of central utilities — BSNL, RailTel and Power Grid — and laying incremental fibre wherever necessary to bridge the connectivity gap between panchayats and blocks and a special purpose vehicle Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL) was created as a PSU under the Companies Act of 1956 its execution.

Once implemented, the project is intended to enable the Centre to provide e-services and e-applications nationally and a minimum of 100 Mbps bandwidth is to be made available at each Gram Panchayat with non-discriminatory access to the network for all categories of service providers.

World Bank approves $650 m loan for eastern freight corridor The World Bank has approved an additional loan of $650 million for the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC),

which is aimed at the faster delivery of goods between the northern and eastern parts of the country. This round of loans to the Eastern DFC follows two other loans by the World Bank. The Cabinet earlier had approved the revised cost estimate of Rs.81,459 crore for the Eastern and Western Dedicated

Freight Corridor (DFC) Project. The third round of World Bank funding will build the 401 km Ludhiana-Khurja section in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and

Punjab. The project will “help increase the capacity of these freight-only lines by raising the axle-load limit from 22.9 to 25

tonnes and enable speeds of up to 100 km/hr. It will also help develop the institutional capacity of the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd (DFCCIL)

to build and maintain the DFC infrastructure network,” according to the World Bank. An analysis of the projected greenhouse gases that are expected to be generated by the Eastern freight corridor project

found that it would be 55 per cent lower than the levels of gases released without the project. The Eastern DFC project is expected to release 10.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions up to 2041-42,

compared to a whopping 23.3 million tonnes in the absence of the freight corridor.

38 killed in landslides in Darjeeling At least 38 persons have been killed in a series of landslides caused by heavy rain in the three sub-divisions of West

Bengal’s Darjeeling district.

The landslides in 25 places in Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong sub-divisions also caused extensive damage to NH10 and NH 55, cutting off road link to the region.

NH 10 bore the brunt with the road link to Kalimpong, Lava, Lolegaon and Garubathan snapped. NH 55 connecting Siliguri, Matigara with Darjeeling was also damaged mostly in the Mirik and Rohini areas.

For foreign scholars, Home Ministry acts as tough guide In Christine Mehta’s account of how she was deported from India last November, published, there is a telling line.

“India’s progressive visa policy makes living and working in India easy for most second and third generation Indians living abroad, except for those working in environmental and human rights,” the Amnesty International India researcher writes.

It reveals the uneasy relationship the State has with research, particularly on human rights undertaken by non-governmental organisations. The work has to pass muster with the Home Affairs Ministry.

Ms. Mehta, of course, is not alone in her predicament. Four years ago, Ashok (name changed) came to India to undertake research in urban poverty and starvation. His organisation thought it prudent to change his status from researcher coordinator to project manager last year. Indian organisations engaged in human rights, food security and land issues get scholars from the West who are eager to understand how the world’s largest democracy engages with these issues on the ground. Foreigners contribute substantially to research work undertaken by reputable NGOs.

But they have to abide by Clause 44 as enunciated in the frequently asked questions posted on the Home Affairs Ministry’s website for visas. “Can an Overseas Citizens of India undertake research work in India?


Yes, after getting prior approval/special permission from MHA.” What kind of research qualifies as “research” for the Ministry is though unclear.

Ms. Mehta’s request for visa would have been denied had she stated her subject of research beforehand. P. Chidambaram, who, as Home Minister, had proposed amendments to the AFPSA, Ms. Mehta’s line of research, has

criticised her deportation.

Agriculture reform: Government takes first step for a national farm market In what could potentially transform marketing of crops in India, the government has approved the creation of a

common electronic platform which will allow farmers and traders to sell their produce to buyers anywhere in the country.

Currently, the Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) Acts in different states permit the first sale of crops — after harvesting by farmers — to take place only in regulated market yards or mandis.

The farmer’s universe of buyers is restricted only to traders or commission agents licensed to operate in the area under a particular APMC. In most cases, multiple licences are required to trade in different mandis within the same state.

What is now being envisaged, based on the proposal cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, is a National Agriculture Market (NAM) online trading portal where farmers can offer their produce to buyers in any part of the country.

“This virtual marketplace will allow a farmer from, say, Narsinghpur in Madhya Pradesh to sell his chana to a dal

miller in Delhi who may be willing to pay a higher price. The miller, too, benefits by virtue of not having to be physically present in Narsinghpur or being forced to depend on

traders in that APMC area,” Pravesh Sharma, Managing Director, Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC), told.

SFAC has been designated the lead agency for developing the NAM e-platform. “While buyers can log into the platform from homes or offices anywhere in India, the transactions will, however, be recorded as having been conducted through the mandi where the seller would normally bring his produce.

The APMC concerned will, therefore, continue to earn the mandi fee on the transaction even if it does not happen in that particular market yard,” Sharma said.

The APMC-regulated mandis will, in fact, gain through the significant increase in turnover volumes likely from more buyers bidding for produce.

“The NAM e-platform basically gives farmers the choice to accept the bids of local traders or price offers by online buyers. In either case, the APMC is not deprived of revenues through mandi fees.

The portal will provide an integrated platform for transferring the money to the accounts of farmers and the APMC after ensuring delivery of the produce to the buyer,” Sharma said.

The Centre has earmarked Rs 200 crore for creation of the NAM portal that targets to cover 585 mandis across India: 250 in the current fiscal, 200 in 2016-17 and 135 in 2017-18.

The idea of integrating the existing APMC markets through a common e-platform has come from Congress-ruled Karnataka.

The state government has established Rashtriya e Market Services Private Limited, a 50:50 joint venture with NCDEX Spot Exchange, to offer an automated auction platform for connecting all the mandis in Karnataka.

Already, 55 of the 155 main market yards have been integrated into a single licensing system through this platform.

Mega irrigation plan cleared Moving to improve farm productivity and reduce dependence on the monsoon, the government has approved spending

of Rs 50,000 crore over the five years to expand irrigation in rural areas. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said: “The major objective of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana is to achieve

convergence of investments in irrigation at the field level… expand cultivable area under assured irrigation.”

Parliamentary committee recommends doubling of MPs’ salary A parliamentary committee has recommended a steep hike in the salaries and allowances of Members of Parliament. The Joint Committee on Salaries and Allowances of Members of Parliament, headed by BJP MP Yogi Adityanath, has

sought doubling of the salary of MPs from the existing Rs. 50,000 per month, increasing the pension of ex-MPs from Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 35,000, and doubling the daily allowance of members when Parliament is in session, from Rs. 2,000

to Rs. 4,000. In addition, it has sought facilities for “companions” in place of “spouses”, as many MPs are single. The panel has also responded positively to the ex-MPs, who appeared before the panel, and requested that their

companions be also allowed to travel First Class on trains. Currently, companions and spouses are only entitled to second class tickets.

The panel has also recommended that ex-MPs be permitted to travel economy class by air five times a year. Sitting MPs are allowed to fly executive class around three dozen times a year.

Since MPs rank higher than the Cabinet Secretary in protocol, the panel suggested their privileges should match their status and also include healthcare benefits for married children of MPs.

The changes suggested come in the wake of a memorandum signed by 40 MPs cutting across party lines seeking an enhancement of all emoluments.

They had said that they wanted their salaries to be at least on a par with Secretaries to the Government of India.

Fighting income inequality: How India’s policies stack up against IMF’s prescription


A significant new document released earlier by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has argued that rising income inequality will pull down the growth of world GDP the fastest, and called for national policies to be focused on the bottom 20 per cent of the population by income. Weeks earlier, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) had released a discussion note on global income inequalities.

“…Less-regulated labour markets, financial deepening, and technological progress largely explain the rise in market income inequality in our full sample over the last 30 years,” the IMF paper has said, and listed six broad policy prescriptions for governments.

With financial inclusion being one of its key policy objectives, the Indian government is broadly aligned with the IMF’s advice. This is how some of its flagship schemes, evaluated against the IMF’s assessment, measure up.

Jan Dhan Yojana The IMF paper notes that governments in emerging market economies need to push such efforts at inclusion to make

a dent in inequality. Country experiences suggest that policies such as granting exemptions from onerous documentation requirements,

requiring banks to offer basic accounts, and allowing correspondent banking are useful in fostering inclusion. Jan Dhan Yojana seeks to bring banking services to the poor, including landless labourers, and offer them easy

credit. However, the IMF warns against offering too much credit “without sufficient regard for financial stability”.

Labour Reforms States like Rajasthan and Maharashtra have begun to loosen rules for hiring of labour. Cross-country evidence shows

easing of market regulations and technological progress reduce the chances of the less-educated labour force rising in life, the IMF paper says.

Both the IMF and OECD say labour market policies should attempt to avoid both excessive regulation and extreme disregard for labour conditions.

Tax Reforms The IMF paper is clear that tax rates need to be far more progressive across most of the world. It uses data from non-

official sources to show that the income share of the middle 20% in BRICS countries has shrunk even more than for developed countries in the period 1990-2009.

“The redistributive role of fiscal policy could be reinforced by greater reliance on wealth and property taxes, more progressive income taxation, removing opportunities for tax avoidance and evasion, better targeting of social benefits while also minimizing efficiency costs, in terms of incentives to work and save,” it says.

Budget 2015-16 has announced a timeline to ease corporate tax rates to 25% in the next four years, but plans to erase most tax exemptions.

Skill Development Both papers argue that raising skill levels can alleviate the pain from the relaxation of labour laws, technological

change and financial openness. “Improving education quality, eliminating financial barriers to higher education, and providing support for apprenticeship programmes are all key to boosting skill levels in both tradable and non-tradable sectors.

These policies can also help improve income prospects of future generations as educated individuals are better able to cope with technological and other changes,” says IMF.

FDI and FII Decades after the Bretton Woods institution espoused greater cross-border flow of financial capital, the IMF adduces

data to show that increased financial flows, particularly foreign direct investment, increases income inequality in both advanced and emerging market economies. In the last one year, India has opened the gates wider for insurance, railways and defence, and is debating the chances of opening them for multi-brand retail too.

National Skill development policy: With aim to bridge existing skill gap, govt clears plan In a bid to improve employability of workers and boost job creation, the government has approved the country’s first

integrated national policy for skill development and entrepreneurship. The new policy would replace the National Skilling Policy, 2009 that was prepared by the earlier government and

provided for a review after five years to align the policy framework with emerging trends. “The policy aims to align supply with demand, bridging existing skill gaps, promoting industry engagement,

operationalise a quality assurance framework, leveraging technology and promoting apprenticeship to tackle the

identified issues,” said finance minister Arun Jaitley. The policy would have four thrust areas, according to an official release. “It addresses key obstacles to skilling,

including low aspirational value, lack of integration with formal education, lack of focus on outcomes, low quality of training infrastructure and trainers,” it said adding that it would also try to align demand and supply for skills by bridging existing skills gaps.

“Skill development and entrepreneurship programmes for women are a specific focus of the Policy,” it added. In the entrepreneurship domain, the policy would educate and equip potential entrepreneurs, both within and outside

the formal education system. The Cabinet also approved common norms for Skill Development Schemes being implemented by the Centre as well as

an institutional framework for the National Skill Development Mission. This would help bring uniformity across the 70-odd skill development programmes (SDPs) being run by different government agencies.

“This multiplicity of norms and parameters has created a diffusive effect of SDPs, which need to be streamlined in order to achieve the final outcomes envisaged,” said the release.


Beijing proposes India-China-Nepal economic corridor to boost trade China has proposed an economic corridor with India through Nepal in what appears to be President Xi Jinping’s latest

effort to enhance connectivity and trade links across south Asia. Besides the economic corridor, there is also a proposal for a railway route to connect the three countries, a senior

Chinese official has said. Following Xi mooting the corridor proposal, the China-Nepal-India economic corridor was again discussed during a

meeting between foreign minister Sushma Swaraj and her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, when they met in Kathmandu recently at a conference on the quake-hit country’s reconstruction.

India has responded to the corridor proposal positively, Huang Xilian, a top official from Asian department of the ministry of foreign affairs told Indian journalists.

For China, the corridor could be one of the last pieces to fit into the intricate network of road and rail links it is attempting to put in place in south Asia; the Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar (BCIM) corridor is already far into the discussion stage.

The Chinese official said Beijing and New Delhi were considering setting up joint study group on the project. In Kathmandu, the two foreign ministers had more discussion the topic and reached consensus that we need to work

together in the process of reconstruction (of Nepal following the April earthquake) and set up a joint study group to explore the initiative of the economic corridor,” Huang added.

On the railway link between the three countries via mountain passes in the Himalayas, Huang said if constructed it

would “materialise a dream”. Huang said China was “impressed” by India’s package to Nepal for reconstruction. “The package announced by your foreign minister was very impressive to help Nepal, our common neighbour, and

sent a positive signal to the international community that India and China will work together to help our brother country,” Huang said.

India has announced a package of $1 billion to assist Nepal. China has pledged $10 million in cash, another 3 billion Yuan ($483 million) in assistance and was ready to provide

loans to Nepal for reconstruction, he said.

Agri boost: schemes for irrigation, reforms in mandi get CCEA nod The government plans to spend 50,000 crore in five years (2015-16 to 2019-20) to provide irrigation facility to all farm

lands. This will be part of new scheme ‘Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana,’ approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Wednesday.

At present, 45 per cent of total farm lands are irrigated. Agriculture Secretary Siraj Hussain said that effort would be to bring in six lakh hectares under irrigation, besides providing drip irrigation facility in 5 lakh hectares during the current fiscal.

The scheme aims to achieve convergence of investments in irrigation at the field level, expand cultivable area under assured irrigation (Har Khet ko pani), improve on-farm water use efficiency to reduce wastage of water, enhance the adoption of precision-irrigation and other water saving technologies (more crop per drop), enhance recharge of aquifers and introduce sustainable water conservation practices by exploring the feasibility of reusing treated municipal based water for peri-urban agriculture and attract greater private investment in precision irrigation systems.

As a precursor to establishing a national market for agricultural produce, the CCEA also approved a scheme which will facilitate setting up a common market at the State level.

This will end various mandis in one State and farmers will have flexibility to sell their produce according to their convenience. Jaitley said that the scheme would cover all the 585 mandis in the country.

“There will be one licence for the entire State beside single point levy. Electronic auctions will be used for discovery of

prices,” he said while adding that most of the States have agreed on the scheme. The scheme is Central Sector Scheme for Promotion of National Agricultural Market through Agri-Tech Infrastructure

Fund (ATIF). An amount of 200 crore has been earmarked for the scheme from 2015-16 to 2017-18. This includes provision for supplying software free of cost by DAC to the States and Union Territories (UTs) and for the

cost of related hardware/infrastructure to be subsidised by the government up to 30 lakh per Mandi (other than for

private mandis). The Centre will meet expenses on software and its customisation for the States and provide it free of cost to the States

and UTs. It will also give grant as one time fixed cost subject to the ceiling of 30 lakh per mandi for related equipment or

infrastructure in the 585 regulated mandis, for installation of the e-market platform.


30 p.c. of rural households landless Nearly 19 per cent of India’s rural population in 2011 lacked at least one of seven socio-economic parameters used to

estimate deprivation that include source of income, of an able and literate adult and quality dwelling. The first socio-economic and caste census in India since 1934, the Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 (SECC),

was released by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Among the crucial findings of the exercise, conducted by the

Ministry of Rural Development, was that about 30 per cent of rural households are landless and derive a major part of their income from manual, casual labour.

The second most common form of deprivation was literacy with close to a quarter – 23.5 per cent — of rural households having no literate adults above the age of 25.

Releasing the census, Mr Jaitley said the findings would form the basis for States and the Centre to take policy decisions on schemes and programmes. “It provides a basis for helping to target groups for support and for policy planning,” he added.

However, the data released pertained only to the socio-economic

parameters of the SECC 2011. “Although it is called the Socio

Economic and Caste data, the release so far has been of only the socio-economic data. The detailed caste-based data has not yet been released.

Deprivation, not income The extent and approach to deprivation captured by the SECC

2011 contrasts with the poverty estimates of the erstwhile Planning Commission, which were income-based.

As per the Commission’s last estimate, in 2011-12, 25.7 per cent of India’s rural population was below the poverty line ie. with an income below Rs. 816 per capita per month.

“This census measures deprivation on the basis of what a household does not have as against the Planning Commission’s poverty estimates that looked at the income an individual does have,”.

Over 48 p.c. of rural population is female A little more than 48 per cent of the Indian rural population is female, according to the Socio Economic and Caste

Census 2011 (SECC) released. This is in keeping with the rural gender ratio found in the Census of India 2011. Marking the first all-India Census to be released since the Supreme Court recognised transgenders as the third

gender in 2014, the SECC found that transgenders comprise 0.1 per cent of India’s rural population.

Andaman & Nicobar Islands, West Bengal, Gujarat, Odisha and Mizoram have the highest proportions of transgenders.

The Census also found that 41.6 per cent of rural Indians were unmarried, 40 per cent are currently married and 3.5 per cent are divorced.

Daman and Diu lead the country in the proportion of their

rural population that has remained unmarried — at 55.9 per cent, this is far higher than the national average. Chandigarh, on the other hand, has only 23.2 per cent of its population that has never married.

Puducherry and Kerala have the highest proportion of widows, at 6 % and 5.5 % respectively.

The average household in rural India has close to five members, and only 12.8 per cent of them are headed by women. Lakshadweep bucks this trend, with over 40 per cent of its rural households headed by women.

Growing illiteracy in rural India Only 5.4 per cent has crossed higher secondary school stage The Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 (SECC)

released has found that 36 per cent of the 884 million people in rural India are illiterate. This is higher than the 32 per cent recorded by the Census of India 2011.


Of the 64 per cent literate rural Indians, a more than a fifth have not even completed primary school. The SECC also found that only 5.4 per cent of rural India has completed high school with a mere 3.4 per cent having graduated from college.

This poor state of rural education is reflected in the fact that 23.5 per cent of rural households had no adults above the age of 25 who are literate – one of the categories of deprivation measured by the SECC.

The performance within States is hugely varied, with an alarming 47.6 per cent of rural Rajasthanis remaining illiterate, compared to 9.3 per cent in Lakshadweep and 11.4 per cent in Kerala.

Delhi the best Delhi performs the best when it comes to percentage of its rural population that has completed graduate studies – at

9.6 per cent, its performance is almost thrice as good as the national average. These numbers reiterate the poor quality of education being provided in rural India and the high drop-out rate, as

brought up repeatedly by the Annual State of Education Report (ASER) in rural India by Pratham. According to ASER, 96 per cent of children aged 6-14 are enrolled in schools, but the fact that 36 per cent of rural

Indians are illiterate points towards poor education quality, a high drop-out rate, or both.

Centre brings black money law into force Advances implementation of the Act to July 1, 2015 from April 1, 2016 Having advanced enforcement of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act

by eight months through an executive order, the Union government also notified the rules under the Act.

In exercise of its power to remove difficulties in interpreting the expression “date of commencement of the Act” and giving effect to two of its crucial provisions, the government issued an order clarifying that the Act has come into force on July 1, 2015.

However, many legal experts are of the opinion that when the date of commencement is clearly notified in the Act, it cannot be changed through an administrative order.

“Section 86 (1) of the Act empowers the Central government to order to remove difficulties not inconsistent with the provisions of the main Act as a delegate of Parliament.

But in the instant situation, the government has actually amended Section 1(3) of the main Act by altering the date when the Act shall come into force from April 1, 2016, to July 1, 2015,” said former Additional Solicitor General Bishwajit Bhattacharyya.

He said this is patently illegal as ‘otherwise’ has not been provided in the Act. “A delegated legislation cannot amend the parent legislation. Parliament alone could have altered the date of coming into force of the Act,” he said.

Section 1(3) states: “Save as otherwise provided in this Act, it shall come into force on the 1st day of April, 2016” and Section 86(1) provides that “if any difficulty arises in giving effect to the provisions of this Act, the Central Government may, by order, not inconsistent with the provisions of this Act, remove the difficulty”.

Senior advocate and Member of Parliament K.T.S. Tulsi said: “As of date the administrative order is unconstitutional. If the date is mentioned in the statute, the government can change the date of implementation only through an amendment by the Parliament. An administrative order cannot violate the intention of the Parliament.”

Socio Economic and Caste census: States that have implemented land reforms have higher rates of landlessness than

the national average, according to data from the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC).

Of the country’s total 17.92 crore rural households, 10.08 crore or 56 per cent do

not own any agricultural land. What is surprising, though, is that the incidence of landlessness is higher in Kerala (72 per cent) and West Bengal (70 per cent).

The percentage of rural households with no land in the two states — both known to have undertaken radical land reforms under Left-ruled governments in the past — is higher than even for the likes of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra or Odisha that have no record of carrying out

any sustained land redistribution programme. One reason for this seeming discrepancy could be that the SECC data looks only

at agricultural land and not homestead land, said Abhijit Sen, former member of the Planning Commission. Kerala, for one, has seen significant reduction in land under cultivation.

Quite a bit of farmlands redistributed to erstwhile tenant-cultivators after imposition of land ceilings would, over time, have got converted to pure homesteads. Many agricultural households would have exited farming altogether.

This is partly also borne out by the SECC data on sources of household income. While “cultivation” formed the main source of income for 30.1 per cent of all rural households in India, the figure for Kerala was as low as 10.25 per cent.

However, K P Kannan, former director of the Thiruvananthapuram-based Centre for Development Studies, felt that the 72 per cent landlessness figure “needs

http://images.indianexpress.com/2015/07/no-land.jpg


further confirmation”. While the gross cropped area in Kerala has fallen, it “has not dipped to the extent the SECC data would suggest”.

In West Bengal, the high landlessness is seen to be related to the fact that land reforms in the state were focused more on providing sharecroppers legal security of tenure and protection against eviction — through the Left Front government’s Operation Barga during the 1980s — than conferring ownership per se.

In West Bengal, too, the proportion of rural households mainly dependent on cultivation as a source of revenue is comparatively low at 18.87 per cent.

The states with the lowest rates of landlessness — defined by agricultural land — are Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.

Cabinet rank for Niti Aayog chief Panagariya The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) issued an order granting the rank and status of Cabinet Minister to Niti Aayog Vice

Chairman Arvind Panagariya and that of Minister of State to its two full-time members, economist Bibek Debroy and former bureaucrat V K Saraswat.

The latest order overrides an earlier directive from the Cabinet Secretariat that fixed the Vice Chairman’s pay at the Cabinet Secretary’s level and stated that his Cabinet Minister rank was only for ‘warrant of precedence’ purposes.

According to government sources, the PMO’s order will be followed by a fresh notification from the Cabinet Secretariat. Panagariya will be invited for Cabinet meetings too, they added. “That order will come separately from the

PMO,” said sources.

The Vice Chairman, meanwhile, is planning to travel across the country to push for education and labour reforms in states to complement the Centre’s efforts in these sectors.

Author of the book ‘Why Growth Matters’, which was described by The Economist as a manifesto for policymakers and analysts, Panagariya was also the former Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank and an economics professor at Columbia University.

At the Niti Aayog, meanwhile, work allocation among members has been identified with various ministries and states divided between Panagariya, Debroy and Saraswat.

A decision is also likely on inducting two new members – Sanjeev Sanyal, global strategist, Deutsche Bank; Tushar Poddar, Chief India Economist, Goldman Sachs; Ashok Gulati, who is with the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER); and agriculturist Ramesh Chand are among the names being considered.

7 in 10 homes rural, most live on less than Rs 200 a day, reveals new socio-economic census A worrying picture emerged as the government released new data which showed that rural India accounted for 73 per

cent households and 74 per cent of these survived on a monthly income of less than Rs 5,000 of its highest earner. According to the data, 51 per cent of the households are engaged in casual, manual labour and 30 per cent in cultivation.

Provisional findings of the Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC), reported earlier, recognise “multidimensional” aspects of poverty and will form the basis for determination of beneficiaries of government schemes in rural areas. Conducted between 2011 and 2013, it will facilitate identification of the poor and deprived in rural areas.

The census covered 24.39 crore households across the country — 17.91 crore are rural households. The highest number of rural households is in Bihar — 90 per cent. The census also showed that 21.53 per cent of rural households belong to the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribes.

The contentious caste break-up data was not released. “This is the jurisdiction of the DG Census. It is for him to decide what he thinks about it. This is entirely in the DG’s domain. Only he can comment on it. Only he can satisfy your queries,” Rural Development Minister Birender Singh said while releasing the data with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

“The name of the report indicates (caste), but caste is not reflected in our data… still the name is Socio Economic and

Caste Census,” he said. When the SECC process began in 2011, OBC leaders of parties like the SP, RJD, JD(U) pressed for enumeration of

caste on the lines of the 1931 census. There was division even in the UPA which was in power then. Those opposed to it had cautioned that findings of the caste census could lead to new demands for reservation. According to the SECC data, 31.26 per cent of the total rural households can be broadly identified as “poor”’ where

the main earner has an “insecure and uncertain” source of income and the household lives in a “one room house with

kutcha walls and kutcha roof”. Sources said this is because it has been left to states to determine their own poverty ratios using the findings of this

census. It is not the mandate of the ministry under this census to determine overall BPL figures, sources said. As many as 74.49 per cent rural households survive on a monthly income of less than Rs 5,000 of its highest earner.

The largest number of such households is in Chhattisgarh — over 90 per cent. Five percent of rural households derive salaries from government jobs, 1.11 per cent from public and 3.57 per cent

from private sources. Overall, 94 per cent of households own houses, but only 17.70 per cent of SC and 10.50 per cent of ST households have their own houses. Only 4.58 percent of rural households pay income tax.

The findings show 56 per cent households are landless and 70 per cent of SC households fall in this category. In rural households, 38.27 per cent are “landless households deriving major part of their income from manual casual labour”.

The highest are in Tamil Nadu (55.80 per cent) and Bihar (54.33 per cent). The largest proportion of households with “destitute/living on alms” is in Orissa.


The census distributed rural households into three categories: those that have to be compulsorily excluded; those that have to be compulsorily included; and those that fall in-between, which were then ranked based on seven deprivation criteria.

Information was collected on a range of parameters at the individual and household levels like occupation, education, disability, religion, SC/ST status, name of caste/tribe, employment, income and source of income, assets, housing, possession of consumer durables and non-durables and land owned.

Those to be automatically included are households without shelter, destitute living on alms, manual scavengers, primitive tribal groups and legally released bonded labourers. This figure has been pegged at less than 1 per cent. In this, 0.11 per cent of SCs and 0.46 per cent of STs have been automatically included.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, “It’s after seven-eight decades that we have this document after 1932 of the caste census… It’s going to be a very important document for all policy makers both in central and state governments… this document will help us target groups for support in terms of policy planning.”

The ministry’s internal poverty estimate from the census is similar to that of the Rangarajan committee, a technical experts group set up by the UPA government in 2012 after criticism that the poverty line had been pegged much lower than it should have been by the Tendulkar committee.

According to the Rangarajan committee, the percentage of people below the poverty line in 2011-12 was 30.95 in rural areas and 26.4 in urban areas as compared to 25.7 and 13.7 respectively as per the Tendulkar methodology.

Cellphones outnumber landlines in rural India Nearly 28 per cent of rural households in India still do not have access to a phone, whether landline or mobile, finds

the Socio Economic and Caste Census, 2011. Only 11 per cent of these households have a refrigerator. The census finds that the number of mobile-phone connections far exceeds that of landlines in rural India. Sixty-eight

per cent of households own only a mobile phone, one per cent own only a landline phone, and 2.7 per cent own both. The census provides an insight into transport facilities in villages, showing that only 20.6 per cent of households own

“motorised two/three/four-wheelers or motorised fishing boats requiring registration”. Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh perform abysmally when it comes to rural consumption of items

measured in the census. o A whopping 71 per cent of Chhattisgarh’s rural population, for example, does not have a phone. o This number is 65.3 per cent for Odisha and 51.9 per cent for Madhya Pradesh. o The proportion of these States’ rural populations with a refrigerator is very low — only around a third of the

national average. The highest-paid members in an overwhelming 90.8 per cent of rural households in Chhattisgarh earn less than Rs.

5,000 a month, which may explain the low consumption. This proportion is 87.8 per cent in Odisha and 83.5 per cent in Madhya Pradesh, against the national average of 74.5 per cent.

The census found that only 3.62 per cent of rural households across the country have a Kisan Credit Card with a credit limit of Rs. 50,000 or more.

New rescue app for Kedarnath pilgrims Kedarnath yatra rescue Android App, which, according to the

Rudraprayag District Magistrate Raghav Langer, is the “first online and offline integrated smart phone application” has now been launched.

The App can be used for sending “an emergency SMS” to the district administration during a disaster to inform the authorities about the location of the user for rescue and

evacuation purposes. Working towards building a rescue application was

necessitated after the June 2013 deluge where thousands of pilgrims lost their lives in Kedarnath Valley due to lack of contact with the administration.

Over 50% of children under five stunted in U.P. Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Uttarakhand and Tripura are the

only States which have reduced the proportion of underweight adolescent girls according to the findings of the Rapid Survey on Children (RSOC), a nation-wide sample survey of over one lakh households conducted by the UNICEF.

The State-level numbers reveal that while some States have made remarkable progress in battling child malnourishment, others have made little progress despite a decade of high growth.

Among the developed States, Gujarat is the only one to perform worse than the national average in reducing the numbers of child stunting cases and underweight children.


Almost all States have performed poorly in reducing the number of underweight adolescent girls. Uttar Pradesh still has the highest levels of child stunting, with over 50 per cent of the children under the age of five

underdeveloped, meaning that their height is more than two standard deviations less than the expected height for their age for that population.

Jharkhand, meanwhile, has the highest number of underweight children under the age of five, meaning their weight for age is more than two standard deviations less than what would be expected.

Kerala remains the best performing State in the number of child stunting cases, while Manipur and Mizoram have the lowest numbers of underweight children.

Delhi and Mizoram reduced child stunting at the fastest rate between 2004-05 — when the last official National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) was conducted — and 2013-14.

While Madhya Pradesh and Bihar still have high levels of underweight children, both States reduced these numbers at fast rates along with Himachal Pradesh.

No State reported an increase in the proportion of children underweight or stunted, a significant reversal from past trends.

The RSOC findings show that at the national level, stunting is higher in rural areas (41.7 per cent) than in urban areas (32.1 per cent), as is the case for underweight children.

Key findings UNICEF’s Head of Nutrition Saba Mebrahtu said that though the survey had hogged attention for only its

immunisation-related findings, there was much in it to celebrate as well. “There has been a substantial reduction in child under nutrition by 9 percentage points compared to the findings of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 3 in 2005-06.

However, the findings pertaining to teenage girl child nutrition are worrying. “There is very little improvement in nutrition levels of girls in the 15-18 age group since NFHS 3.

While 10 years ago, teenage girl under nutrition level stood at 44.3 per cent, RSOC 2013-14 showed it stands at 44.7,” she said, adding that this lack of improvement is across the board.

Hyderabad techies help war-torn Yemen’s blood donation drive An initiative from a group of techies in Hyderabad to prepare an ‘army’ of voluntary blood donors has found its

resonance in the war-torn Republic of Yemen. The simple idea of cutting down the role of middlemen and directly providing contact details of persons willing to

donate blood to desperate victims through a website has found takers in Yemen. To meet the increasing demand of blood that could save precious lives in the Arab country, techies in Hyderabad have

transferred the technology and concept to maintain a ‘live’ database of voluntary donors through the website (friends2support.org).

The website, which has amassed contact details of close to 1,50,000 voluntary blood donors across India in the last decade, has now started its operations in Yemen.

The site founders are providing the technology, knowledge, operational support and guidance to locals for operating the donors list.

“Through a common friend, we got in touch with Mr. Ali Al Yemani and others who urged us to help set up such a website. It’s just over a week that we have started the website in Yemen.

Through a series of calls on the Skype in the last few months, we have given all possible guidance to the locals to operate this website,” said Founder, Friends2support, Shareef. Sk.

The website has also attracted a lot of attention from like-minded individuals from other countries in the Indian sub-continent.

“With the help of locals, we have also launched our operations through the website in Nepal, Sri Lanka and

Bangladesh. Since the website cuts down the role of middlemen, it has attracted a lot of interest from persons who are desperately looking to address shortage of blood in hospitals,” he said.

The website was launched in 2005 by five software professionals including Sk. Shareef, E. Naveen, S. Koteswara Rao, Phani Kethamakka and M. Murali Krishna.

Landlessness is higher among Dalits but more adivasis are ‘deprived’ Adivasis or Scheduled Tribes are the most deprived among rural households in India, despite their suffering much

lower levels of landlessness and dependence on manual casual labour compared to the Dalits or Scheduled Castes. According to the results of the Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011, nearly 79 per cent of rural adivasi households

are considered “deprived”. This is higher than the 61 per cent for all rural households, the 55 per cent for non-SC/STs, and the 73 per cent for

Dalits. The higher incidence of deprivation is notwithstanding the fact that just over half the ST households are dependent on

manual casual labour as a source of income, as against well above two-thirds for Dalits. Also, 38 per cent of Adivasi families — twice the proportion for SCs — are engaged in cultivation, which is indicative of

their owning land. Around 45 per cent of SC households are both landless and derive a major part of income from manual casual labour.

This proportion, too, is below 30 per cent for adivasis. How do higher landlessness and manual casual labour dependence among Dalit families square up with their lower

deprivation incidence, as per the SECC data? It has to do with the way the deprivation numbers have been arrived at.


The SECC has identified 14 parameters of exclusion. Fulfilling even one of them would result in a household being treated as non-deprived. The parameters include households paying income or professional tax; having any member who is a government employee or earning more than Rs 10,000 per month; owning a 2/3/4 wheeler, refrigerator or landline phone; staying in a pucca house with three rooms; and farming over 2.5 acres of irrigated land.

The results show more rural Dalit households (91 lakh or 27.4 per cent) than adivasis (42 lakh or 21.4 per cent) fulfilling at least one of the 14 parameters that disqualify them from the deprivation category. There are more motorised vehicle, refrigerator or pucca house owners among SCs than STs (see table).

One reason for the ability for even landless manual labour-dependent families to be able to own consumer durables may be wages.

These have risen even after adjusting for inflation over the last decade, thanks to non-farm employment generation from high economic growth and also welfare programmes like MGNREGA.

But can ownership of consumer durables be used as criteria for excluding households from the deprived category? “You cannot equate ownership of a two-wheeler with having a government job.

The latter promises permanent income, whereas the former can be had even with borrowings or remittance monies from relatives in cities that aren’t sustainable,” said Sukhdeo Thorat, former UGC chairman.

‘Digital India With Laado’ campaign After its ‘Beti Bachao-Selfie Banao’ initiative caught Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attention prompting him to

announce ‘Selfie with Daughter,’ the Bibipur Panchayat launched “Digital India with Laado”, a campaign to replace

names of family-heads in the nameplates with their daughter’s moniker. Under the new campaign, representatives of village panchayat are visiting every household and putting up nameplates

bearing the name and email id of the daughter of the house along with the tagline “Digital India With Laado.”

India mulling proposal to join Eurasian Union

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ongoing visit to Russia and five Central Asian nations could expedite the feasibility

studies under way to assess whether India should sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with the Eurasian Economic

Union (EEU).

Even as it is yet to firm up its agreements with the European Union, India is considering the option of signing a pact

with the EEU, which has Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia as members, and will see the

inclusion of Tajikistan later this year.

Joint study group

According to government officials, a joint study group, headed by a Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce, has

been mandated to study the benefits of joining the trade bloc, but with the emphasis on enhancing trade and

investment ties with the Central Asian countries, there is a possibility that an agreement could be on the cards soon.

An invitation to join the bloc was extended by Russia, and a joint statement for establishment of a joint study group

between India and the EEU was signed when Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman visited Russia

recently.

A senior official on condition of anonymity said though India is keen to secure its position vis-à-vis tariff lines, it is

also considering signing up with different trade blocs like the Latin American Integration Association (ALADI) which

now has 13 members, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA).

“Trade is becoming more and more regional; the EU for instance is focusing on trade within members. While India has

to protect investment and trade from becoming imbalanced, it also has to ensure that its goods are not discriminated

against. It is best for India to gain access to all important trade blocs,” the official said.

India is keen to enhance its ties with the Central Asian countries, which have huge oil and gas reserves and are an

important link to Afghanistan.

Free trade pacts

While officials are weighing up the consequences of joining the EEU and the EU, there are also reports of Iran, Egypt

and Israel considering the possibility of signing free trade agreements with the EEU. Vietnam too has signed a free

trade agreement with the EEU.

Aftab Kamal Pasha, Professor at the Centre for West Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, says India must

consider an FTA with the EEU, because it will be an opportunity for improving trade ties as well as foster relations to

check the menace of growing radicalisation in the region.

‘An opportunity’

“India keeps talking of an Asian century, but we seem to be losing out … we should have taken the lead for Asian

initiatives. This is an opportunity and we must proactively associate [with] and contribute [to]. These associations

indicate a growing regional growth,” he told.

SCs in TN better off than FCs in Jharkhand


New data from the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 and the UNICEF’s Rapid Survey on Children

(RSOC) show that while India’s Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes have worse socio-economic indicators, this

disadvantage is varies substantially depending on the State where they live.

So SC and ST children in Tamil Nadu and Kerala are less likely to be underweight than OBC and forward caste

children in States like Jharkhand and Gujarat.

Similarly, SC households in Kerala and Tamil Nadu are more likely to own a vehicle than ‘other’ households in West

Bengal or Bihar.

The SECC, which contains data on the socio-economic status of all rural households, was conducted in 2011 and

released recently.

Both sets of data show that SC and ST households remain significantly worse off on average. Rates of stunting and

severe stunting in children under the age of five are highest among SC and ST children with ST children faring the

worst. For both stunting and underweight, OBCs and ‘others’ have substantially better indicators.

However, the national averages hide State-level dynamics. Among States with substantial SC populations, Kerala,

Punjab and Andhra Pradesh have the lowest levels of underweight SC children. Therefore, an SC child in these States

is less likely to be underweight than an ‘other’ category child in Gujarat, Jharkhand or West Bengal.

Among States with significant ST populations, the north-eastern States have lower levels of ST children underweight

than ‘other’ category children in most of the northern and eastern States, as well as Gujarat.

Changing dynamics

Similar is the case with SECC data. Nationally, ‘other’ households have far better socio-economic indicators than SC

and ST households. However, once State location is factored in, the dynamics change. A far higher proportion of SC

households in Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Telangana own vehicles compared to ‘other’ category households in Bihar,

Odisha and West Bengal.

An ST household in Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Nagaland and Manipur is also more likely to have a family member

earning more than Rs. 10,000 per month than an ‘other’ category household in Bihar, Odisha, and Jharkhand. More

SC households in Karnataka pay income tax than ‘other’ households in Gujarat.

India, Uzbekistan ink pacts to boost cooperation

On his first visit to Central Asian countries, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with Uzbekistan President

Islam Karimov on key bilateral and regional issues including the situation in Afghanistan as the two countries inked

three pacts to boost cooperation between their foreign offices and in the field of culture and tourism.

Mr. Modi, who arrived in the Uzbek capital on the first leg of his eight-day visit to Central Asia and Russia, was

received at the airport by his counterpart Shavkat Miromonovich Mirziyoyev and was accorded a ceremonial welcome.

Mr. Modi and Mr. Karimov discussed ways to enhance strategic, economic and energy ties apart from reviewing key

regional issues including the situation in Afghanistan.

Unwed mother can be sole guardian: SC

Upholding the right of an unwed mother to apply for sole guardianship over her minor son without prior consent of

the child’s absentee biological father, the Supreme Court said women are increasingly choosing to raise their children

alone, and there was no need to thrust an uncaring father on a child.

The young mother, whom the apex court described as “well-educated, gainfully employed and financially secure,” had

refused to divulge the name of the biological father of her child to the courts.


She reasoned that the man, who was married and had a family, never showed any interest in her child, whom she

raised on her own. She wanted guardianship rights so that her son would inherit her financial assets.

“In situations where the father has not exhibited any concern for his offspring, giving him legal recognition would be

an exercise in futility. In today’s society, where women are increasingly choosing to raise their children alone, we see

no purpose in imposing an unwilling and unconcerned father on an otherwise viable family nucleus,” the judgment by

a Bench of Justices Vikramjit Sen and A.M. Sapre held.

The judgment, authored by Justice Sen, observed that a man who has chosen to forsake his duties and

responsibilities is not a necessary constituent for the well-being of the child.

“Any responsible man would keep track of his offspring and be concerned for the welfare of the child he has brought

into the world; this does not appear to be so in the present case,” the apex court held, allowing the mother to apply for

guardianship without disclosing the name of the biological father.

The court agreed with the woman, who preferred anonymity and is known only by the acronym ‘ABC’ on court

records, that it would be beneficial if the father’s name is not disclosed now. She said the guardianship can be altered

if the father raised any objections.

Petition seeks withdrawal of President’s pleasure

The petition against Madhya Pradesh Governor Ram Naresh Yadav amid allegations of his involvement in the Vyapam

scam, filed in the Supreme Court by five Gwalior-based advocates, has arraigned as parties the State government, the

Union Ministry of Home Affairs and the Governor himself.

It contended that a “tainted” Governor could not be allowed to discharge constitutional functions, which includes all

wings of governance — executive, legislative, judicial, financial or discretionary — in Madhya Pradesh.

It wanted the apex court to direct the MHA to move a proposal for “withdrawal of pleasure” of the President under

Article 156 (1) of the Constitution, thus facilitating the removal of the Governor.

According to the petition,the allegation against the Governor is that he had recommended names of five candidates for

selection as forest guards by resorting to “unfair means in the examination conducted by Madhya Pradesh

Professional Examination Board [Vyapam examination] and therefore had committed the alleged offence of being a

party to the conspiracy along with the other co-accused.”

Son’s death

The petition also pointed out that the Governor’s son had died in mysterious circumstances in March 2015 and his

OSD was arrested by the Special Task Force in connection with the scam investigation in the same month.

It stated that an FIR was lodged against the Governor for cheating, conspiracy among other offences under the IPC,

along with offences under the Information Technology Act and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

“Constitutional immunity”

However, the Madhya Pradesh High Court earlier quashed this FIR solely on the ground that a sitting Governor

enjoyed “constitutional immunity” and can only be prosecuted after he vacates office.

“It is submitted that this court must lay down guidelines, in terms of the Constitutional Assembly Debates, explaining

the circumstances under which the President must withdraw his pleasure under Article 156(1) of the Constitution,”

the petition said.

ECONOMY NEWS Govt. to roll out road map for corporate tax reduction Following up on the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s proposal in the Union budget, Revenue Secretary Shaktikanta

Das said that the government in the next 45 days will unveil the road map of how it will go about reducing the corporate tax rate to 25 per cent over four years, and eliminate the existing incentives and exemptions.

Mr, Jaitley had pointed out how the current corporate tax structure meant that “we get neither revenues nor investments.”

“The basic rate of corporate tax in India at 30 per cent is higher than the rates prevalent in the other major Asian economies, making our domestic industry uncompetitive,” he had said in his speech. However, he added that, due to the various exemptions, the effect rate of collection was only 23 per cent.

The plan to go ahead with reducing the corporate tax rate and eliminate exemptions will be put up in the public domain so that the Finance Ministry can take cognisance of any inputs from the stakeholders, Mr. Das said.

The reason behind the phased manner of reduction the tax rate, according to Mr. Das, was that government finances cannot handle such a large cut in a single year.

To build upon JAM trinity, FinMin to look into caste census The finance ministry will tap into the data from the socio-economic and caste census to identify beneficiary and

expand the direct benefit transfer scheme as part of its plans to build upon the JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile number) trinity.


The Finance minister and the rural development minister are expected to release the latest socio-economic and caste census on July 3, following which the chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian is likely to hold informal discussions or policy charcha with finance ministry officials on how to use the data for furthering the direct benefit transfer scheme.

The census was launched in 2011 and compiled data till 2013 on rural households on parameters such as sources of income and assets.

The data is collected through door to door enumeration of households and is used for targeting of government policies. The Economic Survey 2014 as well as the Union Budget 2015-16 discussed the JAM trinity and its ability to improve

transfer of subsidies by cutting down on leakages Meanwhile, pointing out that a large part of the subsidies was used by the relatively well-off, the Survey too had said

that the JAM Number Trinity would allow the state to offer this support to poor households in a targeted and less distortive way.

India is now a $2-trillion economy Gross per capita annual income swells to Rs. 1 lakh India’s GDP crossed the $2-trillion mark in 2014, according to data released by the World Bank in Washington. After

taking 60 years to reach the $1-trillion mark, India added the next trillion in just seven years. The World Bank data also show that India’s gross national income per person rose to $1,610 (around Rs. 1 lakh) a

year during 2014 from $1,560 the previous year.

India’s growth rate, at 7.4 per cent in 2014, makes it the fastest growing major economy along with China’s, which is a whopping $10.4 trillion in size.

The Indian economy, at $2.06 trillion, has almost doubled in size since the financial crisis hit the country in 2008, and has more than quadrupled from the start of this millennium.

Despite its increase in per capita gross national income (GNI), India has remained in the ‘lower middle income’ category ($1,046-$4,125).

Using the World Bank’s data, The Hindu extrapolated from India’s average annual growth rate over the last decade — of 8.9 per cent — and found that it would become an ‘upper middle income’ country ($4,126-$12,735) in 2026, a little more than a decade from now. This will put it in the category China occupies now.

China, however, with a per capita GNI of $7,380 and an average annual growth of 15.6 per cent, will leave the ‘upper middle income’ category by 2018 to become a ‘high income’ country like the U.S., the U.K., Germany and Japan. It will take India till 2039 to reach that level, at the assumed growth rate.

The World Bank’s data on gross national income per capita — the total value added by all producers within the country, plus income received from citizens working abroad, divided by the population of the country — show Bangladesh, Kenya, Myanmar, Tajikistan, Mongolia, Paraguay, Argentina, Hungary, the Seychelles and Venezuela have shifted their income categories for the better.

For example, Bangladesh, Kenya, Myanmar, and Tajikistan are now ‘middle income’ countries from being ‘low income’ nations.

“While we need to measure development progress in different ways, income-based measures, such as GNI, remain the

central yardstick for assessing economic performance,” said Kaushik Basu, World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President.

“Our latest data show that in terms of this indicator, the world’s economic geography has changed a lot. In 1994, 56.1 per cent of the world’s population — 3.1 billion people — lived in the 64 low-income countries.

In 2014, this was down to 8.5 per cent, or 613 million people living in 31 countries. Over the last one year itself, four nations crossed over to the lower-middle income category,” he said.

Lupin buys 100% stake in ZAO Biocom in Russia Marking its entry into the Russian pharmaceutical market, Indian pharmaceutical major, Lupin has acquired 100 per

cent equity stake in ZAO Biocom in Russia. While the financial details of the transactions were not revealed, a statement from Lupin said Biocom is a fast growing

generic pharmaceutical company with focus on therapies such as cardiovascular, central nervous system and antimicrobials for systemic use.

The company also does contract manufacturing and secondary packaging. It operates a European GMP compliant plant and was also one of the first Russian pharmaceutical manufacturing

companies to receive an approved manufacturing status from the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2013. “We are excited about our entry into the Russian market through Biocom,” Vinita Gupta, CEO, Lupin said in a

statement. “Russia is an attractive market and this acquisition will also enable our expansion into neighbouring markets as well

as other Eastern European markets in the future.”


The Russian pharmaceutical market with sales of 765 billion rubles (Rs.87,200 crore) in 2014 placed it among the top 10 pharmaceutical markets in the world according to IMS Health.

It has recorded double digit growth for over a decade and is expected to continue with this trend. IMS Health has projected Russia to be one of the top eight pharmaceutical markets in the world by 2018.

Airbus, Mahindra JV to make choppers in India Aiming for the helicopter requirements of the Indian Armed Forces, Airbus Helicopters are set to form a joint venture

(JV) with Mahindra Group subsidiary- Mahindra Defence, to produce helicopters in India in order to meet the country’s military needs. The teaming — according to Airbus Helicopters — targets the country’s ‘Make in India’ programme.

Both companies will now get into discussions to finalise the formation of the joint venture which will act as the prime contractor for India’s military helicopter tenders.

This will include the Reconnaissance and Surveillance Helicopter, the Naval Utility Helicopter and the Naval Multirole Helicopter procurement programs — a press release by Airbus Helicopters said.

“We have an unparalleled track-record of successful industrial collaborations with local partners across the world. We are convinced that with Mahindra we will not only have a mutually rewarding association but one which will offer

immense benefits to India,” said Guillaume Faury, president and CEO, Airbus Helicopters. “The tie-up is in line with our intent to develop an indigenous industrial ecosystem for helicopters,” he added.

HDFC Bank launches watch banking HDFC Bank has become the first bank in India to launch Watch Banking for Apple Watch. It aims to provide banking services through all wearable devices across platforms like iOS and Android. “We have started with Apple Watch since it is designed from ground up keeping in mind what the user would want to

do with such a device in a jiffy. HDFC Bank’s App has been made keeping this in mind and the features are chosen accordingly,” said Nitin Chugh,

Head-Digital Banking, HDFC Bank, while addressing a press conference, here. HDFC Bank will provide a total of 10 banking transactions in the current launch phase. Some of them being: view

account information, bill payments, recharges, hot listing facilities, locate nearest branch/ATM/offer, request statement and cheque book.

Moreover, HDFC Bank’s Watch Banking does not require “our customers to download a separate app.” Customers can activate watch banking from an upgraded version of HDFC Bank’s mobile banking app itself.

HDFC Bank would bring in the same level of high security of its mobile banking app to its watch banking experience, Mr. Chugh added.

Corporation Bank launches first MUDRA card The MUDRA (Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency) card under the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY)

scheme was launched by the Corporation Bank. The card facilitates the withdrawal and use of the working capital finance by micro entrepreneurs. Corporation Bank was the first bank to launch the MUDRA Card based on the RuPay platform. Three loan schemes are offered to the entrepreneurs based on their capacity to repay. “Shishu” scheme provides loan up to Rs.50, 000. while a loan amount up to Rs. 5 lakh will be lent under “Kishore”

scheme. Under “Tarun” scheme loan up to Rs. 10 lakh will be offered.

Database to check fraud In a bid to check frauds and multiple claims, the life insurance industry is planning to set up a centralised database

of clients by this year. The database aims at detecting fraud or duplication of claims in the life insurance industry. The data base is likely to

be ready by December, 2015.

To a question on the likelihood of any conflict of interest in this, he responded that it would be in their interest to do this.

It may be mentioned here that a second data base would be compiled in respect of the recently launched Pradahan Mantri Surkasha Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana. In this case, the CIBIL has been identified for maintaining the database.

Now, declare foreign assets online under black money compliance window Those wanting to utilise the recently notified one-time black money compliance window can also use the e-filing

facility of the tax department to declare their foreign-based untaxed assets apart from the manual filing and committing of these stash properties.

According to the scheme under the window, such a declaration can be filed online by an individual or entity and mandatorily will have to carry a “digital signature” to validate it.

A digital signature authenticates electronic documents in a similar manner as a handwritten signature validates printed or hand-written documents.

This signature cannot be forged and it asserts that a named person wrote or otherwise agreed to the document to which the signature is attached.

“The facility to file the overseas black money declaration is provided with an aim that anyone who wants to use the window for declaring unreported assets can do it with maximum secrecy and in quick time.

“Submitting the document manually or sending it by post to the nodal office in Delhi are also options provided in the scheme but e-filing is the most easy and secure way. The entire work of the compliance window has been kept strictly confidential,” a senior official said.


The new two-page form brought out for this purpose has been categorised as ‘Form 6’ and has a three-page annexure for the “statement of undisclosed assets located outside India”.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the apex policy-making body of the tax department, has also empowered and earmarked a Commissioner of Income Tax office in the national capital to handle all the applications and process the declarations made in this regard to the department.

The government recently notified the three-month compliance window beginning July 1. The tax and penalty on such declared assets or funds can be paid till December 31.

Those availing the one-time ‘compliance window’ would be required to pay a tax of 30 per cent and a penalty of a similar amount.

The compliance window is part of the new anti-black money law that was passed by Parliament in May and notified on May 26 after the President’s assent.

Undisclosed overseas assets such as immovable property, jewellery, shares and artwork are to be valued at fair market prices for the purposes of tax and penalty under the new Act.

‘No immunity for wealth generated from graft’

The Union Finance Ministry said that the advantage of declaring foreign assets under the compliance window in the

new black money law will not be available to those who were served notices by tax authorities before July 1.

Those persons whose cases are pending before an appellate authority will also not be eligible for the one-time offer,

the Ministry said in FAQs on the new Black Money Act. “The declarant is not entitled to re-open any assessment or

reassessment made under the Income Tax Act,” it clarified.

Declarations by persons against whom the government has prior information will be dealt with under the Income Tax

Act and not under the stringent black money law, the Ministry said.

The one-time 90-day compliance window is being provided to foreign asset holders to come clean under the new law.

The government will give immunity from prosecution under FEMA, Prevention of Money Laundering Act and four

other laws to persons declaring undisclosed foreign assets under the compliance window.

The offence of wilful attempt to evade tax will also not be an offence under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act

(PMLA), it added.

It will, however, not guarantee immunity for wealth generated from corruption, the Ministry asserted.

Holders of foreign assets availing the compliance window will have to pay 30 per cent tax and an equivalent amount of

penalty by December 31.

Disclosures made will enjoy immunity from prosecution under the Income-tax Act, Wealth Tax Act, FEMA, Companies

Act and Customs Act.

The Ministry said that the compliance window will not provide immunity from other laws. For instance, if the

undisclosed asset has been acquired out of the proceeds of sale of protected animals, the person will not be eligible for

immunity under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.

On taxation of money in foreign bank account, the FAQ said the fair market value is the sum of all deposits made in

the account computed in accordance with the rules. “Therefore, tax and penalty needs to be paid on such fair market

value and not on the balance as on date,” it said.

Mahindra, Ultra Electronics tie-up for defence play

Mahindra Defence Naval Systems, a part of Anand Mahindra-led Mahindra Group, has signed a memorandum of

understanding (MoU) with Ultra Electronics of the U.K. to locally manufacture and supply highly specialised

underwater warfare equipment for the Indian Navy and technologically advanced radios for the Indian Army.

The partners will participate in bids for various naval programmes as and when they come up for bidding. Under the

‘Make in India’ initiative, the two companies plan to jointly build and supply new generation advanced systems.

The partnership will also address the requirement of specialised radios for the Indian Army’s tactical communication

systems.

“The Indian Navy has been importing a major part of underwater war fighting equipment from abroad to service its

needs. We expect to provide cutting edge technology to the Indian Navy in this field in partnership with Ultra

Electronics. We also expect to address the requirement of specialised radios and other defence electronics for all the

three wings of the Armed Forces,” said S.P. Shukla, Group President, Aerospace and Defence Sector, Mahindra Group

and Chairman Mahindra Defence Naval Systems, in a statement after signing the deal here.

Commenting on this partnership, Rakesh Sharma, CEO, Ultra Electronics, said, “This new partnership with Mahindra

Defence Naval Systems, to deliver a range of advanced anti-submarine warfare capabilities to the Indian Navy, builds

upon our existing collaboration in providing modern, software-defined tactical radios to the Indian Army. Together,

these activities make the foundation of a strong and lasting relationship with the Mahindra Group.”

SCIENCE AND TECH New system to monitor cerebral palsy levels


Children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) need to be assessed carefully to establish the intensity of impairment before any therapy is initiated.

For the first time, a new and innovative testing tool has been developed by doctors that gauges the improvement in patients with CP — a disorder caused due to brain damage.

So far tools like Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS), the Manual Ability Classification System (MACS) and Bimanual Fine Function (BFMF) were used to evaluate a patient with Cerebal Palsy.

There were, however, limitations as it did not assess certain parameters that are essential to be evaluated in the patients with CP which include epilepsy, hearing, drooling, writing, mathematical skills, communicating and playing.

Also, distinction between first two levels of GMFCS is unclear, mainly for children below the age of 2 years. Developed by Dr Geeta Shroff, a New Delhi based gynaecologist, the new study tool, Nutech Functional Score (NFS),

tracks over 32 parameters to provide accurate assessment of the progress of the disease as compared to the existing method of screening.

Shroff told that NFS is a 32 point positional and directional scoring system that can assess the CP symptoms that remain far from assessment in GMFCS: Feeding, indication, epilepsy, toilet training, drooling, mathematical skills, hearing, vision, commands, smiling, constipation, recognition /awareness, eye contact, aggression, speech, breathing difficulty, defense mechanism and swallowing.

As opposed to GMFCS, NFS scoring system can be used to assess patients aged above 18 years. We have also

converted the scores into numeric grades, Shroff explained.

The new tool also has the advantage of revealing even the slightest improvement in CP patients. “The other advantage of using NFS is that scoring is numeric which means grades can be added or subtracted, thus revealing even the slightest improvement in the patient.

While NFS tells the condition of a case from bad to good, GMFCS (a single score assigned on the basis of age and motor function) classifies CP into five levels from good to bad,” added Shroff.

Cerebal Palsy is a non-progressive disorder that occurs as a result of the damage to the brain of a foetus and newborns. Its signs and symptoms, such as spastic muscles, poor balance and gross motor delays remain lifelong and patient is subject to life with limitations. It is estimated to affect 3 per 1000 live births in India.

Shroff is the founder and medical director of Nutech Mediworld, a facility that provides human embryonic stem cell therapy.

Russian cargo ship ‘Progress’ docks with ISS An unmanned Russian cargo ship successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) following a string of

failed attempts to resupply the orbital laboratory. “The transport cargo ship Progress M-28M has docked with the... Russian segment of the ISS ,” the Russian federal

space agency (Roscosmos) said in a statement. The ship is carrying more than 2,300 kilos of oxygen, fuel, food, and scientific equipment, as well as personal

packages for the international crew of three. Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko and U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly are part of Expedition

44 currently in space, to be joined by three more people later this month. The Russian crew members oversaw the automatic docking of the Progress, which arrived after circling Earth 34 times

following its launch from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 3.

ENVIRONMENT In targets by big emitters, no hint of support to developing countries India recently unveiled a composite air pollution index to monitor air quality in some of its cities. While China’s climate action plan, revealed, has been widely welcomed, India has been noting with concern that none

of the action plans submitted till now, mainly from the developed world, has talked about financial or technological support to be made available to developing countries to help them deal with adverse effects of climate change.

Every country has to submit its climate action plan called INDC, or Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, ahead of the annual year-end climate change conference, this time being held in Paris.

Following China’s submission, the three biggest greenhouse gas emitters, together accounting for almost 50 per cent of global emissions, have now revealed what they plan to do post-2020.

India, the fourth biggest emitter after China, the US and the EU, and with a share about seven per cent of global emissions, is still finalising its action plan.

India had said it would submit a comprehensive INDC that would include not just mitigation actions, or the steps that would lead to a reduction in its emissions, but also the actions it is taking to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

There is a general agreement that developed countries, also the main pollutants and energy guzzlers, would provide finance and technology assistance to poorer and developing countries to help them cope with climate impacts.

India, and several other countries, wanted the developed nations to list their finance and technology offerings in their INDCs themselves.

With none of those INDCs mentioning these two elements, it has forced a rethink in the Indian establishment whether to stick to a comprehensive plan of action or submit a skeletal, mitigation-centric INDC.

Founded by Anurag Srivastava and Amit Anand, Jungle Ventures is an early stage venture capital fund focussed on helping build innovative technology-led companies in Asia-Pacific.


The venture fund said it has already made investments in 30 leading Asian start-ups, including Zipdial (recently acquired by Twitter), LiveSpace, Tradegecko, CrayonData, Fastacash and travelmob (acquired by Nasdaq listed HomeAway).

In his role as Special Advisor, Tata has formally committed to spending time with Jungle's portfolio of companies to help them build category leadership while being ethically impregnable and culturally strong in Asian and global markets, the venture fund said in a statement.

Jungle Ventures, launched with a USD 10 million seed-to-early stage fund in 2012, is currently raising a second fund with a much bigger corpus, it said.

Some of the other advisors who currently work with Jungle and their start-ups include Gokul Rajaram, Product Engineering Lead at Square, Lim Dershing, Founder of JobsCentral, and Alon Sobol, Director of ISP/ Telco Relationships for Spotify.

Over the last two years, Tata has invested in over 10 start-ups in his personal capacity to encourage the ecosystem, including online marketplace Snapdeal, online furniture retailer Urban Ladder and most recently, taxi aggregator Ola, among others.

Loss of polar bear habitat is imminent, warns study About a third of the world’s polar bears could be in imminent danger from greenhouse gas emissions in as soon as a

decade, a U.S. government report shows.

U.S. Geological Survey said scientific models don’t bode well for polar bear populations across the world. Greenhouse

gases are blamed for the climate warming that’s reducing polar bears' summer sea ice habitat. Scientists saw no rebound in population in the projections that stretched to the year 2100. The scientific models attempted to predict the effects on polar bear populations under two scenarios — one in which

greenhouse gas emissions stabilised, and the other in which they continued unabated. Under either scenario, the bears in the Alaska, Russia and Norway group with an estimated population of about 8,500

would start to be affected in either 2025 or 2030, said lead author Todd Atwood, an Alaska-based USGS research wildlife biologist.

Polar bears use sea ice for feeding, mating and giving birth. When the ice retreats in the summer, polar bears are forced to the land.

A study found the land-based food would not help it adapt to the loss of sea ice. USGS didn’t predict specific number declines and instead projected whether a population would see a decrease.

“That’s not to say we’ll lose polar bears completely, but we think that they’ll be at a greatly decreased distribution,” Atwood said.

AWARDS M.S. Swaminathan hails World Food Prize winner Eminent agricultural scientist M.S.Swaminathan has congratulated Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, recipient of this year’s

coveted World Food Prize award. Prof. M.S. Swaminathan who is the Chairperson of the Selection Committee for the World Food Prize, said the award

would be a boost not only to Bangladesh but to the entire South Asian region. Sir Abed has been recognised for his decades of service to human development and through building Bangladesh

Rural Advancement Committee that operates in 10 countries around the world, a note from M.S.Swaminathan Research Foundation said.

‘Sources of inspiration’ “Your monumental contributions to poverty and hunger eradication as well as to the empowerment of women are

sources of very great inspiration to everyone in South Asia as well as the whole world,” Prof. Swaminathan wrote to Sir

Abed. The World Food Prize is the most prominent global award for individuals whose breakthrough achievements alleviate

hunger and promote global food security.

Indian-American Named World Agriculture Prize Laureate Indian-American professor R Paul Singh has been named as the 2015 Global Confederation for Higher Education

Associations for Agriculture and Life Sciences World Agriculture Prize laureate.

The award will be formally presented on September 20, during a ceremony at Nanjing Agricultural University, Jiangsu Province, China.

"I'm deeply humbled and honored, upon receiving news of this award," said Singh, a distinguished professor emeritus who has held dual appointments in the departments of Biological and Agricultural Engineering and of Food Science and Technology at the University of California, Davis.

Singh earned a bachelor's degree in agricultural engineering at India's Punjab Agricultural University, then a master's degree and Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Michigan State University, respectively.

"For over four decades, Professor Singh's work as a pioneer in food engineering has been improving lives the world over," said UC Davis Chancellor Linda P B Katehi.

"This prestigious, and well-deserved, honour is a testament to the importance of his research, and UC Davis is tremendously honored to call him a member of our faculty," he said in a media release.

Singh is known for a body of research in areas such as energy conservation, freezing preservation, post-harvest technology and mass transfer in food processing.


His research on airflow in complex systems helped design innovative systems for the rapid cooling of strawberries, and his studies on food freezing led to the development of computer software that is used to improve the energy efficiency of industrial freezers.

Under a NASA contract, his research group created food- processing equipment for a manned mission to Mars, the university said.

He has helped establish and evaluate food-engineering programs at institutions throughout the world, including in Brazil, India, Peru, Portugal and Thailand.

US-Indian teacher wins presidential prize Darshan Jain, an Indian-American teacher from Illinois, has been named by US President Barack Obama for

prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. Obama has named 108 Mathematics and Science teachers as recipients of the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics

and Science Teaching. Jain and other winners will receive a $10,000 award.

Lord Karan Bilimoria among 8 NRIs awarded in UK Leading NRI entrepreneur Lord Karan Bilimoria has been awarded as the International Indian of the Year for 2014-15

for his outstanding achievements in the fields of business and education. India's deputy high commissioner to the UK, Virender Paul presented the award to Lord Bilimoria at a gala ceremony

over the weekend was organized by monthly publication India Link International.

Lord Bilimoria is the founder of Cobra Beer, chairman of the Cobra Beer Partnership Limited, a joint venture with

Molson Coors, and chairman of Molson Coors Cobra India. He is the founding chairman of the UK-India business council, a deputy lieutenant of Greater London, a former

chancellor of Thames Valley University (now the University of West London). He was the youngest university chancellor in the UK when appointed.

Sarosh Zaiwallia, founder of Zaiwalla and Co.Solicitors, London, received the award for International Indian Life-time services to the legal profession.

Other award recipients included Uma Wadhwani (International Indian Business Woman of the year); captain Nalin Pandey, managing director of Pentagon Marine Services (International Indian Lifetime Services to Maritime Trade India and the World 2014-15); Ravinder Singh Gidar, founder Golden Care Homes (International Indian Promoting Healthcare for elderly).

Pravinkant Amin (International Indian Promoting Community relations Worldwide); Bajrang Bahadur Mathur, architect and town planner (International Indian Promoting Tourism through writing and art); and Sanjay Wadhwani, managing director, Wanis (International Indian Young entrepreneur 2014-15) were also awarded.

Delivering the India Link International annual lecture, Lord Bilimoria, who is also the chancellor of the University of Birmingham, noted that the current immigration rule is wrong and it is harming the British universities as Non- European students, including those from India, prefer to study in other countries like the US.

Referring to Tata's acquisition of Jaguar, Land Rover, and Lord Bilimoria said: "Today Jaguar makes more profit than they (Tatas) bought when nobody wanted to buy it."

PLACE IN NEWS 6.5 magnitude earthquake hits China’s Xinjiang region, 6 dead Magnitude 6.5 earthquakes shook China’s far western region of Xinjiang, killing six people and damaging or

collapsing thousands of buildings, authorities said. The quake hit Pishan county in the Hotan region of Xinjiang at a depth of about 10 kilometers (6 miles) , the China

Earthquake Networks Center said. “Buildings were trembling and people rushed to the streets,” said Jin Xingchang, an express courier in Hotan city,

about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from Pishan. Six people died and about 3,000 houses and other buildings collapsed or were damaged, according to Xinjiang’s

Bureau of Civil Affairs. The mostly ethnic Muslim Uighur area of Pishan is at the southern edge of the Taklamakan desert near the border

with India, and is abundant in mineral resources including coal, crude oil, natural gas and jade.

Controversial Meiji sites in Japan get world heritage status

Unesco has decided to grant world heritage status to more than 20 old industrial sites in Japan after officials from the

country agreed to acknowledge that some of them used Korean forced labourers before and during the Second World

War.

The 23 Meiji period (1868-1912) sites include coalmines and shipyards that Japan says contributed to its

transformation from feudalism into a successful modern economy.

South Korea, however, had opposed the application for world heritage status unless clear reference was made to the

use of an estimated 60,000 labourers forced to work at seven of the sites, including the island coalmine Gunkanjima,

during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule over the Korean peninsula.

Conscripted labour from Korea

After the U.N. body’s 21-member panel in Bonn postponed a decision for 24 hours to give the two sides more time to

negotiate, Japan agreed to acknowledge the use of conscripted labour.


“Japan is prepared to take measures that allow an understanding that there were a large number of Koreans and

others who were brought against their will and forced to work under harsh conditions in the 1940s at some of the

sites,” the Japanese delegation to Unesco said in a statement.

Most forced labourers have died, but some survivors are still seeking compensation from Japan through the courts.

Japan had initially resisted South Korean pressure, saying its application referred to a period up to 1910, before

foreign labourers were put to work at the sites.

While South Korea’s government welcomed the agreement, after months of negotiations, politicians in Tokyo

attempted to play down the significance of Japan’s concession. Local supporters celebrated the sites’ inclusion, which

is expected to boost tourism and opens up sources of funding for preservation work.

PERSONS IN NEWS Ratan Tata to Join Jungle Ventures as Special Advisor The Singapore-based Jungle Ventures has announced that Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons, will come on

board as a Special Advisor. Founded by Anurag Srivastava and Amit Anand, Jungle Ventures is an early stage venture capital fund focussed on

helping build innovative technology-led companies in Asia-Pacific. The venture fund said it has already made investments in 30 leading Asian start-ups, including Zipdial (recently

acquired by Twitter), LiveSpace, Tradegecko, CrayonData, Fastacash and travelmob (acquired by Nasdaq listed HomeAway).

In his role as Special Advisor, Tata has formally committed to spending time with Jungle's portfolio of companies to help them build category leadership while being ethically impregnable and culturally strong in Asian and global

markets, the venture fund said in a statement. Jungle Ventures, launched with a USD 10 million seed-to-early stage fund in 2012, is currently raising a second fund

with a much bigger corpus, it said. Some of the other advisors who currently work with Jungle and their start-ups include Gokul Rajaram, Product

Engineering Lead at Square, Lim Dershing, Founder of JobsCentral, and Alon Sobol, Director of ISP/ Telco Relationships for Spotify.

Over the last two years, Tata has invested in over 10 start-ups in his personal capacity to encourage the ecosystem, including online marketplace Snapdeal, online furniture retailer Urban Ladder and most recently, taxi aggregator Ola, among others.

Pakistani Urdu novelist Abdullah Hussain dead Eminent Pakistani Urdu novelist Abdullah Hussain, who authored the critically-acclaimed bestseller Udas Naslain,

passed away here. Mr Hussain, whose real name was Mohammad Khan, is survived by his wife, son and daughter. Besides Udas Naslain — considered a masterpiece of Urdu literature, he will be remembered for his other famous

novels — Baagh, Nadaar Loag — and short stories Faraib and Nashaib.

SPORTS Yet another first for Sania Twenty-eight-year-old Sania Mirza has become the first woman tennis player from India to be top-seeded in the

ongoing Wimbledon or for that matter, any Grand Slam championship. “It’s a great honour to be the top-seed in what is considered to be the ‘home of tennis’,” said Sania from London,

before leaving for practice, ahead of the next match. Ms. Mirza, incidentally, is playing her 15th year at Wimbledon. She won her first major title there in 2003 at the first

junior Grand Slam, in the girls’ doubles category. Sania’s best at Wimbledon in women’s doubles has been the semi-final appearance with partner, Vesnina. It also

means she is now a member of the ‘Last-four Club’ in Wimbledon and enjoys certain privileges for a lifetime, including use of a special locker etc.

The only Indians top-seeded in a Grand Slam earlier were Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi in the 1999 French

Open edition men’s doubles.

Anand regains No. 2 spot Five-time World champion Viswanathan Anand has regained his No. 2 spot in the world chess ranking. According to the latest rating list released by the world chess governing body FIDE, the Indian, who was ranked No. 3

earlier, has 2816 Elo points, an increase of 12. Reigning champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway continues to be World No. 1, despite losing a whopping 23 points.

Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria is ranked No. 3. The best-ranked Indian after Anand is Pendyala Harikrishna, at No. 25. In the women’s section, India’s Koneru Humpy is ranked No. 3 with 2589 points. World champion Hou Yifan of China

remains the World No. 1 with 2676 points. India’s Dronavalli Harika is ranked No. 15. Another Indian, Padmini Rout, is the World No. 43.

OPINION The Greek crisis and an imperfect EU


At the heart of the economic crisis in the EU is a political failure. The inability, indeed the unwillingness, of the member nations of the “Union” to move beyond a single market and a monetary union to create a political entity.

The economic crisis in Greece is a manifestation of that political failure across the EU. National politics have worsted regional economics. The success of the Indian Union rests on the fact that the developed regions of the country, and the Union

government, have taken upon themselves the responsibility of offering a safety net to the less developed regions. All federal systems and continental nations are built on this foundation of regional interdependence and mutual

support facilitated by federal political systems. The failure of the EU’s more developed nations, especially Germany, to provide such a safety net to a less developed

one like Greece has brought the EU to the brink of unravelling. This situation has been long in making. Germany has behaved much in the same way that developed States in India like to when it comes to the question of

transferring funds to less developed States. The former usually sermonise the latter on the virtues of industriousness and hard work and blame them for their

backwardness. The latter demand all manner of special assistance. The Indian union has the political instruments to deal with such issues. The EU doesn’t. Two exogenous factors have come to shape the Western response to an unfolding Greek tragedy. First, the rise of

Germany as a geoeconomic power and, second, the return of Russia as a geopolitical player.

Over the years, a more economically successful and prosperous Germany has asserted itself, projecting its post-war

“geoeconomic’” power to acquire political influence. The eastward expansion of the EU has further facilitated this. Germany’s ascendance within Europe was shaped by two additional factors. First, the relative decline of other

European economies, especially the economies of southern Europe. Second, the induction into the EU of several east and north European economies worried about the resurgence of

Russia as a geopolitical player. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggressive leadership has sent a shiver down Europe’s spine and many of East

Europe’s smaller nations. While southern Europe, including Italy, worries more about growing German assertiveness within Europe, northern

and Eastern Europe worry about a re-assertive Russia. It is against this background that Greece’s nationalist and Leftwing leadership reached out to Russia for help and Mr.

Putin was quite happy to step into Europe’s troubled waters. Indeed, the fact that Greek voters opted for a Leftwing leadership has added a new dimension to the resolution of the

crisis, given concerns in Germany and the United States about rising left-wing and right-wing forces in Europe and the decline in the influence of centrist political parties.

Therefore, the stakes are high. The crisis in Greece is not just about sovereign default. It is about the future of Europe.

There is an interesting parallel between the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s and the European crisis today. In 1997-98, when Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand faced a payments and debt crisis, it was the political fallout of

that crisis, and the failure of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help the economies in trouble, that altered Asian geopolitics.

While the IMF sermonised Korea and dictated to Indonesia, China stepped in and bailed out Thailand. The IMF has not been able to return to Asia since, while China has set up its own regional financial institutions. Russia does not have the deep pockets to be a China to beleaguered Greece, but the IMF and Germany’s myopic policy

response to Greece’s social crisis has set in motion political responses that could have similar long lasting impact on big power equations within Europe and beyond.

In Greece it is not just the IMF but also Europe’s own regional financial institutions that have been found wanting.

Germany, it would appear, would not mind the exit of Greece, and maybe even Italy, because it has acquired a more loyal hinterland to its east. This could well mark the beginning of a new “Pax Germanica”.

The crisis in Europe is also a test for the U.S. Having fathered the post-war trans-Atlantic order, the U.S. is unable or unwilling to step in and preserve the EU in its present form.

When the dust settles in Europe the emerging multipolar world will come to stay. If the Asian financial crisis consolidated Chinese power in Asia, the European financial crisis will consolidate German,

and perhaps Russian, power in Europe. Economic crises do have geopolitical consequences. The crisis in Greece does not in itself pose an economic risk for Indian investors and traders, but a Europe-wide crisis

would. Even as the Indian economy begins to recover from the consequences of India’s own bad policies it may face the risk

of dealing with those of Europe. There may be some business opportunities for Indian investors arising out of the decline in asset valuations in Europe, but caution would be the better part of valour.

What the Greek crisis shows is that even in developed market economies there can be government failure, if not market failure.

Indian businesses that seek foreign markets and external investment opportunities must invest more in understanding the nature of political risk around the world.

What the Greek crisis also brings home to Indian policymakers is the importance of responsible economic management at home and the need for creating multiple interdependencies externally.

Greece’s weakness is that few in the world worry about its economy capsizing.


India was in that spot in 1990-91 and, mercifully, is no longer in that worrisome place. But the debate on the extent of global interdependency that India should create and maintain continues.

The lesson from Greece is not that a country should isolate itself from the global economy but that it should carefully manage its relations with the regional and world economy.

A new multilateral institution The launch of the $100-billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, within two years of its conception, signals the

arrival of a new multilateral institution on the world stage. It also represents a challenge to the older such institutions. The AIIB took shape with 50 members, including Australia, India, Russia and the United Kingdom. China will be the largest shareholder (at 30.34 per cent), followed by India (8.52 per cent) and Russia (6.66 per cent). Though one among the Asian giants, Japan has chosen to stay out of the Beijing-initiated AIIB. The Philippines, which has territorial issues with Beijing in the South China Sea, has held itself back from signing, for

now. And Indonesia has sought to have the bank housed in Jakarta. These spell geopolitical roadblocks to the success of the China-led initiative, which in a way is meant to counter the

purported bias among existing multilateral institutions that are perceived to be driven largely by the diktats of the U.S. and Europe.

Indeed, the AIIB is a culmination of China’s incessant articulation of the concerns of the emerging economies, which

felt they were not being given an adequate say in institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World

Bank. Again, the AIIB is the consequence of the inability of these institutions to undergo change to suit changing times. It is also essential to see the AIIB and China’s ambitious plans for the ‘Belt and Road’ project as being complementary. The AIIB as envisaged by China is clearly meant to use its financial resources and surplus to invest in projects in the

Asian neighbourhood, which is suffering from a massive infrastructure funding gap. The infrastructure projects in the neighbourhood, nevertheless, are a way of allowing Chinese companies (among

others) to participate and invest in them at a time when there is a situation of industrial overcapacity. The participation of many countries from Europe and elsewhere in the AIIB attests to their understanding of the

potential of the projects for which the investments could be used, especially the Belt and Road schemes. India’s participation in the AIIB, too, indicates that New Delhi is keen on a balancing act to suit its interests – to

engage with the West and the dominant international finance order, at the same time exploring options with new financial institutions. This is a prudent strategy.

Cuba’s victory Despite its poverty, Cuba has long boasted a public healthcare system that assures quality medical services to all its

citizens, irrespective of their economic status. Now, the WHO has certified Cuba as the first country in the world to effectively eliminate mother-to-baby

transmission of HIV, which causes AIDS, and syphilis. The WHO hailed this as “one of the greatest public health achievements possible”, in no small part because it was

achieved by pursuing relatively straightforward strategies: high rates of HIV testing, better screening and treatment of expectant parents, concentrating on high-risk groups, and giving HIV- and syphilis-positive mothers options to protect their babies, like bottle-feeding and Caesarean deliveries.

These measures have become enmeshed with the normal treatment for all pregnant women because they form part of a universal healthcare system that is both affordable and accessible.

In contrast, in India, with its generally poor (though improving) record on maternal health, less than 30 per cent of HIV-positive pregnant women have access to prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV services, such as medication that can prevent the passing of the virus to the foetus and support the mother’s health.

Almost 1.5 lakh children in India live with HIV, most of who contracted the virus from their mothers during pregnancy, at birth or through breastfeeding.

As Cuba’s example shows, eliminating the spread of HIV from mother to child requires a sustained public health strategy that integrates HIV-testing, counselling and treatment into current maternal and child health programmes, especially by bringing on board private health service providers, which handle 44 per cent of all institutional deliveries.

India successfully pursued such a strategy to eradicate polio. It can draw from its own experience, and from Cuba’s, for another big wins for its healthcare system.

A win-win deal The diplomatic breakthrough that has been made in U.S.-Cuba relations is a vindication of President Barack Obama’s

policy of engaging with nations with which Washington has hostile relations. It shows that patience and creative diplomacy can work in solving even complex situations rooted deep in historical

and ideological hostility. It took nearly two years of hidden negotiations, aided by the Vatican and Canada, before the U.S. and Cuba formally announced their decision to restore diplomatic ties last December.

Now, President Barack Obama has formally revealed his administration’s plan to open a U.S. embassy in Havana, nearly 54 years after President Dwight Eisenhower broke off diplomatic relations.

Successive U.S. governments tried to overthrow and isolate the communist regime through various means, such as a proxy war, attempts to assassinate leaders, and sanctions aimed at its economy.


But this approach failed miserably: President Obama candidly admitted that the U.S. had been “clinging to a policy that was not working”. Since 1992, the U.N. General Assembly has condemned the U.S. embargo every year.

In Latin America, it is the U.S. that stands isolated, while the rise of new progressive forces to power has strengthened Cuba’s standing in the region. So the question Mr. Obama faced vis-à-vis Cuba was why his administration should follow a failed policy.

Changes in the domestic constituencies, such as the blunted opposition of the Cuban American community towards the two Castro brothers and the demand from American capitalist sections, especially big farming, for new markets, may also have prompted this change of course.

The U.S. outreach comes at a crucial time for Cuba as well. The Communist Party of Cuba knows the country can no longer count on others for economic support. The Soviet Union, its Cold War-era benefactor, has become history.

Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan President who started the sale of cheap oil to Cuba, is no more, and the socialist regime in Caracas is battling its own challenges. To recover from its economic troubles, Cuba has moved to ease state controls over the economy and allow private capital greater play.

Against this backdrop, better cooperation with the U.S. and the eventual removal of the blockade would prove boons for a changing Cuban economy.

However, the bigger question relates to the impact of this rapprochement on Cuba’s domestic politics. While post-revolutionary Cuba has made tremendous achievements in terms of ensuring the welfare of its people, its record in

respecting their political freedom is relatively poor.

The defenders of the regime’s high-handedness have pointed to the military-political threats from the U.S. as one of the primary reasons for such policies. With the U.S. and Cuba deciding not to be imprisoned by their past, it is also an opportunity to deepen democracy in the island-nation.

Tribal alienation in an unequal India The Boston Consulting Group’s 15th annual report, “Winning the Growth Game: Global Wealth 2015”, has received

extensive coverage in the Indian media. The report comes on top of the Global Wealth Databook 2014 from Credit Suisse, which provides a much more accurate and comprehensive picture of the trends in global inequality.

The Global Wealth Databook reveals some startling facts. The richest 1 per cent of Indians today own nearly half (49 per cent) of India’s personal wealth. The rest of us 99 per cent are left to share the remainder among ourselves.

And that too is very unequally shared. The top 10 per cent Indians own nearly three-quarters (74 per cent) of the country’s personal wealth. The remaining 90 per cent share a meagre quarter. At the other end of the spectrum, of the world’s poorest 20 per cent people, nearly one in four are Indians. Just to show by contrast, China’s share is a mere 3 per cent.

One view of India’s inequality is that this is nothing to be worried about. This is the normal progression of economic development. A set of expanding industries located in an urban area induces further development of economic activity throughout its zone of influence.

For some years, this generates increasingly large differentials in income and development, but after reaching a maximum level, inequality begins to decline, in the manner of an inverted ‘U’, what economists call the Kuznets Curve. In U.S President John F. Kennedy’s memorable phrase, “a rising tide lifts all boats”.

A widening gap Now, there is no doubt that poverty has declined significantly in recent times in India. But can we say the same about

inequality? The Credit Suisse report gives an unequivocal answer: No. Even nearly three decades after economic reforms and high growth, inequality continues to rise and wealth has become even more concentrated at the top.

The share of India’s richest 10 per cent families has grown from 66 per cent in the year 2000 to 74 per cent today. India’s super-rich (top 1 per cent) who owned 37 per cent of India’s personal wealth in 2000, have even more rapidly increased their share to 49 per cent.

This kind of regressive change surely has a link with the crony capitalism of the last three decades. Hopefully the Indian electorate, very exercised over corruption, will place sufficient pressure on the ruling classes for this to change sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile, millions of Indians do not find themselves a part of the growth story. And there is growing resentment over this gaping inequality. With greater access to the electronic media across the country, the differences are glaringly visible for those at the base of the development pyramid.

Inequality in India operates on multiple axes — of gender, class, caste, region, religion and ethnicity. But perhaps the worst suffering is of India’s tribal people, who suffer a double whammy of both disadvantaged region and ethnicity.

A paper in the Economic and Political Weekly, (Sanchita Bakshi et al: “Regional Disparities in India: A Moving Frontier”, January 3, 2015) reveals that if we want to get an accurate picture of regional inequalities, a well-recognised element of India’s growth experience, we have to look much deeper than just States or even districts.

We need to go to the subdistrict or block level. And there we find that an overwhelming share of the most backward subdistricts has a high concentration of tribal population.

India’s forgotten people Official data on all indicators of development reveal that India’s tribal people are the worst off in terms of income,

health, education, nutrition, infrastructure and governance. They have also been unfortunately at the receiving end of the injustices of the development process itself.


Around 40 per cent of the 60 million people displaced following development projects in India are tribals, which is not a surprise given that 90 per cent of our coal and more than 50 per cent of most minerals and dam sites are mainly in tribal regions.

Indeed, contrary to what economic theory teaches, we find that many developed districts paradoxically include pockets of intense backwardness. Bakshi et al show that many districts include the most backward and most developed subdistricts of India; 92 districts have subdistricts that figure in the list of both the top 20 per cent and bottom 20 per cent of India’s subdistricts.

To give a few examples, “developed” districts like Thane, Vadodara, Ranchi, Visakhapatnam and Raipur have some of the most backward subdistricts. In Korba and Raigarh districts of Chhattisgarh, Valsad of Gujarat, Pashchimi Singhbhum and Purbi Singhbhum of Jharkhand, Kendujhar, Koraput and Mayurbhanj of Odisha, the most industrialised subdistricts are flanked by the most underdeveloped subdistricts.

And invariably these backward subdistricts are overwhelmingly tribal. Clearly, the tribal people have not been included in or given the opportunity to benefit from development.

Inequality is important not only because of the acute perception of injustice it creates. Even economists at the traditionally free-market fundamentalist International Monetary Fund, Andrew G. Berg and Jonathan D. Ostry, have recently argued that “inequality can also be destructive to growth by amplifying the risk of crisis or making it difficult for the poor to invest in education”. They conclude: “reduced inequality and sustained growth may thus be two sides

of the same coin”.

Inclusive growth What then are the elements of a vision of development much more inclusive and empowering of those left out? First,

the overall direction of growth needs to change. We cannot continue with a pattern of jobless growth. It is clear that some models of growth are inherently more inclusive than others, which is why our focus should be not

just on GDP growth itself, but on achieving a growth process that is as inclusive as possible. For example, faster growth for the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises segment will generate a much broader

spread of employment and income earning opportunities and is, therefore, more inclusive than growth largely driven by extractive industries or the service sector. It is also clear that sustainability has to be at the core of our development strategy.

This is because the poorest regions of India are also the most eco-fragile. If we truly want to build tribal incomes, we need to offer them a range of sustainable livelihoods, including non-pesticide managed agriculture, an imperative also for the health of Indian consumers, as well as for reducing the escalating financial and ecological costs of farming.

Huge income-generation and biodiversity conservation possibilities also exist if we can imaginatively utilise the vast unutilised potential of the Non-Timber Forest Products market, which is estimated to run into several thousands of crores, of which only a minuscule fraction accrues to the tribal communities.

Of course, this requires careful attention being paid to the rights of the tribal people, as enshrined in the Forest Rights Act and a complete restructuring of their relationship with the Forest Department, historically seen by the tribal communities as standing in an adversarial relationship with them.

Participatory governance Much better state capacities in regions of high poverty are also an urgent requirement. For these regions suffer not

just from rampant market failure but also widespread government failure. A crucial reason why the poor are unable to take advantage of the possibilities opened up by growth even within their

districts is the absence of requisite health and education facilities. Globally, India spends among the lowest share of its national income on public provision of health and education. These are the sectors in most urgent need of government reform.

We need to equip our most disadvantaged people with the skills demanded by a rapidly changing economy.

Programmes meant for poverty elimination such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act do not work as they are meant to because the requisite human resources do not exist precisely where these programmes are most desperately required.

A key feature of the changing economy is growing market penetration. More than 80 per cent of India’s cultivators are small and marginal farmers and they are invariably hapless victims of participation in the market economy.

But this need not necessarily be so. Wherever farmers have come together to form powerful institutions to buy and

sell, they have been able to compete on much fairer terms in the market. Most of all, the excluded regions and people need better governance, which is much more participatory in nature, for

only then will the slogan of cooperative federalism really acquire concrete substance. Panchayati raj institutions, including the gram sabha, need to be empowered and activated for this purpose. We need

to learn to involve the “last citizens” in decisions that affect their lives, such as taking their consent while acquiring land for an avowed public purpose.

There is nothing automatic about a decline in inequality under capitalism. The Kuznets Curve remains a mere fantasy if the right programmes and policies are not in place. Inequality did decline when the appropriate policy framework was adopted in Europe and America during the so-called golden age of capitalism in the mid-20th century.

These were the decades that saw the emergence of what economist, public official and diplomat John Kenneth Galbraith termed “countervailing power”. And it is the unravelling of this balancing power and a shift towards free-market fundamentalism that led to the rise in inequality after 1980.


Indian policymakers must recognise the urgent need to redefine the very meaning of reforms so as to make them pro-poor, rather than merely pro-corporate. Without these reforms, inequality in India will continue to escalate and create dangerous tensions, threatening the very survival of the delicate fabric of Indian democracy.

SECC not irrelevant just yet The release of data for rural households from the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) is only the latest step in

India’s tortured history of trying to count its poor. The idea behind the SECC was technocratic. Commissioned by the United Progressive Alliance in 2011, it was meant

to canvass every Indian family, both in rural and urban India, and ask about their economic status so as to allow Central and State authorities to come up with a range of indicators of deprivation, permutations and combinations of which could be used by each authority to define a poor or deprived person.

It was also meant, for the first time since 1931, to ask every person their specific caste name to allow the government to re-evaluate which caste groups were economically worst off and which were better off. As it happens, neither of those objectives is likely to be served.

The feeling was that the current definition of poverty — which was derived by identifying a basket of essential goods and services and marking the point in India’s income distribution where that basket could be purchased by an individual — was missing too much.

For one, the numbers seemed absurdly low — set at Rs.816 per person per month in rural areas and Rs.1,000 in

urban areas by the Planning Commission by updating the Tendulkar methodology, the numbers amounted to a daily

expenditure of around Rs.30, which caused public indignation. A new committee was formed which drew a new line, but the Rangarajan methodology too wound up at a poverty line

not very different from the Tendulkar line.

Broader definition So, a broader and more dynamic definition of poverty seemed important. The SECC measures deprivation along seven

criteria — households with only one room with no solid walls and roof, those with no adult member aged 15-59, female-headed households with no adult male aged 15-59, those with differently abled members and no able-bodied member, SC/ST households, those with no literate member above the age of 25, and landless households deriving a major portion of their income from manual casual labour.

The problem is that little of this was not already known. The decadal Census, which interviews every Indian, was conducted in the same year and collected data on condition of houses, asset ownership, whether the family belonged to a Scheduled Caste or Tribe, marital and fertility status and education, among others.

The National Sample Survey Office’s regular nationally representative surveys collect information of land and asset ownership, consumption expenditure and nature of employment.

The NSSO does not ask direct questions on income as it believes respondents find it difficult to accurately estimate their income, but the National Council for Applied Economic Research’s 2011-12 India Human Development Survey asked a nationally representative sample of their incomes.

So the SECC in effect offers little more than a reminder of the grim realities of rural India. The starkness of this reality should not be dismissed — in over 90 per cent of rural households, the top earning family member makes less than Rs.10,000 per month. Just over 3 per cent of households have a family member who is a graduate.

Over half rely on casual manual labour, and fewer than ten per cent have salaried jobs. Over half have no land, and fewer than five per cent own agricultural equipment. Fewer than four per cent have access to agricultural credit of over Rs.50,000. Just 20 per cent own a vehicle, and just 10 per cent own a refrigerator.

In effect, we have by now multiple reliable estimates of the extent of rural poverty — no one can really argue any more than we do not know how many rural Indians live in difficult conditions where they could use government support.

We also have — perhaps the SECC’s greatest contribution — a reliable way to identify these households, since the

survey details of every household is available to the state. But the problem never really was a technocratic one; it was and remains a political one.

Moral values What a state decides constitutes poverty or difficulty is a call it must take not by the size of its financial reserves

alone, but by its moral values. One way of looking at it could be that landless households which rely on casual manual labour are poor — that’s nearly 30 per cent of households. For some people, a household that cannot afford to

buy a vehicle is poor, and that’s 80 per cent of rural India. For others, one in which no one makes over Rs.10,000 should be called poor — that’s over 90 per cent of rural India.

For some, a household which does not make enough to pay income tax is poor – that’s over 95 per cent of the countryside.

Why this matters is that unlike India’s decades-old systems of state-subsidised schools or hospitals which self-select — only those poor enough to need it actually go there — governments are increasingly trying to target schemes, often for ever narrower categories.

Whether you get subsidised grain or cashless medical insurance is a product of where exactly the government decides to draw the poverty line. This despite the fact that a 2010 World Bank analysis of India’s social protection schemes showed that the least targeted ones were the ones that were most effective at actually delivering to the poor.

The most intensely political part of the SECC is the first C — caste — which the government has thus far dealt with by putting the matter off. The publicly available draft and final lists of the SECC contain information on not just the socio-economic level of every family, but also that family’s precise caste name.


This should have allowed the government to release information on the relative socio-economic status of various caste groups — the information is after all already available — but it chose not to.

Undoubtedly it will be valuable to know whether specific caste groups which currently are entitled to reservations are worse off or better off than those which are not.

Undoubtedly, some of the political leaders who have opposed the publication of this data are concerned that a particular caste group whose patronage they enjoy might turn out to be relatively well off. However, not all political objections to taking decisions on this caste data are unimportant.

Caste discrimination Caste has never been proxy for class or deprivation in India; it constitutes a distinct kind of embedded discrimination

that often transcends class. People with Dalit last names are less likely to be called for job interviews even when their qualifications are better than that of an upper caste candidate, research shows.

They are also less likely to be accepted as tenants by landlords. Marriage to a well- educated, well-off Dalit man still sparks violent reprisals among the families of upper caste women every day across the country. The caste data from the SECC will not reflect these realities.

A mature society should have accurate information on the well-being of its people, and the SECC is a big step towards that goal.

But it should also feel equally comfortable to set aside the data to create a universal safety net and equal opportunity

for those whose economic status might not reflect the barriers they face.

Rural realities

New data for rural households revealed by the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) represent a grim reminder of

the state of rural India. In over 90 per cent of households, the main earning member makes less than Rs. 10,000 a

month.

Over half the households are landless and a similar share of them relies on casual manual labour for the larger part

of their income. Just 20 per cent of households own any kind of a motor vehicle. These numbers should come as a

reality check for those who talk of India’s unbridled growth, and arrival on the global stage as a superpower.

The countryside remains unable to find jobs that can pull families out of poverty. Agriculture remains at subsistence

levels, with low mechanisation, limited irrigation facilities and little access to credit.

Just over 3 per cent of rural households have a family member who is a graduate, so skilled jobs are going to be hard

to get. Female-headed households and Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe households are the worst off. The

eastern and central States of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha have the poorest indicators. Even in the

developed southern States of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, family incomes are low and dependence on casual manual

labour is high. Meanwhile, early results from the urban SECC suggest that levels of deprivation, while lower in cities,

are still shockingly high.

What the government chooses to do with the data is as yet unclear. While commissioning the SECC, the UPA

government had spoken of creating flexibility to enable States to draw up their own combinations of indicators to

create tailor-made definitions of poverty.

The Narendra Modi government is yet to make its intentions clear on the SECC, especially with regard to the thorny

issue of where to draw the line. Instead of a fresh round of unseemly wrangling over precisely where to set India’s

poverty line, the government would be well-advised to expand and universalise its social protection schemes, and

leave some space for States to innovate.

It would also be wise for the government to release caste-wise information on socio-economic indicators collected by

the SECC but not yet put in the public domain.

Those numbers would allow, for the first time since 1931, for the relative socio-economic status of various caste

groups to be compared while framing policies of affirmative action. This government stands accused of suppressing

vital new information on the status of malnutrition among children, contained in a survey commissioned by the

previous government through UNICEF. It should not make a habit of suppressing inconvenient data.

The Indian public might hotly contest some of these numbers; particularly those relating to caste, but even angry

debates represent a democratic right that must not be curtailed.

Is India bending towards Israel?

A year ago, Israel began its assault on the Gaza Strip. More than 2,100 Palestinians died in the bombing — seven out

of ten were civilians, according to the United Nations. Israeli bombs killed 500 Palestinian children and orphaned

1,500 more.

During the war, the UN Human Rights Council empanelled a commission to investigate the conduct of both the Israeli

state and the non-state Palestinian resistance. That panel, led by former New York Supreme Court Judge Mary

McGowan Davis, has now produced a report that accuses the Israeli government of actions tantamount to war crimes.

The Davis Report said that Israeli conduct was “reflective of a broader policy, approved at least tacitly by decision-

makers at the highest levels of the government of Israel”.


Little wonder then that a majority of the UN Human Rights Council forwarded this forensic report to the International

Criminal Court (ICC) for further action.

When Israel’s bombing ended in August 2014, the ICC’s Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said that she would not open a

file on Israel because Palestine was not a member of the ICC. Her refusal to investigate war crimes by Israel, she said,

was not “due to political pressure”.

Palestine joined the ICC in April 2015. The Human Rights Council’s submission to the ICC opens the door for Ms.

Bensouda to live by the standard she has set herself. An investigation of Israel should now commence.

The Davis Report is only the most recent of the many UN investigations into Israel’s 2014 bombing of Gaza. On April

27, the UN Secretary-General released a summary report on Israeli attacks on UN schools that had been used as

shelters in the war.

In none of the seven cases looked at in detail did Palestinian militants use the schools as a launch pad for their

retaliation attacks. The UN had given the Israelis precise GPS coordinates for these schools, which were nonetheless

targeted.

Pierre Krahenbühl, the Commissioner General for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which runs the schools,

said at the time of one of the attacks, “Today the world stands disgraced. I condemn in the strongest possible terms

this serious violation of international law by Israeli forces”. These words were validated by the UN summary report

from April and in the Davis Report.

What the Davis Report found was that Israel’s military deliberately targeted civilian areas, hitting residential

buildings, “which are prima facie civilian objects immune from attack”. Israel’s assaults on homes increased after

2009.

As an indicator, in the 2009 war, 14 per cent of civilian casualties were women, while in this war, that increased to 20

per cent. Chillingly, the Davis Report did not study “attacks by Israel on United Nations shelters, medical facilities,

ambulances, and other critical infrastructure” because “these patterns have been a recurring reality in this and prior

conflicts”. In other words, Israel has made it a habit to bomb hospitals and power plants to inflict punishment on the

Palestinians — a crime against the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The UN was not alone in its allegations. The Israeli group Breaking the Silence released a report on May 5 that

documented statements from Israeli soldiers who had taken part in the attack on Gaza. One infantry sergeant said,

“Anything inside the Gaza Strip is a threat.

The area has to be sterilised, empty of people, and if we don’t see someone waving a white flag, screaming, “I give up”

or something, then he’s a threat and there’s authorisation to open fire.” Breaking the Silence’s Yuli Novak said, “A

troubling picture arises of a policy of indiscriminate fire that led to the deaths of innocent civilians.”

India abstains

Strikingly, India abstained in its vote at the Human Rights Council. It joined Kenya, Ethiopia, Paraguay and

Macedonia — all lobbied by Israel over the course of the year. The U.S. was the only country to vote against the

motion to accept the Davis Report and send the file over to the ICC. Forty-one states, including the eight sitting

European members, voted to censure Israel.

Last year, India had voted in support of the Human Rights Council resolution to set up the commission to investigate

war crimes. In the debate last year, India’s ambassador to the Human Rights Council, Dilip Sinha, bemoaned the

“heavy air strikes in Gaza and the disproportionate use of force resulting in the tragic loss of civilian lives”. Now India

has decided to abstain. Why?

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) says that there has been no change in its policy towards the struggle of the

Palestinians. The reason for the abstention is that India is not a signatory of the Rome Statute that set up the ICC.

The MEA claims that India has a policy not to vote for a resolution that refers a country to the ICC. But — as the

record shows — India has voted at least twice for UN Human Rights Council resolutions that do refer cases to the

ICC. Both these cases are about allegations of Syrian government violations in its civil war — once on March 23,

2012, and again on June 1, 2012.

The principled stand to refrain from collaboration with the ICC does not seem as clear as suggested by the MEA.

China, by the way, is also not a signatory to the Rome Statute. Yet, China voted with the majority to accept the Davis

report. Why did India vote to send the Syrian government to the ICC but not the Israeli government?

One suggested answer is political. Israel has pinned its hopes on the Narendra Modi government to break India’s ties

with the Palestinians and join the United States, Palau and Nauru in the pro-Israel bloc in the UN. The Bharatiya

Janata Party and its ancestors have called for close ties with Israel since 1948, largely because of their antipathy to

Muslims.


Mr. Modi has already suggested that he would be the first Indian head of government to visit Israel. This new

alignment could very well be signalled by India’s abstention on this vote. Suggestions of principle by the MEA are well

and good, but these might not contain the entire story. Other, less noble, motivations might be at play.

Immunity or accountability?

On June 14, Israel released its own report on the war, which suggested that it had committed no war crimes. This is

part of its campaign to whitewash the war and the continued occupation of Palestinian lands. Israel’s settlement

activity and security walls in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and its throttling of Gaza by embargo have rendered

the “two-state” solution moot. There is no possibility for the creation of Palestine in the moth-eaten land that remains.

A “one-state” solution is equally impossible if Israel insists that it is a “Jewish State”, an ethno-nationalist concept

that denies the rights of Palestinians inside Israel. Israeli policy directly leads to endless occupation and punctuated

wars.

That is why the Davis Report was concerned that nothing would come of their work, since “impunity prevails across

the boards for violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law allegedly committed

by Israeli forces, whether it be in the context of active hostilities in Gaza or killings, torture and ill-treatment in the

West Bank.”

Pressure on Israel to change its policy direction could come from an ICC investigation. India’s abstention does not

help the situation in West Asia. In fact, it has given the Israeli policymakers respite, and has betrayed the slim hopes

of the Palestinian people.

Crisis, opportunity

A little more than a week after talks between Greece and its creditors broke down after Greek Prime Minister Alexis

Tsipras announced he would put the creditors’ terms for the release of the last tranche of a bailout programme to a

popular vote, the results of the referendum are in.

And the noes have it. A clear majority (61.3 per cent) voted “No” and rejected the troika’s conditions for the deal that

had since expired. The Greek drama has now entered the territory of “unknown unknowns”.

Earlier eurozone leaders are expected to attend an emergency summit on Greece. And while some see the No vote as a

bargaining chip for Tsipras, others view it as the last straw for negotiation-weary eurozone politicians and citizens.

In fact, the unexpected resignation of Greece’s outspoken Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis on Monday is being seen

as a kind of peace-offering to keep talks going. But what is clear is this: Unless Greece secures emergency liquidity

assistance from the ECB to keep its four systemically important banks solvent, its banking system will run out of

cash within the week, increasing the chances of a Grexit.

Greece has relied on bailout funds to pay its bills and debt for years now. Having defaulted on a 1.6 billion euro

payment to the IMF on June 30, the Greek government is scheduled to make payments totalling 12.8 billion euro to

the IMF, ECB and holders of Greek treasury bills between July and August. Greece needs a third bailout programme

worth between 30 and 50 billion euro, which makes the 7.2 billion euro fund release that led to the referendum

wrangle look like chicken feed.

Further defaults would only hasten a Grexit. But at 180 per cent of the GDP, Greek debt already seems too high not

to explore restructuring. Among other things, the Greek crisis is about unequal countries entering a monetary union

that de facto takes away the ability to effect a depreciation to improve economic prospects.

But an exit from the monetary union, which doesn’t necessarily mean an exit from the European Union, wouldn’t be

breezy either — how would Greece, which has no major natural resources, get funding for its businesses, for example?

From an Indian perspective, there are some major lessons from the Greek crisis, and opportunities too.

While Greece isn’t a Lehman, India’s macroeconomic foundations(current account and fiscal deficits) look good, and

the RBI’s forex reserves seem adequate, it needs to be prudent on foreign debt, particularly unhedged foreign

borrowings.

Greece underscores the need to keep banks healthy. The crisis also presents an opportunity for India: with Europe in

turmoil, equity capital will start looking for safer havens and relatively higher returns soon. That’s where India

shouldn’t lose out.

But for that, it’s critical to move fast on the policy front, show good intent — including on the GST and beefing up

banks — and demonstrate stability.

1 Weekly News and Analysis Byju’s Classes-9873643487 2015CA_008,009,010,011,012,013,014

WEEKLY NEWS AND ANALYSIS FROM JULY 8TH TO 14TH 2015

INTERNATIONAL NEWS Russia vetoes ‘genocide’ resolution Russia vetoed a draft U.N. resolution recognising the Srebrenica massacre as genocide, branding the measure

“confrontational” and a setback to reconciliation in the Balkans. Britain had put forward the draft text, hoping the Security Council would formally recognise it as an act of genocide

for the first time. Angola, China, Nigeria and Venezuela abstained from the vote on the draft resolution, days before Bosnia is due to

mark the 20th anniversary of the murder of 8,000 Muslim boys and men by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995.

India, U.S. ink pact on sharing account info In a step towards curbing overseas tax evasion and black money, India and the U.S. signed an inter-governmental

agreement to implement the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). The agreement makes it obligatory on the part of the two nations to exchange information on offshore accounts of

each other’s citizens in their respective territories. Under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) foreign financial institutions in the U.S. will have to provide

information about Indian account holders to the U.S. government’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which will forward

the information to the Indian government. The Indian government will provide similar information to the IRS. For example, the State Bank of India will have to

provide information regarding the investments by any U.S. citizen, even NRIs, to the Indian revenue authorities in a prescribed format regularly. The Indian government will then forward that information to the IRS.

Last month, India joined 59 countries in the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information. This agreement obliges signatories to exchange a wide range of financial information among themselves

periodically and automatically. The U.S. government enacted FATCA in 2010 to obtain information on accounts held by US taxpayers in other

countries. As of now, the U.S. has such agreements with more than 110 jurisdictions and is engaged in related discussions with many other jurisdictions.

Financial institutions such as banks, brokerages or mutual funds that do not comply with this agreement will face a 30 per cent withholding tax on all payments from the U.S.

Thailand deports 100 Uighur Muslims to China Thailand said it had deported around 100 Uighur Muslims detained in the kingdom since last year to China, in a

move sparking fears for the safety of the asylum-seekers. The fate of scores of suspected Uighurs — a Turkic-speaking, largely Muslim minority in China’s northwestern

Xinjiang region who have long chafed under Chinese control — has hung in the balance since they were sentenced for illegal entry in Thailand in March 2014.

UN: 4 Million Refugees Have Fled Syria The U.N. refugee agency said the number of refugees fleeing

conflict in Syria has topped 4 million, making Syria the world’s biggest refugee crisis in a generation.

With no solution to the conflict in sight, the UNHCR said it expects the number of refugees to exceed 4.25 million by the end of the year.

Turkey is home to about 45 percent of the 4 million Syrian refugees in the region. Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt host most of the rest.

‘Overseas students should leave U.K. once they complete studies’ The British government would like to see overseas students who

come to Britain to study in its world class universities leave as soon as they finish their courses — and not stay back

to work or settle. In an interview, Business Secretary Sajid Javid said that he would like to “break the link” between study and

settlement of overseas students. “What we do have is an immigration system that allows those who want to study in world class universities to come

here,” he said. “We’ve also got to have a system that doesn’t allow any abuse, where people are using the right to study as a way to achieve settlement in Britain. We have to break the link. We should allow people [to come] here who want to study, and once they have completed [their studies] they leave.”

Indian students are second only to China amongst non-EU overseas students in higher education in the U.K. Rising tuition fees and an unfriendly visa system have seen the numbers drop.

‘Super typhoon’ pushes towards China Typhoon Chan-hom lashed Japan’s Okinawa island chain as it pushed towards Taiwan and onto China, leaving at

least 23 people injured.


Thousands were evacuated from eastern China in preparation for the storm which left five dead in the Philippines earlier in the week after heavy rains.

The powerful typhoon — categorised as a “super typhoon” by some regional weather bureaus — was moving northwest between the islands of Okinawa and Miyako , with recorded gusts of 234 km per hour, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

India, Turkmenistan ink 7 pacts; agree to combat terrorism together Batting for early implementation of the USD 10 billion TAPI pipeline project, Prime Minister Narendra Modi evinced

India’s interest in long-term investment in the energy sector in Turkmenistan as the two countries inked seven pacts and vowed to jointly combat terrorism in the region.

During comprehensive talks between Modi and Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov both sides decided to intensify efforts in dealing with threats of terrorism, organised crime and illegal drug-trafficking. The Prime Minister identified terrorism as a major threat facing the region and said, “We have shared interest in a peaceful and stable Afghanistan and Central Asia. We have also common purpose in combating terrorism and extremism in our region.”

After talks between the two sides, a total of seven pacts were signed including an agreement on cooperation in the field of defence and another on tourism. Calling TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) project as a significant initiative in relationship between the two countries, Modi said possibility of land-sea route through Iran for

the pipeline should be explored. The project was envisaged to take gas from Turkmenistan, which holds the world’s

fourth-largest natural gas reserves, to India and Pakistan through Afghanistan. A joint statement termed the TAPI project a “key pillar” of economic engagement between India and Turkmenistan and

said both the leaders recognised that its implementation would have a transformational impact on trade. It said they decided to take measures for early implementation of this important regional project.

India, Kyrgyzstan plan anti-terror pact Voicing grave concern over the rising trend of extremism and terrorism the world over, India and Kyrgyzstan signed

four agreements including one to boost defence cooperation and hold annual joint military exercises. The agreements include those on defence cooperation and culture. An MoU each was signed for cooperation between the Election Commissions of the two countries and on cooperation

in the sphere of Standards, a move that will help economic relations. It said the Indian side highly appreciated the steps taken by the Kyrgyz government in combating terrorism and in

retaining the secular character of Kyrgyz society. Noting that the bilateral defence ties are strong, the Prime Minister said a joint exercise Khanjar 2015 has just been

completed. Mr. Modi underlined that the new agreement on defence cooperation would provide a “framework to broaden bilateral

engagement” which would also include defence technology.

‘SCO can help ease India-Pak. tensions’ China and Russia are aspiring to play a major role in resolving differences between India and Pakistan within the

framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) — a move that both see as necessary to integrate the economies of Eurasia along the New Silk Road.

A commentary in China’s state-run Xinhua news agency observes that the inclusion of India and Pakistan in the SCO — a decision that was taken during the grouping’s summit in Ufa — will enhance the “organization’s influence and appeal at the international stage”. It then stresses that the inclusion of New Delhi and Islamabad in the grouping will help improve bilateral relations by ironing out differences within the SCO framework.

Analysts say any appreciable reduction in India-Pakistan tensions can boost the prospects of realising the China-driven Belt and Road project.

The initiative is meant to integrate the economies of Eurasia through the establishment of physical and cyber connectivity, energy pipelines, industrial parks and smart cities along a contiguous corridor.

China and Pakistan have decided to establish a Gwadar-Kashgar economic corridor under the Belt and Road project, but India objects to it as it passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

India has rejected the assertion, but Pakistan has accused New Delhi of aiding insurgency and imposing impediments in Baluchistan, through which the proposed corridor would pass.

China is aware that an India-Pakistan rapprochement, by lowering suspicions, can contribute to the stabilisation of Afghanistan, benefiting the regional stakeholders including New Delhi and Islamabad.

Nuclear talks: Russia offers India a role in new n-plants Russia has proposed a plan to involve India in building Russian-designed nuclear power stations in third countries. The cooperation is to be extended to the area of joint extraction of natural uranium and the production of nuclear fuel

and atomic waste elimination. Russia has also offered to build over 20 nuclear power units in India, up from the 12 offered earlier. The Russian proposal to jointly build nuclear power plants is significant, considering that Rosatom — the State-

owned Russian nuclear utility — has 29 nuclear reactors in various stages of planning and construction in more than a dozen countries (the largest internationally). These include in Jordan, Hungary, Egypt, Iran, Finland, Turkey and Argentina.

The new proposals, offered by the Russians as a plank to build on their head-start in the Indian nuclear market, is expected to lay the foundation for what is being termed by Moscow as “long-term, mutually beneficial cooperation in


the nuclear sector”, an official involved in the delegation-level talks between the two sides in the Russian city of Ufa said.

The Russian proposal builds on a package of inter-governmental and inter-departmental documents signed on the sidelines of President Vladimir Putin’s visit to India late last year, as part of a ‘strategic vision for strengthening Indian-Russian cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear power’.

The nuclear cooperation includes building on negotiations to sign an advance contract for the design of the third and fourth reactor units to come up at the Kudankulam site in Tamil Nadu.

Russia, in accordance with an inter-governmental agreement of 1988 and a supplement to it signed in 1998, is building the Kudankulam nuclear power project, the first 1,000 MWe (mega watt electric) unit of which was connected to the national grid in 2013. It is now operating under the one-year warranty maintenance period, which will last until the end of 2015. A second identical reactor is ready for commissioning. Last year, the Russian Federation and India had signed a general framework agreement on the construction of the

second phase (the third and fourth power units) of the nuclear power plant. The biggest challenge for the new set of VVER reactors to be set up with Russian assistance is the costing aspect,

particularly given the question marks raised by vendors on the uncertainties surrounding the Indian domestic nuclear liability law.

NATIONAL NEWS

India on track in cutting poverty: MDG report India has halved its incidence of extreme poverty, from 49.4% in 1994 to 24.7% in 2011 ahead of the deadline of 2015

set by the United Nations, shows the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report 2015 it released.

The report set the limit for extreme poverty as those living on $1.25 or less a day.

However, this reduction in poverty is still less than that achieved by several of India’s poorer neighbours. Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh have each outstripped India in poverty reduction over comparable time periods.

While the report says India is on-track to achieving the hunger targets, it still remains home to one quarter of the world’s undernourished population, over a third of the world’s underweight children, and nearly a third of the world’s food-insecure people.

The report is especially important because it marks the deadline by which the MDG should have been achieved. India has already achieved 11 out of 22 parameters in the report—spanning issues like poverty, health, and education— and is on track to achieve one more by the end of 2015.

Though India has halved its incidence of extreme poverty, it is categorised as making ‘slow’ progress on the other 10 parameters including maternal mortality, access to sanitation etc.

On the environment front, India is one of the few countries that has reduced its carbon dioxide emissions in relation to its GDP. India emitted 0.65 kg of carbon dioxide per $1 of

GDP in 1990, which fell to 0.53 kg in 2010. India is still lagging on several health parameters such as mate rnal mortality, infant mortality and basic sanitation. Although the infant mortality rate fell drastically from 88.2 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 43.8 in 2012, the

annual progress on this has been slow. The same can be said for the maternal mortality rate, which fell from 560 per lakh live births in 1990 to 190 in 2013.

Why can’t we bring you under RTI, asks SC In a step towards making political parties publicly accountable for their financial assets, the Supreme Court asked six

national parties, including the BJP and the Congress, to come clean and explain their hesitation in disclosing complete details of their income, expenditure, donations and funding, including donor details, to the public under the Right to Information Act.

A Bench led by Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu gave the political parties six weeks to file their responses on why they should not be declared as “public authorities” under the Right to Information Act 2005, making them liable to disclose their financial assets to the public.

The petition has also arraigned the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, Nationalist Congress Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party.

The apex court’s move to make the political parties accountable comes the very same week in which it refused to bring the medical expenses of sitting and retired Supreme Court judges within RTI ambit.

The CIC had declared all national and regional political parties to be public authorities under the RTI in its 2013 order. In March 2015, it had reiterated the order as “final and binding.”


The petition argued that political parties should come under the RTI as they play a core role in governance, and, in fact, enjoy a “stronghold” over their elected MPs and MLAs under Schedule 10 of the Constitution.

The Schedule makes it compulsory for MPs and MLAs to abide by the directions of their parent parties. It contended that it would be within the average voter’s fundamental right to information to know the financial details

of political parties. “Under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 all political parties must affirm their allegiance to the Constitution of India and such allegiance is made compulsory for the purpose of registration under sub-section (7) of Section 29A,” the petition argued.

It contended that the Law Commission of India in its 170th Report on ‘Reform of the Electoral Laws’ in May 1999 had recommended transparency in the functioning of political parties.

The Olympics of arts to come to India The Delphic Games is to art and culture what the Olympics is to sports. Started a 100 years after the modern edition of the Olympics, the youth edition of the Delphic Games will be hosted in

India for the first time, from February 1 to 14, 2016, in Goa. The Youth Delphic Games are held every four years and are aimed at participants in the age group of 15 to 25. The

motto of the 2016 Games is ‘Celebrating Arts and Cultures.’ It will include competitions ranging over six categories — musical arts & sounds, performing arts, language arts,

visual arts, social arts and ecological arts & architecture.

Some globally celebrated Indian faces such as Alyque Padamsee, Dr. Sonal Mansingh, Shiamak Davar and Pahlaj

Nihalani will be associated with this edition. The Delphic Games, touted as the twin sister of Olympics, came into being over 1,000 years ago in Delphi, Greece, to

praise the gods and honour peace. They were so momentous that even wars and conflicts had to cease during the Games, which were subsequently

banned in 394 AD. The International Delphic Council (IDC), founded in 1994, is responsible for the revival of the Games.

Pay commission pitches for 13.5 per cent salary hike The Tenth Pay Revision Commission is likely to recommend 12 to 13.5 per cent increase in the salary of State

government employees and teachers. Finance Department sources told that the commission

headed by former High Court Judge C.N. Ramachandran Nair and comprising former Director of Treasuries K.V. Thomas as member-secretary and a lawyer T.V. George as member is likely to recommend similar benefits for service pensioners too. Pensioners would get an enhancement at this range, sources said.

The commission is likely to recommend the merger of dearness allowance (DA) with the basic pay (the DA now is nearly 80 per cent of the basic). That is, an employee with a basic salary of Rs.10,000 now will get a revised basic of Rs.18,000.

The commission was reported to be in favour of increasing the retirement age from the present 56 years. Considering the financial constraint of the government, the commission would recommend to fix the retirement age at 58 years.

Being a sensitive political issue, the government would have to weigh all options before accepting the recommendation, sources said. Leave surrender and such other benefits being enjoyed by the employees would continue without changes. Pensioners’ organisations had been raising a demand for medical insurance scheme.

The commission is likely to recommend an insurance scheme for pensioners as well as employees and teachers. This would be a comprehensive scheme and would replace the medical reimbursement scheme now in force, sources said.

The government, as part of its austerity measures and additional resource mobilisation efforts, decided to identify excess temporary posts in various departments. It also decided to do away with about 33,062 posts which a Secretary-level committee had identified as excess in phases.

The decision had invited public wrath as it had affected the service delivery in many departments such as Health and

Revenue. The commission would recommend a system for redeploying the excess employees. The report would be submitted on Friday.

Modi takes up Lakhvi issue with Xi Prime Minister Narendra Modi “strongly” and “clearly” conveyed India’s concern to President Xi Jinping over China

blocking a proposal for action by the U.N. against Pakistan on the release of jailed Mumbai attack mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi.

India rejected the “weak evidence” theory propounded by Beijing in this regard. Mr. Modi voiced India’s concern over the $46-billion economic corridor that China was building with Pakistan as it

crossed Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). At a meeting of the U.N. Sanctions Committee earlier, India had sought action against Pakistan for release of LeT

operations commander Lakhvi in the 26/11 trial in violation of a U.N. resolution, but the Chinese representatives blocked the move on grounds that New Delhi did not provide sufficient information. —


DU slips among BRICS varsities The Delhi University has been ranked 46{+t}{+h}among the top 50 universities in BRICS countries according to the QS

University rankings released. DU’s position has dipped from last year. In 2014, it was ranked at 39. A total of eight Indian universities have found a

mention among the top 50 universities of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Delhi University ranked seventh among Indian Universities.

The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) beat all other Indian institutes, apart from featuring in the top 10. Other Indian institutes that made it to the list are Indian Institutes of Technology in New Delhi, Bombay, Kanpur, Madras, Kharagpur, Roorkee and Guwahati.

The performance of these institutions was measured along eight parameters including academic reputation, employer’s reputation, faculty and student ratio, staff with a Ph.D., papers per faculty, citations per paper, international faculty and international students.

This is the third BRICS ranking edition after its launch in 2013. Tsinghua University in China topped the list, followed by Peking University in second position.

Can’t stop an adult from watching porn in his room, says SC Declining a plea to pass an interim order to block porn websites in India, the Supreme Court said it cannot stop an

adult from exercising his fundamental right to personal liberty to watch porn within the privacy of his room.

“Such interim orders cannot be passed by this court. Somebody may come to the court and say look I am above 18

and how can you stop me from watching it within the four walls of my room. It is a violation of Article 21 [right to personal liberty],” Chief Justice H.L. Dattu observed orally.

The Chief Justice was hearing a PIL petition filed by advocate Kamlesh Vashwani to block porn websites in India. “The issue is definitely serious and some steps need to be taken. The Centre is expected to take a stand…let us see

what stand the Centre will take,” Chief Justice Dattu observed, directing the government to reply in four weeks. In one of the previous hearings on the PIL in August 2014, the Supreme Court had termed Internet porn “hydra-

headed,” while the Centre had acknowledged that websites were getting too unwieldy to handle and were affecting ordinary households.

Manual scavenging still a reality The practice of manual scavenging, officially banned since

decades in India, continues with impunity in several States. The latest Socio-Economic Caste Census data released reveals that 1, 80, 657 households are engaged in this degrading work for a livelihood.

Maharashtra, with 63,713, tops the list with the largest number of manual scavenger households, followed by Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tripura and Karnataka, as per Census data.

Heartening trend Bindeshwar Pathak, founder, Sulabh International Social

Service Organisation, told that when compared to the 1961 census, in which 3.5 million manual scavenging households had been found and roughly 8 lakh persons were engaged in manual scavenging, the present census findings show the great reduction in the numbers of people engaging in this degrading practice.

He said that despite their request six months ago to increase the amount of money given to panchayats to build toilets

to Rs. 15,000 (it is currently Rs. 12,000) no steps have been taken yet by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, to respond to this.

As a result toilets built under the government’s flagship Swacch Bharat Abhiyan continue to be of a poor quality. “The UPA government built 5 crore 40 lakh toilets during its regime, but because of the poor quality of construction and inadequate amount of money disbursed for it, the issue of modernising sanitation practices in rural areas has not been achieved,” he said.

Mr. Pathak further said that the legal crackdown, using existing provisions of the law, do not offer a long-term solution to the problem and it is only through modernising sanitation facilities and sustaining a campaign to change the mindsets of people who support these practices that the practice can be eradicated.

Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thaawar Chand Gehlot told that under the new 2013 law to ensure the rehabilitation of manual scavengers, 2500 manual scavenger families, who clean human excreta with bare hands, had been identified so far.

“The government has given these families Rs. 40,000 aid money and is also given them skills training so that they can pursue alternative jobs. The Safai Karmachari Vitt Vikas Nigam is also extending credit to them so they can go for permanent jobs. We have started intervention work in Lucknow, Haridwar and Varanasi, and will be extending intervention to other States,” he said.


Entire Nagaland declared as ‘disturbed area’ The Centre has declared entire Nagaland as a “disturbed area” as it finds that a “dangerous condition” prevails in the

State and armed forces should assist the civil administration in maintaining law and order. In a gazette notification, the Home Ministry said it was of the opinion that the whole of Nagaland is in such a

disturbed or dangerous condition that the use of armed forces in aid of civil power is necessary. “Now, therefore, in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 3 of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958, the

Central government hereby declares that whole of the said State to be a disturbed area for a period of one year with effect from June 30, 2015 for the purpose of the Act,” Joint Secretary in the Home Ministry Shambu Singh said in the notification.

The decision came almost a month after NSCN-K, the dominant Naga rebel group, attacked an army convoy in Manipur’s Chandel district and killed 18 soldiers.

Modi, Putin discuss India’s accession to Shanghai block Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin resolved to take strategic bilateral ties forward

and discussed India’s accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). “I am looking forward to developing the cooperation [between the two countries],” Mr. Putin said as the two leaders

met ahead of the BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summits. Mr. Modi, who is primarily for BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summits, thanked Mr. Putin for the

welcome he got on his arrival earlier in the day.

He also thanked the Russian President with regard to India getting the membership of SCO with the process set to be complete by next year.

Mr. Modi mentioned that Mr. Putin himself called him to inform about the decision of the six-nation grouping. The process of India’s accession to the SCO is beginning, Mr. Putin said, adding that it was “a very important event.” The Prime Minister, while talking about the close relationship between India and Russia, said he would be visiting this

country again later this year for the annual bilateral summit meeting.

India, Kazakhstan ink pacts on defence, uranium supply Five agreements signed Long-term supply of natural uranium to India to meet its energy requirements Defence cooperation, including training of personnel, exchange of technical know-how Active engagement in the fight against terrorism and extremism, including exchange of information Treaty on Transfer of Sentenced Persons, human resources, cultural exchanges, capacity-building Expanding bilateral trade by addressing structural impediments between India and Kazakhstan

Guru Granth Sahib among books gifted PM Modi presented a set of books relating to religions born in India to Kazakh President Nazarbayev. “These include

English translation of Guru Granth Sahib along with specially commissioned reproductions from the manuscripts collection of National Museum in Delhi; one of Jainism’s revered texts, Bhadrabahu’s Kalpasutra in Prakrit; one of Buddhism’s scriptures Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita in Sanskrit; and a Persian translation of Valmiki’s Ramayana in Nastaliq script,” a statement said.

Astana, July 8 India and Kazakhstan today inked five key agreements, including a defence pact to enhance military cooperation and

a contract for supply of uranium, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev held comprehensive talks in which they decided to actively engage in the fight against terrorism and extremism.

Modi, who held restricted as well as delegation-level talks with Nazarbayev, noted that they also agreed to work closely to expand bilateral trade by addressing structural impediments between India and hydrocarbon-rich Kazakhstan.

“We have shared perspectives on many international issues, including regional peace, connectivity and integration;

reforms in the United Nations; and, combating terrorism,” the Prime Minister said at a joint press event with Nazarbayev.

Noting that the defence and security cooperation was an important dimension of strategic partnership between the two countries, Modi said, “We both want to make it stronger, including in defence manufacturing. We welcome the new memorandum of understanding on defence cooperation.”

The MoU would further widen the scope of bilateral defence cooperation, including regular exchange of visits,

consultations, training of military personnel, military- technical cooperation, joint exercises, special forces’ exchanges and cooperation in UN peacekeeping operations.

Welcoming the signing of a contract between NC “KazAtomProm” JSC and NPCIL for a renewed long-term supply of natural uranium to India to meet its energy requirements, Modi said, “Kazaksthan was one of the first countries with which we launched civil nuclear cooperation through a uranium purchase contract.

“We are pleased to have a much larger second contract now. We intend to expand cooperation in other minerals as well”.

A joint statement ‘Tej kadam’ was also released after talks, which said the leaders noted the rising challenge posed by terrorism in many parts of the world and in their immediate region and underlined the importance of a stable and secure environment for peaceful economic development.

PM meets Iranian President Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani met on the sidelines of the BRICS and SCO

summits and discussed issues of bilateral and mutual interests.


This is the first highest level interaction between the two countries after the NDA government came to power. In Tehran, Mr. Gadkari signed an agreement with Iran for the development of the strategically important Chabahar

port in Sistan-Balochistan Province which will give India sea-land access route to Afghanistan bypassing Pakistan.

Modi proposes 10-point initiative for BRICS nations Pitching for closer cooperation and coordination among BRICS nations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed a 10-

point initiative that includes India hosting the first trade fair for the grouping and establishing research centres for railways and agriculture.

The proposed initiatives for the BRICS include a trade fair, a Railway Research Centre, cooperation among supreme audit institutions, a Digital Initiative and an Agricultural Research Centre.

Xi proposes new strategic framework The talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping in Ufa, the venue of the seventh

summit of the Brazil-Russia-India, China-South Africa (BRICS) grouping covered during the 90-minute talks included the boundary question, confidence-building measures, issues of maintaining peace and tranquillity along the border and more meeting points at the border.

Diplomatic sources said the clarification of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and the passage of the Pakistan-China economic corridor through disputed territory in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) have emerged as the two impediments hampering the full development of India-China ties.

President Xi proposed Sino-Indian collaboration within a new strategic framework, which has the emerging markets

and developing countries at their focal points. He stressed that China and India should make joint efforts to push a new institutional framework of global relevance,

which includes the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), along with firming up their partnership within the emerging market framework.

Regarding the harmonisation of China’s connectivity initiative with the Indian one, Chinese diplomats have already advocated the fusion of China’s Belt and Road project with New Delhi’s “Act East” policy.

In Ufa, President Xi singled out the BCIM project — also called the Kolkata to Kunming economic corridor — as a priority undertaking between the two countries.

Selective approach to terror disapproved BRICS nations, including India, disapproved of a selective approach to terrorism as Prime Minister Narendra Modi

said there should be no discrimination between the sponsors, or groups or targeted nations, in an apparent message to China which recently protected Pakistan at the U.N. from action over release of 26/11 mastermind Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi.

The grouping of five major growing economies also rallied behind Russia by opposing the Western sanctions against it over the Ukraine conflict, with Mr. Modi saying unilateral sanctions are hurting the global economy.

The five BRICS countries made it clear that the NDB of BRICS will not compete with Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB), of which all of them are members, but would work in coordination for meeting developmental needs of the member countries.

The grouping also condemned terrorist activities of the Islamic State and associated terrorist groups. “We believe that terrorist threats can be effectively addressed through a comprehensive implementation by states and

the international community of all their commitments and obligations arising from all relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council and the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, said the BRICS Declaration.

Ufa declaration pledges cooperation in counter terrorism, core industries Industrial development is the key source of sustaining economic growth for the BRICS nations, with concerted efforts

needed for intensifying cooperation of industrial production capabilities, establishing industrial parks and clusters and promoting core sector industries, the final declaration adopted by the leaders of the five countries said.

The declaration stated that the nations will strengthen their cooperation to counter international terrorism, giving the central role in this action to the United Nations.

The declaration also gives an assessment on the current global political and economic situation and enlists the common approaches of the BRICS countries on the most topical issues of multilateral cooperation.

The leaders also adopted an action plan that details the work of the group for the upcoming year and also includes the new promising areas of cooperation. “In the context of the unstable global financial and economic system and

price volatility in global commodity markets, the development of the real sector of economy becomes particularly relevant,” the BRICS leaders said in the document.

Procurement of artillery guns is underway, says Manohar Parrikar The government is gearing up for a major procurement of artillery guns for the Army after a gap of over 30 years,

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said. He said the last major purchase of artillery guns took place in 1984 and the Bofors guns bought then are still in use.

He said that the process of phasing out these guns will start soon and they will be replaced with new advanced machines.

Parrikar said that Army requires at least 3,000 artillery guns. Parrikar said that procurement of different types of guns was in process. These include 145 light weight howitzer—

each weighing 4.5 tonnes—that could be moved from one place to another by helicopters and aircraft. The Ministry also plans to provide Army with Dhanush, a 155-mm, 45-calibre gun with a maximum effective range of

38 km. Its barrel will be made at Ordnance Factory in Kanpur while it will be integrated in Jabalpur.


Speaking about the Air Force, Parrikar said nearly 200 MiG-21 fighter planes will retire in the next 10-12 years and will be replaced by Light Combat Aircraft ‘Tejas’ and other similar fighter planes in phases.

India, Pakistan become full SCO members India and Pakistan were accepted as full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a regional

grouping including China and Russia, with which Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered to work in combating terror and boosting trade by easing barriers.

India was accepted as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a six-member regional grouping, to which Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered to work in combating terror and boosting trade by easing barriers.

India, which has had an observer status for the past 10 years, will technically become a member by next year after completion of certain procedures.

The Beijing-based SCO currently has China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan as members. Along with India, the process to include Pakistan as a member was initiated.

“I convey our deep sense of gratitude to the members of the SCO for accepting India as a full member,” Mr. Modi said after the announcement was made at the summit, attended by leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

SC rejects plea for U.P. Governor’s removal The Supreme Court rejected a plea seeking removal of Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik for his alleged statement

favouring construction of a Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya. A Bench headed by Chief Justice H. L. Dattu disposed of the plea, filed against an Allahabad High Court order

dismissing a similar petition, saying “continuance in office of Governor cannot be scrutinised in writ jurisdiction by a High Court.”

Advocate Sanjay Parikh, appearing for NGO Citizens for Democracy, said the reported statement of the Governor was against the principle of secularism.

Goans go British, thanks to Portugal citizenship law It is one of the many paradoxes of a post-colonial world: Portugal was the first western country to colonise parts of

India — Goa from 1510 — and the last to leave in 1961. But now, thousands of Goans are opting for Portuguese passports and ending up in Britain. Under Portuguese nationality law, those born in Goa before its liberation from the European nation’s rule on

December 19, 1961 can claim Portuguese citizenship after registering their births in Lisbon and their next three generations can also claim citizenship.

In recent years, there has been something of a rush to give up Indian passports in Goa, register births in Portugal, acquire citizenship and passports in that country, and move to Britain.

In Swindon, an unassuming manufacturing town in the ceremonial county of Wiltshire, it doesn’t take long to come across areas inhabited predominantly by Goans.

“They hold Portuguese passports but have very little to do with that country. Many have never been to Portugal, but use its citizenship to migrate to Britain and end up in places like Swindon, Hayes, Cranford,” Jaime Barreto, a Goa-origin civil servant, said.

Nearly 12,000 such working-class Goans have moved to Swindon in the last decade, changing its demography and leading to some tension. A Portuguese passport makes them EU citizens, with the right to live, work anywhere in the union, and access thousands of pounds in state benefits from the local taxpayer.

Panel: Criminal defamation limits freedom of press While the Centre has defended criminal defamation provisions in the IPC, the law commission feels the colonial

statute restricts media’s freedom of speech and expression as guaranteed under Article 19 (1)(a) of the Constitution,

and thus makes a ground for its review. “Threats of legal action with punitive damages under the defamation law lead to a ‘chilling effect’ on the publication of

free and independent news articles and puts undue pressure on journalists and publishing houses,” the law panel said in a consultation paper in the midst of its review of criminal defamation vis-a-via protection of journalists.

The panel is yet to decide whether sections 499 and 500 of IPC, dealing with criminal defamation, should be dropped to uphold freedom of speech.

The commission observed that there have been several attempts to decriminalize the British law and provide ample safeguards to journalists to protect their constitutional rights, but since nothing has been achieved it merits a review.

A journalist has no special status under defamation laws in India and faces unreasonable pressure from Experts The Centre, in an affidavit submitted before the SC , justified criminal defamation, saying these are “efficacious

remedies to deal with growing tendency to defame people”. Rejecting the petitioners’ argument that there was a civil remedy for filing a defamation suit, the government noted that “civil remedy is not an efficacious remedy”.

Ironically, the colonial law which has been strongly defended by the Indian political class has been dumped in UK-its place of origin.

Separatists now mend fences After eight years of separation, what brought the leaders of the Hurriyat Conference and the Jammu Kashmir

Liberation Front together? Shortly after India and Pakistan came together, the separatist politicians of Jammu & Kashmir also came together.


On July 11, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a hard-line separatist leader, hosted an Iftar party at his residence in Srinagar, in which the estranged leaders from various parties broke the fast together.

To display their unity, they decided that on 13th July, all the leaders will march to a shrine in Srinagar and observe Martyr’s Day — an event in Kashmir’s history that marks the beginning of Sheikh Abdullah’s populist politics.

On July 13, 1931, the forces of the erstwhile Maharaja shot dead 22 Kashmiris who were protesting against the hanging of a rebel.

The unity move has raised several questions in the State’s political and academic circles. Is the call for unity based on the recent killings carried out by an obscure militant outfit? Are the separatists feeling

threatened by the pattern of these killings? Or is it the feeling that Kashmir issue has been set aside by India and Pakistan which has brought them together to ascertain their worth?

This is not the first time when Kashmiri separatists have united. In 2008, when people were agitating against the rampant killings of protesters who poured out into the streets condemning the government’s “illegal land transfer” to the Amarnath shrine authorities, the separatists felt the urgency to come together.

But soon, they fell out over ideological differences over Kashmir’s resolution. They disagreed over authority, speeches and slogans.

Unraveling the Ayodhya-Korea link India has begun the work of tracing its “shared heritage” with Korea using the legendary Queen Suriratna, a princess

from Ayodhya who travelled to the country to marry King Kim Suro in 48 AD, as a pivot.

During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Seoul in May, it was announced that India and Korea will strengthen their historic connection by enhancing linkages of Korean people with Ayodhya.

A decision was also taken to upgrade the monument for Queen Suriratna, also know as Hur Hwang-ok, in Ayodhya as a joint project between the two countries.

Beginning 14th July, the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) in collaboration with the India International Centre (IIC) will initiate a two-day international conference, which will include delegates from Korea, to discuss the aspects of cultural links between the two countries, focusing on the legend of the Queen.

The ICCR official said details about how the princess from Ayodhya travelled to Korea and became the Queen are sparse, though there is the work of Prof. Kim Byung-mo and a television series that was broadcast on the Korean TV channel MBC in 2010.

In India there have been a few publications, including a book by India’s former Ambassador to Korea N. Parthasarathi, but no extensive academic work done on the issue on both sides.

Notes about the seminar released by the ICCR, point out that the Queen’s descendants in Korea include the Gimhae Kims, Huhs and the Incheon area Lee clans.

It goes on to claim that Gimhae Kims and Huhs do not inter-marry as both are believed to be the descendants of King Kim Suro and Queen Heo, much like the ‘gotra tradition’ followed in India.

Revoke AFSPA in North-East: Amnesty A day after the Union Home Minister talked about a possible scaling down of Central forces deployed in the North-

East, Amnesty International said that it must lead to a rethink on the use of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act as well in the States.

“On July 11, Union Minister of Home Affairs Rajnath Singh discussed a possible reduction in deployment of Central forces in a meeting with Chief Ministers of Northeastern states... [and said] that the security situation has improved in the region,” Amnesty International India Media Officer Himanshi Matta said in a press statement.

“Worryingly, there was no discussion on the AFSA, 1958, which is in force in several North-Eastern States,” the statement claimed.

“The Justice Verma Committee set up to review laws against sexual assault had said the AFSPA legitimises impunity

for sexual violence. “The Justice Santosh Hegde Commission set up by the Supreme Court to investigate cases of fake encounters in

Manipur described the law as ‘a symbol of oppression...” it said. “Several international bodies and experts, including the UN Special Rapporteurs on violence against women and

human rights defenders, have also called for the repeal of the law,” the statement added.

Job scenario appears to be bright this year: report Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s various efforts to revive business sentiments seem to finally be paying off, with a

recent survey showing that the majority of companies feel hiring will increase by up to 15 per cent this financial year. The survey, conducted by Kolkata-based Genius Consultants, also found that around 22 per cent of the 714

companies surveyed across India said new jobs will be created in FY 2015-16. “The government’s emphasis on smart cities, digitalisation and infrastructure has added to this positivity,” said

Genius Consultants. The sectors where both new vacancies and replacement hiring will take place are IT, ITES, BPO, manufacturing,

banking and finance in cities like New Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai, the survey report said. According to the report, only 2 per cent of the companies surveyed believe that there will be layoffs this fiscal and only

5 per cent said there will be no hiring. This, too, portrays a more optimistic business sentiment than last year’s survey, which found that 6 per cent of the

respondents said they would not hire and 6 per cent said there would be layoffs.


About 41 per cent of the companies said they were looking for people with 4-8 years and of experience, and 30 per cent said between 1-3 years. About 14 per cent said they were looking for more experienced people (8-15 years of work experience) and 14 per cent felt that jobs would be created for freshers.

Defamation should remain a penal offence: Home Ministry Denying that criminal defamation had a chilling effect on free

speech, the Centre told the Supreme Court that defamation should remain a penal offence in India as the defamer may be too poor to compensate the victim.

The government said that since there was no mechanism to censor the Internet from within, online defamation could only be adequately countered by retaining defamation as a criminal offence.

A person would be charged with criminal defamation only if his speech had no social utility or added nothing to the value of public discourse and debate.

Besides, the Centre said, criminalisation of defamation was part of the state’s “compelling interest” to protect the right to

dignity and good reputation of its citizens.

The submission was part of an affidavit filed by the Union Home Ministry in response to petitions filed by political leaders cutting across party lines urging the court to declare criminal defamation unconstitutional.

If found guilty under Sections 499 and 500 (criminal defamation) of the Indian Penal Code, a person could be jailed up to two years.

India, Tajikistan to intensify anti-terror cooperation India and Tajikistan pledged to intensify cooperation against terrorism, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi noting

that the two countries are located in the “proximity of the main source” of the menace, an apparent reference to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Mr. Modi and Tajik President Emomali Rahamon also agreed to step up defence cooperation as the former reiterated the country’s commitment to supporting the development of Tajikistan’s defence capacities to enhance stability and security.

Boosting trade and investment and connectivity were the other major focii of the talks. The two sides signed two agreements in the fields of culture and skill development. A bust of Rabindranath Tagore

was also unveiled by the two leaders. “Combating terrorism and extremism has always been an important and productive area of cooperation. At a time of

growing threat of terrorism, we have resolved to intensify our cooperation further,” said Mr. Modi, who was here on the last leg of his eight-day, six-nation tour.

Rising extremism A joint statement issued later said “The two leaders noted the rising trend of extremism and terrorism in many parts

of the world and in their immediate neighbourhood, posing a threat to India and Tajikistan as well as the region.” They decided to reinvigorate official interactions in the framework of the Joint Working Group on Counter Terrorism

and instructed that the JWG meet at an early date.

Census counts just 4% SC, ST families with a member in a govt job Only about 4 per cent each of rural Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste

households have a member in a government job, according to the findings of

the Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 released earlier this month. Of the country’s rural ST population of 1.96 crore households, 8.60 lakh —

or 4.37% — are in government jobs, as compared to 3.96 per cent (13 lakh of 3.3 crore) among the SCs. The STs represent 11 per cent of the base rural population of 17.91 crore households, the SCs 18 per cent.

Zonewise, North has the highest share among ST households with a

government-salaried member, at 16 per cent. North Zone comprises J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab.

North is followed by the Union Territories at 14.97 per cent, the Northeast at 11 per cent, and West at 3.79 per cent. East has 2.80 per cent and South is at the bottom with 2.58 per cent. Surprisingly low in the list is Central Zone, which comprises states such as Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh with a substantial tribal population.

In this zone, only 3.12 per cent ST households have someone in a government job.

Among the Scheduled Castes, the zone with the highest proportion of households with a government employee is the Union Territories, which comprise the National Capital Territory of Delhi, Chandigarh, Daman and

http://images.indianexpress.com/2015/07/govt-job.jpg


Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Lakshadweep, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The UTs with 10.68 per cent are followed by North Zone, Northeast, West, South and East (see graphic). Dalits and tribals in Rajasthan’s villages follow a trend in keeping with the national one, despite over six decades of

caste-based reservations. Rajasthan’s 17.99 lakh ST households account for 17.64 per cent of the state’s 1.02 crore households, and its 18.91 lakh rural SC households 18.51 per cent. A total 79,516 rural ST households, or 4.41 per cent, have a member in a government job. Among rural SC households, the count is 74,408, for 3.93 per cent.

As a proportion of the entire rural population in the state, ST households with a member in a government job account for only 0.78 per cent, while such SC households account for 0.73 per cent. The fact that the STs have a slightly higher representation could be attributed to the large number of Meena (ST) households sending members to government jobs.

J&K: Excavation of Chenani-Nashri tunnel complete The excavation of a 9 km-long Chenani-Nashri tunnel is completed, thereby bringing the Kashmir Valley closer to

Jammu. The tunnel, which is scheduled to be opened for traffic in May next year, will reduce the distance between Jammu and Srinagar by nearly 30 km.

Union Surface Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, who was present on the occasion along with J&K Deputy CM Nirmal Singh, described it as a “historic moment”, and said that it will be the country’s first tunnel with world class “Integrated Tunnel Control System (ITCS)” where ventilation, fire control, signals, communication, electrical systems

toiling will be automatically actuated.

ECONOMY NEWS

Plan afoot to mop up excess liquidity The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) aims to drain money markets of excess liquidity to counter inflationary pressures

arising from higher government spending, according to policymakers, though it could hamper chances of banks lowering lending rates.

Commercial bankers say it would be easier to reduce lending rates, as the RBI has urged them to do, if surplus liquidity prevailed for some months.

The liquidity surplus — now around Rs.35,000 crore — has dragged the average call money rate down to close to 7 per cent this month.

The RBI has lowered its policy rate by a total 75 basis points with three cuts in 2015, hoping that banks would do more to pass on the benefits to the broader economy. But, banks say tight liquidity had stayed their hand earlier, and

want liquidity to remain ample before making further moves. Consumer inflation rose to 5.01 per cent in May from 4.87 per cent in April. The RBI has targeted 6 per cent inflation by January and 4 per cent by March 2018. The RBI’s priority is meeting those targets and a seasonal surge in government spending — expected to total $45

billion in the September quarter along with the RBI’s annual dividend payout to the government of around $8 billion at least — will add to inflationary pressures unless cash is drained.

Govt. looks at raising Rs.15,000 cr via gold bond scheme The Centre is looking at raising Rs.15,000 crore in the current fiscal through the gold bond scheme. The interest rate for the schemewould be close to the rates on government securities. The Finance Ministry came out with a discussion paper on the sovereign gold bond scheme. It had suggested that the

scheme be linked to the government borrowing programme. The proposed scheme, which aims to shift part of the estimated 300 tonnes of physical gold bar purchased every year

to demat gold bond, will be marketed through post offices and brokers on commission basis. “The final contours and timing will be decided by the Public Debt Management Agency (PDMA), which is the RBI. The

Finance Ministry will get a Cabinet nod for it.” If the scheme turned out to be a success, it would be linked to government’s borrowing programme from the beginning

of next fiscal. The bonds would be issued in 2, 5, 10 gram of gold or other denominations and the tenor of the bond could be for a

minimum of 5 to 7 years so that it would protect investors from medium-term volatility in gold prices.

http://images.indianexpress.com/2015/07/chenani-tunnel-759.jpg


BSE Asia Index launches two indices Asia Index, a BSE and S&P Dow Jones Indices joint venture has launched two indices to measure the performance of

the top 30 mid-cap companies and top 60 small-cap firms. The new indices — S&P BSE MidCap Select and SmallCap Select — have been designed to measure the performance

of the top 30 Indian mid-cap companies and the top 60 Indian small-cap companies that meet investability requirements, respectively.

Infosys bags multi-million euro deal from Deutsche Bank Country’s second largest IT services firm Infosys has signed a multi-million euro deal with Deutsche Bank. Under the terms of the multi-year agreement, Infosys will provide services like development, application maintenance,

digital and mobility, package implementation and testing services across the Deutsche Bank Group, Infosys said in a statement.

“We look forward to further strengthening our relationship with Deutsche Bank and supporting the bank achieve its goals,” Infosys Executive Vice-President and Global Head Financial Services Mohit Joshi said.

The Bengaluru-based firm will also be a strategic partner under Deutsche Bank’s Supplier Partnership Programme, it added. The programme was launched in June 2014 to concentrate the most strategic vendors based on business impact across all categories of the bank, it said.

“Deutsche Bank is committed to applying innovative technology to enhance its efficiency and services to clients.

Working with Infosys will help the bank achieve these goals,” Deutsche Bank Global Chief Information Officer Kim

Hammonds said.

Reliance Industries completes 49.9% stake sale in US Reliance Industries said it has closed the deal to sell its entire 49.9 percent interest in a US shale oil and gas pipeline

joint venture to New York-listed Enterprise Products Partners for $1.073 billion. "Reliance Holding USA, Inc, a subsidiary of RIL, has announced the closing of the recently announced sale of its

interest in EFS Midstream LLC to an affiliate of Enterprise Products Partners L.P.," the company said in a statement. Representative image Reuters The company along with its partner Pioneer Natural Resources Company had on May 31 agreed to sell their respective

ownership interests (of 49.9% and 50.1%) in EFS to an affiliate of Enterprise Product Partners L.P. for an aggregate consideration of USD 2.15 billion.

EFS Midstream venture was formed in 2010 to construct own and operate facilities providing gas gathering, treating, and transportation services in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas.

The Midstream system consists of 10 gathering plants and about 460 miles of pipelines. The system gathers and separates produced condensate from produced gas.

It also stabilises the condensate, where necessary, and treats the gas produced from the Eagle Ford upstream joint venture operated by Pioneer with stake of 46 percent.

RIL holds 45 percent interest in the Eagle Ford upstream joint venture and the rest 9 per cent is with Newpek LLC.

$100-bn forex pool pact inked, India’s share at $18 billion The central banks of the BRICS countries have signed an operating agreement on a $100 billion foreign exchange

reserve pool that is being set up by the grouping’s five member nations to help each other “in case of any problems with dollar liquidity”.

The $100 billion pool aims to protect BRICS member states from currency volatility shocks. India will chip in with $18 billion. The agreement was signed in Moscow after the meeting of the finance ministers and heads of the central banks of BRICS, the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) said in a statement.

The document contains a detailed description of the procedures that are carried out by the central banks of BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — within the currency reserve pool, defines their rights and

duties. It will come into force on July 30, CBR chief Elvira Nabiullina was quoted as saying in Moscow. She added that

several other documents would be adopted to regulate the operation of governing bodies — the governing council and the standing committee.

China will make the biggest contribution to the pool: $41 billion. India, Russia and Brazil will donate $18 billion each, while South Africa’s investment will be $5 billion.

Technically, the money will remain on the banks’ balance sheets and will be unlocked as soon as any of the BRICS member states ask for help.

In May, Russian President Vladimir Putin had ratified a deal to establish a $100 billion foreign currency reserve pool for the BRICS group.

Last July, the five nations signed the document on a reserve currency pool worth over $100 billion as well as $100 billion BRICS Development Bank.

The goal of the pool is to give BRICS member states opportunity to provide each other financial assistance in case of problems with their balance of payments.

IMF lowers global growth forecasts, cites U.S. weakness The International Monetary Fund (IMF) trimmed its forecast for global economic growth for this year to take into

account the impact of recent weakness in the U.S. But the global financial institution said growth prospects for next year remain undimmed, despite Greece’s debt crisis

and recent volatility in Chinese financial markets.


In an update to its World Economic Outlook report, the IMF said the global economy should expand 3.3 per cent this year, 0.2 percentage point below what it predicted in April. Growth should speed up to 3.8 per cent next year, it said, unchanged from earlier forecasts.

The IMF pinned much of the blame for the lower growth forecast on the U.S. The U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter, hurt by unusually heavy snowfalls, a resurgent dollar and disruptions at West Coast ports.

The IMF also said U.S. economic sluggishness had spilled over to Canada and Mexico. The IMF also maintained its forecasts for a pickup in growth in the euro zone, despite Greece moving ever closer to the

edge of default and an exit from the currency bloc as it races to find a last-minute third bailout. In developing economies, the IMF said growth had been dampened by lower commodity prices, tighter financial

conditions tied to the economic rebalancing in China and geopolitical factors. Chinese stock markets have tumbled by more than 30 per cent over the last month, prompting regulators to impose

heavy-handed intervention to stem the rout. The IMF said the market crash suggests China could face greater difficulties as it tries to move from an investment-led

economic growth model to one focused on domestic consumption.

New BRICS bank to look at local, international borrowing – K. V. Kamath The New Development Bank being launched by the BRICS group of emerging economies plans to raise money both on

local markets and internationally, its President said.

The bank, with an initial capital of $50 billion, is being introduced at an organisational summit the BRICS countries

— Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — in the Russian city of Ufa. Kundapur Vaman Kamath, 67, a former executive with India’s largest private bank, ICICI Bank, was appointed

President of NDB in May this year. The bank is headquartered in Shanghai, China. The bank, which the BRICS countries see as an alternative to the World Bank, will have its capital expanded to $100

billion within the next couple of years. Russia has been hit by Western sanctions over its role in the Ukraine crisis, measures that limited access to foreign

financing for many large firms and banks, such as the state oil company Rosneft, private gas producer Novatek and Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank.

Mr. Kamath said that the NDB should not be viewed as a tool to help sanctions-hit companies but said the bank would look at requests from Russian companies.

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told reporters this week that some projects, such as a request by Rosneft for financial support, may be listed for possible NDB funds.

‘Grexit’ will be extremely costly, says IMF chief economist “There should be no doubt that exit from the Euro would be extremely costly for Greece and its creditors,” said the

International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard, writing in his blog on imfdirect , the Fund’s global economy forum.

Underlining the Fund’s commitment to providing assistance, Mr. Blanchard ruled out further IMF funding for Greece until old arrears are cleared. Greece defaulted on a loan repayment of €1.55 billion due to the IMF on June 30.

Greece owes a total of €6.95 billion to its creditors in July alone, of which €452 million is owed to the IMF. Refuting the claim that the 2010 programme only raised debt levels and demanded excessive fiscal adjustment, Mr.

Blanchard argued that without assistance, Greece would have had to make fiscal cuts of between 20-25 per cent of GDP, leading to more severe adjustments and higher social costs than under the five-year bail-out programme.

'Mr. Blanchard also countered the criticism that finance provided to Greece was simply used to pay back foreign banks, saying that while it was correct to say that Greece’s debt was not restructured for two years, it was due to fears of contagion risk — the risk that macro-economic shocks in once country are transmitted through price-level changes, for example, to other countries.

“Whether these reasons were good enough can be argued one way or the other,” he said, adding, “In real time, the risks were perceived to be too high to proceed with restructuring.”

Responding to the widely held view that growth-destroying structural reforms and fiscal austerity have caused economic depression, Mr. Blanchard said the “dismal productivity record” of Greece required reforms — including in tax administration, collective bargaining, the judicial system, pensions and reducing barriers to entry for professions, and these were not undertaken to a sufficient degree.

Fiscal consolidation only explained a fraction of the output decline, according to the economist. “Output above potential to start, political crises, inconsistent policies, insufficient reforms, Grexit fears, low business confidence, weak banks, all contributed to the outcome,” he said.

Greece’s Prime Minister, Alex Tsipras, drew up a new bail-out plan which he shared with the “Troika” — the IMF, the European Commission (EC) and the European Central Bank (ECB).

The new proposal has many similarities to the old proposal, and includes increases in value-added tax, increases in retirement age, dismantling tax breaks for most Greece islands, defence spending cuts of €300 million, and phasing out ‘solidarity grants’ for retires.

“The room for agreement is extremely narrow, and time is of the essence,” Mr. Blanchard said. The Greek parliament will vote on the new proposal later Thursday evening.

Ultra net worth individuals put India in sixth place Emerging markets such as India and South Africa would see their millionaire populations swell in the coming decade,

the report by Wealth X released said. India had the 14th largest millionaire population in the world in 2013-14, with


the U.S., Japan, China and the U.K. leading the pack. However, other reports show that India does far better when it comes to ultra high net worth (UHNW) individuals — those with a net worth of more than $30 million.

A Wealth X and UBS report shows that India had 8,595 UHNW individuals in 2014, with wealth amounting to $1.01 trillion. This places India 6th in the global rankings.

Significantly, the number of UNHW individuals in India grew by 9.5 per cent in 2014, and their wealth grew by 8.3 per cent. This is higher than the global growth rates of 6 per cent and 7 per cent in the number and wealth of UHNW individuals, respectively.

Stark inequality Apart from highlighting the growing affluence of the ultra-rich in India, these numbers, when combined with data on

per capita income and the findings of the recently-released Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) in India, underscore the stark inequality prevalent in India.

The World Bank’s most recent data show that India’s gross national income per person rose to $1,610 (around Rs. 1 lakh) a year during 2014 from $1,560 the previous year.

This was likely driven by the increase in wealth of a few individuals rather than an overall increase in income levels. While the number of millionaires increased steadily, the SECC found that most of rural India still languished in

poverty — the highest paid member of 74.5 per cent of rural households in India earned less than Rs. 5,000 (around $79) per month.

GI Tech helps to transfer “There should be no doubt that exit from the Euro would be extremely costly for Greece and its creditors,” said the

International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard, writing in his blog on imfdirect , the Fund’s global economy forum.

Underlining the Fund’s commitment to providing assistance, Mr. Blanchard ruled out further IMF funding for Greece until old arrears are cleared. Greece defaulted on a loan repayment of €1.55 billion due to the IMF on June 30.

Greece owes a total of €6.95 billion to its creditors in July alone, of which €452 million is owed to the IMF. Refuting the claim that the 2010 programme only raised debt levels and demanded excessive fiscal adjustment, Mr.

Blanchard argued that without assistance, Greece would have had to make fiscal cuts of between 20-25 per cent of GDP, leading to more severe adjustments and higher social costs than under the five-year bail-out programme.

'Mr. Blanchard also countered the criticism that finance provided to Greece was simply used to pay back foreign banks, saying that while it was correct to say that Greece’s debt was not restructured for two years, it was due to fears of contagion risk — the risk that macro-economic shocks in once country are transmitted through price-level changes, for example, to other countries.

“Whether these reasons were good enough can be argued one way or the other,” he said, adding, “In real time, the risks were perceived to be too high to proceed with restructuring.”

Responding to the widely held view that growth-destroying structural reforms and fiscal austerity have caused economic depression, Mr. Blanchard said the “dismal productivity record” of Greece required reforms — including in tax administration, collective bargaining, the judicial system, pensions and reducing barriers to entry for professions, and these were not undertaken to a sufficient degree.

Fiscal consolidation only explained a fraction of the output decline, according to the economist. “Output above potential to start, political crises, inconsistent policies, insufficient reforms, Grexit fears, low business confidence, weak banks, all contributed to the outcome,” he said.

Greece’s Prime Minister, Alex Tsipras, drew up a new bail-out plan which he shared with the “Troika” — the IMF, the European Commission (EC) and the European Central Bank (ECB).

The new proposal has many similarities to the old proposal, and includes increases in value-added tax, increases in retirement age, dismantling tax breaks for most Greece islands, defence spending cuts of €300 million, and phasing

out ‘solidarity grants’ for retires. “The room for agreement is extremely narrow, and time is of the essence,” Mr. Blanchard said. The Greek parliament

will vote on the new proposal later Thursday evening. Emerging markets such as India and South Africa would see their millionaire populations swell in the coming decade,

the report by Wealth X released said. India had the 14th largest millionaire population in the world in 2013-14, with the U.S., Japan, China and the U.K. leading the pack. However, other reports show that India does far better when it

comes to ultra high net worth (UHNW) individuals — those with a net worth of more than $30 million. A Wealth X and UBS report shows that India had 8,595 UHNW individuals in 2014, with wealth amounting to $1.01

trillion. This places India 6th in the global rankings. Significantly, the number of UNHW individuals in India grew by 9.5 per cent in 2014, and their wealth grew by 8.3 per

cent. This is higher than the global growth rates of 6 per cent and 7 per cent in the number and wealth of UHNW individuals, respectively

Apart from highlighting the growing affluence of the ultra-rich in India, these numbers, when combined with data on per capita income and the findings of the recently-released Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) in India, underscore the stark inequality prevalent in India.

The World Bank’s most recent data show that India’s gross national income per person rose to $1,610 (around Rs. 1 lakh) a year during 2014 from $1,560 the previous year.

This was likely driven by the increase in wealth of a few individuals rather than an overall increase in income levels.


While the number of millionaires increased steadily, the SECC found that most of rural India still languished in poverty — the highest paid member

Money to Nepal GI Technology, a leading payment solution company, entered into strategic tie-up with Prabhu Money Transfer Pvt.

Ltd. and Ratnakar Bank Ltd. that enables Nepali diaspora settled in India to remit cash back home. Chennai-based GI Technology is the first non-banking institution to facilitate cash remittances to Nepal using the

retail agent network of its partners. On a given day, cash up to Rs.50,000 can be remitted and the commission is Rs.200 per transaction. A maximum of

12 transactions are allowed in a year. There are about five million Nepali migrants in India and the average cash remittances by them through official

channel ranges between Rs.7,000 and Rs.20,000. GI Technology Managing Director, Ramu Ramsamy, said: “Currently, over 90 per cent of total remittances from India

to Nepal take place through some of the migrant workers or through their friends and rest through banking channels.”

Multilateral Agreement Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) said it has signed a multilateral agreement to cooperate with New

Development Bank (NDB) along with other member development banks of BRICS nations. The agreement was signed

between Exim Bank Chairman and Managing Director Yaduvendra Mathur and Chairpersons or Presidents of other

member development banks of BRICS in Ufa, Russia during the BRICS Summit 2015, a bank release said.

OIL AND GAS BG Group of the U.K. has commenced oil production from the Mukta-B installation on the Panna-Mukta and Tapti oil

and gas field in the western offshore. BG India, a unit of the British giant, “achieved first oil production from the Mukta-B (MB), a 4 legged Wellhead

Unmanned Platform in the offshore Bombay basin,” it said in a statement. The British firm holds 30 per cent interest in the Panna-Mukta oil and gas fields. Oil and Natural Gas Corporation

has 40 per cent stake, while Reliance Industries holds 30 per cent.

Russia energy ties: India hits the gas Despite losing the first mover advantage to China, India is redoubling its energy sector engagements with Russia at a

time when Western sanctions are impeding Russia’s energy ties with the West and sanction-hit hydrocarbon firms in that country are desperate to diversify their market risk.

At least three Indian companies, including state-owned Indian Oil Corporation and ONGC Videsh, are in discussions for significant hydrocarbon deals to Russia.

The proposals on the anvil include the joint extraction of oil and gas from Russia’s Arctic shelf deposits. This comes close on the heels of Russia’s biggest oil company Rosneft OAO acquiring significant equity state in private sector firm Essar Oil.

India’s Ambassador to Russia PS Raghavan indicated that “it is an opportune time” for India to strike hydrocarbon deals with Russia. Deals already in the pipeline include ONGC Videsh’s talks with a Russian oil company to acquire stake in two Siberian oilfields.

Significantly, after its Essar Oil deal, state-owned Rosneft, which is under Western sanctions, will emerge as the biggest shareholder in the company that operates India’s third largest oil refinery — the Vadinar refinery.

So far, Essar has depended heavily on Iran to feed its 4,00,000 bpd (barrels per day) refinery in Gujarat. IOC, India’s biggest refiner, had, in April, was reported to have bought a million barrels of medium-sour crude from

Russian trader Litasco to be processed at its Panipat refinery — the first time the refining major would be handling a Russian Urals oil cargo.

The move by the Indian firms to make fresh inroads into the Russian hydrocarbon sector comes at a time when the Chinese have already laid the foundations for a future gas contract envisaging a second pipeline known as the West-Route, in addition to the East-Route deal that was signed last year between Russia and China.

“This is an opportune time (for Indian oil and gas firms) … Indian Oil and ONGC Videsh are exploring opportunities,” Raghavan said.

On May 8, a senior Russian government official had announced plans to invite Indian companies to jointly extract oil

and gas from Russia’s Arctic shelf deposits. “There are plans to attract Indian companies to developing hydrocarbon deposits on Russia’s Arctic shelf,” Kremlin

aide Yuri Ushakov had said. ONGC Videsh’s interest in Siberia included talks early this year for a stake in Vankor and Yurubcheno-Tokhomskoye fields.

Rosneft had offered to sell 10 per cent stake in the Vankor oilfield in Siberia to ONGC Videsh and had, in September last year, sold a 10 per cent stake in Vankor to China’s CNPC for about $1 billion.

MRPL buys firstcargo of Brazil's Ostra oil The Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (MRPL) has made its first purchase of Brazil's Ostra crude, two trade

sources with knowledge of the deal said. It bought a 900,000-barrel cargo for loading in the second half of August from Shell, the sources said. The pricing is at a discount of about $1 a barrel to dated Brent on a delivered basis, one of the sources said. MRPL operates a 300,000-barrels-per-day coastal refinery in the southern state of Karnataka.


The purchase is another sign that India is looking to diversify away from its traditional heavy consumption of Middle Eastern crude oil.

Saudi Arabia lost its spot in May as India's top oil supplier to Nigeria, ship-tracking data compiled by Reuters showed, as the world's top crude exporter struggles to maintain market share in Asia.

TAPI pipeline states to select consortium leader in Sept - Turkmen head The four countries planning a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India via Afghanistan will in

September pick a company to lead construction, paving the way to the start of work on the project, the Turkmen president said.

Turkmenistan, a central Asian nation of 5.5 million, holds the world's fourth-largest natural gas reserves and sees the TAPI pipeline, named after the countries it is designed to cross, as a way of boosting exports.

It has won support from the United States but security concerns and costs estimated at $10 billion have caused delays.

"At this moment negotiations ... are entering the final stage, a consortium leader will be named in September, after which the implementation of the project will begin," President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said during talks with visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The 1,735 km (1,084 mile) pipeline, with a proposed annual capacity of 33 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas, will run more than 700 km across Afghanistan on its way to Pakistan and India, raising questions about the stability of

shipments via the chronically unstable country.

Yet the pipeline, to be built in three years, is crucial for Turkmenistan, which is currently dependent on gas exports to China, which buys annually 30 bcm of the fuel.

China troubles are not good news for India: Assocham Economic troubles for China will not be great news for India, which cannot be in ‘sweet spot’ as there would be more

negatives than positives from the ripples of a Dragon dragging the shaky world economy, Assocham has warned. “While it is true that fall in commodity prices, linked to China’s slow demand, is a positive for India, the development

is not all that positive for a host of metal and iron ore producers such as SAIL, Tata Steel, NMDC and upstream oil producers.

A sharp fall in iron ore, steel and copper prices has equally hit the Indian manufacturers as any other company in the world,” said an Assocham paper, which analysed the impact of the problems in China on Indian economy.

If a bubble-like situation erupts from China, the impact will be seen all around the world to which the Indian economy is too well entrenched into, the Assocham paper has pointed out.

China is number one merchandise trader in the world with over $4.16 trillion worth of trade, followed by the U.S. with $3.9 trillion.

“If there is a shake-out, a slew of sectors in the global markets, which get their sizeable chunk of revenue from China - tourism, hotels, education, health, and others - will feel the immediate impact.

“Then, the kind of cost competitiveness which the Chinese companies provide to several manufacturing, semi-process industries such as electronics, electrical, and telecom equipment will go missing from the global supply chain,” the paper has noted.

“The so-called de-coupling for India had proved to be an illusion. We, as an economy, are not at all de-coupled with close to $one trillion of our global engagement in goods, services and investments,” feels Assocham.

“In none of these industries, the space vacated possibly by the Chinese companies can be occupied by India which has not so far invested seriously in these sectors and several other manufacturing verticals,” it has pointed out.

“Even if the Chinese get temporary jerks, they are not going to disappear from the scene. Their capability to impair is good enough to stage a comeback.

The Indian enterprise, as of today, has its own problems of large debts, aggravated by high interest rates, slow

demand, inability to pass on the costs and a big pressure on profit margins,” it has noted. With $94 billion imports and barely $12 billion exports, India runs a huge trade imbalance with China, the paper has

added.

Athens to open talks on third bailout worth €86 billion Greece reached a desperately needed bailout deal with the

Eurozone after marathon overnight talks, in a historic

agreement to prevent the country crashing out of the European single currency.

Leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras agreed to tough reforms after 17 hours of gruelling negotiations in return for a three-year bailout worth up to €86 billion ($96 billion), Greece’s third rescue programme in five years.

“EuroSummit has unanimously reached agreement,” EU president Donald Tusk said. “All ready to go for ESM [the European Stability Mechanism] programme for Greece with serious reforms and financial support.”

The new rescue is the country’s third since 2010 and came after a bitter six-month struggle following Mr. Tsipras’s


election in January that put Greece’s membership of the Eurozone in the balance. Greek banks have been closed for nearly two weeks, and there were fears they were about to run dry owing to lack of

extra funding by the European Central Bank, meaning Athens would have had to print its own currency and effectively leave the single currency. “Grexit has gone,” European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker told AFP.

Mr. Tsipras insisted that the deal was good for Greece despite the fact that the harsh terms were near identical to those rejected by Greeks in a referendum just a week ago.

Europe’s first step will be to push the deal through several national parliaments, many in countries that are loath to afford Greece more help.

Athens will now have to rush through tough reform laws, according to the document agreed on by Mr. Tsipras and his Eurozone counterparts. Greece has to introduce harsh conditions on labour reform and pensions, VAT and taxes, and measures on privatisation.

Under the agreement, it will park assets for privatisation worth up to €50 billion in a special fund. The money will then be used to recapitalise Greece’s cash-starved banks.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Kalpakkam breeder reactor to go on stream The 500-MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam is getting ready to be commissioned in

September. When the reactor goes critical, it will signal India’s triumphant entry into the second stage of its three-stage nuclear

power programme. The PFBR will use plutonium-uranium oxide as fuel and 1,750 tonnes of liquid sodium as coolant. It is called a breeder reactor because it breeds more fuel than it consumes. Bharatiya Nabikhiya Vidyut Nigam Limited (BHAVINI), a public sector undertaking of the Department of Atomic

Energy.

Over 4 mn Indians could be living with chronic joint pain Up to five million Indians could be living with Rheutamoid Arthritis (RA), suggests perhaps the largest study ever

undertaken to assess the burden of the painful disease of the joints in the country. The WHO-ILAR COPCORD study covered over 55,000 individuals at 12 sites, and recorded a prevalence of 0.34 per

cent — which seemingly tiny figure, when projected over a population of 1.25 billion, still produces the theoretical figure of 4.25 million RA patients across the country.

COPCORD, or Community Oriented Programme for Control of Rheumatic Diseases, was launched by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and International League for Associations of Rheumatology (ILAR) to collect data on the burden of the disease, especially in rural communities in developing countries.

“Our study has projected critical findings that there could be at least five million RA patients in the country,” said Pune-based rheumatologist Dr Arvind Chopra, author of the study, Disease Burden of Rheumatic Diseases in India: COPCORD Perspective, published in the June 2015 issue of the Indian Journal of Rheumatology.

While more population surveys are required to evaluate the spread and impact of RA in terms of socioeconomic and functional ability of sufferers, the numbers still appear to be very large, Dr Chopra said.

Also, because several inflammatory rheumatic diseases cause premature atherosclerosis, vascular complications and early death — all of which are difficult to measure — the overall burden is likely to be underestimated, says the study.

The maiden WHO-ILAR COPCORD programme started at Bhigwan, a village near Pune, in 1996, and was subsequently replicated to collect information on the disease elsewhere.

“Our study over 1996-2014 demonstrated that musculoskeletal (MSK) pain was the commonest self-reported ailment

in the community, soft tissue rheumatism, ill-defined MSK symptoms and osteoarthritis (OA) were the predominant disorders, and in about 10 per cent of cases, respondents suffered from inflammatory arthritis.”

As part of the study, the India chapter of Bone and Joint Decade (BJD) — a UN-endorsed international alliance of medical professionals focused on MSK health — carried out multiple standardised and uniform surveys between 2004 and 2010 at the 12 chosen sites, and recorded the prevalence of a range of rheumatic disorders.

Vitamin C cuts the risk of early death A diet rich in fruits and vegetables packed with vitamin C will substantially cut the rick of heart attacks and early

death, says a study. Researchers examined 100,000 Danish people’s intake of fruit and vegetables as well as their DNA. “We can see that those with the highest intake of fruit and vegetables have a 15 per cent lower risk of developing

cardiovascular disease and a 20 per cent lower risk of early death,” said Camilla Kobylecki, medical doctor at the department of clinical biochemistry at Herlev and Gentofte Hospital in Denmark.

Vitamin C helps build connective tissue and is also a potent antioxidant that protects cells and biological molecules from the damage which causes many diseases, including cardiovascular disease.

The human body is not able to produce vitamin C, which means that we must get the vitamin from our diet, said the study that appeared in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

“Eating a lot of fruit and vegetables is a natural way of increasing vitamin C blood levels. You can get vitamin C supplements but it is a good idea to get your vitamin C by eating a healthy diet,” added Boerge Nordestgaard from University of Copenhagen.


Australian gets ‘one-in-a-million’ brain disease An Australian has been diagnosed with a deadly “one-in-a-million” degenerative brain condition, but authorities y

stressed it was unrelated to mad cow disease and not contagious. The man, named by the media as 63-year-old Frank Burton, is in a serious condition in hospital with a likely case of

“classical Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD),” a spokesman for Sydney Local Health District told AFP. Burton — a former chief financial officer for Aussie Rules football team Sydney Swans — was told on Friday he had

three months to live but this has now been reduced to two or three weeks, his friend Peter Kogoy said. “[He has gone] from having a head of dark, straight [hair] and black beard, to totally white, totally white,” Mr. Kogoy

told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “Total loss of speech and total loss of movement in his limbs in a matter of weeks and days.” “Variant CJD” emerged in Britain in the late 1980s and 1990s and was linked to mad cow disease, which causes a

brain-destroying disorder in humans.

PSLV C-28 launches five U.K. satellites In the heaviest commercial launch since its inception, the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Polar Satellite

Launch Vehicle (PSLV) launched five satellites, weighing 1,440 kg for a United Kingdom-based company. Lifting off from the First Launch Pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre PSLV C-28 launched three identical mini

satellites of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC), besides two technology demonstrators — CBNT-1 and De-

OrbitSail— for Surrey Space Technology Limited into the intended orbits, some 19.21 minutes later.

Successful mission ISRO chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar termed it an “extremely successful mission.” Since it was a “challenge” for the ISRO

to accommodate 3-metre high satellites into the existing payload structure of PSLV, the national space agency had specially designed a circular launch adapter and a triangular deck for launch. The DMC satellites would eventually be fine tuned into the 647-km Sun Synchronous Orbit.

The launch marked the 30{+t}{+h} successful mission of PSLV, also known as ISRO’s ‘workhorse.’ The national space agency had used the XL version for the ninth time.

The three mini DMC satellites have been designed for providing simultaneous spatial resolution and high temporal resolution for earth observation.

To be positioned with a separation of 120 degree between them, all the three satellites, each weighing 447 kg, are aimed at capturing any target on the Earth’s surface every day and are expected to help in surveying resources, environment and urban infrastructure, besides its primary aim of monitoring disasters.

While the 91-kg CNBT-1 is an optical earth observation technology demonstration micro satellite built by SSTL, the seven-kg De-OrbitSail from the Surrey Space Centre is an experimental nano satellite for demonstration of large thin membrane sail and drag deorbiting using this sail.

The PSLV had earlier launched 40 satellites for 19 countries.

Hopes rise for brain tumour cure Scientists have identified a family of genes responsible for the growth of a spectrum of hard-to-treat brain tumours,

known as gliomas. “With these new genetic findings, our group of researchers plan to develop targeted therapeutics that we hope will one

day be used to treat patients with high-grade brain tumours and increase their survival,” said lead author Joshua Breunig, a research scientist in the Brain Programme at the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute in the U.S.

Mutation combinations “Any given tumour can harbour a variety of different combinations of mutations,” said Moise Danielpour, director of

the Paediatric Neurosurgery Programme and the Centre for Paediatric Neurosciences in the Maxine Dunitz Children’s

Health Centre. “Despite advances in radiation and chemotherapy, there are currently no effective curative regimens for treatment for

these diverse tumours,” Danielpour said. Researchers first modelled high-grade brain tumours from resident stem cells inside the brain, using a cutting-edge

method of rapid modelling that can create up to five distinct tumour models within 45 minutes. After modelling high-grade brain tumours, researchers identified the Ets family of genes as contributors to tumours.

The Ets factors regulate the behaviour of tumour cells by controlling expression of genes necessary for tumour growth. When expression of the Ets genes is blocked, researchers can identify and strategise novel therapies.

Sunita Williams among 4 NASA astronauts to test fly commercial spacecrafts Indian-origin Sunita Williams is among four “veteran” astronauts picked by NASA to fly the first commercial space

vehicles, a part of the space agency’s ambitious plan to put a man on Mars by 2030. Williams, 49, accompanied by Robert Behnken, Eric Boe and Douglas Hurley, will train and prepare for commercial

spaceflights that will return American launches to the US soil and further open up low-Earth orbit transportation to the private sector.

“These distinguished, veteran astronauts are blazing a new trail – that will one day land them in the history books and Americans on the surface of Mars,” said NASA administrator Charles Bolden.

The four astronauts will work closely with the Boeing Company and SpaceX to develop their crew transportation systems and provide crew transportation services to and from the International Space Station (ISS), NASA said.


“We are on a journey to Mars, and in order to meet our goals for sending American astronauts to the Red Planet in the 2030s we need to be able to focus both on deep space and the groundbreaking work being done on the ISS,” Bolden said.

A veteran of two long-duration spaceflights, Williams spent a total of 322 days in space and currently holds the record for total cumulative spacewalk time by a female astronaut (50 hours and 40 minutes).

She now ranks sixth on the all-time US endurance list and second all-time for a woman astronaut. NASA chose her for the astronaut programme in 1998.

A virtual date with Pluto Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Lab has released an app called ‘Eyes on the Solar System’, which allows users to watch a live

computer simulation of New Horizons’ approach. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft was launched in 2006 with the aim of making the closest flyby ever of dwarf planet

Pluto. According to thenextweb.com, users get to watch what New Horizons spacecraft sees, how it manoeuvres and what it

is currently scanning. It is only a simulation since it is not possible to livestream from a spacecraft that far away.

Satellite-based navigation system launched Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju launched the GPS-Aided Geo Augmented Navigation (GAGAN) system,

which will offer seamless navigation to the aviation industry.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Airports Authority of India (AAI) developed the system, at a cost of Rs. 774 crore, over 15 years. India is the fourth country to offer space-based satellite navigation services to the aviation sector.

The system also bridges the gap in the coverage areas of the European Union’s European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) and Japan’s Multi-functional Satellite Augmentation System (MSAS).

GAGAN will provide augmentation service for the GPS over the country, the Bay of Bengal, South East Asia and Middle East and up to Africa. Some of its benefits are improved efficiency, direct routes, increased fuel savings, approach with vertical guidance at runways, significant cost savings because of the withdrawal of ground aids and reduced workload of flight crew and air traffic controllers, ISRO officials said.

The guided approach landing with the help of GAGAN would immediately benefit nearly 50 airports in India, said R.N. Choubey, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation.

He said the system would be available for the member states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

However, the aircraft now being used by Indian operators are not compatible with GAGAN, Director-General of Civil Aviation M.

Sathiyavathy said. “The Ministry is in talks with the industry, and let us see how best the new system can be put to use,” she said.

A.S. Ganeshan, project director, GAGAN, ISRO Satellite Centre, said South Korea and Japan were interested in the system.


Liability law still clouds nuclear deal Led by U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden, senior Indian and U.S. officials

sent out a strong signal of their commitment to moving the bilateral civil nuclear deal forward despite obstacles. The officials met at the Carnegie Endowment think-tank for a day-long conference on the tenth anniversary of the stalled agreement.

Officials on both sides had then spoken of achieving a “breakthrough understanding” on India’s 2010 nuclear liability law, which was seen as a major stumbling block facing U.S. nuclear corporations that could supply reactor components and technology.

Those representing U.S. corporations however, worried that the Indian government’s assurances on the controversial Sections 17(b) and 46 of the law could not supersede the statute itself, and this still left the companies at risk in the event of an accident.

However, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Nisha Biswal reiterated that: “Our nuclear cooperation with India is a vital component of India’s energy future.”

She applauded the progress made thus far on the deal, particularly

that it was about “more than just megawatts and reactors,” and tackled an issue which, for over thirty years, had been the “elephant in the room, casting a shadow over the U.S.-India ties.”

ENVIRONMENT Wild water buffalo herd in Gadchiroli triggers hopes Clear photographs have emerged of a herd of wild water buffaloes in

the Kolamarka area of Gadchiroli district, infusing new hopes of saving the animal usually found in central India from getting extinct.

It is widely believed that only one female is remaining in Chhattisgarh, a reason why measure like cloning is being put in place.

Kolamarka was declared a Conservation Reserve about two years ago. But due to the presence of Naxal elements, government machinery can hardly penetrate to track them down.

The large herd was accidently captured by forest staffers while monitoring sensors used to track the giant squirrel, which is Maharashtra’s state animal.

No mining, polluting units in eco-sensitive zones, says Javadekar Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar held a review meeting with State Environment and Forests Ministers

here to review the progress of demarcation of Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESA) in the Western Ghats region and discuss the further course of action in keeping with the recommendations of the 2013 Kasturirangan Committee report.

Mr. Javadekar said that as per the report, commercial mining and polluting industries would be strictly banned in areas identified as eco sensitive zones.

Mr. Javadekar said that earlier people were misled to believe that the Kasturirangan report would destroy the livelihood prospects of people living in the Western Ghats forest regions, but such rumours should not be believed.

Since more than 4,000 villages fell in the proposed eco-sensitive zones, consultation with local population was on to seek their recommendation on the plan of action and the process would be completed by month-end.

The final notification on demarcation of eco-sensitive zones and mining and polluting industries to be banned would be available by August.

Renowned ecologist Madhav Gadgil, who had authored the earlier report on conserving the Western Ghats’ ecology, told that though the need for a participatory process of decision-making regarding promotion of development projects in the Western Ghats region was proposed by him in his report, the ground reality was different.

He cited the recently submitted Justice M.B. Shah Commission report on illegal mining in Goa, which had exposed

Rs. 35,000 crore worth illegal mining in the State.

New horned dinosaur found in Canada Scientists have discovered a striking new species of horned dinosaur in southern Alberta, Canada. Based on fossils collected from a bone bed, the team from the Royal Ontario Museum found the dinosaur named

Wendiceratops pinhornensis that is approximately 20-feet long and weighs more than a tonne. It lived about 79 million years ago, making it one of the oldest known members of the family of large-bodied horned

dinosaurs that includes the famous Triceratops. “Wendiceratops [ceratopsian] help us understand the early evolution of skull ornamentation in an iconic group of

dinosaurs characterised by their horned faces,” said David Evans, curator of vertebrate palaeontology. The wide frill of Wendiceratops is ringed by numerous curled horns, the nose had a large, upright horn and it is likely

there were horns over the eyes too. “The number of gnarly frill projections and horns makes it one of the most striking horned dinosaurs ever found,” he

added in a paper published in the journal PLOS ONE.


Beyond its odd, hook-like frill, Wendiceratops has a unique horn ornamentation above its nose.

PLACE IN NEWS Indonesia extends airport closures due to volcano Indonesia extended the closure of three airports, including on the holiday hotspot of Bali, due to drifting ash from a

volcano, spelling more flight cancellations and travel chaos for thousands of holidaymakers. Authorities closed the airport on Bali, the international airport on popular Lombok island, and three others serving

domestic routes as Mount Raung on Java spewed clouds of ash into the sky.

PERSON IN NEWS Obituary: Ex-Saudi foreign minister Saud al-Faisal Saudi Arabia's Prince Saud al-Faisal, who was appointed as foreign minister in 1975, was the world's longest serving

foreign minister when he was replaced on April 29. He had served fewer than four Saudi kings, advancing the Kingdom's foreign policy, especially after the attacks of

September 11, 2001 in the United States. "After almost 40 years in service, Prince Saud al-Faisal will be remembered as the key architect of Saudi diplomacy

whose relentless efforts have ensured the protection of Saudi interests," Christian Koch, director of the Gulf Research

Center Foundation, told Al Jazeera.

Although the Saudi King ultimately determines foreign policy, Saud played an important role in shaping the country's response to the many crises affecting the Middle East.

The former foreign minister's tenure was marked by the Israeli invasions of Lebanon in 1978, 1982 and 2006, the Palestinian intifadas that erupted in 1987 and 2000, Iraq invading Iran in 1980 and Kuwait in 1990, and a US-led coalition's occupation of Iraq in 2003.

The son of former King Faisal bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, Prince Saud was born in 1940, and was among Saudi Arabia's first generation to receive a Western education. He received a degree in economics from Princeton University in the US.

His knowledge of Western politics and his solid command of the English language made him the natural choice of representing Saudi Arabia on the international stage.

A royal decree issued in April by King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud forced Prince Saud, and other ageing royal members, to retire in favour of much younger royals. Al-Jubeir, the former Saudi ambassador in Washington replaced him, becoming only the second civilian to ever take on the role of foreign minister.

SPORTS Eden Gardens to host World T20 final next year THE Eden Gardens might have infamously missed out on hosting even a single game during the 2011 ICC World Cup,

but come 2016, the historic Kolkata venue will be the stage for the grand final of the World Twenty20, which will be held in India for the first time.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) have zeroed in on the Eden Gardens as the venue for the summit clash of the international Twenty20 extravaganza, which is scheduled to be held from March 11, 2016 to April 3, 2016.

The decision to award Kolkata the final incidentally comes at a time when Kolkata satrap Jagmohan Dalmiya is back as BCCI’s boss, having been elected unanimously its president a few months ago.

Serena beats Muguruza to win sixth Wimbledon singles title Game. Set. Serena Slam.

Serena Williams overcame a slow start, eight double-faults and a nervy finish to beat Garbine Muguruza 6-4, 6-4 for her sixth Wimbledon title, fourth Grand Slam championship in a row and 21st major overall.

The win means Williams holds all four Grand Slam titles at once completing the second “Serena Slam” of her career. What’s more, she secured the third leg of a calendar—year Grand Slam and, if she wins the U.S. Open, will become the first player to sweep all four majors in the same season since Steffi Graf in 1988.

Williams, winning her 28th straight Grand Slam match, is now just one major title behind Graf on the Open era list

and two behind all-time leader Margaret Court Smith. At 33, Williams is also the oldest women to win a Grand Slam title in the Open era. She has now won seven major

championships in her 30s. From 4—2 down in the first set, Williams ran off five straight games to take the set and go up 1—0 in the second. She

pulled out to a 5—1 lead and twice served for the match but couldn’t convert. Williams was broken at love for 5—2, and Muguruza saved a match point and converted on her fifth break point to

draw within 5—4. But Williams then broke the 21—year—old Spaniard at love to close out the match, which finished with Muguruza hitting a forehand wide.

India Wins more than 150 Medals at World Police and Fire Games Indian delegates, in the recently concluded World Police and Fire games, bagged 156 medals including 89 golds and

50 silvers. It is the first time that India has cross 100 medals in the tally. In the recently concluded World Police and Fire Games, India impressed everyone with its incredible performance by

bagging 156 medals, including 89 golds and 50 silvers.


The 50-member Indian contingent participated in seven categories: athletics, wrestling, boxing, judo, archery, swimming and shooting, and many athletes won more than one medal in their respective categories.

The prominent winners list is topped by Richa Mishra from Central Reserve Police Force, who won six golds and two silvers in swimming events.

Kulwinder Kaur, an assistant sub inspector with Punjab Police, bagged five gold medals in the track and field events, winning every event she competed in.

Other athletes who outshone in the event were Sini Sahadevan of Kerala Police (4 golds, 1 silver), Monika Choudhary of CRPF (4 golds, 1 silver), Jayashree Boragi of Maharashtra Polic(3 golds, 1 silver, 1 bronze), Jojimol Joseph of Kerala Police (3 golds, 1 silver, 2 bronzes) and Ayana Thomas of CRPF (3 golds, 3 silvers), Ranjana Gupta of UP Police (3 golds, 2 silvers, 1 bronze), Kuheli Gangulee of CISF (3 gold and 3 silvers), Jhanu Hansda of Jharkhand Police (3 golds) and Sumandeep Kaur of CRPF (3 golds).

The event was held at Fairfax County Virginia from June 26 to July 5, with 12,000 competitors from around 70 countries competing in 60 sports in this 10-day event.

This is the first time the Indian team crossed the medal tally of 100. India’s best performance before this was at Belfast, Northern Ireland, where it won 83 medals in 2013.

The games are open to active and retired law enforcement and fire service personnel across the world.

Sania Mirza, history maker at Wimbledon Those tennis fans in India who had not stayed up late to watch the women's doubles final at SW19 on Saturday night

woke up to good news coming in from London early on Sunday morning, what with the pair of Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza having come from behind to win the title. It is, by all means, a momentous achievement for the women's game in India and has put Sania, 28, on a pedestal atop which no Indian woman has stepped before.

The country's most successful female tennis player has gone where no compatriot had before. Paired with Hingis, the former world No 1 who was forced into temporary retirement in 2002 at the age of 22, the Hyderabad star rallied back from a shaky start to beat the formidable Russian pairing of Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina.

In what was an intense match spanning two-and-a-half hours at Centre Court, including a 15-minute hold-up as the retractable roof was closed shut, Sania and Hingis overcame some dominant tennis from the No 2 seeds who were more powerful for the majority of the gripping contest.

After victory, Hingis reflected on what it felt like to wait 17 years to add a fourth Wimbledon title. "It feels like another life," said the 34-year-old. "But 17 years, usually you're lucky to win it once or happy to be out here and play on the Wimbledon grounds. It's above my expectations."

Sitting next to her, Sania had reason to feel like she'd been waiting a long time to get her hands on the trophy. For it was 12 years ago, in 2003, when as a 16-year-old Sania became the first Indian girl to win a Grand Slam when she triumphed in the doubles' event at Wimbledon, partnering Alisa Kleybanova of Russia. "It means everything to be here today," she said.

In 2009, Sania became India's first woman to win a Grand Slam, lifting the Australian Open with Bhupathi. In 2011, she came close to winning a women's double title in 2011 when she partnered Elena Vesnina to the French Open final, but in 2012 the Sania-Mahesh Bhupathi pairing won the French Open and then in 2014 Sania added the US Open crown with Bruno Soares. Now, a Wimbledon championship.

That this achievement came three months after Saina Nehwal became the first Indian woman shuttler to be world No 1 after her India Open Grand Prix Gold triumph is a shot in the arm for female athletes in the country.

Wimbledon 2015 Results: Novak Djokovic defeated Roger Federer 7-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-3 winning his third Wimbledon singles title. A vintage Leander Paes clinched his 16th Grand Slam trophy, winning the Wimbledon mixed doubles title with

Martina Hingis.

Sumit Nagal etched his name in the history books by winning the boys’ doubles title along with Vietnamese partner Nam Hoang Ly.

India’s Sania Mirza and Switzerland’s Martina Hingis won the women’s doubles title. For Mirza, the number one ranked women’s doubles player - first Indian to achieve it - winning Wimbledon gave her her first women’s doubles grand slam trophy.

Among my most special titles: Paes He refused to pick a favourite among his 16 Grand Slams but veteran Indian tennis star Leander Paes said winning

the Wimbledon mixed doubles title with Swiss legend Martina Hingis ranks among the most special triumphs of his career.

Paes and Hingis, seeded sixth, drubbed the fifth-seeded Austrian-Hungarian team of Alexander Peya and Timea Babos 6-1, 6-1 in a lopsided summit clash which was over in just 40 minutes.

It was Paes’s eighth mixed doubles title and second with Hingis after the Australian Open early this year. The 42-year-old Indian has eight men’s doubles crowns in his Grand Slam collection. “To be able to play this game for so many years and play with two of the greatest women players (former partner

Martina Navratilova and now Hingis), it is fantastic.


OPINION Guardians for good Under the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, a child’s natural guardian, both of person and property, is first the

father and then the mother. The law thus buttressed the patriarchal structure. With its recent judgment allowing unwed mothers to apply for sole guardianship of minor children, the Supreme

Court has removed one more brick from this edifice. In this case, an educated and employed mother wanted to make her five-year-old the nominee for investments. The

paperwork stipulated that she either provide the name of the father or get a guardianship certificate. When she approached the court, she was directed under Section 11 of the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890 to disclose

the name and whereabouts of the father, and when she refused to do so, her claim was rejected. The High Court upheld the order, with the reasoning that a natural father could have an interest in the child even if there is no marriage.

The Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Vikramjit Sen has now given a seminal ruling that recognises, first that the interests of the child are supreme, and it is therefore imperative to name the mother as guardian; and second, that the woman has a fundamental right on grounds of privacy to not disclose the father’s identity.

It notes that the mother has taken responsibility for the child, with the father, a married man, possibly even unaware of the existence of this son.

This ruling will have far-reaching implications for women in India, who have fought long for equal rights in the matter

of guardianship. From school admission and bank account opening forms to investment papers, official documentation insists on the

father’s name. The court in 1999 declared that both parents must be considered equally as natural guardians, and the word ‘after’ in

the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act should not be construed as making the mother’s position secondary. However, most public and private institutions still insist on the father’s name or signature on forms. In many countries, the law gives both parents equal guardianship. The new ruling not only gives single mothers a strong legal standing but also protects the rights of children born out

of wedlock. It is of special significance to children born to sex workers. It gives a fillip to single women who want to adopt. Though the Guardianship Act names the mother first as guardian in the case of an illegitimate child, unwed mothers

face harassment on all fronts. This judgment will go a little further in safeguarding their rights.

Equivocation on Palestine India’s policy on Palestine has slowly changed over time, from one of solidarity with the cause and a distinct position

in line with the non-aligned movement, to the present state of equivocation over Israel’s actions. This was exemplified in the recent vote of abstention in the UN Human Rights Council on the question of forwarding

to the International Criminal Court the Davis Report on Israeli war crimes committed last year. The reasoning provided by the Ministry of External Affairs was that India, not being a signatory to the Rome Statute

establishing the ICC, abstained because of the reference to the ICC in the resolution; there is no change in India’s policy towards Palestine.

This is clearly a fig leaf of an argument as India had in 2012 voted in the UNHRC in favour of resolutions that contained references to the ICC, on Syria, for example. Last year India voted for a UNHRC resolution seeking an inquiry into Israel’s strikes on Gaza, and earlier this year for resolutions that spoke against Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine and for Palestinian self-determination.

The sudden change in stance must therefore be attributed to a conversation between Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Israeli media have revealed that Tel Aviv lobbied hard among various member-nations of the UNHRC to abstain: only

Kenya, Ethiopia, Paraguay and Macedonia did so apart from India. Very few countries including Israel’s staunch ally, the U.S., have voted in its favour or abstained on resolutions on the

occupation of Palestine, the Gaza blockade, human rights violations and illegal attacks on the Palestinian people. India’s stance in the UNHRC must count as a decisive shift from its time-honoured and well-established position on

Palestine. The real reason for this shift must be the burgeoning strategic relations between the two countries. India is reported to have become the largest buyer of Israeli defence exports. And military cooperation between the two

has expanded since the NDA came to power. Such cooperation had existed during the earlier regimes, but India had consistently sought to maintain its position on

the Palestine issue, which was in line with that of nearly every country in the world, considering the brazen ways of Israel with respect to Palestine.

This is not just a moral imperative. Israel has consistently flouted international law in its actions in the Gaza strip and in its persistence of policies such as that on settlements in the West Bank.

This equivocation does not behove well for India’s stature as a nation committed to a just international order. And it betrays the Palestinian cause.

Narrow instrumentalities cannot determine foreign policy.


Greece’s fight is for democracy in Europe It is difficult to overstate the pressure the Greek people have both endured and defied. A country that has already

experienced an austerity-induced economic disaster with few precedents among developed nations in peacetime has suffered a sustained campaign of economic and political warfare.

The European Central Bank, which has only recently deigned to publish some of the minutes of its meetings, capped liquidity for Greek banks, driving them to the verge of collapse. There were stringent capital controls, and desperate queues outside banks followed. A country desperate to stay within the euro was told it would be ejected, and with calamitous results.

Martin Schulz, the European parliament’s president called for the removal of Greece’s elected government in favour of a technocratic government.

That’s what the EU and the markets previously pulled off in Greece and, yes, in Italy: however much justifiable distaste exists for Silvio Berlusconi, it should have been his own people who removed him.

An alliance between Greece’s economic elite and the EU great powers told the Greek people: however tough your lives have been in the last few years, your world will cave in unless you acquiesce.

And still the Greek people voted no — not narrowly, but overwhelmingly. The referendum was, of course, a rejection of an austerity programme that has unleashed what is commonly

described in Greece as a humanitarian crisis.

Since Lehman Brothers crashed in 2008, austerity has always relied on the displacement of blame from elites to

elsewhere.

It was Goldman Sachs who helped the then Greek government to cook the country’s books to win entry into the euro. It was German and French banks who profitably and recklessly lent to Greece, just as U.S. banks disastrously showered subprime mortgages on low-paid Americans. It was Germany who benefited from being able to export its consumer goods to peripheral European countries such as Greece.

After the crash, Greece was forced to implement measures that sent debt hurtling to 180 per cent of GDP, doubled poverty, left a quarter of Greeks and over half of young people without work, raised the suicide and infant mortality

rate, left many without healthcare, and shrunk the economy by a quarter. Precious little of the bailouts went to Greece; instead they went to the European banks that had recklessly lent in the

first place. While Germany’s postwar economic renaissance owed everything to debt relief — including from war-devastated

countries such as Greece — Athens was denied the write-offs it desperately needed. The weak euro makes German goods so internationally competitive, and has been a linchpin of the country’s recent

economic success. But this revolt was about something much bigger, and that is why Greece remains in great danger. This is about the

very nature of the European Union itself. The European project was founded in the rubble of a war of annihilation, genocide and totalitarianism. It was

intended to secure peace, prosperity and democracy for the people of Europe. This dream has become something of a nightmare for a growing number of Europeans. A democratic deficit is

unaddressed. The EU treaty negotiated in 2011 effectively forbade any future eurozone government from pursuing an expansionary

fiscal policy. Austerity is mindlessly implemented across the eurozone with terrible human consequences: in Spain, too, around half of young people are out of work.

Syriza was a revolt against this Europe of austerity and corporate power, in favour of a democratic, socially progressive Europe. Podemos in Spain is part of this revolt, as is Sinn Féin in Ireland.

If the referendum had produced a yes, then it would have represented a potentially terminal defeat for this gathering pan-European revolt. Instead, it has now been emboldened.

Unfortunately the EU elites are not stupid, and realise this. They fear, justifiably, that if Syriza is seen to win concessions, the rebellion will spread.

But the EU is in a genuine bind. If Greece is ejected from the eurozone, the currency is no longer an indivisible union and a precedent will be set for the ejection of its members. If the ECB abandons Greece, the eurozone’s reputation will not recover.

This is why Greece has bargaining power in its quest for debt relief and for an abandonment of austerity that has already ravaged the country.

The EU still wishes to make an example of the country: by forcing Syriza to implement policies that will destroy the government, by making “the economy scream” until it is ejected from office, or even a disastrous default and removal from the eurozone.

A new bank for a new era At their annual summit in Russia this week, BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) leaders will announce

the world’s newest multilateral development bank — the New Development Bank (NDB), which will have U.S.$100 billion as initial capital to fund infrastructure and sustainable development projects both in their own countries as well as elsewhere.

Obviously, the NDB should not become another World Bank which finances the same types of projects in the same countries, using the same tools and mindset.


At the same time, its purpose should not simply be to symbolise emerging countries’ desire to show off their financial and political power. The reason for its creation must be very substantive.

The NDB should be based on entirely new objectives, to be carried out with new strategies. The primary objectives of the NDB should be to achieve three zeros by 2050: zero poverty, zero unemployment, and

zero net carbon emissions. Every year the NDB could publish a report on the BRICS’ progress against these objectives.

The NDB could achieve these goals using four basic strategies. The first strategy would be to unleash the creative power and commitment of the new generation of youth. If the

BRICS can mobilise the power of the youth, it will become easier to achieve the goals. The second strategy would be to focus on technological innovations to solve human problems. Technology today is

under the command of money-makers and war-makers. Socially committed drivers must take charge of technology. Combining the power of the youth with that of technology will create an unshakeable force. This brings us to the third strategy: building social businesses to mobilise their creative power to solve long-standing

and complex social, economic, and environmental problems. Social business is a new variety of business which delinks itself from a profit motive. This business is mission-driven,

with non-dividend companies being exclusively devoted to solving human problems. After the company makes profit, the investor recoups his or her investment money but does not take any profit after

that. Additional profits made are ploughed back into the business to expand and improve it.

Conventional businesses cannot solve social problems. Other actors such as the state and private charities may be unsustainable and inefficient. Social businesses are sustainable, efficient, replicable, and transferable.

This type of business has been created and promoted around the world with great results. Hence the social business model should be the centrepiece of the NDB’s institutional structure and policy package. It

is a model that can easily be replicated across a number of contexts. Unemployment can be brought down to zero through social business initiatives. Unemployment is the product of a

flawed and theoretical interpretation of human beings. Human beings are not job-seekers; they are entrepreneurs by birth. Entrepreneurship is in the DNA of human beings.

They are go-getters and problem solvers. Social businesses can turn the unemployed into entrepreneurs. NDB can adopt this as its prime programme. Once the NDB creates a new window for financing and promoting social businesses, it will attract the young, old,

men, women, individuals and organisations, with social business ideas. It can encourage each conventional business to undertake social businesses alongside their main business activities

Ensuring financial services and healthcare to the poor can be done through creating social businesses. While the NDB will undertake many types of infrastructure projects, it should give serious consideration to the

ownership and maintenance of the same. We have now examples of major infrastructure being owned by money-makers.

In the old days, this was the exclusive preserve of governments. Apart from government and commercial ownership, there is also ownership by social businesses. From the perspective of its users, ownership by social businesses will be much more satisfying than other two

alternatives. Finally, human rights and good governance should lie at the heart of the NDB’s operations. At its inception, the NDB has the opportunity to create the right objectives and appropriate strategies for their

implementation.

To be a bridge, not fault line The Russian town of Ufa, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is attending the BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation

Organisation (SCO) summits, is suddenly the most important city. President Hassan Rouhani will spend the week here even as the nuclear talks between the P5+1 and Iran have

reached a critical point. President Xi Jinping will be there discussing the $100 billion BRICS-New Development Bank in a week the Chinese stock market has dropped 30 per cent of its value.

President Ashraf Ghani will be there, soon after talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government in Pakistan,

with Chinese and U.S. observers present. And Mr. Modi and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will have a bilateral meeting after more than a year.

Each of Mr. Modi’s meetings will be important, but none perhaps more important than the reason he is attending the SCO: to begin the process of India’s admission into it.

India’s membership of the SCO is significant. To begin with, it opens up trade, energy and transit routes between Russia and China that pass through Central Asia, that were hitherto closed to India. Iran’s observer status will ensure the SCO serves as a platform for India to discuss trade through the Iranian ports of Bandar Abbas and Chabahar, and link them to the Russian proposal for a North-South Transport Corridor.

This circumvents India’s situation of being hemmed in owing to lack of access to markets through Pakistan. While the SCO charter disallows bilateral issues being taken up, the security grouping provides a platform for India and Pakistan to discuss them, as it will when Mr. Modi and Mr. Sharif meet.


With Russia and China taking the lead, the SCO could even prove a guarantor for projects such as the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) and IPI (Iran-Pakistan-India) pipelines that India has held off on security concerns.

The SCO summit will provide a valuable interface to engage with Afghanistan’s neighbours at a time when so much is changing in its security outlook, between the international troop pullout and talks with the Taliban. Finally, the SCO is an important counter-balance to India’s perceived tilt towards the U.S. and its allies on security issues.

In a politically polarised world, with the U.S. and Europe pitted against Russia and China and where all the powers are economically interlinked, India’s best hope to emerge a leader lies in its ability to bridge the two.

Speaking at the Nazarbayev University in Astana, Mr. Modi said Central Asia’s importance faded because it became “a new fault-line between great empires to the east, west and south”. In that sense, India’s emergence now depends on striving to be a bridge, not a fault-line, in full balance with the great powers globally.

NJAC: Objection overruled The observation by the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, which is presently hearing the petition challenging

the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act and the Constitution Amendment Act that the collegium system was good but its implementation was bad is the subject of much speculation in government circles.

There is apprehension that the court may even strike down the two enactments on the ground that judicial primacy in the appointment of judges has been done away with.

However, from a closer reading of the judgment in the Supreme Court Advocates on Record Association versus Union

of India (or Second Judges Case) it would appear that it may not be easy for the Constitution Bench to strike down these two laws on the ground that they destroy judicial independence and thus violate the basic structure of the Constitution.

The judgment lays down the following propositions: (a) Judicial independence extends also to the stage of appointment of judges. It is not enough to have security of tenure, salary, pension, and so on ; (b) Selection of judges is a participatory, consultative, constitutional function performed by high constitutional functionaries whose objective is to pick the best persons for the higher levels of judiciary;

(c) In this exercise, no one is higher or lower than the other; (d) normally a judge should be selected through a process of consensus. In case that is not possible, more weightage should be given to the opinion of the Chief Justice because he or she is the expert who can judge the competence of the candidate better.

This is necessary to avoid a stalemate and also to avoid an incompetent person with political backing getting through.

Participatory exercise In the narrative part of the judgment, the court has adopted a larger perspective on the issue. Note the following

observation of the court: “The emphasis has to be on the importance of the purpose and not on the comparative importance of the participants working together to achieve the purpose. Each of them has some inherent limitation and it is only collectively that they constitute the selector.”

It further says, “Appointment of judges is a participatory constitutional function. It is perhaps inappropriate to refer to any ‘power’ or ‘right’ to appoint judges. It is essentially a discharge of a constitutional trust of which certain

constitutional functionaries are collectively repositories.” Here, the court emphasises the point that selection of judges is a participatory exercise to be performed by the highest

constitutional functionaries and consultation is the essence of this process. The question of the primacy of opinion will arise only when all other efforts fail to select an agreed candidate.

“The joint venture of all the constitutional functionaries will help to transcend the concept of primacy between them,” said the court.

Somehow, this conciliatory approach of the court is missing towards the end of the judgment, where it firmly says that appointment shall be made of only those proposed by the Chief Justice.

The court laid down an elaborate procedure on the selection and appointment of judges and other related matters, which, in fact was the province of the legislature.

Thus, the primacy of the executive was replaced by the primacy of the Chief Justice. This was done after making the following observations: “It is obvious that the provision for consultation with the Chief Justice was introduced because of the realisation that the Chief Justice is best equipped to know and assess the worth of the candidate and his


suitability for appointment as a superior judge.… At the same time, the phraseology used indicated that giving absolute discretion or the power to veto to the Chief Justice of India as an individual in the matter of appointment was not considered desirable (by the framers of the Constitution) so there should remain some power with the executive to be exercised as a check whenever necessary.”

The Constitution Amendment Act and the NJAC Act can be struck down only on the ground that these enactments violate the basic structure, namely judicial independence.

The First Judges Case (or the S.P. Gupta case) judgment was overruled because the court felt that primacy of the executive in the appointment of judges is destructive of judicial independence.

In fact, the Constitution Amendment Act does not confer primacy on the executive, which is represented by only one member on the commission. So it cannot be attacked on the ground that it gives primacy to the executive.

Does it take away the primacy of the Chief Justice? Well, the judiciary is represented by the Chief Justice and two senior-most judges who have a powerful voice in this body.

Their knowledge and expertise, their formidable status, and so on, are enough to influence the other members and bring them around to their view. If the judges do not approve of a certain name, they can veto it. Once a proposal is vetoed, it cannot be revived.

While it is true that the judges require the support of other members of the commission to get a name through, that by itself is not going to cause any serious erosion of the independence of the judiciary.

After all, the learned judges who wrote the judgment made the following significant statement: “The joint venture of all

the constitutional functionaries will help to transcend the concept of primacy between them.” The judiciary could share their knowledge and expertise with other members and elevate the exercise of collective

consultation to a higher level. The fact that no one individual or group has primacy in the new scheme accords with the sentiments expressed by the court in the Second Judges Case and the overall perspective adopted by the judges in dealing with the issue.

In fact, the integrated participatory consultative process has been raised to an almost philosophical level by the learned judges. The new enactments provide for a qualitatively better and more broad-based consultation than the consultation among a few judges as per the collegium system.

Constitutional safeguards The Constitution safeguards judicial independence. Apart from the specific provisions that safeguard that

independence, the new enactments extend the concept of independence to the stage of appointment also by providing for the largest number of judges compared to other representatives on the commission and a veto power for them.

Judicial independence is not an end in itself. It is also a means to realise a higher objective, namely to find competent, independent-minded judges for India’s higher judiciary. It is not the means to select judges arbitrarily and without any sense of accountability using the power of primacy. The true merit of a judge will become known only through the process of wider consultation. The two enactments provide for such consultation.

The collegium system lacked transparency and was therefore susceptible to abuse. The present Constitution Bench admitted that there was bad implementation of the collegium system and that is the severest indictment of the system by the judges themselves. The NJAC is by all accounts a superior alternative, and there is no ground to strike down the laws.

No private republic The Supreme Court has asked the Centre, the Election Commission and six national parties to respond to a plea

seeking political outfits to be brought under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Parties, including the Congress, BJP, BSP, CPM, CPI and NCP, have maintained that they do not constitute a public

authority as defined in the RTI Act and, hence, are beyond its ambit. This is a spurious argument. The Central Information Commission (CIC) had in 2013 exposed the hollowness of the

claim and ruled that political parties fit the definition of a public authority, and that they should appoint central public information officers and appellate authorities as prescribed in the RTI Act.

The SC has been seized of the matter now because the parties ignored the CIC. Political parties claim they are responsible under the Representation of the People Act (RPA) and submit details of

their expenses to the Election Commission and income tax authorities. These, they hold, make their functioning sufficiently transparent and accountable. But this argument is not

convincing enough for them to evade rigorous examination under the RTI. For instance, political parties need to submit details of donations only above Rs 20,000 to the tax department. What

about smaller contributions, which could make up a substantial part of income? The claim to be anything but a public authority is untenable because, as the CIC had pointed out, the parties avail of

government largesse in the form of office space, land, talk time on public broadcasters and so on. The RTI Act is clear that an organisation that receives substantial government aid should be ready for public scrutiny.

The technicalities apart, political parties are primarily public platforms. As prime movers in the legislature and the executive, they indirectly make laws and shape public policy. Since they claim to be of, by and for the people, they are public authorities in the deepest sense of the term.

But their reluctance to be transparent to public scrutiny is eroding public confidence, since corruption is perceived to owe in great measure to the opacity of election funding.


It is appalling to find the very same agents who legislated the RTI Act refusing to be under its purview on spurious pretexts. The immunity sought by political parties from the RTI Act is an affront to the democratic process in which they are involved, and they should not persist in this absurdity.

Making parties accountable Political parties seek to represent the people and to take decisions on their behalf. But in India they have so far resisted attempts to be listed as “public authorities” under the Right to Information Act

and thus be made liable to publicly disclose financial assets. With the Supreme Court now asking six national parties why they should not be brought under the RTI, India is a

step closer to making its political organisations accountable in their financial transactions. In conducting their financial affairs in an opaque manner, some parties have been able to hide their sources of

funding, and the extent of their assets and financial holdings. When the Central Information Commission tried to bring them under the ambit of the RTI, the previous United

Progressive Alliance government actually considered amending the Act to nullify the order. Indeed, political parties have neither challenged the CIC’s order nor complied with it. But in March this year, the CIC reiterated its order as final and binding, even as it admitted it was unable to act

against the parties that had not replied to its notices and had ignored its order. Similarly, the Election Commission, which is a party to the case before the Supreme Court, has been unable to check

financial irregularities among political parties; it does not have either the ability or the mandate to verify the claims of

‘donations’ made to political parties. Although parties have to declare to the Election Commission all donations in excess of Rs.20,000 they receive, they

resort to under-reporting to evade this clause. Most of the donations are shown as having come in smaller sums. Donations to political parties are not always voluntary, and in any case the donors — big businesses and corporate

houses — get favours in return when the parties they fund come to power. Most of the donations are made illegally, through off-the-books transactions, and the parties repay their benefactors

in terms of policy concessions or amendments to rules. Business houses often strike deals with political parties, which result in acts of corruption when they get into

government. Indeed, many business houses support more than one party, extending donations both legally and illegally as black

money. Thus, requiring political parties to open up their financial transactions, the donations they receive and the expenses

they incur, to public scrutiny is imperative to bring down levels of corruption and make them more accountable. What the CIC was unable to achieve since the implementation of the RTI, the Supreme Court should be able to do. As was argued in the petition before the court, the right to information has been held to be a part of the freedom of

speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. That freedom cannot be undermined.

Chuck the BPL card The government of India has just released data from the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011. The SECC 2011 has three parts: census of rural India, conducted by the Union ministry of rural development (MoRD),

census of urban India, and the caste census. The data that has been released covers only the first component, rural India. The formulation of the SECC was characterised by a long process of widespread consultation with experts and

stakeholders and led to a fairly robust methodology, not flawless but certainly better than anything similar we have attempted in the past.

The decennial population census is governed by the Census Act, 1948, which has strict requirements of

confidentiality. These do not apply to the SECC. And since one of its major aims is to determine entitlements for various government programmes, the data were

subject to verification by the families themselves, as also by gram panchayats and gram sabhas. After the data were put up in public places, specific timelines were given for people to raise objections or make

complaints, and for the concerned officials to address them. According to the MoRD, more than 1.2 crore households raised objections.

While the process was well conceived, there is some cause for concern on how well it was implemented. Clearly, the robustness of the process was greater where grassroots democracy is stronger, in the form of sturdy gram

panchayats and gram sabhas. But it suffered greatly where the voice of the people is weak and stifled, especially when they belong to the most disadvantaged sections.

Take, for example, the number of manual scavengers, one of the darkest blots on India’s development experience. This appears to have been greatly underreported, especially in certain states that remain in insistent denial about the existence of the problem, which in reality refuses to go away, given deeply entrenched social prejudices.

While the 2011 Census of India lists 2,15,885 dry latrines in Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Manipur, the SECC reports a mere 653 manual scavengers in these states.

In spite of these limitations, however, the SECC gives us a fair picture of acute distress in rural India. Some facts are reconfirmed — that among all social groups, the Scheduled Tribes are the worst off, and that the

eastern and central parts of India are the poorest. But there are also not-so-well-recognised facts and new insights.


Nearly 50 per cent of the population is either illiterate or educated below the primary level. And around the same number (nine crore families) are so poor that they are forced to do unskilled manual labour.

This has major policy implications for the MGNREGA, which must focus on rebuilding the productivity of these lands and create a situation where small and marginal farmers can go back to farming and/ or allied livelihoods, and not become endlessly dependent on the MGNREGA.

The greatest strength of the SECC is the fact that it creates the possibility for us to get away from the poverty line as a criterion for government benefits.

The terrible tragedy of the poverty line was that it was used to determine rights and entitlements based on the utterly flawed BPL (below poverty line) list of households.

This list was always characterised by huge errors of inclusion and exclusion, where the powerful muscled their way in, elbowing out the truly deserving poor.

The use of BPL cards was also a blunt instrument — anyone with the card would be entitled to all government benefits and anyone without it would be equally excluded.

This problem arose because we did not recognise the multi-dimensional character of poverty. The SECC data make it possible for us to move to the principle of “programme-specific indicators for programme-

specific entitlements”. This is a clear recognition that poverty has many dimensions, each of which is to be tackled by different programmes,

and the benefits of each programme will either be universal (as in the MGNREGA, health, primary education,

sanitation, mid-day meals, etc) or based on data on specific features such as homelessness, disability and a host of other deprivations captured by the SECC, all of which are major constituents of poverty. These should be used to identify the people entitled to specific benefits.

Thus, the homeless will be the beneficiaries of the Indira Awaas Yojana and the disabled will get disability pensions, irrespective of whether or not they have a BPL card.

What the SECC helps us understand is that even if the figure of people below the consumption poverty line were to fall to zero, removing poverty in India will remain a challenge till every Indian has access to safe drinking water, sanitation, housing, nutrition, health and education.

The crucial question then is: How will the government use the SECC data? It is to be sincerely hoped that the SECC will not be used to arbitrarily reduce, for example, the number of people

entitled to benefits under the National Food Security Act (NFSA). Some policy analysts have suggested that since around 40 per cent of households fulfil at least one of the SECC’s 14

parameters of exclusion, they should all be excluded from the benefits of the NFSA. This would be a terrible mistake. Many states in India have shown that a universal public distribution system works the best. Even if exclusions are to be made, they could be done on the basis of the SECC’s more robust indicators of exclusion,

such as income tax payers, large irrigated landowners, etc.

The Ufa takeaways and reason for hope The meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif — who met for nearly

an hour in Ufa in Russia on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit to discuss an entire gamut of issues between the two countries — has kicked off a new season of engagement between India and Pakistan.

There is now a clear road map of events in the next few months to take the dialogue process forward. The Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan, S. Jaishankar and Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, held a joint press meet

where they read out a joint statement on the outcome of the meeting and listed out five points. These are: a meeting in New Delhi between the two National Security Adviser (NSA) to discuss all issues linked to

terrorism; early meetings of the Directors General of the Border Security Force and the Pakistan Rangers followed by that of the Directors General Military Operations (DGMO); the decision to release fishermen in each other’s custody,

along with their boats, within a period of 15 days; a mechanism for facilitating religious tourism, and both sides agreeing to discuss ways and means to expedite the Mumbai case trial, including additional information like providing voice samples.

Bonhomie after acrimony The sixth point is that all actions would lead up to Mr. Modi’s visit to Pakistan, to attend the South Asian Association

for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Islamabad in 2016.

As a result, the process would most closely mirror Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s reach-out to Pakistan on April 18, 2003, when the National Democratic Alliance government announced a “hand of friendship” to Pakistan after years of bitterness over the Kargil war, the Parliament attack and the Agra summit.

The announcement was followed by several rounds of official meetings, and then by the unilateral Ramzaan ceasefire announced by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in November 2003, so that by the time Mr. Vajpayee travelled to Pakistan in January 2004, he and Pakistan Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali were able to announce a number of major agreements and the Islamabad declaration that restarted the composite bilateral dialogue.

The key takeaway from the Ufa declaration is the bonhomie between the Prime Ministers after a period of extreme acrimony between their governments, particularly over Mr. Modi’s comments in Dhaka in June 2015, where he called Pakistan a “nuisance” that “promotes terrorism”, and the Sharif government’s responses to it.

Despite all that, Mr. Sharif, with his determined commitment to bettering ties with India, and Mr. Modi, with his strong mandate, and firm grip of his party and cabinet, are still the best poised to deliver any agreement between the two countries that has seen so many others try and fail in the process.


Promises, the challenge However, history has proven that it isn’t delivering an agreement or a declaration between the two countries that is

the biggest challenge, but delivering on its promises after that, given that the process can be firebombed by violence at the Line of Control (LoC), a terror attack , or even an outbreak of words.

In that sense, it is important to look closer at each of the promises made in the joint statement at Ufa to see how firmly they will hold in the face of those risks.

To begin with, the NSAs’ meeting “to discuss all issues connected with terrorism” is important, given that both Mr. Ajit Doval of India and Mr. Sartaj Aziz have the full confidence of their respective Prime Ministers, which is crucial to hammer out any peace deal, away from the limitations of bureaucracies, militaries and the constant glare of the media. Second, even within their establishments, both men are seen as “hawks”.

Therefore, if they do come to an agreement, it will take into account the most extreme views on either side. This is not the first time that such an engagement has been proposed, however. In 2006, the Joint Terror Mechanism

announced in Havana by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Gen. Musharraf also envisaged a dialogue away from the Foreign Ministries with NSAs and intelligence chiefs meetings.

But that came a cropper over inherent distrust between both sides. Interestingly, part of the Havana declaration was Dr. Singh’s acceptance of an invitation to Pakistan, which never materialised.

Mr. Doval is himself a figure viewed with deep suspicion in Pakistan, not the least because of past statements he has

made on Balochistan and covert operations, which are aired on Pakistani TV channels quite regularly. However, given

his years posted in Islamabad, and decades in the intelligence bureau, he will bring in a unique perspective to the talks.

The meetings between military commanders at the LoC are already a part of an ongoing process, and even before the Prime Ministers met in Ufa, one such meeting had been scheduled for September 2015 between the DGs of the BSF and the Pakistani Rangers.

There is an annual mechanism for high-level talks between the Pakistani Rangers and BSF chiefs that last took place in March 2015 at the Wagah-Attari border. DGMO (Army-to-Army) meetings have also taken place in the past, albeit more rarely as when the DGMOs met in December 2013 as an outcome of the Singh-Sharif meeting in New York — it was after a period of 14 years. It remains to be seen what structure the newly announced DGMO talks will take.

Release of fishermen Similarly, the reference to the release of fishermen is also a regular occurrence. Another batch was released after Mr.

Modi spoke to Mr. Sharif last month. The tragedy is that the navies of both countries detain these fishermen who stray over the sea boundaries quicker

than they can be released, and at any given point, each country holds 300-400 fishermen. The mechanism for “religious tourism” will be welcomed in all parts, as each year, Indian and Pakistani officials

wrangle over the visas issued to Indians for Gurpurab celebrations at Nankana Sahib and to the Hinglaj Mata temple, and to Pakistani pilgrims for the Ajmer Sharif and Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi.

Expediting Mumbai trial Finally, there is the very significant reference to the provision of “voice samples” and to expedite the Mumbai trial.

Despite the Bharatiya Janata Party’s claims that these have been given for the “first” time, both assurances were given by Pakistan in May 2010 after the Thimphu SAARC summit meeting between Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Dr. Singh.

A month later, when Home Minister P. Chidambaram travelled to Islamabad armed with the Indian “dossiers”, Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Mallik had declared that Pakistan would provide India all support in probing the 26/11 attacks.

This was to include expediting the trial with “day-to-day” hearings in a special court; giving India the voice-samples of

terror element Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, alleged to be the operational mastermind in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and the other accused in Adiala jail, and of hunting down the “masterminds” of the attack including reinvestigating the case of Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed.

The promise of voice samples was critical as they could be matched with telephone recordings that India already has produced, of Lashkar-e-Taiba commanders in the so-called “Karachi control room” coldbloodedly guiding gunman Ajmal Kasab and his colleagues to kill innocents at the Taj hotel and Chabad House in Mumbai.

If any of those samples matched with the men accused, then that would clinch the 26/11 trial. However, in June 2011, Mr. Mallik announced that he couldn’t hand over the voice samples without the permission of the accused, who had appealed to the courts on the issue.

“If I give the samples by any other means by recording their voice and send it to India, that will be challenged in [a] Pakistani court and there will be contempt of court on the investigators and prosecutors,” Mr. Mallik had said in an interview at the time.

It would be interesting to find out how the Pakistan Muslim League government has now given India a similar assurance, and whether it has a new law up its sleeve or has secured a court order in favour of handing over the voice samples.

An added hurdle will be that Lakhvi is out on bail, and was recently exempted from court appearances in the 26/11 trial, which will make it extremely difficult to track him down for the process.


Another question that arises is where India will take its quest at the UN to make Pakistan accountable for the Mumbai attacks. For the past few months, India has stepped up efforts to have Pakistan named or criticised by the UN, the 1267 Taliban sanctions committee and the Financial Action Task Force.

Now that the Indian and Pakistani governments are discussing the matter, will India cease these efforts, or at least suspend them?

Eventually the Ufa engagement proves the strength of the fundamentals of the India-Pakistan relationship, that despite all that happens to derail the relationship, the two have always returned to the table, and that every Prime Minister and President, across political parties in India and Pakistan, has tried to make a contribution to that process.

Another fundamental, the need for one-upmanship, to decide who came away the victor from the talks is always the cause for the unravelling of the process. In that respect it is a mistake for some in the government to claim success at the non-inclusion of a reference to Jammu and Kashmir at Ufa; the 2009 Sharm el-Sheikh document also made no reference to the Kashmir dispute.

Given the past history of summits between India and Pakistan, and the constant and creative search for new solutions by their leaders to a nearly 70-year-old dispute that has cost both countries dear, it would be a mistake to claim that any new venture in the relationship is in fact “a first” that has never been done before. What it is however, is a new reason for hope.

Why poverty is development’s best friend The Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011, which hit the headlines earlier this month, tells us that half the

households in rural India are landless, dependent on casual manual labour, and live in deprivation. By suggesting that poverty in India is worse than previously estimated, the Census has again triggered the old debate

about the right way to count the poor. But disagreements on methodology apart, most commentators agree that the SECC numbers merit serious

consideration. They are expected to guide evidence-based policy-making. But how exactly does that work? For instance, now that the data shows there are more poor than previously thought, living in greater deprivation than

previously realised, is India’s economic policy or development model likely to change in the light of this fresh evidence?

Now that we know landlessness is widespread, will the government reverse its stand on dispossessing more farmers of their land through its Land Bill amendments?

Or will it be business as usual? Human beings at different points in time have had diverse cultural conceptions of poverty. Not all of them have been negative. Indeed, at a time when India is witnessing a sort of post-modern, pseudo-Vedic

revival, it might be pertinent to point out that the sub-continent is home to a long and ancient tradition of frugality, moderation and voluntary poverty that even carried quite a bit of spiritual capital. As are other non-Western cultures.

The problematisation of poverty is a recent phenomenon, one that went hand in hand with the rise of the economy as an autonomous domain, independent of the human totality of culture, politics and society.

It was only in the post-World War II period that poverty was made visible as a global problem. As several critics of developmentalism have said, three historical factors were crucial in the rise of the ‘development

apparatus’. One, the decline of colonialism, which signified the end of direct political control over Third World populations and geographies; two, the shifting of the epicentre of world capitalism from the U.K. to the U.S.; and three, the rise of communism in the form of the Soviet bloc.

Together, these factors posed a series of challenges to Western capital: securing new sources of raw materials for industry, securing new sites for investment of surplus capital, securing new markets for goods and commodities and

geo-politically securing the capitalist universe from the communist threat. The answer to all these challenges was what is known as the Truman Doctrine. It was America’s initiative, as the

global steward of capitalism, to ‘develop’ the ‘underdeveloped’ areas of the world through capitalism, science and technology.

In practice, this doctrine translated into a dual strategy — one for its European allies, another for its non-European ones. The U.S. donated free capital to the former, so that the core nations of global capitalism — the U.K., France,

West Germany — could rebuild their war-wrecked economies quickly. This was the Marshall Plan, a $120 billion (in current dollar value) handout that defied every law of neoclassical economics.

For the latter (the erstwhile colonies), it shepherded into existence the Bretton Woods institutions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, whose job it became to expand and consolidate capitalism in the furthest reaches of the Third World.

But why would newly independent nations want to take economic advice from their former oppressors? This is where the discourse of poverty and development had a role. In place of the dismantled apparatus of

colonialism, the Truman Doctrine ushered in the development apparatus, whose main component was the Bretton Woods institutions, which had close links with Western capital as well as with the governing elites of every nation-state.

With its trans-national army of development experts, this apparatus served the same purpose as the colonial apparatus but without the bad press — preserving the economic dominance of the First World over the Third World.


This dominance was secured through programmes of financial assistance that went hand in hand with the creation of knowledge about the nations designated as ‘underdeveloped’. An offshoot of this knowledge management project — conducted through a panoply of surveys, studies and theoretical models — was the discipline of development economics.

Development theorists such as Arturo Escobar, Wolfgang Sachs and Majid Rahnema have written about how the discourse of development economics functioned as a ‘regime of representation’ that not only objectified human lives — reducing human experience to a single metric, say, land ownership, or calories consumed — but also reconfigured two-thirds of the world’s population as stricken by ‘poverty’. The treatment, to be administered by the IMF and the World Bank, was ‘development’.

Rather than curing the disease, the treatment destroyed the immune system further. As Escobar observed in his classic Encountering Development, “instead of the kingdom of abundance…, the strategy of development produced its opposite: massive underdevelopment and impoverishment, untold exploitation and oppression.”

It is a testament to the sophisticated lure of the development discourse that even today, after six decades of repeated failures, its hold over the social imagination remains as powerful as ever.

Coming back to evidence-based policy-making, the SECC data is ample evidence, if any was needed, that 67 years of ‘development’ have failed to eliminate deprivation in India.

Yet the critical interrogation occasioned by this evidence is never extended to the doxa that the poor are people

lacking in essential economic goods that can only be accessed when they embrace the market, increase productivity,

and improve incomes. On the one hand, industry-led growth — with its concomitants of displacement, dispossession, and proletarianisation

of the peasantry — severs people from access to land, water, and other communal resources, creating a constellation of deprivations.

On the other, these very deprivations serve as the reason for a tighter embrace of the market economy. For instance, there is no axiomatic or natural reason why poverty needs to be defined by measures of income or

consumption. It could also be defined in terms of a people’s political agency — how much control they exercise over the factors that

determine their life chances, which may or may not be linked to a money economy. But defining poverty in terms of income limits solutions to those that can raise income — development via economic

growth. Alternative vision: Economic thinking has saturated our common sense to such an extent that it has become almost impossible for us to imagine that there might be an alternative vision of social change that has nothing to do with an economistic agenda of progress.

What if, say, a people’s culture dictates that they produce only for need and not for accumulation? Does the developmental paradigm allow for such a cultural choice?

Developmental discourses, both the Keynesian-inspired one mandating state intervention, as well as the currently dominant neo-liberal school, are united by a common vision of the poor as entities in need of assistance.

What if it’s not the poor but the archangels of development who need help? It’s a deal

All the brinkmanship notwithstanding, a Grexit was not really an option for Greece or the European Union. A forced exit or pullout would have weakened the eurozone leaders’ political will and commitment to keep the union intact in the days and years to come — after all, any system is only as strong as its weakest link.

An exit might have prompted Italy, Portugal or Spain at some point in the future to consider a similar option, jeopardising the idea of

a united and economically stable Europe. After 17 hours of marathon talks, therefore, when the European Council announced that a unanimous agreement had been reached

— indicating that a third bailout for Greece is “ready to go” under the European Stability Mechanism — it raised hopes that Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will now convince his radical Left party to come to terms with some serious reforms. These must

include a restructuring of the country’s pension system and an across-the-board increase in sales tax. While it is true that throwing in the towel in times of distress sets a bad example for others and Greece must mend its ways, it is also

incumbent on the creditors or lenders to hold back from inflicting humiliation on a sovereign borrower. This is perhaps what pushed Yanis Varoufakis, a game theorist, and Tsipras to force a referendum on the nation. Initial surveys

suggested the people would vote against an exit, but a “no” vote eventually helped the Left government convey the mood of the nation to creditors and extract a better deal.

If the European Council had not budged, it is certain Greece would have plunged into a dark tunnel with no immediate promise of light. Possibly, a devalued drachma would have been the currency again, with sterner spells of capital control inflicting a long-drawn

slowdown. But that was not to be. The finer details of the bailout are being thrashed out, but it looks certain that Greece will get more time to

repay the 3.5 billion euro due in a week. This itself helped Asian stocks rally and the euro to stabilise in morning trade. The stockmarket in India, which has limited or no exposure to Greece, also opened strong and the BSE Sensex gained 300 points to

close 1 per cent higher. What markets hate most is uncertainty. At a time when there is a scramble for any positive information pointing to some greenshoots of a global recovery, any indication of

stability is lapped up by the developed world and emerging economic alike. A Grexit would have affected India’s exports, which are already down 17 per cent in the first two months of this financial year. Exports may not jump now, but brighter prospects will perk

up the economies in a World becoming more and more interlinked.

1 Weekly News and Analysis Byju’s Classes-9873643487 2015CA_015,016,017,018,019,020,021,022

WEEKLY NEWS AND ANALYSIS FROM 15TH TO 22ND JULY, 2015

INTERNATIONAL NEWS Iran reaches historic nuclear deal

Major Powers clinched a historic deal aimed at ensuring Iran does not obtain the nuclear bomb, opening up Tehran’s

stricken economy and potentially ending decades of bad blood with the West.

Reached on day 18 of marathon talks in Vienna, the accord is aimed at resolving a 13-year standoff over Iran’s

nuclear ambitions after repeated diplomatic failures and threats of military action.

It was hailed by Iran, the U.S., the European Union and others but branded a “historic mistake” by the Islamic

republic’s arch-foe Israel.

The deal puts strict limits on Iran’s nuclear activities for at least a decade and calls for stringent U.N. oversight, with world powers hoping this will make any dash to make an atomic bomb virtually impossible.

In return, Iran will get sanctions relief although the

measures can “snap back” into place if there are any

violations.

The international arms embargo against Iran will remain for

five years but deliveries would be possible with special permission of the U.N. Security Council, Moscow said.

Tehran has accepted allowing the U.N. atomic watchdog

tightly-controlled “managed access” to military bases, an Iranian official said.

Tehran will slash by around two-thirds the number of centrifuges from around 19,000 to 6,104, an Iranian “fact

sheet” confirmed.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif acknowledged that the agreement was “not perfect for anybody” but described it as “an important achievement.”

Painful international sanctions that have slashed the oil exports of OPEC’s fifth-largest producer by a quarter and

choked its economy will be lifted and billions of dollars in frozen assets unblocked.

The deal — which was built on a framework first hammered out in April — is President Barack Obama’s crowning

foreign policy achievement six years after he told Iran’s leaders that if they “unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us.”

It is also the fruit of Mr. Rouhani’s attempts since his election in 2013 to end Iran’s isolation 35 years after the Islamic

revolution.

The agreement may lead to more cooperation between Tehran and Washington at a particularly explosive time in the Middle East with the emergence last year of the Islamic State group.

‘It ends manufactured crises

A deal with world powers ended a “manufactured crisis” over Iran’s nuclear programme, its Foreign Minister said after

negotiating the accord which drew furious objections from U.S. lawmakers.

In return for curbs on its nuclear programme for at least 10 years, Iran will be freed from Western and U.N. sanctions

that have crippled its economy.

Mr. Obama was to hold a press conference later to try to convince Americans of the benefits of an agreement which has drawn opposition from U.S. allies in the region, including Israel as well as Saudi Arabia.

China eyes Silk Road projects with Iran

Buoyed by the historic nuclear deal reached between world powers and Iran, China is eyeing big openings for trade

and the ambitious Silk Road projects with the Islamic Republic as the economic sanctions are set to go.

Experts said the reopening of the Iranian market would increase competition between China and the West.

China, however, has an advantage of having a rich knowledge of the Iranian market and huge foreign-exchange

reserves for investments.

“In the long run, the focus will of course be on the development of Iran’s infrastructure and oil and gas sector,” said Shada Islam, policy director of the Brussels-based think tank Friends of Europe.

Khamenei: Iran policy towards U.S. will not change at all

Iranian opposition to the "arrogant" United States will not change despite a nuclear deal with world powers, Supreme

Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said.

In an address marking the end of Ramadan, Mr. Khamenei said he wanted politicians to examine the agreement to

ensure national interests were preserved, as Iran would not allow the disruption of its revolutionary principles or defensive abilities.

"Whether the (nuclear) deal is approved or disapproved, we will never stop supporting our friends in the region and

the people of Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Lebanon. Even after this deal our policy towards the arrogant U.S. will not change," he said.

" We had a fatwa (religious ruling), declaring nuclear weapons to be religiously forbidden under Islamic law. It had

nothing to do with the nuclear talks."


The U.S. President said “Without the accord, the U.S. would risk another war in the most volatile region in the world.

This deal actually pushes Iran further away from a bomb. Repercussions would be swift if Iran did not stick to the agreement.”

U.N. endorses Iran nuclear agreement

The U.N. Security Council (UNSC) unanimously adopted a resolution that endorses the historic deal on Iran’s nuclear

programme and clears a path for international sanctions crippling its economy to be lifted.

The passing of the resolution marks formal U.N. endorsement for the hard-won, groundbreaking agreement reached between Iran and the so-called P5+1 group after 18 straight days of talks that capped almost two years of momentous negotiations.

On condition that Iran respects the agreement to the letter, seven U.N. resolutions passed since 2006 to sanction Iran

will be gradually terminated, according to the text.

Iran promises preferential treatment to Indian investors

After sanctions are lifted, Iran is willing to give Indian businesses preferential treatment, says Iran’s Ambassador to

India Gholamreza Ansari.

Mr. Ansari said “Sanctions was a very serious issue, and no one could get around them. But even in those very hard

and difficult situations, India was very cooperative. We know they are a developing country and they have their own interests, so they were as helpful as they could be to Iran in such circumstances.”

While the Indian government built trade relations of more than $14 billion with Iran, the actual trade done and oil imports had begun to flag by 2013-2014 under pressure from the U.S.

As a result, progress on other bilateral initiatives, like the development of the Chabahar port project in which an MoU was first signed in 2002, had also slowed, even as China offered bigger investments for the port as well as oil development projects to the tune of $50 billion.

India’s bid for the Farzad B oilfields have also run into trouble recently over delay issues.

According to Mr. Ansari, recent steps by India to sign an MoU on Chabahar was a welcome step for the whole region, and Prime Minister Modi and President Rouhani discussed several “big projects” on connectivity when they met at the Ufa summit this month.

‘World headed for a generation free of AIDS’

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the world was headed for a “generation free of AIDS”, after UNAIDS reported a 35-per cent drop in new HIV infections from 15 years ago.

The positive news was also coupled with calls for more funding, with the objective of eliminating the virus by 2030.

The United Nations also warned that continuing stigmatisation of sex workers, drug users and homosexuals were

barriers to progress.

According to the UNAIDS report released in Geneva, there have been remarkable strides since the advent in 1996 of anti-retroviral drugs, which suppress the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Though not a cure, the therapy creates a virtuous circle. The less the virus is in circulation, the less likely it is that people become infected.

Although new HIV infections declined to two million in 2014 against 3.1 million 14 years ago and the number of new

infections has noticeably decreased or remained stagnant, UNAIDS warned spending had plateaued.

There are currently 36.9 million people living with HIV. Around March this year, 15 million of them were accessing

anti-retroviral therapy.

Greek lawmakers pass austerity bill despite dissent

Greek lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to approve the austerity bill demanded by bailout creditors, despite significant

dissent from members of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ own left-wing party.

The bill, which imposes sweeping tax hikes and spending cuts, fuelled anger in the governing Syriza party and led to a revolt against Mr. Tsipras, who has insisted the deal forged after a marathon weekend eurozone summit was the best he could do to prevent Greece from catastrophically crashing out of the euro, Europe’s joint currency.

The post-midnight vote might not pose an immediate threat to Mr. Tsipras’ government, but it raised more doubts

over whether it could implement the new austerity program demanded by rescue lenders.

The vote came after an anti-austerity demonstration by about 12,000 protesters outside Parliament degenerated into

violence as the debate was getting underway.

Dissenters argued that Greeks could not face any further cuts after six years of recession that saw poverty and

unemployment skyrocket and wiped out a quarter of the country’s economy.

Mr. Tsipras has acknowledged the agreement reached with creditors was far from what he wanted and trampled on his pre-election promises of repealing austerity, but insisted the alternative would have been far worse for the country.

With its banks dangerously low on liquidity and the State practically out of cash, Greece desperately needs funds. It

faces a deadline to repay 4.2 billion euros ($4.6 billion) to the European Central Bank, and is also in arrears on 2 billion euros to the IMF.

The European Commission has proposed giving Greece 7 billion euros in loans from a special fund overseen by all 28

EU nations so it can meet its upcoming debts. The loan would be made pending the start of a full bailout program, but faces resistance from Britain, a non-euro member of the EU.

Japan passes security bills despite stiff opposition

Controversial security bills that opponents say will undermine 70 years of pacifism and could see Japanese troops

fighting abroad for the first time since World War-II passed through the powerful lower house of Parliament.

The vote marks a victory for nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other right-wingers, who have ignored popular

anger in a bid to break what they see as the shackles of the U.S.-imposed Constitution.


Mr. Abe’s ruling coalition was left alone to vote after all main Opposition parties walked out of the chamber in protest,

a move intended to reflect widespread public fury over the legislation.

The bills — a hotchpotch of updates to existing provisions that will allow, amongst other things, Japan’s military to take part in non-United Nations peacekeeping missions — now go to the upper chamber.

‘Rights situation better in Sri Lanka’

The human rights situation in Sri Lanka has “improved” and the democratic space has “opened up” since President Maithripala Sirisena took office in January this year, according to a report released by U.K. government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The bi-annual report on human rights and democracy says a number of “positive steps” were taken to address human

rights and democracy concerns, including establishing new institutions and undertaking legal reforms, but points out that several challenges remain, including “high levels of militarisation”.

The report has referred to invitation given to exiled journalists to return to Sri Lanka and lifting of travel bans on

foreign nationals visiting the North.

The document recalled how a special Declaration of Peace, read out during the 67th Independence Day celebration in

February, pledged the adoption of “consensual approaches” to advance “national interest, national reconciliation, justice and equality for all citizens.”

It also referred to the announcement of reopening of investigations into several high-profile murders, including killing of parliamentarians and journalists and the withdrawal of “unofficial ban” on the rendering of the national anthem in Tamil.

Challenges: As for the challenges, the U.K. report noted that there existed concerns which pertained to “military involvement” in civilian life’ in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, the continued occupation of land by the armed forces and women’s security. There were also reports of “journalists being intimidated.”

More land to be released in Sri Lanka’s North

The government is in the process of identifying and releasing more private land from the High Security Zones in the

Northern Province, according to a top official of the Defence Ministry.

The official said that surveyors and other field officials are also being involved in the process to ascertain the veracity

of claims and spot the owners concerned.

It is learnt that over 5,000 acres are still with the security forces.

According to the website of the Resettlement Ministry, as on April 30, there were still 13,480 families coming under the category of internally displaced persons (IDP), who have not yet been resettled. Since 2009, about 6,200 acres of private land has been released.

The official said the government has also decided to provide monetary compensation based on market value of land to

legitimate owners in case the authorities are not in a position to return it. Or, the owners would be offered alternative pieces of land.

10 yrs of Indo-US civil nuclear deal: Transformation of the bilateral relationship is the real big deal

Exactly a decade after India and America signed the historic civil nuclear initiative, Delhi has not bought a single US

atomic power reactor.

That fact alone has given much ammunition to sceptics in India and America, who have long argued that the benefits

of the nuclear deal were oversold in both countries.

The factoid on reactor sales, however, obscures the broader political objectives of the civil nuclear initiative and its

significant impact on India’s international relations as well as its nuclear programme.

The real objective of the initiative was to end decades of alienation between the world’s largest democracies and build a genuine strategic partnership.

Delhi and Washington knew that there could be no real partnership without resolving differences on non-proliferation

that had so severely poisoned the bilateral relations from the early 1970s.

If India’s nuclear test in May 1974 angered America and invited ever expanding atomic sanctions on India, Prime

Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee seemed to queer the pitch once again when he conducted five nuclear tests in May 1998.

Vajpayee, however, surprised Washington by coupling his nuclear defiance with the declaration that India and

America were “natural allies”.

Vajpayee’s vision for restructuring India’s relations with America and the advent of the Bush Administration in Washington in January 2001 provided the basis for exploring a new approach to the nuclear dispute.

Manmohan Singh, who succeeded Vajpayee in May 2004, seemed to share his predecessor’s passion for reinventing

the American partnership.

Intense negotiations before and during Dr Singh’s visit to the US in July 2005 produced the long-awaited nuclear

breakthrough.

The essence of the deal was simple: the United States would give up trying to roll back India’s nuclear weapons

programme and change its domestic law and tweak international rules to facilitate civil nuclear cooperation with Delhi.

India, on its part, would separate its civilian and military nuclear programmes, put the former under international safeguards, and support the global non-proliferation regime.

This bold political deal inevitably produced a backlash in both countries.

In America there was strong opposition to making an exception for India from the sacred rules of the non-proliferation

regime.


In Delhi, the opposition was even more intense. The deep suspicion of America, accumulated over many decades,

meant that many in the national security establishment and the political class were wary of the deal.

If the nuclear initiative was about removing the main problem in bilateral relations, it also became the lightning rod for a vigorous expression of India’s scepticism about America’s intentions.

No foreign policy issue had generated so much heat since the war with China in 1962.

The withdrawal of the left from the ruling coalition was followed by Dr Singh seeking a confidence vote in the Lok

Sabha in 2008 that just about squeaked through.

It took President Barack Obama’s visit to India in January 2015 to resolve many of the outstanding issues in

implementing the deal.

Although the full potential of the civil nuclear initiative is yet to be realised, there is no denying the broader transformation of the bilateral relationship over the last decade.

Consider the following five developments over the last decade: o One, the US has removed many high technology sanctions imposed on India since 1974. If Delhi was

prevented by law from importing anything for its nuclear programme over the last few decades, it is boosting atomic power generation in India through imported uranium and is negotiating with multiple vendors for purchase of new reactors.

o Two, the US has become India’s largest trading partner in goods and services; and the two sides have set an ambitious goal of half a trillion dollars for future trade. The growing commercial engagement has been reinforced by an intensification of people-to-people contact and the presence of the 3 million strong Indian

diaspora in America. o Three, cooperation on counter-terrorism and intelligence-sharing have expanded rapidly over the last decade.

The US has become one of India’s major suppliers of arms, and the two sides are discussing ideas that would once have been dismissed as inconceivable — for example, US support in the development of India’s next generation aircraft carrier.

o Four, in refusing to extend the civil nuclear initiative to Islamabad, Washington removed the hyphen in its relations with Delhi and Islamabad. Since 2005, America has also discarded the idea of mediating between India and Pakistan, especially on the Kashmir question. Equally significant has been America’s decision to view India as a potential great power in the same league as China, assist in the expansion of India’s comprehensive national power, and encourage Delhi to play a larger role in stabilising the Asian balance of power.

o Five, while traditional differences between Delhi and Washington on global issues have endured, the two sides are now avoiding confrontation in multilateral fora dealing with trade and climate change.

None of these developments would have been possible without the civil nuclear initiative that generated greater trust

and provided the enabling environment for broadening the partnership.

As India reflects on the decade of transformation in its relations with the US, it must also wonder how Delhi made such heavy weather of an agreement so patently in India’s favour.

There is no denying that political ambivalence and self-doubt in Delhi tended to slow down the pace and intensity of India’s engagement with America over the last decade.

The Narendra Modi government has signalled greater self-confidence and pragmatism towards America than the UPA

government and the BJP in opposition over the last decade.

While there will be no dearth of sceptics at home and no shortage of political wrinkles to be ironed out between the

two countries, the next decade in India’s partnership with America could turn out to be a lot more consequential than the previous one.

Pranab, Modi to visit Israel

With a string of high profile visits planned to Israel in the next one year, the NDA government is confirming its desire

to build a new equation with the country that relatively few Indian dignitaries have visited in the past.

Pranab Mukherjee will travel to Israel in mid-October, and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in the next few months.

President Mukherjee will travel to Palestine and Jordan as well during the visit, officials confirmed.

The Israeli government, keen to pursue cooperation on water technology, particularly projects on the Ganga, has

invited Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu to its international conference and exhibition “WATEC”

scheduled for mid-October.

The visits of the President, Prime Minister and the other ministers mark a considerable shift from the past, when

despite a historic trip by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2003 and subsequent visits by senior members of the Israeli cabinet, Indian leaders, with the exception of Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna in 2012, have avoided making the visit out of concern for Palestinian sensibilities and those of other West Asian countries.

New Development Bank of BRICS opens in Shanghai

The Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) grouping has formally opened the New Development Bank (NDB)

as a dedicated channel of alternate finance, which will focus on emerging economies and the Global South.

Top officials of the new bank stressed that the NDB would not rival but complement the western backed International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, born out of the Bretton Woods Conference of the forties.

However, the emergence of the NDB and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) — a China-led initiative to

fund infrastructure in Asia — was hastened by the reluctance by the West, especially the United States, since 2010, to grant emerging economies a greater say within the IMF.


The IMF reforms “would have shifted more power to developing and emerging market economies; however, these

reforms have since stalled as a result of the US Congress’ failure to ratify the implementing legislation domestically,” notes an article in the Geneva-based International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development.

Rejecting the possibility of a rivalry between the two newly established banks, NDB’s first President Kundapur Vaman

Kamath stressed that after a meeting in Beijing with the AIIB, the NDB had decided to establish a “hotline” with the AIIB to forge closer ties between “new institutions coming together with a completely different approach”.

The AIIB and the complementary $ 40 billion Silk Road Fund are expected to fund some of projects along Beijing-proposed Belt and Road initiative, aimed at the integration of Eurasian economies.

The NDB will have an initial capital of US$50 billion, which will be raised to US$100 billion within two years.

China will pitch in $41 billion to the NDB — the highest within the BRICS group. Consequently, it will have a 39.5 per

cent share of voting rights.

Brazil, India and Russia will each pump in $18 billion, while South

NATIONAL NEWS India welcomes Iran deal, wary of implications

India “welcomed the successful conclusion of negotiations on the Iranian nuclear issue”, between Iran and the Europe 3+3 (US, Russia and China) and the UN atomic energy agency IAEA. New Delhi however, struck a note of caution to say it would “wait to see the text of the agreement.”

“India has always maintained that the issue should be resolved peacefully through dialogue by respecting Iran’s right

to peaceful uses of nuclear energy while upholding the international community’s strong interest in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme,” the MEA spokesperson said in response to questions shortly after the announcement in Vienna.

Experts say India has several reasons to be optimistic of the benefits of the Iran deal. To begin with, the

announcement of the breakthrough comes a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi returned from his visit to Central Asia and the BRICS/SCO summit, where he met with Iranian President Rouhani, and discussed furthering connectivity through Iran to Central Asia.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi has come back with a firm conviction in the opportunities that the opening of the

International North-South transport corridor (from India to Central Asia) will give,” a senior official said.

According to sources, Mr Modi and President Rouhani discussed several issues “in the full expectation of the nuclear

deal being announced”. “PM and President Rouhani had an excellent meeting recently on the sidelines of the SCO Summit in Ufa. Issues of energy cooperation and connectivity were discussed,” the MEA said.

Oil imports

Secondly, India has hopes of strengthening economic engagement with Iran which, despite good intentions and close

political ties, had ground to a halt over sanctions laid.

India and Iran have an annual bilateral trade of about $14 billion, with an extremely high balance of trade problem,

as India has been unable to pay Iran about $8.8 billion for oil due to sanctions, according to Commerce Ministry figures.

The government has also had to bow to U.S. and

international pressure on cutting its oil imports from Iran, and in March 2015 halted oil imports altogether for the first time in more than a decade in order to keep its international commitments.

Once sanctions are lifted, not only will oil imports from Iran

be regularised, they will be cheaper owing to Iran’s estimated added production of at least 500,000 barrels of oil per day (by next year).

Moreover, banking and insurance procedures with Iran will also ease and India’s current concerns over the lack of access to Afghanistan could also be resolved by the opening

of the route via Iran’s Chabahar port instead of Karachi.

N-arms race

However, senior officials and analysts remained concerned

about some of the other outcomes of the Iran deal, particularly in the strategic sphere.

To begin with, they say, the lifting of sanctions on Iran could see a backlash from rivals Saudi Arabia, that has hinted

in the past months that it would try and “match Iran’s nuclear capabilities” if the deal went through. Indian experts believe this could mean closer cooperation with Pakistan.

India will also have to balance its support for Iran with its mushrooming ties with Israel that has taken a very strong

position against the deal, with Premier Benjamin Netanyahu calling it a “mistake of historic proportions”.

“Iran’s entry into the regional system is bound to ruffle the Arab monarchies and Israel, but I believe the downside scenarios of a heightened arms race and a destabilized West Asia are highly exaggerated,” says King’s college scholar Zorawar Daulet Singh.

States want freedom to frame their own land acquisition laws

It was a government in retreat, as the Centre agreed to consider a demand from the States that they be allowed the

flexibility to frame their own laws for land acquisitions or continue to look for a consensus on The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Second Ordinance, 2015.


Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal stressed that land should not be acquired without the consent of owners,

that the Social Impact Assessment clause should apply to all acquisitions and takeover, whether for State or Central projects, should be left to State governments.

Controversial Bill on migrants goes

A special session of the Manipur Assembly withdrew the Manipur Regulation of Visitors, Tenants and Migrant

Workers Bill, 2015. This is the first time in the State a Bill passed by the House has been withdrawn.

The Bill was drafted and passed on March 16 after an agitation launched by the Joint Committee on Inner Line Permit System.

However, the Joint Committee was not satisfied with the Bill and started an agitation, demanding the withdrawal of

the Bill and the introduction of another one to safeguard the rights of the indigenous people.

On July 8, Sapam Robinhood, a student, was gunned down by the police. Protests have been taking place every day in

the State. Police crackdowns have failed to control the situation.

The Cabinet decided to withdraw the Bill.

The Chief Minister said another Bill would be introduced in three months.

Governor Syed Ahmed did not give his assent to the Bill, but reserved it for the consideration of the President.

Inner Line Permit: Why Manipur is on the boil again

For the past two weeks, the Imphal valley has been wracked by protests demanding the introduction, immediately, of

a Bill in the Assembly to implement the Inner Line Permit (ILP).

On July 15, the House withdrew the earlier Regulation of Visitors, Tenants and Migrant Workers Bill as demanded by

the protesters, and Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh promised to introduce the ILP Bill within three months.

The Inner Line Permit: The ILP is a special pass or permit that is required to enter the Northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram.

The system was introduced by the British to protect their commercial interests, particularly in oil and tea, and

continues now essentially as a mechanism to firewall the tribal peoples and their cultures from onslaughts by outsiders.

Before the Anglo-Manipur war of 1891, non-Manipuris needed permission from the cabinet of the independent

kingdom of Manipur to enter and exit the territories of the King.

The British introduced the ILP, which remained in force until 1950, when the Commissioner of Assam, in whose

jurisdiction Manipur fell, revoked it in the areas that went on to become, in 1972, the state of Manipur.

The first demand for restoration of the ILP in Manipur was made in Parliament in 1980, and on several ocassions subsequently.

In 2012, the demands turned violent, with repeated general strikes and continued agitation.

The current protests: The current phase of protests is being spearheaded by the Joint Committee on Inner Line

Permit System (JCILPS), an umbrella organisation of 30 civil bodies in Manipur, including all valley (that is, Meitei) student organisations.

The JCILPS has no political affiliation, and its volunteers are mostly students and student leaders.

It is primarily Meitei driven; Manipuri tribals have largely kept away from the agitation, which has been concentrated in the Imphal valley.

The protests escalated last week as the JCILPS demanded the withdrawal of the Regulation of Visitors, Tenants and

Migrant Workers’ Bill passed by the Assembly in March, and its replacement by an ILP Bill.

The earlier Bill The Regulation of Visitors, Tenants and Migrant Workers’ Bill made it mandatory for non-Manipuris to

register themselves with the government for reasons of “their safety and security and for the maintenance of public order” upon entering the state.

The Bill fulfilled a longstanding demand from powerful groups in the state, but failed to satisfy the hardliners. The Bill

proposed to set up visitor registration centres in the state.

Owners of “transit units” — hotels, motels, inns, lodges, guesthouses, private stay lodges and individual

accommodations let out to visitors — were to register with a Director for Registration of Visitors and Tenants, and submit details of visitors along with identity documents to the government.

Contractors hiring labour from outside Manipur were to follow similar rules, and the government was to issue permits to migrant workers.

The Bill proposed to punish non-compliance with fines, the largest of which was Rs 50,000.

Manipur’s population grew at 12.80% during 1941-51, but jumped to 35.04% and 37.56% during 1951-61 and 1961-

71 respectively after the permit system was abolished.

The protesters claim that foreigners from Bangladesh, Nepal and Burma have been entering the state freely, settling in

both hill and valley areas, and buying property in the Imphal valley.

The JCILPS’s main grouse against the visitors’ registration Bill — now withdrawn by the government — was that it had neglected to take steps to protect land in the valley.

The JCILPS had recommended that the Manipur Land Revenue and Reforms Act, 1960, should be amended to restrict

the transfer or sale of land to non-residents — on the lines of the Himachal Pradesh Tenancy and Land Reforms Act, 1972. But this recommendation was not incorporated in the Bill.

Manipur’s dilemma:

The dilemma of the Indian state over the ILP is understandable.

Can the Union afford to introduce a quasi-visa to its citizens to enter one State from another State?

The question could be complex for a central party that advocates the removal of all speed-breakers when it comes to citizens’ access to travel and work in her own country.


The dilemma of Manipur is perhaps even more severe. The 2001 Census indicated the size of the migrant community

was nearly as much as that of the dominant ethnic Meiteis, thus bolstering the demand from Manipur’s erudite civil society to impose curbs on inward movement.

But there has also been out-migration of the indigenous people.

The demand is sought to be substantiated by citing many examples that indicate how Manipuris are losing land to “extractive” non-Manipuri industries. The leasing out of “one-sixth of the total area” of Manipur for oil exploration and drilling to international oil majors, unthinkable in the other States, is one of many such examples.

In this backdrop, a half-baked Bill was passed, that exacerbated the insecurity.

The demand, though, is more legitimately a consequence of the hill-valley divide in the State and the congestion in the

valley rather than any huge influx of outsiders. The situation is thus complex but not out-of-control.

But the State should ensure that alien-investor-driven development does not disrobe its people.

After all, they are supposed to benefit from the growth generated out of its own domestic resources.

India can be world’s HR capital: PM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi pitched for making India a ‘human resource capital’ of the world like China has become

a ‘manufacturing factory’ as he launched a number of schemes to train 40 crore people in various skills by 2022 as part of “war against poverty.”

India has the potential to provide a workforce of about 4-5 crore to the world if the capabilities of the countrymen are

honed through proper and dynamic skill training, he said, adding the government is focussed on this aspect.

Observing that there are several developed nations which have wealth but not human resource, he said India, in the

near future, would be the only country that can cater to this requirement if proper skills are developed here.

The ambitious schemes launched by him were National Skill Development Mission, the National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship 2015, Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana and Skill Loan scheme on World Youth Skill Day.

Under the Skill Loan scheme, credit ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs. 1.5 lakh will be given to 34 lakh youth over five

years.

He said while the Indian IITs made a name for themselves globally in the last century, it is the turn of ITIs (Industrial

Training Institutes) to do the same this century.

90% of enclave dwellers give choice of nation

India and Bangladesh will complete a survey asking each of the 51,000 people living in 162 enclaves on the border to

give their choice of citizenship of either nation.

The survey precedes the exchange of the enclaves between the two nations under the Land Boundary Agreement signed during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Dhaka a month ago.

The survey teams comprise officials of the External Affairs and Home Ministries and the West Bengal government.

Officials refused to comment on the survey results, but a non-governmental organisation working in Cooch Behar in

West Bengal and on the Bangladeshi side told that while most Bangladeshi nationals on the Indian side wanted to remain in India, the decision of Indians on the Bangladeshi side would depend on the compensation offered for their lands.

Officials said clarity over compensation was only one of the problems.

With many enclave residents said land mafia groups were pressuring them to sell their land and move, the two

governments put a stop to land sales between June 22 and July 30.

One rank one pension: The arguments for and against

OROP — or One Rank, One Pension — means that every pension-eligible soldier retiring in a particular rank gets the same pension, irrespective of his date of retirement.

As of now, soldiers who retired more recently receive more pension than those who retired earlier.

This is because pensions are dependent on the last salary drawn, and successive pay commissions have raised

salaries.

Thus, a Colonel who retired after the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations were accepted in 2006, gets more than

a Colonel who retired when his salary was computed on the basis of the recommendations of the Third Pay Commission.

FOR OROP

Compensation for early retirement, and a national obligation.

The nation needs a young Army, necessitating early recruitments and retirements.

Soldiers have short careers — a jawan retires at age 35, while a civilian can work until he is 60. To make up for their

shorter working lives, without lateral absorption into another government job of the same grade and status, veterans need compensation that is comparable to what a soldier of the same rank retiring today would get from the government.

A curtailed career results in denial of longer service at higher pay and, therefore, higher pension.

Soldiers are denied the opportunity to earn more increments and promotions, as well as the benefits offered by more recent pay commissions, which significantly affects their pensions.

OROP can address all of this.

There is also the emotional argument. Defence forces personnel give up their best years to the service of the nation

and society, suffering hardships of military life — and, at the end of their service, face limited opportunities for re-employment. Their terminal benefits bear no resemblance to the realities of life in the civilian world. A nation cannot allow its soldiers to feel that it does not care for them.

OROP is essentially an obligation of the Indian nation towards its soldiers — and the price it must pay for maintaining

a standing Army.


OROP would send a strong

emotional signal to soldiers and veterans.

AGAINST OROP:

Administrative nightmare, an unbearable financial burden.

The arguments against

OROP are based on administrative, financial and legal complications in implementing the scheme.

In 2011, the Defence

Ministry told the Koshiyari Committee that records going back further than 25 years were no longer available — a major administrative “difficulty in

introducing the concept”.

There are cases where

soldiers who retired in the 1940s are still being paid family pensions, and it will be administratively impossible to reconcile the nearly 20 lakh cases over such a long period for OROP over any reasonable timeframe.

The Law Ministry told the

committee that “if today’s pension and emoluments are passed automatically to somebody who retired 30 years ago, there will be inherent discrimination against terms and conditions of service which would lead to discrimination under the Constitution”.

A related aspect: people who

retire in the same rank often earn different pensions because they may have served for longer periods in that rank.

A Colonel who serves for 12 years in that rank will earn more pension than someone who served for 4 years as Colonel. Equating their pensions was unlikely to withstand a legal challenge.

The financial argument is about

the long-term cost of implementing OROP. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar’s estimate of Rs 8,300 crore is only a one-time payout. This

amount will increase substantially every time a new pay commission makes its

recommendations, with all old pensioners being paid at the new rate.

There is also the likelihood of civilian employees, such as the Central Armed Police Forces and the state police forces, raising the demand for OROP.

Finally, there are fears that

civilian employees who moved to a contributory pension scheme in 2004 might demand a reversion to fixed pensions,


thus unravelling the whole system. That, perhaps, is the strongest argument against setting a precedent with OROP.

Centre’s green signal for six-laning of EPE

The Central government cleared a Rs. 7,558-crore proposal for six-laning of the Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE)

in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

The move is likely to substantially reduce traffic in Delhi.

The estimated cost of Rs. 7,558 crore includes Rs 1,795.2 crore for land acquisition, resettlement and rehabilitation and other pre-construction activities. The total length of the road will be around 135 km, according to the statement.

Conceived in 2004, following directions from the Supreme Court, the EPE, along with 135-km-long Western Peripheral

Expressway (WPE), will provide a Ring Road around Delhi that will ensure that around 80,000 vehicles – diesel-run commercial vehicles as well private cars – which are not destined for Delhi and are a major source of air pollution, do not enter the Capital.

The project was initially pegged at Rs 2,676 crore and had to be built on public-private-partnership model.

Sources said the “high cost” of the project kept potential infrastructure companies away.

The project was to be completed before the Commonwealth Games in 2010, but it never took off.

The EPE included construction of an access-controlled six-lane expressway between Faridabad and Sonepat via Noida

and Ghaziabad.

DoT’s Net neutrality panel offers a mixed bag

The government panel on Net neutrality has recommended that apps offering domestic calling be brought under the

regulatory framework prescribed for telecom operators, but those providing messaging and international calling

services over the Internet be kept free from licensing requirements.

The report suggests that controversial plans such as Airtel Zero be allowed with prior clearance from the Telecom

Regulatory Authority of India, but opposes platforms such as Internet.org of Facebook.

Airtel Zero and Internet.org are similar as they offer customers a specific set of services or applications that are free to use without paying data charges.

But on Internet.org, the committee says it is of the “firm opinion that content and application providers cannot be

permitted to act as gatekeepers and use network operations to extract value, even if it is for an ostensible public purpose”.

The report says over-the-top applications (such as e-commerce, radio taxis and YouTube), which use the Internet to

deliver services, enhance consumer welfare and increase productivity.

Net neutrality, basically, is the principle that service providers should treat all data on the Internet equally and not

discriminate against, or charge differently, any website or service.

Globally, the debate has been on for a long time, but in India, Airtel triggered it last December by announcing plans to

start charging subscribers for VoIP services such as Skype and Viber, which allows making calls using the Internet. While cellphone users came out against the move, telecom operators called for a level-playing field to run a “viable” business and demanded that same rule apply for same services, even VoIP.

In case of applications that offer communication services (messaging and calling), the report says there exists a “regulatory arbitrage” wherein OTT services bypass the existing licensing and regulatory regime, creating a non-level-playing field.

Explained

What is the big take away from the DoT committee report on Net Neutrality?

The Department of Telecommunications’ (DoT’s) Net Neutrality report says “the core principles of Net Neutrality must

be adhered to”, and that user rights on the Internet need to be protected — so that service providers are not able to restrict their ability to access any service on the Internet.

What does it say on the continuing use of OTT messaging services such as WhatsApp and Skype?

It rejects the demand for regulation of over-the-top (OTT) messaging services. But the panel is okay with subjecting VoIP calls within the country to regulation — and calls for a liberal approach on OTT VoIP international call services.

What is unclear is how the government will make the distinction between VoIP OTTs and Messaging OTTs, as these two

spheres are the same now.

The committee has said that while messaging on an OTT service like WhatsApp should not regulated, if the same app

also offers voice-calling services, they should be subject to regulations that are already in place for TSPs/ISPs.

So does this mean TSPs/ISPs have no choice but to continue to allow these OTT messaging services?

Service providers cannot regulate messaging services as per the recommendations.

What about zero-rating platforms like Facebook’s Internet.org and Airtel Zero?

The committee says that “content and application providers cannot be permitted to act as gatekeepers” and go against

the principles of Net Neutrality. It also notes that very often the content market sees the rise of a leader, and that if these end up directing users to “specific content”, it amounts to a violation of Net Neutrality.

What does the panel say on traffic management practices by TSPs or ISPs?

While the report is in favour of “legitimate traffic management practices”, it says that TSPs/ISPs must make adequate disclosures to users about their traffic management policies. Additionally, traffic management that is “exploitative or anti-competitive” should not be allowed. Essentially, if a TSP starts, say, a video-streaming or music service, it cannot

slow down the speed of a competing service of a similar nature on its networks

What about tariff plans? Can TSPs/ISPs offer lucrative tariff plans in return for claiming for themselves the right to gatekeep the content you access?

No. The panel says tariff plans offered by TSPs/ISPs must conform to the principles of Net Neutrality, and TRAI will

have the power to examine these tariff plans. So a special tariff plan for WhatsApp or even Wikipedia which offers the service for free, could be seen to be in violation of the principle of Net Neutrality.


What does the committee say on search neutrality?

The committee has not made any recommendations on the issue, other than flagging this as a concern for public

policy.

Search neutrality demands that search engines not base their rankings on editorial decisions, and show results based on relevance.

What happens now?

These are recommendations of the panel, and finally TRAI will have to decide what to adopt. Even after that, the

regulations could face legal challenges from stakeholders.

Our report favours none, says Net neutrality panel

Facing criticism for its stance on Internet voice calling and zero rating platforms, the government panel on Net

neutrality clarified that its report neither favours any telecom services provider nor does it endorse any tariff plan.

In the report released, the committee left the fate of controversial plans like Airtel Zero on telecom regulator TRAI, while opposing similar projects like Facebook’s Internet.org.

The committee refrained from commenting on specific tariffs as they were subject to innovation and chances were that

a new plan with certain modifications be introduced under the same tariff name.

“Tariff plans are promoted by telecom operators, who are subject to regulatory oversight. Facebook, however, is out of

our regulatory oversight … So we had to mention it separately. We have laid down the principles of Net neutrality and any tariff plan will have to be tested against those principles. That will be ex ante determination by the regulator.”

Cabinet nod to redevelop 400 major railway stations

The Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the redevelopment of 400 major railway stations,

under a new method called the “Swiss Challenge,” a unique form of public procurement of ideas.

The Swiss Challenge requires a government agency to invite bids for a public project such as a port or railways,

publish the bid and invite third parties to match or exceed or improve the existing bid. Then the original bidder gets to lower the bid or accept the new bid.

“A1 and A category stations would be redeveloped under the method. An expert committee would supervise the bids. The Railways and Railway Board would take the proposal forward,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, said after the Cabinet meeting.

These stations are to be developed by leveraging real estate development of land and air space in and around the

stations, including permitting commercial development of real estate by the Zonal Railways, an official release said.

The Railways classify the 7000 stations into seven categories based on earnings. A-1 category includes non-suburban

stations with annual passenger earnings of Rs. 50 crore and above, while Category A comprises non-suburban stations with annual passenger earnings of between Rs. 6 crore and Rs. 50 crore.

Expert group set up to classify caste data collected by survey

Rejecting claims that it is withholding data from the Socio-Economic and Caste Census, 2011, the government set up

an expert group headed by NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya to classify the caste count before making it public.

The government has been criticised by various regional parties for not releasing data on Other Backward Classes

(OBCs) and upper classes from the caste census.

The SECC data released on July 3 is the first in eight decades after 1912.

It had been suggested that the government was withholding the data because it wanted to avoid a discussion on OBC

numbers and reservations ahead of the Bihar elections.

Once released, the caste census data will be crucial in streamlining reservation policy and determining which

communities needs more welfare.

Brushing aside these suggestions, however, Mr. Jaitley sought to put the blame on the States, arguing that they had

not sent the recommendations on caste consolidation despite being given ample time.

He said the caste census conducted by the Registrar General of India had come out with 46 lakh categories of caste, sub-caste, different surnames in the caste and clan names, which had been sent to the States eight to nine months back for clubbing them to consolidate the caste count.

SC judge seeks clarity on constitutional role of CJI

A Supreme Court judge has asked the government whether the Chief Justice is actually the ‘Chief Justice of India’ or

the ‘Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India’, triggering a debate.

The question came from Justice Kurian Joseph, one of the five judges on the Constitution Bench deciding the crucial

issue whether the political class, through the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC), should be given an equal role in the appointment of judges, including the Chief Justice of India.

The query, during the final NJAC hearing, stems from the inconsistency in the way the Constitution identifies the

Chief Justice in two different places.

In Schedule 3 of the Constitution, which deals with ‘Forms of Oath and Affirmations’, the Chief Justice takes oath as the ‘Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India’.

But under Article 124 of the Constitution, the President's Warrant of Appointment identifies him as the ‘Chief Justice

of India’.

The question quintessentially delves into the basic constitutional identity of the Chief Justice – is he the Chief Justice

of the institution of the Supreme Court of India and a 'first among equals' among the Supreme Court judges. Or, is he the Chief Justice of the Republic of India, representing the entire judiciary of the country?

Oath of office: Legal experts say the confusion lies in the fact that the Constitution does not provide a separate oath

for the Chief Justice as in the case of the President under Article 60 and the Vice-President in Article 69.

All judges in the Supreme Court take a common oath prescribed in Schedule 3 of the Constitution.


Kharif sowing of pulses, oilseeds picks up despite sluggish monsoon

Amidst growing concern over the sluggish progress of the southwest monsoon in parts of Maharashtra, Gujarat,

Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and north interior Karnataka, the government said sowing of kharif crops has improved over last year particularly in the cultivation of pulses and oilseeds.

A higher minimum support price with bonus seems to have made farmers grow more pulses. However, as sugarcane

arrears mount, the area under sugarcane has gone down with 44.80 lakh hectares sown so far as against 46.09 lakh hectares in the corresponding period last year.

The India Meteorological Department has said the monsoon has so far been six per cent lower than Long Period Average. Rainfall has been lower by 12 per cent in south peninsula, by 13 per cent in central India and by six per cent in east and northeast India.

Although the monsoon has covered the entire country, 11 sub-divisions remain deficient. About 39 per cent districts

(238) are deficient.

While this may not augur well for farmers who suffered rain and hail in the rabi season resulting in lower output of

foodgrains, the government released the statistics for cultivated area under kharif which is 62.6 per cent higher than last year.

As against 346.34 hectares sown in 2014-15, this year so far 563.35 lakh hectares has been cultivated with a sizeable

surge in the sowing of pulses, coarse cereals, oil seeds and cotton.

The sowing of pulses is higher at 55.99 lakh hectares against 23.92 lakh hectares in the corresponding period last year due to improved sowing in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.

The cultivation of coarse cereals is higher by 54.7 lakh hectares at 102.35 lakh hectares on account of higher sowing in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

Uttar Pradesh, T.N. roads the most unsafe, show NCRB data

Sixteen Indians were killed in road accidents every hour in 2014, a quarter of them on two-wheelers, and a majority of

them from speeding or reckless overtaking, new official data show.

Tamil Nadu, Chennai in particular, has high levels of road

fatalities.

The National Crime Records Bureau’s Accident Deaths and

Suicides in India report for 2014 was released late on 17th July, 2015.

The numbers show a slight increase in number of traffic accidents and a slight decline that of suicides.

Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu account for a

third of all traffic accident deaths.

Among cities, the maximum road accident fatalities took

place in Delhi, followed by Chennai, Bhopal and Jaipur.

More suicides in the south

The National Crime Records Bureau’s Accidental Deaths

and Suicides in India , shows that the number of suicides, which has been declining since 2011, decreased marginally to 1.3 lakh in 2014.

This amounts to a national suicide rate of 10.4 per 1 lakh

population, which would place India in the top third of global suicide rates.

Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal between them account for a third of all suicides. The southern states including Kerala and Tamil Nadu have twice the national suicide rate as a proportion of their populations.

This is the first time that the NCRB has collected detailed data on farmer suicides. In all, 12,360 people working in

agriculture committed suicide in 2014.

However, the NCRB’s definition of a farmer does not include agricultural labourers; as a result, 5650 of these were

classified as ‘farmer suicides’, nearly half of them in Maharashtra alone.

Officially, 40 per cent of these suicides were classified as being on account of “farming related issues” or indebtedness

and bankruptcy, 22 per cent were on account of “family problems” and 15 per cent attributed to illness.

Of all farmers who committed suicide, 45 per cent were classified as small farmers (one to two hectares) and 28 per cent were marginal farmers (with less than 1 hectare).

‘Suicides claim younger women’

Suicide is the top non-disease killer of women, taking over 42,000 female lives last year, although there has been a slight decline in the number of suicides among both men and women.

Illness and miscellaneous family problems are the stated causes for the largest number of female suicides, as they are

for men.

In 2014, 68 women were reported to have committed suicide on account of physical abuse or rape and 2,222 as a

result of dowry harassment.

Over half of the women who committed suicide last year were housewives.

Nearly 1,500 were farmers or agricultural labourers. Three-quarters were among the poorest class of Indians.


While women are most likely to commit suicide between the ages of 18 and 30, men are most likely to take their lives

between the age of 30 and 45.

In general, men outnumber women in all categories of unnatural deaths, except in the case of fire.

This can be attributed to a gender dynamic that is still skewed towards men spending more time outside the house

and at work, while women spend most of their time at home, say demographers.

Among natural calamities, lightning was the top killer of both men and women, taking over 2,500 lives last year alone.

GST: govt. firm on extra tax

Even as the long-pending Goods and Services Tax Bill is being examined by a parliamentary committee, the

government categorically said that it would not reconsider withdrawing the 1 per cent additional tax, over the GST, to help manufacturing States, a provision strongly opposed by the Congress and likely to feature in its dissent note to the panel.

State laws to dilute 2013 land Act may not be easy

The Centre’s proposed move to let the States take the lead in bringing legislation that will circumvent or dilute the

provisions of the 2013 Land Acquisition Act may not go through as smoothly as envisaged, experts said .

The Congress view is that the States cannot override the Central law enacted by the UPA government in 2013, while the Centre gave out the signal it could take that route.

“Acquisition and requisition of property is a subject in the Concurrent List of the Constitution. No State can enact a

law that dilutes the 2013 Act,” former Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said after the NITI Ayog consultations: “States don’t want to wait indefinitely

for the consensus … another [suggestion] was that we leave it to the States to frame legislation for land acquisition which the Centre can approve so that their development plans don’t get held up.”

Experts say neither repeated re-promulgation of The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land

Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Ordinance nor dilution of the 2013 Act will easily pass judicial scrutiny.

Senior lawyer Colin Gonsalves told “Repeated re-promulgation of an ordinance has been frowned upon by the Supreme Court. An ordinance is promulgated when there is an emergent need and Parliament is not in session. The

government can’t say because it could not get legislation passed it took the ordinance route.”

3 months for harassment probe

The sexual harassment complaint committees in government offices will first initiate a preliminary inquiry on receiving a complaint, collect documentary evidence and record witness statements, says an office memorandum issued by the Department of Personnel and Training.

If necessary, the committee will issue a charge sheet seeking a reply from the accused. The inquiry will have to be

completed within three months.

The committee will be involved in two stages: conducting investigations and undertaking proceedings as the inquiring

authority.

While the accused has been allowed to engage a defence assistant, the committee has been empowered to summon

and enforce attendance of any person for examination and seek production of documents.

Apart from a hearing on documentary evidence, there is a provision for the examination, cross-examination and re-examination of witnesses.

“If the complainant appears as a witness, she would also be examined and cross-examined. The inquiry officer may,

however, disallow any questions which are offensive, indecent or annoying to the witnesses, including the complainant,” the order says.

After the prosecution evidence is collected, the accused will be required to put forth his defence. It will be up to him to

decide whether he wishes to appear as his own witness.

On completion of inquiry, the committee can recommend grant of relief to the victim and deduction of an amount from

the salary of the accused to be paid to the complainant or her legal heirs.

“Recommendations of the committee shall not be published or communicated or made known to the public, press or the media in any manner,” the order says, but information on justice secured to the victim can be disseminated

without disclosing her particulars.

UPA set manufacturing job growth record

In what would seem to be a counter-intuitive finding, new research has shown that the years from 2003-04 to 2011-12, when the Manmohan Singh government had been in power in two terms since assuming office in 2004, had been the golden phase of manufacturing employment growth in Independent India.

Job generation in the manufacturing sector rose almost 7 per cent on an average year after year during the period, an

analysis by Pankaj Vashisht, researcher, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, has found.

From 1997-98 to 2003-04, employment in the organised manufacturing sector declined at an annual rate of 1.85 per

cent. Jobs growth recovered in 2003-04 and since then, during the Manmohan Singh years, it has been growing at an impressive rate of around 7 per cent a year, shows the analysis.

In the post-reform period, the analysis shows, overall employment grew but without any consistent trend.

Growth was respectable during the first half of the 1990s, when it grew at an annual rate of 2.91 per cent, turned negative in 1997-98 with the downturn becoming more pronounced on the removal of quantitative restrictions on the imports of consumer goods.

During the entire 22 years of the post-reform period, increase in labour productivity achieved with, among other

factors, the introduction of new technologies destroyed more than 11.8 million jobs.


Openness to trade led to creation of new jobs, but imports-induced jobs replacement was also pronounced. For

instance, the analysis also found that while Indian exports to China have created only 85,000 jobs, imports from the neighbour have replaced more than half a million jobs.

In the last 22 years, growth in exports has created more than 3.7 million jobs in Indian manufacturing.

The increase in import penetration, in this post-reform period, replaced around 1.4 million jobs.

In a first, China to participate in Indian International Fleet Review

China has confirmed its participation in the Indian International Fleet Review (IFR) in Visakhapatnam in February

2016. This is the first time the Chinese Navy will take part in the event.

“Their participation will be in terms of both ship and personnel,” a senior Navy official said.

The development comes at a time of growing competition between the two countries for strategic space in the Indian Ocean with the Chinese Navy’s increasing forays into the region.

Despite the growing maritime friction, both nations agreed on increasing bilateral naval cooperation during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to China.

While 90 nations have been invited, 10 of them landlocked countries, 46 have so far confirmed their participation.

The first IFR on the Mumbai coast in 2001 had 22 countries participating.

President Pranab Mukherjee, as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, will inspect the fleet review.

The fleet review will be the last one for India’s ageing aircraft carrier INS Viraat , which is to be decommissioned after

February.

A.P. plans to acquire INS Viraat

The Andhra Pradesh government has set in motion the formal process of acquiring the Centre’s clearance for

stationing INS Viraat, the last British ship serving the Indian Navy, once it is decommissioned in 2016.

The oldest aircraft carrier in the world is all set to take a new avatar as an important tourist attraction in the beach

off Visakhapatnam after its decommissioning. INS Viraat has been serving the Navy for the last 56 years.

“The aircraft carrier with a huge built-up space could be turned into a museum or a hotel or a mini-township at an

expenditure of around Rs. 200 crore in the Public-Private Partnership mode. If it is anchored in the sea, instead of the beach, tourists will be taken on boats to the warship,” official sources said.

INS Viraat, which was launched in 1953 and acquired by India and commissioned in 1987, is slated to get a grand farewell at the International Fleet Review in Visakhapatnam in February next year.

U.S., India to collaborate on second aircraft carrier

With the Navy formally initiating the process for the design and construction of a second indigenous aircraft carrier,

the India-U.S. collaboration on technologies for such platforms got a boost.

The Navy issued an expression of interest during early July to identify a domestic shipyard for the construction of the

carrier.

The decision comes as Nisha Biswal, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, just concluded her

two-day visit to take forward the strategic dialogue and prepare for the first India-U.S. Strategic and Commercial Dialogue in Washington in September.

India and the U.S. agreed to cooperate on aircraft carrier technologies as one of the six “pathfinder” projects during President Barack Obama’s visit to India in January.

Consequently, a working group was set up to explore the possibility of installing the electromagnetic aircraft launch

system (EMALS) technology under development by General Atomics on the Indigenous Aircraft Carrier-II.

Broadly, the Navy envisages the carrier to be of 65,000 tonnes with 50-plus aircraft.

50 suicides in 15 days

In the last fortnight alone, 50 farmers have committed suicide in Karnataka.

What is puzzling is that cases of farmer suicides had actually dropped over the last two years and have now suddenly begun to increase from mid-June onwards.

The suicides point to two things: first, a serious agrarian crisis shaped by an increase in cultivation costs and a

decline in agricultural income, which is pushing farmers into a debt trap; and second, the sociological pressures that farmers face because of the disparity between their income and those in urban areas.

Vivek Cariappa is an organic farmer from Mysuru. He talks of the insecurity among farmers because neither the State

nor institutional mechanisms have been able to address the crisis.

It is difficult to get crop loans, he says, but loans for consumption goods like cars, or personal loans for weddings and

festivals are easily available. It is the surest way to push farmers into debt.

The problem is also sociological: Farmers who aspire to the lifestyle of salaried persons end up taking loans,

sometimes at 60-80 per cent interest rates, and become prey to loan sharks.

For most farmers across the State, what were once considered luxury items such as cars have now become aspirational necessities.

Then, mono-cropping had been seen as a major cause for suicides.

Mr. Veeresh talks about how farmers had a tendency to focus on a single crop if it had seen commercial success. The

problem was, when it failed, they faced total collapse.

More than land holding crop planning is the bigger issue. Farmers must be educated to see the long-term benefits of

“multi crop-multi income” farming.

But this time around, the farmers who committed suicide don’t appear to have stayed with one crop. Yes, some sugarcane farmers have faced a major crisis after sugar factories, mostly owned by powerful politicians, defaulted on payments, but they have not accounted for the majority of suicides.


Another reason could be a glut in production. The State, despite having records of the area under sugarcane

cultivation and the crushing capacities of sugar mills, has turned a blind eye to excessive cultivation. This has kept prices low enough to benefit the sugar mills owned by politicians.

This glut is true for cotton, tobacco and other crops as well.

Excess production helps processing industries, as it ensures that the prices of raw materials stay low and they profit from it.

There is also “mass hysteria” when a farmer commits suicide, and it may result in others taking the same step.

Politics over farmer suicides and the wide publicity they get tend, in a way, to “glorify” suicides and worsen the

situation.

Meanwhile, the government has begun a crackdown on illegal moneylenders.

The problems are clearly multi-pronged. They have sociological, economic and agricultural dimensions. While it is true

that not all these deaths might be suicides but just presented as such so that families might claim compensation, the numbers are still alarming enough to warrant investigation.

And while each suicide may have been the result of multiple factors, including personal reasons, the big picture they

present is disturbing.

Maharashtra records most farmer suicides

With 2,568 farmers’ suicides during 2014, Maharashtra recorded the highest number in the country, though activists

pointed out that the number was far higher.

The data released by the National Crime Records Bureau also show that Chhattisgarh is among the top four States in

farmers’ suicides.

According to the NCRB, Maharashtra recorded 578 fewer suicides than 2013, when 3,146 farmers ended their lives.

Activists, however, criticised the NCRB for “manipulating” the data to paint a “rosy picture”.

“They [the NCRB] have deliberately divided the suicides under different heads. The report says 4,004 agriculture-

related suicides were recorded in Maharashtra during 2014 and then subtracts agricultural workers from the number and gives 2,568 as the total figure.

But even with 2,568, Maharashtra tops the country, and for the first time, the government has admitted that the

landless farmers are also dying,” said Kishor Tiwari, who runs Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, a farmers’ advocacy group.

“The total number of farmers’ suicides in Maharashtra should be 4,004, which is almost 1,000 more than the 2013 figure.”

According to the data, 443 farmers committed suicide in Chhattisgarh during 2014, making it the State with the

fourth highest number after Maharashtra, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh.

The State has rarely figured in the list of farm suicides earlier.

Experts bat for space law

Fifty years after it started the space programme and later entered the global market with products and satellite

launches, India does not have a space law to protect sovereign, public or commercial interests, legal and space industry experts expressed at a roundtable.

As global trends change fast, a clear and comprehensive law will also help a budding space industry to grow, speakers said at the discussions on “Commercialisation and privatisation of outer space: issues for national Space legislation.”

G. Madhavan Nair, former Chairman of ISRO and Space Commission, said a law was needed to ensure that space assets and applications are used for the right causes.

While ISRO early this year launched discussions on a law, space activities are currently guided by a handful of

international space agreements, the Constitution, national laws, the Satellite Communications (SatCom) Policy of 2000 and the revised Remote sensing policy or 2011.

K.R. Sridhara Murthi, former Managing Director of ISRO’s Antrix Corporation, said a national law should have

preceded ISRO’s international launch services as the country could face huge liabilities.

As a new set of entrepreneurs had emerged and government spending in the sector increased, the risk scenario was

also changing.

Stephan Hobe, Director, Institute of Air & Space Law, University of Cologne, Germany, said India is among the five countries that do not have a space law; while 15 others including the US, Russia, Japan, China, Kazakhstan and

Ukraine, have laws based broadly on the Outer Space Treaty of 1967.

The speakers suggested that the law include a regulator, registration and licence of private operators, compensation

for harm caused by space objects, insurance, investor disputes, and rescue of space tourists, environmental damage and handling of intellectual property issues.

In a first, DRDO transfers technology to private player

In a path-breaking decision, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has approved a proposal by the Defence Research and

Development Organisation (DRDO) for transfer of technology (ToT) for commercial production of its Lakshya pilotless target aircraft (PTA) to private sector defence manufacturer Larsen and Toubro (L&T).

The L&T will pay a royalty to DRDO for every Lakshya PTA produced and sold by it. Prospective customers for

Lakshya include foreign militaries, including those of Singapore, Malaysia and Israel.

L&T will have to take permission from the MoD while selling Lakshya abroad. This condition is part of the approval

granted by the Defence Procurement Board.

The Lakshya PTA is a reusable subsonic aerial target system developed by the Bangalore-based Aeronautical Development Establishment of DRDO, and was first inducted into the Indian Air Force in 2000. The Navy and Army acquired the Lakshya PTA in 2001 and 2003.


Lakshya ToT with L&T is the first instance of a critical defence technology being transferred to a private manufacturer

in India on royalty basis.

Before this, critical defence technologies were given to defence PSUs by nomination with little incentive to commercially produce and market them. Defence PSUs were transferred these technologies by DRDO free of cost

whereas private defence manufacturers will now pay a royalty for the ToT.

The DRDO has earlier transferred certain life sciences technology to private manufacturers for commercial production on royalty basis.

The most famous among them being the ready-to-eat food products commercially produced and sold by MTR Foods.

That technology was developed by DRDO’s Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL) laboratory at Mysore

According to sources in the DRDO, this new model of engagement will interest other private defence manufacturers to

bid for defence technologies developed by DRDO. It will also help DRDO pull back its resources from constant improvements to an existing platform.

Industry sources said that L&T and DRDO will work jointly to build a production model for Lakshya-2, by using the

basic Lakshya-2 design and making it production friendly.

Lakshya-2 is an advanced version of Lakshya, with more flight endurance, lower altitude flying and higher cruising speed.

The new ToT framework will provide all manufacturers, whether private or Defence PSU, an equal opportunity to

access defence technology on royalty basis. This will redress one of the major complaints of the local private defence manufacturing industry that it did not have a level playing field with Defence PSUs.

Exclusivity rights in ToT will, however, continue to reside with the government. This means that the rights will come

back to the government in case the private defence manufacturer, who has bought the ToT, shuts shop for any reason.

‘HCs reverse most trial court death sentences’

Of the 1790 death sentences handed down by trial courts across the country in the last 15 years, 1,512 were decided

by the High Courts, while the remaining were either awaiting decision or had been sent for retrials.

Uttar Pradesh alone accounted for a quarter of all death sentences, followed by Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka and

Punjab. However, proportionate to its population, Delhi handed out the most death sentences.

In over a quarter of these cases, the High Courts acquitted persons who had been not just convicted, but also given death sentences by the trial courts. Another half of all cases resulted in commutations.

In all, less then 15 per cent of cases were confirmed by the High Courts.

Bihar had the highest rate of High Court acquittals.

Of the cases that went to the Supreme Court (186 cases), 10 per cent resulted in acquittals, while 60 per cent resulted

in commutations.

In all, just 59 cases of the original 1,790 — or fewer than five per cent — were confirmed by the Supreme Court.

In all, a third of death sentences given by trial courts resulted in acquittals at a later stage.

“Thirty per cent of death sentences handed down by trial courts result in acquittals. Can we trust a justice system to

hand out death sentences when the outcome swings like this from one extreme to another?” asked Dr. Yug Mohit Chaudhry, senior advocate, who has represented death row prisoners and who strongly opposes the death penalty.

“This goes to show that trial courts are handing out death sentences in cases which do not call for it and inflicting

brutal and undeserved mental agony,” he added.

Israel offers to help clean Ganga

Israel, one of India’s biggest defence partners, wants to offer its expertise in water management and help the government with its ambitious Ganga cleaning project.

Israel’s water management, desalination and recycling techniques, which helped it overcome a water crisis following

years of drought, have been emulated by several countries.

Israel has also set a template for reusing wastewater for irrigation. It treats 80 per cent of its domestic wastewater,

which is recycled for agricultural use, and nearly 50 per cent of the total water used for agriculture.

Armed with these water management techniques, Israeli officials have met their counterparts in the Union Ministry

for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, headed by Uma Bharti, to offer help in water conservation and the Ganga cleaning programme.

A delegation of experts from Israel will be in India in August to assess the areas of Ganga cleaning that the country can contribute to.

Considering the losses made by water utilities across the country and high volume of non-revenue water, Israel has

also offered to streamline the water management and distribution services.

Israel’s Ambassador to India Daniel Carmon recently called on Union Urban Development and Parliamentary Affairs

Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu to offer his country’s assistance in water management to meet the challenge of water scarcity in the burgeoning urban areas.

Water management through reuse, recycling and distribution management will be a component in the Smart Cities

and the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation ‘Amrut’ programmes flagged.

India and Israel have already signed agreements for agriculture partnership and 28 centres of excellence have been set up in Haryana, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bihar, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.

These centres offer training to agriculturists on how to increase their produce and on effective means of irrigation.

Before labour meet, PM meets union leaders to discuss their views

Ahead of the Indian Labour Conference on 20th July, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Central trade unions to understand their views and is understood to have assured them that the tripartite mechanism of discussion on labour policies would be continued.


The Prime Minister’s meeting followed extensive consultations that the trade union leaders held with an inter-

ministerial panel headed by finance minister Arun Jaitley.

However, emerging out of the meeting, trade union leaders said the Prime Minister had not given any assurance and hence they would go ahead with their September 2 nation-wide strike in support of their 12-point charter of demands.

“The meeting focused on price rise and the need to insulate workers from insurance.”

Unions likely to oppose proposed reforms at labour congress today New Delhi: The 46th Indian Labour Congress

(ILC) will be held in New Delhi on July 20-21, amid efforts by the government to push some much-needed labour reforms.

The ILC will likely see the unions opposing some of the reforms proposed with the objective of improving ease of doing

business, while welcoming some which are seen to be worker-friendly.

The government had proposed changes in the existing labour laws to empower industry to appoint “fixed-term”

employees and is also looking at a toughening of the terms to form trade unions.

However, some of the steps which are seen to be labour-friendly include the raising of the salary threshold for bonus eligibility for the workers in the organised sector.

Investment protection pact in the offing

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will seek the Union Cabinet’s approval for a model investment protection agreement

that will enable India to safeguard against offshore arbitration and international litigation from global companies and also resume talks with the U.S. on a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT).

One of the reasons talks between the two countries have been on hold since February 2014 is India’s move to get

ready the model agreement that will guide all bilateral negotiations.

Diplomatic sources concede that there are still many serious differences over the BIT, mainly on arbitration and IPR,

but the two sides made headway when Assistant Secretary of State Nisha Biswal visited Delhi.

Once the BIT negotiations start up, diplomatic sources believe they could take up to six months to finalise, and up to about two years to ratify.

India facing over 17 cases of international arbitration

India’s move to insert safeguards against offshore litigation follows the initiation of more than 17 cases of

international arbitration against it by global companies including Vodafone and Deutsche Telecom under bilateral investment agreements with various countries.

Many of these offshore arbitrations allege tax terrorism by Indian authorities for the retrospective tax notices against

several global companies, while some were triggered by the SC’s cancellation of the 2G licences.

“We don’t normally roll back say foreign direct investment caps in any sector…however, if something necessitates

rollbacks then the BIPPAs (bilateral investment protection and promotion agreements) will protect the government against offshore arbitration…there will also be protection against allegations of tax terrorism,” a top official.

The U.S. is keen to sign the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) to provide comfort to American companies that they will

not be treated unfairly in India. India sees it as another way of making itself a more attractive destination to foreign investors.

While the U.S. preferred a model BIT close to the India-Japan CEPA, Indian officials pushed for something closer to the Canadian investment treaty.

Navy aligns indigenisation plan with ‘Make in India’

The Navy has unveiled a 15-year plan to achieve full indigenisation in all phases of warship construction, from ship-

building to systems to weapons, and aligned it with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Make in India.”

The Navy wants to involve private industry in a big way in this initiative.

The Indian Naval Indigenisation Plan 2015-2030 is aimed at enabling the development of equipment and systems

through the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Indian industry over a 15-year period, the Navy said in a statement.

A warship can be broadly divided into three segments — float, move and fight. The Navy has achieved 90 per cent indigenisation in the float category, while the move (propulsion) and fight (weapons) components stand at 60 and 30 per cent respectively, which are priority areas to be addressed.

Among platforms, a major area of concern is helicopters. “This is one area where there is a huge opportunity for indigenisation of our future naval aviation assets,” Navy Chief Admiral R.K. Dhowan said.

The Navy issued its first 15-year indigenisation plan in 2003 and then revised it in 2008. The current revision was

done to dovetail it with the ‘Make in India’ pitch.

The Navy has individual plans for capacity augmentation — the Indian Maritime Capability Perspective Plan for fleet

augmentation, Maritime Infrastructure Augmentation Plan and the Maritime Cooperation Roadmap all of which are from 2012 to 2027.

The plan’s objective is to have a 200-ship navy by 2027 as was recently stated by Vice Chief of Navy Vice Admiral P.

Murugesan.

Rajya Sabha panel adopts report on GST

A day ahead of the commencement of the monsoon session of Parliament, a Rajya Sabha select committee has adopted a report on the contentious Goods and Service Tax Bill after the Centre agreed to compensate States for revenue loss for five years.

The government will move an official amendment to the GST Bill to provide for compensation for any revenue loss.

The amendment relates to Clause 19 of the Bill, and its amended version will read: “Parliament may, by law, on

recommendation of the GST Council, provide for compensation to the States for loss of revenue arising on account of implementation of GST for a period of five years.”


The 21-member panel, headed by the BJP’s Bhupender Yadav, has adopted the report that is likely to be submitted to

the Rajya Sabha later in the week.

The Congress, which has been rooting for a “simple and comprehensive” GST Bill, has expressed its dissent on eight provisions: this includes opposition to giving the States the power to levy 1 per cent additional tax as it feels that if

that provision is implemented, States like Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu will benefit at the cost of other States.

PM relents, may agree to amend Land Bill The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved a proposal to amend the Land Bill to give

flexibility to the States to frame their own laws for land acquisition, a demand various Chief Ministers aired at the July 15 meeting of the Governing Council of NITI Aayog.

To help break the impasse on the Bill, the Cabinet decided on adding a provision to enable the States to frame and pass their own laws.

So if a State decides to include in its law consent of landowners and those dependent on the land and a social impact assessment before acquisition, it will be free to do so.

At the NITI Aayog meeting, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal stressed the importance of the landowners’ consent and social impact study, and demanded that the decision to include these or not in the law be left to the State governments.

The proposed enabling provision will be introduced under Section 254 (2) of the Constitution that allows the States to frame and pass specific laws on a Union Act.

At present, 78 laws are in use in various States on the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, all passed by them under Section

254 (2).

“Scrapping Aadhaar will hurt welfare schemes” The Centre told the Supreme Court that it had spent Rs. 5000 crore of public money on the Aadhaar scheme and

accessed 80 crore people. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said any move to scrap the scheme now would create a severe dent in several

government welfare schemes, subsidies and services for which the Aadhaar card has become an essential document. In March this year, the Supreme Court had confirmed that the Aadhaar card was not compulsory, and further,

officials who insist on it would be taken to task. A fuming Supreme Court had issued a stern warning to the government on learning that many government

authorities still insisted on Aadhar for providing government subsidies and basic services to ordinary citizens. The Supreme Court clarified that demands made by officials for Aadhar card were in clear violation of the Supreme

Court's interim order of September 23, 2013. In the 2013 order, the apex court had directed that “no person should suffer for not getting the Aadhaar card, inspite

of the fact that some authority had issued a circular making it mandatory.”

BSF posts to get concrete shield The Centre has cleared a Rs. 400-crore proposal to fortify at least 3,000 BSF observation posts made of mud and

thatched roof, along the border with Pakistan in Jammu region. The observation posts and morchas located at zero point of the 197-km-long International Border (IB), will be

concretised to save BSF personnel from sniper attacks as well as heavy mortar firing. A high-level committee headed by National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval has cleared the proposal to strengthen

India’s first line of defence. The decision assumes significance in wake of increasing number of ceasefire violations along the IB, where a large

number of civilian population exists. After the Ufa meet between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif, both the IB and the Line of

Control have seen large number of ceasefire violations. While 148 ceasefire violations were reported in 2013, from 2014-15, 410 such violations have taken place.

ECONOMY NEWS YES Bank gets RBI nod to open unit in GIFT city

Private sector lender YES Bank received approval from the Reserve Bank of India to set up IFSC Banking Units (IBUs)

in Gujarat International Finance Tec City (GIFT).

Establishing the IBU will propel YES Bank’s growth plans further by providing it access to International financial

markets, as well as provide a comprehensive product suite to its corporate clients requiring Foreign Currency (FCY) funding.

“It will also allow YES Bank to raise FCY funding through MTNs & other routes as appropriate,” the mid-sized lender said in a statement.

GIFT is attractive for private sector banks such as YES Bank that don’t have overseas branches and hence do not have access to foreign currency to fund corporate customers abroad.

In April 2015, YES Bank opened its First International Representative office in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Rana Kapoor, Managing Director & CEO, YES Bank said, “This will help in further diversification and expansion of

cross border asset products as well as widen the scope and depth of our liabilities base…

The opening of an IBU will also boost YES Bank’s Cross Border Trade offerings, External Commercial Borrowings, Foreign Currency syndications and offshore M&A, funding business additionally.”

Big surge in FII inflows in 2014-15

Foreign Institutional Investment (FII) inflows surged a record 717 per cent to $40.92 billion in 2014-15 and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows jumped 48 per cent since Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the ‘Make In India’ initiative in September 2014.


“These indicators showcase remarkable pace of approval being accorded by the government and confidence of

investors in the resurgent India…the increased inflow of FDI into India, especially in a climate of contracting worldwide investments, indicates the faith that overseas investors have imposed in the country’s economy and the reforms initiated by the Government towards ease of doing business,” said an official release.

FDI equity inflows from October 2014 to April 2015 over the corresponding period last year rose 48 per cent, said the

release.

The inflows through the approval route grew 87 per cent during 2014-15 to $2.22 billion despite more sectors having been liberalised during this period and with more than 90 per cent of FDI being on automatic route, the release said.

Overall, FDI inflows during 2014-15 were spread across sectors — services sector ($3.2 billion), telecommunication

($2.8 billion), trading ($2.7 billion), automobile industry ($2.5 billion), computer software & hardware ($2.2 billion), drugs and pharmaceuticals ($1.5 billion) and construction (infra) activities ($0.75 billion).

The Modi Government amended the FDI policy to foster a positive investment climate and sync it with the vision and

focus areas of the present Government such as affordable housing, Smart Cities, financial inclusion and reforms in railway infrastructure, it added.

The construction development sector was allowed easy exit norms with rationalised area restrictions and due

emphasis on affordable housing.

The cap on FDI in the insurance and pension sector was raised to 49 per cent, and 100 per cent FDI was allowed in the railway infrastructure (excluding operations) and also in the medical devices sector.

The definition of non-resident Indians (NRIs) itself was expanded to include OCI (Overseas Citizenship Of India)

cardholders as well as PIO (Persons of Indian Origin) cardholders, and NRIs investment are now deemed to be domestic investment made by residents, thereby giving flexibility to NRIs to invest in India.

India stands committed to have a FDI policy and regime, which is investor-friendly and also promotes investment

leading to increased manufacturing, job creation and overall economic growth.

Indian firms generate 91,000 jobs in U.S.

India-based companies invested $15.3 billion in the U.S. in the last year and created 91,000 jobs, according to a

recent report.

The investments made by Indian companies in the U.S. are down 10 per cent compared to the previous year, while the

number of jobs they created is up 12.3 per cent.

Data from the U.S. Department of Commerce shows that India had, in recent years, emerged as one of the 10 fastest growing sources of foreign direct investment in the U.S.

Indian companies in the U.S. are substantially diversified, with 40 per cent of them operating in the IT, ITES and

telecom sectors, 14 per cent in the life sciences, pharmaceutical and health care sector and 14 per cent in mining, materials and manufacturing.

Volvo to export buses to Europe

Volvo buses, the bus-making arm of Swedish auto major Volvo, said it would export Made in India buses to Europe.

At present, Volvo has a bus manufacturing facility in Hoskote, near Bengaluru.

The company’s Asia leverage strategy aims to utilise its manufacturing presence in India and China to cater to demands from global markets.

This is for the first time that Volvo would import fully-made buses into Europe and its home market.

Volvo Buses’ plans coincide with central government’s efforts to promote manufacturing through the ‘Make in India’

initiative.

Boeing, TASL Ink pact

Adding more momentum in the area of defence product manufacturing under the ‘Make in India’ initiative, American

aerospace and defence major Boeing has signed a framework agreement with Tata Advanced Systems Ltd. (TASL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Sons, to collaborate in aerospace and defence manufacturing.

Both companies, as per this agreement, will jointly work on potential integrated systems development opportunities, including unmanned aerial vehicles.

The Mahindra group has forged half a dozen agreements with global aerospace and defence leaders to make a major

foray into defence product manufacturing.

1. The Companies plan to access markets jointly for products and platforms developed together by them.

2. TASL already has a contract with Boeing to manufacture aero structures for Boeing CH-47 Chinook and AH-6i helicopters.

3. Billions of dollars of defence contract under the Government’s policy is attracting many Indian companies to foray into this sector.

4. Other Tata group companies are also supplying important components to Boeing.

Banks told to meet farm credit limit

The Reserve Bank of India directed banks to ensure that their overall direct lending to farmers should not fall below

the average of last three years, as government has expressed concerns over impact of recent adverse weather conditions.

The RBI said government had expressed concerns over adverse impact of any reduction in direct credit to individual

farmers given the recent weather related difficulties faced by the agricultural sector.

Banks should also continue to maintain all efforts to reach the level of 13.5 per cent direct lending to the beneficiaries

who earlier constituted the direct agriculture sector, it said.

In an effort to increase direct lending to agriculture, the target for lending to small and marginal farmers under the recently revised priority sector norms has been increased to 7 per cent for 2015-16 and to 8 per cent for 2016-17.


In its revised priority sector lending norms announced in April, the RBI also widened the definition of priority sector

by including medium enterprises, social infrastructure and renewable energy while retaining the lending target to the sector at 40 per cent.

CCI slaps Rs. 671 cr fine on four PSU insurance firms

Competition Commission of India (CCI) has fined four public sector insurance firms to the tune of Rs.671 crore,

finding them guilty of involving in anti-competitive practices in bidding for Kerala government’s Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY), an insurance scheme for people below poverty line.

The four companies - National Insurance Co. Ltd. (Rs.162.80 crore), New India Assurance Co. Ltd. (Rs.251.07 crore), Oriental Insurance Co. Ltd. (Rs.100.56 crore) and United India Insurance Co. Ltd. (Rs.156.62 crore) - have been penalised at the rate of 2 per cent of their average turnover for the financial years 2010-11, 2011-2012 and 2012-13, CCI said in its order.

The allegation was that the four public sector insurance companies had rigged the tender floated by the Government

of Kerala on November 18, 2009 for selecting insurance service provider for implementation of RSBY for 2010-11, CCI said.

It was also alleged that the companies formed a cartel and quoted higher premium rates in response to the

aforementioned tender, it added.

39 MORE DRUGS COME UNDER PRICE CONTROL

India has extended price control on 39 more medicines used to treat diabetes, infections, digestive disorders and pain

among others, in an effort to make them affordable.

Already, 652 medicines are under price control.

“The overall impact for the companies will be minimal as these drugs are not from significant part of their overall sales.”

INCREASING ACCESS NOT ADDRESSED

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority’s (NPPA) decision to expand the number of drugs under price control

by a further 39 drugs has no doubt increased scope of price control but the pharmaceutical industry feels the overarching objective of increasing access to medicines is not being adequately addressed.

The Drug Price Control Order 2013 listed 348 bulk drugs under price control and formulations under National List of

Essential Medicines (NLEM). The formulation-combinations, which come under NLEM total over 650 now.

Price control on drugs, mandated by the 2013 Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) has not helped in improving access of

these medicines in the country, IMS Health, a healthcare information and technology services company for Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI) said in its report.

The artificial price control had introduced distortions in the industry. “With the manufacture of non-controlled drugs becoming more profitable, smaller companies are exiting controlled products. Competition was being eliminated leading to monopolies being created.’’

The introduction of DPCO 1995, which covered 74 bulk drugs and their formulations saw several players exit and the consequent discontinuation of the making of half the products.

This also led to India’s production of a vital active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) like penicillin moving to China.

Today India is completely dependent on China for its supply.

It is worth noting that in almost two years of its existence, DPCO 2013 has seen no new investments coming in, no

new products and a shift towards production of non-controlled products.

Govt. may open Swiss challenge for private players to develop highways

The government is looking at extending a so-called Swiss challenge to private developers to develop expressways.

The approach is intended to spur competition by allowing potential investors to come forward with unsolicited ideas and granting the first right of refusal to the developer that prepares the detailed project report.

“We are looking at a proposal to allow private developers to build expressways under the Swiss Challenge System. It

will enable investors to conceptualise projects of their choice. Since the DPR (detailed project report) will be prepared by the original proponent it will expedite the process of award and construction projects,” said a senior official in the ministry of road, transport & highways.

The Swiss Challenge System is a bidding process designed to enlist private sector initiatives in core sector projects.

As per this norm, private investors can conceptualise and offer for evaluation a project to the government.

The Swiss Challenge System allows third parties to make better offers (challenges) for a project during a designated period to avoid exaggerated project development costs.

The original proponent, however, is accorded the right of first refusal and the right to counter-match any superior

offers given by the third party.

The ministry feels this model can help throw up innovative ideas and expedite development of expressways in India as

the company which prepares the DPR would be aware of project requirements.

The official added, “While the hybrid annuity model would be used to bid out national highway development projects,

the Swiss Challenge model is being explored for expressways.”

The Andhra Pradesh government has decided to use this method to award some projects for construction of its new capital, however, the Swiss Challenge mode is not widely practiced in infrastructure sector globally except in a few South American countries.

“The roads ministry has been examining various financing models to revitalise private interest in the sector. The Swiss

Challenge System has not proved to be very successful elsewhere. The private entity is required to make a lot of initial investment under this model, which he may not be able to recover unless he wins the contract.

It, however, allows players to conceptualise projects of their own interest. An infrastructure company, owning a port

for instance, may want to develop the last-mile road to improve accessibility.”


Industry experts informed the Swiss Challenge Sytem will require firms to offer something unique to the project in

terms of technology or execution so that the company preparing the DPR is in a strong position to challenge the bids of other participants.

The ‘Swiss method’ is innovative, but there are challenges in the Indian context

What are the advantages?

Globally, there aren’t too many good examples of Swiss Challenge projects. South Africa, Chile, Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan have seriously considered, awarded and implemented unsolicited projects.

The obvious advantages are that it cuts red tape and shortens timelines, and promotes enterprise by rewarding the

private sector for its ideas.

The private sector brings innovation, technology and uniqueness to a project, and an element of competition can be

introduced by modifying the Challenge.

And what are the problems?

The biggest concerns are the lack of transparency and competition while dealing with unsolicited proposals.

Governments need to have a strong legal and regulatory framework to award projects under the Swiss Challenge

method.

It can potentially foster crony capitalism, and allow companies space to employ dubious means to bag projects.

Given that governments sometimes lack an understanding of risks involved in a project, direct negotiations with

private players can be fraught with downsides.

In general, competitive bidding is the best method to get the most value on public-private partnership projects.

The government might also end up granting significant concessions in the nature of viability gap funding, commercial

exploitation of real estate, etc., without necessarily deriving durable and long-term social or economic benefits.

Is the Swiss Challenge suited to India?

The jury is still out on the success of public-private partnership (PPP) in infra projects. There have been several

controversies around largescale PPP projects. o Construction costs jumped significantly in the case of the Mumbai Metro. o There were serious issues related to the international airport and the Airport Metro line in Delhi. o The government has now brought PPP projects under the ambit of the CAG, so there is some scrutiny of

projects where significant concessions including land at subsidized rates, real estate space, viability gap funding, etc. are granted by the government.

But there is still no strong legal framework at the national level, and such projects may be challenged in case of a lack

of transparency or poor disclosures.

Bureaucrats, who ultimately sign off on such projects, continue to be afraid to take calls that might face an investigation later.

In the absence of transparency, and a strong element of competition, such projects may be prone to legal challenges.

Smaller projects are better off in this respect.

Taking a composite view of foreign investment in India

Foreign investors and investment in India

Foreign investment can take multiple forms, and involve multiple investor classes.

An overseas investor can buy directly into a company involved in manufacturing, infrastructure development,

banking, insurance, retail, etc.

If the investment is 10 per cent or more of a company’s equity, it is classified as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as per

OECD norms.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) or Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) purchase a company’s stock through the

stock markets.

Foreign Venture Capital Investors (FVCIs) put money mainly in new or relatively new ventures from which conventional investors stay away, given the risks involved.

Then, there are investments by Non-Resident Indians (NRIs).

These overseas investments can be in the form of equity capital, Foreign Currency Convertible Bonds or FCCBs (even

though these become foreign investment only when the bonds are actually converted into shares), or investment in

shares of Indian companies when they are listed in overseas exchanges through the issue of American Depository Receipts (ADRs) or Global Depository Receipts (GDRs).

The government’s traditional approach

India needs foreign investment especially to finance its current account deficit — a broad measure of trade in goods and services.

Its foreign investment policy has long been designed to encourage more of FDI, which is considered to be more

enduring because it manifests itself in plant and machinery on the ground, besides helping to develop skills, create jobs, and diffuse technology and global production practices.

Policymakers have been less welcoming of FPI, as it is considered relatively ‘fickle’.

The facts don’t always bear this out, though.

Cumulative net FII investment flows into India since November 1992 (when they were first allowed) have amounted to $ 227 billion — $ 169 billion in equity and the rest ($ 58 billion) in debt.

FIIs have generally remained invested in India; the few episodes of selloffs have largely involved debt rather than

equity.

FIIs have typically sold shares only to reinvest in fresh purchases.


There are investment caps or ceilings on specific sectors. While 100% foreign investment is allowed in many sectors

from food processing to railway infrastructure to non-banking finance companies, there is a 74% cap in private banks, and 49% in insurance, defence and commodity exchanges, clearing corporations, stock exchanges and depositories.

Within the overall cap, there have been sub-ceilings for various categories of foreign investors. So in commodity

exchanges, for instance, FDI is capped at 26%, while combined FPI cannot exceed 23%, which applies to even stock and power exchanges or depositories. And even when FIIs are allowed to invest 23% or more in certain sectors, an individual FII or FPI can invest only up to a maximum of 10%.

The change in government’s policy now

The approval of the so-called ‘composite cap’ has no effect on the sectoral ceilings. Thus, foreigners cannot own more

than 49% in any insurance or defence venture.

But the current distinctions between FDI, FPI and other categories of foreign investors have been abolished.

Composite cap applicable to all sectors except two

The proposed composite cap will be applicable to all sectors except defence and banking.

So for private banks, portfolio or FII investment can go up to a maximum of 49%, and the overall limit will be 74%.

For public sector or state-owned banks, nothing changes — as the foreign investment limit was restricted to 20%

much earlier.

In the defence sector, within the 49% investment ceiling, foreign portfolio limits will continue to be 24%.

The change will be reflected more in investments in commodity, stock and power exchanges. Prior to the composite cap, portfolio investment was capped at 23% in these segments — it can now go up to the full sectoral limit of 49%

without any distinctions.

A potentially significant decision

A composite cap helps remove uncertainty for both investor and investee companies.

It provides greater clarity and legal certainty, eliminates inconsistencies, lowers transaction overheads, and does away with the costs of complying with multiple sets of rules and dealing with multiple regulators and authorities.

It should boost overall investment flows, especially in sectors with multiple caps or ceilings such as commodity, power and stock exchanges, besides credit information companies.

Foreign investors such as the Government of Singapore, which has a few investment arms in India, may not have to

worry now about breaching limits while buying into companies as FDI or FII.

There are some concerns

Concerns in the defence sector relate to national security, and in the banking sector to ‘hot money’ flows — or the threat of volatile capital — and to the potential risk of a group of investors joining hands, especially through the

portfolio route, to take control of banks.

The RBI had flagged the latter concern in the case of a few old private banks — therefore, even now any investment of 5% or more in the banking sector has to be approved by the central bank.

There are also worries about laundered money or terror funds coming into certain sectors, apart from attempts to

‘round-trip’ money back into the country.

But composite cap isn’t an altogether new idea

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced the government’s intentions in his Budget speech in February.

Earlier in 2013, then Finance Minister P Chidambaram had said that the government would remove the ambiguity over FDI and FII, and follow global best practices.

And back in its Budget of 2002-03, the NDA government had said that portfolio investment would not be subject to

sectoral limts except in specified sectors.

For well over a decade, several official committees have addressed the issue of boosting foreign investment: in 2002,

the then Planning Commission member N K Singh headed an inter-ministerial steering group on FDI; there was the Ashok Lahiri Committee in 2003-04; the U K Sinha Committee in 2010 and, finally, the Arvind Mayaram Committee which submitted its report in 2014.

‘CCI not looking at Net Neutrality issue now’

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) is not looking into the issue of Net Neutrality, as of now, since sector

regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is yet to finalise its views on it, CCI member M. S. Sahoo said.

“But we are keeping a watch on it and will act if it is found to be anti-competitive,” Mr. Sahoo told.

The CCI looks after anti-competitive practices of companies and various agencies.

TRAI started a consultation process on the issue of Net Neutrality, which was one of the raging topics in the

telecommunications space.

Diverging CPI, WPI: The inflation conundrum

The two main inflation indicators — the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) — are

moving in widely divergent directions.

In the last eight months, while CPI (retail inflation) has consistently moved upwards, the WPI (headline inflation) has dramatically contracted, leaving a substantial 7.8 percentage point gap between these two inflation estimates.

The development has posed a problem for policy makers as while the movement of consumer prices makes out a case

for higher interest rates, the wholesale price movement demands urgent reduction in key interest rate.

While some amount of differences can be explained by the variation in base years, basket of items and weights

allocated to the individual items in the two indices, economists say that the divergence between the two currently is massive and “ideally CPI should not be more than one percentage point of WPI on either side”.

Headline inflation in June was -2.4 per cent while the retail inflation was 5.4 per cent during the month.

This has brought the focus back on the lack of a competitive integrated market in the country, one of the main reasons for the CPI to remain high.


“If we had a really competitive integrated market, price changes at the upstream level, i.e., the raw material,

intermediate goods and capital goods, should get reflected in the final products and eventually in the CPI. However, the market is not integrated and the changes are not getting reflected, therefore CPI remains high,” Pronab Sen, chairman of National Statistical Commission said.

“Since the CPI measures the final consumption, it still remains high.” he said.

On the other hand, the headline inflation has been declining due to the significant fall in the global commodity prices, leading to a decline in the prices of raw materials.

WPI and CPI composition: Saugata Bhattacharya, chief economist, Axis Bank, said that while the WPI and CPI

inflation have both been declining, the dip in WPI is more “because the basket of items are different in CPI and WPI. The commodity basket is much more prominent in WPI than CPI. Hence, the WPI is more directly affected by the international commodity prices than the CPI.”

The composition of the two indices is such that while food has a higher weightage in CPI, manufacturing has a higher

weightage in WPI.

“Fuel prices have climbed down sharply. However, the government has not passed the benefit of a benign fuel prices

to customers. That has been used to reduce subsidies and strengthen the fiscal position. This can be seen in CPI,” Madan Sabnavis, chief economist, CARE Ratings, said.

The basket of items for the two indices is also different with cost of transportation and rent on housing being a part of the CPI and not WPI.

What also needs to be kept in mind is the fact that while WPI is measured on base year 2004-05, CPI is measured on

base year 2012 instead of 2010. The government moved to the new base year for CPI from January 2015. Sen said that lower raw material prices are not getting reflected in final goods because users are not passing it to consumers.

While profit margins are a significant factor in the CPI divergence, corporate profits have not really gone up much so

as to define the current gap between the two indices. So, given the fact that India lacks infrastructure and does not have an integrated market, is CPI the right index to target by the RBI?

One should look at WPI because our markets are not integrated. In economies where such markets exist, CPI is the

ideal measure. In such markets, both CPI and WPI should move in tandem.

While WPI may be a more effective measure of inflation, CPI has to be the target of the RBI because “the central bank

has to maintain the real interest rate and therefore has to target CPI because retail consumers are impacted by it”.

Early this year, the finance ministry and the central bank signed an agreement for the monetary policy framework where it was agreed to target CPI for monetary policy purpose.

Negative WPI a cause of concern? Not until the manufacturing sector turns negative. While the growth in the core

sector and index of industrial production is moderate, it is still positive.

Since the GDP is growing and the job creation has not been impacted so far so the contracting WPI is not a concern

for the economic growth “though it will have an impact on corporates”.

Going forward, the economists say that WPI, the producers index, will be at similar level this year and improve next

year due to base effect, CPI, the consumers index, will be between 5-5.5 per cent and the divergence will come down.

Govt. extends interest subvention scheme

The government extended the interest subvention scheme to make banks advance crop loans of up to Rs. 3 lakh at the rate of 7 per cent.

The Cabinet decided to provide relief to farmers affected by natural calamities, where the interest subvention of 2 per

cent will continue to be available to banks for the first year on the restructured amount, officials said.

Modified Special Incentive Package Scheme: The Cabinet extended the Modified Special Incentive Package Scheme

by five years and expanded the scope of the programme to cover 15 new product categories.

The move will tie in with the government’s “Make in India” and “Digital India” initiatives.

The demand for electronics in India is expected to reach $400 billion by 2020. The electronics sector has the potential to attract $100 billion in investment and provide jobs to 28 million people.

The new product categories in the package scheme include smart cards, consumer appliances (such as washing

machines, refrigerators, air conditioners), electronic product design, optical fibres and Internet of Things products.

Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM): In another decision, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs also

approved a proposal for restructuring the Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) project, which is aimed at

protecting and conserving the coastal environment.

Proposed by the Environment Ministry, the committee gave its approval to the restructuring the project, which

includes revising the cost estimate from Rs. 1,155.6 crore to Rs. 1580.1 crore.

The Cabinet gave the go-ahead for a creation of a Central agriculture university in Samastipur in Bihar with an outlay

of Rs. 295 crore.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY A ‘three-way lock’ to curb piracy

Rattled by the massive online leak of the blockbuster Premam , Mollywood seems fighting back by exploring a three-tier anti-piracy security system to crack down on movie pirates.

Developed by a young B. Tech graduate specialising in concept research and development, the proposed system is

offering a one-stop solution to check digital movie piracy right from the first day of shooting to the last day of its screening in cinemas.

“Max Secure offers three stages of production that include data encryption, defacing camera lenses in theatres, and

using a unique coding programme, which efficiently detects piracy on the internet,” said Shaan Sherif, the face behind the venture.


A resident of Ponkunnam in Kottayam, Shaan had been toying with a hi-tech solution against film piracy for long.

“He had really worked on it. We may employ it for our new movie directed by Lal and scripted by me, if it turns financially feasible. I may also use it for my next directorial venture,” said Siddique.

The three-stage protective cover begins with encrypting the movie in a storage device, which could be accessed only

with a decryption code.

It could be auto generated and send to the user accessing it. The users will be monitored 24X7 online and offline.

The IP address and other related details of anyone trying to either edit or copy the content will be captured and send

online through the inbuilt system on the storage device.

Major threat

Filmmmaker Lal said that the chances of illegal copying of content from the editing table, dubbing and mixing stages remain a major threat to piracy and it needs to be plugged effectively.

“We are now looking forward to a protective cover that would work for about 120 days beginning from the first day of the shoot,” he said.

To block recording content from a theatre, Shaan has offered a module in the size of a router, which consists of a lens

defacing unit and it’s monitored real-time.

“It will be fixed in theatres with specified parameters. It will deface the lens of the camera, be it a mobile or a

professional high definition one, used for illegal copying of the movie.

“Camera lens defacer comes with online monitoring system, tamper proof sensors and 25 hours in-built emergency

back-up,” he said.

Govt. clears Naval P-8Is and air defence guns for Army

The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) chaired by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar cleared deals worth about Rs. 30,000 crore for new platforms and several upgrades mostly for the Army and the Navy. Additional P-8I maritime patrol and surveillance aircraft for the Navy and new air defence guns for the army were the major deals cleared.

The Navy earlier contracted eight aircraft from Boeing to keep track of the vast coastline. It is now exercising the

optional clause for four P-8Is worth Rs. 4,380 crore. Weapon and sensor upgrades for six ships of Delhi and Talwar class worth Rs. 2,900 crore were cleared to be implemented as and when the ships go for midlife upgrades.

DAC also extended Acceptance of Necessity (AON) for four large survey ships worth Rs. 2,324 crore in place of the old

one which lapsed.

Other deals for Navy include replacement of radars on Kora class ships, Gigabit Ethernet Ships Data Network

(GbeSDN) on Delhi class ships for high speed data connectivity, 23 Combat Management Systems, BrahMos training facility at INS Valsura in Gujarat and Air Combat Menuvouring systems for Mig-29 fighters and Advanced Jet Trainers.

The Army will now issue tenders for the long pending replacement of the vintage L-70 and ZU-23mm air defence guns.

This will be under Buy & Make category for 428 systems wroth about Rs. 16,900 crore. Other deals include 3.5 lakh bi-modular charges for 155mm artillery guns which is a follow on order for Rs. 580 crore and multi-spectrum camouflage nets.

The National Cadet Corps will get 110 new micro-light aircrafts to be procured from Spain.

After refit, Vikramaditya ready to join Navy

Aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya will sail out of the harbour in Karwar after its first short refit and join the Navy in a

week, Vice-Admiral P. Murugesan, Vice-Chief of the Naval Staff, said.

Vikramaditya , acquired from Russia for $2.3 billion, was commissioned into the Navy in November 2013 without the

crucial air-defence systems. They are now being installed during the “guaranteed refit”, in addition to scheduled maintenance, by the original equipment manufacturer.

The Israeli-supplied Barak-1 point defence missile system and the Russian-origin AK-630 close-in weapon system, borrowed from a to-be-decommissioned Godavari-class ship, were installed on the carrier.

The carrier was originally scheduled to receive a long-range surface-to-air missile system under joint development

with Israel. But delay in its development resulted in the carrier being inducted without its own air-defence cover.

Vice-Admiral Murugesan said a high-powered committee constituted to evaluate domestic shipyards for the Navy’s

next line of submarines under Project 75I had completed its compliance checks.

Tenders will be issued to the shortlisted shipyards once it is approved.

Under Project 75I, estimated at over Rs. 50,000 crore, six conventional submarines are to be built by domestic shipyards with foreign collaboration.

The science of screams deciphered

Ever wondered why human screams can pierce through even a noisy environment and alert people?

The answer lies in the unique acoustic property of a scream that triggers the brain’s fear circuitry into action.

The same principle is used in burglar alarms that catch our attention no matter the din around.

A study, published on Thursday in the journal Current Biology , by Luc H. Arnal, found that screams occupy a unique auditory spectrum — 30-150 Hz.

This space is well distinguished from normal speech (4 and 5 Hz) across languages, thereby making it particularly

difficult to ignore or confuse with other communication signals.

The team found that the 30-150 Hz spectrum is reserved for communicating danger by activating the fear response in

the human amygdala and not the auditory cortex.

The researchers found that it was a property called roughness (which refers to how fast a sound changes in loudness)

that helped communicate the danger signal of a scream by specifically targeting the neural circuits involved in processing fear/danger.


GM mosquitoes check dengue in Brazil

The use of genetically engineered mosquitoes to control dengue and chikungunya-causing Aedes aegypti mosquito

population in the wild got a shot in the arm in a study undertaken in Juazeiro, northeast Brazil.

Researchers successfully reduced the A. aegypti population in the wild by as much as 95 per cent, thus effectively

preventing dengue and chikungunya epidemic disease. The study was carried out in 2011-12.

Dengue resurfaced in Brazil in 1981, and it is estimated that 16 million dengue infections occur every year. Over 390 million dengue cases are reported annually across the world.

Sustained release of genetically modified sterile male mosquitoes (OX513A) in the city every week for one year helped

cut the transmission rate drastically.

The transgenic mosquitoes compete with the naturally occurring A. aegypti male mosquitoes to mate with the females.

With sustained release, the number of transgenic mosquitoes outnumbered and suppressed the naturally occurring wild males.

The offspring from the mating of transgenic male A. aegypti mosquitoes with female mosquitoes die before adulthood

(at the larval or pupal stage) as a consequence of transgenic modification.

As a result, the number of female mosquitoes that can cause dengue falls dramatically.

Since the male mosquitoes do not bite humans, the release of transgenic males will not increase the risk of dengue.

New 7 nm chip from IBM

IBM recently announced that they had produced the first 7-nanometre semiconductor test chip with functioning

transistors. The level of miniaturisation is huge.

This can result in the ability to place more than 20 billion tiny switches on a fingernail-sized chip that could power

everything from smartphones to spacecraft.

“To achieve this breakthrough, IBM researchers had to bypass conventional semiconductor manufacturing approaches in favour of a number of industry-first innovations,” said Mukesh Khare, VP of semiconductor research at IBM Research.

“The two key ones were the use of silicon germanium channel transistors instead of traditional silicon, and using

extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography integration at multiple levels, instead of optical lithography,” he said.

The development of this chip was the result of a public-private partnership between New York State and a joint

development alliance with Global Foundries, Samsung and equipment suppliers along with IBM.

Chinese villa built in three hours

A 3-D printed two—storeyed villa was built in less than three hours in China’s Shanxi’s province.

A crane assembled modules of living room, bedroom, kitchen, and restroom within less than 3 hours on July 17 in Xi’an, northwest China’s Shanxi province.

“Traditional construction requires half a year to build up a villa, whereas using 3D print modules, the process can be shortened...,” said the engineer in charge of the design and production of the 3D printed villa.

The cost per square meter is around $400-480.

Stephen Hawking launches biggest-ever search for alien life

British cosmologist Steven Hawking launched the biggest-ever search for intelligent life in the universe in a 10-year,

$100-million (143-million-euro) project to scan the heavens.

The Breakthrough Listen project, backed by Russian Silicon Valley entrepreneur Yuri Milner, will be the most

powerful, comprehensive and intensive scientific search ever undertaken for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligent life.

The project will use some of the biggest telescopes on Earth, searching far deeper into the universe than before for radio spectrum and laser signals.

The initiative is allied with the Breakthrough Message project, an international competition to create digital messages

that represent humanity.

There is no commitment to send any messages into space, and the project should spark discussion about whether

humans should be sending messages at all out into the void.

Michelangelo used ‘Golden Ratio’ in Adam

Italian sculptor and painter Michelangelo used mathematics while creating his world-famous painting The Creation of

Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope in Vatican City, shows research.

Michelangelo used the “Golden Ratio” of 1.6, found when you divide a line into two so that the longer part divided by the smaller part is equal to the whole length divided by the longer part.

The “Golden Ratio” has been linked with greater structural efficiency and has puzzled scientists for centuries owing to

its frequent occurrence in nature — for example, in snail shells and flower petals.

The “Golden Ratio” can also be found in a variety of works by architects and designers and in famous musical

compositions.

The findings suggest that the beauty and harmony found in the works of Michelangelo may not be based solely on his

anatomical knowledge. “He likely knew that anatomical structures incorporating the ‘Golden Ratio’ offer greater structural efficiency and, therefore, he used it to enhance the aesthetic quality of his works,” the authors said.

ECOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENT SO2, CO prominent pollutants in Chennai

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) monitoring stations are able to read concentration levels for one or more

pollutants of the following — particulate matter with a diameter less than 10 micrometres (PM10), particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5), ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and sulphur dioxide (SO2).


The values for any of these pollutants the station is able to pick up are converted into an AQI value. The pollutant

with the highest AQI value at the time for that city is determined to be the ‘prominent pollutant’ and its AQI value becomes the station’s overall AQI value.

According to the index, days when the AQI value is between 401 and 500 are ‘severe’ and “may cause respiratory

impact even on healthy people, and serious health impacts on people with lung/heart disease.

The health impacts may be experienced even during light physical activity.” Among all 26 monitoring stations for which data is available, the IIT, Chennai, monitoring station has by far the most ‘severe’ air quality days – over 47 per cent of all days in the last six months.

Two monitoring stations in Lucknow – Central School and Lalbagh West Lucknow – have the second and fourth

highest proportion of severe days, while Anand Vihar in Delhi is third, and Nehru Nagar in Kanpur is fifth.

In Delhi, high AQI values are driven primarily by PM 2.5, while in Chennai they are driven by sulphur dioxide and

carbon monoxide. In Bengaluru, ozone is additionally often the prominent pollutant.

The AQI is normalised for the concentration levels of different pollutants, with a common scale, and so comparing AQI

values, even if the prominent pollutant is different, is valid, a senior official connected with the AQI told.

Similar AQI values, even if for different pollutants, indicate that the health impact on humans will be similar, and also suggest which pollutant that city needs to curb, the official added.

“Northern India tends to have higher PM levels than southern India, and the impression in the south sometimes is

that there is less pollution there.

What you have found shows that there is high concentration of gaseous pollutants in other cities, and all pollutants

have health risks,” Anumita Roychowdhury, head of the Centre for Science and Environment’s air pollution and clean transportation programmes, told. This indicates high levels of combustion and vehicular pollutants, she added.

27 nations working on quake warning system

To minimise human casualties in earthquakes, seismologists and geophysicists of 27 countries have taken up a

project to develop an early warning system, Secretary to Ministry of Earth Sciences Shailesh Nayak said.

He said that as part of this effort India would launch a satellite by 2019 to monitor the displacement of the earth’s surface. It will send images of surface displacement with accuracy of a few centimetres.

“If the effort is successful and the model is developed, earthquakes can be predicted before a few seconds which will lead to substantial reduction in loss of lives,” said Mr. Nayak.

He also said that in future bore wells fitted with sensors and other equipments would be dug in all the seismically

active regions in the country to monitor the geological and chemical changes under the earth’s surface.

Pointing out that till date prediction of earthquakes was not possible, Mr. Nayak said that prior to earthquakes,

chemical changes under the earth’s surface and some physical displacement above it take place. “If parameters are developed to observe, study and analyse these changes, the quakes can be predicted,” he added.

Participating in the event, Sankar Kumar Nath, Professor of Geology and Geophysics at IIT Kharagpur and O.P.

Mishra, Deputy Director General (Seismology) of India Meteorological Department said that knowledge and preparedness were vital to tackling the disaster.

They said that enforcement of building structure codes as in Japan to make them resistant to earthquake was important.

Earth Gripped by Record Warmth during First Half of 2015

The first six months of 2015 comprised the warmest first half of any year on record, surpassing the previous global

record for January through June set in 2010.

This past June also was the warmest in the 136-year record, according to the latest monthly update from the National

Centers for Environmental Information.

Most of the world’s land areas were much warmer than average, meaning they fell within the top 10 percent of their

historical temperature range for January through June.

Vast swaths of the world’s oceans were also much warmer than average at the surface, with record warmth dominating the northeastern and equatorial Pacific, a big portion of the North Atlantic, and the Barents Sea north of Norway.

In particular, the record warmth extending westward across the tropical Pacific from Central America is just what one would expect during an El Niño year.

If El Niño does continue to mature, as is expected, we can expect temperatures in the equatorial Pacific to stay high —

and maybe even warm further. That could well mean 2015 will end up as the warmest year on record.

People critical of climate science have claimed that global warming actually has stopped. In fact, research shows that

was never the case. But global warming did seem to slow down.

Some research has shown that heat building up in the atmosphere due to human emissions of greenhouse gases was

being sucked deep into the Pacific Ocean, helping to flatten the global warming trend.

Now, changes in a natural climate pattern called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation may be starting to give some of that heat back to the atmosphere.

AWARDS Delhi Constable shines in US, bags four medals at Police Games

A Delhi Police constable has done the force proud by bagging as many as four medals, including a gold, at the Fairfax

2015 World Police and Fire Games (WPFG) held recently in the United States.

Jitender Singh bagged top honours in the 10-m air rifle and also picked up two silver medals in other formats of

shooting at WPFG, which took place in Fairfax, Virginia. He rounded off his tally with a bronze.


Omvir Singh Bishnoi, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP)

(1st Battalion) cum Sports Officer of Delhi Police, said this is the first time that a constable in the force has achieved such a feat at the event.

SPORTS CSK, RR owners out of IPL for 2 years

Declaring that cricket is bigger than individuals, their cricket

bodies and financial losses, the Justice R.M. Lodha Committee on the Indian Premier League (IPL) betting scandal, appointed by the Supreme Court, suspended India Cements Ltd. (ICL) and Jaipur IPL Cricket Private Ltd. (JIPL) from the League for two years.

The ICL owned the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) team when

the scandal broke out in 2013. The JIPL owns the Rajasthan Royals team.

Gurunath Meiyappan, CSK official and son-in-law of N. Srinivasan, head of ICL and former BCCI president, was suspended for life “from being involved in any type of cricket matches”. Raj Kundra, former Rajasthan Royals part-owner, was slapped a life ban from “being involved with the BCCI in any type of cricket matches”.

They were again separately suspended from participating in the sport of cricket for a maximum five years.

The court set up the committee to decide the quantum of punishment for Mr. Meiyappan, Mr. Kundra and their two

franchisees in the aftermath of the IPL betting scandal. The court said the committee’s order would be “final and binding” on the BCCI and the parties concerned.

In a crowded conference room, Justice Lodha read out portions of the 59-page order, which emphasised the

committee’s mandate to safeguard the purity of cricket and its “institutionally firm” position against corruption sullying the game.

“Once it is accepted that cricket is bigger than individuals or a body of individuals, then financial loss that may be

caused to a few players or franchisees may not be of significant consideration while taking disciplinary action or for imposition of punishment for wrongdoing,” said the committee, which includes the former Supreme Court judges Justices R.V. Raveendran and Ashok Bhan.

The panel said the controversy had shaken the foundations of cricket, a game with over a million passionate followers in the country.

The Lodha committee was formed after the Supreme Court wanted neither it nor the BCCI to decide the sanctions

against the four. The committee has the responsibility to recommend measures of streamlining BCCI elections, eligibility of candidates and criteria for disqualification.

It would also evolve a mechanism to deal with conflict of interest situations and further investigate the role of Sundar

Raman, chief operating officer of the IPL.

OPINION A remarkable achievement

Matters of peace and diplomacy in West Asia have hardly been coming up in news headlines of late. But the nuclear

deal reached on July 14 between Iran and six world powers is a historic step forward that solves an over-a-decade-long stand-off between Iran and the West.

It sets the stage for a radical realignment of equations in West Asia, and has the potential to transform the conflict-

ridden region in the long term. The credit goes to U.S. President Barack Obama and his Iranian counterpart, President Hassan Rouhani, who put aside historical acrimony, sidelined the hardliners, took a pragmatic view of ties and pushed hard for a deal.

As the details emerge, the agreement looks like a “win-win deal” for all sides. Under its terms, sanctions imposed by the U.S., the European Union and the UN would be lifted, in return for Iran agreeing to long-term curbs on its nuclear programme. All of Iran’s nuclear facilities would be allowed to continue operations. This provision will let the Iranian government sell the deal to its public, pointing out that its right to generate nuclear energy stays intact.

Tehran has also agreed to a “snapback” mechanism, under which some sanctions could be reinstated after 65 days if it violated the deal. A UN weapons embargo would remain for five years and a ban on buying missile technology for eight years.

But the real potential of the deal lies in the fact that it removes the greatest obstacle for a rapprochement between

Iran and the U.S. Though both sides have said the talks were related strictly to the nuclear programme and not other bilateral issues, the diplomatic warmth shown by these erstwhile enemies over the past few years is hardly lost on anyone.

The changing geopolitical dynamics of West Asia have also played a major role in bringing the U.S. and Iran together.

Both are cooperating in Iraq in the war against Islamic State. Iran, though hit hard by sanctions, is a major power in West Asia whose influence spans from Baghdad and Damascus to southern Lebanon.

If the U.S.-Iran hostility could be transformed into cooperation, and Tehran is allowed to claim the economic and

diplomatic status it deserves, that could have a positive impact on several conflicts in the region.

That should be the obvious next step after the nuclear deal. But there are challenges, too: powerful sections, including the Republicans in the U.S., hardliners in Iran, and the Israelis and Saudis, remain steadfastly opposed to a U.S.-Iran rapprochement.


The journey so far has not been easy. If Iran and the big powers continue to show the will and the commitment they

have demonstrated during the talks, the goals of the deal will be achievable.

A pernicious law

The Union government’s contention in the Supreme Court that the provisions in the Indian Penal Code on criminal

defamation do not have a chilling effect on free speech will disappoint proponents of fundamental freedoms.

The zeal to retain a law that the state can use to stifle criticism is at the heart of the government’s position.

It also goes against democratic opinion in many jurisdictions that treats defamation essentially as a civil wrong, and

not something to be remedied by the use of the state’s coercive police powers.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, the Human Rights Committee of the International

Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and other international bodies have called upon states to abolish criminal defamation, recognising that it intimidates citizens and dissuades them from exposing wrongdoing.

The grounds cited by the Centre now to justify the continuance of Sections 499 and 500 of the IPC, which deal with

defamation and prescribe a maximum jail term of two years, are specious: that in India, citizens are unlikely to have enough liquidity to pay damages for civil defamation; that online defamation in the Internet age can be effectively countered only by making it a criminal offence, and that the law is part of the state’s “compelling interest” to protect the dignity and reputation of citizens.

What it fails to see is that the main feature of criminal defamation is its potential for harassment. It is a tool that can be easily invoked and that enables allegedly defamed persons to drag anyone to courts across the country.

Criminal defamation has a pernicious effect on society: for instance, the state uses it as a means to coerce the media

and political opponents into adopting self-censorship and unwarranted self-restraint; groups or sections claiming to have been hurt or insulted, abuse the process by initiating multiple proceedings in different places; and, more importantly, the protracted process itself is a punishment.

Criminal defamation should not be allowed to be an instrument in the hands of the state, especially when the Code of

Criminal Procedure gives public servants an unfair advantage by allowing the state’s prosecutors to stand in for them when they claim to have been defamed by the media or political opponents.

Thanks to past verdicts of the Supreme Court, the government and its organs can no more file civil suits seeking

damages for defamation, yet the pernicious law of criminal defamation is invoked to stifle free speech.

Reality check on air quality

Delhi’s poor air quality has rightly made it the centre of media and government attention.

However, the Indian government’s own air quality monitoring apparatus now shows the focus so far may have remained too narrowly on some pollutants and, as a result, only on some cities.

India’s Air Quality Index, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in early April, presents an AQI value for a given

city based on the prominent pollutant in that city, calibrated for comparison.

Six months of AQI values for 11 Indian cities show that Kanpur, Varanasi and Chennai have worse air quality than

Delhi, on average.

While Delhi and the rest of north India have higher particulate matter levels, cities such as Chennai find high

concentrations of other toxic pollutants including sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide.

Dust, caused by a wide range of natural and man-made activities, can have a deeply damaging impact on the respiratory tract. But at the levels at which they are being experienced, gaseous pollutants have equally detrimental effects.

The value of the AQI, one of the experts said, is in it being comparable across cities and across pollutants in terms of

health impact.

Some cities have been complacent over their low particulate matter levels. However, the new numbers show there is

no room for complacency; other pollutants have been poisoning people.

The government has taken a great first step in setting up a national Index and in making data for 11 cities, for now,

public. Data for more cities and monitoring stations need to be brought online.

The next step should be for policy-makers to actually look at this data; the government’s own website is clearly showing that a number of Indian cities are experiencing what should be health emergencies on a daily basis, going by

their AQI levels.

Local governments must clamp down on the specific pollutants that are pushing their respective cities into the danger

zone, whether it means moving polluting industries outside city limits or curbing the number of private vehicles by making available better public transport systems.

They must also make it a habit to monitor pollution levels more closely.

The Union government, meanwhile, must come out with an action plan for ‘severe’, ‘very poor’ and ‘poor’ air quality

days; in Beijing, for instance, government vehicles are pulled off the roads, factories forced to limit production, schools shut down and citizens told to stay indoors on days when air pollution rises to an orange or red alert level.

India needs similar clear instructions on what parents, teachers and commuters should do on poor air quality days.

Else, all that they will be able to do is look at the index and worry for their health.

Passing the land parcel

After the Niti Aayog meeting on the land acquisition act amendments, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that “states cannot indefinitely wait for… consensus” and that some of them want to enact their own land laws to spur development, which the Centre would approve.

Indeed, Article 254 (2) of the Constitution makes room for states to pass legislation that does not conform with Union

laws on concurrent list subjects — such as land acquisition — as long as such legislation is then approved by the president.

This was the route that Rajasthan used to amend three Central labour laws last year.


By signalling its willingness to lob the ball in the states’ court and let them take charge of the desperately needed

reforms in land acquisition, the Central government has been pragmatic and politically expedient.

Indeed, it has already expended significant political capital and turned the land acquisition amendments into a shrill and divisive prestige issue.

In a year that saw rising rural and agricultural distress, this has diminished its elbow room to effect painful, though necessary, subsidy reform.

Perhaps, letting the states pilot the amendments may be the best way out.

Certainly, if just the BJP-ruled states as well as Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, which seem sympathetic to the

amendments, change their laws, approximately 50 per cent of the country by land area and GDP would be covered.

But some questions still remain that have not been addressed by simply kicking the can down to the states.

While the BJP’s proposed amendments rightly aim to limit social impact assessments, the diluting of consent

requirement for certain categories of projects is likely to prove troublesome when actual acquisition happens on the ground.

Also, the logic that such dilution would help speed up construction of schools, hospitals, roads and irrigation projects

isn’t really convincing, as these are mostly carried out by the government.

And government projects in any case do not require consent under the 2013 law.

So, while the social impact assessment requirement may be a genuine problem for such projects, consent is unlikely

to be.

Blue Economy, Green Gain

“Blue Economy” has emerged as a term referring to a healthy ocean, supporting higher productivity.

The current focus is confined to marine products, including minerals, as if this is all it concerns.

The concept of blue economy is much broader and encompasses even maritime activities, such as shipping services.

Why not look at the benefits of using the ocean for building infrastructure to supplement infrastructure on land?

Why not think of a mechanised floating port? A re-look at geoengineering is required.

By definition, blue economy infrastructure is environment-friendly because larger cargo consignments can move

directly from the mothership to the hinterland through inland waterways, obviating the need for trucks or railways.

This agenda includes the creation of environment-friendly infrastructure in the ocean. When land acquisition is such

a contentious issue, shifting some infrastructure to the seas is a good economic and political strategy. It can be done in India.

Conforming to this spirit, an offshore infrastructure (by creating an ocean-based transshipment mechanism) project was successfully launched by the ministry of shipping last year for transporting imported coal to the thermal power

station at Farakka in West Bengal.

What makes it especially attractive, and therefore possible, in Indian waters is the vast coastline of almost 7,500 kilometres, with no immediate coastal neighbours except for some stretches around the southern tip.

There are several potential efficiencies from such a blue economy infrastructure concept. All ports do not need

expensive dredging of long approach channels.

Less physical congestion unclogs bottlenecks at ports. This has several advantages. Faster clearances mean less

waiting time and savings on demurrage. A shorter waiting time for ships also helps the environment by reducing fuel burn.

As transloading takes place on the high seas, it creates an opportunity to spread the cargo across more ports. It

makes ample sense to create a well-distributed network for handling bulk cargo along the entire coastline.

A major network of inland waterways has historically developed on the east coast.

On the west coast, it exists only in Goa and Kerala. The eastern waterways can be easily connected to ports for

transshipment traffic.

The Ganga, Brahmani, Godavari and the Mahanadi basin systems have dormant waterways, but they all lie on the

east coast. The proposed project to rejuvenate them will bring cargo to their mouths.

Transloading bulk cargo at sea will complement major ports and other underutilised non-major ports.

Offshore operations do not completely eliminate the need for more efficient ports, but they require faster evacuation of the smaller parcels for cargo that is not transported through inland waterways.

For both shallow and deepwater ports, offshore cargo handling will be a capacity-multiplier.

While relieving infrastructure shortages and pressure on an overburdened rail and road network, this will also bring

immense benefits by reducing costs, delays and pollution.

A transloading zone is a green concept, rarely recognised by stakeholders, including the government.

The question of primacy

To a layperson, the question raised by a judge of the Supreme Court on the exact constitutional identity of the country’s Chief Justice may appear to be only an academic doubt.

However, seen in the backdrop of the current debate over what is the ideal process for appointing members of the

higher judiciary, the question may have a bearing on the role of the Chief Justice in the process.

The question from Justice Kurian Joseph, in the course of the hearing in the case relating to the validity of the

National Judicial Appointments Commission, arose from the fact that Article 124 of the Constitution refers to ‘the Chief Justice of India’, while the ‘Form of Oaths and Affirmations’ in the Third Schedule uses the term ‘Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India’.

Is there a distinction? The provisions concerning Supreme Court judges fall under the head ‘Union judiciary’ in the

Constitution, implying that the CJ is indeed the head of the Supreme Court. In judicial matters, the CJ is the first among judges enjoying equal status, but in a constitutional sense, especially when playing the role of a ‘consultee’ in judicial appointments, he is the paterfamilias of the entire judiciary.


This dual identity presents no conundrum when one remembers that the judiciary, unlike the executive or the

legislature, is not federal in nature.

While the State and Central governments, or the State legislatures and Parliament, which are sovereign in their respective domains, have an element of co-equality, the judiciary has a single hierarchy in which the Supreme Court

is at the apex.

This is demonstrated by the fact that under Article 141, the law declared by the Supreme Court is binding on all the courts.

However, the question acquires an entirely different dimension when seen in the context of the current debate on

whether the country needs a new mechanism for judicial appointments — the NJAC — or it should retain the collegium system introduced by the ‘second judges’ case’ in 1993.

The collegium, originally a three-member body conceived by the court, and later expanded to include five members by

the ‘third judges’ case’ of 1998, was an institution in which the CJ’s consultative role was encapsulated.

If the NJAC, in which the Chief Justice and two senior-most judges represent the judiciary, while two ‘eminent

persons’ and the Union Law Minister represent the executive, is going to replace the collegium, does the CJ lose his constitutional identity as a necessary ‘consultee’, and his role diminished to that of an ordinary member in a multi-member commission?

In other words, the question seems to be the one that the NJAC debate began with: should the judiciary retain its primacy in appointments, or should it share an equal responsibility with the executive?

An unsound recommendation

A big let-down amid an otherwise progressive narrative in the Department of Telecommunications’ recent report on net neutrality is its recommendation to bring voice over internet protocol-based (VoIP) domestic calling services, including applications such as WhatsApp, under licensing.

The suggestion is that such services be regulated “through exercise of licensing powers available under section 4 of

the Indian Telegraph Act to ensure a level playing field.”

This does not straightaway mean such calls will be chargeable. The more obvious implication is that such applications

can’t operate without the government’s permission, which might be granted only on the fulfilment of certain conditions or the payment of a fee, or both.

The DoT’s report is by no means final and binding. Still, the stated logic behind such a suggestion is open to question.

The report says telecom companies “may become reluctant to invest in expansion of broadband infrastructure” in an environment where apps that provide similar calling services eat into their revenues.

Don’t telecom companies benefit from the apps that ride on whatever services they provide? Doesn’t more app usage

mean more data consumed, which in turn mean more revenues for telecom companies?

The recommendation could be flawed on multiple grounds.

One, there is a good chance that if the suggestion is implemented the consumer might be worse off for it. But before

that, there is a big question mark over whether differentiating a domestic VoIP call from an international one is possible at all.

Bar this recommendation, the report does seem to largely reflect a nuanced understanding of the complexities of today’s internet world. This is true even of its references to zero-rating schemes, under which the user is offered data or access to some sites free of cost.

True, critics have taken the report to task for not recommending a ban on them. But there are novel zero-rating

schemes where the user is given free data and not a pre-selected bouquet of sites, as Facebook’s internet.org does (the report doesn’t seem to be in favour of this).

It’s heartening that the report repeatedly pitches for net neutrality, the principle of data equality that is important to

ensure the internet remains a level-playing field.

At the same time, it shows pragmatism in saying that “enforcing net neutrality principle is a new idea and may throw

up many questions and problems as we go along,” and that this may require a process of oversight.

Monsoons and markets

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that there were reasons to smile on the economic front as India remains a bright

spot, despite the global slowdown.

But he admitted that agriculture remains a concern and promised that as tax revenue goes up, an increasing share

would be spent on building a strong and vibrant agricultural sector.

Nabard can play an important role in that process. It has completed 33 years of service to the nation. From 1982 to

2015, it has come a long way in terms of extending rural credit for myriad programmes ranging from rural roads and irrigation under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund to building value chains with farmer producer organisations (FPOs) and micro-finance initiatives.

Of late, it has also acquired the distinction of being accredited as the first national implementing entity (NIE) of the

Green Climate Fund (GCF) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

As an NIE, Nabard is supposed to lead and promote work on climate change adaptation and mitigation, especially in

agriculture and rural development activities.

Given that in the first three years of the 12th Plan (2012-17), the average rate of growth in agri-GDP has been a mere 1.7 per cent against a target of 4 per cent, there is cause for concern as this is leading to agrarian distress.

What are the root causes of agrarian distress today? Basically, two factors: monsoons and markets.

A drought last year, followed by unseasonal rains that damaged the rabi crop, and falling global agri-prices, which are

pushing down domestic farm prices of several commodities, from rice and corn to sugar and groundnuts.

Farmers’ incomes have plummeted and many cannot service their loans, raising demands for a loan waiver.


Small and fragmented holdings, excessive specialisation and input intensification of agriculture as well as restrictive

markets also contribute to the increasing distress.

What could be the policy solutions?

A major focus is needed on water for irrigation — both in terms of developing irrigation in a cost-effective manner to

drought-proof agriculture but also managing our water resources more efficiently.

Since the pricing of water and power for irrigation is highly subsidised — at places even free — it is but natural for

farmers to go for water-heavy crops like rice and sugarcane, wherever they get access to water. Both are being produced in excess of domestic requirements.

India exported 12 million metric tonne of rice in 2014-15, becoming the largest exporter of rice for the third year in a

row. Sugar is also in plenty, but cannot be exported due to low global prices, creating a major crisis in the sugar industry of cane arrears touching unprecedented levels of Rs 21,000 crore.

In any case, exports of rice and sugar mean exporting billions of cubic meters of scarce water. This must be

rationalised through innovative policies that can reward farmers for saving water (and power) and diversifying away from water-guzzling crops.

Can Nabard take up this challenge under its new role as an NIE of the GCF by promoting sustainable and more diversified agriculture? It could have a high pay-off.

The government has already raised the funding of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY) to Rs 50,000

crore for the next five years.

Since this programme consolidates the watershed management and accelerated irrigation benefit schemes, one will

have to wait and see how much more money is really being put into the PMKSY.

Nevertheless, the policy seems to be a step in the right direction.

But to deliver more crop for every drop of water, could Nabard spearhead the promotion of innovative farming practices (such as the system of rice intensification and precision farming) and technologies (like drip and check dams) through its network of NGOs and FPOs?

Jaitley also mentioned overhauling the existing crop insurance system to make it more robust and responsive to

farmers’ needs and that the government is currently working on this.

While irrigation will take time to deliver, crop insurance can be fixed relatively quickly and it could act as an effective

coping strategy to contain farmer distress. This is another area where Nabard could chip in.

On the markets front, there is a consensus that we need to organise farmers into groups (FPOs, cooperatives or any

other form) to create scale, and integrate them with commodity value chains. For building value chains and ensuring farmers get their due share, a lot of market reforms will be needed — from changes in the APMC regime to building infrastructure (rural roads, warehouses etc).

Nabard is already doing quite a bit of work in this area and could scale up its operations to make sure that farmers

get a good remunerative price for their produce.

Building value chains can also create millions of off-farm jobs within the rural economy. But linking FPOs to front-end organised retailers or food processors will be a challenge as both are at a nascent stage and many states do not even allow organised retail.

The announcement of an e-national market by the government cannot take off unless several of these hurdles are

cleared and grading of products introduced from the beginning.

Thus, in brief, agrarian distress can be relieved and farmers’ incomes enhanced with better irrigation and water

management, more diversified agriculture, robust science-based crop insurance, as well as better access to markets.

This will also help promote more sustainable agriculture. Nabard can surely contribute to achieving much of this.

Japan’s security dilemma

The security legislation proposed by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration moved a step closer to becoming law when Parliament’s lower house approved it. The bills, which seek to rewrite the country’s post-War pacifist security policy, are now before the upper house.

Over a period of seven decades, Japan’s security policy, shaped under a war-renouncing Constitution following the

misadventures of the imperial regime, has been focussed on self-defence.

But the present bills seek to replace the self-defence doctrine with “collective self-defence”, that would allow Japan to

send troops abroad to rescue allies under attack. This big shift in approach makes the legislation controversial and

unpopular.

According to recent polls, only a quarter of the Japanese population supports the legislation. But Mr. Abe seems

determined to take it forward.

This is mainly because of two inter-connected factors. First, Japan has come under huge pressure from the U.S. to

revise its security doctrine. During Mr. Abe’s visit to the U.S. in April 2015, both Japan and the U.S. announced new security guidelines which urged Tokyo to take “more responsibility” in their bilateral security arrangement.

Mr. Abe promised U.S. lawmakers to approve a new defence bill package “by this summer”. This explains why the Prime Minister is in a hurry to get the bills passed despite opposition.

Second, the nationalist politician that Mr. Abe is, sees it as a necessity to have an outward-looking security policy to

contain China’s rise. He had earlier proposed to have a “strategic diamond” of four maritime democracies — Japan, the U.S., Australia and India — to counter Chinese influence in the Pacific.

Mr. Abe has criticised China’s territorial ambitions in the South China Sea, and Tokyo and Beijing have a dispute over

islands in the East China Sea held by Japan.

But the question is whether the move to reorient the pacifist security posturing, which ensured peace over the last

seven decades when Japan rose as an economic powerhouse from the ruins of the Second World War, would help Tokyo address its security challenges, or lead to a flare-up of tensions in an already volatile East Asia.


If the latter happens, that would create wrinkles in East Asian stability as the rivalry between China and Japan, that

has historical dimensions, would worsen. That will not be in the interest of either Japan or Asia.

Japan should also be wary of joining the great game between the U.S. and China in the Pacific — one an existing super power and the other a rising super power. Instead, it should focus on solving its problems with China

bilaterally, and work towards essential regional stability.

For that to happen, the best way will be to continue its acclaimed policy of renunciation of war.

Historic fly-by

History was made on July 14 when NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft became the first spacecraft to successfully fly by

the dwarf planet Pluto, the last unexplored world in the Solar System.

This it did after travelling a distance of nearly 5 billion kilometres since its launch in January 2006.

The scientific treasure that has been returned since then by the spacecraft has already “dramatically surpassed”

expectations.

The satellite confirmed Pluto’s pride of place as the largest object in the Kuiper belt: Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet status in August 2006 after the discovery of Eris, of similar size, in the Kuiper belt.

Contrary to expectations, the first close-up image revealed that the surface of Pluto was not riddled with any impact

craters formed by objects bombarding it.

Without doubt, the surface is very young, probably less than 100 million years old, and the only way to explain this is

by rejecting the grand old theory of an inert Pluto made up of ice and rock.

Instead, the dwarf planet is geologically active with an internal heat source that drives the engine, and it has some

yet-to-be deciphered mechanism that refreshes the surface from time to time; tidal heating can be ruled out as Pluto does not orbit any giant planet.

Similarly, the existence of high mountains, possible volcanoes, fault lines, rift valleys and other features underlines the presence of active tectonics.

Similar to the crater-free surface, a mountain range jutting out 3,500 metres above it is also less than 100 million

years old, and is one of the “youngest surfaces seen in the Solar System”.

Much like Pluto, its largest moon Charon too has a young surface with geologically diverse features.

More images are expected to be sent on by the spacecraft until August next year, and these could contain invaluable

information about both Pluto and its moon, and other objects in the Kuiper belt.

With exploration being second nature to humans, it is expeditions such as these that awaken curiosity and fire our interest in science.

Unlike other mega-science projects of equal importance, space exploration has always had the power to hold ordinary

people under a spell. India’s moon mission Chandrayaan-1 and the recent Mars Orbiter Mission Mangalyaan, certainly rekindled interest in science among students.

At a time when basic science appears to have become less attractive, expeditions such as these could help reverse the

trend.

Trial and error

The Supreme Court, in its 1980 Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab ruling, laid down the “rarest of the rare” principle in

handing out the death penalty.

However, the high frequency of the award of capital punishment by trial courts across the country should give pause

for thought.

New research findings from the Centre on the Death Penalty at the National Law University in Delhi show that trial courts handed down 1,800 death sentences over the last year. Trial courts have been handing out death sentences at the rate of ten a month for the last 15 years.

Last year, while handing down its Shatrughan Chauhan vs Union of India ruling, the Supreme Court spelt out clear

guidelines on the legal rights of prisoners on death row.

Higher courts have the opportunity to rectify flaws in lower court judgments; indeed, fewer than 5 per cent of the

1,800 death sentences were confirmed by the Supreme Court, and a third resulted in acquittal.

However, the new numbers point to the fact that too little attention is being paid to the wanton misuse of the death

penalty in India’s lower courts, resulting in decades spent on death row while there is only a slim probability of it being confirmed.

Why trial courts are handing out death sentences at such a fast pace needs to be studied. These courts are more proximate to crimes than higher courts in terms of occurrence and distance, and their working is poorly scrutinised by the media. And the data are rarely supervised by the High Courts under whose jurisdiction they come.

In addition, a fair amount of confusion prevails over the circumstances in which the death penalty should be given, on

account of lack of clarity on the part of higher courts.

The principle of the “rarest of the rare” seems subjective considering that among the 385 prisoners now on death row

in India, the largest proportion is there for murder, and 25 per cent for committing a single murder.

Nor can we automatically assume that the higher courts are confirming the deserving cases. Fourteen eminent former

judges wrote to President Pranab Mukherjee about the death sentence having been wrongly given in 13 cases: two of these convicts had already been executed. These were cases in which not just the trial courts but the High Courts and the Supreme Court too had seemingly erred: every level of the system had then failed them.

The moral imperative apart, the inconsistent outcomes from the judicial system on this question should be reason

enough for India to urgently revoke its position on the death penalty.


WEEKLY NEWS AND ANALYSIS FROM 23RD TO 29TH JULY, 2015

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

‘No pressure from India on Port City project’

The Sri Lankan government denied reports that the Indian government is exerting pressure on it to stall the $1.4

billion Colombo Port City Project.

Responding to a query on whether the Indian government is pushing Sri Lanka to suspend the Chinese-funded off-shore city project, Mahishini Colonne, a spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told reporters that it was “not

true.”

However, she declined to react to a recent comment of former Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa on the Indian concerns about the project.

He had reportedly said that when he was Defence Secretary under former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, India’s

National Security Adviser Ajit Doval had urged him to stop the Chinese-funded project on grounds that it was a threat to the security of India.

In March, a week ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Sri Lanka, the government ordered the

suspension of the project.

Three months later, the Central Environmental Authority had been directed to commence “immediately” a complete

environmental impact assessment of the project.

Riyadh seeks help against Iranian ‘interference’

Saudi Arabia’s leaders sought assurances that the United States stands firmly against Iranian “interference” in West Asia, during a visit by Defence Secretary Ashton Carter.

Mr. Carter arrived as part of a regional tour trying to allay the concerns of U.S. allies about the Iran deal.

There are worries the Iran deal could spark a nuclear race in West Asia.

Along with its own nuclear projects, Riyadh is building alliances beyond its ties with Washington in order to counter

Tehran, under a more assertive foreign policy adopted since King Salman acceded to the throne in January.

New land law in Maldives gives India China chills

Alarm bells are ringing in South Block after the Maldives Parliament amended the nation’s Constitution to allow foreign ownership of land. While there has been no formal word on the issue, officials are “concerned” that the amendments will enable China to buy islands and build strategic assets in the Indian Ocean nation.

India’s relationship with the current government in Maldives has not been at its best after the arrest and

imprisonment of former president Mohammad Nasheed.

The latest move comes after Indian firm GMR was ousted from the airport development project, with Chinese firms

gaining a foothold in the nation.

What has alarmed New Delhi, however, is the speed with which the amendments were passed. The Bill was submitted

on Monday, debated and sent to a review committee at an extraordinary sitting on Tuesday night, and put to vote on Wednesday. The Bill was sent to the 11-member committee at around 12:30am – the panel reportedly approved the amendments at around 1:30am.

The legislative process in Maldives includes three main stages and usually takes weeks or months. But under the new

rules, a Bill can be debated and passed into law on the same day.

The Maldives government maintained that the new law was necessary to attract large-scale foreign investments and to launch “mega projects”, which President Abdul Yameen said would “transform” the economy and reduce the reliance on tourism.

New Delhi sees the latest development in the context of Maldives President Abdulla Yameen’s declared foreign policy

shift to the East since last year.

Chinese President Xi Jingping was the first head of state to visit the Maldives after Yameen assumed power. During

the visit, the Maldives agreed to become a partner in China’s maritime silk route, a trade route from China’s Fujian province to the Mediterranean Sea via South Asia and East Africa.

China is also providing grants and loans to the Maldives to build a bridge between the capital and the airport.

Chinese companies are involved in work on the airport, too, and have been handed islands for developing resorts.

In January, the MDP had alleged the government was planning to award parts of south central Laamu Atoll to China

for a military base. The Chinese embassy dismissed the allegations as “completely false.”

China on course to shed one-child policy

China could be on course to shed its one-child policy, allowing couples to have a second child, to counter the

demographic trend of an aging society and growing labour shortages.

The new regulation permitting two children could come into force “as soon as the end of the year if everything goes

well.”

However, the National Health and Family Planning Commission stressed that, “No timetable has been set to allow all couples in the country to have a second child.”

Nevertheless, the debate regarding the two-child policy seems to be peaking in the wake of grim statistics showing that the demographic trends in China had turned sharply unfavourable.

According to UN estimates, nearly 440 million people in China would be over 60 by 2050, signaling a rapid decline in

the labour pool.


Last year, the working population between the ages 15-59 dropped by 3.71 million — a trend that is likely to continue

in the future.

The demand for a change in the one-child policy has been growing recently. The total fertility rate had dropped to 1.4, signifying the average number of children to be born of a woman in her entire lifespan. This was well short of the 2.1 target that was required to keep the population profile balanced.

Responding to the adverse demographics, the government had, two years ago, allowed couples, either of whom was a

single child, to have a second child. The ruling especially benefited those couples born in the 1980s and 90s when the one-child policy was strictly enforced.

Nevertheless, the 2013 ruling has not resulted in a dramatic rise in the second child births. In Beijing, only 6.7% of

eligible couples applied for permission for a second child.

Analysts say, the lukewarm response to having two children can be attributed to higher living costs, career ambitions,

especially among women, and couples getting used to the decades long one-child policy.

Pakistani intelligence sought huge data collection tools: report

Pakistani intelligence sought to tap worldwide Internet traffic via underwater cables that would have given the country

a digital espionage capacity to rival the U.S., according to a report by Privacy International.

The report says the country’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency hired intermediary companies to acquire domestic spying toolkits from Western and Chinese firms for domestic surveillance.

It also claims the ISI sought access to tap data from three of the four “landing sites” that pass through the country’s

port city of Karachi, effectively giving it access to Internet traffic worldwide.

Pakistan was in talks with a European company in 2013 to acquire the technology but it is not clear whether the deal

went through.

“These cables are going to route data through various countries and regions,” Matthew Rice, an advocacy officer for

Privacy International, told.

“Some will go from Europe to Africa and all the way to Southeast Asia. From my reading that’s an explicit attempt to look at what’s going on.”

Traffic from North America and regional rival India would also be routed via the cables, he said.

The report said the data collection sought “would rival some of the world’s most powerful surveillance programmes.”

Will not allow Chinese military bases, Maldives assures India

The Maldives government’s move to allow foreign ownership of its islands will not affect India’s strategic interests,

Maldives President Abdullah Yameen said, after ratifying the constitutional amendment on freeholds.

The decision could benefit countries like China that are eager to build land holdings in the Indian ocean.

The conciliatory statements from Male come a day after India raised concerns over the land law amendment that was

passed overnight by the Maldivian People’s Majlis (Parliament).

In his statement, President Yameen specifically referred to India’s objections to China building military bases, or using

reclaimed islands for them, as it is accused of doing in the South China Sea.

Mr. Yameen said: “The Maldivian government has given assurances to the Indian government and our neighbouring

countries as well to keep the Indian Ocean a demilitarised zone.”

The statement, following the ratification by the Maldivian People’s Majlis of the constitutional amendment allowing freeholds for islands, added that the freeholds would not pose “any danger to either the Maldivian people or our neighbouring countries.” However, it is clear that given the parameters laid out for land ownership, including investments of over $1 billion for projects where 70 per cent of the land has been reclaimed, China will be the obvious beneficiary.

In particular, the new law would allow Chinese companies, well equipped in dredging and reclamation work to acquire islands and atolls in the Maldives. President Xi Jinping’s 21st century new “Maritime Silk Route (MSR)” hinges on projects in the Maldives, a key stop for the route.

SAARC satellite to cost Rs. 235 cr.

The launch of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) satellite has been pegged at an

estimated Rs. 235 crore and the cost associated with the launch will be met by the country, Parliament was informed.

It will enable full range of applications and services to the member-nations in the areas of telecommunication and

broadcasting applications namely television, direct-to-home, very small aperture terminals, tele-education, telemedicine and disaster management support, Minister of State for Atomic Energy and Space Jitendra Singh said in the Rajya Sabha.

The satellite was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the SAARC summit in Nepal in November last.

The Indian Space Research Organisation will build the satellite with 12 Ku-band transponders and launch it using the Indian Geostationary Launch Vehicle Mk-II.

Turkish warplanes pound ISIS targets in Syria

In a major tactical shift, Turkish warplanes struck ISIS targets across the border in Syria, a day after the militants

fired at a Turkish military outpost.

Turkey had long been reluctant to join the U.S.-led coalition against the extremist group, but in a related, long-

awaited development, it has agreed to allow U.S.-led coalition forces to base manned and unmanned aircraft at its air bases for operations targeting ISIS.


A Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said Turkey’s military would also take part in the operations.

Turkey’s moves came as the country finds itself drawn further into the conflict in neighboring Syria by a series of deadly attacks and signs of increased ISIS activity inside Turkey.

A government statement said the airstrikes were approved after ISIS militants fired from Syrian territory at the

Turkish military outpost, killing one soldier.

Pakistan to buy 8 submarines from China in multibillion-dollar deal, report says

Pakistan will buy eight submarines from China in a multibillion-dollar deal that will boost Pakistani navy's maritime

capabilities.

An agreement was reached during a meeting between Pakistan finance minister Ishaq Dar and Xu Ziqin, president of

state-owned China Shipbuilding & Offshore International Company Limited (SCOC) — the trade arm of China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation.

The two sides agreed in principle on the sale of eight submarines that China will provide to Pakistani navy.

The reports of submarines deal was in the air since the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Pakistan in April.

It was reported then that the contract could be worth $4 billion to $5 billion, the biggest arms export deal for

communist China.

Pakistan has been negotiating the purchase of submarines from China since 2011. No details were, however, given

about the type of the submarines.

But there have been reports that Yuan-class Type-041 diesel-electric submarines were being considered.

The-Type 041 "Yuan" class is described by IHS Jane's Fighting Ships as a diesel electric attack submarine, potentially

with stirling air independent propulsion.

Last month, Pakistan and China signed an agreement for construction of six patrol vessels for Pakistan Maritime

Security Agency (PMSA).

China is Pakistan's biggest supplier of military hardware, which includes battle tanks, naval ships as well as fighter

jets. The two jointly manufacture J-17 Thunder warplane.

India-Myanmar-Thailand road: Govt to sign pact in November

The government is set to ink a strategic agreement to operationalise a 3,200-km road link from Moreh (India) to Mae Sot (Thailand) to enhance regional co-operation later in November this year.

The India-Myanmar-Thailand (IMT) trilateral highway, which entails linking India to Myanmar and then further to Southeast Asia, has been taken up as priority by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“The protocol has been cleared. There is a slight glitch with customs, a meeting to sort out the same will be held in

September. Myanmar needs four months for parliamentary approval. The agreement will be signed by November.”

Modi is learnt to be very keen that effective and credible infrastructure links be established to enhance regional co-

operation between South Asia and Southeast Asia.

The trilateral highway will drastically enhance the connectivity between the Mekong sub-region and India and prove to

be a game-changer for India’s northeast region.

It is an important component in the government’s plans to ramp up its “Look East” policy to the newly coined “Act East” policy.

“The India-Myanmar-Thailand road link has been designed to bridge emerging economies in the Asean and Saarc

regions.

On implementation, the sub-region will get access to the larger Asean market through seamless passenger and cargo

movement.

‘Next IMF boss to be from outside Europe’

The next managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is likely to come from outside Europe when

current leader Christine Lagarde eventually leaves, the deputy head of the Washington-based fund said.

IMF First Deputy Managing Director David Lipton told the tradition by which a European heads the fund while an American leads the World Bank was coming under pressure and the next appointment would be “strictly merit-based”.

Ms. Lagarde’s five-year term comes to an end next year but she was quoted as saying she would consider a second

term if she had the support of the IMF’s members.

Chinese investments, with strings attached

Where the Andean foothills dip into the Amazon jungle, nearly 1,000 Chinese engineers and workers have been

pouring concrete for a dam and a 15-mile underground tunnel. The $2.2 billion project will feed river water to eight giant Chinese turbines designed to produce enough electricity to light more than a third of Ecuador.

Near the port of Manta on the Pacific Ocean, Chinese banks are in talks to lend $7 billion for the construction of an

oil refinery, which could make Ecuador a global player in gasoline, diesel and other petroleum products.

Across the country in villages and towns, Chinese money is going to build roads, highways, bridges, hospitals, even a

network of surveillance cameras stretching to the Galápagos Islands.

State-owned Chinese banks have already put nearly $11 billion into the country, and the Ecuadorean government is asking for more.


Ecuador, with just 16 million people, has little presence on the global stage. But China’s rapidly expanding footprint

here speaks volumes about the changing world order, as Beijing surges forward and Washington gradually loses ground.

While China has been important to the world economy for decades, the country is now wielding its financial heft with the confidence and purpose of a global superpower.

China’s currency, the renminbi, is expected to be anointed soon as a global reserve currency, putting it in an elite

category with the dollar, the euro, the pound and the yen. China’s state-owned development bank has surpassed the World Bank in international lending.

And its effort to create an internationally funded institution to finance transportation and other infrastructure has

drawn the support of 57 countries.

However, with its elevated status, China is forcing countries to play by its financial rules, which can be onerous. Many

developing countries, in exchange for loans, pay steep interest rates and give up the rights to their natural resources for years. China has a lock on close to 90 per cent of Ecuador’s oil exports, which mostly goes to paying off its loans.

The Chinese money also comes with its own conditions. Along with steep interest payments, Ecuador is largely

required to use Chinese companies and technologies on the projects.

International rules limit how the United States and other industrialised countries can tie their loans to such agreements. But China, which is still considered a developing country despite being the world’s largest manufacturer, doesn’t have to follow those standards.

Tunisia passes tough anti-terrorism law

Tunisia’s Parliament voted overwhelmingly to pass the country’s new anti-terror law after a pair of devastating attacks

against tourists, but critics fear the new legislation may endanger this North African nation’s hard won freedoms.

The law, which had languished in Parliament for years, was fast-tracked after gunmen in March attacked the national

museum in Tunis and killed 21 foreign tourists.

Three months later, another gunman attacked a resort in Sousse killing 38 tourists, mostly Britons.

The new law raises the amount of time police can hold a suspect without charge and without contact with a lawyer from six days to 15.

Death is the maximum penalty for terrorism, including disseminating information that results in the loss of life in

terror attacks.

Obama in Kenya: 'Africa is on the move'

President Barack Obama heralded Africa as a continent "on the move" as he opened a U.S.-sponsored business

summit in Kenya, the East African nation where he has deep family ties.

"Africa is one of the fastest growing regions of the world," Obama said. "People are being lifted out of poverty."

Much of the president's visit is focused on boosting business and security ties with Kenya, a growing economy grappling with the threat of terrorism — most notably from the Somalia-based al-Shabab network.

Nearly two dozen US lawmakers and 200 American investors have joined Obama on his trip, which also includes a

stop in Ethiopia.

Speaking at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, Obama announced more than $1 billion new commitments from

the US government, as well as American banks, foundations and philanthropists. Half of the money will go to support women and young people, who Obama says face bigger obstacles when trying to start businesses.

Iran reaches out to Arab nations

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif arrived in Kuwait to begin a three-nation regional tour aimed at

deepening ties with Arab neighbours following the conclusion of the Islamic Republic’s historic nuclear deal with world powers.

After Kuwait, Mr. Zarif was scheduled to visit Qatar and Iraq.

Iranian state-linked media say he will brief officials in all three countries on the nuclear accord and discuss ways to improve cooperation and fight terrorism.

Iran shares control of a vast underwater natural gas field with Qatar, a wealthy nation rapidly being transformed by

its hydrocarbon riches.

In Iraq, Tehran has close ties with senior government leaders and Shia militia groups, and it is playing an active role

in fighting Islamic State militants who have seized a third of the country.

Growing discord with another Gulf Arab state, the island nation of Bahrain, threatens to overshadow Mr. Zarif’s

outreach effort.

Bahrain announced it was recalling its ambassador to Iran for consultations following what it called “continued hostile statements made by Iranian officials towards Bahrain,” according to the official Bahrain News Agency.

Beijing, Moscow enhance cooperation in S. China Sea

Military tensions in the Pacific are on the rise as the United States cements its China oriented “Asia Pivot” amid visible

signs of naval collaboration between Beijing and Moscow.

Beijing is closely monitoring Washington’s decision to step up aerial monitoring and attack capability in the Pacific as

part of a five-year plan.

Admiral Jonathan Greenert, the chief of naval operations, disclosed in a five-page “navigation plan” that Washington

would beef up the aerial component of the U.S. Pacific Command.


Aerial command posts

He revealed Pentagon’s intent to deploy the latest E-2D Advanced Hawkeyes-new aerial command posts, which would

be central to surveillance network in the skies.

The strengthening of the “Asia Pivot” — a “containment” doctrine targeting China — has escalated tensions over competing sovereignty claims over islands in the South China Sea.

The Chinese, sensing deviation from its previous hands-off stance, are especially concerned about a recent surge in

U.S. activism in the South China Sea.

The Chinese defence ministry slammed the surveillance mission undertaken by U.S. Pacific Fleet commander, Admiral

Scott Swift, who, for seven hours, flew on a reconnaissance mission aboard a P-8A plane in the South China Sea.

Apart from the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei and have claims over islands in the South China

Sea.

The Russians, already allied with China in game-changing strategic projects in Eurasia, have now become unambiguous in accusing Washington of pursuing a “containment” policy towards Russia and China.

Russia planned to join its Asia-pacific allies in May next year, in counter-terrorism naval exercises in the South China Sea. The Russians have also announced beefing up its military presence in Kuril Islands, heightening the dispute in the area with Japan, a top U.S. ally in the Pacific.

Animal sacrifice banned in Nepal festival In a significant move that will save the lives of millions of animals, the practice of sacrifice has been banned at Nepal’s

Gadhimai festival, the world’s biggest animal sacrifice event held every five years.

An age-old practice The temple trust announced its decision and urged all devotees not to bring animals to the festival, a religious

practice that had been continuing for the last 300 years.

“The Gadhimai Temple Trust hereby declares our formal decision to end animal sacrifice. With your help, we can ensure Gadhimai 2019 is free from bloodshed. Moreover, we can ensure Gadhimai 2019 is a momentous celebration of life,” the chairman of the trust, Ram Chandra Shah, said in a statement.

“For generations, pilgrims have sacrificed animals to the Goddess Gadhimai, in the hope of a better life. For every life taken, our heart is heavy. The time has come to transform an old tradition. The time has come to replace killing and violence with peaceful worship and celebration,” he added.

“Animal sacrifice is a highly regressive practice and no nation in the modern world should entertain it,” said Gauri Maulekhi, Humane Society International/India (HSI) Consultant and Trustee People for Animals, who had approached the Supreme Court of India against the movement of animals from the country into Nepal for the festival.

“We applaud the temple committee’s decision to end this mass slaughter of innocent animals and hope that they will continue to support us in our future endeavours for protecting animals in the country,” said Manoj Gautam, a founding member of Animal Welfare Network Nepal (AWNN) and campaigner against the Gadhimai festival.

NATIONAL NEWS RS panel backs majority of GST Bill proposals

Though the Opposition forced adjournments in both Houses of Parliament, the chances of the Constitution (122nd

Amendment) Bill, meant to introduce the Goods and Services Tax (GST), clearing Parliament in the current session brightened, with the Rajya Sabha Select Committee endorsing almost all its provisions.

In its report submitted to the House, the committee, headed by Bhupender Yadav of the BJP, said that to start with,

the GST rate should not go beyond 20 per cent as standard rate and 14 per cent as reduced rate.

It agreed with the demand of parties such as the Trinamool Congress for full compensation from the Centre for any revenue loss to the States during the transition.

It suggested that the provision in the Bill that the Centre “may” compensate the States for up to five years for any

revenue loss be replaced with a commitment of compensation for five years.

The Bill, which the Lok Sabha has already approved, will now have to be taken up for passage in the Rajya Sabha.

As it is a Constitution amendment Bill, it will have to be approved by two-thirds of the members in the Upper House,

where the ruling BJP does not enjoy a majority. The government will have to depend upon the support of regional

parties and allies.

Privacy not a right, Aadhaar legit: Centre

Facing the question of whether making a citizen part with vital personal data under the Aadhaar scheme does not amount to intrusion of privacy, the Centre replied in the Supreme Court that privacy was not a Fundamental Right.

Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi said the right to privacy had been a “vague” concept all these years, a subject of

varying conclusions from the Supreme Court. He told a three-judge Bench that the Constitution-makers had never intended to make it a Fundamental Right.

Mr. Rohatgi quoted a majority 1962 judgment of the Supreme Court in the Kharak Singh case that held that privacy

was not a “guaranteed right” under the Constitution.

The submissions came during the hearing of a batch of petitions seeking to stop the implementation of the scheme.

The government said it was too late to do that as Rs. 5,000 crore had been spent on Aadhaar, which had accessed 80 crore people.

Personal data arming state with unbridled power, says petition


Iris scans, fingerprinting and so on for registering for Aadhaar are an invasion of privacy, said a petitioner seeking to

stop the implementation of the scheme in Supreme Court.

Such personal information would help the State possess unbridled powers over its citizens and provide an easy opportunity to snoop on their private lives.

The counsel for the petitioner said it was a “little late in the day for the Union of India and the Attorney-General to say

that right to privacy is not a fundamental right”.

He pointed to several decisions of the Supreme Court subsequent to the Kharak Singh case, including the Maneka

Gandhi case, in which the court gave a very wide ambit to the right of personal liberty.

Privacy is at the core of our vital needs. Privacy leads to fulfilment of our goals, enrichment of ourselves and our

growth. The need for privacy distinguishes humans from other animals.

It is a fundamental right,” he said even as Justice Chelameswar suggested that since there was a “divergence of opinion” the matter may be referred to a larger bench.

On a September 23, 2013 order, the court had directed that “no person should suffer for not getting the Aadhaar

card.”

In March this year, the Supreme Court had confirmed that the Aadhaar number was not compulsory, and further,

officials who insisted on them would be taken to task.

India protested U.S. sales: Sushma

India has “conveyed concerns” to the U.S. over its approval of military sales including attack helicopters and Hellfire

missiles worth nearly a billion dollars to Pakistan, the government said.

In a written reply to a question in Parliament, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said India had “noted” the

State Department’s decision to go ahead with the defence sales, which were announced in April this year.

The sales included 15 AH-1Z attack helicopters, 1,000 Hellfire missiles, engines, targeting and positioning systems and other equipment worth $952 million.

The government’s statement is the first time that India has articulated its objections over sales to Pakistan quite so

clearly.

The decision to arm Pakistan was particularly upsetting as President Obama had announced an accompanying aid

outlay of $1 billion for the year, as well as a six-fold increase in FMF or Foreign Military Financing to $265 million within days of visiting India in January this year.

To questions about the announcement of the added military sales, State Department spokesperson Marie Harf had

said they were not meant for offensive capabilities.

India also took up China’s announcement of a $46 billion package for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, that included funding development projects in Pakistan occupied Kashmir when Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing in May, and Ms. Swaraj had raised concerns over the Russian offer of Mi-35 helicopters to Pakistan when she met Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin in 2014.

The Pakistan government has criticised India for expressing such concerns in the past.

Centre unblocks funds for Ford Foundation

Months after its clampdown on the U.S.-based Ford Foundation, the Centre has unblocked foreign funds totalling

$150,000 to be released to the foreign donor’s bank accounts.

The Union Home Ministry put the foundation under the “prior permission” category in April in the interest of “national

security”.

In what is being seen as a softening of stand against the powerful international non-governmental organisation, the Ministry gave it the go-ahead to release funds as the organisation made a plea to the government after exhausting its

options even to pay salaries.

Since the foundation is not registered as an NGO in India, it was asked to register itself under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999, if it intended to receive foreign funds in its accounts.

The NGO was put on the government’s watch list after the Gujarat government, in its report to the Union Home

Ministry in March, said it funded “anti-India” activities of Teesta Setalvad’s two NGOs — Citizens for Justice and Peace and Sabrang Trust.

“We decided to unblock funds so that their staffers here in India could be paid their salaries. They also agreed to

register themselves under FEMA,” a senior Home Ministry official said.

In May, U.S. Ambassador to India Richard Rahul Verma expressed “concern” at the “potentially chilling effects” of the

regulatory steps taken against NGOs here.

The foundation had earlier argued for continuation of the practice under which it was allowed to operate merely on the basis of an understanding with the Department of Economic Affairs.

‘N-power output set to register huge increase’

Nuclear power generation in India which is currently at 5,780 MW from 21 operational reactors is expected to increase

to 10,080 MW on progressive completion of projects under commissioning/ construction by 2019, the government informed Parliament.

The government in July last had announced tripling of the then existing capacity of 4,780 MW in the next ten years

(by 2024).


A capacity of 1,000 MW has already been added with the start of commercial operation of Unit-1 at Kudankulam in

December 2014.

In addition, one Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor of 500 MW capacity at Kalpakkam is in advanced stage of commissioning while approvals have been accorded for several other projects.

To facilitate import of reactors from foreign countries, an Indian Nuclear Insurance Pool (INIP) of Rs 1500 crore was

launched on June 12, 2015 by General Insurance Corporation of India to provide insurance cover to the liability as prescribed under Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act 2010.

TRAI names firms faulting on call drop service norms

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has named Vodafone, Idea, Reliance and Airtel among the cell phone

service providers failing to meet the quality of service norms in Delhi or Mumbai, especially on mobile call drops.

The audit, done by an independent agency in the two metros, on behalf of the regulator, found that Tata (CDMA) in

Delhi and Bharti Airtel in Mumbai are the only service providers meeting the benchmark of less than 2 per cent call drops.

The TRAI said the drive was conducted in view of complaints on call drops and other network issues on June 23 and

June 24 in Mumbai and July 9 to 11 in Delhi.

“The results revealed that most of the operators are not meeting the benchmarks of the network related parameters. They failed to achieve the benchmarks due to high block call rate, high drop call rate, low call setup success rate and poor Rx Quality,” the regulator said.

As per the audit report, barring Tata (CDMA) in Delhi, none of the service providers in Delhi and Mumbai, meets the

benchmark for Rx Quality, which measures voice quality during calls.

The number of call drop complaints by mobile phone subscribers has been on the rise, especially in metros. However,

operators, on their part, have cited lack of spectrum and delay in its allocation as one of the reasons for network-related issues along with hurdles in installing mobile towers due to radiation issues.

The TRAI report points out that during the last six months around 801 sites in Mumbai and 523 sites in Delhi were

shut down due to reasons such as sealing of sites by municipal authorities and radiation-related issues. The closure of each site impacts three to four neighbouring sites and this may lead to increased call drops.

Mandarin lessons for ITBP

Taking forward its intention to avoid any skirmish at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the Indo-Tibetan Border Police Force (ITBP) is not only making its men well-versed in Mandarin, but also giving them lessons in the Tibetan

language.

For the first time, a Chinese Language Cell has been created at the ITBP Academy in Mussoorie to teach Mandarin.

“This is primarily being done to bridge the communication gap between our men and the Chinese PLA,” said a senior

Home Ministry official.

The LAC, on an average, sees over 400 transgressions by the Chinese Army. On many occasions, there has been

friction between the Chinese PLA and the ITBP personnel due to a lack of understanding of each other’s language.

Language barrier, he added, was an impediment during various meetings with the Chinese PLA. The need to learn

Tibetan stemmed from the fact that a large number of locals, including grazers and villagers, move around in the vicinity of the LAC.

Himachal HC bans buffalo, bull fights

The Himachal Pradesh High Court has imposed a complete ban on all types of buffalo and bull fights in the hill State, stating that it is against the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960.

A Division Bench which imposed the ban on these traditional fun fights, termed them a severe brutality against the

animals.

The court order said that all animal fights, involving bulls or buffaloes, birds, roosters or dogs are against the Act.

A PIL petition was moved by People for Animals NGO in Kasauli in 2013, seeking implementation of the Supreme

Court judgment prohibiting bull fights in Tamil Nadu. The petitioner had sought to do away with the century-old practice during the village fairs in Himachal Pradesh as cruelty could not be justified in the name of religious practices and traditions or for the sake of entertainment as it violates the provisions of the PCA Act.

R.K. Pachauri removed as TERI head

Nobel laureate and climate scientist R.K. Pachauri was removed as the Director-General of TERI by its governing

council.

At a meeting in Bengaluru, the top decision-making body named Ajay Mathur, currently the Director-General of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency of the Central Government, as its new Director-General. He will take over after he is relieved from his current position.

Accused of sexual harassment by a junior colleague in February this year, Mr. Pachauri was found guilty of

misconduct by the organisation’s Internal Complaints Committee in May.

Live-in relationship not a crime, now an acceptable norm: A-G

The Centre told the Supreme Court that live-in relationships should be seen as an “acceptable norm,” and pointed to

how reputations of public personalities are often sullied in public because someone pried into their private life.

“With the changes in standards of society, live-in relationship is now an acceptable norm, akin to marriage. It is not a

crime,” Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi submitted.


His submissions came in response to queries from a Bench led by Justice Dipak Misra as to whether exposing a

public figure’s live-in relation would make a person liable for criminal defamation.

A third of HC judges’ posts vacant, Lok Sabha told

One-third of all judges’ posts at the High Court level and over a fifth of posts at the subordinate court level are currently vacant in India, the government said.

While the approved strength of the Supreme Court is of 31 judges, there are currently three vacancies.

In the High Courts, 381 of 1017 positions are vacant.

The situation in the Chhattisgarh High Court is the worst, with nearly 60 per cent of positions vacant, closely followed

by the Allahabad High Court with over half of all sanctioned posts vacant.

At the subordinate judiciary level, over a fifth of all posts are vacant, with only 15,643 judges currently working as against a sanctioned strength of 20,214.

In Delhi, Gujarat and Bihar, over a third of all judges’ posts are vacant.

All levels taken together, India has 17 judges for every million people.

Since the collegium system of appointing judges has ceased to exist with the passing of the National Judicial

Appointments Commission Act, and a final Supreme Court verdict on the NJAC has been reserved, no action on the appointment of judges can be taken without court orders.

SC lifts stay but says Rajiv killers cannot be freed

Even as the Supreme Court lifted its year-old embargo on State governments from releasing life convicts on remission,

it doubly ensured the relief does not extend to those serving life terms in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

For one, while lifting the blanket stay in place since July 9 last year, a five-judge Constitution Bench led by Chief

Justice of India H.L. Dattu made it clear that the respite does not include life convicts whose cases were investigated by central agencies like the CBI, as in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

Again, the Bench thought it best not to mince words, and went on to bluntly record that its order lifting the stay does

not apply for the Rajiv Gandhi killers.

The trigger for the July 2014 stay order was the Centre’s writ petition challenging the Tamil Nadu government

decision to remit the punishment of seven life convicts in the assassination case whose death penalty was commuted to life sentence by the Supreme Court.

The order brought relief to many life convicts who have already served over 14 years of their life sentences. However, it

came with certain riders.

One of them was that State governments could not release convicts whose terms of imprisonment were specified to continue till the “end of their lives.”

Secondly, life convicts for whom it was specified they should suffer imprisonment for not less than 20 to 25 years were

also left out.

Again, States were restrained from releasing persons convicted for crimes under Central laws like TADA and for

gruesome crimes like rape with murder.

The order came shortly after the Centre had urged the apex court not to show any further mercy to the convicts in the

Rajiv Gandhi case. The Centre had said that its voice was that of families who lost loved ones in the 1991 assassination.

The Centre had said it could not allow Tamil Nadu to “tinker” with the Supreme Court judgment and use its power of remission to release seven convicts whose death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment in the case.

Delays dog highway projects

Highway projects continue to be plagued by delays with many States reporting an increase in the number of delayed

projects between February and April 30 this year.

In 11 States, according to the data, more than 30 per cent of ongoing projects have been delayed.

In sharp contrast, the Border Roads Organisation has reduced the number of delayed projects implemented by it from

13 to 0 over the same time period.

Low productivity in highway construction is further made clear by the fact that only 15 out of 33 States and Union Territories saw an increase in the length of highways constructed in 2014-15 over the previous year.

Delays in highway projects have been a long-standing problem, with Ministry data from the previous session of

Parliament showing that a total of 125 projects relating to the Golden Quadrilateral project are delayed. Of these, 32 have been delayed by more than five years.

Delays can be for various reasons including weather, violence and, often, truancy by contractors. Bihar initiated

action against nine contractors found guilty of delaying construction, while Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh initiated action against four contractors each.

All India Council of Sports constituted

The Government constituted All India Council of Sports as an advisory body to deliberate on matters relating to the

promotion and development of sports in the country.

While the advice rendered by the council will be duly considered by the government, it will not be binding and

obligatory on the Government, the sports ministry said.

The Council may organise national, international conferences, seminars, symposia for promotion of sports in the country.


It will be headed by a president in the rank of Minister of State and will include four Members of Parliament, sports

personalities, coaches, experts, administrators, Director General Sports Authority of India, DG National Anti-Doping Agency, Vice Chancellor of LNIPE, officials from Sports Ministry, representatives from National Sports Federations, Indian Olympic Association, corporate bodies and NGOs.

Appointments of the president and members of the Council, other than ex-officio members, will be made by the Government.

Unions’ demand for wage hike may not be met

The Union government is unlikely to accept the demand of labour unions that the minimum national monthly wage rate for formal and informal sector jobs be raised to Rs. 15,000.

The Centre could peg this rate somewhere between Rs. 7,500 and Rs. 8,000 from the current Rs. 4,500, Union Labour

Minister Bandaru Dattatreya told.

Earlier in July, the Ministry revised the national floor-level daily wage from Rs. 137 to Rs. 160.

An increase in the wage rate is among the 12 that the labour unions have put up before the Ministry during its

consultations aimed at building a consensus on the labour reforms agenda of the government.

With talks remaining inconclusive on most of these demands, the unions have called a nation-wide strike for September 12.

Some of the unions had appreciated the Centre’s proposal requiring retrenched workers to be paid an average salary

of 45 days of every year of service, which was three times the current 15-day limit.

A proposal that has not found acceptance is the one on doing away with the requirement of government permission

for lay-offs, retrenchment or closures of factories employing fewer than 300 workers. This present limit is 100.

In line with the radical reforms that the Second Commission on Labour Laws proposed in 2002, the government plans

to replace 44 laws with five codes relating to wages, industrial relations, small factories, social security and welfare, Mr. Dattatreya said.

The reforms being planned are aimed not only at enhancing India’s attractiveness to global and domestic investors but also at improving conditions for workers, he said.

Spurt in infections

Even as the 12-day Godavari Pushkaralu are set to end, there has been a sudden spurt in the water-borne infectious

diseases among pilgrims who took a holy dip in the river in various parts of Karimnagar district, Telangana.

Government and private hospitals are flooded with the patients complaining of gastro-intestinal diseases such as

diarrhoea, abdominal pain, vomiting, skin problems — fungal diseases and rashes and respiratory problems.

A private doctor, who requested anonymity, said there is a sudden increase of patients after the ritual dip in the river.

Though the district administration had made elaborate arrangements, it was not enough to deal with the surge of pilgrims.

The dumping of plastic and other puja and waste material had also contaminated the water at a majority of the ghats

in the district.

Sources said the situation was worse in rural areas with a spurt in gastroenteritis.

No joy in cities as safety, civic services fall short

A survey of 21 cities shows that while there is deep dissatisfaction with lack of safety and the inadequate provision of

civic services, there is little citizen involvement in improving the situation and high level of cynicism about elected officials.

The Voice of India’s Citizens (VOICE) study is conducted annually by the Bengaluru-based urban governance group

Janaagraha to gauge citizens’ perceptions on the quality of life and civic services in their cities.

The 2014 survey found that satisfaction with policing is significantly lower in Delhi than in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai which are significantly more satisfied .

Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Patna and Bhopal are among the

cities where citizens report the least patrolling by the police.

Chennai, Surat and Dehradun report the highest proportion

of citizens saying that one requires police connections to get the men in uniform to act — over 75 per cent of those surveyed in these cities said that it was either always or usually necessary to have connections to get the police to do their job.

Delhi and Mumbai score high on citizen satisfaction with

civic amenities, while Bengaluru and Chennai score poorly.

Mumbai leads in power supply, Kolkata in women’s safety

According to the survey Mumbai had the country’s best

power supply system with nearly 70 per cent of respondents


reporting no power cuts.

Kanpur had the most complaints about electricity, with 78 per cent reporting power cuts more than twice a week.

Among the metros, 40 per cent in Hyderabad reported power cuts more than twice a week.

Perceptions about public safety were reflected in the time until when the head of the household is comfortable with an adult female staying out; more than 85 per cent of Delhi’s household heads were not comfortable with women being out after 8 p.m., while over half in Kolkata were comfortable with women being out up to 10 p.m. or midnight.

Hyderabad and Kolkata have the largest proportion of households comfortable with women being out through the

evening.

Ahmedabad, Surat, Jaipur, Kanpur, Patna and Bhopal had the most complaints about the quality of roads.

In most of the metros, majority of people use buses for transport; in Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune, the largest

proportion use two-wheelers.

People were more likely to be members of a religious or caste-based organisation than an NGO or a Residents’ Welfare Association, and the majority were unaware of the local ward committee or when its meetings were held.

“Active citizenship and robust city-systems go hand in hand in liveable cities”. “Presently however most of our cities have deficient and sometimes non-existent systems.

The first step therefore is for the political leadership to undertake systemic reforms underlying each aspect of quality

of life such as water, roads and transport, safety, open spaces etc. Active citizenship too is dependent on creation of platforms for citizen participation through such reforms”.

Nuclear disarmament advocate P.R. Chari passes away

One of India’s most well-known proponents of nuclear disarmament, P.R. Chari, passed away.

Mr. Chari, a former officer of the Indian Administrative Services, served two terms in the Defence Ministry, and was

also a former Director of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Analysis (IDSA) from 1975-1980.

Both the assignments would have involved adopting a more “hawkish” position on India's strategic doctrine, but he was instead known for promoting a “consensual approach on the nuclear issue,” according to Commodore Uday Bhaskar, also a director at the government-affiliated IDSA.

Italy moves ITLOS in Marines case

The Italian government has approached the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), one of the four

forums available for international disputes, in the Italian Marines case.

It wants India to “refrain from taking or enforcing any judicial or administrative measures” and “ensure that

restrictions on the liberty, security and movement of the Marines are immediately lifted.”

India has decided to oppose the plea when the case comes up for hearing at Hamburg, Germany, in August.

“Before ITLOS, we will be contending that India alone has jurisdiction to try offences within the country and that the tribunal has no jurisdiction”.

PM launches new scheme for power reforms in rural areas

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the 'Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana' for power sector reforms in

rural areas with a view to ensuring round the clock electricity supply to farmers and rural households.

The new power scheme focuses on feeder separation (rural households and agricultural) and strengthening of sub-

transmission and distribution infrastructure, including metering at all levels in rural areas.

The scheme is one of the flagship programmes of the Power Ministry and will facilitate 24x7 supply of electricity.

The earlier scheme for rural electrification, Rajiv GandhiGrameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY), which was launched by previous UPA government, has been subsumed in the new scheme as its rural electrification component.

The major components of the new scheme are feeder separation; strengthening of sub-transmission and distribution

network; Metering at all levels (input points, feeders and distribution transformers); Micro grid and off grid distribution network & Rural electrification- already sanctioned projects under RGGVY to be completed.

16 years since Kargil, Army still short of ammunition

Even as the nation marked the 16th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Divas, senior Army officials sent out a warning note

on shortage of ammunition, but said efforts were on to address the issue.

While “day-to-day operations” would not be affected, there was a need to build up stocks for a war-like situation.

Lt. Gen. Hooda’s words, on Kargil victory day, were significant as during the peak of the Kargil conflict, shortage of

artillery ammunition for the Bofors guns had become a serious concern. Emergency supplies had to be procured from Israel and Russia literally overnight.

Even the minimum acceptable risk level (MARL), which is 20 days, was not maintained “with availability as on March 2013 being below the MARL in respect of 125 out of 170 types of ammunition.”

While ammunition with 10 days availability is considered critical, the types of critical ammunition had increased from

15 per cent to 50 per cent over the five years to 2013, the report noted.

The armed forces launched Operation Vijay in May 1999 to evict Pakistani soldiers, mostly from Northern Light

Infantry, who occupied icy peaks across the Line of Control, which cost the lives of over 500 Indian soldiers.

Modi government now keen on tougher SC/ST Atrocities Act

After sitting on a key Bill to strengthen the law against atrocities on people belonging to the Scheduled Castes and

Scheduled Tribes, the Modi government now appears keen on pushing it through during the Monsoon Session of Parliament, possibly with an eye on the forthcoming Bihar elections.


The United Progressive Alliance government had promulgated

the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Ordinance on March 4, 2014, just before the Lok Sabha elections.

But the new government, after bringing the Bill in Parliament in July that year, ensured that it was sent to a Standing Committee. The ordinance has since lapsed.

The Bill seeks to strengthen the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, by adding new categories of actions to be treated as offences. For instance, forcing an individual from a Scheduled community to vote or not to vote for a candidate unlawfully and occupying land belonging to such individuals wrongfully will now be treated as offences.

The Bill specifies punishment for public servants from other

communities who neglect their duties relating to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe people, such as not registering a complaint or a First Information Report.

The Bill mandates the setting up of special courts at the

district level, with exclusive public prosecutors, to speed up the trial process.

These measures were thought necessary since the original Act had failed to deter crimes. National Crime Records

Bureau figures show that cases registered under the Act in conjunction with Indian Penal Code provisions increased from 38,449 in 2010 to 46,114 in 2013.

More worryingly, the conviction rate under the law stands at below 30 per cent in several States.

The Standing Committee tabled its report on the Bill last December, affirming most of its provisions and adding some important clauses on special courts for atrocities against women, which would be presided over by a woman judge.

Police verification for passports set to go online in Bengaluru

Bengaluru is to be chosen by the Centre to get police verification online for passports as part of the implementation of

the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS).

Applicants could get a passport in 10 days or less, as police verification is touted as the major cause for delay in the

entire process.

As opposed to the earlier process of police personnel visiting an applicant’s home to verify his/her details, they can

now simply log into the database online and match the details.

Bengaluru Regional Passport Office (RPO) officials said the Union Government had agreed to the RPO’s proposal “in-principle,” though a formal approval is awaited.

The CCTNS-PSP linkage will enable the police to check criminal antecedents, identity and other details.

The prospect of doing away with police visits will be more applicable for cases such as re-issue of passports. In such a

case, other details would have been checked already.

The pilot online verification process system will give both the police and the RPO details of applicants.

Tamil Nadu, Assam and Andhra Pradesh were also said to have shown interest in implementing the project, but the State won in the end.

Explained: In SECC urban BPL calculation, room to include more ‘poor’

Almost 35% of urban households live below the poverty line (BPL), according to data from the first Social Economic

and Caste Census (SECC).

An analysis of the numbers and methodology, however, shows that up to 56% of households could qualify to be

included in the broader category of ‘urban poor’.

The data has been tabulated on the basis of criteria laid down by the S R Hashim committee appointed by the

erstwhile Planning Commission of India.

Absence of data on urban India has meant that target groups for several urban poverty alleviation programmes have

often been chosen arbitrarily or on considerations of political patronage.

As the focus moves to targeted subsidies and DBT, reliable urban SECC figures are becoming increasingly critical.

The Hashim Method

To estimate the urban BPL population, the panel followed a three-step process.


First, it identified criteria that would automatically exclude certain households: pucca house with four or more rooms;

either a car, AC or computer with Internet connection; or any three among a landline phone, washing machine, fridge and two-wheeler.

Next was a process of automatic inclusion — those facing certain residential, social or occupational vulnerabilities,

such as being homeless or living in informal housing; households with no able-bodied persons or adults; or groups like beggars, ragpickers or sanitation workers.

As per SECC, these ‘automatic inclusions’ in the BPL category make up 27.65% of urban households.

Finally came households who could be neither automatically included nor automatically excluded, and this section was graded on a scale of 0-12, with 12 being the most vulnerable, closest to automatic inclusion. Zero excluded the household from the poverty list.

To arrive at its BPL figure, the panel added to the automatically-included (27.65%) those households that scored

between 4 and 12 on the deprivation index. They were 7.31% of households, taking the BPL figure to 34.96%.

To identify beneficiaries of welfare schemes, the panel said, governments could choose a cut-off score on the

deprivation index and, depending on the availability of resources, eventually expand coverage to all urban poor in the 1-12 bracket.

All poor across the 1-12 spectrums add up to 28.43% of the urban population. Doing away with BPL, and extending

entitlements meant for the ‘poor’ to anyone facing one or more kinds of deprivation, would take the proportion of ‘urban poor’ to 56% (27.65%+28.43%).

From BPL to all ‘Poor’

As per the SECC, Northeastern states have the highest proportion of BPL households, with Manipur, Mizoram,

Tripura, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Assam in the 10 poorest list and Arunachal Pradesh at No. 13.

Rajasthan, Odisha, Bihar and Chhattisgarh are the other four in the Top 10 poor list.

The other list, of states with the lowest proportion of BPL households, is topped by Goa, and includes other small

states/UTs like Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Delhi, Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Daman & Diu.

Maharashtra, the only large state on this list, is at No. 5.

Both lists, and rankings, however, change sharply when the BPL line is discarded and all urban poor are counted.

While the proportion of poor continues to be relatively low in Goa and Delhi, more than 50% urban households in Maharashtra qualify.

In Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura, the proportion goes up to more than 75% of the total.

Economist Amitabh Kundu said the government “should not feel embarrassed to recognise that 56% need to be

targeted”. It could start with the bottom 35% and move gradually up, he said.


Harsh Mander, a member of the Hashim panel and of National Advisory Council (NAC) said that 56% should be

considered as the urban poverty benchmark, rather than the 35% BPL figure that could underestimate the extent of poverty.

Abdul Kalam, ‘People’s President’, passes away

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, widely acclaimed as the “people’s president” for his warmth and accessibility, passed away after collapsing on stage during a lecture at the Indian Institute of Management in Shillong. He was 83.

Mr. Kalam, a scientist by training who had earned several sobriquets, including Missile Man, and played a critical role

in India’s nuclear tests in May 1998, was President between 2002 and 2007. The former President, who continued to be active even after demitting office and travelled the length and breadth of the country delivering lectures and meeting people, died while doing what he loved best – talking to students.

The Centre announced seven-day mourning.

Every year, the former President came to Shillong to deliver lectures.

Mr. Kalam, the country’s 11th President, was one of India’s most eminent scientists, and had the unique honour of

receiving honorary doctorates from 30 universities and institutions.

Apart from leading the Indian Space Research Organisation’s satellite launch programme, Mr. Kalam headed the country’s guided missile programme for many years.

As scientific adviser to the Defence Minister, the former President led the “weaponisation of strategic missile systems

and the Pokhran-II nuclear tests.”

10 dead as terror returns to Punjab

The firing stopped at about 4.15 p.m. with a short staccato burst of rifle fire. Outside the Dinanagar police station a

loose cordon was formed as hundreds of Punjab police officials stood looking anxiously toward a three-storey red brick building inside the compound. They were joined by a small group of TV cameras and in their midst, strangely, was a Maruti 800, windshield riddled with bullet holes, standing just outside the station gate.

An officer said a search had begun to clear the area and check if the three suspected militants holed up in the station

were dead. They were.

Seven persons were killed — one SP, three police officers and three civilians — in Monday’s “fidayeen” attack, the worst in Punjab in over a decade.

For the past two days, intelligence agencies had picked up “phone intercepts,” which suggested there were attempts to

infiltrate from across the International Border (IB). In the intercepted conversation, the “callers discussed heightened vigil along the IB in Jammu sector.” While there was no direct reference to the Gurdaspur sector, where the attack took place, a senior official said, it took time to decipher the chatter.

A top Intelligence Bureau (IB) official said the attack had the modus operandi of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)

which operates from Pakistan. Police recovered Chinese made AK-47s, Chinese grenades and two GPS locators. While one GPS was damaged, intelligence agencies said they were scouring details from the other, which would reveal the route taken by the three “fidayeen” militants. The militants did not have any mark of identification on them and the army fatigues they wore had no tags.

Given the sudden nature of the attack there was evidently no time to erect a proper cordon. As a result, the 12-hour

siege was witnessed by a grandstand crowd. About a thousand young men were gathered on the roofs of buildings that line the road opposite the station. From there you could see, for instance, a team of commandos in black uniforms searching the building, signalling to each other as they went from room to room. At 5.10 p.m., from the roof, two of them raised their hands and the signal was answered by the teams downstairs. From the roofs the assembled crowds broke into loud cheers. The siege was over. Locals said the violence started at about 5 in the morning.

India a source, destination, transit country for trafficking: U.S.report

Unveiling a closely watched annual anti-trafficking report this week the U.S. State Department retained India’s

classification as a “Tier II” nation for human trafficking concerns, which implied that the U.S. viewed India as a country whose government did not fully comply with its Trafficking Victims’ Protection Act’s (TVPA) minimum standards, but was making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.

Speaking at the release of the 2015 “Trafficking in Persons” report, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said its purpose

was not to “name and shame,” but to expose the $150 billion human trafficking industry for what it actually was — a

massive, global, shadow economy built on official complicity, egregious rights violations and abuse and criminal operations.

While India’s ranking has been at the Tier II level since 2011, it was until 2010 ranked as a Tier II “Watch List,”

nation, implying that the absolute number of victims of severe forms of trafficking was highly significant or increasing; that there was a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year; or that the assessment of its progress in combating human trafficking was based on future commitments made by the Indian government.

The TIP report was also seen as significant in recent years in the context of the controversy surrounding Devyani Khobragade, the Indian Deputy Consul General in New York who was, in December 2013, arrested and subjected to a strip-search for alleged visa violations relating to the underpayment of her domestic employee Sangeeta Richards, prompting a major diplomatic crisis and tensions in the bilateral space.


The report however urged New Delhi to ramp up its reporting of anti-trafficking data, noting that India continued to be

“a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labour and sex trafficking.”

It said that while the Indian government was making significant efforts to comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, law enforcement progress was unknown as the government did not provide adequate disaggregated anti-trafficking data and official complicity remained a “serious concern.”

DNA profiling Bill triggers debate

While scientists who vouch by the DNA Bill give a go ahead for it while brushing aside privacy concerns and fear of social and political misuse of the data, those opposing the legislation fear that the bill could result in large scale violation of human rights.

Legal experts said that the scope of the Bill was too wide to be

implemented in the country. As it allowed the use of DNA data in relation with offences including abortions, paternity disputes and crimes against the law of nature, it could make the databank too large for any sort of use, experts said.

The data is collected and stored under indices including,

crime scene index, suspects index, offender’s index, missing person’s index, unknown deceased persons’ index, volunteers’ index, and such other DNA indices as may be specified by regulations made by the Board.

DNA fingerprinting experts found that the whole process

could further slow down the legal framework in the country.

Scientists were, however, not too worried about the privacy

concerns. “The DNA profiling is being done legally in various Western countries and it was successful in solving a large number of crime cases. Coming to privacy concerns, there are enough safeguards in place including punishment for misusing the data,” said N. Madhusudhan Reddy of DNA Fingerprinting Service, Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), Hyderabad.

Gujarat makes voting compulsory in local body polls

Gujarat became the first state to have a provision for compulsory voting with the state government putting out a

notification in this regard.

Besides making voting mandatory in the local body polls, the communiqué, dated July 17, announced the reservation of 50 per cent seats for women in municipal corporations, municipalities, and village panchayats.

With the government notifying the Gujarat Local Authorities Act(Amendment) 2009, a voter in the state would now

invite punitive action in case he or she fails to vote in the local body elections without any acceptable reason.

The local body elections in the state are likely to be held in September and October. However, the notification has not

specified what punishment would be meted out to voters who fail to exercise their franchise.

The notification issued by the Urban Development and Urban Housing Department, however, led to confusion given

that on July 22, the government had announced that it would come out with an ordinance within the Act for for inclusion of a clause on disqualification of office bearers if they fail to vote without a valid reason.

An elected member of a local body or an office bearer, according to the ordinance, wound stand disqualified in the event he or she does not vote.

Introduced first in 2009, the Bill was cleared by the Governor only in November 2014.

Centre returns controversial Gujarat Bill The controversial Gujarat Control of Terrorism and Organised

Crime (GCTOC) Bill, 2015, has been sent back to the State following an objection by the Information Technology (IT) Ministry.

The Home Affairs Ministry, which sent the Bill for an inter-ministerial consultation, returned it with the objections

raised by the IT Ministry. This means the Bill will not be sent for Presidential assent and cannot become law yet.

Any Bill passed by an Assembly on issues contravening Central laws needs Presidential assent.

The Gujarat House passed the Bill again on March 31 this year, after it was rejected thrice by two former Presidents — the late A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in 2004 and Pratibha Patil in 2008 and 2009.


The Bill was first introduced as the GUJCOC Bill in 2003 — when Narendra Modi was Chief Minister — with provisions like increasing the period to file charge sheet from 90 to 180 days and strict conditions for granting bail to an accused.

ECONOMY Cabinet to take up gold monetisation scheme in few weeks

The Government is likely to consider and approve gold monetisation scheme in the next few weeks, which proposes to

offer tax-free interest to individual on depositing the yellow metal with banks.

Various proposals including interest rate are at the discussion stage.

Nod on issuance of Sovereign Gold Bond could take a while.

Oil prices slip further on concerns over supply glut

Oil prices slipped after the American Petroleum Institute (API), the largest U.S trade association for gas and oil,

published that oil inventories increased by 2.3 million barrels in Cushing, Oklahoma.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the most prominent U.S benchmark for crude oil, fell by 58 cents to $50.28 a barrel

for September deliveries. Brent North Crude for September, the benchmark for European, African and Middle Eastern crude oil prices, fell 35 cents and was trading in London at $56.69 a barrel at mid-day.

Crude oil prices have fallen in the last year because of protracted over-supply and weak demand, which is being

exacerbated by the Greek crisis and the Chinese stock market fall as well as an expectation that the U. S will raise

interest rates this year.

Excess supply is expected to persist with the Iran nuclear deal, which will bring Iran’s oil onto the market in a few months.

The Oil Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC), the cartel of oil producing nations that includes Iran but is led by

rival Saudi Arabia, announced that it would not cut back on output. The group said that the oil price dip was likely to be temporary and that demand was likely to pick up.

OPEC’s oil output faces challenges and competition from other energy sources, including U.S shale, as well as internal

differences in opinion, with Iran and other smaller oil producing members requesting a cut back in supply in light of falling prices.

NRIs can invest in NPS

Non-resident Indians (NRIs) can invest in National Pension System (NPS) to get a social security cover, Pension Fund

Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) said.

While the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has communicated to PFRDA about NRIs being eligible to make such

investments, the government will shortly come out with a clarification on Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) guidelines to facilitate non-resident Indians to invest in NPS, PFRDA said.

NPS like insurance and mutual fund could also be eligible investment for NRIs.

Highlighting the importance of NPS scheme for NRIs, he said such residents especially living in the Middle-East are

not having any mandatory social security benefit.

This window would provide NRIs to save money for their old age, PFRDA said, adding that they would also enjoy the

tax break as prescribed.

The move will also help to increase the subscriber base and expand the pension corpus in the private sector.

The current corpus under the National Pension System is Rs.91,000 crore.

On its website under frequently asked questions, PFRDA has clarified that NRIs between the age of 18-60 years, as on

the date of submission of application and complying with the extant KYC norms, can open an NPS account.

It says no joint account can be opened by NRIs, and only individual account can be opened in NPS.

It says NRIs have the option to select pension fund manager and exercise investment choice under NPS All Citizen

Model.

The contributions made by NRIs can be from either of the following sources subject to normal foreign exchange conversion norms: NRE Account - NRO account/ local sources.

On exit and withdrawal, PFRDA says the rules for NRIs shall be the same as for residents under the PFRDA.

Black money: Billion-dollar worth ‘tax evasion shops’ busted, says Sebi’s UK Sinha

Suspecting tax evasion of at least Rs 5,000-6,000 crore, regulator Sebi has clamped down on a large number of

organised syndicates who had set up ‘shops’ to convert black money into legitimate-looking funds through the stock market platform.

While more than 900 entities have been banned from capital markets by the Securities and Exchange Board of India

(Sebi), it has also referred these cases to the Income Tax Department for further investigations.

Talking about the menace of money laundering and other market-related manipulations, Sebi Chairman U K Sinha said the regulator is trying to curb such cases one-by-one very successfully.

“So, segment-wise, we have been able to control it — first in IPO market and then in the GDR market. Now let us

come to the secondary market.

“Here our insider trading regulations have been strengthened now. In addition, we found that there is a need for very

active surveillance and therefore we strengthened our surveillance systems,” Sinha said.


“We found that there are these companies where the price has gone up by 10-times, 20-times and even more in some

cases. Our surveillance systems caught this signal and we started probing.

We started asking if your share price has gone up ten times, has your business also grown. Has your profit, turnover, order book, etc grown?

“We found that there was no correlation in the price and the business of these companies. Then we went to the next

step and started getting into who were the buyers and sellers of these shares and from which bank account the money was coming.

“Then we realised that there was a racket going on. The same set of people was at play at all the levels and their

intention was not just to manipulate the market, but their intention was actually to make the black money white.

Many startups plan to list; final norms being notified: U K Sinha

Sebi’s move for startups to get listed and raise funds through a dedicated platform on domestic stock exchanges has

been welcomed by e-commerce firms and other new-age ventures.

The new norms are aimed at encouraging Indian entrepreneurs and their technology and other startups to remain

within the country, rather than moving to overseas markets for funds.

Under the new norms, the exchanges would have a separate institutional trading platform for listing of startups, while the minimum amount that an individual or institutional investor would need to invest in such ventures would be Rs 10 lakh.

However, small retail individual investors would not be allowed to invest.

A higher investment cap has been decided with a view to keep small investors away, as risks could be higher in such

investments and the disclosure and other listing requirements have been relaxed, as compared to other companies.

For their listing, Sebi has also relaxed the mandatory lock-in period for promoters and other pre-listing investors to

six months, as against three years for other companies.

Besides, the disclosure requirements for these companies have also been relaxed.

Indian Financial Code: Draft dilutes RBI Guv’s power; can’t veto on policy rate

In a major revamp of the financial sector architecture, the finance ministry issued a fresh draft of the Indian Financial

Code (IFC) that proposed a monetary policy committee headed by the “chairperson” of the Reserve Bank of India to decide on key interest rates by a majority vote.

“Inflation target for each financial year will be determined in terms of the consumer price index by the Central

government in consultation with the Reserve Bank every three years,” said the revised draft of the IFC.

Apart from the RBI chairperson, the monetary policy committee (MPC) would consist of five members — one executive

member of the Reserve Bank Board nominated by the Reserve Bank Board; one employee of the Reserve Bank nominated by the Reserve Bank chairperson; and four persons appointed by the Central government.

The original draft, too, had proposed the MPC, but the RBI chairperson had power to “supersede the decision” of the committee in “exceptional and unusual circumstances” though decisions normally would be taken by the majority vote. In the revised draft, the chairperson does not enjoy any such power but will have the casting vote in case of tie.

The RBI and the finance ministry have signed a monetary policy framework agreement earlier this year that would include targeting retail inflation for policy rates and an MPC is expected to be set up — possibly during the course of this year.

At present, the RBI Governor consults a Technical Advisory Committee on policy rates but he can choose to take an

independent decision.

The revised code has also proposed that the Centre can nominate one representative to attend all the meetings of the

MPC and take part in deliberations but will not have a casting vote.

Further, the MPC must meet once every two months.

The central bank would also be expected to publish a report every two months on the sources of inflation and the forecast for inflation.

Further, in case, the inflation target is not met, the RBI would be expected to submit a report to the Central

government on the reasons.

“The modifications mainly relate to: strengthening the regulatory accountability of financial agencies, removing the

provision empowering FSAT (Financial Sector Appellate Tribunal) to review Regulations, rulemaking and operational

aspects of capital controls, monetary policy framework and composition of the MPC, regulation of systematically important payment system and others, removing the provision of special guidance ,” said a release, adding that The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Act, 2013, (PFRDA Act) and Securities Laws (Amendment) Act, 2014 have also been taken into consideration.

The IFC was suggested by the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC), set up in 2011, for re-writing

the financial sector laws to bring them in harmony with the current requirements.

The revised IFC is also silent on the setting up of a Debt Agency Advisory Council that was proposed in the earlier draft to advise the Public Debt Management Agency.

The revised draft has also toned down the FSAT and removed the provision empowering it to review regulations.

Additionally, on the issue of capital controls, it said the Centre must make rules in consultation with the RBI.


Lupin buys U.S. firm Gavis for $880 million

Indian pharmaceutical major Lupin has entered into definite agreement to acquire the U.S.-based Gavis

Pharmaceuticals LLC and Novel Laboratories Inc. (Gavis), a privately held company, in cash-free and debt-free transaction for $880 million.

New Jersey-based Gavis specialises in formulation development, manufacturing, packaging, sales, marketing and distribution of pharmaceuticals products. It recorded sales of $96 million in 2013-14 and has over 250 employees.

The acquisition enhances Lupin’s scale in the U.S. generic market and also broadens its pipeline in dermatology,

controlled substance products and other high-value and niche generics.

Lupin claims it is the fifth largest and fastest growing generics player in the U.S. with a 5.3 per cent market share by

prescriptions (IMS Health data) and is the third largest Indian pharmaceutical company by sales.

Landmark trade pact on slashing tech tariffs

Major trade powers have reached a deal to cut tariffs on around 200 technology products, a decision that could pave

the way for lower prices for consumers.

The Geneva-based World Trade Organization says 49 of its members including the United States, China and the 28-

country European Union reached a tentative accord that caps three years of talks.

The products on which import duties will be scrapped under the deal include GPS navigation equipment, medical scanners and new-generation semiconductors.

The deal, which should be finalized by December, expands the scope of the 1996 IT Agreement involving 81 countries.

IDFC Gets RBI Nod to Start Banking Operations in India

Infrastructure financing firm IDFC Ltd said that the Reserve Bank of India has granted banking licence to IDFC Bank

for undertaking banking business in the country.

IDFC and Bandhan Financial Services Pvt Ltd emerged successful out of 25 contenders for new bank licences issued

by the RBI in April 2014.

Bandhan Financial got RBI approval June, 2015 and is expected to start services from August.

It was in 2004 that the RBI had last issued licences to private players, when it gave approval to Yes Bank to start

operations.

IDFC Bank plans to start operation from October 1 with an initial loan book of about Rs 55,000 crore.

Neglect leads to misery

A robust domestic fertilizer sector is crucial to boost farm output and upgrade the soil health in the country.

But with years of neglect and non-cohesive policies of the Central Government, the fertilizer sector with the exception of urea manufacturers has found itself at a crossroads.

Due to hostile business environment, several top fertilizer manufacturers are toying with the idea of exiting the

business or pare down investment in the sector.

Some of the factors that have led to low interest and lack of investment in the sector include the excess focus and

usage of urea, delayed subsidy payments to manufacturers, inconsistent Government policy, and non-availability of feedstock.

While urea has been highly subsidized and is currently priced at Rs.5,360 per tonne leading to its excess use by

farmers resulting in imbalance and decline in soil health, the prices of decontrolled Nitrogen Phosphorus and Potassium (NPK) fertilizers are three-to-four times higher at Rs.18,000 to Rs.25,000 per tonne and this has led to their reduced consumption.

Besides, fertilizer companies are facing severe problem in getting domestic gas, the main feedstock for production of fertilizer.

Though the government recently allowed gas pooling to ensure constant supply, the benefits are totally focused on 30-odd urea manufacturers with no benefit granted to manufacturers of NPK fertilizer .

Industry officials say that the policies are not conducive for domestic production, and over the past one year, imports

of NPK fertilizers have already increased by 13 per cent.

Once India depends on imports, the country will be exposed to excessive price rise, and this will hurt the interest of

farmers.

“The excess usage of urea and low usage of complex fertilizer is leading to soil imbalance, thereby impacting the farm

productivity of the farmers.”

The Central Government has recently initiated steps for issuance of soil health cards to farmers across the country to enhance farm output and help farmers to grow the right crop.

Besides, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has identified Eastern India, comprising Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar and

Jharkhand, to usher in the second Green Revolution in the country. It cannot happen without a vibrant fertilizer sector, and a well thought out policy.

Steel industry woes not due to FTA

The current woes of the Indian Steel industry, which is reeling under profitability and margin pressure, cannot be

attributed to cheaper imports from Free Trade Agreement (FTA) partners such as South Korea, Japan and Malaysia, Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said.

“The total value of imports of industrial grade stainless steel from Free Trade Agreement partners such as Japan and

South Korea over the last three years have shown a negative growth rate,” she said.


The Minister also said that FTA utilisation rate with Malaysia was less than 10 per cent.

According to data from Joint Plant Committee, under the Ministry of Steel, India’s finished steel imports grew 53.1 per cent to 2.545 million tonnes in the first quarter of fiscal 2015-16 from last year.

Steel imports had jumped 70 per cent to over 9 million in tonnes in fiscal 2015, with China accounting for a third of

the imports.

The imported steel are priced up to 20 per cent lower than the Indian price, causing a major headwind for domestic

players like JSW Steel, Tata Steel among others.

Steel imports mainly from China along with that of FTA partners was sighted as the reason for the current turmoil of

the domestic industry.

In June, India increased duty on certain steel products by 2.5 per cent and also imposed anti-dumping duties ranging from $180-316 per tonne on certain industrial grade stainless steel and has indicated more steps like tightening quality control to protect the domestic industry.

Gold price meltdown points to its waning lustre

The sharp decline in gold price and the subsequent tepid buying of the metal in international markets point to gold’s clear falling out of favor among investors at least for now.

An improving U.S. economy, a consequently stronger dollar, an expected rise in interest rates by the U.S. Federal

Reserve and an expected slowing of demand for gold from China have been attributed as key factors for the bearish streak last week.

Exchange traded funds (ETFs) too were selling gold.Historically, gold buying has been fueled in a scenario when the

U.S. dollar has been weakening. This is how gold came to be bestowed a `safe haven’ status.

As India follows international gold prices and imports all its gold requirements, the fall was suitably reflected. But

other factors are at play here.

The festive season when gold buying is usually a norm, is still several weeks away and consumption demand is thus very low.

Gold prices are fixed internationally by the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) and these are indicated to

importers by banks and nominated agencies in India.

Now industry body IBJA (formerly Bombay Bullion Association) wants to play a larger role and is tying up with CME

Group, London for deriving a price mechanism similar to LBMA.

Tax-free bonds for infrastructure, large investors

It is not for the first time that the government is allowing a few companies to raise funds through issuance of tax free

bonds.

The most recent permission given to seven central public sector enterprises (CPSEs), all engaged in crucial infrastructure activities, to collectively mop up Rs.40,000 crore is in line with the announcement made in the budget.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes issued the notification. The intention is to enable these CPSEs to complete their

fund raising exercise during the remaining 8 to 9 months of the year.

The CPSEs, all big names in infrastructure are NHAI, IRFC, HUDCO, IREDA, REC, PFC and NTPC.

NHAI has been given the lion’s share, out of the total Rs.40,000 crore, it will mobilise Rs.24,000 crore (60 percent).

IRFC will raise Rs.6,000 crore, HUDCO Rs.5000 crore, IREDA Rs.2,000 crore and the REC, PFC and NTPC Rs.1,000 crore each.

It is likely that what weighed with the government is the fact that CPSEs such as NTPC had access to equity and quasi equity in a way NHAI does not have as yet. That advantage, in turn, arises from the fact that NTPC and a few others had taken the long road to corporatisation earlier than the others.

It is also possible that investor perception of NHAI, with the controversies over tolls and public private partnership in general, is not such as to attract many types of investors. Hence special sops, such as tax free status to their investors, will have to be given.

The government wants the CPSEs to go through the public issue route to an extent of 70 per cent, the balance to

come from private placement.

Quite obviously from the overall perspective of public finance, the tax exempt bonds will be the exception and not the

rule.

That brings us to the other important dimension to the bond issues, their relevance as an investment option.

The tax exempt status is their unique selling proposition but that cannot be the sole reason for investing in them. It goes without saying classes of investors, retail, high networth individuals (HNI), corporates, and others will view these bonds differently depending on their circumstances.

The immediate point of comparison will be with fixed deposits with banks and companies, and to a lesser extent with

the fixed maturity plans (FMPs) of mutual funds,

The government notification details the features of this series of bonds, their tenure, how much (tax-free) interest they

can pay.

The return on specific bond issues will vary depending on who is the investor and the rating obtained. The issuer with

a higher credit rating can offer less. Retail investors can get more compared to other categories.

In all cases the interest rate will be subject to a ceiling on the coupon rates based on the reference G-sec rate. So in a way the tax-free bonds are linked to market rates and can move up and down with the G-sec rate.


It has been clarified that the interest rates referred to above are on an annual basis. Half yearly interest options,

wherever offered, will yield less to the investor.

Another reason these bonds will score over fixed deposits is that they have scope for capital appreciation. When interest rates fall the market value of these bonds will go up.

The bonds should enjoy a fair amount of liquidity as they can be sold in the secondary market and because they have

a high credit rating should enjoy investor confidence.

Unlike bank fixed deposits, tax free bonds have a longer tenure -10, 15 and 20 years. Investors can hope to avoid

asset -liability mismatch by buying these bonds.

Despite so many attractive features the tax-free bonds will not appeal to all retail investors.

Contextually, interest rates are set to come down. The bonds to be issued will not offer the kind of interest previous issues offered.

For retail investors the exit route is important, most of them will not be in a position to keep them till maturity, which

at the minimum is 10 years.

Selling the bonds through the stock market is theoretically attractive but how many of the retail investors are savvy

enough to take this route?

Interest payment once a year is definite disincentive. Most retail investors will prefer to receive interest at least once in

three months.

For the pensioners and the salaried class about to retire, these bonds cannot be an option.

The above is not to deny the role tax free infrastructure bonds have in personal finance as much as in public finance.

13 Mega Food Parks get Centre's final nod

The Central Government has accorded final approval to thirteen proposals for setting up of Mega Food Parks in

various parts of the country including rural areas during the current Five Year Plan period till date.

These Mega Food Parks are private sector driven projects and responsibility of execution, ownership and management

of these projects vests with a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), which is a company incorporated under the Companies Act.

State Government/ State Government entities/Cooperatives have also been allowed to set up Mega Food Parks in the country by recent amendments in the scheme guidelines.

DoD wants EPFO to invest Rs.6, 000 cr

Facing an uphill target, the Department of Disinvestment (DoD) wants EPFO to invest Rs.6,000 crore in the country’s only exchange traded fund of PSU stocks, but the retirement fund body is now keen on investing only Rs.1,000 crore.

The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) had earlier committed to the Finance Ministry that it will start

investing from August 1 in the Central Public Sector Enterprises Exchange Traded Fund (CPSE ETF).

The ETF is a pool of shares of 10 blue-chip state-run firms, including ONGC, GAIL, Coal India and IOC.

The EPFO is now insisting on a longer term track record of returns on CPSE ETF investments, which is not possible

as the fund has started operation only in March last year.

The government had first launched a CPSE ETF, comprising scrips of 10 PSUs, in March 2014, under which retail investors have to invest a minimum of Rs.5,000 to buy units.

The Finance Ministry is planning to launch a revamped and retail investor-friendly CPSE ETF soon.

The ETF forms part of government disinvestment programme of current fiscal through which DOD targets to raise

Rs.41,000 crore by selling minority stake in PSUs.

The EPFO, which has over six crore subscribers, has been investing in state and central government securities.

The 10 PSUs, which are part of the fund basket are — Oil & Natural Gas Corp., GAIL India, Coal India, Indian Oil, Oil India, Power Finance Corporation, Rural Electrification Corporation, Container Corporation, Engineers India and Bharat Electronics.

An ETF is a security that tracks an index, a commodity or a basket of assets like an index fund, but trades like a

stock on an exchange.

The new investment pattern notified in April by the Labour Ministry states that EPFO will invest a minimum of 5 per

cent and up to 15 per cent of incremental deposits in equity or equity-related schemes.

P-Notes: Arun Jaitley rules out knee-jerk action on SIT views

The Modi Government will not immediately act on a key recommendation to check black money of the Supreme Court-

appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) related to identifying final beneficial owners of Participatory Notes (P-Notes), Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.

“It is too early to say what view the government would take but it will certainly not take any such action in a knee-jerk reaction, particularly one which has any adverse impact on investment environment,” Mr. Jaitley told reporters.

The comments came as Sensex slumped over 580 points and rupee slid to 64.15 to a dollar in response to the SIT

recommendation against P-Notes that Government had released.

Revenue Secretary Shaktikanta Das told that the Finance Ministry would take a view on the SIT suggestions only after

consultations with the stock market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the Reserve Bank and other institutions.


According to the SIT report released , it has recommended that SEBI put in place regulations for identifying

individuals holding P-Notes and take other steps to curb black money and tax evasion through the stock market route.

P-Notes are offshore derivative instruments a large number of foreign investors use for parking funds in the equity market without disclosing their identity to the market regulator, SEBI.

Mostly, high net worth individuals, hedge funds and other foreign institutions tap this channel to invest in India

through foreign institutional investors (FIIs).

Tax authorities suspect that a huge chunk of these investments could in fact be Indian money masquerading as

foreign funds.

A similar recommendation in 2007 had triggered a drop in stock prices, following which the then Finance Minister P.

Chidambaram, too, had announced that the Centre would not go in for such measures.

Investments through P-Notes into the stock market touched a seven-year high of Rs.2,85,000 crore in May.

Of the total FII investments into India since 2009, about 15-20 per cent flows in through the P-Notes route.

This is lower than the 25-50 per cent levels P-Notes used to make up of the total FII investments till 2007 after which

SEBI tightened some of the disclosure norms for these instruments.

Nothing special about Special Category States any longer

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has been demanding Special Category Status (SCS) for his state for at least three

years now.

But with the recommendations of the Fourteenth Finance Commission having been accepted, the SCS has been reduced, at best, to a political rallying point — not just for Bihar, but also for Odisha and Jharkhand.

Budget 2015-16 has not provided for any such sop.

The NITI Aayog, which has replaced the Planning Commission, has no power to allocate funds — therefore, the

discretion that the ruling party at the Centre had to dole out special favours to states through the Plan panel, no longer exists.

The National Development Council first accorded SCS in 1969 to Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and Nagaland.

Over the years, eight more states were added to the list — Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Sikkim, Tripura and, finally, in 2010, Uttarakhand.

Until 2014-15, SCS meant these 11 states received a variety of benefits and sops.

How is SCS accorded?

In the past, the NDC considered factors such as hilly and difficult terrain, low population density and/or a sizeable

share of tribal population, strategic location along borders, economic and infrastructural backwardness, and non-viable nature of state finances.

What benefits did SCS receive?

Despite the mess governments often made of transfers through

the Planning Commission, special category states received funds on very favourable terms under several mechanisms.

For instance, in 2014-15, 44 per cent of Plan funds, or Rs 2.53

lakh crore, went to states through centrally sponsored schemes (CSS). Special category states had to pay just 10 per cent of the spend on a particular CSS.

These 11 states also received a bigger chunk of block grants to states, which accounted for Rs 86,250 crore, or another 15 per

cent of Plan funds — much of it as grants.

In Budget 2015-16, states received a significantly higher share of central taxes — 42 per cent, or 10 percentage points more than before.

While this does mean more untied funds to states, the Finance

Ministry also slashed the outlay under the CSS — which has led to an outcry from several states, which are complaining

that in effect, they are receiving less money from the Centre than before.

This is one issue that is being addressed by a NITI Aayog task

force chaired by MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

The Finance Ministry’s reasoning for withdrawing sops is that

the higher 42 per cent devolution takes into account all needs of states.

An inter-ministerial group set up in July 2011, that submitted its report in 2012, specifically said Bihar did not satisfy any of the criteria set out by the NDC, and hence did not qualify for special category status. The issue is still

under the Centre’s examination.

Again, a committee under former Chief Economic Advisor Raghuram Rajan (now RBI Governor) did say that Bihar was a backward state, but ranked it above Odisha — so, purely in terms of backwardness, Odisha deserved SCS more than Bihar.


But now that the Fourteenth Finance Commission’s award has been accepted by the government, there is no raison

d’etre for special category statuses.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY NASA finds earth-like planet with cousin sun, might harbour life

Scientists have identified a “close cousin” to Earth that’s orbiting a sun-like star and might harbor life.

The researchers announced their discovery based on observations from NASA’s Kepler space telescope.

This older, bigger cousin to Earth is called Kepler-452b.

What makes this planet remarkable is that it orbits its star at about the same distance that Earth orbits the sun.

What’s more, its home star looks to be similar to our sun.

The last Kepler discovery that had scientists gushing was just over a year ago. That close-to-Earth-size planet, Kepler-

186f, also was in the habitable zone of its star. But that faint dwarf star was unlike our sun.

The planet-hunting Kepler will keep churning out new discoveries and possibly find even better matches for “Earth

2.0.”

Kepler was launched in 2009 and has nearly 5,000 potential exoplanets to its credit worlds beyond our solar system.

It is helping to address such fundamental questions as where do we come from and where are we headed, and arguably the biggest question of all: Are we alone in the universe?

While scientists are uncertain whether Planet 452b is rocky like Earth, they believe there’s a better than even chance

it is.

As for the age and size, it is about 6 billion years old, 1.5 billion years older than Earth, and 60 percent larger in

diameter than our home planet.

Its star, Kepler 452, is also older and bigger, as well as brighter than our sun.

If the planet is indeed rocky, geologists believe its mass would be five times that of Earth and its gravity would be

twice Earth’s. (That’s right, you would weigh twice as much there.)

Its atmosphere would be thicker and have more clouds and any volcanoes would likely still be active.

Planet 452b takes 385 days to orbit its star, just a little more than Earth takes for a one-year lap. It’s just a bit farther

from its star than Earth is from our sun.

That’s important because it makes the planet ripe, potentially, for liquid water on the surface. And water could mean

life.

The planet is in a solar system that is 1,400 light years from our own, located in the Constellation Cygnus, or swan.

Kepler identifies potential planets by looking for periodic blips against the brightness of stars, some 150,000 stars to be exact.

World's first malaria vaccine gets go-ahead from EU regulators

The world's first malaria vaccine got a green light from European drugs regulators who recommended it should be

licensed for use in babies in Africa at risk of the mosquito-borne disease.

The shot, called RTS,S or Mosquirix and developed by British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline in partnership with the

PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, would be the first licensed human vaccine against a parasitic disease and could help prevent millions of cases of malaria in countries that use it.

Mosquirix, also part-funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will also now be assessed by the World Health

Organisation, which has promised to give its guidance on when and where it should be used before the end of this year.

Malaria killed an estimated 584,000 people in 2013, the vast majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa. More than 80

per cent of malaria deaths are in children under the age of five.

While RTS,S on its own is not the complete answer to malaria, its use alongside those interventions currently available such as bed nets and insecticides would provide a very meaningful contribution to controlling the impact of malaria on children in those African communities that need it the most.

Global health experts have long hoped scientists would be able to develop an effective malaria vaccine, and

researchers at GSK have been working on RTS,S for 30 years.

Hopes that this shot would be the final answer to wiping out malaria were dampened when trial data released in 2011

and 2012 showed it only reduced episodes of malaria in babies aged 6-12 weeks by 27 percent, and by around 46 percent in children aged 5-17 months.

Some malaria specialists have expressed concern that the complexities and potential costs of deploying this first

vaccine when it only provides partial protection make it less attractive and more risky.

Just one night of sleep loss can alter your genes

Genes that control the biological clocks in cells throughout the body are altered after losing just a single night of

sleep, scientists have found.

“Previous research has shown that our metabolism is negatively affected by sleep loss, and sleep loss has been linked to an increased risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes,” said Jonathan Cedernaes, a researcher at Uppsala University.

“Since ablation of clock genes in animals can cause these disease states, our current results indicate that changes of

our clock genes may be linked to such negative effects caused by sleep loss,” he said.


The activity of genes is regulated by a mechanism called epigenetics. This involves chemical alterations to the DNA

molecule such as methyl groups – a process called methylation – which regulates how the genes are switched on or off.

The researchers found that clock genes had increased numbers of such DNA marks after sleep loss.

They also found that the expression of the genes, which is indicative of how much of the genes’ product is made, was

altered.

CSIR team testing cow urine for medical benefits, govt tells LS

Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Go Vigyan Anusandhan Kendra (GVAK) in Nagpur are

conducting research on cow urine distillate to determine its anti-oxidant and other properties, Minister of State (Independent Charge) Shripad Yasso Naik told the Lok Sabha.

“Four US patents have been secured since 2002 and one pharmaceutical product containing cow urine distillate with

anti-oxidant property is available in the market.”

Go Vigyan Anusandhan Kendra, which started in 1996, aims to establish “firm scientific basis of eco-friendly cow-

centred economics.”

The organisation holds several patents on cow urine over its antibiotic, anti-fungal and bioenhancer effects, and over its anti-allergic, anti-infective, nutrient and anti-cancer properties, as well as its use as an anti-oxidant and one on cow urine causing apoptosis or programmed cell death.

GVAK also holds a patent in China for the role of cow urine in protecting and/or repairing DNA damages.

The Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences has conducted a national seminar on ‘Panchagavya Chikitsa’

in 2014 for its promotion and brought out a compilation of published research papers on Panchagvya and its ingredients.

The published research papers on Panchagavya have been uploaded in the ‘AYUSH Research Portal’.

Panchagavya is the collective name of five products obtained from cow viz milk, curd, ghee, urine and dung.

“Cow urine is an ingredient of several ayurvedic formulations and also used as adjuvant with medicinal formulations

and for pharmaceutical processing called shodhana (purification) and bhavana (triturition) of medicinal materials,” Naik told the Lower House.

Conditions on Pluto: Incredibly hazy with flowing ice

Pluto is hazier than scientists expected and appears to be covered with flowing ice.

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, now 7.5 million miles beyond Pluto, has detected layers of haze stretching 100 miles

(160 kilometers) into the atmosphere, much higher than anticipated.

All this haze is believed to account for the dwarf planet’s reddish color.

In fact, New Horizons had to wait until after its closest approach on July 14, so the sun would silhouette Pluto and

the atmosphere could be measured by means of the scattered sunlight.

As for the ice flows, they appear to be relatively recent: no more than a few tens of millions of years, according to

William McKinnon of Washington University in St. Louis. That compares with the 4.5 billion-year age of Pluto and the rest of the solar system. To see evidence of such recent activity, he said, is “simply a dream come true.”

Temperatures on Pluto are minus 380 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 229 degrees Celsius), and so water ice would not

move anywhere in such extreme cold.

But the nitrogen and other ices believed to be on Pluto would be geologically soft and therefore able to flow like glaciers on Earth.

Some of that plutonian ice seems to have emptied into impact craters, creating pounds of frozen nitrogen.

These latest findings support the theory that an underground ocean might exist deep beneath Pluto’s icy crust.

These ice flows — which might still be active — are found on Pluto’s vast icy plain, now called Sputnik Planum after

Earth’s first man-made satellite.

One of Pluto’s newly discovered mountain ranges now bears the name of Sir Edmund Hillary, who along with Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay conquered Mount Everest in 1953. The New Horizons team already had named another series of mountains after Norgay.

Moving to mainstream

3D printing, the manufacturing of products from digital 3D images, is now becoming mainstream, with instances of

real, usable, physical end-products being made electronically rather than by traditional processes.

One recent example was of Airbus making over 1,000 3D printed parts for its aircraft, in order to ensure delivery of

aircraft on time.

Though rapid prototyping is still the bread and butter of this new technology, it is fast becoming mainstream. One

reason, he says, is increased awareness.

The US, the Netherlands, Russia and Italy are leading markets for 3D printers.

But, India is fast catching up, with many companies exploring the potential the new technology holds.

Advantages of 3D printing

3D printing removes many constraints associated with the traditional manufacturing processes.

Manufacturers can incorporate innovative designs and functionality in their products even while cutting down both

operational costs and the time to market.


3D printing is proving to be beneficial in healthcare. “In medical cases like brain tumour or hole in the heart, a 3D

print of the organ gives vital clues to help doctors plan their surgeries more accurately.”

Practical applications

One example is eye surgery on patients who have suffered ‘orbital floor (blowout) fracture’. Such patients need implants inserted into the damaged area. Ophthalmologists can create accurate implants before an operation instead of having to manually adjust it during the operation.

Yet another medical application is ‘Exoskeleton’, which is a 3D printed artificial arm that helps children with

underdeveloped muscles to play, feed themselves and hug. This has been found to be useful for children suffering from arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, a non-progressive condition that causes stiff joints and underdeveloped muscles.

After N-plants, Rosatom targets irradiation network

Broad basing its atomic sector cooperation with India, an affiliate of Russian state-owned nuclear firm Rosatom State

Corp has picked up a 51 per cent stake in Tamil Nadu-based Gamma Tech India Private Ltd. to jointly implement a project that aims to set up a network of radiation sterilisation centres across India.

The centres to be developed by Rusatom Overseas JSC will offer food decontamination and sterilisation of medical

products by ionizing radiation, including sterilisation of medical products such as latex gloves, decontamination of fruit, berries and other products exported from India to developed countries.

The centres will be constructed in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra and the first

pilot centre is planned to be established in Tamil Nadu.

This is the first such major intervention by a foreign government nuclear utility in India, one of the largest food producers in the world with about 600 million tonnes of food products generated every year.

The approval by the Indian nuclear regulator — the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board of India or AERB — for the

irradiation equipment design and the construction of the first irradiation centre has already been obtained.

Radiation sterilisation is a physical process of irradiation of medical products by ionizing radiation.

Products are subjected to irradiation in specialised radiation technology facilities where gamma-rays (gamma-rays of

Co-60 or Cs-137 isotopes) or electron accelerators are used. When electrons go through the material substance, most of their energy is spent on ionization, which results in destruction of micro-organisms and a reduction in the number of pathogenic bacteria and viruses.

The process of radiation sterilisation is the final stage of production of single-use medical products.

These technologies can be used in agriculture, as well as for municipal solid waste sterilisation and in the petrochemical industry.

Over 42 countries in the world including the US, the UK, Canada and France have given clearance for radiation

processing of food.

The Government of India has permitted the use of radiation technology in preservation of food items such as potato,

onion, rice semolina, wheat flour, mango, raisins, dried dates, ginger, garlic, shallots (small onions) as well as meat and meat products including chicken.

The Mumbai-based Bhabha Atomic Research Centre has done extensive research and development work on

preservation of food by radiation and has been involved in setting up the first demonstration plant for radiation processing of onions and potatoes at Lasalgaon in Nasik, Maharashtra.

The same plant is also proposed to be used for low dose radiation processing of other foods with alterations in throughput and source utilisation efficiency.

Facebook: Internet.org getting people online faster, converting them to paid plans

Internet.org, which is marking its first anniversary, has been able to bring in new users at a faster pace as well as

making at least half of them move to a paid model within a month, Facebook has claimed.

While Facebook claimed that Internet.org brings new users onto mobile networks on average over 50 per cent faster

after launching free basic services, the other interesting data point is that users accessed health services more than a million times just in the past month.

Launched initially in Zambia, Internet.org is now available in 17 countries with over a dozen service providers.

In India, it is accessible in six serviceS through Reliance.

Surface-to-air missile to be tested in Israel The long-range surface-to-air missile being developed with Israel will go in for national trials for the Navy once it is

tested in Israel in October, with production following “definitely next year,” a top official of its production unit has said.

“The LR-SAM is almost ready for trials [from a ship]. A few trials are over and a few more are on. The Indian trial will be held once the October trial in Israel is over,” said V. Udaya Bhaskar, Chairman & Managing Director of the public sector Bharat Dynamics Ltd (BDL), Hyderabad.

The missile, said to reach targets of up to 70 km, is being developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation and Israel Aerospace Industries for the Navy over the last five years. An Army version is being ground tested and an Air Force variant is in the works, both as medium-range or MR-SAMs.

The requirement of the LR/MR-SAM from the Services would almost match the order of the Akash medium-range mobile-launched SAM, he said.


Fat lot of good: Scientists find a ‘sixth basic taste’ For centuries, human cultures have recognised four basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty and bitter. In 1908, Japanese

chemist Kikunae Ikeda identified a fifth basic taste — umami — imparted by the chemical monosodium glutamate, or MSG.

Some 20 years ago, umami was recognised universally as the fifth taste — described variously as ‘meaty’ or ‘savoury’, found typically in meat and seafood; mushrooms, especially truffles; anchovies; and cheeses, particularly parmesan.

Research has now produced considerable mechanistic data to indicate there may be a sixth basic taste: fat. The researchers have proposed the name “oleogustus” to refer to the sensation. “Oleo” is the Latin root word for oily or fatty, and “gustus” refers to taste.

“Most of the fat we eat is in the form of triglycerides, which are molecules comprised of three fatty acids,” Richard D Mattes, distinguished professor of nutrition science at Purdue University and a study author, said. “Triglycerides often impart appealing textures to foods like creaminess.

However, triglycerides are not a taste stimulus. Fatty acids that are cleaved off the triglyceride in the food or during chewing in the mouth stimulate the sensation of fat.

“The taste component of fat is often described as bitter or sour because it is unpleasant, but new evidence reveals fatty acids evoke a unique sensation satisfying another element of the criteria for what constitutes a basic taste, just like sweet, sour, salty, and bitter and umami.

“By building a lexicon around fat and understanding its identity as a taste, it could help the food industry develop

better tasting products and with more research help clinicians and public health educators better understand the health implications of oral fat exposure,” he said.

The researchers used perceptual mapping to demonstrate that medium- and long-chain nonesterified fatty acids, or NEFA, have a taste sensation that is distinct from sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.

The basic ‘fat’ taste isn’t appealing by itself, the researchers said. What it could do to flavours though, was, they said. Mattes explained this was similar to the effect that bitter or MSG tastes, which are not pleasant on their own, had on the flavour of beer, chocolate, and a range of other foods. “Many things that are unpleasant in isolation, in fact contribute greatly to the appeal of foods,”

ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY Green plan for highways: 1% project cost to be set aside to plant trees

The road ministry has finalised a “green highways” policy to “tree-line” 140,000 kilometres of national highways.

Under this policy, one per cent of the civil cost of national highway development projects will have to be set aside for the planting of trees in a planned manner, covering both existing NH sections and new routes that would be added to the network.

The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH) has formulated the new Green Highways (Plantation and

Maintenance) Policy, 2015 after a series of reviews, which raised concerns about the poor quality and lack of maintenance of green cover along most national highways.

Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways, Nitin Gadkari said: “The glare from the headlights of incoming

vehicles and the effect of winds, one of the reasons for accidents, could be reduced if there was adequate attention to developing the national highways in an eco-friendly manner.”

The policy aims to provide employment to the local people and will be implemented with the participation of the local

communities, farmers, NGOs, private sector players, local self-government bodies and the forest department.

“We will put this initiative under the MNREGA scheme. If required, we can give advances to farmers and contractors

for purchasing trucks and tractors,” said Gadkari.

Planting fruit-bearing trees specific to the region can aid revenue generation. Besides, waste products or biomass from trees along the road can be used to make fertilisers — the proceeds from the sale would be divided equally between the contractor and the local panchayat body.

Under the plan, the ministry or NHAI will appoint an authorised agency for empanelment of plantation agencies,

which will then be allowed to bid for the projects.

The plantation agency will have no right on the land and cannot undertake any other activity on such land.

The agency will have to sign a pact to ensure strict compliance with the technical specifications, species, maintenance

schedule, survival, payment terms and conditions and on the legal right of the land as well as the forest produce.

Globally, tree-lining of highways has either been entrusted to non-profit government organisations or left to state or provincial governments.

Paris Climate Meet: India’s offer to slow greenhouse gas emissions to be minimalist

Moving away from its earlier intention of submitting a comprehensive climate action plan ahead of the Paris climate

meet, India is preparing to make a minimalist offer indicating a single target for slowing down the growth of its greenhouse gas emissions.

Countries are in the process of submitting their respective climate action plans, being called Intended Nationally

Determined Contributions, or INDCs, in official jargon, detailing steps they intend to take to deal with climate change.

The submissions have to be made before October, well in time for the Paris climate meet where a global climate treaty

is expected to be finalised.


New Delhi has been calling upon countries to make their INDCs as comprehensive as possible, and include not just

the steps that will reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, but also measures that each country intends to take to adapt to the impacts of climate change, and their offers and needs on technology and finance.

India itself had been working on submitting a detailed INDC with a broad plan of action.

It is, however, having second thoughts now, having seen the INDCs of many of the other major emitters, including the

United States and China, almost all of whom have submitted minimalist offers.

India has been noting with concern that none of the action plans submitted from the developed world have talked

about financial or technological support to be made available to developing countries to help them deal with adverse effects of climate change.

While the INDCs are not binding on any country, these will definitely restrict its flexibility in case the climate plan

needs to be changed to meet any future exigency.

Accordingly, the dominant view in the government right now is to present a single target, most probably in terms of emission intensity reduction, in its INDC which is likely to be submitted by September.

Ahead of the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen, the previous time the world had taken a shot at finalising a climate treaty, India announced that it would cut its emission intensity — emissions per unit of GDP — by 20-25 per cent by the year 2020 as compared to 2005 levels.

India is on way to achieve this target and its INDC, which is a plan for the post 2020 period, is likely to be an

extension of this.

A 35-40 per cent cut in emission intensity by 2025 compared to 2005 levels is being seen as very ambitious and yet

achievable.

The Environment Ministry had engaged three agencies – Institute of Economic Growth, The Energy and Resources

Institute, and Integrated Research and Action for Development – to do the analysis and scenario mapping and suggest the possible offers that can be included in India’s INDCs.

The three agencies are learnt to be close to finalising their recommendations and recently made a presentation to the Environment Ministry about their interim results.

PERSONS IN NEWS A visionary and a dreamer

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, former President of India, Bharat Ratna and far-sighted architect of India's space and missile

programmes, passed away in Shillong.

Kalam was an institution-builder and a team-builder, a visionary and a dreamer, who always wanted to build a strong

and self-reliant India.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Defence Minister R. Venkataraman, scientific advisor to the Defence Minister V.S.

Arunachalam and Kalam were a formidable team in the early 1980s who wanted to weld into India into a puissant country in science and technology.

Kalam devised every stratagem in the book to beat the embargoes and sanction regimes including the Missile

Technology Control Regime imposed on India following the Pokhran nuclear tests in 1974 and later in 1998.

“ His taking over the Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-3) programme as its Project Director led to its spectacular success in 1980 and it was the turning point in India's space programme.”

In the 1960s, Kalam was at the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station near Thiruvananthapuram, and he

built ISRO's sounding rocket programme to probe the upper atmosphere.

In 1983, Kalam left ISRO and joined the DRDO as director of the Defence Research and Development Laboratory

(DRDL) at Hyderabad.

As director of DRDL, he envisioned India's Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP) and led teams

that built India's Agni, Akash, Prithvi and Nag missile programmes.

He was instrumental in forging India's collaboration with Russia to build the world's first supersonic cruise missile called BrahMos.

As Director-General of DRDO and Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister, he played an important role India's

nuclear tests in 1998.

Kalam never hesitated to take a stand on issues - be it in support for the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project, the

setting up of the neutrino observatory in Theni, India's nuclear weapons programme or the strategic missile programme.

Dr Suniti Solomon, who pioneered HIV research and treatment in India, passes away Dr Suniti Solomon, whose team was the first to document evidence of HIV infection in India in 1986, died at her

residence in Chennai. A pioneer in treating HIV patients since the 80s at a time when many physicians were reluctant, she founded the first

voluntary HIV testing and counselling centre, Y R Gaitonde Center for AIDS Research and Education (YRG CARE), a premier HIV/AIDS care and support centre, in Chennai. She was also the Professor of Microbiology at the Madras Medical College.

At a time when the international journals had been writing a lot about the HIV outbreaks in the world in 1980s, it was the six blood samples she collected from female sex-workers sheltered at a government home in Mylapore that sent first shockwaves of the deadly virus in India.


Samples initially tested positive were sent to Christian Medical College (CMC) in Vellore as the facility for ELISA test was only available there in mid-80s. Later, samples were sent to the Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, United States for further confirmation. The first findings of the deadly virus, in Tamil Nadu, were even read out in the state legislative assembly.

She was also a member of the National Technical Team on women and AIDS and a member of the advisory board of International AIDS Vaccine Initiative-India, member of the Scientific Committee of the National AIDS Research Institute, Pune, Government of India, a permanent member on the Microbicides Committee of the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) and member of the Asia Data Safety Monitoring Board of the Division of AIDS, NIH, USA.

A pioneer in public health and HIV related studies, she was part of several pioneering HIV research studies including the US National Institute of Mental Health’s multi-country HIV/STD Prevention Trial, the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ HIV Prevention Trial Networks, NIH award that will measure stigma in health care settings in Southern India, and a Phase III study of 6% CS GEL, a candidate microbicide of CONRAD. She also served as the President of the AIDS Society of India.

AWARDS San Diego honours M.P. IPS officer A senior IPS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre has earned a rare distinction with the mayor of San Diego,

California, proclaiming July 20, 2015, as “Manish S. Sharma Day” in recognition of his contribution towards

enhancing India-U.S. relationship. Manish S. Sharma was in the U.S. on a two-year merit based fellowship programme on international security, counter

terrorism and public policy at the University of California in San Diego. During the fellowship, he was invited to join the Board of Directors of the World Affairs Council. He was also awarded

“The Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition” of the United States of America’s House of Representatives. During the course, he interacted with the local communities at various forums and created awareness about the

issues related to India. “Be it proclaimed, that I, Kevin L. Faulconer, the 36th Mayor of the City of San Diego, for and on behalf of the Citizens

of San Diego, do hereby proclaim July 20, 2015, as “Manish S. Sharma Day” in the City of San Diego,” says the proclamation from the mayor.

Mr. Sharma has held several important posts, including IG Intelligence and Railways in Madhya Pradesh, director and CEO of the West Asia and North Africa region of Indian Tea Board, and director-Security of the Airports Authority of India. He was also instrumental in training the Bosnian Police and in the setting up of the National Police Academy of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

OPINION

Time to abolish the MRP

The maximum retail price (MRP) that is printed on all packaged commodities that consumers purchase was

introduced in 1990 by the Ministry of Civil Supplies, Department of Legal Metrology, by making an amendment to the Standards of Weights and Measures Act (Packaged Commodities’ Rules) (1976).

It was meant to prevent tax evasion and protect consumers from profiteering by retailers.

Before the amendment, manufacturers could print either the maximum retail price (inclusive of all taxes) or the retail price (local taxes extra).

When producers opted for the latter method, it was found that retailers often charged more than the locally applicable

taxes. Thus, the amendment was made to introduce the compulsory printing of MRP on all packaged commodities.

While the intention to protect consumers in a pre-liberalised India can be lauded, continuing the system today does

not make any sense.

The practice of MRP in India is unique, archaic and dysfunctional. India is perhaps the only country in the world to

have such a system, where it is punishable by law to charge a price higher than the printed maximum retail price.

In most countries, the system of having a universally enforceable printed price is viewed as being akin to price fixing and is thus prohibited as being anti-competitive.

More often than not, the rule of MRP is breached rather than honoured.

First, the MRP applies only to commodities and not services.

Second, most essential commodities are not packaged and, thus, do not fall under the MRP rule. Fruits, vegetables,

rice, pulses, and so on are always sold ‘loose’ and the retailer thus has the freedom to choose the price, based on his costs and the demand and supply for those commodities.

Third, even packaged commodities are not usually sold at MRP. It is not uncommon to pay a price much higher than

the MRP in movie theatres, high-end restaurants, tourist locations, airports and railway stations.

Fourth, many shops charge for ‘services’ that are not covered by the MRP, for instance, you often have to pay a premium, a ‘cooling charge’, when you buy cold bottled water or soft drinks.

Fifth, producers sometimes print an MRP so ridiculously high that the product can be sold at an actual price that is

up to 90 per cent discounted, thereby making the printed MRP redundant in its ability to signal value. Firecrackers and automobile spare parts are the most obvious example of this.


The onus of checking whether products are being sold at a rate higher than the printed MRP lies with the state legal

metrology department officials. There have been a few instances of much-publicised crackdowns in various cities, but normally, it leads to rent-seeking among these officials.

The MRP, by providing a focal point for retailers, becomes a de facto uniform price and creates retail price collusion. Thus, MRP often ends up hurting the very consumers it sought to protect.

One justification that is often given in defence of MRP is that it is meant to protect consumers in remote locations who

do not have the choice to go to different stores in search of the right price.

While MRP aims to establish uniform prices, irrespective of whether it is in a commercial urban area or a remote

village in the Western Ghats, the result is often damaging to both retailers and consumers.

Retailers in remote locations and in villages often have to bear high transportation costs, which they cannot pass on

to the end consumer, since they are legally not allowed to charge a price higher than the MRP. They, therefore, end up making losses.

In order to avoid this, they choose not to stock many products, thereby reducing the choice available to consumers in

these locations. If, however, they were allowed to determine their own price, they would factor in the transportation costs and charge a slightly higher price than what the MRP presently dictates.

Eventually, seeing that there is a demand for these products and that a retailer is making super-normal profits, more shops will open up in that area. When the demand from retailers increases, wholesalers and manufacturers will create better facilities for distribution.

Another important defence for maintaining the MRP system is that it eliminates information asymmetry and provides

a benchmark to illiterate consumers.

Finally, it has to be asked whether it should be the right, or even the duty, of manufacturers to set the price at which

a product will be sold to the end user. In doing so, the manufacturer gets to decide the profit margins of the retailer, which is essentially contradictory to a free market system.

Just as a consumer has the right to buy a product at a particular price, the retailer should have a right to sell his

product at any price.

If he charges a higher price, the customer is free to go to another store. Retail density in India is high enough for the market mechanism to function properly, as the OECD 2007 Report on India notes.

Even in places that do not have high retail density, if retailers charge very high prices in the absence of an MRP, other

retailers will soon enter the market and the resulting competition will eventually reduce prices.

The MRP system has existed in India without being questioned for too long now. It is time to give free markets a

chance.

India and the IS

The meteoric rise of Islamic State into a state-like apparatus from the detritus of the civil war and insurgency-riven

Iraq and Syria has been well-documented.

How the terror group has managed to retain control over territory it holds, through a mixture of brutality, fear and

immense money power, has also been noted widely.

What is perhaps less understood is how it has managed to draw recruits from all over the world.

A tentative reason being offered is the radicalisation of some alienated Muslims even in countries that promote

multiculturalism and the ease of assimilation of minority identities within the nation-state.

Another is the spread and reach of exclusivist ideologies such as Wahhabism and Salafism that are being promoted by

West Asian state actors. IS practises with virulence even more extreme versions of these.

It is in this context that the Union Home Ministry’s decision to formulate a coherent national strategy to take on IS

and prevent Indians being recruited by it must be seen.

Reports have indicated that less than a dozen Indians have joined IS in the past year, even as IS symbols have been seen in places such as Kashmir at rallies led by separatist groups.

IS’s millenarian and medieval notions of Islam treats Muslims who do not adhere to its ideology, especially members

of other non-Sunni sects of Islam, as apostates.

Islam in India, on the other hand, has a broad syncretic reach; despite the presence of a fundamentalist streak among

certain pockets, Islam in India has generally been spared from the overweening influence of West Asian Wahhabism or

the Saudi version of Salafism. In other words, the possibility of the ideological influence of groups such as IS coming to play in India is limited.

Yet, there is the distinct possibility of IS targeting or influencing disaffected youth among the community. Radical

groups have spread their influence in the last decade owing to grievances and disaffection, following incidents such as the Babri Masjid demolition and the Gujarat riots, and some of them have linked up with terrorist groups.

The Indian state’s ability to hold true to its secular fabric and to its Constitution will determine how far it can stem such disaffection.

The threat of IS in India has to be tackled not just by means of a security-oriented response — through coordination

among police and intelligence agencies as has been proposed by the Home Ministry — but also by ensuring that the grounds of this disaffection among India’s largest minority community are addressed in a just way.

Undervaluing privacy

The Attorney General’s contention in the Supreme Court that privacy is not a fundamental right is disquieting in the

context of the ongoing debate over the implications of the collection of biometric data from citizens.


It is true that the AG was only replying to the question whether making people part with personal data was not an

intrusion into their privacy, and saying that there is a need to defend the Aadhaar scheme. However, the government’s stand may give rise to the doubt whether it is truly committed to protecting its citizens from violations of their privacy by the unauthorised use of information provided by them.

The Constitution does not specify ‘right to privacy’ as a fundamental right, but the law on the subject has evolved considerably in India, and privacy is now seen as an ingredient of personal liberty.

Identifying citizens for providing various services, maintaining security and crime-related surveillance and performing

governance functions, all involve the collection of information.

In recent years, owing to technological developments and emerging administrative challenges, several national

programmes and schemes are being implemented through information technology platforms, using computerised data collected from citizens.

With more and more transactions being done over the Internet, such information is vulnerable to theft and misuse.

Therefore, it is imperative that any system of data collection should factor in privacy risks and include procedures and systems to protect citizen information.

The government faces a formidable legal challenge in implementing its ambitious unique identification programme.

Pleas have been made before the Supreme Court questioning the lack of a statutory basis for the collection of biometric details, and the government has to meet this point to the court’s satisfaction.

Instead of arguing that privacy is not a fundamental right, it would do well to assure the court that it has the

technology and systems to protect the data collected. And that it would do everything possible to prevent unauthorised disclosure of or access to such data.

A Group of Experts appointed by the Planning Commission and headed by Justice (retd.) A.P. Shah, came out with a

comprehensive report in 2012 containing a framework for a Privacy Act.

Such a law, it said, should recognise all dimensions of the right to privacy and address concerns about data safety,

protection from unauthorised interception, surveillance, use of personal identifiers and bodily privacy.

Underscoring a set of privacy principles, the committee said the underlying idea should be that the data controller

should be accountable for the collection, processing and use to which data are put.

In its zeal to aggregate data in electronic form and target subsidies better, the government cannot ignore its responsibility to protect citizens from the perils of the cyber era.

In The States’ Court

For anyone who has been following the land acquisition debate, the recent suggestion that the states be allowed to bring their own legislation to amend the UPA law does not come as a surprise.

To set the record straight, prior to the 2013 act, the Central legislation of 1894 was in force. However, over a period of

time, almost all states had passed their own laws and the 1894 act was hardly ever used.

It was the state that was responsible for acquiring land, even for projects such as an airport, over which the Centre

has control. Thus, the Central government hardly acquires any land and hasn’t been able to accumulate expertise or experience on the matter.

However, before the 2014 elections, the UPA got the new act passed with cross-party support.

That the colonial law was repealed was made into a big issue, unmindful of the fact that it was hardly being used. What the 2013 act suspended, de facto, were the various state laws.

What is being proposed now is a throwback to the earlier situation. That is, the 2013 act could stay as is.

Section 107 of the 2013 law says that the states are free to enact their own legislation to enhance or add to the

compensation package, as well as the rehabilitation and resettlement measures.

Ordinarily, the state governments could pass their own laws only as long as they did not contradict the Union

legislation.

But under Article 254(2) of the Constitution, for concurrent list subjects, the states can pass laws repugnant to the Central legislation with the approval of the president.

As has been argued before, there are many problems with the 2013 act. Many states had better laws in place. For

example, in the case of one particular piece of land in Maharashtra, six times the market rate was paid for acquisition.

In contrast, the 2013 law mandates that only four times the market price be paid for acquiring land in rural areas.

As far as social impact assessments (SIAs) are concerned, the 2013 law says that the government has the right to

reject the expert group’s recommendations. The only caveat is that it has to give in writing the reasons for doing so. Much of the SIA’s righteous sheen would be lost if only its supporters factored in this provision.

Further, the 2013 legislation does not make consent necessary for land acquisition for government projects. In contrast, many state laws have strict consent clauses.

The issue of irrigated land has been unnecessarily jinxed. Suffice it to say that the governments of Haryana and

Punjab (the most irrigated states) have asked for an exemption on this clause.

Their argument is that if this clause is applied to their states, no further industrialisation would be possible. India’s

food security has to be ensured by increasing productivity, not by keeping more land under agriculture.

However, the real area of dispute will be the five categories of projects that have been exempted from consent and SIA

requirements by the ordinance.


It will be interesting to see what the states do on this front.

Constitutional conversations on Adivasi rights

Tribal communities have, over the decades, witnessed the fragmentation of their habitats and homelands and the disruption of their cultures through predatory tourism.

All this has left them shattered and impoverished. Entire communities across States have been dispossessed

systematically through state action, and have been reduced from owners of resources and well-knit, largely self-sufficient communities to wage earners in agriculture and urban agglomerates with uncertain futures.

Yet, we can scarcely forget that the rights of tribal communities in India are protected by the Constitution and special

legislations.

While most of these protections are available to groups named in The Constitution (Schedule Tribes) Order 1950,

there are some tribal communities that fall within the categories of Scheduled Castes (SC) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) and some that don’t fall into any of these categories.

Within the category of Scheduled Tribes (ST), there are over 500 groups listed of whom roughly 70 are part of the sub-

classification Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups, a small cluster of groups that include the Jarawas of the Andaman Islands, the Chenchus of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and the Baigas of Chhattisgarh.

These groups face an acute crisis of survival, evident in their rapidly dwindling numbers. Therefore, they are in need of special protection even within the larger ST category, protections in relation to non-tribal communities as well as in relation to other tribal communities.

Notwithstanding these complex intersections and overlaps (and exclusions in some instances), tribal communities,

especially the STs, are the subject of special constitutional attention.

The right of tribal peoples to development through pathways that affirm their autonomy and dignity, as set out in

Article 21 and under Schedules V and VI of the Indian Constitution, is often seen as the core of Adivasi rights.

The oft-quoted Samata judgment of 1997, rich in its defence of the rights of Adivasi communities to their homelands,

posits an inter-reading of Articles 14 (equality), 15 (non-discrimination), 16 (equality of opportunity), 17 (abolition of untouchability), 21 (life and liberty), 23 (right against exploitation) from the Fundamental Rights chapter of the Constitution and Articles 38 (securing a just social order), 39 (guiding principles of policy) and 46 (promotion of educational and economic interests of SCs, STs, and other weaker sections) from the Directive Principles of State Policy.

The constitutional arguments in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh resisting the Polavaram dam centred on whether

the state could alter (diminish) the boundaries of a scheduled area without presidential assent. Submergence, in fact, alters boundaries, causes disappearance of villages and village institutions, and renders people from these communities vulnerable through dispossession by displacement — all of which are the subject of special protections for the STs.

The largest volume of litigation in scheduled areas has to do with non-tribal occupation of tribal land and the blatant derogation of land transfer regulation laws.

Financial inclusion poses the third major problem: despite policy commitments to financial inclusion of vulnerable

communities as a measure to lift them out of debt bondage and predatory money lending and usury, moneylenders continue to thrive in tribal areas.

Clause 5 of Article 19 reads as follows: 19 (5) Nothing in sub clauses (d) and (e) of the said clause shall affect the

operation of any existing law in so far as it imposes, or prevent the State from making any law imposing, reasonable restrictions on the exercise of any of the rights conferred by the said sub clauseseither in the interests of the general public or for the protection of the interests of any Scheduled Tribe (emphasis added).

In other words, an important part of Article 19 protections have to do specifically with protection of interests of STs

(Clause 5) as distinct from other marginalised groups through limitations on right to freedom of movement [sub-cause 1(d)] and right to freedom of residence [sub-clause 1(d)].

Indian Ocean games

New Delhi is predictably upset with the Maldives for an amendment to the country’s constitution permitting foreigners

to own land, provided the entity invests a minimum of $1 billion.

The move is being seen as an attempt by the Indian Ocean atoll to forge closer ties with China.

Chinese companies are already involved in other projects, notably the construction of a bridge to connect Hulhumale

Island, on which the airport is, with the capital Male.

During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit, Maldives President Abdulla Yameen readily agreed to become part of

China’s ambitious maritime silk route project.

New Vice President Ahmed Adeeb has said that criticism of the amendment as a backdoor move to permit foreign

powers to establish military bases on its territory are unfounded.

As many as 70 members in the 85-seat Majlis voted in favour of the changes. Among the 19 opposition members who voted for the bill, 10 were from the Maldivian Democratic Party, whose leader, Mohamed Nasheed, a former president, is under house arrest.

The concern in India, and for some in the Maldives, too, is that the possibility has not been ruled out entirely.

Sovereign nations act according to what they believe are their own best interests. Other countries have to work

towards ensuring that these interests coincide with theirs.


Delhi, which harbours an unrealistic expectation that its neighbours must play its game or none at all, was

unfortunately not deft at deciphering the signals from the Maldives right from the time Nasheed was ousted back in 2012, or far thinking.

It lost no time in dropping the young MDP leader and backing the new regime.

It was only when the Indian firm GMR was turfed out from the Maldives airport project did Delhi fathom this Indian

Ocean game ran deep.

Despite his political brinkmanship, Nasheed was the most India-friendly politician in the Maldives. If some in his

party have now voted in favour of the amendment, it is in the hope that in return, the Yameen government may give some concessions on Nasheed’s 13-year jail term, handed down by an anti-terrorist court earlier this year.

India must stop complaining and start thinking of how to repair strained ties with this small but strategically

important neighbour it has helped in many ways.

One way to do this might be to step up engagement with all political players there immediately.

Give the RBI its independence

A new era in monetary policy formulation is set to start with the Union Finance Ministry releasing the revised draft of the Indian Financial Code (IFC).

It provides for the setting up of a Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to debate on monetary affairs and decide the

policy rate.

This move is in line with practices in many of the developing countries where the central banks have pursued the

committee approach to address monetary policy issues.

Currently, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the monetary policy regulator, goes by the views of a Technical Advisory

Committee (TAC) on such issues. The TAC comprises officials from the RBI besides a few external experts. It advises the central banker on the monetary policy stance based on macro-economic and monetary developments.

However, the RBI Governor has the last word, and the right to veto any decision of the TAC.

The draft IFC, submitted by the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC) headed by former Supreme

Court judge B.N. Srikrishna, has suggested that the MPC members be appointed after due consultations between the government and the RBI. It has also recommended that the government have three nominees in the seven-member MPC.

The FSLRC, however, has recommended veto power for the RBI Governor.

The revised draft circulated for public discussion by the Finance Ministry, however, seeks to vest in the government

the power to nominate four members to the MPC.

It proposes that no veto power be given to the Governor, and that at best he be allowed a casting vote to use in the event of a tie.

In the context of the continuing uneasy relationship between the fiscal and monetary bosses and in light of the

changing dynamics of the domestic economy owing to assorted factors falling outside policy controls, the importance of a cohesive action plan should not be underestimated.

Given this, it is not incorrect to allow the government a say in matters of monetary policy.

The revised draft, however, seems to be trying to push too much of government into monetary matters. Seen in

tandem with its earlier bid to remove from the RBI the public debt management function, this move only appears intended to undermine the RBI’s autonomy, which had actually succeeded in insuring the Indian economy against the profligate policies of successive governments, and the financial shenanigans in other economies.

If the government is to have majority control in the MPC, what is the point of giving the RBI Governor the right to a casting vote?

Prudence suggests that RBI and like institutions must be allowed to function independently.

A subsidy and some questions

The Central government’s decision to extend the interest subvention scheme on bank loans given to land-owning

farmers at 7 per cent is essentially a welcome move. This is especially so in a context where there is no real clarity on how the current monsoon will turn out to be, running at a deficit of 7 per cent as it does currently.

With an additional subvention component of 3 per cent to encourage timely repayment, farmers can effectively avail

themselves of up to Rs. 3 lakh at just 4 per cent interest. This scheme, basically offering a sort of agricultural subsidy,

has been in place since 2006-07, with the subvention component fluctuating between 1.5 and 3 per cent.

With agricultural yield levels and incomes per acre falling or languishing, the need to extend such loans to farmers at

low interest levels admittedly exists.

However, what is less clear is the purpose for which many of these loans are being put to.

The Reserve Bank of India recently initiated an investigation into the apparent diversion of agricultural loans for

unintended purposes. It would appear that farmers’ existing debts to money-lenders, weak supervision of credit utilisation and the categorisation of gold loans as agricultural loans are creating significant grey areas and avenues for loan amounts to be used for purposes other than farming.

At certain points of the cropping cycle farmers need large amounts of money and they turn to money-lenders, who

charge high rates of interest and often insist on their loans being re-paid first — which forces farmers to divert a part of the subsidised bank loans to repay them. Some farmers put the amounts in fixed deposit accounts to earn higher interest than what they pay.


Most farmers do not earn enough to meet their needs, including consumption expenditure, and so these loans serve

as an auxiliary source of income.

The government needs to recognise the fact that the system of interest subvention will increasingly finance consumption rather than farming, and take one of two steps.

It could instruct banks to step up scrutiny on the use the loan is being put to.

Or it could rethink the manner in which it wants to subsidise farmers. Implementing direct transfers to bank

accounts and investing in research and development to bolster crop yields should serve the same purpose that the low-interest loans currently serve. This step will have the added advantage of potentially improving the plight of farmers.

The soft loans are a good idea that needs to be managed and supervised well in order to ensure that the intended

outcomes are ensured, and that they help address actual distress in the field.

Winds of change in West Asia

The nuclear dimension of the agreement signed in Vienna between Iran and the P5+1 (the United States, the United

Kingdom, France, China, Russia and Germany — along with the European Union) is relatively straightforward.

Two years ago, Iran was perceived to be just a few months away from acquiring enough highly enriched uranium to produce a bomb. A covert cyber operation, widely believed to be a joint U.S.-Israeli effort, using the worm, ‘Stuxnet’, damaged a number of centrifuges in 2009-10 but the programme has rebounded since then.

There was no certainty that a U.S.-backed military strike would succeed in taking out Iran’s entire nuclear capability.

Collective economic sanctions had worked up to a point because these were intended to give diplomacy a chance.

The U.S. was convinced that under the circumstances, negotiations were the only way forward.

Iran had to step back from the nuclear threshold, from a lead time of months to a year plus. Further, it had to accept

intrusive inspections to give out the reassurance that it was not cheating. The U.S. needed to be certain that sanctions could snap back into place in case Iran tried a breakout.

It was not an ideal solution but the best under the circumstances.

While Iran could still sustain the sanctions and survive, sanctions relief was necessary for higher growth. Equally

important for Iran was the narrative that it was within its rights as a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to build an enrichment capability for peaceful purposes.

Iran could accept more intrusive verification provided this right was conceded. That meant retaining the capability

while accepting constraints on exercising it for a period of time, which could be negotiated.

A deal would also bolster Iran’s standing regionally.

Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action JCPOA, the number of centrifuges has been reduced by more than two thirds and enrichment will be restricted to a single facility at Natanz. The remaining centrifuges will be mothballed and the Fordow enrichment facility will be converted into a nuclear, physics, technology, research centre where no fissile material can be introduced.

From its existing stockpile of nearly 10 MT of partially enriched uranium, Iran will retain only 300 kg of uranium

enriched to a level of 3.6 per cent; the rest will be shipped out. The Arak heavy water reactor will be redesigned and Iran will not undertake any reprocessing activity.

While the duration of the agreement is 10 years, the International Atomic Energy Agency verification provisions will

remain in effect for an additional five years. Restrictions on designing and the production of new centrifuges will remain in force for 20 years while monitoring of uranium mining and milling will continue for 25 years and verification covers the supply chain of nuclear related components.

While defence related sites like Parchin have been kept out of the nuclear related facilities, there is a provision for

seeking inspections if treaty violating activity is suspected. In case of a dispute, a 24-day time frame is provided for adjudication by a joint commission to be set up under the JCPOA.

Nuclear-related imports are permitted but will be channelled through a designated procurement channel.

In return, all nuclear related sanctions will be lifted. This will gradually permit nearly $100 billion of blocked funds to be released and, more significantly, permit Iranian banks and financial institutions to resume their international engagement.

A number of institutions and individuals will be taken off the sanctions list.

Regional politics

Iran will be able to modernise its oil and gas industry infrastructure which was hard hit by the technology embargoes

related to the sanctions regime.

Over a period of a year or so, this will also permit Iran to increase its oil and gas export revenues, subject to global

demand picking up.

Two significant provisions are a lifting of the conventional arms embargo after five years and ending missile sanctions after eight years.

It is not the unambiguous terms of the JCPOA that generate strong emotions but the winds of change blowing across

West Asia that the deal portends.

After the 1979 Islamic revolution, containing Iran became a shared policy objective for the U.S. and its two regional

allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia.


With U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, along with the growth of the Islamic State in the aftermath of the

Arab Spring, the U.S. needed new leverages in the region.

U.S. business also perceives a large, untapped market in Iran for everything from automobiles and aircraft to Coca Cola and Apple products. A hostile relationship with Iran was no longer in the U.S.’s interest and Mr. Rouhani’s election provided a good opportunity for this.

This shift makes Saudi Arabia nervous which has injected a strong dose of jihadi sectarianism into the regional rivalry

to bolster its position in the Sunni-dominated Arab world.

During the 1980s, the jihad in Afghanistan spawned al-Qaeda and the Taliban; dabbling with the forces unleashed

with the Arab Spring has led to IS and its clones straddling the multiple fault lines in the region.

Israel will find it easier to come to terms with the agreement because, in the ultimate analysis, it ensures Israel’s

nuclear supremacy in the region for a quarter century.

The problem is more complex with Saudi Arabia, which is seeking to maintain regime stability together with its pole position in the Islamic world by using sectarianism.

For the U.S., the unwritten part of the nuclear transaction is its transformative potential for Iran’s domestic politics in bringing about greater democracy, moderating its regional assertiveness and progressive economic integration with the West.

The U.S. is relying on Iran’s demographics — a young population which is literate and connected on the Internet, a

GDP per capita income level of about $15,000 (in purchasing power parity terms, according to World Bank data

2013), and its aspirations, both individual and societal, for a greater role on the global stage.

For Iran, the unwritten part of the deal is that the sanctions relief will give new legitimacy to the Iranian regime, even

as it engages with the West.

Implications for India

For India, it is a positive development. Before the sanctions regime, Iran accounted for 16.4 per cent of India’s oil

imports which came down to 6 per cent. Oil prices are currently down and Iran’s entry into the market enables India to diversify its sources and start building up its strategic reserve.

A contract for the development of the ‘Farzad B’ gasfield by ONGC Videsh which was awarded the exploratory rights in 2008 also needs to be tied up.

The second major issue is connectivity to Afghanistan and the Central Asian states. The Chabahar port has long been

seen as the gateway but progress on developing the port and the rail-road links to Zahedan on the Iran-Afghanistan border has been slow. In Afghanistan, the 215 kilometre long road from the border town of Zaranj to Delaram was built with Indian help keeping this connectivity in mind.

This opening offers opportunities for the Indian corporate sector though it will have to compete with Western and

particularly Turkish enterprises.

Politically, an integrated Iran is more likely to exercise a stabilising influence in Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria.

In the final analysis, the agreement can only be judged against the options available, not vis-à-vis an impractical

ideal.

On this yardstick, the JCPOA is the best deal possible, for non-proliferation, regional balance and stability, stronger India-Iran relations and, ultimately, for enabling a larger regional presence for India.

Lokayukta conundrum in Karnataka

The Karnataka legislature is deliberating bringing substantial amendments to various provisions of the Karnataka

Lokayukta Act, 1984, including the removal of Lokayukta to resurrect the confidence of citizens shocked by allegations against the present Lokayukta.

It is alleged that the Karnataka Lokayukta Justice Y. Bhaskar Rao’s son, Ashwin Rao, had misused his father’s

authority and extorted money from various government officials after he intimidated them with criminal proceedings.

For the first time, the State government is in a quandary over the need to remove a sitting Lokayukta from office,

which is a complex task owing to the lack of a precedent.

The Opposition in Karnataka has sought removal of the Lokayukta through the impeachment process. While provisions exist to remove a Lokayukta in case of direct allegations of misconduct or corruption, the confusion arises when his kith or kin are allegedly guilty of abusing his office.

Undoubtedly, the Lokayukta can be removed from office — according to Section 6 of the Karnataka Lokayukta Act,

1984 — by an order of the Governor passed only after an address by the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council and supported by a two-thirds majority. The grounds for removal would be “proved” misbehaviour or incapacity.

The notice for motion to present an address can be admitted only when signed by not less than 50 members if

introduced in the Legislative Assembly or not less than 15 members if the notice is to be introduced in the Legislative Council.

Subsequent to the approval of notice of motion for presentation of an address, the Chairman or Speaker as the case

may be, shall constitute a committee to investigate charges of misconduct.

If the investigation finds the Lokayukta guilty, then the matter is debated in both houses with an opportunity being

given to the Lokayukta who faces impeachment, to rebut the charges either in person or through his representative.

However, if the House decides to put the motion to vote, the resolution has to be passed by two-thirds majority in both the houses, during the same session.

The resolution is then directed to the Governor, who orders removal of the Lokayukta.


But, in this case, the impeachment is not valid as the accusations are not directly levelled against Justice Bhaskar

Rao and no concrete evidence is yet available to directly implicate him.

To ease the present process of removal of the Lokayukta by impeachment, one of the amendments envisaged by the Cabinet recently was to allow the motion of the removal of Lokayukta to the Governor provided there is a consent of 1/3rd of members of both the houses. This is surely a step with a noble intention.

But this might backfire in future if a political leader who commands 1/3rd support of the members in both the

houses is accused of irregularities by the Lokayukta and the political leader decides to move a motion of impeachment against the Lokayukta just to wriggle out of the investigation.

However, the State government has constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) comprising State police officers on

the request by the Lokayukta to appoint an independent agency to probe the allegations.

The Lokayukta is entitled to ask for an external probe if he thinks he is being framed and intends to come out clean.

But the extent, magnitude and authority of the probe have to be decided by the State government.

The SIT now formed reports to the State, which itself is accused of being a party to this scam. This might render the

probe redundant.

Hence, a court-monitored SIT or handing it over to the CBI would have been a more honest decision to make on the part of the State government.

Clearly, an SIT that comprises purely State police officers will be constrained to make an impartial probe given the

harsh realities of political interference.

Therefore, in the prevalent political environment where the State police are seen as being beholden to their political

masters, the only effective probe possible would have to be conducted by the CBI or an SIT formed under the supervision of the court.

It is time to write down the procedures to adhere to, when such a predicament arises involving the kin of Lokayukta

or Upa-Lokayukta in corruption scandals.

In such cases, the government must be empowered to mandatorily hand over the matter to the investigating agency of the Central Government or SIT formed under the supervision of the court to avoid any conflict of interest.

The Karnataka Lokayukta that was profoundly held in high esteem and honour when led by Justice Venkatachal and

Justice Santosh Hegde is testimony to the fact that however good an institution may be, it is not immune to the practice of possible misuse of office.

All eyes on Pluto

The enhanced images of Pluto that were recently released by Nasa’s New Horizons team were truly dazzling, showing

red and orange shades of the dwarf planet, flowing ice in its heart-shaped feature, some smooth plains and some mountains and craters.

Before Pluto’s fly-by on July 14, interest in existence of life beyond Earth was rekindled by the findings from the Mars

rover ‘Curiosity’ and Asteroid Mission Rosetta.

India’s Chandrayaan-1 and the Mars Orbiter Mission, both demonstrating technological prowess and generating

scientific interest, also inspired the younger generation in the country to choose a career in science.

But why is there such increased interest among scientists in Pluto, located 5.8 billion kilometers from the Sun and at the edge of the solar system?

Part of the excitement stems from the fact that space is an ideal laboratory for scientists. Its vastness enables

fundamental experiments, orders of magnitude more accurate than on Earth, eliminating the influence of gravity, atmosphere, seismic noise and other interactions.

These astronomical observations help us learn about the microscopic and macroscopic structure of the universe.

Lunar and planetary missions, over the years, have provided extremely valuable scientific data on the formation and

evolution of planets and their moons.

The Kuiper Belt

That Pluto was discovered in 1930 as the ninth planet of the Solar system is well-known. Twenty years after its discovery, astronomers postulated the presence of the Kuiper Belt, comprising a vast collection of icy objects beyond the orbit of Neptune, in which Pluto itself was a member.

The first Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) was discovered in 1992 — throwing doubt over Pluto’s status as planet — and since

then observers have found more than 1,000 KBOs, with diameters ranging from 50 kms to almost 2,400 kms.

The International Astronomical Union in 2006 chose to classify Pluto and the recently discovered large Kuiper Belt

Objects as dwarf planets.

The Kuiper Belt contains a sizable supply of ancient, icy and organic material that are held in deep freeze, and that

were left over from the birth pangs of the planets, containing evidences of the distant past.

Because of this, planetary scientists are keen to learn more about Pluto and its moons, Charon (the largest), Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra, and other objects in the Kuiper Belt.

The size of the Kuiper Belt and its shape and general nature appear to be much like belts seen around other stars.

Additionally, when scientists used computer modelling to simulate the formation of KBO, as the solar system was

coalescing from a whirling disk of gas and dust, they found that the ancient Kuiper Belt may have contained at least 10 times more mass than what it is today to give rise to Pluto and Charon and the other KBOs.


It is estimated that there may have once been enough material to form another planet the size of Uranus or Neptune

in the Kuiper Belt.

The prevailing theory of the formation of Pluto system is that Pluto collided with another large body, and much of the debris from this impact went into orbit around Pluto and eventually coalesced to form Charon.

Pluto has a reflective surface with distinct markings that indicate polar caps. Charon’s surface is far less reflective,

with indistinct markings.

And while Pluto has an atmosphere, Charon is not known to have an atmosphere.

There is a sharp contrast in the surface characteristics of Pluto and Charon, which is intriguing if they had a common

birth.

Interestingly, Pluto’s density, size, and surface composition are strikingly similar to Triton, Neptune’s largest satellite, considered to be a captured planet from the Kuiper Belt.

A similar collision theory is also in place to explain the creation of Earth’s moon, and hence the study of Pluto and

Charon could help scientists understand the history of our own planet.

Pluto is about 40 times farther away from the Sun than Earth, has a diameter of about 2,380 kms, and orbits the Sun

once every 248 Earth years.

It is a rocky icy planet with 35 per cent by mass being ice. Its atmosphere comprises mainly nitrogen, methane and

carbon monoxide — that regularly transition between solid and gas state — and is extremely rarefied.

Pluto’s surface gravity is about 6 per cent of Earth’s gravity and its estimated surface temperature is about (-) 233°C.

Its atmosphere is also over 50,000 times less dense than Earth’s atmosphere.

Pluto has a thin, tenuous atmosphere that expands when it comes closer to the Sun and collapses as it moves farther

away — similar to a comet. Furthermore, Pluto’s surface temperature varies greatly because of the planet’s eccentric orbit and polar tilt.

As the planet moves farther away and cools, the average surface temperature is expected to drop and most of the

atmosphere will freeze out on the surface. As a result of this and also because the planet rotational axis is tilted by 28°, Pluto may have the most complex seasonal patterns in the solar system.

Scientists believe that Pluto’s atmosphere loses a lot of mass into space. The thermal energy of typical molecules in

the upper atmosphere is sufficient to escape Pluto’s gravitational hold, a process called hydrodynamic escape.

The same may have been responsible for the rapid loss of hydrogen from Earth’s atmosphere early in our planet’s

history, making Earth suitable for life.

Pluto is the only place in the solar system where we can study hydrodynamic escape on a planetary scale today.

Another important connection between Pluto and life on Earth is the likely presence of organic compounds more

complex than the frozen methane on Pluto’s surface and water ice inside the dwarf planet.

Recent observations of smaller KBOs show that they are also most likely to harbour large amounts of ice and organic

substances. Such objects are considered to have routinely strayed into the inner part of the solar system billions of years ago, collided with Earth, and helped to seed the young Earth with the building blocks of life.

Given all these scientific motivations, it is understandable why there is increased scientific interest in Pluto and the

Kuiper Belt.

NASA Mission

The first dedicated spacecraft platform to explore Pluto at close quarters was NASA’s New Horizons, launched in 2006 from Florida.

Its closest approach to Pluto was on July 14, 2015, the closest point being 12,500 km from Pluto’s surface at a

velocity of 14 km/s.

It has seven scientific instruments comprising an ultraviolet imaging spectrometer to probe atmospheric composition

and surface structure, a visible and infrared camera/spectrometer to obtain high-resolution colour maps and surface composition maps, a long-range telescopic camera for high-resolution surface images, particle spectrometers to measure solar wind charged particles in and around Pluto’s atmosphere, a detector to measure masses of space-dust particles and two copies of a radio science experiment to examine atmospheric structure, surface thermal properties and the planet’s mass.

NASA plans to turn around the spacecraft once it passes Pluto and try to map the planet’s night side, which will be

softly illuminated by the moonlight from Charon.

At this time, a powerful radio beam will be sent from Earth. This will aim to pass through Pluto’s atmosphere and

reach the spacecraft’s.

By measuring the effects of atmospheric refraction on the radio beam as it travels to the spacecraft, the temperature, density and composition profile of the atmosphere all the way to the surface can be estimated.

Valuable insights into the origin of the outer solar system and that of planet and satellite systems are expected to be

discovered from the data sent by NASA’s New Horizons.

Igniting minds In the passing away of former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, India has lost not only a visionary scientist and an

institution-builder, but also a staunch nationalist who was an inspirational figure for people across generations. Turning India into a developed country of the first world was his dream, and he set about making this a reality through words and deeds, first as scientist, then as the President, and later, till the very end, as an ordinary citizen.


Kalam began as a civilian rocket engineer and metamorphosed into a missile technologist, but it is as the “people’s president”, as the first citizen who was accessible and who stopped to listen to the grievances of ordinary men and women that he won the love and affection of his countrymen. In the fields of civilian space and military missile technologies, Kalam put India on the world map by laying strong indigenous foundations for them.

When India joined the exclusive club of spacefaring nations comprising the U.S., Russia, France, Japan and China on July 18, 1980, Kalam was the Project Director of the Satellite Launch Vehicle-3 in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Since then, India has joined the world leaders in satellite launches and space research.

Kalam’s tenure in the Defence Research and Development Organisation and as the director of the Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) at Hyderabad heralded immense achievements in missile technology; he was part of the team that envisioned India’s Guided Missile Development Programme.

Projects such as the development of the Prithvi, Akash, Trishul and Nag missiles were undertaken. Kalam also insisted on the development of a strategic missile with re-entry technology, resulting in the Agni missile.

He insisted that both ISRO and DRDO develop composites such as carbon-carbon, fibre-reinforced plastic, etc to make motor casings lighter so that the vehicles can carry a heavier payload.

His consortium approach led to the indigenous development of phase shifters, magnesium alloys, ram-rocket motors and servo-valves for missiles. As scientific adviser to the Defence Minister, he helped conduct India’s nuclear tests at Pokhran in May 1998.

But more than as a scientist and a technocrat, Kalam will be remembered for his tenure as India’s 11th president,

when he moved the institution away from being merely formal and ceremonial in nature. He used the presidency as a platform to inspire youth, who were readily impressed by his earthy demeanour and

discursive approach to public speaking. The missile man had his critics, but India’s most popular president leaves behind the legacy of more than one generation of inspired Indians.

weekly news and analysis from 2nd to 7th … · 2016-03-12 · 1 weekly news and analysis byju’s...

Documents