Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Article 124 and Article 214
Mains level: Paper 2- Collegium system
Context
Judiciary is being challenged, from within and outside. It must shield itself from further erosion of its independence and competence by scrupulously following the law, as declared by the Supreme Court (SC) itself.
How the Collegium helped to secure the independence of judiciary
- In 1993, the SC held the following:
- The process of appointment of Judges to the Supreme Court and the High Courts is an integrated ‘participatory consultative process’.
- The process aims at selecting the best and most suitable persons available for appointment.
- The Collegium consists of the CJI and the four senior-most judges of the SC and high courts.
- It was devised to ensure that the opinion of the Chief Justice of India is not merely his individual opinion, but an opinion formed collectively by a body of men at the apex level in the judiciary.
- By judicial interpretation, the Supreme Court re-interpreting Article 124 and 214 of the Constitution empowered the judiciary to make appointments to the higher judiciary to secure the rule of law.
Threat to the judicial independence
- The framers of the Constitution were alive to the likely erosion of judicial independence.
- On May 23, 1949, K T Shah stated that the Judiciary, which is the main bulwark of civil liberties, should be completely separate from and independent of the Executive, whether by direct or by indirect influence.
- In 2016, the Supreme Court struck down a constitutional amendment for creating the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC).
- The SC strongly disapproved of any role for the political executive in the final selection and appointment of judges.
- The SC said that “reciprocity and feelings of payback to the political executive” would be disastrous to the independence of the judiciary.
Consider the question “How the Collegium system helped the Judiciary secure its independence? What are the issues with it?”
Conclusion
The selection of deserving judges is essential to ensure the independence of the judiciary. The Collegium must do its best in this task.
Back2Basics: About the National Judicial Appointments Commission
- The NJAC or National Judicial Appointments Commission sought to change the system, where judges would have been appointed by a commission where the legislative and the executive would have had a role.
- The NJAC was supposed to comprise of the Chief Justice of India (Chairperson, ex-officio), two other senior judges of the Supreme Court, The Union Minister of Law and Justice, ex-officio and two eminent persons, to be appointed by the Chief Justice of India, Prime Minister of India, and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
- The bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on 13 August 2014 and by the Rajya Sabha on 14 August 2014, and became an Act.
- The NJAC replaced the collegium system for the appointment of judges.
- The NJAC Bill and the Constitutional Amendment Bill, was ratified by 16 of the state legislatures in India, and the President gave his assent on 31 December 2014.
- The NJAC Act became effective from April 13, 2015.
- The NJAC enjoyed support from the Supreme Court Bar Association and many legal luminaries but was also challenged by some lawyer associations and groups before the Supreme Court of India through Writ Petitions.
- A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court referred the matter to a Constitution Bench that heard different arguments for over a month.
- Finally, on October 16, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court declared the 99th Constitutional Amendment Act and the NJAC Act 2014 “unconstitutional and void”.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: State Development Loans
Mains level: Paper 3- Centre needs to help states to tide over the uncertain year
Context
The states are borrowing less than expected in the first quarter of FY 2021-22 despite the negative impact of state-level restrictions, amidst the second Covid wave, on economic activity.
An overview of borrowing by States
- In 2020-21, the gross amount raised through state development loans (SDLs) or bonds had jumped to Rs 8 trillion, up from Rs 6.3 trillion in the previous year.
- The increase was a fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic on state finances.
- In the first quarter of the current financial year i.e. 2021-22, gross issuances of bonds stood at Rs 1.4 trillion.
- This amount is 14 per cent lower than the bonds issued last year (Rs 1.7 trillion).
- This is also around 20 per cent lower than what states had initially indicated they would borrow (Rs 1.8 trillion) through the indicative calendar of market borrowings released by the RBI.
- As a result, state bond issuances have undershot expectations in the first quarter.
Factor’s responsible for lower state borrowing
- Lower state borrowings were a consequence of three major factors.
- First, an additional tax devolution of Rs 450 billion from the Centre in late March.
- This amount was in excess of the Rs 5.5 trillion tax devolution that had been included in the revised estimates for 2020-21.
- Second, record-high GST collections in April which doubled to Rs 1.3 trillion in the first quarter of this year, up from Rs 0.6 trillion in the same period last year.
- Third, receipt of substantial grants from the Centre adding up to Rs 436 billion in April-May related to the recommendations of the Fifteenth Finance Commission.
Factors that could influence the borrowing pattern in the next three quarters
- First, the varying pace of unlocking and the consequent economic revival in states from June onwards may crucially affect state borrowings in the second quarter.
- A faster ramp-up of vaccine administration may help some states, reducing the need to borrow.
- Second, the eventual calendar for raising back-to-back loans by the GoI to compensate states for the loss in their GST revenues could also result in a change in the states’ borrowing schedule.
- Third, the quantum, and timing of tax devolution will also play a role.
Why timing of the Central tax devolution matters for States
- Central tax devolution forms a quarter of states’ combined revenue receipts.
- This revenue stream has contracted by 15 per cent in the first two months of the year, falling to Rs 392 billion each in April-May this year, from Rs 460 billion last year.
- If the Centre continues to devolve to states this amount till February 2022, then a massive Rs 2.4 trillion (36 per cent of the budgeted amount) will be left for devolution in March 2022 — assuming that the devolution for the full year is not revised below the budgeted level.
- From the states’ point of view, this would be rather inefficient from a cash flow perspective.
Conclusion
An early step-up in tax devolution by the central government may provide comfort to the states to accelerate expenditure during another uncertain year, without borrowings being pushed up in the next two quarters.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: UAPA
Mains level: Paper 2- Misuse of UAPA and role of judiciary
Context
Father Stan Swamy passed away at a private hospital in Mumbai on July 5. Fr. Swamy was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
How Supreme Court judgment leaves the scope for misuse of UAPA
- The Supreme Court’s April 2019 decision in National Investigation Agency vs Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali on the interpretation of the UAPA has affected all downstream decisions involving the statute.
- This decision has created a new doctrine.
- According to the decision, in considering bail applications under the UAPA, courts must presume every allegation made in the First Information Report to be correct.
- Further, bail can now be obtained only if the accused produces material to contradict the prosecution.
- In other words, the burden rests on the accused to disprove the allegations, which is virtually impossible in most cases.
- The decision has essentially excluded the admissibility of evidence at the stage of bail.
- By doing so, it has effectively excluded the Evidence Act itself, which arguably makes the decision unconstitutional.
- Due to the Supreme Court judgment, High Courts have their hands tied, and must perforce refuse bail, as disproving the case is virtually impossible.
- The Delhi High Court recently granted bail to three young activists arrested under UAPA in a conspiracy relating to the 2020 riots in Delhi.
- The Supreme Court reportedly expressed surprise and gave the direction that the decision will “not to be treated as precedent by any court” to give similar reliefs.
Misuse of the UAPA
- With such high barriers of proof, it is now impossible for an accused to obtain bail, and is in fact a convenient tool to put a person behind bars indefinitely.
- This is being abused by the government, police and prosecution liberally: now, all dissenters are routinely implicated under charges of sedition or criminal conspiracy and under the UAPA.
- In multiple instances, evidence is untenable, sometimes even arguably planted, and generally weak overall.
- But as a consequence of UAPA being applied, the accused cannot even get bail.
Way forward
- If we want to prevent the misuse, the decision in the Watali case must be urgently reversed or diluted, otherwise, we run the risk of personal liberties being compromised very easily.
Conclusion
The provision of the act leaves the scope for misuse and therefore judiciary and legislature need to take steps to provide safeguards to prevent the misuse.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: One nation, one ration card scheme
Mains level: Paper 2- Guidelines for providing relief to migrant workers
Context
The Supreme Court on June 29 pronounced its judgment in the migrant labourers case. The case was initiated last year after the national lockdown was announced on March 24.
Guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court
- Two of the most important components to protect the migrants during this time were the food and travel arrangements insisted on by the court.
- In the orders pronounced in May this year, it laid down that dry ration be provided to migrants who want to return to their homes.
- Further, the court said that identity proof should not be insisted upon by the governments since the labourers might not be able to furnish it.
- Secondly, the court called upon the State governments to arrange transportation for workers who need to return to their homes.
- The Supreme Court fixed July 31 as the deadline for the States to implement the ‘One nation One Ration Card’ scheme.
- Apart from dry ration, the top court also directed the State governments to run community kitchens for migrant workers.
- In the order passed on June 29, the court affirmed the Right to Food under Article 21 of the Constitution.
- In furtherance of this, the court asked the States to formulate their own schemes and issue food grains to migrants.
- The top court recognised the need for direct cash benefit transfer to workers in the unorganised sector.
- But it did not issue any guidelines for the same.
Challenges
- The Supreme Court has given a purposive declaration in the case but the bulk of the judgment seems declaratory rather than mandatory.
- Under the ‘One nation One Ration Card’ scheme, the States are to complete the registration of migrant workers in order to provide dry ration to them.
- But it is unlikely that a standardised system can be developed within the deadline prescribed by the court.
- There are administrative problems in running community kitchens for migrant workers.
- First, migrant workers keep moving in search of employment and it is difficult to cover them all under the scheme.
- Second, many States do not have the necessary infrastructure to run and maintain community kitchens on such a large scale.
- The court asked the States to formulate their own schemes and issue food grains to migrants, but there are no normative data that would allow the States to identify eligible migrants.
Conclusion
In order to efficaciously implement the orders of the court, the State governments need to work with the Centre closely. It is imperative to ensure that government machinery works to its full potential and robust systems are developed to withstand the challenges of the looming third covid wave.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Shift in mental health care system needed
Context
Recently, a High Court suggested that homeless persons with health conditions be branded with a permanent tattoo, when vaccinated against COVID-19.
Issue
- In many countries, persons with severe mental health conditions live in shackles in their homes, in overcrowded hospitals, and even in prison.
- On the other hand, many persons with mental health issues live and even die alone on the streets.
- Three losses dominate the mental health systems narrative: dignity, agency and personhood.
- Issues with the laws: Far-sighted changes in policy and laws have often not taken root and many laws fail to meet international human rights standards.
- Many also do not account for cultural, social and political contexts resulting in moral rhetoric that doesn’t change the scenario of inadequate care.
- There is also the social legacy of the asylum, and of psychiatry and mental illness itself, that guides our imagination in how care is organised.
Way forward: A responsive care system
- We must understand mental health conditions for what they are and for how they are associated with disadvantage.
- These situations are linked, but not always so, therefore, not all distress can be medicalised.
- Adopt WHO guidelines: Follow the Guidance on Community Mental Health Services recently launched by the World Health Organization.
- The Guidance, which includes three models from India, addresses the issue from ‘the same side’ as the mental health service user and focuses on the co-production of knowledge and on good practices.
- Drawn from 22 countries, these models balance care and support with rights and participation.
- Open dialogue: The practice of open dialogue, a therapeutic practice that originated in Finland, runs through many programmes in the Guidance.
- This approach trains the therapist in de-escalation of distress and breaks power differentials that allow for free expression.
- Increase investment: With emphasis on social care components such as work force participation, pensions and housing, increased investments in health and social care seem imperative.
- Network of services: For those homeless and who opt not to enter mental health establishments, we can provide a network of services ranging from soup kitchens at vantage points to mobile mental health and social care clinics.
- Small emergency care and recovery centres for those who need crisis support instead of larger hospitals, and long-term inclusive living options in an environment that values diversity and celebrates social mixing, will reframe the archaic narrative of how mental health care is to be provided.
Conclusion
Persons with mental health conditions need a responsive care system that inspires hope and participation without which their lives are empty. We should endeavour to provide them with such a responsive care system.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: 15th Finance Commission
Mains level: Paper 2- Federalism at the centre stage of politics
Context
- Several issues such as vaccine wars, debates over the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the fracas over West Bengal’s Chief Secretary, and the pushback against controversial regulations in Lakshadweep have once again brought into focus the idea of federalism.
- The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, since taking office, has begun to craft an ideological narrative on State rights, by re-introducing the term Union into the public discourse and pushing back against increased fiscal centralisation
Lack of political consensus among States for genuine federalism
- Federalism in India has always had political relevance, but except for the States Reorganisation Act, federalism has rarely been an axis of political mobilisation.
- Fiscal and administrative centralisation persisted despite nearly two decades of coalition governments.
- Rather than deepen federalism, the contingencies of electoral politics have created significant impediments to creating a political consensus for genuine federalism.
Three challenges in deepening federalism among States
1) Tendency to equate federalism as against nationalism
- The grammar of development and nationalism, which has mass electoral appeal is used to undermine federalism.
- Slogans such as ‘one nation, one market’, ‘one nation, one ration card’, ‘one nation, one grid’ symbolise development and nationalism while leaving little space for federalism.
- In this context, federalism as a principle risks being equated with regionalism and a narrow parochialism that is anti-development and anti-national.
2) Lack of federal principles
- Pratap Bhanu Mehta has pointed out that over the decades, federal principles have been bent in all kinds of ways to co-produce a political culture of flexible federalism.
- Federalism in this rendition is reduced to a game of political upmanship and remains restricted to a partisan tussle.
- Claimants of greater federalism often maintain silence on unilateral decisions that affect other States.
- For instance, the downgrading of Jammu and Kashmir into a Union Territory, the notification of the NCT of Delhi (Amendment) Act, 2021 hardly witnessed protests by States that were not directly affected by these.
3) Economic and governance divergence among states
- Across all key indicators, southern (and western) States have outperformed much of northern and eastern India.
- This has resulted in a greater divergence rather than expected convergence with growth.
- This has created a context where collective action amongst States becomes difficult as poorer regions of India contribute far less to the economy but require greater fiscal resources to overcome their economic fragilities.
- These emerging tensions were visible when the 15th Finance Commission (FC) was mandated to use the 2011 Census rather than the established practice of using the 1971 Census.
- This, Southern states feared, risked penalising States that had successfully controlled population growth by reducing their share in the overall resource pool.
- With the impending delimitation exercise due in 2026, these tensions will only increase.
Way forward
- A politics for deepening federalism will need to overcome a nationalist rhetoric that pits federalism against nationalism and development.
- Reclaim fiscal federalism: Weak fiscal management has brought the Union government on the brink of what economist Rathin Roy has called a silent fiscal crisis.
- The Union’s response has been to squeeze revenue from States by increasing cesses.
- Its insistence on giving GST compensation to States as loans (after long delays) and increasing State shares in central schemes.
- Against this backdrop, both sub-nationalist sentiments and the need to reclaim fiscal federalism create a political moment for a principled politics of federalism.
- Sharing burden with poorer States: On the fiscal side, richer States must find a way of sharing the burden with the poorer States.
- An inter-State platform that brings States together in a routine dialogue on matters of fiscal federalism could be the starting point for building trust and a common agenda.
- Overcome isolationist tendency: The politics of regional identity is isolationist by its very nature.
- An effort at collective political action for federalism based on identity concerns will have to overcome this risk.
- Finally, beyond principles, a renewed politics of federalism is also an electoral necessity.
Consider the question “Federalism in India has always had political relevance, but it has rarely been an axis of political mobilisation. What are the factors responsible for this? Suggest the way forward for the states to overcome these factors.”
Conclusion
A renewed politics of federalism would require immense patience and maturity from regional parties. It remains to be seen whether they up to the task.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: China's scramble for Africa and challenges for India
This op-ed analyses the future of India-Africa cooperation in agriculture amid the looming Chinese involvement in African countries.
Agricultural significance of Africa
- With 65% of the world’s uncultivated arable land, employing over 60% of the workforce, and accounting for almost 20% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP, agriculture is critical to Africa’s economy.
China factor behind
- As this relationship enters the post-pandemic world, it is vital to prioritize and channel resources into augmenting partnerships in agriculture.
- This is crucial given its unexplored potential, centrality to global food security, business prospects and to provide credible alternatives to the increasing involvement of Chinese stakeholders in the sector.
Analyzing Chinese engagement
Chinese corporations, small and medium-sized enterprises and entrepreneurs adopt has provided a layered perspective of the sociopolitical, economic and environmental impact of Chinese engagement.
- Trade: China is among Africa’s largest trading partners.
- Credit facility: It is also Africa’s single biggest creditor.
- Infrastructure: Its corporations dominate the region’s infrastructure market and are now entering the agri-infra sector.
- Strategic support: While access to Africa’s natural resources, its untapped markets and support for ‘One China Policy’ are primary drivers of Chinese engagement with the region, there are other factors at play.
China is going strategic in the guise of agriculture
- Increasingly critical to China’s global aspirations, its engagement in African agriculture is taking on a strategic quality.
- Chinese-built industrial parks and economic zones in Africa are attracting low-cost, labour-intensive manufacturing units that are relocating from China.
- Chinese engineers interviewed spoke of how their operations in Africa are important to accumulate global experience in management, risk and capital investments.
- Not only are they willing to overlook short-term profits in order to build a ‘brand China’, but they want to dominate the market in the long term, which includes pushing Chinese standards in host countries.
- Chinese tech companies are laying critical telecommunications infrastructure, venture capital funds are investing in African fintech firms, while other smaller enterprises are expanding across the region.
Agricultural landscape
- While many Chinese entities have been active in Africa’s agriculture for decades now, the nature, form and actors involved have undergone substantial change.
- In Zambia, Chinese firms are introducing agri-tech to combat traditional challenges, such as using drone technology to control the fall armyworm infestation.
- They have set up over Agricultural Technology Demonstration Centers (ATDCS) in the continent where Chinese agronomists work on developing new crop varieties and increasing crop yields.
- This ATDCs partner with local universities, conduct workshops and classes for officials and provide training and lease equipment to small holder farmers.
- Chinese companies with no prior experience in agriculture are setting out to build futuristic ecological parks while others are purchasing large-scale commercial farms.
Inducing their soft power
- The exponential growth in the China-Africa economic ties and the emergence of Beijing as an alternative to traditional western powers have motivated change in perceptions across groups.
- Governments and heads of state are recalibrating approaches, media houses are investing more resources for on-the-ground reporting.
Dark Side of the Sino-Africa ties
- Simultaneously, Africa-China relations are becoming complex with a growing, insular diaspora, lopsided trade, looming debt, competition with local businesses and a negative perception accompanied by greater political and socioeconomic interlinkages.
- On occasion, there seems to be a gap between skills transferred in China and the ground realities in Africa.
- In some cases, the technology taught in China is not available locally and in others, there is inability to implement lessons learnt due to the absence of supporting resources.
- Larger commercial farms run by Mandarin-speaking managers and the presence of small-scale Chinese farmers in local markets aggravates socio-cultural stresses.
India’s agricultural engagement
- Diverse portfolios: India-Africa agricultural cooperation currently includes institutional and individual capacity-building initiatives, an extension of soft loans, supply of machinery, acquisition of farmlands and the presence of Indian entrepreneurs in the African agricultural ecosystem.
- Land acquisition: Indian farmers have purchased over 6,00,000 hectares of land for commercial farming in Africa.
- States cooperation: Sub-national actors are providing another model of cooperation in agriculture. Consider the case of the Kerala government trying to meet its requirement for cashew nuts with imports from countries in Africa.
- Civil society: Similar ideas could encourage State governments and civil society organizations to identify opportunities and invest directly.
- Agri-business: There is also promise in incentivizing Indian industries to tap into African agri-business value chains and connecting Indian technology firms and startups with partners in Africa.
- Investment: In the past year, despite the pandemic, the sector witnessed a record increase in investments.
Way forward
- A thorough impact assessment needs to be conducted of the existing capacity-building initiatives in agriculture for India to stand in good stead.
- This could include detailed surveys of participants who have returned to their home countries.
- Country-specific and localized curriculum can be drawn up, making skill development demand-led.
- In all senses, India has consistently chosen well to underline the development partnership to be in line with African priorities.
- It is pertinent, therefore, that we collectively craft a unique modern partnership with Africa.
Conclusion
- While India’s Africa strategy exists independently, it is important to be cognizant of China’s increasing footprint in the region.
- Beijing’s model, if successful here, could be heralded as a replica for the larger global south.
- It is important to note, however, that prominent African voices have emphasized that their own agency is often overlooked in the global discourse on the subject.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Turkey's rising space in geopolitical arena
As a new round of geopolitical jousting begins on India’s north-western frontiers, Delhi must deal with a number of new actors that have carved out a role for themselves in the region.
Overambitious Turkey
- Our focus today is on Turkey’s regional ambitions (particularly in Afghanistan) and their implications for India.
- Ankara is in negotiations with the US on taking charge of the Kabul airport which is critical for an international presence in Afghanistan that is coming under the Taliban’s control.
- Turkey has been running Kabul airport security for a while, but doing so after the US pullout will be quite demanding.
- Taking a longer view, though, Turkey is not a new regional actor in India’s northwest.
Turkey and Afghanistan
- Ankara and Kabul have recently celebrated the centennial of the establishment of diplomatic relations.
- Through this century, Turkey has engaged purposefully with Afghanistan over a wide domain.
- While it joined the NATO military mission in Afghanistan after the ouster of the Taliban at the end of 2001, Turkey avoided any combat role and differentiated itself from the Western powers.
- Ankara has contributed to the training of the Afghan military and police forces.
- It has also undertaken much independent humanitarian and developmental work.
Affinity with Pakistan
- Turkey’s good relations with both Afghanistan and Pakistan have also given space for Ankara to present itself as a mediator between the warring South Asian neighbours.
- Turkey’s “Heart of Asia” conference or the Istanbul Process has been a major diplomatic vehicle for attempted Afghan reconciliation in the last few years.
- Widespread goodwill for Turkey in Afghanistan has now come in handy for the US in managing some elements of the post-withdrawal phase.
- In Pakistan, PM Imran Khan has rallied behind Erdogan’s ambition to seize the leadership of the Islamic world from Saudi Arabia.
- Pakistan’s Army Chief had to step in to limit the damage with Saudi Arabia, which has long been Pakistan’s major economic benefactor.
Challenges for India
- Turkey’s growing role in Afghanistan opens a more difficult phase in relations between Delhi and Ankara.
- India’s opposition to alliances and Turkey’s alignments reflected divergent international orientations of Delhi and Ankara after the Second World War.
- And Turkey’s deepening bilateral military-security cooperation with Pakistan made it even harder for Delhi to take a positive view of Ankara.
- Turkey and Pakistan were part of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) that was set up in 1955 by the British.
- Although CENTO eventually wound up in 1979, Turkey and Pakistan remained close partners in a number of regional organizations and international forums like the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Pre-Erdogan era Turkey
- The shared secular values between Delhi and Ankara in the pre-Erdogan era were not enough to overcome the strategic differences between the two in the Cold War.
- To make matters more complicated, the positive legacy of the Subcontinent’s solidarity with the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, emerged out of its ruins in the early 20th century, accrued mostly to Pakistan.
- There were moments — during the tenures of PM Rajiv Gandhi and Mr Vajpayee, when India and Turkey seemed poised for a more productive relationship.
- But those have been rather few and far between.
Turkey’s departure from Secularism
- Meanwhile, Turkey’s Islamist internationalism under Recep Tayyip Erdogan has inevitably led to its deeper alliance with Pakistan, greater meddling in South Asia, and a sharper contraction with India.
- The Pakistani prism through which Delhi has long seen Ankara, however, has prevented it from fully appreciating the growing strategic salience of Turkey.
- Erdogan’s active claim for leadership of the Islamic world has seen a more intensive Turkish political, religious, and cultural outreach to the Subcontinent’s 600 million Muslims.
Self-goals on Kashmir
- Turkey has become the most active international supporter of Pakistan on the Kashmir question.
- Delhi is aware of Erdogan’s hypocrisy on minority rights.
- While pitching for self-determination in Kashmir, Erdogan actively tramples on the rights of its Kurdish minority at home and confronts them across Turkey’s border in Syria and Iraq.
Other ambitions in Asia
- Erdogan was quick to condemn the Bangladesh government’s hanging of a senior extremist leader in 2016.
- But in a reflection of his strategic suppleness, Erdogan also offered strong political support for Dhaka on the Rohingya refugee crisis.
- As Bangladesh emerges as an attractive economy, Ankara is now stepping up its commercial cooperation with Dhaka.
- Turkey, which hosted the Caliphate in the Ottoman era, had natural spiritual resonance among the South Asian Muslims.
Riving the Caliphate
- With the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924, Turkey’s Westernization under Ataturk reduced its religious significance.
- Erdogan’s Islamist politics are about regaining that salience.
- Erdogan’s strategy marks the declining relevance of the old antinomies — between alliances and autonomy, East and West, North and South, Islam and the West, Arabs and the Jews — that so resonate with the traditional Indian foreign policy discourse.
Stance on Israel
- Turkey was the first Muslim-majority nation that established full diplomatic relations with Israel.
- Erdogan now actively mobilizes the Arab and Islamic world against Israel without breaking relations with Tel Aviv.
- Erdogan’s outrage on Israel is about presenting himself as a better champion of Palestine than his Arab rivals.
India’s option against Turkey
- India, which has been at the receiving end of Erdogan’s internationalism, has multiple options in pushing back.
- The recent naval exercise between India and Greece in the Mediterranean offers a small hint of India’s possibilities in Turkey’s neighbourhood.
- Many Arab leaders reject Erdogan’s policies that remind them of Ottoman imperialism.
- They resent Erdogan’s support of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood that seek to overthrow moderate governments in the Middle East.
- There is much that India can do to up its game in the Arab world.
Lessons for India
- The new fluidity in geopolitics in India’s extended neighbourhood to the west.
- Agency for regional powers is growing as the influence of great power weakens.
- Religious ideology, like the more secular ones, is a cover for the pursuit of power.
- Finally, Erdogan has carefully modulated his confrontation with major powers by avoiding a breakdown in relations.
Conclusion
- For Erdogan, the choices are not between black and white. That should be a good guide for India’s own relations with Turkey.
- Delhi needs to vigorously challenge Turkey’s positions where it must, seize the opportunities opened by regional resentments against Erdogan’s adventurism, and at the same time prepare for a more intensive bilateral engagement with Ankara.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Climate proofing
Mains level: Paper 3- Decentralised model of solar power generation
Power regulatory body in Rajasthan recently ordered discoms to solarise unelectrified public schools. The move has several benefits and therefore can be emulated by the other states as well.
Expanded electricity access in rural areas and shortcomings in it
- Estimates suggest that India has doubled the electrified rural households, from 55% in 2010 to 96% in 2020.
- However, the measure of access to power supply has been the number of households that have been connected to the electricity grid.
- This measure discounts large areas of essential and productive human activities such as public schools and primary health centres.
- And despite greater electrification, power supply is often unreliable in rural areas.
Solar energy: Solution to electrification in remote parts
- To address the above problems, the Rajasthan Electricity Regulatory Commission (RERC) has ordered the State’s discoms to solarise unelectrified public schools.
- The RERC has also suggested installation of batteries to ensure storage of power.
- Apart from enabling education, this ruling would benefit several other crucial aspects of rural life.
- The RERC order also directed discoms to seek corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the solarising drive and allows schools ownership of the power systems in a phased manner.
- This removes the burden of infrastructure development expenses on discoms, while also ensuring clean energy for the schools.
- The power that is generated could also be counted towards the discoms’ Renewable Purchase Obligations (RPO).
- Large-scale projects are generally financed by companies that wish to profit from economies of scale.
- They are less interested in investing in rural electricity as it is not as lucrative.
- Large-grid based projects add to the supply of power in urban areas, and therefore, only marginally further greater energy access goals.
The decentralised model of power generation
- While Rajasthan has land mass with vast, sparsely populated tracts available to install solar parks, bulk infrastructure of this scale is susceptible to extreme weather events.
- With climate change increasing the possibility of such events, a decentralised model of power generation would prove to be more climate resilient.
- With battery storage, the susceptibility of grid infrastructure to extreme weather events could be mitigated.
- This is called climate proofing.
- As solar installations become inexpensive and with rapidly advancing battery storage technologies, decentralised solar power generation has become a reality.
Conclusion
The ruling by Rajasthan’s power regulator not only helps in increasing access to electricity, achieving targets of renewable energy but also suggests solutions that other States could emulate.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Integrated Theatre Commands
Mains level: Issues over the constitution of ITC
The recent controversy over the alleged marginalization of the Indian Air Force (IAF) in the proposed ‘theaterisation’ of the national security landscape has led to some debates.
IAF concerned over ITC
- The Indian military continues to work in silos, like all governmental agencies in India, and a need was rightly felt and directions issued by PM to bring about jointness.
- The aim is to bring about synergy in operations while economizing through the elimination of duplication and wasteful practices or processes.
- IAF is keen to bring in the requisite reforms to improve the war-fighting capabilities of the Indian military as a whole while also economizing.
Reservations of IAF
- In the current formulation of theatres, the objections from the IAF have essentially been due to air power being seen as an adjunct to the two surface forces.
- IAF veterans feel that the IAF is being divided into penny packets which would seriously degrade the effectiveness of air operations in any future conflict or contingency.
- They feel that the use of air power is found to be sub-optimal under the military ethos of “an order is an order”.
Hurry by the CDS
- Concurrently, such an intellectual exercise would identify duplication, wasteful resources and practices.
- This is what the CDS should have been pursuing before first freezing the structure and then trying to glue the pieces together or hammer square pegs in round holes.
- Only such a strategy can define the types of contingencies the military is expected to address, leading to appropriate military strategies, doctrines and required capabilities.
Why is the IAF right?
- Airpower is the lead element, particularly since the Indian political aim, even in the foreseeable future, is unlikely to be the occupation of new territories.
- A large, manpower-intensive army with unusable armour formations would then also come into focus.
- Even the proposed air defence command conflicts with the domain command in the seamless employment of airpower.
- It is due to the absence of such an intellectual exercise that the IAF does not wish to see its limited resources scattered away in fighting defensive battles by a land force commander with little expertise.
- The Army fails to realise that offensive air power is best not seen, busy keeping the enemy air force pinned down elsewhere as shown in 1971.
The Army-Air Force silo
- Historically, the Indian Army has always kept the IAF out of the information loop and demonstrated a penchant to ‘go it alone’.
- The charge that the IAF joined the party late during Kargil (1999) is also totally baseless and shows a lack of knowledge of events and a failure to learn from historical facts.
- Recorded facts and a dispassionate view would clearly show that the IAF began conducting reconnaissance missions as soon as the Army just made a request for attack helicopters.
- This despite the IAF pointing out the unsuitability of armed helicopters at these altitudes and their vulnerability.
- The use of offensive air power close to the Line of Control also required that the political leadership be kept informed due to possibilities of escalation, something that the Army was unwilling to do.
Echoes from Kargil
- Seen in this light, the Chinese incursion into Eastern Ladakh last year is reminiscent of Kargil.
- While the response has been swift, it is evident that a clear intent to use combat air power, as against 1962, has significantly contributed in deterring China.
- However, such intent and a joint strategy would have been forcefully signalled by the presence of air force representatives in the ongoing negotiations to restore status quo ante.
- The continuing build-up of the infrastructure for the PLA Air Force in Tibet further emphasizes the need for an air-land strategy, with air power as the lead element to deter or defeat the Chinese designs at coercion.
National security strategy should be at the centerstage
- If war is the continuation of politics by other means, then it is essential to first define the political objectives flowing into a national security strategy before any effective use of force can be truly contemplated.
- The failures of the mightiest militaries in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and even our own Indian misadventure in Sri Lanka bear testimony to the lack of clear political objectives and appropriate military strategies.
- It is, therefore, unfortunate that even after over seven decades after Independence, India still does not have a clearly articulated national security strategy.
Address the structural gaps
- Finally, theatre or any lower structure requires an institutionalized higher defence organization, which has been sadly missing.
- This has lead to little regular dialogue between the political and military leadership, except in crises resulting in knee-jerk responses.
- This led to a remark from a scholar-warrior that, “it is ironic that the Cabinet has an Accommodation Committee but not a Defence Committee”.
- In the current proposal, it appears that the CDS, as the permanent chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (CoSC), would also exercise operational control of the theatre/functional commands.
Way forward
- Prudence demands that instead of ramming down such structures without adequate deliberations and discussions with all stakeholders.
- We need to first evolve appropriate military strategies in a nuclear backdrop in concert with the political objectives.
- Thereafter, joint planning and training for all foreseen contingencies, with war-gaming, would automatically indicate the required structures with suitable command, control and communications.
Conclusion
- We must remember that in war there is no prize for the runner-up.
- It is better that such objections and dissenting opinions come out now before the structure is formalized than once it is set in stone.
- The nation would then end up paying a heavy price, with the Air Force carrying the burden and blame for the failures.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Operation Flood
Mains level: India's dairy sector
One of India’s largest dairy cooperative societies has just raised its milk prices for consumers by Rs 2/litre and this has become national news.
Sparking off a debate
- Many in the media are debating how this will push up Consumer Price Index causing inflationary pressures, which may soon force the RBI to change its “accommodative stance” on monetary policy.
Why such hues over Milk?
Milk is an important case study for our overall agriculture sector.
- First, milk is our biggest agri-commodity in terms of value, greater than paddy (rice), wheat, and sugarcane combined.
- Second, India is the largest producer of milk in the world with an estimated production of about 208 million tonnes in 2020-21, way above its closest competitor, the US, whose milk production hovers around 100 million tonnes.
- Third, our dairy sector is dominated by smallholders with an average herd size of 4-5 animals.
- Fourth, and this is important, there is no minimum support price (MSP) for milk. It is more like a contract between the company and the farmers.
How is the milk price determined?
- The price of milk is largely determined by the overall forces of demand and supply.
- Increasing costs of production enter through the supply side, but the demand side cannot be ignored.
- As a result of all this, the overall growth in the dairy sector for the last 20 years has been between 4-5 per cent per annum, and lately, it has accelerated to even 6 per cent.
Concerns of dairy farmers
- For dairy farmers, this increase in milk prices is not commensurate to the increase in their feed and other costs, and they feel that their margins are getting squeezed.
- They also feel that this price still does not count their logistics cost.
Transformation since Op Flood
- It is well known that “Operation Flood” (OF) that started in the 1970s transformed this sector.
- The institutional innovation of a cooperative model, steered by Verghese Kurien, changed the structure of this sector.
- However, even after five decades, cooperatives processed only 10 per cent of the overall milk production.
- India needed the double-engine force of the organised private sector to process another 10 per cent.
- The doors for the private sector were opened partially with the 1991 reforms, but fully in 2002-03 under the leadership of Vajpayee, when the dairy sector was completely de-licenced.
Rise of dairypreneurs
- Many start-ups “dairypreneurs” have come in promising a farm-to-home experience of milk.
- There is one company that delivers fresh milk at the consumer’s doorstep and gives quality testing kits at home.
- These have digitized cattle health, milk production, milk procurement, milk testing, and cold chain management.
Effective breeding
- Sexed semen technology helps in predetermining the sex of offspring by sorting X and Y chromosomes from the natural sperm mix.
- This can solve the problem of unwanted bulls on Indian roads.
- Although the current cost of sexed sorted semen is high, Maharashtra has taken a bold step in subsidizing it for artificial insemination.
Way forward
- The upshot of all this is that let prices be determined by market forces, with marginal support from the government or cooperatives in times of extreme.
- The major focus should be on innovations to cut down costs, raise productivity, ensure food safety, and be globally competitive.
- That will help both farmers and consumers alike.
- The cooperatives did a great job during OF, and are still doing that, but the private sector entering this sector in a big way has opened the gates of creativity and competition.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: BITs
Mains level: Paper 3- Honouring the adverse international judicial ruling in dispute with investors
The article highlights the lack of immediate compliance by the Indian government in awards involving foreign investors.
Why honouring award is important
- An important factor that propels investors to invest in foreign lands is that the host state will honour contracts and enforce awards even when it loses.
- But when the host state refuses to do so, it shakes investors’ confidence in the host state’s credibility towards the rule of law, and escalates the regulatory risk enormously.
- To an extent, this has been India’s story over the last few years
- Last year, India lost two high-profile bilateral investment treaty (BIT) disputes to two leading global corporations — Vodafone and Cairn Energy — on retrospective taxation.
- India has challenged both the awards at the courts of the seat of arbitration.
- As India drags its feet on the issue of compliance, it harms India’s reputation in dealing with foreign investors.
Antrix-Devas agreement cancellation dispute
- The other set of high-profile BIT disputes involve the cancellation of an agreement between Antrix, a commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation, and Devas Multimedia.
- This annulment led to three legal disputes — a commercial arbitration between Antrix and Devas Multimedia at the International Chambers of Commerce (ICC), and two BIT arbitrations brought by the Mauritius investors and German investors.
- India lost all three disputes.
- The ICC arbitration tribunal ordered Antrix to pay $1.2 billion to Devas after a U.S. court confirmed the award earlier this year.
- After the ICC award, Indian agencies started investigating Devas accusing it of corruption and fraud.
- Last month, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) ordered the liquidation of Devas on the ground that the affairs of the company were being carried on fraudulently.
- This has led to Devas issuing a notice of intention to initiate a new BIT arbitration against India, sowing the seeds for complex legal battles again.
Implications for investment in India
- A closer reading of these cases reveals that whenever India loses a case to a foreign investor, immediate compliance rarely happens.
- Instead, efforts are made to delay the compliance as much as possible.
- While these efforts may be legal, it sends out a deleterious message to foreign investors.
- It shows a recalcitrant attitude towards adverse judicial rulings.
- This may not help India in attracting global corporations to its shores to ‘make for the world’.
Consider the question “What are the factors that are leading to more Indian business disputes being settled elsewhere? What are the implications of delay by the government in honouring the awards of the disputes?”
Conclusion
As India aspire to be the global destination of FDI, it needs to burnish its image on the dispute resolution front by honouring the awards.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- How India can avoid the middle income trap
The article suggests focusing on improving productivity and thereby the manufacturing sector to avoid the middle-income trap.
What is the middle-income trap and why it matters for India
- This trap was first conceived by World Bank economists.
- They found that of the 101 developing economies that could be classified as ‘middle income’ in 1960, only 13 managed to become rich nations by 2008.
- There is little consensus on why some countries succeed in making the transition to high-income status.
- But a distinctive attribute of those that succeed in the transition to high income is productivity improvement.
- India could use its demographic dividend to avoid this predicament and achieve the critical velocity needed to move into the high-income bracket.
How can India avoid the middle-income trap
1) Improve productivity
- Re-allocation of labour from low-productivity agriculture to high-productivity sectors, such as manufacturing, has been a primary channel through which today’s advanced economies raised their living standards.
- In India, growth in labour productivity has consistently declined over the past decade.
- The annual growth rate of output per worker has dipped from 7.9% in 2010 to 3.5% in 2019, as per International Labour Organization estimates.
- This was also a period of low growth in India’s manufacturing sector.
- In 2020-21, it accounted for only 14.5% of India’s gross value added, down from 17.4% in 2011-12.
- An essential first step in improving productivity would be strengthening this sector.
2) Strengthen manufacturing sector
- Industrial labour relations is among the most critical elements to revitalize India’s manufacturing sector especially in the context of labour productivity.
- These labour laws created incentives for firms to remain small and uncompetitive, thereby affecting productivity.
- The new code, once implemented, would increase the threshold relating to layoffs and retrenchment in industrial establishments to 300 workers.
- Other countries, such as China, Vietnam and Bangladesh, with whom India competes for foreign investment and export markets do not require the approval of administrative or judicial bodies for dismissals.
- Therefore, in spite of recent reforms, India’s labour laws stay rigid in comparison with those of its competitor countries.
3) Technology intensive manufacturing
- Engendering innovation in higher value-added, tech-intensive activities is important for economies before they reach that juncture.
- If exports are taken as a proxy for the manufacturing capabilities and competitiveness of an economy, the present status of tech-intensive manufacturing in India leaves a lot to be desired.
- As per World Bank data, high-tech exports accounted for only 10.3% of India’s manufacturing exports in 2019.
- Rival countries had a much higher share of the same: 31% in China, 13% in Brazil, 40% in Vietnam and 24% in Thailand.
- Low R&D spending in India, ranging from a mere 0.64% to 0.86% of gross domestic product over the past two decades, has held the country back.
Steps to improve tech-intensive manufacturing
- The government has introduced a production-linked incentive scheme to ensure a greater share of local value addition.
- While this would attract foreign investments in tech-intensive manufacturing, there is also a need for greater incentives for R&D investments by firms in India.
- A first step in this direction could be reinstating the tax exemption on R&D under Section 35 (2AB), even for companies opting for the lower corporate tax rate of 22%.
Conclusion
We need appropriate interventions to improve productivity—both economy-wide and within the sector. And we must do it now.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Article 239AA and 239AB
Mains level: Paper 2- Effect of GNCTD (Amendment) Act on functioning of Delhi Assembly
The article highlights the implications of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD)(Amendment) Act, 2021 on functioning of Assembly and its committees.
Context
The Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD)(Amendment) Act, 2021 has been criticised as a retrograde law. However, what deserves equal attention is the Act’s assault on the functioning of Delhi’s Legislative Assembly.
Background of GNCTD Act
- The GNCTD Act was enacted in 1992.
- Under the Act, Delhi Legislative Assembly was given the power to regulate its own procedure, as well as the conduct of its business.
- This sought to realise a delicate balance reflecting Delhi’s unique constitutional position: neither full state nor a centrally governed Union Territory.
How amendment affects functioning of Assembly
- Its standards of procedure and conduct of business have been firmly tethered to that of the Lok Sabha, depriving Delhi’s elected MLAs of an effective say in how their Assembly should be run.
- The Amending Act prohibits the Assembly from making any rule enabling either itself or its committees to consider any issue concerned with “the day-to-day administration of the capital” or “conduct inquiries in relation to administrative decisions”.
- The most significant impact of this shall be on the exercise of free speech in the Assembly and its committees.
- The amendment impeded the Assembly from performing its most basic legislative function — that of holding the executive to account by restricting its ability to freely discuss matters happening in the capital.
Impact on committees
- The deliberations and inputs of committees often pave the way for intelligent legislative action.
- In a way, they act as the eyes and ears for the whole House, which has neither the time nor the expertise to scrutinise issues in depth.
- It would be impossible for committees to perform this function without the power to conduct inquiries.
- Pre-emptively injunct a committee from conducting an inquiry “in relation to the administrative decisions” (an extremely broad exception) completely negates the ability of committees to function effectively as the Assembly’s advisors and agents.
- The quality of legislative work emanating from the Assembly is thus ultimately bound to suffer.
Consider the question “What are the reasons for frequent disputes between Delhi government and the Lt. Governor? Would the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD)(Amendment) Act, 2021 succeed in ending that trend?”
Conclusion
The amendment deprive the Delhi Assmbly of its very basic functions and render it a ‘legislature’ in name only. Surely, Delhi’s voters deserve better than that. The Government need to reconsider the provisions of the amendment act.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Stock market and risks involved for individual investors
Despite gloom in the economy, financial markets are scaling new highs. The situations calls for diligence on the part of individual investors. The deals with this issue.
What influences investors’ decision
- Investors may not necessarily be always sensible or even capable of perceiving the larger picture.
- Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman argues that humans usually use the ‘first system’ of ‘fast thinking’ to hurriedly act and perceive their environment.
- Consequently, they are susceptible to the ‘priming effect’, ‘framing bias’, ‘anchoring effect’, ‘overconfidence bias’ and ‘availability heuristic’.
- These phenomena, thus, play their part in pervading optimistic market conditions.
- As a result, investors often end up ignoring or overlooking uncertainties and risks involved in their decision.
- At the same time, investors’ decision choices could be significantly influenced by ‘nudging’.
- It is a deliberate tactics and method of behaviour modification by which it is the ‘choice architect’ that decides who does what and who does so, as argued by the Nobel laureate, Richard H. Thaler.
- The present surge in the Indian stock market is indeed nudging individual investors to trade more.
What makes individual investors vulnerable
- National Stock Exchange data indicate following trends:
- The share of the non-institutional individual investors in equity trading volume has risen to one half of the total turnover. in 2021.
- It was around a third in 2016.
- In contrast, the share of Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) in the total trading volume has shrunk to just about a tenth, it used to be one fifth in 2016.
- Trading in the stock market, the sudden rise, the intraday moves, etc., are, thus, attributable largely to individual traders now.
- However, despite their large trading volumes, individual investors have actually contracted their holding of the market capitalisation.
- The FIIs currently own around half of the free float of all Indian companies.
- Apparently, the retail investors have constantly sold their stake to end up holding less than 20% shares now.
- Trading, thus, seems to be the mainstay of retail investors and this is what makes them more vulnerable to the vagaries of the market.
Market is ignoring macroeconomic factors
- Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy Pvt. Ltd. data of the listed companies reveal a rise in their profit, due to rationalisation and cost-cutting.
- Investors might be tempted to ignore macroeconomic factors and invest in such stock believing that it is the profit that impels the stock prices.
- In reality, however, share price is expected to ascend if a company declares to cut its wage bill.
- This probably explains why stock markets around the world have been on the rise amidst the novel coronavirus pandemic; demand may have declined but profits have been least impacted.
- At the larger economic level, however, real wages have plunged.
- Clearly, the market has not entirely decoupled itself from the economic indicators.
- Established wisdom suggests that corporates cannot sustain contraction in the economy for long.
- Sustained decline in demand caused by waning disposable household income would catch them soon.
- Robert J. Shiller attributes this phenomenon of creating a possible bubble to irrational exuberance.
- When bubbles burst, they cause a kind of financial earthquake, in turn destabilising public trust in the integrity of the financial system.
- Critically, as the past portrays, individual investors, with all their vulnerabilities, suffer the most devastating consequences.
- Retail investors are as well susceptible to overreaction when negative news hits the market.
Consider the question “What are the factors driving the financial markets up despite the weak macroeconomic foundations? What are the risks involved in such situation for the individual investors?”
Conlcusion
History of financial markets is replete with bubbles and bursts. Most affected in such burst are the individual investors. Informed decisions based on information and risks involved should form the basis of investment by individual investors.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: What is rule of law?
Mains level: Paper 2- Rule of law and role of judiciary
What makes the Rule of Law different from the Rule by Law? It is the idea of justice and equity that separates the two. The article explains the principles that emerge as the basis of the Rule of law and the role of the judiciary in ensuring their constitutionality.
Understanding law
- Law, in its most general sense, is a tool of social control that is backed by the sovereign.
- However, such a definition of law can be used not only to render justice, it can also be used to justify oppression.
- Therefore it is argued that a law cannot really be classified as a “law” unless it imbibes within itself the ideals of justice and equity.
- So, any law backed by a sovereign must be tempered by certain ideals or tenets of justice.
- Only a state that is governed by such law, can be said to have the Rule of Law.
- The British colonial power used the law as a tool of political repression, enforcing it unequally on the parties, with a different set of rules for the British and for the Indians.
- It was an enterprise famous for “Rule by Law”, rather than “Rule of Law.
Four principles of rule of law
- Clarity and accessibility: Laws must be clear and accessible, the people at least ought to know what the laws are.
- Another implication of this principle is that they should be worded in simple, unambiguous language.
- Equality: An important aspect of equality before law is having equal access to justice.
- This guarantee of equal justice will be rendered meaningless if the vulnerable sections are unable to enjoy their rights because of their poverty or illiteracy or any other kind of weakness.
- Another aspect is the issue of “gender equality”.
- Participation of people: The third principle, the “right to participate in the creation and refinement of laws”.
- The very essence of a democracy is that its citizenry has a role to play, directly or indirectly, in the laws that govern them.
- In India, it is done through elections.
- The idea that people are the ultimate sovereign is also to be found in notions of human dignity and autonomy
- Strong independent judiciary: The fourth principle stemsp from the idea that the judiciary is the “guardian” of the Constitution.
- The judiciary is the primary organ which is tasked with ensuring that the laws that are enacted are in line with the Constitution.
Independent judiciary and role of media
- The judiciary cannot be controlled, directly or indirectly, by the legislature or the executive, or else the Rule of Law would become illusory.
- At the same time, judges should not be swayed by the emotional pitch of public opinion either, which is getting amplified through social media platforms.
- Judges have to be mindful of the fact that the noise thus amplified is not necessarily reflective of what is right and what the majority believes in.
- Therefore, media trials cannot be a guiding factor in deciding cases.
- It is, therefore, extremely vital to function independently and withstand all external aids and pressures.
- While there is a lot of discussion about the pressure from the executive, it is also imperative to start a discourse as to how social media trends can affect the institutions.
Conclusion
The importance of the judiciary shouldn’t blind us to the fact that the responsibility of safeguarding constitutionalism lies not just with the courts. All the three organs of the state, i.e., the executive, legislature and the judiciary, are equal repositories of constitutional trust.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Threat of duopoly in telecom sector
The Indian telecom sector faces the prospect of duopoly due to the impending exit of Vodafone-Idea. This has several implications.
India’s telecom sector: From monopoly to hyper-competition
- India’s telecom market has seen monopoly as well as hyper-competition.
- Twenty-five years ago, the government alone could provide services.
- Ten years later, there were nearly a dozen competing operators. Most service areas now have four players.
- However, the possible exit of the financially-stressed Vodafone Idea would leave only two dominant players-Airtel and Jio in the telecom sector.
- A looming duopoly, or the exit of a global telecommunications major, are both worrying.
- They deserve a careful and creative response.
Why it matters
- Competition has delivered relatively low prices, advanced technologies, and an acceptable quality of services.
- There is a long way to go in expanding access as well as network capacity.
- For example, India is ranked second globally—after China—in the number of people connected to the internet.
- However, it is also first in the number of people unconnected.
- Over 50% of Indians are not connected to the internet, despite giant strides in network reach and capacity. India tops aggregate mobile data usage.
- However, its per capita or device data usage is low.
- It has an impressive 4G mobile network, however, its fixed network—wireline or optical fibre—is sparse and often poor.
- 5G deployment has yet to start and will be expensive.
- Filling the gaps in infrastructure and access will require large investments and competition.
- The exit of the Vodafone-Idea will hurt both objectives.
- The closure of Vodafone Idea is an arguably greater concern than the fading role of BSNL and MTNL.
- The government companies are yet to deploy 4G and have become progressively less competitive.
- Vodafone Idea, on the other hand, still accounts for about a quarter of subscriptions and revenues and can boast of a quality network.
Way out
1) Strategic partnership with BSNL-MTNL
- A possible way out could be to combine the resources of the MTNL and BSNL and Vodafone Idea through a strategic partnership.
- Creative government action can save Vodafone Idea as well as improve the competitiveness of BSNL and MTNL.
- It could help secure government dues, investments, and jobs.
2) Develop resale market
- Global experience suggests that well-entrenched incumbents have massive advantages.
- New players are daunted by the large investments.
- However, regulators and policymakers have other options to expand choice for telecom consumers.
- Their counterparts in mature regulatory regimes—e.g., in the European Union—have helped develop extensive markets for resale.
- Recognising the limited influence of smaller players, regulators mandate that the incumbent offer wholesale prices to resellers who then expand choice for end-users.
- A key barrier to resale is India’s licence fee regime which requires licence-holders to share a proportion of their revenues with the government.
Conclusion
It would be tragic if India’s telecom-access market was to be reduced to only two competing operators, as we have a long way to go. The government needs to consider the implications of the situation arising due to the exit of one of the major players in the sector.
Source:
https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/failing-to-connect-can-india-avoid-a-telecom-duopoly/2281486/
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: CCTNS
Mains level: Paper 2- Technology driven service delivery mechanism by
The article highlights the necessity of adopting the technology driven service delivery mechanism by the police.
SC mandated police reforms of 2006
Cost of inefficient criminal justice system
- There is a reluctance to implement the Supreme Court-mandated police reforms of 2006.
- The economic cost of the failed criminal justice system is reflected in the reluctance of foreign companies to set up manufacturing and commercial ventures in India for want of quick settlement of criminal, labour and civil disputes.
- The social implications can be gauged from the report, “Crime in India 2019”, published by the National Crime Records Bureau.
- Investigation and prosecution need improvement and all criminal trials must be completed within a year.
- Technology-driven service delivery mechanisms can help achieve this.
Need to ensure time-bound delivery of services
- Along with prevention and detection of crime and maintenance of law and order, police stations in India undertake numerous daily tasks.
- These tasks include providing verifications and no objection certificates of different kinds to citizens.
- In criminal and non-cognisable cases, police stations provide copies of FIRs, complaints and final reports.
- Police stations also verify domestic help/employees of central and state governments/public sector undertakings/students going abroad for studies.
- The Bureau of Police Research & Development (BPR&D) had identified 45 such tasks in 2017.
- Ease of business means police stations dispose of these requests in a transparent and time-bound manner.
- The procedures are non-transparent and timelines are often blurred which encourage corrupt practice.
- Even as police reforms are pursued by the Supreme Court, a definite attempt can be made to ensure time-bound delivery of the above-mentioned services to citizens.
Use of technology for service delivery
- These e-portals of various state police seek to provide citizen-centric services such as requests for issue/renewal of various NOCs, verification requests for servants, employment, passport, senior citizen registrations etc.
- The India Justice Report (IJR) 2020 supported by Tata Trusts has studied the e-portals of various state police organisations.
- The report mentions that “despite the push for digitisation, no state offered the complete bouquet of services…
- The report also mentions that users face numerous problems of accessibility to these services.
- The IJR 2020 audit confirms that states need to invest more resources to upgrade their e-portals for providing the 45 identified basic services to the citizens
Way forward
- This highlights that technology for service delivery to citizens has not been prioritised by the police leadership.
- . This is a task that police leadership can concentrate on without any political interference.
- The Bureau of Police Research had worked out the timeline for each service and the hierarchy/levels involved.
- The recommendations have been shared with the state police organisations.
- Adhering to a defined process with a timeline and clear delineation of the levels of police officers involved can ensure transparent and non-corrupt service delivery.
- It will reduce the number of fruitless visits a citizen makes to a police station chasing different officers.
- Along with ease of use, the language of e-portals needs attention too.
- Citizens seeking clearances may not be very educated.
- The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) earmarked about Rs 20,000 crore for the modernisation of police (2017-2020), for schemes such as crime and criminal tracing networks and system (CCTNS), police wireless and e-prisons.
- States can take up this crucial service delivery mechanism.
Conclusion
Life for Indians would be transformed if government departments, including the police, provide maximum information and services through their portals respecting the defined processes and timelines
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: ShaGun platform
Mains level: Paper 2- Technology based learning in India
The article suggests a policy formulation for future of the learning with the adoption of technology.
Learning crisis facing and finding solutions through technology
- India was facing a learning crisis, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, with one in two children lacking basic reading proficiency at the age of 10.
- The pandemic worsened it with the physical closure of 15.5 lakh schools that has affected more than 248 million students for over a year.
- With the Fourth Industrial Revolution — the imperative now is to reimagine education and align it with the unprecedented technological transformation.
- The pandemic offers a critical, yet stark reminder of the impending need to weave technology into education.
Is India prepared for integrating technology in learning?
- India’s new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020envisions the establishment of an autonomous body, the National Education Technology Forum (NETF).
- The NETF will spearhead efforts towards providing a strategic thrust to the deployment and use of technology.
- India is well-poised to take this leap forward with increasing access to tech-based infrastructure, electricity, and affordable internet connectivity.
- Flagship programmes such as Digital India and the Ministry of Education’s initiatives, including the Digital Infrastructure for School Education (DIKSHA), open-source learning platform and UDISE+ will help in this direction.
- However, we must remember that technology cannot substitute schools or replace teachers.
- It’s not “teachers versus technology”; the solution is in “teachers and technology”.
- In fact, tech solutions are impactful only when embraced and effectively leveraged by teachers.
Four key elements for ed-tech policy architecture
- A comprehensive ed-tech policy architecture must focus on four key elements:
- Access: Providing access to learning, especially to disadvantaged groups.
- Enable: Enabling processes of teaching, learning, and evaluation.
- Teacher training: Facilitating teacher training and continuous professional development.
- Governance: Improving governance systems including planning, management, and monitoring processes.
Ed-tech ecosystem in India
- With over 4,500 start-ups and a current valuation of around $700 million, the ed-tech market is geared for exponential growth.
- There are, in fact, several examples of grassroots innovation.
- The Hamara Vidhyalaya in Namsai district, Arunachal Pradesh, is fostering tech-based performance assessments.
- Assam’s online career guidance portal is strengthening school-to-work and higher-education transition for students in grades 9 to 12.
- Samarth in Gujarat is facilitating the online professional development of lakhs of teachers in collaboration with IIM-Ahmedabad.
- Jharkhand’s DigiSATH is spearheading behaviour change by establishing stronger parent-teacher-student linkages.
- Himachal Pradesh’s HarGhar Pathshala is providing digital education for children with special needs.
Way forward
1) Short term policy formulation
- In the immediate term, there must be a mechanism to thoroughly map the ed-tech landscape, especially their scale, reach, and impact.
- The policy formulation and planning process must strive to:
- 1) Enable convergence across schemes– education, skills, digital governance, and finance.
- 2) Foster integration of solutions through public-private partnerships, factor in voices of all stakeholders.
- 3) Bolster cooperative federalism across all levels of government.
- Special attention must be paid to address the digital divide at two levels: access and skills.
- Thematic areas of the policy should feature infrastructure and connectivity; high-quality software and content; and global standards for outcome-based evaluation, real-time assessments, and systems monitoring.
2) Long-term policy measures
- In the longer term, as policy translates to practice at local levels a repository of the best-in-class technology solutions, good practices and lessons from successful implementation must be curated.
- The NITI Aayog’s India Knowledge Hub and the Ministry of Education’s DIKSHA and ShaGun platforms can facilitate and amplify such learning.
Conclusion
With NEP 2020 having set the ball rolling, a transformative ed-tech policy architecture is the need of the hour to effectively maximise student learning.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: UAPA
Mains level: Paper 2- Misuse of anti-terror laws
The recent Delhi High Court order granting bail to the student activists charged with the UAPA has brought into focus the issue of misuse of anti-terror laws by the policy. The article deals with this issue.
Misuse of anti-terror laws
- In the period 2015-2019, as many as 7,840 persons were arrested under the UAPA (Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act) 1967 but only 155 were convicted by the trial courts.
- Under TADA, till 1994, though 67,000 people were detained, just 725 were convicted in spite of confessions made to police officers being made admissible.
- In Kartar Singh (1994), the Supreme Court of India had observed that in many cases, the prosecution had unjustifiably invoked provisions of TADA.
- It added that such an invocation of TADA was ‘nothing but the sheer misuse and abuse of the Act by the police’.
The definition of terrorism
- There is no universal definition of the term ‘terrorism’ either in India or at the international level.
- Accordingly, neither TADA nor UAPA has a definition of the crucial terms ‘terror’ and ‘terrorism’.
- Section 15 of UAPA merely defines a terrorist act in extremely wide and vague words: ‘as any act with intent to threaten or likely to threaten the unity, integrity, security, or sovereignty of India or with intent to strike terror or likely to strike terror in the people….’.
- In Yaqoob Abdul Razzak Memon (2013), the Supreme Court said that terrorist acts can range from threats to actual assassinations, kidnappings, airline hijacking, car bombs, explosions, mailing of dangerous materials, use of chemical, biological, nuclear weapons etc.
- In Hitendra Vishnu Thakur (1994), the Supreme Court had defined terrorism as the ‘use of violence when its most important result is not merely the physical and mental damage of the victim but the prolonged psychological effect it produces … on the society as a whole’.
- In Kartar Singh (1994), the Supreme Court held that a mere disturbance of public order that disturbs even the tempo of the life of community of any particular locality is not a terrorist act.
- By this interpretation, the CAA protests in a few localities of Delhi cannot be termed as terrorist activity.
- In the PUCL judgment (2003), the Supreme Court included within its meaning amongst other things the ‘razing of constitutional principles that we hold dear’, ‘tearing apart of the secular fabric’ and ‘promotion of prejudice and bigotry.
- Accordingly, in the CAA protest case the Delhi High Court concluded that since the definition of a ‘terrorist act’ in UAPA is wide and somewhat vague, it cannot be casually applied to ordinary conventional crimes.
- The Delhi High Court said that the act of the accused must reflect the essential character of terrorism.
Distinction between ‘law and order’, ‘public order’ and ‘security of state’
- In Ram Manohar Lohia (1966), the Supreme Court explained the distinction between the above three terms.
- Law and order represents the largest circle within which is the next circle representing ‘public order’, and the smallest circle represents the ‘security of state’.
- Accordingly, an act may affect ‘law and order’ but not ‘public order’.
- Similarly, an act may adversely affect ‘public order’ but not the ‘security of state.’
- In most UAPA cases, the police have failed to understand these distinctions and unnecessarily clamped UAPA charges for simple violations of law and order.
Conclusion
Radicalisation generally succeeds only with those who have been subjected to real or perceived injustices. Let us remove injustice to combat terrorism. The creation of a truly just, egalitarian and non-oppressive society would be far more effective in combating terrorism.
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