THE HINDU – CURRENT NOTE 27 February
Railways to roll out high speed indigenous rakes
•The railways will soon manufacture its own train sets that can run at a maximum speed of 160 kilometre per hour, after its global bid in this regard failed to elicit positive response.
•Aptly named ‘Train-2018’, the first train set — a rake without a separate locomotive — is expected to be ready by March next year and likely to be pressed into service in Delhi-Lucknow or Delhi-Chandigarh sector.
•A train set, much like a Delhi Metro rake, comprises of many coaches that are individually powered by a propulsion system, eliminating the need for locomotive.
•Aiming to offer both comfort and pace to passengers, the project will roll out semi-high speed, 16-coach train sets with quicker acceleration and world-class passenger amenities.
•For the first time in Indian Railways, these train sets will have automatic plug type doors that will open and close at stations, wide windows for panoramic view, and ergonomically designed seating.
•Equipped with bio-toilets, all coaches in the fully AC train set will be inter-connected so that passengers can move from one coach to other with ease.
•“Our aim is to reduce travel time between cities and to achieve that, we have launched Train-2018 project to manufacture two train sets at the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) near Chennai on a pilot basis,” a senior Railway Ministry official involved with the project said.
Global tender
•As per the Rs. 200 crore project, two train sets will be manufactured, in collaboration with foreign players on transfer of technology basis, for which the ICF has floated a fresh global tender.
•The railways had floated a global tender for procurement-cum-maintenance and manufacture of 15 train sets with 315 coaches in June, 2015.
•Though five bidders had qualified for the initial round, they did not find the offer viable and asked for raising the tender size to 1,000 coaches.
India to fill gaps in aerial vigilance
•With Pakistan and China rapidly modernising their air forces, India has intensified efforts to fill the gaps in its aerial surveillance.
•After handing over the first indigenously developed airborne early warning and control system, Netra, to the Indian Air Force at Aero India last week, the Defence Research and Development Organisation has set its sights on a much larger and more capable system.
•India is also in negotiations with Israel to buy two more Phalcon Airborne Warning And Control System (AWACS) mounted on Russian IL-76 aircraft to add to the three systems in service. Officials are hopeful of concluding the deal before Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Tel Aviv possibly in June.
•Addressing journalists after handing over the first system, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said the gaps in AWACS were being corrected. Various programmes were being pursued simultaneously. “We have improved the serviceability of our AWACS by purchasing the shortfalls through emergency powers, so their availability is better,” he said referring to the recent emergency purchases of spares by the IAF for its platforms. The DRDO has The DRDO has planned to develop a long-range AWACS with a 360-degree coverage akin to the Phalcon. He said it would take six years to get the system “totally functional”.
•The DRDO plans to develop two AWACS at first and then another four. “As the AWACS is much heavier, it needs a bigger aircraft. They would be based on an Airbus A-330. It has already been short-listed through a global process...,” Mr. Parrikar had said. The proposal is awaiting approval from the Cabinet Committee on Security headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
•G. Sateesh Reddy, Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister, said this created the technological base for electronic warfare in the country. “From now on, we are going to make more advanced systems with a longer range of 400 km and better coverage. The step after that is miniaturisation,” he told The Hindu.
•The Netra AEW&C system would join the three Phalcon A-50 long-range AWACS mounted on Russian IL-76 transport aircraft. These aerial radars, called eye-in-the-sky, are game-changers in warfare. The Netra AEW&C system has an indigenous radar mounted on the Embraer Emb-145 aircraft and three systems are being developed. The system handed over is in the initial operational configuration (IOC).
Carry out tests
•The DRDO will carry out an advanced testing of the systems and avionics on the Netra and the final operational configuration is expected to be achieved by June. By then, the second system will also be ready.
•The present system gives a 240-degree coverage of airspace. The three aircraft would be based at Bhatinda facing the western border. The Emb-145 also has air-to-air refuelling capability for longer surveillance time. This capacity will be tested and certified in the next few months. India had made similar attempts in the past, which ended tragically. The DRDO began a project in the 1980s to build an AWACS, later renamed Project Airawat, but it was cancelled after a prototype crashed in 1999, killing all eight persons on board.
What exactly is a money bill?
•The Supreme Court will begin hearing final arguments next month on a writ petition challenging the validity of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial & Other Subsidies, Benefits & Services) Act, 2016 — or the Aadhaar Act. The proceeding, initiated by Jairam Ramesh, a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha, primarily questions the legality behind the Union government’s move in introducing the Aadhaar Act as a money bill. Through this categorisation, the government had the law enacted by securing a simple majority in the Lok Sabha while rendering redundant any opposition to the legislation in the Upper House of Parliament.
Imperils liberties
•During preliminary hearings, the Supreme Court has suggested that it isn’t entirely convinced of the merits of Mr. Ramesh’s petition. But a closer examination will only show that the introduction of the Aadhaar Act as a money bill contravenes the bare text of the Constitution. In this case, the breach is particularly disturbing, because the legislation imperils our core liberties, in manners both explicit and insidious.
•Originally, Aadhaar was conceived as a scheme to provide to every Indian a unique identity number, with a purported view to enabling a fair and equitable distribution of benefits and subsidies. There is little doubt that the scheme’s introduction, with no prior legislative backing, was a flagrant wrong, and was completely unjustifiable as a measure of democratic governance. For this Mr. Ramesh’s party, the Congress, must take full responsibility. But, when a draft of a statute was eventually introduced in the Rajya Sabha, in December 2010, it was done so as an ordinary bill. This meant that both Houses of Parliament had to provide their imprimatur to the bill for it to become law.
•Nonetheless this draft legislation contained serious misgivings, so much so that a parliamentary standing committee released a detailed report differing with the government of the time over critical aspects of the bill, particularly its treatment of concerns over privacy and protection of data security. In the meantime, given that the Aadhaar project was being implemented even without statutory support, public interest petitions were filed in the Supreme Court challenging the project’s legitimacy. In these cases, the court issued a series of interim orders prohibiting the state from making Aadhaar mandatory, while permitting its use only for a set of limited governmental schemes.
•In March 2016, the Union government withdrew the earlier bill, and introduced, in its place, as a money bill, a new draft legislation, titled the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial & Other Subsidies, Benefits & Services) Bill, 2016. This categorisation was extraordinary because a money bill, under India’s constitutional design, requires only the Lok Sabha’s affirmation for it to turn into law. Right on cue, within days of the bill’s introduction, the Lower House, in complete disregard of the Rajya Sabha’s protestations, passed the legislation, as Act No. 18 of 2016. This law, Mr. Ramesh now argues, is patently illegal, because its classification as a money bill infringes the Constitution’s mandates.
•A money bill is defined by Article 110 of the Constitution, as a draft law that contains only provisions that deal with all or any of the matters listed therein. These comprise a set of seven features, broadly including items such as the imposition or regulation of a tax; the regulation of the borrowing of money by the Government of India; the withdrawal of money from the Consolidated Fund of India; and so forth. In the event a proposed legislation contains other features, ones that are not merely incidental to the items specifically outlined, such a draft law cannot be classified as a money bill. Article 110 further clarifies that in cases where a dispute arises over whether a bill is a money bill or not, the Lok Sabha Speaker’s decision on the issue shall be considered final.
Flawed counterpoint
•The government’s response to Mr. Ramesh’s claim is predicated on two prongs: that the Speaker’s decision to classify a draft legislation as a money bill is immune from judicial review, and that, in any event, the Aadhaar Bill fulfilled all the constitutional requirements of a money bill. A careful examination of these arguments will, however, show us that the government is wrong on both counts.
•To be fair, the assertion that the Speaker’s decision is beyond judicial review finds support in the Supreme Court’s judgment in Mohd. Saeed Siddiqui v. State of UP (2014). Here, a three-judge bench had ruled, in the context of State legislatures, that a Speaker’s decision to classify a draft statute as a money bill, was not judicially reviewable, even if the classification was incorrect. This is because the error in question, the court ruled, constituted nothing more than a mere procedural irregularity.
•But there are significant problems with this view. Chief among them is the wording of Article 110, which vests no unbridled discretion in the Speaker. The provision requires that a bill conform to the criteria prescribed in it for it to be classified as a money bill. Where a bill intends to legislate on matters beyond the features delineated in Article 110, it must be treated as an ordinary draft statute. Any violation of this mandate has to be seen, therefore, as a substantive constitutional error, something which Siddiqui fails to do.
•There are other flaws too in the judgment. Most notably, it brushes aside the verdict of a Constitution Bench in Raja Ram Pal v. Hon’ble Speaker, Lok Sabha (2007), where the court had ruled that clauses that attach finality to a determination of an issue do not altogether oust the court’s jurisdiction. That is, the bench held, there are numerous circumstances where the court can review parliamentary pronouncements. These would include instances where a Speaker’s choice is grossly illegal, or disregards basic constitutional mandates, or, worse still, where the Speaker’s decision is riddled with perversities, or is arrived at through dishonest intentions.
What Aadhaar Act shows
•A simple reading of the Aadhaar Act would show us that its contents go far beyond the features enumerated in Article 110. If anything, it is the provisions in the legislation that pertain to the Consolidated Fund and its use that are incidental to the Act’s core purpose — which, quite evidently, is to ensure, among other things, the creation of a framework for maintaining a central database of biometric information collected from citizens. Ordinarily, a draft legislation is classified as a money bill when it provides for funds to be made available to the executive to carry out specific tasks. In the case of the Aadhaar Act, such provisions are manifestly absent. The Speaker’s decision to confirm the government’s classification is, therefore, an error that is not merely procedural in nature but one that constitutes, in substance, an unmitigated flouting of Article 110.
•In many ways, Aadhaar has brought out to plain sight the worryingly totalitarian impulses of our state. The government has argued, with some force, that Indian citizens possess no fundamental right to privacy. This argument, however, is predicated on judgments of the Supreme Court that have little contemporary relevance, and that have, in any event, been overlooked in several subsequent cases where the court has clarified the extent of the liberties that the Constitution guarantees.
Right to privacy
•Privacy is important not merely because it advances the cause of equality and freedom but also because it is, in and of itself, a treasurable value. A failure to protect privacy adequately can have disastrous consequences that affect our abilities to determine for ourselves how we want to live our lives. And the Aadhaar Act hits at the core of this value. It permits the creation of a database of not only biometric information but also various other private data, without so much as bothering about safeguards that need to be installed to ensure their security. We scarcely need to stretch our imaginations to wonder what the government — and other agencies to which this information can be shared without any regulatory checks — can do with all this material.
•That a statute so pernicious in its breadth can be enacted after being introduced as a money bill only makes matters worse. It has the effect of negating altogether the Rajya Sabha’s legislative role, making, in the process, a mockery of our democracy. It is imperative, therefore, that the court refers the present controversy to a larger bench, with a view to overruling Siddiqui.
Ways of sharing
•India’s decision to allow its border roads in Mizoram and Tripura to be used by Bangladeshi forces as they construct border outposts in the inhospitable terrain of the Chittagong Hill Tracts shows just how far the two countries have come to bridging their trust deficit. The decision, conveyed last week in Dhaka during the meeting of Home Ministry and security officials working on closer border management cooperation, came as Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar flew into Bangladesh to begin preparations for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to India in early April. If the visit goes as planned, it will be her first bilateral trip to India since 2010, when the MoU for the Land Boundary Agreement was originally signed. The terms of that agreement have now been fully implemented, and Ms. Hasina’s visit will build on the boost that relations received from the historic agreement that was signed in 2015 during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Dhaka. Ms. Hasina has long made it clear that she would only return the visit when there are ‘substantive outcomes’ on the table, and the fact that officials are now speaking of a visit in two months’ time indicates that several important announcements can be expected. There is speculation about a defence partnership agreement, movement on the Teesta water-sharing agreement, the Ganga water barrage project, and other energy and connectivity projects. Any of these would go a long way in cementing ties that are increasingly described as a “win-win” for both neighbours.
•However, both New Delhi and Dhaka would be aware of the possible bumps in the road ahead. Some of these involve the Centre and the affected Indian States. For instance, water-sharing is a highly emotive subject, and movement on Teesta water-sharing has been held up largely because of West Bengal’s reservations. To address them, the Central government needs to reach out to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Similarly Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has raked up the Farakka Barrage project. For Ms. Hasina, the political worries are greater. She faces an election in 2018, and with the opposition accusing her of being soft on India, she cannot be seen to be returning home empty-handed on the water question. Also, while the border issue has been resolved, border firing has not ceased, an issue Ms. Hasina’s rivals use to target her. Meanwhile, she faces the task of addressing India’s mistrust over Chinese investment in Bangladesh, with $38 billion pledged in infrastructure cooperation and joint ventures during President Xi Jinping’s visit last year. Ms. Hasina has sought to address this by arguing that India will also benefit from Bangladesh’s enhanced prosperity if all these projects go through. Yet, Dhaka may need to be more aware of India’s anxiety as Bangladesh and other neighbours become more heavily invested in China’s One Belt One Road project, that India has opted to stay out of for now.
SEBI for overhaul of board governance
•Markets regulator SEBI is in favour of a major overhaul of the way boards of listed firms discharge their duties, including for appointment and removal of directors, and also wants their audit committees to be empowered to identify future risks.
•There is also a need for “greater tolerance” and transparency in discussions and decisions taken at the board level and by various board committees of listed companies, but the regulator would prefer them to adopt best global practices in this regard voluntarily rather than being dictated to do so with a new set of stringent rules, an official said.
•While a ‘guidance note’ was issued last month by the Securities and Exchange Board of India on board evaluation at listed companies, there is a view that SEBI should come out with a new set of regulations to ensure greater compliance.
Detailed note
•The regulator may soon come out with a further detailed guidance note while it is also mulling launching a public consultation process to understand whether there is a need for a new set of rules and what those could be, a top official said.
•The move assumes significance in the wake of the recent boardroom battle at the Tata group and the controversy surrounding the reported differences between some promoters and the top management at Infosys — both of which played out in a big way in full public glare and forced SEBI and the government to keep a close watch to safeguard the interests of minority investors and other stakeholders — as also the message going to the foreign investors.
•“The prominent view within SEBI as of now is that the concept of board evaluation is very nascent in India and forcing the companies to follow a new set of rules in this regard may not be warranted at this stage,” a top official said, adding that the decision can be reviewed after taking into account response of the companies to the guidance note.
•Also, since the regulator itself will go through a leadership change soon, with senior IAS officer Ajay Tyagi set to take charge as the next SEBI chief on March 1, a final decision on whether to replace the guidance note with a new set of rules could be taken later.
•Corporate governance has been a key focus area, with a huge emphasis on safeguarding the interests of minority shareholders in listed companies, during the six—year tenure of current chairman U.K. Sinha. The proposed moves will also take into account the suggestions made in this regard by the regulator’s International Advisory Board, which was set up during Mr. Sinha’s tenure at SEBI to advise it on best global regulatory practices and evolution of various policies.
•The IAB suggested that a matrix of expertise may be introduced to make the boards diverse, balanced and in tune with the requirements for effective functioning of the company. It has also called for “full transparency” in board appointments and removal process.
