THE HINDU – CURRENT NOTE 18 March
Conduct divorce hearings via videoconferencing: SC
•Divorce cases may be fought on video in future rather than in crowded courtrooms amidst strangers.
•The Supreme Court said, in modern times, couples lead hectic work and personal lives with hardly any child care or family support. So, a Bench of Justices A.K. Goel and U.U. Lalit has, in a recent judgment, asked High Courts to pass administrative directions to district and lower courts to open up their videoconferencing facilities so that couples engaged in matrimonial cases need not travel distances, probably even to other States, to personally attend their divorce hearings.
•The Supreme Court said videoconferencing would spare couples the drudgery of coming to courts in person, waiting for hours, probably days, to testify.
The jurisdiction
•The court noted that a divorce case is usually filed in a court within which jurisdiction the husband lives or the wife lives or where the couple had their matrimonial home. In most cases, estranged couples may very well go their separate ways, probably to other States.
•The Supreme Court found that the odds are usually stacked against the estranged husband when the wife prefers a transfer of the matrimonial proceedings to a court in her vicinity. When such a transfer application comes up, the courts either order the husband to foot the wife’s travel and accommodation expenses or mechanically allow her plea.
Three factors
•The judiciary justifies that this empathy towards women are based on three factors – the constitutional scheme to provide women equal access to justice, the power of the State to make special provisions for women and children and duty to uphold the dignity of women.
•However, this judgment does not fully agree with the idea of courts “mechanically” transferring cases to the wife’s place of abode.
•Justice Goel, who wrote the verdict for the Bench, said it was time courts also considered a man’s genuine difficulties.
ICRISAT, ICAR join hands for crop improvement
•In a bid to benefit small farmers in India and globally, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) would work together on crop improvement and agronomy programmes for grain legumes and dryland cereals.
•ICAR and ICRISAT, recently signed an agreement in New Delhi, in which climate smart crops, smart food and digitalisation of breeding database were identified as some of the core areas of research.
•ICAR director general Dr Trilochan Mohapatra said that the collaboration will benefits Indian farmers and they are committed to achieve real impact through the partnership with continuous monitoring by both sides.
•He said other areas of focus over the next three years include - integrating systems modelling tools for upscaling climate resilient agriculture, developing genetic and genomic resources of finger millet and enhancing genetic gains for priority traits.
•Meanwhile, ICRISAT director general Dr David Bergvinson said that dryland cereals and grain legumes are branded as smart foods – good for consumers, farmers and the planet as they diversify farming systems and help smallholder farmers adapt to climate change.
•“We enjoy a strong partnership with ICAR so we can deliver real results to improve the lives of farmers,” he added.
•On crop improvement front, the pact will facilitate research on pigeonpea and chickpea for insect resistance.
Long-term supply pact for Sukhoi jets inked
•In a move to address a long-lasting concern of India with respect to Russian-origin military equipment, the two countries on Friday signed two long-term supply agreements for the Sukhoi fighter aircraft fleet of the Indian Air Force (IAF) to address issues of life-cycle support and maintenance.
•The deals were signed between Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) from India and the United Aircraft Corporation and United Engine Corporations of Russia at the first India-Russia Military Industrial Conference in the national capital.
•“Since most of our defence platforms and weapon systems are of Russian-origin, their maintenance and life-cycle support is extremely important for us from the point of view of our defence preparedness,” Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said after inaugurating the conference. Observing that India has the third largest armed forces in the world, Mr. Jaitley said, “We are also one of the largest importers of defence equipment and this definitely is not a label we are happy with.”
•This agreement covers about 57,000 spares and components related to the Su-30 aircraft, a defence official said.
Direct agreement
•The deal follows a Russian legislation permitting its companies to enter into direct agreement with foreign companies for long-term support agreements. Currently, procurement of spares is a long and cumbersome process as India cannot deal directly with the Original Equipment Manufacturers but designated intermediaries like Rosoboronexport. Officials said they were exploring the possibility of Russian OEMs allowing licence manufacture of the spares locally by Indian vendors.
•India has contracted 272 Su-30 fighter jets from Russia in various batches and has so far inducted over 230 jets. However, their serviceability rate has been an issue of constant concern with availability rates dropping below 50% at one point and has improved to over 60% over the last couple of years.
Parliamentary panel fumes as NATGRID posts remain vacant
•The Union Home Ministry informed a parliamentary panel earlier this week that it couldn’t get qualified IT professionals to fill 35 posts in the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID), an ambitious intelligence project conceptualised by the United Progressive Alliance government after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks in 2008.
•The panel has asked the Ministry to “re-publicise the posts” and “offer remuneration commensurate with that of the private sector to attract the most qualified professionals.”
•The NATGRID is a centralised agency which stores sensitive personal information on citizens, from almost two dozen agencies, to be made available for counter-terror investigations.
‘Raise remuneration’
•“These posts were not filled because of the non-availability of qualified professionals for various posts in the organisation,” Ministry officials were quoted in the report — Demands for Grants (2017-18) — tabled in Parliament on March 15.
•On Friday, CPI(M) MP Mohammad Salim raised the issue in the Lok Sabha and said: “We are known in the world as an IT superpower. Either we are offering less remuneration or we have not advertised enough for these posts. I am not ready to believe that we have not been able to operationalise the NATGRID as we haven’t got skilled IT professionals.”
•The panel, headed by the Congress leader and former Home Minister P. Chidambaram, had asked the Ministry for the reasons for the cut in the NATGRID’s budget from ₹45 crore to ₹18.71 crore last fiscal. “The 2016-17 budgetary allocation included a provision of ₹11.50 crore under revenue head in connection with the engagment of 35 consultants,” the Ministry said.
•The panel pulled up the officials and said: “In a country like India, known worldwide for its highly skilled IT professionals, it is simply not acceptable that the non-availability of professionals was the reason for not filling the 35 posts of consultants. The Committee feels that either the Ministry had failed to publicise the posts widely or the remuneration being offered was not attractive enough. The Committee recommends that the Ministry needs to clear the confusion looming large over the NATGRID’s future by completing the construction of its main building at the earliest.”
•In July 2016, the NDA government appointed Ashok Patnaik, a serving officer of the Intelligence Bureau, as the CEO of the NATGRID. The post had been lying vacant after the former CEO Raghu Raman’s contract expired in April 2014. The government refused to renew his contract following an adverse intelligence report.
Labour code to provide social security cover to all workers
•The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has proposed a labour code which will provide social security cover to the entire workforce in the country, including self-employed and agricultural workers.
•Even households employing domestic help will also have contribute towards schemes including provident fund and gratuity for the worker, according to a ‘draft code on Social Security and Welfare’ proposed by the Labour Ministry on Thursday. Factories employing even a single worker will have to contribute towards social security benefits, as per the proposal.
•“Every working person in the country will be covered under the social security code whether she belongs to the organised sector or the unorganised sector. For the first time, we intend to cover agricultural workers along with self-employed people and target to provide social security benefits to 45 crore workers,” said a top Labour Ministry official, on conditions of anonymity.
•A National Social Security Council, chaired by the Prime Minister, has been proposed to streamline and make policy on social security schemes related to all the Ministries. Other members would include: Finance Minister, Labour Minister, Health and Family Welfare Minister along with employer and employees’ representatives. The council will co-ordinate between central and State governments, monitor the implementation of social security schemes, regulate funds collected under various social security schemes, among others, according to the proposed labour law.
•The proposed code seeks to cover “any factory, any mine, any plantation, any shop, charitable organisations” and all establishments or households employing casual, part-time, fixed-term, informal, apprentice, domestic and home-based workers.
•All such establishments or factories will be liable to pay compensation if they fail to contribute towards the social security schemes of the workers.
•The total contribution to be made by employers towards Employees’ Provident Fund and Employees’ State Insurance Scheme is proposed to be capped at 30% of the workers’ income. At present, employers contribute 31.5% of the workers’ income towards these schemes. According to the proposed code, self-employed workers will contribute 20% of their monthly income towards provident fund, pension and other related schemes. Self-employed workers will also include “a person who takes land on share cropping or any other form of rent, and tills the same using his own or family members’ labour.”
•All the entities – whether factories or households – will have to register their workers through an Aadhaar-based registration system, according to another proposal, and self-employer workers will be required to register themselves.
•Social security benefits unclaimed for five years after becoming due to the worker will be confiscated by the government, according to the proposed code.
Supreme Court collegium reserves final call on judges
•The Supreme Court Collegium has handed over the finalised Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) for appointment of judges to the government.
•While maintaining the government’s proposal for a national security clause in the MoP, the Collegium has reserved to itself the right to reiterate a name rejected by the government.
•In the final draft MoP handed over by the government to the Supreme Court Collegium in August 2016, the government had included the controversial clause that allowed it to reject a judicial candidate recommended by the Collegium if he or she is perceived to be a security threat. The clause resulted in an government-judiciary impasse for over a year.
•Now, while accepting national security and public interest as the new ground of objection to appoint a candidate as a judge, the collegium is learnt to have made it clear that the government will not have a right to reject its recommendation.
•The body of five senior-most judges of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar has made it clear that if the government has objections on the ground of national security and public interest, it will convey the same to the collegium. The collegium will then take a final call, sources said.
•While accepting the government's demand to set up secretariats in the apex court and the 24 high courts to assist collegiums in SC and HCs in selecting judges, the collegium has refused to accept the demand for committees of retired or sitting judges to assist the collegiums in finding suitable candidates.
•Since last January, the government and the apex court have been trying to finalise the Memorandum of Procedure — a document to guide appointment of judges to the higher judiciary.
•While rejecting the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, the SC had agreed to revise the Memorandum of Procedure to usher in more transparency in appointment of judges to the SC and the HCs.
•The new law had sought to overturn the over two decade old collegium system where judges appoint judges. It had sought say of the Executive in appointment of judges. The national security clause and the secretariat clause are part of the draft MoP, which has been shuttling between the government and the collegium since March 22, 2016.
National health policy 2017: A road map for health
•The National Health Policy 2017, which the Centre announced this week after a nudge from the Supreme Court last year, faces the challenging task of ensuring affordable, quality medical care to every citizen. With a fifth of the world’s disease burden, a growing incidence of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, and poor financial arrangements to pay for care, India brings up the rear among the BRICS countries in health sector performance. Against such a laggardly record, the policy now offers an opportunity to systematically rectify well-known deficiencies through a stronger National Health Mission. Among the most glaring lacunae is the lack of capacity to use higher levels of public funding for health. Rectifying this in partnership with the States is crucial if the Central government is to make the best use of the targeted government spending of 2.5% of GDP by 2025, up from 1.15% now. Although a major capacity expansion to produce MBBS graduates took place between 2009 and 2015, and more initiatives were announced later, this is unlikely to meet policy goals since only 11.3% of registered allopathic doctors were working in the public sector as of 2014, and even among these, the number in rural areas was abysmally low. More health professionals need to be deployed for primary care in rural areas. Availability of trained doctors and nurses would help meet the new infant mortality and maternal mortality goals, and build on the gains from higher institutional deliveries, which exceeded 80% in recent years.
•Contracting of health services from the private sector may be inevitable in the short term, given that about 70% of all outpatient care and 60% of inpatient treatments are provided by it. But this requires accountability, both on the quality and cost of care. No more time should be lost in forming regulatory and accreditation agencies for healthcare providers at the national and State levels as suggested by the expert group on universal health coverage of the Planning Commission more than five years ago. Without such oversight, unethical commercial entities would have easy backdoor access to public funds in the form of state-backed insurance. It should also be mandatory for all health institutions to be accredited, and to publish the approved cost of treatments, in order to remove the prevailing asymmetry of information. For the new policy to start on a firm footing, the Centre has to get robust health data. Currently this is fragmented because inputs from multiple sources and sample surveys are not reconciled, and the private sector is often not in the picture. To reduce high out-of-pocket spending, early deadlines should be set for public institutions to offer essential medicines and diagnostic tests free to everyone. This was estimated in 2011 to require a spending increase of only 0.4% of GDP, which is within the 2.5% that the Centre is talking about.
‘Assess impact of Make in India plan’
•A Parliamentary panel has sought an assessment of how the government’s Make In India (MII) initiative has helped the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) in the country. It also said dedicated measures should be made to ensure that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) promotes the MSME sector.
•The Department Related Parliamentary Committee on Commerce and Industry also asked the government to share with it the factors behind Foreign Portfolio Investments turning negative and its impact on the Indian industry. Given the large population of youth in the country, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce also wanted the assessment to show if the MII programme — aimed at boosting manufacturing in India and generating jobs mainly for the youth after ensuring that they get opportunities to skill themselves through skill development programmes — has seized the opportunity of the demographic dividend.
•The panel, chaired by Bhupinder Yadav, MP, Rajya Sabha, recommended that manufacturing growth in the country become robust. “The manufacturing sector has grown only by an average of 1.6% in the last five years till 2015-16,” it said.
‘Capital goods crucial’
•Stating that the capital goods sector is crucial for the industrial growth of the country, the panel said, “appropriate measures may be taken to revive the growth of the capital goods sector.” On industrial development of backward and remote areas, the panel said, “possibility of giving suitable subsidy may be explored for industries investing high capital, which may be ₹500 crore or above in select sectors like food processing and other employment generating industries congenial to the region.”
•On proposals to boost export performance, the panel said a healthy increase in the allocation of the Interest Equalisation Scheme would enable greater coverage and help augment export competitiveness, which otherwise, had been adversely affected by high rate of credit. Professionalism needed to be infused in the working of the Directorate General of Trade Remedies so that maximum benefit of the country’s foreign trade potential may be reaped, the panel said.
•At the same time, the panel urged the department of commerce to tackle non-tariff barriers faced by Indian exporters, with a particular focus on small and medium enterprises that who lack an understanding of such barriers and miss out on export orders.
•The committee also said that it is of prime importance that the Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India (ECGC) should be infused with adequate equity to bolster its networth. “ECGC coverage may be broadened. To begin with the government must ensure that at least 20% of the exports are covered within 2017-18,” it said.Among other suggestions, the panel said “priority must be accorded for creation of necessary infrastructure to facilitate robust trade and commerce in the North East. Ministry of Finance may be approached for necessary enhancement in the budgetary allocation for the purpose.”
Indian drugmakers face squeeze in U.S. healthcare market
•India's small and medium-sized generic drugmakers say the threat of tougher rules and higher barriers for outsiders in the U.S. healthcare market will force many to find a niche or focus their expansion efforts on other countries.
•India supplies nearly a third of medicines sold in the United States, the world's largest healthcare market. Cut-price generics sold by India's small- and medium-sized drugmakers have been critical in bringing down prices there.
•A more protectionist stance by President Donald Trump, with the prospect of import tariffs and the U.S. boosting local drug manufacturing, mean the operating environment for smaller generic players will get worse, executives at Indian companies said.
•"If the challenges keep increasing, competition will reduce, and this could actually increase prices there," said D.G. Shah, secretary general of the Indian Pharmaceutical Association, which represents 20 large Indian drugmakers.
•J. Jayaseelan, who owns Nuray Chemicals, a maker of drug ingredients, said many Indian firms are reconsidering, or putting on hold, U.S. expansion plans.
•Ajanta Pharma (AJPH.NS) is one such firm. The mid-sized generics drug maker said it had no plans to scale up its U.S. business and would invest more in Asia and Africa instead.
•"It's not a major market for us right now ... you've got to look at the risk-reward ratio," said Rajeev Agarwal, general manager of finance at Ajanta.
•The risks comes as U.S. revenue growth for these firms is falling. U.S. revenues for Indian drugmakers rose 15 percent in 2016, half the average annual growth rate of 33 percent between 2011 and 2015, ratings agency ICRA said. It expects the growth rate to fall further this year.
•Consolidation among U.S. drugs distributors and a federal investigation into drug pricing have also reduced the pricing power of drugsmakers.
•The U.S. drugs regulator, the Food and Drug Administration, has also banned dozens of Indian drug factories from supplying the U.S. market following inspections that found inadequate quality-control practices. Companies have invested significant sums to raise their quality standards.
