THE HINDU – CURRENT NOTE 24 APRIL
Step up spending on infra, PM tells States
NITI Aayog formulating 15-year vision plan
•Stating that the vision of ‘New India’ could only be realised if all States work together, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged them to speed up capital expenditure and infrastructure creation.
•Addressing the third meeting of the Governing Council of the NITI Aayog here on Sunday, Mr Modi pointed out while there has been a 40% increase in overall fund allocation to States between 2014-15 and 2016-17, “the percentage of funds tied to central schemes has declined from 40% of the earlier total to 25% of the enhanced total, with a corresponding increase in the untied share.”
•Stating that poor infrastructure was hampering economic development, Mr. Modi said more expenditure on basics such as roads, ports, power and railways would help accelerate the pace of growth. Referring to the change in budget presentation date, the Prime Minister said the move enables timely availability of funds at the beginning of the financial year. “Earlier, budgeted scheme funds were generally not approved by Parliament till May, after which they would be communicated to States and ministries. By that time, the monsoon arrived. Hence, the best working season for schemes was typically lost,” he added.
•The Prime Minister also added that a “constructive discussion” had begun on the subject of holding Union and State elections simultaneously and the debate should be carried forward.
•In his address to the Council, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, however, pointed out that the general narrative that after the 14th Finance Commission award, States have been given larger resource transfers and therefore Central Assistance to States must be limited to specific sectoral interventions “is a fallacy.”
•“States are at various stages of development and require support, both financial and technical, for a considerable period of time to improve their quality of life, infrastructure, job creation and social security,” Mr Vijayan said.
Mamata stays away
•The meeting, at which the 15-year policy vision and the three-year policy action plan were discussed to accelerate the country’s economy, was attended by Chief Ministers of 27 States. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal skipped the meeting. However, Delhi was represented by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia.
GST preparations
•In his closing remarks, Mr. Modi added that States should make legislative arrangements “without delay” for GST roll-out from July 1. He also pointed out that suggestions have come in to change the financial year to January-December from current April-March period.
SC bats for the rights of Internet users
More and more problems make their way to the court
•Supreme Court judge Justice Dipak Misra recently described the Internet as a “world which is invisible.”
•Judges are grappling with the seemingly “infinite and seamless connectivity” of the Internet with more and more problems dealing with the myriad facets of the virtual world make their way to the Supreme Court.
•So far, the Supreme Court has made it clear that it wants to protect the rights of the citizen and make Internet companies liable under Indian laws. But the court is against imposing any general online ban. This, it said in a recent order, would curtail the right of the “genuine information-seeker to gain knowledge and information from the Internet.”
•A slew of cases, ranging from a privacy challenge to a 2016 policy entered into between WhatsApp and Facebook to posting of online sexual videos to the presence of pre-natal sex determination advertisements on the Internet to the safety of online cash transactions, have grabbed the Supreme Court’s attention and time.
Objectionable content
•These cases have seen the ordinary man engage Internet giants like Facebook, WhatsApp, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft in litigation in the Supreme Court. These petitions demand that the Internet giants should also be made liable for the objectionable and illegal content posted online.
•Counsel for Prajwala, the NGO which moved the court about how social media is misused by criminals to post and share sexual offence videos of women and children, said Internet companies should be held responsible for such materials finding their way into their online domains.
PCPNDT Act
•In a separate case, Dr. Sabu Mathew George took on Google, Yahoo and Microsoft for hosting pre-natal sex determination advertisements on their search engines in violation of Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) (PCPNDT) Act of 1994.
•While the Internet companies have repeatedly said it was impossible to forestall a person from posting objectionable content online, these cases have led the court to order Internet companies to set up in-house expert bodies to scour the Internet and remove objectionable and illegal content.
Nodal officers
•The litigation has further triggered the government to appoint nodal officers at State levels to keep tabs on the Net for offensive material. The government’s officers would alert the search engines, who are liable to remove the objectionable material within the next 36 hours.
•Again, the ‘right to be left alone’ in the virtual world is gaining prominence as a subject of litigation in the Supreme Court.
•A Constitution Bench of five judges has started hearing two law students who have challenged the 2016 contract entered into by WhatsApp to give Facebook access to information and personal details shared by millions of its users is a violation of their privacy and free speech.
•Senior advocate K.K. Venugopal has said that the case would see a re-look of two Constitution Bench decisions — the 1954 eight-judge Bench verdict in M.P. Sharma’s case and the six-judge Bench judgment of 1962 in Kharak Singh on the nature of right to privacy. Both judgments had categorically rejected the existence of privacy as a guaranteed right under Article 21 (right to life) of the Constitution.
•Mr. Venugopal suggested that a nine-judge Bench hear the case.
•The government has also conveyed the urgency to protect privacy and personal data on the Internet. Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi informed the Supreme Court that the government is working post-haste on “overarching data protection” laws to protect individual’s online privacy and ‘right to be forgotten’.
Cyprus sees role for India
Thinks New Delhi can help in unification efforts as it is close to Ankara
•President of the Republic of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, will ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi if there is any way he can help in his country’s efforts to reunify the northern and southern parts of Cyprus, he told a group of visiting journalists on Friday.
•This he will seek when he visits New Delhi from April 25, with four ministers and a strong business delegation.
•In an interaction in the presidential palace, he explained the rationale by saying, “Those who are closely connected with Turkey can give us the strongest hand in our efforts.”
Hard to predict
•Although President Anastasiades felt it was too early to predict how Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan might behave as regards the Cyprus question, he said, “At the same time of course, we shall ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi if he has any kind of possibility to intervene on the Cyprus question. The Indian government supports us on the basis of the U.N. resolution. It is going to be very welcome — any initiative by the Indian government.”
•President Anastasiades and Mustafa Akinci, the President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, have been engaged in a dialogue to find a solution.
•“Myself and Mustafa, we can find a solution,” he declared. “We are pro-solution leaders. We can solve it in two or three months maximum. But there are limitations, impossible limitations,” he said, alluding to Turkish pressures.
•President Erdogan in a recent referendum that gave him sweeping powers has emerged an even stronger, if unpredictable presence in the region, Cypriot politicians feel.
•In 1974 Turkey invaded Cyprus, overran parts of it and has since stationed troops in the north. There is a ceasefire line that cuts across Cyprus, monitored by U.N. troops.
•But, President Anastasiades stressed, “if they [New Delhi] are not in a position [to intervene] we are not going to ask something that harms the interest of India.”
•His remarks assume importance considering the Turkish leader Erdogan will be in New Delhi following at the heels of the visit of President Anastasiades.
•President Anastasiades also outlined to the visiting journalists how Cyprus could further India’s interest, both in Cyprus and in the region.
Promises concessions
•He said, “We can play a constructive role in speaking to our partners to give the most favourable treatment for India.” Cyprus is looking for India’s help in developing a technology park along the lines of Silicon Valley, the President said.
•“The very first thing I will be asking is whether there are people who can help us in knowledge and know-how.”
•“I am going to lead a business delegation. They will see how they can attract investments,” he said.
•Cyprus is pitching itself as both an investment destination and as a bridge to both Europe and the Gulf region, given both its location as well as its relations with the countries in the region. India used Cyprus’s help to help evacuate its citizens from Lebanon in 2006, for instance.
•“We are members of the Commonwealth as well as the European Union and so we might be quite helpful for Indian interests [in this region]. We can play a constructive role in encouraging our partners to give the most favourable treatment to India,” President Anastasiades said. He stressed, “India is not a threat to any of her neighbours. India is a stabilising factor.”
•Cyprus supports India in its bid to enter the UN Security Council as a permanent member. It supports India’s efforts on the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Cyprus has consistently spoken in favour of India in various international fora on Kashmir. The President’s visit is likely to see further steps being taken to deepen the bilateral engagement.
Corruption, the top pain: poll
Drive under PM’s New India campaign shows the issue got the highest response
•Corruption and the ways to fight it remain a major concern for the people, if the poll for pledges taken under the New India campaign run by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 12 is any indicator.
•Senior sources involved with the poll, asking participants to choose from nine programmes that they will pledge to work with, said that of the over 2.5 lakh respondents, the pledge to work for a corruption-free India got the highest response. “Nearly 70% of the respondents voted for a pledge to fight corruption. This was followed by Swachch Bharat and at number three was the campaign for Accessible India, of making public spaces accessible for the physically challenged,” a source said.
•Male respondents on Twitter for the same campaign under #IAmNewIndia and #NewIndia far outstripped women respondents.
•Data shared showed that 84.7% of respondents on the hashtags were male, and 15.3% were women.
•The two hashtags together made a massive tweet impression of 44.8 crore.
Findings significant
•Mr. Modi, after the results of the Assembly polls in the five States in March, started this campaign by launching the poll on pledges to be taken on various issues of interests by those who had downloaded his personal App, the Narendra Modi App.
•Sources said the findings of the polls were significant in that the “government may tap into the enthusiasm” while prioritising issues.
Now, Australia wants a LEMOA
But India would rather have its agreement with the U.S. operationalised first
•Australia has put forward a proposal to have a logistics support agreement with India on the lines of the one concluded with the U.S. However, yet to take a call on it, India has said that it would first like to get the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Understanding (LEMOA) with the U.S. operational.
•India and Australia have been expanding their military-to-military cooperation, especially in the maritime domain, given their shared interests and concerns in the Indian Ocean, with the rapid expansion of China’s naval presence in the region.
•To facilitate cooperation in this regard, Australia has proposed a logistics agreement and has already submitted a draft to India. “The draft was submitted 18 months back and a response from India is awaited,” a diplomatic source toldThe Hindu . However, India has informally conveyed that it would like to first operationalise the LEMOA with the U.S. and would like to take up other such agreements after that, defence sources told The Hindu . “Let us first implement what we have signed, we can then access its merits and consider other agreements based on the necessity,” one official said.
Observer status
•The proposal comes in the backdrop of Australia’s recent request for observer status during this year’s Malabar trilateral naval exercises scheduled to be held in July, as reported by The Hindu .
•While a formal decision has not yet been taken, officials indicated that it may not be accepted this year.
•After a decade of negotiations, India and the U.S. signed LEMOA, the first of the three foundational agreements, last August. However, it is yet be operationalised as India had to streamline its administrative procedures. That process is now almost complete and the Defence Ministry is expected to issue the notification from its end in the next few days.
•At the time of signing LEMOA, defence officials said that that they were open to similar agreements with other countries as well, depending on the necessity and the advantage that they would bring to India.
Beijing’s Belt-Road plan overshadows BCIM meet
Study Group on economic corridor evokes little interest
•Despite the scheduled presence of a 30-member Chinese delegation led by a Senior Vice-Minister of State Development and Planning Ministry, the meeting here next week of the Joint Study Group of the Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar (BCIM) has evoked little interest. The Indian delegation will be led by a former Ambassador, Rajeet Mitter, and include an Additional Secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs [MEA]. The Bangladesh and Myanmar teams are considerably smaller.
•The two-day meeting of the Joint Study Group, a sub-regional group of the BCIM, is to review economic integration of the region focussing on trade and energy cooperation while facilitating the construction of an economic corridor from Kumning in south-west China to Kolkata.
•However, none of the sides are very hopeful about the outcome of the Kolkata meeting. Officials of the participating countries told The Hindu that the “interest generated” about the economic corridor in 2013 “is missing.”
•The idea of the economic corridor, about 3,000 kilometres in length, from Kunming to Kolkata — via Mandalay in Myanmar, Imphal and Silchar in India, Dhaka and Jessore in Bangladesh, — gained momentum following the meeting in 2013 between Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Two subsequent meetings were held — one in Kunming (2013) and the other in Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh (2014). Though the Study Group was to have met in six months, the meeting will take place next week.
•The reasons for the low key meeting are manifold, explained by a former Indian diplomat. “There is a change of government in Delhi which may have triggered some re-thinking on various projects including BCIM,” he said.
•Chinese Consul General in Kolkata Ma Zhanwu, however, sounded optimistic. “Compared to our participation in the earlier BCIM meet, we have only scaled it up. A senior Vice Minister is coming with a team of nearly 30 members and many of them are very important in China,” he said.
Tale of two sections
It’s time 295A and 153A of the IPC are revisited, to end vexatious criminal prosecution
•The Supreme Court has intervened to spare cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni the ordeal of facing a criminal trial for allegedly insulting the Hindu religion by being featured in the likeness of a deity on the cover of a business magazine. The court quashed a criminal complaint filed against him in Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, a provision that makes “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings” a punishable offence. The court said there was no deliberate intent on the part of the cricketer or the magazine to hurt religious sentiments. It drew upon the interpretation given to Section 295A by a Constitution Bench as early as in 1957 that it only “punishes the aggravated form of insult to religion when it is perpetrated with the deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of that class”. It is a matter of satisfaction that the highest court intervenes from time to time to stymie attempts by those claiming that their religious sentiments are offended by some act or remark of celebrities and dragging them to courts in different parts of the country. Judicial relief does come in the end, but the bitter truth is that the process is the punishment; it is time our lower courts stop taking reflexive cognisance of trivial or vexatious cases filed on the basis that the religious, caste or cultural sensitivities of some group have been offended.
•In essence, Section 295A is a thinly disguised blasphemy law — the only difference being that it is ‘secular’ insofar as it applies to all religions or all forms of religious insult. A close cousin of this provision is another much misused section of the IPC — 153A. Intended to punish those who promote enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence and language, and doing acts prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony, this section has been employed to harass writers and artists and cast a chill on free expression. The problem with insult laws, irrespective of the form they assume, is that they are inherently subjective. There is no guessing what causes insult/offence/hurt to people, leaving it open for such provisions to be blatantly misused. In this respect, Section 295A and 153A resemble our controversial contempt of court law — there is no saying what will scandalise a judge and therefore no saying when and for what contempt may be invoked. The two IPC provisions encourage the creation of what novelist Monica Ali described as a “marketplace of outrage” — an economy that feeds on anger and hostility. They need to be read down, their scope narrowed in a way that moral vigilantes and those who affect an emotional victimhood can no longer exploit the law to serve their narrow chauvinistic ends.
At war with itself
Afghanistan and its allies need a coherent, gritty plan to roll back Taliban advances
•The attack on a military base in Afghanistan on Friday, in which at least 140 people, mostly unarmed soldiers, died, speaks volumes about the state of security in the war-ravaged country. It was the deadliest attack by the Afghan Taliban since they were ousted from power in 2001. The 209th Army Corps base in Balkh province that was targeted is the army’s northern headquarters, responsible for security in nine of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. By running over such a fortified structure, the Taliban are effectively challenging the professionalism, resolve and resources of the entire force. Over the last few years, the Taliban had lost two of their topmost leaders. Besides, there were reports of factionalism and infighting within the group after the death of Mullah Omar. Yet, the Taliban made steady and substantial gains in the civil war over the last couple of years, since most American troops withdrew from Afghanistan as part of the drawdown plan. Now the group controls or has influence in more than half the country. In recent years it had carried out multiple attacks on government buildings, including the Parliament building, sending a clear message to the government and its international backers that there is no place in Afghanistan that lies outside the Taliban’s range.
•Each time such an attack takes place, the Afghan government issues a statement on terror and vows to continue fighting. But despite these assurances, there is no real progress visible on the ground. Last year alone, more than 6,700 members of the Afghan security forces were killed, the highest since 2001. High casualties destroy the morale of the troops and erode the public’s faith in the country’s institutions, which already have a reputation of being highly corrupt. Kabul’s erratic and sometimes incoherent responses to the Taliban threat also expose its lack of conviction. Its overall security approach, as the latest attacks suggest, is in a shambles. The armed forces are not able to stall the Taliban’s advances. Its political reforms and attempts to reach out to the rural populace get nowhere as the Taliban are expanding their hold in the countryside. Even the attempts to reach a negotiated settlement were counterproductive, given the lack of cooperation from Pakistan and the Taliban’s refusal to make any meaningful compromise. But why would the Taliban compromise at a time when they think they’re making gains in the war? In order to forge a long-term political solution, the Afghan government first needs to alter the balance of power on the ground; and for that it needs international support. The U.S. would do well to help the Afghan security forces craft a credible, sustainable military strategy and provide them more resources and training to take on the Taliban. Theatrics such as dropping the biggest non-nuclear bomb in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan may make headlines, but, as last week’s attack suggests, they hardly deter the militants.
Centre mulls nodal body for transport
A unified ministry to deliver a multi-modal system planned
•The Union government is planning to establish a single unified transport ministry by merging the Ministries of Aviation, Railways, Surface Transport and Shipping so as to ensure greater ease of doing business and boost India’s trade.
•As a first step, inter-ministerial discussions — initiated by the Prime Minister’s Office — have started for establishing a ‘Logistics and Integrated Transport Board’ as a nodal body at the central level for all transport-related matters across modes, official sources told The Hindu .
•The ‘umbrella’ Board — likely to be chaired by a Union Cabinet Minister or a Secretary to Government of India — will include top officials from other Ministries concerned such as Finance, Commerce & Industry, External Affairs and Home, as well as senior representatives from the Indian industry and legal experts, especially to address competition aspects.
‘Minimum government’
•The aim, however, is to gradually set up a single unified transport ministry by merging the ministries of Aviation, Railways, Surface Transport and Shipping to ensure greater ease of doing business and boost India’s internal and external trade, they said. It is also in line with the NDA government’s slogan of ‘minimum government and maximum governance’, they added.
•The development comes at a time when conglomerates such as Adani Group are expanding their multi-modal logistics operations and when the government is looking to expedite the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax regime to make India a unified market.
•In his 2017-18 Union Budget speech, finance minister Arun Jaitley had said: “An effective multi modal logistics and transport sector will make our economy more competitive. A specific programme for development of multi-modal logistics parks, together with multi modal transport facilities, will be drawn up and implemented.”
•Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during a recent inter-ministerial meeting, had sought to know whether currently any single Ministry or department has the “ownership and responsibility” regarding coordination of all transport and logistics related matters, the sources at the Central government said requesting anonymity.
•The meeting had taken up the issue of various departments and agencies within the Ministries of Aviation, Railways, Surface Transport and Shipping at times working in “silos,” in turn leading to red-tapism, as well as delays and higher costs in transport and logistics, hence hurting India’s trade.
•The Prime Minister was also keen to know whether having a single unified ‘logistics and integrated transport body’ at the national level would be advantageous compared with the present system. In this regard, the Centre is considering the report of the National Transport Development Policy Committee, chaired by Rakesh Mohan.
•The report, submitted to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in January 2014, had pointed out that “nearly all of the 100 largest economies, all of the OECD countries, and all of India’s emerging market ‘peers,’ the BRICS countries, have a Ministry of Transport or similar integrated equivalent rather than the collection of mode-specific ministries found in India.” It further noted that “some of these consolidated national agencies are also combined with the Ministry (or equivalent) of communication, a categorisation reminiscent of India’s early post-independence structure.”
Larger goals
•The report suggested that “India needs to have a single unified ministry with a clear mandate to deliver a multi-modal transport system that contributes to the country’s larger development goals including economic growth, expansion of employment, geographic expansion of opportunities, environmental sustainability, and energy security.”
•The Centre is also reportedly planning to build 35 multi-modal logistics parks by investing more than Rs. 50,000 crore. In a bid to link India to global supply chains and logistics, the Union Cabinet had last month approved India's accession to the United Nations TIR Convention. It will allow Indian traders hassle-free access to the global system for movement of goods by road or multi- modal means across the territories.
SEBI lines up reforms to check flow of black money
New guidelines planned for offshore derivative instruments
•Capital markets regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), will soon put in place stricter norms to check any flow of black money into stock market though controversy-ridden P-Notes and also initiate steps for allowing mutual fund investments through e-wallets.
•Besides, SEBI will consider this week new norms for allowing options trading in commodity derivative market, while rules would be relaxed for registration of foreign investors and for common licence to brokers to deal in equities and commodities, sources said.
•The SEBI board will meet on Wednesday, which would be its first meeting under the chairmanship of Ajay Tyagi, who took charge on March 1.
•Among a slew of reform measures, the SEBI board will also consider making it easier for banks and financial institutions to get shares of the companies they have exposure to by way of conversion of loan into equity — a move seen as a major boost to the steps for handling the bad loan menace.
Taking stock of probes
•The SEBI board will also take stock of long-pending investigations and cases, involving some big corporates, and will consider putting in place an internal guidance note for dealing with quasi-judicial matters.
•Besides, it would also discuss the implementation of graded surveillance measures by the stock exchanges to check any manipulation of share prices.
•The markets regulator will also consider new guidelines for dealing with offshore derivative instruments, commonly known as participatory notes (P-Notes), which have been long seen as being possibly misused for routing of black oney from abroad.
•While SEBI has tightened its norms repeatedly over the recent years to check any loophole, the government now wants the regulator to explicitly impose restrictions on resident Indians and NRIs from being ‘beneficiary owners’ of these instruments.
