THE HINDU – CURRENT NOTE 02 MAY
Erdogan calls for war on terror
Terrorists will drown in their own blood, warns Turkish President
•Turkey and India on Monday called for a collective fight against terrorism.
•Speaking at the end of delegation-level talks, visiting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the attack on CRPF personnel in Sukma, Chhattisgarh, and expressed solidarity with India, even as he stopped short of condemning cross-border terrorism by Pakistan-based groups. “We will never bow to terrorism that spreads tears and unhappiness. Terrorists will drown in their own blood,” said Mr. Erdogan, addressing the media at Hyderabad House.“I condemn the terror attack of April 24 [in Sukma], where many Indian soldiers died.”
•However, Mr. Erdogan’s condemnation of the killing of security personnel in central India contrasted with his silence over the news of alleged cross-border attack by elements based in Pakistan. The issue of cross-border terrorism was strongly taken up by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who urged for a common strategy against states that use terrorism as an instrument of power.
Turkey supports India’s UNSC bid
Calls for restructuring of Council
•Jamia Millia Islamia on Monday conferred the Degree of Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa) to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who is on a two-day visit to India.
•The university said that it was conferring the degree to President Erdogan for “his contribution to strengthen international cooperation, peace and diplomacy as well as for his extraordinary humanitarian aid to millions of refugees.”
‘Glad to accept honour’
•Mr. Erdogan said he was delighted to accept the honorary degree from a university which had played a significant role not only in India’s freedom movement but also in the way it supported the Khilafat movement in the 1920s and stood by the Turkish people and its founders.
•Citing the commonness and familiarity between the Indian and Turkish cultures, he said that “culture and education” were potential areas which could take the relationship between both countries to the next level.
•In his address, he supported a permanent United Nations Security Council seat for India and called for reforms in the UNSC. “India, with a population of 1.3 billion is not a part of the UNSC. Over 1.7 billion people live in the Islamic world but they too are not a part of the UNSC. This is not a healthy sign,” President Erdogan said.
•Criticising the current structure of the Council as arbitrary, he said that it was set up to address the crisis emanating from the Second World War but now that situation had changed drastically. It therefore required thorough restructuring to address the current geo-political reality of the world. “Only five permanent members of the Council are deciding the fate of the entire world which is not fair”, he added.
GSAT-9 heralds cost-saving technology
Test feature in May 5 mission is a tool to cut fuel load & space launch costs
•This week's space mission, GSAT-9 or the South Asia Satellite, will carry a new feature that will eventually make advanced Indian spacecraft far lighter. It will even lower the cost of launches tangibly in the near future.
•The 2,195-kg GSAT-9, due to take off on a GSLV rocket on May 5, carries an electric propulsion or EP system. The hardware is a first on an Indian spacecraft.
•M.Annadurai, Director of the ISRO Satellite Centre, Bengaluru, explained its immediate and potential benefits: the satellite will be flying with around 80 kg of chemical fuel - or just about 25% of what it would have otherwise carried.
•Managing it for more than a decade in orbit will become cost efficient.
•In the long run, with the crucial weight factor coming down later even for sophisticated satellites, Indian Space Research Organisation can launch them on its upcoming heavy rockets instead of sending them to space on costly foreign boosters. Shortly, its own vehicle GSLV MkIII is due for its full test flight.
SpaceX makes first U.S. military launch
Sends secretive satellite to space
•SpaceX on Monday blasted off a secretive U.S. government satellite, known only as NROL-76, marking the first military launch for the California-based aerospace company headed by billionaire tycoon Elon Musk.
•The payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, which makes and operates spy satellites for the United States, soared into the sky atop a Falcon 9 rocket at 1115 GMT.
•About 10 minutes after launch, the scorched first stage of the rocket came back to Earth and landed upright at Cape Canaveral, marking the fourth successful solid ground landing for SpaceX. “And we have touchdown,” a SpaceX commentator said on a live webcast as cheers broke out at mission control. “The first stage has landed back at Landing Zone 1. Another good day for us at SpaceX. A beautiful sight to see.”
•Live video of the launch showed the first and second stages of the rocket separating about two and a half minutes into the flight.
Fiery entry burn
•The larger portion of the rocket, known as the first stage, made a gentle arc and powered its nitrogen thrusters to guide it back to Earth. After a fiery entry burn, the rocket set itself down steadily in the center of the 300-foot (91-meter) circular landing zone.
•Mr. Musk is leading an effort in the rocket industry to re-use costly parts.
•SpaceX has already made multiple successful landings — some on land and others on floating ocean platforms, known as drone ships.
ASEAN wants stronger ties with China
Bloc is also preparing a code of conduct on South China Sea that urges all parties to show self-restraint
•Steering clear of blaming China for the maritime disputes in the South China Sea, the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has focussed on a regional trade pact and shoring up economies of some of the lesser developed countries in the grouping.
•A Chairman’s statement issued at the end of the Manila summit on Sunday took note of the improving cooperation between ASEAN and China. It welcomed the progress to complete a framework of the code of conduct in the South China Sea by mid-2017.
•The code is a non-binding document that urges self-restraint and resolution of disputes through direct negotiations
•On the sidelines of the summit, the Philippine Trade and Industry Secretary, Ramon Lopez, explained that President Rodrigo Duterte, who chaired the meeting, had “developed friendship” with China on his trip to Beijing in October. This had “opened many doors to the Philippines”.
•“We still have differences over the South China Sea. The wisdom is to put this issue aside and talk about business and strengthening economic ties,” he said.
•“It’s not about getting a donation and fighting back in the future.”
•The document welcomed the operationalisation of the Guidelines for Hotline Communications among senior officials of the ministries of foreign affairs of ASEAN countries and China in response to maritime emergencies. The leaders focused on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations, pointing out that the giant free trade pact will boost global trade. The RCEP is a proposed free trade agreement between ASEAN and six other states — Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. The document highlighted a commitment to assist Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam to enable them to bolster regional integration.
•The grouping reaffirmed its aspiration to play a bigger role in the global economy and reiterated their full support for the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, and for concerned parties to explore all avenues for dialogue. The ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Being pragmatic with Pyongyang
The U.S. must realise that neither more sanctions nor military strikes are viable options to rein in North Korea
•Rhetoric and political signalling is an accepted element of crisis management provided the messages are clearly understood by those for whom these are intended. If not, it becomes a source of misunderstanding and a recipe for unintended miscalculation and potential disaster. Nowhere is this more evident than in recent exchanges between the U.S. and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) where events threaten to spin out of control.
Trump’s mixed signals
•In an interview to Reuters last week, U.S. President Donald Trump, while describing it as his “biggest challenge”, cautioned: “There is a chance that we could end up having a major major conflict with North Korea. Absolutely.” Earlier in April, amid reports that North Korea might be planning another nuclear test to coincide with the 105th birth anniversary of long-time leader Kim Il Sung, Mr. Trump had announced that “an armada, very powerful” was headed towards the Korean peninsula. After a week it emerged that the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier was actually on its way to Western Australia, on account of a lack of clarity in communications. This now stands corrected. Meanwhile, a nuclear submarine, USS Michigan, has surfaced in Korean waters.
•In turn, the DPRK threatened a “super mighty pre-emptive strike”. After undertaking a live firing exercise off its east coast, it followed up with another test-firing of a ballistic missile on April 29 which fizzled, causing loss of face.
•During the campaign, Mr. Trump had said that he would be willing to talk to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, making it clear that Barack Obama’s policy focussing on tighter sanctions was a failure. After assuming office, he adopted a harder line, declaring that he would do “whatever is necessary” to prevent North Korea from developing a nuclear-capable missile that can reach the U.S.
•In the Reuters interview, however, he reflected unusual empathy when asked about Kim Jong-un: “He is 27 years old [in 2011 when he took over]. His father dies, took over a regime. So say what you want but that is not easy, especially at that age.”
•In an interview to NPR last week, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that while the North Korean leader may be ruthless, “he is not crazy”. He held out prospects of engaging in direct talks but was unwilling to engage in “negotiations about negotiations”. The U.S. has not held bilateral talks with North Korea since the Bill Clinton presidency. So clearly, there is no dearth of signalling but the question is, what is the 33-year-old Kim Jong-un expected to make of it?
Need for policy consistency
•Regime acceptance and regime survival have been key priorities for Pyongyang since the collapse of the Soviet Union. A positive move in 1992 was the withdrawal of tactical nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula and a suspension of Team Spirit, the joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises, leading to the Basic Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-Aggression, and Exchanges and Cooperation. When joint exercises were resumed in 1993, North Korea announced its decision to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The ensuing crisis led to talks and a year later, an Agreed Framework was concluded under which North Korea suspended its decision to withdraw from the NPT, agreed to freeze its nuclear activities, and in return, the U.S. pledged to build two light water nuclear power reactors. Food aid and humanitarian assistance provided by the Clinton administration from 1995 till 2000 was close to $750 million.
•The Bush administration declared North Korea part of the ‘axis of evil’ in 2002, cancelled direct talks and annulled the 1994 agreement. North Korea responded by throwing out International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and formally quit the NPT thereby provoking a fresh crisis. China and Russia initiated Six Party Talks in 2004 which led to the 2005 joint statement which expanded the scope to more than the nuclear issue. However, the talks collapsed when the U.S. imposed sanctions a few months later; North Korea responded with its first nuclear test in 2006.
•Since then, North Korea has made steady progress in its nuclear and missile programmes. An underground nuclear facility has been built at Mt. Musan. Nuclear tests were conducted in 2013 and twice last year, and it is estimated that North Korea has enough fissile material for 10 to 15 nuclear devices. By 2019, North Korea will be able to develop long-range missiles that can reach the U.S. mainland. Given Mr. Trump’s redline, Mr. Jong-un is convinced that nuclear capability is the ultimate security guarantee to protect his regime against U.S. intervention.
•U.S. policy has oscillated between sanctions in response to nuclear and missile tests, dilution of sanctions by China, talks about closer defence ties with Japan and South Korea, citing of additional threats by North Korea and more testing, thus repeating the cycle. U.S. expectations that sanctions would lead to regime collapse were misplaced because given China’s stakes, this will not happen.
Will China nudge?
•Recently China has registered a policy shift reflecting unhappiness about Mr. Jong-un’s behaviour, particularly the high-profile executions of those considered to be close to China. The most recent was the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, Mr. Jong-un’s half brother, in February, which prompted China to halting coal briquette imports from North Korea. Air China stopped direct flights to Pyongyang last month but these are now being reinstated. North Korea has accused China of “dancing to the tune of the U.S.”. However, China can neither permit a regime collapse which would create instability nor allow its communist ally to be subsumed into a unified Korea.
•Mr. Trump is trying to persuade China to exert greater leverage by praising its President, Xi Jinping, as “a good man” who is “trying hard”. After the latest missile test, Mr. Trump tweeted, “North Korea disrespected the wishes of China & its highly respected President when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!” Mr. Xi is unlikely to be persuaded. At the UN Security Council meeting on April 28, Foreign Minister Wang Yi reaffirmed support for a denuclearised Korean peninsula and previous Security Council resolutions but did not support additional punitive measures. Instead, he again suggested that the U.S. and South Korea could suspend their military exercises.
•More than North Korean tests, China is worried about the possibility of an unpredictable Trump initiating unilateral action which could create an escalatory spiral. Another concern is the U.S. decision to accelerate deployment of the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) system in South Korea though it is hopeful that a moderate President gets elected in the May 9 election in South Korea and reverses the THAAD decision.
The way forward
•Mr. Xi’s objective is to persuade Mr. Trump that neither more sanctions nor military strikes are viable options; the only option is ‘dialogue’. Second, while denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula can be a long-term objective, for the foreseeable future, Mr. Jong-un is not going to give up North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities. At most, he can agree to a freeze on its programmes — no further tests, no exports or transfers and no threats. In return, the U.S. will need to provide assurances relating to regime acceptance and a gradual normalisation of relations. A moderate leader in Seoul will help the process of a sustained dialogue which also needs coordination with Japan.
•Mr. Jong-un’s stakes are existential and, having seen Western interventions in Iraq and Libya and Russian intervention in Ukraine, he is determined to retain his nuclear capabilities till the end of what will be a long and delicate negotiating process, a process which could all too easily be derailed by confusing rhetoric and mixed signalling that has escalated tensions.
The national in the municipal
How the U.P. State and Delhi municipal elections became a hyphenated battle for the BJP
•Democracy has its paradoxes and ironies, built as a system of differences. Its institutions are supposed to allow for dissent and for diversity. However, electoral democracy can, at times, set up the basis for tyrannical rule. A majoritarian democracy can become a megalomania of numbers. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today is a party that believes in a majoritarian democracy in search of absolute control. It is not a question of passing a few laws, it is a plan for a deeper cultural control. We can sense it while having a look at the electoral map, the saffronisation of India coming across as a visual epidemic. As the electoral dots multiply, one colour dominates the electoral universe. This saffronisation is literally a project for total cultural control.
•A party in search of such totalities does not look kindly at alternatives or at competing realities. The earlier picture we had of democracy, in the Congress era, was a more affable one. As we moved from the national to the regional or local levels, the control of national parties would weaken and dissent built around local issues would create a smattering of oppositional entities. Such parties, with their tiny pockets of representation, were seen as adding to the pluralism of democracy. They were seen as necessary at the local level because they focussed on specific issues. They usually aligned themselves with larger forces at the national level while amplifying the voices of ethnicity, locality and language. Democracy did not see them as parochial creations but as a part of the politics of scale.
Towards more intolerance
•As we moved from the macro to the micro, diversity was supposed to multiply. Such local diversity was seen as a healthy sign, a way of accommodating variation and plurality at a local level. Two examples of this would testify to this. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which was a local party, could be almost secessionist in Parliament in terms of language and still be listened to with tolerance. Laldenga, once seen as an insurgent, was equally at home as Chief Minister of Mizoram in the 1980s. Such was the tolerance the Indian polity displayed.
•A totalising party such as the BJP has no such affable theory of diversity. In fact, it sees difference as a sign of absence, of a failure to infiltrate an area. Difference is immediately identified as disturbance, sedition, dissent and a challenge to the party’s plan for an absolute majority. Opposition in any form is threatening. When BJP president Amit Shah looks at a map of India and sees differently coloured dots, I think he sees red, literally, wondering why these regions are not saffron.
•There is a second dynamic here that we must understand. Small parties often tend to have large egos, and larger aspirations. The emergence of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was a perfect example. After winning a resounding victory in Delhi, it visualised new and victorious constituencies in States like Goa and Punjab, apart from imagining itself as an alternative to the BJP across the ‘Hindi Belt’. Smallness always allows for hubris and the AAP, on the basis of its Delhi victories, was already branding itself as a national party.
•For a while, the AAP did warm the imagination of middle-class India. It offered not only a more ‘grass-roots-oriented’ theory of politics but also a different style, emphasising a range of experiments in governance. Its attempts to reform school admissions and its efforts to raise the question of environmental pollution met with an almost euphoric response. It suddenly appeared like a model for a future India. In its own tiny, Lilliputian way, the AAP had become a threat for the BJP; the possibility of an epic David vs. Goliath battle was real.
Rise and fall of AAP
•The BJP has had a second plan for dominance, beyond countering the effervescence of parties like the AAP. It sees any resurgence of civil society as a threat. In fact, one of its first tactics was to suppress the variety of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) blossoming across India. It has also systematically attacked university space in the country, all part of its efforts to align the Constitution with the world view of the party.
•Arvind Kejriwal, in his initial years, combined the imagination of a civil society leader and the allure of a small party’s head. The AAP’s rise might have been a local event but it always managed to make national news. Given the lassitude of the Congress, the AAP was like a new guerrilla party which could easily outpoint a behemoth like the BJP. The very idea of such a David vs. Goliath battle was manna for the media. The BJP saw the Delhi municipal election as a continuation, an add-on to the Uttar Pradesh election. A defeat would have reopened the Pandora’s box of scepticism. One could see that the media immediately took its cues from the political signals of the BJP. Municipal elections elsewhere get a footnote or a terse notice. In Delhi, the footnote had become amplified to an epic quality. The municipal landscape, for a week, commanded national attention.
•For the BJP, and particularly for Amit Shah, the miracle of U.P. needed repetition. In many people’s minds, municipal Delhi was a hinterland of U.P., an outhouse of migrants from that State. As Yogi Adityanath entered the phase of governmentality, Mr. Shah had to invent a ‘junior Adityanath’, to convince political pundits of his political acumen. He did just that by appointing Bhojpuri star Manoj Tiwari to head the Delhi campaign. Mr. Shah had to produce an Adityanath for Delhi’s wards, which are chock-full of migrants from the Purvanchal region of U.P.
•Oddly, Mr. Tiwari’s first foray into electoral politics had been as a Samajwadi Party candidate against Mr. Adityanath in Gorakhpur, in 2009. In Mr. Tiwari, Mr. Shah found a man to outmanoeuvre Mr. Kejriwal. He offered a more cheerful theory of urbanism, a more optimistic scenario of citizenship, a smart election for the smart city boroughs of Delhi.
•A municipal election, despite its miniaturised form, became representative of national possibilities. The U.P. State elections and the Delhi municipal elections became in that sense a hyphenated battle. Mr. Tiwari had to reproduce the devastating power of Mr. Adityanath’s victory at the local level. He did.
•Politicians often sense the future in little events. They read the tea leaves of localities to predict new possibilities. Mr. Shah is a brooding futurist who sensed the strategic value of Delhi’s municipal elections. By rolling over a discouraged Mr. Kejriwal, he realised that municipal elections could be read as a major national victory. He did just that, consolidating his role as the electoral Napoleon of the BJP onslaught. The Delhi civic elections have clinched his reputation as a Mr. Juggernaut. Even sceptics like this writer have to acknowledge the tactical power of the victory.
Guided by the Constitution
On his 25th death anniversary, revisiting some of Justice K.K. Mathew’s opinions
•A collection of addresses by Justice K.K. Mathew along with excerpts from his judicial opinions, published in 1978 under the title Democracy, Equality and Freedom , became the first work of its kind in Indian legal literature. Regrettably, it was also the last! The hope expressed by its editor, Prof. Upendra Baxi, that it would be the precursor of similar literary ventures in the future remained unfulfilled.
Making a mark
•In a practical sense, the book, Democracy , Equality and Freedom , published by the Eastern Book Company — with a foreword by Justice Y.V. Chandrachud, Chief Justice of India — is why Justice K.K. Mathew is still remembered, 40 years after he stopped sitting in India’s Supreme Court. But for the illuminating and exhaustive 86-page introduction expounding the judicial creativity and craftsmanship of the judge, K.K. Mathew would have been just one judge out of a roll-call of 186 judges who had sat in India’s Supreme Court. Prof. Baxi has been moved to say that Justice Mathew’s minority opinion in Kesavananda Bharati (one out of several in a Bench decision of 13 judges) “ensures him the fame of being the Cardozo of India”!
•The reason for Prof. Baxi’s spontaneous remark is Justice Mathew’s masterly use of contemporary jurisprudential thinking when attempting to resolve the “fundamental puzzle” of India’s Constitution. His opinion in Kesavananda Bharati is a mini-treatise on the use of jurisprudence in judicial lawmaking. Justice Mathew approached the question of amendment of the Constitution as a constitutionalist, expounding a written document of governance. He refused to accept that the makers of the Constitution ever intended that Fundamental Rights should be subservient to Directive Principles of State Policy; rather (he said) they visualised a society where rights in Part IV and aspirations in Part IV would co-exist in harmony — “A succeeding generation might view the relative importance of the Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles in a different light or from a different perspective. The value judgment of the succeeding generations as regards the relative weight and importance of these rights and aspirations might be entirely different from that of the makers of the Constitution. And it is no answer to say that the relative priority value of the Directive Principle over Fundamental Rights was not apprehended, or even if apprehended was not given effect to when the Constitution was framed, or to insist that what the Directive Principles meant to the vision of that day it must mean to the vision of our time.”
•Justice Mathew concluded that the only limitation to the amending power in the Constitution was that the Constitution could not be repealed or abrogated in the exercise of the power of amendment without substituting a mechanism by which the state was constituted and organised — “that limitation flows from the language of the Article (Article 368) itself. I don’t think there were or are any implied inherent limitations upon the power of Parliament under the Article.”
Another fine moment
•But whatever be the contribution of Justice Mathew to the great Fundamental Rights case, the more important — the more seminal — decision of his was in the immediately succeeding case ( Indira Gandhi v. Raj Narain : 1975 Suppl. SCC1); his opinion in this case illustrated what a strict self-disciplinarian the judge was. Like other dissentients in Kesavananda Bharati (Ray, Beg, and Chandrachud ), Justice Mathew was able to overcome the initial intellectual difficulty of reconciling his reasoning in that case with the impelling need to hold that Article 329A (challenged in Indira Gandhi v. Raj Narain) was constitutionally impermissible. Unlike Chief Justice Ray, he did not say ( Indira Gandhi v. Raj Narain ) that Kesavananda Bharati did not decide that there were any implied limitations (arising out of the doctrine of basic structure) to the amending power of Parliament. In fact he straightaway conceded (as did Justice Chandrachud) that there was a seven-judge majority (in a Bench of 13 judges) for the proposition that “the power conferred under Article 368..... was not absolute.” Having done so, in conformity with the basic norm of judicial discipline, he then proceeded to identify democracy as an aspect of the basic structure doctrine.
•Article 329A as enacted had removed past, present and future operations of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, to election disputes affecting the Prime Minister and Speaker, and despite the absence of any applicable law it had (in effect) adjudicated the election dispute between Raj Narain and Indira Gandhi. In so doing, the amending body neither “ascertained the facts of the case” nor “applied any norms for determining the validity of the election”, and hence this was (according to Justice Mathew) plainly an exercise of “despotic power” damaging the democratic structure of the Constitution.
Giants under scrutiny
Critics of Nehru, Ataturk and Makarios are yet to offer an alternative agenda
•Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Jawaharlal Nehru and Archbishop Makarios, founders of modern Turkey, India and Cyprus respectively, are being re-evaluated by the nations they founded. That all three names evoke complex emotions is expected; the real issue, however, is that critics are not quite confident of taking on these three.
•There are many similarities in the way the three are being viewed now. Critics of Nehru blame him for a number of problems that torment India at present — issues as diverse as economy and India-China ties. Ataturk’s critics accuse modern-day Kemalists of degrading his ideology. Makarios is described either as an evil man or as a saint by different segments of Greek, Cypriot and Turkish politics.
Mixed legacies
•In India, Nehruvian politics is increasingly viewed as lacking appeal for the aspiring masses. In Turkey, Kemalism is viewed as a highly Westernised anti-religious movement, Makarios has faced criticism for not being fully pro-West, and for being a votary of non-alignment and solidarity among Third World countries. The similarities do not end there. Despite the criticism of these figures, there is also an intense race to coopt them into the dominant discourse of the day. Unable to deal with Nehru’s achievements, his critics often resort to nuances and instead of blaming him they are trying to build the memory of Nehru’s opponents like Syama Prasad Mookerjee. Similarly, Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is careful not to blame Ataturk and instead blames his followers for reducing secularism to a fetish. Cyprus is similarly caught between the ideology and memories of Makarios. Makarios championed non-alignment with Nehru and Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, but in 2004, Cyprus dumped the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and joined the European Union (EU).
•But critics don’t have full ammunition to demolish these three yet. Nehru’s politics and policies are criticised but critics do not have a complete set of alternatives. In Turkey, though it was Ataturk who had banned the headscarf, present-day rulers still enforce it in varying forms, citing freedom of choice. Cyprus wishes to model itself as the door to the European market but still clings on to the idea of Third World solidarity.
•All three are also blamed for leaving behind conflicts. Nehru is blamed for the Kashmir dispute. Ataturk’s Turkish ethnocracy created the festering Kurdish question. Makarios failed to resolve the issue of northern Cyprus with Turkey. In 1960, Nehru had tried to resolve the issue of Cyprus by bringing Turkey into non-alignment. But the move was scuttled by a military coup in Ankara. However, all three stand tall on the scale of secularism. Given the cautious criticism and lack of an alternative agenda, it is obvious that critics are not yet fully confident of taking on these three giants of world history who shaped the 20th century.
Equity in taxes
Rich farmers need to be treated on a par with other taxpayers, but with a clear road map
•A controversial proposal by Bibek Debroy, a member of the government think tank NITI Aayog, to tax agricultural income above a particular threshold has led to a public exchange of views. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley quickly dismissed any plans to tax farm income, but more policymakers have begun to voice their opinion, the latest being Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian who made it clear that taxing farm income is a State subject. The public image of farming being a poor man’s venture and the sizeable vote share that farmers enjoy have made the idea of farm taxes a political taboo. The frequent distress faced by poor or marginal farmers, which could be attributed to structural issues other than taxation, hasn’t helped matters either. But India has a presence of rich farmers as well and there exists as a strong justification for taxing them in order to widen the country’s embarrassingly narrow tax base. Mr. Debroy suggested that an appropriate tax policy should draw a distinction between rich and poor farmers, thereby addressing the widespread political apprehension of bringing agriculture under the tax net. It is no secret that India’s tax base, standing at a minuscule 5.9% of the working population, is already among the lowest in the world. This unnecessarily burdens the more formal sectors of the economy that are already overtaxed; at the same time, it handicaps government spending on the social sector.
•The case for treating agriculture on a par with other sectors is thus clear. But policymakers must also show equal care and urgency in addressing the structural issues facing the sector. This includes, among many, reforms to the broken agricultural supply chain that still leaves farmers at the mercy of middlemen cartels. Such reforms are crucial if farming is to become a sustainable enterprise in the long run. Else, a tax on high-income farmers will result only in driving resources away from agriculture into other sectors. It would make no difference to poorer farmers stuck in agriculture, merely because of the lack of opportunities. In this context, the historical transition of labour and other resources from agriculture into other sectors is particularly useful to keep in mind. The said transition has been very slow in India; in fact, according to Census figures, the size of the farm workforce increased by 28.9 million between 2001 and 2011. This is due to a combination of factors, but one in particular is worth noting: the difficulty agricultural workers face in finding jobs in other more advanced sectors. A tax on lucrative high value farm ventures, which affects their ability to absorb labourers from low-value farming, could make life more difficult for farmers unable to make the cut in industry or services. Given this, policymakers ought to tread carefully as they move forward on a long overdue fiscal reform.
Lokpal and the law
The ruling that the existing legislation is workable is an indictment of the government
•The Centre’s obvious reluctance to set up a statutory anti-corruption institution stands completely exposed after the Supreme Court made it clear that the existing Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013 is workable on its own, without having to be amended as proposed by the government. The court’s order that the law, notified in 2014, is good to go is an indictment of the delay in establishing the Lokpal. It is a rejection of the attempt to explain the delay on the ground that a parliamentary standing committee’s report on proposed amendments is still under consideration. The government was on weak legal footing when it claimed it was awaiting the passage of these amendments, mainly of one that related to the leader of the largest party in opposition in the Lok Sabha being considered as the Leader of the Opposition for the purposes of forming the Selection Committee to choose the Lokpal. The selection panel consists of the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Leader of the Opposition, the Chief Justice of India or his nominee, and an eminent jurist chosen by them. The court has noted that the Act provides for the selection committee to make appointments even when it is truncated due to a vacancy. It has made it clear that the fact that some amendments have been proposed and a parliamentary panel has submitted a report would not constitute a legal bar on enforcing the existing law.
•The court has rightly refused to read down the provision on the Leader of the Opposition to mean “the leader of the largest party in the opposition”. At the same time, it is curious that an amendment to this effect is pending since 2014, even after it was endorsed by the parliamentary committee in its December 2015 report. Provisions relating to the selection of the Chief Information Commissioner and the Central Bureau of Investigation Director have been amended to treat the leader of the largest opposition party as the Leader of the Opposition in the absence of anyone recognised as such. The delay in passing this simple amendment is inexplicable. Another provision relating to the declaration of assets by public servants was amended last year. A simple way of resolving the impasse was to recognise the Congress party leader in the Lok Sabha as the Leader of the Opposition. There is no law, except a direction from the chair when G.V. Mavalankar was Speaker, that says recognition is given only to a party that has won 10% of the seats in the Lower House. A 1977 Act on the salary of the Opposition Leader defines the position as the leader of the largest party in the opposition and recognised as such by the Speaker. An inescapable inference is that the country does not have an anti-corruption ombudsman not due to any legal bar, but due to the absence of political will.
Govt. eyes 2 mn jobs in mobile phone units
Talks are on with Apple on the new phased manufacturing plan to see how the Cupertino-based firm can fit in
•The government expects its ‘major new policy’ of a phased manufacturing programme for mobile phones to create two million jobs and half-a-billion dollars worth of manufacturing activity in the country over the next five to seven years, Electronics and Information Technology Secretary Aruna Sundararajan told The Hindu.
Ten-year roadmap
•“The basic chipset (for mobile handsets) is, of course, imported,” she said. “But the rest of the manufacturing can happen in India. So the phased manufacturing programme is our roadmap for the next ten years as to how value addition should happen in India.
•This is a very major policy declaration which we believe will incentivise large-scale mobile manufacturing.”
•The Centre will initiate fresh talks with Apple Inc which will now have to calibrate its plans to manufacture its iconic iPhones in the country, in line with a new phased manufacturing programme for mobile phones notified on Friday.
•When asked how Apple’s plans could fit in with the new programme, Ms. Sundararajan said, “That’s exactly what we are examining to see if their roadmap can be aligned with ours.
•“We have some challenges because right now, the manufacturing program we had drawn up doesn’t cover all the components they want. So that’s why we are sitting down together to see how they can work with it.”
•While the programme will enable handset makers and component suppliers to plan investments, separately, infrastructure will be created across 8,000 acres of land over three years for electronics manufacturing clusters.
•The basic issue for mobile phones, she said, was that it became cheaper to import components and finished goods after India signed the World Trade Organisation’s ITA-1 pact, under which certain inputs for IT products were exempted from duties.
Duty differential
•“Therefore, investors were not interested in manufacturing in India. We started with a duty differential approach in 2014 with three products and are now gradually trying to get companies to move up the value chain,” she said.
•The manufacturing roadmap has been prepared keeping in view the ‘state of play of the design/manufacturing ecosystem in the country, wherein through appropriate fiscal and financial incentives, indigenous manufacturing of mobile handsets and various sub-assemblies that go into their manufacturing shall be promoted over a period of time,’ according to the notification.
•With the intention to substantially increase value addition within the country, the programme envisages promoting the sub-assembly of mechanics, microphone and receiver, keypad and USB cables in 2017-18; printed circuit boards, camera modules and connectors in 2018-19; and display assembly, touch panels, vibrator motor and ringer in 2019-20.
Excess liquidity prompts banks to cut deposit rates
SBI, Bank of Baroda reduce rate by 10-50 basis points
•Public sector lenders like State Bank of India (SBI) and Bank of Baroda have reduced interest on fixed deposits on various maturities from the end of April as the banking system is flush with liquidity.
•SBI, the country’s largest lender, reduced the retail term deposit rate (for up to Rs. 1 crore) by 25-50 basis points (bps) on various maturities. (100 bps = 1 percentage point). For deposits maturing from two years to less than three years, SBI customers will earn 6.25% as compared with 6.75% earlier.
•For three years to 10-year deposits, the interest rate will be 6.25% as compared with 6.5%. The new rates came into effect on Saturday. Senior citizens will continue to get 50 bps more over the card rate.
•Another public sector lender, Bank of Baroda, reduced the deposit rate by 10-25 bps on various maturities. The one-year deposit rate will now be 6.9% as compared with 7% earlier.
•“There is abundant liquidity in the system, which has prompted banks to cut the rates,” said a senior official from Bank of Baroda. According to Reserve Bank of India, the surplus liquidity in the banking system was Rs. 4.8 lakh crore in March, though it has come down from its peak of Rs. 8 lakh crore in January.
•In early January, banks had reduced the benchmark lending rate — the marginal cost of funds based lending rate — sharply, by about 90 bps. The move followed demonetisation which resulted in significantly high mobilisation of low-cost deposits. However, banks had not reduced deposit rates at the time. Now, banks have not cut their lending rates.
