THE HINDU – CURRENT NOTE 03 MAY
Summer of dry lakes and dry throats
While the drought-hit cities of Telangana struggle to deal with the consequences of declining groundwater availability, rural regions are grappling with severe drinking water shortages
•Urban and rural areas of Telangana have contrasting details but similar intensity of water stress during the ongoing season of drought-like conditions.
In Hyderabad, the development trajectory seems to be changing the metropolis’ image from the “City of Lakes,” as it was known since the erstwhile Nizam’s time, to a city of encroachments. Field visits, revenue records, environmental studies and the admissions of government officials suggest that all the 170 lakes in the Greater Hyderabad region have been encroached upon.
The lakes have been exploited for illegal construction for everything from slum settlements to posh colonies and farmhouses, which raises the question of loopholes within the system. “For the longest time, the government officials have deliberately changed the definition of a lake boundary,” said Jasveen Jairath, a well-known city activist. “The Full Tank Level or the FTL only determines the depth of a water body and it can have infinite boundaries. What needs to be considered is the total water spread of a lake. Sadly, government officials confuse the media and the judiciary by considering FTL in cases leading to suppression of encroachments or delayed justice,” she said.
There are also indications that the State government may not be doing enough to conserve the lakes. “The government officials are not even aware of the local names of the lakes. They have documented the same name for more than one lake. They also do not have the coordinates and complete information of every lake in the city,” said Lubna Sarwath of Save Our Urban Lakes (SOUL).
•The landscape of the western part of the city is almost a guide on converting lakes and stormwater drains into lucrative real estate. Many properties in Kukatpally, Miyapur, Chandanagar and surrounding areas have sprung up on top of lake areas. During last year’s heavy rain many of these colonies were submerged.
Recently, the State government carried out a five-month survey for 173 stormwater drains, spread over a total length of 390 km. It was found that 12,182 illegal structures had come up along the drains.
“Most of the lake encroachment cases are in courts. In cases where we got a favourable verdict from courts, the local political conditions are preventing any decisive action against these structures,” said a senior official of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation.
Experts concur that the concretisation of catchment area and restriction of inflow channels has resulted in plummeting groundwater levels in the city.
In Rangareddy district adjoining the city’s outskirts, a 2015 analysis by the Telangana Ground Water Department showed that the groundwater level in was 20 metres below the surface.
Drinking water crisis
•In the hilly agency tract of Kumram Bheem Asifabad district in Telangana, the drought is manifested as scarcity of drinking water thanks to an unsuccessful attempt to supply water through the ambitious Kumram Bheem Drinking Water Supply Scheme (KBDWSS). The scheme envisaged supply of purified water to every household through taps by lifting water from the Kumram Bheem reservoir.
It is nearly nine years since work started on the ₹150 crore KBDWSS but only a handful of villages have benefited, and even then, the supply is erratic due to power supply issues.
Recently, the Northern Power Distribution Company Limited disconnected three-phase power to the 14 villages between Hatti and Jodeghat as the government failed to clear electricity bill dues.
It is a great irony that the area thirsts for water every summer despite being washed by many a hill stream in monsoon and winter. “Local water harvesting is what is needed in the mandals of Asifabad, Wankidi, Kerameri, Jainoor, Sirpur (U), Lingapur and Tiryani,” an official of the Rural Water Supply department said.
“We cannot afford to buy water”
The same story is told about Karasgutti, located more than 100 Km from the district headquarters Sangareddy and 20 Km from the constituency headquarters Narayanakhed. Karasgutti is surrounded by 20 hamlets located one to 3 Km apart.
Many of the hamlets’ revenues are limited and they cannot afford to buy water. “Those who are passing on the road in four wheelers only occasionally ask for water. Very rarely, the locals buy water,” said local shop owner Banoth Santosh, adding that bottled water cost ₹20.
“They are more dependent on Manjeera water that comes once in three or four days and bore wells existing in the surrounding areas. We cannot afford to buy water,” said K. Pandu Ranga Rao, resident of Sukkal Teerth of Manoor mandal.
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Andhra Pradesh - Water availability dwindling in tribal tracts
•Tribal women trekking long distances to fetch drinking water, risking their health, is a common sight in the hilly areas of Visakhapatnam district.
As summer turns harsher, the situation worsens in almost 40% of the 3,400 habitations spread over 11 mandals in 244 gram panchayats. The locals face untold hardship for water. Tribal communities numbering 6.5 lakh people, the highest of any district in Andhra Pradesh, live in the fragile ecosystem of the foothills of the Eastern Ghats.
Their habitations are on highly elevated places and the tribal women on average travel 2 Km to 5 Km to collect freshwater from the streams. Some even use children to assist them in carrying a few pots of water.
NGO activists working in the tribal areas blame the scarcity on the lack of maintenance of water harvesting structures, Gabriel structures (stone water harvesting), RO water plants, gravitational water supply and solar power-propelled water supply.
The Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) and Panchayat Raj
Department have launched several projects to mitigate water problem
in the hilly tracts, yet S. Balaraju, founder of Nature, an NGO which works
for livelihood improvement among tribals in north Andhra Pradesh, said, “There is massive rise in construction activity due to the boom in construction of government buildings and housing. Over 13 lakh Sq ft of built space has been created over the past four years. The use of cement has led to excessive use of water and choking out of the flow of hill streams.”
ITDA contingency plan
•Admitting that the water situation deteriorates during summer, ITDA project officer Pattanshetti Ravi Subash said that they were implementing a contingency plan with an outlay of ₹3.4 crore, to take up 106 works for augmenting and replacing pump-sets and other defunct systems.
Those habitations which are left out will get funds from the Velugu Project – a poverty amelioration project in the rural areas.
No invasion of body for UID: Centre
Says the right of a person to his or her body is not absolute, State has the power to take the life of a person
•Taking fingerprints and iris impressions for Aadhaar is not an invasion of a citizen’s body as the right of a person to his own body is not absolute, the government told the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
•Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi illustrated the might of the state by referring to its power to take the life of a person, forcing a Bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and Ashok Bhushan to intervene and point out that a state can extinguish a person’s life only after following due process of law.
•“The state has the duty to maintain the liberty of an individual. The state has, more importantly, the obligation to maintain the dignity of an individual. Dignity is an individual right,” Justice Sikri addressed the Attorney-General.
Submission to laws
•Mr. Rohatgi defended the legality of a newly-included Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act making Aadhaar mandatory for filing income tax returns and PAN card, saying if one has to live in a collective called the ‘state’, one has to submit to its laws.
•The AG was replying to arguments made earlier by senior advocate Shyam Divan that the state does not have the right to force a citizen to part with biometric details without free, informed and voluntary consent.
•“Can you say I have a right to abuse my body because it is my body and I will pick up weed from the road and smoke it? People take all kinds of photos. We part with all kinds of data through our mobile phones. How is an iris scan more intrusive than photos? The argument of so-called privacy and bodily integrity is bogus,” Mr. Rohatgi responded.
•“We are not against state regulations, but these regulations should not infringe upon the citizens’ fundamental rights,” Justice Sikri countered.
•Mr. Rohatgi said the criticism against the biometric system of identification used in Aadhaar enrolment was based on the “myopic viewpoint of the rich who do not anyway use the public distribution system”.
•“These are people who say they have a right to be forgotten. But the state cannot forget you. There are a large number of people out there who want to be remembered and included in the welfare schemes of the state. They want to get an Aadhaar and say that they are no less than the man who goes around in a Mercedes. Aadhaar ensures empowerment by giving them an identity,” Mr. Rohatgi submitted.
Proof of eagerness
•He said the 113.7 crore Aadhaar cards produced so far were proof that people were eager to enroll. He said even in PAN, though 29 crore PAN cards were produced, there were only five crore assessees. The rest 24 crore PAN card holders had taken PAN to use it as a unique identity proof.
•He said duplication of Aadhaar is “non-existent” unlike in PAN. “Despite the petitioner’s argument that Aadhaar cards were made with photographs of Hanumanji, etc, these are not cases of duplication and cheating as seen in PAN. Must have been some unintended mistake,” Mr. Rohatgi submitted.
•Countering arguments made that fingerprint and iris impressions would be used to mount a state surveillance and the “nation would turn into a large concentration camp”, Mr. Rohatgi submitted that the mandatory linkage of PAN with Aadhaar was a step towards a “more orderly world”.
•“It is to ensure that tax money goes to serve the poor and will create a better world. Not because Uncle Sam wants to snoop on you,” he said. The AG added that there was nothing wrong in the state collecting fingerprints to help prevent or to aid solving a crime. “But is it alright to treat everyone as a suspect?” Justice Siri asked.
•Mr. Rohatgi said the government had conceptualised including biometric identification in PANs way back in 2009. “We had in mind something like a PAN Plus, but entrepreneur Nandan Nilekani introduced Aadhaar,” Mr. Rohatgi submitted.
•He said Section 139AA is nothing but a repetition of PAN in the more complicated milieu of today. “The only difference is one of single ‘A’ and double ‘A’,” Mr. Rohatgi said.
New IT rules to beef up Aadhaar
Official promises end to security fears
•To address privacy and security concerns over Aadhaar, the Centre is in the process of educating government agencies that sensitive data must not be made public, and is drafting amendments to the Information Technology (IT) Act to strengthen provisions for data protection and security.
•Apart from privacy issues, the new IT law will quell security concerns related to digital payments, Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary, Union Electronics and Information Technology Ministry, told The Hindu . Her comments assume significance as Aadhaar’s original architect and former Infosys CEO, Nandan Nilekani, recently mooted the need for strong data protection and privacy laws to ensure citizen data in the Unique Identification (UID) database was not misused.
Plugging data leakage
•Close to 135 million Aadhaar numbers and 100 million bank account numbers could have leaked from official portals dealing with government programmes of pensions and rural employment, according to a report by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) published on Monday. With Aadhaar being used to authenticate and authorise transactions, the financial risks presented by the disclosure of such data are greatly exacerbated, it said.
•“Actually, Aadhaar has very strong privacy regulation built into it... But the area we are working on is enforcement,” Ms. Sundararajan said.
•“People are not aware. So a large number of government agencies are making available all this sensitive data. So now, the process is to educate them so that they become aware that Aadhaar data is not meant to be published like this freely,” she said.
•“No Aadhaar data can be shared with anybody or be used for any purpose other than for which it was collected. There are several limitations imposed by the Act,” she said.
•As per the CIS report, the data in question has not been treated as confidential at all in several cases and the government agencies in question have, in fact, taken pains to publish them. “These are wilful and intentional instances of treating Aadhaar numbers and other personally identifiable information (PII) as publicly shareable data by the custodians of the data,” the CIS report noted.
Legal changes
•“Some of the amendments we are bringing to the IT Act should take care of the rest of the (privacy and data protection) concerns relating to Aadhaar,” Ms. Sundararajan said. The key focus of these amendments being drafted, she said, is strengthening data protection provisions and security, particularly in relation to digital payments.
‘India should have its own policy on Afghanistan’
The former Afghan President on U.S. doublespeak on Af-Pak, elusive peace, and why India must stay invested in his country
•For years, former Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has been outspoken in his criticism of U.S. action in the war on terror. But in the aftermath of American forces dropping a massive 22,000-tonne ‘MOAB’ — its biggest non-nuclear bomb — in the country on April 13, he has criticised the Ashraf Ghani government too, the first time he has been this vocally critical of his successor. In an interview to The Hindu during a visit to Delhi, he explains his comments, as well as his hopes for Indian engagement in Afghanistan in the future. Excerpts:
•You have come out very strongly against the U.S. bombing in Nangarhar province. Given that the GBU/43B MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Blast) was claimed to have been used to target ISIS Khorasan, that everyone seems to agree is a major threat to Afghanistan, why are you objecting?
•I am objecting for two reasons. One, that the Americans waited two and a half to three years for Daesh (the Islamic State) to entrench itself in Nangarhar province’s Shinwar district, and to use those caves, and to abuse our people, to evacuate villages of their inhabitants, and basically allowed Daesh to do all of this, without stopping them. They had all the means to stop Daesh from infiltrating into Afghanistan across the Durand Line all this time. They monitor this line at all times. So, having allowed them to cross into Afghanistan, to allow them to carry supplies and ammunition in... that is a very mountainous area and those passes could have been easily stopped with just a few people. None of that was done. And then when the local people rose against Daesh, instead of helping local people there, the U.S. Air Force planes targeted their village defence lines against Daesh.
By mistake, they said…
•Yes, but we don’t know about this. It looks like a mistake, but how do they keep making mistakes like this? Should they not know who is the enemy? And then, hundreds of thousands of people were driven away from their villages; almost all the tribal chiefs I knew had been driven out of their villages with their people. Then the U.S. comes and hits Afghanistan in the name of Daesh, and that too with the deadliest bomb they have short of a nuclear weapon. This isn’t hurting Daesh. The motive for the U.S. is clearly to test its bomb in Afghanistan, and to send tough signals to its rivals at the same time. So I condemn it in the strongest possible terms, and I see it as a violation of Afghan sovereignty and an attack on our soil, on Afghan lives and on Afghan environment.
•You’ve even accused President Ghani’s government of “treason” for allowing the bombing. Won’t such allegations weaken the National Unity Government at this time?
•I don’t want to weaken the National Unity Government, but at the same time I want the government to defend Afghanistan. The American bomb was a violation of Afghanistan, it was an attack on Afghanistan. And the U.S. is supposed to be our ally. They have signed a bilateral security agreement with us. According to the agreement, they are supposed to strengthen Afghanistan, defeat terrorism, and protect our borders. After the signing of the BSA [U.S.-Afghanistan Bilateral Security Agreement, signed in 2014], the Pakistani Air Force has violated our borders several times, their troops have entered Afghanistan, and the U.S. has done nothing. The country has become more insecure than ever before. And to now bomb an ally like us with the excuse of Daesh is simply not acceptable, and in my view the Afghan government should have stood up to the U.S. on this. Where was the need to support it anyway, when it appears they were not consulted before? And within hours, the Health Ministry put out a notification saying there were no unhealthy side effects to the [MOAB] bomb. How do they know?
•In the past few weeks, U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and Defence Secretary James Mattis have both visited the region, travelling to Kabul, Islamabad and New Delhi, and the Trump administration seems to be considering its options on its future course in Afghanistan. What do you think the U.S.’s priorities should be, and how do you think India can be a part of its plans?
•We have heard of the U.S.’s to-and-fro diplomacy since 2002. They come one day and say that terrorists are being kept and trained inside sanctuaries inside Pakistan. And then they provide Pakistan with hundreds of thousands of dollars in aid. You heard, about five years ago, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral [Mike] Mullen called the Haqqani network a “veritable arm of the ISI”. They made a statement that was so strong five years ago, and subsequently continued to supply Pakistan with weapons, aircraft and money. Just recently, they have announced another $350 million to Pakistan [under the Coalition Support Fund]. They can’t talk one way and walk another way. So for me, U.S. NSA McMaster’s visit is just a repetition of what I saw during my government, and all that has followed with the next government.
•You’re accusing the U.S. of doublespeak, yet some may say Russia is doing the same thing. Its latest initiative on Afghanistan, bringing together what you have called a “strategic arc” of Iran, China, India and Central Asia, also includes reaching out to the Taliban and Pakistan. Given that you are visiting Delhi after visits to Beijing and Moscow, what do you see as the purpose of this initiative, and how do you justify its decision to protect the Taliban in particular?
•Yes, well, Russia, India, China, even Iran, all supported U.S. presence and its actions in Afghanistan from 2002 onwards.
•They were all part of the Bonn Conference [in 2001] and continued to support the U.S. aims in Afghanistan: fight terrorism, bring stability to Afghanistan, and address the issues in Pakistan as well. But look what happened. After all these years, that cooperation has given way to competition between them. I remember in 2008, for the first time at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation conference, I complained to Russian President [Vladimir] Putin about American actions in Afghanistan.
Complained?
•I said that the way the U.S. forces were implementing their war on terror, carrying out operations — the manner of the operations, the aerial bombardment, arrests, torture, and the lack of action against sanctuaries on the Pakistani side — was causing more extremism and violence in Afghanistan and adding to the ranks of the Taliban. At that time President Putin told me he had many differences with the U.S.’s conduct in the world, but on Afghanistan they saw “eye to eye”. This Russian stand continued from 2002 to 2012, when finally they began to ask questions. For example, how come the U.S. keeps announcing more and more aid for the war in Afghanistan, there’s more fighting, more casualties, more terrorism there?
•Why was the war moving in a negative way, as if its purpose was to create more terrorists? So I ask, how come, compared to the solidarity from the world in 2002, the U.S. lost all its allies on Afghanistan?
•Russia’s move to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan is certainly a welcome step. The Taliban are Afghans. Those who are Afghans and want to give up violence must be encouraged and supported to do so. The Russians aren’t the only ones to talk to the Taliban. The U.S. held talks with the Taliban, both directly and through Pakistan. They met them in Qatar, I know that, and so have other countries. The Germans have held talks. The Norwegians conducted meetings between Taliban and Afghan civil society representatives in Oslo. So why single out only Russia?
•India hasn’t stopped others from talking to the Taliban, but believes this will not lead to peace, as the latest April 21 attack in Mazar-e-Sharif has shown, in which over 140 soldiers were killed by the Taliban. Do you still feel including the Taliban will work?
•I have made it very clear that I can no longer call the Taliban my brothers. Their outrages against the Afghan people are horrendous, and I say every attack they commit now is helping continue the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. If they truly want the U.S. to leave, they must engage in a peace process with the Afghan government and people.
•India is a stronger partner of the U.S. today, and the U.S. has publicly called for it to have a greater role in Afghan security. What is your view on what India should do?
•The U.S. has done the right thing in asking India to do more in Afghanistan. This is something I had asked the Indian leadership when I was President, and I know President Ghani has done the same. My view is that while it is okay for the U.S. to ask this of India, India should do more on its own initiative, have its own foreign policy on Afghanistan.
•Today, the U.S. may ask India to do more, tomorrow it may ask India not to do more. Will India pull back then? India should have its own policy on Afghanistan, based on its own view of the region, its own interests in the region, and the interests of peace and stability in Afghanistan. Yes, India should do more on Afghanistan, but it should do more on its own terms, not on requests from America.
What does this “do more” mean? Does it mean boots on the ground?
•No, it doesn’t mean boots on the ground, we don’t need that. The “do more” means provide Afghanistan what it needs to stand on its own feet, to enable Afghanistan [Army] to defend the country, to enable Afghanistan to fight extremism and the violation of our sovereignty from across the Durand Line, to help Afghanistan back to normalcy as a strong state. And do it all as an India-Afghanistan initiative, not because any third country requests India. I am sure it already has such a policy, and I hope we will see more of it.
Winning back the Valley
Delhi must make an open appeal for peace in Kashmir accompanied by consultations with all segments
•The deteriorating situation in Jammu and Kashmir, together with strained relations among the Agenda for Alliance partners in the State, obviously prompted the meeting between Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The April 24 meeting covered various measures to deal with the violent protests that have rocked the Valley lately, but the main outcome seemed to have been that the Bharatiya Janata Party-Peoples Democratic Party alliance would continue.
•The BJP-PDP ‘soft alliance’ may have survived another rough patch. Kashmir, however, does not seem to be going anywhere. This may be par for the course as far as J&K is concerned, for in the evaluation of sceptics the future of Kashmir is almost always more of the same. The argument is that Delhi is, by and large, uninterested in changing its course, and is content with providing puerile explanations for the lives lost and the recurring crises that afflict the State. For alliance partner PDP, having lost its way as far as governance is concerned, it is currently more intent on clinging to the Alliance and the Srinagar gaddi. The future of Kashmir, hence, is nobody’s concern.
More complex yet
•If, during the latter part of 2016, Kashmir was portrayed as confronting one of its gravest crises ever, the situation in the Valley today is to all intents and purposes far more complex. The violent protests, with a high number of killed and injured, have hardly come down; the patterns set following the death of Burhan Wani in an encounter in July 2016 also continue.
•No one in the Establishment, either in Srinagar or in Delhi, seems to know why the violence is continuing. The unchanging nature of the Kashmir scene since late 2016 and extending into 2017 is beginning to worry even those who have for long been inured to violence and ideas of a change in plan, their sole concern having been ensuring that Kashmir remains an integral part of India.
•Today it is not so much the dreaded foreign militants as the ‘unattached militants’ who are responsible for the bulk of the current wave of violence. They do not appear to have a direct link to pro-Pakistan militant outfits such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, though some linkages with the local Hizbul Mujahideen may exist.
•The leaders are unrecognisable, and specific causes undecipherable. Pakistan has not moved away and continues to instigate violence, the latest attack being on an Army camp in Kupwara (in which three Army men were killed), patterned on earlier attacks in Uri and Pathankot. The new threat comes from an entirely different source.
•Consequently, the refrain of external instigation and Pakistan’s role is inadequate to explain the current imbroglio. Urging the security forces to exercise restraint and avoid collateral damage during operations also makes little sense. The issues are far deeper than urging all stakeholders to allay the apprehensions and misgivings of the Kashmir youth. Something very different has occurred and something new needs to be attempted.
•The unorganised – and even divided – nature of the protest movement carries the danger that it could turn into an Intifada, a kind of people’s uprising with no known leaders, and increasing numbers of trouble-makers, all portraying themselves as leaders of the movement. It carries deep risks for both domestic and international reasons. It is something that India must prevent before it actually takes shape, and ‘martyrdom’ becomes the new normal.
•The moot question is whether India can, and is willing, to handle the truth — bite the bullet in other words. India could continue to acknowledge that those responsible for the past violence have not abandoned the scene, but will need to admit at the same time that a change is taking place behind the scene. New faces of militancy had emerged. Amongst these are a large number who were previously seen as India’s hope in the battle for normalcy in Kashmir, and were willing to stake their future in India.
•Since 2008, the Valley has witnessed several waves of unrest. In 2008 and 2010 Kashmir went through a particularly difficult period, but the main instigators then were those who were trained by Pakistan, and the bulk of those involved were inspired by Pakistan. Since 2016, however, it is the ‘unattached militant’ who has been in the forefront of the struggle. What could be the explanation for this?
•As in many other areas, truth tends to be sporadic here, and reality obscure. It would seem that after the dangerous 1990s, militancy has once again regained social acceptance. To an ever increasing number of youth, the profile of violence stands in contrast to the hypocritical utterances of the authorities in Srinagar and Delhi.
•As of today, the Agenda for Alliance, the PDP, Hurriyat leaders like Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the erstwhile secessionist leaders like Yasin Malik all stand marginalised. Anger is the dominant sentiment, as epitomised by the violent protests and the near total boycott of the recent Srinagar poll. The message sent out is clear. Peace cannot be enforced by authoritarian means or by fiat.
•Episode upon episode, Kashmir is steadily unravelling. Normalcy is tending to be episodic. Over and above this is the emergence of what can only be termed as ‘strategic falsehood’. Social media tweets and retweets are altering ground realities. Hyperbole is making a mockery of truth and providing scope for still more lies. The only realities are: the dead, the wounded, the martyr and, of course, the authorities who are the villains.
•The authorities are losing the propaganda war. Social media is putting out its own account of events and encounters, aided and abetted by several thousands of social media accounts operating from across the border. This is what is providing oxygen to the ‘unattached militant’, and more significantly, leading to a ‘rainbow coalition’ between the ‘unattached militant’ and the ‘Deep State’ in Pakistan.
•Counsels of despair are not of any use. Putting the blame on the ruling coalition for the present morass in Kashmir, as former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah has done recently, hardly helps. His assertion that India is heading towards disaster is again of little use. The suggestions that he has to offer are a repeat of what has previously been said and tried.
•Restraining and restricting Pakistan’s ability to fish in troubled waters will not be easy. Any expectation that the U.S. would lean sufficiently on Pakistan to impel the latter to avoid meddling in Kashmir needs to be given up. Pakistan is crucial for the U.S. to sort out its Afghan imbroglio. Within Kashmir, the Hurriyat has, today, lost much of its relevance. The PDP-BJP alliance is floundering and has few real insights into what is taking place. Delhi seems far removed from the reality of the grim scenario unfolding in the Valley. Leaving matters to intelligence and security agencies, and the Army would be the least viable option.
•Where do we go from here? To begin with, policymakers must ponder deeply as to why ordinary citizens are prepared to gravitate to areas where actual encounters are taking place risking death and injury even though they are not involved in the protests.
•Resorting to pyrotechnics such as the novel idea of tying a protester to the bonnet of a security vehicle and driving it through a crowd of agitators are best avoided. Today’s agitators are angry and reckless, but it is they who are redefining the nature of protests and reshaping the contours of the movement.
Back to the drawing board
•The situation thus demands a complete makeover. There is a need to go back to the drawing board and effect changes in Kashmir’s Constitution that were introduced post the 1960s. This would help establish a measure of credibility to India’s claims that it is not seeking to undermine the autonomy that Kashmir prizes so much. What these are will need to be carefully worked out by teams of constitutional and other experts.
•Immediately, however, what is most crucial is to make an open and impassioned appeal for peace in the Valley accompanied by meetings and consultations at several levels. No segment should be excluded, including separatists and the Hurriyat. Some of the ideas set out in the ‘backchannel’ proposals (2005-2008) should be revived. Jobs for Kashmiri youth must be a priority and a massive job-oriented programme launched. India could consider swallowing its pride and reopen talks with Pakistan, not so much hoping that Pakistan would cooperate but to assuage the ‘hard-liners’ in Kashmir. Detaching from a muscular policy to a more reasoned one has become essential.
Powering up food
Augmenting foods with nutrients can improve overall health, but it must be regulated
•Since a diversified diet that meets all nutritional requirements is difficult to provide, fortification of food is relied upon by many countries to prevent malnutrition. The World Health Organisation estimates that deficiency of key micronutrients such as iron, vitamin A and iodine together affects a third of the world’s population; in general, insufficient consumption of vitamins and minerals remains problematic. Viewed against the nutrition challenge India faces, processed foods with standards-based fortification can help advance overall health goals, starting with maternal health. It is imperative, for a start, to make iron-fortified food widely available, since iron deficiency contributes to 20% of maternal deaths and is associated with nearly half of all maternal deaths. The shadow of malnutrition extends to the children that women with anaemia give birth to. They often have low birth weight, are pre-term, and suffer from poor development and lower cognitive abilities. Low intake of vitamins, zinc and folate also causes a variety of health issues, particularly when growing children are deprived. Fortification is a low-cost solution. The benefit is maximised when there is a focus also on adequate intake of oils and fats, which are necessary for the absorption of micronutrients and something poorer households often miss in their diet.
•The efficacy of the fortification standards introduced by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) will depend on enforcement. It is important to ensure that all sections of producers meet the norms, since the FSSAI plans to get local flour mills to add premixed nutrients. Making affordable, good quality fortified foods widely available is the key. Only such standardised processes can provide micronutrients to women, and in turn to breastfed children in the first six months after birth. A well-functioning public distribution system is the best channel to reach precisely those sections that need fortified food the most. In the case of children, recent studies show that adding zinc to food during the six months to 12 years growth period reduced the risk of death from infectious diseases and all causes put together. Fortified food, therefore, provides near to medium-term gains, and addresses micronutrient malnutrition concerns at the population level. Yet, as the WHO points out, in the long term, public health goals on prevention and elimination of nutritional deficiencies should aim at encouraging people to adopt a diversified and wholesome diet. Children, including those in school, should get a wholesome cooked meal that is naturally rich, and augmented with vegetables, fruits, dairy and other foods of choice. Fortified foods can help fill the gaps, particularly in areas that are in need of speedy remedial nutrition. It is also vital that food regulation views the issue of affordability as a central concern, because unaffordable fortified food would defeat the very purpose of fortification.
Refuge from the sinking islands
We need an international forum to help small island nations threatened by rising sea levels
•Tuvalu is a small island nation in the South Pacific and home to about 10,000 people. It is likely to be under water in less than 70 years. Due to the rising sea level caused by global warming, other low-lying island nations such as Kiribati, Fiji, Marshall Islands, Vanuatu, Micronesia and Nauru are destined to suffer the same fate.
•The 52 low-lying vulnerable island nations sustain 62 million people and emit less than 1% of global greenhouse gases (GHGs), yet are among the first victims of climate disruption. High sea levels have already resulted in displacement of people in several small island nations. These island nations require immediate remedies, including migration, compensation and reduction in GHG emissions.
Broad but urgent remedies
•More people are likely to migrate due to slow-onset processes of environmental degradation such as inundation, desertification, soil erosion and changing coastlines than sudden-onset events like storms and cyclones.
•The total population in the South Sea region is projected to reach in excess of 18 million by mid-century, which could result in between 665,000 and 1,750,000 people migrating to other regions of the world. A sea level rise of 0.5 to 2 m could leave between 1.2 and 2.2 million people displaced from the Caribbean Sea and the Indian and Pacific Oceans. This will set off domestic as well as cross-border migration.
•The international community does not yet realise its responsibility to enable such migration. For example, on request from Tuvalu’s Prime Minister, New Zealand agreed to allow a meagre 75 Tuvaluans to relocate annually to their country, a migration that should stretch over 140 years. Australia refused to make any offers when approached similarly.
•The cost of adaptation is bound to be exorbitant. The capital cost of sea level rise in the Caribbean Community countries alone is estimated at $187 billion by 2080. The Pacific Possible programme of the World Bank predicts the cost of adaptation to be $18,500 per person for Marshall Islands and $11,000 for Solomon Islands over a period of 30 years from 2012. Legal analysts are considering the possibility of an international compensation commission which could address the burden of adaptation expenses on the island nations through an international fund.
•With the policies in force today, GHG emissions are projected to grow by 50% by 2050. Any amount of decrease in GHG emissions cannot save the islands from sinking, but a significant decrease in emissions could delay the island nations from becoming uninhabitable, thereby postponing the burden of accommodating mass migration.
•While these are broad remedies that the sinking island nations immediately require, they are hardly exhaustive. There is a need for a wide range of varied remedies, mostly adaptive, such as coastal protection, population consolidation, rainwater harvesting and storage, alternative methods of growing fruits and vegetables, human resource development and research and observation. However, in any remedial adaptive mechanism employed, high costs are unavoidable.
A single-purpose forum
•The only practical way to attain these remedies seems to be to reinvigorate political pressure and negotiate globally to arrive at a forum that could deal with the issue.
•The primary focus of the forum so created must be to ensure adequate and appropriate remedies as discussed above. The forum must enable negotiations regarding the legal status of migrants and develop adaptive strategies in the destination country to guarantee and to protect dignity and cultural identity of the displaced in the destination country. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992) obligates countries to provide finance to resist global warming. By extending such existing obligations through political pressure and diplomacy, the forum could ensure compensation to the island nations in the form of contributions from party countries by managing a fund created in this regard.
•Lastly, the forum would require a tribunal to assess the case presented by each island nation and to decide whether help from the international community is required. The tribunal could then invoke appropriate measures such as multilateral negotiations or directions that enable migration, compensation and other remedies that could save the people of the sinking small island nations.
‘Skill councils have conflict of interests’
They are a ‘hotbed of crony capitalism,’ says a government-constituted panel
•A board member of a government-funded apex skilling agency is also a training partner and a promoter of a skill council.
•The son of the chairman of a sectoral skill council is a co-promoter of a training firm as well as an assessment agency that oversees the outcomes achieved on job placements by such firms in the same domain.
•These are just two instances of conflict of interest among a dozen highlighted in a damning report on India’s recent skill development initiatives through 40 sectoral skill councils set up under the aegis of the National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC).
•The Sharada Prasad Committee constituted by the Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Ministry to review, rationalise and optimise the functioning of sector skill councils has termed these councils a ‘hotbed of crony capitalism’ that have tried to ‘extract maximum benefit from public funds.’
•Citing several instances of conflict of interest in the councils’ membership base, including those involving three NSDC board members, the panel has recommended that the Centre scrap all existing skill councils, many of which have overlapping roles and introduce an oversight mechanism on the NSDC, preferably from the central bank, as it is registered as a non-banking finance company.
•“All these public funds have been used without serving the two basic objectives of meeting the exact skill needs of the industry and providing employment to youth,” it noted.
•“In many cases, the NSDC itself has promoted them as the governance mechanism of NSDC fosters such functioning…,” according to the committee, led by former Director General For Employment and Training Sharada Prasad said, adding that it appears that NSDC has failed to discharge its responsibilities and deviated from its original role.
Comprehensive review
•“The Committee, therefore, recommends that the Government should review the NSDC’s role and functioning comprehensively with reference to its Memorandum of Association and create a strong oversight mechanism to ensure that such conflicts of interest do not arise in future,” it said, stressing that the situation arose because NSDC is 100% government-funded but accountable to a board that consists of a majority of private sector industry associations.
