THE HINDU – CURRENT NOTE 05 MAY
U.S., Germany slam India for NGO funding norms
Rohatgi defends India’s record at UN Human Rights Council
•NGOs must abide by India’s laws, Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi told the UN’s Human Rights Council at Geneva, as the government faced a tough “peer review” by other countries at the Council. The Council members on Thursday recommended a revision in India’s Foreign Contribution Regulatory Act (FCRA), a repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, decriminalisation of homosexuality and the inclusion of marital rape in Indian laws on sexual violence.
•“Supported by a rights-oriented constitutional framework, secular polity, independent judiciary, free and vibrant media, vocal civil society, and a range of national and State-level commissions that monitor compliance with human rights, India continues with its endeavours towards observance of human rights,” the Attorney-General replied, adding that the FCRA is a legitimate law that NGOs wishing to operate in India must follow.
•The attack on the FCRA act came from nearly a dozen countries, mostly from Europe. The charge was led by the U.S. and Germany, who called the Act and the government’s actions “arbitrary”.
•“India must defend the right to freedom of association, which includes the ability of civil society organisations to access foreign funding, and protect human rights defenders effectively against harassment and intimidation,” the German Ambassador to the UN mission in Geneva said, while the U.S. envoy decried the “complete lack of transparency” in the implementation of the FCRA.
•Australia, Ireland, Norway, South Korea, Denmark and the Czech Republic were among other countries calling for a review of the FCRA that has led to the licences of about 14,000 of NGOs being cancelled because of alleged violations.
Attack on minorities
•The government also faced criticism on violence against religious minorities from a number of countries. Pakistan’s statement was the sharpest, accusing India of failing to protect minorities “especially Muslims” from “mob violence” and “attacks by extremist groups affiliated to the government.”
•Attacks on Africans in India appeared as a new subject of concern at the HRC proceedings, and the government said it accepted responsibility and had sought to prosecute all those responsible for the brutal beating of students at a mall in Noida in March 2017.
•On criticism over the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, that gives forces immunity from prosecution, India said the Act applies “only to disturbed areas.”
HC upholds life for 11 in Bilkis Bano case
•The court convicted them under Section 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) and Section 218 (public servant framing incorrect record or writing with intent to save person from punishment) of the Indian Penal Code.
•They have all been sentenced to the period of imprisonment undergone by them and fine of Rs. 5,000 and Rs. 15,000 for both offences respectively. The court granted them eight weeks to deposit the fine and also directed that it be paid to Ms. Bano as compensation.
•The court said, “Not writing the names of the accused and the material portion of the offence in the FIR as also causing disappearance of the evidence was clearly done with intention to screen the accused from punishment. Moreover, accused created such an information in respect of the offence which they knew was false. This shows that the police accused have committed offences under Sections 201 & 218 of IPC. However, the omissions on the part of the police accused are so grave and so obvious that their intentions are very apparent.”
Doctors in the dock
•The court noted, “It is evident that they (doctors) were not only casual in conducting the postmortem but suppressed the material information by way of omission. All the acts of commission and omission of the police and the medical officers cannot be examined in isolation but they are well connected in a chain of suppression of facts causing disappearance of the evidence with intent to screen the offenders and save them from punishment. Hence, their acquittal deserves to be set aside.”
•The order read, “The postmortem conducted by the doctors were perfunctory and manipulated and done in order to cause disappearance of evidence.”
•“After close scrutiny of the evidence, we could read between the lines which show that the medical officers have completely failed to perform the postmortem of all the bodies as is expected under the law.”
Rise & fall of Swachh cities
Their ranking is heavily influenced by public feedback
•Why did some cities rise and others fall in the ‘Swachh Survekshan-2017’ ranking?
•In some cases, it was not the ‘independent observation’ score that dragged past high performers down, but the ‘public feedback’ score. For others, though, the reverse was true.
•Chandigarh slipped to the 11th spot from number 2 last time, which Mayor Asha Jaiswal blamed on ‘public feedback’. Indore got to the top spot among all the entries due to a “mega public movement and wholehearted people’s participation”, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said.
•Ms. Mahajan, who represents the Indore Lok Sabha seat, said the achievement would break the notion that Indore was only famous for its cuisine.’ Indore’s municipal corporation was aided by a public movement spearheaded by the Mahanagar Vikas Kendra Parishad. Tiruchirapalli slipped from third rank in 2016 to sixth. It is still the cleanest in the south zone among cities with fewer than 10 lakh people. Officials said the slip was due to the participation of a greater number of cities this year. It scored higher in citizen feedback category this year, but lost points in the independent observation category.
The WoW factor
•Tirupati, making an entry at number nine into the national top 10, scored with a mix of beautification measures and proliferation of public toilets.
•The temple town also bet on WoW (Well-being out of Waste), increasing door-to-door waste collection, waste segregation, placing litter bins at commercial complexes and using GPS-fitted dumpers, besides starting a biogas plant. Visakhapatnam, ranked third this year, built over 12,000 individual household toilets under Swachh Bharat Mission and was certified Open Defecation-Free by the Quality Council of India.
•Mysuru City Corporation lost precious marks for failing to complete 406 individual toilets on time and fell to 5th rank from first. Surat rose to number four from six, after it segregated waste more, covering 300 societies, cleaned roads, bridges, underpasses and gardens twice a week and ordered compulsory cleaning of all public and private buildings.
•Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, ranked 22, got an overall score of 1,605 out of 2,000 based on citizen feedback, municipal self declaration and on-site observation. Over 2.3 lakh citizens voted in the city, which was ahead of Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai.
Different clocks
Changes in the financial year need proper coordination between the Centre and States
•Madhya Pradesh has decided to shift its financial year that now runs from April 1 to March 31, to align it with the Gregorian calendar year — that is, January 1 to December 31. The idea is not new and has been floated a few times, before as well as after Independence. Yet, the M.P. government’s move is abrupt as there was no hint of this plan when it presented its 2017-18 Budget a couple of months ago. That it was announced less than 10 days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked Chief Ministers to ‘take the initiative’ on suggestions to change the financial year indicates that the desire to be the first to act on his words accounts for the haste. The next State Budget will be presented in December or January, but the State’s transition plan for the changeover isn’t clear beyond its intent to speed up spending of funds earmarked in its Budget for the 12 months until March 2018, so that they are utilised by December 2017. There have been similar instances of BJP-administered States rushing into reforms where the Centre was reluctant or non-committal — such as labour laws — with little changing on the ground. A fiscal year rejig is not something that can be left to the States alone.
•On its part, the Centre had appointed a committee under former Chief Economic Adviser Shankar Acharya on the desirability and feasibility of changing the fiscal year in line with the calendar year, aligning it with the practice in most countries as well as multilateral agencies. Its recommendations are still not in the public domain. The Union Budget was shifted from February 28 to February 1 this year, to ensure that funds are available with ministries from the first day of the financial year. By the same logic, will it be advanced further to November 1 if the financial year starts in January? Otherwise, eager States such as M.P. may start 2018 with a clean slate but will have to wait till February for clarity on the Union government’s priorities for the coming year and till April for Central funds. Going forward with different financial years in the States while taking no action at the Centre would be chaotic. It will, in addition, be a fresh nightmare for firms adapting to the Goods and Services Tax regime that will be introduced in the middle of this financial year. Additional uncertainties and differing tax deadlines for States are not likely to enthuse investors. Getting rid of colonial-era conventions may be necessary to make administration more efficient, but it is equally important to think through the reforms and work out a viable sequence. The Centre must make the Shankar Acharya panel report public, and clarify its own road map so that States and taxpayers may align with it.
The long arc to Ankara
Recep Erdoğan’s visit came as a reminder of the heavy lifting needed to fix India-Turkey ties
•It was a visit which had been in the making for quite some time. But when it eventually happened, few in India and abroad took note of it, with the result that nothing much changed as a consequence.
•Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was in India earlier this week and tried to give a boost to sagging ties between Delhi and Ankara. His visit came against the backdrop of his narrow win in a referendum on April 16 which gave him sweeping executive powers as President giving rise to fears about a lack of adequate safeguards for democratic rights in Turkey. Given his growing regional and global isolation as he seems intent on dismantling the secular traditions of Turkey, Mr. Erdoğan has been trying use Islamism to shore up his credibility.
•His visit to India was also informed by this larger agenda. Ahead of his trip, he had suggested a “multilateral dialogue” on Kashmir, even offering to mediate between India and Pakistan. “We should not allow more casualties to occur. By having a multi-lateral dialogue, (in which) we can be involved, we can seek ways to settle the issue once and for all,” he argued.
Line on Kashmir
•He said India and Pakistan are both friends of Turkey and that he wanted to help strengthen the dialogue process. But if Mr. Erdoğan’s intent was to improve Indo-Turkish ties then this was clearly a non-judicious start given that India has consistently ruled out third party mediation on Kashmir. New Delhi was categorical in asserting that “the issue of Kashmir is essentially an issue of terrorism,” and that its disputes with Pakistan must be settled bilaterally.
•Not that this was a surprise as Mr. Erdoğan has been a vocal supporter of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s position on Kashmir. During his visit too, the only India-related terrorism he referred to was the threat from Naxalism. Though he suggested that India and Turkey needed to “work as one to disrupt the terrorist networks and their financing and put a stop to cross-border movement of terrorists”, he remained unwilling to acknowledge the cross-border nature of the terror threat that India faces. On India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Turkish stance has been to push for Pakistan’s case along with India’s.
•Mr. Erdoğan has recognised that India-Turkey relations are “significantly behind” their potential and that the two nations need to work together for a fair world. Towards that end he was willing to support India’s bid for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council, even as he called for major institutional reforms. But even here the story is complicated as Turkey is a member of the group called Uniting for Consensus which opposes expansion of permanent membership in the Security Council. And this group includes Pakistan.
A tough balancing act
•Mr. Erdoğan clearly wanted to keep the focus on economic and trade ties as he was accompanied by a large business delegation. At a time when Europe is not so welcoming to Turkey, new markets in Asia are needed. India and Turkey have decided to increase their bilateral trade from $6.4 billion to $10 billion by 2020. The two nations are also exploring cooperation in areas such as construction, infrastructure development, renewable energy, and tourism.
•What was interesting was not the outcome of Mr. Erdoğan’s visit, which was underwhelming as expected, but how India managed this visit. Not only did India host Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades just before Mr. Erdoğan’s arrival but Vice President Hamid Ansari also recently visited Armenia, a country which accuses Turkey of having killed an estimated 1.5 million Armenians during World War I. Turkey does not recognise Cyprus, the northern part of which is under Turkish occupation since 1974. In fact, the Cypriot President used his visit to ask New Delhi to tell Turkey that the status quo on the territorial dispute on his island nation is unacceptable.
•As a major regional power in West Asia, Turkey cannot be ignored by India. But New Delhi is no longer content to allow Ankara to define the contours of this relationship. It is signalling that if Turkey wants to reach out to India, then Indian sensitivities on core issues have to be respected. Otherwise, India too is not short of options.
The scale of progress, so far
Is the process of a voluntary national review of Agenda 2030 helpful?
•Agenda 2030, a comprehensive development agenda, was adopted in the United Nations General Assembly by member states on September 25, 2015. It is ambitious enough to address several socioeconomic concerns and make the development process inclusive. However, since it’s not binding on member nations, there is apprehension that it may end up becoming another of the Millennium Development Goals, which were only partially achieved. The High-level Political Forum comprising the political representatives (heads of states or ministers) of the members meets every July at the UN in New York to review progress on Agenda 2030. The Voluntary National Reviews (VNR), — voluntary and country driven — form the basis of this review.
•The UN website says: “The voluntary national reviews aim to facilitate the sharing of experiences, including successes, challenges and lessons learned, with a view to accelerating the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.” In 2016, 22 presented their performance review on sustainable development goals (SDGs). This year, 44 nations including India have volunteered. The themes of review this year are Goals 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 14 and 17 of Agenda 2030, respectively.
The process in India
•In India, the process is led by NITI Aayog, Research and Information System for Developing Countries, a think tank attached to Ministry of External Affairs, and the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. Civil society is anxious as it wonders whether it will have a say in the official VNR report. Consultations on the larger agenda of SDGs and on particular themes such as gender are being held by inviting civil society, private groups and other stakeholders at the national and State levels. The outcome will be fed to the process of making the VNR. It is understood that the government will highlight its key achievements such as Swachh Bharat, financial inclusion, etc. The government has already identified existing programmes and policies which are linked to different goals under SDGs. Sources suggest that the government has also sought inputs from civil society, especially to the VNR process. It’s not clear whether the inputs of civil society organisations (CSO) will be part of the government report or will form an annexure. However, Indian civil society led by Wada Na Todo Abhiyan (WNTA) — an umbrella CSOs’ platform — has geared up for a shadow report on SDGs.
•Is the VNR process an effective mechanism to review SDGs? Ingo Ritz, director of GCAP, a global campaign on poverty and inequality, says: “In the HLPF 2016, the governments tried to show that they already do very well. There was no reflection about problems, challenges or what policies should be changed to achieve the SDGs.” A closer look at last year’s VNR by nations gives a clear impression that they presented only a rosy picture of their performance.
Higher coal tax may benefit economy: IMF
It will boost GDP, cut mortality
•An annual Rs. 150 per tonne increase in tax on coal from 2017 to 2030 could prevent over 2.7 lakh deaths from air pollution, raise GDP by 1% by 2030, reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 12% and generate net economic benefits of about 1% of GDP, according to IMF.
•“The main domestic environmental cost of burning coal is outdoor air pollution, which exacerbates mortality rates for various (e.g., cardiovascular and pulmonary) diseases,” said the working paper released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday
•“Outdoor air pollution from fossil and non-fossil sources prematurely killed an estimated 0.53 people per 1,000 of the population in 2010 in India, or about 6.5 lakh in total.”
•“Fossil fuel taxes can provide a significant source of easily-collected revenue, which is especially valuable when revenues from broader taxes on labour, capital, and consumption are insufficient due to a large concentration of economic activity occurring in the informal sector,” it added. The paper also says that, in the event of political reasons not permitting any increase in coal tax, the government should implement subsidies or other incentives to encourage the shift away from coal generation.
Equity ETFs rise on investor interest
Assets climb 3-fold, driven by demand from retail and institutional buyers
•Equity exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw significant growth in the financial year 2016-17 (FY17) with the total assets under management (AUM) increasing three-fold on the back of higher demand from both retail and institutional investors.
•The total AUM of equity ETFs was pegged at Rs. 43,234 crore as on March 31, 2017 compared with Rs. 15,066 crore as on March 31, 2016, according to a study by India Index Services & Products, a subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange (NSE).
Nifty indices
•The AUM of the ETFs tracking Nifty indices account for 85% of the total equity ETF assets, the study said. The AUM of equity ETFs tracking Nifty indices in India touched Rs. 36,803 crore as on March 31, 2017, as against Rs. 12,865 crore as on March 31, 2016.
•The key drivers of the increase in AUM of equity ETFs are increasing popularity of ETFs among retail investors, investments by pension funds including Employees’ Provident Fund Organization in equity through the ETF route and the Government of India using the ETF route for disinvestment. Incidentally, in the previous financial year, the government mobilised Rs. 8,500 crore through CPSE ETF, which tracks the Nifty CPSE index.
•ETF is a fund comprising a group of securities, which is traded like an individual stock on an exchange. A retail investor can buy ETFs for as little as Rs. 100 and then trade on the exchange with a minimum trading lot of one unit and carry significantly lower fund management costs.
•As on March 2017, there were 47 equity ETFs trading in India out of which 34 were benchmarked to the Nifty family of indices. Of these funds, 13 ETFs track the benchmark 50-share Nifty. There are ETFs that track other indices as well like Nifty CPSE, Nifty Bank, Nifty Next 50, Nifty 100, Nifty PSU Bank and Nifty Quality 30 among others.
•ETF trading volumes have also grown significantly. In the last two financial years, average daily volume was pegged at Rs. 186 crore, compared with Rs. 92 crore in FY15. In the last 10 years, the average daily traded volume has grown annually by 32%.
