📰 Audit slams Railways on food quality
•A Comptroller and Auditor General report tabled in Parliament on Friday has found severe deficiencies in the catering services of the Indian Railways, with several stations and trains serving food items “unfit for human consumption”, unpurified tap water being used for food preparation, and food being left unprotected from insects and rats.
•“Deficiencies in respect of quality of food served were noticed,” the CAG report noted. “Articles unsuitable for human consumption, contaminated foodstuff, recycled foodstuff, shelf life expired packaged and bottled items, unauthorised brands of water bottles, etc, were offered for sale on stations.”
•During the joint inspection of the selected 74 stations and 80 trains over Zonal Railways, the audit found that cleanliness and hygiene standards were not being maintained in the catering units at stations and on trains.
•“Unpurified water straight from the tap was used in preparation of beverages; waste bins were found not covered, not emptied regularly, and not washed; food stuffs were not covered to protect them from flies, insects and dust; rats and cockroaches were found in trains,” the report added.
•The CAG also found unfair trade practices at stations and in trains. Bills were not provided for the food items served on trains; waiters and catering managers on the trains did not carry printed menu cards with tariffs; the food served was less than the prescribed quantity; unapproved packaged drinking water was sold; and Proprietary Article Depot items were being sold in railway stations at their maximum retail prices.
•The report also found that the weights and prices of the items sold at railway stations were different from the open market, and that the unit price of food articles sold in railway premises was significantly higher.
•“For example, during a joint inspection in Allahabad station, it was found that chips of the brand ‘Lays’ weighing 29.5 grams was being sold at Neelam Food Plaza at the price of Rs. 18,” the report said. “Identical product outside railway premises weighing 30 grams costs only Rs. 10.”
•The report went on to cite many other such cases where the food items were either overpriced or were below the prescribed weight. “Audit observed that though a complaint redressal system has been put in place, there is no reduction in the number of complaints over the years,” the report said. “It was also seen that the major share of complains pertained to overcharging and quality issues.”
•During a passenger satisfaction survey, 36% felt that they were being overcharged for the food, and 21% that the rates were not reasonable.
📰 ‘Major deficiencies in Army’s ammunition reserves’
Reserves of 40% of various types of ammunition found to be below critical limits
•At a time when India is caught in a major military standoff with China at Dokalam, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has presented a dismal picture of the Army’s War Wastage Reserve (WWR) ammunition, especially of high calibre equipment needed to wage intense war.
•The report tabled on Friday is a follow-up audit on the measures taken after the CAG’s earlier report on “Ammunition Management in Army,” tabled in 2015.
•The new report is an evaluation of the availability of WWR ammunition in the Army during the period 2013-14 to 2016-17 (till September 2016).
•Summarising the findings, the CAG observed: “Thus, despite a lapse of more than three years (from March 2013) no significant improvement in the availability of WWR ammunition was noticed in audit.” On the efforts to procure ammunition, the CAG noted that there continued to be a critical deficiency in the availability and quality of ammunition supplied by the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) since March 2013.
•“Shortfall in meeting the production target by OFB continued. Further, majority of the procurement cases from other than OFB, which were initiated by Army HQ during 2009-13, were pending as of January 2017,” the report observed.
•WWR is the reserve quantity of ammunition needed to meet the requirements for the expected duration of operations.
📰 SC: mentally retarded adult not a child
•“The purpose of POCSO Act is to treat the minors as a class by itself and treat them separately so that no offence is committed against them as regards sexual assault, sexual harassment and sexual abuse. Parliament has deliberately fixed the age of the child and it is in the prism of biological age. If any determination is required, it only pertains to the biological age, and nothing else,” Justice Misra dismissed the idea of “mental age” in POCSO.
•Justice Misra observed that since there are different degrees of mental retardation, the court would have to go into the question of consent to the sexual act. This is not provided for in POCSO.
📰 ‘Protection of personal data a right’
Data is an extension of personality, says Additional Solicitor-General Narasimha
•Personal data is an integral part of one’s dignity and life, the Centre told the Supreme Court on Friday.
•Any sharing of personal data by service providers or social media platforms, which impinges on a person’s right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution, requires regulation, the government submitted before a five-judge Constitution Bench, led by Justice Dipak Misra.
•The Bench is hearing a petition filed by students — led by Karmanya Singh Sareen — alleging that a contract entered into between Facebook and instant messaging platform WhatsApp in 2016 was a violation of the citizens’ right to privacy. This data includes photographs, messages and pictures shared by users on WhatsApp.
•“Data is an extension of personality. It is a reflection of one’s footsteps in life. There cannot be an individual without personality. There would be a need for state’s intervention if any contract infringed upon the data as it affects my right to life,” Additional Solicitor-General P.S. Narasimha, for the Centre, contended.
Regulatory mechanism
•He added that a regulatory mechanism was in the works to protect people from personal data leaks online.
•However, this stand taken by the Centre in the WhatsApp case does not quite gel with its position before a nine-judge Constitution Bench, led by Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar, currently examining whether privacy is a fundamental right with respect to Aadhaar.
📰 Fighting cow vigilantes is States’ job: Centre
Government has no role to play, Solicitor-General tells Supreme Court
•Ending violence by cow protection groups or gau rakshaks is a ‘State subject’ and the Centre has no role to play though it condemns all forms of vigilantism, the government told the Supreme Court on Friday.
•Neither the Centre nor States such as Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra have filed any written response to the court’s repeated orders to them do so on a bunch of petitions led by Shehzeen Poonawalla seeking criminal action against cow vigilante groups who have resorted to lynchings and caused a spike in communal tensions in the country.
•The petitions have also sought a direction to the Central and State governments to pull down all the videos of violence uploaded by cow vigilante groups from social media sites.
•“Why is there no response from the Centre or the States?” senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, for one of the petitioners, asked in court.
•“It is a State subject. Union of India has no role to play,” Solicitor-General Ranjit Kumar, for the Centre, replied to the court when asked why the Centre had not filed its response.
•The Uttar Pradesh counsel merely stated the fact that the State had not filed its response.
•The Gujarat counsel said there was one incident of violence involving gau rakshaks and the persons allegedly responsible for it have been arrested.
•Mr. Kumar said the Centre addressed the issue in Parliament on Thursday. It had conveyed that arrests were made in every State in each incident. Nothing was left unaccounted for.
•The Solicitor-General, speaking for the Central government, asked the court to record in its order that “the Centre does not support any kind of vigilantism against the law by any private persons”. This was duly recorded. The court granted the Centre and States four weeks to file their affidavits in reply to the petitions.
•Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently condemned cow vigilantism.
📰 Untrained teachers get 2 years to qualify
LS passes Compulsory Education (Amendment) Bill, 2017
•The Lok Sabha on Friday passed a Bill that offers untrained teachers teaching in schools time till March 31, 2019, to acquire B.El. Ed (Bachelor of Elementary Education) or D. El. Ed. (Diploma in Elementary Education) qualifications to hold their jobs as teachers.
•This was done through an amendment to the Right to Education Act, 2009, as a last chance to such teachers not to lose their jobs. The Compulsory Education (Amendment) Bill, 2017 Bill will now have to pass muster in the Rajya Sabha — and get presidential assent after that — to become an Act.
Last chance: Minister
•Explaining the rationale for the Bill, Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar said many new schools had come up in the days of educational expansion under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the RTE, and many teachers who were hired did not have requisite degrees, some having studied only till school. They were given five years to train themselves, and many did, but 5-6 lakh private schools teachers and 2.5-lakh government school teachers still did not have the requisite degrees, the Minister added. “As a last chance, another two years are being given to them with this amendment,” he said.
•The qualifications are deemed necessary to ensure that teachers are well-qualified to ensure quality of education. He said that with the Swayam portal — part of massive open online courses — and 32 free DTH educational channels, these teachers — who already had experience — could acquire theoretical knowledge and then pass the exam to retain their jobs. State governments would also offer them annual training, Mr. Javadekar said.
•During the debate, Bhartruhari Mahtab of the BJD suggested that the cut-off date be left to the States, as it was not advisable to bring every extension back to Parliament. He also suggested a separate budget allocation for RTE.
•Mr. Javadekar said all States had different conditions. “Ninety per cent untrained teachers are from eight States. We will make a task force for them,” he said.
•Mr. Javadekar mentioned ways that State governments had put in place steps to ensure better teacher attendance, like Rajasthan pasting photographs of all teachers in a school on the notice board with the caption “our respected teachers” and Manipur using a tab that would mark attendance only within 50 feet of the school.
📰 Floor price for voice, data not ‘workable’, says TRAI
Operators decide to continue with ‘forbearance’ regime
•The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Friday said that the industry had reached a consensus that fixing of floor price for voice and data services was not a “workable idea” at the moment, and the current regime of tariff forbearance would continue.
Two-hour discussion
•“We had a detailed discussion of about two hours and the consensus at the end of the meeting was that for the time being... as of now we don’t need to pursue the idea of fixing a floor price. That is the conclusion,” TRAI Chairman R.S. Sharma said after the meeting with telcos. Last month, some telecom services providers, in a meeting with TRAI, had sought imposition of a floor price for both voice and data services. The operators had argued that telcos offering below cost tariffs to consumers over a period of time might harm the industry and its financials.
•“We had promised a discussion,” Mr. Sharma said, adding that representatives of all telecom services providers attended the meeting.
•He added that no further discussion or meeting on the issue was planned.
•“At the end of the meeting, we all decided collectively that as of now we do not need to forgo the principal of forbearance which has been accepted and working for the last 14 years,” he added.
•Under forbearance regime, operators are allowed to fix their own tariffs on grounds that there is enough competition in the market.
•Mr. Sharma added that the consultation paper on introduction of 5G was “almost ready” and would be out soon.
📰 WCO lauds India’s trade facilitation plan
Customs body finds proposals surpass WTO pact’s ambit
•India’s National Trade Facilitation Action Plan (NTFAP), which aims to cut cargo release time for exports and imports as part of measures to boost goods trade, has been described by the World Customs Organisation (WCO) as a ‘best practice’ other nations can adopt.
•The WCO was impressed by the fact that as many as 51 of the 76 activities mentioned in the NTFAP (released by the Centre on Thursday) “go beyond” the implementation requirements of the World Trade Organisation’s Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA).
•The NTFAP, which is to be implemented between 2017 and 2020, is part of India’s efforts to improve its ease of doing business ranking. While India’s overall rank in the World Bank’s Doing Business report is 130, it ranks 144 out of 190 nations in the ‘Trading Across Borders’ category.
•The TFA — meant to ease Customs norms for faster flow of goods across borders — had come into effect in February 2017.
‘An inspiration’
•“It is a good document. It has several activities that go beyond the TFA to help improve India’s competitiveness. It will be an inspiration to many countries,” WCO Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya said at a function organised by industry body FICCI, World Bank and the Finance Ministry. “We will adopt it as a best practice and recommend it to all the other countries.”
•The WCO — the international body supporting the uniform implementation of the TFA across the globe — has 182 member nations (including India) that manage more than 98% of world trade.
•India had ratified the TFA in April 2016.
•As per the WTO, “the full implementation of the TFA could ... boost global trade by up to $1 trillion per year.”
•The requirement to implement the TFA is directly linked to the capacity of the country to do so, the WTO had said.
•Justifying the large number of TFA-plus activities, the NTFAP stated: “Since infrastructure and technology augmentation are prime enablers for trade facilitation, more so for India, the action plan (NTFAP) covers many activities in these areas.”
•It added, “Since they go beyond the ambit of the TFA per se, they have been defined as TFA Plus category.”
Global benchmarks
•The NTFAP further stated that “similarly, enhancement of existing compliance levels to achieve global benchmarks in crucial segments like Time Release Study, Post Clearance Audit and AEO (Authorised Economic Operator) scheme belong to the TFA Plus category as they are dynamic objectives.”
•Of the 51 “TFA-plus activities”, most (or 34) have a timeline of six to 18 months.
•These include alignment of India’s foreign trade policy with the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime and the WTO’s TFA, as well as gate automation at ports, establishment of labs at sea/air ports, and complete automation of ‘transit movement and transhipment procedures’.
Six-month deadline
•While 12 of the “TFA-plus activities” have a deadline of up to six months (including giving information on average clearance time at gate, fixing responsibility for delays in giving clearances), five such activities have a timeline of 18-36 months (including improving infrastructure).
•Of the 25 activities that are part of the TFA requirements, 17 will be implemented within 6-18 months, while eight have a timeline of up to six months.
📰 Digital trade games
India must not succumb to global digital trade paradigms and rules that back predatory business
•Negotiators for the proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) treaty between ASEAN countries, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand are currently meeting in Hyderabad. E-commerce will be a key focus.
A misnomer
•While there are many contentious issues involved in the RCEP, countries at least know what they are negotiating about and their likely implications. However, it is not the case with e-commerce issues. In fact, e-commerce is a misnomer here. What is under discussion is placing great limitations on digital policymaking by any country in the name of promoting e-commerce. Few understand the real nature of the digital issues involved and the relevant policy requirements of the present and the future. In these circumstances, a blank cheque could possibly be made out to global digital corporations and the countries backing them.
•Let’s consider the issue of the free global flow of data — something wrongly presented as being the same as the free flow of information. While data that underpins global media, or personal/social communication networks is one thing, data that today is increasingly basic to banking, retailing, the defence forces, public services, health and education services and so on is an entirely different matter.
•There is no one thing called “data” that countries could agree to let flow freely across borders. What we have instead are digitalised versions of banking, retail, public services, health services and so on. If something can be meaningfully negotiated at global trade talks, it is such digital services — each of which has different dynamics and implications and needs different treatment. But it may be too early to understand the real nature of these emergent digitalised services — which will eventually be their mainstream form. It was just yesterday that the technology wave of artificial intelligence (AI) — that may economically be even more transformational than the Internet as we know it — struck us.
Free flow of intelligence
•Therefore, there is no single thing as “data” or its global flows to negotiate about. Instead, there are different kinds of digital services. Further, almost all such services are in their infancy whereby there is scant understanding about them. It is hardly an appropriate time for countries to make trade bargains and policy curtailment promises around them.
•Instead of seeing it as a global flow of data — a phrase with a deliberate and positive ring about it — one must see it as a global flow of intelligence. The raw resource of data is useful only when turned into digital intelligence. Let’s then try to understand what is meant by an unhindered global flow of digital intelligence.
•First, digital intelligence is going to be by far the single most important economic resource. Whoever has it controls everything. Accenture recently named AI as a new factor of production, along with capital and labour.
•Second, digital intelligence tends to concentrate strongly around a few poles or centres. That is the very nature of intelligence, where two and two is more than twenty-two.
•This results in every sector getting organised around a very few centres of sectoral digital intelligence. Uber has worldwide intelligence about urban transport; Monsanto is working on a global agriculture networking and intelligence platform; for General Electric, it’s “the operating system for industrial Internet”; Baidu, the Chinese Google, is developing the “android of transportation” in partnership with Ford, Daimler, Microsoft and others. In short, global consolidation is taking place in every sector.
•A prominent Chinese businessman recently observed that countries “will be forced to negotiate with whichever country supplies most of their A.I. software — China or the United States — to essentially become that country’s economic dependent, taking in welfare subsidies in exchange for letting the “parent” nation’s A.I. companies continue to profit from the dependent country’s users. Such economic arrangements would reshape today’s geopolitical alliances.”
Digital industrialisation
•India is still stuck in the IT realities of yesterday. It remains in denial about the major transformations in the sector that are taking place along with unprecedented job losses. No doubt there is still a lot of software code to be written and IT to be pulled together, and India retains some key advantages in core IT areas. But the issues of e-commerce or digital trade are much larger. We face a very new reality today as we stand on the threshold of a digital society, where every major economic and social activity will be underpinned by digital intelligence.
•The main questions for India to consider are these. How much digital intelligence is flowing into India and how much outwards? Is this trend going to change any time soon? Are there strategies in place to change this trend?
•India must consider a digital industrialisation strategy that ensures that the immense value arising from digitally-induced efficiencies in every sector is retained within India and not allowed to flow out uninhibitedly. If it allows such outflows, it will soon find itself on the wrong side of digital colonisation. It must put its digital house in order before thinking of getting a part of the global digital pie, as China did. Domestic digital strengths should first be developed on the back of its big domestic market. This requires an independent digital policy, including protections for India’s incipient digital industry. This will not only ensure that our economy and society are not controlled from outside but also protect existing jobs and create many more new ones.
•India has just begun some good policy work for a data economy and society, with its “Digital India” policies, and development of “digital public goods” like the IndiaStack of basic digital platforms and infrastructural data systems that are open to all. These can be very helpful in developing a local digital industry. However, such efforts can get nullified if India succumbs to global digital trade paradigms and rules developed by countries that back predatory global digital business, by accepting the “free global flow of data” and sacrificing its digital policymaking powers and sovereignty.
📰 H1N1 returns: what can be done to control the virus
The government must urgently frame a national policy for influenza immunisation
•So far this year, 12,500 people have been infected with the influenza A (H1N1) virus, of which 600 have died. According to official data, Maharashtra alone has registered 284 deaths, which by itself is much more than the total mortality figure of 265 in the country as a result of H1N1 in 2016. Even in the first three months of 2017, the number of cases and deaths were fairly high, at over 6,000 and 160, respectively. Maharashtra could have recorded the highest number of cases and deaths caused by the H1N1 virus because of better awareness and and a relatively more robust surveillance system. But there is every possibility of a spike in the number of cases in the coming months with cooler temperatures setting in and winter still months away. Though the incidence of H1N1 is likely to be less than in 2015, when the death toll was about 3,000, the steady toll being taken by “swine flu” is a big cause for concern. The whole genome sequencing carried out at Pune’s National Institute of Virology has confirmed that the virus has not undergone any significant mutation to make it more virulent. The virus has undergone point mutations, which is normal and reflects its evolution, but this has no correlation with virulence whatsoever. For instance, the California strain had been circulating around the world since the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. But as a result of point mutations, a new strain — the Michigan strain — emerged last year. India witnessed the circulation of both the California and Michigan strains in 2016. This year, surveillance revealed that the H1N1 virus found in India is only the Michigan strain.
•As in the case of the California strain, the Michigan strain too is susceptible to the drug Oseltamivir. In order to make the drug widely available and easily accessible so that treatment can be started early, the drug was moved from Schedule X to Schedule H1 last month. Timely diagnosis and easy and wide availability of the drug are expected to reduce mortality. It could also potentially increase the risk of drug resistance setting in earlier. There are 42 laboratories providing diagnostic services across the country, and there is a compelling need to increase this number. The primary reason is that any delay in receiving results from reference laboratories combined with ready availability of the drug in more pharmacies will result in more prescriptions being handed out even in the absence of a confirmed laboratory diagnosis. Since the 2009 pandemic, H1N1 has become a seasonal flu virus strain in India even during the peak of summer. The only way, then, to reduce the number of cases and deaths is by framing a national policy for influenza immunisation. The first step in that direction is to have qualitative and quantitative data on the vulnerable population. Meanwhile, vaccinating health-care workers who come in contact with high-risk patients should be a priority.
