📰 End face-off peacefully: Sushma
We should be prepared for war, but it is not a solution, she tells Rajya Sabha
•External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday that “war was not a solution,” referring to the ongoing standoff with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army at Doklam, adding that “wisdom was to resolve issues diplomatically.”
•Ms. Swaraj said “patience” was the need of the hour and India was not going to use any “aggressive language” in its response to the standoff at the Bhutan-India-China tri-junction.
•The Chinese Foreign Ministry has, in the past month, issued strong statements and warned India not to have any “impractical illusions,” adding it was “easier to shake a mountain than the PLA.”
•“We should be prepared for war, but war is not a solution. Even after the war, you have to sit for a dialogue. So why not look for a way out without going to war. We don’t want to win our neighbours by military power, but by being an economic superpower. It is a reality that China has invested $160 billion in India, while three years ago it was $140 billion,” Ms. Swaraj said, responding to a statement by Opposition leaders during a short duration discussion on India’s foreign policy and engagement with strategic partners.
•Sharad Yadav of Janata Dal (United), an ally of the BJP in Bihar, praised former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for “cleverly annexing Sikkim with Russia’s help” but accused the current government of being a “stooge of the U.S.” Sitaram Yechury of the CPI(M) said that in the past three years, India had been reduced to a “junior strategic ally of the U.S.”
•Anand Sharma of the Congress said that after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met U.S. President Donald Trump, there was a missive from the PMO to the revenue department to reduce import duty on Harley Davidson motorcycles but there was no assurance on H-1B visas, which affect a large number of Indian professionals working in the U.S.
•Responding to the charges, Ms. Swaraj said that there was no drop in the number of H-1B visas for Indians and it had remained intact at 65,000 since 2004, when the United Progressive Alliance was in power.
📰 India Post catches up with wildlife smugglers
Parts of endangered animals discovered in parcels
•The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) recently found that smugglers are using the postal service to sell parts of endangered animals. They stumbled upon feathers of the grey jungle fowl being smuggled out by the hundreds.
•These feathers with eyespots are used as fishing lures and were being sent to certain European countries. Earlier this year, another case came to light: Pangolin scales were smuggled to Southeast Asian countries, using the services of India Post.
•In an attempt to formulate a strategy to check such crimes in West Bengal and neighbouring states of Jharkhand and Odisha, an inter-agency co-ordination meeting was organised by the WCCB, Eastern Region in Kolkata on Thursday. Representatives of more than a dozen investigating and law enforcement agencies, border security forces and forest departments of the different eastern states participated.
•“It was decided to hold sensitisation workshops and train the postal department and other enforcement agencies and familiarise them with wildlife articles and modus operandi of criminal networks,” said Agni Mitra, Regional Deputy Director, Eastern Region, WCCB.
Tribal hunting a problem
•Keeping strict vigil during traditions like the Shikar Utsav (hunting festival) of the tribal regions of south Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand was also reviewed.
•A large number of deer, wild boar, jungle fowl and other animals, which fall under the Schedules of The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, are killed during this summer festival.
•WCCB representatives and the Border Security Force took stock of their preparedness to check turtle smuggling for which West Bengal is a transit route.
15,000 turtles
•During last winter, over 15,000 turtles were seized from West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh.
•“Wildlife smuggling is so huge that no one agency can tackle it. Inter-departmental coordination can help reduce such crime in Bengal, which is a transit route to Southeast Asia,” said Ajanta Dey, of Nature Environment and Wildlife Society.
📰 China raises the heat on Doklam standoff
In sharpest comment by neighbour, diplomat warns of serious consequences if troops are not withdrawn
•India must withdraw its troops from the Doklam plateau or “face consequences”, a senior Chinese diplomat said here on Thursday.
•The remarks mark a serious escalation in rhetoric over the ongoing tensions between the two countries, as their Armies continue a six-week standoff near the India-Bhutan-China trijunction off Sikkim.
•“The crossing of the boundary line by Indian troops into the territory of China using the pretext of security concerns for a third party [Bhutan] is illegal,” the Chinese Deputy Chief of Mission, Liu Jinsong, told presspersons. “The troops should be withdrawn immediately; otherwise, there will be serious consequences.”
•Refusing to elaborate on what the “consequences” would be, the diplomat said the Indian action at Doklam was akin to “intruding into your neighbour’s house, and demanding the neighbour leave to ensure your withdrawal”. Quoting Chinese President Xi Jinping, he said, “Military option is the fundamental guarantor of sovereignty.”
•The diplomat’s comments, the sharpest so far from China, followed India’s rejection on Wednesday a 15-page statement of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying the numbers of Indian troops on the stretch of the Doklam plateau, contested by both China and Bhutan, had reduced from 400 to “over 40”. Government sources said India had not reduced the number of troops.
China’s count
•Mr. Liu, however, said that as of Thursday, the Chinese Army had counted 48 Indian soldiers.
•“Even one Indian soldier violating Chinese sovereignty is too many,” he continued. “We cannot bear that for another hour, another day, and they must be pulled out immediately.”
•The diplomat said Chinese troops had notified India of their intention to repair a road in what it called its own territory on two occasions — May 18 and June 8.
•Sharing the specific details for the first time, China said it was “very shocking” for the Chinese side when Indian troops came over to the disputed territory. More significantly, the diplomat alleged that India had not, as the government had maintained, come to the rescue of Bhutanese troops in the area.
•Asked by The Hindu if China had been embarrassed by the Bhutan Foreign Ministry’s statement of June 30 that the Chinese road construction activity was in “direct violation” of previous agreements, Mr. Liu shot back, “From the Bhutanese statement, nothing reflects that the Bhutanese side invited or knew beforehand that India would send troops. Even if we accept a difference of view between China and Bhutan, we have many mechanisms to resolve them bilaterally.”
No comments: Bhutan
•Bhutan’s Ambassador to India V. Namgyal told The Hindu he would not comment on the remarks by the Chinese envoy, saying there was “nothing further to add” to the official statement.
•When contacted for a response, the External Affairs Ministry declined to add to its statement on Wednesday, where it said that “peace and tranquillity on the India-China border areas is an important prerequisite for smooth development of our bilateral relations with China.”
📰 U.S. violating n-deal: Iran
•Iran said on Thursday that new U.S. sanctions were a violation of its nuclear deal with world powers, piling pressure on President Hassan Rouhani as he starts his second term. Mr. Rouhani vowed to keep up his efforts to end Iran’s isolation as he was sworn in by the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei following his re-election in May. “We believe that the nuclear deal has been violated and we will react appropriately,” Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said. “We will certainly not fall into the trap of U.S. policy and Trump, and our reaction will be very carefully considered.”
•“We will never accept isolation,” Mr. Rouhani said as he was sworn in in front of top political and military officials.
📰 ‘Make In India’ yet to spur manufacturing, says panel
Parliamentary committee airs concerns over poor growth
•The Parliament’s Standing Committee on Commerce has questioned the country’s low manufacturing growth despite initiatives such as Make In India, Startup India and FDI reforms that are now more than two years old.
•The committee, led by BJP MP Bhupender Yadav, had expressed concerns about manufacturing growth averaging just 1.6% in the five years till 2015-16 and a 0.5% contraction in the sector in the first 9 months of FY17, in a report tabled in Parliament this March.
•In an action taken report tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP), under the ministry of commerce and industry, has listed out the several measures taken by the government to promote manufacturing and ease the business environment.
•While expressing appreciation for the measures enumerated by the government, the Committee stressed: “However, it will serve better to remember that most of these initiatives are now more than two years old and the manufacturing growth has not yet gone to the desired level.”
•Urging the department to take effective steps to implement initiatives such as Make in India in a ‘more robust manner’, the committee has said all obstacles to the ‘optimal implementation’ of such programs must be removed in a time-bound manner.
📰 India’s first private missile production facility unveiled
Hyderabad unit to supply anti-tank guided missiles to Army
•India’s first private sector missile sub-systems manufacturing facility, a joint venture between the $2.5 billion Kalyani Group and Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defence Systems Ltd., was inaugurated near Hyderabad on Thursday.
•To begin with, the Kalyani Rafael Advanced Systems (KRAS) plant will make anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) Spike and the production is expected to begin in a few weeks, Kalyani Group chairman Baba N. Kalyani said. Besides supplying to the Indian Army, the plan is to export to South East Asian countries, he added.
Advanced equipment
•Formed in line with the ‘Make in India’ initiative of the Centre and the policy to encourage private sector participation in defence production, the 51:49 joint venture will develop a wide range of advanced capabilities.
•These include command control and guidance, electro-optics, remote weapon systems, precision guided munitions and system engineering for system integration. The plant would employ more than 300 engineers and provide indirect employment to 1,000 people.
•Addressing the media ahead of the inauguration, Mr. Kalyani said Rs. 60-70 crore had been invested in the plant.
•Going forward, once orders start flowing, “we will invest more... also looking to [make] other products, he said, adding that Spice glider bombs used by the Air Force would be the next.
•On the plant’s ATGM capacity, Rafael Advanced Defence Systems president and CEO Maj. Gen. (retired) Yoav Har-Even said: “We are speaking in thousands of the air-to-surface missiles.”
•The localisation content is 90% and most of the vendors are in and around Hyderabad, Mr. Kalyani said.
•Telangana Industries and IT Minister K.T. Rama Rao, said that more than 30,000 researchers and scientists and 1,000 MSME units in and around the city were working in the areas of defence systems.
📰 Big Mac index
Economics
•This is an index used to compare the price of a good across countries. The law of one price states that the price of a good sold internationally should converge as entrepreneurs try to profit from any price discrepancy. The purpose of the Big Mac index, which compares the price of the Big Mac burger across countries, is to establish the purchasing power parity between currencies. It has been published by the British magazine The Economist since 1986. One drawback of the Big Mac index is that goods that look physically similar to each other may not necessarily be similar in their economic nature.
📰 Is India a good neighbour?
Foreign policy had earlier been driven by peace. The new priority to security has distorted India’s image
•There is no single yardstick to measure foreign policy successes and failures but the absence of crises is broadly viewed as a sound criterion. India’s foreign policy of late has come under sharp public scrutiny — especially the direction in which it is moving.
Frosty relations
•So, what do we see? On the one hand, an extremely frosty relationship with Pakistan. On the other, the relationship of stability with China built over three decades has been falling apart despite increased diplomatic engagement — not only because of Chinese mistakes but also because of the absence of innovative thinking in India to deal with its biggest neighbour.
•India lacks a coherent means to contain China except for nurturing some myopic ideas. The old time-tested friendship with Russia has been allowed to slip through our fingers by downscaling the levels of engagements and limiting the areas of interest over time. The tragedy is that China has shrewdly neutralised India’s close proximity with Russia while at the same time sustaining its nexus with Pakistan.
•Broadly speaking, Indian foreign policy relied on its deep resources of wisdom and inner strength based on a percept of it being a civilisational state, that was reflected in its international conduct. To that effect, foreign policy has been driven by peace rather than security. It gave India a global persona of benign international influence.
•There is a marked divergence from that position. Priority to security has distorted India’s image vis-à-vis its neighbours — especially when policies are pursued through the precolonial security-centric “zero-sum” or “frontier mindset” or even from a Cold War political prism. In fact, this approach has failed to stop China’s influence in India’s neighbourhood despite the “neighbourhood-first policy”.
•Seventy years is not a short period for India to come up with a sound and clear statecraft device. Yet we see a clear lack of finesse in India’s approach, more so when the world has moved away from a bilateral to a multilateral context.
•In our pursuit to gain great power status, we have slipped into apathy in transforming our old arrangements with smaller neighbours like Bhutan and Nepal. Instead of developing India as a regional economic hub, we are turning it into a fortress by overemphasising on border security.
Getting fundamentals right
•A better option to probe future ties would be to return to the strategic fundamentals. A good example to emulate is the top-down waterfall approach espoused by Russia and China to lower tensions between them.
•At the same time, India need not see China as an object of disdain in perpetuity — a narrative often sold by the West. An honest attempt to build a new paradigm of India-China trust grounded on the shared historical and cultural awareness, as also on the collective wisdom of ordinary citizens on both sides, may prove to be more effective. For India to emerge as a global power of any reckoning, it has to realise that a narrow tactical pursuit devoid of strategic thinking will lead to nowhere. We need to reframe our terms of relationship with China; rethink our own posture; rescue ourselves from experiencing a delusion of grandeur and instead persevere to emerge as a confident and aspiring regional power.
•Of course, one cannot judge foreign policy on the ephemeral flux of events only. What is seen as success today may turn out to be blunder tomorrow. Also, foreign policy failures may not always be the consequences of a botched-up diplomacy; it can be the result of a misplaced and impractical pursuit of goals.
📰 It’s time to enact an anti-lynching law
But a civil society draft doing the rounds is too shy to clearly call out the threat to minorities
•In a civilised society, even one lynching is too many. But India has seen a spate of them of late. The data websiteIndiaSpendhas compiled instances of cow-linked violence from 2010 to 2017. It found that during this period, 28 people were killed in 63 such incidents.
•An overwhelming 97% of these attacks took place after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government came to power in May 2014. About 86% of those killed were Muslims. In 21% of the cases, the police filed cases against the victims/survivors. Cow-related lynchings rose sharply in 2017, with 20 attacks in the first six months. This marks a 75% increase over 2016, which had been the worst year for mob lynchings since 2010.
•The groundswell of public disgust at the lynchings crystallised under the banner of the National Campaign Against Mob Lynching (NCAML), which has initiated a campaign for a law against mob lynching. Also known as ‘Masuka’, short for Manav Suraksha Kanoon (law to protect humans), a draft of the proposed legislation is currently up on the Internet, awaiting suggestions from the public.
•The primary argument of the activists and lawyers advocating an anti-lynching law is that it fills a void in our criminal jurisprudence. It is true that at present there is no law that criminalises mob killings. The Indian Penal Code has provisions for unlawful assembly, rioting, and murder but nothing that takes cognisance of a group of people coming together to kill (a lynch mob).
•It is possible, under Section 223 (a) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), to prosecute together two or more people accused of the same offence committed in the course of the “same transaction”. But the provision falls far short of an adequate legal framework for prosecuting lynch mobs.
•The NCAML’s draft Protection from Lynching Act, 2017 defines, for the first time in Indian legal history, the terms ‘lynching’, ‘mob’ and ‘victim’ of mob lynching. It makes lynching a non-bailable offence, criminalises dereliction of duty by a policeman, criminalises incitement on social media, and stipulates that adequate compensation be paid, within a definite time frame, to victims and survivors. It also guarantees a speedy trial and witness protection.
The apprehensions
•On the face of it, it is difficult to fault the intent or the provisions of the draft legislation. Nonetheless, two aspects merit close scrutiny: the potential for abuse, and the underlying premise that a generic anti-lynching law could address India’s lynching problem.
•On the question of misuse, the provisions empowering local law enforcement officials to take pre-emptive action could easily be invoked to criminalise peaceful public assembly, especially if the gathering is of workers or members of marginalised communities agitating for their rights. For instance, the police could use this law to detain a group of labourers planning a dharna, on the grounds that they constitute a mob that poses a threat to company officials.
•To take another example, the ‘Review Committee’ that would monitor the prosecution of cases under this law is supposed to be headed by a senior police officer. Its findings would be submitted to a senior police officer. In a scenario where the police often serve as the handmaiden of the ruling dispensation, could we realistically expect one member of the police force to hold another accountable? Would it not have been prudent to mandate that the Review Committee make its report public or have members from civil society?
A category error
•No one can dispute that a major reason for the recent rise in lynchings is impunity. It can be reasonably assumed that the lynch mobs that murdered Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri, Pehlu Khan in Alwar, and Hafiz Junaid in Haryana were confident of getting away with it. So far, the state has done little to shake that confidence.
•The NCAML activists must know that this confidence has little to do with legislative lacuna. Rather, it has everything to do with the law enforcement machinery taking the side of the lynch mob. This phenomenon has been observed time and again in cases of targeted violence against minorities — which is precisely what cow-related lynchings are.
•Put simply, the problem is not mob lynching per se but the mob lynching of minorities, for that is where impunity kicks in. We can be certain that if a mob of factory workers were to lynch someone from the management, retribution would be swift. The historical proof of this argument, if one were needed, was supplied by the lynching of Maruti Suzuki’s HR manager in July 2012. The police arrested 148 workers and charged all them with murder.
•Evidently, the state can act, if it wishes to, using the existing provisions of the law. It is a matter of whether it is in its interests to do so. In the case of cow-linked lynchings, a lot depends on whether the incumbent in power considers it compatible with its political interests to crack down on such attacks.
It’s about communalism
•It is therefore mystifying why the advocates of Masuka appear reluctant to name the problem for what it is: targeted communal lynchings. Perhaps they feel that doing so carries the risk of their campaign being dismissed as a ‘minority issue’. But it actually is a minority issue, and that is why the majority needs to take it up.
•It is understandable that in a climate of majoritarianism, any political mobilisation for the protection of minorities would be anxious about the bogey of minority appeasement. It could even mean that an anti-lynching Bill stands less chance of making it through Parliament. But then, a truly ‘civil’ society should feel no hesitation in demanding that the state protect its minorities because protection of minorities is one of the biggest responsibilities of any democracy. The UN has a Special Rapporteur for minority issues precisely because it recognises that “minorities in all regions of the world continue to face serious threats”.
•India already has an antidote – two, in fact – to combat the impunity enjoyed by anti-minority lynch mobs. The first is the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2011, or the Anti-Communal Violence Bill. The other is police reforms, which are pending despite the Supreme Court ordering their implementation.
•The Anti-Communal Violence Bill was buried because it was felt that it threatened the autonomy of States by mooting a parallel structure that undermined federalism. This is a misrepresentation, and the Bill needs to be revived for three reasons: it fixes command responsibility for communal incidents; it recognises that targeted communal violence disproportionately victimises minorities; and it creates a mechanism to insulate investigations of communal violence from political interference. The last reason is also why police reforms are vital, and a purely legislative approach to tackling anti-minority violence could prove ineffective.
•The draft anti-lynching law needs to be revised to incorporate these key elements of the Anti-Communal Violence Bill. Second, the demand for an anti-lynching law needs to be buttressed by a parallel campaign for police reforms. All said and done, even the best of laws can achieve little in the face of a law enforcement machinery primed to do the bidding of its political masters.
📰 Restoring Parliament’s primacy
A Parliamentary Budget Office would help MPs provide effective oversight
•In India, establishing a Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) is a due concern. A PBO is an independent and impartial body linked directly to Parliament that provides technical and objective analysis of Budgets and public finance to the House and its committees. As ‘the guardian of the public purse’, Parliament must play a greater role in budgetary governance. Its core functions include Budget approval, scrutiny of its implementation, and holding the government to account. However, Parliament lacks the capability to perform such functions effectively. The result is often an arbitrary taxation policy, burgeoning fiscal deficit, and an inequitable allocation of public resources.
Greater budgetary oversight
•Multiple indicators suggest that executive-led budgetary governance has not been successful in India. The unequal distribution of public resources is a prevalent issue. Despite high economic growth, India suffers from inexcusable income inequality, poverty, unemployment, malnourished children, preventable diseases, systemic corruption, and underinvestment in key social services such as health and education.
•Budgets can be seen as ‘contracts between citizens and the state’ or as ‘treaties among citizens negotiated through politics’. Indian political economy literature fails to adequately address the role of Parliament and State legislatures in public finance management. The role of Parliament and State legislatures in budgetary decision-making and oversight is far from satisfactory; it is meaningful to have a well thought-out legislative-executive balance of power in budgetary governance.
•The Indian Parliament is a Budget-approving body contributing to budgetary matters in the following notable ways: presentation of the Budget; scrutiny of the demands for grants of various ministries; debate; consideration and approval of the Budget. To carry out these functions effectively, Parliament requires institutional, analytical and technical competence. Some have argued that a ‘Budget-approving’ Parliament does not require a functioning PBO. This argument, although common, is unsound. When Parliament is a Budget-approving body, its members must be well-informed for a legitimate approving process. Establishing a PBO within Parliament is undoubtedly necessary. It is an instrument for addressing bias towards spending and deficits and, more significantly, for enhancing fiscal discipline and promoting accountability. Further, it can generate quality public debate on Budget policy and public finance, enabling parliamentarians to engage meaningfully in the Budget process.
•There is a growing trend among legislatures, particularly within the OECD countries to establish specialised Budget research units. Traditionally, independent budgetary units are more common in developed countries, but many developing countries are now establishing such entities; for example: Benin, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Morocco, the Philippines, Uganda, Nigeria, Liberia, Thailand, Afghanistan, and Vietnam. The other functioning PBOs are in countries such as the U.S., Canada, Australia, Austria, South Korea, Italy, and Mexico. There are PBOs established in subnational legislatures, such as California, Ontario, Scotland, and New South Wales. Additionally, New York City has a well-functioning Independent Budget Office (IBO).
Role of a PBO
•The majority of PBOs have four core functions: independent and objective economic forecasts; baseline estimate survey; analysing the executive’s Budget proposal; and providing medium- to long-term analysis. Costing is standard practice for many PBOs. Budgets generally start with an economic forecast. A PBO can present either its own independent forecast or it can validate the government’s, providing an objective analysis on the official forecast.
•A PBO can perform other tasks depending on its mandate, resources and requirements of parliamentarians or committees. These may include general economic analysis, tax analysis, long-term analysis, options for spending cuts, outlining a budgetary framework that reflects priorities of the nation, bespoke policy briefs.
•A PBO is different from general parliamentary research services and information wings. It also differs from finance committees and the Public Accounts Committee. A PBO is comprised of independent and specialised staff, such as Budget analysts, economists, public finance experts. The PBO must be non-partisan, independent and mandated to serve all parliamentarians. Furthermore, the core functions of the PBO should be codified in law. Its output, and the methods by which those outputs are prepared, must be transparent, accessible and understandable.
Onus on parliamentarians
•Parliamentary scrutiny of public finance is an important aspect of governmental accountability. There is a legitimate democratic need in this country to strengthen the capacity of Parliament and its members. An unprecedented change has taken place in the way citizens view the government’s stewardship of taxpayer resources. This demands a consideration of global standards and best practices to promote financial and budgetary transparency.
•Parliamentarians have a role in establishing the PBO. As representatives of the people, they can help improve Budget policies by providing inputs on public needs and priorities. Similarly, a PBO can ensure that parliamentarians are well-informed to perform their budgetary and oversight functions effectively. A PBO in Parliament will have a positive impact on the House’s ability to carry out budgetary oversight and fiscal decision-making. However, this will not be an easy task. It is likely to attract opposition from the bureaucracy as any aspect of strengthening Parliament (or State legislatures) has always been unwelcome and met with less consideration from the executive. Parliament, with its long-standing traditions of non-partisan legislative services to MPs in India, will find more favourable consensus among all parties for the proposal to establish a PBO. However, establishing the PBO in India will require unremitting political will and public support.
📰 The NOTA principle
The Congress and the BJP protest too much about its introduction in Rajya Sabha polls
•Should NOTA (none of the above) be an option in a State Assembly vote for the Rajya Sabha, as it is for the electorate in direct elections? Following the Gujarat Assembly secretary’s statement that the “NOTA” option will be available on the ballot paper in the Rajya Sabha election next week, both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party have sought to convince the Supreme Court and the Election Commission that MLAs should not have this option. The Supreme Court refused to stay the process to allow NOTA, saying that the provision has been in place since April 2014 after a direction by the EC. It is important to note that open ballots are used in the Rajya Sabha elections. These elections follow a proportional representation system based on the single transferable vote, unlike the general elections to the Lok Sabha, which are conducted with secret ballots (or votes) and based on the first-past-the-post principle. The idea behind the use of NOTA is to allow the voter to register a “protest” vote if none of the candidates is acceptable to her for whatever reason. While NOTA votes are tallied, the candidate with the highest number of votes polled is declared elected irrespective of the NOTA total. In the case of the Rajya Sabha elections, the vote allows for the preferential ordering of candidates. If an MLA chooses NOTA, the vote is rendered ineffective.
•In principle, the presence of the NOTA option for the legislator allows the possibility of a protest vote against the party high command for choosing candidates who are not agreeable to her, without having to choose candidates from opposing parties. The principle of a protest vote remains the same even if these are indirect elections. The party high command can issue a whip for a Rajya Sabha candidate, but anti-defection law provisions do not apply, and a defiant MLA is not disqualified from membership of the House. The Supreme Court has in the past held that open ballot votes in Rajya Sabha elections against the whip will not lead to disqualification as the Tenth Schedule, pertaining to anti-defection provisions, has a different purpose. The Congress party’s protest on the introduction of NOTA draws from anxiety about mopping up sufficient votes to have its nominee Ahmed Patel elected to the Rajya Sabha. Six of its MLAs have already resigned, and there is concern that some of the remaining MLAs may not heed the party whip. Overall, both the Congress and the BJP probably have longer-term worries about keeping control of their flock in Rajya Sabha elections. But it is not as if MLAs have previously fallen in line meekly on such occasions. Therefore, instead of struggling against the democratisation of indirect elections, through reforms such as the NOTA option, parties would be better off relearning the art of floor management.
📰 The Iran question
India’s West Asia relations are no longer viewed through the Israel-Palestine prism
•Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s widely publicised trip to Israel last month was labelled as de-hyphenating the traditional vector of Israel-Palestine in Indian strategic thinking in West Asia, without damaging relations with Arab states. The final say on this balancing, however, will be determined by Iran.
•Historically, India has projected Israel as an apartheid regime. Despite the latter’s drawn-out courtship, it was a weakening of old structures that ushered new ideas into Delhi’s decision-making and, in 1992, mutual securities became salient. Since then, cooperation and trade have improved steeply. Not unusually, and simultaneously, India has maintained support for the Palestinian cause. Despite not making the customary stopover in Ramallah during his trip, the ground was privately prepared when Mr. Modi welcomed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to Delhi in May. The relative quiet across Arab states during Mr. Modi’s visit and conversations with diplomats in the region reveal that India’s West Asia relations are no longer viewed through the prism of Israel-Palestine, but the changing security landscape in the region pertaining to Iran.
•A new political order in West Asia is in full force, led assertively by Saudi Arabia, and one that regards Iran as the existential threat. The assumption in some sections of the international community, that India’s ties with Israel naturally negate the South Asian power’s relationship with the Arab nations, specifically of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), is misguided. Indeed, Mr. Modi would not have made the visit to Israel had he calculated that such a trip would antagonise the Sunni Arab leaders who have shown concrete interest in India’s growing market and improving regulatory environment. India, in turn, looks to the region for its constantly expanding natural gas and crude oil thirst. Essentially, Arab leaders can today live with their allies operating with the Israelis, but not with the Iranians. Since the Iran nuclear deal, insecurities among Tehran’s rivals, supported increasingly by the Trump White House, have gone into overdrive. That the Iranian leadership is fully aware of these shifting dynamics was on show in the days leading up to Mr. Modi’s Israel visit.
•Twice in the space of 10 days, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei linked the plight of Muslims in Gaza, Yemen, and Bahrain, with, unexpectedly, those in Kashmir. The timing and frequency of his comments, which were so close to the Israel visit, cannot be underplayed. The Iranians will have been aggrieved by the visit coupled with India’s unambiguous pro-Riyadh tilt. Despite this, ties between India and Iran will not cease any time soon, but run on an independent track. Indeed, they are currently developing the geopolitically valuable Chabahar port on the Gulf of Oman. But rising economic stakes in Delhi and a new regional order will mean that India cannot maintain its traditionally equidistant, neutral position in West Asia for long. These pathways will be stress-tested soon if India desires a concrete regional strategy beyond tactical visits.
📰 Evicting unauthorised VIP occupants
There is now a solution to the problem
•The Supreme Court once said there is no law to “entirely control the act of disobedience” of powerful but unauthorised occupants of government residential accommodations.
•In S.D. Bandi versus Divisional Traffic Officer (2013), a Supreme Court Bench led by Justice P. Sathasivam observed that unauthorised occupants of public property should realise that “their act of overstaying in the premise directly infringes the right of another”.
•The Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act of 1971, which prescribes eviction of unauthorised occupants from public premises, has proved largely ineffective before VIP tenants of government residences.
•Efforts to evict an unauthorised occupant are often met with resistance and years of litigation. Instead of complying with the eviction order, the tenant prefers to move court.
•The Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Amendment Bill, introduced in the Lok Sabha, comes up with an answer for this problem. It proposes to insert a new sub-section (3A) in Section 7 of the 1971 Act to the effect that if an unauthorised occupant goes to court against an eviction order, he/she will be bound to pay “damages” for every month of his/ her stay in the particular residential accommodation.
•As per the existing allotment rules, the occupants have to vacate on the expiry of the licence. The 1971 Act calls for the “smooth, speedy and time-bound” eviction of unauthorised occupants. The law calculates that an eviction proceeding in court, in case the tenant refuses to vacate, would take five to seven weeks. A subsequent appeal before a higher court would mean another four weeks in the least. But reality is contrary to what the law envisages on paper. It may take years of effort and public money to actually nudge out an unauthorised occupant.
•The 1971 Act provides for summary eviction proceedings, under which the estate officer does not have to follow an elaborate procedure for serving notice, show cause, inquiry and hearing before passing the eviction order. But this procedure is not applicable to residential accommodations. This loophole in the existing 1971 Act has been exploited by unauthorised occupants who resort to dilatory tactics or move the High Court for a stay of the eviction order.
•On this, the Amendment Bill has proposed the insertion of a new Section 3B. It proposes to extend summary eviction procedure to residential accommodations too. The unauthorised occupants would be provided a showcause notice of only three days.
