📰 ‘100% monsoon quota this year’
July rainfall exceeded IMD prediction
•Reiterating its forecast from June, the India Meteorological Department has said India will get ‘normal’ rain during the remaining months of the monsoon season. India is likely to get 100% of its annual monsoon quota of 89 cm, a slight increase over the 98% forecast by the agency in June.
•“The rainfall during August is likely to be 99 ± 9% of LPA and the seasonal (June to September) rainfall over the country as a whole is likely to be normal (96% - 104% of LPA),” the IMD said in a statement on Tuesday.
Resurgence ahead
•Rainfall had weakened over most of the country in the first week of August after a munificent July, where rainfall exceeded the quota forecast by the IMD. Low rainfall in August — part of a ‘break’ or hiatus anticipated by the meteorologists — has shaved 3% off what the country usually gets between June 1 and August 7. However, India is likely to get 100% of its annual monsoon.
•This year, the IMD formally launched a new forecast model — the Monsoon Mission Coupled Forecasting System (MMCFS) — that employs supercomputers to forecast the monsoon. This is in addition to the statistical system traditionally employed.
•In April and June, figures from both models were made public as part of the IMD’s forecast.
•Tuesday’s forecast, however, doesn’t explicitly mention figures from the MMCFS. “Both numbers are extremely close. If there’s a wide difference we will declare that,” D.S. Pai, Chief Forecaster, IMD Pune, told The Hindu.
📰 Only govt. can take call on yoga in schools: SC
Bench says it is ‘not our business to say what should be taught in schools’
•Noting that it is not “our business” to check what is being taught in schools, the Supreme Court has dismissed a petition for a direction to the government to make yoga education a compulsory part of the syllabus for Classes one to eight.
•“We are nobody to say what is to be taught in schools,” a Bench, led by Justice Madan B. Lokur, orally observed. The Bench denied any relief to petitioner and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, saying it was for the government to take the call on such issues. His petition had sought a direction to the government to frame a National Yoga Policy, saying that right to health was part of the right to lead a dignified life under Article 21. The plea, that cited the HRD Ministry, the NCERT, the NCTE and the CBSE as parties, sought a direction to “provide standard textbooks of ‘Yoga and Health Education’ for students of class one to eight”.
📰 Nepal to stay neutral
•Nepal on Tuesday said it intended to maintain neutrality in the India-China standoff. “Nepal doesn’t take sides on the issue. India and China both have not asked or pressured Nepal seeking favour. We don’t see possibility of a war,” said Foreign Minister of Nepal Krishna Bahadur Mahara in Kathmandu.
•Mr. Mahara’s statement has set the stage for a crucial week when Nepal will host key Indian and Chinese dignitaries.
📰 Start-up funding may come under SEBI lens
Regulator keen to oversee such deals, ensure transparency
•The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is concerned with the manner in which start-ups are being funded through unregulated entities and is examining the manner in which alternative fund-raising platforms and crowd-funding ventures can be regulated to bring in transparency and regulatory oversight in such deals.
•The regulator has recently formed a panel under T.V. Mohandas Pai, former CFO of Infosys , to look into this issue and advise on ensuring that market disruption does not come at the cost of investor protection and market integrity.
•Incidentally, SEBI chairman Ajay Tyagi had recently met an industry delegation to discuss the matter as the regulator was concerned with the increasing number of such entities in the market with even recognised stock exchanges raising a red flag over the mushrooming of such ventures.
Crowd-funding
•The Committee on Financial and Regulatory Technologies will, among other things, deliberate on financial technology solutions for “further widening and deepening of the Indian securities market” through traditional and alternative platforms, including peer to peer lending and equity crowd-funding.
•Interestingly, this comes in the wake of notices that the regulator has sent to many entities that act as platforms for funding start-ups or connecting them to the large investor community.
•While questioning the manner in which these entities help start-ups raise funds, the regulator has said that any violation would be “construed as organising an unrecognised stock exchange” and that SEBI would be “constrained to initiate action.”
•There are many entities such as Grex, Venture Catalysts, Indian Angel Network, LetsVenture, Traxn and TermSheet that help start-ups connect with investors. It could not be immediately ascertained whether all these entities have received the SEBI notice.
•Under the current legal framework, issue of shares to more than 200 persons constitutes a public issue and needs SEBI approval. Earlier, the cap was 49 and was increased to 200 when the Companies Act was revised in 2013. Industry participants said that SEBI has a provision under Section 28 of Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act (SCRA) that allowed the regulator to recognise such alternative investment platforms.
‘Framework critical’
•“While a notification under section 28 of SCRA providing legal recognition to alternative investment platforms would be a welcome step, a lot would depend upon the framework to ensure clearing and settlement and audit trail of transactions,” said Sumit Agrawal, partner, Suvan Law Advisors and a former SEBI law officer.
•“A SEBI press release issued last year looks at all such innovations with a suspicious eye. Globally there are no uniform standards for registrations while at most places such platforms are regulated trading venues, which serve as an alternative to trading at a public exchange,” he added.
•The start-up ecosystem has gained significance especially after the government's Make in India initiative and important departments including the Department of Economic Affairs and Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion are pushing regulatory bodies to create an investor-friendly ecosystem for such ventures.
•Manish Kumar, group CEO of iVentures and Co-founder Grex, is of the view that while angel groups are an important part of the ecosystem, even stock exchanges could look at such alternative platforms as a means to “deeper downstream integration.”
📰 Logistics Data Bank project to expand to South India
Special Purpose Vehicle begins talks with southern ports
•The Logistics Data Bank (LDB) project, unveiled in July 2016 to make India’s logistics sector more efficient through the use of Information Technology, will soon expand operations to the country’s southern region. So far, it had covered only the western logistics corridor.
•The facility — where every container is attached to a Radio Frequency Identification Tag (RFID) tag and then tracked through RFID readers — aids importers and exporters in tracking their goods in transit. This has, in turn, cut the overall lead time of container movement as well as reduced transaction costs that consignees and shippers incur. It is billed as a major ‘ease of doing business’ initiative aimed at boosting India’s foreign trade and ensuring greater transparency.
•The project covers “the entire movement (of containers) through rail or road till the Inland Container Depot and Container Freight Station,” the shipping ministry had said, adding that the service integrates information available with the agencies across the supply chain to provide detailed, real-time information within a single window.
•The LDB is being implemented through a Special Purpose Vehicle called Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation Logistics Data Services Ltd. (DLDSL) — that is jointly (50:50) owned by the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) Trust and Japanese IT services major NEC Corporation.
•On July 1, 2016, the LDB project was launched at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port, Mumbai. From May this year, its operations expanded to the container terminals at Adani Port Special Economic Zone, Mundra and Adani Hazira Port — both in Gujarat.
‘3.88 mn containers’
•So far, in all, the DLDSL provides “container tracking services to around 70% of the container traffic in India.” The services include providing users the ‘average delivery time’ as well as notifications through SMS and email. About 3.88 million containers (1.87 million import containers and 2.01 million export containers) have been tagged and de-tagged under the project until now. Official sources said talks have begun with ports in south India for further expansion of the project.
•Initial discussions on the LDB project were held in May 2012. Talks were held on a regulatory framework from the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) to ensure that all logistics players share data to make the project viable.
•Later on, meetings were held between the DGFT, the shipping ministry and other stakeholders including the Tariff Authority for Major Ports regarding the regulatory framework on Mandatory User Charges (MUC) as well. In November 2014, TAMP passed an order for levy of MUC for the project.
📰 Food for action
The Supreme Court directive should leadto better access under the Food Security Act
•The National Food Security Act, 2013, has met with prolonged political indifference, but there is some hope now since the Centre has been asked by the Supreme Court to ensure that States implement key aspects of the progressive law. The directives in the Swaraj Abhiyan case underscore the depressing reality that several State governments have not met key requirements in the legislation which empower the common person in securing subsidised food. Sections 14, 15 and 16, which require the setting up of a grievance redress mechanism and a State Food Commission with responsibility to monitor the implementation of the law, have been heeded only in name, as in Haryana, or not at all. Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan’s claim last November that the Act covers the entire country is, therefore, not consistent with the facts. As the court has pointed out, Article 256, which casts a responsibility on the States and the Union to ensure compliance with laws made by Parliament, also provides the remedy, as it can be invoked by the Centre to set things right. Unfortunately, the NFSA, which is vital for social security through the Public Distribution System and child welfare schemes, has suffered due to a lack of political will.
•As a law with egalitarian goals, the NFSA should have set the floor for food security through the principle of universal access, though not every citizen would need it. There is great merit in providing highly subsidised foodgrains to targeted households chosen by the State governments, with a ceiling of 75% of the population in rural areas and 50% in urban areas. But the system should have in-built mechanisms to allow for the entry of new households that suddenly find themselves in financial distress, while others can exit it based on changed circumstances. Such arrangements can be made only when there is a full-fledged, independent machinery in the form of a Food Commission, and district-level grievance redress, besides social audits. All these are provided for under the Act, but have been ignored. Modernisation of the PDS, with the use of information technology, could incorporate such dynamic features to the supply of subsidised food to those who need it, and eliminate deficiencies and fraud. Now that the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution has been given specific directives by the court to complete the unfinished tasks this year, it should make up for lost time. As is widely acknowledged, some States are better at running the PDS than others, and the food security law is the best tool to raise standards uniformly. Food Ministry data presented to Parliament show that the present system does not reflect the true scale of public grievances, with a mere 1,106 complaints received from beneficiaries nationwide in 2016, including those reported in the media. The court’s intervention is wholly welcome to make the NFSA meaningful.
📰 Rouhani’s challenge
Iran’s President begins his second term in daunting circumstances at home and abroad
•Hassan Rouhani has formally begun his second term as Iran’s President in especially challenging circumstances. Conservatives at home are pushing for a hard-line agenda, Sunni states in the Gulf are consolidating a regional alliance against Shia-majority Iran, and the U.S. is turning up the heat on the country’s missile programme. Mr. Rouhani, who won the election on a moderate platform, had drawn hope during his campaign that he would build on the momentum his first term had generated and initiate social reform. It was never going to be easy, given the resolve of the clerical establishment to push back any major attempt to change the status quo . In Iran’s complex, multipolar political system, the President runs the government with a popular mandate but the security establishment reports directly to the Supreme Leader, who can override the government on critical issues. What Mohammad Khatami tried and failed and what Mr. Rouhani tested during his first term was to gradually push pragmatic policies, overcoming the conservative opposition. Mr. Rouhani’s decision to go ahead with the nuclear deal despite concerns from the establishment was an example of his successful brinkmanship. The expectation was that in his second term, Mr. Rouhani would expand the reform agenda into domestic politics. The reformists have many demands.
•However, one of the first decisions Mr. Rouhani has taken in the new term raises questions about his resolve to initiate meaningful reforms. On Tuesday, he nominated an all-men cabinet, which needs to be approved by Parliament. The chances of women nominees getting through the parliamentary process were high this time given that reformists and moderates make up a majority in the Majlis. Still, Mr. Rouhani preferred not to take the risk of antagonising conservatives. To be sure, these are hard times for a moderate President in Iran. The nuclear deal, the signature achievement of Mr. Rouhani’s first term, is under attack, with U.S. President Donald Trump threatening to cancel its certification. With the U.S. imposing more sanctions on Iran over the missile programme and joining hands with its regional rivals such as Saudi Arabia, conservative sections find their hard-line views vindicated and would like Tehran to reciprocate in the same tenor. Mr. Rouhani may therefore have preferred to avoid a clash within the system over his cabinet nominations. It is not clear to what extent he may sacrifice the reformist agenda under pressure from hardliners. His supporters will hope that he will come around to simultaneously pursuing a pragmatic reformist agenda at home and a realistic foreign policy that doesn’t succumb to external provocations. Only then would Hassan Rouhani live up to the expectations of the millions of Iranians who re-elected him.
📰 ‘Today, we do not talk of inclusive nationalism’
The former Chairman of the Law Commission on how enforced cultural nationalism will harm India in the long run
•Former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court Ajit Prakash Shah was hailed as the co-architect of the landmark judgment in 2009 that decriminalised homosexuality. Justice Shah, also a former Chairman of the Law Commission, may have retired but he continues to speak openly on a range of issues, including free speech. In this interview, he discusses the current debate on the right to privacy, the Supreme Court judgment on the national anthem, and “enforced cultural nationalism”. Excerpts:
In your M.N. Roy Memorial Lecture on ‘Free Speech, Nationalism and Sedition’ this year, you began with his words and said Roy’s views on nationalism and its attendant dangers still resonate today. What worries you?
•What is of utmost concern in the so-called “nationalism” debate is what (Nigerian writer) Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls “the danger of a single story”, or the danger of understanding an idea only from one perspective. If we restrict our understanding of nationalism, we ignore the multiplicity of views that exist. Nazism and fascism were both ugly manifestations of nationalism. They were irrational and excessive. In contrast, we have Gandhi’s and Nehru’s nationalism, which was anti-colonial and sought to be all-inclusive; it was not based on religion.
•Today, in India, we do not talk of inclusive nationalism. What we have is a situation of enforced cultural nationalism. It is a culture of hate that is being perpetrated in the name of nationalism. There are repeated lynchings in the name of cow protection — from Mohammad Akhlaq to Junaid Khan, it is all very disturbing, to say the least. There is an invasion of university space. Independent thinking is being killed. We seem to have forgotten the all-inclusive nationalism from half a century ago, and we have inverted it into something that is undesirable.
•As Tagore said, when the nation becomes powerful at the cost of the harmony of social life, that day is an evil day for humanity. What do we have today instead? People speak of removing the thoughts of Tagore from textbooks!
You posed a question on the defining characteristic of a nation, whether it’s the territorial boundary or the people. What does nation mean to you?
•The defining characteristic of a nation changes with time, situation and context. About 150 years ago, countries were still isolated from each other, and an identity based on geography was necessary to bring about order in chaos. But in a world that is increasingly international, where identities of ordinary people have intermingled so greatly that they are no longer distinguishable from one another, it becomes hard to defend the idea of a nation based only on territorial boundary. Indeed, as M.N. Roy put it, the idea may even well be regarded as an “antiquated cult”. If we allow territorial identity to overwhelm our narrative, we may regress into a situation where people become blinded by a nationality driven by irrationality, which in turn may have extreme consequences. Sadly, this is the situation we seem to have found ourselves in today.
Connected to this is the trend of manufacturing affection for the state and government — be it the Prime Minister’s office, the Army, the police, to call them to question is to spread disaffection against the state. And linked to that is: what prevents us from striking down the law on sedition?
•We are in a situation today where any criticism of certain offices is branded as anti-national and sedition. Whether it is any wrongdoing, fake encounters in the Northeast, even speaking about these is enough to label you seditious. We are also acquiring a reputation of being singularly humourless, where even a parody is not tolerated!
•In India, we have had a long, celebrated legal history of fighting against the law of sedition. Gandhi, Tilak and their ilk have all been part of building the jurisprudence around this. The [Supreme] Court agrees that mere criticism is not sedition. But that does not prevent prosecutions from taking place. Any dissent is taken as sedition. This tendency is very disturbing.
•Gandhi said that we cannot expect the law to manufacture affection for the state, that we must allow disaffection to be fully expressed unless it incites violence. This is also what Kedar Nath Singh v the State of Bihar (1962) says. The law is clear that mere sloganeering is not enough, and has to be accompanied by a call for violence. But when an FIR is registered, the question of interpretation of the law in line with the Supreme Court does not arise. While the court may eventually acquit the person accused, the trial itself becomes the punishment. And worst of all, through the harassment it causes, the trial acts as the deterrent against any voice of dissent or criticism. As a result, the broad scope of Section 124-A (of the IPC) allows the state to go after those who challenge its power, whether it is the JNU students, activists such as Hardik Patel and Binayak Sen, authors such as Arundhati Roy, cartoonists such as Aseem Trivedi, or the villagers of Idinthakarai in Tamil Nadu protesting against the Kudankulam nuclear power plant.
•You are defending free speech, yet we are all aware of the restrictions imposed by Article 19(2) of the Constitution. Has the time come to review it?
•Agreed, 19(2) has its restrictions. But the court has also read these restrictions very narrowly. The court has always said the restrictions to free speech must be reasonable and not excessive or arbitrary. And free speech itself has always been linked to democratic ideals by the court. For example, in Anand Dighe’s case (in 2001, relating to the prohibition of performance of the Marathi play Mee Nathuram Godse Boltoy ), the court highlighted that respect for, and tolerance of, a “diversity of viewpoints” was essential to sustain a democratic society and government. Similarly, in Anand Patwardhan’s case (in 1996, relating to the refusal of Doordarshan to telecast his documentary film In Memory of Friends ), the court said that the state cannot prevent open discussion, regardless of how hateful such discussion was to the state’s policies. But the Supreme Court put it best, perhaps, in S. Rangarajan v P. Jagjivan Ram (1989), when it said that “in a democracy it is not necessary that everyone should sing the same song”.
•The response to criticism is not to shut it down, but to engage with, and respond to, the speaker. Free speech must be countered by more speech, not by acts of moral vigilantism. Such acts have absolutely no place in our constitutional polity and democracy.
•What prevents us from striking down the law on sedition, you ask. The immense power that the state wields through this provision makes it difficult to let go of the law entirely. It’s as straightforward as that.
You said that the interim order of the Supreme Court on the national anthem has actually undermined patriotism. How?
•The right to free speech and expression also includes the right not to speak or express ourselves. However, under the guise of “law”, with this order, the court has now restricted our fundamental rights. Making something compulsory, like standing up when a national anthem is sung, undermines the very meaning of that action, and the respect that is normally accorded to it. It is a form of what I would call “conscripted nationalism”.
•The Madras High Court has replayed this with its recent order that ‘Vande Mataram’ must be sung regularly in educational institutions and elsewhere, including workplaces like factories and offices! The courts have failed to recognise that such actions — of singing or standing up — are now no longer genuine acts of nationalism. They have now become a performance. People now sing or stand not because they truly respect the sentiment that these songs or poems convey, but because they are afraid of being beaten up. In effect, orders like these have actually undermined patriotism amongst fellow Indians.
•The judiciary is supposed to be the protector of individual liberties. It is indeed disturbing that it should itself mandate such restrictions.
Do you see this as a consequence of majoritarianism?
•I strongly believe that actions like these — preventing people from eating the food they want, effectively forcing a life choice on them — undermine any feelings of nationalism and unity. This is nothing but enforced cultural nationalism. It is unimaginable to expect that a country as diverse as India can be expected to lead a homogenised existence, with a single ideology or monochromatic way of living, or a standard diet.
•I practise yoga regularly, for example, and I believe it is a holistic practice. But that does not mean that I will spend the rest of my time foisting yoga upon others. I do not endorse the idea of making yoga compulsory, as if it were a badge of nationalism and Hindu pride.
•In the same vein, recent reports of installing a military tank on the JNU campus to “instil nationalism” in the students is absurd! Enforced nationalism cannot promote true culture. People and cultures, regardless of belonging to a particular class or geography, can truly grow and evolve only if they can transcend all social and territorial limitations.
The right to privacy is currently being looked into by the Supreme Court. Is it absolute?
•The right to privacy has historically been read under Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution by the court. From Govind v State of Madhya Pradesh (1975) to NALSA v Union of India (2014), the Supreme Court has repeated the existence of a right to privacy under the Constitution. One concept emerging throughout is that the right to privacy cannot be absolute. It must be restricted by law, and must be within the parameters of Article 19(2).
•The court itself, in the latest hearing, has observed that one of the immediate consequences of declaring privacy a fundamental right could be the creation of a corresponding obligation on the government to bring in a regulatory framework. Of course, a regulatory framework is needed. India is one of the few countries which does not have a privacy law or data protection law.
•There are many kinds of privacy: privacy of space, privacy of behaviour, privacy of decisions and privacy of information. Privacy even exists in the right to be left alone, or the right to be forgotten. Underlying all concepts of privacy is the principle of dignity. The lawyers in the present matter have argued that it would be more proper if the court, after recognising the right, does not define the contours of this right, and decides its delineation on a case-to-case basis instead. I agree. This is a case involving the citizen versus the state. The court must stand by the citizens.
