📰 Ocean forecasting system unveiled
•The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) of the Ministry of Earth Sciences here inaugurated the Ocean Forecasting System for Comoros, Madagascar, and Mozambique at the third Ministerial Meeting of Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System for Asia and Africa (RIMES), held at Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, on Friday.
•The ocean forecast and early warming information on high wave, currents, winds, tides, sub-surface ocean conditions cater to users like fishermen, coastal population, tourism sector, coastal defence officials, marine police, port authorities, research institutions and offshore industries of these countries.
Safety at sea
•These ocean services are aimed towards safety at the sea.
•The system would offer oil spill advisory services, high wave alerts, port warnings, forecast along the ship routes in addition to tsunami and storm surge warnings and help in search and rescue operations.
New system launched
•M. Rajeevan, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, and Chair, RIMES Council, launched the system for operational use in the presence of David Grimms, President of World Meteorological Organization (WMO); Wesley Nukund, Minister for Disaster Management, Papua New Guinea; Soulaimana Kaambi, Deputy Minister, Comoros; Abdullahi Majeed, Minister of Disaster Management, Maldives; Anura Priyadharshana Yapa Yapa, Minister of Disaster Management, Sri Lanka; Subbaiah, Director of RIMES; Balakrishnan Nair, Head, ISG, INCOIS and Director General of Metrology and Disaster Management of 48 countries of Indian and pacific ocean region.
•The INCOIS has already been providing these operational services to the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Seychelles.
•The Ministerial council and the WMO lauded and placed on record the initiatives of INCOIS/India in providing the ocean forecast and early warning services to the Indian Ocean countries and taking a leadership in ocean services in the Indian Ocean region.
Real-time data
•“The Ocean Forecast System developed for the Indian Ocean countries and the real-time data from their territories also help to improve the ocean forecast and early warning system for the Indian coast too,” said Balakrishnan Nair, Head, Ocean Science and Information Services, Hyderabad.
•Wave surge ( kallkadal ) and coastal flooding that occurred from July 28 to August 3 in 2016 along Kerala and West Bengal were well predicted and real-time data from Seychelles were highly beneficial for predicting these incidents, as many of these remotely forced waves originated from the southern and western Indian Ocean, he added.
•The ocean forecast and early warning services were most essential for safe navigation and operations at sea and the blue economic growth of many of these Indian Ocean rim countries and island nations.
📰 Under-employment severe in India: NITI
‘Productive and well-paid jobs needed’
•Making a case for promoting highly productive and well-paid jobs, NITI Aayog has said that not unemployment but a “severe under-employment” is the main problem facing the country.
•The government think-tank, in its three-year Action Agenda, released last week, has said that a focus on the domestic market through an import-substitution strategy would give rise to a group of relatively small firms behind a high wall of protection. “Contrary to some assertions that India’s growth has been ‘jobless’, the Employment Unemployment Surveys (EUS) of the National Sample Survey Office have reported low and stable rates of unemployment over more than three decades.
•“The more serious problem, instead, is severe underemployment,” the Aayog said in the Action Agenda. “What is needed is the creation of high-productivity, high-wage jobs,” it added. Citing examples of South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and China, it said: “The ‘Make in India’ campaign needs to succeed by manufacturing for global markets.” Noting that with Chinese wages rising due to an ageing workforce and many labour-intensive sectors in that country looking for lower-wage locations, the Aayog said, “with its large workforce and competitive wages, India would be a natural home for these firms.” “Therefore, the time for adopting a manufactures— and exports—based strategy could not be more opportune,” it added.
•The Aayog recommended the creation of a handful of Coastal Employment Zones, which may attract multinational firms in labour-intensive sectors from China to India. Making a case for reforming labour laws, the Aayog noted that recently fixed-term employment has been introduced in the textiles and apparel industry.
📰 Govt. seeks to replicate Ujjwala success
Aims at making 9 crore ‘deprived’ households the focus of all its welfare schemes
•The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) — the scheme to give free LPG connections to the poorest households — was termed a gamechanger for the ruling party in Uttar Pradesh because of its popularity as a pro-poor move.
•Now, the Modi government wants to replicate its success for all the other welfare schemes, especially the ones implemented by the Rural Development Ministry.
•Officials point out that as the Modi government heads to 2019 elections, there is a “conscious attempt” to change its core political constituency. “If you want to be known as the government for the poor, you have to ensure that your schemes reach the right people,” said a senior official tasked with implementing Modi government’s flagship programme.
•The Ujjwala scheme owes much of its success to the data provided by the Socio Economic Caste Census 2011 or SECC that helped the Petroleum Ministry, along with the State governments, accurately identify the households in need of an LPG connection. The SECC data identifies nearly 9 crore households as “deprived’’ as per the different deprivation indicators used for the Census. The Rural Development Ministry wants to make these households the focus of all its welfare schemes.
•The Ministry has already started using the SECC data to give direct financial assistance to build low-cost houses to the poor under the PM Awas Yojana, electricity connection under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Power Scheme, build toilets under the Swachh Bharat Mission and prepare Labour Budgets under the Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
Not discriminatory
•“The SECC data is agnostic to one’s caste, religion or community. If you are poor and in need of government help, you will get,” a senior official in the Rural Development Ministry said . The next welfare scheme based on it could be the health scheme announced by the Finance Minister in the 2016 budget but hadn’t yet taken off.
•Social activists say the data is more reliable but for welfare schemes to have better reach, the government should increase social sector spending.
📰 Why does the 2022 target for rooftop solar seem ambitious?
The government has set itself a target of 100 GW of solar power by 2022, of which 60 GW is to come from utilities and 40 GW from rooftop solar installations. While the 60 GW target seems achievable, the country is lagging behind on the target set for rooftop solar.
What is rooftop solar?
•Rooftop solar installations — as opposed to large-scale solar power generation plants — can be installed on the roofs of buildings. As such, they fall under two brackets: commercial and residential. This simply has to do with whether the solar panels are being installed on top of commercial buildings or residential complexes.
What are the benefits?
•Rooftop solar provides companies and residential areas the option of an alternative source of electricity to that provided by the grid. While the main benefit of this is to the environment, since it reduces the dependence on fossil-fuel generated electricity, solar power can also augment the grid supply in places where it is erratic.
•Rooftop solar also has the great benefit of being able to provide electricity to those areas that are not yet connected to the grid — remote locations and areas where the terrain makes it difficult to set up power stations and lay power lines.
What is the potential for rooftop solar in India?
•The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has pegged the market potential for rooftop solar at 124 GW. However, only 1,247 MW of capacity had been installed as of December 31, 2016. That is a little more than 3% of the target for 2022, and 1% of the potential.
Why is it not being adopted widely?
•One of the major problems with rooftop solar — and what affects solar energy generation in general — is the variability in supply. Not only can the efficiency of the solar panels vary on any given day depending on how bright the sunlight is, but the solar panels also produce no electricity during the night. Arguably, night is when off-grid locations most need alternative sources of electricity.
•The solution to this is storage. Storage technology for electricity, however, is still underdeveloped and storage solutions are expensive. So, while some companies will be able to afford storage solutions for the solar energy they produce, most residential customers will find the cost of installing both rooftop solar panels and storage facilities prohibitive. Residential areas also come with the associated issues of use restrictions of the roof — if the roof is being used for solar generation, then it cannot be used for anything else.
•Another major reason why rooftop solar is not becoming popular is that the current electricity tariff structure renders it an unviable option.
•Many states have adopted a net metering policy, which allows disaggregated power producers to sell excess electricity to the grid. However, the subsidised tariffs charged to residential customers undermine the economic viability of installing rooftop solar panels. The potential profit simply does not outweigh the costs.
•That said, imports of cheap solar panels are continuously placing a downward pressure on prices and so this scenario could change in the future. Commercial applications of rooftop solar are already viable in most states.
📰 New tax regime to give manufacturing a boost
GST to spur investments and generation of jobs
•After seventeen years, the journey for the economic unification of India that started with the government led by Atal Behari Vajpayee setting up an empowered committee headed by Shri Asim Dasgupta, the then Finance Minister of West Bengal, finally concluded with the roll out of the Goods and Services Tax — the ‘One nation, one tax” on July 1, 2017.
•A lot has been said about benefits accruing to India from a shift to GST. However, this was perhaps best summed up by Prime Minister Modi in his address to the joint session when he stated: “GST will free the common man from tax terrorism and inspector raj. Besides being a transparent and fair system that will end generation of black money and corruption, GST will promote [a] new governance culture that will end harassment at the hand of tax officials.”
•By replacing the old regime of 17-odd indirect levies fragmented at state lines by a single tax; the Indian economy stands to benefit tremendously with a simplified, transparent tax structure that will help reduce discretion, lower litigation and improve ease of doing business thus helping attract foreign direct investment and improving industry competitiveness. It is estimated that GST may contribute an 80 basis point rise in GDP growth over 3-5 years.
•NCAER pegs this at 0.9-1.7%. The manufacturing sector will also get a boost as GST is expected to address long-standing issues like inter-state taxes, high compliance costs, cascading impact of taxes, high logistics costs and to also ensure a level-playing field with respect to imports as GST provides for appropriate countervailing duty.
•This, along with the fact that many capital goods are likely to witness a 12-14% drop in cost owing to availability of full input tax credit, will spur investments and generate jobs.
•For automobiles, the shift to GST has largely been to the benefit of the industry and the consumer except for certain issues. The higher GST rate for hybrid vehicles will make them unviable for consumers and will result in petrol and diesel variants being sold instead.
•This is not be desirable as hybrids are much more fuel-efficient and environment-friendly vehicles. Also, levy of tax on used cars at the same rate as for new cars is likely to push this business in the informal sector.
•This would negate the Centre’s aim of bringing the unregulated part of this business under the regulated mainstream and also lead to the state losing tax revenue in the process. As we are still in the early phase of the regime, it is hoped that these and other important issues will be addressed soon.
Checks in place
•Another important change in the indirect tax system is the shift in the taxable event from the sale, manufacture, provision of service or import in the past, to the supply of goods and/or services under GST.
•Further, as the GSTN system matches the details of tax paid by a supplier to the details of credit claimed by the recipient, excess credit claim by the recipient will be disallowed automatically till the time the return is rectified. Thus, the new system motivates recipients to keep a check on suppliers.
•Also, the GST-compliance rating system for suppliers has shifted part of the burden of ensuring compliance to the recipient. This, along with technology enablement, will surely improve compliance significantly.
•The GST structure has been criticised owing to multiple slabs and high effective peak rate of GST. It has been argued by many that the true spirit of GST has been lost and that a high GST rate will fuel inflation. However, the Government has done well to be pragmatic, remain in touch with ground realities and not get carried away by ambitious expectations. In the present socio-economic context, it is unrealistic to expect a single or a two-tax slab structure.
•Moreover, since the Government has taken care to ensure tax rates post GST are as close to the pre-GST rates for most products, fears of GST fuelling inflation seem misplaced. With better compliance that is expected, the Government may actually gain enough space in future to consider reducing the number of slabs or lowering the compensation cess.
•The beginning has been better than expected with hardly any major hitches. Governments, at the centre and the states, along with the bureaucratic machinery, deserves to be congratulated for making a distant dream of the past into reality.
📰 ‘Centre ready to provide capital support for merger of PSBs’
‘Public sector banks grappling with Rs. 6 lakh cr. worth NPAs’
•The Finance Ministry is open to providing capital support for facilitating consolidation among state-owned banks, which are reeling under mounting bad loans, official sources said.
•The Union Cabinet has approved the setting up of an alternative mechanism, or a panel of ministers, to decide on consolidation proposals for state-run banks.
•On receiving a proposal from stressed banks, if the Ministerial panel finds that the merger is going to create a strong bank, it will not let it go for want of fund shortage, the sources said, adding that acquisition would come at a cost. “First, the merger proposal should come from the board,” said a source, who did not want to be named.
•“If the alternative mechanism finds the match viable, the Finance Ministry could provide capital support to the acquiring bank if there is a shortfall,” he said.
•Sources said the government is keen that at least one merger proposal reaches a logical conclusion by the end of the current fiscal. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said the government had not set any target for consolidation.
•There are now 20 public sector banks (PSBs) other than SBI. These state-owned banks are grappling with Rs. 6 lakh crore worth of non-performing assets (NPAs) or bad loans, which is about 75% of the total distress.
Final nod
•After in-principle approval for consolidation, the banks would take steps in accordance with the law and SEBI requirements. The final scheme will be approved by the Cabinet.
•An official source said: “It is not necessary that a larger PSB should takeover a small or mid-size lender. If there is synergy, two or three banks can merge to create a bigger and stronger entity so that the dependence on the public exchequer is minimised.”
📰 ‘JAM’ will end exclusion: Jaitley
Says Jan Dhan, Aadhaar and mobile revolution will ensure economic inclusion
•Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday wrote an article highlighting the benefits of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, which has completed three years, saying the combination of the scheme with Aadhaar and the mobile revolution would bring all Indians into the mainstream and would end economic and social exclusion.
•“JAM, a term coined, and a vision conceptualized, by our Chief Economic Adviser, is nothing short of a social revolution because it has brought together financial inclusion (PMJDY), biometric identification (Aadhaar) and mobile telecommunications,” Mr. Jaitley wrote.
•“Today, about 52.4 crore unique Aadhaar numbers are linked to 73.62 crore accounts in India,” Mr. Jaitley added.
Cushion against shocks
•“As a result, the poor are able to make payments electronically,” he added. “Every month now, about seven crore successful payments are made by the poor using their Aadhaar identification.”
•“The JAM social revolution offers substantial benefits for government, the economy and especially the poor,” Mr. Jaitley wrote. “The poor will have access to financial services and be cushioned against life’s major shocks. Government finances will be improved because of the reduced subsidy burden; at the same time, government will also be strengthened because it can transfer resources to citizens faster and more reliably and with less leakage.”
•The Finance Minister also added that the government now makes direct transfers worth Rs. 74,000 crore to the financial accounts of 35 crore beneficiaries annually under various government schemes such as PAHAL, MNREGA, old age pensions and student scholarships.
•The number of PMJDY accounts opened stood at 29.52 crore as of August 16, up from 12.55 crore in January 2015. The number of rural PMJDY accounts grew from 7.54 crore to 17.64. The number of RuPay cards issued increased from 11.08 crore to 22.71 crore.
•The total balance in beneficiary accounts stood at Rs. 65,844.68 crore and the average balance per account increased from Rs. 837 in January 2015 to Rs. 2,231 as of August 16, 2017 and the proportion of zero balance accounts fell from 76.81% in September 2014 to 21.41%.
•“As of March 2014, women constituted about 28% of all savings accounts, with 33.69 crore accounts,” Mr. Jaitley wrote. “As of March 2017, according to data from top 40 banks and regional rural banks, women’s share has risen to about 40%. .”
📰 How privacy stacks up
In accepting the different conceptions of privacy, the Supreme Court has advanced the privacy jurisprudence
•A nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court, only the tenth such instance in India’s history, delivered a historic judgment on Thursday. The judges unanimously affirmed the existence of a constitutional right to privacy. The ADM Jabalpur decision from the Emergency era was formally overruled, and the majority openly criticised the reasoning in Koushal , the verdict on Section 377. These are significant developments, and the decision can be expected to have sweeping implications for constitutional law in India. However, relatively little attention has been paid to what this decision entails for the future of the right to privacy in India. This piece focusses on three significant privacy themes that permeate the judgment.
Clusters of rights
•The first among them is this: is the right to privacy a monolithic conception, or does it consist of different variants? There were already hints in the Indian jurisprudence that privacy is best conceptualised as consisting of clusters of rights. Privacy in India has raised issues ranging from surveillance, search and seizure, and telephone tapping to abortion, transgender rights and narco-analysis. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that these cases raise distinct issues and demand different analyses. The Supreme Court has now confirmed this view. In acknowledging that different conceptions of privacy exist, it has significantly advanced the privacy jurisprudence in the country.
•Although there was near unanimity among the judges that privacy operates through different variants, there was no clear consensus on what these variants are. While Justice D.Y. Chandrachud offered a learned discussion of the different methods of classifying privacy, ultimately he chose to not embark upon ‘an exhaustive enumeration’ of the privacy categories. Justice R.F. Nariman expressed a clearer view, referring specifically to ‘physical privacy’, ‘informational privacy’, and the ‘privacy of choice’. In reaching that conclusion, his reasoning was reminiscent of the privacy jurisprudence in the U.S., where distinct variants of privacy derive support from different constitutional safeguards. Finally, Justice J. Chelameswar discussed the privacy of ‘repose, sanctuary, and intimate decision’. It is unfortunate, though unsurprising, that the judges did not agree on what the constitutive variants of privacy are. Expressing a final view on classification was strictly not necessary to answer the reference. Nevertheless, this may have been an opportunity for the Court to delineate the broad contours within which privacy could structurally grow.
Judicial review
•The second issue concerns the standard(s) against which privacy infractions must be judged. When is it permissible for the state to restrict individuals’ privacy? As privacy is an aspect of the right to life and liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution, the question should be: is the impugned restriction of privacy ‘just, fair and reasonable’? Sometimes, however, an entirely distinct, higher standard of review has also been used. That standard enquires whether the impugned violation of privacy is aimed at achieving a ‘compelling state interest’.
•On this issue, Justice Chandrachud adopted the classic three-step analysis: Is the restriction supported by ‘law’? Does the law pursue a legitimate objective? Is there a rational nexus between the objects sought to be achieved and the means used to achieve them? Admittedly, he used the language of ‘proportionality’. However, it would be a step too far to read that as a wholesale adoption of the entirely distinct European standard of proportionality into Indian privacy jurisprudence. Justice S.K. Kaul, in contrast, seemed to take the further step of expressly adopting the proportionality standard. Both Justice Chelameswar and Justice S.A. Bobde noted the distinct standards of ‘reasonableness’ and ‘compelling state interest’. Neither however, conclusively identified the instances when each of these standards may apply. Unfortunately thus, the judgment offered no majority view on this point, although it seemed clear that restrictions on the right to privacy must at the very minimum be ‘just, fair and reasonable’.
Horizontal application
•The final theme is about whom privacy is a guarantee against. Do infractions by private entities as well as the state fall within the ambit of constitutional privacy? As a general rule, Indian courts have refrained from applying fundamental rights against private persons unless required by the express words of the Constitution. In the context of privacy however, the Court had, on at least three previous occasions, blurred the conceptual distinction between the private law infringement of privacy and the constitutional infraction.
•On this question again, the Supreme Court’s view was divided. Justice Chandrachud, on behalf of the four judges, chose to leave this question to the legislature. In contrast, Justice Bobde and Justice Kaul took opposing views. Justice Bobde affirmed the separation between the constitutional right to privacy and the common law right. The former is available only as against the state; the latter, against private persons. Justice Kaul disagreed. To him, the fundamental right to privacy applies against ‘interference from both state, and non-state actors’.
•In sum, the Supreme Court on Thursday made a remarkable contribution to the privacy jurisprudence in India. However, the specificities of the right to privacy await final resolution. The impending privacy challenges to Aadhaar and the WhatsApp privacy policy will, it is hoped, offer the Court another opportunity to provide definitive guidance on these issues.
📰 Search for democracy
The once-thriving Thai economy could be losing out to competition from ASEAN neighbours
•A lasting return to democratic order remains a long-standing concern in Thailand, but seems some distance away in this founder member state of ASEAN. The latest twist to the ongoing political turmoil is the failure on Friday of the former Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, deposed in 2014 by a constitutional court, to appear for the final verdict in a case relating to a rice subsidy scheme. Her absence has fuelled speculation that she may have fled the country, much like her sibling and erstwhile head of government Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in 2006 in a military coup and has been living in exile since. The Shinawatras largely symbolise the simmering opposition to the entrenched influence of the military and urban elites in a nation where the contemporary record is a continuous cycle of coups and military-inspired Constitutions. The late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died last year, was an ardent champion of rural development, but not enamoured of democratic freedoms. His successor, Maha Vajiralongkorn, earlier this year endorsed the latest charter, the 20th in over 80 years, but only after wresting powers from the junta.
•The Constitution has little to commend itself in terms of either enshrining democratic principles or popular legitimacy. It provides for a nominated upper house, a non-elected Prime Minister, and greater powers for the Generals. A 2016 referendum drew a mere 61% approval even from the small 55% voter turnout. More ominously, the plebiscite exposed long-festering ethnic divisions between the Malay Muslim-concentrated provinces in the south who rejected the Constitution and the remaining majority Buddhist regions. Given the systematic suppression of dissent and the introduction of draconian legislation, human rights activists have all too often fallen foul of the Generals. Any hopes for a stable democratic government in Thailand will hinge on the conduct of free and fair general elections promised for 2018.
•Whereas a conviction would have made a political martyr of Ms. Shinawatra in the run-up to the polls, her sudden flight from the country has taken the winds out of the opposition’s sails. But embarrassingly, the government of Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-ocha was obliged to offer farmers loans owing to record-low global prices for rice. The move was not much unlike the subsidy scheme that Ms. Shinawatra was sought to be proceeded against.
•Meanwhile, the Generals have their own reputation at stake concerning the award of building contracts to their close associates. There is perhaps merit in the assessment that the once-thriving Thai economy could be losing out to competition from ASEAN neighbours who have emerged from conflict and dictatorship of the recent past. Finally, the country’s leaders should also be concerned that deficits in democratic governance may not always go unnoticed, notwithstanding the ASEAN principle of mutual non-interference in the internal affairs of member nations. There was a welcome deviation from this norm when Myanmar had to forgo the ASEAN annual chair. The precedent would be instructive across the region.
📰 That old spark
The Nepal Prime Minister’s visit sparks hope that bilateral ties will find a new equilibrium
•At a time when the Doklam stand-off had focussed attention on Himalayan geopolitics, it was impossible to miss the significance of the visit of Nepal’s Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to India. This was his first foreign visit as Prime Minister, and it confirmed Kathmandu’s abiding interest in strong ties with India. The recovery of bilateral warmth has taken some doing on both sides. Mr. Deuba is Nepal’s 10th Prime Minister in a decade, and its fourth since its Constitution was promulgated in 2015. India had mounted strong opposition to the Constitution with demands that it be made more inclusive, especially vis-à-vis the Madhesis in the Terai area, sending ties with Kathmandu’s ruling establishment on a downward spiral. Even as Nepal struggled to cope with rehabilitation work after the massive earthquake of 2015, many in Kathmandu held India responsible for the three-month-long “great blockade” of goods and fuel supplies that followed sustained protests by Madhesi groups. To that end, Mr. Deuba’s visit was another opportunity, as were the visits of his predecessors K.P. Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, to repair the India-Nepal relationship. The joint statement at the end of the Delhi leg of his visit refers to the “deep, comprehensive and multi-faceted” ties between the neighbours as it listed projects being developed in Nepal under lines of credit provided by India. These include $200 million for irrigation projects, $330 million for road development and $250 million for power infrastructure in Nepal. India made the obligatory appeal to Kathmandu “to take all sections of society on board” while implementing its Constitution, but the tenor was notably softer this time. No mention was made of a key amendment to the Constitution to accommodate Madhesi demands that had been defeated just last Monday.
•Yet, it would be a mistake to presume that ties can so easily return to their pre-2015 strength, as the ground has shifted in too many ways since then. To begin with, memories of the blockade still rankle in Nepal. And while South Block and Singha Durbar have been keen to move ahead with trade linkages and complete the integrated check-posts at Raxaul-Birgunj and Jogbani-Biratnagar, the land-locked country has actively sought to break its dependence on India for fuel and connectivity. Since 2015, Nepal and China have cooperated on infrastructure plans, including a big hydroelectric project and a rail link to Tibet. Nepal is also part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. India is struggling to leverage the historical closeness with Nepal, the open border the two share and the special status Nepalis working in India have enjoyed. The India-China stand-off in Doklam will add to the awkwardness in the trilateral relationship. Mr. Deuba’s visit will need a sustained follow-up.
