📰 Provide relief in cases of unnatural jail death, SC tells Centre, States
Identify kin of prisoners, SC tells HCs
•The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Chief Justices of all High Courts to suo motu register petitions to identify the kin of prisoners who died unnatural deaths from 2012 and order the States to award them compensation.
•“It is important for the Centre and State governments to realise that persons who suffer an unnatural death in a prison are also victims — sometimes of a crime and sometimes of negligence and apathy or both. There is no reason at all to exclude their kin from receiving compensation only because the victim is a criminal,” a Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Dipak Gupta observed.
•Normally, the National and States Human Rights Commissions decide and award compensations in cases of custodial torture, deaths, etc. However, compliance by State governments is low as these commissions do not exercise any power of contempt. Besides, the States go for a long-drawn appeal in the high courts and later on in the Supreme Court, if necessary. This judgment is significant as the high court will now directly award compensation and ensure compliance by the States.
•The Supreme Court referred to its judgment as a voice of the victims and an end to the silence of the dead.
•The court said though laws have been made for payment of compensation to victims of crime, those in power have turned their back on the families of prisoners who have died unnatural deaths in custody. Human rights in a welfare state is not dependent on the status of the person – whether he is a criminal or a victim.
•“It will be appreciated that merely because a person is accused of a crime or is the perpetrator of a crime and in prison custody, that person could nevertheless be a victim of an unnatural death. Hence the need to compensate the next of kin.” Justice Lokur, who authored the 43-page verdict, wrote.
•The payment from the year 2012 was chosen because National Crimes Records Bureau has records of unnatural deaths from that year.
•The judgment came on a letter addressed to the apex court in 2013 by its former Chief Justice R.C. Lahoti on the deplorable conditions of 1382 prisons across the country.
•In an emotive few paragraphs, Justice Lokur writes about the “voiceless” and forgotten children who have died unnatural deaths while in custody or in child care homes. The court points out how both the Centre and States had never bothered to even compile data on how many children had died thus. The court said the pain and anguish of the families of these children are no less.
•“It seems that apart from being ‘voiceless’, such children are also dispensable... It is time that unnatural deaths of children in child care institutions are seriously looked into by all concerned if we are to provide the children of our country with a better future,” Justice Lokur observed.
•The court put the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development on a deadline – December 31, 2017 – by which it had to formulate procedures for tabulating the number of children who suffered unnatural deaths in custody or in child care institutions and take remedial measures.
•Noting that the time for lip-service is over, the court referred to its 1983 Rudul Sah judgment which said “if civilisation is not to perish in this country, as it has perished in some others too well known to suffer mention, it is necessary to educate ourselves into accepting that, respect for the rights of individuals is the true bastion of democracy.”
📰 SC notice to Centre on plea to ban Blue Whale
•The Supreme Court on Friday asked the government to respond to a petition for an immediate direction to ban online game ‘Blue Whale’, which is suspected to be behind the deaths or attempted suicides of teenagers and young adults hooked to it.
•A Bench, led by the Chief Justice of India, issued notice to the government on a petition by advocate C.R. Jaya Sukin, representing another lawyer N.S. Ponnaiah, who wanted the government to take immediate steps to spread awareness about the dangers of playing the game and end its availability online.
•The court asked Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal to assist the court.
‘No steps taken’
•Mr. Sukin argued before the Bench that the government, till now, had not taken sufficient steps even as the number of cases of self-inflicted injuries and suicides were increasing.
•The petition said the game had spread its tentacles across the cities and was enticing even school students to play.
•“The game goads young people into killing themselves. The blue whale on-line game encourages people to take part in increasingly dangerous harmful dares that finally culminate in instructions by the administrators to kill themselves,” it said.
•“Parents are doing their best to prevent their children from playing the game,” the petition said.
📰 SC issues notice on student safety
Plea seeks implementation of guidelines to protect children from sexual abuse and murder
•A plea seeking framing of “non- negotiable” child safety conditions and implementation of guidelines to protect school children from sexual abuse and murder on Friday prompted the Supreme Court to seek responses from the Centre and all State governments.
•A Bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud issued notices and sought the responses within three weeks from the Union Human Resource Development Ministry and all State governments and union territories on the plea filed by two women lawyers, Abha R Sharma and Sangeeta Bharti.
•The top court tagged the plea of the lawyers along with the petition filed by the father of seven-year-old Pradyuman, who was killed allegedly by a bus conductor at Gurugram’s Ryan International School.
•The Supreme Court will also hear on Monday the plea of a man, whose 9-year-old son died last month allegedly under mysterious circumstances in a private school in Ghaziabad, seeking a CBI probe in the case.
•The PIL, filed through lawyer Sujeeta Srivastava, has raised the issue of children “being exploited and subjected to child abuse repeatedly within the boundaries of the schools” and demanded that Central and State governments notify a set of “non-negotiable” child safety conditions for schools.
•It has sought proper implementation of existing guidelines of authorities including the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) on prevention of child abuse in schools.
•Referring to the guidelines, it said every school is required to have a “child protection policy which should be understood, explained and signed by all employees or recruits.”
•All new employees must go through a day-long orientation programme on issues relating to child protection within a month of their joining, the plea said referring to the guidelines.
📰 Unions toughen stand on reforms
Labour Ministry to discuss five proposals in the Code on Industrial Relations Bill with trade unions
•Central trade unions continue to oppose the government’s plans to ease retrenchment norms and to restrict trade union membership under the Industrial Disputes Act, reiterating their stand at a meeting held by new Labour and Employment Minister Santosh Gangwar to discuss the contentious proposals on Thursday.
•“People may have their own political compulsions but here, everybody has to speak in one voice. We will ensure trade unions come on board,” Mr. Gangwar told The Hindu after the meeting.
•A Group of Ministers on labour reforms led by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley asked the Labour Ministry to discuss five contentious proposals in the Code on Industrial Relations Bill with central trade unions, sources said.
•Those included allowing bigger companies to retrench workers without the government’s permission, increasing the severance pay by three times, restricting outsiders’ role in trade union leadership, changing the definition of ‘workers’ and procedure for recognition of trade unions.
•The meeting on the proposed Industrial Relations Code was Mr. Gangwar’s first meeting with representatives from ten central trade unions after taking charge recently.
‘Want Code scrapped’
•“Our stand remains the same. We want the proposed Code on Industrial Relations Bill to be scrapped,” Centre of Indian Trade Unions general secretary Tapan Sen said.
•“The government should discuss the industrial relations Bill in full detail. It should not interfere [with] the trade union composition and [not] allow lesser factories to retrench workers without the government’s nod,” BMS organisation secretary (north-central region) Pawan Kumar said.
•With the Centre’s plans to amend the Industrial Disputes Act 1947 taking time, States are going ahead with their own labour law changes to ease retrenchment norms in a bid to attract business locally with Assam joining the race recently.
•Since labour is a concurrent subject, the Assam Assembly passed amendments to the Industrial Disputes Act to allow companies with a staff of up to 300 to retrench workers without government permission, up from the present requirement of up to 100 workers – giving industries with large workforce more flexibility in retrenchment. However, the Assam government’s approved Bill will need the Centre’s nod to become a law.
‘3 Codes into one’
•The Central government has proposed similar provisions in the Code on Industrial Relations Bill. The proposed Bill will combine the Trade Unions Act, 1926, the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, and the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, into a single code.
•Till date, apart from Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand have allowed larger firms to retrench workers without seeking its permission by bringing their own amendments to the Industrial Disputes Act, according to a senior labour ministry official said.
📰 The arc to Tokyo: on India-Japan ties
India and Japan are infusing bilateral ties with a sharper geopolitical agenda
•Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to India, part of annual summits between the two countries, has set strategic ties on a fast track. This is best symbolised by the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train project that was launched by Mr. Abe and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India’s decision to partner with Japan for the 508-km, ₹1.1 lakh-crore project is as much about politics as it is about infrastructure: Japan has been keen to export its high-speed train technology along with rolling stock, and India’s move to confirm the Japanese contracts while China wins projects along its Belt and Road railway line is significant. The joint statement and comments by the two Prime Ministers in Gandhinagar also sent out a similar message that will be read closely in China on several counts. For example, Mr. Abe said North Korea was a “joint” challenge for India and Japan, and the statement contained a phrase about holding countries “that have supported North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes” accountable, obviously aimed at Pyongyang’s benefactors in Beijing. The clause calling for zero tolerance on terrorism referenced China’s veto on the Jaish-e-Mohammad chief being put on the list of UN-designated terrorists. Both the title of the joint statement, “Toward a free, open and prosperous Indo-Pacific”, and substantive paragraphs on cooperation in the region, indicate a much closer alignment between India and Japan in countering China’s influence in the South China Sea, its forays into the Indian Ocean, and investments in South Asia and Africa. The coming into force of the India-Japan nuclear deal and more military and maritime exercises will buttress such efforts. India has also extended to Japan an offer denied to any other country, which is to assist in infrastructure development in the Northeast.
•It is clear that the Modi government has set India-Japan ties on an accelerated geopolitical course that will be a major factor in its dealings with the rest of the world, especially China, at a time when the U.S. is perceived to be retreating from the region. Having made this leap, it is imperative that India and Japan also look beyond their lofty geopolitical aims, at the more basic aspects of bilateral engagement. While Japan is India’s largest donor and the third largest provider of FDI, bilateral trade has steadily declined since 2013, and is down to $13.61 billion in 2016-17 from $14.51 billion the year before. The contrast with India-China trade, at $71 billion a year, and Japan-China trade, at $279 billion, is stark, and the decision to finalise four new locations for special Japanese industrial townships may be only one way of addressing the difficulties businessmen face in India. With the opulent pageantry and 8-km roadshow in Gujarat over, it is time to get down to brass tacks and address some of the issues in order to facilitate closer ties between India and Japan, even as the two leaders and militaries forge closer bonds.
📰 BJP States tell police to push back Rohingya
Assam and Manipur have placed their forces on alert
•The Centre is yet to spell out its stand on undocumented Rohingya but BJP-led State governments in Assam and Manipur have asked their police, especially in the border districts, to “push back anyone who tries to cross the border.”
•While Assam shares a 262 km border with Bangladesh, three other northeastern States — Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland — are also front-line States. The BJP governments in Assam and Manipur have issued “alerts to mount extra vigil in the border areas.”
•Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal is believed to have conveyed to the Border Security Force (BSF) personnel and top officials of the State police to “push back if any Rohingya family tried to cross over the Bangladesh border, seeking refuge.”
•The Manipur government, led by BJP’s N. Biren Singh, too has instructed the police to crack down in borders towns like Moreh that routinely see brisk cross-border trading. It is not uncommon to find Myanmarese traders residing in these areas on a temporary basis.
Intelligence inputs
•Sources say the decisions by the State governments follow “intelligence inputs from the Centre that terror groups could use the refugee crisis to sneak in their members and pose a security challenge to the country.”
•The intelligence input was discussed at a recent security review meeting held by the Ministry of Home Affairs. The Assam Chief Minister, however, refused to spell out his government's position. “It is not a State issue but a national issue and we will follow what the Centre decides,” said Mr. Sonowal, while confirming that “his government has mounted extra vigil on the Indo-Bangla border.”
•The Rohingya — a minority Muslim community in the Rakhine state of Myanmar on the border with Bangladesh — have been forced to flee the country following periodic ethnic clashes and crackdown by Myanmar’s Army. The latest bout of violence erupted last month, following an attack on a police post.
•Around 3,00,000 Rohingya have sought refuge in Bangladesh since the August 25 crackdown on their settlements.
📰 Will push Myanmar on refugees, India tells Dhaka
Delhi’s stand has shifted since last week, when the PM visited Naypyitaw
•India on Friday sent another consignment of aid for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. The relief was shipped just hours after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj telephoned Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, assuring her that New Delhi has been putting pressure on the Myanmar government to ease the situation, a senior official in Ms. Hasina’s office told The Hindu.
•“India and Bangladesh’s stand is aligned over the Rohingya issue,” said Nazrul Islam, advisor to Ms. Hasina. “Ms. Swaraj said India would push Myanmar both bilaterally and multilaterally to take back their refugees.”
•The MEA declined to comment on the External Affairs Minister’s conversation, but didn’t deny the Bangladesh Prime Minister’s office’s version of what was said. According to Mr. Islam, who spoke on the telephone from Dhaka, the call was arranged during a meeting with the Indian High Commissioner Harsh Shringla regarding relief arrangements.
•Ms. Hasina is due to leave for New York this weekend to attend the UN General Assembly (UNGA), where she “could” meet Ms. Swaraj, the advisor said.
•A senior MEA official told The Hindu that India and Bangladesh are “in close touch” over the issue, but that it was “too early” to say whether India and Bangladesh will present a united front at the UNGA, where Bangladesh has made it clear it will call for international pressure on Myanmar.
A cautious line
•The telephone call brings into sharp focus India’s continuing dilemma of balancing its interests between two neighbours — Bangladesh and Myanmar — over the issue, which has seen Delhi shift its position several times since last Thursday, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Myanmar for talks with State Councillor Aung San Suu Kyi. In the joint statement that followed, the wording on the Rohingya crisis reflected only India’s support to Myanmar in fighting terrorists. However, two days later, after interventions by the Bangladesh government, a visit to the refugee camp by Mr. Shringla, and a stern statement from the UN Human Rights Commissioner Zeid Hussain, the MEA issued another statement, expressing concern about the refugees.
•“Myanmar has every right to fight terror within their country, but their terror problem cannot become India’s refugee problem, which it will, if Bangladesh is unable to cope with it, ” said the senior MEA official.
Deportation row
•Adding to the complications for the MEA is the Ministry of Home Affairs’s move to deport 40,000 Rohingyas who fled to India during violence in 2012. The UNHRC has criticised the move and the Supreme Court will deliberate on it on September 18.
•The MHA’s move has been particularly perplexing, as it has been unable to explain where the Rohingyas would be deported to, given that Myanmar has reportedly mined its borders to ensure they cannot return, and Bangladesh is filled to capacity with more than 800,000 refugees already. Myanmar refuses to accept around 1.3 million Rohingya that lived in its Rakhine state, bordering Bangladesh, as Myanmar citizens, and consequently, has refused to allow about 5,00,000 that fled earlier and 4,00,000 more that have fled in the last few weeks, to return.
•Meanwhile India has launched operation Insaniyat (Humanity), demonstrating as it said in its reply to the UNHRC that criticised the deportation plan, that the concern for India’s national security does not mean a “lack of compassion”.
📰 Understanding the slowdown
Investments-led growth can reverse the situation but the policy response has been sluggish
•India’s economy is slowing down: GDP growth has lost momentum in each quarter since the one ending March 2016. With every passing quarter, the slowdown is explained away either as a transitory phenomenon or as happening for reasons beyond the government’s control: deficient rains, the sluggish world economy, or lately due to demonetisation and the goods and services tax (GST). The reasons offered change. The economic trend does not.
All four engines slacking
•In the boom years during the United Progressive Alliance’s (UPA) tenure, four engines powered the economy: exports, government investments, private consumption, and private investments. Of these, government investments and private consumption were still running at the time the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) took office. The other two were, and remain, out of steam. Official numbers have captured the weakness consistently — in exports for the past three years, and in private investments for more than five years. Yet, the debilitating impact of these on growth has received inadequate policy attention. The pain has begun to spread to the rest of the economy: growth in government investments and private consumption started slowing down in the quarter ending June 2017. The economy’s four growth engines are stalling or slacking.
•Government investments and private consumption depend on how well the economy is doing. As incomes improve, private spending and tax collections pick up. Let’s look at exports and investments. The global economic downturn that followed the 2008 financial crisis dealt a body blow to exports, before which exports were growing smartly. Recovery in the global economy has lifted exports of most Asian countries, but Indian exports are stagnating, their competitiveness eroded by the overvalued rupee.
•India’s economic future can improve significantly with investments-led growth. The share of investments, the principal growth engine in the economy, in the GDP has declined steadily for the past five years. The decline in private investments is so sharp that it has offset the increases in government investments. The steps taken for improving the ease of doing business and the foreign investments regime have proved insufficient in restarting the private investments cycle. As a result, new jobs are not getting created. Without new jobs, consumption will only grow up to a point.
•Why are investments on hold? The returns-risk projections of projects are not favourable. Companies are not convinced that new factories will be sufficiently profitable. Among the variables that affect investment decisions are costs and availability of finance, land, labour, technology, logistics, and taxation. Market prices, or consumer prices inflation, is also a determinant of profitability. The government is politically sensitive. So, it has set a low target for consumer price inflation. For the same reason, it is unable to progress on land and labour reforms. The flow of credit in the economy has thinned to a trickle, as the government moved on bad bank loans belatedly and inefficaciously. Even if big companies can raise finance from alternative sources, the smaller ones cannot. Most of the other factors have escaped policy attention altogether. Additionally, in an environment of constant shocks and unanticipated policy changes, investment decisions tend to get postponed. If people feel unsettled, they are unlikely to invest.
Reversible trend
•Even though dark clouds loom over the economy, the situation is not irreversible. But the policy response so far has been feeble and misses urgency.
•It’s not as though there is policy paralysis. In fact, decision-making is speedy, perhaps too much so. The ill-informed idea of demonetisation and the GST rollout demonstrate the growing disconnect between policy tools and objectives. The provisional official statistics show demonetisation proved to be a drag on an already slowing economy, even as we wait for its full impact to be estimated. The damage to the (more vulnerable) informal economy is being measured, and will be plugged to GDP estimates. On revision, past quarters’ GDP growth may turn out to be even slower. The complicated design of the GST may have added to the vulnerabilities of the informal sector.
•The government insists these measures will prove beneficial over time. There is an inexplicable reluctance to take decisions that will deliver positive results quicker, such as reversing the investments slowdown and the exports stagnation. Politically difficult structural reforms have fallen off the agenda: liberalising land, labour, and agriculture.
•Part of the problem seems to be the inadequate regard for sound economics and trained economists. The government is inert even to the advice of its own economists; the analyses documented in successive editions of its own publication, the Economic Survey, influenced policy minimally. Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian has diligently raised red flags over damages to the economy: from bad bank loans to the slowdown of investments, the distorted signals to farmers on what to grow and how much, and the GST’s suboptimal design. The government must start paying heed.
📰 Exports climb 10.3% reversing 5-month slowdown
Exporters express concern about outlook, cite less than encouraging order booking from October
•India’s merchandise exports grew 10.3% year-on-year to $23.8 billion in August, reversing a declining trend witnessed for five straight months, data released by the Commerce Ministry on Friday showed. The jump in shipments was driven mainly by engineering goods, petroleum products and chemicals as well as an improvement in demand in overseas markets.
GST challenges flagged
•However, the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) said it was worried about future growth as the order booking position from October was not encouraging — owing to rising global uncertainties, rupee volatility and challenges on the domestic front including those stemming from the Goods and Services Tax (GST).
•While 26 out of 30 major product groups were in positive growth territory in August, labour intensive sectors such as gems and jewellery, leather, apparel and handicraft either posted negative growth or modest growth, which is a worrisome sign, said G. K. Gupta, president of FIEO, the apex body for the country’s exporters.
•Mr. Gupta said in a statement that “exporters have stopped taking orders with least or no working capital at their disposal due to blockage of funds under GST and uncertainties looming large on refunds for the months of July to October.” He called for an in-depth sectoral analysis to pinpoint factors responsible for decline in such sectors to help all employment generating, small and micro exporters.
•T. S. Bhasin, chairman of the country’s apex body for engineering exports, EEPC India, said in a statement: “A pick up in exports during August augurs well for the Indian exporters who seem to be benefiting from recovery in major global markets, including the key economies of the U.S. and Europe.”
•He further stated, “Our export performance can be further enhanced if problems arising out of the GST regime implementation are addressed, as that would improve competitiveness of the Indian shipments. It is time to make the best out of the global pick up in economy, more so, when our domestic economy is showing signs of low demand and slow investment.”
•Meanwhile, goods imports grew 21.02% during August to $35.46 billion. This resulted in the trade deficit widening to $11.6 billion, from $7.7 billion in August 2016. However, the shortfall was lower than the $11.45 billion seen in July.
•August data was in continuance with the positive growth exhibited by goods exports since September 2016. While their performance has been staying in the positive growth territory for the previous 11 months, what gave a greater relief to the exporting community was that the 10.3% growth in August had reversed the trend of a fall in growth for five consecutive months since 27.6% in March – down to a minuscule 3.9% in July mainly due to the weakness in many labour-intensive segments.
•In August 2017, the major commodity groups of exports showing positive growth over the corresponding month of last year were — engineering goods (19.53%), petroleum products (36.56%), organic and inorganic chemicals (32.41%), drugs and pharmaceuticals (4.21%), and ready-made garments of all textiles (0.56%). Non-petroleum and non gems & jewelry exports rose 14.47% to $17.74 billion, the Commerce Ministry said. Major commodity group of imports showing high growth in August 2017 were — petroleum, crude & products (14.22%), electronic goods (27.44%), machinery, electrical & non-electrical (18.35%), gold (68.90%) and pearls, precious & semi-precious stones (30.88%). Oil imports during August jumped 14.22% to $7.75 billion, while non-oil imports during the month rose 23.07% to $27.7 billion.
•Goods exports during April-August 2017-18 increased by 8.57% to $118.57 billion, while imports for the same period grew 26.63% to $181.71 billion. Trade deficit during April-August was $63.1 billion almost double the $34.3 billion in the corresponding period of the last fiscal.
📰 Aadhaar to be linked to driving licence
It will help check the menace of multiple licences, says Ravi Shankar Prasad
•Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad on Friday announced that after linking Aadhaar to PAN cards, the Union government would now link it with driving licences as well.
•He said the measure would help check the menace of multiple licences.
•Speaking at the inauguration of Haryana Digital Summit-2017 here, Mr. Prasad said: “I already had a word with Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari in this regard and the process to link Aadhaar with driving licences will be set in motion soon.”
Secure tool
•He added that Aadhaar was a safe and secure tool for good governance and empowerment.
•Aadhaar represented digital identity, not physical identity, and that digital identity confirmed physical identity, Mr. Prasad said, adding that the government had linked Aadhaar to PAN card to stop money laundering.
•The summit was organised by the Haryana Government to bring together industry experts, visionaries, policy makers, academicians and co-operative heads on a single platform. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar was also present.
•Reiterating the commitment of the Union government towards providing affordable and inclusive technology to the masses, Mr. Prasad said digital India must help create an inclusive society.
📰 ISRO to be back with launches in Nov.-Dec.
Report on failure soon: Kiran Kumar
•The Indian Space Research Organisation expects to resume launch of satellites in a couple of months once its failure analysis committee releases its report. The committee is conducting tests on why the PSLV-C39 mission of August 31 failed to release a back-up navigation satellite into space.
•ISRO Chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar on Friday said the committee would release its report "very soon". The launches would be resumed in November or December after necessary steps are taken. He was speaking on the sidelines of an event to mark 25 years of the formation of Antrix Corporation, which markets ISRO’s products and services.
•On the loss of IRNSS-1H in the launch, Mr. Kiran Kumar said the existing fleet of six spacecraft met all required specifications and there was no urgency for a replacement. “The overall performance of the [navigation] system is not affected,” he said.
•Addressing a large gathering of ISRO officials and industry associates, Mr. Kiran Kumar said Antrix Corporation had made the PSLV rocket a globally famous and reliable space launch vehicle; it had lifted more than 200 small foreign satellites over years. It could now help Indian industry gain credibility in the $339 billion world space market. The market had evolved fast to challenge established government-run agencies.
•Rakesh Sasibhushan, CMD of Antrix, said the company had grown from a turnover of ₹52 lakh in its first year to nearly ₹2,000 crore in 2016-17. It had launch orders worth ₹800 crore from various satellite operations for the next three to five years.
•Early associates and former members of the Antrix board — Jamshyd Godrej, MD of Godrej & Boyce; N. Rangachary, former Additional Secretary in the Department of Space, and the late U.R. Rao, former ISRO Chairman, were honoured.
📰 Indigenous artillery gun sets new record in range
•NEW DELHI: An indigenous artillery gun, Advanced Towed Artillery Gun System (ATAGS), being jointly developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the private sector has set a new world record in range by hitting targets at a distance of 48 km.
•“During trial firings at Pokhran ranges last week, ATAGS registered the longest ever distance of 48.074 kms, surpassing the maximum ranges of 35-40 kms fired by any artillery gun system in this category,” an industry source told The Hindu.
•ATAGS is a 155mm, 52 calibre towed artillery gun being developed in mission mode by DRDO as a part of the Army’s artillery modernisation programme. The record was achieved with special ammunition, “high explosive – base bleed” (HE – BB) by the ATAGS variant developed by Kalyani Group.
•The development is being done through a consortium based model, similar to that adopted for the Pinaka multi-barrel rocket launch system. It was designed by DRDO’s Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE) in Pune. In addition, Bharat Forge Limited of Kalyani Group, Tata Power Strategic Engineering Division and Mahindra Defence Naval System from the private sector are involved in a big way along with the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB). For instance, the barrel and breech mechanism, on both variants of ATAGS, was developed at Kalyani Group.
•Summer trials are currently underway and the next round of trials are likely to held in Sikkim in December.
•“The trials are progressing well. Additional prototypes are being made to speed trials,” one official said.
•The gun has several significant features including an all-electric drive, high mobility, quick deployability, auxiliary power mode, advanced communication system, automated command and control system. It has a six round magazine instead of a standard three round magazine. Also, the gun weighs slightly more than normal due to the larger chamber.
•The Army has not inducted any new artillery gun since the Bofors in the 1980's. After decades of failed attempts, the service is gearing up to induct the Dhanush artillery gun which is an indigenously upgraded variant of the Bofors gun. In addition, last November India signed a contract for 145 M-777 Ultra-Light Howitzers from the US.
