📰 Narrow rings of comets spotted forming planets
The scientists are especially intrigued by the red dust ring surrounding HR 4796A, which shows unusually tight form for an infant solar system.
•Scientists using NASA telescopes have spotted narrow dense rings of comets coming together to form massive planets on the outskirts of at least three distant solar systems.
•Estimating the mass of these rings from the amount of light they reflect shows that each of these developing planets is at least the size of a few Earths, according to Carey Lisse, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in the US.
•Over the past few decades, using powerful NASA observatories such as the Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii and the Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists have found a number of young debris disk systems with thin but bright outer rings composed of comet—like bodies at 75 to 200 astronomical units from their parent stars — about two to seven times the distance of Pluto from our own Sun.
•The composition of the material in these rings varies from ice—rich (seen in the Fomalhaut and HD 32297 systems) to ice—depleted but carbon rich (the HR 4796A system).
•The scientists are especially intrigued by the red dust ring surrounding HR 4796A, which shows unusually tight form for an infant solar system.
•Lisse traced the extreme red color to the burnt—out rocky organic remains of comets, a result of the system’s ring being close enough to the star that they have all boiled off.
•The researchers do not see red ring dust in Fomalhaut or HD 32297, but instead see normal bluish comet dust containing ices — because these systems’ rings are far enough out that their comets are cold and mostly stable.
•“The narrow confines of these rings is still a great puzzle — you don’t typically see this kind of tight order in such a young system,” Lisse said.
•“Usually, material is moving every which way before an exoplanetary system gets cleaned out and settles down so that planetary bodies rarely cross each other’s path, like in our present—day solar system,” he said.
•After eliminating other possibilities due to the lack of primordial circumstellar gas seen in these systems, researchers have attributed the tight structure to multiple coalescing bodies “shepherding” material through the rings.
•“Comets crashing down onto these growing planet surfaces would kick up huge clouds of fast—moving, ejected ’construction dust,’ which would spread over the system in huge clouds,” Lisse said.
•“The only apparent solution to these issues is that multiple mini—planets are coalescing in these rings, and these small bodies, with low kick—up velocities, are shepherding the rings into narrow structures — much in the same way many of the narrow rings of Saturn are focused and sharpened,” he said.
•This is a paradigm shift, he added, because instead of building a planet from one big construction site, it is coming from many small ones, which will eventually merge their work into the final product.
•In Fomalhaut and HD 32297, researchers expect that millions of comets are contributing to form the cores of ice giant planets like Uranus and Neptune — although without the thick atmospheres enveloping the cores of Uranus and Neptune, since the primordial gas disks that would form such atmospheres are gone.
•In HR 4796A, with its warmer dust ring, even the ices normally found in the rings’ comets evaporated over the last million years or so, leaving behind core building blocks that are rich only in leftover carbon and rocky materials.
📰 ‘Paika Bidroha’ to be named as 1st War of Independence
Students should learn factual history of 1817: Javadekar
•The ‘Paika Bidroha’ (Paika rebellion) of 1817 will find a place in the history books as ‘the First War of Independence’ from the next academic session, HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said on Monday.
•Mr. Javadekar had first made the announcement on Sunday here at a function to mark the bicentenary of the Paika rebellion, and added that the Centre has allocated Rs. 200 crore for commemorating it across the country.
•“Paika Bidroha will find a place as the First War of Independence against the British Rule in the history books. The students should learn factual history of 1817,” he said at a press conference.
•Paikas were peasant militia under the Gajapati rulers of Odisha who rendered military service to the king during times of war. They rebelled against the British rule under the leadership of Bakshi Jagabandhu Bidyadhara as early as 1817.
•Earlier, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had, in a letter to the Centre, urged that it should recognise ‘Paika Bidroha’ as the First War of Independence against the British rule as it took place four decades before the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny, which has so far been regarded as the First War of Indian Independence.
📰 Why make a show of patriotism: SC judge
•Justice Misra had reasoned that the practice would “instil a feeling of committed patriotism and nationalism.”
•Finally, the court left it to the government to bring out any notification, if necessary, to make or not make the playing of the anthem mandatory in cinema halls. The case was posted for hearing on January 9, 2018.
•The court had modified the November 2016 order twice, once to exempt physically and mentally challenged people from standing up in cinema halls for the anthem.
•Now, sitting beside Chief Justice Misra, Justice Chandrachud referred to the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act of 1971 to observe that “there is no mandate that people should stand up when the national anthem is sung in a cinema hall. This is obviously because a cinema hall is a place for entertainment ... people go to cinema halls for undiluted entertainment. Society needs entertainment.”
•“You don’t have to stand up at a cinema hall to be perceived as patriotic,” Justice Chandrachud observed.
•The judge was responding to submissions by Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal, for the Centre, in support of the November 2016 order.
📰 Rajasthan tables Criminal Laws Amendment Bill amid uproar
It seeks to protect government officials and curb media coverage; Congress members stage walkout
•Amid uproar from the Opposition Congress, Rajasthan Home Minister Gulabchand Kataria on Monday tabled in the Assembly a Bill to replace the ordinance to protect serving and former judges, magistrates and public servants from being investigated for on-duty action without government sanction.
•The Criminal Laws (Rajasthan Amendment) Bill, 2017, seeks to replace the September 7 ordinance, which drew widespread criticism. The ordinance also barred the media from reporting on accusations of such wrongdoings till the government sanctions a probe.
•Congress members staged a walkout. BJP MLA Ghanshayam Tiwari, who had opposed the ordinance, walked out twice after he was not allowed by Speaker Kailash Meghwal to raise a point of order.
•After the Bill was tabled, Independent MLA Manik Chand Surana opposed it through a point of order, arguing that there was no prior sanction of the President to the Bill which was circulated among the members on Sunday night.
•Mr. Surana called the Bill a kaala kanoon (a black law), accused the government of trying to impose an undeclared emergency through it and asserted that the Opposition would not allow a debate without the President’s sanction. Responding to Mr. Surana, the Home Minister said the merits and demerits of the Bill would be discussed during the debate and it would become a law only after it was passed by the House.
📰 Modi-Ghani talks to focus on terror
•Afghan President Ashraf Ghani will hold detailed talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday on furthering the shared objective of promoting security and stability in Afghanistan, and efforts to combat terrorism.
•The External Affairs Ministry said on Monday the Afghan President would be in New Delhi on a one-day working visit at the invitation of the Prime Minister. The invitation was extended by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval during his Kabul trip on October 16.
•During his visit, President Ghani will meet with his Indian counterpart, President Ram Nath Kovind.
•He will then have delegation level talks with Mr Modi, who will also host a lunch in his honour, an official statement said.
•“Both sides will have the opportunity to review the entire gamut of multifaceted bilateral strategic partnership, including the New Development Partnership,” the statement said.
•The visit will build upon the recent high-level bilateral exchanges between the two countries, including the recent visit of Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.
📰 Centre eases norms for sewage plants
Those along Ganga river too exempted
•The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has relaxed standards for upcoming sewage treatment plants (STP), including those to come up on extremely polluted stretches of the Ganga.
•One of the prongs of the government’s Rs. 20,000 crore push to clean the river was a 2015-proposal to have higher standards for STPs. That is, they would have to ensure that the biochemical oxygen demand (Bod) — a marker for organic pollutants — in the treated water had to be no more than 10 mg/litre. Existing laws permit BoD up to 30 mg/litre.
•However, a notification by the Union Environment Ministry this month has junked the 10 mg/litre target.
•It says that STPs coming up after June 2019 — except in major State capitals and metropolitan cities — need only conform to 30 mg/litre of BoD.
•These include proposed STPS to treat sewage in stretches of the river downstream of Haridwar, including Kanpur and Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh. New STPs in State capitals, however, have to cap BoD at 20 mg/litre.
•Plants in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Andaman and Nicobar islands, Daman & Diu, Lakshwadeep and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, also don’t need to stick to higher sewage-treatment criteria.
‘Impractical’
•A senior CPCB official said that the 10 mg criteria was impractical and required advanced technology that was too costly for most States. “We are very far from being able to achieve that kind of quality and we can only go about it in a phased manner,” said Dipankar Saha, of the (CPCB), who was involved in crafting the standards.
•“It’s a step forward, because now we also have standards for faecal coliform, which has never been part of our standards,” Mr. Saha said.
📰 The gown and the Bench
SC’s senior advocate guidelines can guide collegium in judges’ selection too
•The Supreme Court has laid down guidelines for designating lawyers in the Supreme Court and High Courts as senior advocates. Until now, the judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts had the sole discretion of according this status to advocates. Now, applications will be vetted by a permanent committee known as the Committee for Designation of Senior Advocates that will publish the names of candidates on the respective courts’ websites to ensure transparency.
•Political interference in the selection of judges in the third and fourth decades of independent India resulted in the collegium system where judges select judges. However, the opaque system and unsatisfactory selection, transfer, and elevation of judges to the Supreme Court caused disquiet and led to the passing of the Constitution (99th Amendment) Act, 2014 and the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act, 2014, which sought to give politicians and civil society a final say in the appointment of judges to the highest courts. In 2015, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court declared these unconstitutional on the ground that the composition of the NJAC did not provide adequate representation to those from the judiciary in the selection and appointment of judges to the higher judiciary and also in the transfer of Chief Justices and judges from one High Court to another. Inclusion of the Law and Justice Minister in the NJAC was faulted on the ground that participation of the executive would erode the independence of the judiciary. The inclusion of two “eminent persons” was held to be unsustainable, more so if laypersons could be nominated or vested with veto power.
•It is in this context that one has to welcome the permanent committee. It will consist of the Chief Justice of India, two senior-most judges of the Supreme Court/ High Courts, the Attorney General of India/ the Advocate General of State, and a member of the Bar to be nominated by the above four members. The committee will have a permanent secretariat. All applications for designation of senior advocate will be submitted to the secretariat which will compile all the relevant information with regard to the reputation, conduct, integrity, participation in pro-bono work, reported judgments in which the advocate has appeared, etc. of the candidates. The committee will examine each candidate’s case, interview the candidate, and make its assessment based on a point-based format.
•This system is transparent and objective, and provides equal opportunity to all candidates. There may be some reservation on the aspect of publishing names on the official website of the court and inviting suggestions as in the recent past, there have been reports of motivated complaints and objections. The secretariat should not be dragged into the quagmire of investigating frivolous complaints or objections.
•While this institutional mechanism and selection criteria seem suited to substitute the existing collegium system, the executive and the legislature could also seriously consider introducing a new version of the NJAC which incorporates the salient features of this institutional mechanism. The sooner the judiciary adopts such a mechanism for judges too, the better it is for the institution.
📰 The Abe manoeuvre
With a stronger win, Japan’s PM can go ahead with economic and constitutional reform
•Prime Minister Shinzō Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party has secured a resounding victory for a third term in the poll to the Lower House of Japan’s Diet. The development bucks the recent trend in advanced economies of incumbents being returned with much-reduced margins. A vindication of his decision to call elections a year ahead of schedule, the outcome increases Mr. Abe’s prospects of winning a third term next year as leader of his conservative party and becoming Japan’s longest-serving premier. The deeper import of the verdict, however, lies in the requisite two-thirds mandate to press ahead with plans to revise the country’s U.S.-backed post-War pacifist constitution to reflect current geopolitical realities. The prospect of securing such a large majority had seemed in doubt given the public scepticism over amending the charter, coupled with a drop in Mr. Abe’s personal ratings. Now, having cleared that hurdle, he would hope to garner support to accord legal status to the Japan Self-Defence Forces, leaving intact the no-war provisions in the 1947 constitution. In this, he would count on the backdrop of escalating tensions over North Korea’s nuclear belligerence and China’s growing military influence in the region. But public approval of the proposal in a plebiscite will be the all-important challenge. Sunday’s verdict was otherwise largely a foregone conclusion, as the charismatic Governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, did not even contest the race from the new platform she had launched, the Party of Hope. In any case, her fundamentally conservative orientation, even on the constitution, left voters with no real alternative. The opposition Democratic Party, facing months of internal turmoil, initially considered fielding candidates under the banner of Ms. Koike’s party. But the latter’s insistence on a loyalty test for nominees led to a split within the opposition.
•With a firm mandate, the government should be able to focus more on the Abenomics strategy to further stimulate growth and demand. A June assessment of the International Monetary Fund points to the country’s sustained growth and record unemployment as evidence of the success of the model. Also significant is the Fund’s support for the Bank of Japan’s continued loose monetary policy in the face of weak demand. Mr. Abe’s poll promise to further boost the fiscal stimulus should please critics who say that concerns over public debt were being overplayed. Whereas Mr. Abe is weighing a sharp increase in the controversial consumption tax up to 10% by 2019, the Fund has proposed a more calibrated approach. Such an alternative may be the right course in a country with a declining working-age population, and faced with persistently low consumer spending. Mr. Abe has his eyes set on seeing the country through the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Japan will by then be a very different country from what it was in 1964, when it first hosted the Summer Games.
📰 With or without the veto
India should pursue the lead offered by the U.S. to end the deadlock over the Security Council’s expansion
•Some recent statements of Nikki Haley, the U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN, suggest, in a somewhat befuddled manner, that the American position on an expansion of the Security Council is evolving to favour India’s permanent membership without the power of the veto. But instead of exploring the idea further with the U.S., the Indian “government sources” which responded to Ms. Haley took a combative position and stated that there was no change in India’s stand that it should have “the same obligations, responsibilities and prerogatives as the existing permanent members of the Security Council.” India seemed unaware that it had, together with the others in G-4 (Brazil, Germany and Japan), conceded that veto should not be an issue, at least for the present.
What is the U.S. stand?
•In March, Ms. Haley had candidly admitted that she did not know much about Security Council reform. In June, she seemed more informed, but not fully. “We have told all members of the UN that we are in support of Security Council reform, as long as they don’t take our veto away,” she told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee during a Congressional hearing. If the only issue was protecting the veto of the U.S., the expansion could have taken place long ago, as no one had ever suggested that veto of the permanent members should be taken away. The new candidates were only demanding the same veto power for themselves, and the U.S. and other permanent members were firm in rejecting such demands.
•Ms. Haley’s latest comment was even more specific about the veto: “So, the key to getting India on the Security Council would have to be not to touch the veto.” She said the U.S. was already on board, but there was need to focus on Russia and China, the two permanent members of the Security Council who do not want to see any changes.
•If Ms. Haley’s statements indicate the present thinking of the Trump administration, it is a definite advance in the U.S. position. When India put forward the proposal for an expansion of the non-permanent membership of the Security Council in 1979, the U.S. opposed it vehemently. But after the end of the Cold War, when the pressure mounted for expansion of permanent membership, the U.S. took the position that it could live with “one or two” additions to permanent membership, without identifying the countries.
•Between the two options that then Secretary General Kofi Annan had given in his report, “In Larger Freedom” in 2005, the permanent members had supported “Model B”, which did not envisage any kind of expansion of permanent membership. It provided for no new permanent seats but created a new category of eight four-year renewable-term seats and one new two-year non-permanent (and non-renewable) seat, divided among the major regional areas. “Model A” was placed in the report at the insistence of the Indian representative, Gen. Satish Nambiar. It provided for six new permanent seats without the veto, and three new two-year term non-permanent seats, divided among the major regional areas.
•During his visit to India in 2010, President Barack Obama had said he looked “forward to a reformed UN Security Council that includes India as a permanent member.” This gladdened India, but the U.S. delegation did not take any follow-up action at the UN.
•The compilation of the views of member states, published two years ago, clearly indicated that the U.S. merely favoured a “modest expansion”, without supporting any formula under consideration and no alteration or expansion of the veto. Unlike France and the U.K., the U.S. made no mention of support to India as a permanent member. Among the permanent members, the opinion of France was closest to India’s in the sense that it supported the addition of five new permanent members, including India, without any objection to veto being extended to them. The U.K. supported the G-4 without the power of veto. Russia, an old supporter of India, was non-committal and China indicated that the time had not come for any serious negotiations on the subject.
The way ahead
•Ms. Haley’s statement opens up the possibility of permanent membership for India without veto. A draft resolution circulated by the candidates had already conceded that they would not expect to have the veto at least for 15 years. Thus a meeting point has emerged between the U.S. and G-4. But since it appeared that she had framed her comment for the consumption of Indian Americans, it looks like a PR exercise, nothing more.
•India should pursue the lead Ms. Haley has given. If nothing else, the present impasse in negotiations will end and there will be new vigour in Security Council reform.
📰 Economic growth: an alternative view
The current method of GDP calculation treats environmental damage costs as income
•India’s decelerating GDP growth rate in the past five quarters has generated panic. A drop in GDP growth rate from 7.4% in January-March 2016 to 5.7% in April-June 2017 is equivalent to Rs. 2.59 trillion. Most commentators argue that a smaller rate of GDP growth will have a negative impact on the growth of employment, income and livelihood opportunities.
A silver lining?
•However, there could be a silver lining to a lower growth rate. This is particularly so from the perspective of the sustainability of the economy in the long run; it can bring significant economic welfare through improvements in environmental quality. Economists concerned about sustainable development advocate low levels of economic growth since with large expansions in national income come negative environmental consequences such as pollution. These adversely affect the environmental quality and economic welfare of individuals and households dependent on the environment for their basic livelihood.
•It appears that it is the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis that underlines almost all our development policies, which are directed towards pushing double-digit income growth with little concern for environmental capital. The EKC hypothesis is shown in an inverted U-shaped curve depicting the relationship between per capita income and environmental deterioration. It suggests that during the initial period of economic development, where per capita income is low, deterioration of environmental quality caused by rapid industrialisation and urbanisation is inevitable. Society will have to accept a certain level of environmental damage arising from income-generating activities because large-scale income growth is essential for achieving other development goals such as generation of mass employment and poverty reduction. Once per capita income reaches a higher level, the trade-off between income growth and environmental quality will cease to exist. With increased financial and technological capabilities
, we can restore the environmental quality to desired levels. So, income growth on a higher path brings a win-win outcome in the long run where poverty is reduced and environmental quality is improved.
•In reality, the EKC is a near myth since an increase in per capita income does not bring desirable levels of improvement to the environment. In fact, empirical evidence across countries reveals that various attempts to increase per capita income causes more environmental deterioration. A large number of poor people are dependent on the environment for their day-to-day activities and therefore more focus on improved environmental quality can push income growth on a sustainable basis.
The Indian context
•Studies that have attempted to estimate the economic costs of environmental damages in India have revealed some striking findings. For example, a 2013 World Bank study highlighted that in India, a higher level of economic growth maintained in the past imposed Rs. 3.75 trillion worth of environmental damage cost, which is equivalent to 5.7% of the country’s GDP at 2009 prices. Another study by the World Bank and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington found that India’s air pollution alone caused welfare loss equivalent to 7.69% (approximately Rs. 31,316.2 billion) of its GDP in 2013.
•The cost estimates of damage differ significantly across different studies due to differences in the methodology and data used. Similarly, the values reported by the above studies are underestimates since they do not capture the wide range of economic impacts on the environment due to non-availability of data. For example, the environment generates a range of ecosystem services such as provisioning services (food, irrigation, drinking water), regulating services (climate regulation, water quality regulation), cultural services (recreational and religious services) and supporting services (nutrient recycling, soil formation). Identifying and quantifying them for the purpose of damage assessment is a difficult task in the absence of relevant data.
•In India, millions of households and economic activities utilise these ecosystem services for production and consumption. Though economically highly valuable, ecosystem services are not traded in the markets and, therefore, their true values are not reflected in the system. Therefore, the actual value of economic welfare lost due to loss of ecosystem services will be much higher than what is being currently estimated.
Reforms in pollution control
•Another issue is that the current method of GDP estimation treats environmental damage costs as income. Since development policies give more priority to income and employment generation, implementation of pollution control policies are very poor. For example, pollution control measures implemented in the bleaching and dying units in Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu, for more than 25 years did not achieve any pollution reduction. In fact, the measures led to not only the closure of these units in 2011 but had already caused significant irreversible damage to the health, agriculture and livestock sectors in that region. Regional poverty and inequality in income are caused by such ineffective policies.
•Adequate reforms in the area of pollution control with a larger role for market-based instruments such as pollution tax and tradable pollution permits are yet to be carried out in India. At present, the price of a commodity from a polluting unit covers only the private cost of production, not the damage cost. This makes the commodity relatively cheaper leading to more demand and output, and more pollution and environmental damage cost. Increased output and demand increases the value of GDP, but the corresponding environmental damage cost is not adjusted in the GDP estimation. The GDP still contains a significant amount of damage cost; as a result, the GDP is misleading since an ‘illfare’ is treated as welfare.
•Similarly, more environmental damage may lead to an increased level of purchase of market goods contributing to expansion of the GDP. When individuals become sick due to water pollution, the demand for medical services will rise; increase in the purchase of these market goods and services will expand the GDP size. So, more pollution damage leads to higher GDP.
•An important lesson from empirical studies on environmental damage is that the size of environmental social costs is significantly higher than the social benefits being brought about by GDP growth. This means, if we try to increase income and employment in traditional sectors, we lose them in other sectors that are dependent on the environment. Sometimes, the economic losses are much higher than the gains of income growth.
•Since GDP growth and environmental damage have a strong positive relationship, lower growth in GDP could afford benefits. Though there is an uncertainty in determining environmentally desirable growth rate, maintaining 5-6% growth rate with strict environmental regulation is supposed to reduce environmental damage significantly. A proper assessment of environmental social benefits and social costs of income growth is warranted so that policies can be directed towards setting environmentally sustainable growth rates. Efforts to develop environmental accounting and green GDP for India can help us achieve sustainable development in future.
📰 On a different trajectory
Increasingly bereft of ideology, the Maoists could shift towards becoming like any other militant or terror group
•Half a century after the Naxalbari movement arrived like a Spring Thunder over India, questions are beginning to arise as to whether the spark that gave rise to it is in danger of being extinguished. Independent India had previously experienced armed peasant movements, including the Telangana armed struggle and the Tebhaga movement (in Bengal), but the Naxalbari movement seemed to follow a different trajectory.
•It was ignited by a small group of Bengal revolutionaries (all members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) formed in 1964) who felt disillusioned with the so-called embourgeoisement of the party which had only recently split from the CPI on the ground it had turned revisionist. Breaking away from the CPI(M), this faction received almost instant endorsement from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under Mao. This was followed by a few cadres visiting China to receive the benediction of the CCP. In course of time some of the cadres went to China for training.
Rural, semi-urban base
•It was in April 1969 that the movement took formal shape, with the coming into existence of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) under the leadership of Charu Mazumdar. It initially had a mesmeric effect, enthusing sections of the rural population as well as some semi-urban and urban elements mainly in the States of West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. The Chinese Communists were keen that the new Naxalbari movement should follow the Chinese model of revolution relying on the peasantry, establishing base areas in the countryside and using the countryside to encircle and finally capture the cities. As the movement progressed, it became obvious that the Indian Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries preferred the Ho Chi Minh model to that of Mao. The CPI(ML), hence, consisted of both rural and semi-urban elements. In the early years, and till the 1990s, a number of recruits to the movement came from the urban intelligentsia.
•From the beginning, the movement, which included many well-known ideologues, suffered from a series of splits. Several leaders from Bengal and Andhra Pradesh thereafter set up their separate parties. A high degree of ideological motivation, however, helped the movement to survive despite the several splits. The ideological motivation could be sustained through the several hundred revolutionary journals in different languages published during the period.
•The splintering of the movement subsided to some extent after Muppala Lakshmana Rao, aka Ganapathy, took charge in the early 1990s. Following this, the movement witnessed a degree of consolidation with the Communist Party of India (Maoist) formally coming into existence in the first decade of this century with the merger of several existing factions. Nevertheless, several smaller Marxist-Leninist parties and groups survive to this day.
Organisational coherence
•The main strength of the CPI (Maoist) has been its organisational structure. It has a Central Committee headed by Ganapathy. It possesses a powerful military wing headed by Nambala Keshav Rao aka Basavaraj — the Central Military Commission (CMC). Members of key committees, and especially the Central Committee, are geographically distributed, thus ensuring a degree of cohesion across the party. The hierarchical organisational structure consists of regional bureaus, zonal committees and area committees. Some of the area and zonal committees such as the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee, the Andhra-Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee and the North Telangana Special Zonal Committee have been more active than others.
•Over a dozen States have been, or are, affected by Naxalite activity to varying degrees. The most affected States are Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha. Naxalite or Maoist violence is mainly concentrated at present in pockets such as Abujhmad and Narayanpur districts, Bastar, Dantewada and Sukma, all in Chhattisgarh. Areas of Odisha are also increasingly affected today by Naxalite violence. Considerable potential for Naxalite violence exists in Bihar, pockets in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Maharashtra and the tri-junction of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The movement’s leaders are in constant search of new areas to expand their activities and to secure fresh recruits.
•Maoist actions and scale of violence have steadily come down in recent years, and more so since 2010. The presence of over 100 battalions of Central paramilitary forces aided by State police forces has had a sobering effect on the movement. It has not, however, prevented Naxalites from carrying out a few spectacular attacks during this same period. One of the deadliest attacks took place in April 2010, involving the massacre of 76 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel in Dantewada.
•There have been other serious attacks as well, notwithstanding the overall decline in the tenor of the movement. This year, there have been at least two major attacks. One took place in March this year, leading to the killing of 12 CRPF personnel, members of a road opening party. In April this year, the Maoists carried out an even more daring attack on a CRPF patrol in Sukma district killing 25 personnel. On more than one occasion between 2010 and 2017, the Maoists were to demonstrate their penchant for large-scale attacks — in one instance ambushing a group of Congress leaders during electioneering (May 2013 in Chhattisgarh). At least 27 people, including former Union Minister V.C. Shukla, died.
•In official circles, Maoist success is often attributed to the failure of police personnel to observe ‘Standard Operating Procedures’ and also to the failure of intelligence. This, however, ignores the intrinsic capacity of the Maoists to carry out ambushes, their skill in employing improvised explosive devices, and their capacity to resort to ingenious weaponry such as arrow bombs. It also underestimates the ability of the highly trained battalions of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army, who constitute the vanguard of the movement. They are well-armed and adept in the use of both orthodox and unorthodox weapons. Their skill is often evident in the so-called ‘liberated zones’ in the Naxalite heartland.
•The decline in the rate of Maoist successes — in the past year the numbers of those killed by the Maoists was hardly 20% of that in 2010 — and the relative success of the security forces, seems to have induced some rethinking in Maoist circles. There is growing demand today for a change in approach, and for a new direction.
•The spirit of Naxalbari was predicated on a mixture of intellectual fervour and armed struggle methodology. Over the years, the concept of capturing the cities by mobilising the countryside has lost much of its steam. Far fewer recruits to the Maoist cause also came from the urban areas, especially the intellectual class. By the turn of the century, the movement had become increasingly militarised, more adept at so-called military actions and hardly retaining any of its intellectual élan.
Demand for a churn
•Leaders like Ganapathy, who has remained General Secretary of the CPI (Maoist) since its inception, were more influenced by the past. They seemed out of step with the current genre of violent revolutionaries, who make up the bulk of the cadres today. Younger elements favour not only newer tactics but also a change of guard, viz. seeking a new leader more experienced in employing militaristic techniques. The demand for a churn has been growing louder in recent months.
•All indications, hence, are that as perceptions of a Maoist decline intensify, the CPI (Maoist) would move away from the previous traditional line and embark on a more violent path. This would be under a new leadership more attuned to such policies and techniques. A strong possibility exists that Ganapathy may be replaced by the present chief of the CMC. The CMC is in direct charge of guerrilla type violent activities of the party. With the change of guard, the ideological content of the movement is bound to decline still further. The link with Naxalbari and the Naxalbari spirit threatens to snap as a result. The CPI (Maoist), bereft of ideology, could then drift towards becoming like any other militant or terror group active in different parts of the country. This could have graver consequences for the country since the CPI (Maoist) has a much wider base than any other militant outfit.
