📰 Blackbuck conservation reserve to come up in U.P.
•A wildlife conservation reserve dedicated exclusively to the blackbuck is coming up over 126 hectares in the trans-Yamuna region of Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh.
•The State cabinet has approved a Blackbuck Conservation Reserve in the Meja forest division that is known for its rocky, undulating and arid terrain.
•A herd of around 350 blackbucks is estimated to be inhabiting the region, senior government official Sanjay Kumar told The Hindu .
•There are a few national parks and sanctuaries inhabited by blackbuck in the country, like the Velavadar Wildlife Sanctuary in Gujarat and the Ranibennur Blackbuck Sanctuary in Karnataka. However, there are not many conservation reserves exclusively dedicated to the antelope.
•Mr. Kumar, who as a former District Magistrate of Allahabad, played a vital role in conceptualising the reserve, mobilising local cooperation and getting the project approved, says it is the “first ever conservation reserve” of any kind in U.P.
•Blackbucks, known for their majestic spiral horns and coat colour contrasts, are found in grasslands and open forests.
•They once ruled the open savannahs of north and central India, but are now restricted to just a few patches and habitats, primarily due to human population growth, ecosystem degradation and hunting.
•The U.P. government evoked Section 36 A (1) and (2) of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, to declare the conservation reserve.
•“The conservation of blackbuck can now be done in an effective way. It will also create awareness about biodiversity conservation and provide opportunities for people’s participation. Eco-tourism will be encouraged and locals will get opportunities for employment,” a government spokesperson said.
Safe haven
•The blackbucks can often be seen grazing in agricultural fields during the dry season in the trans-Yamuna belt in Meja and Bundelkhand. However, according to Mr. Kumar, who is also a wildlife photographer, the island of safe haven for the blackbuck within the designated reserve is a rocky terrain dotted with trees of dhak, mahua, neem and acacia. “The area boasts more than 200 species of birds and herbivores like blackbucks and bluebull [nilgai], and carnivores like jackals and stripped hyena,” he said.
•On the intervention of Mr. Kumar, while he was DM of Allahabad till recently, NTPC authorities at the Meja power plant sanctioned an amount of Rs. 1.20 crore to the forest department under their corporate social responsibility to support the work of the blackbuck habitat through construction of approach roads, waterholes and erection of retro-board signages. Mr. Kumar himself sanctioned funds for setting up solar pumps and establishing an interpretation centre for visiting tourists.
📰 Delhi LG cannot simply sit on files and stultify governance: Justice Chandrachud
The Kejriwal government wants the Supreme Court to lay down the law on whether the LG can unilaterally administer the National Capital without being bound by the “aid and advice” of the elected government.
•The Lieutenant Governor (LG) of Delhi cannot stultify proposals or schemes forwarded by the Council of Ministers to him by simply sitting on them, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud orally observed on Thursday.
•“He [LG] is bound to pass the difference of opinions [between the LG and the Delhi Council of Ministers] to the President for early resolution,” he said.
•Justice Chandrachud’s observations came on the first day of a five-judge Constitution Bench hearing a batch of nine appeals filed by the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party government against an August 4, 2016 judgment of the Delhi High Court.
•The AAP government argued that the High Court declared the LG to have “complete control of all matters regarding National Capital Territory of Delhi, and nothing will happen without the concurrence of the LG.”
•The Kejriwal government wants the Supreme Court to lay down the law on whether the LG can unilaterally administer the National Capital without being bound by the “aid and advice” of the elected government.
High Court ruling
•“The Delhi High Court actually said this LG has special powers greater than the President, greater than other Governors of States,” senior advocate Gopal Subramanium submitted for the Delhi government.
•The 69th Amendment of the Constitution in 1992 gave the National Capital of Delhi special status with its own democratically elected government and legislative assembly.
•Sub-section (4) of Article 239AA mandates that a Council of Ministers shall aid and advice the LG in his functions regarding laws made by the Legislative Assembly.
•The focus of the current controversy is a proviso to Article 239AA (4), which mandates that in case of a difference of opinion between the LG and the Council of Ministers, the former has to refer the issue to the President. In the meanwhile, while that decision is pending before the President, the LG, if the matter is urgent, can use his discretion to take immediate action.
•The Constitution Bench, led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, prima facie said that the Delhi government’s ability to “aid and advice” the LG is limited to subjects other than public order, police and land in the National Capital. It said that the proviso to Article 239AA (4), on plain reading, seems to give primacy to the LG.
•Justice Ashok Bhushan remarked that the LG is entitled to take a different view and is not bound by the aid and advice of the Delhi Cabinet.
•Mr. Subramanium alleged that the LG has misused the discretion in this proviso to block governance to such an extent that decisions from appointment of teachers in municipal schools to opening of mohalla clinics have been pending for over a year.
•The Chief Secretary and other officers, without applying their minds to the various welfare proposals and schemes, simply forward the files to the LG, where it remains indeterminately.
‘LG thinks he is supreme law’
•“LG thinks he is suprema lex [supreme law] on six grounds. One, that Delhi is still a Union Territory. Two, Parliament makes the law for Delhi under Article 246 (4) of the Constitution. Three, Article 239AA has brought in no change to Delhi’s status as a Union Territory simplicitor. Four, the proviso gives him the power of defiance. Five, he has to concur to every decision made by the Delhi government. Six, he can take independent decisions... Now, did the 69th Constitutional Amendment contemplate two parallel governments like this?” Mr. Subramanium asked.
•He submitted that the proviso envisaged a “great confidence, trust” to evolve between the Chief Minister and the LG. “But how can there be confidence when the LG holds meetings with government officers wihout the Chief Minister?” Mr. Subramanium said.
•“So, in daily governance and implementation of laws, LG says he is your boss,” Justice A.K. Sikri remarked from the Bench. “It would have been alright if he had said just that. He is actually saying that we do not count,” Mr. Subramanium observed.
•In his day-long submissions before the Bench, Mr. Subramanium said situation of governance in Delhi has come to such a turn that “department Ministers are unable to get an opinion from their secretaries and civil servants on issues of governance.”
•He said, “They have to literally fall at their feet.”
•When Justice Bhushan cautioned him to confine his arguments to interpreting Article 239AA and not refer to any actual events, Mr. Subramanium quoted the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. to reply that “sometimes courts have to refer to seminal events from history while interpreting the Constitution.”
•Mr. Subramanium argued that the “extraordinary discretion” of the LG is confined to special circumstances and not in everything.
•At this point, Chief Justice Misra agreed that the “difference of opinion” between the LG and the Delhi government should be “authentic.”
•“Yes. It should not be just to stultify governance. The executive functions of the Delhi government is not just to enforce existing laws but also to make schemes for the poor, children, etc. But here, in the National Capital, we see the LG interfere in the normal day-to-day governance... This is not done anywhere in the country,” Mr. Subramanium responded to the Chief Justice’s remark.
•The senior advocate submitted that the purpose of Article 239AA was to “provide some kind of voice to the people, some kind of governance to the people.” The amendment was not just a structural addition to the Indian Constitution, but was based on the quality and fundamental principles of egalitarianism.
•Mr. Subramanium said the Delhi High Court was in error when it bought the Centre's argument that Delhi was like any other Union Territory governed by parliamentary laws under Article 246 (4) and there was no need to give the Delhi government any elbow room.
•Unlike other union territories like Puducherry, Delhi was recognised as “special” through a constitutional amendment. Article 239AA provided the Delhi Legislative Assembly the same powers as any other State legislature. The 69th Constitutional Amendment was passed to create “legislative accountability” through a democratically elected government, Mr. Subramanium argued. The Legislative Assembly could make laws for any part of Delhi, except in subjects of public order, police and land.
•Mr. Subramanium evoked Article 73 of the Constitution to note that Article 246 (4) was subject to the provisions of Article 239AA.
•“We are not contesting parliamentary supremacy. We acknowledge it. But still there must be an elbow room for the Legislative Aseembly of an elected government to function... Everything we do does not require the concurrence of the LG,” he submitted.
📰 India offers to share real-time maritime data
10 Indian Ocean littoral States to benefit from initiative
•India has made an offer to share intelligence of maritime movements in the Indian Ocean in real-time with 10 Indian Ocean littoral States.
•This comes even as India gears up to counter China’s increased presence in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).
•The information to be shared includes movement of commercial traffic as well as intelligence.
•“It was very positively received,” Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba told The Hindu on Thursday at the Goa Maritime Conclave (GMC) when asked about the response to this proposal from the 10 littoral states present.
•Indian Navy is hosting Navy and Maritime Chiefs of 10 countries of IOR at the first GMC to identify common threats in the region and evolve a mechanism on how to tackle them.
Co-operative system
•India already has co-operative arrangements with several countries in the region and this initiative would see that expanding further. For instance, white shipping agreements to share commercial shipping data have been signed with 12 countries and more are in the works.
Fusion centre
•“We have offered them to share real time data on movement in the Indian Ocean. Now let them review it and get them. This is not so much for conventional military purposes but to deal with non-traditional threats arising at sea,” a senior officer said.
•India is in a position to be a fusion centre, the officer added and this would be based on the Navy’s nerve centre for coastal surveillance and monitoring, the Information Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC) located outside the national capital.
•Welcoming the offer, a Navy Chief of one of the Indian Ocean littorals present said all countries should pitch in equally in the effort. “It has to be done equally by all nations, small or big. We have to work out modalities for the information exchange,” he said on the sidelines of the GMC.
📰 Acting against torture
The Law Commission seeks to plug a legal loophole
•“Torture is a wound in the soul so painful that sometimes you can almost touch it, but it is also such intangible that there is no way to heal it”. The Supreme Court reproduced the words of Adriana P. Bartow in its D.K. Basu judgment to explain the negative effect of torture on human dignity.
•The Law Commission of India in its 273rd report has proposed a new anti-torture law, the Prevention of Torture Bill, 2017, which provides a wide definition to torture not confined to physical pain but also includes “inflicting injury, either intentionally or involuntarily, or even an attempt to cause such an injury, which will include physical, mental or psychological”.
•The Commission has suggested India’s ratification of the UN Convention Against Torture. The proposed standalone anti-torture law directly makes the state responsible for any injury inflicted by its agents on citizens. Under it, the state shall not claim immunity from the actions of its officers or agents.
•The recommendation of the Commission headed by former Supreme Court judge, Justice B.S. Chauhan, will allow human rights advocates to pressurise the government to recognise torture as a separate crime. So far, neither the Indian Penal Code nor the Code of Criminal Procedure specifically or comprehensively addresses custodial torture.
•Though India had signed the UN Convention against Torture in 1997, it is yet to ratify it. Efforts to bring a standalone law against torture had lapsed. The National Human Rights Commission has been urging the government to recognise torture as a separate crime and codify punishment in a separate penal law.
•Recently, while hearing a PIL filed by former Union Law Minister Ashwani Kumar, the Supreme Court had described torture as an instrument of “human degradation” used by the state. It was after the scathing remarks that the government had referred the question of a law on torture to the Law Commission.
•The Commission has asked the government to ratify the UN convention to tide over the difficulties faced by the country in extraditing criminals. The draft Bill has recommended punishment for torture ranging from fine to life imprisonment. In case a person in police custody is found with injuries, it would be “presumed that those injuries have been inflicted by the police”.
•The Bill proposes to give the courts the scope to decide a justiciable compensation for a victim, taking into consideration his or her social background, extent of injury or mental agony.
📰 Gathering the tribe
With different groups involved in the Naga peace talks process, hope of a solution grows
•Perhaps one of the most talked about issues as far as the Northeast is concerned is the Naga struggle for sovereignty which started a day before India’s Independence. In the Naga mind, this issue oscillates between nostalgia for its unique history and the promise of a better future without disturbing this irreplaceable past. The problem with reality is that it does not allow us to romance the past.
Myth and reality
•The Naga national workers are no longer in the prime of their lives. The chairman of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (I-M), Isak Chisi Swu, has passed away and Thuingaleng Muivah too is getting on in years. In an article, ‘The Presence of the Past’, Roger Cohen says, “As we grow older the past looms larger. The past is full of possibilities. The future may seem wan by comparison and, for each of us, we know where it ends. With a bang or whimper...”
•Reams have been written, several seminars and workshops organised, and there have been daily cogitations on the Naga peace talks since they started in 1997. In August 2015, when the Framework Agreement was signed between the Government of India and the NSCN (I-M), expectations were high that an “honourable settlement” was in the offing. The problem is with the use of words which lend themselves to several interpretations depending on who the stakeholders are. What is honourable for the NSCN(I-M) may not seem honourable enough to Naga society as a whole, with disparate aspirations and interpretations. Be that as it may, the Centre’s Interlocutor for the Naga Peace talks, R.N. Ravi, has taken on a formidable task.
•No other interlocutor has interacted with and met so many Naga National Political Groups (NNPGs) and civil society groups. For the first time, Mr. Ravi was able to push the envelope and create that integral space where all voices are heard with equal respect, sometimes at the risk of the NSCN (I-M) calling off the talks, since they felt that being signatories to the Framework Agreement, they alone have the right to call the shots. This fact needs to be appreciated. And it has to be understood that the Indian establishment too is not an easy customer. There is scepticism and there are doubts whether wider consultations would result in cacophony, making the task of arriving at a solution much more difficult.
A difficult path
•For the interlocutor it’s a tightrope walk. The Naga people are a proud race and have held fast to their cultures, traditions and language. Yet it cannot be denied that tribal loyalty often comes in the way of a collective discourse for the future of Nagaland. Perhaps one organisation that has brought together people from all tribes is the ACAUT (Against Corruption and Unabated Taxation), which is seemingly inclusive of all tribes and a mass movement of sorts to protest against taxation by different armed groups and factions. So far, about 33 delegations, including the different tribal Hohos and recently the six NNPGs, have had their say. For Mr. Ravi, it is an opportunity to further understand how the Framework Agreement should pan out.
•But Mr. Ravi’s visit to Dimapur last month was also seen with some scepticism. A video clip of the public reception given to him drew some uncharitable comments. Is the pent-up rage and frustration among the youth due to the protracted peace talks or does the rage spring from something else?
The way forward
•For the Naga people at this juncture, the most pragmatic step is to take a balanced view of the past. Obsession with one point of view hinders any kind of progress. With 16 major tribes, each with a sense of nationality of its own and every tribe having its village republics which is a crucial part of their culture, there will be divergent ‘national’ narratives. Naga nationalism is both a sentiment and a movement.
•Ethnic boundaries of yore which went beyond geopolitical borders of the present nation can be both problematic and defy pragmatism. Then there is the issue of the Indian nation state, a term that is also problematic but which has provided its own stability for 70 years. If one were to go by Benedict Anderson’s “Imagined Communities”, then all the communities of the Northeast fall in that ambit.
•In an interview to theNagaland Post, Mr. Ravi said the ongoing peace talks may have been initiated by the NSCN (I-M) but it has now become more inclusive. One ray of hope as far as the Framework Agreement is concerned is that there appears to be a political consensus and faith in the process. This in itself is a huge step forward. Now that the tribal Hohos and the NNPGs have all thrown in their support, there is hope that the much-awaited political solution will arrive sooner than later.
