📰 New education policy draft by December
Kasturirangan panel is at work
•Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar said in Ahmedabad on Sunday that the Kasturirangan Committee on the new education policy was expected to submit its first draft by the end of December.
•Mr. Javadekar, however, did not offer a clear date as to when the policy — expected for the past three years — would be implemented, saying this would happen well in time to ensure quality education from 2020 to 2040.
•“In the leadership of Dr. Kasturirangan, an eight-member team was formed. Two days ago, they had a two-day meeting, which was their fifth meeting. They say they will give their first draft by December-end,” Mr. Javadekar said.
To the next level
•“I can say with certainty that this new education policy will for the next 20 years take the country to the next level. It will offer a new vision of modern thought and growth in science, technology and human values. It will ensure that good human beings and good citizens are nurtured,” the Minister said.
•Stressing that the exercise was going through wide consultations, he said, “It will ensure that the quality of education improves and research and innovation are facilitated. For this, a good policy is in the works. MPs and MLAs of all parties, educationists and teachers, those who run schools, parents and grandparents — all have offered lakhs of suggestions. Their inputs are being considered for this policy. The draft will be discussed and promptly implemented.”
Ideal policy
•Asked by when this would happen, the Minister said, “The idea is to have an ideal policy effecting positive changes in education from 2020 to 2040. It will be implemented well in time for this.”
•Earlier, a committee had been set up under the leadership of the former Cabinet Secretary TSR Subramanian to prepare a draft, which was eventually submitted but accepted just as “inputs” for the policy.
•The Kasturirangan Committee was set up after the submission of this draft.
📰 Navigation rights figure in first Quadrilateral talks
PM lands in Manila to participate in ASEAN, East Asia summits
•Beginning a new diplomatic initiative, India on Sunday participated in the first formal official-level discussions conducted here under the recently mooted regional coalition known as the ‘Quad’, the quadrilateral formation that includes Japan, India, the United States and Australia.
•The quadrilateral talks were held even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and U.S. President Donald Trump at a gala dinner thrown by President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines for the visiting leaders, who are here to participate in the 31st ASEAN and the 12th East Asia summits.
•“The discussions focussed on cooperation based on their converging vision and values for promotion of peace, stability and prosperity in an increasingly inter-connected region that they share with each other and with other partners. They agreed that a free, open, prosperous and inclusive Indo-Pacific region serves the long-term interests of all countries in the region and of the world at large,” the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement on the quadrilateral.
•“The officials also exchanged views on addressing common challenges of terrorism and proliferation linkages impacting the region as well as on enhancing connectivity,” the MEA statement said.
•The Indian team consisted of the Joint Secretary in charge of the East Asia division in the MEA, Pranay Verma, and the Joint Secretary in charge of the South division in the MEA, Vinay Kumar.
•Indicating the simmering regional tension with China and Beijing’s assertiveness over the South China Sea issue, a statement from the Australian Foreign Ministry informed that freedom of navigation figured at the ‘Quad.’ It said, “upholding the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific and respect for international law, freedom of navigation and overflight; increase(d) connectivity; challenges of countering terrorism and upholding maritime security in the Indo-Pacific” were also discussed.
•Official sources emphasised that the quadrilateral was not aimed at any other country, and said India was also involved in other similar groupings in the region to deal with security and political issues.
•The leaders of the quadrilateral countries, Mr. Abe, Mr. Modi and Mr. Trump attended the dinner dressed in the Barong Tagalog, the traditional Filipino shirt for men. The event was also attended by Premiers Li Keqiang of China and Dmitry Medvedev of Russia.
📰 South China Sea, Rohingya on ASEAN map
China’s build-up of ‘air surveillance and domination projects’ in the region also likely to come up for discussion
•The maritime dispute over the South China Sea, exodus of the Rohingya citizens of Myanmar into Bangladesh and India, North Korean nuclear posturing and Islamic State-linked terrorism are likely to be the key talking points at the 31st ASEAN summit beginning here on Monday.
•The South China Sea has been at the centre of all discussions on multilateral problems at the ASEAN-China level, which has been further complicated by China’s land reclamation projects aimed at building air surveillance and domination projects in the region.
Common future
•ASEAN has been battling with the task of framing a Code of Conduct (CoC) for the common maritime future, which officials of the Philippines say is likely to get the green light during the ASEAN summit.
•“We expect the leaders to announce the negotiations but the actual start of the negotiations will probably happen sometime next year,” Foreign Affairs spokesperson Robespierre Bolivar said in a press interaction at the International Media Centre on Saturday.
•Attention is also focused on Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi who arrived here on Saturday and her presentation of the Rohingya issue.
Rohingya crisis
•A Bangladeshi source told The Hindu that Dhaka expected ASEAN to raise the issue in a prominent way and convince Myanmar to stop the atrocities against the Rohingya. It is likely to be a major issue at the “retreat” where leaders can speak freely about all issues away from the media glare.
•“It will be discussed, it will be up to Myanmar to raise the issue because this is a domestic concern for them,” said Mr. Bolivar giving the official position of the Philippines.
•The presence of the pro-Islamic State militants in the Maraqi city in southern Philippines is also expected to receive attention as the fight with the militants has been a major domestic issue of the Philippines. The developments in Marawi have also emerged as a reason for it to seek international support. China has in recent months extended support to the Philippines.
Counter-terrorism
•“China also provided timely weaponry assistance in the counter-terrorism campaign in Marawi, and on the second day after the campaign successfully concluded, Chinese engineering machinery were delivered for local reconstruction,” said Premier Li Keqiang of China in a newspaper article in Philippenes.
•It is expected that the simmering tension between North Korea, the U.S. and Japan will also feature prominently on Monday.
📰 First fauna survey begins in Krishna sanctuary
A safe home for 15 fishing cats; declared wildlife sanctuary in 1998; 20 camera traps to be installed in strategic grids
•The first status survey of the ‘fauna’ in the Krishna Wildlife Sanctuary (KWL), one of the rarest eco-regions in the world, has been commenced.
•The area in an extent of 194.8 sq. km was declared as wildlife sanctuary in 1998 and since then no survey on the fauna had been carried out. The sanctuary is sandwiched between the Bay of Bengal and the Krishna river and geographically falls in Krishna and Guntur districts.
•The pilot project (2014-16) recorded the presence of a whopping 15 fishing cats. The recent documentation of the smooth-coated otter has highlighted the need for carrying out the survey. By Monday, camera traps were installed in the five strategic wildlife grids each measured in one sq. km. The five grids including Sorlagondi and Gullalamoda are said to be a safe home for the fishing cat, whose call was recorded on Monday by the forest team.
•“It is the need of the hour to have an authentic data on the presence of the wildlife to prepare conservation strategies. The six-month status survey is being carried out by installing camera traps in the most strategic 20 wildlife grids,” Assistant Conservator of Forest N. Ramachandra Rao told The Hindu. An exclusive team led by wetland and mangrove researcher A. Appa Rao is engaged in identifying the grids.
•“We will proceed with the ‘Fishing Cat census’ once the data captured through the camera traps is examined,” said Mr. Rao. The survey includes geo-tagging of the wildlife, particularly the fishing cat.
•“We are recording the pug marks of the fishing cat to establish the evidence of its presence in the grids. Palakayatippa, Sorlagondi and Gullalamoda are the key coordinates or Wildlife Management Areas,” Mr. Appa Rao said.
•“The credit for the rise of the fishing cat population goes to the conservation of the mangrove cover. The cover, the habitat of the fishing cat, has been increasing since the early 2000s due to afforestation measures,” he said. The India State of Forest Report-2015 shows that there has been a net increase of 17 sq. km. of mangrove forest cover in Krishna district since 2013.
📰 First Rafale will land in India by 2019: Trappier
Facility to support 200 SMEs, says Dassault Aviation chief
•Eric Trappier, chairman of the €3.6 billion Dassault Aviation, was recently in India to lay the foundation stone of Dassault Reliance Aerospace Limited (DRAL’s) manufacturing facility at Mihan in Nagpur. With production from DRAL expected to start as early as 2018 and the first Rafale expected to land in India in 2019, Mr. Trappier talks about Dassault’s future plans and getting repeat orders for Rafale combat jets from the Indian government. Edited excerpts:
When can we expect the first Rafale to land in India?
•As we have planned, the first Rafale should land in India in 2019. It’s on track.
How many Rafale jets would be made in India as part of the offset clause?
•It’s not a question of how many Rafale [jets] will be made in India for the first 36 order that we have got. Certain parts of Rafale and Falcon are going to be manufactured in India to start with. We will take a step-by-step approach and we will start manufacturing parts of Rafale in this facility. If there are new orders, we will look at manufacturing here. We are sure that it’s win-win situation. Manufacturing in India is going to be the next step and it depends upon the new orders. For the new orders for Rafale, the jet would be made totally in India.
How do you intend to fulfil the offset commitment of ₹30,000 crore of the ₹60,000 crore order?
•This is something very important because our company has a very old history with India. We have been continuously supplying to India for the past 65 years. This was possible because of our aircraft and we have a very strategic relationship between France and India. Our government has signed an agreement to supply 36 Rafale jets to India with 50% offset obligation. We will fulfil all our contractual obligations.
What gives you the confidence that you will get repeat orders for Rafale?
•As of now, we are proposing it to the government but it’s up to the government to go ahead. We have capability to prove that our fighter [jet] is good. It has been bought already. We will deliver the support. We now have the capability to manufacture the aircraft in India. We think we have the right tools to convince the government for repeat orders.
Is the scope of this partnership with Reliance restricted to Rafale?
•This is a unique opportunity to start manufacturing in India. With our partner Reliance, we also intend to manufacture our business jet Falcon. The first Falcon will soon take off from Indian soil.
There are concerns in certain quarters that India is overpaying for the current Rafale deal. Your comments?
•You have to ask them [the government] this question.
Why have you chosen Reliance Group, which with no prior experience in defence, as your JV Partner?
•We are starting with a private company [that wants] to become a global player. I am a private company. It’s an equal partnership. We are investing €100 million for our 49% stake.
What employment opportunities will this JV create?
•As chairman of French Aerospace Industries Association, I will lead a big delegation of French SMEs here in the coming months. Our facility here will support over 200 SMEs to secure the component and avionics manufacturing needs of Rafale and Falcon jets. It’s not only about Rafale and Dassault. Our French partners and partners of the Reliance Group will set up their facilities here.
📰 What humans do, cobots can too
Collaborative bots not only complement human effort, but also help when labour is hard to come by
• Evil. Anti-worker. Job thieves. These are popular epithets to robots in a populous and labour-surplus country such as India.
• But if robots complement human effort and help free up labour for deployment elsewhere, then the conversation takes a different turn. Small, collaborative robots, or cobots, are gaining currency across the world, as also in India. Several firms, be it Bajaj Auto or Aurolab, have benefited from the adoption of cobots and are planning to add more to their shop floors. And, no one is complaining.
• Aurolab’s is a case in point. The Madurai-based company makes intraocular lenses. Earlier. the lenses were made by women staff, above the age of 18. They helped make 150 lenses a day but today, using cobots, the firm makes 10,000 lenses a day. Now, the company exports to 150 countries. Headcount has also risen from 15 to 700.
• “The pricing, quality and productivity of the lenses are so good that the others are importing it and I think this kind of story can be replicated with many other industries,” said Jurgen von Hollen, president, Universal Robots, the world’s largest manufacturer of cobots.
What is a cobot?
• A cobot is intended to work hand-in-hand with humans in a shared workspace. This is in contrast with full-fledged robots that are designed to operate autonomously or with limited guidance. They support and relieve the human operator of his excess work.
• In an auto factory, while the the cobot tightens the bolts, the human worker places the tools in front of the cobot. In a biscuit factory, the cobot would package the biscuits while the worker segregates burnt ones not fit for consumption. In a small-scale industry, the cobot is placed on the drilling job while the worker performs a quality check.
• “It’s a phenomenal success story in India where cobots are creating jobs and making small businesses competitive,” Mr. Hollen said. Universal Robots of Denmark was the first to develop cobots commercially, and the first units were sold in 2008. Collaborative robots are ‘completely’ different from traditional robots, he said. “Cobots are easy to use, flexible and safe.” Unlike industrial robots, cobots don’t need fencing for the protection of workers in the shop floor, Mr. Hollen said.
• “The ease of use and flexibility are what drives us. Our vision is to change the world of automation,” he said. “Because, right now, automation [seems to be] for the few large companies that have the engineering resources, that have the capital invested. Nobody has figured out how to deal with the small/medium segment and the flexible requirements [in that space],” he added.
• The automotive sector is a large adopter of cobots. The global electronics industry is also an adopter. Industry watchers felt that manufacturing cannot be competitive without the extensive use of industrial robots.
• “Manufacturing is a capital-intensive sector and the idea that it can be used to create a lot of low- or medium-skilled but well-paid jobs, as it did in past centuries, is obsolete. We need to accept this reality,” said Debashis Guha, professor and director, Machine Learning, SP Jain School of Global Management.
Intelligent use of robots
•This meant, he said, that the relevant question was not whether the deployment of robots is advisable, or whether robots will help or hurt the effort to ‘Make in India’. “The question should be: how can we best create a modern, robot-using manufacturing ecosystem in India?
•“If we continue to be just importers and end-users, and not designers, developers and builders of robots, then robot deployment will be disastrous for the economy, since we will lose many old-industry jobs, and the new, advanced technology jobs will be created elsewhere.”
•“That is why, instead of engaging in sterile debates about the advisability of high technology, we must move to develop capabilities in advanced areas such as robotics, artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation,” he added.
•Globally, 110,000 robots worth about $40 billion were shipped last year. The collaborative robot market is about $1 billion-$4 billion.
•Universal Robots, which has 50-60% market share in cobots globally, has so far sold 18,500 units, including more than 300 in India.
•Vikas Sawhney, general manager, engineering (robotics and automation), Bajaj Auto, which uses 150 cobots, said the key benefits of cobots were compactness, low payback period, flexibility, lightweight nature, cost-effectiveness, accuracy and safety. “Other benefits include zero annual maintenance costs, reduced power consumption and retention of IP within the company.”
•Cosmetics firm L’Oreal has also deployed cobots. Aditya Narayanan, senior manager, production, L'Oreal India said, “After incorporating the cobot on one of our automatic, high-speed lines, we eliminated approximately 8,000 kg of load lifted by a human in a shift, thereby protecting his/her health from being impacted.”
•Adding a cobot did not add to the maintenance technician’s load, since it is relatively maintenance free, he said.
•It is estimated that a little less than 40,000 cobots have been deployed all over the world. Big names that have entered into this field include Epson and ABB. There are about 30-40 players in this market.
•The adoption has been low in India compared with China and the developed world. For every cobot sold in India, 30 are sold in China.
Bolstering productivity
•With the deployment of cobots, almost 80% of downtime gets eliminated, as per estimates. In other words, productivity gains are significant.
•Some SMEs now prefer to place a cobot in key functions and use human labour to feed in information and get the basic work done.
•The first cobot arrived in India in 2011 when Bajaj Auto decided to deploy one at its shop floor. Next year the auto firm bought 23 units; it now has a total of 150 cobots. Mahindra & Mahindra has recently bought its first few cobots, it is learnt.
•According to Mr. Hollen, packing industries and textile companies too use cobots. Cobots are getting into healthcare as well. They work as chefs in the U.S., making burger patties. In Singapore, cobots have been used to make building tiles. Cobots can be also used to paint the sides of the buildings, Mr. Hollen said.
•Cobots are simple to use, he said. One could programme a cobot in 40 minutes. For this, you don’t need to have a technical background, he said. Safety is an important aspect of collaborative work and cobots score high there, he said.
•“They are flexible and can be used just as a tool.” In other words, use of cobots helps avoid overplaying the role of a robot which tends to dominate the workflow, relegating human contribution to the background.
•A cobot costs ₹14 lakh-₹22 lakh. Typically, in India, the payback period is 1-2 years.
•Several governments around the world are encouraging automation to spur economic growth. China, for example, is offering subsidies to make cobots affordable. Several universities are spending significantly on research and development to facilitate human-robot collaboration in next generation manufacturing.
📰 Contours of a counter-BRI
India is being pulled into alliances to counter China’s connectivity initiatives. It should not rush into them
•India finds itself at a crossroads of grand alliances unfolding in the Indian Ocean Region. While one axis is a maritime one across the Indo-Pacific, the other is land-based, extending from Afghanistan into Southeast Asia. Interestingly, both are intended to act as a check on China’s growing clout.
•On Sunday, foreign ministry officials from India, Australia, Japan and the U.S. held discussions on the sidelines of the East Asia summit in Manila in the Philippines and discussed peace and stability in the region in addition to addressing common challenges.
•“The discussions focussed on cooperation based on their converging vision and values for promotion of peace, stability and prosperity in an increasingly inter-connected region that they share with each other and with other partners. They agreed that a free, open, prosperous and inclusive Indo-Pacific region serves the long-term interests of all countries in the region and of the world at large,” a statement from the Ministry of External Affairs said while reiterating that India’s Act East Policy was the “cornerstone of its engagement in the Indo-Pacific region”.
Four corners
•Of late, the U.S. has been more vocal in its desire to include Australia in the India-Japan-U.S. security cooperation in the Indian Ocean Region, referred to as the “quad” — a quadrilateral alliance of “like-minded” countries. Taking it a step further, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono has called for the inclusion of France and Germany. Against this backdrop, the prospect of quadrilateral discussions in Manila have generated considerable global interest on the possible outcome which China hoped “would not target or damage” a “third party’s interest.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meetings during his visit there will be watched closely.
•While the quad still remains an idea, and it has to be seen what shape it takes, the diplomatic discussions in the national capital over the last few weeks and the statements by world leaders in the run-up to some recent high-level visits to India show distinct contours of a counter-alliance to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also called One Belt, One Road, taking shape. The arc extends from Afghanistan on India’s west all across the Northeast and into Myanmar and the Southeast Asian countries.
•Various strands of this are already under way. India has been trying to build connectivity under various initiatives in its own Northeast region, in its neighbouring countries, and further into ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations). Now the U.S. has begun investing in India’s periphery, and Japan is attempting to align its own development initiatives to improve connectivity in the region with India’s Act East policy. The broader attempt is to institutionalise this into a structured trilateral format, and possibly a quadrilateral one at a later stage.
Collaborating with India
•Last month, ahead of his visit to India, while delivering a speech at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson expressed the need to collaborate with India to ensure peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific so that it “does not become a region of disorder, conflict, and predatory economics.”
•Elaborating on the predatory economics, Mr. Tillerson said there are a “number of fledgling democracies for infrastructure investment” and stressed on the need to have alternative means of developing them. He referred to China’s investment model, saying, “the financing mechanisms it brings to many of these countries [results] in saddling them with enormous levels of debt.”
•Mr. Tillerson further said, “We think it’s important that we begin to develop some means of countering that with alternative financing measures, financing structures” and added that they began a “quiet conversation” during the East Asia ministerial summit in August to create “alternative financing mechanisms” in a multilateral way.
•In September, the U.S. signed a $500 million agreement with Nepal to build infrastructure for the latter’s electricity and transportation needs and to promote “more trade linkages with partners in the region like India.” Earlier, U.S. Secretary of Defence James Mattis had endorsed India’s sovereignty concerns surrounding the BRI.
•Speaking at a think tank in New Delhi last month, Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar endorsed the U.S. investment in Nepal. Stating that India cannot be in denial of other players coming into the region, he said: “I think an intelligent nation harnesses the changes and sees what works for you. To the extent we have countries whose broad goals are aligned with us.” India and Japan are also cooperating on a project for LNG (liquefied natural gas) supplies to Sri Lanka in addition to aligning their connectivity projects in Africa under the proposed ‘Asia Africa Growth Corridor’.
•The broad mechanism is akin to China’s own build-up of the BRI initiative. China spent over a decade building capacities independently in its areas of interest — for instance, it built a series of dual-use facilities across the Indian Ocean surrounding India which is popularly referred to as its ‘string of pearls’ strategy. All such efforts have now been consolidated under its grandiose idea of BRI, bringing legitimacy to them and succeeding in getting the global community on board with offers of lucrative investments and long-term returns.
Time for caution
•While cooperative mechanisms are crucial to maintain stability in the Indian Ocean Region, it would be prudent on India’s part to do a cost-benefit analysis of building such grand alliances in such uncertain times, especially on the role of the U.S. with President Donald Trump at the helm. One of the agreements reached between Mr. Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping was China’s Silk Road Fund, under the People’s Bank of China, to promote the Belt and Road international trade initiative. This shows the dichotomy in American policy, and India should exercise caution before jumping on to the bandwagon. It must await policy clarity from the U.S. both on Afghanistan and beyond.
•On the other hand, Russia has asked India to join its International North-South Transport Corridor, arguing that it would be a gateway for India to connect with Central Asia through Chabahar port in Iran and via Afghanistan.
•While India has objections to the BRI, it wouldn’t be ideal to bracket the country in a counter camp, but rather it should balance its outreach in accordance to national interests and its own terms. After all, the very countries which are pushing India into alliances are deeply intertwined with China in terms of trade. Excessive dependence on multilateral frameworks to fulfil national objectives may seem lucrative in the short term but could prove to be a costly mistake in the long term and comprise Indian sovereignty.
📰 Justice in tumult: on the turmoil in Supreme Court
The turmoil will end only with a full, fair probe into the alleged plot to influence judges
•There is absolutely no doubt that the Chief Justice of India is the master of the roster. So, it is impossible to dispute the legal reasoning behind Chief Justice Dipak Misra’s ruling that no one but he can decide the composition of Benches and allocation of judicial work in the Supreme Court. However, the circumstances in which he had to assert this authority have the potential to greatly diminish the court’s lustre. The scenes witnessed in the court amidst troubling allegations of possible judicial corruption are worrisome for their capacity to undermine the high esteem that the judiciary enjoys. Chief Justice Misra chose to stick to the letter of the law, but there remain troublesome questions about potential conflict of interest in his decision to overrule Justice J. Chelameswar’s extremely unusual order that delineated the composition of a Constitution Bench to hear a writ petition seeking a fair probe into the corruption allegations. It is a fact that in the Prasad Education Trust case, the petitions alleging that some individuals, including a retired Orissa High Court judge, were plotting to influence the Supreme Court, had been heard by a Bench headed by Chief Justice Misra. However, it would be perverse and irresponsible to attribute corrupt motives without compelling evidence. At the same time, by heading the Bench himself, the Chief Justice may have contributed to the perception that he will preside over a hearing in his own cause, rather than leaving it to another set of judges to reiterate the legal position on who has the sole say in deciding the roster.
•Justice Chelameswar, the senior-most puisne judge, may have passed his order based on the petitioner’s claim that there would be a conflict of interest were the Chief Justice to choose the Bench. But in doing so, he chose to ignore the principle that allocation of judicial work is the preserve of the Chief Justice. Both justices may have found themselves in a situation in which law and strict propriety do not converge. As for the lawyer-activists involved, it is one thing to flag corruption, another to foster the impression that they want to choose the judges who will hear them. The only way to end the current turmoil in the judicial and legal fraternity is to ensure that the Central Bureau of Investigation holds an impartial probe in the case registered by it. The involvement of serving judges may only be a remote possibility, but it is vital to find out whether the suspected middlemen had any access to them. An unfortunate fallout of the controversy is the perception of a rift among the country’s top judges. To some, the charges may represent an attempt to undermine the judiciary. These perceptions should not result in the sidestepping of the real issue raised by the CBI’s FIR: the grim possibility of the judiciary being susceptible to corruption. Tumult and turmoil should not overshadow this substantive issue.
📰 Why ABBA must go: on Aadhaar
Aadhaar-based Biometric Authentication (ABBA) does nothing in the battle against graft — there are better alternatives
•In a sickening way, October 2017 was like October 2002.
•Fifteen years ago, in Rajasthan’s Baran and Udaipur districts, there was a spate of starvation deaths. The government of the time made up fanciful stories to deny that the deaths had anything to do with hunger or government failure.
•In October 2017, the death of an 11-year-old Dalit child, Santoshi Kumari, of Jharkhand, was widely reported. She had been pleading with her mother to give her rice as she slipped into unconsciousness and lost her life. The government insists that she had malaria but in video testimonies, her mother, Koyli Devi, says she had no fever. After Santoshi’s death, more hunger deaths have been reported, of which at least one, Ruplal Marandi, is related to the government’s Aadhaar experiment.
•The starvation deaths in 2002 became the springboard for positive action on many fronts, which included the passing of judicial orders and even political action. Since then, there has been a perceptible improvement in programmes of social support including, but not limited to, the Public Distribution System (PDS). In Baran, it led to a recognition of the vulnerability of the Sahariyas — a tribal community in Baran — and a special PDS package consisting of free pulses and ghee being announced.
•Similar action is required today. Instead, the government remains in denial. The Food Ministry in Delhi issued an order in late October that is silent on the crucial issue of reinstating wrongly cancelled ration cards and makes token concessions (with no guarantee of implementation).
Targets and the reality
•For months, the Central government has been insisting on 100% Aadhaar “seeding” across schemes such as the PDS, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and pensions. Seeding refers to the practice of entering Aadhaar numbers for each household member on the ration card. It is a pre-requisite for the Aadhaar-based Biometric Authentication (ABBA) system, the practice of using an electronic point of sale (PoS) machine to authenticate each transaction. The government has made seeding and the ABBA mandatory in the PDS. As explained below, the distinction between seeding and the ABBA is important.
•In their zeal to achieve 100% Aadhaar-seeding targets, some field functionaries just deleted the names of those who did not submit Aadhaar details. Others waited till the deadline and then struck off names. The government claims that all of these were “fake”, detected due to Aadhaar, thus saving crores of rupees. Santoshi’s family was one such example. According to the State Food Minister, their ration card was cancelled in July because they failed to seed it with Aadhaar.
Exclusions are not savings
•Some people blame the aggrieved for failing to seed Aadhaar. But many of them are unaware of the seeding requirement. When pensions in Jharkhand suddenly stopped for many pensioners, they had no idea why. No one had told them about Aadhaar. In some cases, the middlemen had seeded it wrongly. Others still had tried repeatedly and failed. Seeding is not as simple as it sounds.
•Seeding is just one of the many barriers that the ABBA has created in the smooth functioning of the PDS. The ABBA requires that family members be enrolled for Aadhaar and correct seeding. At the time of purchase, the ABBA requires power supply, a functional PoS machine, mobile and Internet connectivity, State and Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) servers to be ‘up’, and for fingerprint authentication to be successful.
•Ruplal Marandi’s family passed the first two hurdles, enrolment and seeding, but was tripped at the last stage by the ABBA. For no fault of his own, the Marandi family was excluded from the PDS. His daughter told journalists that he had died of hunger as the family could not collect rations because of a biometric mismatch at the PDS shop.
•There is enough evidence to show that the ABBA does not work. The Finance Ministry’s latest Economic Survey, based on micro-studies, reports high biometric failure rates.
•In Rajasthan, government data for the past year show that around 70% of cardholders are able to use the system successfully. The rest have either been tripped up by one of the ABBA hurdles or, less likely, they did not attempt to buy PDS grain. In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the ABBA’s poster child States, it is used to disburse MGNREGA wages and pensions: biometric failure rates are between 8 and 14%. In some months, one in four pensioners returns empty-handed.
A case against ABBA
•What most people don’t realise is that the ABBA has no role in reducing corruption. If the ABBA helps reduce corruption, it might be worth fixing these failures. Quantity fraud is the practice of cheating on quantities sold. Neither seeding nor the ABBA can stop quantity fraud. In a survey in Jharkhand, dealers continue to swindle people by cutting up to a kg of their grain entitlement despite successful ABBA authentication. Identity fraud, for example in the form of duplicate ration cards, only requires Aadhaar-seeding; the ABBA is unnecessary. Two caveats on seeding: it can be foolproof against identity fraud only in a universal system. More seriously, it raises privacy issues.
•Further, in Aadhaar’s rulebook for example, an elderly person asking a neighbour to fetch their grain would count as identity fraud. In fact, it is flexibility that is lost when the ABBA is made mandatory.
•Thus, each month, people are being forced to cross five meaningless hurdles in the form of electricity, functional PoS, connectivity, servers and fingerprint authentication in order to have access to their ration. Failing any one hurdle even once causes anxiety in subsequent months. Think of the ATM running out of cash, post-demonetisation, just when it was your turn. The resultant anxiety defeats the very purpose of such forms of social support. Failure in consecutive months leads to people giving up entirely. They stop trying. States such as Rajasthan were planning to treat such households as dead or non-existent.
•The ABBA must be withdrawn immediately from the PDS and pensions in favour of alternative technologies such as smart cards. This will allow us to keep the baby (offline PoS machines with smart cards) and throw out the bathwater (Internet dependence and biometric authentication).
•If the government continues to insist on the ABBA, there is only one conclusion that can be drawn. That it is actively trying to sabotage the PDS, which, quite literally, is a lifeline for the poor.
📰 Hit refresh: on the slashed GST rates
The GST Council rationalises the tax regime further, but simplicity is still not within grasp
•The script was altered for the second time in two months but with far greater impact. Soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised far-reaching changes to simplify the goods and services tax regime, especially for small businesses and consumers, the GST Council delivered some relief measures on Friday. At its meeting in Guwahati, the Council lowered the tax rates on over 200 products, compared to 27 items in its previous meeting and about 100 tweaks since GST rates were finalised in May. Over 1,200 products and services had been placed in five tax brackets — 0%, 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%. That those rates no longer hold for about a quarter of those items, and the highest tax bracket is left with just 50 products, compared to more than 250 in July, is a tacit admission that the initial rates were worked out in a hurry with maximising revenue being the prime consideration. Similarly, the ambit of the Composition Scheme for small businesses has been expanded twice — from an initial turnover threshold of ₹75 lakh per year to ₹1 crore (in October), and now further to ₹1.5 crore. This would require a change in the GST laws, so it may take some time to kick in. There should be no doubt that all the course corrections currently under way to ease the transition to GST are more than welcome — and the government will be hoping these ‘people-friendly’ changes will not only spur consumption but also boost compliance.
•But the transmission of lower rates may take time as it could be two-three months before existing inventory in the market is replaced with freshly priced products. With returns for the first month of the tax yet to be filed by all registered taxpayers and less than three months to go till the presentation of the Union Budget, Finance Ministry mandarins face a unique challenge on revenue visibility. In the interest of the exchequer and the taxpayer, whatever other improvements the GST needs must be implemented at the earliest — whether they are stuck because of a lack of consensus (letting inter-State suppliers avail of the Composition Scheme), poor implementation (the GST Network) or simply the lack of bandwidth to think through. The Opposition has criticised the latest reboot of the GST as a Gujarat campaign effect. While that rang truer in October when rates for popular snacks in the State were lowered, many decisions remain curious. Cement is taxed at 28%, but granite and marble have been lowered to the 18% bracket. Instead of a tactfully designed One Nation, One Tax system, the GST should not degenerate into a tool to please constituencies. The Council must institute a transparent system with an explicit rationale for any rate changes in the future. Only then can business and retail find predictability in the GST, rather than be wistful for a time when indirect tax rates were reviewed once a year in the annual Budget instead of every month.
