📰 India and Russia update agreement on security
•India and Russia concluded a comprehensive agreement on security and reviewed the implementation of the Agreement on Information Security signed in October 2016 during the just-concluded visit of Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
•Mr. Singh, who paid a three-day visit to Russia, met with his counterpart Nikolai Patrushev and signed deals on disaster management and narcotics smuggling.
•“An updated and more comprehensive agreement on Cooperation on Security between Ministry of Home Affairs of India and the Ministry of Interior of the Russian Federation was signed by the two Ministers. This agreement provides a comprehensive approach for cooperation in security related issues, including Information Technology Crimes, Counterfeiting currency, Illicit Trafficking in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, Trafficking in Human Beings, Economic Crimes, Crimes related to Intellectual Property, Cultural Property amongst others,” said a press statement issued by the Indian Embassy in Moscow.
•Both sides also agreed that EMERCOM of Russia and India would cooperate in the establishment of an Indian National Crisis Management Centre. Both sides also agreed on a plan of training of specialists and sharing best practices in the field of disaster management.
•The two ministers signed a Joint Implementation Plan for the years 2018-19 for cooperation in disaster management, continuing with the bilateral cooperation on the front of disaster management. A Joint Action Plan was also signed between the Narcotics Control Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs of India and the Ministry of Interior of the Russian Federation for the period 2018-20 during the visit.
📰 Narendra Modi supports creation of a ‘sovereign, independent, viable’ Palestine
Ahead of International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the PM says India will continue to support nation-building activities by the Palestinians
•India on Tuesday reiterated the need for an early resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
•In a statement on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Prime Minister Narendra Modi presented his government’s position and said that India will continue to support nation building activities by the Palestinians, and urged for the creation of a Palestinian State that will co-exist ‘peacefully’ with Israel.
•“We hope for early realisation of a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel,” said the Prime Minister.
Two-state solution
•The special day marks Resolution 181 of the United Nations which called for creation of independent Israeli and Palestinian states and was adopted on this day in 1947.
•The two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is based on this resolution.
•The day is being marked in the backdrop of the ongoing diplomacy to bring the two sides to the negotiation table. “India hopes for early resumption of dialogue between the Palestinian and the Israeli sides to move towards finding a comprehensive negotiated resolution,” Mr. Modi said.
•The statement was sent to the United Nations a few days ago through the Permanent Mission of India at the United Nations.
Global push
•Mr. Modi’s statement adds India’s support to the global push for a negotiated settlement of the longstanding demand for a Palestinian state next to Israel.
•The statement is the first occasion that the Prime Minister has spoken about the need for a viable Palestinian State since his visit to Israel last July.
•However, the India-Israel Joint Statement issued during his visit this year did not mention the need to create a Palestinian state but had mentioned the need for ‘mutual recognition’ and ‘security arrangements’ as the basis for a peaceful solution to the issue.
•Netanyahu to visit India
•Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to visit India in January reciprocating Mr. Modi’s visit.
•The Prime Minister also expressed India’s long-term commitment to the Palestinian people and said, “India is an active development partner of Palestine, engaged in extending technical and financial assistance to improve the lives of the Palestinian people. We will continue to support the development and nation-building efforts of Palestine.”
•Several events and seminars are expected to be held in India to mark the day of solidarity with the Palestinians.
📰 SC dismisses plea against Asthana’s appointment as CBI special director
The Centre opposed the petition, saying Mr. Asthana had had an outstanding career and supervised over 40 high profile cases
•The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition challenging the appointment of senior Gujarat cadre IPS officer Rakesh Asthana as a special director of the CBI.
•A Bench of Justices R.K. Agrawal and A.M. Sapre said, “the writ petition is dismissed.” On November 24, the court reserved its order on the matter.
•The Centre opposed the plea, saying Mr. Asthana had had an outstanding career and supervised over 40 high profile cases, including the coal and AgustaWestland scams, black money and money laundering.
•The petitioner, Common Cause, an NGO, opposed Asthana’s appointment, saying it was illegal as his name had surfaced in a diary recovered during a raid conducted by the Income Tax Department at the offices and other premises of Sterling Biotech Ltd.
•The Centre, however, claimed that mR. Asthana, who was an additional director in the CBI, was looking after its 11 zones.
📰 ICJ judges worked as arbitrators, says report
Britain’s Christopher Greenwood is on the list
•Christopher Greenwood, the British judge who withdrew as Britain’s nominee for the International Court of Justice, paving the way for Justice Dalveer Bhandari’s election, moonlighted as an arbitrator in nine investment-state dispute settlements as well as two other cases during his time as an ICJ judge.
•He was involved in the second-largest number of such external work of all sitting ICJ judges, according to a report by the Geneva-based International Institute for Sustainable Development, which noted that seven current ICJ judges and 13 former judges had done so.
•The work risked causing reputational damage to the court which as the world’s most “important and respected court” had to be held to the “highest standards of independence”, said Director of the IISD, Nathalie Bernasconi-Osterwalder, noting that the 78 arbitration cases the judges were involved with represented roughly 10% of known investment treaty cases that took place during their tenure.
Other judges
•The judge who conducted the most such work was Slovakia’s Peter Tomka. Ausralia’s James Richard Crawford was also involved in nine such cases. Judge Bhandari has not been involved in any arbitration cases since he began his ICJ tenure.
•Article 16 of the ICJ’s statute states that “no member of the court may exercise any political or administrative function, or engage in any other occupation of a professional nature”, adding that any doubts could be settled by a decision of the court.
•According to the IISD, while the annual salary of an ICJ judge was roughly $1,73,000 a year (in 2016) plus a living allowance and pension, arbitrators could earn as much as $3,000 a day.
•Analysis conducted by the IISD found that in two resolved cases involving Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Mr. Greenwood, who has been an ICJ judge since 2009, earned $291,600.
•“If ICJ judges supplement their income by serving as arbitrators, they have an incentive to work less time for the court where their salary is fixed,” the report warned, adding that it could also potentially impact perceived and actual impartiality.
•Sources said that while the revelations in the report were unlikely to have influenced Britain’s decision to withdraw, it would likely have raised some tricky questions had it pushed hard against India.
📰 Telecom regulator TRAI backs Net neutrality
Comes out with a series of recommendations after a long process of consultations on the issue.
•The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Tuesday came out in strong support of Net neutrality in a series of recommendations following a long process of consultations on the issue.
•“The licensing terms should be amplified to provide explicit restrictions on any sort of discrimination in Internet access based on the content being accessed, the protocols being used or the user equipment being deployed,” TRAI said in the recommendations.
Covers all
•The content mentioned includes all content, applications, services and any other data, including its end-point information, that can be accessed or transmitted over the Internet.
•Warning against any “discriminatory treatment” including blocking, degrading, slowing down or granting preferential speeds to any content, TRAI stated, “The scope of the proposed principles on non-discriminatory treatment apply specifically to ‘Internet Access Services’, which are generally available to the public.”
•These recommendations have been arrived at based on the pre-consultation paper issued in May 2016 to identify key issues and a detailed consultation paper in January 2017 which focussed on identifying the requirements, design, scope and implementation of Net neutrality framework in India. Based on the responses received, open house discussions were held in three cities.
No arrangement
•In a clear message to service providers, one of the recommendations reads, “The service providers should be restricted from entering into any arrangement, agreement or contract, by whatever name called, with any person, natural or legal, that has the effect of discriminatory treatment based on content, sender or receiver, protocols or user equipment.”
•In February 2016, TRAI had barred telecom providers from charging differential rates for data services in its Prohibition of Discriminatory Tariffs for Data Services Regulations, 2016, effectively blocking such attempts by Facebook and Airtel.
•Facebook had earlier rolled out its Free Basics service in partnership with Reliance Communications as a “differential service” and lobbied hard for it on social media which put it at loggerheads with the telecom regulator.
•To monitor violations, TRAI has recommended the establishment of a collaborative mechanism in the form of a multi-stakeholder body which would be responsible for developing technical standards for monitoring and enforcement of the principles.
Mixed reactions
•There were mixed reactions to TRAI’s recommendations on Net neutrality. The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) observed that the recommendations were “principally” in agreement with the industry submissions regarding the narrow issue of Net neutrality but were disappointed that the authority did not adopt the industry recommendation to have a wider approach.
•“A committee to review and decide on network management violations is unnecessarily bureaucratic, and not in keeping with light touch regulation or the ease of doing business,” COAI stated.
•In contrast, the Internet Association of India (IAMAI) called the recommendations “progressive and in line with the debates” in the industry and user groups.
•“The debate of Net neutrality was about the freedom and choice of access for end users,” the IAMAI said and added that Internet in India, unlike possibly in the U.S. or China, is going to be ‘free and open’ upholding the democratic principles of the country.
📰 GES-2017: Narendra Modi invites global entrepreneurs to invest in India
“Come, Make in India, Invest in India, for India and for the world,” Mr. Modi said.
•Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said his government understood that an environment of transparent policies and the rule of law providing a level playing field were necessary for entrepreneurship to flourish.
•Inaugurating the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) here, in the presence of U.S. President’s Adviser Ivanka Trump, a couple of Union Ministers and Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, Mr. Modi called upon entrepreneurs from across the globe to “come, make in India, invest in India, for India and for the world.”
•“I invite each one of you to become a partner in India’s growth story... assure you of wholehearted support,” he told the gathering of participants from nearly 150 countries, a good chunk from India and the U.S. Describing young entrepreneurs from India as vehicles of change and instruments of the country’s transformation, he said each of them had something valuable to contribute towards creating a new India by 2022.
•Seeking to make the most of the forum that GES presented to highlight measures initiated by the government to improve business environment, towards better investor-friendly climate as well as to curb the parallel economy, tax evasion and black money, the Prime Minister said the efforts had been recognised by Moody’s recent upgrade of India government bond ratings. “This upgrade comes after a gap of almost 14 years,” he said.
•The three-day GES, co-hosted by the U.S. and Indian governments, is the first in the annual series to be travelling to South Asia, has ‘Women First, Prosperity for All’ as the theme. More than 50% of the delegates are women.
Educating women
•Ms. Trump underscored the importance of education and technology for women entrepreneurs to make a mark in their chosen field.
•Participating in the panel discussion on “Be the change: women’s entrepreneurial leadership”, she said technology was disrupting every sphere of life. It was important to train women in digital literacy, computer science and give them access to skill training.
•Defence Minister Nirmala Sitaraman, elaborating the priority being given to encourage start-ups and women entrepreneurs, said that push should come from women themselves. Women’s skills were underestimated by women.
•The environment in the country was conducive to promote women entrepreneurship.
📰 No compromise on India’s interests at WTO: Prabhu
‘Won’t dilute stand on food security, protection of poor farmers and fisherfolk; will take forward development agenda’
•At next month’s meeting of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) highest decision-making body, India will not compromise on its interests including ensuring food security as well as protecting its resource-poor and low-income farmers and fisher-folk, according to commerce minister Suresh Prabhu.
•Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Prabhu also said India — at the December 10-13 (WTO’s) Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina — will hold firm on its positionagainst the inclusion of new issues such as ‘e-commerce’ and ‘investment facilitation’ into the ongoing round of multilateral trade negotiations, without first resolving the outstanding ones including food security.
•Besides, he said India will make sure that the ‘development agenda’ (to improve the developing countries’ trading prospects) of the talks, which began in Doha in 2001, is not subverted. “India will stand firm on all the issues that it has raised so far, and will not make any compromise or dilute its stand. We will not directly or indirectly reduce our ability to push our own agenda forward. Also, the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) is not dead. The DDA is as important as it was before and it will be taken forward,” the Minister, who will be leading India at the talks, said.
‘Permanent solution’
•Mr. Prabhu said the highest priority for India was to ensure that a ‘permanent solution’ on the issue of public stockholding for food security purposes is a part of the Buenos Aires meeting outcomes. Mr. Prabhu’s predecessor Nirmala Sitharaman had said, “without a permanent solution, public stockholding programmes in India and other developing countries will be hampered by the present ceiling on domestic support which is pegged at 10% of the value of production, and is wrongly considered as trade-distorting subsidy to farmers under existing WTO rules.
•“The existence of such a subsidy element is determined by comparing present day administered prices with fixed reference prices of the 1986-88 period which is unrealistic. Developing countries are finding themselves hamstrung by the existing rules in running their food stockholding and domestic food aid programmes.”
•Currently, an interim mechanism called the ‘Peace Clause’ is available for developing nations including India, according to which they cannot be challenged at the WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM) even if they breach the cap of the product-specific domestic support (10% of the value of production). However, Mr. Prabhu said India “will insist on a permanent solution that is much better than the Peace Clause.” Since a country that wants to invoke the Peace Clause has to comply with several stringent conditions (on notification and transparency and commitment on prohibition of exports from public stockholding), India is keen that a ‘permanent solution’ does not have onerous riders. He also said meaningful reforms in agriculture can happen only when the disproportionately large subsidies of the developed countries are reduced.
‘Want sustainable fishing’
•On talks to eliminate ‘harmful’ fisheries subsidies, the minister said “India will protect its small and subsistence fisherfolk, and we want sustainable fishing. We want subsidies for small fisherfolk to continue.” In addition, at the WTO talks, India will also “very aggressively” push its proposal for Trade Facilitation in Services (which, among other things, aims to ease norms on movement of skilled workers/professionals across borders for short-term work), Mr. Prabhu said. Criticising attempts by certain countries to undermine the WTO’s DSM by blocking the appointment of new judges, the minister said, “the DSM is an important pillar on which the entire multilateral trading system stands. We will not allow it to be be weakened. Efforts must be taken to quickly fill in the vacancies as without judges, the DSM will not be able to function.”
📰 India loses billions to air pollution: UN
High-level political commitment stressed
•India had the highest share of welfare costs (or a loss of income from labour), of about $220 billion (about ₹1.4 trillion), in South and South-East Asia — of a combined total of $380 billion from mortality due to air pollution, according to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
•The global mortality costs from outdoor air pollution are projected to rise to about $25 trillion by 2060 in the absence of more stringent measures. At regional and national scale, China’s welfare costs from mortality were the highest at nearly $1 trillion followed by the Organisation for Economic Corporation and Development (OECD) countries with a combined total of $730 billion, the report added quoting a 2016 projection by the OECD.
•Although certain forms of pollution have been reduced as “technologies and management strategies have advanced,” approximately 19 million premature deaths are estimated to occur annually as a result of the way societies use natural resources and impact the environment to support production and consumption, it notes.
Serious burden
•“If consumption and production patterns continue as they are, the linear economic model of ‘take-make-dispose’ will seriously burden an already-polluted planet, affecting current and future generations,” the report’s foreword concludes.
•To curb pollution in various forms, the UNEP called for strong high-level political commitment and engagement of the local government, civil society and other stakeholders. “Pollution is a universal challenge [but] the good news is that we already know what we need to do to prevent and reduce it,” UNEP Executive Director Erik Solheim said in a statement, stressing that “now the responsibility is on governments, businesses, cities and local authorities, civil society and individuals around the world to commit to act to beat pollution in all its forms.”
•To achieve high level political commitment in key economic sectors, there is a need to go beyond the environmental ministries and include other relevant ministries such as finance, agriculture, industry, urban, transport, energy and health.
•There is also a need to engage the local government, civil society organisations, business leaders, industries, trade unions and citizens at large. Reporting on the progress that comes from acting on pollution – whether through voluntary measures or formal laws – is a crucial step in this transition.
•The report, ‘Towards a pollution-free planet’, was launched during the first Conference of Parties for the Minamata Convention, which addresses mercury issues, and ahead of the annual U.N. Environment Assembly, to be held in early December.
📰 Hunting for solutions: on trophy hunting
•In July 2015, when Cecil, a 13-year-old black-maned male lion, strolled out of Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe (some say he was baited and lured out), and fell prey to an American trophy hunter, a furore ensued. The unfortunate lion happened to be a study animal collared and tracked by Oxford University, and beloved of tourists on account of his readiness to provide easy photo-ops. Cecil’s death soon catalysed an international slanging match where animal rights activists and celebrities traded insults with hunters and their supporters. While the conservation community was divided in its support, local African voices were hardly heard.
Accidental mascot
•Following this incident, trophy hunting has received much press and action. Thanks to this accidental mascot, financial support for Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) poured in. Among the key actions, subspecies of lions at risk from different population pressures were placed on the U.S. Endangered Species Act, making it difficult for American citizens to trophy hunt. However, the lifting of import bans for elephants, as recently proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Trump administration, is expected to ease the entry of trophy imports from countries such as Zimbabwe and Zambia.
•Critics fear that lions may once again be a target. Given that populations of both elephants and lions and many other species remain of conservation concern, it is widely believed that actions to ‘protect’ such species must continue. But several questions remain unanswered: Is trophy hunting good for conservation or does it contribute to population declines? Is hunting ethical, and by whose standards? Should hunting be banned, and who decides?
•The equation is not simple; generic hunting bans do not automatically lead to increases in wildlife. For example, in countries such as Kenya and India, where hunting bans came into force in the 1970s, wildlife populations do not seem to fare better than in countries where hunting is ongoing. On the contrary, in both South Africa and Namibia where wildlife has been commoditised (trophy hunting, wildlife tourism, commercial meat production as well as local consumption) and managed for the benefit of local communities, populations seem to be doing better.
•Trophy hunting has also been favourably implicated in the recovery of individual species such as the black rhino and the straight-horned markhor, a species of wild goat found in Pakistan. In the specific case of lions, WildCRU’s own report identifies habitat loss and degradation, as well as the loss of prey-base and conflict with local communities over livestock losses as primary threats. Trophy hunting, it concludes, could be problematic only for some populations but reiterates that there is limited evidence to show that it has substantial negative implications at national or regional levels. In fact, the report states that “the most fundamental benefit of trophy hunting to lion conservation is that it provides a financial incentive to maintain lion habitat that might otherwise be converted to non-wildlife land uses.”
Impact on conservation
•Given these data, it would seem that much of the opposition to trophy hunting derives from an animal rights perspective rather than an objective evaluation of conservation impact. Hunting is carried out in about 1.4 million sq km in Africa, more than 22% of area covered by national parks in Africa. To increase the scope of ecotourism (the most frequently proposed revenue generation alternative) to this level seems unviable given that many of these landscapes are not conducive to tourism. Moreover, some experts claim that compared to ecotourism, high-value trophy hunting has a lower ecological footprint. The caution, however, is that like other market-based mechanisms such as payments for ecosystem services or ecotourism, trophy hunting is also riddled by problems such as lack of local regulation, rent-seeking and corruption, which can derail such projects. Trophy hunting therefore has mixed results, with a variety of factors determining its success or failure.
•At the same time, this pragmatic approach to conservation clashes frequently with the animal rights philosophies embedded within the wildlife conservation debate. To further complicate matters, critics conflate subsistence with sport hunting; these are embedded in different cultural contexts, and need to be evaluated through separate socio-political and economic frames.
•One must not forget that the vociferous support of urban Western animal enthusiasts and conservationists has real consequences far away (from their homes) in rural Africa where animals and people live in close proximity with each other. An undue focus on issues such as trophy hunting can take away from real problems such as conflict as well as widespread habitat loss and degradation. The latter are enabled by the massive land grabs perpetrated by multinational companies on the continent. The ongoing trophy hunting and animal rights debates as well as the conservation politics surrounding large charismatic species have been elements of a long-term, white-dominated game that is also indicative of a distinct colonial hangover reminiscent of the ‘Scramble for Africa’, that once again ignores African voices and ground realities.
📰 A new phase? Nepal's historic vote
High hopes ride on Nepal’s first parliamentary polls under its new Constitution
•Nepal voted on Sunday in the first phase of parliamentary elections under its new Constitution of 2015 and with the electoral battle lines redrawn in a recently altered political landscape. The first round was mostly concentrated in the upper hill regions, with the rest of the country scheduled to vote on December 7. Uniquely for Nepal’s highly fragmented party politics, these elections witness a direct battle between two fronts. The first, the “democratic alliance”, is led by the Nepali Congress and includes the former Panchayat parties and Madhesi groups; the second, the “left alliance”, brings together, in a surprise agreement hammered out in early October, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre). On the face of it, this is an electoral battle between the forces belonging to the centre-right and the centre-left, but to reduce it to an ideological battle would be misleading. The NC, the UML and the Maoists have been in power at various points in the last decade and have done little to distinguish themselves by way of implementing socio-economic policies or in terms of performance. The Constitution-writing process was completed in far too many fits and starts largely due to short-sighted battles for one-upmanship among these parties in Kathmandu since 2008. Populism dominates the ideological positions of the major parties and the politics of patronage has governed their engagement with the people. The consequence of this has been lack of movement on key issues facing the underdeveloped nation-state.
•One such issue that dominated the political discourse in the last half-decade has been the need for decentralisation and representation of the marginalised communities. Madhesis and janajatis (tribals) have continued to claim that their demands for adequate state restructuring and federalism were not met in the new Constitution. The new electoral alliances have subsumed such differences — with the Maoists, who were willing to grant such demands for amendments to the new Constitution, joining hands with the UML, which is strongly opposed to any concessions. Similarly, the Naya Shakti Party, a fledgling socialist party, has broken away from the left alliance and aligned itself with the NC despite significant differences over state-restructuring and other issues. The political flux has meant that vital issues of economic development have remained largely unaddressed, belying hopes that Nepal’s transition from a monarchy to a republic would foreground the people’s concerns. The clear contest, for the first time, between two pre-poll alliances may finally give an ideological and political shape to the republican polity as a battle of ideas, and mark a break from the years of squabbling over positions of power in Kathmandu. Clearly, the voters are not cynical: the turnout in the first phase on November 26 was estimated to be 65%. The politicians must now deliver.
📰 Freedom first: On SC's order in Hadiya case
The Supreme Court’s order allowing Hadiya freedom of movement was long overdue
•By freeing Hadiya, a 25-year-old from Kerala who converted to Islam, from her parents’ custody, the Supreme Court has protected her freedom to choose her religion and her freedom of movement. Such an order was long overdue, considering that she has been living with her parents against her will and wished to be allowed to be with her husband and practise her religion. It is a matter of satisfaction that the court has now emphasised her personal liberty rather than curtailing her freedom on a totally unrelated ground, namely that she was likely to be radicalised. Hadiya, whose original name was Akhila, had been practising Islam for nearly two years, and had to face judicial proceedings twice at the instance of her father, who alleged that her conversion was involuntary and part of a ploy by communal groups to radicalise her and send her abroad to join the Islamic State. The court has now allowed Hadiya to go to Salem in Tamil Nadu and complete her internship as part of a homoeopathy course. It is somewhat ironic that it took nearly a year and a long spell of judicially ordered confinement for Hadiya to opt for the same course of action that was offered to her by the Kerala High Court in December 2016. The High Court had been all set to pass orders to enable her to go to Salem for the same purpose, when on December 21, 2016, she disclosed that a couple of days earlier she had married a man called Shafin Jahan. The High Court then annulled her marriage, calling it a sham and a ruse to scuttle the proceedings.
•Whatever the truth about her marriage, there were serious reservations about the High Court’s observations to the effect that a woman’s marriage requires the involvement of her parents and that even if she had attained the age of majority she was still at a “vulnerable age”. The ease with which the freedom of an adult woman to make life decisions could be curtailed by judicial orders left many aghast. It is doubtful if similar remarks would have been made if the convert was a man. From this perspective, the Supreme Court’s order is to be welcomed as it gives primacy to a woman’s freedom to choose her manner of living. The Supreme Court has also made it clear that the National Investigation Agency can continue its ongoing probe. This preserves the scope for a lawful investigation into the suspicion that there is an organised campaign to recruit young people for overseas operations. Any probe into this phenomenon need not be at the cost of individual liberty. The possibility of indoctrination cannot be a reason for undermining personal autonomy.
