📰 U.S. now within range of N. Korea’s nuclear weapons
Pyongyang claims successful test of new ICBM
•North Korea said it successfully tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Wednesday in a “breakthrough” that puts the U.S. mainland within the range of its nuclear weapons whose warheads could withstand re-entry to the Earth’s atmosphere.
•The missile test came a week after U.S. President Donald Trump put North Korea back on a U.S. list of countries it says support terrorism, allowing it to impose more sanctions.
•North Korea, which also conducted its largest nuclear test in September, has tested dozens of ballistic missiles under its leader, Kim Jong Un, in defiance of international sanctions.
•The latest was the highest and longest any North Korean missile had flown, landing in the sea near Japan. North Korea said the new missile reached an altitude of about 4,475 km — more than 10 times the height of the International Space Station — and flew 950 km during its 53-minute flight.
•The new Hwasong-15, named after planet Mars, was a more advanced version of an ICBM tested twice in July, North Korea said. It was designed to carry a “super-large heavy warhead.” Based on its trajectory and distance, the missile would have a range of over 13,000 km, more than enough to reach Washington D.C. and the rest of the U.S., the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists said.
•However, it was unclear how heavy a payload the missile was carrying, and it was uncertain if it could carry a large nuclear warhead that far, the non-profit science advocacy group added.
📰 Singapore offers India logistical base
Nations agree on more cooperation, activity in Strait of Malacca, Andaman sea
•India and Singapore on Wednesday agreed on greater cooperation and activity in the Strait of Malacca and the Andaman Sea even as the two countries concluded a wide ranging naval agreement for maritime cooperation including logistical support.
•“We all recognise that the Strait of Malacca and Indian Ocean are key sea lanes of communication ... I think I speak on behalf of both countries, we want to see more participation and activity in both the Strait of Malacca and Andaman sea,” Singapore Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said at the joint press conference along with his Indian counterpart Nirmala Sitharaman after the second Defence Ministerial dialogue.
•The two countries concluded a bilateral agreement for naval cooperation, which includes maritime security, joint exercises and temporary deployments from the naval facilities of each other and mutual logistical support.
•“I not only support but I would also encourage the Indian Navy to visit the Changi naval base more often. The bilateral naval agreement has provision for mutual logistical support,” Dr. Ng said.
•Early this year, the Indian Navy permanently deployed a frontline warship at the mouth of the strait to keep an eye on the increasing Chinese movements in the Indian Ocean as part of its mission-based deployment.
•The agreement would give the Navy the ability for extended deployments in the region.
•Dr. Ng said it made sense for countries to cooperate not only to establish maritime security but also to maintain freedom of navigation because “we know it is a lifeline for economies”.
•“We will conduct exercises and patrols in your waters as you do in ours. We try to economise and support each other,” he said.
Key choke point
•The comments assume significance as the strait is considered a critical choke point for global commerce and is seen by China as a vulnerability for its energy security. The development is likely to be followed closely by Beijing.
•Ms. Sitharaman said Singapore had accepted India’s proposal to institutionalise naval engagements in the shared maritime space, including setting up maritime exercises with like-minded countries and other ASEAN partners.
•The two countries also agreed to explore joints projects in research and development.
📰 Now, a debate on 'royal welcome' for Ivanka's visit
While the head of a business chamber dismisses criticism, Opposition says Modi belittled PM’s post by meeting her
•India will benefit from the visit of Ivanka Trump, daughter of the U.S. President and Presidential Adviser, says the head of a key business chamber, dismissing criticism of the “royal welcome” Ms. Trump received.
•“While her title may be “Adviser”, President Trump is all ears for her. And it is hoped that Ms. Trump will carry back a more hopeful response on the opportunities that exist in India,” said Mukesh Aghi, president of the Washington-based U.S. India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF), who led a major business delegation to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in Hyderabad.
‘Protocol violated’
•On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Ms. Trump for a one-on-one conversation and hosted her at a grand banquet at the Falaknuma palace of the Nizams.
•Opposition parties questioned why the Prime Minister had broken with protocol to felicitate someone who is not a head of state or government. “The Prime Minister has belittled the position of PM by attending an event of Ivanka Trump,” alleged Congress leader Anand Sharma on Wednesday.
•Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Aghi said it was necessary to see Ms. Trump’s position not just as an adviser but also in terms of her influence with the U.S. President. “I think you have to look at the weight she carried for China. During the election campaign, the President was very critical of China and Ivanka was the conduit for the Chinese to the President. And as you saw, a state visit [by President Trump to Beijing] took place in November,” he said.
•Asked about the impact of Ms. Trump’s visit to India, Mr. Aghi said “the immediate impact is there is much more awareness on a global basis that India is a fantastic opportunity for start-ups,” adding that the GES had sent out a “clear message” that it is important to mentor more women professionals.
•“If you get more women professionals coming into the work environment then by 2025 you will see global growth rise by 12 trillion dollars. In India it would see a 3% rise in GDP if women were brought into the workforce to the potential,” he said. Speaking about the Indo-U.S. trade relationship, Mr. Aghi said that it could only jump from its current levels of $114 billion for goods and services (including $67.7 billion for goods trade) to the goal of $500 billion if India increases market access to U.S. companies.
📰 India unlikely to cut malaria by half in 2020: WHO
•India accounted for 6% of global malaria cases and 7% of deaths caused by it in 2016, according to a report released on Wednesdayby the World Health Organisation (WHO). This is in the same ballpark as last year, though the WHO figures also suggest that India is unlikely to reduce its case burden beyond 40% by 2020. In contrast, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Kyrgyzstan achieved malaria-free status in 2015 and 2016 respectively. There were an estimated 445,000 deaths from malaria globally in 2016, compared with 446,000 estimated deaths in 2015. About 80% of the deaths were accounted for by 15 countries, namely, India and 14 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
•A key impediment to eliminating malaria is a weak surveillance system. India and Nigeria, two major contributors to the global burden of malaria, were able to detect only 8% and 16% of cases, respectively, via the system.
•Moreover, 51% of plasmodium vivax cases — the milder cousin of the p. falciparum — were traced in India. This could at least be partially explained by resistance to chloroquine, the first line treatment to p. vivax infections that has been detected in pockets of the country earlier this decade. For a long time, p falciparum dominated India’s case burden and, though its share has decreased, there is a slight increase in malaria cases by other parasites.
•Bhutan, Nepal, Thailand, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Indonesia, says the WHO, are among the countries poised to reduce malaria incidence by over 40% by 2020. India — due to low funding per person at risk and resistance to certain frontline insecticides — is only expected to achieve a 20%-40% reduction.
•In 2016, an estimated ₹13,000 crore was invested in malaria control and elimination efforts globally by governments of malaria endemic countries and their international partners. The majority (74%) of investments in 2016 were spent in the WHO’s Africa region, followed by the WHO regions of Southeast Asia (7%), the Eastern Mediterranean and the Americas (each 6%), and the Western Pacific (4%).
📰 Against gender rights
The decision to re-introduce the 2016 Bill on transgender rights makes a mockery of democratic norms
•The transgender community and its allies have erupted in anger over the decision of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to re-introduce the original Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2016 in the winter session of Parliament. Union Social Justice Minister Thaawarchand Gehlot felt the original version to be “good”, which is the only publicly available ‘justification’ to back its re-introduction. So why the anger and the mobilisation to stop the Bill in its current form? Despite resistance to the 2016 Bill followed by a year-long process to redraft it to reflect the demands of the community, the Ministry has taken the decision, and without a single change.
Journey of the Bill
•The transgender community saw the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in NALSA v. Union of India as a victory, as it recognised that transgender persons have fundamental rights. The judgment was followed by a private member’s Bill, the Rights of Transgender Persons Bill, 2014, which was unanimously passed in the Rajya Sabha. Instead of introducing it in the Lok Sabha, the Ministry uploaded its own Bill, the Rights of Transgender Persons Bill, 2015, on its website in December for public comments. The 2015 Bill, which was largely based on the 2014 Bill, did away with the national and State commissions for transgender persons and transgender rights courts. The Bill was fairly progressive since it granted a transgender person the right to be identified as a ‘man’, ’woman’ or ‘transgender’. However, the 2016 Bill, that was finally introduced in the Lok Sabha, came as a shock. A highly diluted version, it also pathologised transgender persons by defining them as “partly female or male; or a combination of female and male; or neither female nor male”. Met with backlash, the Ministry set up an expert standing committee on social justice and empowerment to examine the Bill.
The committee report
•The standing committee invited public comments and thereafter held multiple rounds of consultations. Its report, released on July 22, 2017, criticised the 2016 Bill for its stark deficiencies and recommended re-drafting the definition of a ‘transgender person’ to make it inclusive and accurate; providing for the definition of discrimination and setting up a grievance redress mechanism to address cases of discrimination; and granting reservations to transgender persons. However, its substance lay in its insistence that the law must grant equal civil rights to transgender persons (marriage, divorce and adoption), thus opening the door for the legal system to take steps to undo its oppressive heteronormative (the presumption that heterosexuality is the norm) and cisgendered (the presumption that people’s gender identity is aligned with their anatomical sex) foundation.
•The Ministry’s decision to re-introduce the 2016 Bill disregards the pre-legislative consultative policy which requires Ministries to grant a minimum of 30 days for public comments and to place a summary of feedback/comments received from the public/other stakeholders on their website.
•It is time to begin the process of resistance all over again.
📰 Govt. may meld Make in India with Invest India, says Prabhu
Centre mulls new approach to attract more foreign investment in manufacturing
•The Centre is mulling a new approach that institutionalises the combined strengths of its ‘Make In India’ (MII) and ‘Invest India’ initiatives with an aim to streamline them for attracting more investments, including from overseas, in the manufacturing sector.
•The MII was unveiled in September 2014 to “transform India into a global design and manufacturing hub” while ‘Invest India’ is the government’s investment promotion and facilitation agency.
•“We are encouraging the concerned people on this [the plan to combine MII and Invest India],” Suresh Prabhu, Commerce and Industry Minister, told The Hindu. “We had a programme in Stockholm, Sweden [last month], where we requested them that Invest India and MII can go hand-in-hand.”
•He said MII was being upgraded, and “new sectors, new products and new territories” being identified.
•The minister said, “We are already talking to the Finance Ministry. Our idea is that manufacturing and exports sectors should get a big boost [through measures in the Union Budget]. We are identifying 5-6 sectors, and there should be certain incentives for such [newly identified] manufactured products to help them scale up globally.”
‘Holistic strategy’
•Mr. Prabhu said even in the exports sector, “new products and new markets” are being considered for incentives, adding that “we are trying to work on a holistic strategy” to make India a global manufacturing and export hub.
•He said the government was also trying to improve the Start-up India policy by studying why only 74 start-ups had qualified for tax benefits since the policy was unveiled in January 2016. “We will find out how the policy can be more start-up friendly. Start-ups need lot of support initially,” Mr. Prabhu said.
•Deepak Bagla, managing director and CEO, Invest India, told The Hindu that what could be institutionalised include efforts to strengthen the State governments’ Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agencies and Start-up Policies. Besides, there is a need to hold regular sector-wise and country-wise round-tables as well as create specific groups using the latest technologies including social media to get quick feedback on policies, he said. While there is already a State-wise ease of doing business rankings, also in the pipeline are State-wise rankings in areas such as ‘start-up’- and ‘tourism’-friendliness, he added. “To go to the next level, we need to help the laggard States, because ultimately investment happens at the state-level,” Mr. Bagla said. Invest India is also in the process of identifying the strengths of each State to help them go in for tie-ups with countries that are world leaders in those areas. Besides, an exercise has begun to identify the countries attracting the maximum investment sector-wise, the reasons for the same, as well as efforts to convince those very investors that India can provide better return on their investments and greater efficiency in those sectors, he said.
📰 Why birds now cosy up to Israel
Climate change is turning country into a cool, befitting place for migratory avians
•Climate change is turning Israel into a permanent wintering ground for some of the 500 million migrating birds that used to stop over briefly before flying on to the warm plains of Africa, Israeli experts say.
•The birds now prefer to stay longer in cooler areas rather than cross into Africa, where encroaching deserts and frequent droughts have made food more scarce.
•“In the last few decades, Israel has become more than just a short stopover because many more birds and a greater number of species can no longer cross the desert,” said ornithologist Shay Agmon, avian coordinator for the wetlands park of Agamon Hula in northern Israel.
•“They will stay here for longer and eventually the whole pattern of migration will change,” he said.
•Cranes are one of the most abundant species to visit the Hula wetlands and Agmon said that the number that prefer to stay in Israel until the end of March has risen from less than 1,000 in the 1950s to some 45,000 currently.
•Although migrating birds are a welcome attraction for ornithologists and tourists, their hunger for food from crop fields makes them a menace to farmers.
Biggest ‘gas station’
•Workers at the Hula reserve, which lies in the Syrian-African Rift Valley, have lured the birds from surrounding fields by feeding them at the wetlands and offering them a more comfortable existence. “It’s harder for the birds to cross a much larger desert and they just can’t do it. There is not enough fuel, there are not enough ‘gas stations’ on the way, so Israel has became their biggest ‘gas station’, their biggest restaurant,” Mr. Agmon said.
📰 Electric cars and us
They are far less polluting, but pose a challenge to Indian driving practices
•While adopting a technology, Indians have made changes to their attitudes and societal norms but often also made the technology work around their instincts. One area where the law of the jungle seems to prevail is the road, especially in cities. As a rule, typically, two-wheelers and cars don’t consider lanes important. We don’t want to wait our turn but keep jumping lanes and wading around obstacles. We seem to be possessed by a primal urge to get ahead of others even if it means the driver of the car or the two-wheeler rider on the other lane has to jam hard on his brakes. In many cities, dents on car bumpers are the norm.
Breaking rules
•It’s like how we behave in queues — at shops, temples and cinema ticket counters. A person who is standing at a discrete distance behind another can often find someone arriving just then, barging in. That little space is available, so it’s there to be taken, seems to be the working rule. We are in a mad hurry although the few minutes we save rarely fetch any benefit, while introducing chaos and disorder. And vehicles driven by internal combustion engines, with their inherent limitations, are a good fit for us. At slow speeds, common in city driving, these vehicles take their own time to speed up and, hence, don’t feed into the manic urges of Indian drivers. They require rather elaborate transmission systems and, in unison, the engine and the transmission create enough noise to alert others to their presence.
•Practice has taught Indian drivers to be cautious about speed. They know enough to take it easy with the friction brakes, and they are mindful of the danger of tyres skidding. They are aware that any pedestrian can suddenly turn into a traffic policeman and stop the traffic so he or she can cross the road.
•Over the next 15 years, however, Indian driving is likely to be disrupted by electric vehicles that the Indian government seems keen on introducing, without transitioning to hybrids. Far less polluting and carbon-emitting, the electric car, however, poses a challenge to Indian driving practices. The motor is much quieter than the engine and the transmission system has fewer parts too. “All one hears is wind, tyre and road noise, which is minimal in city driving,” says Mahesh Babu, CEO of Mahindra Electric. Imagine thousands of cars moving around, quietly, on our roads!
•Electric motors are among the perkiest prime movers. After starting, they can very quickly ramp up to full speed, unlike the internal combustion engine that needs to idle and takes time to increase speed. “Instant torque and quick acceleration,” sums up Mr. Babu. Maximum torque is available for a range of speeds too.
Electric mobility
•Another crucial, efficiency-boosting attribute of the electric car will be regenerative braking. t’s a cute application of an old physics law where the electric motor powering the car can reverse its role, becoming a generator and charging the battery. The generator load is the resistance that provides braking torque and it can be varied if you want to just bring down the speed, not stop the car altogether.
•Now, here is how these features don’t sync with our present state of driving. Given our habit of not waiting for our turn and switching lanes frequently and taking sharp turns, we may need to honk more to announce our car’s presence — a prospect that we may not hate altogether though. Or the manufacturer may engineer in some noise, although that would defeat the beauty of the technology. To ensure we don’t just step on the accelerator pedal and zoom our peppy, powerful electric car right into other vehicles on our chaotic roads, manufacturers can add a time delay in the software.
•Our habit of jamming on the brakes may make regenerative braking less useful. During sudden braking, for safety reasons, normal braking takes over after initial regenerative braking. In other words, the energy savings can come down. “Consumer behaviour and adoption will determine the system that electric vehicles in the future will have,” says Mr. Babu, adding regenerative braking can be tuned for driver comfort and efficiency.
•Electric cars present a unique opportunity for Indian drivers. Instead of tamping down the technology, we can instead change our habits — be mindful of lanes, wait our turn, be polite and respectful of others and their needs, and make our driving smoother, as well as make best use of regenerative braking.
•Perhaps there will be a spin-off to this. Driving the electric car may make us more orderly while standing in queues, and even consider inviting others to go ahead of us.
📰 The road to an open Internet
The telecom regulator’s support for Net neutrality fulfils constitutional promises
•Telecom policy rarely captures the popular imagination. While many may have immediate concerns on the nuisance of unsolicited telemarketing, worries of over-billing or even allegations of corruption in the reward of licences, they rarely take an active interest and become stakeholders in the development of a regulation.
•Debates around network neutrality have breached this barrier. The willing embrace of Net neutrality by many, including the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), is not only a function of mass rhetoric and intelligent campaigning but of the concept of Net neutrality itself taking forward values of Indian constitutionalism.
Freeing it up
•Put simply, Net neutrality creates rules of the road for a free and open Internet.It requires that barriers should not be created by telecom and Internet service providers for user choice by limiting their power to discriminate between content providers and different classes of content. Through binding rules and regulations, the power of access providers to selectively price or create technical imbalances is corrected. Such an argument immediately appeals to our sense of fairness, for it based on maintaining a level of equality in the use of a common resource. This finds express acknowledgement in the precedent of the Supreme Court where it has stated that the power to license spectrum and telegraphs is held by the government as a trustee of public interest.
•In one of the more recent judgments which arose from a presidential reference on the allocation of natural resources, the Supreme Court observed that, “as natural resources are public goods, the doctrine of equality, which emerges from concepts of justice and fairness, must guide the state in determining the actual mechanism for distribution of material resources.”
•Taking this forward, TRAI in its recommendations on Net neutrality has suggested amendments to the various classes of telecom and Internet licences to have an express recognition of a non-discriminatory principle for Internet content. Such recommendations set a broad rule with tailored exceptions that are conditioned on touchstones of reasonableness.
•Beyond equality and reasonableness, which may seem evocative though fuzzy principles, a more tangible appreciation of Net neutrality is immediately felt on our liberty. The Internet today affords millions of Indians with an immediate audience without the traditional costs of distribution. Tinkering with its character, or carving it up in slices as would happen in the absence of Net neutrality, would fragment its community and the diversity of choice offered by it. This would impact both the right to speak and the ability to receive knowledge, hence impacting our right to freedom of speech and expression.
•Again, such realisation is found in the Differential Pricing Regulation issued on February 8, 2016, which prevented telecom companies from pricing access to Internet websites and content differently. In the explanatory memorandum to this regulation, TRAI states, “As observed by the Supreme Court, in the Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting v. Cricket Association of Bengal, (1995) 2 SCC 161, para 201(3)(b) allowing citizens the benefit of plurality of views and a range of opinions on all public issues is an essential component of the right to free speech. This includes the right to express oneself as well as the right to receive information as observed by the Supreme Court in the Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Pvt. Ltd. v. Union of India, (1985) 1 SCC 641 case.”
Constitutional guarantees
•The concepts of equality, reasonableness and liberty which underpin the social contract which gives rise to the Indian Constitution are not mere black letters of the law. They are more than mere limitations on state power in favour of individuals. By themselves, they are at their very best when they are put into motion by positive actions by regulators and governments. To achieve these objectives, there is a necessity to popularise the constitutional doctrine in ways and methods which seem immediate and cater to the daily problems of the modern world. The debates around Net neutrality in India have shown how a stand-up comedy video can spark a spontaneous campaign, spur more than a million people to send e-mails to a telecom regulation consultation when the stakes are clearly explained and there is a broad coalition of civil society voices.
•The Net neutrality campaign has not been without criticism and growing public disappointment. While such sentiments may arise from legitimate concerns, they are disproportionate to the greater benefit of raising public debate. To restrict any public policy measure, especially something as important as Net neutrality, to a restricted group of experts without a chance of public engagement betrays elitism. Further, the repeated rounds of public consultation which have brought on some amount of fatigue are due to the inherent complexity of the regulatory exercise. This also provides us a lesson that the enjoyment of Net neutrality will require constant, hard work — no victories are permanent. But for a moment we can pause to celebrate how TRAI’s recommendations on Net neutrality provide hope that modern technologies can refresh constitutional doctrine and also deepen participatory democracy.
📰 Eliminate torture: the need for a law to prevent custodial cruelty
A standalone law to prevent custodial cruelty is in India’s interests
•Enacting a law prohibiting torture is both a moral imperative and a pragmatic necessity. The Union government has informed the Supreme Court that it is seriously considering the 273rd Report of the Law Commission, which has recommended that India ratify the United Nations Convention against Torture and pass a law to prevent torture and punish its perpetrators. A few months ago, the court had sought the Centre’s response to a petition filed in public interest by former Union Law Minister Ashwani Kumar, who complained about the delay in India ratifying the UN Convention, which it had signed in 1997. The petition had also favoured a standalone legislation to prohibit torture. The court disposed of the matter without any direction after being informed that the matter was under serious consideration. The Centre should now act on its own with a sense of urgency. There can be no reason to further delay legislative measures to eliminate all forms of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading forms of treatment. At an earlier hearing, the court had itself highlighted why a standalone law is needed. India has made many requests for extradition of offenders from other countries, and the absence of an anti-torture law may prevent these countries from acceding to India’s requests. Earlier this month, extradition courts in the United Kingdom refused to send two persons to India to face trial, one of them on the ground that there was “no effective system of protection from torture in the receiving state”. Conditions in India’s prisons, especially the chronic problem of over-crowding, are a reason for the country’s extradition requests failing.
•Few would disagree that ratifying the UN Convention and following it up with a domestic law against torture will not only be in the national interest but also have positive implications for the protection of human rights. Custodial violence continues to be prevalent in the country. The recent example of a bus conductor being forced to confess to murdering a schoolchild is a pointer to the use of torture as an investigative tool among policemen. The Prevention of Torture Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha in 2010 to address the problem, but it lapsed after it was referred to a Select Committee in the Rajya Sabha. The Law Commission, to which the question was referred in July this year, produced a report within three months. It also submitted a draft Bill for the government’s consideration. The government should accept the recommendations without delay as it not only provides a penal framework for punishing public servants who inflict torture, but also lays down that just compensation be paid to victims.
