📰 India-ASEAN ties to focus on freedom of navigation: Modi
The Prime Minister stresses on maritime security links at summit.
•Security and freedom of navigation will be in the heart of India-ASEAN cooperation in the twenty-first century, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday addressing the leaders of the ASEAN countries at the ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit. The leaders also agreed on establishing a joint mechanism to ensure safety and freedom of navigation in the maritime domain.
•“Humanitarian and disaster relief efforts, security cooperation and freedom of navigation will be key focus areas for our maritime cooperation,” said Mr. Modi addressing heads of the ASEAN member states. The Prime Minister’s comments on ensuring smooth passage in the oceans came hours after he and the visiting leaders agreed on setting up a special mechanism on maintaining freedom of navigation.
•MEA officials said the discussion on this issue took place during the ‘Retreat’ segment of the summit, held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Details of this segment were not available to the media immediately. Secretary in charge of eastern affairs of the Ministry of External Affairs Preeti Saran said the mechanism that was discussed will be aimed at “Addressing both traditional and non-traditional challenges that all of us face collectively in the maritime domain sector...”
•The statement on the maritime mechanism is significant as it is the first time that India has taken up forming of a special maritime mechanism with all the ASEAN heads of states at a single summit.
•Maritime security and freedom of navigation featured prominently in the ‘Delhi Declaration,’ a joint statement that was issued after the plenary session of the Commemorative Summit.
•The declaration indicated at common concern regarding the South China Sea and reaffirmed the “importance of maintaining and promoting peace, stability, maritime safety and security, freedom of navigation and overflight in the region, and other lawful uses of the seas and unimpeded lawful maritime commerce.”
•Ms Saran also said that an agreement on maritime transport is under discussion as The Hindu had reported earlier. “A maritime transport MoU is being discussed and hope it will be finalised (in due course),” she said to the media.
•The maritime domain has been in the centre of India’s Act East diplomacy which aims to firm up India’s position in the ASEAN and Asia Pacific region.
•In recent public statements, the government of PM Narendra Modi has expressed support to ‘rule of law’ in the maritime sphere hinting at the growing military footprint of China in the South China Sea. Welcoming the heads of states at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, President Ram Nath Kovind also urged for upholding rule of law.
📰 Delhi Declaration calls for joint fight against terror
Identity security, bilateral financial ties highlighted
•Counter-terrorism, identity security, military cooperation, and bilateral financial support were discussed in official level talks with leaders from ASEAN countries held on the sidelines of the ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit held to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the establishment of sectoral dialogue between two sides.
•The ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit also came out with a comprehensive statement targeting terrorism and agreed to uphold freedom in the maritime domain.
•A common topic at all the discussions that Prime Minister Modi participated was counter-terrorism.
Disrupting radicalism
•Focusing on the presence of the Islamic State and other forms of radicalism in the region, a joint statement, titled Delhi Declaration, issued after the plenary session, supported a common approach to counter terrorism and sought a “comprehensive approach to combat terrorism through close cooperation by disrupting and countering terrorists, terrorist groups and networks, including by countering cross border movement of terrorists and foreign terrorist fighters and misuse of Internet including social media by terror entities.”
•Out of all the countries of ASEAN region, Philippines had the most serious threat from the Islamic State in the last few years and the bilateral discussion focused on this aspect.
•“President Duterte conveyed his deepest appreciation for the $500,000 assistance that was provided by India to resettle victims of the Marawi siege,” said Preeti Saran, Secretary in Charge of Eastern Affairs, highlighting the support that Philippines received from India to counter the Islamic State (IS) terrorists who had taken over the city of Marawi in Philippines where a battle was waged by the Philippines’ military forces.
Working with Manila
•A Joint Working Group meeting is likely to be held between the two countries to finalise details of counter-terror cooperation between Delhi and Manila. Mr. Modi also held a discussion with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.
•“Defence and maritime cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region was discussed which involves manufacturing of offshore vessels which has been contracted to Larsen and Toubro,” said Ms. Saran explaining that both sides are likely to operationalise $100 million line of credit for the same.
•The official also said that direct flights would soon connect India with Vietnam.
•The issue of security identity cards for the citizens, on the line of the Aadhaar card of India also came up during the bilateral discussion with Philippines. “A team from Philippines was here last week to study the Aadhar card of India, said Ms. Saran.
•The security scenario in the Rakhine province was also discussed between Prime Minister Modi and Aung San Suu Kyi, the State Counsellor of Myanmar. Both sides discussed the housing project that India would build to rehabilitate the Rohingya.
📰 India-ASEAN ties can benefit region: China
Open to all countries developing friendly relations, it says
•China on Thursday cautiously welcomed India’s invitation extended to the heads of ASEAN and offered Beijing’s “constructive” participation for promoting the overall development of the region.
•Rejecting a zero-sum approach, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said “China is open to all countries developing friendly relations.” She added: “So, we are okay with India developing friendly and cooperative relations with ASEAN countries.”
•Rejecting the notion that the New Delhi meeting was meant to send a message to Beijing of India’s growing political clout in China’s backyard, Ms. Hua said: “We hope all countries can work together for peace, stability and development of the region. We can all play a constructive role.”
•China’s ties with ASEAN have been on the upswing with trade expected to reach $1 trillion by 2020. India’s trade with ASEAN in 2016-17 stood at $70 billion, Xinhua reported.
•“China and India share a lot of common interests. China would like to enhance coordination and cooperation with all countries including India to steer the economic globalisation towards benefiting world economic growth and well-being of all countries,” Ms. Hua had earlier said.
📰 Multiple chief guests, a first for Republic Day
The presence of the entire ASEAN leadership is a sign that the decades-old bond has reached a new level
•From a single leader gracing Republic Day, India has pulled off a diplomatic coup of sorts by having as many as 10 leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), for January 26 this year.
•The presence of the entire ASEAN leadership for Republic Day is a sign that the decades-old bond between India and the regional grouping has reached a new strategic level.
•Just as the presence of U.S. President Barack Obama as the chief guest at Republic Day in 2015 sent a signal to the rest of the world, the ASEAN leaders’ participation has a resonance of its own.
•“As far as India is concerned, we have a tradition to invite a guest of honour as chief guest for the Republic Day parade of 26 January. But so far we have not done something like inviting 10 leaders for a diplomatic engagement on this day,” said former ambassador K. Shankar Bajpai.
Unique event
•Former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh also maintains that hosting 10 chief guests at the Republic Day parade is a unique event. “We have hosted multiple heads of states as in 1983 when we hosted the NAM summit and more recently in the India-Africa Summit. But this event is unique as it comes in the context of major changes in the regional order,” Mr. Singh said.
•Interestingly, an India-ASEAN tableau will also form part of the Republic Day parade, which will have several firsts on display this time.
Nirbhay to be showcased
•Other than the all-woman BSF contingent on motorcycles, India’s long-range sub-sonic cruise missile Nirbhay will be showcased for the first time. The weaponised Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH), Rudra, will also be part of the fly-past for the first time.
•Nirbhay, with a range of over 1,000 km, is being developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation and was successfully test-fired last November after some initial failures.
•An important aspect of the R-Day parade this year is the focus on showcasing indigenously developed military platforms for the visiting heads of state. This is significant as India is now trying to significantly beef up its military sales as part of its defence diplomacy and wants to showcase these platforms to ASEAN countries.
BrahMos missiles
•In line with this, BrahMos supersonic missiles, Akash Surface to Air Missile (SAM), and Netra Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AEW&C) are part of the military component of the parade.
•The 90-minute parade has 16 marching contingents, 23 tableaux from 14 States and four ministries. For the first time, there is tableau from the Indo-Tibetan Border Police and from All India Radio.
📰 Supreme Court to hear plea against States, Karni Sena
‘Gujarat, Haryana and Rajasthan failed to control violence overPadmaavat’
•The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear pleas for initiating contempt of court action against the Gujarat, Haryana and Rajasthan governments and Karni Sena members for aggravated incidents of violence, even against schoolchildren, in the background of the release of Padmaavat .
•The petition filed by activist Tehseen Poonawala and Supreme Court advocate Vineet Dhanda described the destruction wreaked on public property and theatre premises, and how suspected members of the Karni Sena had pelted stones at a school bus carrying children at Gurugram, Haryana.
•They questioned the lack of preventive measures taken by law enforcers in the States, which allowed the agitators to indulge in violence in the name of protest.
•The petition said the violence and the lack of efforts on part of the State authorities to neither prevent nor control it amounted to contempt of the court’s January 18 order, which said the State was obliged to protect the fundamental right of free speech and creative rights.
•On January 18, the court lifted orders issued by some northern States prohibiting the film. It ordered that no State should pass such prohibitory orders against the screening of the film.
📰 CJI meets senior judges, no breakthrough yet
‘Unresolved issues go beyond roster’
•Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra met his four senior- most colleagues on Thursday to discuss issues raised by them at a press conference on January 12.
•This is the second time the Chief Justice has reached out Justices Jasti Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B. Lokur and Kurian Joseph this week in a bid to “sort out” the issues.
•But a source close to the four judges said, “There are too many issues” other than the roster at stake. The source said the discussions between the CJI and the four judges, over the past weeks since the January 12 press conference, have not resulted in anything substantial.
•“The roster is only one of the things. Everybody is focussing on the roster because of the significance of that particular day (January 12). But there are too many issues other than the roster,” the source close to the four judges said.
•The press meet was held on the same day that a Bench led by Justice Arun Mishra heard two PILs seeking an independent probe into the death of CBI judge B.H. Loya. At the press meet, Justice Gogoi had confirmed that the immediate trigger for the four of them going public was the allocation of the Loya PILs to Justice Mishra’s Bench. The press meet saw the judges reveal that they had met the CJI on the morning of January 12 about the allocation of the Loya PILs.
•A letter written by the four judges to CJI Misra, which was circulated at the press meet, had also raised questions about the allocation of “sensitive cases” to “preferred Benches” in recent times by Chief Justices.
•A few days after the press meet, Justices Mishra and Mohan M. Shantanagoudar chose to recuse from hearing the Loya PILs. This recusal had coincided with the first round of discussions the CJI had with the four judges in a bid to break the ice.
•Presently, a Bench led by Chief Justice Misra is hearing the Loya PILs. On January 22, the CJI Bench assured the petitioners that it would dispassionately examine the circumstances surrounding the death of Loya and reach an objective conclusion.
•The source close to the four judges said the government has not approached them. On the aspect that some political leaders have voiced an opinion to impeach the CJI, the source did not comment.
•The source however, said all four judges still stand together for the issues raised by them.
📰 Held by the mob — on protests against Padmaavat
The attack on schoolchildren captures the state’s failure to stand up to vigilantism
•The attack on a bus carrying schoolchildren on Wednesday must serve to jolt State governments across north India out of their hands-off approach to acts of vandalism by way of protests against the film Padmaavat. It took admirable presence of mind on the part of the driver to steer the children out of harm’s way when foot soldiers of the Karni Sena attacked the bus in the Haryana township of Gurugram. But coming at the end of days of violence in at least six States by protestors purporting to be upholding Rajput honour, this is the image India must confront: a busload of children ducking for cover as the state looked away. The image collectively frames the abdication of State governments in maintaining law and order in the face of violence by the rag-tag Karni Sena. For months, many of them have played an encouraging role in keeping up protests against the film, with the Chief Ministers of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, among others, issuing statements about the need for the film to heed the lines of history. Public viewing of the final version of Padmaavat as cleared by the Central Board of Film Certification has called the protestors’ bluff on their stated objections to its contents. But the mob is clearly led by its own narrative, unmindful of the reality of the film in question or of the historical blurriness in it. The mob rampaging against the film across north India in States ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party has demonstrated its ability to hold public order to ransom, no matter what.
•The state has been repeatedly reminded of its duty to protect freedom of expression, most notably in S. Rangarajan v. P. Jagjivan Ram (1989), when the Supreme Court held that the government cannot cite the possibility of violence to prohibit a film’s screening. In fact, this month, after Gujarat and Rajasthan banned the CBFC-cleared Padmaavat, the court stayed the ban and iterated the state’s responsibility to maintain law and order during its screening. That State governments have chosen to mostly ignore the court order is evident from the decision of the Multiplex Association of India to not screen the film in Gujarat and Rajasthan, for fear of further violence of the sort that hit two Ahmedabad malls. The Karni Sena shot into the news in 2008 when it utilised the release of Jodhaa Akbar to affect caste/communal outrage over the story of Emperor Akbar’s ‘Rajput’ wife. That it would see an opportunity to consolidate its vigilantist credentials with Padmaavat is, in hindsight, a given. But it is a sobering conclusion that whether or not Padmaavat is remembered for its cinematic merits or shortcomings, it has become a byword for the government’s failure to control the mob.
📰 Training teachers
An Amendment Bill seeks to better the lot of teachers
•Education is a fundamental right for those aged between six and 14 years, but there has hardly been a coordinated effort to better the lot of teachers who teach these children.
•For years, certain institutions which impart teacher training courses have failed to get the necessary recognition from the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE). The future of those who graduate from such institutions, which are funded by the Central/ State government or Union Territory administration concerned, has been in jeopardy.
•The NCTE (Amendment) Bill, 2017 focuses on teachers who have the Damocles sword hanging over their heads. The Amendment Bill, pending in Parliament, endeavours to make those studying in such institutions, or those who have graduated from such institutions, eligible for teachers’ jobs. The Bill was tabled by the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resource Development. It seeks to amend the provisions of the NCTE Act, 1993, which was enacted to provide for the establishment of a NCTE.
•Section 14 of the 1993 Act provides that every institution offering a teacher education course has to obtain recognition from the Regional Committee. Section 15 says that any recognised institution that intends to start any new course or training in teacher education has to obtain permission from the Regional Committee concerned.
•However, certain institutions failed to obtain recognition and permission from the Council, though they continued to admit students for teacher education and training courses.
•The Bill introduces a one-time measure to grant retrospective recognition or permission to such institutions or courses, as the case may be, by suitably amending Sections 14 and 15 of the 1993 Act.
•The amendments include granting retrospective recognition to institutions funded by the Central or State government or the Union Territory administration, and as may be notified by the Central government, which offered teacher education courses on or after the appointed day till the academic year 2017-2018. It proposes to amend Section 15 to grant retrospective permission to the new course or training in teacher education offered by the institutions, as may be notified by the Central government, on or after the appointed day till the academic year 2017-18.
📰 The grounding of Air India
When the public sector does not serve the public interest, it becomes a millstone around our necks
•Having announced its decision to sell Air India, the government is making arrangements to do so. The move itself has come after multiple efforts by successive governments to resurrect the national airline. Though there has been news of it finally turning in an operating profit under a determined CEO, its debt, reportedly a staggering $8.5 billion, must weigh on the minds of a public drawn into a discussion of its future.
The beginnings
•It is unfortunate that so iconic an entity, once feistily steered by J.R.D. Tata, has met this fate, but it is not uncommon in the history of India’s public sector. To understand this ending we would have to start at the beginning, and that was with the transformation of the economy attempted in the 1950s. While there were monumental gaps in that attempt, there were also creative innovations, the most important being the public sector. By design, the public sector was to exist along with a private one resulting in what had been referred to as ‘the mixed economy’. To those hankering after institutional purity this was no more than a joke, an arrangement that had strengths of neither full-bodied American-style capitalism nor of out-and-out Soviet-era communism. Half a century later, the Soviet empire imploded and for a brief moment in 2008, the American one teetered on the brink, having been taken there by its vanguard, finance capital. We can now see that the mixed economy, combining the public and private sectors, is superior to one located at either extreme.
•So if the public sector is a force for the good, why is it that we see Air India, and a section of the rest of the Indian public sector, in so unsound a financial condition? In its early days, the public sector had been quite healthy. This need hardly come as a surprise when we recognise the then Indian leadership’s motive for building one. Stripped of its somewhat ideological construction as straddling ‘the commanding heights’ of the economy, it was to have a central role in the quickening of the economy after 1947. Wrecked by two centuries of colonialism, India’s economy was moribund. The post-colonial Indian leadership had envisaged the public sector as the ship that would steer the economy out of the morass. And they were not wrong.
•Under Nehru, India’s economy rose spectacularly and public investment was the principal engine of growth in that remarkable phase. Used as we are to Air India having to, at times, borrow even to finance its working capital, it may come as a surprise to know that it was still making profit into the second half of the 1960s. As for the public sector as a whole, during the Nehru era its savings had grown faster than that of the private corporate sector. Actually, to an extent India’s public sector had financed itself.
•Nehru’s speech at the inauguration of the second plant of the Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT) in Bangalore in 1962 is instructive in this regard. He congratulated the workers of HMT for having produced a second plant entirely out of the surplus of the first one. In one stroke, this conveys the rationale imagined for India’s public sector at the moment of its conception. It had been imagined as a source of investible funds for the public purpose. Underlying this was the belief that the private sector may not generate the necessary surplus, especially if the economy was not first quickened through public investment.
•It is noteworthy that in the heyday of the public sector, India’s private corporate sector had not done badly at all. Its investment rose at least much as that of the public, demonstrating that claims of its suppression due to the licence-permit raj are exaggerated. It is true that some entities had been excluded by licensing. Licensing was necessary to ensure that resources were used in accordance with the plan for industrialisation, but it was the case that private firms receiving licences benefited greatly from the expansion of the market resulting from public investment. It is perhaps not known widely enough that in the Nehru era India grew faster than China.
What went wrong?
•So if the public sector had such a central role in lifting India out of a morass, why are we where we are today? Why is Air India awaiting the gavel? This has entirely to do with politics. Politics underwent a sea change in the second half of the 1960s and with this the de facto status of the public sector was to change. It became the handmaiden of Indira Gandhi’s attempt to gain absolute control. Performance no longer counted and the public sector was now validated by its very existence. Intimation of the changed policy stance appears in the form of an entry in an ‘Economic Survey’ from the 1980s emphasising that a large section of employees of the public sector were those absorbed from loss-making units. This was to be a point of no return as the public sector was no longer treated as the fulcrum of the economy but as a political instrument. It was not as if some successes, such as of Maruti Udyog, were not to come yet but the original sense of purpose was lost.
•If Air India, nationalised in the 1950s, is now privatised, we would have come full circle. However, its case is more symbolic than substantive. Today there is no dearth of air-travel service providers in India, and the public airline reportedly has less than 15% market share. This is not the case in some other areas of the economy where public provision is fundamental. Take rail travel, which has no substitute. For it to serve its public purpose, the financial health of the Indian Railways is vital.
•We have reason to believe that this is threatened. The present Minister for Railways has announced that the decay of the capital stock has contributed to reduced safety. In particular that the recent spate of derailments has to do with inadequate signalling equipment and damaged tracks. Scarcity of funds for proper maintenance of the capital stock is directly related to populism. The replacement in 2012 by his party supremo Mamata Banerjee of a Railways Minister who had raised passenger fares demonstrates the role of politics in running India’s public sector into the ground. Unlike the airlines, the railways are a life-line for a large number of Indians, and maintaining their good health is vital to their interest. It is naïve to imagine that the public sector can remain immune to inflation in the economy.
•Meanwhile, an effort to turn around the public sector has come from a unlikely section. The Communists of Kerala, prone to rationalising inefficiency when it suits their politics, have now embarked upon a revival of the State’s public sector undertakings. This has met with success in a short time, with at least some loss-making units turning profitable. The parlous state of public finances may have forced this political party’s hand but the move itself shows maturity. Hopefully it will serve as a model for the rest of the country. The public sector would be a jewel when worn in the public interest. When it is not, as was the case with Air India, it turns into a millstone around our necks.
📰 World Bank chief economist Paul Romer quits over Chile comments
•Paul Romer stepped down as the World Bank's chief economist on Wednesday after he came under fire for saying that Chile's rankings in a closely watched Doing Business report may have been deliberately skewed under socialist President Michelle Bachelet.
•Mr. Romer's resignation, just 15 months after taking the job, was announced in an internal note that was posted by World Bank president Jim Yong Kim and seen by Reuters.
•“Paul Romer has informed me that he is stepping down from his position as chief economist, effective immediately,” Mr. Kim said in the announcement.
•“I appreciated Paul’s frankness and honesty, and I know he regrets the circumstances of his departure,” Mr. jim said, adding that Mr. Romer would return to his position as economics professor at New York University.
Global search for new chief economist
•Mr. Jim said the World Bank would launch a global search for a new chief economist.
•In an interview with The Wall Street Journal on January 12, Mr. Romer apologised to Chile for changes to the report's methodology that he said “conveyed the wrong impression” about the business environment under Ms. Bachelet.
•The annual report has long been controversial because it ranks countries based on indicators that grade them on how their government bureaucracies affect ¬— and often limit — their business environments.
•Chile currently ranks 55th out of 190 countries on the list, down from 34 in 2014, the year Bachelet took office. In recent years, its rankings were 41st in 2015, 48th in 2016 and 57th in 2017, the World Bank's reports show.
•Mr. Romer told the newspaper that the decline resulted from methodological changes, rather than a deterioration of Chile's business environment, and may have been the result of the World Bank staff’s political motivations. He told the newspaper he would revise the reports.
📰 Padma Vibhushan for Ilaiyaraaja
Dhoni gets Padma Bhushan, Padma Shri for Gond artist Bhajju Shyam
•President Ram Nath Kovind on Thursday approved the award of 85 Padma awards. The list of those honoured includes music composer-director Ilaiyaraaja conferred with a Padma Vibhushan and sports icons M.S. Dhoni and Pankaj Advani honoured with Padma Bhushan.
•The 73 Padma Shri awards include Malaysian dancer-choreographer Ramli Bin Ibrahim, doctor couple Abhay Bang and Rani Bang and Gond artist Bhajju Shyam.
•Keeping its promise of honouring “unsung heroes”, the Padma Shri awards celebrate many who served the poor, set up free schools and popularised tribal arts.
•Lakshmikutty, a tribal woman from Kerala, who prepares 500 herbal medicines from memory and has helped several people bitten by snakes and insects, is among the awardees. The only tribal woman from her area to attend school way back in the 1950s, Ms. Lakshmikutty teaches at the Kerala Folklore Academy and lives in a hut in a tribal settlement in a forest.
•Arvind Gupta, an IIT Kanpur alumnus who inspired generations of students to learn science from trash, has also been honoured. Mr. Gupta has visited 3,000 schools in four decades, made 6,200 short films on toy-making in 18 languages. .
•Murlikant Petkar, India’s first para-Olympic gold medalist, who lost his arm in the 1965 Indo-Pak war has also been honoured with a Padma Shri.
Gond artist honoured
•Internationally-acclaimed Gond artist Bhajju Shyam has also been honoured with a Padma Shri. Mr. Shyam is famous for depicting Europe in his Gond paintings. Born in a poor tribal family, he worked as a night watchman and electrician to support family before becoming a professional artist. His The London Jungle Book sold 30,000 copies and has been published in five foreign languages.
•Kerala’s medical messiah for the terminally ill, M R Rajagopal, is among the awardees. Rajagopal has specialised in pain relief care for neo natal cases.
•Maharashtra’s Murlikant Petkar, India’s first para- Olympic gold medalist, who lost his arm in 1965 Indo-Pak war, is another winner.
•Tamil Nadu’s Rajagopalan Vasudevan, known as the plastic road-maker of India, developed a patented and innovative method to reuse plastic waste to construct roads, has also been given the Padma Shri.
