📰 Behind a growing social fissure
Sri Lanka needs to evolve into a strong but secular-minded state
•In Sri Lanka, the relationship between the Sinhala Buddhist majority and the Muslim minority has steadily deteriorated since the end of the civil war. When Mahinda Rajapaksa was in power, much damage was caused when violence was unleashed on Muslims by Buddhist mobs, in Aluthgama in 2014. The new government, which was elected in 2015 with the support of the minorities, promised an end to such violence. However, the recent attacks in the Kandy district, where well over 200 homes and 14 mosques were destroyed, resulting in a state of emergency being imposed and social media platforms being blocked, has shown that this government too has not been able to contain the anti-Muslim project that is gaining ground in Sri Lanka.
•The state of emergency has been lifted. But the continuing nature of the struggle between the two communities calls for a dispassionate assessment of the many complexities undergirding their relationship. This involves the need to problematise certain popular assumptions about the character of the Sinhala Buddhist mindset, the nature of the accusations being levelled against Muslims, and about ending the crisis. This is necessary to add perspective to an ongoing debate and not to condone, even indirectly, the devastation caused by tribalistic groups on the country’s minorities.
Sinhala-Buddhist angst
•One of the popular but simple assumptions made about Sinhala Buddhists is that hatred is what predominantly defines their attitude towards Muslims. But the situation is more complex.
•The Sinhala Buddhist majority, just as any other majority community, is keen on preserving its identity and dominance. And for various historical and geographical reasons, Sinhala Buddhists are a majority with a minority complex, existentially fearful of losing majority status in Sri Lanka either to Tamil Hindus or to Muslims.
•The minorities, especially Muslims, are seen as ‘aliens’. As the foremost Sinhala Buddhist nationalist, Anagarika Dharmapala, wrote in 1915, the “Muhammedan” is “an alien to the Sinhalese by religion, race and language”. The majority often sees Muslims as a growing, united and economically persevering group, having an unshakeable faith in Islam, and asserting the Islamic identity. In contrast, the Sinhala-Buddhists are seen to be lacking unity — unlike Muslims, they are relaxed and liberal about religious practices/observances. The Buddha’s teachings, in fact, are critical of any attachment to and promotion of identities, be they ethnic or religious.
•So, difference, fear and even jealousy play prominent roles in shaping how the majority views Muslims; though these get easily translated into hatred and violence. And Sinhala Buddhists tend to be a more liberal and self-critical community than Muslims; though it is not uncommon to hear a Sinhala Buddhist proclaiming (within his own community) the need to act ‘like Muslims’ if their identity is to be protected.
•Thus, it is of fundamental importance to recognise that there are significant social and cultural differences in how Buddhists and Muslims are taught and trained to approach matters of religion and identity.
Litany of allegations
•Another issue concerns the complaints and allegations levelled against Muslims by the majority. Critics believe that those behind such allegations deserve no hearing, for they are mere canards. This is yet another wrong and dangerous assumption.
•The allegations are many and varied. First, there are those that have a direct impact on the security of the people and state relating to such matters as the rise in radicalisation of Muslims in the Eastern province (Islamic State inspired) and the alleged promotion of anti-Buddhist propaganda by fundamentalist forces. Second, there are allegations against Muslim politicians of being engaged in land acquisitions and the illegal resettlement of Muslims. Third, there are concerns which are meant to promote fear and hatred. These range from the absurd accusations about Muslim promotion of birth control pills and concerns about the growth in the Muslim population, expansion of Muslim-owned businesses, and Sinhala families being driven away from villages by Muslims.
•There is a list of different complaints, and of varying degrees of seriousness. While some of them need to be exposed for what they truly are (myths and untruths), and some defy any meaningful action (the expansion of businesses or the population), some others would need to be taken up for serious examination by the political leadership. This hasn’t happened so far.
•Given such a complex problem, a popular response by many (which includes local celebrities) has been to come out with the comforting but vacuous assertion of an all-embracing ‘Sri Lankan’ identity or a reminder of a long history of peaceful co-existence between the two communities. Such assertions, though well-intentioned, seem to be inspired by the erroneous view that the current crisis is either an aberration or caused by a disgruntled and violent few.
Containing the crisis
•A realistic agenda which lays emphasis on ensuring accountability through the prosecution of all persons, including Buddhist monks, who have caused and incited violence, while also engaging in the difficult task of having constant dialogue between Sinhala Buddhist groups, the Muslim religious/political leadership and the government is essential. However, to avoid a catastrophe, Sri Lanka needs to evolve into a strong but secular-minded state. This involves, in principal, a radical alteration of how the Sinhala Buddhist community, the state apparatus, and the community of Buddhist monks think about the majority-minority relationship and equal citizenship. Without such an alteration, the island nation is destined to suffer long years of political and economic stagnation.
📰 Gayoom charged with terrorism
•Maldivian authorities have charged former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and several senior judges with “terrorism” for attempting to topple President Abdulla Yameen, the government said on Wednesday. Mr. Gayoom and ten others — including the sacked Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed — were charged under state of emergency laws imposed last month.
•The Prosecutor General's office said on Wednesday that Mr. Gayoom had been charged with attempting an “act of terrorism and obstruction of justice”.
•Mr. Gayoom’s legislator son Faris Maumoon and son-in-law were also charged, along with another judge.
•The 11 are accused of trying to topple Mr. Yameen.
📰 BJP, Cong. trade charges over use of data analytics firm
Cambridge Analytica has been accused of using personal data of Facebook users
•Days after data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica (CA), a subsidiary of the U.K.-based SCL Group, was suspended by social media company Facebook for not deleting user data obtained from an app developer for the platform, the controversy reached Indian shores with both the BJP and the Congress trading charges of the other having used the firm’s services.
•Union Law and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad questioned the links between the firm and the Congress at a press conference on Wednesday.
Ahead of 2019 polls
•Citing media reports, he said the Congress engaged the firm for its campaign for the 2019 general election.
•Mr. Prasad raised questions about the extent of the party’s engagement with the firm and how far the Congress endorsed CA’s use of “sex, sleaze and fake news to influence elections.”
•The Minister was alluding to an investigation of CA by the British broadcaster Channel 4 that revealed its (now suspended) CEO Alexander Nix boasting about underhanded tactics used by the firm to manipulate candidates in elections worldwide.
•Minutes after the press conference, the Congress’s digital media chief Divya Spandana issued a statement denying allegations that the party had engaged CA. “News about congress engaged/engaging with Cambridge Analytica is absolutely false,” she tweeted and accused the BJP of trying to detract attention from the way it had handled the deaths of 39 Indians in Iraq four years ago.
Congress’s charge
•The Congress later accused the BJP and its ally Janata Dal (United) of having engaged the services of the firm Ovleno Business Intelligence (an Indian affiliate of SCL) for several State elections and the 2014 general election.
•“Cambridge Analytica’s linked website shows that in 2010 its services were used by the BJP-JD(U). The firm’s Indian partner Ovleno Business Intelligence is being run by the son of a BJP ally’s MP [former JD(U) MP K.C. Tyagi’s son, Amrish Tyagi]. OBI company’s services were used by [Home Minister] Rajnath Singh in 2009,” All India Congress Committee communications-in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala said, adding that the “BJP’s factory of fake news has produced one more fake product today.” The Hindu tried to reach Mr. Amrish Tyagi to seek his comments on his company’s engagements with political parties in India, but his phone remained switched off.
Help from Bannon
•CA is a data analytics firm that was launched with the help of Steve Bannon, former chief strategist to U.S. President Donald Trump.
•Mr. Bannon helped the firm get funding from wealthy donors to the Republican party, the billionaire Robert Mercer and his family in particular. It’s a subsidiary of SCL, a British firm that specialises in data analytics.
📰 Aadhaar data safe, govt. asserts in SC
‘Right to dignified life outweighs privacy’
•The government has assured the Supreme Court that Aadhaar is not a “fly-by-night effort to score some brownie points” and personal data collected from millions of people is safe from breach in storage facilities barricaded behind five-feet thick walls.
•Appearing before a Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal urged the court to spare some time for the UIDAI CEO to conduct a power-point presentation in open court to quell apprehensions. The court remained non-committal.
•Instead, Chief Justice Misra asked the government to quell apprehensions raised by petitioners as to why persons, who prefer anonymity and consider their identity as a treasure, should also be compelled to part with their personal data to access services.
‘Corruption robs poor’
•Mr. Venugopal said Aadhaar provides “a right to physically exist without lying on the pavement without food.” Mr. Venugopal quoted former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi as saying how only Rs. 17 of Rs. 100 spent on anti-poverty projects actually reaches the poor. The rest is eaten up by middlemen and public servants. Mr. Venugopal said the right to a dignified and meaningful life for the poor far outweighed the right to privacy.
•To this, Justice Chandrachud asked whether the government considered privacy not a fundamental right for the poor.
📰 Southern pride
The Tamil demand for Dravida Nadu is not new
•At a press conference last week, when Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam working president M.K. Stalin was asked what he thought of the southern States combining to form “Dravida Nadu,” he replied, “If this happens, it is welcome and it will happen I believe.” Given the brouhaha around his remark, it deserves to be properly contextualised historically and in the backdrop of Tamil politics of recent years.
•Historically, the Tamil demand for a separate State is not new. The idea of Dravida Nadu, named for the ethnicity of its original inhabitants, initially gathered momentum with the support of the Justice Party led by Periyar E.V. Ramasamy.
•Spurred by events such as the introduction of Hindi in Tamil Nadu schools in 1937, during the early- to mid-20th century, the Tamil political leadership was gripped by fear that under the rule of the Congress Party, Brahminism as a socially dominant force, Hindi, as an official language, and north Indian cultural mores would be afforded hegemonic status, relegating Tamil ethnic sentiment to a secondary position. Consequently, from around 1938, Periyar gave voice to the demand for Dravida Nadu and it continued to find articulation in various forms via his successors at the head of the Dravidian movement, including DMK Chief Ministers C.N. Annadurai and M. Karunanidhi.
•This went on until October 1963, when the Government of India, helmed by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, enacted the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, effectively outlawing what it considered to be secessionist slogans by those seeking to occupy public office.
•Fast forward to the late 20th century, and the era of coalition governments saw regional parties come into their own, including Dravidian parties of Tamil Nadu that at times grabbed hefty seat numbers in the Lok Sabha. The very need for a “Dravida Nadu” appeared to evaporate.
•However, everything changed with the arrival of the BJP government in 2014, followed by the death of sitting Chief Minister Jayalalithaa of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in 2016, and the stepping back from active politics of the DMK supremo, Mr. Karunanidhi, owing to ill health. This leadership vacuum engendered the implosion of the AIADMK and the BJP appears to have sensed the blood in the water. Long denied an entry into State politics owing to the mobilisational force of the Dravidian movement, for the BJP is there now finally an opportunity to prise the Tamil polity apart just enough to sneak in through a captive alliance partner?
•The BJP certainly seems to have drawn up clear battle lines. After its recent dramatic victory in Tripura, the toppling of the Lenin statue in Belonia was followed in quick succession by multiple incidents of vandalism against statues of Periyar across Tamil Nadu, as if to put Dravidianism itself on notice.
•For the DMK and other Tamil parties it is perhaps the fear that the AIADMK could be propped up at least until the 2019 general election by an influential and deep-pocketed BJP that conjures up the spectre of north Indian dominance in Tamil Nadu, prompting the call for Dravida Nadu.
📰 Read the distress signals
Farming must be treated as a market-based enterprise and made viable on its own terms
•The week-long farmers’ march which reached Mumbai earlier this month, on the anniversary of Gandhi’s Dandi March of 1930, was unprecedented in many ways. It was mostly silent and disciplined, mostly leaderless, non-disruptive and non-violent, and well organised. It received the sympathy of middle class city dwellers, food and water from bystanders, free medical services from volunteer doctors, and also bandwagon support of all political parties from the left to the right.
Beyond lip service
•Indeed, even the Chief Minister of Maharashtra said he supported the cause (not the march), but as head of government his job was to address their issues, not to agitate. The most remarkable thing about the march was that it was successful. The State government agreed to all the demands, including pending transfer of forest land to Adivasis, expanding the scope of the loan waiver and ensuring higher prices for farm produce. There was ceremonial signing of acceptance of the demands, although the Chief Minister said that he had tried to dissuade the farmers from undertaking the gruelling 200 km march itself.
•The farmers, however, were determined to march to make a point, and to ensure that they received firm (signed) and publicly visible commitment, rather than assurances and lip service.
•Recurrent farmers’ agitations in the last few years across the nation lead us to ask: why have we come to this pass, that only extreme distress and street protests alert us to the deep and chronic problems of agriculture? Not all agitations have been peaceful or successful. Last year, in Haryana and Rajasthan they tried to block highways which led to traffic chaos. In Madhya Pradesh, in Mandsaur district, the protest turned violent, led to police firing and deaths of farmers. The electoral outcome in Gujarat too was a wake-up call (if any was needed) to the ruling party to pay attention to rural and agrarian distress.
•It is not as if governments of the day have not paid attention. Over the years and decades, there have been numerous committees, reports and commissions with extensively researched policy recommendations. Yet farming is a story of recurring distress. This implies that the recommendations are not working and need a paradigm change, or there is a huge gap in their implementation — or a bit of both. The most comprehensive recent blueprint for reforms and rehabilitation of the farm sector is the report of the National Commission on Farmers, chaired by M.S. Swaminathan. That report is already over 10 years old. Several of its ideas are yet to be implemented. For instance, decentralising public procurement of food grain to the lowest level possible, and setting up of grain banks at the district level.
What is the priority?
•The “farm problem” of India is a huge mountain, but it is surmountable. The biggest priority is to reduce the workforce which depends on agriculture for its livelihood. There is considerable underemployment and low productivity but farmers are unable to exit to other livelihood options. This points to the obvious conclusion, that the solution to the farm crisis lies largely outside the farm sector. If job opportunities abound elsewhere, then we should see an exodus out of farming. That points to the urgency of accelerating industrial growth and improving the ease of doing business.
•But we also need to acknowledge that the farm sector has been shackled for far too long. Farming is to be treated as a business and has to be viable on its own terms. Historically, farm prices were kept suppressed to keep industrial wages low. This meant monopoly procurement laws and the intermediation through the Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMC). But that was compensated by providing the farmer with highly subsidised inputs — water, electricity, fertilizer, credit and seeds. But this did not benefit the really needy, subsistence farmers. Nor did it alter the terms of trade which to this day remain tilted against agriculture. Over the years the policy framework is increasingly complex and a patchwork quilt of mutually compensating measures. Thus, we have ended up with all the shackles which remain intact. The APMC is not discontinued. Monopoly procurement continues. There is little progress in direct link between farmer and buyer. Foreign direct investment in farm to fork chain is very restricted. Half the farmers don’t have access to formal credit, since most of them don’t own the land that they till. Contract farming remains virtually banned. Land leasing is not possible (but done informally). Moneylenders are taboo, even though they might be in the best position to address credit needs, albeit with proper regulation.
•Thus the farmer’s plight is full of woe, exposed to risks from prices, demand, weather, pests and whims of policy and regulation. It’s no surprise that crisis is chronic, and loan waivers become imperative, more for moral and ethical reasons, than economic. Loan waivers punish those who worked hard and repaid, and the cash anyway goes to banks, not to farmers. Banks don’t issue fresh loans out of their own risk aversion. Hence, loan waivers are a bad economic idea but often a political compulsion. The same is true of rewarding farmers with 50% more minimum support price (MSP), no matter what the cost. This paradigm of cost plus pricing is bad economics. Sugarcane grows cheaper in Uttar Pradesh in the Gangetic plains than in drought-prone Maharashtra. But with an assured cost plus MSP, there is little incentive to diversify crops to suit weather and cost conditions.
Some positive steps
•To its credit some recent initiatives of the government are laudable. Neem-coated fertilizer has reduced leakage, and direct benefit transfer to the farmer-buyer will reduce subsidy further. Soil cards ensure appropriate matching of inputs to soil conditions. Giving tax holiday to the farmer producer companies is also the right fiscal incentive. The government’s aim to double farm income in the next four years is a near impossible feat, but signals the right intention. The big agenda is to unshackle agriculture to make it a truly commercial market-based enterprise; to create opportunities outside farming for large scale exit of the workforce; to connect farmers to the value chain of farm to fork, including agribusiness; to remove restrictions on movement and exports of farm produce and let them tap into international market, to also allow easier land transfers including leasing; to encourage crop diversification and land consolidation that reverses fragmentation. As said earlier, the farm problem is a huge mountain, but surmountable.
📰 Union Cabinet approves Ayushman Bharat health scheme
“The target beneficiaries.. will be more than 10 crore families belonging to poor and vulnerable population based on SECC database,” the government said in a release.
•The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the launch of the Ayushman Bharat — National Health Protection Mission (AB-NHPM), which was announced in the Budget.
•The scheme will provide a cover of ₹5 lakh per family per year.
•“The target beneficiaries.. will be more than 10 crore families belonging to poor and vulnerable population based on SECC database,” the government said in a release. “AB-NHPM will subsume the on-going centrally sponsored schemes — Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) and the Senior Citizen Health Insurance Scheme (SCHIS).”
•It would take care of almost all secondary care and most of tertiary care procedures, the government said. There will be no cap on family size and age. The benefit cover will include pre and post-hospitalisation expenses. All pre-existing conditions will be covered from day one of the policy. A defined transport allowance per hospitalisation will also be paid to the beneficiary.
📰 ‘Tremendous’ response to OALP: DGH
Hydrocarbon policy’s open acreage programme aims to add 60,000 sq. km. to area under exploration
•Interest in the Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP) and Discovered Small Fields (DSF), two key components of the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy, has been considerable as India works to reduce oil imports by at least 10%, by 2022, according to a senior government official.
•The OALP Bid Round-1 — under which almost 60,000 square kilometre of exploration area is to be added — has seen a “tremendous response,” Atanu Chakraborty, Director General at the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, said here on Wednesday. That would be a “quantum jump,” he said, pointing out that the existing area under oil and gas exploration in the country was a little over 1 lakh sq. km.
•Mr. Chakraborty said more than 120 entities, from India and abroad, had sought data related to the OALP programme. As many as 55 onshore and offshore blocks in 10 sedimentary basins across 11 States would be awarded through a bidding process.
•In view of the ensuing holidays, the deadline for submission of bids was likely to be extended by about a fortnight from April 3, he said.
DSF contracts
•On DSF, he said 30 contracts had been signed with 23 companies in the first round. The first (offshore) oil production was expected in 2020. “Some onshore people may come in even with an aggressive schedule,” the DGH said, adding the contracts were signed in March last year and the companies were in the process of getting approvals.
•The DSF-II is expected to be rolled out in April. As many as 60 fields with an estimated 194.7 million tonne of oil and oil equivalent gas would be offered in the round, which is expected to be completed by November. The DSF, he added, was an excellent entry point for entrepreneurs seeking to enter the oil and gas sector.
•In the second round, “we propose to increase the size of the plot [thus] enabling the proper prognostication of the resource and get into the sweet spot so to say,” he said.
•On the investments likely from the two HELP programmes, Mr. Chakraborty said it would be in the range of $30 billion in a phased manner. He said the DGH was also engaging with private equity players in an effort to underscore the need to invest in the oil and gas sector. Equity, he said, played a key role in the exploration stage, while debt gained prominence during the field development stage.
📰 ‘Securing lithium reserves need of the hour’
Slow progress in securing commodity may pose problem for energy storage in India: Panasonic official
•The Indian government’s relatively slow progress in securing lithium reserves could be a big problem for the energy storage industry in the country, according to a senior official at Panasonic India, who said that this would mean the country would have to rely on imports from China.
•“China securing its lithium ion reserves and India not doing as much in this area could be a big problem,” said Atul Arya, head, Energy Systems at Panasonic India. “There are two ways to do it. We can either do it in the way we are doing solar, where we are importing everything from China. There is no need to worry about anything, somebody else is making it, and we are only consuming.”
•“But, if Make in India is a motto and we are serious about it, then we have to do a lot of things in terms of securing various commodities that go into it,” Mr. Arya added.
•“And at the same time, we have to look at the other aspects such as the finance required to ramp up manufacturing, which means attracting investors, and upgrading the skills of the human resources. That is all required.”
•“It’s like running your own kitchen,” he added.
•“If you are cooking your own food, then you have to obviously worry about your groceries. But if you are happy with somebody delivering food, then you don’t need to have a kitchen itself, forget about groceries.”
•Mr. Arya explained that India had moved substantially away from the prevalent lead acid batteries towards those based on lithium ion technology, which was far more efficient. He added that creating large scale batteries was not a simple matter of scaling up the batteries found in phones or laptops.
•“The wheel was invented thousands of years ago, but we still have new types of wheels rolled out now and then,” he said. “They are technologically far superior, even when you look at the wheels on cars. That’s how it is with lithium ion technology. It’s not just about scaling it up. A cycle tyre and a bus tyre are two very different things. You have to do a lot more research and a lot more design and development work.”
•Mr. Arya also said the government can do a lot on the policy and taxation side to boost the domestic energy storage sector.
•“Today, storage is not really classified as a generation technology, but if you put it in a generation plant and you use the stored energy, does it become a generator component,” he said. “It’s not a transmission asset either, but it can be used in transmission. It is not a distribution asset, but it can be used there as well. We have a policy on ancillary services, but it does not cover storage based ancillary services.”
Tax relief
•The Panasonic executive also said that there was scope for tax relief for the sector under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, saying that the current tax rate is leading to higher costs.
•“Lithium attracts 28% GST as of today,” Mr. Arya said. “This is the highest slab. And so you can understand the impact on costs. There are many areas that are purely in the purview of the government where it can help the sector.”
📰 US Fed hikes key interest rate; says economic outlook stronger
Powell said he is trying to take the “middle ground” when it comes to rate increase.
•The Federal Reserve on Thursday increased the benchmark interest rate a quarter point to a target range of 1.5 % to 1.75 %, citing a stronger US economic outlook in recent months.
•“This decision marks another step in the ongoing process of gradually scaling back monetary policy accommodation, a process that has been underway for several years now,” Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell told reporters at his maiden news conference.
•Noting that job gains averaged 240,000 per month over the past three months, well above the pace needed in the longer-run to absorb new entrants into the labour force and unemployment rate remained low in February.
•The Fed expects that the job market will remain strong.
•Although the growth rates of household spending and business investment appear to have moderated earlier this year, gains in the fourth quarter were strong and the fundamentals underpinning demand remain solid.
•“Indeed, the economic outlook has strengthened in recent months. Several factors are supporting the outlook, fiscal policy has become more simulative, ongoing job gains are boosting incomes and confidence, foreign growth is on a firm trajectory and overall financial conditions remain accommodating,” Powell said.
•“Against this backdrop, inflation remains below our two % longer-run objective. Overall, consumer prices, as measured by the price index for personal consumption expenditures increased 1.7 % in the 12 months.
•Powell said the decision to raise the federal funds rate is another step in the process of gradually scaling back the monetary policy accommodation. By contrast, raising rates too slowly would raise the risk that monetary policy.
•In the committee’s view, further gradual increases in the federal funds rate will best promote these goals.
•“At the same time, we want to avoid inflation running persistently below our objective, which could leave us with less scope to counter an economic downturn in the future. Participants projections of the appropriate path for the federal funds rate reflect our gradual approach,” he added.
•The median projection for the federal funds rate is 2.1 % at the end of this year, 2.9 % at the end of 2019 and 3.4 % at the end of 2020
•Powell said he is trying to take the “middle ground” when it comes to rate increase.
•“On the one hand, the risk would be that we wait too long and then we have to raise rates quickly. And that foreshortens the expansion. We don’t want to do that. On the other side, if we raise rates too quickly, inflation then really doesn’t get sustainably up to two %, and that will hurt us going forward,” he said.
📰 Cambridge Analytica suspends CEO after Facebook row
•Cambridge Analytica, the British firm at the centre of a major data scandal rocking Facebook, has suspended its chief executive as lawmakers demanded answers from the social media giant over the breach.
•Alexander Nix will stand aside pending an investigation into boasts he made to an undercover reporter about entrapping politicians and operating shadowy front companies “and other allegations”, the company board said.
•“In the view of the Board, Mr. Nix’s recent comments secretly recorded by Channel 4 and other allegations do not represent the values or operations of the firm and his suspension reflects the seriousness with which we view this violation,” the company said in a statement.
•Cambridge Analytica has denied claims it harvested data from up to 50 million Facebook users as part of its work for US President Donald Trump’s election campaign.
•But the row has plunged Facebook into a major scandal, facing investigations on both sides of the Atlantic over its use of personal data, while its share price has been hit.
•A British parliamentary committee called on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg yesterday to personally explain to them what happened with “this catastrophic failure of process.”
•Committee chairman Damian Collins, who is leading an investigation into fake news, said officials at the firm had “consistently understated” the risk of data being taken from users without consent.
•Mr. Zuckerberg has also been invited to address the European Parliament, its president Antonio Tajani said.
•“Facebook needs to clarify before the representatives of 500 million Europeans that personal data is not being used to manipulate democracy,” he tweeted.
•The parliament and the European Commission, the 28-nation EU executive, have already called for an urgent investigation into the scandal.
•US lawmakers have also called on Mr. Zuckerberg to appear before Congress, along with the chief executives of Twitter and Google.
📰 Conserve every drop
Before the water crisis situation turns more alarming, we have to collectively act — now and here
•Was Samuel Taylor Coleridge foretelling the impending water crisis in the 21st century when he penned “Water, water, every where,/ Nor any drop to drink” more than two centuries ago in ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’?
A wake-up call
•The grave water situation in Cape Town in South Africa is a wake-up call to everybody across the globe — from policymakers to the common man — that it cannot be business as usual when it comes to water usage. A similar crisis is looming large in other cities in the world as people continue to be reckless in their use of water.
•The situation is so worrisome that 12 world leaders — 11 heads of state and a special adviser of a high-level panel on water — wrote an open letter to global leaders a week ago warning that the world is facing a water crisis and issued a New Agenda for Water Action. Observing that we need to make “every drop count”, they called for a new approach: rethinking how we understand, value and manage water as a precious resource, and catalysing change and building partnerships to achieve the water-related goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
•The social, cultural, economic and environmental values of water to society need to be reassessed, the panel said. “Water needs to be allocated in ways which maximize overall benefits to our societies,” it observed. The panel also mentioned the need to put in place policies that will allow for at least a doubling of water infrastructure investment in the next five years. It called for governments, communities, the private sector, and researchers to collaborate.
The Indian context
•In India, we can’t be complacent any more. A growing population, lack of adequate planning, crumbling infrastructure, indiscriminate drilling of borewells, large-scale consumption of water, and a false sense of entitlement in using water carelessly are causing water shortages. Unless drastic measures are taken to minimise water usage, the day may not be far off when authorities will be forced to ration water supply in cities like Bengaluru, which has been ranked second in the list of 11 global cities which might face the imminent threat of running out of drinking water. Already, water is being supplied on alternate days in certain cities, and for a limited duration in some places.
•The World Bank’s Water Scarce Cities Initiative seeks to promote an integrated approach to managing water resources and service delivery in water-scarce cities as the basis for building resilience against climate change. The demand for water in urban areas is projected to increase by 50-70% in the next three decades.
•India’s current water requirement is estimated to be around 1,100 billion cubic metres per year, which is projected to touch 1,447 billion cubic metres by 2050.
•Water conservation cannot brook delay any longer in India. According to a forecast by the Asian Development Bank, India will have a water deficit of 50% by 2030. India’s water needs are basically met by rivers and groundwater. Water scarcity can lead to disastrous consequences impacting food production as most of the farming is rain-fed. With ground water catering to about 60% of the country’s irrigation, 85% of rural water drinking requirements, and 50% of urban water needs, replenishing the aquifers has to be accorded top priority. Millions across India still do not have access to safe drinking water and this problem has to be tackled on a war footing.
•The oceans make up for about 97% of the Earth’s water. Less than 3% of Earth’s water is freshwater and most of it is not accessible. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, over 68% of the freshwater on Earth is found in icecaps and glaciers, while just over 30% is found in groundwater.
•According to the United Nations, 2.1 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water services; water scarcity already affects four out of every 10 people; 90% of all natural disasters are water related; 3.4 lakh children under five die every year from diarrhoeal diseases; agriculture accounts for 70% of global water withdrawal; and 80% of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused. In 2010, the UN General Assembly recognised the right of every human being to have access to sufficient water for personal and domestic uses (between 50 and 100 litres of water per person per day). It has to be safe, acceptable and affordable (water costs should not exceed 3% of household income) and also physically accessible (within 1,000 metres of home).
•I am glad that the government has come up with a Rs. 6,000-crore World Bank-aided Atal Bhujal Yojana with community participation to ensure sustained groundwater management in overexploited and ground water-stressed areas in seven States. It has been found that 1,034 blocks out of the 6,584 assessed blocks in the country are overexploited.
•According to the annual report of the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, about 77% of rural habitations in India have achieved a fully covered status (40 litres per capita per day) under the National Rural Drinking Water Programme, and 55% of the rural population have access to tap water. It was mentioned that the Ministry has also taken special steps to address the issue of water quality. A sub-mission programme is being implemented to eliminate the problems of water quality in about 28,000 habitations affected by arsenic and fluoride by 2020.
•Another important issue that needs to be addressed, particularly in urban areas, is the leakage of pipes providing water. We cannot allow this to continue any longer. Putting in place an efficient piped supply system has to be top on the agenda of policymakers and planners.
•Although India receives an average rainfall of 1,170 mm per year, it is estimated that only 6% of rainwater is stored.
Reviving ancient systems
•Before the situation turns more alarming, we have to collectively act — now and here. We should remember that ancient India had well-managed wells and canal systems. In fact, our culture always believed in treating nature with reverence and most of our rivers are considered sacred. The Indus Valley Civilization had a well-managed canal system, while Chanakya’s Arthashastraalso talks of irrigation. In the ancient past, different types of indigenous water harvesting systems were developed across the subcontinent and such systems need to be revived and protected at the local level. Micro irrigation practices like drip and sprinkler systems have to be promoted in a big way for efficient use of water for agriculture. Both in urban and rural areas, digging of rainwater harvesting pits must be made mandatory for all types of buildings.
•Conscious efforts need to be made at the household level and by communities, institutions and local bodies to supplement the efforts of governments and non-governmental bodies in promoting water conservation. Sustained measures should be taken to prevent pollution of water bodies, contamination of groundwater and ensure proper treatment of domestic and industrial waste water. Reduce, reuse, and recycle must be the watchwords if we have to handover a liveable planet to the future generations.
📰 ‘Assam rhinoceros data may have been doctored for funds’
An animal could have been counted twice, thrice: NGO
•An organisation of whistleblowers in Assam, armed with an RTI reply from the authorities of a national park, has said that rhinoceros census data may be getting doctored for ensuring the flow of foreign funds.
•The assertion has come less than a week before the rhino census in the 430 sq. km. Kaziranga National Park begins. The last rhino census in the wildlife reserve, a World Heritage Site, was in 2015.
•Swaraj Asom, an NGO that was one of the petitioners in the Louis Berger bribery case involving consultancies for urban projects in Assam and Goa, on Wednesday said wildlife enumerators have no mechanism in place to ensure that the same rhino is not counted twice or thrice.
•“We have reasons to doubt the rhino data after receiving a reply to an RTI query from the authorities of Orang National Park (about 80 km northeast of Guwahati). The park has 17 blocks but most of the 100 rhinos counted in 2012 were from two blocks — Satsimalu and Chaila — where officials were involved, but wildlife activists and neutral observers virtually did not spot rhinos in the other blocks,” Bhaben Handique, coordinator of Swaraj Asom, told newspersons on Wednesday.
•Mr. Handique and fellow-activist Tarun Chandra Deka said other wildlife reserves have been stalling replies to similar RTI queries for quite some time now.
‘Neutral authorities’
•The duo questioned the rhino data release after the census in Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary last week. “They counted 102 rhinos this time, which is an increase of 35 (animals) after 26 of the 93 counted in 2012 died naturally or due to poaching. Such figures need to be verified by neutral authorities,” Mr. Handique said.
•He said the “doubtful data” point to a plan to have at least 3,000 rhinos as envisaged in the Indian Rhino Vision 2020 initiative so that foreign conservation agencies continue to provide funds, a sizeable part of which goes to green groups working in collusion with forest officials. “Our demand is that New Delhi should clear the doubts by probing the census methods and ensuring the exercise is done through GPS and other available technology, so that the same rhino is not counted twice or thrice if it moves from one block to the other,” Mr. Handique said.
•Forest officials denied any foul play. “We have asked the enumerators to ensure maximum transparency,” State Forest Minister Pramila Rani Brahma said.
