📰 States told to identify ‘illegal’ immigrants
Collect biometric particulars and restrict people to specified locations, say Home Ministry guidelines
•The Home Ministry has asked State governments to “capture the biographic and biometric particulars” of illegal immigrants and “restrict them to specified locations.”
•The fresh guidelines were communicated to State governments on February 28. The letter without mentioning “Rohingya” has asked local authorities to identify those illegal immigrants in possession of Aadhaar cards and begin the procedure to deport them.
•The State authorities have been asked to report such cards to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) for further legal action.
•The government informed the Rajya Sabha in March that 51 Bangladeshis were “repatriated” to Bangladesh in 2017.
•On August 9 last year, the Home Ministry had issued a circular asking State governments to initiate procedure to deport illegal immigrants including the Rohingya.
•Following this, two Rohingya moved the Supreme Court saying they feared for their lives and faced religious persecution in Myanmar, requesting the apex court to not deport them.
•The hearing in the matter continues in the Supreme Court and it has asked the Centre to maintain “status quo.” Over 40,000 Rohingya are said to be in India. They came from 2012 onwards.
•In its latest guidelines, the Home Ministry said, “State governments and Union Territories are advised to sensitise the law enforcement and intelligence agencies for taking steps for prompt identification of illegal migrants.”
•It further said the States should “restrict them to specified locations, capturing their biographic and biometric details, cancellation of fake Indian documents and for taking legal proceedings including initiation of deportation proceedings.”
•In its affidavit filed in the Supreme Court on September 18, the Centre said Rohingya were a threat to national security and “some of the unauthorised Rohingya migrants had linkages with Pakistan-based terror organisations.”
•A Home Ministry official said the revised guidelines were meant for all illegal immigrants, including those from Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
Tribunal has final say
•An official said identifying an undocumented citizen was a tedious process and the final decision lay with a Tribunal, which is set up in such cases to determine their nationality. “The local police first enquires if the person is not an Indian citizen. He or she will be subject to trial and if the Tribunal decides against the subject, then the deportation process will begin. A communication will be sent to the Myanmar government to verify their address,” said the official.
📰 India, Pak. call truce over envoys
Decision ends weeks of aggressive surveillance of diplomats in Delhi, Islamabad
•The protracted spat between India and Pakistan over harassment of respective diplomatic staff ended on Friday. Both sides will ensure safety of each other’s diplomats, families of diplomats and diplomatic premises, an official announcement said.
•“India and Pakistan have mutually agreed to resolve matters related to the treatment of diplomats and diplomatic premises, in line with the 1992 “Code of Conduct for the treatment of diplomatic/consular personnel in India and Pakistan,” a press release from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) announced. A similar announcement was made by the Pakistani side.
Flurry of note verbales
•The decision comes as a relief for serving diplomats on both sides, who alleged for weeks that they were being harassed by security personnel in both Delhi and Islamabad by aggressive surveillance and stalking. During this period, India sent more than a dozen note verbales to Pakistan to uphold the principles enshrined in the Vienna Convention for protection of diplomats. Diplomatic sources indicated that the resolution will ensure that both sides will abide by globally accepted diplomatic protocols as well as bilateral understandings.
•The exchange between the two countries became heated following daily incidents and at one point, Pakistan even recalled its envoy for ‘consultations’.
Evidence of stalking
•The fight became intense after diplomats on both sides started recording acts of harassment on mobile phones, adding to the heated rhetoric.
•However, High Commissioner of Pakistan Sohail Mahmood returned on March 22 to Delhi, a day before the national day celebrations were hosted in the High Commission premises.
•The bilateral 1992 Code of Conduct urges both sides to “ensure dignity and personal inviolability of diplomatic/consular personnel of the Sending State and their families”.
•This bilateral mechanism is a special instrument to ensure safety and security of Indian and Pakistani diplomats who have the critical responsibility of operating in hostile circumstances.
📰 Pak. wants to inspect Indus projects
•Pakistan has asked India to allow its officials to undertake a tour for inspecting Indian projects in the Indus river basin, which New Delhi said will be arranged in line with the provisions of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), according to government sources.
•Pakistan made the request during the two-day meeting of the Permanent Indus Commission (PIC) between the two countries here.
•The sources said both countries stuck to their respective positions over India’s hydropower projects Pakal Dul and Lower Kalnai, both in Jammu and Kashmir.
📰 Billed for change
Amendments to the National Medical Council Bill don’t go far enough to address concerns
•The Union Cabinet this week approved six out of the dozens of changes to the contentious National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill that were suggested by a Parliamentary Standing Committee earlier this month. These changes address some of the loudest criticisms of the Bill. Among them, the final year MBBS exam is now merged with an exit exam for doctors, and a contentious bridge course for AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Homeopathy) practitioners has been axed. Health-care experts had recommended other modifications, which the Cabinet ignored. For example, despite the Cabinet’s amendments, the NMC, the regulatory body that will replace the Medical Council of India, will be heavily controlled by the government. Its members are to be picked by a search committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary, while the Central government is to be the appellate body for those aggrieved by the NMC’s decisions. The parliamentary committee had batted for an independent appellate body. The amendments cleared by the Cabinet also increase State representation in the NMC from three part-time members to six, in what seems like a gesture to please the States. Contrast this with the parliamentary committee’s recommendation to include 10 State representatives, given India’s vastness. Another amendment that doesn’t go far enough is the decision to raise the proportion of private college seats for which fees will be regulated from 40% to 50%. The fees for unregulated seats could then skyrocket, pushing poorer medical aspirants out of the system.
•Despite these deficiencies, if passed by Parliament, the legislation will mark a new era for medical education in India. The next step will be to design rules and regulations that capture the intent of this law. This itself will be a massive challenge. How, for one, will the logistical difficulty of conducting a common final year MBBS examination across the country be overcome? Multiple-choice questions are easy to administer, but testing the range of theoretical knowledge and practical skills expected of medical graduates is more difficult. Throw in the enormous inter-State variations in medical education across India, and the challenge is obvious. Lawmakers will have to tackle this gigantic task in a slow and phased manner. Another concern is that under the new amendments States now have the freedom to implement an AYUSH bridge course, even if no longer mandatory. How will the Centre ensure the quality of such courses to prevent a new set of poorly trained doctors from emerging? The coming days may see many more protests against the NMC Bill, perhaps delaying its passage and prompting further discussion. For a Bill that marks the first major reform in medical education since 1956, such an extended debate is not a bad thing.
📰 ‘Monetary policy not apt to ensure financial stability’
Greater financial inclusion helps reduce friction boosting policy transmission, RBI research group says
•Monetary policy transmission improves if friction in the financial system diminishes, according to the findings of a study by the Development Research Group (DRG) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
•This is possible with greater financial inclusion in terms of depositors’ base and easing of the collateral constraints of the households, the DRG said in its report. “Easier norms for collateral are likely to enable households to increase their borrowings which, in turn, may improve the transmission,” it added.
•The DRG is constituted by the apex bank in its Department of Economic and Policy Research to carry out quick policy-oriented research on subjects of current interest.
Study model
•The DRG study — ‘Role of financial frictions in monetary policy transmission in India’ — developed a New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (NK-DSGE) model with an imperfectly competitive banking sector and examined the role of various financial frictions in monetary policy transmission (MPT) in India.
•The credit channel-based explanation of MPT attributes weak transmission of monetary policy in emerging market and developing economies to the predominance of financial market frictions.
Credit market friction
•“Presence of information asymmetries, limited enforceability of contracts and heterogeneity among the economic agents give rise to frictions in the financial market transactions, which play a crucial role in determining the degree of pass-through and speed of adjustments in the MPT mechanism,” the DRG said.
•Focusing on the credit market friction parameters, the study undertook counter-factual experiments and evaluated the responsiveness of MPT using the accumulated effects over a time horizon of eight quarters. The study findings show MPT improved as friction in the financial system diminished.
•The study also undertook simulation experiments with respect to a set of alternative policy rules.
•“Adjusting the policy interest rate to smooth out the credit cycle exacerbates volatility of inflation and output,” the DRG said. It suggested that inflation stabilisation was the most desirable policy option for the RBI as it minimised the welfare loss irrespective of policy rules. “Overall, it appears that targeting financial stability through monetary policy rule may not be appropriate for the purpose of economic stabilisation.”
📰 Kaziranga finds a dozen reasons to be happy
Latest census reveals that the National Park’s rhinoceros population is up
•Kaziranga’s iconic one-horned rhino population has risen by 12 individuals. The latest headcount of the armour-plated herbivore in Assam’s world-famous reserve put the estimated number at 2,413 rhinos. This is an increase of a dozen over the 2015 figure.
•After a review of the data, State wildlife officials said fewer rhinos may have been sighted this time due to the incomplete burning of tall grasses and reeds. This could be due to high moisture content. Burning of grasses is necessary for regeneration of low-lying vegetation in the 434 sq. km. park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that also faces annual floods.
•“We estimated the rhino population to be 2,413 after a two-day exercise that ended on Tuesday. This estimate, as with the census of the past, is plus or minus 100,” N.K. Vasu, the State’s Chief Wildlife Warden, said.
Gender unclear
•Data released by the Assam Forest Department show that Kaziranga National Park now has 1,641 adult rhinos, of which 793 are females, 642 males and 206 ‘un-sexed’, which means the gender could not be ascertained. The number of sub-adult rhinos (four to six years old) was estimated to be 387, of which 149 are females, 116 males and 122 ‘un-sexed’. The calf count was 385. “Unlike past estimations, we had to deal with poor grass burning that could have led to under-counting. High moisture content in the grass due to the weather affected the burning. We could burn about 20% compared to normal mark of 60-70% every year,” Akashdeep Baruah, Director, KNP, told The Hindu . Kaziranga is the second of four habitats where the census was conducted.
•The first was at Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary near Guwahati, where the count this time was 102, up from 93 in 2012.
•The census at Manas National Park was over, and it would be done on April 2 in Orang National Park. Assam has an estimated 2,645 rhinos in all.
📰 Rivers, floodplains, cities and farmers
Preservation of the river and floodplains must be informed by the ‘conserve and use’ standard
•Floodplains of rivers can provide a new source of water. They are a local, non-polluting, perennial and non-invasive source of water for urban centres. Our work and research on the Palla floodplain scheme which was launched by the Delhi Jal Board in 2016 is a tangible realisation of this idea. The scheme (on a 25 km stretch of the Yamuna) is currently running at half its potential and providing water to about one million people in the city — of a daily requirement of 150 litres per person.
Conserve and use plan
•Floodplains are formed over millions of years by the flooding of rivers and deposition of sand on riverbanks. These sandy floodplains are exceptional aquifers where any withdrawal is compensated by gravity flow from a large surrounding area. Some floodplains such as those of Himalayan rivers contain up to 20 times more water than the virgin flow in rivers in a year. Since recharge is by rainfall and during late floods, the water quality is good. If we conserve and use the floodplain, it can be a self-sustaining aquifer wherein every year, the river and floodplain are preserved in the same healthy condition as the year before. The ‘conserve and use’ principle demands that no more than is recharged by rain and floods each year can be withdrawn from this aquifer. This ensures that the groundwater level in the floodplains remains steadily above that in the river in the lean non-monsoon months when the river is often polluted. Drawing out any more water than is recharged can contaminate and eventually finish off this precious resource.
•Rivers today are facing problems of abysmally low flows due to an indiscriminate extraction of water for use in cities, industries and agriculture. They are also highly polluted because sewage and effluents are being released into them. But a floodplains ‘conserve and use’ scheme, which is a socio-economic-environmental scheme, can provide water to urban centres along rivers; it can also engage farmers by providing them an assured income and restore rivers to a healthy condition.
The Tamirabarani
•Let us take the example of the Tamirabarani river in Tamil Nadu which flows for 100 km through two urban settlements, Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi. For the population of close to a million people in these two cities, the water requirement of both towns combined is less than 54 million cubic metres (MCM) per year, when calculated at 150 litres a day per person. Leaving out the area of the river banks that is built over, we are left with 75 km of river length which is agricultural land; 1 km of this stretch on both sides of the river can be preserved as a water sanctuary and used to provide water to towns.
•This floodplain (75 km) absorbs about 50% of the rainfall (about 100 cm/ year) and saturates during floods late in the monsoon. Flooding can cause an approximately 4 metre rise in the water level which allows us to dewater about 3 metre depth of floodplain. The specific yield of this aquifer is about 15-20% of its volume and hence we can draw about 75-90 MCM of water from the floodplains in a year.
•Floodplains have more water than the needs of cities. Half the water can be drawn and provided to meet the needs of cities by developing a grid of about 120 wells, each of which operate at 0.3 million gallons a day. If priced at the domestic Delhi Jal Board tariff of Rs. 30 per kilo litre, we can sell the water for Rs. 162 crore a year.
Engaging farmers
•Preserving the floodplain in its entirety is critical for this scheme to work. This can be done by engaging farmers whose land will have to be leased for such an effort. Farmers today have an erratic income and this scheme can be realised through a public-private partnership, where farmers on this land tract of 1 km on either side of the river can be provided an assured and steady income of Rs. 30,000 an acre which would amount to Rs. 112 crore a year for the first 10 years for the entire river length (75 km) that is not encroached. In addition, farmers can grow a food forest, fruit orchards or nut trees but not water-intensive crops on this land. It would guarantee not only a good farming income but also great earnings from the water for the farmers without taking the ownership of the land away from them. The capital cost for building such a scheme would be minimal (a few hundred crores) and the revenue generated would be able to pay for the costs and for farmers’ income without any subsidy. It would also generate substantial revenue for the cities.
•Ecologically, a water sanctuary would prevent erosion, heal the river ecosystem, and restore the ecological balance in floodplains. Even after withdrawal, floodplains would have enough water to slowly release back into the river in a lean season. This scheme would help curb illegal extraction of water, stop pollution by local agencies and industries and also encourage cities to be more responsible in their waste management.
•This scheme will also help improve the quality of rivers, quality of life for citizens, and at the same time guarantee farmers a healthy fixed income. This is a new scheme of living. This is the philosophy of “conserve and use”.
