📰 No deal on illegal migrants
Discussions likely to continue at the Home Secretary-level
•The failure of Britain and India to sign a key memorandum of understanding on the return of illegal migrants during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit on Wednesday has been greeted with surprise, as the agreement was seen as a key element of the visit.
•As recently as January, the MoU, which would have updated a previous agreement that expired in 2014, was pegged as one of the central pieces of the bilateral visit, building on an issue repeatedly raised by Britain. During her visit to India in 2016, British Prime Minister Theresa May said the U.K. would consider an improved visa deal, “if, at the same time, we can step up the speed and volume of returns of Indians with no right to remain in the U.K.”
•During a visit by Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu and Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju, it appeared that an agreement on the terms of the memorandum had been reached, with plans for the Memo to be signed during the prime ministerial visit. The signing — which would have been seen as a gesture of goodwill from India — would have placed the onus on Britain to deliver on Indian requests around visas for professionals and students, thereby making a crucial breakthrough in issues that have presented challenges to the bilateral relationship.
•“The returns issue is very important,” an MEA spokesperson had said in a briefing in New Delhi ahead of the visit, pointing to a national portal that enabled the identification of nationality, that would enable someone’s status to be swiftly verified once someone had been identified as illegal by Britain. “So this is already in place and the agreement that we are looking at is a continuation of what we have agreed before.”
Matter of contention
•However, it is understood that a failure to reach an agreement on the numbers of returns and the speed at which they would be required to be returned led to hopes of a swift deal being reached fading. A source suggested Britain’s expectations on these issues were beyond the level India was willing to commit to. Discussions on the issue are expected to continue at Home Secretary level next month.
•Last year, the British Home Office was caught up in a controversy after data based on a new system of exit checks at Britain’s border found that just over 4,600 international students were overstaying their visa, compared to roughly 1,00,000 that had been suggested by an International Passenger Survey that the government had been relying on to date.
•“The whole point of the better economic closer relationship between India and the U.K. was predicated on greater visas access which in turn was predicated on the return of illegal migrants, estimates on the numbers of which varies dramatically, so it doesn’t look good for the pace of growing economic ties,” said Gareth Price, a South Asia expert at Chatham House.
•The MoU would also have come at a politically sensitive time for Britain, amid questions about its treatment of the “Windrush generation” — men and women from the Caribbean who came to the U.K. between the late 1940s and early 1970s, many as children, before U.K. legislation no longer gave Commonwealth citizens the automatic right to reside in Britain.
•Recent toughening up of immigration requirements has resulted in some being wrongly denied access to public services and threatened with deportation, or even deported, despite being British citizens.
•Though this controversy pertains to British citizens rather than illegal migrants, the government has faced wider questions around its treatment of Commonwealth citizens, particularly as it pegs the Commonwealth as a route for post-Brexit trade to flourish.
•“I would presume Britain will have to come to terms that with this talk of free trade, the quid pro quo is greater access not more restricted access for people: the Windrush issue and the Indian [illegal returns memo] issue have suggested Britain wanted to go in the other direction, so putting it all together we are not going to get what we want when we have the focus on tightening up immigration,” said Mr. Price.
📰 PIL has become an ‘industry of vested interests’: SC
Supreme Court says it is a travesty of justice for the resources of the legal system to be consumed by an avalanche of misdirected public interest petitions
•The Supreme Court on Thursday derided the Loya PIL petitions as a case in point of how public interest litigation has become an “industry of vested interests” rather than a powerful tool to espouse the cause of the marginalised and oppressed.
•A Bench of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud said the essential aspect of a genuine PIL petition was that the “person who moves the court has no personal interest in the outcome of the proceedings, apart from a general standing as a citizen before the court.”
•The PIL was envisioned by the Supreme Court’s legendary judges as “a powerful instrument to preserve the rule of law and to ensure the accountability of and transparency within structures of governance”.
Reality check
•Justice Chandrachud, who authored the verdict, said it was time for the judiciary to do a reality check on the advent of PIL petitions which flooded the courts.
•The judgment said PIL had now become a façade for people hungry for publicity or those who wanted to settle personal, business or political scores. The true face of the litigant behind the façade was seldom unravelled.
•“It is a travesty of justice for the resources of the legal system to be consumed by an avalanche of misdirected petitions purportedly filed in the public interest which, upon due scrutiny, are found to promote a personal, business or political agenda. This has spawned an industry of vested interests in litigation,” Justice Chandrachud observed.
•This “avalanche” would cost the judiciary and other democratic institutions dearly. The PIL had already “seriously denuded the efficacy of the judicial system by detracting from the ability of the court to devote its time and resources to cases which legitimately require attention.”
•“Business rivalries have to be resolved in a competitive market for goods and services. Political rivalries have to be resolved in the great hall of democracy when the electorate votes its representatives in and out of office. Courts resolve disputes about legal rights and entitlements. Courts protect the rule of law,” the Supreme Court observed.
•Judicial process would be reduced to a charade if nothing is done to close the floodgates of PILs, the court said.
📰 Aadhaar does not record caste or race, says SC judge
The Act has given privacy: Justice Chandrachud
•The Aadhaar Act does not record the caste, religion, race, etc., of individuals, thus ensuring that these demographics are not used to discriminate among citizens, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud observed during the Constitution Bench hearing in the Aadhaar case on Thursday.
•“Race, caste, religion, etc are not part of demographics required. These are aspects which can be used to discriminate... by excluding them, the Act has given privacy,” Justice Chandrachud addressed UIDAI, the nodal agency for implementing the Aadhaar scheme.
•Justice Chandrachud had, in August 2017, authored the historic verdict for the nine-judge Constitution Bench, which declared that privacy was intrinsic to life and liberty and an inherent part of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution.
•The judgment had held that privacy is a natural right that inheres in human beings. The state does not bestow natural rights on citizens. Natural rights like privacy exist equally in all individuals, irrespective of class, strata, gender or orientation.
•The nine-judge Bench pronounced the verdict on a reference from a five-judge Bench deciding the Aadhaar petitions. The reference was on the question whether privacy was a fundamental right and inviolable.
•Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi argued that citizens have no right to privacy as far as demographic details are concerned. Demographic details are the name of the person, age, etc.
•Justice Chandrachud summarised Mr. Dwivedi’s submissions, saying the latter meant that there were four levels of identification – demographics, optional demographics, biometrics and core biometrics like fingerprints and iris scans. “What you are saying is that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in core biometrics, but as you veer away from core biometrics, your reasonable expectation of privacy does not count,” Justice Chandrachud paraphrased Mr. Dwivedi’s submissions.
•Mr. Dwivedi said the UIDAI does not share core biometrics at all. However, Justice A.K. Sikri pointed out that the petitioners are still apprehensive about the aggregation of personal data in a central storage facility, and their leak. “We are concerned with real apprehensions. People who are scared of water, they will never enter the pool... What can we do?” Mr. Dwivedi responded.
📰 The Hadiya caution
The case showed us how courts too can be propelled by impulses entirely opposed to the Constitution
•One of the sorriest episodes in India’s judicial history was finally brought to an end in March with the Supreme Court judgment in Shafin Jahan v. Asokan K.M.,or the Hadiya case as we’ve come to know it. Through two separate but concurring opinions, one written by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra, for himself and Justice A.M. Khanwilkar, and the other by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, the court has reversed a most reprehensible ruling by the Kerala High Court. Yet, a collective reading of these opinions, released in a detailed order last week, tells us only a part of the story.
•The judgment aims to speak in stirring language. It focuses attention on the centrality of individual freedom and autonomy under India’s constitutional scheme. “It is obligatory to state here that expression of choice in accord with law is acceptance of individual identity,” the CJI writes, in his characteristically fustian style. “Curtailment of that expression and the ultimate action emanating therefrom on the conceptual structuralism of obeisance to the societal will destroy the individualistic entity of a person. The social values and morals have their space but they are not above the constitutionally guaranteed freedom.”
No apology
•But this bombast veils the Supreme Court’s own conduct in the case. The opinions do not offer anything resembling an apology for the court having allowed a savagely degrading process of decision-making to fester for far longer than it should have. Indeed, the entire case from its inception had been marked by a sense of tragedy. The tale it tells is depressing: that the courts, designed under our democratic scheme to act as a bastion of fundamental rights, are just as capable as the other wings of government in enforcing the most wrenching forms of paternalism.
•It was in January 2016 when Mr. Asokan first approached the Kerala High Court. His grievance was that his daughter, who was born a Hindu, with the given name Akhila, and who had later converted to Islam, taking the name Hadiya, was being illegally detained against her wishes. But the court initially rejected these claims. Ms. Hadiya, it held, was staying at a hostel run by the “Markazul Hidaya Sathyasarani Educational & Charitable Trust” entirely of her own volition.
•However, in August that year, Mr. Asokan once again went to the High Court, this time on an apparent apprehension that Ms. Hadiya was likely to be “transported out of the country”. When the petition was still being heard, in December, she married Shafin Jahan. Just months later though, on May 24, 2017, the High Court granted Mr. Asokan her custody, and, what’s more, annulled her marriage with Mr. Jahan altogether.
•At play here was an inexplicable show of moralism. “A girl aged 24 years is weak and vulnerable, capable of being exploited in many ways,” the Bench wrote. “This Court exercisingparens patriaejurisdiction is concerned with the welfare of a girl of her age. The duty cast on this Court to ensure the safety of at least the girls who are brought before it can be discharged only by ensuring that Ms. Akhila is in safe hands.”
•Even intuitively there are two clear problems with this judgment: one, Ms. Hadiya wasn’t a girl, but was an adult woman making her own choices on how she wanted to lead her life; two, Kerala, unlike some other States that have dangerously draconian anti-conversion laws, does not prevent an adult from converting to a different religion, or from marrying a person of different faith.
A slow process
•Astoundingly, though, when Mr. Jahan approached the Supreme Court against this verdict, the court didn’t quite deem it necessary to grant Ms. Hadiya the bare dignity of a hearing, to ask her what she might have wanted. To the Supreme Court, much like it was to the Kerala High Court, she was only a girl; she simply couldn’t be trusted to do the right thing.
•When the appeal first came up for hearing, the court also didn’t so much as venture to wonder how the Kerala High Court could get things so badly wrong, how it could have annulled a marriage in a proceeding for habeas corpus. It should have been obvious to the court that when judges introduce their own set of restrictions on liberty, not only do they impinge on principles of separation of powers, but they also violate their pledge to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution.
•Instead, the Supreme Court Bench, presided at the time by CJI J.S. Khehar, unleashed the might of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on the parties, directing the authority to probe into the case. The order, though, was silent on what the scope of this inquiry might be, in the process effectively granting the NIA a carte blanche, allowing it to wander where it pleased, well beyond its statutory limitations.
•Eventually, it was only in late October last year — when the bench was headed by Chief Justice Misra — that the court finally called for a hearing from Ms. Hadiya. When it listened to her, it became clear to the court that she’d made her own choices, making the judgment that has now followed essentially unexceptionable. After all, it oughtn’t to have required much in the way of analysis to see that the Kerala High Court’s verdict was not only flawed, but that it had resulted in a flagrant miscarriage of justice.
Reaffirming principles
•Habeas corpus has its origins in British common law, predating even Magna Carta. The idea behind the writ is to direct a detainee’s presence in court so as to help the court understand if there was any legal justification for the person’s imprisonment. The court’s role, therefore, when a petition for habeas corpus is filed is narrow. It is only, as Chief Justice Misra writes, “to see that the detenue is produced before it, find out about his/her independent choice and see to it that the person is released from illegal restraint.” When exercising this power, the court, the CJI holds, has to remember that an individual’s decisions must be respected. If it becomes clear that a person isn’t being held against her wishes, “the enquiry and determination have to come to an end.”
•But as routine as this verdict has ultimately proved to be, perhaps given the times that we live in, it was important that the court reaffirmed certain principles that lie at the heart of the Constitution: that, for instance, an adult person, possessing the ability to act out of her own will, should be allowed responsibility for her own life. After all, the Constitution affords protection to individual autonomy, to the intimate decisions that a person might make, whether they relate to speech, sex, marriage, procreation or religion. The state, which includes the judiciary, cannot interfere in these matters of personal foundation in a bid to enforce a collective ethical judgment. Individuals must be left to decide for themselves how they each want to lead their lives. A judge’s holy writ cannot be used as a means to finagle the imposition of a coercive and majoritarian vision.
•Or, as Justice Chandrachud puts it: “In deciding whether Shafin Jahan is a fit person for Hadiya to marry, the High Court has entered into prohibited terrain. Our choices are respected because they are ours. Social approval for intimate personal decisions is not the basis for recognising them. Indeed, the Constitution protects personal liberty from disapproving audiences.”
•These words, read in isolation, are no doubt rousing. But ultimately this was a case of the Supreme Court correcting errors of the judiciary’s own making. The lessons to take away from it are many. Foremost among them is this: we must recognise that our courts too can be propelled by impulses entirely opposed to the Constitution, that the glory of judicial review, prized by us all, stands on fragile ground.
📰 Under scrutiny
The proposal to bring the BCCI under the RTI reflects rising public expectation
•There is little surprise in the Law Commission of India recommendation that the Board of Control for Cricket in India be brought under the purview of the Right to Information Act. Over the years, the popular expectation that India’s cash-rich and commercially successful apex cricket body will have to make itself more transparent and accountable has been rising. While the BCCI is a private body that needs no financial help from the government, it is being increasingly recognised that it performs significant public functions. Even though a five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court in 2005 held by a 3-2 majority that the BCCI could not be termed an instrumentality of the ‘State’ under Article 12 of the Constitution, subsequent developments have ensured that the public character of its functioning is widely recognised. In recent years, especially against the backdrop of the betting scandal that hit the Indian Premier League tournament a few years ago, the view that the cricket board is functioning in an opaque manner and not entirely in the game’s interest has gained ground. The Supreme Court’s intervention led to the constitution of the Justice R.M. Lodha Committee, which recommended sweeping reforms in the board’s structure and the rules governing its administration. Many believe that implementing these reforms at both national and State levels would impart greater transparency in its functioning and lead to an overhaul of cricket administration in the country. The apex court also reaffirmed the public character of the BCCI’s functions.
•The Lodha Committee recommended that the board be treated as a public authority under the RTI Act, and the Supreme Court wanted the Law Commission to examine this suggestion. The Central Information Commission favoured the idea. The Union government has on different occasions maintained that the BCCI is a ‘national sports federation’ and, therefore, an entity that falls under the RTI Act’s ambit. However, the BCCI is not one of the national federations listed on the website of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. Summing up its reasoning, the Law Commission has taken into account “the monopolistic nature of the power exercised by BCCI, the de facto recognition afforded by the Government, the impact of the Board’s actions/decisions on the fundamental rights of the players, umpires and the citizenry in general” to argue that the BCCI’s functions are public in nature. The board gets no financial help directly, but the commission has argued that the tax and duty exemptions and land concessions it got would amount to indirect financing by the state. A relevant question may be whether its autonomy would suffer as a result of being brought under the RTI. It is unlikely: other national federations are under the RTI and there is no reason to believe it would be any different for the BCCI. In fact, as a complement to the structural revamp, it may redound to the game’s interest.
📰 Reviewing the Contempt of Courts Act
The Law Commission on why the Act should remain as it is
•The Contempt of Courts Act of 1971 is one of the most powerful statutes in the country. It gives the constitutional courts wide powers to restrict an individual’s fundamental right to personal liberty for “scandalising the court” or for “wilful disobedience” of any judgment, writ, direction or order.
•The offence of “scandalising the court” continues in India even though it was abolished as an offence in England and Wales long ago.
•On March 8, 2018, the Department of Justice wrote to the Law Commission of India, asking it to examine an amendment to the Act to nix “scandalising the court” as a ground for contempt and restrict contempt to only “wilful disobedience” of directions/judgments of the court.
•The Supreme Court recently published a report that noted that 568 criminal contempt cases and 96,310 civil contempt cases were found pending in the High Courts. In the Supreme Court, as of April 10, 683 civil contempt cases and 15 criminal contempt cases have been shown as pending.
•But the Law Commission has submitted a report stating that there is no point “tinkering” with the 1971 Act. The statute, it said, only lays down the procedure in contempt cases. “The powers of contempt of the Supreme Court and High Courts are independent of the Act 1971,” the report of the Commission said. The contempt powers of the higher courts are drawn from the Constitution itself.
•The Commission said that “to delete the provision relating to ‘criminal contempt’ inter alia ‘scandalising of courts’ will have no impact on the power of the Superior Courts to punish for contempt (including criminal contempt) in view of their inherent constitutional powers, as these powers are independent of statutory provisions”. Additionally, Article 142(2) enables the Supreme Court to investigate and punish any person for its contempt.
•The Law Commission informed the government that the 1971 Act was a good influence. In fact, the statute, by laying down procedure, restricts the vast authority of the courts in wielding contempt powers, it said.
•The 1971 Act contains “adequate safeguards to exclude instances which may not amount to criminal contempt” as defined under Section 2(c) of the Act 1971. The Commission said the statute has stood the test of judicial scrutiny for about five decades. It empowers the High Court to act if someone is in contempt of the subordinate courts. Diluting the Act would expose the subordinate judiciary to acts of contempt of court.
📰 Marginalised from school
The Centre must review the implementation of the Right to Education Act across the country
•Although the recent Budget session of Parliament was appallingly disrupted by the ruling party’s surrogates and Question Hour did not function most of the time, some things did work, almost on autopilot. Written questions submitted by MPs were indeed answered in writing – I got 26 of my questions admitted and answered — and while the more prestigious “starred questions” could not get asked, these “unstarred” ones have given us an instructive insight into some crucial aspects of government policy.
On education
•My questions to the Minister of Human Resource Development in the Lok Sabha on the implementation of the Right to Education Act (RTE), almost a decade after its enactment, are a case in point. The answers I received are alarming, and definitely warrant an emergency review of the implementation of the Act.
•It emerges from the Minister’s replies to me that five States (Goa, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim and Telangana) have not even issued notifications regarding admissions under the RTE. As readers will recall, Section 12(1)(c) of the Act mandates private unaided schools to reserve 25% of seats for children from economically weaker sections (EWS), in the age bracket of six to 14 years. This enabled economically marginalised communities to access high quality private schools, at the expense of the State. While Telangana may be excused due to its recent formation, it is unjustifiable that the other States have failed to undertake the most basic steps to implement Section 12(1)(c) of an Act passed eight years ago.
•States have to notify per-child costs to pay the private schools, on behalf of the children admitted under this provision. However, out of 29 States and seven Union Territories, only 14 have notified their per-child costs. The provision does not apply to Jammu and Kashmir and there are no private schools in Lakshadweep; therefore, as per the data provided, a shocking 20 States/UTs have still not notified the per-child costs, a blatant violation of the letter and spirit of the RTE.
•It is also shocking to note that in 2017-18, of the 15 States which submitted their reimbursement claims to the Central government, only six were approved. Many of the claims of the States were not provided funds by the Centre, as they had not notified the per-child costs. In response to my query regarding the number of children admitted, per State, under the Section 12(1)(c) in the last three years, 18 States have claimed that the question is not applicable to them, without giving any reason for this response. This could mean that in 18 States, poor children are not even benefiting under this Act. If there are no data to record the number of students being admitted, it begs the question as to how States are reimbursing private schools. The respective State governments and the Centre should clarify this specific point.
Many gaps to fill
•According to Indus Action, an organisation which works in 10 States specifically on this provision, while there are higher order issues like the methodology used by States to calculate the per-child cost and lack of coverage of ancillary costs in the reimbursements, the absence of a streamlined disbursement framework both at the Central and State levels is one of the biggest reasons that reimbursements are not processed. If the States are not provided sufficient funds, private schools would be forced to bear the costs of the children. Civil society activists have informed me of instances of schools refusing to admit children under the RTE provision, citing non-payment of dues by State governments.
•The data regarding the number of children admitted under Section 12(1)(c) of the Act, in States which provided the figures, are also distressing. The number of children studying under this provision increased by 6,12,053 from 2014-2015 to 2015-16, but by 5,02,880 from 2015-16 to 2016-17. The State of the Nation 2015 report by IIM Ahmedabad, based on official data obtained from the District Information System for Education, puts the total number of seats under this provision as 1.6 crore over the next eight years. This means that 20 lakh seats should be available annually for EWS children in private schools under the Act; however, according to the answer of the Minister, only 5-6 lakh seats are being filled on an annual basis.
•The Preamble to the Constitution states that the democratic Republic of India shall secure social, economic and political justice. Education is undoubtedly the most important element in the movement to secure this end. Although the Directive Principles of State Policy mandate the state to provide children the right to access education, and the 86th constitutional amendment and the RTE dictate its implementation, it will only be fulfilled if sincere efforts are made by the States under the guidance and prodding of a committed Centre.
•The executive is responsible for the implementation of RTE and the legislature has the duty to hold the executive accountable. Neither – judging by the evidence – has done its job properly.
•As the malaise regarding the non-implementation of the RTE is spread across the country, the Central government should immediately convene a meeting with all the State education ministers and review the implementation of the law. The RTE aimed to provide a framework for private schools to supplement the efforts of the state to uplift disadvantaged sections of society through the means of education. We need to act immediately to address the gaps in the implementation of the law. The future of our children depends on it.
📰 NSA to head new Defence panel
The committee will draft reports on national security strategy, says notification
•The new permanent higher defence management committee headed by the National Security Adviser can help improve India’s defence planning in the long term, but may end up having no noticeable impact if the present government does not return to power in 2019, several military sources and observers say.
•While some of them hailed the move to place the committee under the NSA, Ajit Doval, others said it gave the NSA an unprecedented role in the process of planning India’s security strategy.
Plan of action
•A government notification on Wednesday said the Defence Planning Committee (DPC) would prepare a draft national security strategy, develop a capability development plan and work on defence diplomacy issues and improving defence manufacturing in India. The DPC will submit its reports to the Defence Minister.
•The DPC will have the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, three service chiefs, secretaries of the Ministries of Defence, Expenditure and Foreign Affairs as its members. The Chief of the Integrated Staff in the MOD will be the member secretary, and his headquarters will be the secretariat.
•The notification listed four sub-committees of the DPC. One will look at policy and strategy; the second will work on plans and capability development; the third on defence diplomacy; and the fourth on defence manufacturing ecosystem. Members of these sub-committees will be decided by the DPC, which is expected to hold its first meeting soon after Mr. Doval returns from Germany on April 21, officials said.
Mixed reaction
•Most observers said the DPC would be able to make no visible impact during the tenure of this government.
•“The government will be lameduck in a few months’ time. It will make no impact during this government’s tenure. If the next government is a different one, they will dump this committee,” a serving senior military officer said.
•Another officer said this the first time the NSA would be having such a direct role in planning India’s security strategy.
•“I am not saying it is right or wrong. But no NSA has had chairmanship of such a committee, with such luminaries,” he said.
•Vice-Admiral S.C.S. Bangara (Retd.), who had a ring side view of the only effort to bring military integration after Kargil conflict, said there were many good aspects to the present move.
•The Vajpayee government called off in the last moment a plan to appoint India’s first Chief of the Integrated Staff, who would have overseen theatre commands and integrated strategies for all three service arms.
•“Long ago we used to have a Defence Planning Committee but it had no clear mandate. We have had the National Security Advisory Board making reports. But none of it worked. We do not still have a national security strategy that is handed down by the government, and our acquisitions are not informed by such a laid out strategy,” he said.
📰 Should military spending be increased?
India risks its national security withlow allocations to defence spending
•For a developing country that is committed to enhancing the quality of life of its citizens, defence is usually the last thing on the nation’s mind. Yet, no government that is committed to such a cause can ignore the existing physical and psychological security threats. These threats are more than just ordinary in India, a country located in a dangerous neighbourhood and facing both internal and external threats. Comprehensive national security helps a nation attain its aspirations, and robust security is a subset of that. India has a robust military machine. However, the lack of a national security strategy, a national strategic culture and a transformational approach towards its military capability prevent it from obtaining optimum benefit from its defence expenditure.
Resource allotment
•The defence budget is increasingly looked at as a means to provide incremental resources to other sectors, since procedural delays prevent its optimum and timely expenditure. Does this mean that the resource allotment is sufficient for India’s defence spending and only mismanagement is responsible for the lack of optimisation? Far from it.
•In February, the Army transparently deposed before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence and stated two pertinent things: one, 68% of its equipment was in the vintage category, and two, with the new budget allocation of 1.47% of GDP, the sustenance of at least 24 capital projects is in jeopardy. The Army received Rs. 268.2 billion for modernisation as against its demand for Rs. 445.7 billion. With the Doklam crisis and the necessity of mobilising the Siliguri-based Corps, along with other priority resources from many other sectors to make up existing deficiencies and optimise the Corps’ capability, the Army expended almost its entire allocation of the transportation budget. In January, it had no money to even hire vehicles. The revenue budget amounts to a little over 80%, leaving little for capital expenditure through which modernisation is to be executed. Drawdown of a manpower-intensive Army that consumes the revenue cannot be done overnight. Thus, even as this drawdown is seriously executed, we cannot allow modernisation to languish.
•Military security involves the development of such capability to deter potential adversaries from undertaking inimical activities that may result in forms of adventurism or even proxy interference in a nation’s affairs. The result may never translate into immediate tangible gains. Since understanding of national security at the bureaucratic and decision-making levels remains abysmal, the focus on modernisation has suffered. With huge bureaucratic controls, and a Defence Ministry with no military presence, the comprehension of priorities itself remains suspect. This can only be overcome if decisions are timely and procedures for acquisition are fast-tracked. Also, financial support should be sufficient with systems which do not call for a lapse of financial resources, once allotted. Without higher allocation, the armed forces may be unable to reach even the first level of transformation they seek.
Managing expenditure
•Not just higher allocation, management of expenditure also needs a complete revamp. Amid the focus on prevention of potential corruption, the larger picture of timely and optimum capability development has been ignored. Arguably, limited leakages could still be acceptable if timeliness of delivery is achieved even as more efficient procedures are implemented.
📰 Kailadevi tiger births a pointer to space crunch
Overpopulation in Ranthambore forces the big cats to often move to the adjacent wildlife reserve
•The birth of two tiger cubs in the Kailadevi wildlife sanctuary of Rajasthan's Karauli district recently has gladdened wildlife enthusiasts across the country, but it also points to a space crunch in the wildlife habitats which has forced the big cats to move out of the main area of Ranthambore National Park on their own.
•Tigress T-92 was spotted with two cubs, both about three and a half months old, at Ninder Ki Khoh near Mandrayal last week. The tiger cubs have been born in Kailadevi after nearly three decades. The four-and-a-half-year-old T-92 and male T-72, also known as Sultan, with whom it mated, are among the four tigers that have moved from Ranthambhore to Kailadevi.
Territorial disputes
•Forest authorities say overpopulation of tigers in Ranthambore National Park had led to territorial disputes, because of which the big cats were making frequent movements to the adjacent Kailadevi wildlife reserve, which had a size of 676 sq. km. T-72 migrated from Sultanpur area of Ranthambore to Mandrayal, when it was threatened by another tiger.
•The area of new births comprises scrub forest having isolated water sources and is surrounded by villagers and livestock settled in isolated pockets. Located in the Vindhya hill zone, the wildlife reserve has a rocky terrain with slopes, ravines and cave-like depressions, all clad with scanty shrubs and bushes. The banyan and peepal trees offer shade and shelter to tigers.
•A Ranthambore tigress has given litter outside the main national park area for the first time. Kailadevi's area has been officially included in about 400 sq. km area of Sawai Madhopur district's Ranthambore to develop it as a national park with more than 1,000 sq. km area.
Lacking support system
•Tourism and Wildlife Society of India honorary secretary Harsh Vardhan said here on Tuesday that the migration of tigers was a “clear indication” that Ranthambore lacked the basic support system for being administered as a designated tiger reserve. The national park had insufficient forest staff, he said.
•However, the birth of tiger cubs in Kailadevi had proved that tigers could live along with the villagers and their livestock in a habitat which did not offer much of the natural prey base of sambar, spotted deer, wild boar, etc., said Mr. Vardhan. “As Ranthambore's main area is unable to accommodate newborn cubs, tigers are exploring new places for their families,” he said.
•Earlier this month, Ranthambore's male tiger T-91 was relocated to the protected Mukundara Hills Tiger Reserve in Kota district. The tiger had been exploring new territories and living in the peripheral forests near Bundi for the last few months.
