📰 Downturn in ties with Maldives hits Indians’ job opportunities
Advertisements from companies that are hiring say “Indians need not apply” as they would not be given permits to work there
•In a short span of six months, 21-year-old Dinesh Nair’s* hopes have turned to dust, after the dream job he was offered was taken away because of the downturn in India-Maldives ties.
•Since February, when Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen ordered an Emergency, which India took a strong position against, the Maldives Immigration Authority has reportedly held up thousands of work permits to Indians, including Mr. Nair’s, who was offered a well-paid position at the premier Four Seasons Resort.
•“I gave up several other job offers to accept this one; little did I know that I would be facing unemployment instead,” he told The Hindu, barely able to hold back his tears as he spoke over the telephone, saying that he is worried about being able to pay back education loans of about ₹3 lakh.
•More startling are public advertisements from companies that are hiring, but say clearly that “Indians need not apply”, as they would not be given work permits. One post by the internationally renowned Marriott chain of hotels that advertised on Wednesday for 18 jobs said: “Please note that work permits are not currently being issued to Indian Nationals.”
•The general manager of the St. Regis in Vommuli, Alexander Blair, also advertised for the chef of an Indian speciality restaurant, adding on his page on the online jobs network LinkedIn, “Unfortunately, with the current situation that Work Permits are not being granted to Indian Nationals, we are ideally searching for an Indian who is holding another passport or is the spouse of a Maldivian.” The Hindu reached out to Mr. Blair for a comment, but he did not respond.
•Despite the increasing numbers of desperate job-seekers, the MEA has refused to take up the matter, and the Embassy of India in the Maldives (EoI) has replied to queries from the job-seekers by saying it cannot help.
•“It is the prerogative of the Maldivian immigration to issue visa or not,” said one reply from the visa officer at the EoI in Male. Sources say India has taken up the issue through diplomatic channels “urging the Maldives government to abide by the bilateral visa agreement,” with the hope that the matter would be resolved soon.
•But for some like 31-year-old registered male nurse Thomas Jacob*, time is running out, as the manager of a resort that hired him now says he will not hold his job beyond July 1. He says his “only hope” is to have his voice heard by the Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi, and spends “morning, noon and night” at his hometown in Kerala tweeting to Minister Sushma Swaraj and emailing officials concerned.
Banking on Minister
•Mr. Jacob had been working at a hospital in Male when he was recruited as a nurse at an upscale resort in January. He accepted the job, and decided to return home for a brief holiday to see his four-year-old son and wife who is pregnant, while his work permit was being sorted out.
•“My entire family, my parents all depend on me and now I can’t even pay my life insurance premium or my loans back. Ms. Swaraj listens to all sorts of requests from people, and hundreds of us have been mass-tweeting her for days hoping she will do something,” he told The Hindu. “Frankly, it’s my last hope, as I have no job options here,” he said.
•The Maldivian Embassy in Delhi declined to comment on the issue. On March 12, Immigration Department spokesman Hassan Khaleel told the Maldives’ Independent newspaper that reports of visa delays for Indians were “completely false.”
•However, officials who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity said that thousands of Indians face a squeeze on their work permits from the Maldivian government in place since February, and there appeared to be a “strict directive” from the Maldivian President’s office against work permits to Indians, as well as against facilitating other requests from Indian companies there. Around 29,000 Indians live and work in the Maldives, and an estimated 2,000 have pending applications for work permits.
•India-Maldives ties have been on the downswing since 2015, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi cancelled his visit to Male over the treatment of opposition leaders by President Yameen. Since then, China’s growing presence and a free trade agreement with Beijing as well as President Yameen’s emergency declaration and arrest of opposition leaders have led to protests from India, further straining ties. On Tuesday, The Hindu had reported that the Maldives has told India to remove its helicopters from two strategic locations by the end of June, when visas of Indian Coast guard and naval pilots and personnel manning the choppers will expire; an indication that ties could plummet further.
📰 An improbable friendship
Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un have stunned the world. They may yet surprise us by pulling off a détente
•“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t,” wrote Mark Twain. Nothing proves it better than the summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore on Tuesday. No reality TV show could have scripted an episode with greater suspense and drama than what the two leaders successfully imparted to their meeting.
•Mr. Trump, the 72-year-old leader of one of the world’s oldest democracies, an $18 trillion economy with a 1.3 million strong military, of whom 28,500 troops are deployed in South Korea, and Chairman Kim, at 34 the third-generation leader of a totalitarian state with an impoverished economy estimated at less than $40 billion and a military force of 1.2 million with a newly acquired nuclear capability, make for an unusual couple. And yet, as Mr. Trump said, “From the beginning we got along.” Describing Mr. Kim as “very talented”, he recalled with a degree of empathy that the North Korean had faced a challenge when he took over his country at just 26 years.
Art of making friends
•Less than a year ago, the heightened rhetoric on both sides had led to growing concerns about the possibility of a nuclear exchange as North Korea ramped up its nuclear and missile testing programmes. In September 2017, it conducted its sixth nuclear test, declaring it a thermonuclear device, a claim that has been disputed. However, with a yield of 100-300 kt (kiloton), it marked a significant improvement from earlier tests. Four of the six tests have been undertaken by Mr. Kim with a view to miniaturising the device to fit a missile warhead.
•Simultaneously, he accelerated the missile programme conducting over 80 flight tests during the last seven years, compared to 16 undertaken by his father from 1994 to 2011. At least three new missiles have been successfully tested and inducted. These include the Musudan (around 3,500 km), Hwasong 12 (4,500 km) and Hwasong 14 (around 10,000 km). Last November, Hwasong 15 was tested with a range estimated at 13,000 km, making it clear that North Korea was close to developing the capability to target the U.S. mainland.
•Mr. Trump warned North Korea with “fire and fury like the world has never seen”. North Korea responded by threatening to hit Guam “enveloping it in fire”. Mr. Trump announced that “military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded”. The UN Security Council met repeatedly, tightening economic sanctions on North Korea. Mr. Trump described Mr. Kim as a “rocket man on a suicide mission for himself and his regime” while North Korea vowed to “tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire”. Russia and China appealed for restraint, proposing a “freeze for freeze”, calling on the U.S. to stop military exercises with South Korea in return for North Korea halting its nuclear and missile testing.
Beginnings of a thaw
•The situation began to change with Mr. Kim’s New Year’s address indicating that North Korea had achieved its nuclear deterrent capability and offering a new opening in relations with South Korea as it prepared to host the Winter Olympics in February. Things moved rapidly thereafter. The two Korean teams marched together at the opening ceremony and the presence of Mr. Kim’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, added a dash of bonhomie to the soft diplomacy.
•Two senior South Korean officials visited Pyongyang in early March. Over a long dinner conversation, Mr. Kim indicated continued restraint on testing and willingness to discuss denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula if military threats to North Korea decreased and regime safety was guaranteed. The testing restraint was formally declared on April 21, a week before the summit between the two Korean leaders on April 27 in Panmunjom, which was acclaimed a success.
•The U.S. was kept fully briefed by South Korean officials and in early March Mr. Trump indicated readiness to meet Mr. Kim, leading to heightened speculation about mismatched expectations all around. Even after two visits by Mike Pompeo (first as CIA chief and then as Secretary of State) and the release of three Americans sentenced for spying, there were hiccups when National Security Adviser John Bolton held up the “Libyan model” for North Korea’s disarmament and the U.S. launched air combat exercises together with South Korea. North Korea responded angrily. The summit was put off, followed by an exchange of conciliatory letters between the two leaders amid mounting suspense, and on June 1 the summit was reinstated.
•There have been previous attempts by the U.S. to address concerns regarding North Korea’s nuclear programme. The first was the 1994 Agreed Framework after North Korea threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This was annulled by the Bush administration in 2002 with the ‘axis of evil’ speech. Consequently, North Korea withdrew from the NPT. The Six Party talks (second round) were initiated in 2004, resulting in a joint statement the following year reiterating commitment to denuclearisation, with a peace treaty and security guarantees to be concluded. The process collapsed when the U.S. imposed new sanctions, and in 2006 North Korea conducted its first nuclear test.
Changed situation
•Since then, the situation has changed. The old process is dead; North Korean capabilities have grown dramatically, increasing anxiety especially in South Korea and Japan and Chinese worries about U.S. deployment of missile defence in South Korea. There are challenges too. The U.S. would ideally like complete, verifiable and irreversible disarmament as would Japan. North Korea seeks regime legitimacy and regime security together with sanctions relief while reducing its dependency on China. China would like to prolong the process to ensure its centrality. And South Korea would like to lower tensions while retaining the American presence. Reconciling these needs time and sustained dialogue.
•The Joint Statement in Singapore is shy on detail but carries political promise. Instead of obsessing on the nuclear issue, it reflects clear recognition that a new beginning in U.S.-North Korea relations is possible only by replacing the 1953 Armistice Agreement with a permanent peace treaty and that regime security guarantee for North Korea is a prerequisite for denuclearisation. Mr. Trump has accepted that the denuclearisation process will take time, but he wants to take it to a point that makes it irreversible. The affirmation of the Panmunjom Declaration (signed between the two Korean leaders in April) means that bilateral normalisation between the two Koreas will move apace and a meeting involving the U.S. and possibly China to conclude a peace treaty can happen by end-2018.
•Mr. Trump’s unilateral announcements at the press conference are equally promising. He announced suspension of joint military exercises with South Korea and indicated that North Korea would dismantle a major missile engine testing site. There is no sanctions relief yet but given the changing psychological backdrop, it is likely that there may be a loosening by China and Russia.
•Summit diplomacy has a mixed record. In 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon travelled to China for the first summit with Chairman Mao Zedong leading to a realignment of political forces whose impact is still reverberating. In 1986, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met in Reykjavik, coming close to agreement on abolition of all nuclear weapons till realpolitik eventually prevailed.
•With Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim, it is difficult to predict how the process will unfold but it is a new opening. One can almost visualise Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim telling each other as they said their goodbyes in Singapore: “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
📰 The missing tiers
The disempowerment and depoliticisation of urban local government has happened in multiple ways
•Twenty-five years ago, the Constitution underwent what is arguably its most significant transformation with the passage of the 73rd (mandating the creation of panchayats) and the 74th (creation of municipalities) Constitutional Amendments. While the 73rd Amendment came into force on April 24, 1993, the 74th Amendment came into effect on June 1, 1993. As the Central Government’s Smart Cities mission completes three years this month, it’s the right time to examine India’s tryst with municipal governance.
•Much has been written about the failure of States to implement the provisions of the 74th Amendment. However, it is important to examine concerns in the underlying constitutional design of urban local governments and the politics impeding this Amendment’s operation. The “implementation failure” narrative tends to focus on how local governments are financially constrained and do not have the administrative capacity to carry out its functions. It is also important to explore how urban local governments are actively disempowered and depoliticised as an institution.
•The disempowerment and depoliticisation has happened in multiple ways. First, elected representatives at the city-level are rendered powerless by making them subservient to the State government. In most municipal corporations, while the mayor is the ceremonial head, the executive powers of the corporation are vested with the State government-appointed commissioner. This disjuncture in municipal governance has been exploited by State governments to ensure that no city-level politician challenges their control over a city.
An overshadowing
•Municipal corporations are further denied their political role by the continued operation of various parastatal agencies created by the State government. These may take the form of urban development authorities (which build infrastructure) and public corporations (which provide services such as water, electricity and transportation). These agencies, which function with a certain autonomy, are accountable only to the State government, not the local government. Even urban planning and land-use regulation (globally a quintessential local government function) is with State government-controlled development authorities.
•While parastatal agencies and unelected commissioners are pre-74th Amendment legacies that have not been undone, what is also worrying is the further depoliticisation of local government in recent years. Central government programmes such as the Smart Cities Mission seek to ring fence projects from local government. This programme mandates the creation of special purpose vehicles (SPVs) for Smart Cities which will have “operational independence and autonomy in decision making and mission implementation”. It further “encourages” a State government to delegate “the decision-making powers available to the ULB (urban local body) under the municipal act/government rules to the Chief Executive Officer of the SPV”.
•The creation of parallel institutions that disempower the elected local government shows how higher levels of government distrust local politics and craftily retain control of a city’s reins. Even for performing functions that are within its purview (such as levying local taxes or undertaking civic projects above a certain budget) the local government requires State government permissions. Hence, municipalities are not yet autonomous units that can be genuinely called as the “third tier” of government in India’s federal system. Even after the 73rd and 74th Amendments, India has effectively only two levels of government — Union and State.
Future pathways
•While the 74th Amendment has become a lodestar for civic activism in many cities, it has certain inherent limitations. Many of its key provisions are not mandatory for the State government. The functions listed under the 12th Schedule — which a State government is expected to devolve to the local government — do not include essential civic issues such as urban transportation, housing or urban commons. The 74th Amendment also contains an industrial township exception whereby a municipality need not be constituted in areas which are declared as industrial townships. These provisions have been employed by State governments to keep local governments weak.
•Civic activism has often been focussed on the creation of two bodies mandated by the 74th Amendment — ward committees and metropolitan planning committees. However, an over-reliance on such semi-representative bodies does not augur well for creating a genuinely democratic city government. In fact, civil society’s fixation with nominating its members into ward committees can further depoliticise local governments and make them captive to the interests of certain elite resident welfare associations. Instead of distrusting them, we must acknowledge that local governments are inherently political spaces where multiple interests compete.
•As cities struggle to meet the basic needs of their inhabitants, we must re-examine the existing modes of organising power in urban India. Unlike the 73rd Amendment which provides for three levels of panchayats (village, taluk, and district levels), power in urban areas is concentrated in a single municipal body (whether it is a municipal corporation, municipal council or town panchayat). However, as Indian cities have grown exponentially over the last 25 years, with some crossing the 10 million population mark, we must rethink the present model of urban governance that vests power in a singular municipality. While urban governance reforms can take multiple shapes, they must be foregrounded in the political empowerment of local government that furthers local democratic accountability.
📰 The math problem in faculty reservation
•The recent notification of the University Grants Commission (UGC), in response to an Allahabad High Court judgment of April 2017, directing all the universities and colleges to implement the reservation policy by treating the department or subject as a unit rather than the university or college has received strong opposition. When the department is taken as a unit, then at least one appointment from each reserved category will be made only when a minimum of 14 appointments are made (known as the 13-point roster). However, when the university or college is taken as a unit, every reserved category gets the earmarked percentage of reservation when a minimum of 200 appointments are made (known as the 200-point roster). The advantage of the 200-point roster over the 13-point roster is that deficit in reservation in one department is compensated by other departments.
Delhi University as a case study
•In order to study the impact of this decision on deprived sections, let’s take the example of Delhi University (DU). The 13-point roster was implemented in DU only in 1997 to provide reservation to Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) with the following specifications: the first six posts were to be kept unreserved, the 7th post was to be reserved for a SC, and the 14th post for a ST. After the completion of one full cycle, the same cycle was repeated. Later, in 2007, in order to accommodate 27% reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs), every fourth seat was kept reserved for OBCs in the same roster (see table).
•It is clear from column 3 that even after completing a full cycle, reservation reaches a highest level of only 35.7%, which is short of the constitutionally mandated 49.5%. Further, if the size of the department is below 14, it widens the gap between the constitutionally mandated percentage of reservation and the actually realised percentage.
•The faulty roster was made on the basis of dividing 100 by the percentage of reservation given to any reserved group. Since reservation for OBCs is 27%, the community would be given every 4th position (100/27=3.7, or 4th position), while a SC (100/15=6.7, or 7th position) and a ST (100/7.5=13.3, or 14th position) would be given the 7th and 14th positions, respectively. It is clear from columns 2 and 3 that despite the constitutionally mandated 49.5%, people belonging to the reserved categories were getting only five out of 14 positions (35.71% reservation).
•This is because of the fallacy of composition. Had the roster for reserved positions been made taking all the reserved categories together (49.5% or approximately 50%), every 2nd position (100/49.5=2nd position) would have been reserved, which could later be distributed within all the reserved categories according to their respective reservation, i.e. OBC 27%, SC 15% and ST 7.5%. We can see in columns 4 and 5 that reservation could have been given without breaching the 50% cap laid down by the Supreme Court for unreserved posts if every even number position was kept reserved in the 13-point roster.
•However, a mathematical juggling has been used by the policymakers to reduce the constitutionally mandated reservation for the deprived sections. Moreover, this faulty roster denies even a single representation from the deprived sections in smaller departments, such as Sanskrit or Environment Science, where a maximum of three teachers are required. For instance, let us assume that three teachers are required in the Sanskrit department in all the nearly 70 colleges of DU. Then, at least 210 teachers of Sanskrit will be appointed, without even a single teacher from any reserved category making it.
Denial of reservation is not new
•If we look at the history of implementation of the reservation policy in DU and other Central institutions, there have always been some efforts to evade the policy, irrespective of the political party in power. Almost 50 years of delay in implementation of the reservation policy came along with a faulty 13-point roster. Even this late and poor implementation has not deterred the authorities from denying reservation to many eligible candidates by labelling them ‘not found suitable’. To evade reservation, authorities have often changed their tactics. The reservation policy was misinterpreted. Reservation was provided only at the level of Assistant Professor and denied at the levels of Associate Professor and Professor. As a result, most of the advertisements for teaching positions had a proportionately higher number of positions for Associate Professors and Professors rather than for Assistant Professors. Then the authorities took another stand to evade reservation, which was in the form of rolling advertisements, where the number of posts reserved in any department is not earmarked. In fact, the idea was to not provide any reservation in a department where applications from the reserved category had been received. It was easy to do so, since the reserved positions were to be earmarked only after receiving the applications.
•All these manipulations have resulted in meagre representation of reserved categories in all Central universities. The UGC Annual Report 2016-17 shows that the representation of SCs, STs and OBCs at the highest level of teaching position (Professor) in all Central universities excluding colleges is just 3.2%, 1.1% and 1.1%, respectively. If we observe closely, we find that the representation of these deprived sections is also poor at the lower levels of teaching positions (Associate Professor and Assistant Professor), where their combined representation is just 7.8% and 32.1%, respectively.
•The apprehension of reserved categories is not baseless if we look at the advertisements of faculty positions post the UGC letter dated March 5, 2018, by various Central universities. For instance, the advertisement of IGNTU (Amarkantak) gives only one seat to SCs/STs/OBCs out of 52, while CUTN (Thiruvarur) has given only two seats out of 65.
•Thus, we see that students and teachers belonging to the reserved categories are not opposing the 13-point roster itself but its flaws, which are reflected in the recent advertisements and also in the UGC report. Even the apprehension of the Supreme Court that the 200-point roster could result in some departments/subjects having all the reserved candidates and some having only unreserved candidates can easily be addressed by reordering it: Give every second position to the reserved categories while maintaining the internal sequence of reserved positions intact (except the 100th position which shall be kept unreserved to restrict reservation to 49.5%).
📰 The crimes of a few condemn the fate of many
The profound lack of support for Rohingya refugees in India is shameful
•On May 22, Amnesty International (AI) released a briefing that revealed that a Rohingya armed group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), had committed serious human rights abuses against Hindus in northern Rakhine State in Myanmar. As a movement that campaigns to end human rights abuses against all people, AI aims to uncover all cases of human rights violations without bias, regardless of who the perpetrators are and where the violations are committed.
•The May 22 briefing follows AI’s earlier reports documenting military attacks on the Rohingya that led to more than 693,000 people fleeing from their homes to other countries. This briefing and other AI reports on the situation in Myanmar point to the overwhelming evidence that the Myanmar authorities have been unable, or dare I say, unwilling to protect its civilians.
It’s about people
•The issue here is not about which “side” committed more atrocities. The issue is about people. About civilians. About mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, who have been killed, maimed and brutalised. It is about their rights as human beings.
•We should be calling for better protection for survivors fleeing persecution in accordance with international human rights law. We should be calling for justice, truth and reparation for victims and their families. We should be calling for unfettered access to the northern Rakhine State for independent investigators. However, the reaction to the briefing report has been deeply disturbing.
•Some politicians and media outlets are using AI’s briefing to advocate the mass expulsion of the Rohingya. The debate has further deteriorated to unfairly and unreasonably attributing the condemnable actions of the armed ARSA to all Rohingya people. What this means is that we are willing to demonise and malign an entire community for abuses they may not have committed.
•Despite irrefutable evidence that Rohingya people fleeing to India are at serious risk of human rights violations in Myanmar, the Indian government has refused to recognise them as asylum seekers and refugees. Instead the Rohingya have been labelled as “illegal immigrants” — even those recognised as refugees by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in India. In fact, in August last year, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs proposed to forcibly return to Myanmar all the 40,000 Rohingya refugees in India. The Ministry claimed that the Rohingya are a threat to national security.
•Why is it that the only solution envisioned by Indian authorities to address security concerns, in this case, is to forcibly return people to the real risk of apartheid and death?
•There have been no attempts to consider alternative measures to distinguish people who actually pose a threat from people in dire need of protection. The mass expulsion of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar would be an abject dereliction of India’s obligations under international law. In the past, AI India has advocated that the most effective way for the Indian government to address security concerns is to conduct “fair and efficient refugee determination proceedings”.
A straightforward solution
•The UN Refugee Convention provides a straightforward solution to deal with the potential security concerns involving asylum seekers. Article 1F of the Convention excludes protection for those involved in serious crimes. Therefore, if India acceded to the Refugee Convention, it would be able to effectively assess Rohingya asylum applications and deny protection to those who might fall under Article 1F exceptions, such as members of ARSA who participated in the August 2017 violence.
•Indian authorities have outsourced refugee status determination to the UNHCR, which follows a rigorous process. However, this is largely meaningless as India refuses to officially recognise Rohingya people identified as refugees by the UNHCR. These people are left in a state of limbo with neither the UNHCR nor the Indian government providing them effective protection.
•The profound lack of support for Rohingya refugees in India is shameful. Even though India is not a party to the Refugee Convention, it has always had a longstanding tradition of providing shelter to those seeking protection. However, in this instance, it seems to be faltering, and it is time we question why.
📰 Green ambitions — on renewable energy targets
Policy tweaks and incentives are needed to meet the renewable energy targets
•In a surprising statement this month, Union Power Minister R.K. Singh said India would overshoot its target of installing 175 gigawatts of capacity from renewable energy sources by 2022. India was on track, he said, to hit 225 GW of renewable capacity by then. This is a tall claim, considering India has missed several interim milestones since it announced its 175 GW target in 2015. The misses happened despite renewable capacity being augmented at a blistering pace, highlighting how ambitious the initial target was. Technological and financial challenges remain: both wind and solar generation could be erratic, and India’s creaky electricity grid must be modernised to distribute such power efficiently. Meanwhile, wind and solar tariffs have hit such low levels that suppliers are working with wafer-thin margins. This means small shocks can knock these sectors off their growth trajectories. The obstacles have capped capacity addition to 69 GW till date, with India missing its 2016 and 2017 milestones. To hit its 2022 target of 175 GW, 106 GW will have to be added in four years, more than twice the capacity added in the last four.
•In the solar sector alone, which the government is prioritising, policy uncertainties loom large. Manufacturers of photovoltaic (PV) cells have demanded a 70% safeguard duty on Chinese PV imports, and the Directorate General of Trade Remedies will soon take a call on this. But any such duty will deal a body blow to solar-power suppliers, who rely heavily on Chinese hardware, threatening the growth of the sector. There is also the problem of the rooftop-solar segment. Of the current goal of 100 GW from solar energy by 2022, 40 GW is to come from rooftop installations, and 60 GW from large solar parks. Despite being the fastest-growing renewable-energy segment so far — rooftop solar clocked a compound annual growth rate of 117% between 2013 and 2017 — India only hit 3% of its goal by the end of 2017, according to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance report. The reason? Homeowners aren’t warming up to the idea of installing photovoltaic panels on their terraces because the economics does not work out for them. Compared to industries and commercial establishments, a home typically needs less power and will not use everything it generates. So, homeowners need to be able to sell electricity back to the grid, which in turn needs a nationwide “net-metering” policy. As of today, only a few States have such policies, discouraging users elsewhere. Such challenges can be overcome with the right incentives, but they will take time to kick in. The good news is that even if India hits the 175 GW target, it stands to meet its greenhouse-gas emission goal under the Paris climate agreement. This in itself will be a worthy achievement. Overshooting this target will be a plus, but until the government tackles the policy challenges, it must hold off on implausible claims.
📰 Fortress mentality
The Army should open up all its cantonments
•There is a raging debate in military circles about the opening of cantonment roads in Secunderabad. Many civilians do not know that cantonments are governed by an elected body under the Cantonment Act, which alone can legislate and approve closure of public roads. In the past, the Army has closed public roads for security, without approval from the Cantonment Board.
•The Army mindset is still colonial. The Army believes that it is safe inside a deemed fortress, which belongs to it. It does not realise the discomfort that is caused to all those who undergo repeated security checks when entering a Cantonment. After all, these are public spaces. Private schools, hospitals, shopping complexes and parks are accessed by all, not just the military. Bungalows and residential complexes are owned by civilians who have the right to come and go freely. Of course, several bungalows which are Old Grant are occupied by serving defence officers. Residential quarters, Regimental Centres, unit lines and offices are also inside these cantonments.
•In a country where the Army is trying to showcase its sacrifices and valour, how can it do so by hiding behind a curtain of security? When serving as Commandant of Madras Engineer Group (MEG) and Centre in Bengaluru, I was very surprised to meet a family that had lived right next to our main gate for four decades and did not know what was inside that gate. On the following weekend, we conducted a tour of our 500-acre campus for all who lived around us. Today, MEG conducts a history walk inside the campus on weekends for the Bengaluru public. In Chennai, I have met scores of professionals who have passed by the mighty portals of the Officers Training Academy (OTA) every day, and did not know that the OTA trained graduate men and women to be officers. Why do we need to create such formidable barriers and isolate ourselves? It seems to be a perceived threat from the unseen militant or Pakistani agent, who is everywhere. And in protecting ourselves from this threat, we are denying our own people a peek into our daily lives.
•We should open up all our cantonments. Wherever there is a likely threat, use modern means of Artificial Intelligence, drones, CCTV and well-equipped Quick Reaction Team commandos. In places where there is a need, create military bases that have only the military and their families living and working there.
•There is also a dire need to change the military mindset and strategic thinking. During Operation Pawan in northern Sri Lanka, the LTTE told the public, “The IPKF were thinking that they were safe inside their small bases while we operate freely outside, by night and by day.” We should be mentally mobile and not fixed inside bases. This would also keep the enemy guessing and not expose our weak spots. The cardinal rule should be to never harass or subject our own citizens to unnecessary security checks.
📰 National Dam Safety Authority in the works
Cabinet clears Bill to create body
•The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved a proposal for introduction of the Dam Safety Bill, 2018 in Parliament.
•The Bill envisages a National Dam Safety Authority, which will liaise with State-level dam safety organisations and the owners of dams for standardising safety-related data and practices. The NDSA will investigate dam failures and have the authority to fine the States that are found remiss in implementing safety measures.
•It will look into “unresolved points of issue” between the States which share dam territory and look to “eliminating potential causes for inter-State conflicts,” an official release said.
•A case in point is the Mullaperiyar dam in Kerala, which is a perennial flashpoint between the State and neighbouring Tamil Nadu.
•The Chennai floods of 2015 due to unusually heavy rain were thought to have been compounded by an unprecedented release of water from the Chembarambakkam dam into the Adyar.
•Due to lack of legal and institutional architecture for dam safety in India, dam safety is a perennial concern.
📰 Cleaning up balance sheets
What is a ‘bad bank’?
•The Central government has revived the idea of setting up an asset reconstruction or asset management company, a sort of ‘bad bank’ first mooted by Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian in January 2017. Mr. Subramanian had envisaged a Public Sector Asset Rehabilitation Agency that would take on public sector banks’ chronic bad loans and focus on their resolution and the extraction of any residual value from the underlying asset. This would allow government-owned banks to focus on their core operations of providing credit for fresh investments and economic activity. Unlike a private asset reconstruction company, a government-owned bad bank would be more likely to purchase loans that have no salvage value from public sector banks. It would thus work as an indirect bailout of these banks by the government.
How will it be capitalised?
•The bad bank will require significant capital to purchase stressed loan accounts from public sector banks. The size of gross NPAs on the books of public sector banks is currently over ₹10 lakh crore. The chances of private participation are low unless investors are allowed a major say in the governance of the new entity. Private asset reconstruction companies have been operating in the country for a while now, but have met with little success in resolving stressed loans. The CEA had proposed a significant part of the bad bank funding to come from the Reserve Bank of India, which is likely to be a tricky proposition. That means the government, which is already committed to recapitalising state-run banks, will have to be the single largest contributor of capital even if private investors are roped in.
How will it help the NPA problem?
•Hiving off stressed loan accounts to a bad bank would free public sector bank balance sheets from their deleterious impact and improve their financial position. As the quality of a bank’s assets deteriorates, its capital position (assets minus liabilities) is weakened, increasing the chances of insolvency. Some analysts believe that many public sector banks are effectively insolvent due to their poor asset quality. Consequently, banks have turned risk-averse and credit growth has taken a hit. If managed well, a bad bank can clean up bank balance sheets and get them to start lending again to businesses. But it will not address the more serious corporate governance issues plaguing public sector banks that led to the NPA problem in the first place.
📰 India, China discuss ‘Oil Buyers Club’
Move may help negotiate better prices
•With oil producers’ cartel OPEC playing havoc with prices, India discussed with China the possibility of forming an ‘oil buyers club’ that can negotiate better terms with sellers as well as getting more U.S. crude oil to Asia to cut dominance of the oil block.
•As a follow up of Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s idea floated at the International Energy Forum (IEF) meeting here in April, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) Chairman Sanjiv Singh travelled to Beijing this month to meet Wang Yilin, Chairman of China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), a top source said.
De-bottlenecking infra
•On the discussion table was de-bottlenecking infrastructure to facilitate more U.S. crude oil coming to Asia so as to cut the dominance of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which supplies about 60% of India’s oil needs.
•Production cuts by OPEC have led to international oil prices hitting a four-year high last month that forced a Rs. 3.8 per litre raise in petrol and Rs. 3.38 a litre increase in diesel prices. Rates started to cool towards month end and retail prices have been cut thereafter.
•In a throwback to 2005 when the then oil minister Mani Shankar Aiyar had proposed an alliance of the oil consuming nations, Pradhan wants to form an oil buyers’ club with China, Japan and South Korea to take up issues like premium being charged from Asian buyers.
•At the IEF meeting, India and China agreed to join hands to have a collective bargaining power against cartelisation of oil producers. Singh’s visit was to take this forward with concrete proposals for cooperation, the source said.
•So far, India has not been able to bargain better rates from the Gulf-based producers of the oil cartel, OPEC. Instead of getting a discount for bulk purchases, West Asian producers such as Saudi Arabia, charge a so-called ‘Asian Premium’ for shipments to Asian buyers, including India and Japan, as opposed to Europe.
