📰 Temple and state
How the seeds of secularism were sown in India, and why the state came to play a part in religious institutions
•During colonial rule in India, England was not a secular country with a Jeffersonian wall of separation between church and state. Instead, the Church of England was the established church. The “Act of Supremacy” enacted in 1534 declared that the monarch was the “Supreme Head of the Church of England”. The Archbishop of Canterbury and other high-level church officials were appointed by the government. New monarchs were crowned by a senior member of the clergy, and senior bishops were represented in the House of Lords. Much of this remains true today. How, then, did the idea of secularism take root in India, which derives many of its institutions and practices from England?
•Initially, the East India Company (EIC) got itself intricately entangled with the administration of religious institutions. Temple employees were appointed by government officials. Royal salutes were fired from the batteries of Fort St. George in Madras, at the celebration of Pongal, and at Ramzan. Under the orders of the public officer of the district, a religious offering was made at temples for a good monsoon. Laws were enacted which said that the “general superintendence of all lands granted for the support of mosques [and] Hindoo temples” was vested in the colonial government.
A change of policy
•All this annoyed Christian missionaries and members of the clergy in England and India who put pressure on the government. Consequently, in 1833, the Court of Directors of the EIC sent instructions to the colonial government outlining its policy towards India’s religions. The Directors wrote that all “religious rites” that were “harmless… ought to be tolerated, however false the creed by which they are sanctioned.” However, they wrote: “The interference of British Functionaries in the interior management of native temples, in the customs, habits and religious proceedings of their priests and attendants, in the arrangement of their ceremonies, rites and festivals, and generally in the conduct of their interior economy, shall cease.”
•It was in this manner that the seeds of secularism were sown in India. The colonial government was directed to disentangle itself from “superstitious” Indian religious institutions, because Indian religions were considered heathen and false. However, the Church of England in India was still established for a long time.
•The wall of separation between temple and colonial state in India was achieved in 1863, when a law was enacted which said that it would no longer be “lawful” for “any Government in India, or for any Officer of any Government” in his official capacity, to take over the “superintendence of any land or other property” belonging to a “Mosque, Temple, or other religious establishment”, to take part in the “management or appropriation of any [religious] endowment”, to nominate or appoint any trustee in a religious institution, “or to be in any way concerned therewith”. Referring to this law in the legislative council, the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal said that it would “rid” the government of a “burden”.
The missing clause
•However, this colonial vision of secularism was rejected by India’s founding fathers. After the Government of India Act, 1919, Indian legislators came to power at the provinces. Indian political leaders enacted the far-reaching Madras Hindu Religious Endowments Act, 1926, which virtually took over the management and administration of Hindu temples in the province. It established “boards” appointed by the government. Temple trustees had to furnish accounts to and obey the instructions of the boards. Temples’ surplus funds could be spent by the boards themselves, on any “religious, educational or charitable purposes not inconsistent with [their] objects”.
•The entanglement of the government with religious institutions in India would be impermissible in the U.S. The first amendment to the Constitution there prohibits Congress from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion”. In the Constituent Assembly, B.R. Ambedkar drafted an establishment clause which said that “[t]he State shall not recognize any religion as State religion.” K.T. Shah’s draft said that the government would be “entirely a secular institution”, which would “maintain no official religion [or] established church”. If these clauses found their way into the Constitution, the Madras Hindu Religious Endowments Act, 1926, could possibly have been found unconstitutional.
•Then, something odd happened. In April 1947, the sub-committee on fundamental rights in the assembly discussed the establishment clause, and K.M. Munshi and K.M. Panikkar promised that they would re-draft it, “so as to provide for those cases where religion is already accepted as a State religion.” A few days later, when the sub-committee presented its report on fundamental rights, the establishment clause unceremoniously vanished. Later, H.V. Kamath tried to move an amendment in the Constituent Assembly to introduce an establishment clause into the draft constitution to the following effect: “The State shall not establish, endow, or patronize any particular religion.” However, his amendment was put to vote and rejected.
•The Supreme Court has allowed governments to heavily regulate Hindu temples on the theory that the freedom of religion does not include secular matters of administration which are not essential to the religion. Sometimes, the court has perhaps gone a little too far since the line between integral religious practice and non-essential secular activity is often hard to draw. For instance, though the government cannot interfere with rituals and prayers at temples, it can regulate the amount that temples spend on such things. Even the appointment of priests in Hindu temples has been held to be a secular activity, which the government can regulate.
•In a letter written in 1802, President Thomas Jefferson advanced the idea of a “wall of eternal separation between church & state” in the U.S. The wall of separation between temple and state in India was first constructed by a colonial government which wanted to distance itself from religions that it considered heathen and false. That wall was then pulled down by Indian leaders who felt that government entanglement in religious institutions, especially Hindu temples, was essential, even in a secular state.
📰 Act of intimidation: on Shujaat Bukhari murder
The murder of Shujaat Bukhari is aimed at silencing the middle ground in J&K
•The death of Shujaat Bukhari in a terrorist attack at close range in Srinagar has taken away a journalist who held bold and independent opinions on the conflict in Kashmir and how it should be resolved. In the choice of target and the timing of the murder, the attack sends out a chilling message: that on the eve of Id-ul-Fitr and in the closing days of the government’s Ramzan ceasefire against militants, there are forces determined to gut the emerging consensus for extending the cease-ops and preparing the ground for dialogue. Bukhari, given the credibility he had painstakingly built with reportage that conveyed the complex reality of life in the Valley, was a prominent advocate of the ceasefire and the need to extend it. Whichever terrorist group chose to kill him would have been aware of the consequences of his death. This has been a dark week in Jammu and Kashmir. Two security personnel with Bukhari were killed in the attack in Srinagar’s Press Colony. On Thursday too, the body of Aurangzeb, a jawan with the 44 Rashtriya Rifles who had been kidnapped while on his way home for the Id holiday, was found in Pulwama district riddled with bullets. In Bandipora, two militants and an Army jawan were killed. Days earlier, terrorists killed two policemen in Pulwama. It is easy to spot the insistence to pull Kashmir back into the cycle of violence that was sought to be broken by the ceasefire. It is a challenge that the governments at the Centre and the State, as well as the security forces, would have been prepared for, and they must not allow these provocations to dim the case for a more humane outreach. J&K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti must not be rendered a lonely voice for truce and dialogue.
•Bukhari’s killing highlights the dangers that reporters and editors face in the country — his death draws a direct line to the attacks on countless journalists, including the murders last year of Gauri Lankesh in Karnataka and Santanu Bhowmik in Tripura. Bukhari himself has been abducted before, in 2006. He survived that ordeal, but had to work thereafter with security cover, something no reporter would envy. That his guards died with him on Thursday underlines the vulnerability of both those who are guarded and those who guard. It also underscores the irreplaceable role of the journalist in Kashmir, where daily lives are negotiated amid conflicting narratives, ideologies and affinities. To reconcile these, the reporter needs to have in his tool kit an open heart, the persistence to tease out stories and connect all dots, no matter how they may disturb nationalist or separatist sentiments. Without information, reconciliation is impossible. Over the decades, Bukhari enlightened readers even as he mentored journalists as the editor and founder of Rising Kashmir,and earlier as The Hindu’s correspondent.
📰 High UIDAI charges leave banks stressed
‘Exorbitant’ authentication licence fees hurt smaller banks
•Bankers have questioned the “exorbitant” charges prescribed by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) for Aadhaar authentication services. Calling for a review of the charges, banks have warned that smaller lenders may have no option but to shift the burden to customers.
Few branches
•In a missive sent late last month to the UIDAI, the Maharashtra Urban Co-operative Banks Federation said it had been flooded with complaints from banks expressing concern over the charges, which were ‘not affordable’ for a majority of its members.
•“Most of the non-scheduled UCBs are unit banks or have less than five branches. UCBs with a customer base of five crore are meeting the credit needs of poor and marginal sections of the society at the rural level and playing an unique and efficient role in financial inclusion and inclusive growth of the country,” the Federation has pointed out in its letter, which has been seen by theThe Hindu .
•The Federation represents about 500 of the 517 co-operative banks in Maharashtra. While there are about 1562 urban cooperative banks (UCBs) in India, officials in larger banks are also concerned about the UIDAI’s costs but are wary of placing it on record.
Offset by savings: UIDAI
•Responding to the issue, UIDAI sources said the licence fee levied on Authentication User Agencies (AUAs) or e-KYC Authentication User Agencies (KUAs), including banks and telcos, by the UIDAI is very nominal given the benefit to the entities from instant verification of their customers through Aadhaar Authentication services.
📰 Mammals opting more for nightlife
A study of 62 species shows they are trying to reduce human contact during the day
•Mammals are turning to the darkness of the night for safety, as they try to avoid contact with people.
•Researchers have concluded that mammals may now be 1.36 times more nocturnal – active during night – on average because of human disturbance, compared to their known behavioural patterns. Researcher Kaityln Gaynor of the University of California at Berkeley, United States, and her colleagues compiled data from 76 research studies of 62 mammal species, including spotted hyenas in rural, residential South Africa, black bears in Canadian forests that hikers frequent, and leopards in western Maharashtra farm land. Their effort was to see whether increasing nocturnal activity was a global phenomenon among animals that are active during the day, active at twilight or nocturnal.
•“When we pooled these cases together, the result was powerful and striking: human activity is creating a more nocturnal natural world,” wrote Ms. Gaynor, lead author of the study published in Science, in an email. The pattern was consistent across six continents, species, habitats and human disturbances, ranging from hiking to road building.
•Yet, animals that are active during the day – a pattern developed over millions of years of evolution – may not be successful at finding food, avoiding predators or communicating in the dark. Managers of habitats where threatened species dwell could consider restricting human activity to certain times of the day, wrote Ms. Gaynor.
•Time zoning is crucial, because about 25 million kilometres of new roads are likely to be built in India by 2050, said Sanjay Gubbi, member, Karnataka State Wildlife Board.
•However, while interpreting such studies, the diverse situations and cultural contexts should be considered, Vidya Athreya, a Wildlife Conservation Society-India scientist said.
📰 A spate of lynchings
As violence and mistrust take over, citizens are no longer encouraged to connect with others and nurture solidarity
•Democracy establishes a conversation between citizens and the power elites they have elected into office. Citizens initiate and sustain various conversations with each other through associational life in the space of civil society. Associations bring people together in different projects, enable them to speak back to power, and protect them against arbitrary exercise of state power. For these and related reasons, associations are considered indispensable for democratic life.
Modern angst
•There is more — associational life tempers the anomie of modernity. The individual certainly has more freedom in modern society compared to pre-modern ones. But she is also rootless. She is certainly very lonely. The quintessential modern being is a bit like Howard Roark, who in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead sits atop a metaphorical mountain condemned to view life from a distance. This novel, normally read by young people in their teens, presents a terrifying picture of isolation, of failure to relate to other people. The story recounts the malaise of modernity.
•Notably, associations encourage us to connect with others who aren’t like us. They teach us to appreciate codes of sociability, moderate aggressive instincts, rid our minds of mindless prejudices and see other people as worthy of regard and respect. Arguably, a conversation with persons who might well be strangers in traditional environments contributes a great deal to the ironing out of senseless tensions that permeate divided societies. The moment we embark on a conversation with others, we signify that we see them as equals. During the course of the conversation, acquisitive individualism might be tamed somewhat. Bellicose impulses might be disciplined somewhat. Associational life trains us to be sociable and civil. If the state is marked by the logic of power, and the market dominated by that of profit, the logic of civil society is that of solidarity and civility. That is why the domain of civil society moderates the malaise of modernity.
Civil society in peril
•In India, however, it is precisely civil society that has been in the eye of a storm ever since the present government came to power at the Centre in 2014. Investigative agencies have suspended funding of civil society organisations (CSOs), rights activists are labelled anti-national if they dare to challenge the government’s dismal record of human rights, perfectly legitimate protests are frowned upon, and members of CSOs are hounded and subjected to vile accusations and abuse on the social media. The miracle is that we still see protests by Dalits, by farmers and by university students. Yet we also witness the decline of civil society as a forum for setting up of multiple conversations. The elegant and exhilarating art of public conversation has degenerated into rants and abuse, hate speech and crude allegations, lampooning of leaders of oppositional political parties, and perverse stereotyping of vulnerable minorities, Dalits and women.
•One crucial development has accelerated the weakening — hopefully temporary — of civil society. With their own party in power, front organisations of the religious right are determined to monopolise the space of civil society, and its guardian — an independent media. They would deny this space to others. Civility is no longer the signifier of civil society dominated by these organisations, incivility is. We see today an inerasable boundary based on religion, opinions and food habits, inflexibly drawn between the ‘insider’ and the ‘outsider’. No longer are Indians encouraged to connect with others and nurture solidarity in the space of civil society. Violence, fear and suspicion cast a dark cloud over a civil society that is expected to tame aggression and cultivate civility.
Everyday communalism
•The sorry saga of immense violence against the Muslim community was initiated with the killing of Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri district of Uttar Pradesh in 2015 on the suspicion that he had butchered a calf that had gone missing. While he was beaten to death, his son Danish and reportedly his grandmother were assaulted. Till today none of the accused has been punished.
•The killing was followed by brutal murders of other Muslims, and by the attack on Dalits in Una in 2016 on the flimsy excuse that they were transporting cows. But the honourable ministers of the government barely condemned these random, and not so random, acts of violence. We are forced to conclude that lynchings and murders by vigilante groups have become commonplace, because the police as well as the holders of awesome political power shy away from punishing rank criminals who harm fellow citizens.
•The unleashing of coercion in these cases has resulted in the spread of generalised violence. Increasingly, violence is the currency of social transaction. In the first half of 2018, Indians who look unfamiliar to the locals, whatever ‘local’ might mean, have been savagely beaten to death on flimsy pretexts. Lynching has been catalysed by unsubstantiated videos on WhatsApp that report kidnapping of small children by outsiders. On June 8, two young men, Nilotpal Das, an audio engineer, and Abhijeet Nath, a digital artist, stopped in Karbi Anglong district of Assam to ask for directions. They were rapidly identified as outsiders and kidnappers. A mob of 200-250 people lynched them to death. Crowds stood around while they were mercilessly beaten, photographed an act that should revolt any human being, and put the video on social media.
•Other people across the country have been killed or attacked in the same way, with deaths being linked to online rumours. Here are just a few recent instances. On May 24, a man from Rajasthan was brutally beaten to death in Bengaluru. In the third week of May, four people were attacked in other districts of Karnataka and in Telangana because they were suspected to be child lifters. At Hosur in Tamil Nadu, the crowd videotaped unspeakable brutality inflicted on the body of a migrant worker from U.P.. Such is the perversity that marks our times.
Sound of silence
•Civil society is considered indispensable for democracy because associations shield individual citizens from the state. When people begin to harm their fellow citizens in abnormal ways, who will protect the defenceless? Our civil society as the site of solidarity, and civility has been hammered into silence. Consequently, incivility has replaced civility and violence replaces non-violence. India might have reached the point of no return, for the quagmire of violence relentlessly sucks people into its murky depths. When vigilante groups belonging to the religious right write the alphabet of brute force in blood and gore, the script is ineffaceable and leaves indelible imprints on the body politic. Lynching leaves stigmata much like the murder of Duncan left blood on Lady Macbeth’s hands: “What, will these hands ne’er be clean?”
•I am not suggesting that the strengthening of civil society will make violence go away. Violence is part of the human condition. The political trick is to make the beast stay on the margins by the cultivation of civility and solidarity. The alternative is frightening. Who knows who will be the next victim of vigilantism?
📰 Sweet nothing: on bailout scheme for sugarcane farmers
The bailout package for sugarcane farmers does little to fix structural flaws in the sector
•A little over a month after the Centre proposed a special cess under the GST to help alleviate distress among sugarcane farmers, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved a ₹7,000- crore package for the sugar sector last week. This package, with a mix of assured minimum pricing and special incentives for increasing molasses and ethanol production to gainfully mop up the glut of sugar in the country, is independent of the cess proposal that was expected to raise ₹6,700 crore. To put this in perspective, sugar mills’ dues to farmers stand at ₹22,000 crore. Under the proposed bailout scheme, the government will procure sugar from mills at a fixed minimum price to help them clear dues to farmers, and also offer them other financial assistance. Only about ₹1,175 crore, however, will be used towards procurement of refined sugar from mills to create a buffer stock of 30 lakh tonnes. This is a fraction of the 63.5 million tonnes output expected in the two sugar seasons from October 2017 to September 2019. With the record output, sugar prices have dropped from an average of ₹37 a kg in the previous season to ₹26 in the current season. The bailout plan promises to pay ₹29 a kg. Sugar mills say this is below their production cost of ₹35 a kg, though it may dissipate their immediate liquidity problems to an extent.
•Rating agency Crisil reckons that the fixed price for sugar at mill gates and the buffer stock will at best help mitigate about 40% of the outstanding arrears to sugarcane farmers. And as production will rise again in the coming season, so will the extent of arrears. The rest of the package will take time to materialise, with ₹4,440 crore of loans and ₹1,332 crore of interest subsidies for greenfield and brownfield distillery capacities. Over time, this could help to use excess sugar for the manufacture of alcohol or ethanol, but it will not be soon enough to address the present crisis. All said and done, the Centre’s sweetener for the sector does little to address structural problems and sticks to old-style pricing and stock-holding interventions instead of signalling a shift to market-driven cropping decisions. The political compulsions driving the bailout are obvious, given that the sugarcane crisis was a rallying cry in the by-election in Kairana in Uttar Pradesh, which the BJP lost. But that is no excuse for not thinking the package through. Perpetuating the complex web of state controls in a politically-sensitive sector is no solution. The best way to address the problem of excess supply in the long run is to ensure some linkage between the price paid for sugarcane and the end-products it is used for; and encouraging the feedback from market prices to inform farmers’ future cropping decisions. The current sops-driven solution could distort the agriculture sector further.
📰 When Shimla queued up for water
Taps in Shimla went dry this summer, posing an unprecedented water crisis in the hill town. Adverse climatic conditions are believed to be the main factor for reduced flow in streams. Vikas Vasudeva reports on the failure of State governments to check unplanned development and exploitation of water resources.
•Sixty-eight-year-old Singhu Ram Shandil sits on a bank of the Nauti-Khad, a stream in Gumma, Himachal Pradesh, about 45 km from the State capital Shimla. As he watches the muddy water gush by — after the heavy downpour on June 8 — his eyes shine with hope. With a prayer on his lips he appeals to the gods to intervene and end the unprecedented water scarcity in Shimla. There is a tinge of anxiety in his voice as he expresses concern about the possibility of the stream turning dry again in a few days if the rain subsides.
•Over the past few years, Shandil says, rainfall has been erratic. When compared to the past, there has been a fall. “Long dry spells and then intermittent heavy downpours have become the new normal, adversely impacting the lives of locals when it comes to using water for drinking or irrigation purposes,” he says.
•Shimla was in the news recently when the hill town experienced acute water shortage since the last week of May this summer after water almost dried up in the Nauti-Khad stream. The water body is one of the key sources feeding Gumma, which is Shimla’s oldest water supply scheme. The supply system was commissioned in 1921-22 by the British. On May 25, water discharge in the stream was as low as 9.39 million litres per day (MLD); on usual days, the average is between 18-20 MLD.
•“The stream nearly dried up towards the end of May. As far as my memory goes, I have never seen this stream turning dry in the last 40 years. But there has been scant rainfall over the last few winters here. In the catchment, natural springs are vanishing. The vegetation pattern has changed. Tree cover is shrinking and unscientific dumping of debris and muck in water streams is rampant,” says Shandil, who retired as a pump driver from the Gumma water supply site in 2007.
•He points out that it’s not just the drying up of the stream that disturbs residents but also the increasingly erratic pattern of rainfall. In fact, this is even more worrying. “On June 8, it rained heavily. The water in the stream is gushing but with it comes silt which will force the water system to stop operations. Supply will also be hindered. My point is that if it rains less there is a problem and if it rains in excess the problem of inadequate water supply will still persist because the pumps here won’t work optimally if there is heavy silt,” he adds.
•His concern is not without reason and is echoed by an official at the Gumma pump house. He confirms that on the morning of June 9, the ‘settling tank’ (where the silt settles) — which was constructed in 1981-82 — was closed due to the high level of turbidity caused by silt. Interestingly, of the two tanks, the ‘settling tank’ built by the British in 1921-22 is the one that appears to be the more reliable one and is still in use. This tank, which was built to cater to 5.45 MLD, is now being used to manage 10 MLD, nearly double its capacity.
•Ram Krishan, a junior engineer, says, “While the pumps erected by the British were put out of use in 1995, the pipeline laid by them to transmit water to Craignano is still working efficiently. You must remember that it is 100 years old. Most of the infrastructure set up by British here at the Gumma site is still in good shape and being used.”
Indiscriminate exploitation
•In Gumma, a tiny village with a population of a little over 1,100, , Jamna Das, who has been in the business of mending shoes for years, says he has not seen water drop to such low levels. For him it’s not just poor rains this season but also the increasing number of tube wells near the stream bed uphill which is an important contributing factor behind the decline in water. Unscientific disposal of debris in water streams is another cause.
•“People are installing more and more tube wells in the catchment area. With mechanisation, the tendency of over consuming water has increased, resulting in a depletion of groundwater. Several connecting roads have been laid in villages. In the process, the debris that is created is disposed of indiscriminately — thrown down the hills into the water streams and blocking the natural course of water bodies,” he says.
•Sagar Das, who is engaged in vegetable and fruit farming, offers similar reasons for the sorry state of affairs. “This year, due to water scarcity, I was barely able to irrigate my vegetables and fruits using the water mill. Most of farmers here have been facing similar hardships and have suffered crop losses,” he says.
•Meera Devi, who is Gumma’s panchyat pradhan (village head), says that the water shortage has affected all residents to a great extent. “For irrigation purposes, farmers here can only draw water from the stream between 3 p.m. and 6 a.m.,” she says.
•Potable water for Shimla town is mainly supplied from the sources at Gumma, Giri, Churat, Chair and Ashwani Khad. Of these, Gumma and Giri are the most reliable sources, contributing an estimated 73% of the total water supply. However, water from both these sources has very high turbidity especially during the rainy season. Although the Ashwani Khad source is not utilised, water from a spring at Koti Brandi is treated at the Ashwani Khad water treatment plant. A situational analysis report (May 2018) of the Greater Shimla Water Supply and Sewerage Project says that water from other sources is not considered to be reliable as the quantity decreases in the lean season.
•While adverse climatic conditions are being seen as a reason for the recent water crisis in Shimla, there are others too. For example, this season, when many parts of the town did not receive water supply for as many as 12 days in a row, locals and experts blamed it on mismanagement by State agencies and the sluggish approach adopted by successive governments in addressing the problem.
•Shimla largely depends on surface water sources such as springs and streams for safe water demand. It currently has an overall installed capacity of 54 MLD (about 65 MLD when Ashwani Khad was in operation). However, actual supply across sources is in the range of 35-43 MLD, which is significantly less than the demand for 45 MLD. The situational analysis report says: “The operations are sub-optimal given the wear and tear of ageing assets, weak legacy systems and practices, which result in low service levels, such as low per capita supply, unreliable supply hours (alternate day supply) and deteriorating water quality levels.”
•“The distribution system in Shimla town is over a hundred years old and needs overhauling. Poor maintenance of pipelines, consistent leakage and illegal tapping of water are some of the issues that need to be addressed on a war-footing,” says 80-year-old Birender Singh Malhans, an environmentalist and a member of Heritage Advisory Committee of Himachal Pradesh.
•He points out that till the late 1970s, key roads, which included the popular Mall Road, used to be cleaned with water supplied by tankers. But now, all that is a distant dream as government agencies find supplying even drinking water to be a Herculean task.
•“Shimla has been known as an urban forest but is fast turning into an urban slum. The situation is alarming and it’s high time the State government swiftly moves to address the crises. Old pipe lines should be replaced or repaired suitably and construction of illegal buildings stopped. Also adopting rainwater harvesting techniques is the need of the hour,” Malhans adds.
Crisis explained
•After growing public outrage over the acute water shortage, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur has directed the Municipal Corporation to take immediate steps to stop water leakage and complete work on changing the main water supply line from Craignano to Dhalli. He has also issued directions to improve the water distribution system in the town. Distressed by the lack of recognition of the problem, there were even midnight protests by upset residents who marched towards the Chief Minister’s residence — an unusual sight in otherwise quiet and peaceful Shimla.
•Malhans has a word of caution about the loss of flora and fauna in the water catchment areas. “In the last few years not just tree cover but also shrubs and grass have decreased in the catchment areas of Nauti-Khad and Gumma. The population in villages has increased and farming patterns have undergone a sea change. Earlier, people used to sow more pulses and wheat, which consumed less water and helped in maintaining soil fertility. But these days most farmers are cultivating vegetables due to which not just more water is being consumed for irrigation but it is also changing the soil profile because of the use of fertilizers,” he says.
•“In past years even if there was a dry spell, streams used to have water flowing in them, the reason being that grass, shrubs and trees absorbed the rain and kept releasing it steadily for months,” he adds.
•In Shimla and its surrounding areas, management of water supply and sewerage services has traditionally been split between the Irrigation and Public Health Department (IPH) and the Municipal Corporation of Shimla (MC). While the IPH was responsible for the bulk of water production and sewage treatment, water distribution came under the MC.
•As an advocate for the need to modernise the system of distribution of water in Shimla town, Ramesh Chauhan, a retired assistant engineer from the IPH, points out that because of the hilly terrain, most water connection lines have an average length of 30 m. Connection lines are often installed overground and clamped to the surface. “When more consumers apply for connections in an area, new connections are created from the rider mains, that are in parallel to existing connections. This has resulted in high frictional losses, pressure issues and water losses from the service pipe because of leakage and the risk of pilferage,” says Chauhan.
•Harish K. Thakur, a professor at Himachal Pradesh University who works on tribal issues and the environment, feels that the water crisis only reflects the sheer operational and strategic management failures of successive State governments in meeting the growing needs of the town and its suburbs.
•“The Municipal Corporation and the IPH department have completely failed to meet the rising demand for water in the town. The extent of the problem can be gauged from the fact that this year, hoteliers in Shimla were even appealing to tourists to cancel their reservations and holiday plans in the region because of an acute shortage of water. Mismanagement in distributing water coupled with poor rains and the drying up of water springs has made the problem take on catastrophic proportions, with even the rural areas of Shimla facing an acute shortage of water,” he says.
•“The crisis is a result of a failure of government agencies in exploring new sources of water to meet demand in the town,” he adds. Also, the delay in supplying water through tankers (when the water shortage started) well in time only aggravated the problem. And in that moment of crisis, Shimla’s Mayor, Kusum Sadret, who is the first citizen of the city, travelled to China, which was perceived to be insensitive and did not down go well with already anguished locals.”
•Upset residents feel that the crisis — which was certainly not an overnight development — could have been averted had successive State governments been pro-active in addressing the unplanned development in the town that has taken place over the years. They also feel that better coordination among government agencies, including the IPH and the Municipal Corporation, would have helped address the issues to a great extent.
•Says Deshbandhu Sood, president of Citizen’s Rights Protection Forum, “Illegal constructions have taken place and yet they have water connections. The number of home stays and hotels has increased manifold. The water policy of municipal corporation is flawed. In most cases, commercial meter owners are issued a bill after several months instead of receiving bills on a regular basis. Even in domestic connections, most of the bills are issued at a flat rate rather than being based on meter readings.” According to data in the State Economic Survey 2017, the total count of beds in hotel and home stays in Shimla has been put at 16,000 and 800, respectively.
•The availability of water for municipal purposes is also going down due to competing demand from local vegetable growing farmers in the catchment areas of Shimla. In addition, because of the high tourist footfall during summer, water availability also reduces drastically as there is a very high demand. The town alone has a population of close to 2 lakh people, with over 1 lakh visiting and leaving it every day.
Action to reaction
•After facing adverse criticism from several quarters and even censure by the Himachal Pradesh High Court, the State government is now taking steps to to ensure that the town doesn’t face similar crises in future.
•The Chief Minister recently held a meeting with senior officers in various departments to review the measures being undertaken to improve water supply to Shimla town from various water sources. The officials have been asked to start work on short- and long-term plans so that most works are finished within a year and in time for the next summer season.
•According to the Chief Minister, efforts are on to ensure the availability of more than 10 MLD for Shimla by enhancing the capacity of the Gumma, Ashwani Khud and Giri water sources from where water is supplied to the town. Besides, the Ashwani Khud area is to be checked to see if there is potential for more tubewells to be sunk. Check dams are to be built upstream of the Gumma and Giri water sources. Also, nine additional storage tanks are to be constructed in Shimla town that will help store an extra 17 MLD of water.
•The government also expects work on the Chaba project to be completed within a year which shall provide an extra 10-15 MLD to the Gumma water source.
•Rajesh Kashyap, a senior official at the IPH, says, “The work of replacing pipelines on the Gumma stretch is already under way from Craignano to Dhalli and Sanjauli to Ridge. Lightweight galvanised pipes have been laid between Dhalli and Sanjauli above the ground, instead of underground, which will ensure that leakages are easy to detect and repair.”
•Kashyap, who is all praise about the quality of the British-era pipeline system that was laid to supply water to around 16,000 people in 1875, says that once replacement work is completed, water leakages of around 3-4 MLD would be plugged.
•In addition, the State government is working on installing water treatment systems that use ultraviolet radiation technology at Ashwini Khad; it used to supply around 5 MLD of water to Shimla regularly. The intake from the Ashwani Khad stream was stopped after 2015 when there was an outbreak of jaundice in the town. Investigations traced the cause to the Ashwani Khad drinking water source. The failure of a sewage treatment plant that was upstream was eventually identified as the source of contamination.
📰 Centre allows pulses import despite overflowing godowns
Farmers have been staging protests as domestic prices are falling on the back of a glut last year and an expected good harvest following a good monsoon
•The Union government has allotted quotas for import of pulses and is enforcing an additional import agreement with Mozambique at a time when domestic stocks are at their highest, domestic production is expected to be high and prices are crashing. Farmers and millers are unhappy with the situation, but the government says it is balancing the needs of Indian consumers and commitments to foreign trade partners on the one hand and the interests of Indian farmers on the other.
•The final allocations of import quotas — totalling two lakh tonnes of tur or arhar dal, and 1.5 lakh tonnes each of moong and urad — were made at a meeting at the Directorate-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) on Monday. Those amounts represent a quantitative restriction that was slapped on pulses imports in August 2017 in response to a glut in domestic supply and falling prices, which continues this year. On the back of a good monsoon forecast, the Agriculture Commissioner predicts domestic pulses production of 24 million tonnes in 2018-19, slightly higher than last year’s.
•However, the DGFT issued a notice last month exempting pulses imports from Mozambique from the restrictions.
Fallout of 2016 crisis
•In 2016, in the wake of soaring pulse prices and angry consumers, India signed an MoU to double pulses imports — mostly arhar — from the east African nation over a five-year period. This obligates India to buy 1.5 lakh tonnes from Mozambique this year. The government has also explored the possibility of similar long-term agreements with countries such as Kenya.
•“There is an MoU ... we also don’t want to just stop trade abruptly,” DGFT Alok Chaturvedi told The Hindu when asked about the impact of imports. “This is a long-term agreement.” He pointed out that an inter-ministerial committee headed by the Food Secretary, including the Secretaries of Agriculture, Consumer Affairs and Commerce, made the decision to allow a limited quota of imports which have to be completed by August-end, before Indian harvests, “so that our farmers are not affected”.
•However, this does not take into account the fact that last year’s surplus harvests have already resulted in full godowns.
•Sunil Kumar Singh, Additional Managing Director, NAFED, said the government procurement agency alone had 40 lakh tonnes of pulses in its warehouses — a record — apart from stocks still remaining with traders and farmers.
Falling prices
•Farmers’ groups have been agitating about falling crop prices all summer. “The import restriction is a classic case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted,” says Avik Saha, convener of the Jai Kisan Andolan.
Acreage up
•He says the government should have realised that farmers had increased acreage on the back of rising prices, incentivised by a higher minimum support price and technical interventions to ensure higher domestic production.
•“Those statistics pointing to oversupply were completely ignored and instead the government signed long-term deals with other countries, digging its own grave. The seeds of this calamity were planted in 2016, farmers are now harvesting a crop of woe and will continue to harvest it next year.”
•This year, for the first time, the government has allowed millers — as opposed to traders — to import pulses. However, Suresh Agrawal, chairman, All India Dal Millers Association, is not a happy man.
•“Prices outside India are higher than domestic rates, so it is not viable to import,” he says, pointing out that while Indian rates for tur were at ₹3,400 a tonne, it would cost at least $410 (more than ₹27,000) to import from Kenya.
Stocks everywhere
•“The government has stock, traders have stock, millers have stock, and farmers have stock, so there is a surplus. We don’t understand why the government is insisting on import...we may be able to meet only 40-50% of our quotas.” A senior official at the DGFT insisted that according to the terms of the allocation, import quotas must be met by the end of August.
📰 Why Apaches for Army, ask critics
At present, Air Force operates all big helicopters, including Mi-35 attack choppers
•The Indian Army is a step closer to operating its own attack helicopters, with the U.S. State Department approving the sale of six Apache helicopters. For the Army, it is a long-held ambition, but critics say it is an illogical move.
•Early this week, the U.S. State Department approved the sale of six additional AH-64 Apache attack helicopters to India for the Army. The Defence Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said the deal would be worth $930 million.
•Right now, the Army operates only smaller Cheetah and ALH (Advanced Light Helicopters) that weigh less than five tonne. All bigger helicopters, including the Mi-35 attack helicopters, and fixed-wing aircraft are operated by the Indian Air Force (IAF).
•Former Army chief General V.P. Malik said the Army had been “looking for a long time” for dedicated attack helicopters. “During Kargil [conflict of 1999], we could not use attack helicopters in that area. We used armed helicopters,” he said. General Malik was the Army chief during the Kargil conflict.
•“In today’s combat situation, they become very important to support combat formations both in the plains and mountains. Particularly when they are with the Army, it can be operated better than when they are with the Air Force,” Gen. Malik said. He argued that all over the world, attack helicopters are with the Army.
‘Ill-advised move’
•However, a retired senior Air Force officer countered saying the move is ill-advised. “For operational reasons, logistics and other factors, these helicopters should be with the Air Force. We built our first attack helicopter squadron with fighter pilots,” he pointed out. Will the Army have its own dedicated maintenance division or will the Air Force maintain them, he asks.
•“Setting up a maintenance division for just six is creating a white elephant. If the Air Force is going to do it, then the Army will get to blame the Air Force whenever it wants to,” he said.
•Under the present procurement plan, the IAF will operate 22 Apache attack helicopters, while the Army will have six of them. The IAF procurement plan was approved in 2015.
•A serving Army officer said the attack helicopters being part of the Army’s corps and operated by the Army will give “an unprecedented teeth as these aircraft can have a disproportionate firepower on enemy tanks on the ground. This is the model that the U.S. Army follows.”
•The retired Air Force officer pointed out that “we are not a superpower” and need to “optimise resources”. He said the U.S. Army operating attack helicopters has a historical reason from World War II, until when the air elements were part of the U.S. Army.
📰 Trade deficit widens to $14.62 billion
Exports in May grow faster on the back of engineering goods, petro products, chemicals and pharma
•India’s merchandise trade deficit widened to $14.62 billion in May 2018, official data released on Friday showed. The shortfall was $13.72 billion in April 2018 and $13.84 billion in May 2017.
•“Exports during May 2018 were valued at $28.86 billion as compared to $24.01 billion during May 2017 exhibiting a positive growth of 20.18%,” the government said in a release. “Imports during May 2018 were valued at $43.48 billion which was 14.85% higher in dollar terms.”
Smart uptick
•In contrast, merchandise exports in April had grown by only 5.17%, while imports grew 4.6%. The export growth in May 2018 was better than that seen in May last year, while the import growth was slower. Exports grew 8.32% in May 2017, while imports grew 33.1%.
•The major export groups that witnessed strong growth in May 2018 included engineering goods (14.8%), petroleum products (104.5%), organic and inorganic chemicals (34.2%), drugs and pharmaceuticals (25.7%), and cotton yarn/fabrics/made-ups and handloom products (24.7%).
•“Exports growing by 20% is certainly good news but the challenge is to keep the momentum,” said Ravi Sehgal, chairman, Engineering Export Promotion Council of India. “While a growing U.S. economy would help, the U.S.-China trade war must be watched. Back home, rising raw material costs will be a challenge.”
‘Vigil needed’
•“Escalating trade war between the U.S. and China would vitiate the global trading environment, making it imperative for India as well to keep a vigil on the fast-moving developments,” Mr. Sehgal added. “With the U.S. confirming 25% tariffs on $50 billion Chinese imports and the Chinese stating they would retaliate, it is time for India to keep engaged with both the U.S. and China to safeguard our own interest.”
•The government said, “Cumulative value of exports for the period April-May 2018-19 was $54.77 billion as against $48.65 billion registering a positive growth of 12.58% in dollar terms and 16.37% in rupee terms over the same period last year.”
•“Oil imports during May 2018 were valued at $11.5 billion which was 49.5% higher in dollar terms and 56.7% higher in rupee terms compared to $7.69 billion in May 2017,” the government said.
•“Oil imports during April-May 2018-19 were valued at $21.91 billion which was 45.6% higher in dollar terms and 50.5% higher in rupee terms compared to $15.05 billion in the corresponding period last year,” the government added in the release.
•The government, however, did mention that global Brent prices had increased by 50.7% in May 2018 compared with their levels in May 2017, as per commodity price data from the World Bank.
📰 Pollution curbs monsoon’s cleansing
Study says particle residue from burning coal could cool the sea surface resulting in lower rainfall
•Other than being an essential source of water for Indian agriculture, the monsoon plays a critical role in flushing out pollutants over Asia. However, increased pollution — particularly from coal burning — could potentially weaken this ability of the monsoon, says a study in this week’s issue of the magazine Science .
•In winter, when atmospheric moisture is low, fumes from unburnt particles disperse toward the Indian Ocean, creating a vast pollution haze. However what happened to these particles in summer was a mystery till recent research.
•Researcher Jos Lelieveld of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany and colleagues performed atmospheric chemistry measurements by aircraft in a campaign called the “Oxidation Mechanism Observations”. The researchers measured the summer monsoon outflow in the upper troposphere between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. They found that the monsoon sustained a “remarkably efficient” cleansing mechanism in which contaminants are rapidly oxidised and deposited on the Earth’s surface.
•However, some pollutants were lifted above the monsoon clouds, and chemically processed in a reactive reservoir before being redistributed globally, including to the stratosphere.
•“Pollution particles can cool the sea surface temperature, mostly in winter. When the circulation reverses in summer, the cooler sea surface evaporates less, which can reduce the moisture flux into the monsoon convection, i.e. weaken the monsoon,” Dr. Lelieveld told The Hindu in an email.
Dust haze
•While pollution levels — especially in north India’s Gangetic plane — skyrocket in winter, there have also been spikes in summer air pollution. Delhi, Gurugram and several parts of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan are currently in the grip of a ‘dust haze’ that has pushed pollution levels to the ‘severe’ category on the air quality index.
•Scientists had earlier pointed out that the monsoon system may be flushing out pollutants but there was uncertainty over how precisely this effects the monsoon. The “elevated-heat-pump” effect, as it is called, amplifies the seasonal heating of the Tibetan Plateau, leading to increased warming in the upper troposphere during late spring and early summer, subsequently spurring enhanced monsoon rainfall over northern India during June and July.
•Indian rainfall, other scientists have pointed out, is enhanced in spring due to increased loading of black carbon but the monsoon may subsequently weaken through increased cloudiness and surface cooling.
•Last month, the India Meteorological Department forecast a 3% dip in quantum of the summer monsoon rains this year. After the monsoon set in over Kerala, two days ahead of its typical June 1 date, and lashing several parts of the West coast, it has stalled over Maharashtra and is expected to languish there for at least a week.
