📰 Bhima-Koregaon and the fault in our laws
The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act must be cleansed of its vast discretionary powers
•On December 1, 1948, Professor K.T. Shah rose to make an impassioned speech in the Constituent Assembly. “The autocrat, the despot,” he warned, “has always wished, whenever he was bankrupt of any other argument, just to shut up those who did not agree with him.” Along with many other members of the CA, he was objecting to the wide range of restrictions that had been imposed upon fundamental rights in the draft Constitution. Drawing attention to the multiple “Public Safety Acts” and “Defence of India Acts” that had been the favourite weapons of the colonial regime, speaker after speaker expressed the concern that, despite the best intentions of the Assembly, the Constitution could easily be interpreted to authorise the continuation of these hated laws.
•The arrest of five individuals in early June, ostensibly for instigating the riots at Bhima-Koregaon at the beginning of the year, throws the fears expressed in the CA into sharp relief. The accused, who include activists and lawyers, have been booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). An examination of the UAPA shows how, in one overarching “anti-terrorism law”, vast discretionary powers are conferred upon state agencies, judicial oversight is rendered toothless, and personal liberty is set at naught.
Boundless discretion
•The UAPA authorises the government to ban “unlawful organisations” and “terrorist organisations” (subject to judicial review), and penalises membership of such organisations. The problems begin with the definitional clause itself. The definition of “unlawful activities” includes “disclaiming” or “questioning” the territorial integrity of India, and causing “disaffection” against India. These words are staggeringly vague and broad, and come close to establishing a regime of thought-crimes. The problem of excessive breadth is then carried over into the “membership clauses”, which are the heart of the UAPA. “Membership” of unlawful and terrorist organisations is a criminal offence, and in the latter case, it can be punished with life imprisonment. But the Act fails entirely to define what “membership” entails. Are you a “member” if you possess literature or books about a banned organisation? If you express sympathy with its aims? If you’ve met other, “active” members? These are not theoretical considerations: charge sheets under the UAPA often cite the seizure of books or magazines, and presence at “meetings”, as clinching evidence of membership.
•In 2011, the Supreme Court attempted to narrow the scope of these provisions, holding that “membership” was limited to cases where an individual engaged in active incitement to violence. Anything broader than that, it ruled, would violate the constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and of association. The application of this ruling, however, has been patchy and arbitrary: one judge of the Bombay High Court invoked it to grant bail to some members of the Kabir Kala Manch music troupe, while another judge ignored it and refused bail to other members of the same troupe (they were ultimately granted bail by the Supreme Court).
•Despite the verdict of the Supreme Court, therefore, the wide and vague provisions of the UAPA allow governments great and virtually unbridled power to arrest people under boundlessly manipulable justifications, such as “having suspected Maoist links”. At this point, the second serious problem with the UAPA regime kicks in: Section 43D(5) of the Act prohibits courts from granting bail to a person if “on a perusal of the case diary or the [police] report ... [the court] is of the opinion that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accusation against such person is prima facie true.”
Effacement of liberty
•The case diary and the charge sheet is the version of the state. Therefore, under the UAPA, as long as the state’s version appears to make out an offence, a court cannot, under law, grant bail. When we juxtapose this with the inordinately slow pace at which criminal trials progress, Section 43D(5) of the UAPA is effectively a warrant for perpetual imprisonment without trial. This is not a theoretical concern either: on more than one occasion in recent years, terror accused have been acquitted after spending more than a decade in jail. This is something for which there can be no compensation or restitution; and it is only made possible because the law places an unbreakable shackle upon personal liberty.
•This too was something that the framers of the Constitution foresaw, and wished to avoid. Maulana Hasrat Mohani, the great freedom fighter and poet, commenting on the same set of provisions as K.T. Shah, observed that “so long as you do not prove anything openly against anybody in a court of law, it should not be lawful to detain anybody.” His concern was discarded when the CA decided to have a specific provision that authorised preventive detention (Article 22). However, as the CA debates reveal, the provision was meant to be used in rare and exceptional cases. The framers did not intend — and the Constitution does not contemplate — the kind of perfect storm that exists when broad and vague provisions of public security laws are combined with statutory bars upon the grant of bail, and a legal system that takes years to complete a criminal trial.
•This is not to say that the state always, or even often, abuses its power. The purpose of a Constitution and a bill of rights, however, is to establish a “culture of justification” where the state cannot abuse its power. Civil and political rights are based upon the understanding that at no point should so much power, and so much discretion, be vested in the state that it utterly overwhelms the individual. The women and men who occupy the high offices of the state may have the best of intentions, but they are human like the rest of us, and therefore imperfect. The Constitution exists to protect us from the consequences of those imperfections.
•This is why the traditional argument in defence of laws such as the UAPA — that the state must be given a strong hand to control terrorist and other violent and disruptive activities — proves too much. It proves too much because it subordinates every other constitutional value — freedom of speech, personal liberty, the right to a fair trial — to the overarching concern of order. Such an attitude can be justified only in times of war or Emergency (and even then, subject to safeguards). But what the UAPA does is to normalise this “state of exception”, and make it a permanent feature of the legal landscape. One of our great judges, Justice Fazl Ali, expressly warned against it when he declared, “I do not think that it was ever intended that Parliament could at its will treat the normal as the abnormal or the rule as the exception.”
Transformative Constitution
•The Bhima-Koregaon arrests provide us with yet another opportunity to rethink a legal regime that has obliterated the distinction between the normal and the abnormal. The power to keep citizens incarcerated for long periods of time, on vague charges, and without affording them an opportunity to answer their accusers in a swift and fair trial, is an anathema to democracy and the rule of law. The UAPA’s stringent provisions should go the way of its predecessors — the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act and the Prevention of Terrorism Act. They should be removed by Parliament, and, in the alternative, struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. And if that is not feasible, then there must at least be a change in the legal culture, with the courts following the example of the Bombay High Court in the first Kabir Kala Manch case, and granting bail unless the state can produce some cogent proof of criminality.
•It is only that which will ensure the continued survival of “the one precious right to personal liberty” that the CA believed marked the transformation from a colonial regime to an independent democratic republic.
📰 Gearing up for space wars
The implications of the American plans for a space weapons corps are still unclear
•The announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump in June about the creation of a “space force” or a sixth branch of the American armed forces has taken many by surprise within and outside the U.S. The imperative by America to build space weapons, which is nothing new, goes back to the Cold War, an example being the Strategic Defense Initiative of the Reagan Administration. The creation of the new force represents an important shift at least at an institutional level. What advantages it will bring to American war-fighting capabilities are still unclear.
Domestic impact
•A Republican-controlled Congress explains the push for the creation of a space corps, the purpose being to deny the Russians and the Chinese advantages in space. As Mr. Trump said at the time of the announcement, the intention is to see that the U.S. establishes and maintains dominance in space. Ironically, the U.S. Air Force — historically a major constituency and votary for space weapons — is not entirely enthusiastic about this new service, which could take resources away from it and the prestige that comes with being the driver of space military operations. Objections have also emerged from within the Administration.
•The U.S. Defence Secretary, James Mattis, was emphatic as well in a letter to the Congress last October that adding another military arm would only compound the organisational challenges facing the U.S. armed services. First, it could undercut ongoing missions. Second, it could very well increase budgetary allocations in the future. Third, his objections were clear in that a space corps could undermine American efforts in the domain of joint warfare. A new space force is not merely a brand new service; it potentially increases greater organisational uncertainty within the U.S. military. Notwithstanding these concerns, Washington’s headlong rush is the by-product of a strong commitment to preserving American advantages in space.
•Nevertheless, the fundamental difficulty of a space corps is that the physical environment of space is not conducive to the conduct of military operations without incurring serious losses in the form of spacecraft and debris. And despite efforts to make spacecraft more fuel efficient, the energy requirements are enormous. Further, the technical demands of defending assets in space make the possibility of dominance and space as a domain for war-fighting a sort of chimera. Much could change as well on the political front after the Congressional elections in November; the Democrats have a different vision for space. Even if they do not fully object to its establishment, they could impose curbs on its funding if they take control of the American legislature. Beyond domestic politics, structural factors do appear to have weighed in on the Administration, particularly the exponential growth in China’s space military capabilities over the last two decades.
China and Russia’s responses
•While China has reiterated its response to the Trump Administration’s announcement with its oft-repeated statement that it opposes the weaponisation of space, it knows that it is the prime target of this incipient force. With a range of terrestrial interests in direct conflict with the Americans, Beijing will be in no mood to allow U.S. space dominance. China’s space military programme has been dedicated to building “Assassin Mace” technologies (an array of kinetic and non-kinetic means of attack) — capabilities that are geared to help win wars rapidly. Russia for its part has been shriller in its response, making it clear that it will vigorously take on the U.S.. However, given its lack of the resources for competition, it will in all probability, for tactical reasons, align itself with China.
Implications for India
•American military goals, which are still undefined in space, could still have consequences for India. While India is officially committed to PAROS, or the prevention of an arms race in outer space, it is yet to formulate a credible official response to the Trump plan. India has yet to establish a credible space command of its own. And, its inter-services rivalries will have to be resolved about the command and control.
•India also has to be concerned about Mr. Trump’s move for another reason — China. Beijing’s reaction could be much stronger than its seemingly muted official response and it does possess a formidable space military programme that far exceeds current Indian capabilities. For its part, New Delhi would do well to come out with an official white paper on space weapons. The government needs to engage with multiple stakeholders directly about the role space weapons will play in India’s grand strategy. More than their war-fighting attributes, space weapons have one principal function — deterrence.
📰 Seychelles template
Soft diplomacy in the Indian Ocean Region will serve India better
•New Delhi has clearly opted for a charm offensive in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). The red carpet laid out for the visiting Seychelles President Danny Faure last week came against the backdrop of setbacks in the bilateral relationship owing to the Assumption Island agreement being put on hold. The pact, to build a naval base on the island, was seen as a major strategic enhancement of India’s IOR naval capacities and had been under discussion since 2003. It was finally signed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the Seychelles in 2015. The deal was to include 30-year access to the base as well as permission to station Indian military personnel on the ground, with facilities on the island funded by India, owned by Seychelles and jointly managed. After Opposition protests about loss of sovereignty, however, it had to be renegotiated and an amended version was signed in January 2018. Even that proved insufficient. Mr. Faure lacks the numbers in the legislature to ratify it, and with the Opposition sticking to its stand he announced in early June he would not be taking the agreement with India forward. Instead, Seychelles would build the naval facility “on its own”. Given the blow to India’s plans, Mr. Faure may well have expected a cold reception in India. However, both sides decided to walk around the minefields relating to Assumption Island, with Mr. Modi saying they would work on the project “keeping in mind each other’s interests”. India also announced a credit line of $100 million for Seychelles to purchase defence equipment from India to build its maritime capacity, offered to finance civilian infrastructure including the official buildings, and handed over a Dornier aircraft for maritime surveillance purposes.
•This is good strategy. It would have been pointless to push the Seychelles President for a more concrete assurance on the Assumption Island project, as he has little room for manoeuvre. India had earlier drawn a blank in attempting to negotiate directly with the Seychelles Opposition leader, Wavel Ramkalawan, who is of Indian origin. Until 2020-21, when Seychelles is due for presidential and parliamentary elections, it may not be possible to move the agreement further for ratification; rather than renegotiate or cancel it entirely, it is best to keep it in abeyance. This softer approach adopted by the government is in remarkable contrast to the strong-arm tactics it has used in the past with other countries in the IOR, such as the Maldives. India’s very public statements against the Abdulla Yameen government have now led to a considerable setback to its strategic position there, with the Maldives insisting on sending back Indian naval and coast guard helicopters from its atolls. A less confrontational approach in the case of Seychelles, with quiet negotiations instead of public recrimination, indeed appears to have had a more salutary effect.
📰 Row over U.K.-India meet postponement
Bilateral talks with Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman turned down over ‘scheduling issues’
•A controversy has erupted over British Defence Minister Gavin Williamson’s decision to turn down a date for a bilateral meeting with Indian Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, that would have coincided with a week-long summit on bilateral relations after Brexit.
•India had proposed a three-day window for a brief bilateral in June during the U.K.-India week, sources in London and New Delhi confirmed. However, due to scheduling difficulties, Britain’s Ministry of Defence declined the meeting for proposed dates. India had previously cancelled a confirmed trip by the Minister in February, after which a July date had initially been agreed upon. A meeting has now been scheduled for later in the summer.
•Nevertheless, the decision to turn down a meeting with India — which London has pegged as one of its major defence partners in the wake of Brexit — raised concern in Britain, coming days after the controversy over the exclusion of Indian students from a relaxation of visa documentation.
Foreign Secretary’s view
•The Times of London reported that Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was among those who believed the decision to turn down the opportunity to be “ill-judged” and that India was “spitting blood”.
•The Defence Minister herself however played down the issue. “Disappointed, Sunday Times (UK). Baseless story, to say the least,” she tweeted. “The U.K. & India have a robust relationship. A mutually convenient date is being worked out for meeting & I look forward to it.”
•Sources also denied The Times’ story, but admitted that there had been some scheduling difficulties over Ms. Sitharaman’s visit, which began when her confirmed trip in February was cancelled by India. After that, diplomatic sources say, both sides agreed on a date in July. However, owing to a diaspora event in London in June, that the Indian High Commission thought she could attend, it proposed the dates in June. The proposal came too late for the British and they had to decline.
•Another source said that while describing India’s reaction as “spitting blood” asThe Times suggested was a stretch, there had been surprise that a brief meeting within three days was not possible, given the importance placed on the meeting and the fact that it could have tied-in with the U.K.-India summit that several Ministers attended. It also raised questions about the lack of accommodation in Mr. Williamson’s approach to India, the source said.
•“The U.K. and India have excellent defence relationships with the Minister for Defence Procurement leading a trade delegation to the country in April and the Armed Forces Minister announcing closer military ties between the two countries in the same month,” Britain’s Ministry of Defence said in a statement. “The Defence Secretary is due to meet his Indian counterpart in the summer.”
•“The opportunity for the U.K. to collaborate with India in defence matters has never been greater… it is therefore, only right that so many senior U.K. leaders from across the political spectrum took the opportunity during U.K.-India week to underline the importance of ties across sectors and issues,” said Manor Ladwa, the founder of U.K.-India week. “It would have been really good if Gavin Williamson could have spared some time, but let’s also not kid ourselves that the Indians will have lost too much sleep over it,” he said.
📰 The dream of being an AI powerhouse
Digitising existing data and having a clear deadline are key to realising India’s ambitions
•In a recent discussion paper, NITI Aayog has chalked out an ambitious strategy for India to become an artificial intelligence (AI) powerhouse. AI is the use of computers to make decisions that are normally made by humans. Many forms of AI surround Indians already, including chatbots on retail websites and programs that flag fraudulent bank activity. But NITI Aayog envisions AI solutions for India on a scale not seen anywhere in the world today, especially in five key sectors — agriculture, healthcare, education, smart cities and infrastructure, and transport. In agriculture, for example, machines will provide information to farmers on the quality of soil, when to sow, where to spray herbicide, and when to expect pest infestations. It’s an idea with great potential: India has 30 million farmers with smartphones, but poor extension services. If computers help agricultural universities advise farmers on best practices, India could see a farming revolution.
Lack of data
•However, there are formidable obstacles. AI start-ups already offer some solutions, but the challenge lies in scaling these to cover the entire value chain, as NITI Aayog envisions. The first problem is data. Machine learning, the set of technologies used to create AI, is a data-guzzling monster. It takes reams of historical data as input, identifies the relationships among data elements, and makes predictions. More sophisticated forms of machine learning, like “deep learning”, attempt to mimic the human brain. And even though they promise greater accuracy, they also need more data than what is required by traditional machine learning. Unfortunately, India has sparse data in sectors like agriculture, and this is already hampering AI-based businesses today.
•Take the Bengaluru-based Intello Labs, for instance. This is a start-up which helps buyers at agricultural mandis evaluate the quality of grains, fruits or vegetables. In the normal course, a buyer determines visually how much wheat is destroyed by pests, and if foreign particles are present, before offering the farmer a price. But this process is subjective and prone to error. Visual inspection relies too much on the buyer’s expertise, and corrupt middlemen may cheat farmers. So, a smartphone-based AI product, such as Intello Labs’ grading app, can help. To develop this product, the Intello Labs team had to photograph 2.5 million agricultural samples. Experts then identified the contents of these photos — a laborious process called annotation. Next, the team wrote a deep learning algorithm, which was trained using the photos. Today, the algorithm can predict the quality of 12 foods over 95% of the time in a few markets like Delhi and Rajasthan. But in order to expand their basket beyond 12 products and a few States, Intello Labs will need millions of more such images. This can be challenging for a private firm, unless such images are collected, digitised and annotated automatically by the government at agricultural mandis. Such data collection doesn’t happen today. “The biggest agricultural data today resides with the government. It’s entirely up to them to annotate it and make it usable,” says Nishant Mishra, the chief technological officer of Intello Labs.
•In fact, the lack of data means that deep learning doesn’t work for all companies in India. One example is Climate-Connect, a Delhi-based firm, which uses AI to predict the amount of power a solar plant will generate every 15 minutes. This is critical because solar electricity generation can change dramatically every hour depending on weather conditions and the position of the sun. When this happens, the plant must communicate expected changes to power distributors, which will then switch to alternative sources. With India planning to install 100 GW of solar power by 2022, such AI will play a central role in power planning.
•But to generate such data, Climate-Connect needs historical inputs like the time of sunrise and sunset, and cloud cover where the plant is located. Unfortunately, since most Indian solar plants are recent, data are available only for a couple of years, whereas deep learning needs data over many years to predict generation. Today, the firm uses traditional machine learning technologies such as regression analysis that work with less data. These methods have an accuracy of around 95%. While deep learning can boost accuracy for operations such as Climate-Connect, it hasn’t worked very well in the Indian scenario, says Nitin Tanwar, cofounder of the firm.
Domain knowledge
•Another problem for AI firms today is finding the right people. NITI Aayog’s report has bleak news: only about 50 Indian scientists carry out “serious research” and they are concentrated in elite institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institutes of Science. Meanwhile, only about 4% of AI professionals have worked in emerging technologies like deep learning. A survey of LinkedIn found 386 out of the 22,000 people with PhDs in AI across the world to be Indians. How does this skill gap impact companies? To some extent, open libraries of machine learning code, which can be customised to solve Indian problems, help. This means that companies need not write code from scratch, and even computer science graduates can carry out the customisation.
•But open libraries can only go so far. For some technical problems, such libraries don’t exist. In Bengaluru, a start-up called Ati Motors is developing an autonomous cargo vehicle to ferry materials in ports and factories. One of the things the vehicle must do is to chart out its trajectory based on the obstacles along its path. There are no standard deep learning algorithms for this, and Ati Motors must write these on its own. This requires some knowledge of mathematics as well as deep learning, says Vinay Viswanathan, cofounder of Ati Motors. But finding people with such knowledge is proving hard. “You can do a fair amount of machine learning without mathematics, but if you get stuck somewhere, you have to know some math to find the solution,” he says.
•Can India then really become an “AI garage” for 40% of the world, as NITI Aayog envisions? The discussion paper mentions no timeline for this goal. But for any reasonable time frame for execution, much needs to change immediately. First, if the government is serious about AI solutions powering agriculture or healthcare, it must collect and digitise data better under its existing programs.
•Second, to close the skill gap, NITI Aayog suggests setting up a network of basic and applied AI research institutes. But if these institutes are to fulfil their mandate, they must collaborate closely with agricultural universities, medical colleges and infrastructure planners. AI is a collaborative process in which scientists developing solutions for certain sectors need an intimate knowledge of those sectors. The NITI Aayog report talks about collaboration. But unless collaboration is the basis for the new crop of institutes, these institutes won’t make a difference, experts say.
•Third, NITI Aayog’s ambitious road map does not mention deadlines or funding. Without these, it lacks accountability. The government must make haste and specify its commitments on these fronts.
📰 Still thriving
Contrary to popular belief, there is every reason to believe that the West will dominate the 21st century
•There is a growing feeling amongst the larger Asian countries that the West is passé. The news coming out of there, especially since the 2008 financial crisis, is of declining populations, big layoffs and economic meltdowns in several countries of the European Union (EU), Italy being the latest. So much of bad news over an extended period gives the impression that the rise of the West has finally halted; that the West is now in cowering retreat. The Western media has contributed to perpetuating this fiction, which is faithfully regurgitated by its Asian counterparts. Anything about the decline of the West is good copy.
•Of course, by the West we don’t just mean the EU but also other parts of Europe such as the Scandinavian countries, all of North America and almost all of Australasia, many now home to millions of non-white, non-Christians. One tends to forget that the most populous of the Western countries, the U.S., has a growing population and remains the most productive and innovative in the world, as well as militarily the most powerful. The West continues to have most of the finest educational and research facilities, and takes in the most brilliant and creative minds from the rest of the world. Regardless of an unpredictable U.S. President, the rich West hangs together, with a combined GDP several times than that of the rest of the world. The West has no problem it cannot overcome, simply because it also collectively commands formidable military might of a kind that has enabled it to intervene wherever and whenever it chooses. Not to be ignored are the massive financial resources that it has accumulated. Take Norway, for instance. With far fewer inhabitants than Bengaluru, that small Nordic country has a sovereign pension fund of $1 trillion, the outcome of a kind of prudence and foresight that ought to have left countries like Venezuela, Nigeria and Congo enormously wealthy, if only those who ran them had the integrity and wisdom to value public good over their own. The robust legal and administrative systems in the West, the kind of social security as well as democracy its people enjoy, the accountability insisted upon, along with quick retribution of wrongdoing makes life there so much more secure and predictable.
•And so, much as the world looks on the West as a spent force, there is every reason to believe that it will dominate the 21st century, as it has the two before that. The rest of the world badly needs a revolution in governance and public accountability to overcome seemingly insurmountable environmental, social and economic challenges. Some green shoots are evident in growing public activism in India, sporadic protests in China, and the easing-out of a dictator in Zimbabwe. These suggest that such a revolution may unexpectedly come about.
📰 Risky recourse
LIC’s proposal to acquire a majority stakein IDBI Bank raises regulatory concerns
•The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India has approved a proposal to allow the Life Insurance Corporation of India to increase its stake in the ailing state-owned IDBI Bank to 51%. The plan envisages the insurer injecting much- needed capital into the financially stressed lender, which was placed under the Reserve Bank of India’s prompt corrective action framework in May 2017 as a consequence of its non-performing assets rising beyond a threshold. While there are no details on how exactly this capital infusion will take place — reports suggesting that the LIC may acquire the additional 40% stake it would need to reach 51% shareholding from the Government of India — market speculation and media reports have estimated figures north of Rs. 10,000 crore. While for the LIC the sum is a small fraction of the Rs. 1.24 lakh crore it received in just first-year premiums in the year ended March 31, 2017, for IDBI Bank the funds would almost equal the Rs. 12,865 crore in capital infusion it got from the government in the last fiscal. Whether this will be adequate to even staunch the flow of red ink at the troubled bank, leave alone help it turn around, is another matter. The bank posted a net loss of Rs. 8,238 crore in the 12 months ended March 31, 2018, and is facing the prospect of more losses with gross non-performing assets rising to 28%.
•The proposal raises several troubling questions. The government clearly sees it as a relatively painless way to recapitalise the bleeding bank without adversely impacting its fiscal position, but the risks in increasingly banking on state-controlled cash-rich corporations to help bail out other state-owned companies or lenders are too significant to be glossed over. Then, there are the regulators. The IRDA, whose mission is to “protect the interest of and secure fair treatment to policyholders”, is reported to have exempted the LIC from the well-reasoned 15% cap on the extent of equity holding an insurer can have in a single company. This puts at risk the interests of the premium-paying customers of the LIC. The Securities and Exchange Board of India has in the past waived the mandatory open offer requirement under its takeover regulations when it involved a state-run acquirer and another state enterprise as the target. As the capital markets watchdog, SEBI has an obligation in all such cases to weigh the interests of the small investor. And the RBI, as the banking regulator, should not ignore the contagion risks that the level of “interconnectedness” the proposed transaction would expose the entire financial system to.
📰 GST monthly revenue will exceed Rs. 1.1 lakh cr: Goyal
Further rationalisation of rates if compliance improves, says Finance Minister
•Revenue from the Goods and Services Tax (GST) will exceed Rs. 1.1 lakh crore monthly, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said on Sunday, adding that he expects about Rs. 13 lakh crore of revenue from the new tax regime over this financial year.
•“I assure you that average monthly GST collection will cross Rs. 1.10 lakh crore,” Mr. Goyal said, speaking at the government’s ‘GST Day’ celebrations to mark one year of the indirect tax regime. “I feel more than Rs. 13 lakh crore revenue will come from GST this fiscal.” The Finance Minister said there was scope for further rationalisation of the tax rates if tax compliance improved and the e-waybill system settled down.
‘Slabs address inequity’
•“The more people get into the honest and transparent system and with the success of e-waybill system, we will be in a better position to rationalise tax slabs,” Mr. Goyal said. “The different rate slabs were kept after considering the social structure of the nation. Is it proper to tax luxury cars and items of common items used by poor people?”
•This argument was made several times by Union Minister Arun Jaitley while he held the Finance portfolio, and by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mr. Jaitley also addressed the event through video-conferencing, and wrote a blog post on the first year of GST, criticising the Congress for seeking the inclusion of petroleum products within the GST framework.
‘UPA wanted them out’
•“Both Rahul Gandhi and P. Chidambaram have repeatedly demanded that petroleum products be brought within the GST,” Mr. Jaitley wrote. “When I speak to the Congress Finance Ministers in the States, they don’t seem to be ready for it. But what was the UPA’s own track record on petroleum products...? The Constitution amendment proposed by the UPA permanently kept all petroleum products outside the GST.”
•“I worked out a formula that petroleum products would be included in the amendment providing for the GST, but the Council can decide the date from which to bring them into GST,” Mr. Jaitley added.
📰 Tax department launches ‘instant’ PAN card service
It is free of cost and only available for Aadhaar card holders
•The Income Tax Department has launched an ‘instant’ Aadhaar-based PAN allotment service for individuals seeking the unique identity for the first time.
•“This facility is free of cost and instant allotment of e-PAN is available for a limited period on a first-come, first-served basis for valid Aadhaar holders,” the Department said in an advisory.
•A senior official said the facility was introduced because of the increasing number of people applying for the PAN. A fresh PAN will be allotted on the basis of a one-time password sent on the mobile number linked to the Aadhaar number of a person. The new PAN will have the same name, date of birth, gender, mobile number and address as in the Aadhaar. “The e-PAN facility is only for resident individuals and not for Hindu Undivided Family, firms, trusts and companies,” the advisory said.
•Once the PAN is allotted to an applicant through his electronic Aadhaar-based verification system in a few seconds, the applicant will be sent the PAN card by post, the official said.
•The process can be done at the official portal of the department: https://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in. The Central Board of Direct Taxes, which makes policies for the Income Tax Department, on Saturday extended the deadline for the PAN-Aadhaar linking to March 31 next.
📰 Agni-V to be part of nuclear arsenal soon
With a range of 5,000 km, it will act as a deterrent: official
•India’s longest-range ballistic missile, Agni-V, will be inducted into the nuclear arsenal very soon, according to official sources.
•The Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) with a range of over 5,000 km can reach most parts of China. “It is a strategic asset which will act as a deterrent. We are at the fag end of the strategic project,” said an official with the Agni-V programme.
Improved accuracy
•The official said the missile features the latest technologies for navigation and improved accuracy. Earlier variants of the Agni family of long-range missiles have already been deployed.
•Last month, the canisterised variant of the missile was successfully test-fired by the user, the Strategic Forces Command (SFC). A few more user trials are planned in the next few weeks.
•The Agni series of missiles constitute the backbone of India’s nuclear weapons delivery, which also includes the Prithvi short-range ballistic missiles and fighter aircraft. The submarine-based nuclear arsenal, which assures second strike capability in the face of the proclaimed no-first-use policy, is taking shape.
•While one nuclear ballistic missile has been inducted, more submarines and longer range submarine-launched ballistic missiles are under various stages of development.
📰 FDI growth hits 5-year low
‘Improving domestic investment, ease of doing business key to foreign inflows’
•Foreign direct investment (FDI) in India seems to be petering out with the growth rate of inflows recording a five-year low of 3% at $44.85 billion in 2017-18, according to the latest data of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).
•Foreign inflows in the country grew by 8.67% in 2016-17, 29% in 2015-16, 27% in 2014-15, and 8% in 2013-14. However, FDI inflows recorded a negative growth of 38% in 2012-13.
‘Policy uncertainty’
•According to experts, it is critical to revive domestic investments and further improve ease of doing business in the country to attract foreign investors.
•Anil Talreja, partner, Deloitte India, said the low growth of FDI in the consumer and retail sectors could be mainly attributed to uncertainty and complexity of the FDI policy.
•“While the government has taken substantial efforts in relaxing the regulations as well as removing ambiguities, global consumer and retail companies are still hesitant to take decisions to invest in India,” he said.
•India has done ‘considerably’ well in terms of moving up the ranking for ease of doing business; however, it needed to reach a level that creates enthusiasm for overseas investors, he added.
•Biswajit Dhar, professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said, “The status of the economy reflects the magnitude of the FDI in a country. In the past couple of years, we have seen a decline in the domestic investment rate and now, FDI is following suit.”
•He said the Centre needed to take steps for reviving domestic investment to attract foreign investors.
•An UNCTAD report, too, had recently stated that FDI in India decreased to $40 billion in 2017 from $44 billion in 2016. However, outflows from India, the main source of the FDI in South Asia, more than doubled to $11 billion, it added. UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi had said, “Downward pressure on FDI and slowdown in global value chains are a major concern for policymakers.“
•Sectors that received maximum foreign inflows in the last fiscal include services ($6.7 billion), computer software and hardware ($6.15 billion), telecom ($6.21 billion), trading ($4.34 billion), construction ($2.73 billion) automobile ($2 billion) and power ($1.62 billion).
📰 GST helped moderate retail inflation: CII
‘Levy also led to improved efficiency’
•A survey of more than 200 businesses on the one-year of GST has said 83% respondents see the new indirect tax regime as a step in the right direction and 65% are satisfied with its overall implementation, despite some ‘teething problems.’
•According to a CII report on the transition to the Goods and Services Tax (GST), its implementation led to increased efficiency for businesses by reducing their transportation time, on account of absence of state-level barriers.
•Significantly, one-third of the respondents witnessed a downward movement in the wholesale prices of their supplies, whereas almost 30% witnessed a fall in the retail prices of supplies, amid concerns that the tax regime may lead to a spike in inflation.
‘No change’
•A majority of respondents witnessed no change in their supply prices.
•GST has had a moderating impact on retail price inflation, which may have risen to higher level without the new tax regime, CII director general Chandrajit Banerjee said.
📰 ‘Govt. banks must boost monitoring, training systems’
There must also be element of accountability: BCSBI CEO
•Banking Codes and Standards Board of India (BCSBI) was set up in February 2006 as a collaborative effort by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) and banks to define benchmarks for banking services. Accordingly, BCSBI had evolved two codes — the Code of Bank’s Commitment to Customers and the Code of Bank’s Commitment to Micro and Small Enterprises. Anand Aras , CEO, BCSBI, spoke about them.
How are the banking codes different from norms?
•Reserve Bank of India issues regulatory instructions to banks on various matters, including customer service. The codes are a voluntarily declared commitment, as a self regulation, of member-banks to their customers explaining how they will deal with their customers in their day-to-day operations. The codes complement regulatory guidelines. They do not replace or supersede regulatory guidelines.
Why did building awareness among customers become your primary motive?
•Our primary objective is to evolve the codes and ensure that member-banks comply to the codes. However, as mentioned earlier, codes explain how banks will deal with their customers in their day-to-day operations. You will appreciate that for [the] implementation of code in its true spirit and effectively, it is necessary that both, the bank staff as service provider and the bank customers as service receiver, need to be aware of it. Thus, BCSBI is making efforts to create and enhance awareness about codes among the customers.
Is there any specific code for senior citizens?
•There is no separate code for senior citizen but the Code of Bank’s Commitment to Customers contains a dedicated section for senior citizen and differently-abled customers of banks. The focus of provisions covered under this section is on ease of availing banking services in a rightful manner. This contains a specific reference to commitments of member-banks to senior citizens.
Have you been getting many complaints from customers?
•Although we are not a grievance redressal body, customers do write to us in case of a grievance. We only take up cases which involve a systemic issue or non adherence to the codes.
What is the level of code compliance by banks?
•The codes developed by BCSBI are a commitment of our member-banks to their individual and micro and small enterprise customers, representing the best practices voluntarily agreed to by them. Similarly, Code of Bank’s Commitment to Customers, (revised in January 2018) is in essence a charter of rights of the individual customers. Thus, looking at its nature, it may be difficult to indicate level of code compliance in a comparative term.
What are the areas that particularly need improvement for better banking standards delivery to customers?
•In general, there is a need for strengthening awareness about relevant code commitments and their importance among the staff at bank branches. The banks, particularly public sector banks, need to strengthen their monitoring and training systems coupled with an element of accountability.
What are the changes you have seen in the standards of customer service and code compliance over the years?
•Over a period, with the improvement in the implementation of the codes, we have been witnessing some improvement in quality of customer service in banks.
Have you recently modified the codes?
•The Charter of Customer Rights has been integrated with Key Commitments of the Codes to make it comprehensive. Operational changes have been captured. Also, all the relevant RBI guidelines pertaining to customer service are taken note of. These provisions increase the awareness of the customers, about their rights and explains to the customers how they should take care of their accounts in the wake of increasing digitisation, by following proper “dos and don’ts” and how to stay protected from payment-related frauds.
📰 Immunotherapy a ‘turning point’
•John Ryan is just one of the miracles to emerge from the Johns Hopkins cancer unit in Baltimore. An immunotherapy treatment — highly effective in a minority of patients — saved his life after a lung cancer diagnosis.
•The retired military nuclear reactor specialist will celebrate his 74th birthday in July, and his battle with cancer illustrates the promises and failures of immunotherapy.
•Immunotherapy is one of two major categories of drugs against cancer. The best-known is chemotherapy, which has been used for decades and aims to kill tumours but is so toxic that it also attacks healthy cells, leading to major side effects like weakness, pain, diarrhea, nausea and hair and weight loss. Mr. Ryan went through all that in 2013, and his tumour persisted.
•Exhausted by chemo and wracked with pain, Mr. Ryan was accepted into a last-ditch clinical trial using nivolumab (brand name Opdivo) in late 2013. The drug was delivered intravenously at the hospital, at first every two weeks, then once a month. His tumour rapidly disappeared, and 104 injections later, the main side effect has been itching.
•Recently, a mysterious mass appeared in his right lung. It was treated with radiation.
•Immunotherapy trains the body’s natural defences — immune cells, also known as T-cells — to detect and kill cancer cells, which otherwise can adapt and hide.
•Some experts are cautious, having been disappointed numerous times by other newfangled approaches to fighting cancer. But many consider immunotherapy as a turning point. Over 30 immunotherapy drugs are in development, and 800 clinical trials are under way, according to Otis Brawley, medical director of the American Cancer Society.
•In recent years, a series of clinical trials have shaken up the cancer world, showing it was possible to better treat and even cure some of the most difficult forms of cancer.
•A spectacular example concerns breast cancer. A study presented in the American Society of Clinical Oncology conference showed that for thousands of women, surgery and hormone therapy were enough to keep cancer away.
