📰 Allow gambling in sports but regulate it, says law panel
Suggests that the revenue generated can be used for public welfare measures
•The Law Commission of India on Thursday submitted a report to the government, saying that since it is impossible to stop illegal gambling, the only viable option left is to “regulate” gambling in sports.
•The commission, headed by former Supreme Court judge, Justice B.S. Chauhan, recommended “cashless” gambling in sports as a means to increase revenue and deal a blow to unlawful gambling.
•The money generated can be used for public welfare activities, it said. For that the revenue from gambling should be taxable under laws like Income Tax Act, the Goods and Services Tax Act.
Linked to Aadhaar
•Transactions between gamblers and operators should be linked to their Aadhaar and PAN cards so that the government could keep an eye on them, the panel said.
•The commission recommended a classification of ‘proper gambling’ and ‘small gambling.’ Proper gambling would be for the rich who play for high stakes, while small gambling would be for the low-income groups, it said.
•The panel wanted the government to introduce a cap on the number of gambling transactions for each individual, that is, monthly, half-yearly and annual. Restrictions on amount should be prescribed while using electronic money facilities like credit cards, debit cards, and net-banking. Gambling websites should also not solicit pornography, it said.
•Regulations need to protect vulnerable groups, minors and those below poverty line, those who draw their sustenance from social welfare measures, government subsidies and Jan Dhan account holders from exploitation through gambling, the panel said.
•According to the commission, Foreign Exchange Management and Foreign Direct Investment laws and policies should be amended to encourage investment in the casino/online gaming industry. This would propel tourism and employment, it said.
•However, one of the members, Prof. S. Sivakumar, expressed strong dissent in a separate note filed with the government. He said the Law Commission report was not “comprehensive.” A country as poor as India should not allow ‘legalised gambling’ on its soil. He said such a move would leave the poor poorer and only vested interests want legalisation of gambling.
•Mr. Sivakumar criticised the commission for exceeding the brief given to it by the Supreme Court in 2016. The court had merely asked the commission to look into the narrow question of legalising betting in cricket and not sports as a whole. The court’s reference had come in its judgment in the BCCI case involving illegal betting in IPL cricket matches. The dissenting note said the “recommendation may lead to an unhealthy and unwarranted discussion.”
📰 ‘Condition not ripe for legalising betting’
Law Commission member slams majority recommendation
•In a scathing dissent, Law Commission of India member S. Sivakumar slammed the recommendation made by the majority led by former Supreme Court judge, Justice B.S. Chauhan, to “legalise” gambling in sports.
•Mr. Sivakumar said the Commission did not even bother to consider the “socio-economic” conditions in the country before making such a recommendation. Neither did the Justice R.M. Lodha Committee in its report to the Supreme Court, based on which the reference was made to the Law Commission by the court in 2016 in its BCCI judgment.
‘Still a social stigma’
•“Socio-economic and cultural circumstances of the country are not pragmatic to accept legalised gambling activities as it is still treated as a social stigma… The policy of the government in general is to disallow betting and gambling. I apprehend that the recommendation of the Commission may lead to an unhealthy and unwarranted discussion,” Mr. Sivakumar wrote in his separate note to the government on Thursday.
•He said to “save the future generations from treading unethical paths, I am of the opinion that no form of gambling can be permitted from the soil of the country... the present condition in the country is not ripe for legalising betting in sports.”
•Mr. Sivakumar said the Commission’s report comes at a time when there is a vested interest in getting gambling legalised in the country. This would favour the amassing of money clandestinely by a handful of game operators.
•The member criticised the Commission for suo motu examining the issue of legalising gambling. He said the Supreme Court had only asked the Commission to examine the limited question of legalising betting in cricket and not “sports” in a general manner.
•“Issue of gambling has never been a subject of reference to the Commission. Commission has not been taking any subject of study suo motu and I feel the practice should be continued,” Mr. Sivakumar wrote.
📰 Check lynchings, MHA tells States
Says more than 20 people have been lynched in the last two months on suspicion of child-lifting
•The Home Ministry on Thursday asked the States and Union Territories (UTs) to check incidents of mob lynching fuelled by rumours of child-lifting on social media.
•More than 20 people have been lynched over the last two months on suspicion of child-lifting, the latest being the killing of five men in Maharashtra’s Dhule district.
•In an advisory, the Ministry has urged the States and UTs to “keep a watch for early detection of rumours of child-lifting and initiate effective measures to counter them.”
Outreach programmes
•“The Centre has asked the States and UTs to take measures to prevent incidents of mob lynching fuelled by rumours of child-lifting circulating on social media,” a Ministry spokesperson said.
•The States and UTs have been asked to direct district administrations to identify vulnerable areas and conduct community outreach programmes for creating awareness and building confidence.
•They have also been directed to properly investigate the complaints of child abduction or kidnapping to instil confidence among the affected people.
•Two people were lynched in Tripura on June 28 and two in Assam last month on suspicion of child-lifting.
•In Chennai, two men employed with a construction company engaged in Metro Rail work were attacked last week when they tried to stop a boy from crossing a busy road and a bystander raised an alarm, suspecting them to be child-lifters.
•However, they were rescued by the police.
•On Wednesday, the government had directed WhatsApp to immediately take steps to prevent the spread of “irresponsible and explosive messages,” saying the social media platform cannot evade its responsibility.
•WhatsApp has also been asked to immediately contain the spread of such messages.
•Responding to the directions, the U.S.-based social media platform said on Wednesday that fake news, misinformation, and hoaxes can be checked by the government, civil society and technology companies working together.
•Outlining steps it has taken to curb abuse of its platform, WhatsApp — in its response to a notice sent by India’s IT Ministry — said it has the ability to prevent spam but since it cannot see the content of private messages, blocking can be done only based on user reports.
📰 SC seeks plan to eradicate leprosy
Chief Justice says it is the duty of the state to erase the stigma against leprosy
•The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the government to constitute a separate wing devoted to create and extend public awareness that leprosy is curable and not contagious.
•A three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra ordered All India Radio and Doordarshan to air programmes nationally as well as regionally in the States.
•Chief Justice Misra said it was the “primary duty of the state to erase the stigma against those suffering from leprosy and nudge them back into the mainstream.”
•The Chief Justice said there had to be “social awakening” to the fact that leprosy was curable and not contagious, considering the advance made in modern medical science. Afflicted persons could not be exposed to stigma which denuded them of basic human dignity.
•Persons suffering from leprosy deserved the empathy from authorities as well as the society at large. They deserved to be treated with equality, the Chief Justice noted.
•Earlier, the court had asked the Centre and the States to remove references to leprosy as a disability from statute books. It had noted that references to leprosy as a disability in the written laws amounted to “statutory stigma.”
Panchayat level
•Stressing the need for awareness campaign right up to the ‘gram panchayat’ level, the Bench said such measures would eventually help in eradicating the disease and ending ‘discrimination’ of sufferers. Attorney General K.K. Venugopal and Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand, appearing for the Centre, said steps were being taken to repeal legal provisions in laws which discriminated against leprosy patients.
•“The Central Government is taking steps to delete the provisions from number of enactments which cast stigma on the persons who are suffering from leprosy and also create a disability for them,” Mr. Venugopal said.
•The court referred to the 256th Law Commission’s report and said the recommendation on repealing discriminatory legal provisions had not been acted upon by the Centre and States.
📰 Why we need Governors
The case made by Mahatma Gandhi for their all-pervasive moral influence still holds
•There is a disquiet in Raj Nivases and Bhavans today. What does the Constitution Bench’s order betoken? Are we, Lieutenant Governors and Governors must be thinking, redundant? Are we a mere ornament, like the chandelier overhead or the carpet underfoot? Is there nothing to our office, to us, than having an ADC escort us, a liveried chaperon wait on us, and callers address us as ‘Your Excellency’? Is signing the files that come to us in ‘aid and advice’ from our Chief Ministers and Ministers, receiving the President and Vice President and Prime Minister when they arrive at the airport, driving with them into the city, and then, after hosting a banquet for them, seeing them off our sole function?
Message from Bengal
•The most telling answer to those questions has been provided by M.K. Gandhi. On October 30, 1946, Gandhi was in Calcutta. Consistently with his sense of etiquette, he called on the Governor. The last Governor of undivided — and communally disturbed — Bengal, Frederick Burrows, asked him, “What would you like me to do?” A popular government headed by Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy had been installed in the State and maintaining peace in the State was now the responsibility of the elected ministry. The answer to “What would you like me to do?” was courteous, but crisp. “Nothing, Your Excellency,” Gandhi said. He meant that after the British declaration to quit, the Governor’s position in India’s provinces was that of a constitutional head of state and he must “let” the representative government do its duty.
•Gandhi’s advice was consistent with Walter Bagehot’s dictum about the Crown having ‘the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn’ but not to be the engine of government. And it anticipated the Supreme Court’s July 4, 2018 order. But did he mean that they should go, their offices and their carpets rolled up?
•He did not.
•And so, returning to the question posed at the head of this column, are Governors then a mere and rather costly superfluity? Is the Governor then, in a word, just a figurehead ?
•Certainly not.
•Now is that not odd, very odd?
•Can someone, something or anyone, anything, that has no ‘role’ be yet valuable?
•Curiously enough, yes.
Constituent Assembly debates
•During the Constituent Assembly’s deliberations on the office of the Governor, the thoughtful S.N. Agrawal, then Principal of a College at Wardha, later better known as Shriman Narayan, a dedicated Gandhian who was later to be a Governor himself, reflected on it. In the last weeks of 1947 he wrote in an article: “In my opinion there is no necessity for a Governor. The Chief Minister should be able to take his place and peoples’ money to the tune of Rs 5000 a month for the sinecure of the Governor will be saved.” Gandhi, whose advice to Burrows we have noted, responded to Agrawal in Harijan (December 21, 1947) as follows: “There is much to be said in favour of the argument advanced by Principal Agrawal about the appointment of provincial Governors. I must confess that I have not been able to follow the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly… Much as I would like to spare every pice of the public treasury it would be bad economy to do away with provincial Governors and regard Chief Ministers as a perfect equivalent. Whist I would resent much power of interference to be given to Governors, I do not think that they should be mere figureheads. They should have enough power enabling them to influence ministerial policy for the better. In their detached position they would be able to see things in their proper perspective and thus prevent mistakes by their cabinets. Theirs must be an all-pervasive moral influence in their provinces.”
•This has to be one of the best summations of the value of that office and, indeed, of the difference between ‘interference’ and ‘influence’.
•A look at the attendees at one of the early conferences of Governors on May 8, 1949 would show present in the domed hall an array of Governors, each strong-minded but self-composed, not interested in putting his Chief Minister in the shade or himself in the limelight: the industrialist Homi Mody (United Provinces), the veteran non-Congress leader M.S. Aney (Bihar), the free-thinking lawyer Asaf Ali (Orissa), the old-time Congressman K.N. Katju (West Bengal), Bhavsinhji, the sagacious Maharaja of Bhavnagar (Madras), the ICS veteran C.M. Trivedi (Punjab). They did not look upon themselves as figureheads who could do nothing, nor as martinets who could do any and everything. They knew that they lacked power, but wielded influence, influence to do good, as the Governor General, Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of the day wanted them to, “without friction and without prejudice to the march of democracy.”
•The key words to be taken away from those are ‘interference’ versus ‘influence’, ‘detached position’ versus ‘figurehead’, ‘perspective’ versus ‘prejudice’ and overarching all this, the key phrase: ‘all-pervasive moral influence’.
Vital positions
•Governors and, for that matter, the President of India are vital, not because they can hold up or hold back anything — indeed, they should not and cannot — but because they can and should exert the moral voltage, the sense of the rightness and wrongness of things that would underscore the republican credence and democratic credentials of elected governments.
•This is where the choice of the incumbent becomes crucial. I have given a few of the names of the first crop of Governors attending the Governors’ Conference in May 1949. ‘But,’ the despondent cynic may ask, ‘do we have such persons in our midst today?’ At first pulse, it may seem we do not, and that we are going through a drought in stature. But reflection would correct that thought. Women and men in education, commerce, administration, science, medicine, law and public life within and outside of politics, across the party divide, can surely be found who, as well-wishers, will strengthen and not threaten elected governments working ‘for the better’.
•Chief Ministers and Prime Ministers head the government. Governors and Presidents head the state. Governments govern, states sustain. And in a democratic republic, the people power both. They do so, wanting the Chief Minister to act conscientiously and the Governor to act constitutionally, to ensure self-government is good government, swa-raj is also su-raj.
•The country has to congratulate the Aam Aadmi Party and its leader, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, for having elicited from the Supreme Court a benchmark ruling. But it can do more. It can reflect on how, as a Chief Minister actuates a popular mandate, the Governor exercises that “all-pervasive moral influence”, both together providing the people in their jurisdiction the assurance that they are in secure and mutually composed, not conflicted, hands.
📰 Is India’s foreign policy adrift?
India has lost its eminent position in South Asia due to reckless adventurism in the neighbourhood
•The National Democratic Alliance government has severely tripped on the first principle of Indian foreign policy, which is finessing the ‘big powers’ dynamic. This means that equilibrium must be maintained with the U.S., China, Russia, the European Union and members of the ASEAN. While the first three carry geostrategic heft, with the U.S. still being the number one outside power balancer in almost every region of the world, the last two are economic powerhouses. India needs all of them, not one at the cost of the other.
•India has lost its eminent position in South Asia as a consequence of reckless adventurism in its neighbourhood. Today, the neighbourhood is bending towards China, with India looking on like a hapless bystander. Even in Afghanistan, where the attention of what remains of the ‘Western Alliance’ is focussed, India is a non-player.
Losing its eminent position
•India has lost its pre-eminent position in the developing world as a consequence of its wilful abandonment of the leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and other such institutions of the postcolonial world order. Recall how Prime Minister Narendra Modi obtusely skipped NAM in 2016. India emerged as the natural leader of the newly liberated nations emerging from the ravages of imperialism and neocolonialism in the late 1940s and early ’50s, a position it assiduously maintained even after the collapse of the Soviet Union when strategic thinkers were characterising the victory of the West as the end of history.
•Let us now examine these cardinal errors one by one, starting with the U.S. Neither during the Obama years nor during the term of the current dispensation has a single “big” idea emerged that could take the India-U.S. relationship forward. Former U.S. President Barack Obama personally called out the BJP government’s track record on fundamental human freedoms at the Siri Fort town hall. New Delhi has still has not understood the Donald Trump phenomenon. He is not a man-child as some commentators label him. Beneath the contrived angst and Twitter storms is a well-calibrated intent to write the obituary of the post-Second World War order as it has outlived its utility to the U.S., and create a new paradigm. India does not fit into the calculus. Nothing exemplified this more than Mr. Modi being the 40th head of state to enter the portals of the White House, behind even Montenegro. The mimicry of Mr. Modi by Mr. Trump, the snub on the ‘2+2’ dialogue, and U.S. envoy to the United Nations Nikki Haley’s harangue on Iran should therefore come as no surprise.
Up a creek without a paddle
•The BJP government’s denseness has ended up antagonising both Russia and China. Nothing typified this more than Russia holding antiterror exercises with Pakistan in DRUZBA-2017. Similarly, rather than taking a nuanced position, the ill-conceived boycott of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in 2017 invited the wrath of China via the Doklam standoff. Notwithstanding government claims, the withdrawal from Doklam was sequential — India first, then China — rather than simultaneous. The sequel was that the Prime Minister had to travel to Wuhan and Sochi to effectively pay ‘court’ to Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, respectively.
•The worst casualty has, however, been India’s neighbourhood. In the past four years, the BJP government has swung from the sublime to the ridiculous on Pakistan, blockaded Nepal for not declaring itself as a Hindu Rashtra, lost Sri Lanka to the Chinese, been belittled by the Maldives and even Seychelles. Europe, Africa, Latin and South America have fallen off the map. The list is interminable. India’s foreign policy is up a creek without a paddle.
📰 Passing the buck
Political messaging and administrative alerts are key to stopping the string of lynchings
•The Central government has finally moved to react to the lynchings reported from across the length and breadth of the country, but its line of action is bafflingly weak. Over the past couple of months, mobs have materialised to beat to kill people they suspect — almost always without basis — of plotting to kidnap children to harvest their organs. Warnings to beware of child kidnappers, sometimes with the rider that they are likely to hail from other parts of India, are mostly circulated on WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned encrypted messaging platform. Since a cluster of such killings in Tamil Nadu in May, deaths have been reported from States as far apart as Assam, Karnataka and Maharashtra. In one recent attack, five people were clobbered to death in Maharashtra’s Dhule’s district on child-lifting rumours; the mob numbering hundreds overpowered the few policemen present. And ironically, among three people lynched in Tripura on a single day, June 28, was a man hired by the State government to spread awareness against precisely such rumours.
•Now, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has told WhatsApp to take “remedial measures… to prevent proliferation of these fake and at times motivated/sensational messages”. WhatsApp is the communication platform of choice in the age of cheap smartphones. One of the USPs of the platform is that the messages are encrypted in a manner that makes it impossible for them to be read. Given this, it is not clear how such a platform can take measures to limit the spread of motivated or sensational messages. Also, whether such checks would amount to legitimising surveillance and a loss of privacy — a rare commodity in this digital age. Even if it can do so without compromising privacy, the problem is not the medium. Rumour has historically found its way around communication walls, and it can only be effectively blocked through old-fashioned information campaigns and administrative alertness. Rumour’s potency predates mobile phones, even if there is no denying that smartphones, with their ability to instantly transmit text and images, have a tendency, in this era of fake news, to rapidly spread panic and anger. This happens in different ways across the world, but in India the problem has assumed truly distressing proportions. It is well-known that an unrelated video of an act of violence that went viral was responsible for fuelling communal hatred in Muzaffarnagar in 2013. It is puzzling that district administrations and gram panchayats have not been asked to reach out to locals to persuade them against falling for rumours, and to come to the authorities if they have any fears. The messaging needs to be amplified — merely appealing to WhatsApp is hardly the solution.
📰 Allies, interrupted
India and the U.S. must urgently take stepsto arrest the drift in bilateral ties
•There are enough signs that relations between India and the United States have suffered, with officials in both capitals now freely conceding that their interests are diverging. From the U.S. side, policy decisions by President Donald Trump to walk out of the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran, and the U.S. Congress’s CAATSA law sanctioning Iran and Russia have set up an inevitable conflict. Mr. Trump’s insistence on tough sanctions against all those continuing to engage with Iran and Russia limits India’s options on energy security and defence procurement. During her visit last week, Nikki Haley, the U.S. envoy to the UN, told India to “revise” its relationship with Iran; this line is expected to be reiterated by U.S. interlocutors in the coming days. Added to this confrontation is the U.S.’s tough policy on trade tariffs, applied to ally and adversary alike, including India. For its part, the Narendra Modi government has taken a policy turn away from four years of a pro-U.S. tilt. Mr. Modi’s speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue last month, in which he invoked the long-lapsed phrase “strategic autonomy”, set at rest any doubt that there is a reset in his foreign policy. Since January, he has personally reached out to the Chinese and Russian Presidents in informal summits, and invited the Iranian President to Delhi. At variance with the U.S. position on limiting engagement with these very countries, India promised to raise oil imports from Iran this year, committed to far greater engagement on the Chabahar port project and oilfields in Iran, while negotiating a $5.5 billion deal with Russia for the S-400 Triumf missile systems. These will trigger U.S. sanctions unless the two countries reach a compromise.
•What is more troubling for bilateral ties is that despite the obvious problems, the political will to address these issues is now considerably diminished. In contrast to his meetings with the Russian and Chinese leaderships, Mr. Modi has had little contact with Mr. Trump since their meeting in Manila last November, which by all accounts did not go well. Now, the postponement of the Indian Foreign and Defence Ministers’ “2+2” dialogue with their U.S. counterparts has denied the governments a chance to gather together the fraying bilateral threads. It is imperative that the dialogue be quickly rescheduled. While the U.S. has traditionally applied pressure on its allies to limit their engagement with countries it considers to be threats to the international order, the manner in which deadlines have been publicly issued by the State Department twice this week will only make its demands more difficult for India to even consider. India must now decide how best to deal with the ultimatums, with U.S. sanctions kicking in by November. The clock is ticking on the relationship.
📰 Fraying democracy
Human rights abuses notwithstanding, Hun Sen looks set to come back to power yet again in Cambodia
•A sense of unease pervades the memorial stupa lined with 5,000 skulls at the Choeung Ek genocide centre in Phnom Penh. Over 20,000 Cambodian men, women and children were killed here during the Khmer Rouge’s dictatorial regime. “For your sake, remember us – and remember our past as you look to your future,” says the narrator, a genocide survivor, during the chilling audio tour. The message may well apply to Cambodia today as it stumbles towards an uncertain future.
•Apprehension and surrender best capture the mood as the 16-million-strong country goes to polls on July 29. Of the 20 parties registered, only one is near-omnipresent: the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), whose head, Hun Sen, is the longest currently-serving Prime Minister in the world. His 33-year-old rule, peppered with accusations of human rights violations, is expected to be extended as the field has been bulldozed clear.
•Five years ago, amid a low turnout and accusations of electoral irregularities, the CPP held on to power with a 4% vote share lead over its rival, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP). Political stalemate, violence, international condemnation and a year-long, oft-violent protest followed.
•This time around, Mr. Sen is leaving nothing to chance. Leaders of the CNRP have been convicted, variously, for criminal defamation, accusing the ruling party of corruption, or treason, while the party itself was dissolved through a 2017 Supreme Court order. The head of the third-largest party, Prince N. Ranariddh, was injured and his wife killed in a traffic accident in June. Both were candidates.
•Mr. Sen was a Commander of the Khmer Rouge regime and defected two years before it imploded. He returned as a key leader in the Vietnam-installed government, and has been heading the country since 1985. In 1993, when his party lost the UN-monitored elections, he threatened secession of his strongholds. Eventually, he was appointed Second Prime Minister and by 1997, a military-backed coup saw him becoming the sole head of Cambodia.
•On the back of large investments from China and booming tourism revenues, Cambodia’s GDP has grown, yet its human rights record has plummeted. In a recent report, Human Rights Watch detailed abuses by 12 military generals, all of whom are also CPP members. The president of the Supreme Court, which has aided in the crackdown on activists and political opponents, is also a party member. The media has been effectively gagged.
•India, which carries a special place in Cambodia’s history, has chosen to limit bilateral engagements to economic and cultural cooperation. Meanwhile, the U.S. and Europe have reprimanded, warned and even imposed sanctions against some in the Hun Sen government.
📰 Evolving safety protocols for dams
A Bill attempts to lay down uniform procedures
•The Dam Safety Bill of 2018 addresses the concerns raised about the safety of over 5,200 large dams in India and about 450 which are under construction. A lack of legal and institutional architecture for dam safety raises fears about unsafe dams, and the possibility of consequent disasters and loss of life and property.
•The Bill, approved by the Union Cabinet last month, proposes uniform dam safety procedures. It provides for surveillance, inspection, operation and maintenance of specified dams and the constitution of a National Committee on Dam Safety to evolve safety policies and recommend necessary regulations. Also envisaged is the establishment of a National Dam Safety Authority as a regulatory body to implement the policy, guidelines and standards for dam safety. The Bill proposes the constitution of State-level committees on dam safety.
•The legislation addresses procedures concerning dam safety, including regular inspection of dams, emergency action plan, comprehensive dam safety review, adequate repair and maintenance funds for dam safety, instrumentation and safety manuals. In fact, it lays the onus of dam safety on the dam owner and provides for penal provisions.
•The National Dam Safety Authority is to liaison with the State Dam Safety Organisations and the owners of dams for standardisation of safety-related data and practices. This authority shall provide technical and managerial assistance to the States and State Dam Safety Organisations, and maintain a national level database of dams and the records of major dam failures. It shall examine the cause of any major dam failure and publish and update the standard guidelines and check-lists for the routine inspection and detailed investigations of dams and appurtenances.
•The National Authority is empowered to examine unresolved points of issue between the State Dam Safety Organisations of two States, or between the State Dam Safety Organisation of a State and the owner of a dam in that State.
•At the level of the States, State Committees on Dam Safety will ensure proper surveillance, inspection, operation and maintenance of all specified dams in that State and ensure their safe functioning. These State Dam Safety Organisations are to be manned by officers from the field, preferably with expertise in dam-designs, hydro-mechanical engineering, hydrology, geo-technical investigation, instrumentation and dam rehabilitation.
📰 India, U.S. set to mend trade ties
The deal is likely to involve bringing down the duty on high-end Harley-Davidson motorcycles to zero
•The ongoing negotiations between India and the U.S. on multiple trade tussles are progressing smoothly and a deal could be announced when an Indian delegation visits America in mid-July.
•The deal is likely to involve bringing down the duty on high-end Harley-Davidson motorcycles to zero, addressing an issue that President Donald Trump continues to raise publicly and privately about trade relations with India.
•India imports only a few dozen fully assembled motorcycles in the high capacity category that attracts highest duties.
•A U.S delegation led by assistant U.S. Trade Representative Mark Linscott was in New Delhi recently.
•An Indian delegation led by Santosh Sarangi, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce, will be in Washington later this month, and an agreement on several contentious issues is likely, according to sources familiar with the developments.
•As part of a package deal, America is likely to maintain the Generalised System Preferences (GSP) for India, which allows many exporters to enjoy lower tariffs on specific exports to the U.S. India is likely to change the price restrictions imposed on medical devices imported from America to trade margin rationalisation, a more acceptable global practice being demanded by American manufactures.
•The USTR has launched a process to terminate the GSP status for India, partly in response to complaints from U.S. manufacturers of medical devices.
•Senior Indian diplomat Puneet Kundal participated in a hearing at the USTR recently on India’s GSP status, and the Indian Embassy is processing clarifications to further questions currently.
Fresh energy
•Even partial resolution of the pending trade issues could infuse fresh new energy in bilateral ties, which have taken a hit by the abrupt postponement by the U.S., of the 2+2 dialogue between the Defence and Foreign Ministers of both countries that had been scheduled for this week.
•“Both countries are aware of what is at stake. A resolution of trade issues is well within reach,” said Mukesh Aghi, President of the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF).
•The U.S. had invoked Section 232 (b) of the U.S. Trade Expansion Act of 1962 to impose 25% duties on steel and aluminium from India. India had taken the issue to the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The U.S. is also challenging India at the WTO for its export subsidy programmes.
•Other market access issues are also on the table. American companies are also protesting data localisation requirements that India has announced.
📰 This aborted mission is a success
ISRO’s crew escape system is a small step closer to sending Indians to space
•The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) inched a small step closer to its ambition of sending Indians to space by conducting the first ‘pad abort’ test on Thursday.
•The test proves that the agency can bail out future astronauts with their capsule in case of an early danger to them at the launch pad.
•The test lasting over four minutes was conducted at 7 a.m. at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.
1,260-kg crew module
•A 1,260-kg crew module lifted off propelled by seven complex rockets built unconventionally around it. In a pre-programmed, automatic sequence, it reached a height of 2.7 km and curved down into the Bay of Bengal on parachutes. It landed in the sea at a distance of 2.9 km from the launch centre.
•The module was retrieved later by three boats. A five-hour countdown preceded the test.
•“The Pad Abort Test [PAT] demonstrated the safe recovery of the crew module in case of any exigency at the launch pad,” ISRO said.
•It described PAT as a major technology demonstrator and the first in a series of tests to qualify a larger Crew Escape System of the future. The U.S., Russia and China which have sent human missions have developed their own systems.
•ISRO Chairman K. Sivan, who was in Sriharikota, said the test met all their expectations. ISRO has been readying technologies like pad abort — that are necessary for a future manned mission — as part of its R&D activities.
•There is no approved human space programme yet. However, “We have started the process of preparing project documents for other projects of such a mission,” he said. A decade-old estimate for a manned mission had put its cost at over Rs. 12,000 crore.
•During the test, he said, teams from various centres tried out at least five new technologies — such as those related to wireless satellite communication, navigation, Ka-band altimeter and telemetry. Nearly 300 sensors recorded various functional aspects. More technology trials related to astronaut safety would be taken up later.
•S. Somanath, Director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvannathapuram that led the pad abort test, said the escape mechanism activated when it sensed something wrong in the health of the mission or module. The rockets powered by fast-acting solid fuels quickly eject the crew and the module.
•Each of the seven motors that powered the crew module had a different role and worked in sequence — at low altitude, high altitude, for pitching the module away.
📰 Give legal backing to MSP, says panel
Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices says farmers must be able to sell at MSP
•The government panel, which recommended minimum support prices for kharif crops that were approved by the Cabinet on Wednesday, has also recommended that the Centre bring out a legislation which would give that announcement some legal teeth by giving farmers the right to sell their produce at those prices.
•The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices is a statutory panel under the Ministry of Agriculture which makes the recommendations for MSPs for 23 kharif and rabi crops. Its suggestions are not binding on the government.
•In its report titled ‘Price Policy for Kharif Crops for the Marketing Season 2018-19,’ the CACP notes that the procurement mechanism is broken for most crops and for most farmers.
Neglected regions
•“It has been observed that often farmers of remote areas do not have sufficient access to APMCs [Agricultural Produce Market Committees] and their potential market is local ‘haats’ where their produce is sold below MSP,” says the report.
•“Strong procurement operations need to be expanded to neglected regions, particularly eastern and north eastern regions.”
📰 Cryptocurrency trade braces for RBI ban
Zebpay warns customers it may not be able to honour withdrawal requests
•The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to stay the RBI’s directive to banks instructing them to stop all business with entities dealing in cryptocurrencies, which means the ban would come into effect from July 6, as originally planned.
•The RBI’s directive and the Supreme Court’s judgment have elicited mixed reactions from industry players and analysts, with some saying this would be a big blow to the industry, while others see some hope in the form of a consolidated cryptocurrency policy.
•“The RBI restriction will kick in from July 6, 2018 as envisaged in the circular,” Rashmi Deshpande, Associate Partner, Khaitan & Co. said. “This [the Supreme Court action] is a big blow to not only cryptocurrency trading platforms, but also individuals holding cryptocurrency. The choking of banking channels means that virtually all cryptocurrency related transactions will have to be done in cash or not at all.” In light of the Supreme Court’s action, cryptocurrency exchange Zebpay began warning its customers about an eventuality where it might not be able to honour rupee withdrawal requests.
‘Beyond control’
•“While our industry is challenging this legally, the outcome is beyond our control,” the exchange said in a notice. “Hence, if you are holding any rupees, or depositing any rupees in Zebpay, there could soon come a time when we may be not be able to honour withdrawal requests. Please continue only if you understand this risk.”
•Some cryptocurrency operators are, however, more optimistic about the situation, citing Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Garg’s comments about a regulatory framework being set up for the Indian market.
•“This is far from the end of crypto markets in India,” said Sandeep Phogat, founder and CEO, Panaesha Capital. “The Economic Affairs Secretary is already quoted saying that a regulatory framework is being built in relation to the cryptocurrency market in India. This framework would not have been in the process of development if the government had the intention to ban cryptocurrencies entirely.”
