📰 SC decriminalises homosexuality, says history owes LGBTQ community an apology
Constitution Bench declares the 156-year-old “tyranny” of Section 377 as “irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary”.
•The Supreme Court on Thursday decriminalised homosexuality with a prayer to the LGBTQ (Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) community to forgive history for their “brutal” suppression.
•A five-judge Constitution Bench, led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra unanimously held that criminalisation of private consensual sexual conduct between adults of the same sex under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code is clearly unconstitutional.
•The court, however, held that Section 377 will apply to “unnatural” sexual acts like bestiality. Sexual acts without consent continues to be a crime under the Section.
•In four concurring opinions, the Bench declared the 156-year-old “tyranny” of Section 377 as “irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary”.
•Section 377 punished homosexuality with a 10-year imprisonment.
•The prayer for forgiveness came from Justice Indu Malhotra, the lone woman judge on the Constitution Bench. “History owes an apology,” she reached out to the rainbow spectrum.
•Justice D.Y. Chandrachud called Section 377 “Macaulay’s legacy”, which continued for 68 years despite a liberal Constitution because of the manifest lethargy of lawmakers. He said the Section shackled the human instinct to love. It had been a reason for tragedy and anguish. “It is difficult to right a wrong by history. But we can set the course for the future,” he wrote in his separate opinion.
‘It is just a step’
•Justice Chandrachud said decriminalisation of homosexuality was just a step. This case was about people wanting to live with dignity. Citizens cannot be pushed into obscurity by a colonial law.
•Section 377 discriminates against a minority solely for their sexual orientation. It violates the right of the LGBTIQ community to “equal citizenship and equal protection of laws”. The court held that bodily autonomy is individualistic. Choice of partner is part of the fundamental right to privacy.
•The Bench set aside the 2013 judgment of the court in the Suresh Koushal case.
•Legal experts said this was a much-needed self-correction of a past judicial wrong committed on the LGBTQ community. The verdict would become the foundation for members of the community to seek individual rights like.
•The 2013 judgment upheld Section 377 and set aside the reprieve won by the LGBTQ community through the Delhi High Court verdict of 2009, which decriminalised homosexuality. It had cast the community back into the shadows as “unconvicted felons”.
•The court declared that once a nine-judge Bench has declared privacy to be a part of the fundamental right to life, nothing could stop the Supreme Court from upholding bodily autonomy and sexual orientation as fundamental rights too.
‘LGBTQ community possesses equal rights’
•The CJI, in his separate opinion shared with Justice A.M. Khanwilkar, held that the LGBTQ community possesses equal rights as any other citizen. Any societal repression of their innate and biological sexual orientation is against the fundamental right to free expression. Homosexuality is their order of nature.
•The CJI said the community needs the rainbow of hope for the sake of humanity. They should be allowed to live with dignity and without pretence about their identity. This verdict is the beginning of a journey towards greater dignity, equality and liberty.
‘Fundamental right to live with dignity’
•Justice Rohinton F. Nariman, in his separate opinion, held that homosexuals have a fundamental right to live with dignity. They are entitled to be treated as human beings and should be allowed to imbibe the spirit of fraternity.
•Justice Nariman embraced the ''Yogyakarta'' Principles, which recognise freedom of sexual orientation and gender identity as part of human rights, saying they “animate” the right to equality and equal protection by laws.
•Justice Chandrachud said medical science should stop being a party to the stigmatisation of homosexuals by “trying to cure something that is not even a disease”. Medical professionals and counsellors should tweak their own attitude. Stigmatisation seriously affects members of the LGBTQ community.
•Justice Chandrachud pointed out how variations in sexual orientation have become a reason for blackmail on the Internet. Quoting Lenoard Cohen, he described how “shadows of a receding past” still controlled the quest of LGBTQ community for fulfillment.
📰 India signs landmark defence pact with U.S.
Both sides tell Pak. to end terror attacks
•India and the United States on Thursday sealed the landmark Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) that will lead to a new generation of bilateral military partnership.
•Apart from the agreement that was signed at the end of the inaugural India-U.S. ‘2+2’ Ministerial Dialogue, both sides also called on Pakistan to stop terrorist strikes on ‘other countries’ and urged for maritime freedom in the Indo-Pacific region.
•U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo and Secretary of Defence James N. Mattis led the American delegation, and the Indian team was headed by their counterparts Sushma Swaraj and Nirmala Sitharaman.
•“They welcomed the signing of a Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement that will facilitate access to advanced defence systems and enable India to optimally utilise its existing U.S.-origin platforms,” a Joint Statement issued at the end of the bilateral dialogue declared.
📰 Odisha House nod for Legislative Council
A resolution seeking creation of a Legislative Council in Odisha was passed in the State Assembly on Thursday.
•The resolution moved by State Parliamentary Affairs Minister Bikram Keshari Arukha was passed with as many as 104 of the total 147 legislators casting their votes in its favour. The ruling Biju Janata Dal has 117 members in the House.
•The legislators of opposition Congress and BJP staged a walkout before the resolution was put to vote.
•While Congress had opposed the idea of creation of the Council, the BJP had alleged that the government was moving ahead with the proposal to accommodate the sitting BJD legislators who will not be given tickets to contest the 2019 elections.
•The resolution will be sent to the Centre for approval of Parliament to facilitate creation of the Legislative Council.
Wider consultations
•After the passing of the resolution, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said the creation of the Council will be of great help as wider consultations are required to accelerate the growth momentum that the State has picked up.
•A proposal for creation of the Legislative Council in Odisha was passed by the State Cabinet on August 24.
•The proposed Council will have 49 members, which is one-third of the total members of the State Assembly.
•The Odisha government had set up a committee in 2015 to study the Legislative Councils in other States and recommend for establishment of one in the State.
📰 For all that we may become: on the Section 377 verdict
Today, when civil liberties face unfathomable pressure, it cannot be just heteronormativity that we fight
•For all the lines of the 2009 Delhi High Court verdict (colloquially called the Naz judgment), the one that stayed with me the longest was perhaps an aside to the main point about reading down Section 377. The High Court had said: “While recognising the unique worth of each person, the Constitution does not presuppose that the holder of rights is an isolated, lonely and abstract figure possessing a disembodied and socially disconnected self. It acknowledges that people live in their bodies, their communities, their cultures, their places and their times.”
Reaffirmed, yet changed
•As a gay man, what I heard them say that muggy day in July was that I was not just my sexual orientation. That my worth and my rights were not meant to be my responsibility alone. That I could expect, demand, get respect. That I could dream not just of a life free of violence but one of personhood, of joy. That our lives as queer people could hold rights and dignity without needing either extraordinary courage or immense privilege. That I would not have to hold my breath so often, whether in fear or regret. That the cost of freedom would not be loneliness.
•On Thursday, standing in the Supreme Court as the Constitution Bench read down Section 377 once and for all, I felt reaffirmed yet also changed. I heard the judges once again speak of sexuality as dignity, as mutual respect, as equality. I heard the invocations of Articles 14, 15, 19 and 21. Yet, I am not the same person I was when I became part of a petition in the Naz case in 2005. The law, thankfully, doesn’t have nearly the same importance in queer lives. Perhaps most importantly, these are not the same times. This time, what has remained with me are the words of the individual judgment of Justice D.Y. Chandrachud. In what feels like both diagnosis and warning, he says: “We must, as a society, ask searching questions to the forms and symbols of injustice. Unless we do that, we risk becoming the cause and not just the inheritors of an unjust society.”
•This is a different “we” from Naz. This is not a “we” of some of us who are LGBTQ and the others who either accept or reject us. This is not just about our rights as they pertain to our sexualities and gender identities. This is a “we” of all of us as a society, a public, a democracy, and a people needing to face the inequalities that persist in our names today. I realise today that when I heard Naz all those years ago, I wanted others to embrace their constitutional morality to extend to queer people the dignity we had been denied. It had felt vital at the time. It was. Today, when dissent, freedoms and civil liberties face unfathomable pressure far beyond just that experienced by LGBTQ communities — a pressure that draws precisely from what the court called majoritarian sentiment and arbitrary state power — it cannot be just heteronormativity that we must fight. What is at stake is all that is endangering the constitutional edifices of equality, liberty, dignity and fraternity that the judges invoked.
Freedom’s echoes
•Listed immediately after us in the Chief Justice’s court was the next hearing in Romila Thapar, the petition challenging the continuing house arrest of activists under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, a law that defines the many ways in which we are willing to sacrifice our civil liberties. When the judges called for a transformative constitutionality, when they spoke of the need for all of us to do the work to make our Constitution a living organism, when they reminded us, in the words of Justice Chandrachud, that “the process through which a society matures and imbibes constitutional morality is gradual, perhaps interminably so,” what remained in my mind was that the freedom I had just had affirmed could have meaning only if it found echo in the freedoms of others. We are not just islands, Naz had said, but bodies, cultures, communities, places, times. The opposite of loneliness is not freedom but fraternity. Dignity cannot be just what we possess but must be what we give to and share with others. On Thursday, what stayed with me was not just the respect we are owed, but the respect we owe as queer people to insist that the transformative power of constitutional values affirmed for us in page after page of the judgments be one that spreads far beyond us. If our freedoms are not inter-linked, they are not freedoms at all.
•The Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra, began his judgment by saying, “I am what I am.” There is no doubt that queer people in India have never had a chance to fully be ourselves, to believe and know what our own possibilities are. I have nothing but happiness that, 24 years after the first AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan petition against Section 377 in 1994, queer people will have won the right to breathe and to dream. Yet we have never been alone in not having the right to be who we are. If there is one measure of the injustice and inequalities that define us today as a society, it is how many of us live at some distance from the dignities our Constitution imagined: the dignity of a home and a wage, of a life without fear and violence, of a right to choose love, of a right to express ourselves, of a right to believe in the possibility of justice at all.
How to be truly free
•A transformational constitutionality must go beyond just being who we are. It must instead ask: who can we be? Who must we be to ourselves and each other? How can we use constitutional morality as a transformative power to speak not just of equality on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity but on all that divides us? After Thursday, our work must merely begin so that we may not be the cause of injustice from having once been its inheritors. It is only then that we will truly be free.
📰 Sexual equality affirmed: on the Section 377 verdict
The lives of over 100 million Indians may have been freed by the Supreme Court
•With the words, “Take me as I am”, five Indians led the way to a new India, one where the rule of law assures its citizens liberty. A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in a concurring judgment ruled that sex between two consenting adults of the same gender is no longer a criminal offence. In one stroke, this restores the equality before the law of all sexual orientations and identities, which cover a wide range. To term this judgment as ‘historic’ would be an understatement. Of course, it is historic in the literal sense that it struck down a law imposed on India in the middle of the 19th century by a colonial power, leaving it in place for over a century and a half. However, it is momentous also in terms of the sheer number of people affected by it. The Kinsey Report on sexuality, though based on a narrow cultural base, had estimated that about 10% of a population is not exclusively heterosexual. Accordingly, the lives of over 100 million Indians may have been freed by the Supreme Court. While India’s highest court has in the past ruled on many important issues ranging from civil liberties to property rights, it would be difficult to match this one verdict for its immediate impact on the lives of Indians. As the law that has been struck down is a British colonial vestige, the ruling is bound to have a ripple effect on its future in other erstwhile colonies, many of which are far richer than India but have a less vibrant civil society.
A certain uniqueness
•There is a degree of uniqueness about this victory for India’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ) community. First, it has been the outcome of a battle fought by its members. In the U.K., for instance, the decriminalisation of homosexuality came about by an Act of Parliament after the Labour Party had constituted a committee to look into the issue. So the freedom gained by the LGBTQ community in India is not something gifted to them. On the contrary, India’s political parties had distanced themselves from their cause, no doubt fearing majoritarian backlash, revealing that they have no convictions of their own. The top leadership of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) alone has been the exception. Nor has there been much support from India’s liberal intelligentsia, the right and left wings of which have not been able to slough off a deep conservatism when it comes to matters of sex. The weakness led them to adopt the incredible pose that the only axes of inequality in India are income and caste. This section, otherwise quite active in the political discourse in the country, lost the opportunity of being on the right side of history as it was being made in India.
•A second feature is that the movement to get Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code struck down has not been so male dominated here, with a far greater presence of women than was historically the case in the West. Far from this being just a matter of political correctness, it has made the struggle for sexual equality in India more effective and joyous than it may have been.
•Finally, the verdict has brushed aside religious opposition to the expansion of human rights. Not even in Catholic Ireland had the religious establishment attempted to stall gay rights as it has done in India. In 2013, a coalition of religious groups — Hindu, Muslim and Christian — came together to reinstate Section 377. And they succeeded. Since then Christian groups have persisted in their aim, but this time the Supreme Court did not entertain claims made in the name of religion. Secularism has thus been given a fresh lease of life in India. Henceforth, political parties that appease religious interests for electoral gain do so at a cost to their credibility.
Hope, gratitude
•As a gay Indian I have only two things to say at this moment. The first is to express the hope that having won their own freedom, the country’s LGBTQ community will now work to further the freedom of all, many far less privileged than some of them. The second would be to express gratitude. The debt owed to the five judges of the Supreme Court for the sheer intellectual power of their pronouncements is so large that any expression of gratitude would be wanting.
•But an attempt may be made in other quarters. Now, the first one would be to thank the leaders of the Indian LGBTQ movement. While they, along with the lawyers who represented the community in the courts, are numerous, I believe everyone would agree that two deserve particular mention. They are Ashok Row Kavi who started a gay support group in Mumbai over 25 years ago, flagging off a movement in India, and Anjali Gopalan of the Naz Foundation in Delhi who took the matter to the courts over a decade ago, paving the way for the present ruling. The dates remind us of how long a journey this has been.
•Secondly, the media in India has been quite unusual in the support it has demonstrated. This is quite unlike the experience in the West where gay rights activists received far less expressive support in the mainstream media when their struggles were on. It is a different matter that the media there has become more solicitous of the gay community after they won the battle. While something similar may be at play in this country too, with the Indian languages media having shown less enthusiasm for their cause, this detail need not detain us at present. At the rendezvous of victory there is room for all.
📰 The right to love: on Section 377 verdict
The Supreme Court ruling on Section 377 furthers the frontiers of personal freedom
•The stirring message from the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment decriminalising gay sex is that social morality cannot trump constitutional morality. It is a reaffirmation of the right to love. In a 5-0 verdict, a Constitution Bench has corrected the flagrant judicial error committed by a two-member Bench in Suresh Kumar Koushal (2013), in overturning a reasoned judgment of the Delhi High Court reading down Section 377 of the IPC. The 2013 decision meant that the LGBTQ community’s belatedly recognised right to equal protection of the law was withdrawn on specious grounds: that there was nothing wrong in the law treating people having sex “against the order of nature” differently from those who abide by “nature”, and that it was up to Parliament to act if it wanted to change the law against unnatural sex. The court has overruled Koushal and upheld homosexuals’ right to have intimate relations with people of their choice, their inherent right to privacy and dignity and the freedom to live without fear. The outcome was not unexpected. When the courts considered Section 377 earlier, the litigation was initiated by voluntary organisations. When those affected by the 2013 verdict approached the Supreme Court, it was referred to a larger Bench to reconsider Koushal.
•In the intervening years, two landmark judgments took forward the law on sexual orientation and privacy and formed the jurisprudential basis for the latest judgment. In National Legal Services Authority (2014), a case concerning the rights of transgender people, the court ruled that there could be no discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. In Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (2017), or the ‘privacy case’, a nine-judge Bench ruled that sexual orientation is a facet of privacy, and constitutionally protected. Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra’s opinion lays emphasis on transformative constitutionalism, that is, treating the Constitution as a dynamic document that progressively realises various rights. In particular, he invokes the doctrine of non-retrogression, which means that once a right is recognised, it cannot be reversed. Taken together, the four opinions have furthered the frontiers of personal freedom and liberated the idea of individual rights from the pressure of public opinion. Constitutional morality trumps any imposition of a particular view of social morality, says Justice R.H. Nariman, while Justice D.Y. Chandrachud underscores the “unbridgeable divide” between the moral values on which Section 377 is based and the values of the Constitution. Justice Indu Malhotra strikes a poignant note when she says history owes an apology to the LGBTQ community for the delay in providing the redress. The dilution of Section 377 marks a welcome departure from centuries of heteronormative thinking. This is a verdict that will, to borrow a phrase from Justice Chandrachud, help sexual minorities ‘confront the closet’ and realise their rights.
📰 Pieces of land: on land redistribution in South Africa
South Africa still struggles with the post-apartheid promise of redistribution
•As South Africa debates contentious legislative proposals on land redistribution, few see any risk of Zimbabwe-style violent farm seizures of the 1990s in Africa’s most industrialised country. But President Cyril Ramaphosa, a former business tycoon and trade union leader, faces the delicate task of making good on the constitutional principle of land “expropriation without compensation”, not undermining the right to private property. Land ownership patterns remain skewed against the black majority, 24 years since the end of apartheid. Official statistics on land holdings among racial groups are contested on their details. Yet, there is no denying that the majority were dispossessed of their holdings during the colonial period. Impatience for speedy transformation has gripped South Africans since they saw off the corrupt rule of Jacob Zuma and as the country approaches the 25-year milestone of liberation from apartheid. The annual growth rate is poor, and unemployment hovers around 25%, even as the country comes to terms with the role of top African National Congress leaders in the loot of its natural wealth. The data on inequality and economic drift have led to a sense of despair that the mission of Nelson Mandela has dissipated under successive governments. Against this backdrop, nothing seems to be more pressing than reforms to colonial-era land holding patterns that have displaced the majority for centuries and hampered their prospects. The World Bank has rated unequal distribution and access to land as South Africa’s second greatest obstacle to reducing poverty, after skill deficits.
•Amendments to the Constitution that are under consideration aim to make land expropriation provisions more explicit. The proposals target unutilised land, derelict buildings and land used for speculative purposes. The implications of these changes for the mining sector could be significant. His business acumen and trade union experience should equip Mr. Ramaphosa to balance competing and conflicting interests. It remains to be seen whether the amendments will satisfy the Economic Freedom Fighters, the radical breakaway party of the ANC. But for Mr. Ramaphosa, the moves are about instilling public confidence in his leadership and that of the ANC ahead of the 2019 general election. His bold initiatives as President have seen the return of competent Ministers sacked by his predecessor, manoeuvres to revive investor confidence and restoration of an independent prosecutor’s office. The land reforms he has started are potentially the most transformative yet for South Africa, and also the most difficult as they are politically contentious. Mr. Ramaphosa should stand his ground.
📰 For a world free of chemical weapons
On the Chemical Weapons Convention Act of 2000
•The Chemical Weapons Convention Act was enacted in 2000 to give effect to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction signed by the government on January 14, 1993. The Act defines chemical weapons and empowers the Centre to set up a National Authority to act as the “national focal point” for effective liaison with organisations and other state parties on matters relating to the Convention and for fulfilling the obligations of the country.
•The Authority’s functions include regulation and monitoring the development, production, processing, consumption, transfer or use of toxic chemicals or precursors as specified in the Convention, among others. The Authority is also empowered to issue directions and even close down facilities which violate the Convention. It can liaise with other countries to seek or give assistance and protection against the use of chemical weapons.
•The Act defines chemical weapons as toxic chemicals, including munitions and devices, specifically designed to cause death or other harm. The definition includes in its ambit “any equipment” specifically designed for employing chemical weapons.
•Section 19 of the Act gives full power of inspection of any person who is engaged in the production, processing, acquisition, consumption, transfer, import, export or use of any toxic chemical or discrete organic chemical. Inspections extend to any place where any chemical weapon, old chemical weapon, or abandoned chemical weapon is located, or where a chemical weapon production facility exists. The Act allows inspections teams to conduct “challenge inspections” of chemical facilities in the company of an Observer. An enforcement officer under the Act shall also accompany the team.
•In 2010, the Act was amended to widen the scope of Section 9 to give the Centre power to appoint any of its own officers, other than those of the National Authority, as enforcement officers.
•Section 16 of the original Act contains provisions for restriction on transfer of any toxic chemical or precursor. It provides that no person shall, three years after April 29, 1997, transfer to or receive from any person, who is not a citizen of a state party, toxic chemicals. This has been amended to provide that no person shall transfer to, or receive from, a state which is not a party to the Convention any toxic chemicals.
📰 India’s interests secured in new pact: officials
Transfer of equipment for encrypted communications on aircraft possible
•With Thursday’s Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA), India has concluded three of the four foundational agreements with the U.S. that had been planned for years.
•India has already signed two of them – General Security Of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) in 2002 and the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) in 2016.
•The COMCASA will allow the U.S. to transfer specialised equipment for encrypted communications for U.S.-origin platforms like C-17, C-130 and P-8I aircraft. It comes into force immediately and is valid for 10 years. Sources said a person-in-charge will be specially designated in U.S. Central Command for coordination between India and the U.S. on this.
•Officials said the government had negotiated an India-specific agreement and “specific additional provisions” had been incorporated in the text to safeguard security and national interests.
•“While the text of COMCASA is confidential, we have ensured that we have full access to the relevant equipment and there will be no disruptions. Data acquired through such systems cannot be disclosed or transferred to any person or entity without India’s consent. Both countries will implement this agreement in a manner that is consistent with the national security interests of the other,” an official source said. India and the U.S. will also hold a first-ever tri service joint exercise on the east coast of India in 2019, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced.
Role for private sector
•Ms. Sitharaman and Secretary of Defence James N. Mattis also announced their readiness to begin negotiations on an Industrial Security Annex (ISA) that would allow Indian private sector to collaborate with the U.S. defence industry.
•The GSOMIA allows sharing of classified information from the U.S. government and American companies with the Indian government and defence Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) but not with Indian private companies.
•To further defence innovation, a Memorandum of Intent was signed between the U.S. Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and the Indian Defence Innovation Organization – Innovation for Defence Excellence (DIO-iDEX), which will look into joint projects for co-production and co-development projects through the Defense Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI).
•Ahead of the 10th anniversary of the 26/11 terror strikes in Mumbai, India and the U.S. resolved to combat international terrorism and asked Pakistan to bring those responsible for recent acts of terrorism against India to justice.
📰 U.S. wants to cut its trade deficit
Pompeo wants curbs on firms eased
•The U.S. wants “free, fair and reciprocal” trade and has conveyed to India that the American trade deficit with Delhi has “to be rectified.” Attending the ‘2 +2 dialogue’. the visiting U.S. Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo, said trade barriers for American companies in India have to “be reduced.”
•“They have made progress on that, and we thank them for that. They’re going to purchase more aircraft from the U.S. We truly do appreciate that. But the gap will remain, and so we are urging them to do all they can to narrow that gap,” Mr. Pompeo told the U.S. media that travelled with him.
•India and the U.S. have been in a deadlock over trade after the Trump administration wanted India to do additional purchases of $10 billion annually for the next three years.
•On India’s purchase of S-400 air defence systems from Russia, Mr. Pompeo said no decision had been made yet on granting a waiver and added that the U.S. was working to impose Section 231 of CAATSA (Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) in a way that is “appropriate and lawful.”
•However, stating that the U.S. understood India’s relationship with Russia, and would work on the issue, he added: “Our effort here, too, is not to penalise great strategic partners like India, a major defence partner. The sanctions aren’t intended to adversely impact countries like India.”
📰 Kim Jong-un demands ‘goodwill measures’ as Koreas set summit for Sept. 18-20
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un also reportedly expressed frustration with outside skepticism about his nuclear disarmament intentions
•North Korean leader Kim Jong-un reaffirmed his commitment to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula and to the suspension of all future long-range missile tests, while also expressing faith in an increasingly embattled President Donald Trump’s efforts to settle a nuclear impasse, South Korean officials and the North’s official media said on Thursday.
•Mr. Kim also reportedly expressed frustration with outside skepticism about his nuclear disarmament intentions and demanded that his “goodwill measures” be met in kind.
•The trove of comments from Mr. Kim was filtered through his propaganda specialists in Pyongyang and the South Korean government, which is keen on keeping engagement alive. They come amid a growing standoff with the United States on how to proceed with diplomacy meant to settle a nuclear dispute that had many fearing war last year.
•Only hours earlier, a South Korean delegation returned from talks with Mr. Kim where they set up a summit for Sept. 18-20 in Pyongyang between Mr. Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, their third meeting since April.
•Each statement reportedly made by Mr. Kim will be parsed for clues about the future of the nuclear diplomacy. His reported commitment to a nuclear-free Korea, for instance, wasn’t new information Mr. Kim has repeatedly declared similar intentions before but it allows hopes to rise that negotiators can get back on track after the recriminations that followed Mr. Kim’s meeting in June with Mr. Trump in Singapore.
Denuclearisation
•The impasse between North Korea and the United States, with neither side seemingly willing to make any substantive move, has generated widespread skepticism over Mr. Trump’s claims that Mr. Kim will really dismantle his nuclear weapons programme.
•“Chairman Kim Jong-un has made it clear several times that he is firmly committed to denuclearisation, and he expressed frustration over skepticism in the international community over his commitment,” Chung Eui-yong, Mr. Moon’s National Security Advisor and the head of the South Korean delegation to Pyongyang, told reporters on Seoul on Thursday. “He said he’s pre-emptively taken steps necessary for denuclearisation and wants to see these goodwill measures being met with goodwill measures.”
•Mr. Chung reported Mr. Kim as saying that work to dismantle the only engine-test site in the country “means a complete suspension of future long-range ballistic missile tests.” Mr. Kim said he’d take “more active” measures toward denuclearisation if his moves are met with corresponding goodwill measures, Mr. Chung said.
•Mr. Kim told Mr. Chung he still had faith in Mr. Trump despite diplomatic setbacks, and emphasised that he has not once talked negatively about Mr. Trump to anyone, including his closest advisors.
•Mr. Kim also said an end-of-war declaration that Seoul and Pyongyang have been pushing Washington to sign off on wouldn’t weaken the U.S.-South Korean alliance or lead to the withdrawal of the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea to prevent North Korean attack, according to Mr. Chung.
Kim-Moon summit
•The summit later this month between Mr. Kim and Mr. Moon, the driving force behind the current diplomacy, will be a crucial indicator of whether larger nuclear negotiations with the United States will proceed.
•Mr. Moon is seen as eager to keep the diplomacy alive in part so that he can advance his ambitious engagement plans with the North, which would need U.S. backing to succeed. The inter-Korean summit comes on the eve of a gathering of world leaders at the United Nations in New York at the end of September, but Seoul said on Thursday that it was unlikely Mr. Kim would attend. Seoul has indicated an interest in Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump meeting in New York, and Mr. Trump, who is facing growing domestic turmoil, has hinted that another summit could happen.
•While pushing ahead with summits and inter-Korean engagement, Seoul is trying to persuade Washington and Pyongyang to proceed with peace and denuclearisation processes at the same time so they can overcome a growing dispute over the sequencing of the diplomacy.
•Seoul and Pyongyang both want a declaration to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War. U.S. officials have insisted that a peace declaration, which many see as a precursor to the North eventually calling for the removal of all U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula, cannot come before North Korea takes more concrete action toward abandoning its nuclear weapons. Such steps may include providing an account of the components of its nuclear programme, allowing outside inspections and giving up a certain number of its nuclear weapons during the early stages of the negotiations.
Peace regime
•The Korean War ended with an armistice, leaving the peninsula technically still at war. Mr. Moon has made an end-of-war declaration an important premise of his peace agenda with North Korea.
•While an end-of-war declaration wouldn’t imply a legally binding peace treaty, experts say it could create political momentum that would make it easier for North Korea to steer the discussions toward a peace regime, diplomatic recognition, economic benefits and security concessions.
•After their June summit in Singapore, Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim issued a vague statement about a nuclear-free peninsula without describing when and how it would occur. Post-summit nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang were rocky and quickly settled into a stalemate.
•North Korea has accused the United States of making “unilateral and gangster-like” demands for denuclearisation and holding back on the end-of-war declaration.
•Mr. Trump called off a planned visit to North Korea by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last month, citing insufficient progress in denuclearisation.
•The two past inter-Korean summits in April and May removed war fears and initiated a global diplomatic push that culminated with the meeting between Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump in June. But Mr. Moon faces tougher challenges heading into his third meeting with Mr. Kim, with the stalemate in nuclear negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington raising fundamental questions about Mr. Kim’s supposed willingness to abandon his nuclear weapons.
📰 ‘Industry must lift PSLV output’
With ISRO’s launch schedule growing rapidly, production has to be raised: Sivan
•The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) wants industry to raise its engagement with the country’s space programme by helping drive production of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles (PSLVs) that ISRO needs to meet its fast expanding launch schedule in the coming years, Chairman K.Sivan said.
•“Industry is one of our pillars. But we are not satisfied with the current level of industry participation,” Dr. Sivan told participants at the biennial Space Expo, BSX-2018, here on Thursday.
•“Our missions are growing at a fast pace, to 59 satellites in three years. It means that instead of doing six or seven launches a year we must do almost two launches a month.”
•Observing that partner companies stood to gain substantially from the projects, Dr. Sivan, who is also Secretary, Department of Space, exhorted industry to take up bigger and independent roles in manufacturing satellites and launchers. This would free ISRO up to focus on pursuing new technologies and the challenge of the manned space misson, which is about 40 months away. “Please help us in achieving this,” he said.
•With 85% of the launch vehicle cost and 50% of the spacecraft cost going to industries that supply components and systems to ISRO, Dr. Sivan said domestic companies stood to gain substantially. Of the Rs. 10,400 crore worth of launch vehicles approved a few months back, Rs. 9,000 crore would go to supplier industries.
📰 Ending TB
The disease cannot be eliminated without universal access to affordable, quality diagnostics and drugs
•After decades spent battling the scourge of tuberculosis (TB) in developing countries, 2018 might be the year that it is finally accorded the gravitas it deserves. On September 26, the UN General Assembly will, for the first time, address TB in a High-Level Meeting and likely release a Political Declaration, endorsed by all member nations, to galvanise investment and action to meet the global target of eliminating TB worldwide by 2035.
•Elimination, which means reducing the number to one case per million people per year, will be impossible without universal, equitable access to affordable, quality TB diagnostics and treatment for anyone who needs it. Much to the disappointment of global civil society, issues around access to diagnostics and drugs have been considerably diluted in the most recent draft of the Political Declaration.
•A critical omission is that countries may avail of the various flexibilities under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights; another is that countries may invoke the Doha Declaration to compulsorily license drugs for use in public health emergencies. Yet another is the option to de-link the pricing of new TB drugs from the costs incurred in their research and development. The latest draft is a watered-down version of the original that actively committed to upholding access to affordable generics for all.
•India has fought to retain its status as a maker and distributor of generic medicines, thereby protecting the right to health of people in developing countries. Indian patent law contains important provisions that help protect and promote public health goals — for example, by overcoming bids by big pharma to evergreen patents of old drugs, through compulsorily licensing for certain drugs, and by permitting pre- and post-grant opposition to patents to challenge unfair patenting practices by big pharma.
•TB is, by and large, easily diagnosable and curable. It is unacceptable that it nevertheless remains the leading causes of death from any single infectious agent worldwide. Each day, thousands of people with TB die, often because of inequitable access to quality diagnosis and treatment. In addition, the rapid emergence of drug-resistant forms of TB (DR-TB) in many countries brings a fresh set of needs including new and comprehensive diagnostic tests and second-line TB drugs, and health systems trained anew to manage DR-TB. India not only accounts for a fifth of the world’s TB burden, it also has the largest number of people living with multidrug-resistant TB. In March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India would eliminate TB by 2025, ahead of the global targets. These targets cannot be achieved without access to affordable, quality diagnostics/ drugs. Unless India assumes a leadership role to restore every possible option to protect universal access to TB drugs in the Political Declaration, 2018 may end up being just another brick in the wall.
📰 EVs, CNG vehicles don’t need permits
Automobiles running on alternative fuel exempted, says Gadkari; no such concession for hybrids
•Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said that no permits would be required for vehicles running on alternative fuel, including CNG, ethanol and EVs, a move that is expected to boost the demand for such vehicles in the country.
•“We have decided to exempt electric vehicles as well as vehicles, including auto-rickshaws, buses, taxis, that run on alternative fuel like ethanol, bio-diesel, CNG, methanol and bio-fuel, from permit requirements,” the Minister said at the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers’ (SIAM) 58th convention, here on Thursday.
•Mr. Gadkari, however, added that this would not extend to mild hybrids or hybrid vehicles.
•The Minister added that with the GST on EVs at 12%, there was’nt any further need for subsidy. “In our country, we can’t subsidise individual vehicles. We need to think innovatively to induct environment friendly vehicles. My ministry has prepared a detailed report to promote EVs through non-fiscal initiatives to have at least 15% EVs in the next five years.” He, however, clarified that this was not mandatory.
•The government, he said, was also mulling converting two-wheelers into taxis in non-metros, while encouraging the auto industry to use waterways for logistics to trim costs and lower pollution.
Speed governors
•Mr. Gadkari also said the government would soon “abolish” the requirement of speed governors.
•Meanwhile, in an earlier session, the industry put forth its demand for speedy infrastructure development and better roads, while reiterating the need for a long-term regulatory and policy roadmap for the sector to plan investments better.
•SIAM president Abhay Firodia pointed out that policies changed in an ad hoc manner created uncertainty in the industry, and called for a 10-year policy roadmap for the sector.
•Pointing out that all decisions were taken in consultation with the industry, Abhay Dhamle, Secretary, Road Transport and Highways Ministry, at a later session, said a joint working group had already been formed to create such a roadmap.
•“This week, we will be having the first meeting to discuss the draft of that roadmap.” Minister for Heavy Industries and Enterprises Anant Geete said that the government was with the industry and “will do whatever we can do to help the industry grow.” Assuring that government would address the auto industry’s concerns, he said the industry must adapt to new technologies.
