📰 Supreme Court won’t stay SC/ST Act changes
Answer charge of appeasement: Bench
•The Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay the recent amendments to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
•The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Bill of 2018 had restored the legislative intent of the original Act, which barred anticipatory bail to a person accused of insulting or hurting a Dalit.
•The amendments were meant to nullify the effect of a March 20 judgment of the court. The verdict removed the bar on accused persons seeking anticipatory bail. It led to widespread protests and loss of lives.
•Admitting the petitions challenging the amendments, a Bench led by Justice A.K. Sikri directed the government to reply to allegations that the amendments were meant to appease the Dalits ahead of the 2019 general election.
•The petitions urged the government to quash the amendments, which were introduced and passed in Parliament even as the government’s petition to review the March 20 verdict was pending in the Supreme Court.
•The petitions said the March 20 judgement of the apex court was meant to safeguard “innocent people of the country” from arbitrary arrest on the basis of frivolous and motivated complaints under the 1989 Act. The verdict, authored by Justice (now retired) A.K. Goel, was meant to uphold the fundamental right of personal liberty, the petitions said.
•One of the petitioners, Prithvi Raj Chauhan, a lawyer, said the amendments were a “major blunder” committed by the government.
•“After this unconstitutional amendment, this court is not expected to adopt a passive or negative role and remain bystander or a spectator if violation of rights is observed,” Mr. Chauhan said in his petition.
•Justice Sikri, at one point during the hearing, asked why the amendments were introduced without explaining why the Supreme Court judgement was wrong.
📰 2+2 = ?: On India-US defence relationship
India must watch its side of the ledger while deepening defence ties with the U.S.
•The India-U.S. defence relationship has been given a significant boost with the three agreements signed on Thursday after the inaugural 2+2 Dialogue in Delhi: the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement(COMCASA), “hotlines” between the Defence and Foreign Ministers of both countries, and the first tri-services military exercises between the two countries. COMCASA is the third of four “foundational”, or enabling, agreements signed by India after more than a decade of negotiations, and is perceived as an inevitable consequence of the large amount of U.S. defence hardware it has been purchasing. This will increase, going forward, given the U.S. decision to include India in the top tier of countries entitled to Strategic Trade Authorisation (STA-1). Apart from the defence agreements, both sides said in a joint statement that they had discussed trade issues, cooperation on fighting terrorism, advancing “a free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific region” and promoting sustainable “debt-financing” in the region. The last two points are clearly aimed at Beijing’s role in the South China Sea and the Belt and Road Initiative projects, respectively.
•The 2+2 discussions, held after two previous cancellations this year, brought much-needed focus on the India-U.S. relationship after months of drift and occasional discord. However, while trade was addressed, India did not receive a clear-cut assurance of its GSP (Generalised System of Preferences) status being restored, or of waivers on steel and aluminium tariffs imposed by Washington. Instead, U.S. officials said clearly that they expect India to increase imports of American oil and gas as well as aircraft in order to wipe out the trade surplus India enjoys. It is unclear whether the Centre has acquiesced to this blatantly anti-free market demand, but its silence on the matter is disturbing. The U.S.’s other demand, to “zero out” oil imports from Iran by November, is simply unreasonable. It would hurt India dearly not only because of costs at a time when the dollar is strengthening and fuel prices are going up, but also in terms of its substantial engagement with Iran. No public statement was made on what the U.S. will do on India’s investment in the Chabahar port once its full sanctions kick in on November 4. American officials also gave no firm commitment in their statements that India will receive a waiver to purchase Russian hardware, beginning with the S-400 missile system. While signing agreements the U.S. has pursued for years, India appears to have taken a leap of faith on its own concerns, expecting that the Trump administration will come through on waiving sanctions and being more flexible on trade issues. Delhi must work with Washington in the next few months to ensure that the benefits from the 2+2 dialogue don’t add up only on the other side.
📰 COMCASA will help India track China’s Indian Ocean moves better
Pacts with U.S. will reduce stress on assets, says official
•The foundational agreement Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) which India concluded with the U.S. at the 2+2 dialogue will enable Indian military to get a better picture of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) which is seeing increasing Chinese movements, officials said.
•“With CISMOA [COMCASA is an India-specific version of CISMOA], Indian armed forces will get to fully exploit the capability of the military platforms procured from the US. For instance, the P-8I reconnaissance aircraft of the Navy which have emerged as a major force multiplier are currently operating at limited capacity,” a defence official said on Friday.
•As a consequence of CISMOA, India will get access to Combined Enterprise Regional Information Exchange System or CENTRIXS for short which is the secure communication system network of the US.
•Navy ships with CENTRIXS systems on board can communicate securely with the U.S. Navy when needed and can benefit from the wider situational picture of the region as they have a large number of ships and aircraft deployed.
•“This will reduce the stress on our assets and allow us prioritise our deployments more efficiently,” one officer observed.
•Even within the system there are also specific codes/keys which have to be verified by both sides to enable communication or access information, the officer said.
•According to information on the U.S. Navy website, “CENTRIXS consists of a collection of coalition wide area networks (WAN) known as enclaves” and is a “great enabler, allowing ship-to-ship operational dialogue between the two nations in text and web-based formats.”
•However, there are persistent concerns that this would allow U.S. Navy access to India’s own secure communication network and also that the information shared with the U.S. will be accessible by Pakistan. Officials brushed aside these fears as specific measures have been incorporated in the agreement to “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,” another official said, adding this is an enabling instrument and does not commit India to acquire U.S. platforms. So far in joint exercises, Indian Navy used to temporarily plug in portable CENTRIXS systems to communicate with U.S. assets.
📰 India: Chabahar port hand-over on track
U.S. to exempt Indian investment
•India on Friday said Iran has stuck to the agreed timeframe in its plans to hand over the operational responsibility of a part of the Chabahar port to an Indian entity in October.
•The smooth movement regarding the strategically important port came a day after official sources indicated that the United States would give a ‘carve out’ to India’s investment in the project.
Minister’s assurance
•“They have moved as per schedule so far and we hope the handover will happen as agreed,” said an official informed of the matter. The positive observation came a day after Iran’s Transport Minister said here that Tehran would proceed with handing over responsibility of running the port to an Indian company in a month.
•“As per agreement, we are now ready to hand over the port (Chabahar) to the Indian company. We have moved a step in the right direction already. We have provided a banking channel to India and India has accepted that formally,” Abbas Akhoundi, the visiting Iranian minister told Indian media. Mr. Akhoundi held discussions with his Indian counterpart Nitin Gadkari on Thursday and met industry delegates.
•On Friday, the Iranian minister attended the Global Mobility Summit organised by the NITI Aayog, where he reiterated that Iran will hand over the facilities of the port next month. At the summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a speech in support of greater connectivity in India and in the neighbourhood.
•The Iranian commitment to handover the port facilities in October is significant as just in July Tehran had conveyed displeasure to India regarding alleged slow investment from New Delhi into the project.
Despite U.S. displeasure
•Mr. Akhoundi was hosted in Delhi even as India held the ‘2 plus 2’ Dialogue with the U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and the Secretary of Defence James Mattis on Thursday.
•Following the dialogue with the U.S. delegates, Indian sources had said they were expecting a ‘carve out’ on the Chabahar project as it is strategically important to India. This was an important exception that India hoped to receive even as the United States indicated that it would expect India to reduce dependence on Iranian crude and ‘zero out’ energy ties with Tehran.
📰 Can India take SAHI road to urban mobility?
As fuel prices soar, Prime Minister Modi’s support for public transport at global summit gets attention
•What should the future of mobility be for India? “Safe, Adequate, Holistic Infrastructure or SAHI.” That is the recommendation of a report presented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Global Mobility Summit, Move, in New Delhi on Friday.
•‘Transforming India’s Mobility: A Perspective’ prepared by the NITI Aayog and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) calls for efficient and convenient public transport to answer the twin problems of pollution and congestion. The report quickly attracted attention amid daily increases in fuel prices.
•Mr. Modi reiterated the ‘mantra’ in his speech at the Summit. “Public transport must be the cornerstone of our mobility initiatives,” he said. The audience included CEOs of global car makers, including the Chairman of Japanese major Suzuki, Osamu Suzuki, Vice Chairman of Hyundai Motor, Chung Euisun, Toyota CEO Takeshi Uchiyamada, and Chen Zhixin, President of largest Chinese car maker SAIC.
•Mr. Modi elaborated on his ‘7Cs’ for the future of mobility: it stands for common, connected, convenient, congestion-free, charged, clean and cutting-edge.
Familiar travails
•The Prime Minister touched upon the familiar travails that cities face: motorised personal vehicles requiring more roads, parking, and traffic. “While mobility is critical to preserving our planet, road transport accounts for one-fifth of global CO2 emissions. This threatens to choke cities and raise global temperatures,” he said.
•The number of motor vehicles in India has grown 40-fold in 44 years, from 1981 to 2015, the NITI Aayog-BCG report says. The reason: absence of a public transport system, leading to a rapid rise in private vehicle ownership. The four big metros in the country lose “over $22 billion annually,” on congestion, the report said.
📰 IMA moots ethics code overhaul
•Marking a bold departure from the existing code of ethics that covers the medical profession, the Indian Medical Association is in the process of redefining the code in order to ensure a much more contemporary outlook.
•It has recommended advertisement by doctors and mandatory cadaver organ donation.
📰 Every patient will have to be evaluated: J&J on hip implants
‘Exact compensation difficult to determine’
•“Every patient will have to be evaluated and it is hard to put an exact amount on the compensation,” said Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Medical’s India spokesperson, contesting the Union Health Ministry’s recent direction to pay a base amount compensation of ₹ 20 lakh to patients implanted with the ASR hip, manufactured by DePuy International, a J&J subsidiary.
•It has also sought the assistance of the government “to help us look for these patients.”
‘Agree in principle’
•Speaking to The Hindu, the spokesperson said: “We agree in principle with the government’s order. In light of the recent committee report, we are seeking to work with the Indian government to develop an appropriate process for providing further support and compensation for patients in need.”
•Adding that J&J had instituted an unprecedented patient reimbursement programme in August 2010.
•The reaction comes after the Union Health Ministry asked J&J to look for patients who received the ASR but have not registered with the helpline, while also directing it to extend the ASR reimbursement programme, which is being run by the firm till 2025.
•Close to 4,700 people with damaged hip joints in India received the ASR implant before 2010, when it was recalled, of which only 1,080 were tracked. The government appointed expert committee, however, maintains that over 3,600 patients with the faulty implants remain untraceable.
‘Due diligence’
•The government order noted that “the firm has to give due diligence to trace those remaining patients who have received the ASR but have not registered with the helpline. Sincere efforts should be done by the firm to trace all the patients who have received the ASR and collect data related to their health status with reference to the hip joint.”
•J&J has also been ordered to provide medical management for all affected patients with symptoms in the manner as specified in the report. Apart from this, it said the company should, from time to time, also issue a suitable advisory for medical professionals, up to the year 2025.
•Meanwhile, a group of patients who have suffered because of the faulty ASR hip implant are now demanding that “patients who have suffered should serve as members of the committee to ensure justice. To put it simply, we don’t trust anyone any more — neither the government nor the company.”
📰 Bihar takes new route for Swachh Bharat catch-up
Individual houses to get incentives to build toilets
•Four years into the Swachh Bharat programme, Bihar has finally given up on a model of only allowing community-based incentives for toilet construction. Two weeks ago, the State switched to allowing individual household-based incentives, according to Parameswaran Iyer, Secretary of the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation.
•His department is responsible for the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan-Grameen, which aims to end the practice of open defecation in rural India. With just over a year to go for the October 2, 2019, deadline to become open defecation free (ODF), Bihar is the second worst performing State, lagging behind with almost 66% coverage. Only Odisha, with 62.5% coverage, fares worse.
•“Earlier, in Bihar, the whole village needed to be declared ODF. Only then was the compensation given,” explained Mr. Iyer on the sidelines of a press briefing on Thursday. “Now, whenever you build your own toilet, you get paid.”
•Under the Swachh Bharat programme, States were given freedom to tweak the way the scheme was implemented. Every household building a toilet was eligible for an incentive of ₹12,000. Some States paid the incentive only when the construction was over, while others paid it in parts during various stages of construction.
•Several States also used neighbourhood peer pressure to increase the speed of toilet construction, by declaring that no one would get paid until the entire village was declared ODF.
•“It worked in Haryana,” pointed out Mr. Iyer.
•However, different economic realities in Bihar resulted in frustrated villagers waiting for their neighbours to construct toilets before payment was sanctioned. The change in strategy could now help Bihar catch-up, said Mr. Iyer.
📰 Post office solutions: the challenges facing India Post Payments Bank
The new India Post Payments Bank can hasten financial inclusion, but detailing is key
•Amidst some fanfare, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the India Post Payments Bank (IPPB), a financial service provider that will operate under the country’s age-old postal department. The government-owned payments bank will be able to accept deposits of up to ₹1 lakh from customers but without the rights to use these funds to advance risky loans at higher interest rates. It, however, plans to offer a variety of other financial services to people, including the holders of postal savings accounts that are worth over ₹85,000 crore. The primary rationale behind the public payments bank idea is to help in the government’s goal of achieving financial inclusion by providing savings, remittance, and payments services to the rural and unorganised sectors of the economy. It is also hoped that the payments bank idea will help reinvigorate the postal system, which has a wide network of branches across India. All the 155,000 post offices in the country are expected to be linked to the IPPB system as early as in December this year. The payments bank will also have a digital platform that is expected to make financial services more accessible even from remote locations.
•A big challenge facing the new public payments bank is whether it can manage to earn the profits required to survive as a standalone business entity. Given the severe restrictions imposed by the Reserve Bank of India on how payments banks in general can employ their funds, the odds seem to be stacked against the IPPB at the moment. The first wave of new payments banks that commenced business last year — Airtel, Paytm and Fino — have not exactly set the market on fire. (The payments bank model, it should be noted, is still untested even though prominent private companies such as Airtel and Paytm have shown interest in the space.) Banks have traditionally stayed away from the business of pure deposit banking, unless customers have been willing to pay for these services, for a good reason. The IPPB promises to pay an interest rate of 4% to its savings account customers. To generate revenues, it plans to charge fees on money transfers and other financial services while investing idle customer deposits in safe government securities in order to earn interest. Whether this will be sufficient to cover interest and operational costs remains to be seen. Meanwhile, the IPPB is also likely to face stiff competition from private companies, which are generally more nimble in adapting to business realities and far more customer-friendly compared to the government-owned behemoths. And with increasing competition, the IPPB’s revenues and margins are also likely to come under pressure. Yet, if it succeeds, the new payments bank could usher in a new era of rapid financial inclusion across rural India.
📰 FPIs start process of falling in line
Funds initiate corrective action to avoid last minute compliance issues with SEBI’s diktat
•Almost a dozen foreign funds across geographies such as Singapore, Mauritius and the U.S., which invest in the Indian equity markets, have started restructuring their ownership and management structure to comply with the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI) diktat that bars Non-Resident Indians (NRIs), among others, from acting as fund managers of foreign portfolio investors (FPIs).
•According to people directly involved in the matter, some of the funds have initiated the process to change the key management personnel (KMP) managing the fund if such person falls in the category barred by the Indian capital market regulator.
•The recent past saw two funds – one each from Singapore and Mauritius – with a cumulative corpus of nearly $500 million, change their respective KMP even as SEBI had said that it would review the contentious circular based on the consultations with the government and various market participants.
•Further, lawyers dealing with such investors said that many more funds had initiated corrective action to avoid any last minute compliance issues, as any change in the KMP or the fund manager required an approval from all the offshore investors and thereafter refiling of many documents. This was a time-consuming process.
•Tejesh Chitlangi, senior partner, IC Universal Legal, said that a large number of FPIs investing in India were facing problems as the senior managing official – an NRI or a PIO, in many cases – was identified as the beneficial owner.
‘To act or wait’
•“As per the SEBI circular, since the beneficial owner cannot be an NRI or OCI, it has pushed lot of FPI structures in trouble. Currently, there is lot of anxiety and dilemma among FPIs concerned, whether to act on the dictum now or keep waiting for a relaxation at least till the extended compliance deadline is round the corner,” said Mr. Chitlangi.
•NRIs, along with Person of Indian Origin (PIO) and Overseas Citizen of India (OCI), cannot manage FPI investments, and have time till December 31 to comply with the new framework.
•While an industry body has pegged the potential outflows at $75 billion due to the SEBI diktat, the regulator has brushed aside such concerns.
•Sandeep Parekh of Finsec Law Advisors is of the view that the concerns raised by FPIs are valid and the decision, if not reviewed, could lead to removal of persons of Indian origin from managing India-focussed funds.
•“What started out as an attempt to zero in on the human beings behind corporate entities [a good move] has taken a broader filtering of money managed by brown people,” said Mr. Parekh, who was invited early this week by a SEBI panel for his views on the SEBI decision.
•“The committee was extremely receptive to the practical problems arising from the circular. We are hopeful of a carve out of the problem areas,” said Mr. Parekh, who had earlier served as an executive director at SEBI.
📰 Have you herd? Bighorn sheep pass on useful tips
Scientists who tracked collared animals found that social learning of migration routes was better down the generations
•Looking for the best place to eat? Ask a local. Now U.S. scientists say that same insider knowledge shapes the springtime migrations of moose and bighorn sheep.
•Animals learn from experienced members of the herd about where to find the best food, building sort of a cultural know-how that’s passed through generations and improves over the course of decades, new research indicates.
•While scientists have speculated before that this happens in hoofed animals, this is the first conclusive test of the idea, said Matthew Kauffman, a U.S. Geological Survey researcher who was part of the study published by the journal Science .
•Researchers tracked the movements of 267 bighorn sheep and 189 moose in Wyoming, Idaho and South Dakota that wore GPS devices on collars. They used satellite data to track where and when vegetation along the migration routes reached the stage of growth that the animals prefer for eating.
•Some of the collared animals came from herds that had been established in an area for at least 200 years, while others came from herds that had been introduced in recent decades. Scientists reasoned that if animals learned and then developed over time the knowledge of how to find the best food, those from long-established herds would perform better at locating the prime forage than those from herds with a shorter history. And that’s what they found when they compared the GPS data on the animals to the locations of the best forage. The longer a herd had been established, the better the tracked animals were at finding the best forage.
Young watch the old
•The researchers didn’t study how the knowledge is passed along within the herds, but it’s probably from young animals watching their mothers or other herd members, said the study’s lead author, Brett Jesmer of the University of Wyoming.
•The long, slow improvement in forage-finding over decades indicates that herds build on the cultural knowledge across generations. A slow curve also showed up in the likelihood that animals would migrate in the spring.
•Results indicate that within herds that had first entered their home range even 30 to 50 years before, only about a quarter of the tracked animals on average migrated. But almost all the animals migrated if they came from herds that had occupied their home for 200 years or so.
•Such social learning of migration routes also appears to happen with cranes and geese, but not other birds, said Cornell University ornithologist Kevin McGowan, who didn’t participate in the study. The researchers said the study has implications for conservation. When a migration corridor is blocked, such as by construction of a highway, it can take decades for herds of big game animals to establish a new route. So it’s important to identify such corridors and protect them.
•Marco Festa-Bianchet of the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada, who didn’t participate in the study, wrote in a Science commentary that when migratory hoofed animals are relocated as a conservation measure, they might need several generations to find their seasonal ranges.
