📰 Govt. rejects demand to send triple talaq bill to House panel
Impasse stalls Rajya Sabha; debate to resume on Wednesday
•The government on Monday rejected the Opposition’s demand in the Rajya Sabha to send the contentious Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2018, to a joint select committee for further scrutiny.
•The House was adjourned after heated exchanges between the treasury and Opposition benches. The Bill to ban triple talaq will be taken up again on Wednesday, when the House meets after a break for New Year’s Day. The legislation was cleared by the Lok Sabha on Friday.
Uncertain numbers
•The government is in an uncomfortable position, with at least three parties, including NDA ally Janata Dal (United), opposed to the legislation.
•According to sources, 25 members — 13 from the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and six each from the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and the JD(U) — may walk out or abstain if a vote is called. The AIADMK and the TRS have rarely voted against any government legislation.
•The Biju Janata Dal (BJD), which has maintained equidistance from both the government and Opposition blocs, is backing the Bill.
•The Opposition is confident of the support of 116 members out of the total strength of 245.
📰 JPC clears its report on citizenship Bill
At Monday’s meeting, all 13 BJP members were present but only six of the Opposition made it
•The Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016, which proposes citizenship to persecuted minorities barring Muslims from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, is likely to table its report on January 7 on the penultimate day of the winter session of Parliament as the panel on Monday cleared the report rejecting all amendments moved by the Opposition.
•At Monday’s meeting, out of 30 members, all the 13 BJP members were present. And only six Opposition members were present. The draft report will be circulated on January 3 and it will be tabled on January 7. The Opposition is now planning to file dissent notes to the joint committee’s report.
•The report will clear the decks for the legislation to become a reality. The Bill proposes citizenship to six persecuted minorities — Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians and Buddhists — from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who came to India before 2014.
Resentment in Assam
•There has been a strong resistance to the Bill in the BJP-ruled Assam as it would pave the way for giving citizenship, mostly to illegal Hindu migrants from Bangladesh, who came to Assam after March 1971, in violation of the agreement in the Assam Accord of 1985. Around 40 lakh people in Assam have been excluded from the final draft of the National Register of Citizens published in July.
•Rejected amendments include those moved by Trinamool Congress MP Saugata Roy to make the legislation religion- and country-neutral. Mr. Roy said the Bill should not limit itself to six religions. It should instead say that any person who leaves his country due to religious, linguistic and ethnic discrimination should be eligible for Indian citizenship. He also moved that Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan should not be the only countries named in it, since “we have huge number of refugees from Sri Lanka and Myanmar too”.
•The Opposition was stumped when the committee under the chairmanship of BJP MP from Meerut, Rajendra Agarwal, called for a meeting on a day’s notice.
•The two BJP members from Assam, Ramen Deka and Kamkhya Prasad Tasa, have been maintaining a studied silence on the Bill in the meetings of the committee. The BJP government in Assam is fiercely opposed to the Bill. The BJP’s ally Asom Gana Parishad too has been protesting against it and has threatened to walk out of the alliance if the Bill is passed.
•The committee has cleared an amendment moved by BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi seeking to drop legal proceedings against six persecuted minorities. The amendment, if accepted, could mean that Bangladeshi Hindus lodged in detention centres in Assam, facing deportation or declared illegal foreigners would get relief.
📰 Sudhir Bhargava is new CIC chief
He has been a Commissioner since 2015
•The government has appointed Sudhir Bhargava the new Chief Information Commissioner. Four new members have also been appointed to the Central Information Commission (CIC), taking its strength to seven. Four vacancies still remain.
•The CIC is the highest appeal body under the Right to Information Act. It has been functioning with just three members since the former chief and several members completed their tenure last month.
•Mr. Bhargava, a former Secretary to the Social Justice Ministry, will be sworn in by President Ram Nath Kovind on Tuesday. He has been a Commissioner since June 2015, and will take over as the ninth chief of the CIC. As all of his predecessors, he is a retired bureaucrat.
New commissioners
•All four new commissioners are also retired bureaucrats. Yashwardhan Kumar Sinha was High Commissioner to the U.K. Vanaja N. Sarna was chief of the Central Board of Excise and Customs.
•Suresh Chandra retired as Union Law Secretary earlier this year. Neeraj Kumar Gupta was Secretary in the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management.
Lack of transparency
•Activists have slammed the government for a lack of transparency in the appointment process, as no details on the shortlist or the search committee have yet been made public. On December 13, the Supreme Court directed that such details be made available. “Once the commissioners take the oath of office, we will put the entire file on the process online. We have time until the next hearing date on January 22,” a DoPT spokesperson said.
•“What is the point of such post-facto information? The details should have been put out before the appointment was made to ensure transparency,” said Anjali Bhardwaj, co-convener of the National Campaign for the People’s Right to Information.
📰 LS passes medical council Bill
•The Lok Sabha on Monday passed the Indian Medical Council (Amendment) Bill to allow a panel of eminent professionals to run the scam-tainted Medical Council of India (MCI) so that medical education can be regulated in the best manner.
•The Bill seeks to replace an ordinance issued in September 2018.
•Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda said this Bill superseded the MCI and the powers of the council had been vested in a Board of Governors (BoG). The BoG will have all eminent personalities and include directors of AIIMS and PGI, Chandigarh. This board will continue to perform till a council is constituted, according to Mr. Nadda.
•A separate Bill to replace the MCI with the National Medical Commission is pending in Parliament. “This Bill has been issued so that medical education can be regulated in the best manner,” he said.
📰 ‘RBI reserves ratio among the highest’
Ratios of central banks of only South Africa and Russia are higher, says study
•Analysis of the balance sheets of the central banks of 10 comparable economies shows that the RBI's reserves as a percentage of its balance sheet is among the highest, a report by consultancy firm Quantum Advisors found.
•However, the bulk of these reserves are notional and thus their value can only be unlocked when the underlying assets are sold, the report added. This makes transferring the excess reserves to the government all the more difficult.
•Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday said that the government was not seeking the RBI’s surplus to meet its fiscal deficit needs.
•“This government has the best track record than any other previous government in managing the fiscal deficit,” Mr. Jaitley said in the Lok Sabha. “We do not need RBI reserves to manage the fiscal deficit.”
BRICS countries
•The analysis, which looked at the central banks of the BRICS countries, Fragile Five nations and three developed economies, found that the RBI’s reserves — which a separate analysis shows was about Rs. 10.5 lakh crore — form 26.2% its balance sheet. Only two central banks — those of South Africa and Russia — have a reserve ratio higher than this.
•The other two BRICS nations, China and Brazil, have reserve ratios of 1.7% and 0.2%, respectively.
•“On comparing their balance sheets, you do notice that the RBI indeed has higher reserves,” the report said.
Revaluation of assets
•“But… the bulk of those reserves are arising out of the revaluation of its assets, i.e over the years as the rupee depreciated against the U.S. dollar, Great Britain Pound, euro etc, gold and foreign assets held by the RBI when translated into the current rupee value, leads to an increase in its asset value.”
•“For example, 100 billion invested in 2010 at USD/INR of 45, valued today at USD/INR of 70, will show a valuation gain when reported in INR terms,” the report added. “All such gains are non-cash, notional and are shown as higher asset values and as revaluation reserves on the liabilities side,” the study said.
📰 NPA ratios improve, but are still high: Das
PSBs need governance reforms: Financial Stability Report
•The gross non-performing asset ratio (GNPA) of commercial banks improved to 10.8% in September from 11.5% in March and is set to improve further to 10.3%, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its Financial Stability Report on Monday.
•This was the first half yearly decline in the ratio since September 2015.
•“After a prolonged period of stress, the banking sector appears to be on course to recovery as the load of impaired assets recedes; the first half-yearly decline in gross NPA ratio since September 2015 and improving provision coverage ratio, being positive signals,” RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das wrote in the foreword to the report.
•“Stress test results suggest further improvement in NPA ratio, though its current level remains still high for comfort,” Mr. Das said.
•The net NPA ratio also fell to 5.3% in September 2018 as against 6.2% in March 2018, RBI said in the report.
•GNPAs of state-run banks improved to 14.8% in September 2018 from 15.2% in March 2018, while private sector banks’ gross NPAs fell to 3.8% in September 2018 from 4% in March 2018.
•Under the baseline scenario, the GNPA ratio of all banks may come down to 10.3% by March 2019 from 10.8% in September 2018, the report said. The ratio of restructured standard advances steadily declined in September 2018 to 0.5% following the withdrawal of various restructuring schemes in February 2018.
•While asset quality improved, loan loss ratio of banks also increased to 51%.
•The capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of state-run banks however declined from 11.7% to 11.3%, the report said.
PCA framework helps
•The restrictions imposed on 11 public sector banks under the prompt corrective action (PCA) framework has helped in reducing contagion losses on the banking system in case these lenders fail, the report said.
•While Mr. Das noted that the banking sector is on “course to recovery,” he added public sector banks need governance reforms.
•The Governor acknowledged that some of the cases referred for resolution under the bankruptcy framework have lagged time-lines, but added that the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) will strengthen credit discipline.
•“A time-bound resolution of impaired assets will go a long way in unclogging the credit pipeline thus improving the allocative efficiency in the economy,” he said.
•Mr. Das said the shift in credit intermediation from banks to non-banks has given the corporate sector a diverse choice of finance instruments but added non banking finance companies need to be more prudent on risk-taking. He also underlined the need to rebalance excessive credit growth, especially the one funded by short-term liabilities.
•The high credit growth is “not stability enhancing,” Mr. Das said. “The framework for oversight of financial conglomerates also requires closer attention.”
•On economic growth, Mr. Das said the slowdown in GDP growth to 7.1% is slower than expected, but pointed out to an uptick in gross fixed capital formation along with the dip in crude oil prices as a positive for sustained growth going forward.
•Globally, the threat of trade war, which would have weakened growth prospects, has softened, he said.
📰 Agenda for the fourth term
The Sheikh Hasina government must go beyond economic progress to ensure rule of law and democracy
•The people, as they say, have spoken in Bangladesh. Sheikh Hasina’s party, which leads the Grand Alliance, has romped back to power for an unprecedented fourth term in office. The general election has given the Grand Alliance, or, more specifically, the Awami League, a huge majority in the Jatiyo Sangshad, the country’s Parliament, to a point where no effective Opposition is in sight.
•While Awami League supporters are in a celebratory mood, the Jatiya Oikya Front has rejected the results and demanded fresh polls under a neutral government. Jatiya Oikya Front convener Kamal Hossain, around whose personality the Opposition came together to challenge what it called the authoritarianism of the government led by Ms. Hasina, has called Sunday’s vote “farcical”.
The significance of this election
•The political reality for Bangladesh at this juncture revolves around a couple of factors. First, for the first time in a decade, all the political parties took part in the election (the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, or the BNP, boycotted the 2014 election). In other words, this time voting was based on an inclusive election. Second, this was the first time a general election was held under a political government since the fall of the Hussain Muhammad Ershad military regime in 1990. The earlier stipulation of elections being supervised by a caretaker administration, introduced in the final stages of General Ershad’s regime and carried on till the period of the Fakhruddin Ahmed-led military-backed caretaker government (between January 2007 and early 2009), was scrapped in 2011 through a constitutional amendment by the Awami League government which assumed office in January 2009. Despite protests from the Opposition against the move, the Hasina government remained unmoved. It stuck to the justified position that a government elected for five years cannot morally and logically hand over power to an unelected administration for three months before a new elected government comes into office.
•This election has drawn the usual criticism from the Opposition, which has alleged that candidates did not have a level playing field in the course of the campaign. Moreover, on election day, at a large number of polling centres across the country, polling agents of the Opposition were either not allowed to enter the polling stations or driven out of them by ruling party activists. Mr. Hossain and the BNP have cited these as the reasons for voting having been unfair and not free. The government has rejected the allegations. It has instead pointed to what it describes as a massive degree of popular support for Ms. Hasina and her government’s development programmes.
From trauma to victory
•For Ms. Hasina, politics has been a long journey from personal trauma following the assassination of nearly her entire family in a violent coup in August 1975 to her rise to political prominence in the years since she took charge of the Awami League. She has been chief of the Awami League since 1981, when she was persuaded to return home from exile in India by senior party leaders, including Mr. Hossain. Her return galvanised a faction-ridden party into coming together as a strong political force, a feat which resulted in her leading it to electoral victory for the first time in 21 years in June 1996. Ms. Hasina’s assumption of office as Prime Minister was certainly significant from the perspective of Bangladesh’s history. One of the earliest priorities for her government was a repeal of the infamous Indemnity Ordinance, promulgated in the post-coup circumstances and subsequently accorded legal sanction by a Parliament dominated by supporters of General Ziaur Rahman, Bangladesh’s first military ruler. The ordinance had blocked any questioning of the coup as well as a trial of the assassins of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family in any court of law. Five of the assassins were tried and executed in January 2010.
•That apart, the Hasina government took steps to bring some prominent Bengali collaborators of the occupation Pakistan army in 1971 to trial. These collaborators, belonging to the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Muslim League and rehabilitated by General Zia and given ministerial berths by Khaleda Zia, were tried by specially constituted war crimes tribunals and hanged. In effect, on Ms. Hasina’s watch, the impunity which the 1975 assassins and 1971 collaborators had enjoyed was brought to an end.
Steering the economy
•To be sure, there have been questions regarding the government’s treatment of the Opposition in the run-up to the election — cases filed against Opposition leaders and activists, laws seen as an impediment to a free functioning of the media, etc. But it is the strength of its economic performance that the government has projected before the electorate, to a point where the international community, including the World Bank, has been appreciative of the strides made in the economy. Remittances from Bangladeshis working abroad have registered a significant rise, the ready-made garments industry has been performing well, growth has gone up, and massive infrastructure projects have been undertaken. In the field of foreign affairs, the government has based its approach to the outside world on pragmatism, thus successfully preserving a balance in Bangladesh’s relations with India, China and Russia. The government has also found appreciation from the international community in its treatment of the Rohingya refugees — nearly 1 million refugees have found shelter in Bangladesh following their expulsion from Myanmar. It has gone out of its way to ensure the safety of the refugees even as it tries, rather fitfully, to strike a deal with Myanmar on the return of the Rohingya.
•In a country where politics has often been vulnerable to extra-constitutional interference, as in the coups and counter-coups of the mid-1970s followed by the emergence of two military regimes in quick succession, and where national history has been massively distorted by those who exercised power between 1975 and 1996, Ms. Hasina has turned out to be the most powerful political leader in the country’s history, after her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Her three terms in office, and now a promised fourth, make her the longest-serving head of government in Bangladesh. There has been no alternative to her.
•In the next five years, it will be the government’s responsibility to go beyond an emphasis on economic progress to ensure rule of law and democracy, in the form of a properly functional Parliament, a free judiciary, and an efficient executive. Now that the election is behind her, Ms. Hasina looks to preside over the centenary of the birth of the country’s founder in 2020 and the 50th anniversary celebrations of Bangladesh’s independence in 2021.
📰 A liberal move
Rajasthan strikes a blow for democracy by removing educational criteria for local polls
•Among the first decisions taken by Ashok Gehlot’s government after assuming power in Rajasthan was to scrap minimum educational requirements for candidates contesting local body elections. This is a progressive move and will restore the right to contest, at least in theory, to a large section of the population in the State, where the literacy rate, according to the 2011 Census, was 52% for women and 79% for men. The previous government headed by Vasundhara Raje had stipulated, first through an ordinance in December 2014 and then through the Rajasthan Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act passed in 2015, educational prerequisites to stand for local polls. It was made mandatory for candidates contesting for the post of sarpanch to have cleared Class 8, and for those in the fray in zila parishad and panchayat samiti elections to have passed Class 10. The move was ill-considered from the very beginning. At the time, the amendment was seen as a bid by the then BJP government to lower the average age of those in the fray based on the assumption that its voters tended to be younger. It was, however, an act of paternalism that militated against the basic assumptions of a liberal democracy. It penalised the people for failure to meet certain social indicators, when in fact it is the state’s responsibility to provide the infrastructure and incentives for school and adult education. And it defeated the very purpose of the panchayati raj institutions, to include citizens in multi-tier local governance from all sections of society. These requirements had the effect of excluding the marginalised.
•The Rajasthan government’s decision should also force a rethink in Haryana, where the newly sworn-in BJP government had, also in 2015, legislated a series of eligibility requirements for panchayat elections, including education levels and a functional toilet in the candidate’s home. The Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act, 2015 was upheld that year by the Supreme Court in Rajbala v. State of Haryana . And the temptation to expand educational eligibility requirements remains. Union Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi, for instance, has previously spoken of persuading other Chief Ministers to take the cue from Rajasthan and Haryana, as an incentive for women to study. The decision of the new Congress government in Rajasthan should force a recasting of the debate on finding ways and means by which elected bodies are made more representative. In a liberal democracy, governments must desist from putting bars on who may contest, except in exceptional circumstances, such as when a candidate is in breach of particular laws. To mandate paternalistically what makes a person a ‘good’ candidate goes against the spirit of the attempt to deepen democracy by taking self-government to the grassroots.
