📰 Ordinance to curb Ponzi schemes gets nod
•The Cabinet on Tuesday approved the promulgation of an ordinance with regard to the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Bill, to protect investors from Ponzi schemes.
•The Lok Sabha had passed the Bill on the last day of the Budget session, but could not get the approval of the Rajya Sabha.
•The proposed ordinance will tackle the menace of illicit deposit-taking activities launched by rapacious operators, who at present are exploiting regulatory gaps and lack of strict administrative measures to dupe poor and gullible people of their hard-earned savings, an official statement said. It has provisions for punishment and disgorgement or repayment of deposits in cases where such schemes nonetheless manage to raise deposits.
•The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Tuesday approved the revision of norms under the Mid Day Meal Scheme with an outlay of ₹12,054 crore for 2019-20, in addition to the subsidy of about ₹8,000 crore borne by Department of Food & Public Distribution.
•“This year cooking cost is enhanced...by ₹361 crore,” the government said in a release. “This will offset the impact of inflation on the food items under Mid Day Meal Scheme,” it added.
•A new component of ₹10,000 per kitchen for repair of more than 10-year-old kitchens has been introduced. This would help in their maintenance and upkeep, the government said.
•Also, ₹50 crore has been allocated for fortification of food items in a systematic manner. This would address the problems of anaemia and other micro nutrient deficiencies. Kitchen gardens in schools would also be encouraged.
•The assistance for kitchen devices has been enhanced from a flat rate of ₹5,000 per school to ₹10,000-₹25,000 based on enrolment. This would enable the schools to procure or replace kitchen devices adequately.
•“The Ministry of HRD has worked with States and UTs to implement a technology based (SMS, IVRS & Mobile App) Automated Monitoring System by which information on attendance at the Mid Day Meal is collected every day from schools,” the government said. “At present, the level of daily uploading of data has reached 56% of all schools,” it added.
•Mid-Day Meal Scheme is a centrally-sponsored Scheme which covers all school children studying in Classes I-VIII of government and government-aided schools. The scheme covers more than 12 crore children studying in 11.4 lakh schools across the country.
📰 Centre launches panic button on mobiles
Dial 112 to access emergency services
•The government on Tuesday launched the panic button feature on mobile phones for safety of women and other emergency services across 16 States and Mumbai.
•The initiative was launched jointly by Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi nearly three years after the government first made the safety feature a mandatory requirement in phones through a gazette notification.
•In order to access an emergency service, such as police, medical and other services, a user can dial 112 from any phone. A smartphone user can also press the power button thrice in quick succession and a user of a basic or feature phone can long press 5 or 9 on the key pad. One can also download the 112 mobile application.
•Once a user presses the panic button, five calls will be made to emergency number 112 as well as call log details and the geo location of the victim will be sent by SMSes and emails to police officials at the state, district and local level.
•It can be availed in Andhra Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, UP, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Puducherry, Lakshadweep, Andaman, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu, Jammu & Kashmir as well as Mumbai. The safety feature had earlier been launched in Nagaland and Himachal Pradesh.
•The panic button facility, also known as the Emergency Response Support System, is being supported under the Nirbhaya Fund set up for safety of women.
📰 The Saudi-India-Pakistan triangle
New Delhi should not be overly optimistic about prying Riyadh away from Islamabad
•There seems to be much exultation in New Delhi that the visit by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, will lead to further strengthening of Saudi Arabia-Indian ties, a process that had begun with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Riyadh in 2016. Some of this jubilation is based on rational calculations regarding Saudi interest in expanding trade and investment in India and collaboration in the energy sector. Saudi Aramco is interested in partnering with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company in developing an integrated refinery and petrochemicals complex at Ratnagiri in Maharashtra, a $44 billion joint venture with Indian public sector involvement. Saudi Arabia is already one of the three largest suppliers of oil to India.
•However, much of the euphoria is based on wishful thinking and vague statements such as Riyadh’s declaration that India is one of eight countries with which it wants to intensify its strategic partnership in various fields. The Indian self-delusion is demonstrated, above all, by the speculation in policy-making circles in New Delhi that the Saudi stance on Kashmir has now changed and its tilt toward Pakistan corrected.
•The latter assumption is nothing more than a pipe dream. The Saudi Foreign Minister’s statement in Islamabad during MBS’s visit that Riyadh is committed to “de-escalating” tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir must not be read as an endorsement of the Indian stand but as an attempt to intervene in the dispute rather than accept its bilateral nature.
Key reasons
•New Delhi should, therefore, not be overly optimistic that growing Saudi-Indian relations in the economic sphere will succeed in prying Riyadh away from Islamabad. There are various reasons that lead to this conclusion. First, Pakistan is far too important to Saudi Arabia for internal security reasons for Riyadh to sacrifice its stake in Islamabad in order to appease New Delhi. The Pakistan Army has more than once acted as the Saudi rulers’ praetorian guard and given the uncertain hold of MBS on his country, despite impressions to the contrary, he may need the services of Pakistani mercenaries in the near future.
•Second, Afghanistan has been a point of strategic convergence for Pakistan and Saudi Arabia going back to the 1980s when the Saudis used Pakistan as a conduit for material assistance to the Islamist forces fighting the Soviet Union and its proxy government in Kabul. With U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the consequent expansion of Taliban influence very much on the cards, Pakistan’s strategic value as the Taliban’s patron has grown exponentially. Saudi Arabia is interested in curbing Iranian influence in Afghanistan and needs Pakistan to contain Tehran’s ability to influence events in that country after the American withdrawal through its Tajik and Hazara allies.
The Iran angle
•Iran is Saudi Arabia’s chief adversary in West Asia. The Saudi-Iranian rivalry is being played out across the region, from Syria to Yemen. Riyadh perceives Pakistan as a major asset it can use to check the spread of Iranian influence despite the Nawaz Sharif government’s refusal to commit Pakistani troops in the Yemen war on behalf of the Saudi-led alliance. It sees Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa as more amenable to Saudi persuasion. Pakistan on its part perceives MBS as a valuable interlocutor on its behalf with the U.S. because of his excellent rapport with U.S. President Donald Trump. Islamabad deems this essential in light of the recent strains in U.S.-Pakistani relations over Pakistan’s support to terrorist groups targeting U.S. forces in Afghanistan that led to stern rebukes from Mr. Trump and suspension of American military aid to Pakistan.
•Moreover, Pakistan’s relations with Iran, never easy, have hit a new low following the recent terrorist attack in the Sistan-Baluchistan Province that killed 27 Revolutionary Guards. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei pointed the finger at “the spying agencies of some regional and trans-regional countries”, an obvious reference to Pakistan and the U.S. The commander of the IRGC said, “The government of Pakistan must pay the price of harbouring these terrorist groups and this price will undoubtedly be very high.”
•As Pakistan’s relations with Iran deteriorate, it is likely to move further into the Saudi orbit. Increasing Sunni fundamentalism, bordering on Wahhabism, in Pakistan also makes it a natural ideological ally of Saudi Arabia and an ideological foe of Shia Iran.
Aid bailout
•Saudi economic largesse matters greatly to Pakistan, which is in dire economic straits and has been forced to turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for loans that are bound to come with strict conditionalities. Over and above the $6 billion already promised by Saudi Arabia, MBS has promised a further $20 billion in Saudi investment in Pakistan. A large part is earmarked for investment in the construction of an oil refinery in Gwadar on the Makran coast, which is being developed as a strategic port by China and features prominently in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) plan.
•In the context of this strategic and economic nexus between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, it will be unwise for New Delhi to seriously believe that it will be able to wean Saudi Arabia away from Pakistan. India should take advantage of any benefit that accrues from India’s economic relations with Saudi Arabia but should not pin much hope on Riyadh in the political-strategic sphere.
📰 The importance of being humane
Opposition parties must make a new anti-torture legislation part of their common programme
•Custodial torture is global, old and stubborn. Dismemberment was a method of torture practised with vigour in ancient India, crushing-by-elephant-foot another. The Arthashastra prescribes mental torture through swear-words with or without physical assaults. Death by a thousand cuts was ancient China’s speciality. The Tang Code (652 CE) describes judicial torture in detail. Ancient Japanese methods of torture numb the human imagination. Their modern avatar in Japan’s World War II of biological and chemical experimentation on humans — prisoners, mainly Chinese — in Unit 731 stop the blood-flow to one’s heart.
Cautioned by history
•So, does that mean sadism is an inherent part of human nature? It certainly shows that the inflicting of pain is an inseparable part of human history. More specifically, the history of power, of authority and control.
•The practice of custodial power is about men — and sometimes, women — who are in positions of power, even if for a brief while and over a limited terrain, having custody over a powerless person. It is about the use of custodial opportunity to torture the captive’s body and mind. And there, in that arena of wantonness, it becomes something of a sport for the human “Gods” that rule mere humans. “They kill us for their sport,” Shakespeare said of “the Gods”.
•Custodial death, when not ‘natural’, is the extreme end-point of custodial torture. The death penalty, notwithstanding ‘due process’, is a close kin to this lawless and heartless game.
•In Greece, the pinnacle of culture, Socrates was in 399 BCE sentenced to death by hemlock, which was known to act slowly, incapacitating the person in stages, climbing from the lower extremities limb by limb to the heart. A little further to the east, around 30 CE took place what is ironically the only hallowed case of plain torture. After being stripped and scourged, the victim’s palms, known in anatomy to be among the most sensitive of human limbs, were nailed to the cross’s horizontal beam, his feet to the vertical. “I thirst,” Mary’s son said.
•Torturers are invariably sadists. Mary Surratt is not a well-known name. She was the first woman to be hanged in the U.S., in 1865, under due process. Her crime: being part of the conspiracy that led to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Minutes before her end, she complained to the hangman that her handcuffs hurt. They won’t hurt long, he said. Peering down the ‘drop’, she then said she hoped they would send her down neatly. Sure thing, they said. Sure enough they botched it. Her frame doubled up. “She makes a good bow,” the hangmen jested. Lincoln must have screamed in his grave.
•Hitler’s torturing of his prisoners would shame Satan, if such a creature exists. He was as real as his poison gases, tooth-extractors. Stalin’s, Pol Pot’s, ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier’s examples would have embarrassed Hell, if such a place exists. The power-centres of these tyrants were hellishly real.
•Apartheid South Africa had its torturers trained in Algeria to inflict pain without leaving any signs on the body. Imam Haron, Steve Biko and the Naidoo family are among the better known of the many less known and unknown brutalised by the apartheid regime.
•The butchering last October of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi tells us custodial torture and killing are no country’s, creed’s or culture’s monopoly. Nor that of any clime-time. Torture seems to be, like the roach, co-terminus with Time. And co-extensive with homo sapiens.
•Custodial torture is about the here and now. As I write and the reader reads this, we can be sure that not far from wherever we are, someone is being tortured by somebody. I am not referring to criminals torturing their captives, but of that somebody who has ephemeral custody, semi-legal, pre-legal, legal, over that someone’s body and mind.
•India has practised and continues to practise the ‘third degree’ with impunity. Let only him deny it who has cause to hide it.
•But if torture is real, human revulsion with torture is also real. And it has shape, definition. It has scope.
•Meeting on December 10, 1984, the UN General Assembly stirred the world’s conscience. It adopted the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Better known as the UN Convention against Torture, it sought to prevent torture around the world. More specifically, it “required states to take effective measures to prevent torture and forbade them from transporting people to any country where there is reason to believe they will be tortured (refoulement)”. Most significantly, the Convention made state parties to undertake that “no exceptional circumstances whatsoever” will be “invoked to justify torture, including war, threat of war, internal political instability, public emergency, terrorist acts, violent crime, or any form of armed conflict”.
•In other words, it foresaw every possible subterfuge and subversion by states.
The Indian case
•India took 13 years to sign the Convention, but sign it did, on October 14, 1997, during the 11-month-old Prime Ministership of I.K. Gujral. Hat’s off to him. He did what Rajiv Gandhi, V.P. Singh, Chandra Shekhar, P.V. Narasimha Rao, H.D. Deve Gowda could not, did not, do. But signing is only the first step. Unless a convention is ratified and followed or preceded by domestic legislation that commits the ratifying party to compliance, the original signing carries no meaning. India has not ratified.
•India’s non-ratification of the Convention is both surprising and dismaying. What is the constraint? A state which signs the Convention has to have a domestic law on the subject to outlaw and prevent custodial torture. Without such a law, there is no meaning to signing the Convention. And so, late as it was, the UPA II government introduced a Prevention of Torture Bill in the Lok Sabha in 2010 and had it passed in 10 days. The bill as passed by the Lok Sabha was referred to a select committee of the Rajya Sabha. The committee gave its report recommending the Bill’s adoption later the same year. Citing National Human Rights Commission figures of reported torture cases, the report said the figures showed custodial torture was rising. It also pointed out that the number of reported cases being only a fraction of actuals, the situation was serious.
•But that Bill was unlucky. It lapsed with the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha. And was not revived by the 16th, the present Lok Sabha. Ratification of the Convention remains in limbo. Custodial torture remains in position.
•In reply to a question (May 11, 2016) whether the government was planning to ratify the Convention, the Minister of State for Home did not answer either in the positive or negative but spoke of amending Sections 330 (voluntarily causing hurt to extort confession) and 331 of the Indian Penal Code. The nature of these amendments has not been delineated and so, almost nine years after the report of the Select Committee and 21 years after signing the Convention, India is yet to legislate a law that will outlaw torture an enable it to ratify the Convention.
•What is the constraint? Why is the Indian state unwilling to say, ‘no custodial torture in India’? The answer can only be that the power over a captive’s body and mind is not easily given up.
Waiting for a nudge?
•Senior advocate Ashwani Kumar, former MP and Minister, moved a PIL in the Supreme Court in 2016 asking it to get Parliament to move forward in the matter. After a full day’s exclusive hearing in the case, the court has reserved its orders. Can the Supreme Court indeed “nudge” Parliament? It knows best, in its wisdom and experience. This much, however, one can hope: In a matter that concerns ‘life and liberty’, the Supreme Court is the guardian of the Constitution’s guarantees. And when the one being guarded says, ‘I thirst,’ the guardian can only bring to its parched lips the waters of life. Whatever be the outcome of Mr. Kumar’s PIL, it is imperative that the democratic opposition makes the ratification of the Convention and a new anti-torture legislation part of its common programme. The 17th Lok Sabha must take a stand on this matter. It has a choice: to join the civilised world in moving away from ancient barbarism or stay in the dungeons of blinding, benumbing brutality.
📰 Breaking protocol, Modi receives Saudi Crown Prince Salman at airport
PM, Saudi Crown Prince to discuss cross-border terror
•In a special gesture, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday received Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the airport here, signifying the importance India attaches to the visit by the leader of the powerful Gulf nation.
•The Crown Prince arrived here on a visit for under 30 hours, a day after concluding his high-profile tour of Pakistan where he said dialogue was the only way to resolve “outstanding issues” between India and Pakistan. According to the External Affairs Ministry, the Crown Prince will leave here around 11.50 p.m. on Wednesday.
•External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted, “A new chapter in bilateral relations. Breaking protocol, PM @narendramodi personally receives HRH Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia as he arrives on his first bilateral visit to India!”
•The Saudi leader, who returned to Riyadh from Pakistan, and Mr. Modi will hold extensive talks on Wednesday during which India is likely to raise strongly the issue of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism.
•Mr. Modi and Mr. Salman are expected to look at ways to enhance defence ties, including holding a joint naval exercise, official sources said.
•His visit comes against the backdrop of the escalating tension between India and Pakistan following the Pulwama terror attack carried out by Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terror group in which 40 CRPF men were killed.
•In a joint statement, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia on Monday called for avoiding “politicisation” of the UN listing regime at a time when India was stepping up efforts to brand the JeM terror group’s chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist.
•Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir said in Islamabad that Riyadh would try to “de-escalate” tensions between India and Pakistan in the wake of the Pulwama attack.
•Official sources said Saudi Arabia was no longer accepting Pakistan’s narrative on Kashmir and cross-border terrorism and that India would forcefully raise the issue of Pakistan’s support to terror groups during delegation-level talks between Mr. Modi and the Crown Prince.
•They said the joint statement to be issued after talks between the two sides is likely to have strong reference about terrorism and ways to deal with it.
•Official sources said there has been a “change” in the way Saudi Arabia looked at relations between India and Pakistan and that the powerful Gulf nation had a better understanding of the cross-border terrorism.
📰 Fiji will continue to balance between India, China: envoy
“We have more in common with India. We understand the aspirations of India,” says Yogesh Punja
•Yogesh Punja, Fiji’s High Commissioner to India, was in Chennai recently, which, in his words, was a trip to understand Chennai and Tamil Nadu and explore opportunities of cooperation. In an interview with The Hindu, he spoke of Indo-Fiji defence and economic cooperation as well as the south Pacific island nation’s growing ties with China. He said Fiji is politically closer to India, but will balance its ties between India and China. Edited excerpts:
What brings you to Chennai?
•Because Chennai is big, India is big. And historically, we have a strong connection. For us, establishing the relationship is important — a relationship that matters, that has some values. We are in talks with the MEA (Ministry of External Affairs). There are government to government level engagements. But the real movement will be state-wise. That’s for the same reason I went to Gujarat to attend the Vibrant Gujarat summit [18-20 January]. We have identified a number of opportunities in the private sector, particularly in the film industry. We have MIOT in the health sector [which has hospitals in Fiji]. I also believe there’s big opportunity for us to explore the tourism sector. India has got some 300 million middle class, a bigger population than the U.S. I don’t want 300 million, I want 500,000 Indian tourists, I will be more than happy. Even if I get 10,000, I will still be happy. For now it’s 5,000 a year.
What are the major thrust areas of bilateral cooperation at the central government level?
•We have close to 28 MoUs on the table. We have a defence MoU, unfortunately I won’t be able to discuss what exactly is happening in that area. But we are bringing personnel here for training purposes and we are also negotiating for some equipment and things like that. It’s all there. On a more practical side of our engagement is the MoU on the sugar industry. The sugar industry in Fiji has lost its momentum over the past decade. The sugar industry is very important to us. It involves a lot of people. It’s very much like India’s farming industry. The challenge before us is to keep our farmers happy and keep the industry viable. We are an island state so we have a huge cost of logistics. We have to find new ways of selling this commodity elsewhere. We are also revamping the industry at home. We have recently automatised cane harvesting. So this is one area where both India and Fiji can cooperate. Agriculture is another sector where we can learn a lot from India. We are still not self sufficient on food. We are still dependent on food imports. The challenge is to get the private sector involved. The government makes policies but businesses should come along. The government has its intentions. It wants progress. But the specifics of the progress depends on a lot of factors such as the private sector.
On the defence cooperation side, how do you see the partnership progressing between India and Fiji, especially after the 2017 MoU?
•Our relationship with India is the best we have ever seen. For the government to lift me up from Australia to India is a huge decision. I came straight from the private sector and the first position I got was in Australia. And Australia is probably the most important bilateral partner to Fiji. Sixty percent of our tourism comes from there. Almost 80% of our FDI comes from there. We have 1,00,000 Fijians living in Australia. My mission was to further deepen our engagement with Australia. And we did many things in Australia. Suddenly, I got picked from there and brought to India. That shows how important our relationship is. What I am saying is that the government understands the relationship and appreciates the relationship. We know the potential of the relationship is big. Imagine Prime Minister Modi visiting Fiji and not Australia when he comes to down south [Pacific]. Australia is a big partner, big player and yet he came to Fiji. We have also recently allocated land to each other to build embassies. All of this is talking about the strengthening of relations. And your high commissioner in Fiji is the ambassador for the entire Pacific. This tells us the importance India places on Fiji.
Fiji has signed up to China’s Belt and Road initiative. What kind of investments the Chinese are making in Fiji?
•The Chinese are trying to find a strategic position around Pacific. The pacific itself is a low-hanging fruit. Fiji is not necessarily the focus of the BRI. It’s not. It’s a one small cog in the wheel. The focus of the Chinese in the Pacific and particularly in Fiji is the geopolitical one — its presence in the Pacific. Yes, they are building infrastructure in Fiji. The government’s decision is to be self-sufficient in what it does. We do not want to be dependent on loans, or credit from the big boys who later on come clamping down on you. You want friendly parties who you can deal with. In this kind of engagement we need to identity who are our allies. The Chinese experience in the Pacific is well known... We have learnt from what we have seen. We are using Chinese loans for our infrastructure development. Our Kings Road was built by the Chinese. We have brought private investments in Fiji from Chinese firms. As we speak, there’s a lawsuit against a Chinese firm that was developing a resort on an island. They started dredging a reef without taking permissions. So they are being taken to task. The government is functioning with the agenda that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. We want to work with them. We will engage with anybody and everybody because we have a policy—we are friends to all and enemies to none. This is our motto.
You said the Chinese are looking at Fiji geopolitically. India may also be doing the same. So how does Fiji, a small but strategically important country, look at these two bigger nations with regional ambitions?
•We are engaging with both. We have good relationship with both countries. We have defence cooperation not only with China but Russia at the same time. We have all the players on the table, depending on who has more love. India and China are neighbours. Don’t forget that. They have geopolitical problems. But they are still neighbours. The other day I watched a movie, which was about the border. In movie when the Chinese guys soldiers come face to face with Indian commandos, he says Chini-Hindi bhai bhai. We are brothers. I am not saying no to one and yes to another. We work with both. The more love goes to the person who gives us more love in return.
So it’s a balancing act?
•Yes it’s a balancing act. For us, politically we are more attached to India. We have more in common with India. We understand the aspirations of India.
📰 France to move proposal at U.N. to ban JeM chief Masood Azhar
This will be the second time France will be party to such a proposal at the U.N.
•In a significant development, France will move a proposal at the United Nations in a “couple of days” to ban Masood Azhar, chief of the United Nations-proscribed Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), which has claimed responsibility for the Pulwama terror strike that left 40 CRPF personnel dead, French sources said on Tuesday.
•This will be the second time France will be party to such a proposal at the U.N.
•In 2017, the U.S., supported by the U.K. and France, moved a proposal at the U.N.’s Sanctions Committee 1267 to ban the chief of the Pakistan-based terror outfit. However, the proposal was blocked by China.
•“At the U.N., France will lead a proposal to put Masood Azhar on the terrorist list... It will happen in a couple of days,” a senior French source told PTI.
•The French decision was discussed between Philippe Etienne, Diplomatic Advisor to the French President and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval on February 19 morning, the French sources said.
•While expressing his sincere condolences, the French leader, who called up Mr. Doval, also emphasised that the two countries should coordinate their diplomatic efforts.
📰 Cabinet approves new National Electronics Policy
Aim is to achieve turnover of ₹26 lakh crore for design and manufacturing sector by 2025
•The Union Cabinet on Tuesday approved the National Electronics Policy 2019 aimed at achieving a turnover of $400 billion (about ₹26 lakh crore) for the electronics system design and manufacturing (ESDM) sector by 2025, while generating employment opportunities for one crore people.
•“The policy will enable flow of investment and technology, leading to higher value addition in the domestically manufactured electronic products and increased manufacturing of electronics hardware for local use as well as exports,” IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
•The policy has introduced “easier to implement” incentive schemes, including an interest subvention scheme and credit default guarantee, to replace some of the existing ones under the National Electronics Policy 2012.
•It proposes to provide interest subsidy of 4% on loans up to ₹1,000 crore on plant and machinery, an IT Ministry official told The Hindu, adding that in case of larger loans, the subsidy would be limited to ₹1,000 crore.
Default guarantee
•The government proposes to create a fund to provide default guarantee of up to 75% to banks for plant and machine loans of up to ₹100 crore. “This will eliminate the need for small and new investors to provide third-party collateral… the scheme will be on the pattern of credit guarantee being provided by SIDBI for the SME sector,” the official said.
•However, for both these schemes, consultations are on with the Department of Expenditure, the official added. They will be launched once the policy is notified.
•To help create an ecosystem, the policy has pitched for 2.0 version of the Electronics Manufacturing Cluster Scheme, under which infrastructure support will be provided for a group of industries that are part of the product supply chain rather than individual industries.
•It has also proposed a sovereign patent fund to acquire intellectual property for chips and chip components.
📰 7 islands in Andamans, Lakshadweep identified for seaplane operations
Bids invited for private sector participation in tourism-based projects; Home Minister Rajnath Singh reviews progress of development work
•Four islands in the Andamans and three in Lakshadweep have been identified for seaplane operations, while private sector participation has been invited for tourism-based projects, the Home Ministry said on Tuesday.
•The 5th meeting of the Island Development Agency, chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, also reviewed the progress made towards the programme ‘Holistic development of islands’.
•Swaraj Dweep, Shaheed Dweep, Hutbay and Long Island in Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Kavaratti, Agatti and Minicoy in Lakshadweep have been identified for seaplane operations.
•Key infrastructure projects such as operationalisation of the Diglipur airport for civilian aircraft and the construction of a new airport on Minicoy Island have been accorded high priority by the government, while Coastal Regulation Zone clearance (CRZ) has been accorded for ‘Middle Strait Bridge’ on Andaman Trunk Road.
•Bids for private sector participation in three tourism-based projects have already been invited by the Andaman & Nicobar Administration. They include eco-tourism projects on Smith Island and Long Island and a tent city project on Aves Island. Bids will be invited shortly for one more project on Neil Island.
•Three projects in Lakshadweep have been identified for issue of bids. These include tourism projects in the islands of Kadmat, Minicoy and Suheli Cheriyakara. Environmental Clearance (EC), CRZ clearance and all other clearances required for these projects are being obtained upfront, on priority, to attract more number of reputed bidders, the statement said.
•The Ministry of Commerce has issued a notification extending tax incentives for investments made in the manufacturing and service sector in the islands of Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep.
•In order to sustainably utilise the potential of Tuna fish, 10 deep-sea modern fishing vessels are being procured by the Lakshadweep administration from Cochin Shipyard Limited.
•The Home Minister expressed satisfaction at the progress made since the last meeting held on June 30, 2018, when directions were given to focus on creation of recreational facilities along with tourism infrastructure, implementation of renewable energy projects, incentives for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and the development of a film city.
📰 More than 4 lakh children are inhalant addicts: survey
5.7 crore people suffer from alcohol dependence
•Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Chattisgarh and Arunachal Pradesh have emerged front runners in alcohol abuse and health complications arising due to the addition, according to a survey conducted by the National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi.
•The survey, which was submitted to the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment on Monday, noted that 5.7 crore people in the country suffered from alcohol related problems. Also of the 16 crore people who consumed alcohol across the country, prevalence of alcohol consumption was 17 times higher among men than among women.
•More than four lakh children and 1.8 million adults needed help for inhalant abuse and dependence, the report said.
•The survey, conducted to ascertain the magnitude of substance abuse in the country, was carried out between December 2017 and October 2018. It covered 4,73,569 individuals in the 10-75 age group. High prevalence of consumption of alcohol was also reported in Tripura and Chhattisgarh.
Cannabis use
•The survey also revealed that about 3.1 crore individuals consumed cannabis, with 72 lakh of them needing help for cannabis use problems. Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Odisha registered maximum cannabis dependence.
•The most common opioid used was heroin. The current use of heroin was 1.14%, followed by pharmaceutical opioids (0.96%) and opium (0.52%). Here, the abuse was found most prevalent in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana.
•The Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment maintained that a national guideline would be formulated after detailed consultation with all stakeholders to counter the drug menace in the country.
📰 Interim bailout: RBI surplus to govt
A system for sharing the RBI’s surpluses with the Centre must be quickly institutionalised
•The decision of the central board of the Reserve Bank of India to transfer an interim surplus of ₹28,000 crore to the Centre should come as a big relief to the Modi government. Together with the ₹40,000-crore final surplus share for 2017-18, which the Centre received in the first half, the total receipts from the RBI this fiscal will be a tidy ₹68,000 crore. For a government strapped for finances and struggling to meet the revised fiscal deficit target of 3.4% of GDP, the RBI’s largesse will be handy. The total surplus received by the Centre for 2018-19 is substantially higher than the ₹50,000 crore it got from the RBI in 2017-18, and this is the second successive year the central bank is making an interim transfer: last year it transferred ₹10,000 crore. Though there is nothing wrong in a shareholder demanding an interim dividend payout, the fact is that the Centre is advancing a receipt from the next fiscal to bail itself out in the current one. Should the RBI decide not to repeat this practice, the government’s revenues will suffer because as much as ₹82,911 crore has been budgeted on this count for the next fiscal. Again, the central bank is not like a corporate enterprise, nor can the government compare itself with a company shareholder. The RBI’s income and surplus growth cannot be measured in commercial terms since a large part of it comes from statutory functions it has to perform as a regulator.
•The large payout this fiscal is bound to raise eyebrows, especially because of the recent history of conflict between the RBI and the Centre over the sharing of the former’s accumulated reserves as dividend with the Centre. Pressure on this count was said to be a major reason for the resignation of Urjit Patel as RBI Governor. Though the practice of an interim payout started under Mr. Patel, there are inevitable questions over whether there was pressure from the Centre now for the transfer of a higher sum than last year. This is because the Centre had in the Interim Budget bumped up receipts under this head from the central bank, nationalised banks and other financial institutions to ₹74,140 crore from the original estimate of ₹54,817 crore made in the 2018-19 Budget. Clearly, the Finance Ministry knew what it wanted. There will, hopefully, be a system and a structure in place once the committee under former RBI Governor Bimal Jalan, that is now reviewing the economic capital framework for the RBI, submits its report. It was constituted to de-personalise and institutionalise a system for the sharing of the RBI’s surpluses with the government, and is expected to come out with its recommendations by the end of the next month.
📰 Clean power
A viable financial mechanism must be evolved to remove pollutants in power plants
•The effort to clean up India’s thermal power plants running on coal has never really taken off, despite the Ministry of Environment notifying emission limits for major pollutants such as suspended particulate matter, sulphur oxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury in December 2015. Considering that the cumulative impact of these pollutants on the health and well-being of people is severe, the Centre should have followed up the notification with a viable financial plan to help power plants acquire pollution control technologies. The economics favours such an approach for the larger plants, while for the smaller, older units, scaling down generation during the winter months when pollutants accumulate may prove beneficial. Originally, the compliance deadline was set for 2017, but that was missed and the plan now is to achieve the norms by 2022. Unofficial estimates prepared by one NGO, Greenpeace India, suggest the estimated cost of non-compliance by the original deadline has been about 76,000 premature deaths. Benefit-cost projections from another non-profit, the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy, put the positive outcomes from achieving pollution control at coal-fired plants by 2025 at potentially 3.2 lakh lives saved from premature death, and 5.2 crore respiratory hospital admissions avoided in the next decade. These are outcomes that need to be pursued seriously. It is in this context that the latest proposal from the Power Ministry to provide the equivalent of over $12 billion (about ₹88,000 crore), mainly to remove sulphur from coal plant emissions, becomes important.
•A viable financial mechanism must be evolved to remove pollutants in existing and upcoming power plants, without losing sight of the need to stop further long-term investments in a dirty fuel such as coal that contributes to carbon emissions. Optimally, the burden of incorporating pollution control should fall on the beneficiary-user, which in simple terms would translate into a tariff hike. On the other hand, achieving speedy implementation of the new processes covering both public and private power producers may require some form of immediate governmental support, such as grants. This is particularly relevant, given that power producers that have borrowed from several institutions, including state-funded ones, are reported to be under severe financial stress. India’s coal use represents just over 54% of the present energy mix, and the fuel will continue to retain a high share of the overall generation. The challenge, therefore, is to identify the right instruments to fund the entire exercise, in the interests of pollution control and the wider social objective of extending electricity access to the unreached. There could be a positive spin-off from sulphur-removal, since it can yield commercially significant quantities of synthetic gypsum. But even if little else accrues from the effort, the benefits of clean air to public health would make the investment well worth the effort.
📰 Cabinet approves Phase II of rooftop solar programme
Provides for 40% central funding for installations up to 3kW
•The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Wednesday approved Phase-II of the Grid Connected Rooftop Solar Programme that aims to achieve a cumulative capacity of 40,000 MW from rooftop solar projects by 2022.
•The programme will be implemented with a total central financial support of ₹11,814 crore.
•The Phase II programme provides for central financial assistance (for residential rooftop solar installations) up to 40% for rooftop systems up to 3kW and 20% for those with a capacity of 3-10kW. The second phase will also focus on increasing the involvement of the distribution companies (DISCOM).
•“Performance-based incentives will be provided to DISCOMs based on RTS capacity achieved in a financial year [i.e. April 1 to March 31 every year till the duration of the scheme] over and above the base capacity, i.e., cumulative capacity achieved at the end of previous financial year,” the government said in a release.
Farmer security
•In a separate decision, the Cabinet approved the launch of the Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan aimed at providing financial and water security to farmers.
•Through the scheme, farmers will be given financial assistance to set up solar panels in their unused or fallow land.
•“The scheme aims to add a solar capacity of 25,750 MW by 2022,” the government said. “The total central financial support provided under the scheme would be ₹34,422 crore.”
📰 New Universe map unearths 3,00,000 more galaxies
LOFAR telescope detects light sources that optical instruments cannot find
•The known Universe just got a lot bigger.
•A new map of the night sky published on Tuesday charts hundreds of thousands of previously unknown galaxies discovered using a telescope that can detect light sources optical instruments cannot see.
•The international team behind the unprecedented space survey said their discovery literally shed new light on some of the Universe’s deepest secrets, including the physics of black holes and how clusters of galaxies evolve.
•“This is a new window on the universe,” said Cyril Tasse, an astronomer at the Paris Observatory who was involved in the project.
•“When we saw the first images we were like: ‘What is this?!’ It didn’t look anything at all like what we are used to seeing.”
•More than 200 astronomers from 18 countries were involved in the study, which used radio astronomy to look at a segment of sky over the northern hemisphere, and found 3,00,000 previously unseen light sources thought to be distant galaxies.
•The map created by the LOFAR observations, part of which was published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, contains data equivalent to the capacity of ten million DVDs yet charts just two percent of the sky.
•Radio astronomy allows scientists to detect radiation produced when massive celestial objects interact.
Ancient radiation
•The team used the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) telescope in the Netherlands to pick up traces — or “jets” — of ancient radiation produced when galaxies merge. These jets, previously undetected, can extend over millions of light years.
•“With radio observations we can detect radiation from the tenuous medium that exists between galaxies,” said Amanda Wilber, of the University of Hamburg.
•The discovery of the new light sources may also help scientists better understand the behaviour of one of space’s most enigmatic phenomena.
•Black holes — which have a gravitational pull so strong that no matter can escape them — emit radiation when they engulf other high-mass objects such as stars and gas clouds.
•Mr. Tasse said the new observation technique would allow astronomers to compare black holes over time to see how they form and develop. “If you look at an active black hole, the jets (of radiation) disappear after millions of years, and you won’t see them at a higher frequency (of light),” he said.
•“But at a lower frequency they continue to emit these jets for hundreds of millions of years, so we can see far older electrons,” he added.
•The Hubble telescope has produced images that lead scientists to believe there are more than 100 billion galaxies in the Universe, although many are too old and distant to be observed using traditional detection techniques.
•The LOFAR telescope is made up of a network of radio antenna across seven countries, forming the equivalent of a 1,300-km diameter satellite dish.
•The team plans to create images of the northern sky, which they say will reveal as many as 15 million as-yet undetected radio sources.
