📰 Network for intel agencies to share info will go live next year
NATGRID will help organisations to access database from a common platform
•The ambitious National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) project will be operational by December 31, 2020, the Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday.
•More than half the sanctioned positions are vacant, the government said.
•The NATGRID will enable multiple security and intelligence agencies to access a database related to immigration entry and exit, banking and telephone details, among others, from a common platform.
•The project, initially started in 2009 with a budget of ₹2,800 crore, is an online database for collating scattered pieces of information and putting them together on one platform.
•At least 10 Central government agencies, such as the Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing and others will have access to the data on a secured platform.
•On Tuesday, Minister of State for Home G. Kishan Reddy informed the Lok Sabha that “NATGRID has developed application software for proof of technology (POT) which is yet to be fully rolled out. NATGRID solution is planned to go live by 31.12.2020.”
•Mr. Reddy said the progress of NATGRID was reviewed from time to time at the appropriate level, and during the current financial year, ₹84.80 crore had been allocated to the project.
•“Against 119 sanctioned government posts, a total of 53 officers are presently in position; whereas against 123 contractual posts, 21 consultants have been deployed. Central agencies will have access to the data on NATGRID platform in the first phase,” Mr. Reddy said.
•He said NATGRID was exempted from the Right to Information Act, 2005 under sub-section (2) of Section 24.
•He added that “physical infrastructure” is planned to be completed by March 31 next year and “IT Solution to go live by 31.12.2020.”
•Earlier, Home Minister Amit Shah reviewed the progress of NATGRID in September.
•The NATGRID links intelligence and investigation agencies. The 10 user agencies will be linked independently with certain databases which will be procured from 21 providing organisations including telecom, tax records, bank, immigration etc. to generate intelligence inputs.
Over-speeding is a major killer, followed by driving on the wrong side, says the report released by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
•More than 1.5 lakh people lost their lives in road crashes in the country in 2018, registering an increase of 2.4% as compared to the year before, when there were 1.47 lakh fatalities.
•The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways released the annual report on road accidents in India on Tuesday, which shows a daily average of 1,280 road crashes and 415 deaths. This translates into 53 crashes and the loss of 17 lives every hour. Road traffic injuries constitute the eighth leading cause of deaths in India in 2018.
•India is the most unsafe country in the world for road users across 199 countries, as reported by the Geneva-based World Road Federation’s World Road Statistics 2018. It’s followed by China (63,000 deaths) and the U.S. (37,000 deaths).
•The annual report also reveals that of the total people killed in road crash deaths in 2018, 48% were between 18 years and 35 years old. Minors involved in road crash deaths were at 6.6% of the total deaths.
Over-speeding
•Over-speeding is a major killer, accounting for 64.4% of the persons killed. This category was followed by driving on the wrong side of the road, which accounted for 5.8% of the accident related deaths. Use of mobile phones accounted for 2.4% of the deaths and drunken driving accounted for 2.8% of the persons killed.
•Not wearing helmets and seat belts are not causes of crashes, but are critical for avoiding grievous injuries and fatalities. As many as 43,614 deaths or 28.8% of total road accident deaths in the country last year were caused due to “non-wearing of helmets”. “Non-wearing of seat belts” was linked to 24,435 deaths or 16.1% of total road accident deaths in the country. Among the States, Tamil Nadu (13.7%) topped the country in terms of the total number of road crashes, followed by Madhya Pradesh (11%) and Uttar Pradesh (9.1%). The highest road fatalities were observed In Uttar Pradesh (22,256), followed by Maharashtra (13,261) and Tamil Nadu (12,216).
‘Urgently implement’
•Commenting on the report, Piyush Tewari, CEO and founder, SaveLIFE Foundation, said, “The data provided by the government for 2018 points out that the number of road crash deaths in 2018 has increased at the national level. However, what’s important to note is that a lot of States that have opposed the implementation of the Motor Vehicles Amendment Act or have reduced the fines are amongst the States with the highest road crash fatalities. The latest data highlights the urgent need on part of the States to implement key road safety provisions of the Motor Vehicles Amendment Act, 2019.”
•Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Uttarakhand were among the States that heavily slashed the penalties levied under the amended law.
📰 Iran on the boil: on nationwide protests
Iran, struggling under the weight of U.S. sanctions, needs to revive the nuclear deal
•Nationwide protests that broke out over the weekend are the latest challenge to the Iranian regime that’s already struggling to fix a battered economy, hostile ties with the U.S. and waning influence in West Asia. The trigger was the government’s decision to raise the price of rationed fuel. Thousands of people took to the streets, reminiscent of recent protests in Hong Kong, Chile, Lebanon and neighbouring Iraq. The protesters chanted slogans against the Islamic regime, carried “Death to Khamenei” posters, in a direct challenge to the country’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and burned down banks and stores. Security personnel reportedly unleashed violence on the protesters, while the government shut down the Internet. According to Iranian media, at least 12 people were killed, including security personnel, and some 1,000 protesters were arrested. Both President Hassan Rouhani and Ayatollah Khamenei, the real ruler of Iran, have condemned the protests, while the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country’s top paramilitary force, has threatened to crack down on the demonstrations, raising the prospects of more violence.
•Iran still has one of the lowest fuel prices in the world. But the rise was enough for a people reeling under high inflation, joblessness and a collapsing economy to take to the streets. President Donald Trump’s decision last year to pull the U.S. out of the 2015 nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions has dealt a blow to Iran’s economy. Inflation has risen to 40%. A quarter of Iran’s youth are unemployed. And according to the IMF, the country’s economy is expected to contract by 9.5% this year, while the currency, the rial, has plunged to record lows against the dollar. It is now evident that the collapse of the nuclear deal has cost the Iranian economy dearly. And the protests broke out at a time when Iran’s influence in Lebanon and Iraq is being challenged by protesters. In Iraq, protesters burned an Iranian consulate and turned their anger against Iran-trained militias. In Lebanon, where Iran-backed Hezbollah is a key pillar of the government, protesters demand the resignation of the entire political class. And now in Iran, the protesters challenge the regime itself. In recent years, Iran has seen many protests and labour agitations. And the regime’s response has always been typical. It branded the protesters as counter-revolutionaries and blamed foreign hands. The economic woes have weakened the delicate balance between the regime and its angry youth. The latest round of protests might die down. But Iran needs a lasting solution to address its revolting underbelly. It can’t violently suppress the protesters forever and needs to get the nuclear deal back on track.
📰 Electoral bonds: Law Ministry, CEC objected to 1% vote share requirement
The documents, which were viewed by The Hindu, show that the Law Ministry recommended the imposition of a 6% vote share requirement or the removal of the vote share requirement entirely
•In the process of vetting the Centre’s electoral bonds scheme in December 2017, the Law Ministry repeatedly objected to the Finance Ministry’s stipulation that political parties must have a 1% vote share in Lok Sabha or State Assembly elections in order to be eligible for the scheme, documents obtained through an RTI query by activist Anjali Bhardwaj show.
•The documents, which were viewed by The Hindu on Tuesday, show that the Law Ministry recommended the imposition of a 6% vote share requirement (similar to the requirement for recognised State and national parties) or the removal of the vote share requirement entirely. The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) also objected to the vote share requirement as discriminatory, while political parties themselves were not consulted.
•However, the Finance Ministry chose to ignore these concerns and insisted that only registered political parties which had “secured not less than one percent of votes polled in the last general election to the House of the People or the Legislative Assembly, as the case may be, shall be eligible to receive the bond.”
•According to the latest data from the Election Commission of India, there are eight recognised national political parties, 52 recognised State parties and 2,487 unrecognised parties registered with the commission. A 6% vote share is one condition for recognised parties. It is not clear how many of the unrecognised parties have a 1% vote share.
•In May 2017, the Finance Ministry wrote to all State and national parties asking for their comments on the electoral bond scheme mentioned in then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s budget speech in February 2017. Only four parties — the Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India and the Shiromani Akali Dal — responded, with most of them asking for a draft of the proposed scheme.
•The documents obtained through Ms. Bhardwaj’s RTI application show that in June, some early drafts of the scheme only referenced “registered political parties” as eligible to receive the bond, while another said the party would need to be a National/State political party.
•On August 5, a draft incorporated the 1% vote share stipulation for the first time. On August 21, the draft was presented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. After that meeting, a proposal to circulate the draft to all national and State parties or to open it for public comment was scrapped.
•On September 22, in a meeting with the Economic Affairs Secretary, CEC A.K. Joti raised concerns that individual candidates and new political parties would not be able to receive donations under the scheme and warned that the “somewhat discriminatory” provision might be challenged in the courts.
•When the draft went for vetting in December, the Law Ministry recommended an amendment to a 6% vote share requirement, saying that the scheme should be aligned with the RPI Act. “The provision of making donations through EBs to registered parties with 1% criteria will create huge administrative problems of issuance and monitoring of EBs,” it added.
•The DEA Secretary replied: “we have to retain the formulation of 1% votes”.
•The Law Ministry then pointed out that under the RPI Act, “every political party may accept any amount of contribution voluntarily offered to it” and cautioned that putting a 1% vote share condition would override a substantive provision of the Act. When Mr. Garg reiterated the Finance Ministry’s insistence on the provision, the Law Ministry cleared the draft, saying it had been vetted “as per the policy decisions” of the Finance Ministry.
No explicit approval
•The documents obtained through RTI include the back-and-forth correspondence between the Reserve Bank of India and the Finance Ministry, which show that the central bank never actually gave the government its explicit consent to go ahead with the electoral bond scheme as envisaged. Instead, the government had to resort to using the RBI’s “indirect approval”.
•Then Governor of the RBI Urjit Patel repeatedly wrote to then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in September 2017 voicing his growing concern about the government’s moves to allow bodies other than the RBI to issue the electoral bonds, and its decision to allow the issuance of physical scrips as opposed to purely digital ones.
•In a letter to Mr. Jaitley on September 14, 2017, Mr. Patel wrote: “You would kindly agree that allowing any other entity other than the central bank to issue bearer bonds, which are currency like instruments, is fraught with considerable risk and unprecedented even with conditions applicable to electoral bonds.”
•He further said that taking such an action would have an adverse impact on the scheme and would also hurt the credibility of the Indian financial system and the central bank. He also repeated the RBI’s suggestion that the bonds be issued only in digital form.
•It was the then Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg who replied to Mr. Patel, on September 21, 2017, assuring him that adding the part about scheduled commercial banks was just an “enabling provision” and that “it is only RBI which will issue bonds on commencement of the Scheme”. He further rejected the suggestion that the bonds be only digital, saying that this would erode a major purpose of the bonds, which is to provide anonymity to the donor.
•Unconvinced by this answer, Mr. Patel once again wrote to Mr. Jaitley on September 27: “Issue of currency is a monopoly function of the central authority, which is why Section 31 of RBI Act barred any person other than RBI from issuing bearer instruments. It is a matter of concern that the central government amended Section 31 of the RBI Act despite the Bank’s suggestion to the contrary, thereby diluting the monopoly power of the central bank.”
•Once again, it was Mr. Garg and not Mr. Jaitley who replied, saying that while the RBI’s concerns had been recorded, the government had made its final decision. Interestingly, Mr. Garg said that allowing the RBI to issue the bonds in electronic demat form would give the central bank information about donors and the political parties they were donating to.
•“The fact that information of this aspect will be with the Bank (the RBI), would make the scheme a non-starter,” Mr. Garg wrote. Currently, the scheme provides for this information to be available to the State Bank of India, a government-owned bank.
•Mr. Garg in two separate letters — on October 5, 2017, and October 24, 2017— asked Mr. Patel to send the draft notification of the electoral bond scheme. The RBI did not send its version of the draft notification and therefore did not convey its agreement to the provisions of the scheme.
•Without the RBI’s active consent, the Ministry of Finance was forced to look for more indirect ways to imply the central bank’s approval. So, the Ministry referred to the minutes of the meeting of the Committee of the Central Board of the RBI on October 11 in which it was said that “if the government decides to issue electoral bonds in scrip through SBI, the Bank (RBI) should let it be”.
•This was immediately taken as the central bank’s “indirect” approval, with Mr. Garg noting that “the RBI has indirectly agreed for electoral bonds to be issued, if issued by SBI, as recorded in the CCB minutes”. Thereafter, the government stopped seeking the central bank’s inputs on the matter and instead turned to SBI for its cooperation.
•The government’s eagerness to get the SBI on board with the scheme was such that it overruled several of the Law Ministry’s initial objections and instead complied with SBI’s demands. For example, SBI wanted the bonds to be called ‘promissory notes’ since bonds attracted a stamp duty. The Department of Legislative Affairs (DLA) in the Ministry of Law and Justice said the electoral bonds did not qualify as promissory notes, but was overruled.
•Similarly, the SBI wanted to be reimbursed for the net cost for issuing the bonds, a provision the DLA deleted. The Budget department of the Ministry of Finance said that “since SBI is insisting”, the provision could be reintroduced.
•The DLA also deleted the provision saying that the operational guidelines for the scheme would be issued separately by the authorised banks. The Budget division said: “SBI is insisting on its inclusion and it has no legal implication. For facilitating SBI, we may re-include this provision.”
📰 Rebalancing counterterrorism
As Israel shows, an effective strategy must be comprehensive
•How should India respond to the next terrorist attack sponsored by Pakistan? Future attacks are inevitable — the sponsorship of cross-border terrorism is a core tenet of Pakistan’s security strategy, even as Kashmiri militancy is increasingly dominated by radicalised locals. The BJP-led government has repeatedly declared that it will emulate Israel’s apparently successful strategy in responding to cross-border terrorism. But the government’s fetishisation of Israeli counterterrorism mischaracterises Israeli strategy. New Delhi risks overemphasising the showy but narrow role of military punishment, and it elides other elements of strategy, which Israel itself has embraced, that are critical to counterterrorism effectiveness.
•India’s military responses in 2016 and 2019 were framed as attempts to impose costs on the Pakistani terrorist groups and their Army backers. But such minor actions have marginal material impact on the target; at best they may have killed fighters and temporarily damaged a training facility, although even those claims are contentious.
Uses of punishment
•Strategies of punishment work when an actor can impose sufficiently heavy costs on the enemy such that the enemy is dissuaded from attacking again. But the Pakistan Army and its terrorist proxies have already shown a willingness to absorb enormous material costs, as their wars with India showed — and their anti-India ideology has only hardened over time. Minor cross-border military action will not exact a cost sufficient to change the adversary’s preferences or strategy.
•Punishment can have other uses. Most particularly, it serves a domestic political purpose, shoring up popular support for the government — and the Modi government did use its national security credentials after Balakot to win the 2019 election. And as Israel has shown, it can be used to eliminate specific enemy capabilities, such as weapons manufacturing, although such tactics only work if they are enabled by exquisite intelligence and targeting, and even then the destroyed capabilities are likely to be reconstituted.
•Punishment, then, never affords a resolution to a rivalry. At best, it allows the punisher to manage the ongoing conflict, and communicate diminishing patience with the adversary. On the other hand, it can also carry the risks of inadvertent escalation, especially if the punishment actions themselves are escalatory, like the Balakot strikes. And they can create a commitment trap, binding the government to a policy of retaliation, lest it be seen as weak in the next crisis. Thus, the next crisis will be shaped by the Balakot crisis and, with each side thinking it can safely escalate force, could be more dangerous.
An effective counterterrorism strategy
•A more effective counterterrorism strategy goes beyond punishment. As Israel itself has shown, counterterrorism requires a balance, including at least three other lines of effort. First, it requires effective denial operations, to make terrorist attacks more difficult for the enemy. At the tactical level, this means simple adherence to security procedures — the attacks on the Pulwama and Pathankot air force base, for example, were costlier because of sub-standard force protection measures. Beyond security, this means addressing the grievances of the local population, which drive radicalisation. This requires managing trade-offs: heightened security measures since August 5 may help to control the population, but likely also exacerbate radical anti-India sentiment in Jammu and Kashmir.
•Second, it requires shaping operations to incentivise the adversary to limit its attacks. Israel can use carrots and sticks in occupied territories, including economic development programmes or harsher security restrictions, but India lacks such leverage over the Pakistani Army and terror groups, and must rely on international actors. Thus counterterrorism must be synchronised with wider foreign policy, using harsh action through the Financial Action Task Force, or productive bilateral talks with China, to isolate Pakistan and make its strategy of supporting cross-border terrorism less appealing.
•Third, it requires cultivating resilience, to reduce the political impact of terrorism. The BJP’s 2019 election manifesto declared a “zero tolerance” policy on terrorism. Such policies only serve to sharpen public fears and box-in their governments to respond aggressively to the next attack. Despite all its counterterrorism experience, Israel still suffers terrorist attacks, but most can be absorbed without generating public hysteria.
•There is a place for punishment in counterterrorism, but the Modi government’s single-minded celebration of it yields primarily political benefits, rather than security. Effective counterterrorism requires a more comprehensive strategy. It requires a constant process of evaluation and adjustment – Israel does not have all the answers and relies on trial and error for different contexts. India should learn from Israel’s tragic experience, but make sure to learn the right lessons.
