📰 Cabinet nod for agri marketing reforms
Essential Commodities Act to be amended via ordinance
•The Union Cabinet has approved an amendment to the 65-year-old Essential Commodities Act, removing cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oils, onion and potatoes from the list of essential commodities. The amendment will be made effective immediately via an ordinance, according to the Agriculture Ministry.
•At its meeting on Wednesday, the Cabinet also approved ordinances to remove restrictions on farmers selling their produce outside notified market yards, as well as to facilitate contract farming and allow farmers to engage in direct marketing, according to an official statement. All these measures were promised in the Aatmanirbhar package announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last month.
Foreign investment
•The amendment to the ECA, which has been under discussion for more than a decade, will deregulate the production, storage, movement and distribution of these food commodities. By removing the private sector’s fears of “excessive regulatory interference,” the Centre hopes to increase private and foreign investment, especially in cold storage facilities and the modernisation of the food supply chain, said the statement. Adequate processing and storage facilities will reduce wastage and increase income for farmers of perishable commodities.
•To protect consumers, the amendment allows regulation during war, famine, extraordinary price rise and natural calamity, while providing exemptions for exporters and processors at such times as well.
•The Farming Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020 aims to open up agricultural marketing outside notified mandis for farmers, and also remove barriers to inter-State trade. While both agriculture and markets are State subjects, the Centre is counting on the fact that trade and commerce in foodstuffs is part of the concurrent list to push through its ordinance.
•“We are not touching markets. We are simply saying that the full country outside the physically demarcated premises of mandis run by APMC committees should be open to a farmer to sell his produce to anyone with a PAN card,” said Agriculture Secretary Sanjay Agarwal. “Why is the farmer, who is the producer, restricted from selling his own produce? Those who buy from the farmer are unlimited in their further marketing or export, but the farmer is being curbed. By allowing the farmer more choices, it will raise his income and also reduce wastage and improve quality,” he added.
•In fact, industry sources suggest that 60% of agricultural trade already takes place outside the mandis through unregulated sales. By legalising and facilitating such sales, the Centre hopes that farmers will benefit, rather than middlemen.
•Not all States have been on board with these reforms, especially as State governments will not be allowed to levy fees on these sales.
•The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, 2020 is aimed at facilitating contract farming, where a private buyer contracts to purchase a crop at a certain price at the beginning of a season, transferring the risk of market unpredictability from the farmer to the corporate sponsor. However, farmers groups have expressed concern that corporates will benefit more than small farmers from such direct marketing measures, and wish to see the specific provisions of the ordinance before welcoming it.
The time has come for India to checkmate China’s aggression even in the backdrop of maintaining robust economic ties
•The growing number of reports about Chinese troops crossing the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India in the Ladakh region — neither acknowledged nor denied by the Indian government as yet — indicate a new age of Chinese territorial aggression against India.
•While there are around 400 transgressions/faceoffs each year on an average along the LAC, the recent spate of territorial transgressions by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is unprecedented in its scope and manner. Even as independent accounts point out that Chinese troops are yet to withdraw from the transgressed territories, traditionally considered by both sides to be on the Indian side of the LAC, and restore status quo ante, Chinese officials have gone ahead and stated that the “Situation in China-India border is overall stable & controllable”. Is all well between the two nuclear-armed adversaries?
•If the mounting evidence of China’s territorial aggression against India is even partly accurate, and there is no reason to believe they are not, the Narendra Modi government is left with two basic choices: accept territorial loss as a fait accompli or force or negotiate a reversal to status quo ante, unless of course the PLA unilaterally withdraws.
•Either way, China’s growing territorial aggression on the LAC signals the end of Beijing’s peaceful rise and its traditional desire to maintain regional status quo with India. China under its President, Xi Jinping, unequivocally seeks to demonstrate that it is the preponderant power in the region.
Explaining the aggression
•What baffles most observers is the rationale behind the Chinese escalation on the LAC while the entire world is preoccupied with battling COVID-19, the biggest crisis humanity has faced since the Second World War. While the timing could be explained by the global political distraction caused by COVID-19 and the international pressure on China (including by India) to come clean on the origins of the novel coronavirus, the proximate causes could be several. For one, New Delhi’s terse statements about Aksai Chin following the Jammu and Kashmir reorganisation in August last year had not gone down well with Beijing. While not many in India believe that New Delhi was serious about getting back Aksai Chin from Chinese control, Beijing may have viewed it as India upping the ante. More pertinently, in a clear departure from the past, New Delhi has been carrying out the construction of infrastructural projects along the LAC — a long overdue activity — which is something that seems to have made China uneasy.
•The Chinese angle to the J&K conundrum deserves more attention here. Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement about Aksai Chin in August 2019 might have triggered some anxiety in Beijing about its plans for the larger erstwhile princely State of J&K a part of which China is in possession of. China’s China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) connectivity to Pakistan through the Karakoram and New Delhi’s criticism of it, the reported presence of PLA troops in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK), India’s new-found activism on Aksai Chin, and the PLA’s incursions into areas in eastern Ladakh must be viewed in the broader context of a long-term geopolitical world view China has for the region.
•It is equally important to appreciate the larger Chinese strategic calculations behind its recent spate of aggressions. Having given up its traditional slogan of ‘peaceful rise’, China, under Mr. Xi, is beginning to assert itself as the next superpower. Over the years, Beijing has perhaps realised that India is not keen on toeing the Chinese line in the region. So this is Beijing sending a message to New Delhi to fall in line, a message that will not go unnoticed in the smaller capitals around China — from Colombo to Kathmandu to Hanoi.
•There is more subtle political messaging in Beijing’s LAC aggression. Given that China is currently engaged in what many analysts are describing as a new cold war with the United States, in the middle of a crackdown in Hong Kong along with fighting COVID-19 at home, one would not have expected the Chinese leadership to open another front. And yet, by opening a limited military front with India on the LAC, China is signalling the U.S. that it can handle pressure, and telling India that it has the political and military wherewithal to put pressure on New Delhi notwithstanding its other preoccupations.
Doklam redux?
•The 2017 standoff between India and China at the Doklam trijunction was the first major military standoff between the two sides in a long time in which New Delhi demonstrated it was not a military pushover despite China’s conventional superiority over India. Since Doklam, however, there have been several reports that China has continued with its construction activities in and around Doklam. The 2020 transgressions in Sikkim and Ladakh are perhaps Beijing’s way of responding to India consistently and militarily.
•China’s limited scope military expeditions on the long-contested border is cost effective for the PLA given the ever-growing conventional military superiority that it enjoys with India. Moreover, because limited fights or smaller land grabs may not provoke an all-out confrontation or nuclear use, the side with conventional superiority and more border infrastructure would likely carry the day.
•Let me unpack this argument. Picking a direct fight with India which might lead to an undesirable military escalation with India does not suit Beijing’s interests, but carrying out minor military expeditions with the objective of inflicting small-scale military defeats on India is precisely what would suit the Chinese political and military leadership; they are cost effective, less escalatory, and the message gets conveyed. More so, India’s military response would depend a great deal on how far the regime in New Delhi is willing to acknowledge such territorial losses due to domestic political constraints: if New Delhi acknowledges loss of territory, it would have to regain it, but doing so vis-à-vis a conventionally superior power would not be easy.
•Put differently, growing conventional imbalance and domestic political calculations could prompt New Delhi to overlook minor territorial losses on the LAC, the manner in which Pakistan refused to acknowledge the 2016 surgical strikes carried out by India. But let us be clear: the more New Delhi overlooks them, the more Beijing would be tempted to repeat them. These considerations lie at the heart of India’s China dilemma.
Limits of adventurism
•And yet, there are limits to China’s LAC adventurism. There are several places along the several thousand kilometre long LAC where the PLA is militarily weak, the Indian Army has the upper hand, and, therefore, a tit-for-tat military campaign could be undertaken by New Delhi. Second, while China enjoys continental superiority over India, maritime domain is China’s weak spot, in particular Beijing’s commercial and energy interest to which the maritime space is crucial. Finally, and most importantly, would Beijing want to seriously damage the close to $100 billion trade with India with its military adventurism on the LAC?
•In any case, for India, the age of pussyfooting around Chinese intimidation strategies is over. The time has come to checkmate Beijing’s military aggression even as we maintain a robust economic relationship with our eastern neighbour. It is also a reminder for us to get more serious about finalising a border agreement with China: the bigger the power differential between India and China, the more concessions Beijing would demand from New Delhi to settle the dispute.
•There is little doubt that China is our neighbour and that we have to live next to the larger and more powerful China. However, India should not accept Beijing’s attempts at land grabs, or military intimidation. That China is a rising superpower located next door to us is a reality, but how we deal with that reality is a choice we must make as a nation.
📰 Seven to eleven
India deserves its place on the global stage, but on G-11, it must be clear about its aims
•Dismissing the current configuration of the “Group of Seven” or G-7 of the world’s most developed nations as “outdated”, U.S. President Donald Trump announced over the weekend that he would like to expand it to a G-11, by adding India, Russia, South Korea and Australia. He followed that up with invitations to their leaders, including Prime Minister Modi, to attend the G-7 summit in the U.S. later this year. The news was welcomed by Mr. Modi, who commended Mr. Trump for his “creative and far-sighted” decision to expand the format of the grouping to keep up with the new realities of the “post-COVID world”. Australia and South Korea have also welcomed the invitation, while Russia, that lost its membership of the grouping in 2014 over its annexation of Crimea, said President Putin would attend “if treated as an equal”. Notable by its absence in the proposed grouping is China, which had earlier, along with India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, been invited regularly to G-8 summits as an outreach by the developed world to the five emerging economies (called the G-8+5). U.S.-China tensions, particularly over coronavirus issues, clearly played a part in Mr. Trump’s decision to leave Chinese President Xi Jinping off his summit guest list. A White House spokesperson even explained that the G-11 would be a way for the U.S. to bring together its “traditional allies to talk about how to deal with the future of China”. Predictably, Beijing has lashed out at the G-11 idea, as one that would be “doomed to fail”.
•The proposed G-11 grouping would recognise India’s place amongst the world’s richest nations, and acknowledge its global voice. However, the government must weigh the benefits proposed along with some of the factors that are still unclear. As host, Mr. Trump can invite any country as a G-7 special invitee, but changing its composition will require the approval of the other members. Already, there are some concerns over Russia, which could derail the entire G-11 plan, making any concrete decision by New Delhi on the issue premature. It is unclear when the summit will actually be held, given the November polls in the U.S., although Mr. Trump has indicated that he could hold it close to the UN General Assembly session in September. Despite its border tensions with Beijing, India must also consider its objectives in attending a grouping that appears aimed at fuelling a new Cold War between the U.S. and China. Finally, an evaluation of the G-7’s effectiveness as a multilateral forum thus far is needed, given deep member differences on issues including climate change, security contributions, Iran, etc. In France, last year, the grouping was unable to issue a joint communiqué due to these differences — a first in its 45-year-old history.
📰 India’s Parliament is missing in action
In today’s extraordinary circumstances it should convene soon; adapting IT solutions can make this even easier
•Parliaments in democracies around the world are meeting and questioning their governments on their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Canadian Parliament had its first lockdown meeting towards the end of April, with roughly 280 of the 338 Members of Parliament attending through video conference and questioning the government for three hours. The British Parliament has adopted a hybrid model of in-person and video attendance. Several other countries have held sessions either with physical distancing (fewer MPs attend with agreement across parties) or video conferencing or a combination of the two. These include France, Italy, Argentina, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand. Many others are convening their committees through video-conferencing. The Inter Parliamentary Union has documented the processes used by various national parliaments to meet during the pandemic. India’s Parliament, which prides itself as the apex representative body of the world’s largest democracy, is a notable absentee from this list.
•Parliament has a central role in our system of governance. First and foremost, it is the institution that checks and challenges the government of the day. While introducing the draft Constitution, B.R. Ambedkar explained why the drafting committee had preferred a parliamentary form over the presidential system of governance. The reasoning was that while the presidential system provides a higher level of stability, the parliamentary system is better at holding the government to account on a daily basis through questions, motions and debates. Over the decades, our Parliament has evolved procedures of accountability including hearings of committees. The fact that Parliament and its committees have not met for over two months indicates the absence of scrutiny of government actions.
•National laws are made by Parliament. The current steps by the central government are being taken under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, which was not designed to handle epidemics. The reasoning is that the central government had no choice as there was no other law that provide it with powers to impose a lockdown across the country, which was needed to arrest the spread of the disease. This misses the point that Parliament, which was meeting till a day before the national lockdown was announced, could have passed an appropriate Act. This is what many other countries have done — an Act with suitable checks and an expiry date, which could be renewed by Parliament, if required.
•The Constitution requires all expenditure by the government to be approved by Parliament. The government has announced a series of measures to address the economic crisis sparked by the health crisis and the lockdown. These have not been subject to parliamentary scrutiny or approval.
The pressing issues
•MPs have a duty to shape policy and guide the government in national interest. They represent the concerns of people by raising issues in Parliament. The country is facing serious challenges on many fronts as a consequence of the pandemic. These include addressing questions on how to stall the epidemic from spreading, how to treat people who are infected, and how to minimise the loss of life to the virus. There is also the question of how the economy is impacted, both from the supply side due to the lockdown, and from the demand side as incomes and spending contract.
•Then there is the large humanitarian question of mitigating the impact on the most vulnerable sections of the population, both the urban poor and in rural areas. There have been several news reports of migrants being mistreated, not provided transport, being harassed by the police — and being stripped of their dignity, even in cases where they have been provided with food and shelter. There needs to be concerted action to alleviate the distress. Parliament is the forum where such issues should be discussed and a plan of action agreed upon.
•Our Constitution does not prohibit meetings that may require maintenance of physical distancing or remote meetings. It states that the President may summon Parliament “to meet at such time and place as he thinks fit”. The Rules of Procedure of both Houses require the Secretary-General to issue summons to each member specifying the “date and place for a session” of the House. These enabling clauses can be used to hold hybrid meetings or remote meetings. The Rules require parliamentary committees to sit within the “precincts” of the House but the Speaker may permit meetings to be held outside; indeed, subcommittees often go on study tours outside Delhi. Thus, there is no prior parliamentary action required to permit meetings through video-conferencing.
Secure connectivity
•The question of security and secrecy may come up. The meetings of the Houses are usually telecast live, and there is no issue of confidentiality. Committee meetings, on the other hand, may require secure remote working tools. Given that large global corporations as well as parliamentary committees of several other countries seem to have solved this problem, there is no reason that the Indian Parliament cannot adapt these solutions. All district headquarters are linked with fibre optic lines, so even if there is a problem of connecting the constituency office of MPs, they could use such government facilities.
•The question boils down to how our parliamentarians view themselves. If they think that they are sentinels of the people, they should find a way to perform their constitutional duties. Over the last three months, central and State governments have issued over 5,000 notifications to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. The appropriateness of these circulars need to be examined by Parliament and its committees. In ordinary times, Parliament would have its next session in the second half of July. In today’s extraordinary circumstances, Parliament should meet sooner, perhaps within a couple of weeks. India prides itself on being the world’s largest democracy as well as the information technology provider to the world. It is imperative that Parliament harnesses the country’s IT strengths to buttress our credentials as a performing democracy.
📰 Time to discontinue free power for farmers
It has led to widespread wastage of water and electricity
•Exactly 15 years after Manmohan Singh, as Congress Prime Minister, openly spoke against the free power supply scheme for farmers, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government at the Centre is attempting to do away with the much-abused scheme, which has been viewed by political parties as a major vote-catching policy measure. This time, the Centre has prescribed that the free power supply scheme should be replaced with the direct benefits transfer (DBT) as a condition to allow States to increase their borrowing limit. It is not the first time that the Union government has recommended DBT with regard to electricity. But what is new is setting the time frame for implementing it. By December this year, the DBT should be introduced at least in one district of a State and from the next financial year, a full roll-out should be made.
•Predictably, Tamil Nadu, which was the first State to introduce free power in September 1984, is strongly resisting the Centre’s stipulation. Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami has taken a categorical stand against the proposal. Though Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Punjab, where free power scheme is in vogue, are yet to express their views, it is not difficult to predict their response. After all, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, who had abolished the scheme during his first innings, is now a strong votary of the scheme.
Power subsidy bills
•In the last 15 years, Maharashtra has been the only State that scrapped the scheme within a year of introducing it. Karnataka, which has been implementing it since 2008, may become the first southern State to have DBT in power supply, if the hint dropped by Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa in early March is any indication. The power subsidy bills in the four southern States and Punjab are at least Rs. 33,000 crore, an amount the State governments will struggle to meet due to resource crunch in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
•The financial stress apart, the universal application of the scheme has had deleterious consequences. Primarily, the scheme has led to widespread wastage of water and electricity. It is inherently against incentivising even a conscientious farmer to conserve the two precious resources. It may be pertinent to point out that India is the largest user of groundwater at 251 billion cubic meters, exceeding the combined withdrawal by China and the U.S., as pointed out by Bharat Ramaswami of the Indian Statistical Institute last year. Second, be it parts of the Cauvery delta in Tamil Nadu or Sangrur district of Punjab, the story about the groundwater table is the same — a worrying rate of depletion. There is one more attendant problem. To sustain their activity, farmers need to go for submersible or high-capacity pumpsets.
•Third, the extension of the scheme to different States over the years has only encouraged installation of more pumpsets. Karnataka is a classic example, The number of irrigation pumpsets, which was around 17 lakh 12 years ago, is now around 30 lakh. Fourth, there is misuse of the scheme for which not just a section of farmers but also field officials have to be blamed. And, fifth, in the absence of meters for these connections or segregation of feeders or metering of distribution transformers, accurate measurement of consumption becomes tricky. Those in charge of power distribution companies find it convenient to reduce their aggregate technical and commercial losses by clubbing a portion of the losses with energy consumption by the farm sector.
Argument for free power
•Proponents of the free power scheme have a couple of valid points in their support. Apart from ensuring food security, free power provides livelihood opportunities to landless workers. When farmers dependent on supplies through canals get water almost free of cost, it is but fair that those not covered by canal irrigation should be given free electricity. Though there is substance in the argument, it is not difficult to arrive at a fair pricing mechanism. Small and marginal farmers and those who are outside the canal supply deserve free power, albeit with restrictions, but there is no justification for continuing with the scheme perpetually to other farmers. However, those enjoying free power need to be told about the need for judicious use of groundwater and how to conserve it.
•Making use of the situation created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centre is trying to make lasting changes in areas where such measures are long overdue. At least in the area of power sector, its attempt can yield meaningful results only if there is a change in the mindset of agriculturists and political parties towards the concept of free power.
