📰 India’s trade deficit with China dips to $48.66 billion
Chinese FDI has dipped to $163.78 million in 2019-20 from $229 million in the previous fiscal
•India’s trade deficit with China fell to $48.66 billion in 2019-20 on account of the decline in imports from the neighbouring country, according to government data.
•Exports to China in the last financial year stood at $16.6 billion, while imports aggregated at $65.26 billion, the data showed.
•The trade deficit stood at $53.56 billion in 2018-19 and $63 billion in 2017-18.
•India has time and again raised concerns over the widening trade deficit with China. The government is framing technical regulations and quality norms for several products to reduce dependence on Chinese imports.
•It has also imposed anti-dumping duties on goods, which are being dumped in the domestic market at below the average prices from China.
•Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from China in India dipped to $163.78 million in 2019-20 from $229 million in the previous fiscal, according to the data.
•India had received $350.22 million in FDI from the neighbouring country in 2017-18 and $277.25 million in 2016-17.
•From April 2000 to March 2020, India attracted FDI worth $2.38 billion from China. In April, the government tightened norms for FDI coming from countries which share a land border with India.
•As per the amended FDI policy, a company or an individual from a country that shares a land border with India can invest in any sector only after getting government approval.
📰 India loses jurisdiction over Italian marines case
It wins compensation for Kerala fishermen at The Hague
•The Government of India said it was studying an international tribunal’s ruling that the Italian marines accused of killing two fishermen in the waters off the Kerala coast on February 15, 2012, held “immunity” and would face a trial in Italy, not India. While the tribunal held in Italy’s favour the main submission, of jurisdiction, it found merit in India’s counter-claim that the marines on board “Enrica Lexie” had violated the freedom of navigation rights under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) by shooting at fishing boat “St. Antony” and should pay compensation to the victims’ families, the boat owner and crew members.
Marines’ claim
•In their defence, the marines claimed they mistook the fishermen for “pirates” and that the shooting occurred in international waters.
•In its submissions, India had called on the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) UNCLOS tribunal to “adjudge and declare that it [PCA] has no jurisdiction with respect to the case submitted to it by Italy”.
📰 ‘Lack of data impeding revival of MSMEs’
Consortium moots app as registry
•The Consortium of Indian Associations (CIA) has urged the Centre to develop Udyog Setu, a mobile application, similar to the Aarogya Setu to bail out the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that have been badly hit by COVID-19 as the lack of reliable data was impeding the sector’s revival.
•The mobile application will contain all the data pertaining to the MSMEs such as the names of enterprises, turnover, number of employees, plant location and the like.
•“The financial stimulus package announced by the Centre for the MSMEs has been a damp squib. A helping hand could not be extended to MSMEs as we are lacking in data on industry, traders, migrant labour, informal workers and many such segments that are not yet the radar of the central and State governments,” said K.E. Raghunathan, convenor, CIA.
•“It is necessary to map them immediately through Udyog Setu, similar to the Aarogya Setu. This will help us bring all enterprises, irrespective of size, under one platform,” he said.
•He said that with respect to the Rs. 3 lakh-crore Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS), only about Rs. 90,000 crore had been sanctioned and about Rs. 40,000 crore disbursed as on day 45.
•“It is too early to say that economic revival has started, referring to June 2020 tax collections. The worst is yet to come,” he said, adding indirect tax collections “should have been Rs. 1.75 lakh crore for 65 days of invoicing.”
📰 In an uncertain world, a seat at the global high table
Counter-terrorism will be one of India’s highest priorities as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council
•India will be back in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for a two-year term beginning January 1, 2021 at a critical time in the history of the UN. It is hoped that by then COVID-19 will have subsided, a U.S. President will have been elected, and the contours of a new world order may have emerged. India is serving for the eighth time and has a record of contributing to some of the seminal resolutions of the UNSC. As a consequence of the long debate on the expansion of the UNSC, many countries which have never served on the Council have begun to claim their turn. Earlier, India, Japan, Pakistan and some others used to get elected more frequently. Compared to the retiring members, the newly elected members are more politically significant. India’s reputation for taking balanced positions and consensus building will be welcomed by the other members.
All about the contest
•The basic contest for the non-permanent seats takes place in the respective regional groups and their sub-groups. Voting in the General Assembly is to fulfil the requirement of countries having to secure a two-thirds majority of the member states. If there is regional endorsement, all countries, except those with any grievance against the candidates, vote for them and they sail through easily. But regional endorsement is becoming difficult as countries inscribe their names years in advance and those squatting countries have to be persuaded to vacate the place through various means. Last time, it was Kazakhstan which vacated the place for India; this time, it was Afghanistan. India could not have got the endorsement without such gestures from friendly countries. It must have taken some deft activity by our mission to accomplish these feats.
•Voting in the General Assembly is not without its own excitement. The two-thirds majority is assured, but the competition is to secure all the votes cast. But no one gets that as the ballot is secret and adversaries may vote against the candidates. For instance, out of the 192 votes cast, India got 184 and no one will ever know the eight countries that did not vote for India. But it is a matter of concern that there are so many countries with grievances against India. In the order of the number of votes received by each one, the countries elected were Mexico, India, Norway, Ireland and Kenya. Since there was no endorsement in the African Group, Kenya had to go for a second round against Djibouti. Kenya was the favourite of the West and Djibouti was supported by China and the Islamic states. In the Western European and Others Group, Canada lost to Ireland in a contentious contest.
•One special feature this year was the COVID-19 effect. Ambassadors were allowed to enter the General Assembly Hall one by one to cast their ballots instead of the simultaneous voting that usually takes place. The campaign was also unconventional — it took place through Zoom conversations and the sharing of brochures and pamphlets rather than through meetings at bars and restaurants serving haute cuisine around the UN. The candidates may also have saved money as this is normally an occasion for splurging.
•Though India’s success was assured, the new Permanent Representative of India, T.S. Tirumurti, who has a formidable reputation for multilateral skills, produced an impressive multimedia presentation with memories of India’s sterling role in the annals of the UN. Asked for his reaction to the victory, he said, “In the COVID and the post-COVID world, India will continue to provide leadership and a new orientation for a reformed multilateral system.” How far the UN will be able to reform itself in the new situation remains uncertain. The expected changes after 9/11 never materialised because of vested interests and traditional positions. The UN did not succeed in either defining terrorism or in adopting the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism. Counter-terrorism will be one of the highest priorities for India at the UNSC.
Permanent membership
•India’s election as a non-permanent member has understandably ignited the hope that its quest for permanent membership of the Council may succeed. Nothing is farther from the truth. Operating within the provisions of the Charter is one thing and seeking to amend the Charter to add new permanent members is quite another. The debate has thrown up many ideas, but till today, none of the proposals has the possibility of securing two-thirds majority of the General Assembly and the votes of the five permanent members. It is fairly certain that no expansion of the permanent members will take place under the existing provisions of the Charter. We may blame the permanent members for being adamant about protecting their privileged positions, but the fact is that a majority of the UN members are against the privileges of the permanent members, particularly the veto. India’s performance in the Council may earn it respect, but it will not lead to its elevation to permanent membership as the opposition to any expansion is not India-specific.
•India will have a higher profile at the UN for the next two years as the non-permanent members have a collective veto over every resolution in the Council. Permanent members can prevent adoption of resolutions by themselves, but they need at least nine votes to get a resolution passed. India will also have a rare peep into the consultations chamber of the UNSC, which is closed to non-members of the Council. It is there that hard negotiations take place without any public record, characterised by arm-twisting and threats of veto. The pressure of work of the mission will also increase because India will get involved in many issues in which it may not have any direct interest. Since India does not have a veto, it shall have to proceed cautiously not to offend anyone, lest they should go against it when a matter of vital interest for the country comes up in the Council.
•India’s mission in New York has earned a reputation that it is next only to the permanent members in influence. But whether it will be able to deal with traditional challenges in novel ways will depend on the turns and twists in an uncertain world.
📰 India’s torture culture needs to end now
Only the people, including the Bar, the media, civil society and student groups, can rise up against torture practices
•By now, everyone has heard of the tragic deaths of P. Jayaraj and J. Benicks, a father-son duo in a small town in Thoothukudi. Jayaraj, 58, was arrested by the police following an altercation with them on keeping his son’s mobile phone shop open in violation of lockdown rules. After Benicks was also taken into custody, the two were mercilessly thrashed to death.
•Being found guilty of the ‘offence’ of keeping a shop open during the lockdown would have ordinarily granted Jayaraj and Benicks a maximum of only three months of imprisonment. The story, sadly, does not end with the police alone. Before the two men died, the police sought their remand, which a judge sitting in a court complex mechanically seems to have granted, without ever seeing the two men, or seeming to question the rationale for their remand. The series of events, starting with the cruel lockdown enforcement methods and concluding with the utterly gruesome and entirely avoidable deaths, is a sign that we are living with a completely broken system of law enforcement.
Endemic to police culture
•The Tamil Nadu police has acquired notoriety over the decades for employing torturous methods for law enforcement. During my tenure as Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, several cases in this regard were brought to the court. But this issue is not restricted to Tamil Nadu alone. Torture is, in fact, an integral part of police culture all over the country. Indeed, it would not be amiss to argue that this culture in India today is reminiscent of the brutality of the colonial police forces that we are so keen to forget.
•Official data also accept that police torture is a reality, but the quality of such data is always suspect. The pervasiveness of police torture is best understood in the compelling case found in reports made by NGOs and observers over the years, including by the Asian Centre for Human Rights, Amnesty International and People’s Union for Democratic Rights.
•The data on torture show that it is not only an integral part of India’s policing culture; in some investigations (such as terror cases), it is treated as the centrepiece. The fact is that the current laws facilitate such torture, such as through the admissibility of confessions as evidence under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act and the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which continues refurbished as the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act. Unfortunately, policing has also not mainstreamed the upgrade to newer technologies, like DNA analysis, which can directly impact law enforcement practices.
•What some have labelled as India’s “public secret” is tiptoed around in the international arena. The official position on state-sponsored or state-endorsed torture can be seen in a 2017 quote by India’s then Attorney-General. In his opening speech in Geneva at the country’s universal periodic review at the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Attorney-General invoked Gandhi and Buddha, stating that “India…believe[s] in peace, non-violence and upholding human dignity. As such, the concept of torture is completely alien to our culture and it has no place in the governance of the nation.” This would be a textbook example of hypocrisy, if ever.
•Undoubtedly, the offending officers in the Thoothukudi case are being prosecuted, and some compensation will also be paid to the victims’ families. But such piecemeal action is not what is needed. What we really need is a recognition that torture is endemic and a systemic problem, and the only answer lies in stringent legal framework that is aligned with and committed to the principles of international law under the UN Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) to which India has been a signatory since 1997, and a watertight enforcement mechanism that deters such practices.
Supreme Court on torture
•Even before India signed the UNCAT, our Supreme Court had brought about glorious jurisprudence highlighting the many problems with the country’s torture culture. In Raghbir Singh v. State of Haryana (1980), the Court was “deeply disturbed by the diabolical recurrence of police torture resulting in a terrible scare in the minds of common citizens that their lives and liberty are under a new peril when the guardians of the law gore human rights to death.” These sentiments were revisited in Francis Coralie Mullin v. Union Territory of Delhi (1981) and Sheela Barse v. State of Maharashtra (1987), where the Court condemned cruelty and torture as violative of Article 21. This interpretation of Article 21 is consistent with the principles contained in the UNCAT. The UNCAT aims to prevent torture and other acts of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment around the world.
•Although India signed the UNCAT in 1997, it is yet to ratify it. In 2010, a weak Prevention of Torture Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha, and the Rajya Sabha later sent it to a Select Committee for review in alignment with the UNCAT. (I, too, appeared before this committee in 2010 after retirement from judicial office). But the Committee’s recommended law, submitted in 2012, never fructified, as the then UPA government allowed the Bill to lapse. In 2016, Ashwani Kumar, a senior advocate and former Union Minister of Law, sought the enactment of a torture law via a Supreme Court petition. By 2017, the Law Commission had submitted its 273rd report and an accompanying draft torture law. But the Supreme Court dismissed the petition on grounds that the government cannot be compelled to make a law by mandamus; treaty ratification was a political decision; and that it was a policy matter. A second petition on the issue filed by Mr. Kumar also met the same fate as the first one.
•This rejection was a sign of the Supreme Court turning its back on its own glorious jurisprudence, and its efforts to aid law-making in the past, whether in using the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women to reform the law around workplace sexual harassment; or customary international law in environmental cases; or the right to privacy — this long and varied list is revelatory of a proactive Court that sees itself as responsible for nudging Parliament into legislative action.
•Even with failings, the Commission’s draft Bill is better than not having one at all. A version based on this draft was circulated to State governments for views, but nothing has come of it, and nothing is likely to, either. This reluctance is arguably because all governments appear to collectively agree that police brutality is a necessary evil to maintain law and order.
#EndTortureToday
•Neither the Home Ministry nor this government is likely to take up the torture law. Indeed, the manner in which the torture bill has been treated reveals a betrayal of the people of India by successive governments. There have been opportunities for 23 years to enact a law on torture, but they have been studiously avoided. State consultation also has no meaning. It is evident that all governments enjoy the status quo, where the police are used as a tool for self-preservation. Any disequilibrium is not politically desirable.
•As disheartening as this may seem, all is not lost. There is much inspiration around us. Days after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis in the U.S., when a policeman held him in an 8-minute-46-second-chokehold, the #BlackLivesMatter movement emerged, with many Indians joining in too. The movement, led by the people, started a national debate in the U.S. on policing, including radical reforms such as defunding and disarming the police. Arguably we need a people’s movement at home too that will bring about the necessary legislative changes that the Law Commission has suggested, and that encourages institutions to #EndTortureToday. Only the people can rise up against these practices, just as they are doing in other parts of the world. And by people, I include important stakeholders like the Bar, the media, civil society and student groups. Each of these have relevant roles to play in bringing about the change we want to see. It is merely a matter of who decides to pick up the mantle first.
