📰 GAIL completes Kochi-Mangaluru pipeline
Within this week itself gas will reach the Karnataka city through the 444-km pipeline
•Kochi The much-delayed Kochi-Mangaluru natural gas pipeline project is finally ready for commissioning as GAIL India has completed the final 540-metre treacherous stretch across the Chandragiri river in northern Kerala, according to a senior company official.
•The 444-km-long natural gas pipeline was launched in 2009 at an estimated cost of Rs 2,915 crore and was to be commissioned in 2014. But opposition on safety and commercial grounds wherein the land price was the main hurdle has resulted in the project cost nearly doubling to over ₹5,750 crore.
•“We completed the most difficult stretch across the Chandragiri river in Kasaragod district on Saturday. Now the testing is on and this will be completed in the next two days. Within this week itself gas will reach Mangaluru through the 444-km pipeline,” P. Murugesan, executive director and head of southern region, GAIL, said on Monday.
•The formal commissioning will be done later, according to the availability of the Minister, he added.
Main junction
•The pipeline is charged up to Kannur now and has been live up to Koottanad in Palakkad district, 90 km north of Kochi, since June 2019. Koottanad is the main junction of the project, as from here the line bifurcates to Managaluru and Bengaluru.
•The first phase of the project was commissioned in August 2013 in the Kochi metropolitan area with industrial supplies and domestic supplies from February 2016 by Adani Gas. With the commissioning of the pipeline, gas demand in the State will touch 80-90 million cubic metres per annum from 60 million cubic metres now. Apart from huge environmental gains, the State can gain monetarily as it can get up to ₹1,000 crore by way of taxes alone.
•Authorities were ready to complete the project this August but a 540-metre stretch across the Chandragiri river became a nightmare for them. So as a way out they reduced the diameter of the pipe to a fourth -- from 24 inches to just 6 inches now. Mr. Murugesan said this is a temporary arrangement and the work to lay 24-inch pipe will resume soon after the commissioning of the project.
•He said the pipeline will supply gas to all seven districts it passes through Kerala -- Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kannur and Kasargod -- and the hilly Wayanad district.
“I have as a lawyer represented some of these parties,” he says
•Justice U.U. Lalit of the Supreme Court on Monday recused himself from hearing separate writ petitions that sought action against the Andhra Pradesh government and Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy for levelling “false, vague and political allegations” against apex court judge Justice N.V. Ramana and other High Court judges.
•The judge, who leads a three-member Bench, withdrew from hearing the case, explaining that he had, as a lawyer, represented some of the parties involved in the case.
•Justice Lalit, one of the few senior advocates directly elevated as Supreme Court judge in the history of the court, said, “I have difficulty in hearing this... I cannot take up this matter. I have as a lawyer represented some of these parties”.
Bench request to CJI
•The Bench then recorded a short order, requesting Chief Justice of India (CJI) S.A. Bobde to list the case before an appropriate Bench.
•The petitions are concerned with a letter by Mr. Reddy addressed to the CJI against the judges and the subsequent revelation of its contents at a press conference on October 10.
•Recently, Attorney General K.K. Venugopal refrained from giving his statutory consent to pleas seeking contempt of court action against Mr. Reddy and his Principal Advisor Ajeya Kallam.
•Mr. Venugopal said it was up to the CJI, who is “seized of the letter,” to take an appropriate decision. Supreme Court advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, in his contempt plea to Mr. Venugopal, claimed that the decision of a Bench led by Justice Ramana on September 16, directing expeditious completion of pending criminal trials against politicians had spurred Mr. Reddy to write the letter. Mr. Reddy, the lawyer said, had 31 criminal cases against him.
•A petitioner-in-person, advocate G.S. Mani, has accused Mr. Reddy of “misusing his official post”. A similar petition has also been filed by an NGO, Anti Corruption Council of India Trust.
•The third petition is by another lawyer, Sunil Kumar Singh, who has urged the top court to issue an order to bar Mr. Reddy from making public statements against the judiciary and holding press conferences to malign the judicial institution.
•The Constitution does not allow such deliberate attempts to publicly embarrass the judiciary.
•“What is at stake is the confidence that courts inspire in the public in a democracy... Discussions can go wild in the media within hours or days and affect the image of the judiciary,” Mr. Singh contended.
•The right place to bring allegations against the higher judiciary is Parliament or the State Legislature and not press conferences, he has argued. The petition said the constitutional immunity granted to the judiciary is to allow them to function fearlessly.
📰 Moderna says its vaccine appears to be 94.5% effective, shows early success in U.S. tests
Moderna’s vaccine, created with the National Institutes of Health, is being studied in 30,000 volunteers who received either the real vaccination or a dummy shot
•For the second time this month, there’s promising news from a COVID-19 vaccine candidate: Moderna said on Monday its shots provide strong protection, a dash of hope against the grim backdrop of coronavirus surges in the US and around the world.
•Moderna said its vaccine appears to be 94.5% effective, according to preliminary data from the company’s still ongoing study. A week ago, competitor Pfizer Inc. announced its own COVID-19 vaccine appeared similarly effective — news that puts both companies on track to seek permission within weeks for emergency use in the US.
•Dr Stephen Hoge, Moderna’s president, welcomed the really important milestone but said having similar results from two different companies is what’s most reassuring.
•“That should give us all hope that actually a vaccine is going to be able to stop this pandemic and hopefully get us back to our lives,” Dr Hoge told The Associated Press.
•“It won’t be Moderna alone that solves this problem. It’s going to require many vaccines to meet the global demand,” he added.
•A vaccine can’t come fast enough, as virus cases topped 11 million in the U.S. over the weekend — 1 million of them recorded in just the past week. The pandemic has killed more than 1.3 million people worldwide, more than 245,000 of them in the US.
•Still, if the Food and Drug Administration allows emergency use of Moderna’s or Pfizer’s candidates, there will be limited, rationed supplies before the end of the year. Both require people to get two shots, several weeks apart. Moderna expects to have about 20 million doses, earmarked for the U.S., by the end of 2020. Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech expect to have about 50 million doses globally by year’s end.
•Moderna’s vaccine, created with the National Institutes of Health, is being studied in 30,000 volunteers who received either the real vaccination or a dummy shot. On Sunday, an independent monitoring board broke the code to examine 95 infections that were recorded starting two weeks after volunteers’ second dose — and discovered all but five illnesses occurred in participants who got the placebo.
•The study is continuing, and Moderna acknowledged the protection rate might change as more COVID-19 infections are detected and added to the calculations. Also, it’s too soon to know how long protection lasts. Both cautions apply to Pfizer’s vaccine as well.
Side effects
•But Moderna’s independent monitors reported some additional, promising tidbits: All 11 severe COVID-19 cases were among placebo recipients, and there were no significant safety concerns.
•The main side effects were fatigue, muscle aches and injection-site pain after the vaccine’s second dose, at rates that Hoge characterized as more common than with flu shots but on par with others such as shingles vaccine.
•The Cambridge, Massachusetts, company’s vaccine is among 11 candidates in late-stage testing around the world, four of them in huge studies in the US.
•Both Moderna’s shots and the Pfizer-BioNTech candidate are so-called mRNA vaccines, a brand-new technology. They aren’t made with the coronavirus itself, meaning there’s no chance anyone could catch it from the shots.
•Instead, the vaccine contains a piece of genetic code that trains the immune system to recognize the spiked protein on the surface of the virus.
•The strong results were a surprise. Scientists have warned for months that any COVID-19 shot may be only as good as flu vaccines, which are about 50% effective.
•Another steep challenge: distributing doses that must be kept very cold. Both the Moderna and Pfizer shots are frozen but at different temperatures. Moderna announced on Monday that once thawed, its doses can last longer in a refrigerator than initially thought, up to 30 days. Pfizer’s shots require long-term storage at ultra-cold temperatures.
📰 Threat or treat: on RCEP trade deal
The final agreement of RCEP covers various issues that India had flagged
•The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was signed into existence on Sunday by 15 countries led by China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and the 10-state ASEAN grouping, creating one of the world’s largest trading blocs. Noticeable by its absence was India, which after seven years of protracted negotiations decided last November to exit the grouping. India had justified its decision as protecting its economy from burgeoning trade deficits with a majority of the 15 RCEP members and had cited the grouping’s refusal to accede to its requests on safeguards as a deal breaker. Those reasons were on the face of it justifiable at the time and were welcomed by industry, trade and farmers’ groups. However, 12 months down the road, India’s opting out appears far more debatable in terms of its economic rationale. With global trade and the economy foundering on the shoals of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially as new infections in Europe and the U.S. prompt fresh restrictions there, the pre-eminence of the east Asian and Pacific countries including China, South Korea, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand serving as a bulwark in containing the pandemic and re-energising economic activity can hardly be understated. Add to this the heightened tariff uncertainty generated by the deadlocked Brexit negotiations between Britain and the E.U., and it becomes evident that India may have missed a vital opportunity.
•Given that the RCEP members now account for about 30% of the global GDP and a third of the world’s population, the signatory states were emphatic that the timing of the accord presents a unique opportunity to support their economic recovery, inclusive development and job creation even as it helps strengthen regional supply chains. Interestingly, among the ASEAN signatories are several relatively far smaller economies including Vietnam and the Philippines, which not only continue to have their share of disputes with Beijing but also suffer significant trade imbalances with Asia’s largest economy. That these and other larger nations in the grouping have chosen to bury their geopolitical differences with China in order to prioritise what they collectively see as a mutually beneficial trading compact that would benefit their economies over the longer term is the clearest testament to economic realism trumping nationalist politics. Also, the summary of the final agreement shows that the pact does cover and attempt to address issues that India had flagged including rules of origin, trade in services, movement of persons and, crucially, remedies and safeguards. Acknowledging India’s economic heft and value as a market, the RCEP members have not only left the door open should New Delhi reconsider its stance but have also waived a key 18-month cooling period for interested applicants. It would be in India’s interest to dispassionately review its position and embrace openness rather than protectionism.
📰 Unabating attacks on journalists
There is an urgent need to enact laws that protect mediapersons and provide accountability
•Isravel Moses, a 26-year-old television journalist who reported on illegal encroachment of land and sale of ganja, was hacked to death in Nallur village in Kanchipuram district of Tamil Nadu on November 8. Four persons who attacked him were later arrested. The same day, another journalist, 35-year-old Syed Adil Wahab, was found brutally murdered in a jungle on the outskirts of Bhopal.
•Earlier on June 14, 2018, Shujaat Bukhari, a prominent journalist from Kashmir and the Chief Editor of Kashmir Times, was shot dead by three militants in the heart of Srinagar, when he was returning home from office. His manifest views on bringing peace to the Valley did not go well with militants.
•Such attacks on journalists who dare to expose corruption and misdeeds of anti-social elements, or who do not toe the line of the establishment, have proved to be a threat to journalists the world over.
•Unfortunately, India has been going down on the World Press Freedom Index during the last few years. In the annual reports of Reporters Without Borders, India has steadily gone down in the global index from a rank of 138 in 2018 to 140 in 2019, and further down to 142 this year.
•According to the United Nations, “Journalism is one of the most dangerous professions in the world”. Between 2006 and 2019, over 1,200 journalist have been killed the world over. On an average, it is estimated that one journalist is killed every four days. Sadly, in just one out of every ten such cases, the killers get convicted, while the rest go scot-free.
•In 2009, as many as 32 journalists were killed in Philippines; ten were killed in Afghanistan in 2016, and ten journalists were among those killed in a suicide bomb attack in Kabul in April 2018.
•A report released by an NGO last year states that 40 of the 198 journalists attacked in India between 2014 and 2019 died due to the attack. The killing of journalists is more rampant in smaller towns, while the figures in metro towns are quite low. It is cases like the killing of journalists such as the late Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru in 2017, that draw much country-wide attention and impel the police to investigate the murder.
Low convictions
•Considering the rising trend in the number of journalists killed each year, the Chairman of the Press Council of India (PCI), Justice Chandramauli Kumar Prasad, counselled the government “to enact a special law for protection of journalists and speedy trial of cases of attacks and assaults”. The PCI’s records indicate that 96% of the cases of attacks on journalists end up without conviction.
•That there is a need for stringent laws to protect journalists hardly calls for emphasis. Towards this end, Maharashtra has emerged as the first State in the country to enact a law. Under the Maharashtra Media Persons and Media Institutions (Prevention of Violence and Damage or Loss to Property) Act, 2017, any attack on journalists would be non-bailable and cognisable, and would be investigated by an officer not below the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police. Conviction under this Act could lead to imprisonment of up to three years and/or fine of up to ₹50,000. The attacker will also have to compensate for medical treatment in case of injuries to the journalist and also pay for damage to any equipment.
•Taking a cue from the Maharashtra law, Chhattisgarh is in the final stages of enacting a law known as Chhattisgarh Protection of Mediapersons Act. It has a wider definition of journalists, covering drivers, and even relatives of journalists. On conviction, the attacker would be liable to be punished under relevant sections of the IPC. But any public servant found guilty of dereliction of duties is liable to be punished with imprisonment of up to one year and/or fine of up to ₹10,000.
•While these two States have taken the initiative to enact laws to protect journalists, other States have to follow. The sooner it is done , the better.
📰 Needed, a policy framework in step with technology
With the rapid pace of technology blurring boundaries, a holistic view of schemes is a must
•As technology has evolved in the latter part of the 20th century and the early part of the 21st century, the traditional boundaries between goods and services have blurred. By virtue of Moore’s law, computing capabilities have surged faster than capabilities in traditional industries. These information-based technologies have been widely adopted across a broad range of industries and products that traditionally have not been perceived as electronic or software based.
•Information is the new currency powering economies. The expansion of computing power has driven the pace of information gathering and analysis. The new currency drives processes and decision-making across a wide array of products and services, making them more efficient and value accretive for consumers.
Data is a new currency
•Let us look at a traditional good, the automobile. A modern automobile has 40% of its component value from electronic-based products and a modern electric vehicle has close to 100 million lines of code, which is more than that used by a Boeing 787 or the Chrome browser. This is a paradigm shift as the amount of “value add” from intangible technology services as opposed to physical objects, even in traditional goods, is being transformed by information.
•Even if you look at a conventional “metal-based” industrial product, information and electronics are becoming all-pervasive, ensuring that we set boundaries to control quality or the uptime of the equipment. There is increasing digitisation and electronification of industrial activities, products and services, influencing the evolving skill sets in industry.
•This revolution is taking place across products, as information availability drives efficiency and creates value for customers by providing greater control over the product and its surrounding environment. And, this is what impels customers to value products that have utilised these evolving technologies.
Working in silos
•As governments have focused on improving the lives of people, they have looked at economic development and industry as catalysts to progress. To address the needs of various stakeholders, governments have tended to build specialised departments and designed policies that govern those areas. However, over time, as each of these departments grew, they have tended to operate in silos. This has for most of the 20th century been reasonably successful in driving economic development in countries.
•The recent developments in technology have, however, blurred standard boundaries that dictate policy framework in most governments. If you take India, industrial promotion policies look at encouraging capital formation from a manufacturing perspective. As technology is driving an increasing share of the value add coming from digitisation and data analytics in products and services across industry segments, there needs to be a way of encouraging capital formation by way of intangibles in traditionally tangible industries.
•If you look at the automobile industry, policies are governed by the Heavy Industries and the Surface Transport Ministries, respectively. However, increasing electronification and digitisation of the automobile are not covered by industrial policies that govern the Electronics and Information Technology Ministry.
•Another example involves drones that could serve different sectors, including agriculture, and would require a lot of inter-departmental clearances outside of the Department of Agriculture. There is increasingly a need for inter-departmental cooperation and synergy not only in policy framework but also in deployment.
Taking an aggregate view
•This departmentalisation of policies is facing a challenge from technology that very often blurs the boundaries served by different policies. There is a need to have a holistic view of policies for economic development as technology is becoming a significant enabler in most industries. A change in policy framework regarding economic development that enables various ministries to work together is essential. A sufficiently empowered policy clearing cell could ensure a holistic view on policy across departments of government, at the State and the Centre.
•In terms of attracting investments, policies have always been driven by subsidies and incentives but increasingly, in a competitive scenario, these are becoming hygiene factors. More significantly, a nourishing ecosystem for industry, including the hard infrastructure and softer areas such as education, skilling, technical institutions, laboratories, testing centres, etc., has to be cultivated. The creation of clusters of companies in adjacent but complementary areas could constitute such an ecosystem that encourages multi and cross-disciplinary learning and spur innovation and economic development. Moreover, this type of ecosphere could also attract investment and capital formation.
•There is also the larger issue of a shift of value between manufacturing and services as technology changes. The policy, by and large, promotes and gives incentives for manufacturing, whereas the share of intangibles, even in traditional manufacturing companies, whether it be software, research and development or even servicing of products, are not adequately covered in industrial policies. It is important to include these to encourage innovation and technological development.
•In this evolving policy framework, it is important that there is close cooperation and alignment between the Centre and State to ensure effective implementation on the ground. Some of these thoughts could help us navigate through an ecosystem that is changing with technology.
