📰 Spike in return of people to Bangladesh
3,173 caught leaving in 2020: BSF data
•In the past four years, nearly twice the number of illegal Bangladeshi migrants were caught leaving the country compared to those coming in illegally, according to data available with the Border Security Force (BSF) and the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB).
•Till December 14 this year, as many as 3,173 illegal migrants were apprehended by the BSF when they were attempting to cross over to Bangladesh, three times more than the 1,115 caught while trying to enter India through illegal means.
•In 2019, 2018 and 2017, the numbers of Bangladeshis leaving the country stood at 2,638, 2,971 and 821 respectively, compared to the 1,351, 1,118 and 871 persons respectively who entered illegally.
•In 2017, as many as 892 Indians were caught while crossing over to Bangladesh and 276 while entering the country without any documents. However, such data is not available for subsequent years in the NCRB’s annual report.
•A senior government official said the number of persons leaving the country could be more as there are instructions to avoid paperwork and documentation for out-migrants. Another official added that there had been a surge in numbers of illegal Bangladeshis leaving the country due to the lack of work following the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown.
•“If they are apprehended, we let them go back. If they are arrested, it leads to lengthy legal procedures and the illegal migrants then have to be placed in a shelter or detention home till their nationality is proved,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
•On November 29, 2017, former BSF Director General K.K. Sharma had told a press conference in Delhi that they had instructions to push back the Rohingya to Bangladesh as they become a “liability” once they are arrested. Mr. Sharma said it was difficult to distinguish between the Rohingya and Bangladeshis and the BSF personnel were not equipped to differentiate between the two on the basis of dialect.
•“Being established and recognised as institutions of national importance under an Act of Parliament, IITs ought to be listed under the Schedule to the above CEI Act, 2019, for exemption from reservations,” the report said.
•In its reply to the RTI request, the MoE said the report was under the examination of the government.
•To address diversity issues, the report argued that a “system emphasising targeted goals over a period of time” and not “specific quotas” be followed so that IITs can “compete with other top institutions in the world in terms of excellence, output, research and teaching.”
•The Committee was constituted in April 2020 with Director of IIT Delhi, V. Ramgopal Rao, as its Chairperson and the Director of IIT Kanpur, Registrars of IIT Bombay and IIT Madras, and representatives from Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (MoSJE), Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Department of Personnel and Training and Department of Persons with Disabilities as members.
•It was asked to suggest measures on effective implementation of reservation policies not only in recruitment, but also for admissions. The committee met twice in May and submitted its report on June 17, 2020.
•The report said that the expectations on the faculty from IITs were very high due to the quality and standards of education. “The faculty being recruited at IITs are candidates with minimum of Ph.D. degree with superior academic record and high research accomplishments,” it said.
•Highlighting the issue of low enrolment of reserved category students in Ph. D programmes in IITs, the committee said this was severely limiting the number of reserved category candidates available to be hired as faculty in the IIT system.
Research programme
•Acknowledging the need to address this, the committee suggested offering a two-year Research Assistantship funded by the MoSJE for students from reserved categories aspiring to join Ph. D programmes.
•Stating that this will expose them to the IIT system of research, the committee said students may opt for Ph.D admissions or other opportunities after the assistantship. It, however, added that the subsequent selection of these students to regular Ph.D programmes will be only based on “merit” and there shall be no obligation on IITs to admit them.
•If granting full exemption from reservation was not possible, the committee recommended that the implement of reservation policies for all categories including Economically Weaker Sections be restricted just to Assistant Professor Grade I and Grade II and not for levels above.
📰 U.S. imposes CAATSA sanctions on Turkey for S-400 Purchase
The issue of sanctions by the U.S. for purchase of Russian arms is of particular interest to New Delhi, which is also in the process of buying the S-400 from Moscow.
•The U.S. has imposed sanctions on NATO-ally Turkey for its purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile defence system, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Monday. The issue of sanctions under Section 231 of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) for purchase of Russian arms is of particular interest to New Delhi, which is also in the process of buying the S-400 from Moscow.
•“Today’s action sends a clear signal that the United States will fully implement CAATSA Section 231 and will not tolerate significant transactions with Russia’s defense and intelligence sectors,” Mr Pompeo said on Monday.
•Sanctions were imposed on Turkey’s main defence procurement agency the Presidency of Defense Industries (SSB) for “knowingly engaging in a significant transaction with Rosoboronexport (ROE), Russia’s main arms export entity” the office of the US State Department spokesperson said in a statement.
•These SSB sanctions comprise of a ban on granting specific U.S. export licenses and authorisations for any goods or technology, a ban on loans or credits by U.S. financial institutions totaling more than $10 million in any 12-month period,a ban on U.S. Export-Import Bank assistance for exports and mandated U.S. opposition to loans by international financial organisations to SSB.
•Additionally, sanctions will include full blocking sanctions and visa restrictions on SSB president Ismail Demir and other officials.
•“We very much regret that this has been necessary, and we very much hope that Turkey will work with us to resolve the S-400 problem as quickly as possible,” said the State Department’s Christopher Ford, who is in charge of security and non-proliferation.
•“The United States made clear to Turkey at the highest levels and on numerous occasions that its purchase of the S-400 system would endanger the security of U.S. military technology and personnel and provide substantial funds to Russia’s defense sector, as well as Russian access to the Turkish armed forces and defense industry,” Mr. Pompeo said.
•“Turkey nevertheless decided to move ahead with the procurement and testing of the S-400, despite the availability of alternative, NATO-interoperable systems to meet its defense requirements. This decision resulted in Turkey’s suspension and pending removal from the global F-35 Joint Strike Fighter partnership,” he said.
•Last year the U.S. had removed Turkey from its F-35 jet program over concerns that sensitive information could be accessed by Russia if Turkey used Russian systems along with U.S. jets. U.S. President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have an apparently close relationship and Mr. Trump has pushed back on Congressional demands for sanctions against Turkey. The administration has now had to face a $740 million National Defense Authorization Bill (NDAA) 2021 from the U.S. Congress, which mandates sanctions against Turkey within 30 days of the bill’s passage (December 11). Mr. Trump has threatened to veto the bill.
•"The biggest winner of our new defense bill is China! I will veto!'' Trump had tweeted days ago.
📰 Vaccine drive: On India's COVID-19 vaccine policy
Assurances of safety, efficacy and long-term follow-up are essential
•Fine theories and good policies are often frustrated in their encounter with facts and implementation processes in the field. India’s COVID-19 vaccine policy, recently unveiled, must take care not to head that way, and make adequate allowances for ground realities that could render naught well-laid plans. With a definitive cure not yet available for COVID-19, vaccines present the world with the best strategy to slow the virus down in its tracks along with a measure of vested herd immunity, as SARS-CoV-2 rampages on. While it may not be the magic wand, vaccinating people will be the only known way of slowing the march of the virus, and every country, down to each county, must prepare for this massive exercise. As the U.K. and the U.S. began vaccinating their people, India has announced its plan and proposed line-up for COVID-19 vaccination, shortly after the Union Health Minister denied that the government had ever committed to COVID vaccination for all in the country. As per the government’s strategy, the vaccination is to be given first to health-care workers and then to people over the age of 50, with those over 60 given priority, based on the situation. This will amount to about 30 crore people. The voters’ list for the Lok Sabha and Assembly election polls has been set as the verifying document for the process. A new digital platform, Co-WIN, will be used for COVID-19 vaccination delivery, and about 1.54 lakh Auxiliary Nurse Midwives working on Universal Immunisation Programmes will be roped in as vaccinators, with more such field staff to be mobilised in collaboration with the States. Cold chain systems are to be strengthened across the country to deliver multiple doses.
•As governments beef up the vaccination drive, they need to clear the fog on vaccine safety and efficacy among the people. With passing days, it will not be too much to expect from the government a detailed plan for vaccinating children and a break down of tasks down to the lowest governance rung, as counties in the U.S. have been doing. Unless the latter is done, a proper estimate of the true challenges of administering vaccines in the field will not be available, and being unprepared is a guarantee to coming undone. Vaccine hesitancy is a reality and the only way to counter that is to be open and honest about adverse effects and post-vaccination sequelae, if any, and make available relevant information in the public realm. In the past, in some States, vaccination programmes have suffered temporarily because of misinformation about adverse events following shots. In addition, in this case, long-term follow up of all who receive the vaccine is absolutely essential. For, therein lies the assurance that every one in the global line list is waiting for.
📰 Law and disorder
Several inadequacies in the justice delivery system lie hidden as disproportionate attention is given to the Supreme Court
•In the TV series, The Crown, a dismayed Queen Elizabeth II seeks to understand from Prime Minister Harold Wilson why the public has such a negative perception of the royalty. She points out that the royalty is composed of normal people leading normal lives and doing normal jobs. Wilson haltingly says that the people don’t expect the royalty to be normal, but to be “ideal”. “But,” the Queen bleats, “nobody is ideal.”
•Today, the Supreme Court finds itself in a similar predicament. The citizens of the country expect the institution and its constituents to be ideal, and the challenge of the Supreme Court is to come to terms with that reality. However, it is not the Supreme Court alone that matters in the justice delivery system. As a result of the unrelenting focus on the anguished knocks at the doors of the highest court, the other inadequacies of the system don’t get as much public attention. A few important ones are dealt with below.
Spending on judiciary
•Most often, the issue of spending on judiciary is equated with a call for increasing the salaries of judges and providing better court infrastructure. Such perceptions are unfortunate. India has one of the most comprehensive legal aid programmes in the world, the Legal Services Authority Act of 1987. Under this law, all women, irrespective of their financial status, are entitled to free legal aid. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and children too are entitled to free legal aid. This means that a significant proportion of the population falls — or is supposed to fall — under a free legal aid regime. However, in reality, this law is a dead letter. There has been little effort on the part of successive governments to provide a task force of carefully selected, well-trained and reasonably paid advocates to provide these services. In comparison, the system of legal aid in the U.K. identifies and funds several independent solicitor offices to provide such services. If support is withdrawn, many solicitor offices that provide these invaluable services would collapse and with that, the rule of law. India is yet to put in place anything similar to this.
Poor judge-population ratio
•The judge-population ratio provides one of the most important yardsticks to measure the health of the legal system. The U.S. has about 100 judges per million population. Canada has about 75 and the U.K. has about 50. India, on the other hand, has only 19 judges per million population. Of these, at any given point, at least one-fourth is always vacant. While much is written on vacancies to the Supreme Court and the High Courts, hardly any attention is focused on this gaping inadequacy in lower courts which is where the common man first comes into contact (or at least should) with the justice delivery system. These inadequacies are far more important to the common man than the issues relating to the apex court that are frequently highlighted in the public space. In All India Judges Association v. Union of India (2001), the Supreme Court had directed the Government of India to increase the judge-population ratio to at least 50 per million population within five years from the date of the judgment. This has not been implemented.
Access to justice
•Though ‘access to justice’ has not been specifically spelt out as a fundamental right in the Constitution, it has always been treated as such by Indian courts. In Anita Kushwaha v. Pushpa Sadan (2016), the Supreme Court held unambiguously that if “life” implies not only life in the physical sense but a bundle of rights that make life worth living, there is no justice or other basis for holding that denial of “access to justice” will not affect the quality of human life. It was for the first time that the Supreme Court had attempted a near-exhaustive definition of what “access to justice” actually means. Further, the court pointed out four important components of access to justice. It pointed out the need for adjudicatory mechanisms. It said that the mechanism must be conveniently accessible in terms of distance and that the process of adjudication must be speedy and affordable to the disputants. It is of course a paradox that this judgment, which emphasises the concept of speedy justice, was passed in 2016 in a batch of transfer petitions that were filed between 2008 to 2014.
•The state in all its glorious manifestations — the executive, judiciary and the legislature — is yet to draw out a national policy and road map for clearing backlogs and making these concepts real. These are just a few of the issues crying for attention. Increasing tribunalisation of the justice delivery process; the extortionate court fees payable to access justice in civil suits in some States; and the poor integration of technology into the system are some issues that readily come to mind. A disproportionate amount of attention that is given to the functioning of the Supreme Court, important as it is, distracts from these and similar issues. Let us assume that the apex court achieves the distinction of being “ideal” in the near future, of being all things to all people. Still, a fine mind alone is of little avail if the rest of the body lies disabled, as the justice delivery system is today.
📰 From a digital India to a digital Bharat
The PM-WANI project seems to fit within the framework of an evolving decentralised concept to bridge the e-divide
•̥The term ‘game changer’ is sometimes used too freely in the context of conversations related to policy, especially when it comes to government policy initiatives. It is not always true, and can come across as hyperbole, and a marketing term to make the potential impact of certain initiatives seem larger than they actually are.
•However, there are times when the term is appropriate, and can be seen as an accurate reflection of the capability of an initiative to change the status quo. The Prime Minister’s Wi-Fi Access Network Interface, or PM WANI announced on December 9 fits the ‘game changer’ tag. This provides for “Public Wi-Fi Networks by Public Data Office Aggregators (PDOAs) to provide public Wi-Fi service through Public Data Offices (PDOs) spread across [the] length and breadth of the country to accelerate proliferation of Broadband Internet services through Public Wi-Fi network in the country”.
What the data shows
•Essentially, this would mean the ability to connect to a Wi-Fi broadband connection almost anywhere. This can help to bridge the increasing digital divide in India. Recently, the NITI Aayog chief executive officer had said that India can create $1 trillion of economic value using digital technology by 2025. However, as per the latest Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) data, about 54% of India’s population has access to the Internet. The 75th round of the National Statistical Organisation survey shows that only 20% of the population has the ability to use the Internet. The India Internet 2019 report shows that rural India has half the Internet penetration as urban, and twice as many users who access the Internet less than once a week.
•To illustrate this point, let us look at the Umang App (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance), which allows access to 2,084 services, across 194 government departments, across themes such as education, health, finance, social security, etc. The ability to access and utilise the app enhances an individual’s capabilities to benefit from services that they are entitled to. With each move towards digitisation, we are threatening to leave behind a large part of our population to suffer in digital poverty.
•It is clear that the focus is on last mile delivery, especially when you see how the Telecom Minister has compared it to the public call office model of past decades. This is what the government is trying to achieve with PM-WANI, where anyone living in their house, a paan shop owner or a tea seller can all provide public Wi-Fi hot posts, and where anyone within range can access it. This will also help to reduce the pressure on mobile Internet in India. Going back to the India Internet report, it shows that 99% of all users in India access the Internet on mobile, and about 88% are connected on the 4G network. This leads to a situation where everyone is connected to a limited network, which is getting overloaded and resulting in bad speed and quality of Internet access.
Key links
•There are three important actors here. First is the Public Data Office (PDO). The PDO can be anyone, and it is clear that along with Internet infrastructure, the government also sees this as a way to generate revenue for individuals and small shopkeepers. It is important to note that PDOs will not require registration of any kind, thus easing the regulatory burden on them. Next, is the PDOA, who is basically the aggregator who will buy bandwidth from Internet service provider (ISPs) and telecom companies and sell it to PDOs, while also accounting for data used by all PDOs. Finally, you have the app provider, who will create an app through which users can access and discover the Wi-Fi access points.
•Further details can be found in the report by TRAI on a public open Wi-Fi. Two pillars have been given as a baseline for public Wi-Fi.
•The first is interoperability, where the user will be required to login only once and stay connected across access points. The second is multiple payment options, allowing the user to pay both online and offline. The report also talks about how products should start from low denominations, starting with ₹2. It is suggested in the report that the requirement of authentication through a one-time password for each instance of access may be cumbersome and automatic authentication through stored e-know your customer (KYC) is encouraged, which inevitably means a linking with Aadhaar.
Aiding rural connectivity
•The PM-WANI has the potential to change the fortunes of Bharat Net as well. Bharat Net envisions broadband connectivity in all villages in India. The project has missed multiple deadlines, and even where the infrastructure has been created, usage data is not enough to incentivise ISPs to use Bharat Net infra to provide services. One of the reasons for the lack of demand is the deficit in digital literacy in India.
•The other reason is simply the lack of last mile availability of the Internet. In terms of digital literacy, it is not enough to look at digital literacy as a set of specific skills, because the skills required to navigate technology keep changing. A more appropriate framework is to see it as an evolving decentralised concept, which depends on how people interact with technology in other aspects of their life, and is influenced by local social and cultural factors. The PM-WANI seems to fit within this framework, simply because it seeks to make accessing the Internet as easy as having tea at a chai shop. This is not a substitute for the abysmal digital literacy efforts of the government, but will definitely help.
Security, privacy issues
•There are some concerns, mainly with respect to security and privacy. A large-scale study conducted at public Wi-Fi spots in 15 airports across the United States, Germany, Australia, and India discovered that two thirds of users leak private information whilst accessing the Internet. Further, the TRAI report recommends that ‘community interest’ data be stored locally, raising questions about data protection in a scenario where the country currently does not have a data protection law in place. These are however, problems of regulation, state capacity and awareness and do not directly affect the framework for this scheme.
•With the PM-WANI, the state is expanding the reach of digital transformation to those who have been excluded till now. It is a game-changer because it has the potential to move Digital India to Digital Bharat.
📰 Punjab, Haryana need to look beyond MSP crops
In tackling agri-crises, these core Green Revolution States must shift to high value crops and promote non-farm activities
•The region comprising Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, was an early adopter of Green Revolution technology. It was also a major beneficiary of various policies adopted to spread modern agriculture technology in the country. The package of technology and policies produced quick results which enabled India to move from a country facing a severe shortage of staple food to becoming a nation close to self-sufficiency in just 15 years.
The rice and wheat focus
•Procurement of marketed surplus of paddy (rice) and wheat at Minimum Support Price (MSP) completely insulated farmers against any price or market risks. And, at the same time, it ensured a reasonably stable flow of income from these two crops. Over time, the technological advantage of rice and wheat over other competing crops further increased as public sector agriculture research and development allocated their best resources and scientific manpower to these two crops. Other public and private investments in water and land and input subsidies were the other favourable factors.
•Thus, wheat in rabi and paddy in kharif turned out to be the best in terms of productivity, income, price and yield risk and ease of cultivation among all the field crops (cereals, pulses, oilseeds). It is no surprise then that the area share of rice and wheat in the total cropped area rose from 48% in Punjab and 29% in Haryana in the early 1970s to 84% and 60%, respectively in recent years. While wheat was being cultivated in this region since long, paddy cultivation was totally new for most farmers in Punjab and Haryana. The progress and specialisation towards these two crops served the great national goal of securing the food security of the country.
•During the mid-1980s, some inimical trends related to the rice-wheat crop system in general and paddy cultivation in particular surfaced followed by serious second generation problems of the Green Revolution. Some experts foresaw the serious consequences of continuation of paddy cultivation in the region and suggested diversification away from the rice-wheat system in the mid-1980s.
•Since then a large number of reports and policy documents have been prepared to develop alternative options to reduce the area under paddy — necessitated by its adverse effect on natural resources, the ecology, the environment, and fiscal resources. Serious concerns have also been expressed about plateauing productivity and stagnant income from rice-wheat cultivation. However, the area under these two crops has only increased rather than fallen. In order to develop viable options to infuse dynamism in the agriculture economy of this Green Revolution belt, there is a need to understand: what attracts farmers to rice-wheat crops, why it needs to be changed, and how it can be changed.
Punjab, Haryana vs. States
•High productivity, assured MSP which is often above open market price, free power, and fertilizer subsidy underlie the higher income per unit area from wheat and paddy cultivation. Land-labour ratio is also very favourable in Punjab when compared to other States; on an average a farmer owns and cultivates 2.14 hectares net sown area as against 1.42 hectares in Haryana and 1.17 hectares at the national level.
•An estimate of income (derived from National Accounts Statistics) shows that all agriculture activities taken together generate an annual net income of ₹5.31 lakh per cultivator in Punjab; it is ₹3.44 lakh in Haryana while the all-India average is ₹1.7 lakh (reference year, 2017-18). A question often asked is that if per farmer agriculture incomes in Haryana and Punjab are two to three times more than the national average, then why is there so much talk of farmers’ distress in these two States?
•The reasons seem to be the loss of growth momentum in the income from the agriculture sector, which has fallen to 1% in Haryana and 0.6% in Punjab after 2011-12. This is quite low by any standard and not keeping in pace with an increase in households’ expenditure. The prospects of further growth in agricultural income from the crop sector dominated by rice and wheat are very dim.
•With the productivity of rice and wheat reaching a plateau, there is pressure to seek an increase in MSP to increase income. However, demand and supply do not favour an increase in MSP in real terms. In India, the per capita intake of rice and wheat is declining and consumers’ preference is shifting towards other foods. It may look strange that the average spending by urban consumers is more on beverage and spices than on all cereals. On the supply side, rice production is rising at the rate of 14% per year in Madhya Pradesh, 10% in Jharkhand and 7% in Bihar.
•Obviously, the advantage of rice production is shifting towards these States. This will further increase pressure on the procurement and buffer stock of rice. Rice and wheat procurement in the country has more than doubled after 2006-07 and buffer stocks have swelled to an all time high. The country does not find an easy way to dispose of such large stocks and they are creating stress on the fiscal resources of the government. The implication of all these changes is that farmers in the region will find it difficult to increase their income from rice-wheat cultivation and they must be provided alternative choices to keep their income growing.
•Procurement of almost the entire market arrivals of rice and wheat at MSP for more than 50 years has affected the entrepreneurial skills of farmers to sell their produce in a competitive market where prices are determined by demand and supply and competition. Thus, to enable Punjab and Haryana farmers to move toward high-paying horticulture crops requires institutional arrangements on price assurance such as contract farming.
Environmental issues, jobs
•The biggest casualty of paddy cultivation and the policy of free power for pumping out groundwater for irrigation is this: the depletion of groundwater resources. In the last decade, the water table has shown a decline in 84% observation wells in Punjab and 75% in Haryana. It is feared that Punjab and Haryana will run out of groundwater after some years if the current rate of overexploitation of water is not reversed. In the last couple of years, the burning of paddy stubble and straw has become another serious environmental and health hazard in the whole region.
•Another rather more serious challenge for the two States is to provide attractive employment to rural youths. As it is well known, most of the farm work in these two States is undertaken by migrant labour. The younger generation is not willing to do manual work in agriculture and looks for better paying salaried jobs in non-farm occupations. Government jobs are few and far less than the number of job seekers.
•Thus, the option left is to create jobs in the private industry and the services sector. This requires private investments in suitable areas. Punjab has witnessed a flight of private capital from the State during the rise of militancy which hurt the State economy, employment and the revenues of the State. This setback has pushed the rank of the State in per capita income from number one in the 1970s and the early 1980s to number 13 among the major States of the country. For further progress and to meet the aspirations of rural youth to get satisfactory employment, the State needs large-scale private investments in modern industry, services, and commerce besides agriculture.
•The solution to the ecological, environmental and economic challenges facing agriculture in the traditional Green Revolution States is not in legalising MSP but to shift from MSP crops to high value crops and in the promotion of non-farm activities. Rather than focusing on a few enterprises, Punjab and Haryana should look at a large number of area-specific enterprises to avoid gluts. This will require a mechanism to cover price and market risks. Farmers’ groups and farmer producer organisations can play a significant role in the direct marketing of their produce.
Agricultural specificities
•Both Punjab and Haryana need to promote economic activities with strong links with agriculture tailored to State specificities. Some options for this are: promotion of food processing in formal and informal sectors; a big push to post-harvest value addition and modern value chains; a network of agro- and agri-input industries; high-tech agriculture; and a direct link of production and producers to consumption and consumers without involving intermediaries.
•The traditional Green Revolution States of Punjab and Haryana would need to shed “business as usual” approach and embrace an innovative development strategy in agriculture and non-agriculture to secure and improve the future of farming and rural youth.
