📰 Merger of Lok Sabha-Rajya Sabha TV into Sansad TV finalised
Retired IAS officer Ravi Capoor has been appointed the Chief Executive Officer of the channel.
•After nearly two years of work, the merger of the Lok Sabha TV and the Rajya Sabha TV has been finalised and will be replaced by a single entity Sansad TV. On March 1, retired IAS officer Ravi Capoor was appointed the Chief Executive Officer of the channel.
•In November 2019, after deliberations between Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu, a committee headed by former Prasar Bharati Chairman Surya Prakash was set up. It submitted its report in February 2020. Three different sub-committees are currently examining the report to finalise the integration of technical and manpower resources of both channels.
•The Surya Prakash committee had also held a meeting with the Members of Parliament from different political parties who strongly recommended that the live telecast should be continued.
•Under the banner of Sansad TV, sources said, Lok Sabha TV will continue to telecast live proceedings of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha TV that of the Rajya Sabha.
•“During the inter-session period and beyond the working hours of Parliament, both the variants will telecast common content to a large extent. LSTV platform would telecast programme in Hindi while RSTV platform would do so in English. The two language variants it was felt enables better branding and increased viewership,” a top official said.
•The attempt is to go beyond the proceedings of the two Houses and show the functioning of the Parliament and Parliamentarians when the House is not in session.
•Mr. Capoor’s mandate is also to work out the nitty-gritty of the merger, including integration of the assets and manpower. There are nearly 250 personnel working with the Rajya Sabha TV and around 100 with Lok Sabha TV. Sources said, that as part of cost cutting, there was a possibility of termination of the contract of a few employees.
Private investors to develop West Container Terminal at Colombo Port
•Sri Lanka on Tuesday said it will develop the West Container Terminal (WCT) at the Colombo Port along with India and Japan. The decision comes a month after the Rajapaksa government ejected the two partners from a 2019 tripartite agreement to jointly develop the East Container Terminal (ECT), citing resistance to “foreign involvement”.
•Addressing the media on decisions taken at Monday’s Cabinet meeting, spokesperson Keheliya Rambukwella said approval had been granted to develop the WCT with investors nominated by India and Japan. While the High Commission of India had “approved” Adani Ports, which was to invest in the ECT project earlier, Japan is yet to name an investor, according to officially published Cabinet decisions.
•Neither India nor Japan has officially commented on the offer, or on the said private investment from the countries. According to official sources in New Delhi, Colombo had been in talks directly with potential investor Adani Group, while the government “was not part of” the discussions.
•Further, official sources in Colombo expressed surprise at the mention of the Indian High Commission in the Cabinet decision, pointing out that it was the Government of Sri Lanka, and not a foreign mission, that would “approve” investments coming into the island nation.
•Both India and Japan had earlier expressed displeasure about Colombo “unilaterally” pulling out of the 2019 tripartite agreement, signed by the former Maithripala Sirisena-Ranil Wickremesinghe government. The February 1 decision came amid mounting opposition from port worker unions and sections of the clergy to “foreign involvement” in the country’s national assets.
•The Rajapaksa government has offered India and Japan the WCT as an alternative, allowing higher stakes. In the ECT project agreed upon earlier, the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) was to hold majority 51%, but in the WCT proposal, India and Japan will be accorded 85% stake, as is the case in the nearby Colombo International Container Terminal (CICT), where China Merchants Port Holdings Company Limited holds 85%, the government said.
•Asked how authorities had convinced the unions of foreign investment at another terminal in the same port, Mr. Rambukwella said their opposition was specific to the ECT, which was partially in use. The ECT already has a 600-metre quay wall, and is adjacent to a shallow terminal, allowing swift cargo transfers. The terminal’s further development, which is now to be undertaken by the Sri Lanka Port Authority (SLPA), is aimed at augmenting operations at an estimated cost of upto $700 million.
•The West Container Terminal, however, has to be built from scratch, requiring a much higher investment.
•“The return on investment has not been envisaged yet,” Mr. Rambukwella said.
•The WCT is adjacent to the China-run CICT and just a couple of kilometres away from the China-backed Port City being built on reclaimed land, making it a strategically desirable spot for India, whose concerns over China's presence in Sri Lanka are well known.
•Colombo’s alternative offer also comes at a time when Sri Lanka is seeking support at the ongoing UN Human Right Council session, where a resolution on the country's rights record will soon be put to vote. The government recently wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
•Asked if the two developments were linked, Mr. Rambukwella said they were “two different areas — one is commercial, other one, more of international relations.” However, on the resolution, he said: “I think India would stand with the right group, and take correct measures to support us, that is our belief.”
📰 Back to the future: On rebound of Indian economy
The economy may have emerged from the woods, but challenges loom
•After two quarters of a sharp contraction, India’s economy is estimated to have rebounded out of a ‘technical recession’ to record feeble growth in the October-December 2020 period, with GDP rising by 0.4% and GVA by 1%. The overall numbers are not surprising. Just as the short-notice pandemic lockdown and the subsequent case surge took the wind out of mobility and economic activity in the first half of the fiscal year, the ‘unlocking phase’ that was largely complete by late September, brought back a semblance of normalcy, with pent-up and festival demand spurring spending, and helping reboot production lines. Agriculture remained the resilient bulwark in the third quarter as well, with farm GVA rising by 3.9% after being the sole sector to clock growth in the preceding two quarters. Manufacturing and construction resurfaced from a collapse to expand 1.2% and 6%, respectively. Both these sectors had been under stress even before the pandemic, posting contractions starting from the second and third quarters of 2019-20. Despite the Centre’s push on government spending, public administration, defence and other services contracted 1.5% last quarter. However, investment demand is estimated to have rebounded, with fixed capital formation posting positive momentum after several quarters, driven perhaps by public spending. Most worryingly, retail, trade, hotels, transport and communication contracted by 7.7%.
•Despite the Q3 uptick, the second advance estimates of national income for the year project an 8% contraction in the GDP, wider than the – 7.7% estimated in January. This may partly be due to the NSO revising the first quarter’s GDP shrinkage to 24.4%, from the 23.9% calculated earlier. The latest numbers also may be taken as an indicator at best, with the NSO stressing that the estimates are likely to undergo ‘sharp revisions’ as the pandemic affected data collection. Like the growth rate for 2019-20 was revised from 4.2% to 4% in January, the real GDP growth for the third quarter of the last fiscal has been scaled down to 3.3%, from 4.1%. The base effect may well have helped nudge India’s growth into positive territory, but it is an important psychological barrier to cross. Growth numbers alone may still not be capturing the tumult faced by swathes of informal and micro-enterprises, nor do they reflect a recovery in the job market. The continuing stress in employment- and contact-intensive services sectors is a worry, and the government must consider support measures. The second wave of infections in industrial hotspots such as Maharashtra, and the risk of infections rising in poll-bound States, do not bode well either for services or the fragile recovery in manufacturing. A smooth and expeditious roll-out of the vaccine, with the private sector drafted in to achieve scale, is an imperative to help India navigate the bumps ahead more deftly.
📰 The Survey as policy with ideological overtones
To say that growth and inequality converge in terms of their effects on socio-economic outcomes is outrageous
•The Economic Survey 2021 (https://bit.ly/2OfqfVQ) does not seem to be a policy document derived straight from the empirical data of the economy or the social compulsions embedded in it. On the contrary, the Survey rings with policy postulates based on strong ideological overtones. Of interest would be Chapter 4, captioned ‘Inequality and Growth: Conflict or Convergence?’ which is ostensibly “an effort to identify the correct policy objective for India”.
Need for desirable outcomes
•Following the COVID-19 pandemic, India has fallen into the vortex of a ‘once-in-a-century crisis’ as the Survey forcefully puts it. It projects a V-shaped growth of recovery and reiterates the call of the Economic Survey 2019-20 for “ethical wealth creation by combining the invisible hand of markets with the hand of trust”. Given the great truth that trust is broken more in an unequal society, (on this, see Wilkinson and Pickett cited in the chapter), it is unrealistic to abstract from the crony capitalism and corruption that dominate the political society and proceed from there to ethical wealth production (which indeed is an important instrumental value). It is hoped that market-mediated growth will take the country to desirable socio-economic outcomes that include not only reducing poverty but also a wide spectrum, ranging from infant mortality to mental illness.
A silence on poverty
•Even so, concerned scholars remain confused at the silence of the Survey on the nature and magnitude of poverty which is a multi-dimensional phenomena of deprivation, confounded much worse by the pandemic crisis. The graphic picture of migrant families trudging home hundreds of kilometres away from the cities in the wake of the lockdown seems forgotten. At the same time, Chapter 1 of the Survey documents elaborately the structural reforms (achievements include the controversial three farm laws) to take the economy and the people forward.
•Scholarly estimates on the increase in the extreme poverty under the pandemic in India have ranged from 400 million (a study by King’s College London) to 620 million (The Hindu, OpEd article, July 7, 2020). Oxfam’s study on the Virus and Inequality (https://bit.ly/3rcAF7p) points out that while it took nine months for the top 1,000 billionaires to return to pre-COVID-19 times, it will take over a decade for the poorest class to resume normalcy. Interestingly, India’s stock exchanges have scaled unprecedented heights in mocking disregard to the informal sector already in deep distress following the demonetisation episode.
•Anyone familiar with the vast literature on economic growth and inequality will find the claims of the Economic Survey, that unlike in advanced countries, in India economic growth and inequality converge in terms of their effects on socio-economic outcomes, as simply outrageous. Because the 44 figures of correlations and regressions occupy more than two-thirds of the space of the chapter and form the ‘scientific’ base to substantiate the arguments, I may probe further into them. Correlation between two real scalar variables x and y does not measure any type of relationship between x and y. The measure of variance (square of standard deviation) in x is the square of a measure of scatter or dispersion or spread in x.
Faulty conclusions
•Correspondingly, the joint dispersion or joint scatter in the couplet (x,y) is measured by covariance between x and y. A scale-free covariance is the correlation where degenerate variables are excluded. Hence, correlation can only measure joint scatter in (x,y) and it cannot measure any type of relationship between x and y. Also, correlation as a measure of joint scatter can make sense only when the variables involved have a joint distribution in the statistical sense. All the conclusions of the chapter by computing correlations are faulty.
•Another set of analysis is based on fitting linear models, calling them as “linear regression”. In the regression models used, variables are selected according to convenience and linear models are fitted and t-statistics are computed without checking for the validity; all sorts of conclusions are made. Such misuse of statistical tools is a dangerous game, certainly in a democracy, which as J.S. Mill famously said is a government by discussions. Discussions are relevant and truthful only when they are well-informed and reliable.
•Social justice is an intrinsic value of universal relevance. Box 1 of Chapter 4 that goes to justify the poverty and inequality trade-off in totalitarian China is obviously introduced to support the inegalitarian policy options. Thomas Piketty (2020), referred to in the chapter, tells us that inequality increased much more sharply after 1980 in India than in China. This is conveniently forgotten.
A sidelining
•Although the works of great thinkers on justice and equality such as John Rawls, Piketty and Wilkinson and Pickett are mentioned, they are sidelined. It is concluded that “poverty alleviation through growth must be central to economic strategy”, rather than inequality because “in India, economic growth and inequality converge in terms of their effects on socio-economic indicators”. This is untenable. Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (1971), treats justice as fairness which is the basic core of democratic traditions the world over. The chapter refers to the idea of “original position” of equality of Rawls but fails to note that it will have to be judged by the whole theory of justice. The book, The Spirit Level, by the two doctors Wilkinson and Pickett, based on 50 years of research has the meaningful subtitle, ‘Why equality is better for everyone’, ought to have been discussed further because they argue that inequality breeds mistrust, mental illness and many such outcomes, which needs to be reduced for human well-being.
•Instead of dismissing it, a discussion on Piketty’s Capital and Ideology is certainly warranted for three valid reasons: it is a well-documented historical study on inequality which comes to the striking conclusion that “inequality is neither economic or technological, but ideological and political”; India is elaborately studied; it discusses a wide range of policy issues relevant for a democratic society facing the COVID-19 pandemic like universal basic income, progressive taxation of income, carbon emission, property and inheritance, universal access to fundamental goods such as health, education and housing and so on.
•The Economic Survey has all the right to suggest what it considers relevant. But democracy demands informed debate especially when it comes to economic inequality which has been admittedly growing exponentially in India. Legitimising it by policy think-tanks is indeed questionable.
📰 The anatomy of a spring ceasefire
Different from the earlier routine assurances, the new India-Pakistan agreement also defuses an ugly two-front situation
•In the wake of registering 5,130 ceasefire violations in 2020, guns on either side of the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) fell silent on the intervening night of February 24-25, 2021. The February ceasefire has triggered widespread speculation about its durability, significance and implication for bilateral relations in general.
•The announcement by the two Director Generals of Military Operations (DGsMO) came as a surprise to many, and yet, it underlined the simple fact that all statesmen/women recognise while in office: countries cannot be run by rhetoric alone. More so, this announcement is also a recognition in New Delhi and Islamabad that they cannot afford to let violence spiral out of control given its inherently escalatory nature as events in the wake of the Pulwama terror attack in February 2019 highlighted.
Peace feelers
•Notwithstanding the surprise factor in the development, there have been some indications about a possible thaw in the relations between the traditional rivals. Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa stated in early February that “It is time to extend hand of peace in all directions”, and on the Indian side, the Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane said around the same time that “with our continuous engagement with Pakistan, we will be able to prevail over them (for border peace)... as unsettled borders help no one”. India allowed the use of its airspace by Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s special aircraft to fly to Sri Lanka and just a day before the ceasefire announcement, and upon his arrival in Colombo, Mr. Khan said, “Our only (sic) dispute is Kashmir and it can only be resolved through dialogue.” Clearly, the two sides were setting the stage for the announcement.
Significance of the ceasefire
•What makes the February ceasefire significant is the fact that this agreement is different from the routine ceasefire assurances that the two sides made till January 2021. Twice in 2018, for instance, the two sides had agreed to uphold the ceasefire agreement when ceasefire violations were on the rise. But what makes the February 2021 ceasefire different is its two distinct features: one, this was a joint statement by the two DGsMO, and that unlike the previous declarations, the recent agreement mentions a specific date, i.e., the night of February 24-25, to begin the ceasefire. In that sense then, the February ceasefire is arguably one of the most significant military measures by India and Pakistan in over 18 years to reduce violence along the LoC in Kashmir. Coming in the wake of over 5,000 ceasefire violations in 2020 (the highest in 19 years since 2002) the agreement is path-breaking from a conflict management point of view. Interestingly, the November 2003 ceasefire agreement was also announced in the wake of a high level of violence through 2002 and 2003.
•The ceasefire is also significant because this helps New Delhi to defuse what was becoming a growing concern for the decision makers in New Delhi: an ugly two-front situation and a feeling of being boxed in by an inimical Pakistan and an aggressive China. It is easy to talk about a two or ‘two-and-a-half’ front situation for domestic grandstanding, but dealing with it is neither easy nor practical. That the Indian Army had to redeploy forces from the western border with Pakistan to the northern border with China is indicative of the serious material challenges it could throw up. The best way to deal with the two front challenge then, New Delhi could have reasoned, was to defuse at least one front. The LoC was a natural candidate. Given that the back channel process started much before the recent India-China disengagement on the LAC, New Delhi must have decided to defuse the western challenge from Pakistan first. And it worked.
A brief history
•The history of India Pakistan ceasefire pacts and war termination agreements is both complex and instructive. The Karachi agreement of 1949, which ended the first war between newly formed India and Pakistan, was the first ceasefire agreement between the two countries which, signed under the good offices of the United Nations, created the India Pakistan boundary in Kashmir called the Ceasefire Line or CFL. The United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) was mandated to monitor the ceasefire along the CFL. The 1965 India-Pakistan war also ended in a ceasefire, but since status quo ante bellum was restored after the Tashkent Agreement, the CFL in Kashmir remained unaltered. However, the India-Pakistan war of 1971 would change that. The December ceasefire which ended the 1971 war was enshrined into the Simla Agreement the following year. But unlike 1965, status quo ante bellum was not restored by the Simla Agreement, a decision that would have important implications for bilateral relations.
•The Suchetgarh Agreement of 1972 delineated the ‘line of control’ in Jammu and Kashmir which resulted from the ceasefire of December 1971 thereby renaming the CFL as the LoC. By this smart move, Indian negotiators not only changed the nomenclature of the India-Pakistan dividing line in Kashmir and the physical alignment of the border in Jammu and Kashmir, but also made the UNMOGIP presence in Kashmir irrelevant. Recall that the UN force was mandated to ensure a ceasefire on the CFL, but there was no CFL after 1972, and, more so, the UN was not even a party to the Simla Agreement unlike the Karachi Agreement.
•Let us cut to the present. The 2003 agreement between the DGsMO, communicated through a telephone call between them, was a reiteration of the December 1971 war termination ceasefire; Technically, therefore, even the February 2021 ceasefire too is a reiteration of the 1971 ceasefire agreement.
A form of intent
•And yet, a ceasefire does not observe itself — it requires a clearly articulated and mutually-agreed upon set of rules and norms for effective observance along with an intent to observe them. The February ceasefire is an expression of such an intent, but without the rules and norms to enforce it. The Simla Agreement or the Suchetgarh Agreement do not have those rules either. The Karachi Agreement, on the other hand, has clearly laid down provisions on how to manage the CFL which, of course, was overtaken by the LoC. Ironically, therefore, armed forces deployed on either side of the LoC in Kashmir often have to resort to the strictures enshrined in the long-defunct Karachi Agreement to observe the ceasefire mandated by the Simla Agreement. This needs to change. Now that the two DGsMO have declared a joint ceasefire, the next logical step is to arrive at a set of rules to govern that ceasefire. An unwritten ceasefire, experiences from conflict zones around the world show, tend to break down easily and trigger tensions in other domains.
Return to the back channel
•What is also significant to note about the ceasefire agreement between the two DGsMO is that this was preceded by weeks, if not months of, high-level contacts through the back channel. For sure, major agreements of this kind cannot be finalised by army officers especially given the vitiated atmosphere surrounding India-Pakistan relations. More crucially, the fact that this ceasefire has political blessings makes it more durable.
•Interestingly, the 2003 ceasefire was also preceded by discreet parleys between the heads of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan and the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of India. The 2003 CFA led to a sustained period of back channel talks on Kashmir which, by mid 2007, had almost finalised a deal to resolve the Kashmir conflict. My research on the 2004-2007 back channel talks shows how discreet conversations between high-level interlocutors appointed by the heads of governments were able to make unprecedented progress on the mother of all India Pakistan conflicts, Kashmir. What is also evident from that period is that one key reason why the CFA held at least till 2008 was because there were parallel talks, along with holding fire on the LoC, on other outstanding bilateral issues, principally Kashmir. While whether the 2021 CFA would prompt talks in other areas is unclear as of now, I doubt the ability of piecemeal agreements to create durable stability bilaterally unless followed by progress in other domains.
📰 Recalibrating relations with EU
Forging stronger ties with the region could help India strengthen manufacturing and revitalise exports
•The Atmanirbhar Bharat programme and the Budget 2021-22 have set the tone and tenor to bolster supply chains and achieve self-reliance. A self-reliant India, however, cannot be economically insular. Realising the vision of a self-reliant India would entail localising an increasing share of value added along supply chains through investments and phase-wise reduction of import tariffs with strategic partners such as the European Union (EU).
Export potential
•India has an untapped export potential of $39.9 billion in the EU and Western Europe. The top products with export potential include apparel, gems and jewellery, chemicals, machinery, automobile, pharmaceuticals and plastic. India benefits from tariff preferences under the EU’s Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) for several of these products. In fact, India is among the major beneficiaries of the EU’s GSP, with exports under the GSP valued at nearly $19.4 billion in 2019, accounting for nearly 37% of India’s merchandise exports to the EU.
•However, there are several products where India has export potential in the EU, but these have “graduated” or are at the brink of “graduation” under EU GSP. Product graduation applies when average imports of a product from a beneficiary country exceed 17.5% of EU-GSP imports of the same product from all beneficiary countries over three years. India’s exports of products such as textiles, inorganic and organic chemicals, gems and jewellery, iron, steel and their articles, base metals and automotives are already out of the ambit of EU-GSP benefits.
•There is also a likelihood of losing EU-GSP benefits in other categories such as apparel, rubber, electronic items, sports goods and toys due to product graduation. In apparel, India’s exports to the EU were valued at $7 billion in 2019, of which nearly 94% was under EU-GSP, indicative of the impact that the graduation may have on apparel exports. Meanwhile, India’s competitors in apparel exports such as Bangladesh would continue to receive tariff benefits in the EU under Everything but Arms Initiative. Another competitor, Vietnam, concluded a free trade agreement (FTA) with the EU in 2019. In light of the declining preferential access and the plausible erosion of competitiveness in the EU market, there is clearly a need to deepen trade and investment ties with the region.
Approach to FTAs
•India’s negotiation for a Broad-based Trade and Investment Agreement, which commenced in 2007, is yet to materialise due to lack of concurrence in areas like automotives and dairy and marine products. India’s cautious approach to FTAs derives from its past experience of an unequal exchange of benefits in several FTAs signed by the country. Therefore, a thorough assessment of the benefits from FTA for domestic producers is warranted, with due consideration to the impact on sensitive sectors, and possibility of inclusion of safeguards such as sunset clause on concessions for some items.
•Further, there should also be provisions for aspects such as investment and non-tariff measures (NTMs). China has already negotiated a comprehensive agreement on investment. India also needs to negotiate on investment-related aspects with the EU to enhance bilateral investments and foster stronger value chains, especially in technology-intensive sectors in which the EU has a comparative advantage. As far as NTMs are concerned, India faces as many as 414 NTMs in the EU, in a wide array of sectors. FTAs have some institutional arrangements for NTMs. India should critically review the availability of such arrangements in its negotiations, as also their operationalisation and effectiveness.
•Post-Brexit EU finds itself in the midst of a growing need for recalibrating ties with its partner countries. Forging stronger ties with the region through a mutually beneficial agreement could help strengthen Indian manufacturing and revitalise the flailing exports.
