📰 India, Uzbek armies to hone counter terror skills
Army will share experience gained in Kashmir
•At Exercise Dustlik-II between India and Uzbekistan from March 10-19, the Indian Army will showcase its Counter Insurgency (CI) and Counter Terrorism (CT) skills. The focus will be on people-centric intelligence based surgical operations, incorporating technological advancements to minimize collateral damage, a defence source said.
•The broad aim of the exercise is CI,CT operations in mountainous, rural and urban scenarios under United Nations (UN) mandate and the Army will share the experiences and lessons it has gained in Kashmir, an Army source said. A lot of technology has been incorporated in CI, CT operations and efficiency has considerably gone up in operations which also helps in minimizing collateral damage which would also be showcased, the source stated.
•India has a series of joint exercises scheduled in the next financial year beginning April 2021 including with Central Asian Republics — Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan — in addition to Mongolia and Russia as part of its growing engagement with the region.
•“Uzbekistan is important to India for security and connectivity to Central Asian region and also Iran,” a defence source said, underscoring the importance and adding that it is also one alternative India has with respect to Afghanistan.
•The Army’s 13 Kumaon regiment, also called the Rezang La battalion for its heroic action in the 1962 war with China, has been nominated from the Indian side for the company level CI, CT exercise being held at Chaubatia, near Ranikhet in Uttarakhand. The validation exercise is scheduled on March 17 and 18 and the closing ceremony on March 19.
•The Uzbek contingent arrived in India on March 7 and the members underwent RTPCR tests for COVID-19. They are scheduled to depart on March 21.
•There will also be joint operations and familiarisation with each other’s practices. The Army will also showcase use of force multipliers including helicopters, Special Forces, specialist equipment and establishment of automated surveillance grid for situational awareness among others, the Army source said. Accordingly, the Indian contingent has representatives from Para Special Forces, Signal and Engineers in addition to an interpreter.
•The exercise Dustalik began in 2019 and was hosted by Uzbekistan. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had attended the curtain raiser of the first edition.
•Separately, last week, based on a request from the Turkmenistan Special Forces, the Indian Army commenced training, at its Special Forces Training School, of paratroopers from that country in combat free fall as a precursor to a series of other customised professional courses which will assist in capability enhancement of the Turkmenistan Special Forces.
Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development slams government laxity in raising amounts.
•The Centre must increase the “meagre” pensions provided for poor senior citizens, widows and disabled people, said the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development in its report submitted to the Lok Sabha on Tuesday. The panel also slammed the government’s “laxity in raising the amount, pointing out that recommendations to increase the sums have been made for the last two years as well.
•“The relevance of a marquee scheme like National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) in reaching out to the poor and downtrodden section of the society does not go amiss in the eyes of the Committee,” said the report.
•“However, the Committee are baffled to observe the meagre amount of assistance ranging from ₹200 to ₹500 per month under the different components of this Scheme,” it added.
•The panel pointed out that it had previously urged the increase of these miniscule pensions in its reports on the Department of Rural Development’s (DoRD) demand for grants in 2019-20 and 2020-21.
•“However, to the utter dismay of the Committee, nothing much has been forthcoming so far. The Committee do not endorse the non-serious approach of DoRD on this issue. In view of this laxity, the Committee again vehemently recommends the DoRD to look into this issue with utmost sincerity and hasten their processes for bringing an increase in the assistance amount under NSAP,” said the report.
•The panel also pulled up the DoRD for delays and disparities in the payment of wages and unemployment allowances under the flagship MGNREGA scheme.
•“At the time of economic distress caused due to COVID-19 pandemic in particular, there was an increase in the demand of work under MGNREGA. However, inordinate delay in the release of [the 40% component of] funds for skilled/semi-skilled workers under MGNREGA is a huge discouraging aspect and does not go in consonance with the underlying spirit of the scheme,” said the report.
•The panel noted “the callous approach of the State Governments in the proper implementation of the provision of unemployment allowance”, finding that the provision is not implemented in letter and spirit at the grass root level.
•Another issue with MGNREGA is the disparity in wages in different States. “It is still beyond comprehension as to how is it possible that a single scheme having the provision of hundred days of guaranteed work to willing person from the rural settings can have different yardstick when it comes to the payment modalities across the length and breadth of the country,” said the report, noting that the Constitution provides for equal pay for equal work.
📰 Parliament proceedings | Over 72% rise in number of UAPA cases registered in 2019
As many as 1948 persons were arrested in 1226 cases registered across the country that year
•There has been over 72% increase in the number of persons arrested under the anti-terror law UAPA (Unlawful Activities [Prevention] Act) in 2019 compared to 2015, data provided by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in the Lok Sabha shows.
•As many as 1948 persons were arrested under the UAPA in 1226 cases registered across the country in 2019. Such cases registered in 2015-2018 stood at 897, 922, 901 and 1182 and the number of those arrested was 1128, 999, 1554 and 1421 respectively.
•In 2019, the highest number of such cases were registered in Manipur-306, followed by Tamil Nadu-270, Jammu and Kashmir-255, Jharkhand-105 and Assam-87 cases. The highest number of arrests under the UAPA in same year were made in Uttar Pradesh- 498, Manipur- 386, Tamil Nadu-308, Jammu and Kashmir- 227 and Jharkhand- 202.
•Union Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha, “cases under the UAPA are investigated by the State police and the National Investigation Agency (NIA). As far as the NIA is concerned, so far 48 special courts have been constituted across the country for the speedy trial of terror related case.”
Getting bail is rare
•Under the UAPA, getting bail is rare and the investigating agency has up to 180 days to file a charge sheet.
•In a separate reply, the Minister stated that “after abrogation of Article 370, the number of terrorist incidents in Jammu and Kashmir have reduced significantly.”
•The data provided shows that in J&K, 244 terrorist incidents were reported and 221 terrorists killed in 2020, while in 2019, the numbers were 594 and 157 respectively. Till February 28 this year, there were 15 incidents and eight terrorists killed.
•The government had declared 42 organisations as terrorist organisations and listed their names in the First Schedule of the UAPA, the Minister said and added that “terrorism in India has largely been sponsored from across the border.”
•Earlier, a reply by the government in the Lok Sabha shows that only 2.2 % of cases registered under the UAPA between 2016-2019 ended in convictions by court.
📰 Cyber volunteer programme rolled out, MHA informs LS
It will focus on hygiene promotion, flag ‘unlawful content’
•The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) informed the Lok Sabha on Tuesday that a “cyber volunteer” programme has been rolled out for “cyber hygiene promotion” and the services of volunteers would be utilised by the State police as per requirement.
•The MHA, through its cyber crime grievance portal- cybercrime.gov.in, aims to raise a group of “cyber crime volunteers” to flag “unlawful content” on the Internet. Various groups, including the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), have expressed concern that the programme enables a culture of surveillance and could create potential social distrust by encouraging civilians to report the online activities of other citizens.
Privacy matters
•Biju Janta Dal Member of Parliament Pinaki Misra asked whether “concerns of infringement of privacy due to surreptitious and malafide intrusion into an individual’s online activities are addressed in this programme and its operating protocol.”
•Union Minister of State for Home G. Kishan Reddy said in a written reply, “The challenges of cyber space are many which flow from its vastness and borderless character. ... Cyber Crime Volunteer Framework has been rolled out as an initiative as a part of cyber hygiene promotion to bring together citizens to contribute in the fight against cybercrime in the country and assist State/UT LEAs (law enforcement agencies) in their endeavour to curb cyber crimes. The volunteers will be enrolled and their services utilized by the respective State/UT Police Authorities, as per their requirement.”
•The Minister observed in another reply that the MHA had operationalised the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal on August 30, 2019 to provide a centralised mechanism to the citizens for online reporting of all types of cyber crime incidents, with a special focus on cyber crimes against women and children.
•The reply said that as per the data maintained, since its inception, 3,17,439 cyber crime incidents and 5,771 FIRs have been registered up to February 28 in the country.
•The conversion of complaints received into FIRs stood at 1.81%.
•The Minister stated in a third reply that the government had approved the setting up of 1,023 Fast Track Special Courts (FTSCs), including 389 exclusive POCSO Courts, for expeditious trial and disposal of cases related to rape and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
•“As per published information, the conviction rate for the POCSO cases in 2019 was 34.9%,” the reply stated.
📰 Fire wise: On safety training and technological fixes
Safety training and technological fixes can cut the massive death toll from fires each year
•Nearly all major Indian cities have a brush with destructive but often preventable accidental fires each year, leaving in their wake lost lives and destroyed property. The blaze in the Eastern Railway headquarters in Kolkata on the evening of March 8, which killed at least nine people, is particularly egregious because it took place in a modern multi-storeyed special building. What the preliminary account of the fire and its aftermath suggests is a textbook case of poor attention to fire safety basics and, possibly, the absence of robust fire mitigation technologies. Whatever the sequence of events, the unfortunate incident in the central part of a vibrant city has taken the lives of a group of first responders, including four firefighters, a police officer and some railway staff. Apparently anxious to intervene, a group of personnel lost sight of their own safety and tried to speed up to the top floor of the building in a lift, perishing in the fire and smoke. The computerised booking system of the railway was paralysed. It has been a difficult start to the new year for Kolkata, with an inferno in the Baghbazar area destroying a vast slum, triggering violent protests. A return to normality will obviously take a lot of remedial work, although prioritising fire safety will have to wait for the frenetic election campaign there to end.
•Every instance of fire brings to the fore the problem of adopting an incremental approach to safety. The building blocks of safety rely as much on modern technologies, as on preparedness, although Indian cities give short shrift to both. Official certifications that are not worth the paper they are printed on substitute for actual enforcement. Using the Kolkata railway building as a test case, the Centre should report on whether it met the fire safety norms prescribed in the National Building Codes. For instance, smoke alarms and sprinkler systems are an inexpensive early warning and intervention measure, but are not universally adopted. The recent tragedy also presents an occasion to review the progress of the Model Bill of 2019 to Provide for the Maintenance of Fire and Emergency Services of a State, which aimed at modernisation. Considering that the death toll from accidental fires, as per NCRB data for 2019, stands at a staggering 10,915, there is every reason to make a fire safety upgrade for public buildings a mission mode plan. Bringing such structures under the purview of public liability insurance, paid for by the respective departments, will provide enough incentive for their occupants to incorporate safety in all planning, and involve third party audits. Equally, drills for offices and multi-storeyed residential buildings will eliminate uncertainty and confusion among people on what must be done when disaster actually strikes. Safety favours only those who are prepared.
📰 Target judicial patriarchy, not the judge
The controversy over the CJI’s recent remarks should lead to greater gender sensitivity in observations and judgments
•A survey by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2018 had rated India as the most dangerous country for women. According to a National Crime Records Bureau report (2019) as many as 32,032 rapes were reported in 2019 — or 88 incidents of rape a day. Every hour, 39 instances of crime against women including four instances of rape are committed in India. Reported rape cases have increased by 88% over a decade. Four lakh cases of crimes against women were reported in 2019.
Gender insensitivity
•The recent observations by the Chief Justice of India (CJI), S.A. Bobde, while granting bail to a government servant who is accused of repeated rape and torture of a 16-year-old child have been widely criticised though the Chief Justice of India has now denied having suggested marriage to the rape accused. To be fair to the head of India’s judiciary, not only was the question possibly raised due to the record before him in accordance with the powers of judges under Section 165 of Indian Evidence Act, 1872 to ask any question but he also did promptly realise the sensitivity involved and quickly corrected himself by saying, ‘we are not forcing you to marry the victim’. The worrisome issue is that legally speaking, rape is not even a compoundable offence and parties are not allowed to enter into compromise. Seeking an apology from the Chief Justice of India is not appropriate; however, South African Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng was recently directed by the Judicial Conduct Committee to apologise unconditionally for making pro-Israeli comments in a webinar.
•The real problem is that such avoidable utterances reflect the patriarchal mindset of our judges and the larger society. These statements demonstrate our gender insensitivity. While today the Chief Justice of India is being criticised from all over, let us remember that there have been several orders and judgments by Indian judges in the past which have done huge disservice to gender justice. Accordingly, the innocent question by the Chief Justice of India (“When two people are living as husband and wife, however brutal the husband is, can the act of intercourse between them be called rape?”) is neither the first nor the last instance.
•Here, in this instance, the man had married the victim at a temple and subsequently refused to recognise her as wife and married another woman. The accused had allegedly caused injuries to the private parts of the woman, yet was granted bail. Here again, what the Chief Justice of India said was similar to the Modi government’s affidavit, in 2017, in the Delhi High Court. The RSS too had opposed marital rape being made a crime. Interestingly, the Justice J.S. Verma Committee (2013), which was constituted after the Delhi gang rape (2012) had said that rape should be viewed not as an infringement of a woman’s chastity or virginity but a violation of her bodily integrity and sexual autonomy. This autonomy cannot be permanently lost by entering into marriage. Rape remains rape irrespective of the relationship.
In the higher judiciary
•Let us look at similar observations by other judges to understand the patriarchal attitude of judges. A few years ago, the top court orally asked a convict who had molested a girl 10 years ago to fall at her feet and that if she forgave him, the Court too would limit his sentence of imprisonment to the period already undergone. In its June 22, 2020 order while granting advance bail to the rape accused, Justice Krishna S. Dixit of the Karnataka High Court asked why ‘the victim had gone to her office at night’; why had she ‘not objected to consuming drinks with him’. He further observed that ‘the explanation offered by the complainant that after the perpetration of the act, she was tired and fell asleep is unbecoming of Indian women; that is not the way our women react when they are ravished’. After a hue and cry, the judge expunged this controversial statement on July 2, 2020. The Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court, in a strange ruling, had ordered that the sentence of the ‘rape convict can be cut if he agrees to pay ₹1 lakh to the victim’. Of course, the poor victim accepted the offer. In another case, the Bombay High Court had ordered that breaking a promise of marriage is neither cheating nor rape. Here, the victim had filed for divorce from her husband to marry the accused. Justice Mridul Bhatkar granted bail to the accused observing that ‘it is an unfortunate case of frustrated love affair’. The Madras High Court had granted bail to a rape accused so that he could mediate with the victim. The Supreme Court had to quickly intervene to get the bail cancelled.
The Bhanwari Devi case
•Who can forget the shocking decision in Bhanwari Devi (1995); she was gang-raped in 1992. The acquittal order by the Rajasthan court gave absurd reasons such as a higher caste man cannot rape a lower caste woman for reasons of purity; her husband could not have watched his wife being raped; men who are 60-70 years old cannot commit rape and one relative cannot commit rape in front of another relative. It has been 25 years but the appeal against such a bizarre judgment has not been disposed of.
•Even in other matters about women, a few of our judges at times demonstrate our society’s attitude toward women. A 2020 judgment from the Guwahati High Court treated refusal of applying sindoor (vermilion) and wearing conch shell bangles (shaka) as sufficient basis to grant divorce to the husband. A few years ago, the Madras High Court gave an absurd order by directing that ‘divorcees too should maintain sexual purity to claim alimony’. Even a progressive judge like Justice M. Katju in D. Velusamy vs D. Patchaiammal (2010) had termed a second Hindu wife as a ‘mistress’ and ‘keep’, and thus not entitled to maintenance.
•In Narendra vs K. Meena (2016), the top court held that under Hindu traditions, a wife on marriage is supposed to fully integrate herself with her husband’s family and that if she refuses to live with her in-laws, it would amount to cruelty and the husband would be entitled to divorce her under the Hindu Marriage Act. The High Court had ruled in favour of the wife.
•But the Supreme Court reversed the High Court’s order, observing that ‘in India, generally people do not subscribe to the western thought, where, upon getting married or attaining majority, the son gets separated from the family. In normal circumstances, a wife is expected to be with the family of the husband after the marriage. She becomes integral to and forms part of the family of the husband’. Interestingly, though the wife is an integral part of her husband’s family, yet she is not a coparcener under the Hindu Succession Act.The Court also used Indian and Hindu ethos interchangeably without realising that under Muslim Personal Law, a wife has an absolute right to demand separate residence for herself.
•In Rajesh Sharma vs The State Of Uttar Pradesh (2017), a two judge Bench of Justices Adarsh Kumar Goel and Uday Umesh Lalit in yet another controversial order observed that there should be no automatic arrests on charges of cruelty. In this case, a demand of dowry was made for ₹3 lakh and a car, which the wife’s family was not able to meet. The pregnant wife was sent to her house, where she experienced trauma and her pregnancy was terminated. She was allegedly tortured, as noted by the lower court. An offence under Section 498A is non-bailable and non-compoundable so that the victim is not pressured into a compromise. And it is cognisable in that a police officer can make an arrest without a warrant from the court. The court did not hesitate in issuing a number of directions in favour of the accused — no arrest should normally be effected till the newly constituted Family Welfare Committee submitted its report; personal appearance of accused and out-station family members need not be insisted upon; bail application should be decided the same day. In 2017, the court decided to review this judgment.
And in ‘Hadiya’
•In the infamous Hadiya (2017) case too, some of the observations of the Kerala High Court about Hadiya’s independent agency and powers of her father over her were equally shocking and patriarchal. Even though the Supreme Court in 2018 upheld the validity of her marriage and overruled the High Court’s strange judgment, the fact is that the top court’s order of investigation by the National Investigation Agency into the matter of marriage of two adults was absolutely erroneous.
•One hopes the controversy now will lead to greater gender sensitivity by our judges, at least in their oral observations and questions, if not the final judgments. It would be better to target patriarchy rather than the Chief Justice of India. Of course the power to ask questions too must reflect gender sensitivity.
📰 Quad: strategic opportunity or quagmire?
The grouping neither shares a strategic vision nor is it animated by a shared agenda
•On March 5, the Indian media carried news reports, based on remarks by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, that the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, known briefly as Quad, would soon meet at summit level, thus signalling the importance attached to this grouping by the Biden administration. The Quad, which comprises the U.S., Japan, Australia and India, had in February been described by the U.S. State Department as having “essential momentum and important potential”.
•India’s engagement with the Quad goes back to China’s expanding footprint in South Asia and the Indian Ocean Region over the last few years. China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, proposing logistical connectivity across Eurasia and the Indian Ocean, rang alarm bells in India as the projects were viewed as encroachments into India’s strategic space. India responded with an upgradation of its naval capabilities and enhancement of ties with the Indian Ocean Region littoral states and other major powers in the region.
•Separately, largely as a result of their shared concerns relating to the rise of China, India has been deepening its security ties with the U.S. Building on the initiatives of earlier administrations, the Obama and Trump presidencies focused on interoperability of defence equipment and training based on defence purchases, frequent land and sea exercises, and agreements harmonising the two countries’ military doctrines and operations.
India in the Quad
•The U.S.’s focus on the west Pacific due to aggressive Chinese maritime activity gradually pulled India into the ambit of the Indo-Pacific that views the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean as an integrated geopolitical space. Besides the U.S. navy, India expanded its maritime ties with other regional states, the most high-profile of the interactions being the Quad. Since November 2017, the joint naval exercises of Quad members are being supplemented by extensive consultations on security issues.
•However, India’s involvement with the Quad was initially cautious due to its reluctance to join an overt anti-China coalition. For instance, at the Shangri La Dialogue in June 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the Indo-Pacific as a “geographical definition” and firmly denied it was a “strategy” or a “club of limited members … directed against any country”. Despite this, in September 2019, India agreed to elevate the Quad platform to ministerial level.
•This had dire consequences. By affiliating with the U.S.-led maritime coalition, India ignored the principal areas of its security concerns; as former National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon noted, “New Delhi and Washington see eye to eye on maritime strategy, but not on what to do on the Asian mainland”. India is the only Quad member that is not in the west Pacific and the only one that shares an undemarcated 3,500-km land border with China. From April 2020, Indian and Chinese forces had their latest border face-off in Ladakh, abruptly ending a long period of productive relations.
Ties with China
•In retrospect, this confrontation appears to be China’s sharp response to the steady shift in India’s regional posture in favour of an alignment with the U.S. and its allies against China, particularly the increasing interoperability between the respective forces. China has given India a rude reminder that India’s security concerns lie in its northern borders, not the west Pacific.
•The U.S. views China’s rise as a threat to the world order it has led since the Second World War and is anxious to pull in allies to retard China’s ambitions and maintain its global hegemony. Despite rhetoric relating to the promotion of a ‘rules-based’ world order (the rules being most frequently violated by the U.S. itself), the Quad neither shares a strategic vision nor is it animated by a shared agenda. This is obvious not only from its inability to deter China in the west Pacific, but also by its members’ anxiety to maintain close ties with China.
•Thus, in 2020 China became India’s number one trade partner, with two-way trade at $77 billion. Again, China-U.S. trade continues to favour China — American investors hold $1 trillion of Chinese equity, and 75% of U.S. companies in China say they will continue to invest there.
•The Quad has a core structural problem as well in that it pivots around the U.S. The U.S. is a super-power with global interests, but it is also self-centred in defining and pursuing its interests, even as its policies experience major shifts due to government change or domestic lobbies. Clearly, the Quad riles China as a hostile grouping, but hardly serves the security interests of its members.
Resetting alignments, policies
•Not surprisingly, the stand-off at Ladakh has been a bitter experience for India: it has affirmed the limits of India-U.S. security ties, the folly of Indian involvement in the Quad, and the need to focus national attention and resources in areas of abiding interest for India — the border, the neighbours and the Indian Ocean.
•Ladakh also offers some valuable lessons for India. One, the rebuilding of ties with China will have to be a priority concern. Though it will take time for trust to be restored, what will help will be for India to dilute its focus on the Indo-Pacific and the Quad and accept that the borders and the Indian Ocean are where its crucial interests lie.
•Two, the Ladakh experience has highlighted certain deficiencies at home: the government appears to be largely focused on reshaping the national ethos on the basis of a narrow and exclusive political ideology that has raised doubts about India’s continued commitment to democratic pluralism. It hardly needs reiteration that India’s capacities can only be built by a united people committed to the national cause.
•Finally, foreign policy cannot be a part-time concern of the national leadership; in terms of priority and attention, it should be on a par with domestic affairs. While this approach is being corrected, it should also be noted that India’s foreign policy has often been ad hoc, reactive and short term, reflecting the absence of a broad strategic culture. As the global scenario gets more complex and India’s ambitions increase, a cohesive strategic vision would give substance and drive to India’s pursuit of its interests over the long term.
•Ladakh offers a clear blueprint for the content and direction of national policy. Implementing it will ensure that the martyrdom of our soldiers in the northern snows would not have been in vain.
📰 Ploughing a new furrow in the agri-regulatory system
Change is needed as Indian farmers face constraints, and as world agriculture will now rely on middle-income countries
•The intense debates around the recently enacted farm laws have brought to light the issue of developing a sound regulatory framework to promote India’s agricultural growth — and in keeping pace with the changing times. While the country is divided on the need for the three new farm laws, the fact remains that farmers, mainly smallholders, across India continue to face various constraints in carrying out farming activities. They include constraints in accessing agricultural inputs, markets, finance, human resources, and information, which are critical for increasing farmers’ competitiveness.
Role for the government
•The existing institutional set up that controls farm production often fails to ease these constraints. A way out of this problem is to develop a suitable regulatory system that would enable farmers to overcome their constraints. Governments can play a critical role in this regard by enacting laws and regulations that influence farmers’ access to agricultural inputs, cost of production, farmers’ participation in agricultural markets and value chains, the competitiveness of farmers, and private investment in the farming sector.
•Where does India stand on this front in comparison to other countries? A recent publication by the World Bank titled Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) 2019 provides some interesting insights on this question (https://bit.ly/3aB98FO). Based on eight indicators, the EBA measures the extent to which government regulatory systems in 101 countries worldwide make it easier for their farmers to operate agricultural activities. The indicators are supplying seed, registering fertilizer, securing water, registering machinery, sustaining livestock, protecting plant health, trading food, and accessing finance. These indicators measure the strength of a country’s agricultural regulatory environment pertaining to market integration and entrepreneurship in agriculture. The EBA is akin to the Doing Business project of the World Bank, which ranks the ease of doing business in countries.
India’s poor standing
•Among 101 countries covered, India ranked 49 on the EBA aggregate score. France, Croatia, and the Czech Republic are the three top-ranking countries. Among emerging groups of 20 (EG 20) countries, India has the second least favourable regulatory environment for farming activities after South Africa. Turkey is the top-performing country among EG 20 countries, followed by Argentina, Brazil, the Russian Federation, Mexico and China.
•Notably, India lags behind its close competitors in world agriculture, namely China, Brazil, and the Russian Federation (https://bit.ly/3aJ3wJl). Compared to these three countries, India has the weakest performance on five out of eight indicators. They are registering fertilizer and machinery, securing water, sustaining livestock, and protecting plant health indicators. Registering fertilizer and machinery indicators measure domestic laws and regulations that provide farmers access to fertilizer and agricultural machinery. The regulatory processes that help farmers make appropriate decisions regarding the level of investment in irrigation are measured by securing water indicator. Sustaining livestock indicator captures the quality of regulations affecting farmers’ access to livestock farming inputs. The quality of legislation on phytosanitary standards (SPS) is captured through the protecting plant health indicator.
•Inadequate access to quality agricultural inputs such as fertilizers, water, and mechanical power can cause productivity loss, higher cost of food production and uncertainty, and lower capacity of farmers to produce surpluses, adopt new plant varieties and accept new opportunities to improve their income.
•The regulatory system that governs irrigation management is essential for reducing the variability of farm output, prices, and incomes, minimising vulnerability to natural shocks, and incentivising the production of riskier and high returns crops. Gaining access to the global agricultural value chain requires a sound regulatory framework on SPS. For instance, thanks to active involvement by the SPS authority, namely National Agrarian Health Service (SENASA-Peru), Peru had become one of the world’s leading exporters of asparagus.
Seed supply
•The comparative score of India on supplying seed, trading food, and accessing finance indicators is high. Supplying seed indicator evaluates laws and regulations that ensure timely release of seed to farmers. A robust seed supply system is required for improving yield and adopting new crop varieties. The trading food indicator assesses laws and regulations that facilitate exporting of farm products by farmers. The regulatory framework on the use of warehouse receipts is assessed using accessing finance indicator. A robust warehouse receipts system enables the farmers to obtain the credit needed to invest in agriculture. Warehouse receipt operators accept deposits of crops and provide warehouse receipts to farmers as evidence of deposited crops. By using warehouse receipts as collateral, farmers can receive credit.
•The EBA project results reveal that, compared to its close competitors, the strength of India’s agricultural regulatory environment is weak on the whole and with respect to key performance indicators.
•The future of world agriculture and food production is expected to increasingly depend on middle-income countries such as China, India, Brazil, and Indonesia, just like the high-income countries dictating the fortunes of global agriculture in the past five decades (https://bit.ly/3ryD0cL).
•To make the best use of this great opportunity, India needs to put in place an agricultural regulatory system that would make it easier for its farmers to conduct agricultural activities, thereby improving their productivity, competitiveness, and income.
📰 In need of full-time heads
Many Central forces are functioning without regular chiefs, which could impact their efficiency
•The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), with a strength of 3.5 lakh, is headless following the previous incumbent Dr. A.P. Maheshwari’s superannuation on February 28, 2021. The Special Director General, Kuldiep Singh, is holding charge until a regular officer is appointed.
Saddled with additional duties
•The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has been without a head since February 3 when R.K. Shukla retired on completion of his two-year term. Until a Director is selected after due procedure and clearance by a committee headed by the Prime Minister, the Additional Director, Praveen Sinha, will hold the fort. Common Cause, an NGO, has since filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court seeking the appointment of a regular CBI Director through the high-power selection committee of the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India and the Leader of the Opposition.
•Consequent to his taking over as Director General of the Border Security Force (BSF) in August last year, Rakesh Asthana should have been relieved of his charge of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) that he had been heading prior to his appointment to the BSF. But for reasons best known to the powers that be, the Gujarat cadre officer continues to hold additional charge of the NCB. The BSF is the second largest force in the country after the CRPF. It is unfair to saddle him with additional charge of another organisation when the force he is heading is constantly at loggerheads with the Pakistan Army and militants along the borders and is even combating militants in Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast.
•The elite National Security Guard too is without a regular Director General for nearly six months. After the retirement of the previous incumbent, the Director General of the Indo Tibetan Border Police, Surjeet Singh Deswal, took over the reins of this specialised outfit. This force comprising personnel from the Army and the Central Armed Police Forces comes into action in times of crisis such as during the Mumbai attacks of 2008. It is also entrusted with the responsibility of providing security to certain high-risk personalities.
•The lone research and training organisation for the police forces of the country, the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D), too, is functioning without a regular Director General. The former incumbent, V.S.K. Kaumudi, has been the Special Secretary (Internal Security) in the Ministry of Home Affairs since August last year. He continues to hold the additional charge of the BPR&D.
What can be done
•The fact that so many Central forces are without regular heads speaks of the kind of importance attached to these organisations. Though they play a pivotal role in maintaining internal security, there doesn’t seem to be much seriousness in posting the right kind of officers with not only the required skill and experience but also the time. This has an adverse impact on the efficiency of these forces. Officers holding provisional charge shy away from taking major policy decisions and prefer to leave such matters to the next person in charge.
•There must be several aspirants to these top posts. But they have to wait for the final orders for months on end. Since most appointees to the top posts are at the fag end of their service, they are left with just a few months or a year or so to head these organisations. There is little they can do within their short tenures.
•The government of the day could consider announcing the next chief of these organisations at least three months in advance with a minimum tenure of two years or till superannuation, whichever is later. Preferably, those considered for these posts should be from among the officers who have served in these organisations earlier. A panel of officers cleared by the Union Public Service Commission could be always kept ready and the officers for the top posts could be chosen from this panel. This will go a long way in speeding up decisions and enhancing the efficiency of these forces.
