📰 India again placed at 142nd rank in press freedom
It’s one of the most dangerous countries for journalists trying to do their job properly: RSF
•The 2021 World Press Freedom Index produced by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a French NGO, has again placed India at 142nd rank out of 180 countries. This despite the fact that for a year, under directions from the Cabinet Secretary, an Index Monitoring Cell worked to improve the world rankings, including a meeting between Ambassador to France with the RSF officials to lobby for a change in the ranking in the index compiled by them.
•In 2016, India’s rank was 133 which has steadily climbed down to 142 in 2020. The RSF report says India is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists trying to do their job properly. They are exposed to every kind of attack, including police violence against reporters, ambushes by political activists, and reprisals instigated by criminal groups or corrupt local officials.
•Fearing such an adverse assessment, in February last year, on the directions of Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, the Index Monitoring Cell was set up in 18 Ministries to find ways to improve the position on 32 international indices. Information and Broadcasting Ministry was delegated to look at the freedom of press index.
•As per the report of this Index Monitoring Cell, accessed by The Hindu, on April 26 last year, the PIB Additional Director General first wrote to Chairman of the RSF Pierre Haski asking for criteria for the survey on the basis of which they compile the index, for better understanding of the ranking. This was followed by a meeting between Ambassador to France Javed Ashraf with RSF’s Secretary General Christophe Deloire and Head of Asia Pacific desk Daniel Bastard.
•The minutes of this September meeting are part of the report of the Cell. Mr. Ashraf said the openness of the government to be criticised and questioned with respect to subjects like economy, international affairs and defence deals like Rafale are indicators of press freedom.
Questions on Internet ban in J&K
•The RSF representatives however questioned the extended Internet ban in Jammu and Kashmir from August 5, 2019 which went on to nearly a year. The Ambassador said the shutdown was for the security of the region. “Members of the press could access the Internet through the Internet kiosks set up by the government and there was active reporting in Indian and international media on the situation in Kashmir, which could only have been possible with unhindered access to the Internet and freedom of the press,” the minutes say.
•The minutes also note that on the issue of violence raised by the RSF, Mr. Ashraf said “many incidents reported as attacks on journalists are often a consequence of the law and order situation in some areas of India. This is often misrepresented as targeted attacks on journalists by the State in western media”.
They are more likely to be depicted as caretakers and parents than male characters
•An analysis of Indian advertisements on television and YouTube has shown that while they are superior to global benchmarks insofar as girls and women have parity of representation in terms of screen and speaking time, their portrayal is problematic as they further gender stereotypes — they are more likely to be shown as married, less likely to be shown in paid occupation, and more likely to be depicted as caretakers and parents than male characters.
•These are some of the findings of a study released on Monday by UNICEF and the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media (GDI) titled “Gender Bias and Inclusion In Advertising In India”. The research measures over 1,000 television and YouTube advertisements aired across India in 2019. The ads analysed were those that received the most reach.
•The study finds that female characters dominate screen time (59.7%) and speaking time (56.3%), but one of the drivers of this is their depiction for selling cleaning supplies, food and beauty products to female consumers. For example, almost all the detergent and food commercials depicted a woman caretaking for her family who speaks directly to women viewers about caring for their families. In comparison, in a separate study by GDI for setting global benchmarks it was found that ads in the U.S. show women with half the screen time (30.6%) and nearly half the speaking time (33.5%).
•A greater percentage of female characters is depicted as married than male characters (11.0% compared with 8.8%). Female characters are three times more likely to be depicted as parents than male characters (18.7% compared with 5.9%). While male characters are more likely to be shown making decisions about their future than female characters (7.3% compared with 4.8%), the latter are twice as likely to be shown making household decisions than male characters (4.9% compared with 2.0%).
•Female characters are more likely to be shown doing the following activities than male characters — shopping (4.1% compared with 2.3%); cleaning (4.8% compared with 2.2%); and being involved in the purchase or preparation of meals (5.4% compared with 3.9%).
•For characters where intelligence is part of their character in the ad, male characters are more likely to be shown as smart than female characters (32.2% compared to 26.2%). Male characters are almost twice as likely to be shown as funny than female characters (19.1% compared to 11.9%).
•Two-thirds of female characters (66.9%) in Indian ads have light or medium-light skin tones — a higher percentage than male characters (52.1%). Female characters are nine times more likely to be shown as “stunning/very attractive” than male characters (5.9% compared with 0.6%). Female characters are also invariably thin, but male characters appear with a variety of body sizes in Indian advertising
•“Misrepresentation and harmful stereotypes of women in advertising have a significant impact on women — and young girls — and how they view themselves and their value to society. While we do see female representation dominate in Indian ads, they are still marginalised by colorism, hypersexualisation, and without careers or aspirations outside of the home,” said Geena Davis, Academy Award Winning Actor, Founder and Chair of the GDI adding that the stark inequality evident in portrayals of females in these advertisements must be addressed to ensure an equitable society.
📰 India should be a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ for Religious Freedom: U.S. Commission
The USCISRF recommended that the administration impose targeted sanctions on Indian individuals and entities for ‘severe violations of religious freedom’.
•The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent bi-partisan commission, has recommended for the second year in the row that the State Department put India on a list (‘Countries of Particular Concern’ or CPCs) for the worst violations of religious freedoms in 2020. One out of the ten USCIRF commissioners presented a dissenting view.
•The USCISRF recommended that the administration impose targeted sanctions on Indian individuals and entities for ‘severe violations of religious freedom’.
•A second recommendation was for the administration to promote inter-faith dialogue and the rights of all communities at bilateral and multilateral forums “such as the ministerial of the Quadrilateral [the Quad].” Another recommendation – to the U.S. Congress – was to raise issues in the U.S. – India bilateral space, such as by hosting hearings, writing letters and constituting Congressional delegations.
•USCIRF recommendations are non-binding and the Trump administration had rejected the USCIRF recommendation to designate India a CPC last year, when it released its own determinations in December.
•The key concerns of the 2021 report include the Citizenship Amendment Act which went into effect in early 2020 and fast-tracks citizenship for non-Muslim refugees from South Asian countries meeting certain other criteria. The report says, “Mobs sympathetic to Hindu nationalism operated with impunity,” and used “brutal force” to attack Muslims in Delhi’s riots in February 2020. On the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the report says, “The consequences of exclusion – as exemplified by a large detention camp being built in Assam – are potentially devastating…”Efforts to prohibit interfaith marriage – such as those in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh - are also highlighted as a concern. “These efforts targeting and delegitimizing interfaith relationships have led to attacks and arrests of non-Hindus and to innuendo, suspicion, and violence toward any interfaith interaction,” the report notes.
•In an apparent reference to the Tablighi Jamaat Markaz in March 2020, the USCIRF says, “At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, disinformation and hateful rhetoric - including from government officials – often targeted religious minorities, continuing familiar patterns.”
•Johnnie Moore, an evangelical who is the President of The Congress of Christian Leaders as per his USCIRF bio, included a dissenting note in the text of the report saying should not be designated a CPC but was at a “crossroads.” India is “diversity personified” and “its religious life has been its greatest historic blessing,” Mr Moore wrote.
•“India’s government and people have everything to gain and absolutely nothing to lose from preserving social harmony and protecting the rights of everyone,” he said. Last year, three of ten commissioners – including Mr Moore – had presented dissenting views. The others was Gary L Bauer and Tenzin Dorjee (now retired).
•Last year India had denied visas to members of USCIRF who wanted to visit India for their assessment. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had written to an MP last June that foreign entities like USCIRF did not have the locus standi to “to pronounce on the state of Indian citizens’ constitutionally protected rights.”
•Other new recommendations for the CPC list in the Commission’s 2021 were Russia, Syria and Vietnam. Countries already on the CPCs list and recommended by USCIRF for re-designation were Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
•Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Turkey and Uzbekistan were recommended for a ‘Special Watch List’, along with Cuba and Nicaragua, both of which were already on the list for 2019.
📰 Exporters fret over delay in rebate rates
The RoDTEP scheme came into effect on Jan. 1 but lack of clarity is hampering sector’s ability to price
•Even as exporters fret over an inordinate delay in notification of the rates under a new WTO-compliant scheme for rebating taxes and duties to the export sector, they are also seeking greater clarity from the government on some grey areas in the scheme’s functioning, according to tax consultancy firm RSM Astute.
‘Very near future’
•On Tuesday, Commerce Secretary Anup Wadhawan had said that the rates under the RoDTEP (Remission of Duties and Taxes on Export Products) scheme, which came into effect on January 1, would be notified in the ‘very, very near future’.
•Exporters have been urging the government to lift the uncertainty over the benefits that would accrue to them under the scheme, as they are it finding it difficult to price fresh global orders in the absence of the crucial information especially in sectors with thin margins.
•“The trade and industry is hopeful that the scheme’s operation would be smooth, and concerns would be addressed in the early stages of operationalisation,” RSM Astute noted in a white paper on the scheme. “Due to COVID-19, India’s exports may require more stimulus and the exporters hope that RoDTEP would not be an impediment to their business plans,” it added.
Grey areas
•The consultancy flagged the power given to Customs officers to suspend the scrips or refund credits or even to bar exporters from utilising these scrips especially as the grounds on which such suspensions could be done have not been spelt out.
•As per government statements, the refund of taxes on exports would be credited to exporters’ ledger account with the Customs department, which could be utilised to pay basic customs duty on imported goods. “Clarity would be required whether the refund could be utilised to pay other taxes on imported goods such as IGST and Social Welfare Surcharge,” the tax consultant said. Under the MEIS scheme, which RODTEP has replaced, these refund credits could be used to pay customs duty, additional customs duty (with some exceptions) as well as central excise duties.
•The delay in operationalising the scheme is affecting the exporters by restricting their ability to price products competitively and the uncertainty was making it harder to finalise contracts, RSM Astute pointed out.
📰 A fresh push for green hydrogen
India must address several challenges to enhance commercial-scale operations
•India will soon join 15 other countries in the hydrogen club as it prepares to launch the National Hydrogen Energy Mission (NHEM). The global target is to produce 1.45 million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2023. Currently, India consumes around 5.5 million tonnes of hydrogen, primarily produced from imported fossil fuels.
•In 2030, according to an analysis by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), green hydrogen demand could be up to 1 million tonnes in India across application in sectors such as ammonia, steel, methanol, transport and energy storage. However, several challenges in scaling up to commercial-scale operations persist. We propose five recommendations.
Key steps
•First, decentralised hydrogen production must be promoted through open access of renewable power to an electrolyser (which splits water to form H2 and O2 using electricity). Currently, most renewable energy resources that can produce low-cost electricity are situated far from potential demand centres. If hydrogen were to be shipped, it would significantly erode the economics of it. A more viable option would be wheeling electricity directly from the solar plant. For instance, wheeling electricity from a solar plant in Kutch to a refinery in Vadodara could lower the transportation cost by 60%, compared to delivering hydrogen using trucks. However, the electricity tariffs could double when supplying open-access power across State boundaries. Therefore, operationalising open access in letter and spirit, as envisioned in the Electricity Act, 2003, must be an early focus.
•Second, we need mechanisms to ensure access to round-the-clock renewable power for decentralised hydrogen production. To minimise intermittency associated with renewable energy, for a given level of hydrogen production capacity, a green hydrogen facility will typically oversize the electrolyser, and store hydrogen to ensure continuous hydrogen supply. However, such a configuration would also generate significant amounts of excess electricity. Therefore, as we scale up to the target of having 450 GW of renewable energy by 2030, aligning hydrogen production needs with broader electricity demand in the economy would be critical.
•Third, we must take steps to blend green hydrogen in existing processes, especially the industrial sector. Improving the reliability of hydrogen supply by augmenting green hydrogen with conventionally produced hydrogen will significantly improve the economics of the fuel. This will also help build a technical understanding of the processes involved in handling hydrogen on a large scale.
•Fourth, policymakers must facilitate investments in early-stage piloting and the research and development needed to advance the technology for use in India. The growing interest in hydrogen is triggered by the anticipated steep decline in electrolyser costs. India should not be a mere witness to this. Public funding will have to lead the way, but the private sector, too, has significant gains to be made by securing its energy future.
•Finally, India must learn from the experience of the National Solar Mission and focus on domestic manufacturing. Establishing an end-to-end electrolyser manufacturing facility would require measures extending beyond the existing performance-linked incentive programme. India needs to secure supplies of raw materials that are needed for this technology. Further, major institutions like the DRDO, BARC and CSIR laboratories have been developing electrolyser and fuel-cell technologies. There is a need for a manufacturing strategy that can leverage the existing strengths and mitigate threats by integrating with the global value chain.
•Even before it has reached any scale, green hydrogen has been anointed the flag-bearer of India’s low-carbon transition. Hydrogen may be lighter than air, but it will take some heavy lifting to get the ecosystem in place.
📰 The last word on the state and temples
In Tamil Nadu, the movement seeking a delinking of state and religion misprizes the law’s value
•In the midst of the recent electoral campaign in Tamil Nadu, a movement to free Hindu temples from state control gained some traction. Ask the proponents of the movement who they see as the state’s successor and the answer you get is, the community of Hindus. But by that, what do they mean? Who selects the personnel that will constitute this community? Does the movement want a reversion to the status quo ante that existed before the state intervened in the management of temples? If so, what was that status quo ante? A lack of clear answers to these questions suggests that what the programme really seeks is to plant in the state’s position powerful private interests, and in the process, reinstate some of the hierarchical divisions that might have been negated, albeit not nearly entirely, through the Constitution and its processes.
Civic history and faith
•At an intuitive level, the idea of governments overseeing the management of religious institutions strikes one as anathema to a secular, democratic republic. But the principles on which secularism rests in India are distinct from their western antecedents. The makers of India’s Constitution were conscious of the dangers in promising an American style right to non-establishment. To them, there was little doubt that all persons must be entitled to a freedom of conscience. But that freedom, they believed, ought not to be circumscribed by extending to extreme limits the divide between the state and religion.
•The Constituent Assembly was especially mindful of the civic history surrounding matters of faith in India. It understood that left unattended, religion could lead to a perpetuation of historical evils. To treat religion as a subject beyond the state’s sovereign reach was to thwart the Constitution’s aim of establishing a free and egalitarian society at its very founding. The framers were also conscious that achieving these goals meant that the government had to ensure that resources vital to the commonweal were properly managed. As they saw it, it was the state’s responsibility to guarantee, for instance, that a temple dedicated for public use was, in fact, being put to such use.
Caveats and provisos
•It was with these ends in mind that various caveats and provisos were written into Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution. The former makes the freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion subject to public order, morality and health. What is more, this right, the provision clarifies, will not stand in the way of the state making laws regulating any economic, financial, or other secular activity associated with religion, or in the way of the state making laws providing for social welfare and reform.
•Article 26, on the other hand, protects group rights. It grants to every “religious denomination” the right to establish institutions; to manage its own affairs in matters of religion; to own and acquire property; and to administer that property in accordance with law. This right too is bound by considerations of public order, morality, and health.
•A plain reading of these provisions shows us that a religious denomination has substantial freedom over matters concerning its faith. But this right does not override the state’s power to make laws regulating the management of properties belonging to these denominations. The state’s authority is wider still in attending to religious institutions that partake a public character. The protections of Article 25 are expressly restricted to matters within the domain of religion. Government has every authority to regulate and restrict a secular function performed by a public religious institution. It was in exercise of this power that the government of Madras enacted a Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act in 1951, which was replaced in 1959 by the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Act.
As essential role of the state
•But this power to oversee administration of religious bodies was seen as an incident of sovereignty long before the Constitution came into force. In his 1918 treatise, The Law Relating to Hindu and Mohammedan Religious Endowments, P.R. Ganapathi Iyer points to how Hindu kings habitually employed ministries to supervise temples and charitable bodies. Indeed, the regulation of temple management was seen as an essential role of the state. The book also shows us how under Mughal administration, the governments of the time recognised that it was their duty to guarantee that all religious endowments were “applied according to the real intent and will of the grantor,” and appointed Mutawallis to manage Waqf properties.
•To be sure, that this was once the case does not by itself suggest that state control over religious institutions must now continue. But the circumstances that existed in the 1920s, when the government of Madras enacted its first endowment law, have not substantially changed. The provincial administration of the time introduced the law because it found that the colonial regime, in ceding regulatory authority over temples, had paved the path for a division of power in which powerful castes and communities within the Hindu fold appropriated control over religious institutions. The statutes of 1951 and 1959 which succeeded the 1927 legislation were both framed with the same objective: to ensure that Hindu public endowments were being put to use for the true purposes for which the endowments were first made.
•To that end, the law accords to a state-appointed commissioner a power of general superintendence over all Hindu religious endowments, and it authorises the commissioner, among other things, to appoint executive officers to temples to ensure that their funds are being properly applied. The Supreme Court of India tested the rationale for this oversight in the Shirur Mutt case (1954). In substantially upholding Tamil Nadu’s 1951 legislation — which was repealed and re-enacted in 1959 — the Court recognised that the basic framework of the law was in perfect consonance with the authority vested in the state under Articles 25 and 26. Today, with no obvious successor available, should the state surrender its regulatory authority, it will surely be acting in breach of its sovereign duties. The consequence of such action will be precisely what the Constituent Assembly strived to avoid: a reassertion of social power by dominant groups.
In other religions
•Those calling for deregulation also point to the state’s approach to other religions. But a reading of the Waqf Act, 1995, will show us that the government also exercises substantial supervisory control over management of properties dedicated for religious purposes under Muslim law. It is possible to argue that this legislation does not go far enough, as Justice S.A. Kader, a former judge of the Madras High Court has in his book, The Law of Wakfs. Similarly, in the State of Kerala, repeated demands have been made by reformist Christian groups for the creation of state-managed committees to administer the church’s finances and properties. Perhaps a time will come for such laws.
•In the meantime, though, we must consider the HR&CE law on its own merits. An examination of the legislation enforced in Tamil Nadu demonstrates that the movement seeking a delinking of state and religion misprizes the law’s value. If applied properly, the regime will allow the state to act as a genuine tribune of social justice. No doubt there might be deficiencies in how the statute is applied today. For this reason, we must constantly demand transparency and hold the state responsible to the administrative standards prescribed under the law. But a call to do anything more is to risk the abandoning of the promises that underpin the Constitution.
📰 Data and a new global order
India has a key role to play in the hyper-connected world
•The shift of global power from the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific raises strategic questions for India. Is the world divided because of an assertive China or is the shift of power to Asia a switch to the historical norm? Is the United States defending multilateral rules or the hegemony over the rules it had set? Should India take sides or bide its time as a neutral contender to both China and the U.S.?
•The Industrial Revolution restructured the global manufacturing order to Asia’s disadvantage. But in the ‘Digital Data Revolution’, algorithms requiring massive amounts of data determine innovation, the nature of productivity growth, and military power. Mobile digital payment interconnections impact society and the international system, having three strategic implications.
•First, because of the nature and pervasiveness of digital data, military and civilian systems are symbiotic. Cybersecurity is national security, and this requires both a new military doctrine and a diplomatic framework.
•Second, the blurring of distinctions between domestic and foreign policy and the replacement of global rules with issue-based understanding converge with the growth of smartphone-based e-commerce, which ensures that massive amounts of data give a sustained productivity advantage to Asia.
•Third, data streams are now at the centre of global trade and countries’ economic and national power. India, thus, has the capacity to negotiate new rules as an equal with the U.S. and China.
A renewed strategy
•Innovation based on data streams has contributed to China’s rise as the second-largest economy and the “near-peer” of the U.S. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Commander recently said the erosion of conventional deterrence capabilities was the greatest danger in the strategic competition with China. The national security strategy of the U.S. puts more emphasis on diplomacy than military power to resolve conflicts with China, acknowledging that its military allies have complex relationships with Beijing, as it seeks to work with them to close technology gaps.
•China’s technology weakness is the dependence on semiconductors and its powerlessness against U.S. sanctions on banks, 5G and cloud computing companies. But its Fourteenth Five Year Plan emphasises a $1.4-trillion strategy for the development of science and technology. China’s digital technology-led capitalism is moving fast to utilise the economic potential of data, pushing the recently launched e-yuan and shaking the dollar-based settlement for global trade.
•China has a $53-trillion mobile payments market and it is the global leader in the online transactions arena, controlling over 50% of the global market value. India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) volume is expected to cross $1 trillion by 2025. The U.S., in contrast, lags behind, with only around 30% of consumers using digital means and with the total volume of mobile payments less than $100 billion. The global strategic balance will depend on new data standards. Earlier this year, China formed a joint venture with SWIFT for cross-border payments and suggested foundational principles for interoperability between central bank digital currencies at the Bank for International Settlements. The U.S., far behind in mobile payments, is falling back on data alliances and sanctions to maintain its global position.
•India’s goal is to become a $5-trillion economy by 2025. While the country is fast-tracking its digital rupee, the challenge is promoting engagement with major powers while retaining its data for innovation and competitive advantage.
Fluid dynamics
•With Asia at the centre of the world, major powers see value in relationships with New Delhi. India fits into the U.S. frame to provide leverage. China wants India, also a digital power, to see it as a partner, not a rival. And China remains the largest trading partner of both the U.S. and India despite sanctions and border skirmishes. These fluid relationships have their own trade-offs, raising the question: whose interests do the current rules really serve? India, like China, is uncomfortable with treating Western values as universal values and with the U.S. interpretation of Freedom of Navigation rules in others’ territorial waters. New Delhi’s Indo-Pacific vision is premised on “ASEAN centrality and the common pursuit of prosperity”. The European Union recently acknowledged that the path to its future is through an enhanced influence in the Indo-Pacific, while stressing that the strategy is not “anti-China”. The U.S. position in trade, that investment creates new markets, makes it similar to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
•India alone straddles both U.S. and China-led strategic groupings, providing an equity-based perspective to competing visions. It must be prepared to play a key role in moulding rules for the hyper-connected world, facing off both the U.S. and China to realise its potential of becoming the second-largest economy.
