📰 CJI voices support for 50% representation for women in judiciary
‘It is your right. It is not a matter of charity’
•Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana on Sunday backed 50% representation for women in judiciary.
•“It is your right. It is not a matter of charity...Enough of this thousands of years of suppression,” Chief Justice Ramana said.
•The CJI paraphrased Karl Marx to say, “Women of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.”
•Speaking to women judges and advocates of the Supreme Court at an event organised to felicitate him and the nine new apex court judges, the CJI said women constitute only about 30% of the subordinate judiciary.
•“In High Courts, women judges constitute 11.5%. Here in the Supreme Court, we currently have four women Justices out of the sitting 33. That makes it just 12%. Of the 1.7 million advocates, only 15% are women. Only 2% of the elected representatives in the State Bar Councils are women.... There is no woman member in the Bar Council of India. This needs urgent correction,” Chief Justice Ramana said.
•“I am also forcing the Executive for applying necessary correctives... I am happy to have colleagues in the Collegium who are progressive and determined to bridge the gap in the higher judiciary,” the CJI said.
•The Chief Justice highlighted the need to increase gender diversity in legal education.
•“I strongly advocate reservation of a significant percentage of seats in law schools and universities for women, as a first step. Ultimately, inclusion of women judges and lawyers will substantially improve the quality of justice delivery,” the CJI said.
•The Supreme Court has the highest ever number of women judges serving now. The Ramana Collegium scripted history by successfully initiating the appointment of three women judges to the apex court in one go. One of them, Justice B.V. Nagarathna, is poised to be the first woman CJI in 2027.
•“My sisters (women Supreme Court judges) here have carved out a name for themselves already. My dear sisters, your actions in upholding the Constitution will inspire women, not only in this profession but in all walks of life,” the CJI addressed his women colleagues.
•Chief Justice Ramana said the lack of infrastructure, gender stereotypes and social attitudes have plagued the entry and progress of women in the legal profession.
•“Clients’ preference for male advocates, uncomfortable environment within courtrooms, lack of infrastructure, crowded courtrooms, lack of washrooms for women etc. — all these deter women from entering the profession,” the CJI said.
•The CJI said the need for basic facilities, especially for women, need to be addressed immediately.
•“The survey I directed found out that out of 6,000 trial courts, nearly 22% have no toilets for women,” the CJI informed.
•Chief Justice Ramana has been repeatedly pressing for the need to form a separate entity — National Judicial Infrastructure Corporation — to introduce inclusive designs for court complexes and create a more welcoming environment in them.
Part of its infra push in Tibet, the Lhasa-Nagqu stretch is termed world’s highest expressway
•Continuing its infrastructure build up in Tibet, China has completed a key section of the Beijing-Lhasa expressway, a 295 km stretch from Lhasa to Nagqu. This section is located at an average altitude of 4,500 metres above sea level which Chinese state media have termed the world’s highest expressway.
•In a separate development opposite the Central sector in Uttarakhand, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has set up surveillance equipment and cameras opposite the Kio Dhura pass, according to intelligence inputs.
•“Yellow balloon-shaped surveillance equipment are co-located with a wind mill and solar panel at the site,” according to inputs.
Joins PLA commands
•The Lhasa-Nagqu section is part of the G6 Beijing-Lhasa expressway and is the first expressway linking Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region to north Tibet. It also connects the PLA’s Central Theatre Command with the Western Theatre Command which is responsible for the border with India, an official source said.
•“An important stretch of the expressway between Nagqu to Yangbaijain of Lhasa-Nagqu section was put into operational trial on August 21. On completion of Lhasa-Nagqu section, the driving time between Lhasa and Nagqu has reduced from six hours to three hours,” an official source said.
•The completed expressway will pass through seven major cities of China including Beijing, Hebei, inner Mangolia, Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai and Lhasa with an approximate length of 3,710 km, the official added.
Amid Ladakh standoff
•China has been on a massive infrastructure build up in Tibet which continued all through the standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh with India since May last year. The infrastructure includes duel use airfields, roads, accommodation for troops, ammunition dumps among others.
•In June, China had launched a high speed bullet train connecting Lhasa with Nyingchi, a strategically located Tibetan town located close to Arunachal Pradesh.
Firing Exercise
•Continuing regular exercises in the area, the PLA has conducted two live firing exercises under its Xinjiang Military District (XMD) in the first week of September, officials said.
•The Artillery regiment of 8 Mountain Infantry Division conducted live firing exercise employing PCL-181 155mm vehicle mounted howitzer guns in the high altitude plateau, an official said. Similarly, the 31 Regiment of 11 Mountain Division of PLA conducted live firing and assessment exercise employing PCD-001 vehicle mounted, rapid fire mortars in the high altitude area, the official added.
•In September first week, the Indian Army too had conducted an exercise with armoured elements in the Super High Altitude Area of Ladakh at altitude of over 15,000 feet under the aegis of the Leh based 14 Corps. This was conducted by the Snow Leopard armoured Brigade located at Nyoma, very close to the Chushul range on the South Bank of Pangong Tso.
•Last August, during the standoff, both sides had deployed heavy tanks within couple of hundred metres from each other. These along with other armoured elements and troops were withdrawn as part of the first phase of disengagement from both sides of Pangong Tso in February this year.
•Another round of disengagement was undertaken in Gogra area of Eastern Ladakh in August following an agreement during the 12th round of Corps Commander talks as part of efforts for overall disengagement and de-escalation in Eastern Ladakh to end the standoff.
📰 China’s continuing travel ban on Indians ‘unscientific’, says envoy
China’s Embassy in India has largely not been issuing any visas since a travel ban imposed in November last year
•China’s continuing travel ban that has barred travellers from India, including thousands of students, from going to the country for more than one year reflected an “unscientific approach” from the Chinese authorities, India’s Ambassador to China Vikram Misri has said.
•Speaking on the current difficult state of bilateral relations in a dialogue held by Indian and Chinese institutes last week, Mr. Misri said, “Far less complex issues, which have a purely humanitarian context and are not connected to bilateral diplomatic stances, such as facilitating the movement of students, businesspersons and stranded family members from India to China for over a year and a half now, await a more balanced and sensitive approach.”
•“I might add here that India has also attempted to keep our trade and commercial relationship insulated from current differences, for instance by continuing to issue visas to Chinese businesspersons to visit India,” Mr. Misri said, according to remarks made available on Saturday by the Indian Embassy in Beijing.
•“However, we are disappointed to see an unscientific approach with regard to several problems currently being faced by Indian students, businessmen, marine crew and exporters, to name a few,” Mr. Misri said.
•As The Hindu reported in July, many of the close to 23,000 Indian students enrolled in Chinese universities remain in India and are unable to return to their courses. Most are in medical degrees, and are concerned that online programmes arranged by their universities will not adequately prepare them especially in hands-on clinical subjects.
•Their pleas to Chinese authorities for more than one year have made no headway. In June, 3,000 students under the banner of “Indian Students in China” sent a letter via email to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking clarity on a possible date of return and noting that they were willing to undergo vaccination, testing and quarantine protocols as required.
No visa being issued
•China’s Embassy in India has largely not been issuing any visas since a travel ban imposed in November last year. The Embassy has since March this year also effectively barred even Chinese nationals in India from returning home by denying them health codes that are needed to board flights to China.
•The ban includes even family members, leading to many cases of families being split up for over a year. Several Chinese nationals in India told The Hindu some have not seen their children for over a year and have even been unable to visit ailing relatives, while some families are meeting in third countries such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the UAE.
•India has been issuing visas to Chinese citizens to enable them to visit their family in India, although if they visit they face the prospect of being unable to return to China. Mr. Misri pointed out India was now also issuing visas to Chinese businesspersons to enable their travel to India.
•All travellers to China face up to 21 days in quarantine. However, even those willing to undertake the required testing and complete the quarantine are not being issued visas or health codes. China has so far offered no timetable as to when it will open up.
📰 Maoist influence down to just 41 districts: Centre
Amit Shah chairs meeting of CMs, officials of 10 States to review Left Wing Extremism.
•The geographical influence of Maoists has contracted to only 41 districts in the country, a sharp reduction from 96 such districts in 10 States in 2010, according to data provided by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to Chief Ministers and other officials at a meeting held on Sunday.
•“These miscreants have been pushed to a few pockets with only 25 districts accounting for 85% of the LWE violence in the country,” the Ministry said in a statement.
•Union Home Minister Amit Shah chaired the meeting to review the security and other developmental aspects in the Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected States.
•Chief Ministers of Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Telengana, Maharashtra and Odisha were present while Chattisgarh, West Bengal and Kerala were represented by Directors General of Police and Chief Secretaries. Andhra Pradesh was represented by its Home Minister.
•Addressing the meeting, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren accused the Centre of slashing the number of LWE affected districts in the State that could avail ₹33 crore each under the Special Central Assistance (SCA) and Security Related Expenditure scheme for infrastructure related projects.
•Mr. Soren said the MHA had raised a bill of ₹10,000 crore against Jharkhand and requested that the bills be written off and the “Government of India takes a decision not to send such bills to State governments in the future.”
•As per norms, State governments have to reimburse the amount incurred on deployment of central armed police forces (CAPF) in a State.
•Mr. Shah said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had taken a decision to bring down the fixed expenditure of States on deployment of CAPFs and the expenditure by States has reduced by about ₹2,900 crore in 2019-20 as compared to the 2018-19.
•Mr. Soren also said Maoists have made an inaccessible place called Budha Pahar their sanctuary and a large portion of this area falls in Chhattisgarh and sought the neighbouring State’s cooperation for conducting a joint operation.
•Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik demanded that the Union Home Ministry should conduct a study on how many children from LWE affected areas across the country are able to clear national level exams such as NEET, IIT-JEE. “If our systems continue to bypass these areas, it is not going to help the cause of people of LWE affected areas,” Mr. Patnaik said.
•Mr. Shah said in the past two years, a successful effort has been made to increase the security camps in areas where security was not stringent, especially in Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Odisha.
•Mr. Shah said those who want to give up arms and join mainstream are heartily welcome, but those who take up arms and hurt innocent people and the police, will be given the same response.
•“The root cause of dissatisfaction is that development has not reached there in last six decades since Independence and now to deal with it, it is very essential to ensure accessibility to fast-paced development so that common and innocent people do not join them,” he said.
•According to the ministry, there has been a gradual decline in the number of LWE incidents in the last decade. The incidents have reduced from 2,258 in 2009 to 349 incidents till August 31 this year. The number of deaths reduced from 908 to 110 during the same period. The Union Home Ministry first created the LWE desk, a separate department to address the Maoist issue in 2006.
•“Few new areas have been identified as potential locations for emergence of this phenomenon. To arrest the expansion plan of the CPI (Maoist) and also to restrict them to bounce back in the areas recently taken away from LWE influence, 8 districts have been categorized as ‘District of Concern’. The revised categorisation is a more realistic representation of current LWE scenario,” the ministry stated.
📰 A quiet technocrat scaling up Indian manufacturing
Dr. Pawan Goenka is driving an unusual public-private partnership, informing and helping finetune policy changes.
•Before the pandemic started, the major players in India’s room air conditioner market had no plans to invest in larger manufacturing operations, relying instead on convenient imports for over 80% of AC parts.
•Over the past week, despite COVID-19 denting AC sales, global brands like Hitachi, Daikin and Panasonic, as well as domestic majors like Voltas and Blue Star, have announced investments of about ₹5,000 crore to reverse the reliance on imported AC parts from 80% to 20% over the next five years.
•The seeds for this about-turn, driven partly by a Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, were being sown from a third-floor corner office of an auto major in Worli, Mumbai. Dr. Pawan Goenka, the Mahindra group’s managing director till this April, is driving an unusual public-private partnership that is informing and helping finetune policy changes that are leading to outcomes on the ground already in sectors like air conditioners.
•For instance, when domestic and global AC players conveyed that India’s ₹25,000 crore AC market didn’t necessitate larger manufacturing investments to replace established import supply chains, Dr. Goenka tapped his deal-making skills to arrive at an attractive formulation.
•Recalling the challenge, he said: “An Indian player may not have technology for a compressor, so they are forced to import. An MNC has technology, but doesn’t want to make it in India, given the volumes.”
•His solution — convince the MNC to make more compressors in India by getting the domestic player to buy from them instead of importing — thus adding up volumes that justify fresh investments and repeat this idea for various AC components with both domestic and foreign players stepping to invest for each.
•While this debate played out and Dr. Goenka engaged with industry players on ideas to expand the market to ₹1 lakh crore, take local value addition higher and over time, begin exporting AC components, another battle was won without much ado. The imports of finished air conditioners that constituted nearly a quarter of the room ACs market last year, have virtually come down to zero, after the government banned the import of ACs with pre-filled refrigerant in October 2020.
•Over the past year and a half, Dr. Goenka has been spending two days a week deep-diving into sectors like ACs, far removed from the auto industry he spent 41 years in, to recommend practical strategies and policy tweaks — not just to scale up manufacturing, but also to boost exports, reduce import dependence and expand domestic demand.
Govt-industry panel drives policy to revive manufacturing
•With an eye on navigating Indian manufacturing away from the import-dependence pitfalls exposed by the pandemic, Dr. Goenka heads a group that informally began working soon after the national lockdown was announced in 2020, following a meeting between industry captains and Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal.
•Noting that many of them had more time on their hands due to the lockdown, Mr Goyal had suggested CEOs put on their thinking hats and come up with ideas to tap the global sentiment against China and strengthen Indian manufacturing.
•To his surprise, the minister asked Goenka to drive this introspection, that was formalised subsequently by his ministry as the Steering Committee for Local Value Addition, Manufacturing and Exports or SCALE. The group is now working on such ideas for 17 sectors — from toys, textiles, furniture and e-cycles to drones, and even fisheries.
•The SCALE includes the top brass from three industry bodies – CII, FICCI and Asshocham, three representatives from government, with member secretary Manmeet Kaur Nanda from the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), and three industry honchos – including JSW Steel joint managing director and group CFO Seshagiri Rao MVS.
•India has seen multiple similar committees India over the past two decades to enhance the share of manufacturing in the economy, with recommendations either gathering dust, scuttled by inter-ministerial and intra-industry crossfire, or leading to botched policies like the non-starter National Manufacturing Investment Zones (NMIZ). SCALE is different for a few reasons.
•First, it has no deadlines and drafts no voluminous reports — all its proposals are laid out in a presentation at best. Second, it doesn’t just gather up ideas from various sectoral players and splash them together for the government to consider, as usual industry representations tend to be. Third, it follows a rigorous process of consultations to align different factions of industry with varying agendas at multiple levels and tries to nudge an alignment of interests where differences seem intractable, before it takes up the relevant issues with the government.
•“Generally, industry bodies come to government and say, ‘Give me this, Give me that’,” Dr. Goenka told The Hindu. “My first sentence to them in SCALE interactions is, “It should be ‘I am going to do this, and this is the help I need.’ And if you don't have an ‘I am going to do this’, then let's not even talk.”
•Consequently, none of its presentations have had policy suggestions without an equal commitment from the industry on what it would commit to do, in terms of investments and job creation, for instance, if those suggestions were accepted.
•In fact, in the case of air conditioners, one of the first sectors it began working on, the industry players actually gave a letter of commitment to the Mr. Goyal that they will invest more and take domestic value-addition to 80% from the present 20% in five years, even before the government notified the PLI scheme for the sector.
•“This was signed off by the industry and is almost a contract,” Dr. Goenka said, adding that air conditioners, unlike drones, another sector whose PLI scheme has taken inputs from SCALE, was considered a sunset sector with no scope for a change in status quo. The panel’s ideas for other uninteresting sectors, including fisheries and TVs, are also at advanced stages of deliberations within the government.
•The SCALE panel’s approach is more effective, but also runs the usual risks that India’s political economy dynamics entail, said former Planning Commission member Arun Maira, who worked on drafting an industrial policy using a similar technique of wider consultations, even roping in trade unions and small-scale industries, to find broader synergies.
•“The objective of a national industrial policy must be to scale up the outcome, which must be faster growth of incomes of citizens in the country, especially for those at the bottom so that poverty is reduced,” he told The Hindu, emphasising that firms invest in China despite its low ease of doing business because of the sheer size its market.
•“Large scale industrial units will not produce this outcome. They employ less people per unit of capital, and per unit of land. They also have larger negative impacts on the environment. New technologies with new business models make small units viable, as well as provide solutions to problems of inclusion and environmental sustainability,” he said, stressing this is why the NMIZ never took off.
•In his first innings, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had tasked an industry chamber to come up with policy prescriptions for what he said was a central challenge for the Indian economy — scaling up income and employment levels of the people. Mr. Maira, who was associated with the exercise, said larger players in industry objected to the recommendations which were based on scenarios that encouraged smaller units along with larger ones to create a more vibrant manufacturing ecosystem.
•“There was a sense that the chamber’s scenarios seem to suggest that small is beautiful and big is bad. While Dr. Goenka is following the right approach for the SCALE panel, it may face the same limitation and must use its own lens to carefully assess ‘Who is asking for what and why’,” Mr. Maira concluded.
•Having traversed through India’s industrial ecosystem for decades, the SCALE chairman is aware of these home truths.
•“All companies want to do well. But by and large, even if there will be exceptions, companies also want to do good for the nation. There is this desire: Is there a way that without compromising my company's requirements, am I able to add value to the country,” he noted, underlining that to that extent, the AtmaNirbhar Bharat has been a ‘motivating’ clarion call.
📰 Back in the game: Quad and India-U.S. ties
India must cooperate with U.S. on vaccines, trade, and leverage Quad for regional stability
•Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s summit meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden, and his first in-person meet of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue mark an important step forward in India’s engagement with major global powers as it seeks to revive its economy and strategic role in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis. At the heart of the two leaders’ meeting was the issue of vaccine availability — and a critical victory for the Biden administration as it received Mr. Modi’s assurance that as the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, India would resume supplies to the global COVAX pool under its ‘Vaccine Maitri’ programme. The breakthrough comes after turmoil in this space earlier this year, when India halted exports after facing criticism for domestic supply bottlenecks as it contended with a devastating second wave of COVID-19. Around the same time the U.S. also invoked its Defense Production Act, effectively preventing the export of raw materials for vaccine manufacture in a bid to prioritise domestic production. With both countries now moving forward on their domestic vaccination programmes, albeit with the U.S. still struggling to overcome vaccine hesitancy in certain States, the summit provided them a timely opportunity to take up long-pending conversations on trade, defence ties and more. At the confluence of those two areas was the reaffirmation by Mr. Biden that India remained a ‘Major Defence Partner’, making it a key nation with which Washington could share information and strengthen cooperation in advanced military technologies, including, for example, a recent project to co-develop air-launched unmanned aerial vehicles.
•Issues of global concern, including the ongoing pandemic, climate change, technology cooperation, supply chains and security, and preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific were themes that came up at the Quad gathering. Following on the heels of the first virtual summit of the four leaders in March 2021, this meeting builds upon the intention of the Quad member nations — India, the U.S., Australia, and Japan — to ensure an Indo-Pacific region “free from coercion and disputes... solved in accordance with international law”. While India has sought to disassociate its role as a member of the Quad from the recently announced Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) partnership, there is little doubt that the creation of a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines for Australia under the AUKUS framework will have significant and positive implications on India’s strategic calculus regarding the Indo-Pacific region. From New Delhi’s perspective, health concerns and economic revival remain at the very apex of the policy agenda. This is a time for India to rapidly deepen cooperative initiatives with the U.S. regarding vaccines and trade and continue engaging vigorously with the Quad for regional stability. That is the optimal strategy to navigate the uncertain global ecosystem that it now finds itself in.
📰 These investigations are a face without a heart
There is no longer any respect for the citizen’s rights but only a single-minded assertion of unaccountable authority
•Gasping for breath — that is how our investigating agencies leave our citizens and now the press. Two recent cases clearly demonstrate that our investigating agencies are a face without a heart.
•On September 10, 2021, officers of the Income-Tax Department visited the premises of NewsClick and Newslaundry. According to the Editors Guild of India, NewsClick and Newslaundry are news websites. The visit by the officers was styled as a survey and this was confirmed by the Department to a private news channel. A survey by officers of the IT-Department is governed by Section 133A of the Income-Tax Act.
Entry that is limited, specific
•Section 133A authorises an income-tax authority to enter premises where a business or profession is carried on. The purpose of entry is limited and specific — to inspect books of account or documents, check or verify the cash, stock or other valuable article or thing which may be found in the premises and furnish such information that the authority may require. A survey is not a fishing expedition. A survey can be carried out only during the time the premises are open for conduct of business or profession.
•A statement released by Newslaundry indicates that the officers came to its premises at about 12:15 p.m. and left the next day at 12:40 a.m. Similarly, a statement released by NewsClick suggests that the officers came at about noon and left around midnight. The first question: are the premises of these news websites usually open for business at midnight with the same staff? If not, the officers violated the law in continuing the survey till the witching hour, without any compunction.
•Some side issues also arise. For example, what do the officers do for lunch, dinner and snacks when a survey takes place for 12 hours? Do they carry their tiffin boxes and water bottles? What about the people in the premises — can they go out for a bite or are they expected to remain hungry? Can they even inform their family that they have been locked up for several hours and cannot come home?
•Section 133A authorises the officers to inspect the books of account, place identification marks on them, and on other documents, and even make copies. They may impound the books of account or other documents inspected by them, for reasons to be recorded in writing. They are also entitled to make an inventory of the cash, stock or other valuable articles verified by the officers. Finally, they are authorised to record the statement of any person in the surveyed premises, though not on oath.
Court’s view
•The Orissa High Court has taken the view that the primary objective of a survey is to inspect and if impounding is necessary, specific reasons (not general reasons) must be recorded; the reasons must be recorded at the time of impounding and not even a day later, otherwise the impounding would be bad in law.
•Section 133A contains a specific prohibition that the officers “shall, on no account, remove or cause to be removed from the place... any cash, stock or other valuable article or thing”. How much more prohibitory can it get?
•The legal Lakshman rekha having been delineated, what is it that transpired during the survey on September 10, 2021? The version of the I-T Department is not in the public domain, so it is not known, and perhaps might never be known.
The two cases
•In its statement, Newslaundry informs us that its CEO was not allowed to use his phone to contact his lawyer. In fact, he was asked to hand over his phone to the officers. He was asked to comply with on-the-spot directions without taking legal advice. Even a criminal is entitled to contact his or her lawyer and family. Second question: Under what authority of law was the CEO asked to hand over his phone and refrain from contacting his lawyer? Books of account may be impounded, but prohibiting use of a mobile phone, even temporarily?
•The personal mobile phone, laptop and office machines (presumably desktops) were taken control of and the data on them or in them was downloaded. Ordinarily, a search warrant is required for this. Apart from anything else, this is a classic case of invasion of the fundamental right of privacy. The CEO was not given a copy of the downloaded data, which is his property and he is entitled to it as of right. On the contrary, he was asked to delete his personal data from his mobile phone within one hour so that they could take it away (which they did). Third question: Why should he delete his personal data?
•The I-T Department has accepted before the Delhi High Court that it has “seized” material (including perhaps his mobile phone and laptop) and it is in safe custody. Under which law is not explained. Fourth question: Are officers of the I-T Department entitled to violate the law with impunity and without any accountability?
•The sequence of events clearly suggests that the staff of Newslaundry was subjected to some sort of a house arrest or office arrest, cut off from the world for 12 hours and denied their constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights. Is this permissible?
•The fate suffered by NewsClick is no better. NewsClick issued a statement to the effect that 30 employees and support staff were ‘locked up’ (so to speak) for the duration of the survey, that is for 12 hours and their phones seized. If any family member had faced an emergency during those 12 hours, bad luck. To make matters worse, they were prevented from accessing their computers and indeed from working. Why? And under which law? It seems quite clear that the employees and staff underwent office arrest, something akin to house arrest. Fifth question: are the fundamental rights of speech, freedom of the press and privacy suspended during a survey of books of account by the I-T Department? Surely, our fundamental rights are not that meaningless.
•The phone of the Editor-in-Chief was also impounded containing private, personal and confidential data. It appears that the fundamental right to privacy is stillborn in respect of some people, particularly journalists. He may have received information from a source that he does not desire to disclose. In law, he cannot be compelled to disclose the source, being privileged information, but a well-planned survey can achieve that purpose. Journalists beware or don’t care - the choice is yours.
•Loose papers were taken away from the surveyed premises. It appears that no list was prepared of these papers and no copy of the loose papers supplied to the employees concerned. E-mail dumps were taken of the Editor-in-Chief and the Editor. Sixth question: was the survey a façade for some other purpose? Nobody will know until the next ‘raid’.
More the norm now
•So many questions arise from these two surveys and they provide obvious answers, but nobody cares. The issue is not what Newslaundry and NewsClick have done or not done, in terms of adhering to and complying with the law. The issue is whether there is a rule of law prevailing and how easy it is for the authorities to harass citizens if they want to. The other issue is that government officers can get away with just about any abuse of their powers, including unlawful house or office arrest, and this is becoming the norm rather than the exception. There is no longer any respect for the citizen’s rights, including journalists; only a single-minded assertion of unaccountable authority.
•One last question. Are the authorities accountable for their actions at any point, or should journalists resign themselves to defenselessly watch the erosion of their rights? Harassed journalists and vulnerable targets may seek the path of least resistance. After all, they have families to feed. They did not set out to be test cases for democratic resilience. Constitutional offices, on the other hand, have a duty to not look away. Have officers forgotten that citizens of India, journalists included, deserve humane treatment under the law or is it that they do not have a heart?
📰 Stopping short of social justice
The Justice Rajan Committee report does not provide answers to the crucial questions it engages with
•The one unequivocal finding in the 165-page Justice Rajan Committee report is that the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) has adversely impacted the chances of less privileged students in gaining admission to government medical colleges in Tamil Nadu. Several parameters have been used by the Committee to assess privilege (or the lack of it), such as studying in a Tamil medium school, studying in a government school, being a first-generation graduate, and belonging to a household with an income of less than ₹2.5 lakh. Every one of these criteria demonstrate that the already abysmal share of the less privileged in medical education became even more abysmal after NEET was introduced. One needs no other reason to accept that admission based on higher secondary marks serves the cause of equity better.
School education is inequitable
•But a caveat is necessary here: admission based on higher secondary marks is by no means equitable. The number of government school students who were able to gain admission to government medical colleges in the pre-NEET era was around 38 per year. This came down to three or four post-NEET till the 7.5% quota for government school students was introduced. The number then rose to 336 in 2020-21 (page 55). The repeated assertion by the Committee that NEET coaching skews the results of the medical exam is true, but the Committee ignores the fact that the results of the State Board examinations can also be skewed through coaching. The domination of medical admissions from coaching schools in Rasipuram in the pre-NEET area clearly demonstrated this. The blunt truth is that school education in India, including in Tamil Nadu, is grossly inequitable. There is a spectrum of inequity in education with the government schools catering to the most underprivileged and a range of private schools catering to various strata of the privileged. Unless this inequity is addressed, all talk of coaching is empty.
Logical fallacies
•If one were to delve into the report for answers to questions that the Committee engages with, such as what type of student should be selected for medical education, what mode of selection will ensure that such students are selected, and how we can best reconcile the perceived social needs of medical education with the aspirations of individual students, one will be deeply disappointed.
•Furthermore, one can appreciate the descriptive statistics, but the inferential statistics are terribly flawed. The entire document is peppered with logical fallacies. For example, on page 26, the report says: “The analytical section of this report, in the later pages, also vindicates that the ever present socio economic disadvantages and other educational, geographical and linguistic backwardness facing the students of the Tamil Nadu state do not favour the practice of a common entrance exam as it causes injustice to the disadvantaged majority people of the state.” Do these disadvantages not cause “injustice” in the result of the 12th Standard exam?
•Further, on pages 83 and 84, the Committee compares the Higher Secondary School marks with the marks obtained in NEET and says, “Now, the question remains before us is who is meritorious (in terms of percentage marks) - those who secured ‘98.16 % (HSc)’ or those who secured ‘89.05% (HSc)’ and simultaneously 49.65% (NEET)’? Surely, it is 98.16% is the answer.” Recognising that this argument sounds rather silly, the Committee then says, “Comparison between the HSc and the NEET scores is like comparing orange with apple, but it is not in the wisdom of this Committee to compare this way, however, the Committee has to do so in response to the arguments of the critics of HSc who argue that NEET is the best assessor of students’ standard and abilities, because of its assessment and syllabus superiority.” To refute one logical fallacy with another is hardly good policy.
•The greatest disappointment with the report comes from its failure to engage with the most inequitable of all factors in medical education: the insurmountable barrier placed by the very high financial commitment required in private medical education, said to be in the order of ₹1 crore and more. The opaque admission methods and extremely high charges incurred in private medical education was the cause for repeated challenges in the courts, which finally resulted in the NEET. Abolishing NEET without addressing this problem will be a farce, with little real benefit. The statistical prowess of the Committee does not extend to revealing the fees and other charges being collected by these institutions, the background of the students in these institutions, how many of them serve in rural areas, and so on — all of which are criteria that the Committee uses to say that NEET will be detrimental to social justice. Private medical education now accounts for around 50% of seats. The remarkable silence of a Committee, whose terms of reference included “advancing the principles of social justice”, is deeply disappointing.
The way forward
•The experience of the NEET has highlighted the grossly inequitable school system in Tamil Nadu. The number of government schools has greatly increased but learning outcomes are very poor. An article in this paper by Kalaiyarasan A. (Dravidam 2.0 as a time to reflect, for action) pointed out that Tamil Nadu scored the lowest among the southern States in the Performance Grading Index in 2019-20.
•Using the higher secondary marks for admission to medical colleges will help a few of the most disadvantaged students get admission to government medical colleges. But it will do nothing to advance the cause of social justice which requires, in the short term, access to the 50% of medical seats in the private sector which are now reserved for the extremely wealthy, by virtue of the high financial commitments required, and in the long term, a vast improvement in the quality of education imparted in government schools. Anything short of this is mere window-dressing.
📰 Identity and public policy
Identity-based public policy may not be as effective as one based on a universalist approach
•Some political parties have demanded that caste be enumerated in the Census. Actually, the demand amounts to one of counting the Other Backward Classes, for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes are already counted. The demand has been accompanied by the argument that the efficacy of public policy for enhancing well-being across the population is tied to the enumeration of Indians by their caste. One approach to assessing this argument would be to compare development outcomes in States where political parties have adopted caste-based mobilisation with those in States where political programmes for ending deprivation have taken the social democratic route, without resorting to identity politics. Tamil Nadu would be an example of the former, while Kerala would be an example of the latter. A comparison of the developmental experience of these States would therefore be instructive.
Findings along three variables
•As the availability of data across social groups is limited, we focused on three variables. These were adult literacy, infant mortality and consumption. Each of these indicators is related to one of the three components of the United Nations Development Progamme’s Human Development Index. Having chosen the development indicators of interest, there are two ways in which we may assess the difference made to the condition of the least well-off in a population, in this case the SCs, by differently driven social programmes. For any indicator, we may focus on either the impact made in terms of its distribution among groups or the absolute level achieved by a cohort.
•In a comparison of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, for consumption — a proxy for income — the gap between the general population and the SCs is greater in Kerala than it is in Tamil Nadu but smaller when it comes to the other two indicators. However, when it comes to the absolute level achieved, the SCs of Kerala are better-off than the SCs of Tamil Nadu on all the three indicators. Interestingly, they are also better off than the general population of India, i.e., they have superior consumption, literacy and infant mortality outcomes. This is striking. At the same time, the exercise also revealed a hazard when focusing on relative standing alone. We found that for more than one indicator, the distance between the SCs and the general population is far lower for the country as a whole than it is in at least one of the two States considered, even though the State concerned registered a superior level for the same indicator. This leaves us veering towards the maximin principle in evaluation, according to which that policy is preferred which maximises the position of the worst off in a society. Now, Kerala will be chosen as better performing, for the most disadvantaged have higher indicators there. Though we could do with more analysis and the use of controls to arrive at a definite conclusion, this evidence at least suggests that identity-based public policy may not be as effective as one based on an identity-less or universalist approach that is the hallmark of a social democracy.
Women’s empowerment
•Though we are already in a position to say something about the potential of information on the caste status of individuals in the elimination of deprivation, we take our investigation to another field before concluding. It has been known for decades that gender inequality exists in India. Knowledge of low literacy and high infant mortality among females has, however, done little to spur counteracting public policy that will ensure women’s empowerment. Returning to the two States of our study, Kerala greatly disappoints when it comes to women’s empowerment, and lags behind Tamil Nadu on labour force participation, the proportion of female legislators and judges, and crimes against women. Counting the number of women through a census has proved insufficient to eliminate the deprivation and inequality they face. Politics and not the availability of information drives public policy.
📰 Flood management that cannot be watered down
For a lasting solution to the India-Nepal floods, an intergovernmental panel must be formed with local representation
•Over the years, many of Bihar’s districts have been facing serious challenges with recurrent and massive flooding. This year too, it has been a double whammy — of flooding and the novel coronavirus pandemic. It is the right time to look at some of the key aspects of India-Nepal flood management under the existing arrangements of India’s federal system that offers enough room for better coordination between the Centre and State governments. The background: some of Nepal’s biggest river systems originate in the Himalayan glaciers which then flow into India through Bihar. During the monsoons, these river systems flood causing many problems for Bihar. It is a necessity that there is process-driven coordination between the Centre and the Government of Bihar to handle the flooding in Nepal’s Terai and North Bihar (largely the Mithilanchal region).
Still pending
•As part of the long-term measures to address the problem of massive and recurrent floods in Bihar, the Joint Project Office (JPO), Biratnagar, was established in Nepal in August 2004 to prepare a detailed project report to construct a high dam on the Nepal side (on the Kosi, Kamla and Bagmati rivers). The Government of Bihar has raised the matter at regular intervals. The Central Water Commission (CWC), Ministry of Jal Shakti (MoJS), Government of India, convened a special meeting of the joint team of experts (India side) on February 10, 2020 at New Delhi to ascertain the status of the detailed project report. A group of officers formed by the CWC has to work on various aspects of the detailed project report and propose an action plan for its early completion. The Water Resources Department, Bihar has repeatedly requested the MoJS (most recently, through Letter no. 295, dated August 2, 2021) to expedite the progress of the detailed project report. Despite the best efforts made by the Government of Bihar, the task remains unaccomplished even after 17 years.
•The Minister of Water Resources Department, Bihar, Sanjay Kumar Jha, met the Minister of External Affairs, S. Jaishankar, in September 2020 to highlight long-standing water sharing issues with Nepal. The crucial matter of water sharing with Nepal has been flagged by India officially as well. What is evident is Nepal’s lack of prompt reciprocation. It is essential that Nepal shows the required will to find a long-term solution with India in ending a perennial disaster.
Flood protection work
•As in the existing India-Nepal Agreement on water resources, the State government is authorised to execute flood protection works up to critical stretches inside Nepal territory along the India-Nepal border. In recent years, all such flood protection works have had to be carried out in the face of increasing local resistance. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Water Resources Department, Government of Bihar, was intensively engaged at two levels: with local Nepalese authorities and through appeals to the Central government for carrying out flood protection works in 2020. After sustained coordination between the Centre and the State (Bihar) and expedited interventions by India with Nepal, Kathmandu gave its conditional permission for manpower and machinery operation in the Nepal area of Kosi basin. Accordingly, 21 out of the 22 works could be completed. Also, some progress was made to facilitate the smooth movement of manpower, machinery and flood control materials across the Gandak and Kamla rivers situated on the Nepal side to carry out flood protection work during the flood period of 2020.
•But despite the requisite permission for movement on the Kosi barrage and associated embankments, the movement of departmental vehicles and work activities did not draw the attention of the Kosi Project Authority, Biratnagar, for various reasons. Since bilateral cooperation remains the fulcrum of water sharing and water management between the two countries, Nepal must play its part in ensuring a sustainable way forward.
•As in the figures shared by the Water Resources Department, Government of Bihar, a total of four new flood protection works in the Gandak basin area were proposed before the floods of 2020. A request was made on June 22, 2020 by the Water Resources Department, Government of Bihar, to the Government of India for entry into the Nepal region for execution of these flood protection works and for maintenance works of the Gandak Barrage Structure located in Valmikinagar. After receiving conditional permission from Nepal, maintenance work of the structure and components of the Gandak barrage (Valmikinagar), top regulator gates, Right Afflux Bund, and three of the proposed works in the Gandak basin were completed.
•During the strengthening work proposed on the right marginal bund on the Lalbekia river, the local Nepali administration claimed that the said bund area fell in no man’s land. This is notwithstanding the fact that the embankment was built by India 30 years ago and there has not been any dispute regarding its maintenance all these years. Breach closure/protective work of right guide bund of the Kamla weir remains incomplete due to the lack of permission. However, resolution of the impasse is awaited. This is another important matter to be looked at.
•Aware of the operational impasse during the flood season in 2020, Bihar’s Chief Minister Nitish Kumar visited the Jainagar weir site in Madhubani, and upon sensing the seriousness of the situation, instructed the Water Resources Department to explore converting the weir on the India-Nepal border into an efficiently operated barrage. It is evident that Nepal’s attitude towards mutual issues (water sharing, flood control, etc.) has been short of collaboration, unlike in the past.
An alternative paradigm
•In the best spirit of friendship, Nepal and India should restart the water dialogue and come up with policies to safeguard the interests of all those who have been affected on both sides of the border. It is time the two friendly countries come together and assess the factors that are causing unimaginable losses through flooding every year. Optimisation of the infrastructure will be decisive in finding an alternative paradigm of flood management. Moreover, it is also linked to how the Himalayan glaciers and the green cover are managed.
•Water cooperation should drive the next big India-Nepal dialogue, and despite the challenges, wisdom should prevail to turn the crisis into an opportunity, for the sake of development and environmental protection. Water resources are priceless assets. By controlling the flooding and using the water resources for common developmental uses such as hydroelectricity, irrigation and waterways, India-Nepal relations can be strengthened even further.
