📰 PM reaches out to tribal people, launches schemes
•Addressing the gathering virtually, he said that as the country celebrated 75 years of Independence next year, it had been decided to honour the contributions of tribal people.
•“For this, a historic decision has been taken that from today, every year the country will celebrate November 15 i.e. the birth anniversary of Bhagwan Birsa Munda as ‘Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas,” he stated.
•Nine other tribal museums — one each in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Manipur, Mizoram and Goa — would be opened soon, he stated.
•“This museum [Birsa Munda museum] will become a living venue of our tribal culture full of diversity, depicting the contribution of tribal heroes and heroines in the freedom struggle,” he noted.
•Birsa Munda knew that social welfare could not be achieved by eschewing India’s diversity, ancient identity and nature in the name of modernity. He believed in modern education and speaking out against societal ills. Mahatma Gandhi was fighting against racial discrimination in South Africa and Birsa Munda was fighting against British rule in India.
Vajpayee’s role
•Mr. Modi pointed out that former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s strong will was behind the formation of Jharkhand on November 15, 2000.
•“It was Atal ji who was the first to form a separate Tribal Ministry in the government of the country and linked the tribal interests with the policies of the country,” he added.
Allowing yearly extensions to heads of CBI, ED will compromise their autonomy
•The new law authorising an extension of the services of the heads of the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate until they complete a total tenure of five years will seriously compromise the autonomy of those agencies. It goes against the spirit of the Supreme Court judgment in Vineet Narain vs Union of India (1997) which laid down a dictum that the Directors of the CBI and the ED should have a minimum tenure of two years. This was to prevent their sudden transfer out of office if their functioning goes against the interests of the regime of the day. While it did not specifically bar longer terms or extensions, the prospect of getting an annual extension can be an incentive for displaying regime loyalty in the discharge of their duties. Significantly, in the case of the present Director of Enforcement, S.K. Mishra, who was appointed for two years in November 2018, his services were extended by an order on November 13, 2020, which amended the original term of appointment from two years to three years. That the changes were brought in through the ordinance route in November raises a doubt whether the Government is keen on retaining him at the helm. Given that the central agencies have drawn much criticism for their focus on personages linked to Opposition parties, such a measure will be seen as a reward for guided functioning instead of a necessity to keep ongoing investigations on track.
•As it is, the fixed tenure for certain posts means their superannuation within that period will not end their term. In effect, there is an implied extension for an officer appointed to one of these protected posts if the appointment comes within two years of retirement. A further extension that will take the officers’ services well beyond superannuation, that too one year at a time, will render the heads of two investigating agencies unacceptably beholden to the Government. Also, in Mr. Mishra’s case, the Supreme Court declined to interfere with the one-year addition to his original term of appointment, but also said that “extension of tenure granted to officers who have attained the age of superannuation should be done only in rare and exceptional cases”. And that the further extension should only be for “a short period”. It also made it clear that no further extension shall be granted to him. It is possible that the Government will abide by this order and not give the benefit of the amendment to Mr. Mishra, but it does not render the act of authorising year-on-year extensions to future appointees any less detrimental to the public interest. The protection given by a fixed tenure and the use of a high-ranking committee to recommend appointments and transfers were meant to dilute the ‘doctrine of pleasure’ implicit in civil service. However, it may be breached, if the extension allowed in exceptional circumstances becomes the rule.
📰 Batting for an important yet misunderstood species
A world with fewer bats around is one that has failed to understand the critical role they play in ecosystems
•Imagine dusk in our rural heartland, groups of people returning to their homes from farms, factories and forests. At the same time, hordes of winged mammals called bats (nearly 128 species in India; over 1,200 species worldwide) emerge from their roosts in trees, caves, rock ledges, temples and buildings. Bats and humans have cohabited since time immemorial. Throughout the night, these bats devour insects in farms, fields, forests, grasslands and around our homes, including agricultural pests and disease-causing mosquitoes.
•Some bats sip nectar, pollinate flowers, eat fruits, and spread the seeds of many important tree species including wild varieties of bananas, guava, cashew, mango, figs, mahua and other fruits. A study in Thailand has shown that pest biocontrol provided by just one species of bat prevented the loss of 2,900 tons of rice per year — or a savings of $1.2 million, and meals for 26,200 people annually. Bat droppings (guano) mined from caves are widely used as a fertilizer for agricultural crops as they have high concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorous.
Role in disease spread
•Unfortunately, despite these critical roles bats remain among the most misunderstood of all animals. In India, we have almost no studies on the ecosystem services that bats provide. With scientific evidence mounting that the SARS-CoV2 virus that causes COVID-19 originated in bats, there are growing fears of further disease transmission from bats.
•A significant and unique feature of bats is that they are known or suspected to be the natural reservoirs for many novel and recently emerged pathogenic viruses such as Nipah, Hendra, Marburg, Ebola and the coronaviruses that cause severe acute respiratory syndrome. Despite being reservoirs for viruses, bats never fall sick. Flying is a very stressful business, and results in toxic by-products which could damage cell contents. Bats have evolved mechanisms to avoid such damage by suppressing their immune systems. Scientists think that such suppression results in a continuous auto-immune response which helps them combat infections and control virus propagation. Interestingly, this ability to limit excessive inflammatory response (which is responsible for the adverse effects of such viruses in infected humans), ensures they do not over react to viral infections and protects them from multiple chronic age-related diseases.
•In other words, in gaining the ability to fly long distances, bats have also inherited an immune system that protects them from viruses. The same immune system also makes them age slower, and live longer. They are among the longest lived mammals for their body size.
•Due to COVID-19, we have suddenly become aware of the several viruses bats carry because they could spill over to us. But such spillovers — the transmission of pathogens from their natural host or reservoirs to novel hosts such as humans — are unusual and rare events, and tend to occur when there is increased contact between humans and wild hosts.
•Over the last several 100 years, humans have significantly modified the landscapes around them — cutting of forests, clearing of land for agriculture and development — resulting in disturbances to bat roosts, and forcing them to change their ‘homes’. Activities such as mining destroy natural cave systems that bats live in. Scientists have shown that when bats are disturbed, they become stressed and could shed viruses that they carry, increasing the risk of spillover. This suggests that human habitat destruction makes bats move closer to human habitation, resulting in stressing them, and in turn viral shedding.
•The COVID-19 pandemic has compelled us to look back on the mistakes made in destroying this fine ecological balance, and study how bats and humans can co-exist in certain areas. This is as important as searching for the cure for SARS. Yet, we still do not know too much about the ecology of bats, even in the context of viruses. Are chances of spillover higher in areas with more bat species? Are viruses shed by bats throughout the year or only seasonally?
Study of human-bat interface
•Several indigenous people had understood the importance of giving enough space to all animals including bats whilst staying with them. Some have isolation practices such as quarantine following hunting. They are dependent on animals and nature, and have achieved a balance without any harm to both sides. The Bomrr clan in Nagaland, for example, have traditionally celebrated the annual bat harvest for many years. They gather at a place called Mimi to smoke a cave full of bats and as bats start exiting, kill them for consumption. In the process, the bats bite them or scratch them. Yet, there has been no major disease outbreak among the Bomrr clan. To understand how and why the Bomrr are immune to the viruses in the bats they interact with, the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS-TIFR), an aided Centre of Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) are carrying out sero-ecological studies on this human-bat interface. They are exploring microbial diversity associated with the bats, and also serology (antibody response to known viral families) to investigate which part of this diversity is potentially pathogenic. So far, they have found: genetic prevalence/detection (between 3%-10% of bats) of several bacterial and viral families and evidence that both bats and humans have shared antibody response to some viral families, indicative of a spillover.
•The NCBS is also in the process of sequencing whole genomes of bat viruses. This study could help build a bank of virus genomes as baselines to be prepared for any possible future outbreaks. Local practices and traditions could serve as a guide for us to understand how we should minimise risk of infectious disease spillover from bats in the future. The rich biodiversity and cultural diversity in India serves as an excellent and unique place for such studies.
Some precautions
•But the fact remains that bats carry many viruses. So how can we continue to co-exist with them? We could take a few sensible precautions that minimise our direct interactions with bats — such as avoiding handling or eating bats, and not eating fallen fruits gnawed by bats or fruits likely to be contaminated by bat fluids. This would greatly reduce the risk of spillover. In the longer term, we should work towards restricting and reversing land-use change practices that are bringing us in greater contact with, and increasingly stressing out, animals that may harbour ‘emerging infections’.
Restore the balance
•In India, many people are dependent on the ecosystems they live in, and the various services those ecosystems provide, for example water, clean air and pollination. Over the last few decades, habitat destruction and land-use change has impacted most of India. We can regain this balance with nature and animals through a combination of habitat restoration and co-existence with wildlife such as bats. Integrated approaches such as One Health, where human health is linked to that of the environment and animals can result in the best possible outcomes. Any such future will require a global commitment to reduction of habitat loss, and the preservation and restoration of our natural habitats and biodiversity. A world with fewer bats around us will be one that suffers greater crop losses to agricultural pests, witnesses increased incidences of other diseases such as those transmitted by mosquitoes, and one without mahua, too.
📰 Pegasus inquiry must reverse the ‘chilling effect’
The Government’s complacency in the snooping case is worse than its alleged involvement under the garb of ‘security’
•It is startling to know that governments in India purchase very expensive Israeli software to bug the Opposition and suppress dissent. The revelations about the misuse of Pegasus spyware have shaken the world and even India has felt its reverberations. The Government has stonewalled queries on the subject, has refused to order any probe, and even allowed a whole Parliament session to be washed away as a discussion on the subject was denied. The Pegasus scandal matches the Watergate scandal that brought down U.S. President Richard Nixon in the 1970s, but here in India, business has been as usual.
•There was a fact-finding judgment in May 5, 2021 by the Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London that was to look into “factual allegations” made by a princess that the software had been installed in her phone as well as those used by her her solicitors, her personal assistant and security by her husband (a high-profile ruler in the United Arab Emirates) in the case of the welfare of their two children. It was an example of how even the phones used by royals have been hacked using Pegasus. After the United States government determined that Pegasus was acting contrary to the foreign policy and the national security interests of the U.S., it blacklisted the NSO group by putting it on an “entity list”. But India has neither looked into the facts nor blocked the hacker.
•In India, the suspected abuse of surveillance power followed by blatant denial of Right to Information requests and Parliament questions, defiant responses to Public Interest Litigation (PIL) notices and, above all, the ‘inaction’ of the Government are what have compelled the Supreme Court of India to act. On October 27, 2021, a Bench of the Court, led by the Chief Justice of India (CJI), N.V. Ramana, constituted a three-member independent expert committee to conduct an investigation (it will be overseen by a retired judge of the Court) and protect public faith in the constitutional system. In the world over, this is the first-ever inquiry ordered by any Chief Justice with such wide-ranging terms into spying by Pegasus. This initiative of the CJI will embolden civilians to question the suppression of rights and instil fear among rulers. It should reverse the chilling effect. This dynamic order evoked positive responses while some wanted greater relief than what was prayed in the original PILs.
A worrying silence
•The Union Government has been consistently silent on the question on whether it had or has invaded the privacy of hundreds of innocent non-accused citizens and what it has done with the collected ‘intelligence’. It has a constitutional duty now to justify its defence of ‘national security’ before the Court-appointed inquiry committee or face politico-constitutional consequences. More than anything else, what is worrisome is the Centre’s deafening silence.
•The Court turned down the Government’s request to allow it to set up the inquiry committee, as the principles of natural justice will not permit the ‘accused’ to select his investigators. The Bench has enough reasons to suspect that the Government is a party to this unconstitutional action (Pegasus). It made it clear that allowing that request “would violate the settled judicial principle against bias, i.e., that ‘justice must not only be done, but also be seen to be done’.”
•The use of the invasive spyware was noticed in May 2019 when WhatsApp claims that ‘Pegasus’ had infiltrated the devices of WhatsApp users; the fact of Indians being affected was acknowledged by the Minister for Law in November 2019; and when Amnesty International and Citizen’s Lab reported on June 15, 2020 of nine individuals in India having been targeted. The nation cannot afford to ignore the Pegasus Project, or the report of a consortium of 17 media organisations on July 18, 2021, which showed, based on its investigation, that a “list of over 50,000 phone numbers in more than 45 countries had been potentially targeted for surveillance by misusing Pegasus”. The list included the numbers of over 300 Indians, some of whom were senior journalists, doctors, lawyers, political persons and even court staff. WhatsApp, in 2019, said it had notified the Government that 121 Indian citizens had been targeted. Yet, there has been no response.
Privacy, a sacrosanct right
•Though privacy was not a specifically guaranteed right earlier, unabated surveillance was never allowed. The Supreme Court emphatically defined it in R. Rajagopal in 1994. With the landmark order in 2017 by the Supreme Court declaring that the right to privacy is as sacrosanct as human existence and is inalienable to human dignity and autonomy, the burden to secure this right has also fallen on the top court.
•Snooping can be justified only on three counts: the restriction must be by law; it must be necessary and only if other means are not available, and proportionate (only as much as needed); and it must promote a legitimate state interest (e.g., national security), according to paragraph 325 of the nine-judge Bench judgment on privacy). Without establishing this justification, the Government cannot use ‘national security’, in the case of Pegasus, as an empty or lame excuse, because surveillance directly infringes on the privacy right. If the Government wants to justify the surveillance as authorised then it has to answer the question whether anybody has been prosecuted for terrorism with evidence procured by snooping. And who is the authority that decides the need and mode of surveillance? Without this information, the state cannot rely on the excuse of ‘national security’. The leaked list of phone numbers, which includes those of journalists, politicians and lawyers only raises the suspicion of abuse of surveillance power.
Injures freedom of speech
•The Bench led by the CJI observed that surveillance injures the freedom of speech and results in fear based self-censorship. When it relates to the freedom of the press, it results in a chilling effect on the basic civil right of freedom of speech. Using the highly expensive software, Pegasus, is an assault on the vital public watchdog role of the press, which could undermine the ability of the press to provide accurate and reliable information which is needed for people to know about the acts of their elected government. The potential technological power of Pegasus must be challenged. The Centre’s complacency is worse than its alleged involvement that needs to be probed. In fact, the Court has faced criticism of ‘inaction’, giving a long rope to the Government, and refused to stay the notification issued by the West Bengal government, setting up an inquiry commission to investigate the revelations of the Pegasus Project. The Delhi-based lawyer, Gautam Bhatia, even wrote that the Court should ask the Government to answer whether it ordered spying on citizens who are not accused of any crime. If yes, it should be made liable. If the Government refuses to answer, or says ‘no’, what is the Court expected to do? This is what the committee must probe.
•Ensuring the independence and the objectivity of members of the committee is not a mean task. The Court has explained how the chairman and other members were chosen with great care and research. The terms are specific: the committee has the task of finding answers to whether spyware was used to access conversations and information through the devices, the interception of the communications, who the victims were, which law authorised this, and who decided this on what basis and at what cost.
The defence and a pointer
•The stock defence of ‘national security’ for snooping has provided, prima facie, grounds to believe the involvement of the ‘state’. The Court has explained: “the Petitioners have placed on record certain material that prima facie merits consideration by this Court. There has been no specific denial of any of the facts averred by the Petitioners by the Respondent — [the] Union of India”. Although it is “a settled position of law that in matters pertaining to national security, the scope of judicial review is limited”, the Bench was vocal in saying “this does not mean that the state gets a free pass every time the spectre of ‘national security’ is raised.” It is well within the four corners of its jurisdiction for the Supreme Court to constitute this committee as specifically prayed in the 12 PILs.
•Using criminal spyware is not only a mere violation of Part III rights but is also a serious blow to freedom of the press, expression of dissent by the Opposition, and fearlessness of lawyers to challenge in courts the unconstitutional actions of the state. It undermines democracy and converts elected leaders into absolute dictators. The Supreme Court committee and Bench has the onerous duty of resurrecting the constitutional scheme of rule of law.
📰 The EU’s role in the Indo-Pacific
By being more assertive with China and more cooperative with India, the EU can create a vantage position for itself
•The Indo-Pacific region has acquired striking salience with the U.S.-China strategic contestation becoming sharper than before. Speedy development of the Quad comprising Australia, Japan, India and the U.S.; the emergence of AUKUS comprising Australia, the U.K. and the U.S.; and other alignments raise the question: where does Europe stand in relation to this churning?
It is complicated
•Europe’s Asia connect is old, strong and multi-layered. Asia is viewed and evaluated through national and regional perspectives. This explains why at least since 2018, countries such as France, the Netherlands, Germany and the U.K. announced their specific policies towards the Indo-Pacific. The European Union (EU) is in the process of coping with the rise of China and other Asian economies, the tensions due to China’s aggressiveness along its periphery, and economic consolidation through the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. In this backdrop, the announcement by the Council of the European Union of its initial policy conclusions in April, followed by the unveiling of the EU strategy for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific on September 16, are notable.
•Seen from Brussels, the EU and the Indo-Pacific are “natural partner regions”. The EU is already a significant player in the Indian Ocean littoral states, the ASEAN area and the Pacific Island states, but the strategy aims to enhance the EU’s engagement across a wide spectrum. Future progress will be moulded by principles ranging from the imperative to defend the “rules-based international order”; promote a level-playing field for trade and investment, Sustainable Development Goals and multilateral cooperation; support “truly inclusive policy-making” encompassing the civil society and the private sector; and protect human rights and democracy.
•The policy document also says cooperation will be strengthened in sustainable and inclusive prosperity, green transition, ocean governance, digital governance and partnerships, connectivity, security and defence, and human security. The EU thus promises to focus on the security and development dimensions of its relationship with the region.
•But the EU’s security and defence capabilities are quite limited, as compared to the U.S. and China. To obviate an imbalance in favour of economic links, EU will need to give adequate space and support to France which has sizeable assets and linkages with the Indo-Pacific. It also must forge strategic coordination with the U.K. as the latter prepares to expand its role in Asia as part of its ‘Global Britain’ strategy.
•As a major economic power, the EU has an excellent chance of success in its trade negotiations with Australia, Indonesia and New Zealand; in concluding discussions for an economic partnership agreement with the East African Community; and in forging fisheries agreements and green alliances with interested partners to fight climate change. To achieve all this and more, EU must increase its readiness to share its financial resources and new technologies with partners.
Approach to China and India
•The EU suffers from marked internal divisions. Many states view China as a great economic opportunity, but others are acutely conscious of the full contours of the China challenge. They believe that neither China’s dominance in Asia nor bipolarity leading to a new Cold War will serve Europe’s interests.
•The risks facing the EU are varied. Russia next door is the more traditional threat. It is increasingly on China’s side. Hence, the EU should find it easy to cooperate with the Quad. However, AUKUS muddied the waters, especially for France. Yet, endeavours by a part of the western alliance to bolster naval and technological facilities to deal with China cannot be unwelcome. What the EU needs is an internally coordinated approach.
•India has reasons to be pleased with the EU’s policy. India’s pivotal position in the region necessitates a closer India-EU partnership. The India-EU Leaders’ Meeting on May 8, followed by the External Affairs Minister’s Gymnich meeting in Slovenia with the EU foreign ministers on September 3, were designed to “foster new synergies”. Early conclusion of an ambitious and comprehensive trade agreement and a standalone investment protection agreement will be major steps. Cooperation in Industry 4.0 technologies is desirable. Consolidating and upgrading defence ties with France, Germany and the U.K. should also remain a significant priority.
•The EU can create a vantage position for itself in the Indo-Pacific by being more candid with itself, more assertive with China, and more cooperative with India.
📰 The debacle of demonetisation
Five years later, it is clear that the policy was neither economically sound nor ethically grounded
•On November 8, 2016, the Prime Minister announced that from midnight, ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes would no longer be legal tender. Though Indians were given the opportunity of redeeming the full value of their money held in this form, they could do so only by depositing the notes in a bank or Post Office savings account. The total value of the currency affected by this move, henceforth referred to as demonetisation, was 85%. A former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury said this was by far the “most sweeping change in currency policy that has occurred anywhere in the world in decades”. With five years of experience, we are now in a position to give an unqualified verdict on the consequences of this move.
Changing goalposts
•The original argument given for demonetisation was that it would extinguish unaccounted or ‘black’ money. The presumption underlying this was that with unaccounted income inevitably held as cash, owners of these hoards would be hesitant to turn them in to banks as they would have to explain the source. When it was pointed out that unaccounted income is very likely to have been converted into real assets or transferred overseas, the government shifted the narrative. It then explained that the move was meant to get the economy to run on ‘less cash’. Finally, it strongly asserted that the move would incentivise direct tax payment and this would raise the government’s revenues sufficiently to allow for greater public investment and the provision of more public services.
•The Reserve Bank of India’s Annual Report of 2019 settled the first issue conclusively when it reported that approximately 99% of the affected money supply was deposited into accounts with commercial banks. So, the existence of black money hoards may have been exaggerated, to put it mildly, even though this does not imply that all earnings were being declared to the income tax authorities.
•What about the predicted move towards less cash? Well, the ratio of currency with the public to national income has, at 11.5%, remarkably remained the same from 2015-16 onwards. Money seems to remain a chosen medium of exchange for Indians, even if purchases are increasingly being made online. Any independent economist could have pointed out to the government that in an economy where a large section of the population has little income to save, cash is likely to stay as a medium of exchange for some time. After all, electronic payments other than those based on credit cards draw upon prior savings. All this is besides the point, however, and misses how disingenuous the official narrative was. If the idea was to make the population use less cash, there was no need for the secrecy implicit in the hurried announcement of demonetisation. It could have been simply achieved by amendment of the Income Tax Act requiring all large-value transactions to be made by cheque or electronic means.
•Finally, we come to the claim that demonetisation would lead to an increase in direct tax payments. Why this would be so was never spelt out, but the data can settle this matter conclusively. We find that the ratio of direct tax collections to the national income rose marginally in 2016-17, but higher rates had been achieved earlier. It continued to rise marginally for two more years, but this cannot confidently be attributed to demonetisation alone. The Goods and Services Tax introduced in 2017 may have nudged potential income tax assesses to comply with the law due to the surveillance that came into force. We can see in the Finance Ministry’s latest ‘Budget at a Glance’ that the trend of a rising direct tax to national income ratio came to an end in 2019-20, and is now lower than it was at the beginning of the decade.
Reversing growth acceleration
•With not a single one of the claims made for it having materialised, it may seem that there cannot be a more stinging assessment of demonetisation but there is worse to come. In 2016-17, India’s economy did register a slight increase in the rate of growth. This may appear to validate the action, but it does not. It is explained by the fact that the growth of the agricultural sector registered a positive swing of over 7% that year. As agricultural yield is weather related, it is independent of economic conditions in the short term. But in the other sectors of the economy, production could have been held back by the cash crunch engineered by demonetisation, thus slowing expansion. We see this in the data on the manufacturing sector, with growth slowing by about a third immediately. Nevertheless, growth of the overall economy did not slow in 2016-17 as much of the services sector held out. This was to come the next year, with annual growth slowing continuously ever since. So, this is something demonetisation did achieve. It reversed a growth acceleration that had been in place for at least two years when the Modi government took over in 2014 and had continued till it met the gleefully named ‘surgical strike’.
Imposing hardship
•Numbers cannot, however, capture the hardship and insecurity that were so casually imposed on the population by the move. The country was thrown into utter chaos with people trying to change their hard-earned small cash savings in banks that were utterly unprepared for the task. There was an acute shortage of currency notes for at least a couple of months. The supply chain for farm produce was severely disrupted but a history of informal credit meant that it did not die out entirely. Indeed, India was bailed out by the traditional practices of its business communities, even as the government was ostensibly goading it into modernity.
•Vladimir Lenin reportedly said, “the best way to destroy the capitalist system [is] to debauch the currency.” In one of the ironies of history, a whole century later, a government committed to capitalism in all its forms attempted precisely that. But demonetisation was not just a flawed economic policy move. Economic policies must not only be sound, they must also be ethically grounded. While it may have been within the government’s constitutional powers to implement demonetisation, on an ethical conception of powers it was a moral failure. Perhaps not since Muhammad bin Tughlaq have the people of India been forced to endure as much by the state. The difference is that today India is a democracy.
