📰 States told to share intel on common grid
Shah asks DGPs to provide adequate information through counter-terror network
•The Union government has asked the States to share more intelligence inputs through the Multi Agency Centre (MAC), a common counter-terrorism grid under the Intelligence Bureau that was made operational in 2001 following the Kargil War.
•At a high-level meet on Monday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah asked the Directors-General of Police to share adequate information and actionable inputs through the MAC.
•As many as 28 organisations, including the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), armed forces and State police, are part of the platform. Various security agencies share real-time intelligence inputs on the MAC.
•Plans are afoot for more than a decade to link the system up to the district level.
•A senior government official said that though the system existed to share information among various agencies, it was not being implemented effectively.
‘States reluctant’
•“States are often reluctant to share information on the platform. There are several gaps in sharing critical information at the right time, the meeting by the Home Minister will give a push to the efforts,” the official stated.
•There are around 400 secured sites connected with the MAC headquarters.
The ₹8 lakh income criteria to identify EWS are not reasonably explained by the Government
•The submission by a Government-appointed committee to the Supreme Court that the annual family income of ₹8 lakh is “a reasonable” threshold to determine if someone belongs to economically weaker sections to avail 10% reservations in admissions and jobs does not seem to hold water. The submission rejected the notion that the Government had “mechanically” adopted ₹8 lakh as the cut-off because it was used to identify the OBC creamy layer, by asserting that the income criterion was “more stringent” than the one for the OBC creamy layer. This justification, based on a few more criteria that exclude some income and occupational parameters from the OBC creamy layer, however, is not convincing as the Court’s key question remained unanswered satisfactorily. The Court had said that the OBC category is socially and educationally backward, and had therefore additional impediments to overcome, and had asked whether it “would... be arbitrary to provide the same income limit both for the OBC and EWS categories”. The submission does not adequately respond to this question. On whether at all differences in purchasing power across urban/rural regions and per capita income/GDP across States were considered to arrive at this number, the submission suggests that this exercise would be infeasible and complex. But while asserting that an annual family income criterion of ₹8 lakh is the right approach, the committee does not present any data on the estimated number of EWS persons in the population based on this.
•If available consumer expenditure surveys such as the 2011-12 NSSO report, Key Indicators of Household Consumer Expenditure are any indication, a bulk of the population will be eligible for reservations under the “below ₹8 lakh” cut-off under the EWS category, rendering the limit irrational. The committee’s assertion that ₹ 8 lakh corresponds to the “effective income tax exemption limit” even as the only income slab exempt from paying taxes was for those earning below ₹2.5 lakh, also renders the criteria on “being economically weak” as less stringent. The submission lays emphasis on the fact that outcomes in the recent entrance and recruitment examinations (NEET, UPSC, JEE) showed an even bunching of eligible candidates in different income brackets (0-₹2.5 lakh, ₹2.5-₹5 lakh, ₹5-₹8 lakh), but it does not explain why marks cut-offs were even lower in recruitment exams than that of the socially and educationally backward OBCs. The validity of the 103rd Constitution Amendment, through which the EWS quota was introduced in 2019, is in any case still before a Constitution Bench. But the apex court must seek more clarity on the criteria adopted by the Government committee to set the income limit for identifying the EWS sections eligible for reservations.
📰 The bottom line in Blinken’s foray into Southeast Asia
The aim was to drive home the message that America’s Indo-Pacific policy is not just aimed at deterring China’s rise
•The visit by United States Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken to Southeast Asia in December 2021 — his first since becoming Secretary — underscores the importance that is being accorded to this region by the Joe Biden administration. While Mr. Blinken visited Indonesia and Malaysia, he could not go to Thailand after a COVID-19 case was detected in the press corps accompanying him (He landed there, spoke to the Thailand Deputy Prime Minister expressing regret, and then left for the U.S.). In his speech at Universitas Indonesia on December 14, Mr. Blinken laid out the five core principles shaping the American strategy of a free and open Indo-Pacific. Alongside, he also underlined the mechanisms that the U.S. is adopting to implement these core principles.
On being a reliable partner
•From Washington’s perspective, the aim of laying out the initiatives pertaining to the region was to drive home the message that America’s Indo-Pacific policy is not just aimed at deterring Chinese aggressiveness and rise. The idea was to present the U.S. as a reliable partner in meeting the challenges that the Indo-Pacific region is facing. For instance, completely aware that the Southeast Asian nations are averse to choosing or taking sides in this U.S.-China competition, Mr. Blinken made it a point to mention that “individual countries will be able to choose their own path and their own partners. He said: “It’s not about a contest between a U.S.-centric region or a China-centric region as the Indo-Pacific is its own region.”
China’s shadow
•But the impending Chinese threat was always lurking in the background, reflected in the suggestion that “there is so much concern, from northeast Asia to southeast Asia, and from the Mekong River to the Pacific Islands, ... about Beijing’s aggressive actions, claiming open seas as their own, distorting open markets through subsidies to its state-run companies, denying the exports or revoking deals for countries whose policies it does not agree with, engaging in illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing activities”.
•The competition between the U.S. and China in the Indo-Pacific is in full swing, and this competition is here to stay. Given how both China and the U.S. are trying to lure the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) countries to their side — China with its grand economic infrastructure investment deals and the U.S. through recent high profile official visits as well as the promise of investing more in this region under the Build Back Better World initiative and Blue Dot Network — there is evidence that Southeast Asia is the major theatre where this competition will play out.
•In Southeast Asia, the U.S.-China competition is most visible in two areas; one is the South China Sea and the second is the investment in fulfilling the infrastructure development needs of Southeast Asian countries. The U.S. has continued its Freedom of Navigation operations in the disputed waters of the South China Sea; these operations are meant to challenge “unlawful and sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea [that] pose a serious threat to the freedom of the seas, including the freedoms of navigation and overflight”.
•In his remarks in Indonesia, Mr. Blinken stressed America’s determination “to ensure freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, where Beijing’s aggressive actions there threaten the movement of more than $3 trillion worth of commerce every year”. He also brought up the 2016 international tribunal ruling which had rejected the Chinese nine-dash-line claims and asserted that the U.S. and the other South China Sea claimant countries will “continue to pushback on such behaviour”.
Beijing is invested here
•When it comes to investments in infrastructure development, Southeast Asia has been one of the top recipients of Chinese investments under its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). How these investments have driven countries such as Cambodia and Laos to do China’s bidding in the ASEAN even at the cost of compromising ASEAN’s unity is a known fact. Besides this, China has been heavily investing in port and railway connectivity in countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam.
•Mr. Blinken reiterated that the U.S. remains committed to help close the gap on infrastructure. Recognising that “ports, roads, power grids, broadband — all are building blocks for global trade, for commerce, for connectivity, for opportunity, for prosperity. And they’re essential to the Indo-Pacific’s inclusive growth,” he pointed out that the members of the Quad (Australia, India, Japan and the U.S.) have provided more than $48 billion in government-backed financing for infrastructure for the region. The infrastructure coordination group launched by the Quad members is seeking to catalyse even more investment and is looking to partner with Southeast Asia on infrastructure and many other shared priorities. Washington is promising to do more under the Build Back Better World initiative and the Blue Dot Network. The U.S. is trying to showcase a comprehensive economic framework in the Indo-Pacific focusing on ‘trade and the digital economy, technology, resilient supply chains, decarbonisation and clean energy, infrastructure, worker standards, and other areas of shared interest’.
Alternative models are key
•The alignment between the U.S.’s vision of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific and the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific was underlined. The ASEAN countries, even after the release of the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, do not have a uniform approach when it comes to dealing with the U.S. and China. These differing approaches are also challenging the much vaunted ASEAN centrality in the Indo-Pacific. Though external players will have a limited role in ensuring that the unity within ASEAN is restored, providing proper alternative models of investments for development in sectors such as infrastructure, digital economy, supply chain, and health for the Southeast Asian nations will be critical. The economic framework, investment plans and promises outlined by Mr. Blinken need to be made operational quickly if Washington is to show that it is indeed serious about sustained commitment toward the Indo-Pacific.
📰 The hint of a ‘one nation one NGO’ regime
The current purge against civil society organisations seems to be indiscriminate and alarming
•On December 31, 2021, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued another public notice extending the validity of registration certificates that were expiring from September 29, 2020 to March 31, 2022 till the latter date, provided that the request for renewal had not been rejected. What should have been a routine activity of the Ministry has turned out to be a fairly detailed exercise of scrutiny, resulting in a paralysis in granting permissions. The levels of due diligence and the information sought on the one hand and the annual declarations to be given by the board members of civil society organisations on the other have increased significantly. The mandatory opening of bank accounts for foreign contributions has been centralised in one branch of the State Bank of India. The linking of Permanent Account Number (PAN), Aadhaar number and mapping it with the bank account/s of the individual board members are happening with gusto. All this has resulted in a chill settling over the people who are and have been associated with civil society organisations serving a social or cultural cause. The registrations under Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) have been long necessitated in order to undertake due diligence of the causes for which the organisation is working for and also to have a handle on the traceability of funds.
Data on cancellations
•Recently, the Missionaries of Charity established by Nobel Laureate Mother Teresa, was in the news for the cancellation of its permission under the FCRA. A perusal of the statistics available on the website of the Ministry of Home Affairs (https://bit.ly/32Kij6E ) reveals an interesting pattern. Of the 20,675 permissions under the FCRA that were cancelled from 2011 onwards, only 89 have been cancelled on request; the rest have been cancelled on violation. Of these 20,675 cancellations, 80% of the cancellations are after 2014, with a massive purge of around 10,003 permissions in the year 2015. The dashboard (https://bit.ly/3sXfOsu) shows a little under 17,000 active organisations — which have either got permission or will know their fate by March 2022, while around 33,000 organisations have either lost their permission or it has expired. These cancellation numbers do not include the rejection of around 600 applications that have been in the news in the recent past, as the website shows only three cancellations in the year 2021 and none in 2020.
•There has been a pattern to the organised attack on civil society organisations and this looks like the final shot. In the past, the amendments in the FCRA that restricted the ability to sub-grant, killed many of the niche organisations working in very remote areas which had no direct access to international funding but were doing it through larger non-governmental organisations. The other amendment restricting the proportion of expenses on administration almost choked organisations that worked for the rights of the disposed. The increasing level of surveillance type of data sought has resulted in many organisations losing people on their governance structure and resulting in problems in funding.
•The level of the purge is alarming on two fronts. If this purge is because of violations that seem to threaten sovereignty because of evidence of money laundering, subversive activities and violation of the laws, then it is worrying that these organisations survived for all these years. This says a bit about the system of scrutiny that we have had in the past.
•Alternately, if these are organisations that have been purged on xenophobic considerations — because they are activists usually questioning the Government and speaking for the marginalised — organisations working on issues such as human rights, and organisations serving the people whom the state is unable to reach, then it is even more alarming. That is because it is suppressing the concept of antyodaya — reaching the last person with rights, services and entitlements.
Organisations that are needed
•Why we need civil society organisations is a moot question. We need them because they usually work on what can be called an unreasonable agenda. This unreasonableness falls in three large verticals. The first is that they ask for greater efficiency, delivery and accountability from the state. Whether is it about rehabilitation and compensation in the case of land acquisition or setting up a great accountability framework as was done through the movement led by the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan for the Right to Information. The second vertical is in correcting the extractive nature of markets. The groups asking for environmental accountability are looking at inter-generational justice on a matter that is not very precisely measurable but is palpable. The third is basically picking up causes that are so niche that it is beyond the capability of the state to come up with such initiatives such as a school of drama set up by NINASAM (Nilakanteshwara Natyaseva Samgha) in a village called Heggodu, Karnataka, or an idea of distributing clothing for work as done by Goonj. These initiatives cannot be put into specific business plans, spreadsheets or government schemes. They, therefore, need a grant-based, cause-based revenue stream model.
Issue of funding
•Why foreign funding? As we know, “causes” have no boundaries and funding for such socially desirable belief systems could come from beyond borders. Some causes carried out by organisations such as Doctors Without Borders, or Reporters Without Borders are by definition international in nature. Similar is the case with the Jaipur foot provided by the Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti. The humanitarian work by the Missionaries of Charity is beyond the capability of a state. Such causes do not have a rational basis to be explained in terms of a financial model; how do you put a price tag to press freedom? The niche funding will happen from agencies that may be beyond the borders. They need to be encouraged.
•In general, past regimes have been tolerant of all developmental and cultural causes; somewhat wary and tolerant of rights-based causes; and largely suspicious of civil society organisations working for human rights and environmental causes. Both human rights and environmental causes put these civil society organisations directly in confrontation with the job of policing/internal security and “development” or economic growth. That is a fight that the civil society organisations were used to.
Deeper study needed
•However, the current purge seems to be indiscriminate. The depth and the variety of the work of a civil society organisation cannot be captured in the annual returns filed on the FCRA portal, where there is no scope for explaining something beyond the binary. There needs to be a study on how many civil society organisations lost their permissions on “expiry” only because the pre-populated dropdowns given by the FCRA portal were unable to capture the work of the organisations.
•The duality of welcoming foreign investments (which takes away capital gains and dividends) while actively discouraging foreign aid to charities is staring us in the face. The definition of what is foreign in the case of electoral bonds and donations to political parties is dodgy at best. This duality is the signature of the current dispensation. Its appetite to collect data is matched only by its reluctance to share data. If the hope, therefore, for civil society organisations is corporate social responsibility funding and funding from Indian philanthropists, watch this space. As cartoonist P. Mahamud indicated in a cartoon, we are moving towards a ‘One Nation One NGO’ regime.
