📰 Sri Lankans increasingly recognise India as a true, reliable friend, says GL Peiris
Economic assistance, development partnership and fisheries conflict figure in bilateral talks in New Delhi
•The people of Sri Lanka “increasingly recognise” that India is a true friend that Sri Lanka can rely on at all times, Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris has said, thanking India for the $ 2.4 billion assistance at a “critical juncture” for the island nation in the midst of an economic crisis.
•Mr. Peiris on Tuesday concluded his two-day visit to New Delhi, where he met External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, and Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla. His visit coincides with India releasing urgent financial assistance to Sri Lanka since the beginning of this year, including a $400 million currency swap, a $500 million loan deferment, a Line of Credit for $500 million for fuel imports and another $ 1 billion currently under negotiation.
•Particular attention was drawn to the energy security of Sri Lanka, a statement issued by Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, referring to the recently signed Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm agreement, that Mr. Peiris said, signalled “a closer integration between the two countries, resulting in substantial benefits; a win-win situation for both”.
•In a separate statement, the Ministry of External Affairs, said Mr. Jaishankar called for “expeditiously taking forward mutually beneficial projects”, including proposals to enhance air and sea connectivity between India and Sri Lanka, economic and investment initiatives, besides discussing steps to enhance Sri Lanka’s energy security, keeping the neighbours’ “shared maritime domain safe from various contemporary threats”, and cooperation in combating COVID-19 pandemic. “EAM conveyed that India would always stand with Sri Lanka during its times of need,” the statement said.
•The Foreign Ministers discussed the Palk Bay fisheries conflict and reiterated the longstanding consensus to handle fishermen issue through “humanitarian approach and refrain from the use of violence”. They agreed that bilateral mechanisms should meet early, starting with the Joint Working Group on Fisheries, the MEA statement said. The statement from the Sri Lankan side said Mr. Peiris, in his meetings, termed it a “flashpoint” and “a recurring issue” assuming a “different complexion”, alluding to recent clashes between fishermen of both countries.
•Further, the Ministers agreed on the “early finalisation” of several agreements and MoUs in the areas of defence, culture and education, that are pending between the two countries, to maintain “the momentum” of the relationship, Sri Lanka’s MFA’s said.
Tamil’s concerns ignored
•While most points covered in the bilateral discussions during Mr. Peiris’s visit found mention in the official statements issued by both sides, one aspect – the pending concerns of Sri Lankan Tamils – made it only to the statement issued by New Delhi.
•The MEA said: “Recalling the positive impact of India’s developmental and rehabilitation support, EAM [Jaishankar] emphasised that Sri Lanka’s interests are best served by ensuring equality, justice, peace and respect for the Tamil people within a united Sri Lanka. Devolution of power is an important aspect of this process”. The statement from Sri Lanka’s MFA made no mention of the Tamils, their rights, or the long-pending political solution.
•Meanwhile, India and Sri Lanka have agreed to mark 75 year of independence and establishment of diplomatic relations “in a suitable way” this year.
📰 Rights of the weak, duties of the powerful
A complaint of undue emphasis on rights creates the suspicion that citizens are being disempowered
•Rights and duties are conceptually linked to one another. There are no rights without duties. If a person has the right to something, it necessarily implies that someone else has a corresponding duty to ensure that it is not violated. For example, if an individual has a right to free speech, then it is the duty of the state to prevent its infringement. Or take the right to religious freedom of, say, American Hindus. Other groups, regardless of numbers or social power, have a duty not to infringe it. If they ever fall short of space for worship, the government should help fix that problem, facilitate its possession or use by Hindus. Isn’t it a shame then that in Gurugram only the Sikhs felt duty-bound to help ordinary Muslims offer namaz?
•If I have rights which impose duties on others, then others also have rights that enforce duties on me. Individuals have as many duties as rights. Any individual who demands a right and expects others to allow or facilitate its exercise must also expect that she is equally duty-bound to reciprocate. This is so simply because, like her, all others have rights too. We are all rights- as well as duties-bearing individuals.
•I hope it is abundantly clear that rights entail duties, that rights cannot be exercised without the simultaneous performance of duties. Because of their grounding in rights, these (rights-based) duties cannot be pitted against rights. No opposition between them exists. To say here that we must focus on duties rather than on rights makes no sense. What then could be meant by the proposition that we must move away from a rights-based to a duty-based perspective?
Duties against rights
•It should be obvious that the framework of rights and duties discussed above is grounded in egalitarian assumptions. However, the moment we drop this assumption, this whole picture of rights and duties is transformed. To be sure, the conceptual relation between rights and duties remains unbroken. Rights continue to entail duties, but in deeply hierarchical, inegalitarian societies, only a few people have rights, while the many have duties to ensure the proper exercise of the rights of these few.
•In patriarchal families, the father alone has the right to take decisions. This puts all other members under a duty to abide by his decision. Remember Amrish Puri in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge? He decides, without consultation, that Simran, played by Kajol, is to be married to the son of his friend in a Punjabi village. And Simran has no choice but to obey, to leave her home in London and settle in India. The mother, sympathetic to Simran, is also duty-bound not to object to the father’s decision.
•Much the same is true of caste-ridden societies. It is a misconception that the ancient Hindu Varna Vyavastha has only duties and no rights. The duties of Shudras and Ati-shudras to serve people of higher rank flow from rights possessed exclusively by upper castes. A hierarchical caste system distributes rights and duties unequally. Only a few have the most important rights — the right to be served, for instance; the larger population has corresponding duties to ensure that these rights are exercised without hindrance. Any infringement on the rights of the upper caste, especially the Brahmin, brings heavy penalties to the violator, sometimes even death. Similarly, in many Islamic societies, rights and duties are gender-specific, and unequal. It is the right of men to have their testimony in the court weigh twice as much as that of women who are duty-bound to comply.
•In absolute monarchies, the King has unrestricted rights and all others have corresponding duties which increase as we go down the ladder of political hierarchy. Those at the bottom have the maximum number of duties towards the maximum number of people, all ranked higher than them. Talk of priority of duties over rights is rampant in inegalitarian societies. When people are asked to forget about rights and think more about duties, the subtext is that they should forget about caring for their own rights and concentrate on their duties to the few. In hierarchical, inegalitarian societies, where power is unevenly distributed, duties are often seen in opposition to rights.
•Careful attention to the structure of rights and duties in inegalitarian societies reveals its deep connection to social and political power. Those in power have rights; those without it have duties. A transformation from a hierarchical to an egalitarian order does not produce a power-free order. Instead, at least in principle, such change generates a democratic distribution of power. It is this equality of power that ensures a system of equal rights and duties. Indeed, in egalitarian polities, more power means more duties. The powerless have rights, the powerful have duties. For example, it is the duty of the state to ensure that there is no poverty, disease or unemployment. In this context, any move to shift focus from rights to duties, to complain of undue emphasis on rights breeds the suspicion that democracy is being undermined and hierarchy reintroduced through the backdoor.
Duties beyond rights
•However, one cannot altogether deny the importance of a moral discourse that asks people to attend to duties. For, quite simply, duties that do not oppose rights exist and they do not flow from rights but go beyond them. Let us take an example. A surgeon performs an operation. He does his job efficiently and believes that once done, he is under no obligation to be present in the hospital or talk to the family of the patient. Now, consider another surgeon who after performing the operation feels compelled to interact with the patient, placate the anxieties of his family. Abandoning an impersonal stance, he brings warmth to his interaction. His act flows from duties that are integral to his character, to the goodness of his heart, to his personal virtues, to his commitment to warm social relationships, and does not flow from any right of the patient. To be sure, the patient and the family have the right to the surgeon’s full attention when he is performing the operation. A failure to do so would mean an obvious violation of the patient’s right. But no right of the patient or his family is violated if the surgeon does not go that extra mile to personally reassure the patient and his family.
•A society with people who take such virtue-based, solidarity-infused duties seriously is much better than one where such duties are not valued. If that is the case, it is good to ask people to go beyond rights and to think also of their duties to others, and more generally to society. We all have a duty to build a tolerant society, or to remain vigilant against potential wrongs of our elected rulers. These duties are not antagonistic to rights; they are moral, non-justiciable. Many such duties are mentioned in our Constitution: to preserve composite culture, not destroy natural environment, develop scientific temper, safeguard public property, protect India’s sovereignty and integrity. None of them are legally enforceable but they impose an obligation on all citizens, especially on those who occupy public office, to go beyond the call of rights-based duties.
📰 ‘NEET is discriminatory, against social justice’
The NEET Exemption Bill not only defends the right to education and social rights but also upholds Tamil Nadu’s rights
•Hon’ble Speaker of the House. Elections were held in the Province of Madras when the electoral system was first established in India to elect people’s representatives by the people. The Justice Party, pioneer of the Dravidian movement, formed the government in the first general election in 1920, when the country was under British rule.
•All those who travelled to India from England to observe the working of the Madras Provincial Assembly remarked that the Madras Province is the only province in India governed by the rule of law and administrative protocols.
•This is a significant day in the history of this House, which established such democratic values. We have assembled here to defend democracy, to preserve democracy’s dignity, to uphold the principle of federalism, and to secure the right to education.
To defend federal philosophy
•We are not only getting together to talk about the NEET Exam [the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test]. We have gathered to preserve the Tamil Nadu Legislature’s sovereignty and rights. Federalism is a fundamental idea that truly safeguards the ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity of the Indian subcontinent! We have come together to ensure that the great federal philosophy remains intact.
•I stand in this Assembly that has laid the foundation for success in upholding social justice, legal justice, oppressed people’s rights, the greatness of Tamil ethnic community and its language. And I speak with the confidence that this Assembly can and will definitely eliminate the social injustice of NEET. Today, we are here in this Special Assembly to propose a policy of social justice in education for the entire country, having been trained in the footsteps of our leader Anna. To quench students’ passion for medical education, we have all come together to work in solidarity and promote social justice.
•NEET is not a system established by the Constitution. It was not made a part of the Constitution. The Medical Council of India mandated the creation of NEET. When such an examination was proposed in 2010, Muthamizharinar Kalaignar, the then-Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, vehemently opposed it.
Much opposed
•It was also opposed by a number of Indian States. This examination has been challenged in 115 cases across India. Tamil Nadu is the State that is leading the charge in this direction. All of these cases were heard by the Supreme Court.
•NEET was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court itself on July 18, 2013. The Chief Justice of India delivered the judgment. The exam was subsequently abolished across the Indian subcontinent.
•However, after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the election and formed the government, a private training institute reopened the issue. The Supreme Court heard the case of NEET. “Judgment is recalled” and “Hear this case afresh,” the Supreme Court said on May 24, 2016 after hearing the case. On this basis, the BJP-led Union government issued an ordinance on April 11, 2016, which quickly implemented NEET across the country.
•Private training institutes benefit from NEET. The NEET Exemption Bill is being introduced for the benefit of those who cannot afford to pay so much for training. NEET is an impediment to the entitlement of poor and needy children to education. In their dream of becoming doctors, a barrier wall has been placed in the name of NEET. “You can’t be a doctor,” says NEET. “You don’t deserve it,” it says, halting one’s progress. That is why the NEET Exemption Bill has been introduced. I do not think I need to go into great detail about the abnormalities in that exam at this assembly.
•So, to summarise, NEET is not a holy cow. It attempts to marginalise students from low-income families in the guise of merit. As a result, we oppose the examination and demand an exemption.
•The question I would want to address in this forum is whether NEET, which has sent some students to the graveyard and others to jail, is really required. This is a question that has been raised by the entire student community as well as parents.
A detailed review
•On June 19, 2021, a committee led by retired High Court judge A.K. Rajan was formed to investigate the issues and submit a report on the effects of NEET on poor and backward students. The public was consulted. On July 14, 2021, the Committee submitted a 193-page report to the Government based on those comments. They claimed that Government school students were unable to follow their dreams of pursuing a medical education.
•I have formed a committee under the leadership of the Chief Secretary to provide detailed recommendations on this report. After careful consideration, the Bill exempting Tamil Nadu from NEET was enacted by this Assembly. We did a lot of study and were able to pass this Bill, supported with factual information.
•The NEET Exemption Bill was passed with the support of all members of this House, with the exception of four BJP members. The Bill reflected not only the sentiments of Tamil Nadu as a whole, but also the Assembly’s notion of its sovereignty.
•It had to be approved by the Hon’ble Governor, and he should have sent it to the Hon’ble President for his approval. Instead, he kept it pending for 142 days before reaching a decision — despite our numerous requests — and then returned it to us. In this Assembly, I must state unequivocally that the reasons he cited for rejecting the Bill were incorrect.
•On June 10, 2021, the Justice A.K. Rajan Committee was set up under G.O. No.283, Department of Health and Family Welfare. The committee was made up of academics and government officials. The study’s terms of reference were also made public by this high-level group.
•The public was asked to provide feedback to the committee. Hundreds of thousands of people had expressed their opinions to the Commission by email, mail, and petition boxes put in various locations.
•According to the recommendation, NEET has limited the diversity of community representation in MBBS and higher medical courses by impeding the desire of those underprivileged of receiving medical education and favouring the socio-economically rich sections. The statistics for this can be found in the report as well. According to the survey, government schoolchildren, those whose parents’ annual income is less than ₹2.5 lakh, the backward (BC), the most backward (MBC), Scheduled Castes (SC), and Scheduled Tribes (ST) are the most affected.
•The Governor criticised the study for claiming that NEET is “against merit”. It is worth noting that the report of the Justice A.K. Rajan committee includes proven facts rejecting this. Among those chosen so far, rural poor students have been affected. According to the research, those who studied in the Tamil medium in government schools are also harmed. At this point, I strongly advise that no one mistakenly counts those who benefit from the Government of Tamil Nadu’s 7.5% reservation as having profited from NEET.
The power to legislate
•A five-judge Supreme Court Bench heard the matter of Modern Dental College vs Madhya Pradesh government. The Supreme Court verdict was clear: The State government has the power to legislate on student admissions to higher education institutions.
•In a separate judgment delivered by Justice Banumathi in the same case, she also ruled that the law regulating student admission was within the jurisdiction of the State government. We passed the Bill against NEET solely using the legislative power of the State legislature.
•The Governor has urged that NEET be made mandatory by the Constitution. According to the Constitution, any legal provision can be made, but only for the rights of the socially and economically disadvantaged. We are bringing this NEET Exemption Bill back on that basis. The Constitution is anti-discriminatory. However, NEET is inherently discriminatory. Social justice is emphasised in constitutional law. NEET, on the other hand, is opposed to social justice. The term “justice of the law” is used in constitutional law. But NEET favours the rich. The Indian Constitution is built on the principle of equality. NEET, on the other hand, is the polar opposite of equality. NEET is opposed to all of the Constitution’s fundamental rights. That is why we are requesting NEET exemption.
•My pain stems from having to debate for so long about a dreadful exam that disproportionately impacts poor and rural students.
•The return of this Bill has also put into doubt the right of our State of Tamil Nadu. This legislature’s sovereignty has been brought into question. The autonomy of States has been questioned. That is what concerns me. What will happen to the constitutionally mandated relationship between the Union and State governments? What are the rights and responsibilities of people of various races, languages, and cultures?
•We passed a Bill on September 13, 2021 to exempt students from NEET based on the power we have. The Governor is required by law to reserve it to the President for approval. I expect the Governor to carry out his responsibilities correctly. That is the Governor’s responsibility, which is limited by the legislative power of the legislature, which is elected by the people.
•I hope that the Governor will respect the sentiments of the people of Tamil Nadu and act in the best interests of the students of Tamil Nadu by sending the NEET Exemption Bill to the President without delay, which will be reconsidered and passed under the power conferred on the people elected by the Legislature by the Constitution. I urge everyone to support this Bill in order to defend the right to education, which has been denied for a long time, as well as the State rights of Tamil Nadu and the social rights of Scheduled Castes, tribals, backward/most backward/the oppressed/the poor/the marginalised/and rural peoples.
📰 Tax incentives for philanthropy
A systematic study of the impact of tax incentives on charitable donations is the need of the hour
•Do people donate money to charity to get a tax rebate? The answer for most donors is ‘no’. They donate because they believe in the causes they support, or the quality of work that some NGOs are doing, or because they are committed citizens. Why then are tax incentives needed for the charity sector? Why should the government forgo revenue it can generate from taxing charitable donations? Do tax incentives have any impact on charitable donations? We don’t know the answer to the last question, as a study on tax incentives across 12 countries, including India, by the Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy (CSIP) at Ashoka University, in research partnership with the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability, highlights. This is because the impact of tax incentives on charitable donations has not been systematically studied in the Indian context. The only publicly accessible study uses data from the 1970s-80s, when tax incentives for philanthropy were more appealing than they are now because the overall tax rates were much higher.
A poorly studied area
•Raising taxes is a core attribute of statehood. But remarkably, tax incentives for charity also have a long history. They go all the way back to the 19th century in some of the countries studied, and are also provided in countries such as Brazil which have a restrictive tax incentives regime for civil society. Despite this, the role of tax incentives in supporting civil society is poorly studied in most countries, The best studies are from the U.S. and the U.K. These are primarily econometric studies which measure the increase (or decrease) in charitable donations due to changes in the tax incentives provisions. These studies depend on the availability of tax and donor data to researchers. But in these countries too, the non-monetary impact of tax incentives is not deeply examined. For example, does the legal relationship that tax incentives create between the state and the civil society as a sector impact its financial health and stability?
•It does appear that in India, financial flows coming through tax incentives are not the mainstay of civil society (CSIP, 2021). However, given the overall nature of the sector, they may still be very critical. Many NGOs in India are small and operate with budgets pf less than ₹15 lakh a year (CSIP, 2019). The distribution of NGOs is also skewed: they are concentrated in States like Uttar Pradesh (MOSPI, 2012). Most NGOs work in the areas of health and education. For small NGOs in remote areas or those working on areas that are less recognised, the tax incentives status may still be important for establishing legal recognition with the community, government entities and donors.
•When examined from the perspective of the government, civil society organisations have historically played an irreplaceable role in social development. Many government programmes have emerged due to a harmonious relationship with NGOs that have implemented an innovative idea. Governments have provided the scale and state support while the NGOs have provided the ideational energy and community experience. The activity-based learning approach developed by Rishi Valley in Tamil Nadu during the early 2000s is an example.
The signalling effect
•The most important role of tax incentives as the regulatory and legal link between the state and the civil society is that of the ‘signalling effect’. It denotes that the state supports philanthropic activity and through its revenue forgone, actively encourages private actors to engage with public problems.
•A systematic study of the impact of tax incentives is the need of the hour, particularly one on the various provisions in supporting philanthropic activity which highlight the many ways in which India’s tax incentives regime can be made more responsive. For example, countries like France have a credit-based system, which is more equitable than the deduction-based system followed by India which privileges high-income donors. Studies in the U.S. and the U.K. suggest that high-income donors are more sensitive to tax incentives, and a carefully crafted regime can be used to target this category of donors. We also need to take a re-look at reinstating other categories of taxes such as wealth and inheritance tax so that charity-focused tax incentives can benefit the non-profit sector.
•Our new tax regime dilutes the state-civil society relationship by giving donors the option to opt out of incentives for lower tax rates. Saving the revenue forgone from tax incentives may not increase the government coffers significantly, but this will impact the perception of the NGO sector for an average donor. And if this gets done, here’s hoping that it is supported by research and rationale.
📰 Step up agri-spending, boost farm incomes
•India’s poor AOI is a stark reminder of the need to attain a key sustainable development goal of higher agri-growth While the overall budgetary allocation towards the agricultural sector has marginally increased by 4.4% in the Union Budget 2022-23, the rate of increase is lower than the current inflation rate of 5.5%-6%. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) report for 2001 to 2019 shows that, globally, India is among the top 10 countries in terms of government spending in agriculture, constituting a share of around 7.3% of its total government expenditure. However, India lags behind several low-income countries such as Malawi (18%), Mali (12.4%), Bhutan (12%), Nepal (8%), as well as upper middle-income countries such as Guyana (10.3%) and China (9.6%).
India is ranked low
•The picture changes and rather looks disappointing when we look at the Agriculture Orientation Index (AOI) — an index which was developed as part of the Goal 2 (Zero Hunger) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 emphasises an increase in investment in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, development of technology to enhance agricultural productivity and eradication of poverty in middle- and lower-income countries. The AOI is calculated by dividing the agriculture share of government expenditure by the agriculture value added share of GDP. In other words, it measures the ratio between government spending towards the agricultural sector and the sector’s contribution to GDP. India’s index is one of the lowest, reflecting that the spending towards the agricultural sector is not commensurate with the sector’s contribution towards GDP.
A comparison with Asia
•Although the AOI has shown an improvement since the mid-2000s, as part of the general revival that took place in several middle-income countries, India’s AOI (https://bit.ly/3rBSorH) is one of the lowest in Asia and among several other middle-income and upper-income countries. Asia as a whole performs much better, with a relatively higher performance by Eastern Asian countries. China has been doing remarkably well with an index steadily improving and crossing one.
•Similarly, in countries such as the Republic of Korea, the value of AOI has been greater than one and greater than two since 2005-06 respectively. Even lower income African countries such as Zambia, have commendable spending in the agricultural sector despite being a landlocked country. India holds only the 38th rank in the world, despite being an agrarian economy wherein a huge population is dependent on the agricultural sector for its livelihood, and despite being among the largest producers of several crops produced and consumed in the world.
•The enormous spending on the agricultural sector by East Asian countries is also reflected in their higher crop yield. For example, the total cereal yield in India is only around 3,282 kilograms per hectare compared to 4,225 kg per hectare in Asia. Within the Asian region, Eastern Asia has the highest cereal yield of 6,237 kg per hectare. In China, even with an average land holding size of 0.6 hectares, which is much lower than India’s average land holding size, the performance of the sector in terms of crop yield is much higher than India. For example, the cereal yield is 6,296 kg per hectare, pulses yield is 1,815 kg per hectare and vegetable crops yield is 25,546 kg per hectare in China; the corresponding figures for India are 3,282 kg, 704 kg, and 15,451 kg, respectively. Both India and China are among the world’s largest producers of wheat, rice, cotton and maize.
•A closer look at the budgetary allocation towards the agricultural sector shows that there has been a drastic slashing of funds toward important schemes such as crop insurance and minimum support price (MSP). Even with an overall increase in budgetary outlays, the allocation towards Market Intervention Scheme and Price Support Scheme (MIS-PSS) was only ₹1,500 crore. This is 62% less than the previous allocation of ₹3,959.61 crore in revised estimates (RE) of FY 2021-22.
Other significant reductions
•Similarly, the Pradhan Mantri Annadata Aay SanraksHan Abhiyan (PM-AASHA) experienced a significant reduction to only one crore as against the allocation of ₹400 crore in 2021-22. It was allocated just ₹1 crore for the year as against an expenditure of ₹400 crore in 2021-22. Both schemes are pertinent to ensure MSP-based procurement operations in the country, especially for pulses and oil seeds. Furthermore, the distribution of pulses to States for welfare schemes has also been reduced to ₹9 crore as compared to the ₹50 crore of FY 2021-22 (revised estimates) and the allocated amount of ₹300 crore in the year 2021-22. Additionally, there is an overall reduction in ₹718.8 crore in total central schemes/projects, which may have serious implications for the performance of the sector.
•While one can still argue that the capital investment in the agricultural sector is more crucial than price support programmes, there has not been any considerable and commensurate increase in the allocation towards capital investment, especially for promotion of rural infrastructure and marketing facilities. Allocation for rural development was 5.59% in the previous Budget and it has been reduced to 5.23%. The allocation of funds towards schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM KISAN), Pradhan Mantri Kisan Maandhan Yojana, though desirable, will not result in long run asset generation.
Measures to implement
•The intensification in government spending towards the agricultural sector is the key to attain the sustainable development goals of higher agricultural growth and farm income. The focus on development of irrigation facilities, urban infrastructure and development of national highways must be complemented with an emphasis on the development of rural infrastructure and rural transportation facilities, along with an increase in the number of markets, as suggested by the National Commission on Farmers. These measures will play a crucial role in enhancing farmers’ access to markets and integrating small and marginal farmers into the agricultural supply chain to a greater extent.
