📰 The partial rollback of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act
What is the history of AFSPA in the Northeast? Why has the Home Ministry decided to reduce the number of ‘disturbed areas’ under the Act?
•The story so far: On March 31, the Ministry of Home Affairs announced the reduction of “disturbed areas” under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in Assam, Manipur and Nagaland with effect from April 1. The decision was based on the recommendations of a committee the Ministry had constituted on December 26, 2021, to study the possibility of withdrawing the AFSPA from areas in Nagaland in the wake of public anger against a botched ambush by an elite unit of the Army that led to the killing of 13 civilians at Oting in Mon district on December 4.
How did the AFSPA come about?
•The British colonial government had on August 15, 1942, promulgated the Armed Forces Special Powers Ordinance to suppress the Quit India movement. It was the foundation for four ordinances, including one for the “Assam disturbed areas” invoked in 1947 to deal with Partition-induced internal security challenges. The Armed Forces (Assam and Manipur) Special Powers Act, 1958, followed the Assam Disturbed Areas Act of 1955 to deal with the uprising in the Naga Hills and adjoining areas. The Act was replaced by the AFSPA for wider application. A similar Act specific to Jammu and Kashmir was enacted in 1990.
How is the AFSPA imposed?
•Section 3 of the AFSPA empowers the Governor of a State and the administrator of a Union Territory (UT) to declare an area “disturbed” and issue an official notification in The Gazette of India to give the Centre the authority to deploy the “armed forces in aid of the civil power”. A government considers an area “disturbed” if it perceives a threat to “public peace and tranquility, by reason of differences or disputes between members of different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities.” The Act is said to give unbridled power to the armed forces and the Central Armed Police Forces deployed in “disturbed areas” to kill anyone acting in contravention of the law, arrest and search any premises without a warrant and protection from prosecution and legal suits without the Central government’s sanction. It says any commissioned officer, warrant officer, non-commissioned officer or any other person of equivalent rank in the armed forces can for the maintenance of public order “fire upon or otherwise use force” after giving such due warning as he may consider necessary. The situation is reviewed periodically for extension of the AFSPA. While the Assam and Manipur governments issue a notification in this regard, the Ministry of Home Affairs does it for Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, where it is applicable in Tirap, Changlang, Longding and areas falling under Namsai and Mahadevpur police stations bordering Assam. Once declared “disturbed”, a region has to maintain the status quo for a minimum of three months according to The Disturbed Areas (Special Courts) Act, 1976.
How is the AFSPA viewed?
•The AFSPA has often been under the scanner for giving the armed forces personnel the “license to kill”. Rights groups have panned it as a tool of State abuse, oppression and discrimination while the United Nations has often pointed out it has no place in Indian democracy. Various State governments have over the years yielded to public demand and changed political scenarios to revoke the AFSPA. Punjab was the first to do so in 1997 followed by Tripura in 2015. In April 2018, Meghalaya withdrew the Act from a 20-km area along the 885-km boundary with Assam. Manipur had in 2004 withdrawn AFSPA from seven Assembly constituencies straddling the State capital Imphal following unrest over the custodial death of a woman deemed an extremist.
What triggered the recent decision?
•Since assuming power in 2014, the Narendra Modi government has been claiming to have tamed extremism in the Northeast, unlike the past governments, with a series of peace deals, including the Framework Agreement with the Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland. This, many pointed out, made the AFSPA redundant. But the trigger for the decision was the revival of the anti-AFSPA demand across the Northeast following the killing of 13 people in Nagaland’s Oting village on December 4, 2021, in a botched ambush by the armed forces.
•In Assam, the AFSPA has been removed completely from 23 districts and partially from the Cachar district.
•The Act has been revoked from 15 police station areas in six districts of Manipur but continues in 82 police stations in 16 districts.
•In Nagaland, the AFSPA has been removed from areas under 15 police stations in seven districts but remains active in areas under 57 police stations in 13 districts.
•The AFSPA continues in Mon, the district that put the focus back on the “draconian law”. This has not gone down well with the Naga Hoho, the apex body of various Naga tribes.
What are the key sectors being opened up for business? How will disputes be resolved?
•The story so far: On April 2, India and Australia signed an Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA). The landmark bilateral trade pact is the second trade agreement India has signed this year after inking a similar deal with the United Arab Emirates in February. The ECTA is expected to increase trade between the two sides to $45-50 billion over five years, from the current estimate of $27 billion, and create over 10 lakh additional job opportunities. Under this agreement, India will give 85% of Australia’s exports zero-duty access to its domestic market. India is expected to get zero-duty access to Australia for its goods over five years. The negotiations had begun over a decade ago in 2011, but were restarted in September 2021.
What are the main features?
•The ECTA is guided by a Preamble and is divided into multiple sections that will govern what is hoped to be the most expansive bilateral trade since the two countries established diplomatic ties before India attained independence.
•It has a section on goods exports, and lays out clearly “Rules of Origin” that are aimed at creating anti-dumping measures. There are also sections that are aimed at providing remedies and mechanisms for resolving trade disputes. The Commerce Ministry underlined that this is the first trade deal signed by India that has a compulsory review mechanism after 15 years of implementation.
Will Australia get access to India’s agriculture market?
•Under this agreement, Australia will get the opportunity to export certain varieties of agricultural produce like potatoes, lentils, and meat products with some caveats. However, bovine meat is not part of the agreement. Australia may also send machineries that are required for food processing under this agreement. In a historic first, India may open up to a wide-range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks including Australian beer. Australian wines costing over $5 may face lower import duties in the Indian market. A Joint Dialogue for Wine may be created with participation from industry players and government representatives to ensure cooperation and benefits for both countries.
•The Indian side said Australia will provide ‘preferential access’ to “all the labour-intensive sectors” of export items from India such as gems and jewellery, textiles, leather, footwear, furniture, food, engineering products, medical devices and automobiles. India will also allow Australia to export raw materials under preferential terms like coal and mineral ores.
What does it say about the services sector?
•The Government of India has said that Australia has “offered wide ranging commitments” in around 135 sub-sectors and Most Favoured Nation in 120 sub-sectors which cover key areas of the Indian services sector like IT, ITES, business services, health, education and audio-visual services. Indian chefs and yoga teachers will get specific entry quotas into Australia, while Indian students in Australia will be able to secure work visas for periods ranging from 18 months to four years on a ‘reciprocal’ basis. As per the rules framed under the pact, students completing a diploma Down Under will be considered for an 18-month work visa; and those completing their undergraduation may get two years and those with a Ph.D. may be considered for a four-year visa.
What about the pharmaceuticals sector?
•India and Australia have agreed to enable fast track approval for patented, generic and biosimilar medicines. Therapeutic Goods Regulators of both sides will have a role to play in monitoring and ensuring smooth trade in pharma products between the two sides. Both sides have agreed to audits of imports that require sanitary and phytosanitary inspection as per the law of the land. The importing side will ensure that plants and plant products, animal products and other goods, and their packaging are inspected through recognised methodologies. If either party finds examples of non-compliance, remedial measures will be taken by both sides.
What is the dispute settlement mechanism in place?
•Under Article 13.5, both parties have agreed to hold consultations — and make “every effort” to find a solution — in case of disputes that may emerge in the course of trade in goods or services. They have also recognised that in case they have to resort to international arbitration, they may opt for an organisation (i.e, World Trade Organization) where both are members. They may also use “good offices” and form panels with qualified members drawn from government and business to resolve the disputes.
The dispute resolution may range from 45 days to 15 months.
What are the rules of origin included in the agreement?
•The rules of origin are based on the principle that they should be “wholly obtained or produced in the territory of one or both of the parties”. This section ensures that waste material will not be exported by either side unless they contribute to the production of any of the items listed in the ECTA.
📰 Better early than late
Children on the autism spectrum who have been part of early intervention programmes have shown remarkable progress
•Sameeran had not begun to speak by the age of two. He was restless and had to be called multiple times before he responded to his name. He would gaze at the moving fan for long periods and get upset if it was switched off. Sameeran’s mother was worried, but her husband brushed aside her concerns. Sameeran’s mother, however, decided to get him assessed. Sameeran’s diagnosis turned out to be autism. Speech and occupational therapy were initiated immediately, along with supportive education. Today, Sameeran is seven and has few traces of the autistic features. He has integrated into a mainstream school and while challenges still arise, he has been making steady progress. The early intervention provided Sameeran the skills necessary to cope with his challenges.
What is early intervention?
•The set of services towards identification, assessment and a multi-pronged therapeutic approach to disabling conditions in the 0-3 age group is referred to as early intervention. While physical disabilities are evident from birth, intellectual disabilities take time to manifest. Autism Spectrum Disorder leads the list. Autism is a condition related to brain development that impacts how a person perceives others and socialises with them, causing problems in social interaction and communication. It also includes limited and repetitive patterns of behavior. The term ‘spectrum’ in Autism Spectrum Disorder refers to the range of symptoms and severity.
•Early intervention programmes take advantage of neural plasticity or the ability of the brain to mould itself to stimuli. The greatest changes as a result of intervention are observed in the ages 0-3. This is not to say that programmes beyond this age are not effective, but they take more effort and time.
•There are many signs that parents can look out for. The child may exhibit some or many of them: The child does not smile at the parent or return their smile. She avoids eye contact. She neither uses gestures nor imitates actions. She does not look at the parent when her name is called even though she can hear her name being called. She shows no interest in playing with other children. She lines up her toys instead of playing with them. She does not share any of her interests with the parent, nor follows when the parent points out something. She seems attached to objects rather than people. She loves gazing at moving objects, lost in thought for long periods. She hates anything sticky, but may love to play with water and pour it over herself. She resists eating certain foods, does not like to touch rice with her fingers and takes a long time to finish her meal. She gets upset if her routine is changed and wants things in the same place/order every time. She repeats words or phrases she hears on TV or in videos instead of ‘real communication’. She does not communicate her needs or respond when asked a question; she repeats the question instead of answering. She finds it hard to fall asleep or has a disturbed pattern of sleep.
•The three big challenges to early intervention are parental ignorance; an unwillingness to accept facts; and social stigma attached to seeking specialised services. The following are the comments we often encounter. One: “Speech delays run in our family; she will catch up.” The fact is that this is a myth and the parent will only be losing time. Two: “She has no siblings and our apartment has no children she can play with.” The fact is that even if she had siblings, she would need some help. Three: “She loves gadgets; she eats better when she has the phone.” The fact is that gadgets affect sleep and exacerbate the uneven skill acquisition seen in children on the spectrum. Four: “Put her in playschool, she will be fine.” The child may not have the skills to initiate social interactions. Five: “What will people think?” What your child needs is more important than what others think.
An integrated approach
•Paediatricians are the first point of contact. A vigilant practitioner can pick up the red flags as early as 18 months. The child should be assessed by a team comprising an occupational therapist, special educator, speech therapist and physiotherapist. A plan of action should be put in place. Communication within the team is of critical importance in helping the child. The child should receive a combination of therapy and special education for one to two hours every day. Parents need to be educated on home plans and in dealing with the condition and behaviour of the child. Sometimes, the extended family also needs to be counselled on how to provide the right environment to nurture the child. Children who have been part of early intervention programmes have shown remarkable progress, and the process of their integration with the mainstream has been faster. A programme that prevents disabling conditions is better than one that tries to mitigate the effects once disability has set in.
📰 Push the policy needle forward on migrant support
Amidst the scattered experimentation now, the Centre must offer strategic policy guidance for inter-State coordination
•Only two years ago, in the wake of a nationwide lockdown, India was left shocked by the plight of migrant workers walking hundreds of kilometres, facing hunger, exhaustion and violence, to get to the safety of their home villages. The dire circumstances of the migrants tugged at our collective heartstrings. They became the focus of large-scale relief efforts by governments and civil society alike. The Government ramped up the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) project, announced the Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHC) scheme, set up the e-Shram portal and began to draft a migration policy. These initiatives generated hope that the migrant crisis of 2020 would be a turning point, setting India firmly on a policy path by offering adequate citizenship and the accompanying social, economic and political rights to internal migrants.
Still a tale of distress
•Two years on, migrant distress has disappeared from our television screens but continues to be a lived reality. Repeated surveys have found that the incomes of migrant households continue to be lower than pre-pandemic levels, even after returning to cities. Migrants are finding less work and their children eating less. The post-1991 poverty alleviation of almost 300 million Indians, driven by migration out of farm work, is being undone. Despite this, a cohesive migration policy guidance remains elusive. Instead, disconnected policy initiatives and technocratic fixes chase specific agendas while nativism re-asserts itself through domicile quotas and reservations. The agenda of migrant inclusion has been pushed to the periphery of our collective consciousness.
•This is not something India can afford to precipitate. Today, a third of the nation’s workforce is mobile. Migrants fuel critical sectors such as manufacturing, construction, hospitality, logistics and commercial agriculture. Despite clear economic and humanitarian reasoning to bring migrants back into the policy discourse, the current policy scenario is at best fragmented and at worst waning. To course correct, we must recognise the entrenched structural constraints slowing the migration policy momentum and take strategic steps to push the policy needle forward.
A politicised phenomenon
•First, we must recognise that migration is a highly politicised phenomenon in India. States are highly influenced by the political economy of migration. ‘Destination States’ experience a tension between economic needs, which require migrant labour, and political needs, which promote nativist policies that impose domicile restrictions on employment and social security. On the flip side, the ‘sending States’ are highly motivated to serve their “own people” because they vote in their source villages. This fragmented policy response to internal migration follows from State-specific calculations on what political dividends might be reaped (or lost) by investing fiscal and administrative resources towards migrants. Moreover, development policy in India has bet big on rural development as an antidote to migration. This widespread ‘sedentary bias’ continues to influence policy even though migration is an important pathway for impoverished marginalised rural households to find economic security (and social emancipation).
•Second, migrants are a perennially fuzzy category in policy discourse, located inside two larger categories that have long troubled policymakers: the unorganised worker and the urban poor. Even the e-Shram portal, which has made impressive progress in registering unorganised workers, has been unable to accurately distinguish and target migrants. Policy interventions in major urban destinations continue to conflate the urban poor with low-income migrants. Hence, slum development continues as the primary medium for alleviating migrant concerns, while in reality, most migrants live on worksites that are entirely out of the policy gaze. There seems to be an implicit assumption in the policy circles: if we cannot solve the problems of informality, how can we help migrants? Further, it is assumed that migrants will be automatically catered to with the formalisation of the economy, the labour market, the housing market, finance and so on. This pushes the timeline for addressing the migrant issue far out. It is no longer an urgent priority.
Gaps in the data
•Third, migration policy discourse is seemingly paralysed by the now well-acknowledged failure of official datasets to capture the actual scale and the frequency of internal migration in India. Data systems designed to periodically record only one spatial location have posed great challenges to welfare delivery for up to 500 million people who are part of multi-locational migrant households. The novel coronavirus pandemic has placed a sharp focus on problems such as educating and vaccinating those children who accompany their migrant parents, or ensuring that migrant women avail maternity benefits at multiple locations.
•Policy in India often emerges from the ground up, taking decades to cement into national law and standard practice. We have seen this in education and food security. In migration too, despite the structural constraints outlined above, it is heartening to see many initiatives on the ground that have immense potential to influence strategic shifts in migration policy. For example, many States have initiated data projects that can track migrants and generate dynamic real-time data that aid welfare delivery. Maharashtra’s Migration Tracking System (MTS), which focuses on women and children has been successfully piloted in five districts. Chhattisgarh’s State Migrant Workers Policy is premised on registering migrant workers at source and tracking them through phone-based outreach systems.
•In States, a heightened awareness about migrants’ issues is locating initiatives in departments other than labour, which has traditionally been the nodal department for migrant welfare. For example, Maharashtra’s MTS is located within the Women and Child Development Department. However, there is further need for multisectoral approaches underpinned by a strategic convergence across government departments and initiatives. Odisha’s Planning and Convergence Department, which offers an institutional mechanism for inter-departmental coordination, is one possible model.
The Centre has a lead role
•In this scenario of well-meaning but scattered experimentation, migrants would be well served if the Centre played a proactive role by offering strategic policy guidance and a platform for inter-State coordination. State-level political economy constraints make the Centre’s role particularly crucial in addressing issues of inter-State migrant workers at ‘destination States’. The NITI Aayog’s Draft Policy on Migrant Workers is a positive step forward in articulating policy priorities and indicating suitable institutional frameworks, and deserves a speedy release.
•At a time when economic recovery and inclusive growth are urgent policy goals, migration policy can hardly afford to gestate. Strategic initiatives to provide migrants safety nets regardless of location as well as bolster their ability to migrate safely and affordably must keep up the momentum towards migrant-supportive policy.
📰 The road to Ukraine peace runs through Delhi
Mediation is certainly feasible and India is well positioned to act as a ‘Vishwa-Guru’ between Russia and the West
•Nearly 40 days ago, Russia launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine in violation of international law and its security assurances under the Budapest Memorandum, 1994. And, there are no winners in sight. Despite peace talks held on March 29, in Istanbul (Turkey), direct negotiations between the conflicting parties have failed to make much progress: a ceasefire is yet to be achieved, and the Russian attacks on the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine continue. As a result, there have been 3,455 civilian casualties recorded in Ukraine (1,417 killed and 2,038 injured) while more than four million people have fled seeking protection, safety and assistance.
•Similarly, in addition to casualties on the Russian side, financial and economic sanctions imposed by the European Union and the G7 have impacted the Russian economy. Despite artificial measures to prop up the rouble, the economy is tanking, annual inflation has jumped to 15.6%, the Russian Central Bank’s forex reserves remain frozen and it cannot access financing and loans from multilateral institutions. At the global level, this war is disrupting supply chains and is causing the fuel and food prices to surge. This begs the question — if this unnecessary war has resulted in a no-win situation, why have negotiations failed to end it?
Positions versus interests
•Past negotiations, by video conferencing or as peace talks (held in Belarus and Turkey) have failed to make much progress because the parties have been negotiating over ‘positions’ rather than ‘interests’. A ‘position’ is a surface statement of what a party wants; for example, Russia’s demand that Ukraine recognises the separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states. Whereas, ‘interests’ are the underlying reasons behind those positions; for instance, why is Russia focused on the independence of these separatist areas? Therefore, mediation as a conflict resolution tool can assist the parties in identifying these hidden ‘interests’ and facilitate them in working towards crafting a solution that each of the parties would value — a Europe of common security and prosperity where the sovereignty of all nations (Ukraine, Russia and the West) are guaranteed.
•Mediation (or assisted negotiation) is a flexible conflict resolution tool facilitated by a neutral third party. Depending on the choice of parties, it can be facilitative or evaluative and can be conducted in joint sessions or caucuses (i.e., private meetings). Additionally, its focus on collaborative bargaining producing a win-win outcome (in contrast to adversarial proceedings such as arbitration or litigation that result in a win-loss outcome) equips it to handle conflicts of all kinds: from workplace disputes to broken contracts to international conflicts. International mediation follows this process of “assisting two or more contending parties to find a solution without resorting to force”. Due to its immense potential, the Charter of the United Nations under Article 33 recognises the promise of international mediation for peaceful resolution of international disputes.
Brokering peace
•Throughout history, individuals, countries and organisations (such as the International Committee of the Red Cross) have acted as third parties and have brokered peace between conflicting nations. Described by theorists as a form of power brokerage or a political problem solving process, international mediation has been used to resolve conflicts for hundreds of years. The best known example is of U.S. President Jimmy Carter who mediated peace between Israel and Egypt (known as the Camp David Accords of 1978) that has resulted in 44 years of peace.
•Scholarship on neuroscience proves that emotions have a significant influence on cognitive processes (Kragel and LaBar 2016). If emotions are running high between conflicting parties it is very likely that either or both parties get re-active (i.e., to act without thinking). Ambrose Bierce wrote: “speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret’. This is where a neutral third party can act as a ‘go-between’ (termed: shuttle diplomacy) to gather more information and help the parties identify their hidden interests. This helps in ensuring that conflicting parties keep their eyes on the prize. More importantly, the mediator shuttling between parties helps in limiting or reducing re-active devaluation — a cognitive barrier where the disputants wrongfully construe the conflict as a zero sum game. As a result, even the value of a genuine offer coming directly from an adversary is automatically reduced in the eyes of the receiver. Therefore, subject to context and the consent of parties, the mediator can either play a passive role to facilitate communication or a more active role and exert more influence on the content of the discussion and the final solution.
Focusing on the priority
•Certainly, international mediation has a lot to offer. But is it the right choice in the Russia-Ukraine conflict?
•Despite bilateral peace talks, Russian air strikes continue on Ukrainian cities resulting in civilian casualties. The voice against dictatorships will want to hold the Russian President Vladimir Putin guilty of violating the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their additional protocols. It may appear that opting for mediation legitimises past violations of international law and civilian killings. Or does it even amount to trading justice for peace? The answer is a bit more complicated. Mediation is a tool that avoids ‘being re-active’. More importantly, it helps focus on the number one priority, i.e., the safety of the Ukrainian people through a complete ceasefire. Furthermore, a mediator’s skill of strategic empathy (also a tool of statecraft) will further help understand Mr. Putin’s underlying drivers and constraints.
•Furthermore, scholars like Zartman (1981) have argued that power parity between disputing parties is pivotal to the success of international mediation. Indeed, there exists a huge power imbalance between Russia and Ukraine — Russia commands the world’s second most powerful military, whereas Ukraine, a nation of roughly 44 million people, was relying on the pinky promises (or security assurances) made by Russia in the Budapest Memorandum. However, U.S. President Joe Biden’s strategy of making American intelligence (about Russia’s intention to invade Ukraine under false pretexts) publicly accessible, equipped Ukraine with the ‘power of solidarity’ which balanced or even tipped the scale in its favour. As a result, Russia is cornered, Ukraine has the solidarity of the world, Germany shed its pacifism and took a harsher stand against Russia by halting the Nord Stream 2 project, and Finland and Sweden are being pushed closer to NATO membership. Thus, opting for mediation is the only way left for Russia to save face and escape the sanctions that have crippled its economy.
•For the West, going ahead with mediation presents itself as an opportunity to build a Europe of common security, common prosperity and peace. Simply put, this could be a starting point to include Russia in the security infrastructure of Europe (like it did with East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989) — an opportunity that was missed after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991.
India fits the bill
•Mediation is certainly feasible between Russia and Ukraine because there exists a willingness to talk. But for this to commence, the approval of the parties concerned will be crucial. Much depends on the identity of the mediator. With the recent diplomatic visits to India, by the U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser for International Economics, the British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs and Minister for Women and Equalities, and the Russian Foreign Minister, show that the world expects India to play a more active role in the Ukrainian crisis.
•This is India’s golden chance to establish itself as a global power. More importantly, playing mediator in this dispute is in India’s long-term interest in countering the China threat — especially with a growing “no limits” partnership between Russia and China. Moreover, with the rise of China and its belligerence, its relationship with the West has soured. As a result, the U.S. and its allies need India as a strategic partner to balance the rise of China in the Indo-Pacific; it is for this reason, that India is now a member of the Quad.
•For now, India is right in not taking sides. Its relationship with the then-Soviet Union was forged to balance against China (as the U.S. was cosying up to China). But with the Ukraine invasion and western sanctions, Russia is now more dependent on China. Hence, if India wants the best of both worlds, it must step up and live up to its claim of becoming a ‘Vishwa-Guru’ (or world leader).
