📰 The technology powering hybrid electric vehicles
What are the pros and cons of hybrid electric vehicles? How is it different from normal EVs?
•A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) uses an ICE (a petrol/diesel engine) and one or more electric motors to run. It is powered by the electric motor alone, which uses energy stored in batteries, by the ICE, or both
•The efficiency of HEVs will be determined by their ability to recover as much energy as possible while braking, with a higher degree of energy recovery lowering fuel consumption. A regenerative braking system (RBS) while enhancing fuel economy also helps in energy optimisation resulting in minimum energy wastage.
•The HEVs can be categorised into micro, mild and full hybrid vehicles, based on the degree of hybridisation. The hybrid variants of the Maruti Suzuki’s Grand Vitara and the Toyota’s Urban Cruiser Hyryder can be classified as full and mild hybrids.
•The story so far: In recent months, automakers Maruti Suzuki, Toyota and Honda have launched hybrid electric vehicles in India, offering car buyers more choices in the nascent electric vehicle market. These new hybrid electric vehicles from different automakers, are relying on hybrid technology and its advantages over conventional internal combustion engine (ICE)-powered vehicles to change car buyers’ minds.
What is a hybrid electric vehicle?
•A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) uses an ICE (a petrol/diesel engine) and one or more electric motors to run. It is powered by the electric motor alone, which uses energy stored in batteries, by the ICE, or both. The powertrain of the HEV is more complex than a regular ICE-powered car as it has EV components and a conventional ICE. That means a typical HEV will have a low-voltage auxiliary battery, a traction battery pack to store electricity for the electric motor, an electric generator, an AC/DC converter, a power electronics controller, a thermal system to maintain working temperature, an ICE, a fuel tank, a fuel filler, a transmission and an exhaust system.
How do HEV powertrains work?
•HEV powertrains are designed to power cars in a series, parallel or series-parallel (power split) methods. A series HEV uses only the electric motor to drive the wheels, while the ICE powers the generator, which in turn recharges the battery. A parallel HEV, based on the driving condition, uses the best power source to power the vehicle. It will alternate between the electric motor and the ICE to keep the car moving.
•A series-parallel HEV offers a combination of both models and allows to split power, wherein power is routed from the ICE alone or from the battery to the electric motor to drive the vehicle. Moreover, in all three designs, the battery is charged through regenerative braking technology.
How does regenerative braking work?
•A regenerative braking system (RBS) used in automotive applications has several advantages like better braking efficiency in stop-and-go traffic which enhances fuel economy and also helps in reducing carbon emissions. Besides, RBS also helps in energy optimisation resulting in minimum energy wastage.
•Based on the type of RBS, the energy recovery happens in multiple ways. A kinetic system can recover the energy lost during braking and then use this energy to recharge the high-voltage battery of the vehicle. An electric system generates electricity through a motor during sudden braking. Lastly, a hydraulic system uses pressurised tanks to store the vehicle’s kinetic energy and can offer a high energy recovery rate which is ideal for heavy vehicles.
•The efficiency of HEVs and EVs will in large part be determined by their ability to recover as much energy as possible while braking, with a higher degree of energy recovery lowering fuel consumption. The amount of recoverable energy depends upon factors like vehicle speed and stopping pattern. The adoption of regenerative braking technology in the auto industry is increasing on account of the operating efficiency of vehicles through reduced fuel consumption and the extended range of batteries.
•Maruti Suzuki, Toyota and Honda have introduced HEVs with multiple powertrain choices, including self-charging strong-hybrid electric vehicles (SHEVs) that use RBS for self-charging the HEVs. As per a study by iCAT, a government testing agency, SHEVs can run 40% of the distance and 60% of the time as an EV with the petrol engine shut off.
•While regenerative braking systems are already available in most EVs, the technology is also used in electric railways. Rail transit can be described as frequent acceleration and braking of trains across many stations. This increases the potential for braking energy recovery using energy storage systems, which can recuperate and reuse braking energy from metro cars, further enhancing energy efficiency. A portion of a train’s energy consumption can be saved by using traction systems that allow regenerative braking.
What are the different types of HEVs?
•The HEVs can be categorised into micro, mild and full hybrid vehicles, based on the degree of hybridisation. The hybrid variants of the Maruti Suzuki’s Grand Vitara and the Toyota’s Urban Cruiser Hyryder can be classified as full and mild hybrids.
•A full HEV will have a larger battery and a more powerful electric motor compared with a mild HEV. As a result, a full HEV can power the vehicle for longer distances using just electric mode, whereas a mild HEV cannot drive using only the electric motor and uses the battery at traffic lights or in stop-and-go traffic to support the ICE. Micro hybrids do not offer electric torque assistance as they lack an electric motor, but they have an idle stop-start system and energy management functions. Full HEVs offer better fuel economy compared with the other two types of HEVs but they also cost more than them.
•Then there are plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) that are just like full HEVs, but they can be charged using a wall outlet, as they have an onboard charger and a charging port. PHEVs generally use the electric motor until the battery is almost drained, and then automatically switch to the ICE. PHEVs accounted for about 23% of 1.95 million global EV shipments in the first quarter of 2022, as per market research firm Counterpoint.
What are the main advantages of using hybrid technology?
•Fuel efficiency is a major factor for most people considering buying a car. Most vehicles with hybrid technology offer better fuel efficiency, more power, and minimum emissions. The design of hybrid vehicles for reduced engine size and car weight as compared to ICE vehicles, translates into increased mileage to favour the demand for these vehicles. Moreover, with the increase in total power and torque, HEVs can deliver instant torque and provide high torque even at low speeds.
What are some challenges of hybrid technology?
•In a price-sensitive market like India, one of the major challenges for HEVs is the high vehicle cost. Battery, a vital component of an HEV, increases the cost of the vehicle, making it pricier than vehicles powered only by an ICE. The RBS also adds to the higher cost of an HEV.
Are HEVs helping the auto industry transition from ICE vehicles to EVs?
•The automotive industry is transitioning, with an increasing focus on hybrid and battery electric vehicles (BEVs or EVs). Meanwhile, the rise in fossil fuel prices, increase in the adoption of clean mobility solutions, and stringent government norms for emission control drive the growth of the global EV market.
•“SHEVs will play a critical role not only in reducing fossil fuel consumption, carbon emissions and pollution but also in creating a local EV parts manufacturing eco-system while simultaneously protecting the huge existing investments and jobs related to ICE parts manufacturing thus ensuring a faster and disruption-free technology transition,” Vikram Gulati, EVP at Toyota Kirloskar Motor, told The Hindu.
•He further added, “SHEV adoption will also accelerate BEV adoption as these technologies have common electric powertrain parts that will help in creating aggregation of demand at parts level for local manufacturing, thereby helping in reducing cost for SHEVs and BEVs to create a viable ecosystem for electrified vehicles.”
It enables the reintroduction of an ‘unconstitutional’ law and also holds that the linked bail conditions are not arbitrary
•India’s criminal justice system, we are led to believe, is built on a set of received axioms that are inherent to the basic precepts of justice and fairness. These include the idea that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty; the idea that a person detained on suspicion of having committed an offence would be entitled to bail pending trial; the idea that a criminal law ought not to be retroactive; the idea that a person accused of an offence must be informed of the charges made against him; and the idea that a suspect has a privilege against incriminating herself.
•Today, each of these principles is so consumed by a welter of exceptions that their bases have lost all vigour. Regrettably, this erosion in our values has time and again received the Supreme Court of India’s imprimatur. The latest example is the judgment of a three-judge bench in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary vs Union of India, delivered on July 27. In it, the Court has upheld vast parts of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, despite the law’s inversion of seemingly time-honoured maxims of criminal jurisprudence.
Defined in vague terms
•Briefly put, “money laundering” refers to the process through which the proceeds from criminal activity are masked with a view to concealing their illegitimate source. From the mid-1980s onwards, countries around the world began to see a need to introduce special legislation to curb and punish this process. The PMLA came out of these initiatives. It defines the crime itself in vague terms. Section 3 of the Act says, “Whosoever directly or indirectly attempts to indulge or knowingly assists or knowingly is a party or is actually involved in any process or activity connected with the proceeds of crime including its concealment, possession, acquisition or use and projecting or claiming it as untainted property shall be guilty of offence of money-laundering.”
•The definition makes for difficult reading. But as we can see it is pegged on the use of what is termed as “proceeds of crime”. This phrase is separately defined to mean property that is obtained out of the commission of a crime “relating to a scheduled offence”. The schedule, in the law’s present iteration, contains an array of breaches under 30 different statutes. These range from specific offences under the Indian Penal Code, 1860, such as murder, extortion and kidnapping, and offences under laws such as the Arms Act, 1959 and the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956, to more minor infractions under the Copyright Act, 1957, and the Trade Marks Act, 1999. The judgment in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary confirms what ought to have been obvious on a bare reading of the law: although the offence under the PMLA is separately prosecutable, unless the proceeds of crime relate to a “scheduled offence” — or what is also described as a predicate offence — no case can be made out under the statute. In other words, if a person is ultimately acquitted or discharged in a case concerning the predicate offence, the charge under the PMLA can no longer be maintained.
The dangers
•This finding, routine by itself, is perhaps the only silver lining in the judgment. As scholars of criminal law will surely attest to in the days to come, in almost every other regard the ruling either falls back on familiar misgivings in India’s criminal procedure law, or, worse still, creates a pathway for further violations of the Constitution. The lawyer, Abhinav Sekhri, has already published a fine analysis on different aspects of the judgment, particularly on the unfounded conclusion that the PMLA is not a penal statute, but a sui generis one, which means that the law can, according to the Court, overlook several constitutional safeguards, including the right against self-incrimination.
A section and bail conditions
•Although many of the conclusions in the judgment are tenuous, none is more striking, and more damaging, than its ruling upholding Section 45. This provision imposes twin conditions for bail. Apart from mandating that the prosecutor is allowed a hearing before bail is granted, the clause also requires the court to be satisfied that there are “reasonable grounds” for believing that the accused is not guilty of the offence and that he or she is not likely to commit any offence while on bail.
•In its previous version, prior to an amendment made in 2018, the law classified the predicate offences contained in the schedule into two categories. It separated those which carried with it an imprisonment for a term no less than three years from other offences. The twin requirement was mandated only for those cases where the predicate offence was viewed as more serious. A two-judge Bench in Nikesh Tarachand Shah vs Union of India declared this version unconstitutional. The Court found the classification between offences unreasonable and the conditions themselves too disproportionate.
•Now, Parliament could have introduced a new provision for bail, by removing the defects pointed out by the Court. But instead it chose to delete the classification that it had made, and imposed through Section 45 the twin conditions for all offences under the PMLA. The petitioners in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary argued that the legislature could not have validly amended a law that had already been declared unconstitutional. The Court, however, held that the judgment in Nikesh Tarachand Shah did not obliterate the provision and that Parliament was entitled to revive the law by deleting its defects. In this vein it found that the only flaw highlighted in Nikesh Tarachand Shah was the classification distinguishing different manners of offences in Section 45, which had now been removed.
•This might have been an acceptable conclusion if Nikesh Tarachand Shah had indeed struck down Section 45 only on this ground. But a reading of the judgment shows (and strangely these portions find mention in the latter parts of the ruling in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary) that the Court also found the twin conditions by themselves manifestly arbitrary. Nikesh Tarachand Shah distinguished crimes of terror from crimes under the PMLA and pointed out that in virtually requiring something akin to a finding of innocence at the stage of bail, Section 45 far outweighed the ordinary demands of a penal law. This, therefore, should have meant that a provision for bail could not have been reintroduced into the PMLA without explicitly removing the twin conditions.
•Yet, Vijay Madanlal Choudhary not only grants sanction to Parliament’s effort at reintroducing a law previously declared unconstitutional but also holds that the requirements for bail are by no means arbitrary or unreasonable. This, the judgment does, not through any independent analysis of the PMLA’s objectives, but through a mere equation, in the Court’s belief, of the offence of money laundering with the offence of terrorism. The Court arrives at this finding unmindful of the fact that the predicate offences contained in the Schedule include crimes ranging from the discharging of pollutants under the Environment Protection Act to penalties for applying for a false trade mark under the Trade Marks Act.
Test of proportionality
•We are fast approaching the five-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s judgment in K.S. Puttaswamy vs Union of India. In it, a nine-judge Bench declared the existence of a right to privacy. But the verdict turned momentous because it went beyond this otherwise unremarkable declaration. The Court held that fundamental rights operate not in silos, but by giving and taking meaning from each other and that any invasion of a constitutionally guaranteed freedom must satisfy a test of proportionality. This meant that every time the state impinged on a right, it had to show, among other things, that there existed not only a rational nexus between the law made by it and the objective at stake but also that it had satisfied itself that there were no less invasive means available to achieve the same aim.
•Applied in its true spirit, Puttaswamy ought to have transformed India’s constitutional landscape. In theory, the Court had provided a road map for a jurisprudence grounded in ideas of justice, fairness, and due process. But the grand principles championed there in the abstract have failed to translate into genuine constitutional advancement. Instead, personal liberty has increasingly come to be seen as a pettifogging irrelevance.
📰 Representation, all the way up
President Murmu’s journey from Rairangpur to Raisina Hill was possible due to constitutional reforms
•The swearing-in of Droupadi Murmu as the 15th President of India is a truly momentous event. She is the first person belonging to the Scheduled Tribes (ST) community and the second woman to occupy the highest constitutional post of the country. She is also the youngest person to be elected as the President and the first to be born in independent India. She defeated Yashwant Sinha in the presidential polls, winning almost two-third of the votes of the electoral college.
•The ascent of an Adivasi woman from a humble background to the highest constitutional post is an unprecedented triumph, at least symbolically if not substantially. Ms. Murmu was born in a village in Mayurbhanj district in Odisha and belongs to the Santhal tribe, one of the largest ST communities in India. She was a Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) of Odisha, representing Rairangpur for two terms between 2000 and 2009, and went on to serve as the Governor of Jharkhand between 2015 and 2021.
•This remarkable journey from Rairangpur to Raisina Hill may not have been possible without the constitutional reforms that institutionalised representative local governments. Ms. Murmu began her political career as a councillor in the Rairangpur Nagar Panchayat, where she was elected from a ward reserved for women from ST communities.
Intersectional reservation
•The “silent revolution” of democratic decentralisation initiated 30 years ago has played a key role in diversifying representation in politics. In December 1992, the Parliament passed the 73rd and 74th Amendments that mandated the creation of democratically elected Panchayats and Municipalities, respectively. The amendments sought to devolve rural and urban local governments with functions, funds, and functionaries to enable them to function as “institutions of self-government” and meet the stated ends of economic development and social justice.
•At one level, these amendments signalled a realisation of a long-held vision of Mahatma Gandhi and his followers to make the village the core unit of governance. This demand was initially dismissed by the prominent members in the Constituent Assembly including Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, who famously remarked, “What is the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow mindedness and communalism. I am glad that the Draft Constitution has discarded the village and adopted the individual as its unit.”
•Hence, India’s centralised federal Constitution adopted in 1950 had no real space for local governments until the passing of the 73rd and 74th Amendments. However, it would be a mistake to view these constitutional reforms merely as a fulfilment of Gandhi’s romantic ideas of “gram swaraj” since they moved away from traditional panchayats and institutionalised local governments in the mould of the modern state apparatus.
•Most significantly, these amendments mandated the reservation of seats in the elected councils of Panchayats and Municipalities to members belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and STs based on their percentage population in the jurisdiction and a minimum of one-third seats for women.
•The amendments also mandate the reservation of seats for the chairpersons of Panchayats and Municipalities for SCs, STs, and women and enables States to reserve seats for members of backward classes.
•What is most distinctive about the reservation provisions under these amendments is that it furthers representation of those at the intersection of more than one marginalised identity. Seats in Panchayats and Municipalities are hence reserved not only for SCs, STs and women, but also for categories like SC Women, ST Women and OBC Women. Such a quota system acknowledges the aggravated discrimination and disadvantages people face due to the intersection of multiple ascriptive identities such as gender and caste. The amendments, hence, provide a platform for thousands of Dalit and Adivasi women who have hitherto been underrepresented in political and social life to contest local elections, hold public office, and rise in the field of politics.
Substantive representation
•Almost 30 years after the passing of these constitutional reforms, local governments have still not become powerful “units of self-government” due to issues in both the design and the implementation of the amendments. However, they have succeeded in broadening the representative character of the Indian state by increasing the total number of elected representatives and diversifying its constituents. In fact, States have gone beyond the mandate of the Amendments and increased the reservation for women and introduced reservation for OBCs. As many as 20 States have increased women’s reservation from 33% to 50%. As of September 2020, out of a total of 31,87,320 elected representatives in Panchayats across India, 14,53,973 are women.
•This radical expansion of the social base of Indian politics has been relatively ignored in academic and policy debates. The judiciary has also been quite sceptical of legislative measures for diversifying representation in local governments. The Supreme Court in multiple cases stayed State governments’ efforts to implement OBC reservation in local government elections, demanding that it be justified by “empirical finding” of backwardness. However, it has upheld amendments that prescribed educational qualifications for contesting local body elections on the ground that it is for the “better administration of the panchayats”.
•In popular discourse, reservation mandates in local governments are often dismissed as measures that do not substantially benefit the marginalised groups. However, it is important to note that representation of marginalised groups is, at one level, a normative goal that possess inherent value. Further, though it is true that women are sometimes proxies for their husbands in reserved constituencies, empirical studies have shown that women-led panchayats invest more in public goods, prioritise infrastructure more relevant for women, and increase women’s involvement in village affairs.
•Critics have also dismissed the appointment of President Murmu as a mere tokenistic measure that will not improve the plight of Adivasis. Such cynicism is unfair, especially because in her tenure as the Governor of Jharkhand, she used her gubernatorial discretion to return amendments to the Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act introduced by the Raghubar Das-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government that sought to allow the State to make commercial use of Adivasi land.
•While it remains to be seen how President Murmu will use her office, her appointment underscores the far-reaching possibilities that measures for diversifying representation at the grassroots can have on the top.
📰 India’s ‘wheat waiver’ WTO demand is risk-fraught
Such a stand will dilute its core agenda of pushing for a permanent solution to public stockholding for food security
•One of the cardinal demands of India in the World Trade Organization (WTO) — and rightly so — has been to find a permanent solution to the issue of public stockholding (PSH) of food to protect India’s food security (PSH policy). India’s PSH policy is based on procuring food from farmers at an administered price (minimum support price or MSP), which is generally higher than the market price. The PSH policy serves the twin objectives of offering remunerative prices to farmers and providing subsidised food to the underprivileged.
•However, under WTO law, such price support-based procurement from farmers is counted as a trade-distorting subsidy, and if given beyond the permissible limit, breaches WTO law. Currently, India has temporary relief due to a ‘peace clause’ which bars countries from bringing legal challenges against price support-based procurement for food security purposes. However, a permanent solution to this issue is still not in the offing.
•The WTO ministerial meeting in June at Geneva did precious little to address this issue. Paragraph 10 of the declaration on food security adopted at the Geneva ministerial states: “We recognize that adequate food stocks can contribute to the realization of Members’ domestic food security objectives and encourage Members with available surplus stocks to release them on international markets consistently with WTO rules”.
•As I have argued, prima facie this might show that India’s concerns about the PSH issue have been taken on board. However, for India, the real issue is not about maintaining adequate food stocks, which WTO rules do not prohibit, provided food is stocked by employing non-trade distorting instruments such as providing income support to farmers (cash transfers independent of crop production). India’s concern is that it should have the policy space to hold public food stocks using the MSP, which is a price support instrument. However, there is no mention of price support in the Geneva declaration.
New dimension
•Conspicuously, in the run-up to the WTO ministerial meeting and, subsequently, India’s demand for a permanent solution to the PSH policy has acquired a new dimension. India insists that it should also be allowed to export food, most notably wheat, from the pool of the foodgrain procured under the MSP. This demand was recently re-articulated by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman at the G20 meeting in Indonesia. The Russia-Ukraine war has unleashed a food crisis in many countries. India perhaps wishes to capitalise on this opportunity.
•However, WTO law proscribes countries from exporting foodgrain procured at subsidised prices. There is a sound economic rationale behind it. Allowing a country to export foodgrain procured at subsidised prices would give that country an unfair advantage in global agricultural trade. The country concerned will sell foodgrain in the international market at a very low price, which, in turn, might depress the global prices and have an adverse impact on the agricultural trade of other countries. Accordingly, paragraph 4 of the 2013 WTO decision on PSH for food security purposes, clearly states that countries procuring food for food-security purposes shall ensure that such procured food does not “distort trade or adversely affect the food security of other Members”.
•The same spirit is reflected in paragraph 10 of the Geneva ministerial food security declaration, which states that countries may release surplus food stocks in the international market in accordance with WTO law.
•Debatably, the WTO may agree to a temporary waiver to allow the export of wheat from public stockholdings given the ongoing food crisis in some countries. In fact, before the WTO ministerial meeting, India reportedly requested such a waiver. However, it is very unlikely that such a request will be acceded to.
•The history of waivers at the WTO is fraught with huge let-downs. The recently adopted waiver on intellectual property (IP) for COVID-19 medical products is a case in point. The IP waiver is restricted to only COVID-19 vaccines and does not cover diagnostics and therapeutics. The shallowness of the IP waiver is further reinforced by the fact that it is limited to only patents and does not cover other IP rights.
•Moreover, as per Article IX.3 of the WTO Agreement, waivers can be adopted only in “exceptional circumstances”. The WTO filibustered for two years acknowledging a once-in-a-century pandemic such as COVID-19 as an “exceptional circumstance” for the IP waiver. Thus, the possibility of it recognising an ongoing war between two nations as an “exceptional circumstance” to adopt a waiver for permitting wheat exports from public stocks is profoundly remote.
What the focus should be
•Developed countries have historically opposed India’s PSH programme as they apprehend that India might divert some of its public stock to the international market, thus depressing global prices. While this argument should be taken with a pinch of salt, India actively pushing for exporting food from its official granaries gives fresh ammunition to the naysayers to stick to their guns in opposing a permanent solution to the PSH issue. Thus, India should revisit its stand on asking for a waiver for wheat exports from its public stockholding, which, in any case, was not a part of India’s PSH policy. Besides, as reported, the Government’s wheat procurement has been 57.5% less than the original target for this season. So, if the public procurement has been so low, what is the point in asking for a waiver to export wheat from the public stock?
•Spending scarce negotiating capital on this issue might dilute India’s core agenda of pushing for a permanent solution for its PSH programme to attain the goal of food security and providing remunerative prices to the farmers. The laudable objective of helping countries facing food crises can be accomplished by strengthening India’s commitment to the United Nations World Food Programme. Or, if the domestic situation ameliorates, India can lift the ban imposed on private traders to export wheat. Negotiations at the WTO require crystal clarity of the core objectives that should be relentlessly pursued. Adding newer objectives and shifting goalposts might result in falling between two stools.
📰 Bringing Eurasia closer
The International North South Transport Corridor, which aims to bring Eurasia closer together, is a laudable initiative
•Last week, RailFreight.Com reported that two 40-ft containers of wood laminate sheets crossed the Caspian Sea from Russia’s Astrakhan port, entered Iran’s Anzali port, continued their southward journey towards the Arabian Sea, entered the waters at Bandar Abbas and eventually reach Nhava Shiva port in Mumbai. The journey signalled the launch of the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a 7,200-km multi-modal transport corridor that combines road, rail and maritime routes connecting Russia and India via central Asia and Iran. The corridor is expected to consolidate the emerging Eurasian Free Trade Area.
What INSTC will do
•The INSTC’s launch provides missing pieces of the puzzle about India’s refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. India’s decision had then been explained in terms of its military reliance on Russia, its aim to keep open alternative supplies of precious oil and gas, and a legacy of its non-alignment. What was neglected is India’s brewing investment in transcontinental infrastructure, signalled by its involvement in the INSTC alongside Russia and Iran, both of which are subject to sanctions by Western governments.
•The legal framework for the INSTC is provided by a trilateral agreement signed by India, Iran and Russia at the Euro-Asian Conference on Transport in 2000. Since then Kazakhstan, Belarus, Oman, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Syria have signed instruments of accession to become members of the INSTC. Once fully operational, the INSTC is expected to reduce freight costs by 30% and journey time by 40% in comparison with the conventional deep sea route via the Suez Canal. Indeed, the need for an alternative route was deeply felt last year, when the Ever Given container ship was stuck in the Suez, halting maritime traffic between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.
•India’s investment in the INSTC is exemplified by its involvement in Iran’s Chabahar port and the construction of a 500-km Chabahar-Zahedan railway line. Once completed, this infrastructure will allow India access to Afghanistan and central Asia, a prospect strengthened by the Taliban government’s support for the project. The India Ports Global Limited, a joint venture between the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust and Kandla Port Trust, will develop the port along with Iran’s Aria Banader. IRCON International will contribute to constructing the railway line. A special economic zone around Chabahar will offer Indian companies the opportunity to set up a range of industries; for example, NALCO proposes to set up an aluminium smelter. Lines of credit will be extended to Iran by Exim Bank. The INSTC, thus, provides an opportunity for the internationalisation of India’s infrastructural state, with state-run businesses taking the lead and paving the way for private companies.
Non-alignment to multi-alignment
•For India, the INSTC achieves several things all at once. Firstly, India can now bypass Pakistan to access Afghanistan, central Asia and beyond. Second, the INSTC can shape a north-south transport corridor that can complement the east-west axis of the China-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
•The launch of the INSTC was overshadowed by the Quad Summit held in May 2022 at which the leaders of the Quad re-emphasised the principles of a free and open Indo-Pacific. The Quad Summit declaration went beyond outlining commitments to freedom, rule of law and territorial integrity to reinforce a central purpose of the collective — providing the region with public goods. New initiatives designed to deepen cooperation across the region were announced, which encompassed maritime security, climate change and regional infrastructure.
•India’s founding role in both the INSTC and the Quad exemplify its departure from non-alignment to multi-alignment. The INSTC offers a platform for India to closely collaborate with Russia, Iran and Central Asian republics. That two of its partners are subject to Western sanctions hasn’t prevented India from collaborating with the U.S., Japan and Australia as part of the Quad to create and safeguard a free and open Indo-Pacific. Indian policymaking in international affairs has often been criticised for its moral indecisiveness, diplomatic reticence and ideological confusion. These critics have failed to observe the subtle shifts in Indian foreign policy from non-alignment to multi-alignment.
•The INSTC has received far less media attention than initiatives such as the Quad, the BRI and the New Development Bank. However, as a transcontinental multi-modal corridor that aims to bring Eurasia closer together, the INSTC is a laudable initiative in its own right. That it helps India consolidate its multi-alignment strategy sweetens the deal.
