Editorials - 10-08-2022

The enactment of the Personal Data Protection Bill into law would have helped create a framework for redress

In a surprise development last week, the Government withdrew the Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill, 2019, thereby abruptly halting the country’s quest for a national data protection law that had been in the works for over five years. The reasons for the Government’s decision are brief and cryptic. The short circular issued by the Minister of Electronics and Information Technology simply states that considering the report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) — it had proposed 81 amendments and made 12 recommendations — “a comprehensive legal framework is being worked on”. “In these circumstances”, the Government proposed to withdraw the Bill and present a new Bill “that fits into the comprehensive legal framework”.

Multiple iterations, to no avail

Interestingly, there is no elaboration on what such a “comprehensive legal framework” entails. The Government could enact a fresh privacy legislation or a comprehensive data protection law (covering both personal and non-personal data). Alternatively, it could subsume data protection under its ongoing attempts at revising the existing Information Technology Act, 2000. It could also enact a digital markets law, along the lines of the European Union’s Digital Services Act, focusing on competition and innovation in the digital space. Unfortunately, the Ministry’s circular leaves us with no clarity on the way forward.

The Ministry’s attribution of the withdrawal to the JPC Report is also at odds with the proposed amendments of the JPC, which did not recommend withdrawing the PDP Bill in favour of a comprehensive legal framework.

The lack of clarity is compounded by the fact that the circular does not establish any timelines on when the new Bill will be introduced in Parliament, or when it will be passed. This is particularly important, given the drafting history of the PDP Bill. When the Supreme Court of India affirmed the right to privacy in its historic K.S. Puttaswamy judgment in 2017, the nine-judge Bench of the Court referred to the Government’s Office Memorandum constituting the B.N. Srikrishna Committee to suggest a draft Data Protection Bill. The committee released its draft Personal Data Protection Bill in 2018, which was the first public articulation of a data protection law in India.

Subsequently, when the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Aadhaar Act, the majority emphasised that it believed that “there is a need for a proper legislative mechanism for data protection”. It “impressed” upon the Central government to bring out a “robust data protection regime” through the enactment of a law based on the recommendations of the Srikrishna Committee Report, with modifications as deemed necessary.

In December 2019, the Government introduced the PDP Bill, 2019 in the Lok Sabha as a comprehensive personal data protection regime. Considering the importance of the Bill and the controversies associated with various provisions, the Bill was referred to the JPC for its recommendations. In 2021, the JPC suggested multiple amendments to its re-worded Data Protection Bill, 2021, which privileged state exceptionalism over individual privacy, while continuing to strictly regulate corporate action.

Now, after five years of hard work and three iterations of data protection legislation, the Government has wasted its efforts to protect our privacy.

The faultlines

The PDP Bill, 2019, as well as the JPC’s recommendations in the suggested Data Protection Bill, 2021, suffered from serious lacunae, leading Justice Srikrishna to criticise the Bill for its potential to turn India into an “Orwellian state”. First, the Bill’s expansive exemptions allowed the state to exempt the entire application of the law simply as if it was “expedient” to do so in the interest of national security or public order. These exemptions did not need to be tabled before Parliament and there was no provision for review or oversight of the Government’s decision. In fact, Member of Parliament Jairam Ramesh pointed out in his dissent note, “government agencies are treated as a separate privileged class whose operations and activities are always in the public interest and individual privacy considerations are secondary”.

Second, the PDP Bill, 2019 as well as the JPC’s version established a strong regulator (the Data Protection Authority) with a lot of power, but very little independence or accountability.

Third, the Bill imposed a strong data localisation mandate, requiring companies to store all sensitive personal data and critical personal data (which was not defined) in India. Despite concerns around surveillance and increased cost of compliance expressed by civil society and the private sector, the Government did not endorse cross-border data transfer.

Finally, the JPC recommended subsuming the regulation of personal data and non-personal data within a single legislation, even though it undermined the Puttaswamy mandate to ensure protection of personal data.

Increasing digitisation, issues

However, despite these real concerns, it was, and continues to be, imperative to enact data protection legislation urgently. India currently has over 750 million Internet users, with the number only expected to increase in the future. The Government is also making a strong push for a ‘Digital India’, with increased focus on digitisation of access to health, ration, banking, insurance, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a greater focus on the inter-linking of data, whether through facial recognition, Aadhaar, or the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022.

At the same time, India has among the highest data breaches in the world. It has been reported that around 18 of every 100 Indians have been affected by data breaches since 2004, with 962.7 million data points being leaked, primarily personal data points such as names and phone numbers. Without a data protection law in place, the data of millions of Indians continues to be at risk of being exploited, sold, and misused without their consent.

Unlike state action, corporate action or misconduct is not subject to writ proceedings in India. This is because fundamental rights are, by and large, not enforceable against private non-state entities. This leaves individuals with limited remedies against private actors. They can either seek action under the inadequate and ineffective provisions of the Information Technology Act, or file civil/criminal proceedings before a court of law (which itself is time-consuming and expensive).

A personal data protection legislation would remedy this lacuna by providing individuals with proper grievance redress options and creating sufficient deterrence among private actors. Inadequate and flawed as it was, the enactment of the PDP Bill into law would have marked a beginning in providing a redress framework. Instead, we are left with the vague promise of a “comprehensive legal framework”, with no timeline in sight.

Consult, work on fresh law

Where, then, do the Government’s actions leave us? It is imperative that the Government soon introduces a fresh data protection legislation, drawn after proper public consultation. Such a law should take into consideration the criticisms that have been raised by civil society as well as the private sector. It should be extensively discussed and debated in Parliament.

Even if the PDP Bill is not the most privacy-respecting law, it provides a certain desirable level of protection to the personal data of individuals. Once enacted, there is always scope for judicial review (based on challenges to provisions that are potentially unconstitutional) and parliamentary amendment (by legislators incorporating feedback on the working of the law). That is why even the justifiable criticisms around the PDP Bill, 2019 or the JPC’s recommendations do not justify its withdrawal. After all, there is no reason to let perfect be the enemy of good.

Vrinda Bhandari is a lawyer practising in Delhi



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The media needs to aid mechanisms that aim to preserve the basic principles of the justice system

Recently, the Chief Justice of India objected to the lack of media accountability in the media’s coverage of legal issues. His remarks came less than a month after the Delhi police admitted to informing the media about the outcome of AltNews’ co-founder Mohammed Zubair’s bail hearing before the judicial order was even pronounced in open court. While the matter of how this information was known to the police remains an open issue, it is problematic that a considerable portion of its news coverage depicted the remarks of the police officer as fact without waiting for the judicial order.

The police as source

In criminal cases that attract the most sensationalist media coverage, media attention is often drawn toward investigation and early trial stages, with a notable disconnect from eventual outcomes of trial that follow several months or even years after an arrest. This makes the police a crucial source for the media and communication between the two institutions is often a starting point of the troubles of media trials. Unregulated divulgence of case details by an eager police force and disproportionate reliance on this information by the media (to the detriment of the judiciary and other sources), results in a public stripping of the rights that typically accompany a fair trial.

Reportage of this nature violates the presumption of innocence and the right to dignity and the privacy of suspects, the accused, victims, witnesses and persons closely related to them. They often face social ostracisation and difficulties in retaining employment, making them vulnerable to crime and exploitation.

Ineffectual media policies

Though the police are meant to be an independent agency, tasked with truth-seeking (ostensibly an objective shared with the news media), this is not always the case. Police narratives are sometimes designed to achieve political goals, and the media’s ready acceptance of these narratives does little to prevent their insidious effects. Given the media’s ability to shape political opinion, law enforcement agencies are sometimes under pressure to selectively reveal certain facets of the investigation or to mischaracterise incidents as communal or systemic. Just a few years ago, the investigation of the Bhima Koregaon violence (2018) was marked by a slew of motivated arrests of popular dissenters critical of the Government. While the investigation was underway, the police exposed letters purportedly written by these activists that were still undergoing forensic analysis. While these letters received extensive news coverage, none of them was presented as evidence in court.

The police, when independent from political and corporate influence, are more concerned with demonstrating dynamism and efficiency, rather than the protection of civil liberties. Courts have repeatedly directed law enforcement authorities not to reveal details of their investigations, especially the personal details of the accused, before trial is complete (notably, the Supreme Court inRomila Thapar vs Union of India , (2018) 10 SCC 753). Despite this, statutory restrictions on the police to maintain confidentiality are rare, with Kerala being one of the few States to have disallowed photographs and parades of persons in custody within its Police Act. Most other States have issued disparate media policy guidelines with weak enforcement mechanisms through administrative circulars whose contents remain unknown to the public. The Ministry of Home Affairs issued a sparse office memorandum outlining a media policy over a decade ago, but this is of limited value given that ‘Police’ is an entry in the State List and thus falls primarily within the jurisdiction of State governments. In any event, the slew of media reports on arrests, complete with residential and age details of suspects and their photographs, is a strong indication that these internal orders, where they exist, are ignored.

Regulating briefings

Most police departments do not have dedicated media cells, making officials of all levels authoritative sources of information and blurring the boundaries between an official and informal police account of events. As a result, the evidence-based narrative of criminal cases presented by the police to a court varies significantly from the account provided to the news media, much to the detriment of the persons involved in the case, and the justice system as a whole. A range of stakeholders now demand stronger regulation of communication channels between law enforcement and the media. In an ongoing case, the Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties asked the Supreme Court to issue guidelines to regulate media briefings by the police to ensure fair trial. This has left the judiciary with no choice but to deliberate on binding directives to the police.

Indifference of the media

Problematic news coverage of criminal cases arises when reporters absolve themselves of any duty to contextualise information revealed by the police. Media ethics extend beyond verification of facts. Apart from making sure that police narratives are accurate before making them public, reporters bear the burden of translating the significance of police versions in a criminal trial. For example, many reports mention “arrest” without any information about whether such arrests are conducted in the course of investigation or after filing of a charge sheet — an important indicator of the degree of certainty with which the police can assert the claim that they are indeed criminals.

Ignorance of these nuances of the justice system has significant implications for citizens whom it is meant to protect, and contributes considerably to the public apprehension and mistrust in the system. Some of this negligence can be attributed to the changing nature of the newsroom responding to deadlines externally set by competing social media accounts that now qualify as news. With the growing financial pressures on media organisations, beat reporters specialising in crime and legal reporting are becoming rare.

Current media regulation is limited, and rightly so. Government regulation is not uniform for print and television media and enforcement of these regulations, where it occurs, is slow. In any event, Government regulation of the media is problematic and likely to increase politicisation of the press. Self-regulation set-ups such as the National Broadcasting Standards Authority and Indian Broadcasting Foundation are membership-based and easily avoided by simply withdrawing from the group. This weak regulatory environment effectively leaves reporting norms to the conscience of reporters and their editors.

Look inwards

Unfortunately, given the narrow goals of both institutions, it serves neither the interest of the police nor the media to deliberate how information should be disseminated while protecting the persons involved in the case. However, with an increasing call for media regulation, it is now in the immediate interest of the media and the general interest of free press, that media institutions look inward to find an answer to what is essentially an ethical crisis. The media’s immense power to shape narratives regarding public conceptions of justice makes it a close associate of the justice system, bringing with it a responsibility to uphold the basic principles of our justice system. The media should feel subject to the obligation to do its part in aiding mechanisms that aim to preserve these principles. On the other hand, a structured and well-designed media policy with training and enforcement mechanisms is the need of the hour for the police.

Anindita Pattanayak is a lawyer and research fellow at DAKSH. The views expressed are personal



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Focusing on smarter policymaking would ensure a smoother path ahead

Sri Lanka’s economic crisis has been brewing for a while. Years of policy missteps and a problematic growth model came to a head at the start of 2022, with a debilitating foreign reserves crisis. Shortages of essentials hurt families and firms. A precarious balance of payments position left little buffers to face the shocks emanating from global markets. All this culminated in the people’s rejection of the regime that oversaw the economic collapse, an uprising that lasted many months, and the installation of President Ranil Wickremasinghe under extraordinary circumstances, in July. Since the government’s announcement in April of a suspension of foreign debt payments, discussions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a bailout — an Extended Fund Facility programme — have progressed, and a staff-level agreement (SLA) is being finalised. In recent weeks, there has been a tendency by those in power to blame the people’s protest, terming it as “anarchy” and “unrest”, for the delay in firming up an IMF deal. This is not only disingenuous but unhelpful in understanding the rocky road ahead.

The road ahead

Even once the SLA is done, the IMF Executive Board will approve a programme and release bailout funds only once it has ‘adequate financing assurances’. This means that Sri Lanka would have to secure some agreements with major creditors (to the IMF’s level of comfort) and the Fund’s major shareholders such as the U.S. would have to be confident of Sri Lanka’s fair treatment of all creditors. Until then, other multilaterals like the World Bank and Asian Development Bank will also refrain from lending new money. For Zambia, which defaulted in November 2020, this process took nearly eight months, from concluding an SLA in December 2021 to getting agreement from its bilateral creditor group (which China co-chaired) in July this year. Evidently, Sri Lanka must make reasonable progress on debt negotiations quickly — with private creditors (holders of international sovereign bonds and commercial loans) and bilateral creditors like Japan, China, and India, to convince the IMF’s Executive Board.

In this, securing support from China will be key. Chinese authorities have sent hot and cold signals in the months since the debt standstill was announced in April. While China has expressed support for Sri Lanka’s talks with the IMF, it is yet to commit fully and publicly to joining negotiations alongside other bilateral lenders. Perhaps China, a relationship-based lender, is waiting for the new government to make fresh overtures at a high level. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s debt advisers — Lazard and Clifford Chance — will commence negotiations with private creditors who hold sovereign bonds. Some of these are likely to get caught up in legal disputes, due to the nature in which Sri Lanka unilaterally defaulted in April.

To be sure, spending a few additional weeks on finalising the SLA might not be a bad thing, if it helps in better grounding the programme in the current socio-political realities. Trying to force through an agreement, which doesn’t adequately appreciate the dramatic shifts that have happened, could risk the programme’s public acceptance and longevity. There are four key areas that the new administration needs to consider. Firstly, the programme with the IMF cannot focus narrowly on revenue-based fiscal consolidation (simply, higher taxes) alone; it must tackle the spending side too. There is a growing public demand for accountability of public finances, better debt management, and combating politicisation and corruption in government. These are no longer concerns limited to policy wonks; they are shared across society. Mis-prioritised public spending (for instance, the dominance of military spending in the budget) has compromised investments in health, education, and innovation. While higher taxes and a wider tax base are indeed necessary, people’s willingness to accept a tighter tax regime will improve when they see greater accountability over how revenue is spent.

Second, domestic political consensus on core reform areas must accompany any IMF programme. It isn’t just about ‘signing on the dotted line’ of an IMF agreement now, but also about ensuring smooth implementation in the years ahead. The economic costs of letting narrow political kowtowing get in the way are too high. The scale of the reforms needed necessitate consensus across political parties and key interest groups. It is encouraging that we saw in recent weeks a group of MPs agreeing to pursue a common minimum programme, which had input from a range of stakeholders. This must get greater traction now, to prevent policy backsliding later.

Third, policymaking must be more inclusive. One of the biggest governance errors of the ousted regime was its tendency towards insular policymaking. The President’s COVID-19 task force was chaired by a military commander, not by a health professional or a seasoned civil servant. The design and roll-out of COVID-19-era welfare payments had no inputs from those outside of bureaucratic and military circles. Poverty think tanks and civil society organisations, which understand the impact on families, informal workers, and vulnerable groups, were not welcomed. A COVID-19 economic recovery task force had a handful of non-government members who were from a narrow section of the private sector and just one woman, a political appointee in a public agency. The ill-conceived fertilizer ban was informed by paediatricians and priests, rather than those holding PhDs in agriculture and agro-economists. The Central Bank’s Monetary Board and Monetary Policy Consultative Committee were reconstituted to oust those with diverse views and include those who shared the same economic and policy ideology of the government. The new administration should do the opposite: listen to voices more representative of society and allow for dissenting and outsider views in a structured manner.

Fourth, an honest and forward-looking picture needs to be painted. The new government needs to explain what policy steps are being taken, why and when, what the outcomes would be, and how these will help ease economic distress. There needs to be an honest conversation with the electorate, where the government levels with the public, and the public in turn feels that the government has its back.

The way forward

To be sure, getting the IMF agreement from staff-level to a fully-approved one by the Fund’s Executive Board has less to do with domestic politics and more to do with the progress of debt restructure talks. Prospective IMF financing is contingent on a fair and expeditious renegotiation process with Sri Lanka’s creditors (private and bilateral), to place the country on a path towards debt sustainability. But the future success of an IMF programme, once approved, and overall reforms under its ambit could be greatly determined by domestic politics and smart policymaking. Any attempts to push through a reform programme without clear articulation of its rationale, expected outcomes, and measures to protect the vulnerable will be met with resistance by politicians and the public. Any attempts by Sri Lanka’s leaders to tighten their grip over society, under the guise of accelerating an IMF programme, will most likely be met with resistance by a newly awakened and vigilant citizenry.

Anushka Wijesinha is a Colombo-based economist and co-founder of the public policy think tank, Centre for a Smart Future



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There are glaring flaws in the National Institutional Ranking Framework’s ranking of higher education institutions

The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF)’s ranking of higher education institutions (HEIs), released in July, has received considerable flak. The broad parameters on which a HEI is ranked by the NIRF are ‘teaching, learning and resources’, ‘research and professional practice’, ‘graduation outcome’, ‘outreach and inclusivity’, and ‘perception’. Each of them is assigned a specific weightage. HEIs are ranked overall, university-wise, college-wise and also under disciplines such as law, medical, pharmacy, management, architecture, and engineering. To show the contradictions, inconsistencies, and flaws in the NIRF’s methodology, we have taken law as a case in point.

Data fudging

The NIRF places some private multi-discipline institutions higher than many prestigious national law universities (NLUs) and law departments. It is a fact that students often seek admission into NLUs; private universities and institutions, barring a few, are invariably their last choices. Generally, students who cannot secure a seat in NLUs are admitted to private institutions. Similarly, private universities and institutions are the last choices for those looking for a career in academia. However, the NIRF ranking shows that a private law university scored 100% in perception. If we consider this score, it should have been the most preferred place for students. But the Common Law Admission Test admission choices show a different picture: this institution figures below 10 NLUs as a preferred place to study.

An analysis of the data submitted by some multi-discipline private universities participating in various disciplines under the NIRF provides evidence of data fudging. There seems to be a lack of a rigorous system of verification by the NIRF of the data submitted by HEIs. For instance, the faculty-student ratio (FSR) is an important criterion for ranking. Evidence suggests that some private multi-discipline universities have claimed the same faculty in more than one discipline. Faculty in liberal arts have been claimed as faculty in law too, to claim an improved FSR. This manipulation defeats the purpose of ranking, especially in the case of single-discipline institutions like the NLUs.

There are similar instances of data fudging for parameters like financial resources utilisation (spending on library, academic facilities, etc.) by multi-discipline institutions. Enormous funds have been claimed as expenditure on equipment for laboratories by some private multi-discipline institutions which offer law as a subject. But labs are not required for law. An analysis of the 15 top-ranked institutions under law shows that equipment purchased for one department has been claimed in more than one department. In the case of an institution ranked among the top 15 under law, the expenditure on equipment claimed in engineering, law, management, dental, and medical is nearly double the actual amount spent by that institution. Research funding for research projects and consultancy is an essential parameter for ranking. Data show that research grants and consultancy charges received in other disciplines appear to have been claimed as those in law. Another sub-parameter where data fudging by certain universities is discernible is procurement of books for the library and spending on the library.

No transparency

The NIRF requires the data submitted to it be published by all the participating HEIs on their website so that such data can be scrutinised. Some private multi-discipline universities have not granted free access to such data on their website; instead, they require an online form to be filled along with the details of the person seeking access. Such non-transparency is antithetical to the ranking exercise. There is also discrepancy in the data submitted to the NIRF and the data on the websites of these institutions. For instance, the data uploaded on the websites omit details on the number, name, qualification and experience of the faculty.

Further, the NIRF applies almost the same parameters to all the institutions across varied disciplines in research and professional practice. In this parameter, data on publications and the quality of publications is taken from the Scopus and Web of Science data bases. While these may be suitable for medical and engineering, they are unsuitable for law. There is a gap between the methodology employed for accreditation purposes and for ranking purposes. While the National Assessment and Accreditation Council gives due weightage to publications in UGC-Care listed journals, the NIRF uses publication data only from Scopus and Web of Science.

Thus, severe methodological and structural issues in the NIRF undermine the ranking process. The methodology must be revised in consultation with all the stakeholders.

G.S. Bajpai is the Vice Chancellor of the Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab. Dr. Manoj Sharma, Associate Professor, provided inputs for this piece. Views are personal



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The Kerala Governor has negated the advantage the government enjoyed in selecting the Vice Chancellor

The relationship between Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan and the State government has entered yet another thorny phase over differences in opinion on the bounds of the Chancellor’s role in the functioning of universities. The tussle has been in the making for nearly a year after the Governor confronted the government over the University of Kerala’s refusal to confer honorary doctorate on former President Ram Nath Kovind. The reappointment of the Vice Chancellor of Kannur University had also annoyed him. These instances prompted him to declare his unwillingness to continue as Chancellor of universities.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had led the government’s rapprochement efforts earlier after the Governor reportedly withheld his assent to the policy address on the eve of the Budget Session of the Legislative Assembly. Nevertheless, the government has quietly endorsed the growing clamour of some States, including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Odisha, to work towards trimming the powers of the Chancellor over universities in order for the government to gain greater control.

Within a few months, a government-constituted commission that was mandated with overhauling university laws advocated stripping the Chancellor off his discretionary powers. It instead recommended that a University Tribunal be formed to decide on legal matters. It also called for reducing the Governor’s authority in the selection of Vice Chancellors. Another Commission tasked with suggesting reforms for the higher education sector has mooted separate Chancellors for each university.

While the government prepared to bring out an Ordinance to implement such reforms in the University of Kerala prior to the selection of the next Vice Chancellor, the Governor made a pre-emptive move by initiating the process on his own without consulting the State government.

Mr. Khan also refused to re-promulgate 11 key Ordinances that have now lapsed. While claiming to have been provided little time to “apply his mind” in examining the Ordinance, he took a swipe at the State government by averring that “ruling through Ordinances is not desirable in a democracy”. His comments emboldened the Opposition to accuse the ruling dispensation of adopting an ‘Ordinance Raj’ to bypass the legislature in implementing contentious laws. The lapsed Ordinances included the contentious Kerala Lok Ayukta (Amendment) Ordinance that amended Section 14 of the Kerala Lok Ayukta Act, 1999 which empowered the ombudsman to remove a corrupt public official from office and prevent the person from holding office again. The Ordinance enabled the Governor, the Chief Minister or the State government to “either accept or reject the declaration”.

Mr. Khan also sought an explanation from Kannur University on the politically sensitive appointment of the wife of the Chief Minister’s private secretary as an associate professor based on a complaint that UGC rules were flouted to ensure she was appointed.

In a single stroke, Mr. Khan has negated the advantage the government enjoyed in the process of selecting the Vice Chancellor. While a nominee each has been chosen by the Governor and the UGC, the State government can effectively rely only on the nominee sent by the university Senate to further its interests. Governors have conventionally entrusted the governments to choose nominees on their behalf. The onus is now on the government to either accustom itself to the ‘new’ template in the appointment of Vice Chancellors or to adopt drastic steps as those recommended by its Commissions.

sarath.bg@thehindu.co.in



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India did well at the CWGthat is increasingly losing its allure

The Commonwealth Games (CWG), alluding to a happily ever-after between England and its former colonies, may have its legacy issues. And in terms of the competitive yardstick, with the obvious absence of the United States of America, Russia and China, the CWG is considered a notch below the Olympics and the Asian Games. Yet, the CWG has a certain value in being a multi-nation quadrennial event that pits a disparate group of countries split by continents and fused by a shared past linked to the British Empire. It offers athletes one more shot at glory besides inspiring their fans to pursue sport with added vigour. In the latest edition that concluded at Birmingham on Monday, India with a medal haul of 61, inclusive of 22 golds, was placed fourth while Australia, host England and Canada led the charts. With shooting excluded from the CWG, India lost out on an additional yield. Most Indian medals told a tale etched by hope, diligence and hard work. If Sharath Kamal’s table tennis exploits, even at 40, proved that sportspersons can fight the dimming light, weightlifter Sanket Sargar’s silver in the men’s 55kg segment, showed that financial difficulties cannot derail a focused athlete. Four years ago, Sanket used to sellpaan from a tiny shop at Sangli in Maharashtra, and his is a story that needs to be cherished.

Similar is the personal history linked to weightlifter Achinta Sheuli, who won gold in the 73kg division. Achinta, his brother Alok and mother did embroidery. The siblings also worked in the fields, fighting poverty and coping with the demise of their father. Like Sanket, Achinta’s too is a story of hope and redemption. If fresh athletes caught the eye with their triumph over tough circumstances, the established ones reiterated their dominance too. P.V. Sindhu, who will now be counted among India’s greatest ever athletes, won gold in the badminton women’s singles while her male counterpart Lakshya Sen did an encore. Fresh territories were annexed too as in a field always dominated by the Africans, Avinash Sable won silver in the men’s 3000m steeplechase. Boxer Nikhat Zareen again landed a solid punch for women-power while her colleague Lovlina Borgohain’s failure and the issues surrounding her personal coach in the lead-up to the CWG, revealed faultlines. Medals were secured in hockey and women’s cricket but they were not gold and the respective squads displayed fragility in crunch situations. That sport is not always war minus the shooting was evident when Neeraj Chopra effusively praised Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem, who won gold in the men’s javelin. The latest success in the CWG, should hold the Indian athletes in good stead as they prepare for next year’s Asian Games in China.



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The failure of SSLV does not haveto be a demoralising lesson

The booming excitement over the maiden launch of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s new rocket, the small satellite launch vehicle (SSLV), turned to disappointment soon after. This was because the satellites that the vehicle was carrying failed to be placed into the desired orbits and were lost. Breaking a tradition of withdrawal and silence after a failed mission, ISRO announced the details of why the satellites were lost without losing time. The three stages of the SSLV rocket, with their solid propellants, performed as expected and detached smoothly to raise the remaining stages through the determined trajectory. However, in the terminal stage, there was malfunctioning of a sensor, which led to the satellites being placed in an elliptical orbit instead of a 356 km, low-Earth, circular orbit. An elliptical orbit is defined by its long and short axes, just as a circle is defined by its radius. The short axis of the elliptical orbit achieved was small and the height the satellites were above the earth was only about 76 km. At this height, the atmospheric drag would hinder the progress of the satellite and if a huge thrust is not provided, the object would lose height and fall back to the earth, perhaps burning up; in any case it will be invariably lost to the control room. This is what happened to the two satellites being carried by the SSLV.

The SSLV has been promoted as the next workhorse rocket of ISRO after the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). Measuring just two metres in diameter and with a height of 35 m, it is indeed smaller than the PSLV which has been used to place satellites of a wide range of masses. The fact that PSLV carries smaller satellites, too, is something of an overkill, and those with masses up to 500 kilograms can be sent up using the SSLV instead. The SSLV uses solid propellants and this is more economical and easier to handle than the liquid propellant stages of the PSLV. The SSLV has the flexibility to launch multiple satellites, and satellites can be launched on demand — as the rocket requires minimal launch infrastructure. All these features make it very attractive for commercial earth observation and communication. Strategically, too, it makes sense to separate the ranges of mass being carried. This time, however, success was not to be, and the 135 kg Earth Observation Satellite EOS-02 and the 8 kg nano satellite, AzaadiSAT, were both lost. What stood out in this episode was the direct communication of S. Somanath, Chairperson, ISRO, and making available the initial analysis quickly for the benefit of all concerned. It is well known that space agencies around the world invest in testing much more than India does. India’s approach, though seemingly economical, might extract a cost at some point. Success in such circumstances is remarkable; and failure a lesson that comes at a cost.



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Kampala, Aug. 9: The Ugandan President, Gen. Amin, announced to-day he was going ahead with his plan to expel all British Asians here. The General also announced that nationals from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh would be given 90 days from to-day to leave the country. His statement followed talks with Britian’s High Commissioner in Uganda, Mr. Richard Slater, the Indian and Pakistani envoys and leaders of the Asian community here. Gen. Amin said he had revoked the entry and residence permits of all non-citizen Asians here under a decree he signed to-day. The only exceptions were doctors, dentists, lawyers, owners of industrial and agricultural enterprises, and certain other categories of professional people. About 60,000 people will be affected by Gen. Amin’s decision. He said it would be up to those concerned to make their own arrangements to be out of Uganda before the 90-day deadline was up. Gen. Amin said that if they were not out of Uganda before the time-limit was up, “they will be sitting on a fire. They will be sitting very uncomfortably if they stay on.”



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In 1992, after a breast cancer diagnosis, her music took a more spiritual turn and she became an activist for cancer awareness, founding the Olivia Newton-John Foundation to fund research.

With her sweet singing voice and general air of wholesomeness, Olivia Newton-John was a natural candidate for the status of America’s Sweetheart. The UK-born Australian singer and actor, who died in her home in California on Monday at the age of 73 after a long battle with breast cancer, became a global star with her role in the 1978 smash-hit musical Grease. Her performance as the goody-two-shoes Sandy who falls in love with the leather-clad Danny as well as her sizzling chemistry with co-star John Travolta, set the template for musicals and romantic comedies for years to come.

Subsequently, she also broke free from her squeaky clean image to someone a little more complicated. In Grease’s finale, Sandy has a pastel skirt-to-leather pants makeover, which Newton-John carried off-screen when, later that year, she released her album Totally Hot. The makeover reached its pinnacle with her bestselling 1981 album Physical — the album’s eponymous, Grammy-winning track, with an aerobics-inspired video, was banned in some markets for its sexually suggestive lyrics. The transformation that Grease helped launch was one of many. Newton-John had first made a name in the early 1970s singing crowd-pleasing pop numbers, followed by a stint as a country music star. She won a country Grammy in 1974.

Post-Physical, Newton-John’s career was in the doldrums after successive projects failed. In 1992, after a breast cancer diagnosis, her music took a more spiritual turn and she became an activist for cancer awareness, founding the Olivia Newton-John Foundation to fund research. Hers was a life and career of many acts, but for her legions of fans, she will be Sandy forever.



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For India, the Commonwealth Games give a chance to assess how they are likely to fare when tougher assignments come along.

Another edition of the Commonwealth Games is over, and though some would term it a relic of the past and an anachronism, Birmingham showed it remains relevant. Colonial legacy and history are sensitive subjects — in the UK as well as the erstwhile outposts of the British Empire — and many argue that nations don’t need to be reminded that they were once subjugated. But giving a sporting platform for elite athletes to showcase their prowess is a good enough argument for these Games, even if the level of competition in many sports is a few rungs below what is seen at the Olympics, the World Championships or even the continental Games.

For India, the Commonwealth Games give a chance to assess how they are likely to fare when tougher assignments come along. In Birmingham, the performance of India’s track and field athletes came as a breath of fresh air. Triple jumper Eldhose Paul and 3,000m steeplechaser Avinash Sable showed they can mix it with the best in the world. The latter took on, and left behind, a few Kenyans, considered the royalty in middle- and long-distance races. Weightlifting, table tennis and badminton were other sports which provided big medal hauls to India. And though, on the mat, the competition was arguably weaker than what is seen in domestic trials, there were other commendable achievements.

At 40, paddler Sharath Kamal continues to mint medals, while a sport previously unknown in India, lawn bowls, also added to the country’s gold tally. Boxer Nitu Ghanghas, whose father has been on unpaid leave for three years and is facing a departmental inquiry for long absenteeism to look after his daughter’s blooming career, showed the kind of sacrifices needed for sporting glory at the elite level. They didn’t necessarily have to win gold to point to a bright future. The women’s cricket and hockey teams showed that they are on the right track to be considered one of the best in the world. Any such event is a kaleidoscope of emotions and memories, and one of them that will stay is the bonhomie shared by Pakistani weightlifter Muhammad Nooh Dastgir Butt and India’s Gurdeep Singh, both of whom finished on the podium in the 109kg-plus category. The camaraderie and affection they displayed proved that sport can indeed be a vehicle to bring people closer. That’s what adds to the relevance of the Commonwealth Games.



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Nitish's resignation as chief minister, his march to Raj Bhawan alongwith Tejashwi Yadav, his staking of claim to form another government, inaugurates a new chapter that is likely to resonate as much outside Bihar as inside it.

Nitish Kumar has switched sides yet again. With that quick and easy indictment out of the way, look again, at a complex and bristling story. It’s a story about Bihar, a fertile state known for its backwardness, and also for being the crucible for social and political movements that reverberate through the country. It’s a story of a leader who played a historic role in braiding the agenda of social justice with the language and infrastructure of development — in Bihar, the cleavage and even outright antagonism between “samajik nyaya” and “vikas” had been the unfortunate left-over of Lalu Prasad’s 15-year rule which gave the backward castes a political voice. But the leader who scripted “Nootan Bihar” where “sushasan (good governance)” was given its due place remained, despite his great achievements, afraid to go it alone. And at some point, his asserting and writhing in the alliances he struck with others overshadowed his plateauing governance story. Nitish’s latest about-turn, walking out of the alliance with the BJP after walking back into it in 2017, after walking out of it, 17 years on, in 2013, also comes at a time when a larger story is unfolding — in the national Opposition space, to break the prolonged standstill in the time of Modi.

Nitish’s resignation as chief minister, his march to Raj Bhawan alongwith Tejashwi Yadav, his staking of claim to form another government, inaugurates a new chapter that is likely to resonate as much outside Bihar as inside it. With the next parliamentary election only two years away, and with Bihar still the north Indian state where the BJP has considerable scope to grow, unlike in next-door UP, where it has all but peaked, what happens in Patna could well be crucial for what happens in Delhi. Nitish’s reputation and legacy so far, despite his stop-start equations with the BJP and RJD, and in spite of the signs of his government running of ideas, manifested in the ham-handed enforcement of prohibition, rest on several past laurels – the bicycle scheme for girls, the small initiative that wreaked large change; reservation in Panchayat bodies for women and for Extremely Backward Castes (which had been relegated by the dominant groups among OBCs); the building of roads in a state where travelling time between point A and B depended on hours taken, not distance in km; the improvements in law and order; and, overall, the restoring of the authority of the state. In Nitish raj, the wheels of social justice turned further, included groups that had still remained excluded in Lalu raj, and large sections, especially of the weak and vulnerable, felt touched by the state.

A JD(U)-RJD alliance has taken on the BJP once before — the Mahagathbandhan romped home in the 2015 polls. But the BJP, in Bihar, as elsewhere, is constantly learning, evolving and strategising to conquer. The Modi model is layered and it is making deeper inroads, using social engineering where it must, the delivery scheme where it can, and the powerful idea of Hindutva everywhere. In the run-up to 2024, then, it may seem that the Opposition has added weight in terms of numbers in Bihar. But it will need to work much harder to stitch a shared story that speaks to the people and lifts it off the ground.



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It will require creative approaches for political engagement ahead of 2024 elections

The recently released IAMAI Kantar, Internet in India, ICUBE 2021 study has some interesting findings on how the country is fast emerging as one of the world’s largest markets for internet-based apps and services. The report was released around the same time India witnessed significant bidding for the 5G spectrum. At the intersection of both of these lies perhaps the world’s most unique digital polity of first-time, non-English internet users who think, act and transact “mobile first”. Their numbers will soon reach a billion as India focuses efforts on expanding rural 4G access and high-speed internet. With anywhere between two to eight hours of daily usage, the Indian internet user is the ideal test case for any platform or app-based service looking to tap a global audience. Little wonder that we have witnessed over the years intense efforts to sway the Indian internet user through borderless activism in the name of “saving the internet”, “online free speech”, and “data surveillance”.

With the Narendra Modi-led NDA government withdrawing the earlier proposed Personal Data Protection Bill, the stakes have become even higher for borderless activism seeking to influence how India regulates the internet-based economy.

The reasons for the high stakes in internet regulation in India become apparent when one looks at the demographic shift in the country — the statistics revealed by the IAMAI report also underline this shift. As per the UN’s estimates for births in India, the cohort born between 2002 and 2006 is one of the largest, with yearly births having peaked in the country between 2001 and 2002. This makes the cohort of nearly 150 million first-time voters in the 2024 General Elections a sizable and distinct digital constituency. As India’s largest cohort that has been “Digital First” from the cradle, this generation of first-time voters has experienced all the significant digital shifts in their formative years. Having been born around the same time as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, this generation came of age with the touchscreen revolution. Their teen years witnessed an explosive growth in smartphone usage. This is also the generation that had the highest exposure to online education due to Covid-19 vastly increasing their screen time and use of internet tools and services.

While the IAMAI report does not reveal much on the age-wise demographic split of the various kinds of internet users, it was interesting to note that online gaming has nearly five times the number of users relative to those using the internet for online education. Internet-based gaming is the mainstay of this cohort with new-age interactive platforms such as Twitch and Discord emerging as hubs of their peer groups. The divide with earlier generations of voters is quite stark as this cohort barely reads newspapers or watches conventional television. While YouTube and WhatsApp are most likely their primary sources of news to them, Facebook and Twitter are already legacy social media platforms belonging to an earlier era. Indicators of this inter-generational schism are already visible the world over with older users of services like Instagram unhappy with the shift towards tik-tok style short videos and algorithmic feeds.

The unique digital characteristics of this demographic of first-time voters will require creative approaches for political engagement ahead of the 2024 elections. The Election Commission of India recently announced further liberalisation of the voter registration process with 17-year-olds being able to register a year ahead of being eligible to vote, apart from opening up the voter registration process once every quarter. Creative engagement of this digital-first generation would perhaps require interactive live streaming on platforms like Twitch apart from volunteer engagement efforts through “servers” on Discord. How India approaches digital regulations would be of utmost importance to this cohort. It will necessitate a sustained dialogue on the government’s approach to techno-nationalism as a counter to the borderless activism that has sought to skew digital policy debates in India.

India is not alone in its pursuit of techno-nationalism. We are already witnessing a wave of regulatory moves from Indonesia on not just controlling online gaming apps and services but also actively promoting indigenously developed gaming apps. While China requires licences for online games by a dedicated gaming regulator, Indonesia requires formal registration to be compliant with local laws governing what are called “private electronic systems”. From Kenya to Brazil we are also witnessing preemptive actions to insulate the electoral processes of their respective democracies from the spread of viral fake news and disinformation on WhatsApp.

While the 2009 elections saw the advent of blogs in the political debate, the 2014 elections were the first time internet streaming played a significant role in disintermediating broadcast media. The 2019 elections were marked by the extensive role played by social media platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp. With the unique demographic characteristics of first-time voters, perhaps the 2024 elections will see algorithms and gaming apps and services play an influential role.

From securing semi-conductor supply chains to regulating data flows, techno-nationalism is on the political agenda of western democracies and eastern nations alike. Over the next two years as the government seeks to put in place a comprehensive digital regulatory framework governing data, privacy, apps and algorithms, engaging the first digital generation of new voters on techno-nationalism will be crucial at every step.

The writer is former CEO of Prasar Bharati, India’s Public Broadcaster



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Ria Singh Sawhney and Sugandha Yadav write: SC offers hope that right to abortion won’t be restricted by a woman’s marital status

On July 21, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India delivered a significant order, clarifying that the right to a medical abortion that was available to married women could not be denied to unmarried women. The case highlights a legal anachronism that requires women to get the state’s permission to exercise their constitutional right to an abortion. The SC’s order granting permission to undergo an abortion was passed in the case of a petitioner who was in a consensual relationship, and whose partner deserted her.

A July 15 order of the Delhi High Court denied the petitioner’s right to terminate her pregnancy. The Division Bench held that since she was an unmarried woman whose pregnancy arose out of a consensual relationship, her case was “clearly not covered” by the applicable rules. Rule 3B of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Rules 2003, lays down the categories of women who are eligible for termination of pregnancy up to 24 weeks: Survivors of sexual assault or rape or incest; minors; where there is a change of marital status during the ongoing pregnancy (widowhood and divorce); women with physical and mental disabilities, women with pregnancies in humanitarian settings; foetal “malformations” that have a substantial risk of being incompatible with life, or which, if the child is born, may cause it to suffer from a serious physical or mental handicap. The High Court found that the petitioner had not undergone a “change in marital status”.

The SC found that prima facie, the High Court had been too restrictive in its approach, and that the term “change in marital status” should be given a purposive interpretation. It based this finding on the 2021 Amendment to the MTP Act, which no longer restricts itself to an unwanted pregnancy between a “husband” and “wife”, but to a woman and her “partner”, by marriage or not.

The MTP Act 1971, was intended to provide a remedy for the scores of women who faced serious health risks because of unregulated abortions. Section 312 of the Indian Penal Code which continues to be on the books, criminalises anyone, including the woman carrying the pregnancy, who voluntarily causes a miscarriage.

The Court relied on three key judgements: The 2010 S Khushboo case, which recognised the legality of live-in relationships and pre-marital sex; the 2009 Suchita Srivastava case, which recognised that a woman’s right to make reproductive choices is part of the “personal liberty” guaranteed under Article 2,1 and the 2017 K S Puttaswamy case, which reaffirmed that women’s right to bodily integrity is part of the fundamental right to privacy. The Court observed: “The statute has recognised the reproductive choice of a woman and her bodily integrity and autonomy. Both these rights embody the notion that a choice must inhere in a woman on whether or not to bear a child. In recognising the right the legislature has not intended to make a distinction between a married and unmarried woman, in her ability to decide on whether or not to bear the child. These rights, it must be underscored, align with the provisions of Article 21 of the Constitution.”

The SC’s order attains significance in contrast to the recent Dobbs decision in the US, which sent shockwaves across the world. Constitutional rights are interconnected: Unravel one and the entire edifice of protections could fall apart. As the dissenting verdict in Dobbs warned: “… The right Roe and Casey recognised does not stand alone. To the contrary, the Court has linked it for decades to other settled freedoms involving bodily integrity, familial relationships, and procreation. Most obviously, the right to terminate a pregnancy arose straight out of the right to purchase and use contraception. In turn, those rights led, more recently, to rights of same-sex intimacy and marriage. They are all part of the same constitutional fabric, protecting autonomous decision making over the most personal of life decisions…”

As permissive as the Indian legal regime may seem by contrast, a woman is forced to go before a medical board and a Court for a decision that should be between her and her medical practitioner. The case is expected to be heard on August 10 to decide the final interpretation of the provisions in question under the MTP Act. The Court’s judgment will prove decisive, whichever way it decides. The order of July 21 is reason to be hopeful.

The writers are advocates practising in New Delhi



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Arun Prakash writes: India's response to presence of Chinese military vessels in Indian Ocean needs to be more calibrated

Reports about the impending visit of a Chinese “spy ship”, Yuan Wang-5, to the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota, created a major flutter in the Indian media. Citing the ship’s “lethal capabilities” and “aerial reach of more than 750 km”, fears have been expressed that “atomic research centres within Indian borders could be snooped upon”. Reflecting concerns at the “highest levels” in New Delhi, social media fired unkind comments about India’s emergency economic assistance to an “ungrateful Sri Lanka”.

Reports that Sri Lanka has asked for a delay in the Chinese ship’s arrival may temporarily calm the waters and provide respite for a dispassionate examination of the issue through legal, military and diplomatic lenses. But before that a quick look at the ship’s provenance is in order. Yuan Wang is the generic name given to a flotilla of seven to eight ships belonging to the Chinese PLA’s Strategic Support Force. These large “survey/research” vessels carry optical, laser, passive-radio and radar devices whose large dish-antennae enable tracking of ballistic-missile trajectories, monitoring of satellite and space vehicle launches, and gathering of technical intelligence.

From the legal perspective, the 1982 UN Convention for Law of the Seas permits unfettered freedom of navigation on the high seas and a foreign warship has as much right to be in the Indian Ocean as a similar Indian vessel would in the South China Sea. Even in the 200-mile exclusive economic zone, there exists the conditional right of “innocent passage” for all vessels, including warships. Entry into foreign ports, especially for warships, has to be with prior consent. But even in wartime, the 1907 Hague Convention permits entry for warships of belligerents into neutral ports for limited durations. Given its cordial diplomatic relations, and its economic dependence on China, there could be no plausible reason for Sri Lanka to deny entry for Yuan Wang 5, especially into Hambantota on which China has a 99-year lease.

Viewed from the security angle, the presence of a research ship like the Yuan Wang 5, bristling with multi-spectral surveillance and eavesdropping devices, in India’s vicinity, certainly calls for vigilance and caution. However, in this age of transparency, regular electronic “snooping” by ships, aircraft and satellites — both friendly and hostile — happens all the time. Our armed forces and other agencies are aware of this, and precautionary policies and procedures relating to electronic emissions and missile-firing trials are in place. One can also be sure that the position and movements of Yuan Wang 5, as long as she is in our waters, will be closely followed by the Indian Navy’s maritime domain awareness matrix.

Coming to the diplomatic aspect, observers have harked back to the September 2014 visit of a PLA Navy’s (PLAN) Type-039, a diesel submarine which had docked in Colombo, to be followed a few weeks later by a port-call by a Type-091 nuclear-powered attack submarine. The Sri Lankan government had then brushed aside India’s concerns describing the ship-visits as “usual practice”, while a Chinese communiqué had (with unintended flippancy) stated that the submarines were en route to the Gulf of Aden “for anti-piracy duty”.

Some in India have viewed the forthcoming visit of the Chinese “spy ship” to Hambantota as an infringement of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan Accord, which calls upon the two countries not to allow their respective territories to be used for “activities prejudicial to each other’s unity, integrity and security”. However, Colombo has often acknowledged that the security and economic interests of both India and Sri Lanka are inextricably interlinked and any deliberate actions that harm Indian interests will eventually rebound on it.

As we await further developments, there is a need to reflect on Sri Lanka’s current political meltdown and dire economic crisis. Given its geographic proximity and ethnic connection, India cannot allow Sri Lanka to sink. New Delhi has already rendered substantial help, but with the best of intentions, India has neither the economic wherewithal nor political capital to pull Sri Lanka out of the abyss. Therefore, apart from the IMF, China will have to lend a hand for Sri Lanka’s economic recovery. For this to happen, Colombo will need to kowtow to Beijing, and India must show diplomatic forbearance. Some other issues, germane to this discussion, need to be noted by India’s decision-makers.

First, India must face the reality that with its 350-warship strong (and growing) battle force having overtaken the US Navy, China has achieved its ambition of becoming a “maritime Great Power”. China’s 2019 Defence White Paper charges the PLA navy with the responsibility of safeguarding Xi Jinping’s prized Maritime Silk Road that spans the Indo-Pacific and includes the China-Pakistan economic corridor. The string of ports, created by China, in India’s neighbourhood, are meant to undergird this endeavour.

Thus, until India can bolster its economic and maritime power and, perhaps, enforce its version of a “Monroe Doctrine,” it will have to live with frequent PLAN presence in the Indian Ocean. We must also prepare for the day when the Taiwan situation permits China to station an aircraft-carrier battle-group in our waters.

The second issue that deserves our attention is the intense activity of China’s space programme, which has planned 50 space-launches for 2022. In mid-April, three Chinese astronauts returned to earth, after spending six months aboard their 11-year-old space-station. In early June 2022, another spacecraft took a team of three astronauts to dock with the under-construction Tiangong-3 space station. During such space activity, survey/research ships need to be positioned for control and tracking as well as rescue tasks in dispersed oceanic locations ranging from mid-Pacific and south Indian Ocean to the coast of Africa. While the actual mission of Yuan Wang 5 is not known, it is just possible that she may be on such a legitimate space-related assignment.

Finally, let us remember that ISRO also has an ambitious manned space programme underway and DRDO is, or will be, undertaking test flights of its Agni series of inter-continental ballistic missiles over distant oceanic stretches. India, too, will seek to deploy “research” vessels in distant waters/ports in days ahead.

The writer is a retired chief of naval staff



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Ghanshyam Tiwari writes: Nitish Kumar has a formidable record on governance, social justice and communal harmony. He does what he says, 'jo kahte hain, kar ke dikhaate hain'.

Jo party ya parivar nahi balki apne dum par zameen se uththa hai, vo satta-bahattar saal par jakar pradhan mantri banne ka mazboot davedaar ban payega” (the one who rises from the grass roots, not through a family or party, but on his own steam, will, in his seventies, become a strong candidate for prime minister). Nearly 10 years later, I remember these prophetic words by Nitish Kumar, from a dinner event in honour of Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz who was visiting Bihar.

In 2010, Bihar was going in for an election that would set a new template for its politics. Nitish Kumar, then widely credited for building a new grammar of developmental politics, was up for re-election. Chandrababu Naidu’s unexpected defeat a few months earlier in Andhra Pradesh was reinforcing the impression that development doesn’t win votes. Nitish was set to belie that story. The visible transformation of law and order alongside the beautiful sight in village after village of girls riding cycles to school and the relentless building of roads laid the foundation for the Nitish-led Bihar model. He led the Centre-state public finance dialogue for Bihar with support from his deputy, the BJP’s Sushil Modi. To his credit, the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, understood the needs of Bihar and respected the mission of Nitish Kumar, even if he was with the NDA. This was a gentleman-statesman era of Indian politics, now fast disappearing.

Nitish Kumar won the 2010 assembly election with a thumping majority. At that time, as a student at Harvard University, I led the Bihar Leadership Project which focused on data analytics, developmental messaging, and systematic monitoring of the campaign. The chief minister invited me to return to Bihar after graduating from Harvard to work with him and I readily accepted. Over the next five years, I was assigned key roles in several ambitious missions such as the Harit Bihar Abhiyan and the Special Category Status for Bihar Campaign. Starting 2012, the race for prime ministership in 2014 became an open contest. Nitish vs Modi and Bihar Model vs Gujarat Model became the most engaging conversation in many parts of the country. In reality, Nitish never cast himself in the race. It was his many successes in governance that put the spotlight on him. He shocked the country by breaking the alliance with the BJP in 2013. Powered by unmatched campaign machinery, the BJP and Narendra Modi bulldozed the Nitish model in 2014 with a thumping victory in Bihar. Taking moral responsibility, Nitish resigned as chief minister and announced Jitan Ram Manjhi as his successor. Seeing an opportunity to vanquish Nitish, the BJP played every trick in the book. Manjhi was the first Eknath Shinde but he would not be the last. By all accounts, RCP Singh has turned out to be the latest missionary for the BJP.

In 2014, when Nitish Kumar resigned as the CM, I was working as Country Economist for the London School of Economics. I resigned to serve as chief of staff for the ex-CM. In this role, I came face to face with the person behind the image. For example, Nitish moved into a new house that was barely functional — all it had was a telephone. I ordered the modem and a laptop based on the allowance he would get as part of his salary. The e-commerce delivery person was amused to learn that the ex-CM was ordering such products online. I was able to bring Nitish up-to-speed with platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and digital news. In no time, he was able to see the way the BJP had used social media to replace his narrative of development with false propaganda. He decided to set the record straight by conducting a “Sankalp Yatra” across Bihar, where he would play during his speeches the now popular set of audio bytes of false promises made by Narendra Modi that I had collated for him.

It is a magnificent achievement that Nitish defeated the BJP not only to reclaim the chief ministership from Manjhi but also build an alliance with Lalu Prasad. Together, they routed the BJP in the 2015 elections. An unrelenting BJP struck back to force Nitish to break the alliance in less than a year, much to the disappointment of all who saw him as a self-made leader who could be prime minister. Notwithstanding this, the BJP’s anger against Nitish did not subside. Chirag Paswan became its instrument to deceptively counter Nitish in the 2020 Bihar elections. Once again, the BJP failed to vanquish Nitish Kumar. As the RCP Singh story unfolds, it is clear that the BJP has not given up.

What makes Modi and the BJP nervous about Nitish Kumar? Whether he was an ally or enemy, they made countless deceptive attempts to “finish” Nitish (in the words of a Union minister). Nitish comes from a family of freedom fighters. Unlike Modi, he is neither a multiplier nor a divider of public narratives. His moves are incremental but concrete. Unlike BJP leaders, Nitish is not a religious person. He is a man of wisdom and spirituality. Nitish’s most used line is “jo kahte hain, kar ke dikhaate hain (we do what we say)”. He has a socialist lineage and is unaligned to and unhyped by corporate lobbies, not powered by media and social media propaganda, and uncompromising on communal harmony, political decency and the constitutional framework of the country.

At a time when the common man is slipping into poverty, caught in daily debates of communal hatred and anger, and cynical about bullet trains, Nitish Kumar promises a cycle ride of progress with harmony and social justice.

(The writer, with the JD(U) from 2010 to 2015, is national spokesperson, Samajwadi Party)



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M N Sabharwal and Manish Sabharwal write: By not allowing its players to compete in India, Pakistan state only shows how its Kashmir obsession is harming its people

Pakistan’s Chess team arrived in Chennai with players from 200 countries for the 44th Chess Olympiad but was recalled because a symbolic torch relay through 75 cities had crossed Srinagar. This withdrawal reflects a self-damaging reaction to Kashmir by Pakistan’s deep state that poisons its peace, politics, and prosperity. We hope that despite the learning disability of Pakistan’s deep state, three structural changes convince it to end the export of terrorism to J&K and accept the Line of Control as the International Border. This decision will also place the Pakistani people’s prosperity ahead of the Pakistani army’s plan of perpetual conflict.

Defeat in three formal wars birthed Pakistan’s fourth proxy war in J&K, starting in 1988. The first act of this proxy war — midnight bomb blasts at the Central Telegraph Office and Srinagar Club in July 1988 — was a symbolic public announcement of the return from training in Pakistan by the first batch of terrorists; the self-titled “HAJY boys” — Hamid Sheikh, Ashfaq Wani, Javed Nalka and Yasin Malik. In September 1988, the first Kalashnikov was recovered from the mother’s kitchen of Pakistan-returned BSc graduate Manzoor Islam in Kupwara — the police used the small arms dictionary to identify the unfamiliar weapon.

Pakistan’s role in early assassinations is obvious: Inspector Saiddullah in Maisuma (who was the police face arresting Pakistan returned militants), Tika Lal Taploo in Lal Chowk (the RSS Valley head, who had taken a vocal position against Pakistan), Neelkanth Ganjoo in Hari Singh High Street (as sessions judge, he had delivered the death sentence to JKLF founder Maqbool Bhat), and Mohammed Din in Tangmarg (who received the Padma Shri for alerting the Indian army to Pakistan’s 1965 invasion of Rajouri).

It’s unclear whether the deep history or events in 1988 caused the Valley’s “phase transformation”. Deep history indeed provided fuel. But which of the many events? The dithering Maharaja taking Ramchandra Kak’s poor advice in 1947? The marauders led by Major General Akbar Khan of the Pakistani Army that attacked India and crucified Salim Sherwani in Baramulla in 1947? The arrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah in 1953? The return of the Haji Pir pass to Pakistan in the Tashkent agreement of 1965? The partition of Pakistan in 1971? The Simla agreement that resulted in India returning land and prisoners without freezing borders in 1972? Or General Ziaul Haq partnering with Jamaat-e-Islami Emir Mian Tufail Mohammad to Islamise his military after hanging Bhutto in 1979?

But the late 1980s promise by PoK President Sardar Qayyum Khan to General Zia to deliver “Kashmir to Pakistan in two instalments” has three possible triggers. First, America’s partnership with Afghanistan’s Mujahideen. Second, Rajiv Gandhi’s adamant call to Farooq Abdullah at his Gupkar Road residence in 1987 asking him to ensure that Muslim United Front candidates like Muhammad Yusuf Shah, later called Syed Salahuddin — then Batmaloo mosque preacher, later Hizbul Mujahideen Chief, and currently Jihad Council Chief based in PoK — must lose his Amira Kadal election. Finally, entitled politicians weaponised Article 370, religion and took Pakistan’s aid to grow their power, wealth, and dynasty. Even Baba-e-Quom Sheikh Abdullah — whose 1982 funeral procession took 10 hours to cover the 8 km from the Polo View to Nagin because of lakhs of mourners — became dynastic towards the end, with some people calling him “Kunba Parast”. On a recent visit to pay respects, we were sad that the grave of Sher-i-Kashmir — who fought Pakistani marauders in the Valley alongside the Indian army in 1947 — needs protection from desecration by a police platoon and concertina wire.

A better future beckons because of three structural changes. First, Army and Air Force cross-border strikes after Uri and Pulwama have changed Pakistani calculations that assumed perpetually timid Indian responses. With multi-decade security force requests for “hot pursuit” finally granted, the superior firepower of central forces is creating the conditions for a phased return to J&K Police enforcing law and order through context awareness, community embedding, local intelligence networks, local recruitment, language fluency, paramilitary support, and special operations groups.

Second, ending Article 370 could lead to the entry of new politicians in the next elections. Article 370 made J&K politics oligopolistic, if not monopolistic. Politicians in other parts of India are not less corrupt, myopic, or self-centred. But first-generation regional leaders like Lalu Prasad in Bihar, Karunanidhi in Tamil Nadu, Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh, Sharad Pawar in Maharashtra, and Jyoti Basu in West Bengal used politics to churn the status quo of power, elites, and class.

Third, J&K will see economic vibrancy with property rights (Article 370 legitimised a Tehsildar’s refusal to register a telephone exchange – central government property — in the name of the President of India), long-term investments (there is now a Radisson Hotel in Sonamarg), and strategy diversity (Kashmir, Jammu, and Ladakh will attract different jobs). Economist Albert Hirschman wisely suggested that interests trump passions.

Pakistan denied 14 talented players including Amer Karim, Junaid Sohail, Mehak Gul, Aleena Zahid and Wasif Zenobia the chance to win the Chess Olympiad because “India politicised a prestigious international sporting event”. This misunderstanding of politics is unsurprising — most deep states are unfamiliar with Bernard Crick’s 1962 book In Defence of Politics, which celebrated the self-healing genius of brutally competitive politics within a stable constitution. The then J&K Chief Justice A S Anand told us that his 1980s request to an Oxford University librarian for a copy of the Pakistani constitution got the smiling response: “We don’t keep magazines and periodicals.” Strategy is the art of moving the possible to plausible and probable. Peace in Kashmir has moved from possible to plausible. Ongoing hard work in creating new jobs and politicians in Kashmir combined with the Pakistani people controlling their deep state will make it probable.



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Liz Mathew writes: Old Parliament building is filled with memories of political jousts, wit and warmth. Will they find their way into the new Parliament building?

Yesterday as the Monsoon Session concluded, a sombre mood dawned on me as I walked out of Parliament House. If the powers that be are to be believed, this session – as stormy as several others in the recent past — will be the last to be held in this magnificent building, built 100 years ago. The Winter Session in November-December is expected to be held in the new building, which is coming up at a rapid rate, and fast overshadowing the majestic structure designed by Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker. But nothing can erase the history created in this building.

I began my career in journalism in Delhi, literally growing up professionally in this building. Like the 144 pillars in this marvellous piece of architecture, I too witnessed the major political events of the last 25 years in its confines. (The only big event I missed was the 2001 terror attack which happened when I was out of Delhi.)

As I walked out of the building, I was filled with mixed feelings about the new building. Many share my sentiments. The question that is weighing heavily on everyone’s mind is: Will the atmosphere of the Central Hall, the focal point of many a churning in national politics, be replicated in the new building? Some say that in its place there could be a frugal lounge that could deprive members, their immediate families, senior politicians, including chief ministers who visit Delhi, and senior journalists of the convivial atmosphere that was the signature of the Central Hall.

The BJP in its current avatar does not seem to have an emotional connection with the Central Hall — senior cabinet members rarely visit it. In the past, even prime ministers used to spend time there. This change in political culture, exacerbated by the pandemic and its restrictions, has diminished the ethos and activities of Parliament: The duration of sessions has reduced, and the fourth estate has become almost invisible. The Central Hall is a “no entry zone” not just for journalists but for former MPs as well. Senior journalists now get nostalgic about spending hours with politicians, often sipping hot coffee or soup in the Central Hall, where the fans are installed upside down.

I came to Delhi when national politics was undergoing a churning of sorts. The aristocratic politician was giving way to the leader from the grass roots. Speeches in clipped English were being replaced with oratory in Hindi dialects from mofussil centres. But Parliament still brimmed with warmth and camaraderie. The veterans had accepted the leaders emerging from Mandal and Mandir politics.

Despite the intense schisms, one could see members from both sides having a friendly chat over snacks from the Coffee Board-run outlet. At least four ideologies were in full play — the Congress trying to retain its foothold, the socialists raising Mandal politics, the Left still steady under a credible leadership and the BJP. This social space shared by different ideologies was later used by Atal Bihari Vajpayee to stitch a rainbow coalition.

As I watched regimes change – from Vajpayee’s 13-day ministry to the uncertain United Front days of H D Deve Gowda and I K Gujral and the relatively stable but eventful decade with Manmohan Singh at the helm of affairs — my experiences at Parliament House also underwent transformations. We used to carry bundles of papers – answers to MPs’ questions, panel reports. Now, a paperless Parliament is becoming a reality.

What I miss the most is the absence of quality debates. I have seen and heard Vajpayee, L K Advani, Madhav Rao Scindia, Rajesh Pilot, Chandrashekhar, Somnath Chatterjee, Indrajit Gupta, S Jaipal Reddy, George Fernandes, Sitaram Yechury… the list is long. The success and the productivity of a Session used to be measured through the quality of debates, not just the hours spent on the bench or bills passed. I could get a sense of the nuances of Indian politics by listening to politicians like Pramod Mahajan, K Karunakaran, Arjun Singh, Pranab Mukherjee and Arun Jaitley. Even the transformation of the BJP into a ruling party was best seen on the floor of the House.

I remember Vajpayee leading a group of 161 BJP MPs as a solitary general — the political isolation that the BJP faced was described as “untouchability” by some leaders. In 1996, he faced the inevitable with dignity. I remember his passionate speech: “If breaking up political parties is the only way to form a coalition that stays in power, then I do not want to touch such a coalition with a barge pole”. He ended by saying, “Adhyaksh mahoday, mein apna tyag patra rashtrapati ko dene jaa raha hun (Respected Speaker, I am now leaving to tender my resignation to the President). With debates going on till late evening, all that would keep us awake was the tea, with a drop of milk, served at Panditji’s tea point.

During Vajpayee’s second stint, the BJP was dependent on the J Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK to stay in office. After 13 months, when Jayalalithaa decided to end the alliance, Vajpayee was unusually peeved. On April 17, 1999, when the screens inside the Lok Sabha showed the tally of the no-confidence motion at 269-270 – he lost the majority by one vote – the House was briefly silent before the Opposition broke into celebrations. But I could sense the sympathy and awe Vajpayee had evoked in many on the other side when he looked at the result and raised his hand to his forehead in a mock salute.

But this Parliament also witnessed the BJP, stunned after losing power in 2004, seemingly in denial about the Congress-led UPA’s rise to power. In the initial sessions, its 138 MPs disrupted proceedings. They created uproarious scenes even when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh introduced his cabinet. The UPA years were the last time Parliament saw the Prime Minister in attendance regularly.

The press gallery has its share of amusements as well. The members speak different languages and wear various outfits – there is no official dress code. Varkkala Radhakrishnan, a former speaker of the Kerala assembly, was a stickler for the rules in the Lower House. He drew tremendous respect from the treasury benches during Vajpayee’s time. Once he berated the (then) Union Minister Dasari Narayan Rao for keeping the top buttons of his shirt open while replying to questions.

Then there’s former Rajya Sabha MP Vakkachan Mattathil, who was amused when Vajpayee told him in one of the restrooms that “you are lucky to use the facilities with the Prime Minister of India.” If Shashi Tharoor is a social media sensation today for his English vocabulary, Jaipal Reddy was the wordsmith for an earlier generation. Reddy – then in the Janata Dal – took exception to the Vajpayee government’s favourable stand in the Supreme Court on allowing puja at the disputed site in Ayodhya. About Vajpayee, he said: “There is a humongous hiatus, a gigantic gap and a gargantuan gulf between his public image and private reality.”

The changes after liberalisation were reflected inside the Parliament complex. From a time when very few MPs had cars — Ambassadors or Fiats — a plethora of imported vehicles now lays siege to the complex.

Today, there is a widening gulf between political parties. The convention – honoured by all political parties — was that the Rajya Sabha would go ahead with debates even if there is conflict or pandemonium in the Lok Sabha.

But this Monsoon session – presumably the last in this building — was almost a washout!

I have spent more time in this building than at my home in Kerala. The friendships I made in the corridors of power endure. Many of the staff in the building have seen me coming to Parliament since my early 20s — switching jobs, getting married and now as the mother of the twin girls who are grown up now. This Parliament House has been a constant figure in my life over the last 25 years. I do not know if the old sense of warmth will find its way to the new building.

Write to the author at liz.mathew@expressindia.com



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That there would be another political realignment was perhaps foretold in Bihar’s 2020 assembly poll results. Not only did BJP pip JD(U) by a fair distance, even RJD put up a strong showing, losing only narrowly after its 2019 Lok Sabha washout. Nitish Kumar was no longer the charmer, and the Bihar electorate seemed to have tired of “sushasan babu”. This was also the signal that BJP’s ambitions in Bihar now had solid grounding. That Nitish’s band of 45 MLAs were always vital for government formation didn’t and doesn’t change these realities.

BJP may not rue too much the loss of a government over which Nitish maintained tight control. But his decision is a breather for the good news-starved opposition. The breakup gives the opposition a better shot at Bihar’s 40 Lok Sabha seats for 2024. Nationally too, the realignment boosts flagging opposition unity. In 2020, anti-incumbency against the Nitish-led government, especially among youth looking for employment, was evident. Only the swelling women vote, mobilised by better targeting of welfare schemes, turned the tide for NDA. Even here, Nitish couldn’t really claim credit; that goodwill seemed reserved for PM Modi, which translated to more seats for BJP.

Whoever runs Bihar, it is in dire need of a governance reset. Since the 1991 economic reforms, all big states have widened their lead over Bihar in terms of per capita income. The state remains content to be a net exporter of low-skilled migrant labour. Niti Aayog’s analysis that 51% of Bihar’s population remaining multidimensionally poor showed the state lagging in education, healthcare and nutrition. With Nitish at the helm since 2005, much of the popular ire targets him. Even the Bihar BJP, his partner for 13 of these years, is more eager to cling to Centre’s achievements. BJP’s fresh pitch to voters may even seek a resounding mandate to rid the state of Mandal-era politics and alliances.

JD(U) and RJD should learn from their records of poor governance and frequent ego clashes that dogged the 2015-17 mahagathbandhan experiment. Not that the BJP-JD(U) affair was any better. If voters grow disillusioned with opportunistic coalitions, the secular combine will face heavy odds in 2024. However, if the JD(U)-RJD caste edifice holds, BJP may struggle. Meanwhile, there’s a warning no side should ignore: Bihar’s violent Agnipath protests signal that the young are growing fiercely impatient.



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GoI introduced the Electricity (Amendment) Bill in Parliament on Monday, accompanied by a request that it be sent to the relevant parliamentary standing committee for scrutiny. Both the bill’s introduction and its proposed scrutiny are welcome steps. Electricity distribution reform is a tricky area, with the Modi government trying it since 2014. This bill seeks to refine the landmark electricity reform legislation of 2003. The 2003 legislation tried to overlay a new architecture to promote competition in a system defined by a maze of cross-subsidies.

The main mechanism to foster competition in the 2003 law was open access, which means a customer is not limited to a single supplier. In practice, open access was really limited to industrial units. Therein lay the challenge. Cross-subsidies given by states depended on using industrial consumers to subsidise households and farmers. Consequently, open access has a mixed record. Fairly good in the case of inter-state access but unsatisfactory for intra-state, said a parliamentary panel in 2015. Also, open access has been stymied by states using barriers such as cross-subsidy surcharge to make switching costly. Their defence is that long-term power purchase agreements leave them with stranded fixed costs every time their best customers switch out.

GoI’s current bill hinges on its power to set rules to open the distribution chain. States’ distribution infrastructure can be opened up to all licensees in the area. It’s a way of segregating carriage and content to circumvent the conflict of interest state discoms face – by simultaneously owning distribution infrastructure and retailing. There’s also a provision to pare cross-subsidies. Unsurprisingly, this is a political minefield as electricity is in the Constitution’s concurrent list. That said, this phase of evolution is overdue. Now, the standing committee needs to get cracking.



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CAG has also pointed to inconsistencies in the GST Network (GSTN) data, such as gaps between taxable value and declared tax liability. An effective review and follow-up system by GSTN to address the causes of data inconsistencies is a must. Revenues would go up significantly with a robust GSTN.

The Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG) audit of the GST regime for the year ended March 2021 flags problems. These include the way refunds are dealt with and failure to detect frauds. Systemic weaknesses such as deficiencies in the automated refund module, sanction of suspicious refunds to taxpayers without proper scrutiny, absence of a way to monitor the realisation of export proceeds, and double payment of GST refunds are being tackled. The remedy lies in the correction of business rules, proper implementation of systems and technology, and robust deployment of data analytics that will also minimise any arbitrariness by tax authorities. Frequent changes in the rate structure, though, can unsettle the GST system.

Central GST taxes as a percentage of GDP fell to 2.79% in FY2021 from 2.95% in FY2020 and 3.02% in FY2019. Collections have picked up this fiscal, as glitches are being fixed. Many of CAG's recommendations have already been acted upon, such as comprehensive profiling of the taxpayers by integrating data from both internal and external systems such as income-tax (I-T), Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) and corporate affairs ministry, as well as scrutiny involving the risk-based selection of returns (just as in I-T). A real-time system of red-flagging high-risk taxpayers in the refund-related modules to avoid fake input tax credit claims, and a proper module for post-audit refunds to improve monitoring, are also in order.

CAG has also pointed to inconsistencies in the GST Network (GSTN) data, such as gaps between taxable value and declared tax liability. An effective review and follow-up system by GSTN to address the causes of data inconsistencies is a must. Revenues would go up significantly with a robust GSTN.

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​​This climate-focused spend involves tax credits to promote the use of electric vehicles and clean energy, provide incentives for companies to expand renewable energy (RE) production and fund green technologies. If passed into law, the world's biggest polluter will be set on a pathway expected to yield a reduction of 40% by 2030.

The US Senate put money where its mouth is on Sunday by passing the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), 2022. The House of Representatives is expected to take it up this week. IRA aims to curb inflation by imposing a 15% corporate minimum tax rate for companies earning more than $1 billion annually, lowering drug prices, increasing tax enforcement and imposing a 1% excise tax on stock buybacks. But what makes IRA a milestone law is what lies at its core: authorising a spend of $370 billion of the $739 billion package on energy and climate change.

This climate-focused spend involves tax credits to promote the use of electric vehicles and clean energy, provide incentives for companies to expand renewable energy (RE) production and fund green technologies. If passed into law, the world's biggest polluter will be set on a pathway expected to yield a reduction of 40% by 2030. True, this is lower than the US' 2030 target of reducing emissions by 50-52% from 2005 levels. But it's still helluva big deal.

For India, the legislation is an interesting case study. As far as policy and legal framework for energy conservation and security goes, India had passed the Energy Conservation Act (ECA) in 2001, providing the legal framework, institutional arrangement and regulatory mechanism at the central and state levels for energy efficiency and conservation, as well as lowering the energy intensity of the economy. Earlier this week, Lok Sabha passed an amendment to ECA that creates an obligation to use non-fossil fuel sources of energy, sets up a carbon trading scheme, and brings in new sectors such as buildings under energy efficiency norms and consumption standards.

IRA clearly signals where the US wishes to take its economy into the future, and opportunities for jobs and growth it has in mind. Taking a leaf out of this green book, India can focus on better implementation of its policies so as to not miss the economic opportunities presented by the energy transition and decarbonisation. In this, the US has taken a palpable, pragmatic stride.
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Two months after the Union Cabinet approved the registration of cooperatives as buyers on the Centre’s Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal, Union home and cooperation minister Amit Shah launched the onboarding of cooperatives on Tuesday. This step, the Centre hopes, will enable India’s cooperatives (grassroots organisations that harness the collective bargaining power towards a common goal) to purchase goods and services at competitive prices. The minister also asked cooperatives to register themselves as sellers on the platform to sell their products to government buyers. According to the ministry of cooperation, 61,851 government buyers and around 48.75 lakh sellers and service providers are registered on GeM.

The plan to re-energise the sector has been in the making for some time. Last year, the government announced the creation of the ministry to provide a separate administrative, legal, and policy framework to strengthen the cooperative movement, with the vision of Sahakar se Samriddhi (prosperity through cooperatives). This was a vital step since there are nearly 8.54 lakh cooperatives in India, with a membership count of 29 crore.

India’s cooperative movement, which started in the British era, was born out of the distress and turmoil of the last quarter of the 19th century when the Industrial Revolution crippled village industries and pushed people back to agriculture. The movement gained strength during the freedom movement. It continued to do so after Independence, drawing sustenance from the Gandhian thought that underlined the necessity for cooperation to create a socialist State. But over the decades, many cooperatives have become moribund and have failed to deliver. Various studies have shown the cooperative structure has flourished in a handful of states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Karnataka. But many cooperatives need a fresh infusion of funds. The government’s move can restore the importance of the critical cooperative structure and provide it with a new lease of life, help the sector to innovate and diversify its product range, and ensure better income opportunities for its members.



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The government on Monday notified the Passenger Name Record (PNR) Information Regulations, 2022, making it mandatory for any operating flight to share details of international travellers with a customs agency. Among these are details of a person’s ticket — when it was booked, date of travel and billing information — and data about their travel, such as origin, destination, and how many bags they are carrying. Also included will be their seat numbers and co-passenger data. The government, in the notification, said the objective is to create an advance risk assessment to combat crimes under the excise law and for sharing of intelligence with other law enforcement agencies. As safeguards, the notification says such data will be subject to privacy laws in force, avoid certain types of information (like race and religion) and be processed only within a secure system.

India isn’t the first country to set up such as system. In 2016, the European Union (EU) adopted the PNR Directive for all its member countries. Even before the directive, the EU and the United States (US) signed a pact in 2011 to share PNR records. A veritable data dragnet, such systems became expedient in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001 and the terror strikes that followed in parts of Europe later that decade. The US operates an even more sophisticated system called the Automated Targeting System. While little is known about the American system, the data sought by India suggests Delhi’s requirements may lie somewhere in between the European and the American models in terms of scope.

Experts in India rightly point out that the purpose and safeguards of the country’s new model needs to be better explicated, at least for two factors. First, the nature of the data sought qualifies as personal information and at times even as sensitive personal information. The EU rules require data protection officers to oversee the functioning of PNR-sharing systems and have a provision for an independent supervisory mechanism to mitigate the scope of abuse and harm that such databases can lead to. Second, five years ago, this month, the Supreme Court laid down a broad principle that personal data can be accessed by the State only in manners that are “just, fair and reasonable”. With no statute still in place to codify this, the new rules may need to be implemented carefully, and further checks built-in.



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Cambridge economist Joan Robinson once remarked: “Whatever you can say rightly about India, the opposite is also true.” To this day, the dictum has explanatory power. One of the difficult things to explain, especially to foreign CEOs building their company’s presence in the country, is that many Indias are encapsulated in India. There are many cuts to India — the 28 states, 22 official languages; urban and rural; the different communities, castes, and religions; and the salaried and self-employed workers. However, the most critical India they need to fundamentally grapple with is one spanning different development stages. An India that spans and demonstrates the characteristics of the most developed to the poorest parts of the world.

Just in terms of per capita, there are three Indias. If we go by purchasing power parity (PPP) estimates for per capita in India, there is a Europe of about 50 million people with a per capita of $45,000 per annum; an Indonesia of 425 million people (double the size of Indonesia) with a per capita of $9,500 per annum; and a sub-Saharan Africa of over 900 million people with a per capita of $3,300 per annum, including about 300 million people, whose income levels rank even below sub-Saharan Africa. The first two Indias are good enough for business. It’s a consuming India, growing rapidly with increasing aspirations.

The challenge for policymakers and the government is to address the opportunities for the India that business does not care about. This India has aspirations that are not being met. As the consuming power of the top two Indias grows, businesses worldwide focus on them and cater to their needs. These segments are powering the Indian economy, already the world’s third largest in PPP terms. Yet, India cannot achieve its potential, or ever be called a developed country, without improving the lot of those living at sub-Saharan levels. What is worse is that the growth rates in the income of the top two segments are faster than the bottom, so by 2030, India’s Europe and Indonesia will account for over 70% of the total consumption spending. In 2030, there will remain 200 million people living below sub-Saharan Africa levels.

All of India must care about this dynamic. We are a thriving democracy where such growing inequality will cause major social tensions and fundamental instability. As the Europe and Indonesia in India grow, products and services will target them, akin to the dynamic that one can witness in the research budgets of the global pharmaceutical industry. Basic ailments will continue to affect poor parts of the world due to neglect, while the needs of the rich get attention because of their economic clout.

Technology does offer hope for all, but the way things are in India, technology adoption in the sub-Saharan part of India is low, smartphone penetration poor, connectivity spotty, and there is an increase in digital apartheid. This is evident in the fall in children’s learning outcomes in the sub-Saharan segment during Covid-19.

One of the flaws in our development model compared to China, another large population country of continental size, has been our neglect of water. After the initial investments in irrigation and dams in the early years after Independence, there has been salutary neglect of water between say 1970-2010. Due to this, agricultural incomes have not grown. The need to improve productivity in agriculture is critical. After a spurt during the Green Revolution, agricultural growth slowed to around 3.5% in the 1990s and 2000s. India’s rice yields are a third of China’s and are about half that of Indonesia. The same is true of other agricultural commodities.

India’s sub-Saharan Africa requires water for irrigation and continuing innovation and research in seeds and fertilisers to help farmers improve their yields. One of the sad political realities of our democracy has been the supply of free water and power to agriculture. This has distorted incentives and has led to large transmission losses in power generation and poor power supply. Indiscriminate use of free water and power has led to steep falls in the water table. Improper cropping patterns in growing crops that use a lot of water in areas lacking water have further compounded this problem. One of the critical sustainability goals India should focus on is providing water security, especially for improving agricultural productivity and cities to facilitate migration from rural to urban areas.

In the coming decade, government expenditures and schemes should aim to lift India’s sub-Saharan Africa into the Indonesian segment. To be fair, the government has initiated many schemes for the poor. However, it must also continue strengthening delivery, using technological tools to ensure that the schemes reach their intended beneficiaries.

In addition to providing the living basics to the needy through subsidies, we need to, as the saying goes, “teach them how to fish” rather than provide the fish. Welfare schemes are important, but empowering this segment by fixing water, providing primary health care and nutrition, school education, and skilling, will be required to sustain the country in the long run. What a great India it will be if, in its 100th year of Independence, we can’t find any Indian inhabiting sub-Saharan Africa in India.

Janmejaya Sinha is chairman, BCG India

The views expressed are personal



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The year 2022 is special as it marks the 75 years of India’s Independence, and also 75 years of the establishment of diplomatic relations between India and The Netherlands, a celebration of our friendship between the people, the values we share, and the inspiration we draw from each other. The relations between India and The Netherlands date back to the early 17th century.

In 1947, The Netherlands established diplomatic ties with newly independent India, becoming the third country after the United States and China to do so. The two nations stand together as proud democracies and have strong political, cultural, sports, economic, science, and technology relations. The DNA of our relationship is based on addressing societal challenges through innovation and collaboration. Successful high-level visits in 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2022 reflect and reiterate the commitment to take the strong bond foward.

During the Prime Ministers’ Virtual Summit in April 2021, a strategic partnership on water was launched between the two nations. We work together to address floods in Kerala. We are joining hands in Chennai to close the water loop. Similarly, Dutch and Indian companies have a strong collaboration on renewable energy. We together challenge Indian designers to work on circularity.

In sports, the Dutch hockey coach Sjoerd Marijne and the Indian women’s hockey team were successful in the Olympics. Today, the Indian women’s hockey team has become not only an inspiration for many young women to build a career in sport, but also a role model for their position in India.

India and the Netherlands are establishing Centres of Excellence in India in the agricultural sector: Horticulture, flowers, and dairy, making the Indian agricultural sector more sustainable and productive. In addition, we are working with two multilateral organisations — the International Solar Alliance and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure — on the climate crisis. The two nations work together on strengthening global institutions and are committed to the rule of law and diplomacy as the only ways to improve security in our multi-polar world.

As we can see again in Europe, with Russia’s war against Ukraine, only strong international cooperation can bring peace back to the continent. This is how we work jointly on global societal challenges like zero hunger, good health, gender equality, clean water, sustainable cities, clean energy and peace, justice, and strong institutions.

Working on the Sustainable Development Goals is a team sport. It requires collaboration between governments, companies, civil society, and universities. In The Netherlands, we call this our polder model — a method of consensus decision-making among all relevant stakeholders.

The close ties between India and The Netherlands is illustrated by more than 250 Indian companies and institutions in The Netherlands and between 350 and 500 Dutch companies and institutions in India.

The Netherlands has the largest Indian diaspora in mainland Europe. Bollywood is well known in The Netherlands. From a distance, India and The Netherlands look different: India with 1.4 billion people, The Netherlands with 18 million; India with high mountains and glaciers, only lowlands in The Netherlands; India with 3.287000 square kilometres, The Netherlands with 41,500 square kilometres. But our societies are vibrant democracies, and our friendship is getting closer.

India and The Netherlands together can be the change we all would like to see in the world. Did you know that the former President of India, Ram Nath Kovind, during his trip to The Netherlands in 2022, named a new yellow tulip ‘Maitri,’ a symbol of the rich historical bond of friendship between the two nations?

Marten van-den Berg is ambassador of the Kingdom of The Netherlands to India, Nepal and Bhutan The views expressed are personal



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The 2021 World Air Quality report listed 63 Indian cities in the top 100 cities in the world with the worst air quality. Motor vehicle exhaust is one of the prime reasons for poor air quality in Indian cities and research published by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) estimated that India experienced around 74,000 premature deaths in 2015 due to transportation-related pollution. Still, the amount of exhaust emanating from cars, buses, trucks, rickshaws, scooters, and other vehicles is increasing.

In this context, India’s nationwide transition to cleaner Bharat Stage VI (BS VI) emission and fuel standards on April 1, 2020, was a milestone. The leapfrog from BS IV to BS VI standards for light- and heavy-duty vehicles required coordination from all stakeholders, and is a laudable step. The most notable improvement in fuel standards was the reduced the sulfur limit, from 50 ppm to 10 ppm.

For vehicles, the new standard includes an approximately 85% reduction in the nitrogen oxides (NOx) limit, a 70% reduction in the hydrocarbons (HC) limit and, for the first time, a limit on particle number (PN) emissions. Further, to help combat the known gap between emissions reductions approximated inside a vehicle test lab and what happens in real-world driving, India will implement on-road compliance standards for buses and trucks on April 1, 2023.

These are great initiatives, but a big question is: Are the BS VI on-road compliance standards effective in their current form, or do they require a relook to capture real-world performance, in particular performance common in India’s cities?

To answer, let’s understand how on-road emissions measurement happens in the case of buses. Under the Indian regulatory framework, emissions will not be evaluated when vehicles operate at power levels lower than 20% of maximum engine power, usually at speeds less than 30 kmph.

This is the case even though the average speed of buses in cities is around 21 kmph. Similarly, emissions from the vehicle when it is not warm (coolant temperature less than 70 degrees Celsius) will not be measured. But buses operating inside a city deal with congestion and traffic signals, and given the frequent passenger pick up and drop off, they will often not be warm enough for their emissions to count. Manufacturers are also allowed to eliminate the worst 10% of emissions data from the measured data before evaluating values for compliance evaluation.

The regulation also defines the test route, and the vehicle speed ranges require that buses run at urban speeds (0 – 40 kmph) for only 20% of the total test time; the remaining 80% of the time is spent at rural (40 – 60 kmph) and motorway speeds (> 60 kmph), and this distances the test requirements from the real-world operations typical of buses.

To better understand real-world emissions performance, ICCT conducted a detailed investigation of a BS VI bus, which led its market segment in sales. Emissions were measured on three routes: (1) the test route defined in India’s current regulations; (2) a suburban route; and (3) an urban route that represented a typical public transport route in a city. The emissions from the three routes were tested based on two approaches, the regulatory approach where data was excluded as described above, and the second, where all the data was included.

The results were surprising. When following the regulatory methods, the urban route showed virtually no NOx emissions, but this wasn’t because there were no emissions. Instead, it was because all the emissions data was excluded from what counts for evaluation. In the suburban route, the NOx emission is within limits; the same is the case with the test route. However, when we didn’t exclude any data, the urban route shows more than six times the limit, the suburban route almost three times the limit, and the test route, twice the emission permitted in the standard.

For particulate emissions, the urban route has no emissions due to data exclusion, while the suburban route has insignificant emissions due to the same reason. The emission of the test route just about meets the regulatory standard; however, if all the data is included, then the test route has four times the permissible emissions while the suburban route that over three times the emission, while the urban route is barely within the limit for particulate emission.

India largely adopted its testing requirements from what the European Union (EU) implemented back in 2016, but the EU has subsequently revised its requirements to address the several shortcomings identified. To reduce the gap between what BS VI vehicles are currently allowed to emit in real-world conditions and the full potential of the BS VI technology, the Government of India should immediately consider adopting the latest standards implemented in Europe and developing its regulatory pathway to eventually eliminate this gap. Ideally, manufacturers would have to certify their vehicles using real-world emissions tests without any data exclusions. Ultimately, though, while BS VI vehicles offer large emissions benefits when compared with BS IV vehicles, for cities struggling with high pollution levels, even small additional amounts of tailpipe emissions could be dangerous.

This is a reason to prioritise electric buses over any other fuel type, especially in cities continuously struggling with poor air quality.

Bharadwaj Sathiamoorthy is researcher consultant, ICCT, and Amit Bhatt is managing director (India), ICCT The views expressed are personal



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Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has left the BJP stranded in Bihar by getting out of the ruling alliance with BJP and opting to partner the well-grounded RJD, currently led by Lalu Prasad Yadav’s younger son Tejashwi Yadav. This has predictably fed the lore of Mr Kumar being a “flip-flop” politician. Between 2015 and 2017, he had been CM in alliance with RJD but dumped the RJD on that occasion to return to the BJP-led NDA. The reputation is not unjust. But there is a wider question here — is Mr Kumar alone who changes his mind? What about the BJP — in Bihar and in other states?

The tag is intended to denigrate the CM and it might in the eyes of the upper caste sections of the state, who have been with the BJP by and large well before the arrival of Narendra Modi on the scene eight years ago. But outside that elite social constellation, the label is unlikely to count. As for Bihar’s development under Mr Kumar, who has been in the saddle since 2005, there will be a question mark in spite of some progress in the otherwise discouraging record. In this period, his longest tenure has been in the company of the saffron party. The BJP thus cannot dodge the blemish.

Tuesday’s development in Bihar is likely to impact the political and social climate in Bihar. That’s not unexpected. But equally we may expect that the impact of this change will be felt in the next Lok Sabha election in 2024. The structural equation in the state — arising from the balance of the social and caste arithmetic — will get loaded against the BJP-NDA.

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In 2019, the BJP-JD(U) combine had picked up all seats but one. On its own, the BJP’s primary constituency are the upper castes, and that could make things much harder for it. In Bihar, in the recent era, elections are hard to win outright for any party. That has led to frequent coalitions which are put in jeopardy from time to time on account of more proximate factors as well as more mundane issues like personality differences and difficulties in faction-management.

In the present instance, however, it is the BJP’s expansionist tendency, in evidence since Mr Modi’s second tenure as PM began, that has fed dissatisfaction with the party’s traditional allies. One by one, the Telugu Desam, Shiv Sena and Akali Dal parted company. And now it is the JD(U) in Bihar. In the 2020 Assembly election, it was evident that the late Ram Vilas Paswan’s callow but supremely ambitious son Chirag was fooled into setting up candidates chiefly to damage Mr Kumar’s JD(U) with the aim of dragging down the JD(U)’s tally in relation to the BJP’s. The game succeeded and the CM has been wary of his partner. After the recent developments in Maharashtra, suspicion was rife that an effort was on to break the JD(U)’s MLAs through lure or threats. This made the CM switch gears decisively leading to the August 9 developments, although he would have likely been planning months in advance.

A consolidation of the OBC forces is clear to see in Bihar alongside the coming together of the scattered elements of the former Lohia socialists — JD(U) and RJD — who are teaming up with the Congress and the entire Left spectrum — CPI(ML), CPI, CPI(M). Such a line-up on a statewide scale is new. That this is happening in a major Hindi- speaking state is something to watch. Will it spread? Will Mr Kumar angle to position himself for PM in 2024? These are at best speculative questions for now.   



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Conspiracy theories on climate change have almost ceased to gain currency as
real events have forced people to accept what they are now experiencing year
after year. The signs are ominous — Europe is sweating like never before, and
reports say that the continent experienced its five hottest summers since 1500
just in the last two decades. The Arctic has seen its oldest and thickest ice
declining by 95 per cent in the last three decades. The impact is no less back
home in India. The northern part of the country witnessed heatwaves that
made the month of March the hottest in 122 years; Delhi’s temperature
crossed 49°C this year.

Two latest studies point to the possibility of climate change making extreme
weather events happen. The Met Office, Britain’s national meteorological
service, says climate change made the current heatwave a whopping 100 times
more likely in India and Pakistan. The World Weather Attribution which used a
different methodology in its analysis sounded more conservative but still
insisted that that climate change made this heatwave 30 times more likely.

Both agree that climate change will increase the possibility of the repeat of
heatwaves from now on. So much so, that it could be an annual phenomenon.
The root to the mess would lie in human activity, mainly the use of fossil fuel
which rapidly increases levels of greenhouse gases. Scientists agree in unison
that there must be rapid action with large-scale impact on this count if we
were to protect the life of the next generation on earth but the possibility of it
is comparatively less given the nature of our production and consumption-
based economies.

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The worst sufferers of climate change, as other natural calamities, are the poor
and marginalised people. A recurring heatwave would mean that a large
section of our people would remain vulnerable forever. This is unacceptable.
The government must hence initiate mitigation steps, including proper housing
for all, to protect them from extreme weather conditions.



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Just last week, DKB reported on the repatriation of 1987-batch IAS officer Renuka Kumar to her parent cadre of Uttar Pradesh. Now it seems that the officer has applied for voluntary retirement. Apparently, the senior officer was reluctant to return to UP. However, Ms Kumar is not the only officer who does not wish to serve in Uttar Pradesh. Two more senior IAS officers of the UP cadre have similarly sought voluntary retirement, all within a week. They are Juthika Patankar and Vikas Gothalwal. Veteran observers cannot remember when three senior IAS officers have sought to quit the service within days of each other.

So, what’s going on? The babu grapevine is abuzz with speculation about the possible reason for this development. Some are blaming the over-politicisation of the service in UP, which is making babus avoid working in the state. Why else would Renuka Kumar, who played a key role in the UP IAS Association’s campaign in the nineties to identify the three most corrupt officers in the state cadre now no longer want to work there? Like Renuka, Juthika, too, was on Central deputation. Vikas Gothalwal, however, is on study leave in the UK, and has sought VRS on health grounds.

Whatever the reason, this development does pose a ticklish problem for the Yogi Adityanath government, since an impression is being given that senior babus are unwilling to work in the state and would rather quit even if they have a few years before retirement.

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Rising cases contribute to ED’s growing pains

The profile of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has risen in recent times thanks to the growing number of high-profile cases involving money laundering that it is investigating. While these probes keep the agency in the media headlines, there is other evidence that the ED is now vying with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in terms of visibility and clout.

Most observers point out that since 2018 when S.K. Mishra became the director, ED has been on an aggressive expansion spree. Before Mr Mishra became the chief, ED had five special directors and 18 joint directors, mostly drawn from the IPS. Now the agency has nine special directors, three additional directors, 36 joint directors and 18 deputy directors, a nearly 50 per cent increase. Interestingly, there is a marked preference for officers from the income tax, directorate general of GST intelligence and customs and excise department, all of which function under the finance ministry. The expansion is geographical as well, with ED setting up offices in several states, including Meghalaya, Karnataka, Manipur, Tripura and Sikkim, among others.

Since 2002 when the enactment of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) empowered the ED and gave its officers more leverage to operate, it has conducted thousands of searches, especially since 2005, it did over 3,086 searches till February this year. This may explain the constant need to increase personnel. Yet, compared to the number of searches, the conviction rate is surprisingly low — only 23 convictions since the passing of the PMLA. Perhaps, despite the new inductees, ED may need not just more numbers but suitable technology to ease the workload of the harried officials.

Extension for Gauba meant to ensure ‘continuity’

There was barely a ripple in babu or media circles when the Centre extended Cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba’s term by another year. Mr Gauba, a former Union home secretary, was appointed to the country’s top bureaucratic post in 2019 for two years. He was given a one-year extension in August last year.

No speculation usually means that it was an expected move, by babus even. In this, they are not wrong. It has become a new tradition now that the Cabinet secretary gets to serve beyond the regular term. The usual reason trotted out is ensuring “continuity”, which in this case means that the Centre is looking at Mr Gauba to continue steering the economy towards recovery and growth, crucial for the government’s prospects as it preps for the 2024 general elections.

Of course, a second extension for Mr Gauba does queer the pitch for those who were in line to succeed him to the top babu post of the country. However, Mr Gauba’s immediate predecessor P.K. Sinha got three extensions — and then was brought into the Prime Minister’s Office as principal adviser where he replaced principal secretary Nripendra Misra. In that sense, Mr Gauba is still in mid-innings!



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The recent killing of Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawhiri in a CIA drone strike in Kabul, at an address evidently linked to Taliban interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, is very bad optics for the regime. It raises complex questions about the Taliban, and requires us to ponder how India should proceed in Afghanistan.

New Delhi may have to cautiously re-visit its modulated approach to the Taliban to check for roadworthiness. In a low-key operation in June, it reopened its mission in Kabul which had been closed after the Taliban takeover, underlining India’s Taliban-wariness over its past terrorist acts against Indian interests.

The declared purpose of restoring representation is to coordinate the substantial Indian food and medical relief -- to ensure it reaches needy Afghan people now in a near-famine situation. India’s overture, besides emphasising our deep friendship with the Afghan people, may be seen as cautious pre-positioning for the day the US and others eventually settle down to confer legitimacy on Taliban rule.

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Crucially, this depends on the Taliban cutting all terror links, especially groups with an international jihadist outlook like Al-Qaeda, and upon the insurgents paving the way for a government that accommodates all political interests in Afghanistan, besides treating women on an equal footing with men. The Zawahiri killing is a decided setback. It recalls Pakistan’s double-dealing being exposed when Osama bin Laden, whom Zawahiri succeeded as Al-Qaeda chief, was killed by US special forces in Pakistan.

After the Zawahiri assassination, US secretary of state Antony Blinken has justly accused the Taliban of “grossly violating” the Doha peace accord, under which the Taliban pledged not to harbour terrorists or allow terrorist attacks to be launched against other countries from Afghan soil. For the US, revenge for the 9/11 attacks is now complete as Zawahiri was the brains behind that tragic event. But this is strictly for US domestic politics.

For the rest of the world, once the US brought the Taliban back from the cold after battling it militarily for two decades, and then signed a peace agreement with it, bypassing the then Afghan government, it seems inconceivable that Washington would once again seek to freeze the group out. Doing so may mean that the countries with real influence and leverage with the Taliban are China and Pakistan.

Afghanistan may then lapse into a state like that existed before the US invasion in 2001, which led to the Taliban’s ouster. The Haqqani faction -- given its proximity to Pakistan -- may then become the most powerful politico-military entity.

With the Mullah Omar era ending after the Taliban founder’s death, by natural causes or engineered by the Taliban’s Pakistan controllers, the Haqqanis have pulled the most weight in the group, being the closest to Islamabad. The Kandhar and Doha groups have had to kowtow.

Geography has much to do with the Haqqani power base, making it the most influential Taliban faction -- a factor that has received inadequate attention in understanding intra-Taliban power dynamics. The clan is from the virtually ungoverned, rugged, tribal region that falls between Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan which has attracted and sheltered jihadist fighters from far afield, including Arabs, Uighurs, Uzbeks, Tajiks and Pakistanis. It has strong social and matrimonial ties with foreign groups and fighters since the days of the anti-Soviet jihad, which was overseen by Pakistan. Pakistan is their overall “warlord” in that sense.

Now that the Taliban are back in the saddle in Kabul, and the country is in dire straits, it faces a dilemma. It is desperate to gain international recognition in order to attract foreign assistance in every conceivable field to avoid economic and political instability, else it could meet with serious internal challenges, including from Taliban factions. But in order to be a normal country, it must cut off links with terror groups, many of whom may now be family or close associates, regardless of nationality.

This is a possible explanation why Zawahiri came to be sheltered by the Haqqani outfit. After Bin Laden’s death, Al-Qaeda was rendered a spent force except in parts of West Asia and the Sahel in Africa. Zawahiri was without charisma. He had no followers. He was living out his last days as a retired terrorist and was shorn of value, living practically on charity. Vanda Fellab-Brown, in a recent well-argued Brookings paper, sheds light on many aspects of the Taliban relationship -- especially that of the Haqqanis -- with foreign fighters and groups. She asks some questions: Would Zawahiri be able to do anything without the Haqqanis finding out; and whether Zawahiri, finding harbour with the Taliban, would do anything (like engineering a terrorist strike) that would jeopardise his hosts?

So, who was in a position to betray Zawahiri? Two sets of people, really. The first are those seeking to curry favour with the Americans -- such as  Pakistan, which is in a poor way and can do with all-round US help in getting financial aid and escaping the FATF (UN’s terrorism roster); and of course the Haqqanis themselves, partly to cement their own position within Afghanistan and possibly to get rid of the Al-Qaeda connection in a clever, secret manoeuvre. The other set are those who calculate they might benefit if the Haqqanis are exposed as helping Al-Qaeda. In this group can be other Taliban factions or even non-Taliban Afghans.

While castigating the Haqqanis for the Al-Qaeda link, we should bear in mind that the Islamic State of Khorasan (ISIS-K) has gained in Afghanistan and is challenging the Taliban, mounting terrorist attacks across the country. They are not a Taliban creation. Conjecture places their provenance with Pakistan’s secret agencies and sometimes even with the dark side of American operations.

Compared to ISIS-K, Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan is small beer.

The question is why should any of this worry us. The answer isn’t complex. If Taliban returns to being its pre-2001 self with withdrawal of Western -- and Indian -- help, India can be seriously impacted on terrorism. Two, Afghanistan -- along with Iran -- plays an important part in delineating our strategic interests in Central Asia. If we walk away now, we would have ceded all leverage to China and Pakistan in Afghanistan. That would help complete India’s encirclement to the north and the west.

Afghanistan is a society and polity in transition. The Hamid Karzai years, for all their negatives, did produce the outlines of a new Afghanistan. The system in power today is undergoing a churn. The Zawahiri incident could well trigger certain unexpected happenings. We need to stand by the Afghan people in this extraordinary moment.



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