Editorials - 17-08-2022

There is a need to balance India’s developmental needs with the sustenance of its ecological foundations

Chipko. Silent Valley. Narmada. Koel-Karo. Growing up in the 1970s and the early 1980s, many of us who were passionate about environmental issues were inspired by these and other movements. As the government too responded with a series of forest, wildlife, environment-related laws and policies, there was hope that India would be able to balance its development needs with the sustenance of its ecological foundations. As India celebrates 75 years of Independence, has that hope been sustained?

An earth under stress

The prospects today seem far gloomier than they did in the 1980s. Four hundred and eighty million Indians face the world’s most extreme air pollution levels. According to NITI Aayog, “600 million people in India face high to extreme water stress... with nearly 70% of water being contaminated; India is placed at 120th amongst 122 countries in the water quality index”. Land degradation and desertification are taking place over 30% of our land, according to the Indian Space Research Organisation. Average levels of land productivity are one-fourth or one-fifth of what they could be; pumping in artificial fertilizers restores a bit, but at the cost of pushing the soil further towards death. Food items in most cities have pesticide residues well above human safety levels. The World Bank — itself partly responsible for pushing India into unsustainable pathways — reported in 2013 that India was losing 5.7% of GDP due to environmental damage. The latest global environmental ranking by Yale and Columbia Universities puts India at the bottom among 180 countries; while flawed in many respects, including how it lets rich countries off the hook, it is nevertheless reflective of what is happening on the ground.

Favouring corporate access

All this evidence has still not penetrated the minds of politicians and economists setting development priorities. The obsession with economic growth — despite growing evidence of GDP being a very poor indicator of human well-being — treats the natural environment (and related livelihoods) as fodder for exploitation. Despite public posturing about the Sustainable Development Goals, the natural elements without which we would all be dead — land, water, biodiversity, air — continue to be ignored or mauled.

In fact, the Government is dismantling environmental and social security policies to favour corporate access to land and natural resources, such as the latest proposals to amend forest and environment laws, and the Environment Impact Assessment notification. Its priority programmes include building massive physical infrastructure that only disrupts the natural infrastructure we desperately need to protect. For instance, the 2022-23 Budget has an allocation for highways that alone is 40 times greater than the Budget of the Ministry for Environment, Forests and Climate Change. Of what use is faster and faster mobility, if at the end of the journey we still have air and water and food that are killing us?

Given the hopeful signs of the 1970s and the 1980s, how did we come to this pass? In our bookChurning the Earth , Aseem Shrivastava and I analysed in detail a significant turning point — the economic ‘reforms’ beginning in 1991. With greater integration into the global economy, the entry of multinational (and big Indian) corporations into every sector, and increasing exports of natural materials and imports of toxic waste, the issue of environmental sustainability was relegated to the background. Mining projects crept into previously safe areas including wildlife protected areas and Adivasi territories, the oceans became a target for major commercial extraction (and will be even more so with the new Deep Ocean Mission), and big infrastructure became a holy mantra.

While wildlife and biodiversity have been major sufferers, there are also severe socio-cultural costs. Over 60 million people have been physically displaced by ‘development’ projects in the last few decades with very poor (if any) rehabilitation, and according to the former Planning Commission, a disproportionately high percentage of these are Adivasis and Dalits. Ironically, a component of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) is new coal mining in central India, displacing already self-reliant Adivasi communities and rendering them dependent on government and corporations.

Extreme events

The climate crisis severely compounds all this. This year’s super-hot summer should be a warning, even if we have not yet learnt from earlier events of extreme temperatures, erratic rainfall, cloudbursts and cyclones. In recent trips to Ladakh, I learnt that many villages (e.g. in Zanskar) are being abandoned due to water shortages caused by receding glaciers. ALancet Planetary Health journal article says that extreme temperatures in India are responsible for 7,40,000 excess deaths annually. The majority of these are likely to be labourers, farmers, and other vulnerable sections who have to work, live, and commute in these temperatures without access to air-conditioning, appropriate clothing, etc. And we are not at all prepared, with abysmally low budgets for adaptation measures. The Climate Action Plan got a meagre Rs. 30 crore in the 2022-23 Budget.

Enabling sustainability

So, India’s biggest challenge: can ecological sustainability be ensured while generating livelihood security and dignity for more than a billion people? Answers do exist, in thousands of initiatives across the country, as documented in the Vikalp Sangam process. Five thousand Dalit women farmers of the Deccan Development Society have demonstrated how organic, rainfed farming with traditional seed diversity can provide full food security and sovereignty.

Several hundred handloom weavers in Kachchh (Gujarat) have shown how dignified, creative livelihoods can be revived based on organic Kala cotton and a mix of traditional and new skills. Indeed, India’s crafts have sustained several hundred million people in the past, and can do so again if the incredible traditional and new skills in textiles, footwear, cleaning agents, vessels, pottery, furniture, architecture and construction, water-related technologies, and a range of household items are given priority. Community-led ecotourism, such as homestays in Uttarakhand and Ladakh and Sikkim, has combined increased earnings with ecologically sensitive visitation. Community conserved areas have shown a democratic approach to wildlife protection very different from the top-down ‘protected area’ model. As advocated by the United Nations Environment Programme, public transportation, organic farming, land and water regeneration, renewable energy, community health, eco-friendly construction, ecotourism, and small-scale manufacturing can significantly enhance job creation. Linking programmes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act with such activities, as happening in some States, also has huge potential.

Needed, a mobilisation

Such an orientation entails fundamental restructuring of economy and governance. It will mean a shift away from large infrastructure and industrialisation, replacing mega-corporations with producer cooperatives, ensuring community rights over the ‘commons’ (land, water, forest, coasts, knowledge), and direct decision-making powers togram sabhas and urban areasabhas while tackling gender and caste inequities. It will entail respect for both human rights and the rights of nature. But since this will inevitably (and desirably) cut into the profits and consumerism of India’s ultra-rich, and reduce the centralised power of the state, it will not happen through government action alone. It needs the collective mobilisation of industrial workers, farmers, fishers, craftspersons, pastoralists, urban and rural youth, women in all sectors, the ‘disabled’ and LGBTQ, and those speaking on behalf of wildlife, all of whom are marginalised by dominant elites. Then only will India finish its century of Independence as a nation that has achieved genuine well-being — a real ‘amrit kaal ’ and not the seductive but poisoned chimera promised by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Budget 2022-23 address.

Ashish Kothari is with Kalpavriksh, Pune. The views expressed are personal



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The inequality of opportunities which Nehru wanted to eradicate has only systematically widened

Bliss was in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very Heaven! O Times” —William Wordsworth

Bliss was the night when I, along with the hostel students of St. Berchmans College, Kerala, proudly donning Gandhi caps and carrying crackers, waited to ring in August 15, 1947. With no radio around, we missed the historic speech of Jawaharlal Nehru, who said: “Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge... of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity... The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity.”

Seventy-five years on, it is instructive to ask how far we have redeemed the pledge. Economists in general have not examined this question. But three books by Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, written over 18 years, comprehensively examined the transformative process within their freedom-capability perspective keeping in mind the larger context of the demands of democracy and social justice. This article reviews the pledge of ending inequality of opportunity made at the time of Independence under three broad heads: gender inequality, social inequality and the practice of democracy. Let me hasten to add, I do not berate India’s achievements as an economic power, its progress in literature, science, technology, knowledge diffusion, innovation achievements, distinctions in music, films, market sophistication, and so on. But the compulsions of our history and public reason demand clarity regarding objectives and instruments, ends and means.

Men, women and equality

At midnight, we shouted the slogan, ‘Bolo Bharat Mata Ki Jai’, blissfully unaware of the unfreedoms of women in those days. Today, one will be shocked to find that the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) in 456 out of 640 districts is above 140 per lakh live births; in Assam, it is 215. That it is eminently better in the southern States shows not only the vast disparities in the health systems of States, but also the loss of freedom of millions to live long. Considering the global Sustainable Development Goals target, all countries are expected to have a MMR that is below 70.

Reducing the inequality between men and women in their access to resources and opportunity is an important metric of civilisation. The Global Gender Gap Index, produced by the World Economic Forum, with a stable methodology using four sub-indices — economic participation, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment — based on 14 indicators, provides a snapshot of where men and women in India stand globally. In 2006, India’s rank was 98 as against 13 for Sri Lanka and 91 for Bangladesh. India’s position fell to 135 in 2022, whereas Bangladesh improved its position to 71. Comparisons with Pakistan’s 145 or Afghanistan’s 146 can offer only cold comfort. In the sub-indice of economic participation, India fell from 110 in 2006 to 151 in 2021. Worse, in health and survival, it slipped from 103 in 2006 to 155 in 2021. That the reported Indian Penal Code (IPC) crimes against women as a proportion of total IPC crimes increased steadily between 1990 and 2019 is an ominous portend. It does not speak highly of our democracy that this happened despite 20 States reserving 50%, and others one-third, of local government seats for women.

Unless serious public interventions are made, inequality of opportunity will only widen where social disparities in gender, caste and class coexist. There are constitutional guarantees of reservation in employment and education for historically marginalised communities to expand their opportunities, but because these groups have had to contend with powerful groups with great initial endowments and an early start, these guarantees have proved to be largely ineffective. Moreover, India has failed to seriously implement land reforms. The resounding slogan ‘land to the tiller’ of the pre-Independence struggle has quietly vanished. While the property-owning class have been winners, the landless Dalits, Adivasis and the poor have not been able to go forward.

In a 2019 paper, Thomas Piketty and Lucas Chancel trace India’s journey ‘From British Raj to Billionaire Raj’ and show that the egalitarian achievements up to the early 1980s have been lost following the liberalisation turnaround. They estimate that the top 1% earners captured less than 21% of the total income in the late 1930s, 6% in the early 1980s and 22% in recent times. On the other hand, the share of the bottom 50% remained below 14%. This is but inevitable because the share of the bottom 50% income group grew 90% in the 1980-2015 period, while that of the top 10% grew 435% (Review of Income and Wealth, Series 65, Number S1, 2019). We cannot forget that the number of billionaires in India grew from 102 in 2020 to 142 in 2021, while the share of the bottom 50% in national wealth shrank to a low 6% in the worst pandemic times (Oxfam).

These striking numbers clearly prove that the sustained gains of economic growth have not been channeled to widen the access to education, health care, social security and so on. This could have substantially expanded India’s opportunities and freedom. The country that once chose a socialist pattern of society is not even a good social democratic variant now.

The practice of democracy

With growing social and economic inequality, Indian democracy is emerging into what Shankkar Aiyar calls the “Gated Republic”. His book under this phrase narrates why the privileged classes do not demand key public goods such as drinking water, electricity, and law and order; it is because they have bottled water, storage tanks, water purifiers, inverters, private security and the like. Many of the avoidable deaths, and disease, that happen in India are due to the public failure in providing water, public hygiene, education and the rule of law. It is paradoxical that India, which successfully launched the Mars Orbiter and Chandrayaan missions, could not eradicate mass poverty, especially of the Adivasis, fisherfolk and Dalits. The Economic Survey 2021 (Chapter 4) asserts that economic growth and inequality will converge in terms of their effects on socioeconomic outcomes. The trickle-down thesis is an insult to the poor. Only the rich who finance the political parties can have their quid pro quo, while social rights get drowned. Look at the promotion of electoral bonds on the grounds of ‘donor’s anonymity’ while the Election Commission and other democratic institutions get throttled? Corruption is pervasive and undermines democratic practice. The moral turpitude of the Opposition makes adversarial politics toothless and timid. The local democracy, heralded 30 years ago with great hopes to build India on a plank of economic development and social justice from the grass-roots level, faces utter neglect. The Mission Antyodaya project to eradicate mass poverty is in the back-burner.

After 75 years of Independence, the inequality of opportunities, which Nehru wanted to eradicate, has only systematically widened. When will the “soul of a nation, long suppressed” find “utterance”?

M.A. Oommen is Honorary Fellow at CDS and Distinguished Fellow at GIFT, Thiruvananthapuram



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The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research has undertaken its mission effectively since Independence

Reflecting on 75 years of Independence makes one proud of the socio-economic developments of our country. The long period of colonial rule had robbed India of most of its wealth, and, more importantly, the skills required to sustain economic growth. Starting off as a poor country in 1947, with its GDP a mere Rs. 2.7 lakh crore, and food grain production a meagre 50 million tonnes, the challenges of educating the people, feeding the population, implementing democracy, promoting industry and trade, and ensuring the country’s security remained daunting. It is against this backdrop that the responsibility of developing the science, technology and innovation ecosystem fell upon the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), which had been founded in 1942.

The immediate priority of the CSIR was to establish a number of national laboratories under its umbrella, and also promote similar organisations independently. The CSIR started five of its own laboratories with support from the government and industry and raising resources through crowdsourcing. Similarly, in collaboration with the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and the Government of Bombay, the Government of India (through the CSIR) started the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, with the CSIR providing substantial financial support in the initial years.

Among the first examples of finding science and technology-based solutions was the harmonisation of existing varied calendar systems. A committee under the Chairmanship of Meghnad Saha was formed to address this issue. The committee’s report was published by the CSIR in 1955, which then led to its acceptance as the national calendar, now one of the national identity elements. Another example in the early years of Independence was to address the challenges in conducting democratic elections — preventing frauds, including double voting by the same person. The CSIR’s National Physical Laboratory developed the indelible ink made up of silver nitrate to address this concern. The indelible ink is used even today and exported to many countries, undoubtedly remaining one of the prized gifts of the CSIR to the nation.

The leather story

At the time of Independence, India did not have well-established industries in many sectors. The informal work sector was also highly unorganised without their skills being developed for any particular industrial segment. A key mandate of the CSIR was, therefore, to help develop local industries by making contemporary technologies available and training requisite manpower. A prominent example of the CSIR’s contributions in this context has been in developing the leather industry. The making of finished leather products had remained elusive in the absence of a well-established leather industry and relevant technologies. Consequently, the leather industry employed less than 25,000 people at the time of Independence. In the 1970s, the Government took the decision of banning the export of raw hides and skins, and also imposing 25% export duty on semi-finished leather products. These decisions were a major turning point as far as the development of the leather industry in India was concerned.

In more than 50 years since then, the leather industry now has a workforce of more than 4.5 million, a large percentage of them being women, and a thriving market for Indian leather products around the world. Indian exports in this sector are close to $6 billion. The CSIR’s footprint in this sector has been transformative. First, when the CSIR-Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI) was established in 1948, it developed technologies for finished leather products, such as the first ever indigenous manufacture of leather chemicals, making the transition from semi-finished to finished leather possible. Further, the CSIR-CLRI routinely trained the next generation manpower for the leather industry. As a result, more than 40% personnel employed in the leather industry have been trained directly or indirectly in the CSIR-CLRI. Human resource development across all sectors, dominantly that in science, technology and innovation, has been the hallmark of CSIR.

Successes in technologies

The Green Revolution has been one of the crowning glories of science, technology and innovation. Similarly, the emergence of the generic pharmaceutical industry in India also has a fascinating history.

During the Green Revolution, the CSIR’s footprint could be seen in the development of agrochemicals and the mechanisation of agriculture. The chemicals industry needed the necessary thrust for its maturation although the Bengal Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Ltd. had been formed by Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray long before Independence. Two public sector companies were founded, post-Independence, based on technologies developed in the CSIR’s laboratories — the Hindustan Insecticides Ltd. and Hindustan Organic Chemicals Ltd., the former to make agrochemicals. Similarly, production of anti-HIV drugs by processes developed in CSIR laboratories provided the necessary impetus to the growth of generic pharmaceutical companies. These indeed represent fine examples of academia-industry interactions from the early days of Independence.

The mechanisation of agriculture was achieved through the indigenous development of the Swaraj tractor at the CSIR-Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI), leading to the formation of Punjab Tractors Ltd. in 1970. Notably, the technical team of CSIR-CMERI shifted to this company, presenting one of the first successful models of a spin-off company from academia in the country.

Path to self-reliance

A significant impact of the CSIR is also seen in the food and nutrition industry, in the aerospace sector, in the health and biotechnology industry, in protecting India’s traditional knowledge systems, and in promoting crops for enhancing farmers’ incomes. For example, in the 1950s, when solving the infant food problem appeared impossible, the CSIR successfully developed technologies to convert buffalo milk into powder and commercialised it with the help of Amul Industries. The Aroma Mission of the CSIR in recent times has been transforming the lives of thousands of farmers across the country. The cultivation of lavender in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has been attracting attention worldwide as India’s ‘Purple Revolution’. Thus, there are many examples of science, technology and innovation, which have allowed India to take definitive steps towards becoming an Atmanirbhar country. True Atmanirbharta will however emerge only if we remain at the forefront of futuristic technology development — a task clearly cut out for the CSIR.

Even as we attribute the growing affluence of Indian society to science, technology and innovation-led developments, the challenges for the future remain intimidating. Reducing dependence on natural resources, making all industrial processes circular so that no footprint of human activity is left, making technologies environmentally friendly, providing sufficient opportunities to all for living either in cities or in villages will remain priorities of science and technology. Moreover, the ancient wisdom of integrating science and spirituality by enhancing our understanding of nature in association with that of the human mind and spirit will be the fond hope of the science and technology community of India.

Dr. Shekhar Mande is former Director-General, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)



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A higher standard of living is possible if India shifts its focus to science and technology

As India celebrates 75 years of Independence, it is apt to imagine what the next 75 years will look like. Can our nation, obsessed with politics, Bollywood, and cricket, aspire to make the next 75 years an enviable era with a higher standard of living for every citizen? Yes, India can, and will, provided there is a shift in focus to science and technology. But how will India make this happen, given that it spends a meagre 0.7% of its GDP on research and development (R&D)? It needs to make some fundamental policy changes to facilitate the transition. These include increasing the R&D budget to 4% of the nation’s GDP, ensuring that individual institutions implement processes to accommodate the large budget, encouraging individual entrepreneurs and linking science with society.

Strengthening infrastructure

First, spending 4% of the national GDP on R&D is required to drive science and innovation. Israel and South Korea are prime examples that drive their respective economies by spending nearly 5% of their GDP on R&D. However, an increase in the science budget to innovate must precede appropriate macro-level policy changes on how and where the money needs to be spent. A part of this increase needs to be earmarked for building physical and intellectual infrastructure across the country, especially in the universities. A first-class infrastructure must be accompanied by well-trained, globally competitive institutional administrators and processes. India cannot compete on a global stage unless the dwindling infrastructure of its universities is upgraded.

Second, before any policy changes take effect, individual institutions must implement processes to accommodate the large budget. This requires standardising procedures across institutions and borrowing the best practices from some global counterparts. For example, when the government encourages public-private partnerships, each grant-receiving institution must have internal procedures to handle their scientists’ requests to facilitate effective academia-industry collaboration. Although there is a well-defined system to disburse research grants to scientists through their institutions, it is mired in inefficiencies. Inadequate staffing at funding agencies, lack of transparency in fund disbursal, lack of a rigorous international standard review and feedback process, excessive delay in fund disbursal, and an outdated appraisal system are holding our scientists back. Everyone knows about the lacking, but what is the way out? Part of the solution is to bring and implement best practices from the industry and some of the best-run science grant administrations abroad. The involvement of the IT major, Tata Consulting Services, and technology use in transforming passport services across the globe gives us hope. This is not to hand over the crucial decision-making process of science grant administration to the industry, but to facilitate the process of paper submission and to make the decision-making process easier, faster, and with complete transparency.

Science for the masses

Third, it is time to bring the fruits of science and technology closer to the masses. There is no better way to do this than by promoting and facilitating individual entrepreneurs. This has received increased attention from the government with many positive policy changes. However, without proper nutrition, the plants cannot produce greener leaves. There are no better cradles for creative ideas than our university labs. A robust system to link the labs with the entrepreneurs to funnel innovative ideas, products, and solutions to our society needs to be in place. To make this happen, the universities must encourage scientists to innovate and place standardised procedures to take ideas out of labs. Entrepreneurship will only succeed in India if it is backed by a funnel of ideas and a liberal process of taking those ideas out of our university labs.

Where does India find $125 billion or nearly Rs. 10 lakh crore to fund science? India cannot do that by taking money away from social infrastructure, rural development or important welfare schemes. This is only possible if India cuts the defence budget. No nation can claim to win wars in the 21st century with increased defence spending. Even the mighty U.S., with an excess of $750 billion dollars in the defence budget, could not defeat the Taliban. We must realise that the next generation of war is economic, not military, and only a science and technology-driven economy can prepare us for that.

Binay Panda is a Professor at JNU, New Delhi



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It is hoped that the constabulary will go back to policing instead of running errands for officers

As the country celebrates 75 years of Independence, the Madras High Court is seeking to rid the police force of the colonial legacy of employing police personnel as orderlies at the homes of senior police officers. “Such uniformed trained police personnel are performing the household work and menial jobs in the residence of higher officials at the cost of the taxpayers’ funds. Public has a right to question the mindset of the higher officials,” observed Justice S.M. Subramaniam in his recent interim orders. The court had taken suo motu cognisance of the issue.

Last month, the judge had directed the State Home Secretary to take steps to remove uniformed personnel engaged as ‘orderlies’. The court has said the “slavery system” must be abolished, failing which it will take some other course of action. It has posted the case for August 18.

The orderly system was officially banned in 1979. Yet, it is common practice to see men in khaki trousers and white crew neck banians running household errands for senior police officers and their family members. In some instances, even retired top officers have retained orderlies.

Going by rough estimates, a few hundreds of police personnel are deployed in the residences of serving and retired police officers. They don’t perform any police duty, but get a travelling allowance and extra time remuneration. These extra perks without performing any particularly difficult chores keep them happy.

But the orderlies are technically on the rolls of police stations, armed reserve or battalion strength. Their absence from official duties only adds to the burden of the already understaffed police force. The use of a few hundreds of vehicles for personal use again leaves Inspectors and Sub-Inspectors without vehicles. This leads to allegations that they force complainants to hire private vehicles for investigation purposes.

When the High Court took up the issue of the orderly system in 2018, the then DGP gave an affidavit claiming that it has been abolished. With the court bracing to pronounce its verdict, incumbent DGP C. Sylendra Babu recently called for an urgent meeting of senior police officers in Chennai and urged them to send back police constables, head constables and other rank personnel working as orderlies in their camp offices or residences for police duties. He also asked police officers above the rank of SP to give an undertaking that there are no orderlies at their residences.

However, officers engaged in law-and-order duties may be permitted to have a couple of police constables at the camp office to attend phone calls, visitors, etc. A three-member committee comprising the Chennai Police Commissioner, ADGP (Administration) and ADGP (Armed Police) has been constituted to study the issue and take suitable action at the earliest.

Rights activists have also argued that the use of uniformed personnel and police vehicles for personal use amounts to criminal misconduct as the officers draw an allowance of Rs. 10,000 for engaging servants at home without actually engaging them. Their contention stems from Section 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. This states that a public servant is said to commit the offence of criminal misconduct if he/she dishonestly or fraudulently misappropriates or otherwise converts for his/her own use any property entrusted to him/her or any property under his/her control as a public servant or allows any other person so to do or if he/she intentionally enriches himself/herself illicitly during the period of office. It is hoped that on the court’s watch, the constabulary will go back to doing its job of policing instead of running errands for officers.

vijay.kumar@thehindu.co.in



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Iran might not be directly involved in the attack on Rushdie, but it must revokefatwa

The Iranian Foreign Ministry’s comment, that only “Salman Rushdie and his supporters” were to be blamed for the gruesome knife attack on the author in New York State last week, is yet another reiteration of the clerical establishment’s well-known regressive position on the Rushdie affair. The 1989fatwa against Rushdie, issued by Iran’s then Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, because he believed the author’sThe Satanic Verses was blasphemous, has already wreaked enough havoc across the world. It was a rare instance of a leader of a country issuing an extra-territorial death sentence against an author who was living in another country by invoking his pan-Islamist beliefs and clerical authority. Dozens were killed in riots. The book’s translators and publishers were attacked. It drove Rushdie underground for years. Thirty-three years later, Rushdie was attacked by a 24-year-old American citizen of Lebanese descent, whose social media accounts are reportedly filled with pro-Khomeini and pro-Iran content. Iran has denied any role. It is astonishing that Iran could not even issue a statement condemning the attack and the attacker. Worse, pro-state media in Iran applauded “the courageous and duty-conscious man who attacked the apostate and depraved Salman Rushdie in New York”.

In the past, Iran’s government had stayed away from Khomeini’sfatwa . In 1998, Kamal Kharrazi, Foreign Minister in the government of reformist President Mohammad Khatami, announced in New York that Iran would not attempt to kill Rushdie. As it was generally interpreted as an informal revocation of thefatwa , the U.K. normalised ties with the Islamic Republic. But hardliners tightened their grip on Iran’s institutions once Khatami’s two terms came to an end in 2005. In the same year, Ayatollah Khamenei repeated Khomeini’s position — that Rushdie was “an apostate whose killing would be authorised by Islam”. In 2019, the Ayatollah’s Twitter account was briefly suspended after he said thefatwa was “solid and irrevocable”, The edict clearly made matters worse for Rushdie, but it did not stop him from writing. He wrote some of his finest fiction and essays during this period, disproving, as Christopher Hitchens put it, “Orwell’s fine but fallacious dictum that ‘the imagination, like certain wild animals, will not breed in captivity’”. Rushdie continued to live under the Ayatollah’s sword, but remained a champion of the freedoms he believed in, something which those who bayed for his blood never managed to reconcile with. Iran may not have a direct role in the attack. But as thefatwa issued by the leader of its revolution has hunted down this harmless man of words for over three decades, Iran has the moral responsibility, at least now when he is recovering from serious wounds, to revoke thefatwa and unequivocally condemn the attack.



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Premature release of prisoners must be done with discretion and wisdom

The release of 11 convicts sentenced to life for the heinous murder of seven people and the gang-rape of three women during the Gujarat communal pogrom of 2002 is a questionable decision by the State. On the face of it, it also appears to be illegal, as their terms seem to have been remitted without the required consultation with the Union government. It defies logic that those convicted for direct involvement in the rape of three women, the murder of a three-year-old and six others can be considered candidates for premature release under any remission policy. One of the convicts had obtained an order from the Supreme Court in May, under which Gujarat, the State in which the crime occurred, was held to be the appropriate government to consider his premature release. The Court had asked the State to decide the application under its 1992 remission policy, as it was the relevant one on the date of conviction in 2008. However, it is difficult to treat this as a waiver of the requirement under Section 435 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which makes consultation with the Centre mandatory. Further, a Constitution Bench, in 2015, held that ‘consultation’ meant ‘concurrence’ in this provision. The remission also runs contrary to the spirit of contemporary thinking on treating crimes against women and children, especially rape combined with murder, as so heinous that the perpetrators should not be considered for remission. It is not clear if the committee that recommended remission had considered the disquieting effect the release of these prisoners might have on the survivors and other members of the affected community.

A life sentence normally means that a convict has to spend the natural life in prison. The Cr.P.C. does permit premature release in the form of remission or commutation, but it should be based on a legal and constitutional scheme, and not on a ruler’s whimsy. The power of remission has been conferred on the Union and State governments — apart from the sovereign power of clemency enjoyed by the President and Governors — so that it can be used to temper the law’s rigours with an element of grace. While the benefit of remission ought not to be denied to anyone without a ray of hope that they will be free one day, it is a power to be exercised with discretion and wisdom. Further, any decision on remission should be linked to the convict’s expression of regret and some promise of reform. It would be unjustified if given for political considerations merely because of elapse of the minimum number of years they have to serve. With an Assembly election due in Gujarat at the end of the year, it is difficult not to read political significance into this decision. The sight of the released convicts being greeted and feted on their release will not sit easy on the country’s conscience.



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New Delhi, Aug. 16: While the inquiry committee on film censorship has recommended liberalisation of censorship rules a number of States have strongly opposed introduction of “passionate kissing and exhibition of nudity” in Indian films. This is disclosed in a statement showing the principal recommendations of the committee and views received from the film industry and State Governments thereon which was tabled in the Lok Sabha to-day. The committee observed that any law dealing with film censorship should merely state that films must not be repugnant to Article 19(2) of the Constitution. It is not necessary to have a long catalogue of general principles. The abovementioned Article of the Constitution safeguards the sovereignty and integrity of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign countries, public order, decency and morality, contempt of court and defamation and incitement to an offence. The States which have opposed introduction of kissing and nudity in Indian films are Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and West Bengal. Kerala and Pondicherry are, however, in agreement with the recommendations of the committee. Other States have “no comments” to offer.



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Facing arguably its worst economic crisis, Sri Lanka needs China more than ever. The country needs an IMF loan to see it through these times and such a deal is only possible if its major creditors agree to a debt restructuring programme.

The decision by the Sri Lankan government to allow the Yuan Wang 5 — a sea-going vessel capable of extensive surveillance — to dock at the Hambantota port is disappointing. First, a Chinese vessel with such strategic capabilities has not sailed this close to Indian waters before. Second, it is a clear indication that Colombo continues to ignore India’s security concerns: Sri Lanka tried — without success — to pass off the Yuan Wang 5 as a “research vessel” after it came to light that the ship was to dock at Hambantota on August 11 earlier this month. Colombo had appeared to heed India’s concerns but, clearly, China’s financial and strategic muscle seems to have prevailed over the Sri Lankan government.

In Sri Lanka — as in much of Asia and beyond — Beijing has great leverage thanks to its financial clout. Facing arguably its worst economic crisis, Sri Lanka needs China more than ever. The country needs an IMF loan to see it through these times and such a deal is only possible if its major creditors agree to a debt restructuring programme. China has thus far been reluctant to take a haircut on its loans. Beijing has also invested heavily in strategic infrastructure — like at Hambantota — and is now calling in its chips. However, it would be a mistake to see the Yuan Wang 5 episode as a serious setback, or review India’s assistance to Sri Lanka during its time of crisis.

India’s assistance to Sri Lanka — it has emerged as the top lender, extending $376.9 million in the first four months of this year — has grown during this crisis. Yet, in the medium term, Delhi cannot match Beijing’s economic clout. One way to help the people of Sri Lanka as well as provide its government with more options could be to partner with like-minded countries — many of whom are also major creditors of Sri Lanka — to try and reorient Colombo’s foreign and economic policies. The Quad countries, for example, could work together in this regard. Japan, too, has lent significant amounts to Sri Lanka and, given the country’s need for an IMF loan, the path out of this crisis will run through the US. Strategically, too, it is in the interest of countries that back a rules-based order in the Indian Ocean to try and wean Sri Lanka from China’s embrace. This will, of course, require concerted effort. The docking of the Yuan Wang 5, then, is not the end of diplomatic jockeying in Sri Lanka, it only inaugurates a new chapter.



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For months, the government, judiciary and administrators have been trying to work out a formula, including drafting of strict rules, to improve the governance of the AIFF.

In a game of smoke and mirrors, FIFA’s decision to suspend the All India Football Federation (AIFF) could lead to an immediate crisis and the move could harm India’s long-term interests. It is a matter of embarrassment that Indian football is staring at international isolation. It will also be a travesty if the players, coaches, referees and others involved in the sport suffer because of poor governance, which has led to the suspension. Steps should have been taken in time to ensure that the actions of an inept few do not affect the majority.

For months, the government, judiciary and administrators have been trying to work out a formula, including drafting of strict rules, to improve the governance of the AIFF. Many issues were ironed out but a big bone of contention, which apparently contributed to the suspension, was the inclusion of players in the AIFF decision-making process. The Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators gave players a 50 per cent representation in AIFF’s executive committee as co-opted members, as against 25 per cent recommended by FIFA. The state associations, who form the AIFF, felt threatened that such a move would undermine them and opposed it. Almost immediately, FIFA stepped in by suspending the AIFF, citing third-party interference, and demanded the CoA be repealed.

For Indian football fans, it is hard not to feel let down by all parties involved. This was a chance for the AIFF, which has been ruled by two politicians for the last 34 years, to get its house in order by way of radical reforms. Barring a few, the state associations have remained dormant for decades. It can be argued that the CoA could have been more practical in its approach. And FIFA, instead of protecting its own, could have been sensitive to players’ interests. Indian football has a deep-rooted governance problem. It won’t be solved by a FIFA suspension.



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Bilkis Bano and her extended family were attacked by a mob on March 3, 2002 while they were fleeing their village in Limkheda taluka of Dahod district. The Supreme Court intervened in the case after Bilkis approached the National Human Rights Commission.

In his Independence Day speech to the nation from the ramparts of Red Fort on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked: “Can we not pledge to get rid of everything in our behaviour, culture and everyday life that humiliates and demeans women?” On the same day, in a decision that violates the letter and spirit of the PM’s address that celebrated “naari shakti”, a Gujarat government panel approved a plea for remission for 11 convicts serving life sentences in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case. Besides rape, the 11 men had been convicted for the murder of Bilkis’s three-year-old child and 13 others, all Muslims, by a CBI special court in 2008. The remission in a case that lies at the heart of the continuing search for justice after the communal violence in Gujarat 2002 portends a disquieting backsliding. It is a grave setback for the tortuous legal battle to secure convictions in the horrific crimes of 2002 in the face of formidable obstacles and powerful odds.

Bilkis and her extended family were attacked by a mob on March 3, 2002 while they were fleeing their village in Limkheda taluka of Dahod district. The Supreme Court intervened in the case after Bilkis approached the National Human Rights Commission. The trial was shifted out of Gujarat to Maharashtra on the SC’s direction after she received death threats. The ruling of the CBI court was upheld by the Bombay High Court in 2017 and in 2019, the SC awarded compensation of Rs 50 lakh to Bilkis. The court also indicted policemen who investigated the case. Since her attackers are from her own village, Bilkis continues to fear for her life and is unable to return home. Remission is a statutory provision; it is not unusual for prison boards to clear convicts who have spent a minimum of 14 years in jail. However, it is rare for the sentence of those convicted of heinous sexual crimes to be remitted. In this case, the concern that it could set a precedent cannot be ignored. It is disturbing and disappointing that the SC, which had stepped in to ensure that Bilkis and other victims and survivors of Gujarat 2002 received justice, allowed a remission plea by one of the convicts earlier this year in May, which led to the state government setting up the prison board that has now ordered the release of all 11 convicts.

The Supreme Court needs to step in once again. To speak up once more for a woman who has stood her ground, braving all threats, in the courageous pursuit of justice. The court must direct that the remission be revoked. Two decades after the riots, as the convicts in the Bilkis Bano case walk free, activist Teesta Setalvad and police officer R B Sreekumar, who fought on the side of the petitioners, are in jail — the police took their cue from the court, its verdict became the basis for the FIRs. The apex court must ensure that the injustice to Bilkis Bano is reversed. It knows what is at stake.



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What is the message that goes out to survivors of sexual assault and communal violence of Gujarat 2002? Ironically, this happened as PM Modi gave a call for upholding Nari Shakti.

In a shocking development, the 11 convicts sentenced to life imprisonment in the Bilkis Bano gangrape and murder case were set free on our 75th Independence Day. They walked out of the Godhra jail following approval of their release by the Gujarat government under its remission policy. A senior official announced that the state government allowed for their release as they had already served 14 years in jail and keeping factors such as “age, nature of the crime, behaviour in prison” in mind. Was this a reward, or a demonstration of the state’s compassion — or of its complete absence?

Justice died a thousand deaths as rapists and murderers of 14 innocent persons including a three-year-old girl were set free. Ironically, this happened as the Prime Minister gave a call for upholding Nari Shakti and the dignity of women from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the same day. He went on to urge his fellow Indians to respect and empower women and their critical role in nation-building. Alas, it seems his words were not heard in his own state.

Gujarat was engulfed in communal violence following the burning of the Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002. Bilkis, five months pregnant, and her family fled when an armed mob attacked their neighbourhood. They were hiding in a field when 30-40 men carrying swords, sticks and sickles attacked them. Seven of her family members were killed on the spot. The key accused smashed her infant daughter with a rock. Bilkis was gang-raped and given up for dead. She survived and reached the police station with the help of some villagers. For over a year, the police tried to cover up the matter. Following public uproar, the culprits were arrested in 2004. In 2008, the special CBI court gave life imprisonment to some of the accused for gang rape, murder and also conspiracy to rape a pregnant woman while acquitting some for lack of evidence. In 2018, the Bombay High Court upheld the conviction and set aside the acquittal of others.

Bilkis Bano became the symbol of hope for all survivors of Gujarat violence. The verdict in her legal case gave hope for justice to all survivors of brutal sexual assaults countrywide. Bilkis is a real-life heroine who fought courageously for justice in the face of tremendous hardships including hostilities and threats from perpetrators and their political supporters. In 2019, the Supreme Court directed the government of Gujarat to pay Bilkis a compensation of Rs 50 lakh for her struggle.

Remission might fall well within the legal entitlements of a prisoner but can it be viewed sans any sign of the realisation of the wrong-doing, leave alone guilt or remorse? What is the message that goes out to the survivors of sexual assaults and communal violence by this remission of the guilty?

Remission may not qualify as a legal precedent but it may end up influencing the mindset of those involved in judicial machinery. It may give a message that those guilty of gang rape and murder can be free after serving a 14-year jail term. It may give a message that dastardly crimes can be washed off by merely serving a jail sentence. Meanwhile, the victim suffers the irreparable loss of the lives of loved ones. She remains traumatised for life and is unable to move on.

Let us remember that more than a thousand lives were lost and many more were injured in the communal violence in Gujarat in 2002. The National Human Rights Commission noted in its report that thousands of homes were burnt down and lakhs of innocent citizens were forced to flee and take shelter in relief camps across the state. Mob attacks and killings continued even as villages and cities remained under curfew for almost 10 months. There was a shortage of food, rations and medicines for those in the relief camps. The survivors had to run from pillar to post for registering complaints and filing FIRs. The humanitarian crisis failed to move the state machinery into action. The NHRC and the Election Commission had to intervene to get the administration to attend to the basic necessities of women, children and elderly displaced from their homes. Ultimately, the efforts to provide relief and succour to the displaced were led by civil society organisations, voluntary groups and activists. They worked tirelessly for relief, rehabilitation, legal justice, peace and harmony. There were no efforts or any talk of harmony or healing touch from those in the government.

Apart from the need to respect women, the Prime Minister also talked about the need to shed the evils of divisiveness in his Independence Day speech. It is not too late even now for the state government to pay heed to the PM. The wrongs done to innocents who suffered in 2002 must at least be acknowledged. Remission for the accused in one of the most gruesome incidents of sexual violence against a woman and an innocent family is like rubbing salt into the wounds of the hapless survivors.

As the nation celebrates Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, a daughter who underwent unspeakable brutalities and suffering is looking on helplessly as those who badgered her walk out of prison. Several more like her who await justice are going to lose hope with this action of the state. I can only hope that those sitting at the top of the Gujarat government listen and act on the PM’s call to respect the dignity of women.

The writer is a women’s rights activist and founding member of Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan



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The empathy of Muslim neighbours is, no doubt, heartwarming. But the volatile political situation and the sporadic but continuous killing of Hindus since 2019, including Bihari labourers, has increased the insecurity of Kashmiri Pandits

Militants have struck in the Kashmir Valley once again. On Tuesday, they gunned down a Kashmiri Pandit and injured another member of the community. It seems that as soon as things appear to be improving for the few Pandits remaining in the Valley, things take a turn for the worse.

The numbers of Kashmiri Pandits started dwindling with the large-scale conversion of the population to Islam around the 13th century. Kashmiri is the mother tongue of both Hindus and Muslims from the Valley. The two communities have much in common in terms of eating habits, dress code and cultural heritage.

The survival of the community after these conversions depended on the whims of the rulers – the Mughals (1580-1750) and Afghans (1752-1819). The community appealed to Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur in 1675 and Maharaja Ranjit Singh in the early 19th century to save them from becoming extinct in the Valley. The Dogra regime (1846 to 1947) is seen as a good period for the community when its members used education to improve their status vis-a-vis the Muslims. Many left the Valley for better opportunities and a large section of those who stayed back became professionals and got government jobs.

In 1948, the community comprised 8 per cent of the state’s population. After the Land Reforms Act was initiated by the Sheikh Abdullah government, Pandit landowners lost their land and migrated. By 1981, their population in the Valley had come down to only 5 per cent.

The exodus in the 1990s was a result of the targeted killings of Pandits. An estimated 1,00,000 Pandits left the Valley under very difficult circumstances. However, Kashmiri Pandits were not the only community to be targeted by militants. According to information accessed by an RTI activist (IE, December 15, 2021), 89 Pandits have been killed by militants while 1,635 persons of other faiths have also lost their lives since 1990. These figures could be disputed but the fact is that both Muslims and Pandits suffered at the hands of militants. However, the killing of Kashmiri Pandits got greater media coverage. Of course, the fear is much greater among the minorities. This led to mass migration, bringing down their population to less than 1 per cent in the Valley.

In 2010, as per government figures, there were only 808 Pandit families – 3,445 people in all — in the Valley. Several initiatives to attract Pandit families back to the Valley did not succeed. A Rs 1,168- crore package in 2008 by the UPA government couldn’t draw even 2,000 youths from the community to return to the Valley. The recently-released film, Kashmir Files, seems to have made the life of the Pandits living in the Valley even more difficult. There seems to be a feeling amongst Muslims that they are blamed for what happened in 1990 when everybody suffered.

With the state under Central rule since August 5, 2019, it was hoped that things would improve for the Pandits. However, in the last few months, the problems seem to have increased for those who have chosen to be there. The killings of innocent people have petrified the community and there is a sense of demoralisation amongst them, especially because the militants who commit dastardly crimes manage to escape.

The empathy of Muslim neighbours is, no doubt, heartwarming. But the volatile political situation and the sporadic but continuous killings of Hindus since 2019 — including Bihari labourers — have increased the insecurity of Kashmiri Pandits.

The tourist season this year has been exceptionally good with those involved in the industry doing well. There has been no attempt to disrupt it, indicating that the separatists do not want to antagonise the locals. Only a handful of persons have bought land in the UT after the abrogation of Article 370, and that’s confined mainly to areas closer to Jammu province.

For a Kashmiri Pandit like me who continues to have an intimate and affectionate relationship with the Valley and its people — this includes Gauri Kaul Foundation’s healthcare initiatives — these killings are worrying. The local population’s encouragement, along with my strong Kashmiri roots, gives our group the confidence to quietly continue our mission to provide good healthcare. But we realise that these contributions are no solution to the vexed problem of the Pandits. Normal life remains a distant dream for them.

The writer is a cardiologist and founder director of the Gauri Kaul Foundation



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Upma Gautam writes: The large percentage of undertrials in prison and pre-trial detentions are often a result of the unfair application of bail provisions.

The Indian criminal justice system discourse usually affirms the cardinal rule of the presumption of innocence. However, the “Prison Statistics of India 2020” paints a rather gloomy picture. The fact that 76 per cent of prisoners are undertrials indicates that this principle is followed in the breach.

The large percentage of undertrials in prison and pre-trial detentions are often a result of the unfair application of bail provisions. Primarily, this is because of unnecessary arrests by investigating agencies. The first decade of the 21st century witnessed a series of amendments in provisions pertaining to arrests and bail. The modifications under Section 41 and incorporation of 41A in the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) were significant attempts to reduce the number of arrests by the police in offences punishable by up to seven years of imprisonment. These initiatives had the potential to reduce custodial violence and lower the burden on courts.

However, despite these amendments and repeated directives by the courts about the judicious application of Sections 41 and 41A by investigating agencies, the proportion of bail applications pending before district courts, high courts and the Supreme Court largely remained unaltered. The police continue to take a mechanical approach that regards detentions as the only effective option to complete the investigation. This defeats the objective of these provisions.

In the second week of July, in Satender Kumar Antil v. CBI, the Supreme Court asserted the mandatory compliance of the less-used provisions of 41, 41A. It affirmed its 2014 verdict in Arnesh Kumar vs State of Bihar, which directed state governments “to instruct its police officers to not arrest the accused automatically when the offence is punishable with imprisonment for a term which may be less than seven years”. The Court also said that investigating agencies are accountable for compliance with Section 41 and 41A. It reiterated the importance of the “bail over jail” rule and issued a slew of guidelines to prevent unnecessary arrest and remand.

The Court laid down a step-by-step procedure to ensure that the rights of the accused, as well as that of the society at large, are respected. It suggested the enactment of a Bail Act to inject clarity in bail-related matters and asked the government to take a cue from the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and many other legal systems as well as the 268th Law Commission report. Such a piece of legislation will not only make the granting of bail simpler but also make explicit the conditions when bail cannot be granted under the Indian Penal Code, Special Acts and for economic offences.

The possibility of Satender Kumar Antil v. CBI turning the tide against pre-trial detentions is being debated in the legal fraternity. A section of commentators does not seem optimistic given that the arrest of the wrongdoer is seen as an effective redressal mechanism by the victim and anything less than immediate detention by the police officer (notice for appearance u/s 41A) is considered a sign of complacency of the authorities. Moreover, Section 41A has provisions that mandate the immediate arrest of the accused. Apprehensions about the lower courts abiding by the spirit of the judgment have also been raised.

Within a fortnight of Satender Kumar Antil v. CBI, the Supreme Court in Vijay Madanlal Chaudhary v. Union of India (PMLA case) upheld the arbitrary conditions of bail under Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, thus discarding the “presumption of innocence” principle. Two SC judgments that seem at odds with the other in a fortnight have perplexed several legal scholars.

Operations of investigating agencies should not be seen in isolation from that of courts. The conflicting and ambiguous approach of courts towards pre-trial incarceration and bail provides a justification of sorts to investigating agencies when they flout due processes. That’s one reason Indian jails are flooded with undertrials. The confusion created by the two decisions of the apex court reinforces the need for a Bail Act. Investigating agencies need to sync their approach with the principles of natural justice. Police officers need to be objective in deciding the need for arrest and the practice of routine arrests should be done away with.

(The writer is Assistant Professor, USLLS, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi)



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Failing to fully integrate discom operations in the analysis of state government finances obscures the true picture of loss.

The Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS), along with planned changes to the law, are the latest in a series of attempts by the central government to tackle the challenges of the power sector. Power sector reforms are overdue not just for their own sake but also because they are critical to rescuing state government finances.

Excellent recent reports by the RBI and PRS Legislative Research provide lucid analyses of the fiscal situation of the states. Intended probably as a wake-up call, the RBI’s report reassured more than it alarmed. To be sure, a few states such as Punjab and Rajasthan had deficits and debt that exceeded the indicative targets set by the Fifteenth Finance Commission (FFC). But overall most states either met both or one of these targets.

These reports highlight the challenges faced by states, owing to the dysfunctionality of the power sector discoms. But failing to fully integrate discom operations in the analysis of state government finances obscures the true picture. When this is done — as we do below — the reality is alarming.

India has made impressive strides in increasing access to the quantity and quality of electricity and in expanding renewable capacity, for which the government deserves credit. But the financial health of the power sector is rapidly deteriorating and flirting with catastrophe.

Figure 1 plots three measures of the estimated losses of the discoms in increasing order of “truth”: Headline losses, losses without subsidies and grants, and losses without subsidies and grants and including the arrears of the discoms.

Our estimates suggest that for the fiscal year 2020-21, combined losses of the discoms are Rs 2.1 lakh crore without subsidies and grants which mount to Rs 3.0 lakh crore when arrears are included. These exceed by a factor of 2.7-3.8, respectively, the headline loss of 78,000 crore.

But even these numbers might underestimate the problem. The loss numbers only exclude grants under the UDAY scheme even though there are several other grants. And the numbers only include discom arrears to the power generating companies (GENCOs) but not to others, resulting in overall payables of about Rs 2.4 lakh crore. The true arrears situation will therefore depend on the magnitude, certainty and timing of the discoms getting paid for their receivables, much of which is owed by government actors. The true loss estimate could therefore be greater.

State governments could be staring at losses of 1.5 per cent of GDP just from this one sector. Moreover, as Figure 1 shows, apart from a brief period when headline losses were stabilised in the mid-2010s, true losses have been steadily increasing for over a decade.

The truth is that the whole discom operation — with very few exceptions, notably in Gujarat and in a few urban metropolises — is a giant Ponzi scheme, both perpetrated and back-stopped by state governments.

For over 50 years, costs have never really been covered by revenues, and losses in perpetuity have become a feature, not a bug. Few state government leaders, if any, have even pretended to achieve full cost recovery. The imitative populism that has gripped the states recently makes chronic under-recovery a reality going forward too.

But this Ponzi scheme never sees — is never allowed to see — its disastrous denouement. Some government actor — typically state governments but also public sector banks or the central government — has always come to the rescue, averting a full-blown crisis. De facto, some public sector balance sheet back-stops the discoms and ultimately prevents the Ponzi fallout. Accepting this reality has one implication for accounting transparency. Public sector discom operations are traditionally thought to create contingent liabilities. Contingency seems a euphemism because with unfailing regularity they become actual liabilities. Put starkly, discom operations are state government operations.

If that is true, and in the spirit of what the UDAY scheme attempted, discom losses (including arrears) operations must be included in state government finances both on the flow and stock side. Discom losses must be added to state government deficits, with logic and arithmetic consistency demanding that discom debt be included in state government debt (of course, this principle should apply to other “contingent” liabilities of state governments).

For fiscal 2020-21, Figure 2 depicts state government finances to exclude (Panel A) and include (Panel B) discom losses (and arrears) for both flows and stocks. The contrast between the two is striking. Ignoring discom losses suggests that six states ran afoul of both fiscal targets set by the FFC and another six were consistent with both.

When the accounting is done properly, 11 states run afoul of the fiscal targets set by the FFC. There is a general shift to the right (higher deficits) and upwards (higher debt). In FY21, “true” deficits, incorporating discom losses, increase state government deficits as a whole from 4.7 per cent to 5.5 per cent of state GSDP, putting state governments above fiscal responsibility limits. And their “true” aggregate debt increases from 31.0 per cent to 34.5 per cent. And there are some truly alarming cases: Not just Punjab and Rajasthan but also Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and to a lesser extent Tamil Nadu and Kerala. It is almost certainly the case that with true deficits and debts being greater, state governments’ fiscal sustainability will look much more precarious.

Who then is financing or enabling this Ponzi scheme? Figure 3 provides the surprising answer. Increasingly, the power sector is being financed not by the PSBs but by the two non-bank financial companies, Power Finance Corporation (PFC) and Rural Electrification Corporation (REC), which have recently been merged. From 2014 onwards, PFC/REC have lent more to the power sector than PSBs. As of 2021-22, the latter have lent about Rs 6 lakh crore (stagnant since 2014), whereas PFC/REC have lent Rs 7.6 lakh crore, more than doubling within four years from 2017. Moreover, more than one-third of PFC/REC lending is to the discoms. In other words, the next vulnerability in the financial system related to the power sector is PFC/REC.

In sum, the facts presented above illustrate three new realities: The financial problem of discoms is considerably worse than headline numbers indicate; consequently, state government finances are considerably more precarious than even the recent RBI analysis suggests; and the vulnerabilities stemming from the financing of unsustainable discom operations have extended to a new institution, namely PFC/REC.

What are the consequences and possible solutions? We take these up in our next article.

Anand and Sharma are consultants in the private sector. Subramanian is with Brown University and the Center for Global Development



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Christophe Jaffrelot, Maulik Saini write: Muslim presence is declining in public sector and even in the self-employed. They are overrepresented among the unemployed.

This article analyses the underrepresentation of Muslims in the public and private sector, state-wise and over more than 10 years. We use the 66th and 68th rounds of the National Sample Survey, called ‘Employment and Unemployment,’ whose data was collected from July 2009 to June 2010 and July 2011 to June 2012. We also use the Periodic Labour Force Surveys (PLFS) of July 2018-June 2019 and July 2019-2020. In each case, the samples are very large — in 2009-10, 122,359 people, in 2011-12, 125,931, in 2018-19, 99,988 and in 2019-20, 100,991.

These surveys examine the composition of the public and private sectors, religion-wise. For the private sector, the category “proprietors” refers to the fact that the persons enumerated are not part of the salaried milieu but “self-employed” (a formula we keep) because if few of them are CEOs, most of them do work that pays less — shopkeepers and artisans for instance.

To make the interpretation more robust, some weightage has been applied. Weight is basically a survey design variable that says approximately how many households in the population a surveyed household represents. The weightage associated with one household defines the number of households it represents in the population.

The first two series, the 2009-10 and 2011-12 surveys, have only one public sector variable, while the 2018-19 and 2019-20 surveys account for the bureaucracy and state-owned enterprises. For the sake of comparison between the first two rounds and the later ones, we have bracketed together “bureaucracy” and “state-owned enterprises” and compared these data with the “public sector” category.

There are significant variations between the first two rounds and the last two, even if we see more variations in frequency counts graphs than in weighted graphs — this is because frequency counts represent sample population and weighted data represent total populations. But to minimise the variations, we have calculated average figures for the first two rounds on the one hand and for the second two rounds on the other. As a result, two datasets have been generated by combining four data sets.

The results are telling. While Muslims form 14.2 per cent of the Indian population, their proportion of the public sector employment has stagnated at below 7 per cent (from 6.75 to 6.87 per cent) between 2009-12 and 2018-2020. In contrast, Hindus who constitute 80.2 per cent of India’s population comprise about 86 per cent of the public sector. On the other hand, Muslims are over-represented among the self-employed — 16.5 per cent in 2009-12 and 15.5 per cent in 2018-20 per cent, an erosion we see in most states.

In India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh, where Muslims represent 19.26 per cent of the population, their percentage in the public sector had gone up from 5 per cent in 2010 to 11.5 per cent in 2012, when the Samajwadi Party was in office. But it has dropped to 7 per cent in 2019 and 6.5 per cent in 2020. Muslims are over-represented among the self-employed, simply because they have no other choice but to be on their own. Between 2010 and 2020, their percentage among the “self-employed” remained around 24 per cent. This pattern repeats in Madhya Pradesh as well, where Muslims (6.6 per cent of the population) represented 3 per cent of the public sector’s employees in 2009-12 and 4.5 per cent in 2018-20. They represented 10.7 per cent of the self-employed in 2009-12 and 11.7 of this category in 2018-20.

In Rajasthan, Muslims, about 9 per cent of the population as per the 2011 Census, constituted 4.1 to 4.3 per cent of the employees in the public sector. They were over-represented among the self-employed despite some erosion in the later years — 13 per cent in 2009-12 to 10.2 per cent in 2018-20. In Delhi, the trends are the same: Muslims, 12.9 per cent of the population, represented only 4 to 5 per cent of the government employees but 14.5 per cent of the self-employed in 2009-2012 and 13.41 per cent of this category in 2018-20. They are over-represented among the self-employed but experienced some erosion. In Maharashtra too, the percentage of Muslims in the public sector, 4.8 per cent in 2009-12 and 5.2 in 2018-20 was much below their share of the state’s population —11.5 per cent. They remained over-represented among the self-employed –16.9 per cent in 2009-12 and 16.4 per cent in 2018-20. Similar trends are found in Karnataka, where Muslims constitute about 12.9 per cent of the state but only 6.2 per cent of public sector employees in 2009/12 and 5.2 per cent of the public sector in 2009-12/2018-20. They were also over-represented among the self-employed, despite some erosion — 20.3 per cent in 2009-12 and 19.1 per cent in 2018-20.

In some states, the erosion of the share of Muslims among the self-employed is even more pronounced. As a result, they are under-represented not only in the public sector but also among the self-employed. In Gujarat, where Muslims are 10 per cent of the society, their share in public sector employment has come down from 7 per cent to a minuscule 1.5 per cent. Amongst entrepreneurs, their share has dropped from 12.5 per cent in 2010 to 9 per cent in 2020.

In Assam, where Muslims account for 34.2 per cent of the population as per the 2011 Census, they have always been significantly under-represented — 17.4 employees in the public sector and 19.32 per cent in 2018-20. They were around 30 per cent of the self-employed in the period under review.

The declining representation of Muslims, not only in the public sector but also among the “self-employed” suggests that they are now increasingly overrepresented among the unemployed. The share of Muslims deemed as jobless in the NSS surveys under review jumped from 2.62 per cent in 2009-10 to 7.16 per cent in 2018-19.

Jaffrelot is senior research fellow at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Paris, professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at King’s India Institute, London, and non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Saini is a Data Analyst & Researcher on Indian politics



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Byju Raveendran writes: Thanks to growing digitisation, the barrier to entry to becoming an entrepreneur is low and getting even lower.

Two interesting events happened on the sidelines of a startup conference that I attended recently. I met a woman — a grandmother in her early sixties — who told me excitedly about the online food delivery business that she started a year ago. She had come from Meerut and could not wait to “scale” her “Awadhi chaat” across the world. I also met a 14-year-old girl from Mangalore who was building a “climate intelligence” app to enable farmers to better prepare for extreme weather events. The grandmother and the teenager, put together, captured the spirit of entrepreneurship that is sweeping India. From Meerut to Mangalore, we are building in India for the world.

The relentless rise of entrepreneurial India is a spectacle that is not only astounding developed nations but also inspiring other developing nations to aim higher and build more. Thanks to growing digitisation, the barrier to entry to becoming an entrepreneur in India is really low and getting even lower. It is not surprising that India has jumped nearly 80 ranks on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index. India has the world’s third largest start-up ecosystem, which now comprises more than 70,000 start-ups. Even better, more than half of these start-ups are now headquartered in non-metropolitan cities. The young Indian is learning and working today not with a job seeker’s mindset but with a job creator’s outlook. India at 75 is preparing for India forever.

The largest democracy in the world is also the world’s fifth-largest economy with a median age below 30. India today has the perfect trifecta of ambition, skill and capital to create world-class companies across multiple sectors. This is possible because we are today not hiding from our problems but facing them head-on with the energy and creativity of a young nation. Solving for India is solving for one-sixth of humanity. The government of India, through policies such as Digital India and Startup India, is playing a champion’s role in propelling India into the big league of global disruptors. We have already created the greatest middle-class in the history of the world by lifting millions of people from poverty. Now we need to provide everyone with a fair chance to develop their talents.

There are very few countries in the world whose history of advancement can parallel that of India. More so as it transitions from an agriculture and service-based economy to a knowledge-based and product economy. However, sustained national progress hinges on the continued convergence of education, technology, and innovation. We need to train our children in critical thinking and problem-solving skills, which will be vital for the future of work. Keeping pace with the rapidly changing technological landscape requires the vision which the National Education Policy 2020 boldly demonstrates. An equaliser and uplifter, education is a component vital to nation-building, giving a billion-plus Indians a solid foundation to foster multi-year economic growth, upward social mobility, and autonomy.

Today, India is a “can-do’”nation. By making the right choices, anyone can succeed in India. We now need to work together with a full-potential mindset in this Amrit Kaal, which I see as 25 years of limitless possibilities in this new land of opportunity. We must gather enough courage to take ownership of not just our own destiny but also improve other lives. It is by converting our many challenges into multiple opportunities that India will live up to its fullest potential. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.”

I have no doubt that India will be the most powerful, happiest, and most generous country in the world before this century ends. You just have to meet one entrepreneurial grandmother and one entrepreneurial teenager to realise this yourself. Indeed, it was only in India that a teacher’s son who grew up in a village could live his dream of helping millions learn better.

(The writer is founder & CEO, BYJU’S)



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Alok Rai writes: To draw line between free speech and hate speech, you need to engage with inequalities of power -- and inequality of access to free speech.

It is a surprisingly difficult call, writing about the stabbing of Salman Rushdie in western New York. What can one say beyond saying that it is simply wrong, wrong, wrong — despicable, barbaric, heartbreaking, tragic — but what is the point of multiplying adjectives? The world was a crappy place even before this happened. It is even crappier now. I am pretty much a free speech fundamentalist — almost, most of the time, and such an event merely reinforces that belief. Well, almost.

But it is impossible to finesse that “almost” in the context of the murderous attack that might well leave Rushdie with significant physical damage: One eye gone, liver compromised. Or, indeed, to seek to derive some ironic consolation from the fact that at least his voice is back — practically as soon as he got off the ventilator. As Aatish Taseer reported, Rushdie is back to talking, and joking. Free speech indeed — but at what cost!

But if I am forced to gloss that “almost”, I’d have to enter a few caveats — even as I recognise that now is not the time for caveats and reservations: Now is the time for sorrow, for lamentation and deep, deep condemnation. There is nothing — repeat, nothing — to be said in favour or defence or even mitigation of this horrific act of violence. However, beyond the sorrow and the condemnation, there is a However. And if you hold a gun to my head, it is into that difficult terrain that I must now venture.

There is a complex negotiation — an uncertain and shifting border — between free speech and hate speech. Thus, what is free speech to one, may well appear like hate speech to another. And it is practically impossible to think about that ambiguous border without engaging with the inequalities of power in the world — and, indeed, with the inequality of the access to free speech. After all, the “free speech” of the celebrity-with-a-megaphone is not quite comparable with the free speech of the forgotten millions who are free to whimper and to beg.

The right to free speech means nothing unless it includes the right to be heard, recognised, acknowledged. Then again, it is practically impossible, particularly in India, to think about the fraught possibility of free speech without engaging with the question of “hurt religious sentiments” and “hurt feelings”. And so, inevitably, one comes up against yet another opposition, that between the right not to be insulted and humiliated and mocked in one’s deeply held beliefs, and the equally important right to blasphemy, to ridicule and to satire. After all, if one is forced always to be pussy-footing around people’s beliefs and pieties — surely infinite, particularly in diverse, hybrid, harsh societies which inevitably leave large numbers with hurt, and inflammable, sensitivities — one might as well say goodbye to free speech. Much more than free speech, it must be goodbye to the possibility of any culture that aspires to be more than merely cosmetic and decorative, goodbye to linguistic creativity and vivacity, because risk-taking is of the very nature of creative language and of culture.

My own preference in the matter must be clear enough by now, but I do not think that there is any directly philosophical resolution of this difficulty. One is forced to engage with the deep inequalities of power within particular societies and, surely, in the world as a whole. After all, the racist braying of the Western media in the context of the blonde and blue-eyed Ukrainian refugees in the early days of the conflict, was an eloquent demonstration of the fact that the vast majority of the world that is not blonde and blue-eyed, and still washes up at the hostile borders of the West, had simply become invisible. And was certainly illiterate, certainly in no position to respond to what was being “said” in unmistakable terms. I fear that in such contexts of inequality, violence — horrific, “staged” violence — might well be the “free speech” of the powerless, of those who, having been s**t upon for centuries, must now be condemned to invisibility and silence. The undeniable suffering of the Jews of Europe was heard, and addressed, in the form of the creation of the state of Israel. The suffering of the people of Palestine, on the other hand, remains unaddressed and unheard, except in the form of random, and futile, acts of violence.

It is critical not to abandon nuance here. Thus, there is, always, the violence of the powerful — and if there is ever to be any global “reconciliation”, that is something that the colonising West, and the globalising West, the long history of gunboats and “sanctions”, so to speak, will have to acknowledge. Then again, victimhood comes in many flavours, and claims of victimhood, legitimate or imagined, cannot be allowed to confer immunity or sanction violence, whether in Palestine, or to the lynch mobs that disfigure my own society — or to would-be assassins in New Jersey. But is it even possible to begin to understand the “rage” of Islam without taking into account the long history of treachery and betrayal and torment that has been visited upon the peoples of the Middle East by sundry Western powers. To imagine that this “rage” — which springs to the defence of the defence of the Prophet in ever uglier and more grotesque forms — has its roots exclusively in theological texts is to connive in the suppression and denial of that unforgivable history.

It is to deny the suffering of those damaged societies whose populations still suffer the inertial (and also intended) persistence of those centuries of exploitation. The mad mullahs uttering dire imprecations, and their “liberal” mockers, cheering on the “humanitarian interventions” in Iraq and Afghanistan, are both parts of a shared economy of amnesia and misdirection.

In this economy, the comprehension, and the address, of a phenomenon that rightly (or, minimally, also) belongs in the domain of history, is seamlessly transposed into the realm of theology, of wrangling about Sharia and Hadith, where both sides — the mockers and the mocked — can play their appointed roles, locked in an embrace of mutual, hostile dependence. And leave the harsh, unjust world, undisturbed. And seething with rage. Salman Rushdie is, sadly, collateral.

The writer taught in the department of English, Delhi University



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Babu Jagjivan Ram one day drank water from the prohibited pitcher, faced violence and boycott. A hundred years later -- after freedom, democracy, and a million pledges to equity -- a nine-year-old boy from Rajasthan got killed for that very reason.

Written by Anshul Avijit

A hundred years back, in Ara Town School in Bihar, two pitchers of water were kept in the courtyard — one, for upper-caste, “savarna” Hindus, pure and noble, the other for the so-called “untouchables”, victims of the greatest social betrayal in human history. My grandfather, Babu Jagjivan Ram, an ace student of the school, one day drank water from the prohibited pitcher, then smashed it with a stick, and told the principal to keep only one for all students. There was outrage, blows, boycott, but the young Jagjivan Ram was insistent. He somehow survived the rebellion – my mother, Meira Kumar, says that it was a “miracle” that he didn’t end up dead — and went on to fight many more such battles throughout his political life. They can never be enough.

A hundred years later — after freedom, democracy, and a million pledges to equity — Indra Kumar, a nine-year-old boy from Saraswati Vidya Mandir in Jalore, Rajasthan, got killed for that very reason. Witnesses say he was also viciously abused as he was being beaten, as his ears were being torn and his eyes crushed. Death wasn’t immediate, it made him linger for 14 days more at an Ahmedabad hospital. Indra had dared to drink from the pitcher of Chail Singh, the upper-caste principal of the school, a man so driven by caste entitlement and hatred that it was only death, a hate-filled sacrifice, that could keep the tradition alive. To give a Dalit boy access to education, the historical preserve of the “dwija” or the “twice-born”, was bad enough; to have him obscure the boundaries food and drink was a cardinal transgression. The principal has been arrested, and FIRs lodged under the SC/ST (prevention of Atrocities) Act but like my grandfather used to say, “you can legislate laws, but how do you legislate on mindsets”?

In the early days of Babu Jagjivan Ram, the Dalits had to carry a spittoon on their neck so that the streets were not soiled by their indiscretion, and a broom tied on their back to automatically sweep the polluted pathway as they walked. Their shadow was a curse, not just in terms of a demonic presence, but like something truly repugnant. My grandfather was banished from his hostel in Benares Hindu University and was told to cook food separately; ultimately he had to move out, not only from the hostel, but from the city itself, completing his graduation from Calcutta. But many years later, in 1978, when he returned to Benares as the Deputy Prime Minister to garland the statue of former UP CM Sampurnanad, it appeared that little had changed. The statue was later purified with ganga jal by angry, abusive students, calling out the audacity of someone breaching the caste trenches.

There has been improvement in the past 75-years since Independence, qualitative change, with constitutional rights and laws, social reform, capitalism and political confidence. But one can also argue that despite the empowerment, the “mindset” has not changed and the “lowly Chamar” still needs to be shown his place. Meira Kumar argues that the caste system is about “voice”, since “the system filters those voices that should be heard, and those who should remain voiceless. At the moment, the Dalit voices are too feeble to be heard, too mild to be registered.” So, political power may not necessarily lead to social emancipation.

For example, there is the story of a Jatav MLA from Madhya Pradesh, some years back, who carried his own steel glass to avoid soiling utensils in upper-caste homes, a habit that won him much approval by the latter. Kumar also remembers a women MLA from northern state who lost the support of upper castes the moment she decided to take independent, sovereign decisions on appointments and funds distribution. And then there are the pitiful stories of many Dalit lawmakers who routinely touch the feet of upper-caste men and women, young and old, to reassure their fragile self-image that caste still thrives at the very heart of Indian modernity.

This vulnerability, of safeguarding caste as an immutable social space, can be arguably explained through the logic of pure-impure, arguably the central axis of the caste structure. By this logic, the customary privileges of upper castes, their purity and social purpose, can only be legitimised and maintained by their very denial at its opposite end. A suvarna can only exist if avarna does. One wonders, as we read about more and more instances of such atrocity, if the old order is not fighting back, empowering itself through the sacrifice of those who should be confined to the shadows. How many more nine-year-olds have to be killed before the “mindset changes”? One is not sure; after all this is the caste system, India’s grisly offering to humanity.

(The writer is National Spokesperson, Indian National Congress)



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Even after 75 years of Independence, the practice of untouchability remains. Institutions in India, government or non-governmental, political parties or religious organisations, are conspicuously silent on violence against Dalits.

Written by Ashok Bharti

On August 4, 1923, the Bombay Legislative Council recommended that the “untouchable classes” be allowed to use all public watering places, wells and dharamshalas — as well as public schools, courts, offices, and dispensaries — which are built and maintained with public funds or administered by bodies appointed by the government or created by statute. Four years after this recommendation, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, on March 19, 1927, marched along with thousands of satyagrahis to claim water from the publicly-funded and maintained Chavdar lake in Mahad, now in Maharashtra’s Raigad district. The upper castes could not tolerate this act of defiance by the “untouchable” satyagrahis led by Ambedkar. They attacked and beat the satyagrahis black and blue. This is history. But the beating of a Dalit boy, Indra Meghwal, in Jalore, Rajasthan, resulting in his death, is the shocking reality of contemporary India, which is celebrating Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, 75 years of Independence.

After Independence, the founding fathers of India sought freedom from untouchability. The Constitution of India abolished untouchability, its practice in any form was forbidden and enforcement of any disability on account of untouchability was declared a punishable offence. Following the constitutional mandate, Parliament enacted the Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955, which was subsequently amended in 1976 and renamed the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955. This act made the enforcement of untouchability or any disability arising therefrom a cognisable and non-compoundable offence and enhanced the terms of imprisonment. The enforcement of the PCR Act proved ineffectual. Soon the government realised that the Act and the provisions of the IPC were not deterrents enough to prevent untouchability or violent attacks upon the Dalits and Scheduled Tribes when they asserted their constitutional rights. Accordingly, Parliament passed another law called the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. This Act defined “atrocity” and covered multiple aspects, ways and mechanisms through which Dalits and Adivasis are subjected to exclusion, discrimination, humiliation, and violence, and constantly denied equal opportunities and the enjoyment of their constitutional rights. This Act has been amended twice, the latest being in August 2018. These efforts of the government heavily relied on the enactment of laws and making them tougher with every new avatar. However, independent India betrayed the vision of freedom from untouchability and atrocities against Dalits continued to mount.

As per data compiled by this writer for the National Confederation of Dalit and Adivasi Organisations, based on figures from the annual reports of the NCRB from 1991 to 2020, more than 7 lakh atrocities on Dalits, including 38,000 rapes of Dalit women, have taken place in the last two decades. More than five atrocities per hour have taken place against Dalits in the last five years. It is, therefore, timely to ask if law enforcement is working as it should.

It has been widely reported that the state governments do not implement the Atrocities Act seriously. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in a report published in 2004 — authored by former Secretary to the Government of India K B Saxena — mentioned that many states such as Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, etc. did not constitute special courts as provided in the law. None of the states, except Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan, identified the untouchability-prone areas. As happened in the case of Indra Meghwal, denying the registration of first information reports (FIR) on caste-based atrocities is normal across the country, forcing Dalits to mobilise in order to get the atrocities registered. This mobilisation for justice is often seen as a “challenge” to the traditional dominance of upper castes in police, judicial, and institutional structures, including media.

What makes Dalits vulnerable is the lack of sustainable land ownership, with no control over livelihood or common resources and lack of employment opportunities. But their migration to cities — for education and livelihood — has given them exposure to spaces that are free from traditional caste norms. Educational advancement, an awareness of the law, a strong notion of justice and the constitutional system have empowered Dalits. This empowerment, where Dalits claim justice and equal dignity or self-worth, is manifested in acts such as riding horses in marriage processions, growing and maintaining moustaches, and seeking a just space in cultural and political areas.

These “non-traditional” postures or behaviour by Dalits form the silver lining in the dark cloud of inequality and deserve support. But institutions in India, government or non-governmental, political parties or organisations, religious organisations and their heads, are conspicuously silent on violence against Dalits. This silence is deeply entrenched in societal divides. Unless this divide is bridged, the realisation of an open, vibrant, and democratic society will be a mirage and Dalits’ sense of freedom will be a lie.

The writer is the chairman, National Confederation of Dalit and Adivasi Organisations (NACDAOR)



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Alex Ellis writes: The UK has been the beneficiary of great talent of Indian heritage as a consequence of the two nations’ long, complex and sometimes painful history. Both must now look ahead to the next 75 years, which offer a tremendous opportunity to write new chapters.

The first person from India I saw in the flesh was the legendary spin bowler Bishen Singh Bedi. It was a good start. Even at the distance from the stands to the square at Lord’s, and with the inexperienced eyes of a nine-year-old, I had some sense of this great Indian cricketer’s craft, intelligence and strength.

Nearly 50 years on, it is my pleasure and honour to serve as the British High Commissioner to India on the landmark anniversary, 75 years of India’s Independence, marking the moment when this great nation awoke to “life and freedom”. It represents an important milestone which will be celebrated from the top to the tip of India. This tryst with destiny resonates well beyond the subcontinent including in my own country. So, like India — and indeed the world — I want to mark the contribution which my compatriots of Indian origin have made, are making and will continue to make to the United Kingdom.

The extraordinary success of 1.5 million British people of Indian origin is apparent in many walks of life in the UK. It is evident in politics with several high profile members of recent cabinets, and from across both Houses of Parliament, of Indian heritage. So too in the UK’s engagement with the world; the British minister who banged the gavel on the Glasgow Climate Pact bringing together 192 countries, was Alok Sharma, born in Agra. It is evident in health, with Indian nationals comprising the largest group of professionals working in the National Health Service after the British themselves; and in the contribution of outstanding researchers and academics, including the last President of the Royal Society, Nobel Prize-winning scientist Venki Ramakrishnan.

Indian culture is ever more part of British life; the celebration of Diwali and of Holi in the streets of UK’s biggest cities, the Indian food served inside and outside the home, including the Bombay restaurant which fed me through my university years, the support given by gurdwaras and temples during the worst stages of the pandemic, and indeed the extraordinary response of British Indians to the second wave of Covid in India, are all testament to the contribution of the Indian diaspora in the UK.

This contribution extends to my own profession, diplomacy. In a new twist to diversity, two of the most senior diplomats in the British foreign office are an Iyer and an Iyengar, and the lead British official for our Free Trade Agreement negotiations with India started his life in Punjab. Statistics show the wider story of success; one estimate is that British people of Indian heritage rank amongst the highest in educational attainment, are twice as likely to go to university and are amongst the top wage earners compared to the population at large.

That extraordinary contribution has not happened by accident. It is a testament not only to the ability of the people themselves, but also to their families. Many of those families, whether coming directly from India or very often via East Africa, took risks in coming to the UK and had to face adversity and sometimes hostility when they arrived. As they settled and integrated, overcoming these challenges, their children thrived, benefiting from a strong emphasis on education and aspiration. On this day we should celebrate and give thanks to those families too.

That the UK has been a beneficiary of such talent of Indian heritage is the consequence of our long, complex and sometimes painful, history. Some of those who have prospered in the UK came because of the terrible events around Partition, including Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, the British minister now responsible for our relationship with India and South Asia. But his subsequent story and that of so many others is perhaps one of the happier chapters in our shared history, and one which I think my grandfather, who served in the Indian Army for a decade before becoming a teacher, would have welcomed.

We must now look ahead to the next 75 years, which offers a tremendous opportunity to write new chapters for both countries, whether on science, sustainability or shared prosperity. I am delighted that this year will see 75 talented Indians going to the UK on government scholarships — supported by iconic British and Indian companies like HSBC, Hindustan Unilever, Tata, the Adani Group, and Pearson. I hope to see even more Indian students coming to the UK and vice-versa. The British Council is celebrating a season of culture bringing together British and Indian artists. And I hope Indian athletes received a warm and familiar welcome at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

These exchanges help strengthen the living bridge between our nations — to build an even stronger relationship based on mutual respect and understanding. There will be growing economic opportunities, hopefully underpinned by a Free Trade Agreement by Diwali this year. I am sure future high commissioners will be able to celebrate a genuine partnership of equals between two natural partners which is wider, deeper and more confident than ever — and supported by the huge contribution which the British people of Indian heritage will continue to make. The United Kingdom is the better for it; my thanks to them all on India at 75.

(The writer is British High Commissioner to India)



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The docking of Chinese research vessel Yuan Wang 5 at Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port, despite objections from India and the US, highlights Beijing’s growing maritime clout in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). Yuan Wang 5 is strongly suspected to be a Chinese spy ship and is operated by PLA’s Strategic Support Force. Its visit to Sri Lanka was initially deferred after New Delhi conveyed its concerns to Colombo. But after high-level representations from Beijing, Colombo backtracked. Sri Lanka needs China’s support to restructure its massive external debt and qualify for an IMF bailout. Clearly, India’s $4 billion emergency aid counted for less.

This is a major strategic headache for India. Given Sri Lanka’s proximity to Indian shores and the current icy ties between New Delhi and Beijing, and also given that China today has the world’s largest navy, Chinese activities in IOR will add another dimension to an already formidable security challenge. China continues to produce military ships at a fast clip. One of Beijing’s main goals in restructuring PLA over the last eight years was to massively upgrade naval power. Therefore, China can now deploy a vast array of grey-zone maritime tactics using both battleships – as it did recently in the Taiwan Strait – and its fleet of maritime militia and “research vessels”. The latter have been used extensively in the South China Sea. Recall that in 2019 another Chinese “research and survey ship”, Haiyang Dizhi 8, tried to create trouble for oil and gas production in the Vietnamese offshore block, an area that also has ONGC.

Sri Lanka is no doubt caught between a rock and a hard place. But it still must carefully consider implications of Chinese naval visits to its ports. A big reason why it finds itself under a mountain of debt is unprincipled Chinese loans that were used to finance white elephant projects. It hardly needs reminding that Colombo was forced to lease the Hambantota port to the Chinese for 99 years. Therefore, China’s maritime diplomacy and naval expeditions are anything but innocuous. For India, protecting its strategic interests in the IOR won’t be easy. It recently gifted Colombo a Dornier-228 maritime patrol aircraft. Gifts like these won’t be enough. Given India’s constraints, taking on China in IOR will require it to work closely with Quad.



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The new Bihar cabinet started by playing a wearingly old tune: CM Nitish Kumar has promised plenty of jobs, 20 lakh to be precise. Voters don’t believe politicians when they promise jobs. They don’t seem to punish them for failing to keep those promises either. To take the most notable example, BJP has made plenty of job promises, failed to keep them and has an excellent win record. But maybe, just maybe, Bihar’s voters may run out of patience this time. Tejashwi Yadav rallied young voters by vowing 10 lakh government jobs in 2020 and Nitish had faced repeated heckling. Young Biharis are among the most anxious job seekers in the country, as the intensity of the Agnipath agitation showed.

States are of course in no position to offer a huge number of government jobs. And in some states, any job creation has to be over a vicious cycle. Bihar is a prime example. Agriculture employs 76% of its workforce. There are 1.83 crore landless labourers, and the average landholding size of 0.39 hectares means its 1.64 crore farm holdings are unviable. Nitish had abolished APMCs way back in 2006. But that hasn’t helped because low urbanisation and poor facilities majorly discourage private trade.

This cycle can be broken if labour-intensive manufacturing sets up shop. Given Bihar’s low wages and its abundant supply of women workers, a smart and determined state government can use these advantages and add on SEZs as a further incentive. SEZs that successfully deliver unencumbered labour laws, guaranteed power supply and in-house basic infrastructure can, given low wage costs, change the depressing employment situation in Bihar. But that won’t be enough in a state with India’s lowest per capita income. Bihar still needs internal migration, lots of it, to employ its young.



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The Competition Commission of India's (CCI) approach towards antitrust violations by micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) - letting them off with warnings - is being seen in many quarters as being 'accommodative'.

The Competition Commission of India's (CCI) approach towards antitrust violations by micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) - letting them off with warnings - is being seen in many quarters as being 'accommodative'. It goes against the fundamental principles of competition enshrined in law. Now that the economy is in recovery mode, and things are getting better for MSMEs, this approach needs a review. Why should the kid-glove treatment continue for firms that collude to rig prices instead of competing for market share? Cartels are the most pernicious form of anti-competitive activity, and they hurt consumers. An accommodative stance will dilute the deterrent effect of the competition law.

Bid-rigging in government tenders - by which competing firms agree to restrict competition by bidding at the same price, or in a way that predetermined companies win in rotation - if proven, warrants penalties. But there are cases in the recent past where the regulator issued cease and desist orders - a warning against any repeat of such practices - against MSMEs found guilty of cartelisation. CCI must not become like its toothless predecessor, the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC), whose cease and desist orders were ignored by cartels.

The regulator has reportedly stepped up its ante against large firms involved in antitrust violations by imposing steep fines. The good news is that the leniency framework in the Competition Act - which allows companies that provide sufficient information about a cartel in which they have participated to receive partial immunity for penalty - is gaining traction. The regulator must also ensure better working of competitive markets, without going over to over-regulation.

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The decision by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to set up an intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) tasked with drawing up an international agreement on pandemic prevention, preparation and response reflects this. As countries work to find a legally binding agreement over the next 18 months, they must address the lack of global solidarity and effective coordination that has characterised the Covid pandemic.

The global community is finally taking global health threats seriously. Covid-19, monkeypox and the resurgence of polio reaffirm scientific warnings of the rising numbers of public health emergencies on a planetary scale. The decision by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to set up an intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) tasked with drawing up an international agreement on pandemic prevention, preparation and response reflects this. As countries work to find a legally binding agreement over the next 18 months, they must address the lack of global solidarity and effective coordination that has characterised the Covid pandemic.

The exact form of this pact, whether all its elements will be equally binding, and whether there will be special considerations for the poorest countries, will be negotiated. In July, the INB decided to wrap up the agreement in May 2024. While other global health threats in the past decade - H1N1, Sars, Mers, Ebola, Zika - were limited in their spread, the Covid pandemic tested the world. Inequity has marked the response to the pandemic, particularly of vaccines. This has had serious negative impact on countries with limited capacities and resources. The India-South Africa proposal for TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) waiver for therapeutics, diagnostics and vaccines under WTO moved in October 2020 has not been adopted, despite the proposal being watered down.

Any agreement must provide for greater equity in response. This includes norms for dealing with IPR-related issues for diagnostics, treatment and vaccines. Prevention and precaution are equally critical. There has to be better global monitoring and tracking of diseases, early, safe and transparent sharing of samples and genetic sequencing data, and information-sharing. It must put in place linkages with other international pacts such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change given the feedback impacts. Covid has demonstrated that no one wins if some get left behind.

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The early release of the 11 men convicted of gang rape and murder — sentenced to life, they spent a little over 15 years in jail — in the Bilkis Bano case has followed the law and due process, but is still surprising for at least three reasons.

One, those convicted of heinous crimes — and this case is the very definition of the term — are not often released by remitting their sentences. Indeed, the Union government’s advisory to states releasing convicts on the occasion of India’s 75th year of Independence, said those sentenced for murder and rape should not be considered. To be sure, these convicts were released under a standard remission process following the 1992 policy of the Gujarat government, and not under the special one. Two, the alacrity with which the convicts were released. It was only in May that the Supreme Court said the Gujarat government could consider their request for remission (the crime was committed in the state, but the trial was held in Maharashtra). Three, the manner in which the Union government may have signed off on the remission remains unclear. Those convicted in cases investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation can usually be released only after the Union government endorses the state government’s decision to remit their sentences, according to existing guidelines.

Given these, questions about whether the remission was done with an eye on the Gujarat polls are only natural — especially in the context of the welcome the convicts received on their release. That the remission committee set up by the Gujarat government (the final discretion on remission matters lies with the home department of the state administration), and the Union, chose to decide on the issue by adopting a narrow legal and by-the-letter-view, and ignored the larger moral question is disappointing. The release may be lawful, but it is not right.



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The decision by football’s world governing body FIFA to ban the All India Football Federation (AIFF) puts Indian teams out of international competitions, and jeopardises the U-17 women’s World Cup scheduled to be held in the country in October. It also puts the spotlight on larger problems surrounding sports administration in India, and several well-intentioned but confused attempts to resolve them.

All sport across the world was run on an amateur self-regulating model for most of the last two centuries. It was a time when patronising sport was a philanthropic exercise. But as modern sport became a multi-billion-dollar venture, with global audiences and customers, and high stakes for players and patrons, it became important to bring in professionalism and transparency, and to ensure an end to monopolies. Some federations self-corrected, but many simply introduced cosmetic corporate governance norms in their bitterly protected domains. Multiple international organisations — FIFA and the International Olympic Council among them — have been accused in the past of pushing for better governance among members even as they fought to protect entrenched interests. This is not to say the system does not work at all. And the pitch has been queered in what is essentially a battle between one group pushing for “good governance” — in India this sometimes takes the form of court-appointed administrators — and another for “autonomy from outside influences”, and both believing the two are mutually exclusive.

For Indian sport, which has been a laggard on reforms with a handful of administrators ruling federations for decades despite poor results, the need to clean house was important. The national sports code, which capped tenures and brought in some fair play rules in elections, was an essential step in ensuring change. But in many cases, it just brought in another set of people who got caught up in the boardroom rather than on the field of play. So while world bodies see the shift as an assault on their domain, and invoke bans and suspensions, the problem really is not of the system but of intention. Running sport is about putting the focus on players — in terms of facilities, opportunities, training — rather than on somehow staying in power. Resolving the FIFA conundrum is critical given its urgency, and the Indian government is in talks with the world body to find a way out. But the larger way forward is to find a balance between autonomy and good governance, and understand that both are possible.



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India’s cybersecurity incidents have been on a steady rise, growing from 394,000 reported cases in 2019 to 1.4 million in 2021. The first quarter of 2022 saw 1.8 million attacks. This is an unsurprising trend in our age of accelerating digitisation. Data, the driver of the digital economy, is often the prime target of these attacks, through data thefts, software such as malware that corrupts data and makes them unusable, or ransomware that requires the victim to pay hefty amounts for the release of data. Over 75% of India’s organisations faced an attack in the past year, with an average data breach costing 35 crore, draining billions from our industries.

With the blurring of boundaries between the cyber and the physical world, the ramifications of these incidents are felt beyond the digital realm. Hostile State and non-State actors can cause unprecedented damage, much more than any traditional security threat, by targeting critical systems, including banking, transportation, and power and water grids. These incidents are highly asymmetric, as the aggressors, many of whom while remaining anonymous, use minimal resources to create disproportionately higher damages.

In April, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), India’s cyber security agency, introduced a series of compliance requirements for organisations to combat cyberattacks. All organisations, in the private and government sectors, are obliged to report cyber incidents within six hours of noticing or being brought to the notice of these incidents. All of them are mandated to designate a point of contact to interphase with CERT-In. They are also required to take action or assist with the agency’s response activities. Currently, most Indian organisations are woefully ill-equipped to tackle sophisticated cyberattacks. Beyond reporting, they struggle to be equitable participants in blunting cyber threats.

Various Indian governments realised the magnitude of these threats, and have played proactive roles in creating institutions meant to tackle this growing menace. Nodal agencies, CERT, under the erstwhile department of information technology, and the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) under the national security adviser (NSA), were created as early as 2004. A national cybersecurity policy was created in 2013, and a national cybersecurity coordinator was appointed in 2014.

Recognising the looming threat from antagonistic actors, including rival armies and terror organisations to our defence equipment that is heavily reliant on electronic systems, India recently set up a tri-service command Defence Cyber Agency (DCyA), with cutting-edge defensive and offensive capabilities. Every state has set up specialised cybersecurity command and control centres and cyber-domes to curb cybercrimes.

Nonetheless, with cyber threats growing exponentially, India will have to create an integrated cybersecurity doctrine and framework. We will also need to enhance the cyber threat mitigation capacity and cyber resilience of our public and private organisations as they bear the brunt of these malicious attacks. Further, with a large percentage of India’s cyberattacks coming from beyond our borders, international collaborations will make our efforts to counter cyber threats more efficient. It will also be a cause where we can find common ground with the rest of the world. Cybercrimes inflicted worldwide damages worth over $6 trillion in 2021 alone.

The European Union (EU) initiated the first international treaty, the Budapest Convention, in 2001, aimed at tackling cybercrimes by harmonising national laws, and investigative practices. Sixty-seven countries, including the United States (US) and Japan, are signatories. Countries including India, Brazil, China and Russia stayed out as they were not participants in its drafting. A few clauses that infringe on the digital and law enforcement sovereignty of emerging nations were also embedded in the accord in their absence.

The United Nations (UN) General Assembly also established two processes to discuss the issue of security in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) environment. Through a resolution sponsored by Russia, it established an Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG), which comprised the entire UN membership. Around the same timeline in 2019, the US initiated another resolution on the continuation of the Group of Governmental Experts (GGE). The GGE was limited to 25 countries from regional organisations including the EU, African Union, and member-States from major geographical regions. The road maps of both resolutions included discussions on tackling potential avenues of cyber threats, setting global standards, the applicability of international law, and measures to build capacity for member-nations. Based on adoption, States found the two resolutions to be complementary and not mutually exclusive.

However, recent times, exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine, have our world moving towards the Cold War days, of being divided into antagonistic blocks. There are slim chances of them cooperating in areas of competing interests, thereby stalling all ongoing efforts through the UN group processes. India, with our current positioning, could act as a bridge that could work with these hostile stakeholders in creating a global regulatory framework of common minimum acceptance. Besides providing a massive boost to our national security situation, such an initiative could be our most important contribution to the systems of global governance.

Anil K Antony is a tech entrepreneur, public policy commentator and, works on the Congress’s digital initiatives

The views expressed are personal



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The Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2022, introduced in the Lok Sabha on August 8 and then sent to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Energy after Opposition protests, addresses issues concerning the power sector in India.

The sector is crucial since it affects the lives of citizens and the economy. Yet, while other sectors, such as aviation and telecom, have seen extensive reforms, leading to lower prices and improved quality of service, the power sector has remained untouched, except for some feeble attempts to reform it.

A significant power sector restructuring took place in 2003, with the promulgation of the Electricity Act. It separated generation, transmission, distribution, and delicensed generation, transforming India from a chronically power-short nation to a surplus one. There was hope that the state electricity boards, which had been incorporated as distribution companies (discoms), would work efficiently as commercial entities, become financially viable, and keep a distance from the government. But that never happened. As of August 5, discoms owe power generators 113,000 crore. By March 2020, discoms accumulated losses of around 523,000 crore. For every rupee of power sold, they recovered only 79 paisa.

This is untenable. No business could have continued with such financial stress, but for the support of different schemes and relief packages from the central government. In addition, Power Finance Corporation Limited and REC Limited, the two non-banking financial companies under the power ministry, have also provided discoms with liquidity.

The Electricity (Amendment) Bill, aims to strengthen the legal framework to make the sector financially viable and sustainable, foster investments, encourage growth in renewables, and give consumers the choice of the distribution company from which to purchase electricity. It focuses on bringing financial discipline and accountability for all parties, including regulators.

Discoms buy power through long-term contracts (power purchase agreements or PPAs), which they sign with electricity generators. Over 90% of electricity produced is sold through long-term PPAs. Since electricity is sold on deferred payment, these contracts have a provision of Letter of Credit (LC), which a discom gives to the generator as an assurance that if it fails to make the payment, the generators can recover the dues from the LC-issuing bank. The amendment bill now casts responsibility on a national body called the National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC) to ensure that no electricity is distributed without adequate payment security. The regulatory commissions will now be able to adjudicate disputes relating to the performance of obligations under the contract and enforce its orders as a decree of a civil court. The adjudication will have to be completed within 90 days, preventing long delays.

A few discoms have been remiss in not filing tariff revision petitions even though the cost of power and operations have increased. This is because some state governments do not want retail tariffs to increase. The state regulatory commissions will now be enjoined to suo motu revise the retail tariff and make it cost reflective. Those regulators who do not perform their responsibilities may face negative consequences.

These measures will secure cash flow to generators and make for an investment-friendly regime. India needs an investment of about $500 billion by 2030 to meet its renewable energy goals. A recent study by Bloomberg and Power Foundation of India found that the biggest risk perceived by investors in the renewable sector was counterparty risk (the probability that the other party in an investment, credit, or trading transaction may not fulfil its part of the deal and may default on the contractual obligations) of discoms. The steps will help mitigate this risk and upholding the sanctity of contracts. In addition, renewable purchase obligations for different entities will now be a legal responsibility to ensure that clean energy is purchased.

The 2003 Electricity Act mandates a distribution licensee to own a distribution system. This provision of the Act leads to, as in Mumbai, duplication of network and unnecessary investment. The amendment enables distribution companies to use networks owned by others. This will open the sector to competition and remove monopoly suppliers.

The amendment bill attempts to resolve structural problems in the sector. Once implemented, it should transform the Indian power sector into a financially sustainable, cost-efficient, attractive investment compliant with its international commitments on clean energy.

Sanjiv Sahai is former power secretary

The views expressed are personal



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Last month, a bench of the Supreme Court (SC) headed by Chief Justice NV Ramana began hearing a case about political parties offering “freebies” as part of their election manifestos. The SC bench called the offering of “freebies” a “serious problem,” with potentially damaging consequences for public debt and the exchequer. At the time of writing this piece, hearings are ongoing, with responses solicited from the government of India, the Election Commission, and other stakeholders.

There are, however, many problems with not only how this case is being heard but also the fact that the case is before the SC in the first place. To begin with, a political party’s manifesto is a bargain between the party and the voter. This does not mean, of course, that a manifesto can — for example — contain intimidatory messages or hate speech; however, promises about economic policies do not fall within any constitutionally prohibited category. A manifesto may contain promises that some might believe are economically unwise or unnecessary, but a judgment of the wisdom of future economic policy — at the end of the day — must rest with voters at the ballot box and not with the courts or other bodies.

More importantly, the fundamental problem lies in the word freebies, which has no clear definition and is susceptible to infinite manipulation. In previous hearings before the SC, a distinction has been drawn between (impermissible) freebies, welfare measures, and developmental measures. These categories, however, break down under even the most superficial examination. Consider, for example, universal basic income (UBI), a proposal that commands the support of many respected economists worldwide.

Given that the UBI essentially entails the government giving a certain amount of money to all its citizens periodically, does this fall under the category of a freebie or a welfare measure? What about a free, universal health service, such as the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom? If a political party promises that health care will be free, is that a freebie? What about free public transport, a policy that has both economic and environmental benefits and — specifically — has benefits when it comes to the mobility and workforce participation of women? Is that ruled out because it is a freebie?

In response, some have tried to draw a distinction between targeted programmes (such as the provision of food to below poverty line families on the one hand) and universal programmes (such as gas subsidy to all). However, this distinction is equally untenable. Across the world, there is a long-standing debate between economists and policymakers on the desirability of means-tested social programmes, as opposed to universal social programmes.

Means-tested programmes have been critiqued on the grounds that they are both unjust (leaving needy people out of the net) and inefficient (the economic cost of means-testing outweighs the cost of making the programme universal). One may come out on either side of the debate, but the point — once again — is that this is a debate to be had in a democracy and not something that can be imposed by judicial — or any other — fiat.

And finally, as people have already pointed out, the word freebies carries a pejorative connotation that makes one think of populist programmes, aimed at poor people (such as promising a free colour television to all), but does not seem to include corporate loan waivers or corporate tax relief. In technical terms, this comes from the public exchequer as much as a freebie does, and the only reason it is not called a freebie is political ideology. But political ideology is meant to be debated in the political arena and not in court.

There is a possibility that the SC might end up passing an order that (directly or indirectly) empowers a body such as the Election Commission to enforce the prohibition of freebies in election manifestos. This is troubling: As indicated here, the vague and subjective nature of the term freebie makes it ripe for abuse, especially in the dynamic and fraught context of an ongoing election.

One party’s proposals being greenlit as welfare measures while another’s struck off for being freebies amounts to exactly the kind of interference in the electoral process that mature democracies should seek to avoid.

For these reasons, when the hearings continue before the SC, one must hope for wiser counsel to prevail; when it comes to the integrity of the electoral process, there are far more urgent cases awaiting the SC’s attention, such as the case involving the legality of electoral bonds, which allow for unlimited, secret corporate funding to political parties. It is those cases that ought to be taken up immediately.

Gautam Bhatia is a Delhi-based advocate

The views expressed are personal



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Yellow fever is a serious disease caused by a virus which occurs in parts of Africa and South America. It is spread through the Aedes aegypti mosquito vector. It can result in mild symptoms like the flu all the way up to a serious life-threatening disease resulting from organ failure. Why a yellow fever outbreak has never occurred in India where all the conditions for spread exist is an unsolved medical mystery.

Yellow fever is a serious public health concern in sub-Saharan Africa, where epidemics occur from time to time. Thirty-two countries in Africa, with a collective population of 610 million people are at risk. It is also endemic to South and Central America, where urban areas in the tropical regions are at elevated risk. The World Health Organization is concerned that “Latin America is now at greater risk of urban epidemics than at any time in the past 50 years.”

The virus, which is related to dengue, was not always a scourge in the western hemisphere. The spread of yellow fever to new regions of the world has historically been linked to migration and urbanization.

In fact, yellow fever was introduced in large numbers by the mass migration of humans from Africa to the Americas through slavery. The Atlantic slave trade led to the spread of disease and devastating epidemics in the Americas. From there, it spread and caused epidemics in Spain, France, England, and Italy.

Such migration on large scale has not occurred from Africa to Asia, but there is still an unsolved medical mystery waiting to be solved. Despite years of travel from regions of the world where yellow fever is prevalent, there has never been a major outbreak of the disease in India or anywhere else in Asia. This, despite the fact that yellow fever is related to dengue and the mosquito that spreads both diseases, is rampant in India. No one really knows why yellow fever never caught on.

Yellow fever has one of the highest fatality rates among all mosquito-borne diseases. An effective vaccine for yellow fever is available, but only in limited amounts. If a yellow fever pandemic were to break out the existing stocks would be depleted rapidly putting millions of people at risk.

The mosquito vector that spread the disease is present in large numbers in India and is capable of harbouring the yellow fever virus. All the factors of climate and environment that are present in tropical and subtropical regions of Africa and South America where yellow fever is a scourge are also present in India. In fact, dengue, which is caused by a related virus in a similar manner is endemic to India.

It is possible that different strains of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes have different susceptibilities for different viruses, and the ones in India are not as prone to carrying yellow fever virus as they are dengue. The problem with this theory is that scientists have shown that Asian mosquitoes are able to transmit yellow fever. Still, it could be that Indian mosquitoes are not as good at transmitting the yellow fever virus as they are the dengue virus.

Another hypothesis is that since dengue is endemic to India, populations have built up antibodies from prior infection from dengue that are cross-reactive and prevent yellow fever. But if getting dengue prevented yellow fever and there were different mosquito strains of Aedes aegypti for each virus, we would expect there to be limited geographic overlap of outbreaks. But that’s not the case. The dengue virus coexists with the yellow fever virus in parts of Africa and South America. It is only in Asia that we find dengue, but not yellow fever.

Tens of millions of people travel from countries where yellow fever is established, to Asia. It is inconceivable that the requirement for yellow fever vaccination will be enforced for all arriving passengers and so it is highly likely that some travellers import yellow fever from Africa and South America into Asia.

In 2016, the first documented cases of yellow fever in Asia were reported from travellers. Further spread has not been documented, but it may only be a matter of time before new cases are reported.

In Asia, there are around 2 billion people who live in areas where the mosquito vector for yellow fever is prevalent. The WHO cautions that there is potential for outbreaks because of the density of the mosquito vector.

We only need to look at the recent past to see how two other viruses spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, Zika and chikungunya, can gain a foothold in parts of the world where there are people whose immune systems have not encountered these viruses.

As we observed with Covid-19, unprecedented air travel has blurred international boundaries and led to the rapid spread of infectious diseases. And with the current outbreak of monkeypox, a disease endemic to parts of Africa that we had not seen elsewhere, we have a real-time spread of a disease beyond its recent boundaries.

We cannot ignore the risk of yellow fever, especially when all the ingredients for an epidemic are in place. We must be vigilant.

Anirban Mahapatra is a scientist by training and the author of a book on COVID-19. He’s writing a second popular-science book

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As someone who has tracked the private markets for more than a decade, the chatter around corporate governance allegations around Venture Capital (VC)-funded tech startups is not something new. About once a year, the spotlight comes on the increasing role of governance in these ventures. I recall my conversation with a veteran private equity investor in which she once remarked about having corporate governance standards in the companies they invest in, “If someone is intending on cheating you, they’re going to do so, no matter what”. That really stuck with me.

Cut now to B2B (business to business) fashion tech platform Zilingo which is reportedly imploding. Its CEO, Ankiti Bose (who was all set to be one of India’s first female unicorn founders), was fired over complaints about alleged financial irregularities and opaque accounting practices. This led to employees leaving, creditors recalling loans, and more.

Reports also say that Bose had a mercurial style of leadership, with a fixation on “crazy growth” and a hellbent obsession to get the attention of large fund backers like Masayoshi Son, of Softbank. The core of the controversy is the friction between Shailendra Singh of Sequoia India and her. Then you had the reports of BharatPe founder Ashneer Grover allegedly misappropriating funds or Rahul Yadav of Housing.com who couldn’t get along with the board of directors.

The Zilingo imbroglio speaks to a more pressing issue: Corporate governance in startups and unicorns, or a lack thereof. These incidents serve as a stark reminder of the contempt some founders may have for the institutions necessary to keep founders grounded and of the potential fetishisation of the image of the perfect entrepreneur demigod who is self-sufficient and infallible.

Some key patterns keep surfacing as to why tech-led startups that are VC funded are being infected by corporate governance issues:

One: There’s an obsession for entrepreneurs to make enough waves to come on the radar of groups like Softbank and Tiger Global. According to a Bloomberg report, one of the primary reasons that led to the Ankiti Bose controversy was her obsession to get the attention of a big fund like Softbank. The size of a funding deal brings better deal flow, the ability to quickly ramp up and a better ability to wipe out the competition with better hires, smarter marketing and more channel partners.

Further, being backed by an investor like Softbank means that other funds may not outspend you and competing funds may think twice before backing your rivals. This is the “Softbank advantage”. Being in the spotlight seems to be an issue that plagues founders. Being meretricious sets oneself up for failure. There may be some deep-seated indifference to governance and a lack of oversight with startup founders racing to get their ventures to get as big as possible in lieu of profits. “Growth at all costs” is a notion that seems to be adopted by founders embedded in the hustle culture. It may be the startup version of “I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness” to gain market share.

The first time one does something like that, they try to rationalise it as a one-time deal. That never seems to be the case. Soon, it becomes so routine, that one may not even realise the collateral damage it leaves behind. This snowballs into an issue so large, that it cries out for the need for corporate governance. Moving all the other issues and metrics to the backburner tends to make the pot on the stove overflow. The impending fear that such a large investor doesn’t back the competition.

Two: Each one of us wants to be respected. In fact, we go a long way to get that respect. Founders are no different. As they yearn for respect and realise no one’s handing it out on a platter, they resort to the easiest trick in the book. The paradigm of “hero-preneur” is where you rise by belittling others. Vulnerability seems like a curse that sets such a high standard for themselves where they should have all the answers and be like that God-like figure, the chosen one who’ll guide their people to paradise. The sad part is that this paradigm is just multiplying as more individuals are adopting this ideology.

Three: The culture of a startup cannot be thought of that as a by-product anymore. As startups mature and pursue global ambitions, there ought to be introspection, when it comes to what kind of success they seek: Being a one-trick pony remembered for their big valuation or becoming an institution embracing sustainability and diversity. It’s high time the evaluation parameters included aspects like inclusivity, women in leadership positions, a “no-bro" culture, facilitating respect and professionalism.

In 2017, Netflix updated its manifesto on its organisational culture with a focus on inclusion and respect. The document has been hailed as “the most important document to come out of the Valley", some even calling it “a manifesto for the Internet’s economic epicentre". At a time when sexism and other ruthless behaviour in the tech industry are playing out, Netflix’s commitment to not hire jerks can be rewarding: “On a dream team, there are no ‘brilliant jerks’. The cost to teamwork is just too high," it said. Having said that, Netflix seems to be having some cultural problems of its own. Could Indian startups set an example by having a world-class culture document of their own?

The success of a venture hinges on the founder’s mastery of psychology. To be a founder of anything demands a certain set of qualities. Only a brave and confident person can take such a bold step as building something on their own in the face of adversity and obstacles. Being laser-focused, having the ability to think critically, developing a capitalist mindset and being antifragile: These qualities are often seen in founders but more often than not, founders are also associated with being arrogant. A specific set of traits are necessary to be a pioneer of something.

Initially, each founder succumbs to the culture of “fake it until you make it” as we’ve come across many stories of revered entrepreneurs who are regarded as very difficult to work with. The Theranos controversy with Elizabeth Holmes speaks to this very idea. She claimed to have a device that would upend the blood testing industry, raising hundreds of millions of dollars. However, it all came crashing down when it was reported that the device didn’t work and a culture of fear was revealed to be embedded in Theranos’ DNA. There seems to be conditioning of young founders to behave similarly to give the same impression. Steve Jobs had a reputation for being curt and brusque with his fellow workers and yet, he's a role model for thinking differently, being the CEO of Apple. The people who take after him will not necessarily have his brilliant mindset or innovation, but they may still emulate him. They may not even realise that their behaviour might be toxic.

As more and more companies try to go public, the importance of corporate governance cannot be undermined. A lack of the framework in your venture’s DNA means that you may be more likely to falter when you go public and you would never be truly prepared, in the face of scrutiny. Being a listed company would mean that there would be an analyst in a brokerage firm out there combing through your quarterly results and that’s something you have to be ready for.

Founders of today need to have a strong understanding of technology, need to know how to raise capital and how to manage stakeholders. So, being a founder in the present may have an even tougher role than your average CEO. And that's the foundation of the founder that must be set in stone to furnish organic results and create beautiful relationships with stakeholders.

So, if you’re ambitious of being a major company that’s listed on the Nasdaq and you want to stay that way, it’s would matter how great your product is, it wouldn’t matter how great your marketing is, it wouldn’t matter how great your fundraising is; if the ethics of the founder and the startup don’t reflect robust corporate governance standards, the wax of your wings are going to melt as you get closer to the sun. As more and more ventures are going public, the standards for corporate governance have never been higher. Stay hungry, stay foolish, stay cultured.

Shrija Agrawal is a business journalist who has covered startups and private capital markets before it was considered cool in India

The views expressed are personal



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The denouement is tragic and overlaid with cruel irony, underlying yet again the opening of wounds in carefully nurtured fashion through state inaction — and frequently action — which is usually cheered on by fanatical gangs that appear to have a free pass, liberated from any constraint by the law and order authorities, and not infrequently viewed through a Nelson’s eye by elements in the judiciary.

The 11 men convicted for life in the case of the gang rape of Bilkis Bano, a young woman who was then five months pregnant, and the cold-blooded murder of 14 of her relations, including her three-year-old daughter, were set free, of all days, on Independence Day. Rapists and murderers, among them a head constable of police, were released from prison as a part of a policy of remission of jail terms to mark the officially proclaimed “Amrit Mahotasav” attending on the 75th anniversary of Independence.

When the released convicts walked out of jail, they were greeted outside with sweets and celebration. In today’s atmosphere it is not hard to guess who or what sorts of organisations might be in the background feting criminals whose grisly actions of 2002 must meet every criterion that goes into the making of the “rarest of the rare” that judges are sometimes called upon to consider.

The evening celebration made up the remains of the day which began in the morning at the Red Fort in the nation’s capital from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi informed the country that his heart “ached” when the dignity of women was taken away and when they were treated unjustly. We may only speculate if, upon getting the news of the guilty being released, the PM subjected the chief minister of Gujarat to a grilling.

The Bilkis Bano case was among the most hair-raising of the many despicable episodes that occurred during the communal carnage of February-March, 2022 in Gujarat, when Mr Modi was CM. The bodies of those killed had been mutilated, post-mortem. The skulls had gone missing. This looked like a clear conspiracy on a mega- and high-level-scale to erase evidence and prevent identification. The nation’s conscience was shocked. Bilkis Bano, who survived, knew the criminals. She received death threats and moved house 20 times in two years to dodge her hunters. The Supreme Court ordered a CBI investigation and the trial to be taken out of Gujarat and to be held in Maharashtra, such was the vicious atmosphere in Gujarat. A special CBI court gave life terms to the guilty. This was upheld by the Bombay high court.

To celebrate the “Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav”, the Centre issued guidelines to release large numbers of prisoners across the country. This seemed a good idea. Roughly 75 per cent of those in our jails are undertrials, and are in most cases poor people, held for petty crimes. Freeing them would be giving them back their dignity. In any case, many would have already been in jail much longer than the sentence they may have been given if they were convicted.

But the Centre’s guidelines excluded from the remission scheme prisoners serving term for heinous offences and those imprisoned for life. The Gujarat government chose to overlook this. It must be asked why. Is it because state elections are coming up and communal embers can be stoked by setting certain kinds of prisoners free?   

In law, those sentenced for the whole of their natural life cannot be considered for release even if they have been in jail for 14 years. And yet, the Jail Advisory Committee that recommended the ending of the jail term for the convicts in the Bilkis Bano case was chaired by the district magistrate. The district judge and the police superintendent were members. These officials need to be questioned. And the matter cannot be left to languish at the district and the sub-jail level.       



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Indian football is in danger of being isolated because the international governing body FIFA is that powerful and its regulations must be followed. The Supreme Court may have established a measure of control over the BCCI because the ICC, beholden to Indian cricket for its financial sustenance, would not intercede. The governance of Indian football, always in thrall of politicians in power or out of it, has been such a sham as to have allowed two politicians to run it for more than three decades now.

The need of the hour is to bring in radical reforms in football administration. Even India’s top court must realise that FIFA’s writ runs through 211 countries and it supports a democratic election process everywhere while imposing a model code to administer the game. Football can flourish only under the tutelage of the world governing body.

This is no time for the Committee of Administrators to insist on former footballers having the largest say in election reforms because they are not day to day administrators of the sport. The CoA must comply with FIFA regulations for the ban to be lifted so that events, including FIFA’s Under-17 women’s World Cup, slated to be held this year, can proceed in India.

Politicians might have the power and / or charisma to get elected to top sports administrative bodies but they must ensure the federations and associations that they may head adhere to rules and regulations. Too many sports associations, including the IOA and Hockey India, have floundered because of internal personality politics as top administrators attempt to cling on to keep their sphere of influence going.

Modern sport runs on the strength of television rights fees and Indian football, ranked at a historically high 105, needs the money to keep running. Reforms are needed so that the running of the sport will not be endangered. It is to be welcomed that the top court has asked the Centre to ensure that everything is done to resolve the issue and make Indian football compliant with FIFA regulations.



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Additional chief secretary (information) of Uttar Pradesh Navneet Sehgal has recently written to districts/block/tehsil information officers to monitor the news that is published at the micro-level. It says that the local news is damaging the Yogi Adityanath government’s image.

Suddenly, a kind of babu at the district level, who was otherwise largely irrelevant to the decision-making at the Centre or the state capital, is now brought into focus. Previously confined to merely distributing releases and trying to be a point of contact for district and sub-district level media, now his task seems to be more empowering.

But what’s behind this sudden urge of the Yogi Sarkar to scrutinise news emerging from the grassroots? Clearly, while the government seems to be confident of managing its image in most national and regional media, it is unable to extend its reach further into the heartland, where most unflattering coverage seems to emerge from. It now expects skilled “crisis manager” Sehgal and the army of babus at the tehsil level to plug the gaps.

Interestingly, Mr Sehgal played a similar role when the UP government faced fire over the Hathras rape case. He also played a similar role under two previous state governments.


Is Gadkari ‘yes, sir’ diktat a step too far?
Senior Union minister Nitin Gadkari, besides his considerable administrative prowess, is noted for being a “task master”. He seems to take his reputation seriously. Recently, the man in charge of transforming the road transportation sector, said that babus should only say “yes, sir” to whatever the mantris say since the government runs on the diktat of the minister. Perhaps he was emboldened by the result of a recent “Mood of the Nation” survey which named him as among the best performing ministers in the Modi Sarkar.

But clearly, even the most innovative and dedicated mantris can sometimes feel dejected if the performance of the ministry dips. Of late, there has been a spate of reports showing that the pace of new highway construction has faltered while several newly built highways have developed potholes or craters that belie Mr Gadkari’s claims.

Some months ago, Mr Gadkari had similarly publicly chastised his babus for the delays in executing road projects. Clearly, that rebuke did not have the desired effect.

A peeved mantri pulling up the errant babus is understandable, but how far can it be pushed? While the babus are maintaining a prudent silence, Mr Gadkari’s remarks will not go unnoticed. Babus have honed their skills of dealing with mantris of all ilk and saying “yes, minister” requires the least effort on their part!


IPS officers shy off from Central deputation
Only three senior IPS officers have sought a posting on Central deputation, underlining the continuing shortage of All India Services officers in the Union government. This is despite 263 vacancies for IPS officers in at least 17 central organisations including CBI, IB and the Central Armed Police Forces. Most of these vacancies are of DIG and SP rank, besides openings in various Union ministries.

Sources have informed DKB that even the three officers who have shown interest are in the rank of superintendent of police. There is no offer from ranks of inspector general and above in the IPS.

Perhaps the reluctance of senior IPS officers can be traced to the amended IPS tenure policy announced by the home ministry earlier in February, in which it did away with the mandatory requirement of empanelment of IPS officers at the DIG level. That several states are unwilling or slow to sponsor adequate numbers of officers for Central deputation is another aspect of the problem. And this is one problem that cannot be solved quickly, which means that the situation is unlikely to change in the near future.



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Prime Minister Narendra Modi advocated India becoming a developed nation by 2047, as the new national aspiration, on Independence Day this year. This brings to the fore the chicken and egg question -- is the relationship between development and becoming rich sequential, does one lead to the other, and if so, which one comes first? More pertinently, does being developed mean being rich or being sustainable?

A developed economy has four characteristics. First, competitiveness –a country that is able to fund its infrastructure needs whilst retaining fiscal stability. Second, human capital with the bandwidth to generate sustainable, economic growth. Third, respect for human rights, the principle of equity (including gender equity) and deeply institutionalised mechanisms to hold the State accountable. Fourth, security deterrence and the institutional capacity to participate effectively in international forums and networks.

Going by this definition, being rich is not the same as being developed. Many economies dependent on the export of oil and gas, for instance, might be rich today, but their economies are unsustainable, many lack human capital and import basic skills, nor do most conform to human rights protection standards or contribute effectively to international networks.

Conversely, China is an upper middle-income economy at the cusp of becoming a high-income one. India is a lower middle-income economy that could become upper middle-income before 2040. But both have, albeit varying, attributes of developed economies as do several others in South and Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Rich nations (formally high-income economies) are defined by the World Bank as those which have a per person Gross National Income slightly above the global average level. For 2023 this is fixed at $13,200 (Atlas method, which converts GNI data from national currencies to current US dollars by averaging exchange rates over three years to cull out volatility and local inflation spikes). India is at $2,170 (2021).

Over the last 25 years, till 2021, India’s per capita GNI grew at seven per cent per annum. Over the next 25 years, we should double our per capita growth momentum over the four per cent per year that we achieved in the period between 2012 and 2021. Slowing population growth leading to a stable population by 2047 will also help by keeping the denominator low.

Sadly, even a relatively high growth rate of eight per cent, relative to an assumed growth of just two per cent per year in the global economy (which grew at 3.2 per cent 1996-2021 and 1.3 per cent in 2021-21) will

still not take us across the income divide into the rich world by 2047. This conundrum also faces similar or poorer economies or those mainly dependent on the export of fossil fuels.

The Prime Minister knows this well. Possibly that is why “being rich is glorious” -- a paradigm that China embraced in the early period of its liberalisation, is being junked by India for “being developed (viksit) means more than just being rich”.

This resonates with everyone, particularly at a time when riches acquired by plundering the planet are causing havoc. Pivoting to development rather than wealth creation could be fingered by some, as “the grapes are sour” gripe of a never-to-be rich economy. But much depends on the pattern of development that we follow.

Consider, for example, if we diverted resources to a comprehensive greening of our economy, well before 2070, by when we have committed to Net Zero; overhauled our education system to provide high quality future compatible services to the bottom half of our population, including through a massively extended State-funded scholarships programme for technical studies while Ayushman Bharat targets cheap insurance cover for pervasive, quality healthcare, we could score high on development metrics, despite remaining a upper middle-income economy.

The future is all about technology-led innovation, as the Prime Minister stressed on August 15. However, innovation is about open borders and international collaboration. It does not sit well with fractured silos (friend-shoring, near-shoring) which constrain the flow of risk capital for financing innovation and reduce opportunities for scaling up new processes and products, both essential for sustained commercialisation.

It is possible that the existing fragile international order might settle into some kind of an uneasy settlement between the United States, China and Russia. A tripartite understanding to cut their losses and cooperate to stem further economic damage, could be statesmanlike for an American President; suit an empowered President Xi Jinping, in his third term starting November of this year, and give an out with honour to President Vladimir Putin. The European Union, already too old and too comfortable to bear prolonged conflict, would sigh with relief and revert to business as usual. It is debatable, however, whether that would just be a breather or a stable arrangement.

The messages emerging from international forums point to the need for self-preservation in an uncertain and fractious world. The multiplicity of deep diplomatic links with an eye to extract advantages need sustained engagement and a tradesperson’s instincts. An enabling, risk-taking private sector is a huge enabler as is an upgraded, institutional architecture with broad banded skills. Both are still nascent, though Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been sure-footed on this score, with the added advantage of longevity of tenure.

India, acting internationally as a pragmatic, non-preachy, middle power would be new for its citizens. The public reacts best to news feeds of our political masters seemingly overawing foreigners with our spectacular past or outwitting foreign governments in high-profile negotiations. Collegial deal-making, where favours are traded for good team play, rather than individual brilliance or ideological consistency, make poor copy.

At home, deepening democracy by empowering local governments – which was Mahatma Gandhi’s dream -- remains unfulfilled. “Sabka Vishwas, Sabka Prayas” -- awakening the spirit of participative nationalism – requires grassroots, elected political leaders to be substantively integrated into the national power-sharing architecture. Less than one-third of the current members of the Lok Sabha started their political life in local bodies -- which speaks for itself. China’s success owes as much to the pervasive Communist Party system as it does to the virtues of a meritocratic, career growth path from local politics through provincial assemblies to the National Assembly.

We must anchor national programmes in local participation for organic growth and embed national aspirations in regional and international priorities, if we are to be a valued global partner embodying the mantra of frugal development before riches -- an option that is suitable for most nations today.



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