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Editorials - 01-07-2022

The moral content of democracy cannot be eroded and India expects better compliance of the law by its lawmakers

The political developments in Maharashtra throw up troubling questions about how the political class is emasculating the anti-defection law which was described by the Supreme Court of India as “constitutional correctives against a legislatively perceived political evil of unprincipled defections induced by the lure of office and monitory inducements”. Almost with the farsight of a clairvoyant, the Supreme Court drew the attention of citizens to the very danger of subversion of democracy by unprincipled defection.

The ongoing developments in Maharashtra have once again brought before the country the reality of what the Supreme Court also described as the political evil of unprincipled defection. But the greatest irony is that the order of the Supreme Court, on June 27, on petitions from the dissidents in the Shiv Sena, gives undue advantage to the dissident legislators. The Court has granted them a longer time to submit replies than the rules mandate. This order is going to set in motion certain political developments which will resurrect in a big way what the Supreme Court characterised as political evil; it was to prevent this that the anti-defection law was enacted in 1985.

Important thrust areas

To put the issue in perspective, let us quickly run through the thrust areas of this law. It was enacted as the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India, in 1985, under Rajiv Gandhi’s premiership. It was actually the culmination of long years of debate, deliberations, disagreements, formulations and reformulations, with finally a consensus. The law as it was enacted provided for the disqualification of a legislator belonging to a political party if he voluntarily gave up his membership of his party or if he defied the whip of his party by voting contrary to its directions in the legislative house. Initially, there were two exceptions provided in the schedule which would exempt a legislator from disqualification. The first exception was a split in their original political party resulting in the formation of a group of legislators. If the group consisted of one third of such legislators of that party, they were exempted from disqualification. This exception was deleted from the schedule through a Constitution Amendment Act of 2003 because of frequent misuse of this provision.

The second exception was ‘merger’ which can be invoked when the original political party of a legislator merges with another party and not less than two thirds of its legislators agree to such a merger. So, if a legislator shows that his original party has merged with another party and he and his colleagues who constitute two thirds of the legislators of that party have agreed to the merger, then he and his colleagues will be exempted from disqualification.

Interpretation of ‘merger’

It is this exception contained in paragraph four of the schedule which has been taken recourse to by a large number of legislators across States and even in Parliament to defect to the ruling party. These legislators interpreted for themselves the term ‘merger’ to mean the merger of two thirds of legislators. They convinced themselves that the merger of their original party is not necessary, mainly because it is not a possibility. Politics being the art of the possible, they believed that what is not ordinarily possible can be conveniently ignored.

Now, this story is being repeated in Maharashtra. But there is a little difference here. It appears that the dissidents of Shiv Sena believed that if they get the two third number they can form a separate group and topple the government and then form a government with the help of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Although the Maharashtra Chief Minister has resigned and the direction of the Governor to hold a floor test has become infructuous, the issue arising out of the anti-defection petitions is still live and needs to be addressed by the next Speaker.

The law imposes the condition of merger of the original political party (namely, the Shiv Sena) which is not likely to happen now or in the future. If there is no merger of the original party, then these dissidents cannot claim any exception from disqualification no matter whether they are two thirds or three fourths. However, a recent judgment of the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court (Girish Chodankar vs The Speaker, Goa State Legislative ) that held that the merger of two thirds of Members of the Legislative Assembly is deemed to be the merger of the original party seems to have given them a ray of hope. This judgment, unfortunately, does not reflect the correct law and needlessly complicates it. Nevertheless, this judgment too emphasises the need for merger with another party. So, the legal position is if the dissidents do not merge with another party they will be disqualified now or later. They cannot operate as a separate group in the Assembly because the law does not permit them to do so.

On disqualification

Now, disqualification petitions have been filed by the Shiv Sena against 16 of the dissidents under paragraph 2(1)(a) on the ground that they have voluntarily given up the membership of the party. The question of whether they have voluntarily given up the membership of the party is decided on the basis of the conduct of a member. InRavi S. Naik vs Union of India (1994), the Supreme Court had said “an inference can be drawn from the conduct of a member that he has voluntarily given up the membership of the party to which he belongs”. Wilful non-participation in a crucial meeting of a party whose government is facing a serious crisis because of them, may, in the present circumstances, offer the ground for disqualification.

Point of intervention

However, the notice of no-confidence against the Deputy Speaker has added another piece to the jigsaw puzzle. The intervention by the Supreme Court too has thrown up some crucial questions regarding the operation of the anti-defection law.

The first question is whether the Court can intervene at a stage prior to the decision by the Deputy Speaker. A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court had held inKihoto Hollohan (1993) that judicial review cannot be available prior to the making of a decision by the Speaker nor at an interlocutory stage of the proceeding. Giving longer time to the dissidents to submit replies is contrary to this decision. The mandatory period for replying to the charge is seven days under the rule. The court gave them 15 days. It is an intervention at the interlocutory stage which was barred by the Constitution Bench.

Another question of considerable importance is whether the Deputy Speaker can decide the disqualification petition when a no-confidence motion is pending against him. The Supreme Court had held inNabam Rebia (2016) that the Speaker shall not decide the disqualification cases till the no-confidence motion against him is disposed of. In the Maharashtra case, the Deputy Speaker who had assumed the duties of the Speaker because of the vacancy in the office of the Speaker, did not admit the notice of no-confidence because he had doubts about the authenticity of the notice. The House rules clearly say that the notice of no-confidence against the Speaker/Deputy Speaker needs to be admitted in the first place which is done only by the Speaker. Rules do not recognise any other authority for admitting a notice. But it is the House which takes the final decision on the motion. If the notice of no-confidence does not contain specific charges, it can be disallowed by the Speaker. Therefore, in this case, there is no occasion to say that the Speaker cannot be a judge in his own cause. Disallowing a notice does not prevent Members from giving another notice complying with the requirements of the rule. Further, the notice can be given only if the House is summoned. When the notice was given, the Assembly was not convened. So, the notice against the Deputy Speaker can have no validity under the rules. Therefore, it cannot be said that the notice is pending against the Deputy Speaker.

An observation, its spirit

The anti-defection law is facing many challenges. Since it deals with the political class, the challenges are grave. The law, though not perfect, is a serious attempt to strengthen the moral content of democracy. Piloting the Bill on the Tenth Schedule, then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, said, “There are lots of areas in this Bill which are grey. We are covering new grounds… it is better for us to tread cautiously than to make serious errors and repent later. There will be shortcomings in this Bill but as we see and identify those shortcomings we will try to overcome them.”

Parliament needs to recapture the spirit of this observation. The anti-defection law needs to be strengthened and not weakened. The nation expects better compliance of the law by the lawmakers.

P.D.T. Achary is former Secretary General, Lok Sabha



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Monetary penalty is not going to solve the issue, but we should be clear about the grey areas

On June 9, 2022, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) notified guidelines for ‘Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements, 2022’. The guidelines, brought in with immediate effect, are applicable to all forms of advertisements. While the Consumer Protection Act of 2019 does have a provision on misleading advertisements, the CCPA can impose a penalty of up to Rs. 10 lakh on manufacturers, advertisers and endorsers for misleading advertisements and a penalty of up to Rs. 50 lakh for subsequent contraventions. It can also prohibit the endorser of a misleading advertisement from making any endorsement for up to one year; for subsequent contravention, prohibition can extend up to three years. In a conversation moderated bySonam Saigal, Anushree Rauta and Akashneel Dasgupta discuss the need for the new guidelines and how they overlap with the ‘Code for Self-Regulation in Advertising’, which was adopted by the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI). Edited excerpts:

According to data released by AdEx India, a division of TAM (Television Audience Measurement) Media Research, in March 2022, celebrity endorsements saw a 44% rise in 2021 over 2020. Why do companies hire brand ambassadors for a product or a service?

Anushree Rauta:In this country people worship certain celebrities. It’s a cinema and cricket-loving nation. A lot of brands these days have either actors or cricketers as brand endorsers. It adds to the credibility of the brand. It’s the trust which people repose in some of the celebrities [that they] pass on to the image of the brand. [Having such brand endorsers] impacts the buyers’ purchasing decisions because of the celebrity’s authority and/or relationship with the audience.

Akashneel Dasgupta:There are all kinds of reasons for hiring a celebrity. Certain brand endorsements happen because of the right reasons, where there is a fit with the brand, a communication objective or even a business objective to solve. When a celebrity comes in, he/she brings in the trust or credibility that is needed. But often the endorsement is also for the wrong reasons, as there is nothing new to say. In mature categories, which have high penetration, established brands that have little to differentiate [among them] and have almost reached a parity stage, celebrities are used as identifiers. Sometimes it’s lazy marketing. When you don’t have an idea, you just take a face, sit back and believe that this is going to do the job.

What onus do you think the recent guidelines put on brand ambassadors?

AR:Endorsers are service providers. They do have responsibilities given the kind of impact they have on the audience. But at the end of the day, it’s not solely on them. They wouldn’t have the technical knowledge to verify the products. Even though the ASCI guidelines provide something similar in terms of the due diligence exercise to be carried out by the celebrities, these guidelines are now an obligation for them. The guidelines require the celebrities to reflect their genuine or current opinion, to disclose any connection which they have with the brand… This will increase instances where brand endorsers may need to take some technical advice, they may need to avail of services like those of the ASCI, which provide a team of dedicated technical experts to verify whether the endorsements are substantiated or not [by the claims they make]. I think with these guidelines there will be an increase in transparency and more responsible advertising.

AD:There are celebrities who do their due diligence and are careful before they endorse a product or a brand. Then there are those who are uninterested in what the brand is, or what the product is, and it’s just about the money they’re making from the endorsement. These guidelines are good, but in the real world it is going to make only so much of a difference because the penalty on the brand ambassadors is so [little], it doesn’t really matter to them.

Since you mentioned penalty, the guidelines levy a fine of Rs. 10 lakh and can also prohibit an endorser for a year for a misleading advertisement. What do you think about this?

AR:Before the Consumer Protection Act came into place, there was a provision which had contemplated imprisonment as an option for a misleading advertisement. But I think the legislature rightly deleted that and imposed only a fine. The quantum of the fine is debatable. For any subsequent offences, there is also a penalty in terms of the celebrity not being able to endorse for a certain period, which is also loss of reputation, and which is good.

AD:For a celebrity, there is a talent management team, a legal team. There are so many people who do their due diligence, so that conscious decisions are taken to endorse or not endorse a product or a brand. But celebrities get away easily in case of a misleading ad with a public apology. So, a Rs. 10 lakh penalty is nothing if they had a deal of Rs. 4 crore. It should have been far more because I don’t think a monetary penalty is going to solve the issue here. There have to be some other yardsticks of accountability, or punishment. Damage to their reputation and prohibiting them from endorsements for a period is the punishment that works for them.

The ASCI and the Consumer Protection Act already have a provision for ‘due diligence’ that needs to be done on the part of those who endorse products. Why were the new guidelines needed then?

AR:Section 21 (power of Central Authority to issue directions and penalties against false or misleading advertisements) of the Act states no endorser will be liable to a penalty if they have exercised due diligence to verify the veracity of the claims made in the advertisement regarding the product or service being endorsed by them. With the guidelines, they are obliged to do their due diligence, and to make the disclosure of their new material connection with the brand. Now, it’s come as a statutory obligation. Whether these guidelines were required to be there or not is questionable. In my view, the ASCI guidelines were already in place; maybe additional onus has been put now. It will have to be seen whether there is any reduction in misleading advertisements or not, following this new set of guidelines.

AD:It is difficult to define what’s misleading. A lot of things are in the grey area in advertising. It is a little hard to believe that the brand ambassador is not aware of what a brand stands for. For example, some products may claim they make your child stronger, or taller, or provide vitamin C, but how do you prove that... A lot of things are intangibles in advertising. If the product does live up to the claim, to what extent nobody can say, because almost 80% of advertising lies in the grey area regarding claims. So, it’s very difficult for a celebrity to verify claims because sometimes even the clients can’t verify those claims. So, maybe the guidelines will help in that aspect.

Can you explain what sort of ‘due diligence’ can be carried out by brand ambassadors to ensure they do not sign up to misleading advertisements?

AR:There are various aspects to it. As far as technical information is concerned, they would not be equipped to do it on their own, so it will be something which they will have to outsource. They would require the brand to submit certain reports and get them verified, or they would go to the ASCI which has its own team of experts to carry out these exercises. The second is in terms of the experience with the products and goods. I don’t know how this will pan out, because not all celebrities may be comfortable using the products they are endorsing. Nowadays, there is a liability perspective; I’m sure the brands would require them to give an undertaking that they have utilised the products and they affirm what they are endorsing. Celebrities will have to be more vigilant and responsible while endorsing products and services.

Speaking of liability, do any brand ambassadors ensure that there is a clause inserted in their contract that ensures zero responsibility if any part of the claim in the advertisement ends up being false?

AR:It depends on the kind of products or services being endorsed. If the celebrity has a good legal representation, they will definitely add clauses in the representations and warranties and the indemnification which are taken to ensure that whatever statements they are made to say are verified and there is no false statement which the brand is asking the celebrity to make. It also depends on the bargaining power. There are certain creative controls that certain celebrities would want to take. Sometimes the celebrities may want to get the storyboard verified at the scripting level itself. So, the clauses are typically there in all brand endorsement agreements, where representations and warranties are taken from the brands and any indemnification for any claims they mentioned.

AD:Most celebrities these days have these clauses inserted because they are handled by a security management agency. So they ensure that the clauses of no responsibility are there.

In February 2021, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting informed the Lok Sabha that between 2017 and 2020, more than 12,000 complaints were received by the Grievances Against Misleading Advertisements, which was launched by the Department of Consumer Affairs. The number is appalling. What do you have to say about that?

AR:A misleading advertisement is defined under the statute (Section 2). To put it in simple words, in an advertisement there should be no false description made of any product or service, no false guarantee given, and it shouldn’t constitute what is called an unfair trade practice. During COVID-19, there were a lot of false and misleading advertisements. I am sure the number 12,000 is hugely attributed to the COVID-19 time.

AD:There’s no way to determine whether a claim is misleading or not. You can’t really determine or measure whether a certain cement gives more life than the other. Of course, there has to be proof, but then if it’s in the grey zone, you really can’t prove it. From the number of misleading [advertising] complaints received by the Ministry, I’m sure only a few would be genuine. In our country, we see people and brands being trolled. A lot of it is also exaggerated. The number 12,000 has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Not all of them are genuine. But yes, there are many genuine complaints. Most of the promises are intangibles and lie in that grey area. There are always two ways of looking at it. If promises are not delivered, that’s misleading.

Should brand ambassadors be held responsible for false claims in advertisements?

AD:Absolutely. They should be held responsible and there shouldn’t just be a monetary punishment for that.

AR:The Act already provides for sufficient penalty. Of course, celebrities need to take some responsibility. They cannot shrug off responsibility.

Endorsers are service providers. They do have responsibilities given the kind of impact they have on the audience. But at the end of the day, it’s not solely on them.

Anushree Rauta



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The central argument of Almåsaet al., that this is seen in countries with weak institutions, is corroborated in India

G.K. Chesterton, the writer, asserted inThe Flying Inn (1914): “The rich are the scum of the earth in every country”. Perhaps not all but many.

Our contention is that their selfishness, criminality and corruption aggravate inequality. Much experimental evidence corroborates this hypothesis.

Some insights

A particularly compelling case for ‘Selfish Rich Inequality’ is constructed by Almåsaet al. (2022), based on an analysis of the Gallup World Poll of 2018; that is, whether the rich are richer than the poor because they have been more selfish in life than the latter. They demonstrate that the non-productive grabbing behaviour of the rich is typical of countries with weak institutions, stemming from a weak rule of law, malfunctioning bureaucracy and corruption. Hence, people in such countries are more likely to believe that the rich have become richer because they have been involved in selfish grabbing activities. Support for the selfish rich inequality hypothesis rises with the level of corruption and decreases with an individual’s rank in the country’s income distribution. This study’s final analysis shows that popular belief in selfish rich inequality is positively associated with broad agreement that inequality in their country is unfair and that the government should aim to reduce it.

A distillation of our econometric analysis using the Gallup World Poll Data of 2018 for India, along with the Fairness-Across-The-World module provided by FAIR–The Choice Lab, NHH Norwegian School of Economics, offers rich insights. Note that this is an analysis of respondents’ beliefs and not the actual behaviour of the rich. Also, as these responses are focused on the rich inequality hypothesis, we cannot disentangle these from beliefs about selfishness of the rich per se; we restrict our analysis to the inequality hypothesis.

As the age of the respondent rises, the belief in the rich inequality hypothesis becomes stronger. We also find that religiosity of an individual reinforces this belief.

State-level characteristics yield rich insights too. State affluence is measured in terms of net state domestic product per capita. There is a strong negative association between the rich inequality hypothesis and state affluence. Or, more specifically, significantly larger respondents in more affluent states do not support this hypothesis. Whether better employment opportunities, health care and schooling more than offset the beliefs in this hypothesis are plausible. However, if more affluent states also are those with higher income inequality (measured as a ratio of share of the top 1% in total income divided by the share of the bottom 50%a la Piketty (2014), it is confirmed that significantly more respondents believe in the inequality hypothesis. In other words, if growth is not inclusive, it engenders resentment against the rich and a strong belief in the hypothesis in question.

Criminality and corruption

In a variation, if state influence is interacted with the incidence of crime (measured as the number of convictions per lakh of population), a significantly large number of respondents corroborate the rich inequality hypothesis. Or, a significantly large number of respondents are prone to believe that in an affluent state infested with criminality, the rich get richer through illegal, grabbing activities (rich traders, for example, evade local taxes by bribing officials).

However, it is intriguing that the state corruption index, obtained from the India Corruption Report (2019), is negatively associated with the rich inequality hypothesis, implying that more respondents in highly corrupt States reject this hypothesis. It is of course plausible that more corruption you observe in your community and elsewhere makes you immune to corruption among the rich. However, respondents in States which are more corrupt and display greater extreme inequality are more likely to believe in corruption of the rich and thus corroborate the hypothesis in question.

States, their governments

The overall state political and economic environment conditions the principal (voters)–agent (public institutions in a State including the State government, judiciary and the police) relationship. The lower the trust/confidence in the agent, the harder it is to sustain growth, and maintain accountability and transparency. The National Democratic Alliance regime, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has overcentralised decision-making and pursued, aggressively, Hindutva, negating, if not destroying, State autonomy. While minorities have been humiliated, assaulted and killed, often without provocation, there are also serious allegations of promoting crony capitalism. So, it is not just some billionaires who have flourished but their criminality and corruption have been sidestepped, if not ignored altogether.

In order to probe the outcomes of drastic policy shifts, we have classified States into those ruled by the BJP and others. We do not find any association between BJP-ruled States and the rich inequality hypothesis. However, when we interact BJP-ruled States with the corruption index, we get the striking result that the association between the hypothesis in question and the interacted variable is positive. In other words, more respondents in BJP-ruled States with high corruption corroborate the rich inequality hypothesis. So, while the BJP is not responsible for the inequality associated with the rich, in an environment of high corruption with the BJP as the ruling party, more respondents corroborate this hypothesis.

Issue of trust in institutions

To conclude, the central argument of Almåsaet al . (2022), that the rich are richer because they engage in non-productive grabbing behaviour in countries with weak institutions, stemming from a weak rule of law, malfunctioning bureaucracy and corruption, is largely corroborated in India. Whether it is feasible to strengthen public institutions in the present context seems a tall order. Indeed, as argued by us elsewhere, our trust in these institutions may be fast approaching a cliff effect, marking a very rapid erosion and a sharp worsening of the inequality driven by the selfishness, criminality and corruption of the rich.

Aashi Gupta is a doctoral student in Economics, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. Vani S. Kulkarni is a Research Affiliate, Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, U.S.; Raghav Gaiha is a Research Affiliate, Population Aging Research Centre, University of Pennsylvania, U.S.



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For crime reporters who depend on the police, instinct is an important factor

There is a saying that goes: You show me the man and I will show you the rule. Recently, the Delhi Police arrested Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of the fact-checking websiteAlt News , for posting an “objectionable tweet” in 2018 that allegedly hurt religious beliefs. The tweet in question was a still from a 1983 Hindi movie,Kissi Se Na Kehna! A day later, K.P.S. Malhotra, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), claimed that transactions over Rs. 50 lakh had been made in Mr. Zubair’s bank account over three months.Alt News co-founder Pratik Sinha responded on Twitter claiming that the police were linking donations received byAlt News to Mr. Zubair. The claim, in fact, was never a part of police submissions in court seeking Mr. Zubair’s police remand, nor was it mentioned during oral arguments in court. AsAlt News is a fact-checking platform, it was quick to provide its version on social media platforms. But there are several cases where the accused do not get such an opportunity.

The truth is, if the publicity that a case gets helps the police push a narrative to a specific end, the law-enforcers are more than happy to come on record. The police in each State have a media policy. In Delhi, for instance, no officer below the rank of DCP is authorised to give an official quote to the press. That does not mean that a reporter cannot have a source in the subsidiary ranks.

In 2010, the Ministry of Home Affairs sent an advisory to the States on the ‘media policy of police.’ One point said: “Officers should confine their briefings to the essential facts and not rush to the press with half-baked, speculative or unconfirmed information about ongoing investigations.” The advisory also stated that “due care should be taken to ensure that there is no violation of the legal, privacy and human rights of the accused/victims.” It is common knowledge that the police do provide half-baked, speculative statements to reporters. At what point then should the reporter stop trusting the police? While the standard practice, at least in the print media, is to get the version of the accused, many in the television media seldom think along these lines. Individuals are branded guilty according to a script. No one waits for the court’s verdict.

Crime reporters depend on the police for information. But a pavement-thumping reporter will always ask questions if the information is speculative or appears to be motivated. Often, thanks to instinct, the reporter drops stories that do not check the required boxes. There have been instances where reporters have been left out of police briefings for critical reports.

In an unhealthy trend, also fuelled by the desire to get likes and retweets, police officers or law-enforcement agencies plan press conferences if it is convenient to them. In the absence of implementation of the media policy, this in many cases adversely impacts the accused. The process becomes the punishment.

A point suggested in the 2010 policy was that “no opinionated and judgmental statements should be made by the police while briefing the media.” In 2020, the then Bihar police chief Gupteshwar Pandey told press persons that making any kind of comment regarding the State Chief Minister was beyond theaukaat (status) of actor Rhea Chakraborty, who was being investigated in connection with the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput. Though Mr. Pandey later apologised for the statement, it sent the message that such conduct is acceptable if it suits the political narrative, for there was no known repercussion for his statement by the State or the Centre.

For the police to act as an extension of the political dispensation is not new. Foisting cases and arresting individuals who are inconvenient to the establishment is also common. The system provides impunity to such officials. But what is new is the acceptance of such conduct by the media and the public at large.

vijaita.singh@thehindu.co.in



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PM Modi’s G-7 commitments on protecting freedoms will face scrutiny in India

Geopolitics trumped economics at the annual summit of the world’s “most industrialised” countries, as the G-7 is known, at the German resort of Schloss Elmau, a summit Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended, along with other special invitees from Argentina, Indonesia, Senegal, and South Africa. While the G-7 countries did have some economic initiatives on their agenda, including the launch of a $600 billion U.S.-led Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII), commitments on fighting climate change, funding renewable energy changes, mitigating inflation and managing the continued global crisis over the COVID-19 pandemic, it was clear that most of the deliberations took aim at the twin challenges seen from Russia and China. The 28-page communiqué alternated between outlining the challenges to the international order that emanate from Moscow’s war in Ukraine (including tightening sanctions, the impact on energy markets, and cybersecurity threats), and Beijing’s “expansive maritime claims”, rights violations, and unsustainable debt creation in lower income countries. The G-7 countries issued separate statements on support for Ukraine, food security and a ‘Climate Club’. In addition, the G-7 and special invitee “partner countries” issued a statement on “Resilient Democracies”, committing to free and fair elections, protecting freedom of expression, and gender empowerment. The message for Russia and China was made even more pointed at the subsequent NATO Summit in Madrid, where the U.S.’s Transatlantic allies invited the U.S.’s Trans-Pacific allies to discuss security challenges.

Given the targeted nature of the G-7 outcomes, India had its work cut out as a balancing power. Prime Minister Narendra Modi made it clear that it is the developing world that needs the most support, including to weather the “knock-on” effects of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The Government sought to distance itself from the PGII, pitched as a G-7 counter to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and made it evident that India had only signed on to the statements on “Resilient Democracies” and a “Just Energy Transition”, and not the many statements castigating Russia and China, much like Mr. Modi had, at the earlier BRICS summit, stayed away from President Putin and President Xi’s stringent criticism of the West. On the global stage, the G-7 outcomes mean New Delhi will have to continue to walk a tightrope between these two blocs that are growing more polarised and inimical towards each other. On the Indian stage, Mr. Modi’s G-7 commitments will be scrutinised for his pronouncements on democracy, and his written assurance that his government will protect civic society, freedoms of expression and “thought, conscience, religion or belief”, which are facing challenges within the country.



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The U.S. must humanely manage the inflowof migrants across its southern border

In what appears to be the worst episode in recent times of migrant deaths associated with dangerous border crossings into the U.S., the bodies of at least 53 people were recovered from an abandoned tractor-trailer in San Antonio, Texas. Reports suggested that the migrants, hailing from Mexico, the Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, died from the extreme temperatures inside the truck, amidst a lethal heat wave. The grim episode highlights yet again the perils faced by those seeking asylum or better economic prospects in the U.S., who come up against the country’s immigration policies, which are yet very much a work-in-progress. On the one hand, the latest crisis underscores the serious lacunae in border policy enforcement. Despite the searing summer, border crossings in this region have remained stubbornly high over the past two years. In May 2020, the U.S. Border Patrol encountered 23,237 migrants, whereas in May 2022, that number was 2,39,146 — said to be more than in any single month in the past three years. Even worse, Mexican officials have confirmed that the truck passed through a federal immigration checkpoint within the territory of the U.S. and yet was not inspected. With approximately 20,000 trucks passing through the commercial corridor from Laredo to San Antonio every day, and even more across U.S.-Mexico crossing routes overall, there is a woeful shortage of manpower and surveillance systems.

Nevertheless, it is the bigger questions behind cross-border migration into the U.S. and its fallout, as shown above, that are troubling. Democrats and Republicans have locked horns over comprehensive immigration reform in a multitude of negotiations and across hundreds of bills proposed in Congress. Yet there is a fundamental unwillingness to find bipartisan solutions for immigration policy, in the way that the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act came out of a collaborative effort and now offers a glimmer of hope towards containing gun violence. While Democrats have dug in their heels on subjects such as a path to citizenship for law-abiding undocumented workers in the U.S. who meet certain conditions, including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Republicans have tended to focus more on keeping undocumented migrants out at the border. The problem with their refusing to hammer out compromise solutions is that the resultant failure to evolve a well-funded yet enlightened immigration policy leads to avoidable deaths of the kind seen in San Antonio. Whatever they cede or do not cede politically to liberals, conservatives must realise that there is no resisting the “melting pot” effect coterminous with the U.S.’s social and economic progress, and for that process to work smoothly, the U.S. must rationally and humanely manage the inflow of migrants across its southern border.



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Simla, June 30: The Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, and President Bhutto met for the first time to-day without any aides to discuss the elements of what they consider to be the proper basis for the establishment of durable peace between India and Pakistan in the light of the drafts exchanged at the official level talks by the two teams. Mrs. Gandhi met Mr. Bhutto at the Raj Bhavan this evening after she conferred with the members of the Political Affairs Committee of the Cabinet on the progress of the summit discussions. The talks lasted 44 minutes and before he left, Mr. Bhutto told the waiting newsmen that they would meet again to-morrow to continue their discussions. Mrs. Gandhi, who stayed on for a short time at Raj Bhavan, met her senior Cabinet colleagues to give them a gist of her talk with the Pakistan President. After the first round of discussions on the agenda items, the Pakistani team presented a draft agreement yesterday for consideration by the Indian side. The Indian delegation put forward its draft containing some common elements, when the officials met in the afternoon. The Pakistani side came out with a revised draft to-day combining such elements which, in its view, were common between the two earlier drafts. The Indian team promised to consider it.



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The Lok Dal leader, Devi Lal’s claim to the status of the leader of the Opposition in the Haryana Vidhan Sabha has not been accepted either by the Vidhan Sabha Secretariat or the state government so far.

The Lok Dal leader, Devi Lal’s claim to the status of the leader of the Opposition in the Haryana Vidhan Sabha has not been accepted either by the Vidhan Sabha Secretariat or the state government so far. The matter has taken an interesting turn with a communication reportedly sent to Devi Lal by the Vidhan Sabha secretariat asking him to intimate the ideology and programme of the Lok Dal legislative party. The letter of the legislative party to the secretariat accepting Devi Lal as its leader was signed by all the 33 Lok Dal MLAs. According to rules, the support of only 10 members is sufficient to get a legislative party leader the status of the leader of the Opposition.

Industry Concerns

Captains of industry told the Prime Minister that the credit squeeze had wrought havoc on industry and recessionary trends were already in evidence, especially in the engineering sector. The occasion for the complaint was a hurriedly-convened meeting of businessmen by the PM. The meeting was called to discuss ideas with spokesmen of industry on giving a new thrust to the economy. During the one and half hour meeting, the industrialists explained how the dear money policy of the Government had hit industrial production. They demanded a more liberal licensing policy.

Plane Hijacked

A Sri Lankan who hijacked an Alitalia jumbo jet on a Delhi-Bangkok flight released 139 of his 256 hostages after being told that his estranged Italian wife and son were on their way to Bangkok from Rome, Sri Lankan Ambassador Manel Abeysebiera said. The released included all the women aboard the aircraft, all persons under 19 years of age and all men over 50. The 139 released included 131 passengers and eight stewardesses.



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With Fadnavis as deputy CM, the BJP will be the main driving force of the new governing arrangement in Maharashtra.

The swearing in of Shiv Sena rebel Eknath Shinde as chief minister with Devendra Fadnavis as his deputy proved to be the final twist in the murky drama that played out over the past few days in Maharashtra. From the beginning, the BJP tried – unsuccessfully so — to put distance between itself and the unravelling of the Shiv Sena and consequently of the MVA government in the state. Handing over the chief ministership to the leader of the rebellion is no doubt aimed at dispelling the image of the party as a predatory force, out to topple governments led by non-BJP parties, and to project an image of abnegation instead. Anointing Shinde may also be aimed at appeasing, or confusing, Sainiks and breaking what is left of the Shiv Sena.

With Fadnavis as deputy CM, the BJP will be the main driving force of the new governing arrangement in Maharashtra. The loss of an important state, along with Mumbai, the country’s financial capital, was something it was evidently desperate to reverse, and Shinde’s rebellion gave it the opening. Uddhav Thackeray was wise to read the writing on the wall and step down as chief minister ahead of a floor test the MVA coalition was certain to lose. The day after, he will have to confront the reality that it was not the break up of an “unlikely” alliance, but of his own party that led to the unravelling of his government. Going ahead, his challenge will be to reclaim the Shiv Sena legacy and reassert the Thackeray stamp on it at a time of an identity crisis in the party. On his last day in office, he tried to reiterate his Hindutva credentials by renaming two major cities. The state is now likely to see a competition between players to emerge as the real flagbearer of Hindutva. The question will also be: Which is the real Sena — the Mumbai-centric rump left with Uddhav Thackeray, or the one that is now with Shinde? With the Mumbai corporation elections ahead, and the BJP certain to go into mission mode to take charge of the country’s richest civic body, the Thackerays’ task is cut out. What might work in their favour, or not, is that the Uddhav Thackeray-led government could not be accused of misgovernance. Mumbai emerged as a model city for Covid management as the former chief minister, a first timer in public office, steered the state through the pandemic with a steady hand.

Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari, who granted Fadnavis’s request for a floor test without losing any time and with apparently no consideration of the petition before the Supreme Court on the disqualification of the rebels, has invited unflattering attention to his office yet again – the Supreme Court’s refusal to stay the floor test pending the disposal of the disqualification case also raises questions. The infamous 2019 secret swearing-in of Fadnavis at the Raj Bhavan in an attempt to pre-empt the post-election MVA coalition, and the friction-filled relationship thereafter between Koshyari and Thackeray, had already made the governor’s stance controversial. Now the circumstances of the fall of the government and installation of a new one have once again revived concerns about the high constitutional office and its insulation, or lack of it, from the political establishment.



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In 2018-19, 5.27 crore households had availed of work under MGNREGA. In 2019-20, a year before the pandemic, this had risen to 5.48 crore.

Going by the data on work demanded and availed by households under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the employment scenario in the country continues to be dismal, even as the economy has recovered, though barely, to its pre-pandemic level. As reported in this paper, 2.61 crore households availed work under the scheme in May 2022. This is not only higher than the number of households who worked under the scheme over the same period last year (2.22 crore in May 2021), but is also significantly higher than the pre-pandemic level (2.1 crore households had availed work under the scheme in May 2019). This is a worrying sign.

In 2018-19, 5.27 crore households had availed of work under MGNREGA. In 2019-20, a year before the pandemic, this had risen to 5.48 crore. During the pandemic year of 2020, it rose further to a staggering 7.55 crore. While in the following year (2021-22), the number of households came down to 7.26 crore, it was still significantly higher than even the pre-pandemic trend. These numbers indicate that reliance on the employment guarantee scheme has only been growing. This points to a few possibilities. First, that not enough productive jobs are being created in rural areas — 21 states and Union territories observed an increase in households availing work under the scheme. That the jobs that are being created aren’t remunerative enough, requiring households to supplement their incomes by working under the scheme. After all, inflation pinches the poor more. Or, that, post the pandemic, households are trying to rebuild their emergency buffers. In urban areas, the latest periodic labour force survey shows that even as the unemployment rate among the youth (those aged 15-29) has dipped in recent quarters, it remained uncomfortably high at 20.2 per cent during January-March 2022.

Protests against the Indian railways recruitment process, against the government’s Agnipath scheme for recruitment for the armed forces, pressures from various castes to expand the scope of reservation, attempts by state governments to reserve jobs for locals – all are symptomatic of growing concerns over inadequate employment generation in the country. These have only deepened since the pandemic. They reflect the failure, under the watch of successive governments, to absorb the millions of low and semi-skilled workers, who are entering the labour force each year, and those who are stuck in the low productivity agricultural sector.



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The “library” does not, of course, feature books: Puppy pals, while amazing at reading moods and expressions, have not yet graduated to the written word.

The global pet care and pampering industry is valued at about $220 billion. Much of that money is spent on dogs and cats who, to put it bluntly, couldn’t care less. Unlike their human counterparts, dog and cat babies (as their keepers are fond of calling them), are untainted by the desire for either brands or possessions – their love, easily available as it is, cannot be bought. So, the viral video of a “dog library” from Tennessee in the US, while well-meaning, useful and fodder for amazingly addictive feel-good content featuring puppies, is more for the owners and viewers than the dogs themselves.

The “library” does not, of course, feature books: Puppy pals, while amazing at reading moods and expressions, have not yet graduated to the written word. Instead, it contains balls, sticks and assorted toys that visitors are free to use, and even take home, as long as they replace the item — “take one, leave one”.

The initiative may nevertheless be welcomed in its neighbourhood. After all, both people and their canines are social animals and this library will not demand silence and quiet contemplation over intimidating tomes. But the toys themselves are pointless — a bit of a marketing gimmick by the creative minds employed by a $220-billion industry. How many times has an owner bought her pooch a fancy sweater only to have him tear it off and keep warm via a smelly blanket? How many expensive “chewy toys” have been discarded in favour of your favourite pair of shoes?  The one thing puppies need is affection, which cannot be bought or borrowed.



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Rajiv Bhatia writes: It conveyed intent on tackling climate, energy, environment, health, and food security, had strong words for Russia and China

Although they were ensconced for two days (June 26-27) at the picturesque Schloss Elmau set in the Bavarian Alps in Germany, the leaders of the seven rich nations (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, the US) and the European Union had very little time to relax. They had assembled to reflect on pressing global challenges and craft common positions that guide their governments and important multilateral institutions. The G7 invited “guests”, top leaders from five countries — Argentina, India, Indonesia, Senegal, and South Africa — in a studied nod to the global south. Its adversaries and competitors — Russia and China — were not present

What has the G7 achieved over a long series of deliberations that have taken place this year since Germany took over the presidency for 2022? Quite a lot, according to its 28-page, 12,000-word communiqué. The G7 has issued four other statements as well — on democracy (together with the guest countries), Ukraine, global food security, and the creation of a climate club. Taken together, this summit outcome looks weighty, even impressive. But what do the statements of the mighty amount to? How will it affect, if at all, the lives of ordinary citizens around the world?

The shadow of the war in Ukraine was visible at the summit. Perhaps to expose the powerlessness of the powerful nations, as the summit opened, Russia chose to launch missile attacks on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv. The G7 leaders responded with strong words, reiterating their condemnation of Russia’s aggression. “We will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes,” they asserted, backing their words with concrete action, pledging 28 billion euros in budget aid, in addition to 2.6 billion euros in humanitarian aid. They also committed to supporting post-war reconstruction through an international conference.

The dignitaries pledged to continue the imposition of severe and enduring sanctions on Russia to help end the war and work towards “unprecedented coordination” amongst themselves. As to the West’s assistance of weapons to Ukraine, they chose to let the latest position be presented at the NATO summit that followed immediately after in Madrid.

Anti-Russian formulations were expected, but it was the extensive reference to China that drew attention. A total of six paragraphs were devoted to presenting the G7’s demands on Beijing. First, the need for peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits was emphasised, as also a peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues. Then, China was reminded of the UN Charter on peaceful settlement of disputes and “to abstain from threat, coercion, intimidation measures or use of force.” G7 called on China to “fully comply” with the 2016 arbitral award concerning the South China Sea, which Beijing had rejected completely. Another interesting demand on China is “to press Russia” to comply with the order of the International Court of Justice, adhere to the relevant resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly, and stop its military aggression. Hong Kong and the human rights situation in Tibet and Xinjiang figured in this section. Yet, recognising the G7’s imperative to cooperate with the largest economies of the world and because of the possibility of a summit between the presidents of the US and China, it conceded that “it is necessary to cooperate with China on shared global challenges.” Of course, Beijing has its own demands. The G7 projected internal coherence, a development the Chinese could not be happy about.

The world’s challenges relating to climate, energy, environment, health, and food security consumed much of the leaders’ time. They committed to taking immediate action to secure energy supplies and reduce price increases, such as capping the price of Russia’s energy supplies, and banning Russian gold imports — even though Europeans face serious energy-related difficulties. In line with their earlier positions, the G7 supported the goals of the climate club, which include accelerating the implementation of the Paris Agreement, and ambitious action to align with 1.5 degree Celsius pathways.

The announcement of the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) drew considerable attention, even as critics recall how the Build Back Better World (B3W) call, given by the US at the 2021 G7 summit, has produced little result. The goal now is to rustle up $600 billion in the next five years through public and private resources of the G7 countries, narrow the global investment gap in infrastructure and compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, especially in the cordon from West Africa to the Indo-Pacific via South Asia. Finally, there was a clear indication that following the successful model of cooperation with South Africa, the G7 plans to build new Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETP) with several other countries like Indonesia, India, Senegal, and Vietnam.

India’s presence at the G7 was proactive. Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke with passion at the two plenary sessions, one on climate, energy, and health, and the other on food security and gender equality. Energy access should not be the privilege of the rich as everyone has the same rights on energy, he said. As Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra observed, “India has an important role to play in finding solutions to the challenges of today’s world.”

The leaders have done their bit for the present. It is now for the G7 governments to deliver, to be taken seriously.

The writer is Distinguished Fellow, Gateway House, a former ambassador and author



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Angellica Aribam writes: A person’s right to choose to end the pregnancy in the first few weeks is still not recognised in India. After overturning of Roe v Wade, measuring ourselves on a yardstick of regression shouldn’t become our way of governance

Is India really ahead of the West in terms of reproductive rights? Contrary to the grandstanding since the overturning of the landmark Roe V. Wade judgment, the truth is, no. Bodily autonomy and reproductive rights must be viewed from three lenses — legal, medical, and social. Only when women and non-binary pregnant people enjoy absolute autonomy over their own bodies by these parameters, can one claim that India is showing the way to the West.

First, the legal standpoint: The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act 2021 is far from ideal and has been criticised for not taking a rights-based approach. It doesn’t give the pregnant person complete autonomy in ending the pregnancy, instead making them go through various systemic barriers. Additionally, it uses the word “woman”, thereby leaving out pregnant transgender and non-binary persons who are biologically capable of bearing children. It forces them to identify themselves in the gender-binary ignoring their gender identity.

According to the Act, a pregnancy can be terminated on the following conditions: Grave danger to the physical/mental health of the pregnant woman; foetal abnormalities; rape/coercion; and contraceptive failure. A woman’s right to choose to end the pregnancy even in the first few weeks is still not recognised in India. In fact, the final decision falls not on the pregnant person, but on registered medical practitioners (RMP). Depending on the gestational period, one/two RMPs or a medical board decide “in good faith” that the pregnancy can be terminated. The constitution of a medical board, a requirement by the Act, is considered a barrier by the World Health Organisation. It stands no reason that a medical board, insulated from any impact of pregnancy, should be able to veto a person’s right to access abortion.

Other significant issues are the lack of access to RMPs, affordability, and social stigma leading to unsafe abortions. Herein, it is important to look through an intersectional lens, and factor in class and caste privilege. Abortion facilities in private medical centres are expensive, available only for those who have the resources. Not all public health centres, especially in rural India, provide abortion facilities. Most unmarried women end up resorting to unsafe abortions in illegal clinics or at home.

According to the latest National Family Health Survey 2019-2021, 27 percent of the abortions were carried out by the woman herself at home. According to United Nations’ Population Fund’s (UNFPA) State of the World Population Report 2022, around 8 women die each day in India due to unsafe abortions. It also found that between 2007-2011, 67 percent of the abortions were classified as unsafe. Unsafe abortion was one of the top three causes of maternal deaths.

One can’t talk about reproductive rights in India without mentioning surrogacy. The Surrogacy (Regulation) Act 2021, while well-intentioned, leaves much to be desired. The plethora of regulations one must undergo is antithetical to a dignified standard of living. Experts have pointed out that the Act is exclusionary in nature, disregards privacy, and also exploits women’s reproductive labour. Only a heterosexual married couple (with certain preconditions) can be the intending parents. It strips the reproductive autonomy of LGBTQ+ persons and single, divorced, and widowed intending parents. It can be seen as a violation to the fundamental right to equality.

Experts also believe that regulations, rather than a complete ban on commercial surrogacy, should have been the way forward. Altruistic surrogacy denies women compensation for their reproductive labour and is seen as a direct manifestation of the patriarchal mindset.

The Act requires the intending couple to declare their infertility and reveals the identity of the surrogate, both of which violate the right to privacy. The landmark Puttaswamy judgment discusses bodily privacy – the right over one’s body and “the freedom of being able to prevent others from violating one’s body.” The current reproductive rights regulatory framework falls short in guaranteeing bodily privacy.

Abortions in India are a complex topic. The skewed sex ratio is proof that unsafe abortions and female foeticide are rampant. There are still gaps that need fixing in both the MTP Act 2021 and the Surrogacy Act. The situation in India is far from perfect and we should take this moment to reflect and learn from progressive practices around the world. We should strive for inclusivity, complete bodily autonomy, and reproductive equity. Measuring ourselves on a yardstick of regression shouldn’t become our way of governance. The West is not just one country, after all.

The writer is the founder, Femme First Foundation



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Maneck Davar writes: Like manufacturing, services sector must be given incentives to reach $5-trillion economy target

India’s aspiration to become a $5-trillion economy is predicated on the growth of its international trade to $2 trillion by 2030, equally contributed to by merchandise and services. This translates into a three-fold growth or almost 20 per cent CAGR over this period. The commerce ministry also expects services exports to overtake merchandise and manufacturing, or at least be on par. This is in the realm of the possible only if services are viewed from the same prism as manufacturing in terms of fiscal encouragement and incentives.

While around 50 per cent and more of services exports are contributed by IT-ITES, which continues to innovate its offerings and grow, the rest is the input from management, legal, accounting, logistics, travel and tourism, education, healthcare, etc. Services sectors beyond IT require careful nurturing, especially capex-intensive sectors like hospitality, healthcare and education.

Even though it comprises over 50 per cent of the GDP, dwarfing both agriculture and manufacturing, the services sector does not receive the recognition — and more importantly, the encouragement in the form of incentives — it deserves. One of the reasons for this is the perception at one level of the sector as comprising only IT, and the IT sector has flourished because of minimum government intervention. Ergo, the sector as a whole does not require any hand holding. This is a fallacious perspective.

Take exports. The year 2021-22 was an astounding success in this endeavour with the government proudly claiming that manufacturing and merchandise exports had crossed the $400 billion rubicon, an extremely creditable performance considering the ravages of Covid-19. What was a footnote, however, was that services exports had exceeded $254 billion, an increase of over 20 per cent year-on-year, even though contribution from three sectors — education, healthcare and especially travel and tourism — was overall reduced by over $20 billion because of travel restrictions during the pandemic.

As then chairman, Service Export Promotion Council (SEPC), I had predicted after the first quarter in 2021 that services exports would surpass $250 billion, hoping that tourism would revive by the third quarter. But consecutive waves of Covid erased that possibility. In spite of this, to achieve this milestone of over $250 billion is a credit to all those who have harnessed our undoubted intellectual capital in services.

Further, consider that merchandise and manufacturing exports are $200 billion-negative in that we imported $600 billion versus our exports of over $400 billion. Services exports, by contrast, were over $100 billion-positive, underlining the importance of ensuring that the growth trajectory in services exports is maintained. This year, the deficit in merchandise exports-imports is widening with the impact of rising crude prices.

Yet, there is a huge imbalance in the incentives offered. During the reign of MEIS (Merchandise Exports Incentive Scheme), merchandise exporters benefited to the extent of over Rs 40,000 crore in 2018-19, whereas under the corresponding SEIS (Services Exports Incentive Scheme) exporters could avail of only a tenth of that amount. Even though SEIS is committed under the Foreign Trade Policy, it was only through intense advocacy that a sum of Rs 2,000 crore was finally earmarked for services exports for 2019-20, largely on compassionate grounds as sectors like travel and tourism had suffered immensely due to Covid restrictions. These incentives cannot be viewed as charitable handouts — they serve to make businesses internationally competitive as well as recognise contributions made by service providers. These incentives are clearly temporary impetus providers and there must be a slew of economic measures with both long-term effects and benefits for services.

To quadruple services exports over the next 7-8 years is surely a herculean task and certainly not achievable unless there is a strategic road map with the right sort of government intervention. The burden cannot be only on the IT sector, which at present contributes around 55 per cent of total services exports. Clearly, other sectors will have to bring exponential growth to the table.

Consider international tourism. We attract 10 million visitors every year. This is underwhelming considering the diversity we offer. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has exhorted the diaspora to prevail upon at least five of their acquaintances to visit India. The goal should be to triple arrivals. For that, we need to embark on a crash programme to enhance infrastructure. While the government can work on physical connectivity through public-private partnerships by building more airports and highways, it will require individual entrepreneurship to increase the hospitality quotient by adding more hotel rooms. The government provides attractive incentives, including direct taxation for green field projects in the manufacturing sector. The same blueprint must be initiated for the services sectors, especially in the building of hotels, hospitals and universities, with an emphasis on those that attract forex.

Policymakers have incentivised manufacturing by introducing the Production Linked Incentives (PLI) scheme with a well-laid-out process that ensures capex investment, resulting in increased productivity and avenues for employment. A similar scheme for services can be introduced with substantial scope for capex in areas like hospitality, education and health care.

In these adverse times, if economic momentum has to be sustained and every initiative and effort has to be made to yield the desired result, then the perception of services, especially their exports, must radically transform. This is also to ensure that as a major economy, India’s reliance should be on multiple horses in the race — manufacturing and services.

The writer is former chairman, Services Exports Promotion Council



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In a society acutely conscious of hierarchies and optics that go with it, there’s an unusual phenomenon recurring in Indian politics. Devendra Fadnavis became the third politician from Maharashtra in the last 25 years to settle for a lesser post after having been chief minister.

In the preceding MVA government, Ashok Chavan was a cabinet minister in charge of public works. Between December 2008 and November 2010, he was chief minister of the Congress-NCP coalition government. His father Shankarrao Chavan too agreed to become a minister in a Maharashtra government a few years after he had been chief minister.

Another Congress chief minister who agreed to a junior role after having been chief minister of Maharashtra was Shivaji Patil Nilangekar.

Narayan Rane became chief minister in 1999 when the Shiv Sena-BJP came to power for the first time in Maharashtra. He subsequently quit the Shiv Sena and joined Congress. Later he became a minister in the Congress-NCP coalition in Maharashtra between 2010 and 2014. Currently, he is a BJP parliamentarian who is the union minister for micro, small and medium enterprises.

This phenomenon is not confined to Maharashtra. In Tamil Nadu. O. Panneerselvam was former AIADMK chief J. Jayalalitha ‘s preferred stand-in as chief minister. After her death, he was once again CM for a short while and subsequently settled for the slot of deputy chief minister.

These examples may not be enough to conclude that Indian politicians are willing to suppress their ego and contribute in any capacity after they have reached the pinnacle of power in the political executive, but if it becomes more widespread it won’t be a bad thing as there’s no academic or professional qualification which can surpass experience in the difficult art of making choices when faced with messy tradeoffs.



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By making Eknath Shinde Maharashtra CM BJP demonstrated its tactical nous. It also corrected the 2019 tactical error when BJP lost Shiv Sena as a partner by playing the role of big brother too hard. Devendra Fadnavis playing deputy to Shinde, a Maratha hailing from politically crucial Satara and base in Thane, means Sena’s bigger faction re-enters NDA with respectful accommodation. For Sena rank and file, with a Maratha Sainik as CM, the charge of betrayal made by Thackeray father and son will lose some sting. Moreover, CM Shinde stands a better chance to woo Uddhav camp followers than deputy CM Shinde.

Unlike Uddhav who never forgave BJP for reducing Sena to its junior partner, Shinde may be easier for BJP to work with. Shinde is the CM but BJP will likely keep many key portfolios. He also helps BJP’s 2024 cause. With 48 Lok Sabha seats, Maharashtra is second only to UP in importance. In his resignation speech, Uddhav had thanked Sharad Pawar and Sonia Gandhi, suggesting that he was comfortable in MVA. If Uddhav Sena, NCP and Congress fight 2024 together, it makes sense for BJP to have a dominant and happy Sena faction as its ally.

The Thackeray clan’s comeback depends on winning the cadre. Sena workers are unique in that they wield much more influence than foot soldiers of other parties. There’s of course the possibility that in the coming days both Sena factions will engage in some muscular politics. Bruising showdowns, to which Mumbai is no stranger, may follow. But it’s important to note that Shinde’s MLAs come from geographically more diverse areas, while Uddhav has largely retained Mumbai legislators. By all indications Shinde is going for the jugular. A race to corner the Sena party name, symbol, offices, elected representatives and workers has started. The next battlegrounds will be BMC, Thane and other urban civic polls.

BMC in theory should be an easier poll for Uddhav since Shinde’s influence is not in Mumbai. But the ex-CM will face a determined BJP and no one knows how the internecine Sena battle will affect loyalties and morale of Mumbai’s Sainiks. The more politics moves out of Mumbai the less will be Uddhav’s influence. The fact that most non-urban Sena MLAs switched to Shinde says something about the dangers facing Thackerays. They face outcomes worse than losing office.



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There’s no denying that plastics are a menace. But whether the nationwide single-use plastic ban beginning from today will be an effective counteraction is in doubt. Tonnes of plastic waste are dumped at landfills or out into the open oceans where they disintegrate into tiny microplastics that find their way into marine life or terrestrial animals. From there they eventually enter the human food chain. The Central Pollution Control Board had estimated that India generates around 9,200 metric tonnes of plastic waste daily. This is most likely a gross underestimation.

GoI notified the Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules, 2021 in August last year, prohibiting 20 single-use plastic items by 2022. Nineteen of those will be banned from today, including ubiquitous plastic cutleries. Plastic carry bags with a thickness less than 120 microns will be banned from end of December. True, experts have pointed out that the scope of the ban is too small. But even the current effort is unlikely to succeed in a meaningful way.

The problem is that alternatives to everyday plastic items are far more expensive. For example, paper straws cost five times as much as plastic straws. With such economics, the single-use plastic ban is likely to hurt small vendors and manufacturers disproportionately. And given current inflation levels, there are far greater incentives to breach the ban. Remote possibilities of paying steep fines and jail time won’t blunt that incentive. A better approach would be to work with the plastic industry to foster innovation and boost production of compostable plastics. In fact, GoI should support the creation of an entire waste management system around compostable plastics from labelling to setting up industrial composting units. These are tougher jobs than issuing ban orders. But they have a much better shot at reducing the damage plastics do.



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The world is choking on plastics. From the mountains to the ocean trenches, tiny plastic particles are everywhere, affecting human and animal health, the environment, and biodiversity. On Friday, India took a leap forward to contain this scourge by operationalising the Plastic Waste Management Amendment Rules, 2021, which bans the manufacture, import, stocking, sale, distribution, and use of single-use plastic (SUP) items. The first announcement for the phase-out was made on August 15, 2019, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In March 2021, the draft notification was released with the deadline for the phase-out as January 1, 2022. But in the final notification released in August 2021, the deadline was extended to July 1.

The ban on SUPs, a glaring example of the world’s throwaway culture, is significant because these products are non-biodegradable and difficult to collect and recycle. While headlines focus on the use of plastics, the truth is that the lifecycle of plastics — extraction (they are made from fossil fuel), transportation, refining, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal — involves processes that are polluting. India’s SUP ban is a work in progress because it is not a blanket one. Only 21 items, including plastic straws, plastic flags, plastic cutlery and so on, have been removed from the market. Plastic carry bags, for instance, will still be available, though the thickness has been regulated. India also has no definite data for the average plastic waste generation. In 2015, the government said India generated 9.5 million tonnes of plastic waste annually, but the Centre for Science and Environment believes this is a gross underestimation.

The ban on SUPs will not be successful unless all stakeholders — the government, industry, and consumers — do their bit. While the government needs to support alternatives to SUP products (at present, these are not cost-effective), industry has to come up with design changes in packaging to do away with or reduce plastic. In addition, the government must plug the gaps in the Extended Producer Responsibility rules under which it is the responsibility of a producer for the environmentally sound management of the product until the end of its life, and strengthen the human resource shortfall in pollution control boards so that they can conduct proper and regular inspections. Consumers must also focus on reducing, reusing, and recycling to ensure that SUPs don’t end up in landfills.



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Political strategists have different poll recipes for different states, because each state has its complexities. Thus, it is usually not prudent to draw political analogies, especially in a fluid and fast-changing scenario. But then, a mere semblance of similarities can sometimes uncover the plan and the possibilities.

Uttar Pradesh (UP) in the north and Maharashtra in the west have little in common. Yet, there is an emotional connect, as the latter is the second home to many north Indians, primarily from UP and Bihar. It also has a wafer-thin political bond.

On June 30, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) decided to propel Shiv Sena rebel Eknath Shinde to the coveted chair of the chief minister, it was clear that the party was less interested in grabbing power, and more in rocking the Shiv Sena boat, with which it shares the Hindutva space.

The Shiv Sena is a regional party founded by Bal Thackeray in 1960.

The BJP and the Shiv Sena then had reportedly entered into an unwritten understanding during his prime days, according to which the former was to pursue national dreams, while the latter was content in confining its politics to Maharashtra. However, the aspirations of both parties grew with time.

In 2019, the new, more aggressive BJP saw political space in Maharashtra, especially after the Shiv Sena broke the pre-poll pact and struck an alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress, and, in the process, diluted Hindutva.

To emerge as a favourite party of the state, the BJP launched a no-holds-barred battle to fly the saffron flag across Maharashtra after the betrayal by the ideological brother. The route it took went through Thane.

Can Eknath Shinde be Maha's Mayawati?

It was before the 1993 UP Vidhan Sabha elections, held months after the demolition of the disputed structure in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, that the founder-presidents of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Samajwadi Party (SP), Kanshi Ram and Mulayam Singh Yadav, joined hands to defeat the BJP.

Kanshi Ram had by then emerged as a Dalit leader. After creating a network of BAMCEF (the All India Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation), he floated its political wing, the BSP, on April 14, 1984. Though political parties started noticing him in 1988, it was in 1989 that the party won three Lok Sabha seats — two in UP and one in Punjab.

Mulayam Singh Yadav had bitter experiences during his political journey that started with his maiden election to the Vidhan Sabha in 1967. He led the Lok Dal, the Janata Dal, and the Kranti Kari Morcha before floating the SP in October 1992.

So, when the Sangh Parivar was building up the Ram temple hype after the demolition of the disputed structure in Ayodhya, Kanshi Ram and Mulayam Singh Yadav struck an electoral alliance to consolidate what they perceived to be 85% of the Bahujan Samaj comprising Dalits, backwards, and minorities (the remaining 15% belonged to upper castes), and the BJP was seen as an upper-caste party.

This rattled the BJP as their foot soldiers for the temple movement were drawn from backward communities, with a Dalit laying the shilanayas (foundation) of the Ram temple in 1989.

The consolidation of Bahujan Samaj under the SP-BSP umbrella was also a red flag to their political dreams, because it wanted to win the state through the demolition. The BJP, along with the Congress, fanned Mayawati’s political ambitions, offering the chief minister’s post. By then cracks had also appeared in the coalition government, as their respective vote-banks – the Yadavs and Dalits — were socially incompatible.

The alliance had a violent collapse.

On June 3, 1995, Mayawati was sworn in as the chief minister of the state with outside support from the BJP. Though the BJP was a bigger party with 177 members in a House of 425, it decided to let Mayawati — with a mere 67 members — enjoy power as their bigger game was to demolish the alliance on an acrimonious note. After four months, the BJP withdrew support as it grew intolerant of Mayawati's political actions, which disrupted its game plan.

The political wheel kept moving with both the BSP and the BJP having a shot at power in a politically unstable environment. It took 24 years for Mulayam and Mayawati to put aside their differences and come together for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The mistrust persisted and their voters refused to accept it.

Now Maharashtra

The BJP could have easily formed the government in UP, a more stable arrangement in 1995. But they propelled Mayawati for a larger game that paid them huge dividends. Similarly, the BJP in Maharashtra also preferred to hand over the chair to Shiv Sena rebel Eknath Shinde. Perhaps, Uddhav Thackeray had some inkling of it when he had challenged the BJP to appoint a Shiv Sainik as chief minister.

In 1995, right after her swearing-in, Mulayam’s words, that the Congress had "committed suicide" by making Mayawati chief minister (as Dalits will never return to the Congress) proved partially true in UP.

Is the BJP making a similar mistake by pitting a Shiv Sainik against a Shiv Sainik?

The rebels have not uttered a word against the Thackeray family.

Will Shinde, with or without the support of Uddhav’s estranged cousin and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray, eventually succeed in throwing the Thackerays’ Shiv Sena on the fringes of the state’s political landscape? As of now, with a vertical split in the Shiv Sena, not only in the legislature party, but also in the organisation, it looks inevitable.

What if the battle starts for the real Shiv Sena and reaches the Election Commission (EC)’s court?

The Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968 empowers the EC to recognise political parties and allot symbols. In case of a split, where the party is either vertically divided or it is not possible to say with certainty which group has a majority, the EC may freeze the party’s symbol and allow the groups to register themselves with new names or add prefixes or suffixes to the party’s existing names.

What if the Election Commission freezes the Shiv Sena’s symbol ahead of the assembly elections? It has happened in the past. In October 2021, it had frozen the election symbol of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) in Bihar after a tussle between Chirag Pawan, son of founder president, the late Ram Vilas Paswan, and his uncle Pashupati Paras reached the EC. This will certainly create confusion as people in the rural areas often identify parties with the symbol.

The learnings from the Maha chaos

Some experts are of the view that the BJP’s strategy is a mix of UP and Bihar. Like in UP, where they used Mayawati to break Bahujan Samaj, in Bihar, they play second fiddle to Nitish Kumar to keep him away from Lalu Yadav. The Yadav-Kurmi bonhomie is dangerous to their plans.

There are also precedents of all kinds.

One, the Congress of the past survived its "symbol challenges" as people identified themselves with Indira Gandhi. Do the Thackerays have that charisma?

Two, splinter parties have disappeared into thin air after they have served their purpose. Even the Congress(T) floated by veterans like ND Tiwari and Sharad Pawar had to remerge with the original Congress party. Will Shinde do that?

The coming days will unfold many more twists and turns in the sordid tale of Maharashtra. As of now, the BJP looks like it's making gains, while the Shiv Sena is in the doldrums, facing its worst existential crisis.

From her perch in Lucknow, HT’s resident editor Sunita Aron highlights important issues related to Uttar Pradesh

The views expressed are personal



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The Goods and Services Tax (GST) is now five years old. It was first envisioned around two decades ago, but was implemented only in 2017. Like many actual big bang reforms such as privatisation or an open capital account, this too was not an event but a process, one which remains a work in progress. GST was never just an economic reform, but also a constitutional, political and technological one. The GST Council, comprising the states and the Union government, was created and dozens of laws, taxes and cesses were merged to create GST. There is now an input tax credit mechanism for inter-state trade to finally create a unified, nationwide market. The states never had the power to charge service tax and GST gave them that.

Nonetheless, the revenue-raising autonomy of individual states has been reduced, and this may be an emerging political-economic issue given that the five-year compensation window is ending, though a decision on its extension has not been made yet.

Today there are around 14 million GST-paying entities, about four million of which use e-way bills. Almost half of such bills have been for inter-state commerce. Monthly collections have increased from less than 1 lakh crore to around 1.5 lakh crore, with April 2022 recording 1.68 lakh crore. Between FY18 and FY22, compounded annual growth rate in average monthly collections has been north of 8% on a net basis despite significant tax cuts and a global pandemic. Many state border check posts are now redundant, helping cut notoriously high logistical costs as well as reducing corruption. Small and medium businesses have had appropriate threshold limits to balance compliance with ease of doing business, though this remains a tricky trade-off given that many micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) were earlier not in the formal economy.

While small thoughtful steps such as the refund of accumulated input tax credit to exporters are welcome, more cross-netting of input tax credits across states for companies is also needed. Further steps, such as automating form completion and reducing filing frequency, especially for smaller businesses, are needed to ensure that the erstwhile cash-economy enterprises which are joining the formal economy and paying taxes do not face heavy compliance burdens. The formalisation of businesses is being catalysed by a cohesive bouquet of government policies, with GST among the principal drivers. Despite its flaws, the new indirect tax regime is a huge improvement over the status quo ante. Overall, around nine in 10 Indian chief experience officers, across key sectors, have backed GST fully or partially, as per a recent Deloitte survey.

Looking forward, the linking of GST data with the account aggregator ecosystem will enable cash flow-based lending for MSMEs in addition to traditional asset-backed lending options. Credit extension to India’s 60 million MSMEs has been a longstanding pain point, with the gap estimated to be about 20 lakh crore. This deprivation of credit has downstream second order effects of reducing job creation and growth potential. The GST data set will bridge a critical information asymmetry for lenders evaluating the creditworthiness of MSMEs -- armed with GST data, they will have less need for collateral and will be able to offer bespoke lending rates and solutions as per the data trail.

On the question of the number of rates or GST slabs, further rationalisation is required, even if having one rate would be too impractical in India where the penetration of direct taxation is limited to a small demographic, and hence fairness requirements have to play out on the indirect tax front as well. But this should not become an excuse for micro-management of rates and items as some memes on social media rightly, if somewhat harshly, point out.

Going forward, states being guaranteed compensation will set the wrong precedent as it would take away incentives to ensure proper compliance and promote formalisation. Even so, some kind of compromise can be reached whereby a floor is guaranteed without the egregious year-on-year increase guarantees.

The original rationale for bringing GST was to rightly prevent a cascading of taxes; with this in place, being bigger, but in the tax net, makes more sense for entrepreneurs rather than being small and working with what can euphemistically be called regulatory tax arbitrage. For the next five years, GST will provide the foundation to achieve deeper formalisation (helping the government grow the tax net and creating space for structural reforms in direct taxes), erase information asymmetries in credit extension (aiding in job creation and economic growth) and finally, serve as a model for constructive cooperation between the Union government and the states.

Harsh Gupta Madhusudhan and Rajeev Mantri are co-founders of the India Enterprise Council

The views expressed are personal



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Four days into 2022, 35-year-old Sanju Pradhan was lynched and burnt alive by villagers in Jharkhand’s Simdega district. He allegedly cut six sal trees, considered sacred by the locals. It was the second case of lynching that week; that the state had passed the Prevention of Mob Violence and Mob Lynching Bill, 2021, just days before appeared to have had little effect.

Jharkhand has one of the worst records of mob lynching — with 46 recorded cases in five years, a fact that prompted the government to pass an anti-mob lynching law. Similar laws have also been passed by Rajasthan and West Bengal. Yet, they have had a limited impact due to the poor drafting of provisions and a larger dichotomy in civil society regarding cases of lynching.

The Jharkhand law, for example, provides no provision for punishing officers who fail to prevent lynching (like in Simdega, where police officers were present, but chose not to act). Though the bill lays down the duties of the police and district magistrates, there are no penal provisions for dereliction of duty. While the bill was on the floor of the assembly, the government ignored Opposition suggestions to reconsider the definition of a mob, which is described as two or more people, or limit the unbridled powers given to the district magistrate to prevent incidents of apprehended lynching. The bill also ignored witch-burning, despite the deeper socioeconomic issues embedded in local practices, such as illiteracy, superstition, and lack of adequate health care. In a state where poor people, especially women, fall prey to superstition, the law alone cannot prevent such incidents unless social conditions are also addressed.

Other states with laws on lynching, such as Rajasthan and West Bengal have similar infirmities, with no penal provisions for officers. In contrast, the Manipur law makes it easy to prosecute guilty officers by removing the required prior sanction for taking action against public servants from the government. The law in Rajasthan and Manipur also fares better than Jharkhand as they provide rehabilitation to the victim — a relief because mob violence often leads to displacement of the kin of victims.

Can incidents of lynching and mob violence, often exacerbated by provocations rooted in faith and caste, be effectively controlled by the cold word of the law? A crucial piece of the puzzle is held by civil society, but unfortunately, its response to cases of lynching, at least in Jharkhand, has been patchy.

In the Simdega case, for example, some activists backed the villagers, arguing that the true villains were forest officials who were unable to protect the trees from the timber mafia. Similarly, in December 2021, when two brothers (Sanjay Oraon and Ajay Oraon) were beaten by a mob of villagers over allegations that their mother practised witchcraft, the incident sank, with neither politicians nor civil society raising the issue.

This wavering is detrimental to our pursuit of a fair criminal justice system. The mainstay of civil society is its principles. Yes, the villagers of Besrajera were frustrated with weak forest and police officials. Yes, the system is rigged against poor villagers, trying to eke out their subsistence from a rapidly disappearing forest. Yes, witch-hunting is a deep socioeconomic issue with no quick fix by the law. But this route of “mob justice” outside the fairness of the justice system must be denounced. Those principles are our only tool, our one weapon. They cannot be exercised selectively.

Shailesh Poddar is a Ranchi-based advocate

The views expressed are personal



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On June 8, the government announced minimum support prices (MSP) for kharif crops for 2022-23. MSP for paddy saw an increase of 100, or 5.15%, over rates for 2021-22, and support prices of jowar, moong, and oilseeds such as soybean, sesamum, and sunflower seed saw a healthy increase as well.

The announcement came against the backdrop of a crisis in wheat production.

The combination of a dismal increase in MSP for wheat in 2021-22 by only 40 (or by 2%), shocks to wheat prices in international markets due to the Russia-Ukraine war, and the adverse impact of soaring temperatures in March, resulted in lower than expected procurement of wheat, forcing the government to announce its ban on wheat export — the total procurement of wheat by the Food Corporation of India and state agencies stands at 18.72 million tonnes, compared to 43.34 million tonnes procured in 2021-22.

What was surprising about the wheat fiasco was the lack of preparedness of the government. The announced rates for paddy, recommended by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) in its price policy report released in March, reflect a larger absolute increase in MSP over what has typically been observed over the last decade. The expectation is that higher MSP will induce increased procurement of rice in 2022-23, and allow the government to substitute rice, to some extent, for wheat, in the various channels of public distribution of food grains.

This announcement should, however, be weighed against three considerations.

The first is that the recommended MSP this year is higher because CACP projects farm input costs to be higher. The wholesale price index of farm inputs rose aggressively in 2021, particularly since July, and is expected to continue to rise this year as well. The announced MSP for paddy is expected to provide a margin of 13% over projected comprehensive costs (or C2) per quintal (note that farmers’ long-standing demand is assurance of 50% returns over C2). In 2021-22, this margin for paddy was 12.3% over C2 and in 2020-21 it was 12%. The relative increase in MSP is, therefore, not as impressive.

The second consideration is that the bulk of the CACP report appears to be drafted before the Russia-Ukraine conflict (which escalated in February). The report only mentions the tensions between the two nations, with reference to potential disruptions in the import of sunflower oil. The impact of the conflict on fertiliser supply, global crude oil prices, and the resultant spike in fuel and other input prices could not have been accounted for in the projections of the CACP. Therefore, it is highly likely that farm input costs for kharif crops will exceed projections in 2022-23, and the projected margin of 13% over C2 will not be realised.

It is surprising that while the Monetary Policy Committee of the Reserve Bank of India revised its inflation projections for 2022-23 twice after February, from 4.5% to 6.7%, the government failed to account for these changes even as it accepted the CACP recommendations in toto, once again reflecting a lack of preparedness and an inability to learn from past mistakes.

The third consideration relates to inflation as well. According to the May 12 statement of the ministry of statistics and programme implementation, rural India experienced higher inflation than urban India in March and April, both when measured via the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI). Year-on-year CPI in April for rural India was up by 8.38%, compared to 7.09% for urban India. This is because food and fuel, the two categories that have experienced the most steep price rise, have a proportionately greater share of the rural consumption basket.

Given the relentless rise in food and fuel prices, the relatively higher MSPs announced for kharif crops may not be enough to safeguard farmers against rising input costs and declining purchasing power — especially smaller farmers who are net buyers of food grains. Moreover, agricultural workers are likely to lose out more in the short-run because the upward adjustment of nominal wages takes time.

In the face of increasing costs and prices, the need of the hour is an expansion of the public distribution system, and wider distribution of key inflation-hit products such as edible oils and food grains. MSP for several oilseeds such as sunflower seeds, soybean, and sesamum have witnessed a healthy increase in line with the government’s longer-term strategy to realign India’s agricultural basket in favour of oilseeds and pulses. However, whether the hike in MSP for oilseeds will prevent a dip in procurement (as was observed in the case of wheat) remains to be seen, and will depend on the trends in international and domestic prices — if market prices continue to increase and exceed MSP, then private traders are likely to swoop in and build stockpiles. In an ideal situation, the government would track inflationary trends over the next few months, and adjust MSPs before procurement in order to ensure sizeable food stocks and prevent private stockpiling. But are they willing to learn from past mistakes?

Srishti Yadav teaches economics at Azim Premji University

The views expressed are personal



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“In politics, there are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen”, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, or Lenin, is believed to have said.

If one were to paraphrase slightly in the current context of Indian politics, another part could be added to this sentence. “..And there are weeks which capture what has been happening for decades”.

The past couple of weeks illustrate this in the context of India’s opposition, which is increasingly appearing bereft of any political anchor whatsoever.

First there was a rebellion in the Maharashtra ruling alliance of the Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Congress. A majority Sena’s MLAs reneged from Uddhav Thackeray’s camp, on the grounds that that the party’s more natural alliance was with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This eventually led to his resignation and the swearing in of rebel leader Eknath Shinde as chief minister with the BJP pulling the strings from behind and throwing the Thackeray-led faction of the Sena in an existential crisis. The so-called secular opposition was hoping that the Thackerays survived the crisis by pulling off a trick where they could have their Hindutva and eat it (enjoying the spoils of power with their “secular” partners) too. It was not to be.

Then, the Opposition decided to put up Yashwant Sinha as a candidate in the presidential elections. Sinha’s entire political life (or the part to reckon with) has been spent in the BJP. His candidature means that even the opposition’s attempts to manage the optics of the presidential polls – the result has been a forgone conclusion since the BJP secured a landslide in the Uttar Pradesh elections – have very little credibility now. Sinha’s utterances pretty much suggest that his grievance is largely towards the BJP’s current leadership and not its ideological worldview. “The BJP I was part of had internal democracy, the current BJP lacks internal democracy”, he said on the day he filed his nomination.

Then came the results of Lok Sabha by-polls in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. In the former, the BJP managed to wrest erstwhile bastions of Azamgarh and Rampur from the Samajwadi Party, while in Punjab the ruling Aam Admi Party (AAP) seems to have resurrected the ghosts of secessionist politics in the state. A Lok Sabha seat which was held by the current chief minister Bhagwant Man has gone to one of the radical factions of the Akali Dal and the winner has dedicated his victory to Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the poster boy of Sikh militancy in Punjab. The AAP, as a political start-up, has always taken pride in being ideologically agnostic (or promiscuous) and believed that its image of being a governance and welfare provider will facilitate its national ambitions. If Sangrur results are any indication, this strategy has hit a major roadblock.

What is the larger takeaway from these events? The first two show that the anti-BJP opposition in the country seems to be suffering from a curse where it is doomed to fritter away political credibility by acts which do not even bring any success in the realpolitik sense of the term. The third shows that old social models (Samajwadi Party’s Mandal kind) of challenging the BJP do not seem to be working and the new ones (AAP in Punjab) can potentially create bigger problems than they can solve.

The easy way out is to blame it on acts of omissions and commissions of various leaders of the opposition. Had Uddhav Thackeray been more approachable and vigilant, Eknath Shinde could not have pulled a coup. Had Gopal Krishna Gandhi or Sharad Pawar agreed to be presidents, Yashwant Sinha would not have got the ticket. Had the AAP government in Punjab not made mistakes such as removing the security of popular singer Sidhu Moosewala — he was killed the day following the decision — sentiment would not have turned against the AAP so quickly in Punjab. And had Akhilesh Yadav campaigned properly in Azamgarh, the BJP would not have been pulled off a narrow victory.

None of these answers, however, fully explain the current predicament of the opposition in India.

Quoting Karl Marx from The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte is useful here. “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living”, Marx writes.

It is eminently possible to argue that most of India’s Opposition is actually weighed under the tradition of dead generations and desperately trying to “conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honoured disguise and borrowed language”, as Marx writes further in the book.

Sena’s existential crisis: A poetic justice of sorts?

Let us take the Shiv Sena for example. Its current shadow-boxing with the BJP over Hindutva notwithstanding, the Sena broke political ground riding the wave of economic nativism rather than Hindutva. In what is one of the earliest and best academic works on the Shiv Sena, sociologist Dipnakar Gupta’s 1982 book Nativism in a Metropolis: The Shiv Sena in Bombay records in great detail how the roots of the Shiv Sena are to be found in the economic anxieties of Marathi speaking population which believed that outsiders such as those from south Indian states were usurping all economic opportunities in the city of Mumbai.

Bal Thackeray had tested the waters before he floated the Sena in June 1966. Gupta writes how Thackeray’s journal Marmik (it would later become Sena’s mouthpiece) started publishing lists of employees in various government and private sector organisations highlighting how the Marathi speaking population was grossly underrepresented. While the lists would be published with a sense of sarcasm – they were published under the caption Vacha Ani Thand Basa (Read and Keep Quiet) before the launch of the Sena – the tone changed to a call to arms once Thackeray had launched the Shiv Sena. The caption under which such lists were published now became Vacha Ani Utha (Read and Get Up), Gupta writes in his bok.

Unlike what is widely believed now, the Shiv Sena is not a natural ally of the BJP and its fellow travellers. In fact, Gupta writes that Bal Thackeray was critical of both the Jan Sangh and Sangh leaders such as M S Golwalkar because he found their adherence to the caste system inimical to the cause of forging a larger unity among Marathi speaking population.

In some ways, it can be argued that the Shiv Sena has become a victim of its own success today. Weakening and decimating the communists, especially their trade unions, was one of the biggest ideological motivations of the Sena. The only non-Marathi community that the Sena was not overtly hostile to in its early years were the Gujaratis who dominated the ranks of capitalists in Mumbai.

In what was widely believed to be a BJP sponsored coup, the Sena is facing an existential crisis from a party which has unprecedented support from big business in India. Uddhav Thackeray’s failure to exploit Bal Thackeray’s legacy to his advantage at this hour of crisis can well be seen along with the fact that the material support base which senior Thackeray cultivated and eventually enjoyed hardly exists today.

The (futile) quest for an ideological figurehead against the BJP

Presidential elections, especially given the current political arithmetic, were always going to be a symbolic contest. Given the fact that a victory was extremely unlikely, if not entirely impossible to begin with, the opposition should have tried to galvanise its own ideological base through its candidature. That a former BJP leader such as Sinha has been chosen as the candidate leaves very little credibility on this count.

To be sure, there is nothing surprising in the choice of Sinha has a candidate from the Trinamool Congress (TMC), the party which Sinha had joined after getting out of the BJP. Not only has the TMC done business with the BJP in the past – Mamata Banerjee needed an ally to take on the Left in West Bengal after splitting from the Congress in 1998 – it has also inducted high profile BJP leaders (who were extremely vocal on core Hindutva issues) in its ranks in the recent past, which is a clear demonstration of the fact that realpolitik considerations are given far more importance than ideological consistency within the party organisation.

However, the only reason Sinha’s candidature had weight, and perhaps acceptability, was that the TMC is among the biggest anti-BJP political parties in the country and its stature on this front has significantly increased after it pulled off a massive victory in the 2021 West Bengal assembly elections against what looked like an extremely confident BJP. An interesting counterfactual to ask would be whether the opposition would have agreed to the TMC’s proposed candidate for the presidential polls had it not won the 2021 West Bengal elections. If the answer to this question is no, and this author believes that to be the case, then there is merit in the BJP’s often repeated argument that secularism is nothing but an alibi for political opportunism in India.

Is the AAP becoming a victim of its own propaganda like Mandal?

To say that it is premature to use a Lok Sabha by-poll defeat to forecast serious trouble for a political party which has won a three-fourth majority in an assembly election held a few months ago is an understatement.

However, the central message which the Sangrur by-poll results carry for the AAP is that there is more to politics than promises of freebies and eradicating corruption. As much as the AAP would like to believe, and not entirely incorrectly, that its political success in Delhi is because of the tailwinds from the Anna Movement and Arvind Kejriwal’s promise of free electricity, it must come to terms with the fact that the electorate can very well get swayed by issues other than welfare provisions or promises of better governance.

To be sure, the AAP has always had a realisation on this count in its home state of Delhi, where it has repeatedly failed to defeat the BJP in Lok Sabha elections despite pulling off landslide victories in assembly elections. However, AAP has always had a tendency to see its inability to perform well in national elections as a reflection of its limited regional footprint rather than a reluctance to carve out a wider ideological anchor apart from its rhetoric on governance and welfare. The sudden surge of radical Sikh politics in the Sangrur results shows that this is a dangerous assumption to harbour, not just for AAP’s politics but also for the region and country at large.

Ironical as it may sound, the early warning bell for AAP in Punjab resonates with the fate of Mandal parties such as the SP in Uttar Pradesh which seem to be paralysed in dealing with the reality of what is now an institutionalised fault line between dominant versus non-dominant castes in Other Backward Class (OBC) politics. This fault line is primarily rooted in the empirically erroneous rhetoric of portraying OBCs as an economically homogenous group, an asymmetry which has only increased after the dominant OBCs exploited a disproportionate share of the fruits of political power. The fact that hubris of Mandal’s initial electoral prowess blindsided the social justice camp to waging an ideological counter campaign against Hindutva has only made matters difficult for the it in dealing with the BJP’s challenge.

There is enough anecdotal evidence to believe that AAP has adopted a policy of non-confrontation vis-à-vis the core Hindutva agenda. If the current situation of Mandal parties is any indication, this might not end well for the AAP too.

So, what should the Opposition do?

To begin with, it will do well to begin discussing these questions with more honesty and sincerity while always remaining conscious of the fact that such discussions must inform rather than confuse actual political praxis.

Once again, it is useful to end by quoting Marx. “The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth — i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question… The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it”, he wrote in Theses On Feuerbach.

Every Friday, HT’s data and political economy editor, Roshan Kishore, combines his commitment to data and passion for qualitative analysis in a column for HT Premium, Terms of Trade. With a focus on one big number and one big issue, he will go behind the headlines to ask a question and address political economy issues and social puzzles facing contemporary India.

The views expressed are personal



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It’s not a moment too soon that a Supreme Court bench has come down on the former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma like a ton of bricks. So critical was the court of her comments on the Prophet, which set the country alight, that she was fortunate the court did not take up suo motu a case against her on the grounds of inciting a community with hatred by mentioning their Prophet about whom the Muslims are super-sensitive.

In the era of ubiquitous social media, many individuals may have spat out hate against other communities in these fraught times in our country. But Nupur, a lawyer, was representing the national ruling party on an incendiary television debate and she had no business invoking names and raising accusations that a community may consider blasphemous. The consequences were there for all to see as a nation boiled.

No right-thinking person of any religion would defend Nupur denigrating gods and prophets of any other religion, and that in a country that saw the birth of three ancient religions in its history and whose people have been living together for centuries in a multi-religious and diverse society. Worse events than oral denigration have taken place in India’s history, but at each such inflection point saner counsel had prevailed as sporadic violence ultimately died out.

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No right-thinking person would defend those who carried out a ghastly murder in retaliation with a meat cleaver either, though such reactions have been known to take place, especially as was seen in the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Given such a background and considering the state India has been in the last several years when Hindutva has been given free rein to in a display of majoritarianism, it was alarmingly foolish of a ruling party representative to speak as she did.

Much may have been said by both sides in the awkward debates that followed. Even so, it was extremely foolish of TV channels to hunt for TRPs by holding inflammatory debates. Now that the highest judiciary has spoken its mind, won’t India’s politicians of all hues, religions and regardless of status follow suit and appeal for the kind of peace that has invariably prevailed. Matters of faith stem from deeply personal convictions in all people, whether they are “Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Isai.” It’s best to leave it there if a modern multi-religious society is to avoid sanguinary discord.



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It’s an unusual election for President of the Republic that is underway. The ruling party’s candidate, Droupadi Murmu, is a shoo-in, given the overwhelming numbers the ruling party can muster along with its allies, including many non-BJP parties which technically still count as “the Opposition”, although that description is politically misleading.

Presidential polls are usually keenly fought for political or ideological reasons. Perhaps the most telling example is from the Congress’ 1969 split, with Indira Gandhi forcing the momentum against the party’s conservatives. Her faction set up V.V. Giri, a well-known labour leader, against the official party nominee Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy. She called for a “conscience vote”, and prevailed.

There were other noteworthy cases. Sure losers, whose public persona was distant from day-to-day politics, were set up against ruling party nominees. Rukmini Devi Arundale, a stalwart from the world of dance, and (Captain) Lakshmi Sehgal of the Azad Hind Fauj come to mind.

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It’s important to ask if the coming election is of a similar mould? Are we in a context where it should be business as usual? Should the standard template apply? For the spirit of democracy to remain aloft, and to not let the BJP-RSS nominee go unchallenged, must Opposition parties go through with their choice of Yashwant Sinha, who with his selfless espousal of multiple struggles against an unyielding, unfeeling authority, has shone in recent years?

Two different sets of reasons call for caution in pursuing Mr Sinha’s nomination to its logical conclusion. Neither has to do with surface ideology or immediate politics, and the first appears more compelling of the two -- namely, will the spirit of democracy be best served if the Opposition parties fielding Mr Sinha challenge the (near certain) election of a public figure from among the tribes of India -- without doubt the most disregarded and suffering section of our people -- and a woman?

If someone from such a background is elevated to the presidency, will it be such a bad thing when we consider India’s diversity, and decide to make a difficult political choice at a fraught moment in national life?

Such a course, if taken, will embed in the political DNA the endorsement of the idea of building viable links with the most suffering sections of our citizens as well as gender empowerment. The BJP, not noted for affinity to the poorest sections or for that matter subtlety, might have cynically advanced the candidature of a woman candidate from a poor tribal group for reasons of tokenism alone, and to shame opponents.

Even in this context, what should concern those battling for preservation of basic democratic values against a series of the ruling party’s recent egregious actions -- embedding of religious discrimination and discord, demolishing homes of religious minorities, hounding of human rights defenders and others who question government actions, and of late the open harassment, bordering on attacks, on Opposition leaders, notably Sonia and Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case, is the principle of remaining indubitably aligned with the hopes and ambitions of the poor -- in this case tribal people.

What’s important is the spirit of the thing. Think back of the time when Morarji Desai was made Prime Minister of the post-Emergency Janata Party experiment. Probably under the influence of the business lobby, the conservative former Congressman was given precedence over the claims of Jagjivan Ram, whose name had emerged through inner-party consultations guided by Jayaprakash Narayan. Jagjivan Ram was a stalwart. He also happened to be from the Scheduled Castes, who are at the bottom of the ladder in the Hindu social universe and have suffered oppression of every kind from the earliest days of the formation of Hindu society. The fact that Jagjivan Ram was overlooked bred political as well as social resentments, and it is entirely conceivable that the Janata Party experiment may not have scattered in confusion, division, and despair, if a representative of the poorest castes was elevated to Prime Minister.

Even as far as tokenism goes, if we look around, can we say in all honesty that electing a black President in Barack Obama -- who did not bring about any radical transformations -- was a mistake? In fact, the opposite seems the case. The United States ended up showing that, for all the deep-seated racism in its society, it can elect a black man as President. The Republicans, who opposed Mr Obama for ideological, racial and political reasons, ended up looking low, narrow-minded and concerned only with preserving status quoist white privilege.

It would be a shame if something like that came to be attached to the Opposition parties and its important leaders, especially since the main Opposition party, the Congress, has brought about far-reaching reforms of a humanist nature in our society, and the other parties too have contributed significantly to the growth of the republican spirit and the uplifting of the needy classes.

Droupadi Murmu is doubtless linked to the Hindutva ideology, and yet her victory would mark the arrival at Rashtrapati Bhavan of a tribal woman risen from modest beginnings. That is a huge social moment, besides a political one. Is it not possible that her candidature can be endorsed without diluting the political fight against the ruling party and the ideological struggle against Hindutva? This is a question that should engage us now.

The second question before us is the nature of the present Opposition.

Does it seriously exist? Can it mount a concerted effort against the Narendra Modi government on an agenda of significance? The evidence so far does not offer grounds for optimism.

In an earlier era, when the Congress was everywhere -- at the Centre and in the states -- all parties in Parliament not aligned to the ruling party were at most moments a single Opposition block. The CPI(M) alone held state governments. In contrast, several parties sitting on the Opposition benches in Parliament now are in fact running state governments.

The meetings of the Opposition parties to locate a candidate to challenge the nominee of the governing party and its friends have been a lacklustre affair, lacking in a serious appreciation of what is at stake. The current nominee was found after three earlier choices had declined. It did appear that the Opposition parties were merely going through the motions of mounting a challenge to the ruling party. Their own larger cause was guided by the greed of being regarded as the most important party of the Opposition. A rethink is called for on challenging the ruling party’s choice for President.

 



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“Robert Clive
Frequented a Calcutta dive;
He said if His Majesty should call
Say I’m conquering Bengal.

George Nathaniel Curzon
Went on a Himalayan excursion
He said if anyone should call
Tell them I’m dividing Bengal

Mujib ur Rehman
Got fed up of being East Pakistan
He said if anyone should call
Tell them we’re reverting to Bengal”

From Key Holo: A Peep into Bengali History;
tr. from the Bengali of Bonking Chandra Chatterley, by Bachchoo

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Some years ago, I was in New Delhi with Vidia and Nadira Naipaul, when Vidia asked if I could be with them that evening. I said I planned to go to Mumbai and he asked me if I could postpone my trip as he wanted me to accompany them that evening to address the BJP’s cultural wing.

“That’s an oxymoron, I take it,” I said.

“Now, now, now… Farrukh,” he said -- or some such!

I went. It was quite an occasion. The media with cameras and crews were gathered in a horde outside the BJP headquarters as they were denied entry. We were greeted by BJP stalwarts and ushered into the hall. I sat in the audience as Vidia had asked me to do, saying he wanted an articulate witness to the proceedings, as people would almost certainly misconstrue his attendance and performance there.

Vidia told the audience he was not going to make a speech but he wanted to use the occasion to ask them questions. The encounter proceeded and the audience seemed eager to get his approval for their policies, ideology and actions. Vidia remained subtly evasive, endorsing nothing.

Then someone asked him what he thought of the Babri Masjid episode. He thought for a moment.

“All I’d say is it was built as an act of hubris by Babar.”

I don’t know if the questioner understood the operative word. I am sure in that august and learned assembly very many did -- just as they must have known that the ancient University of Takshashila was not located in Bihar.

It’s a useful word and I recall the above incident, gentle reader, because BoJo, the UK’s PM, made a statement which can only be described by it. He said he expected to be the UK’s Prime Minister in 2034 -- predicting, for himself and perhaps his Uncle Tom’s Cabinet, several terms. And this when his first term looks dangerously like coming to a premature end.

Let me count the ways:
This very week Nicola Sturgeon, the virtual Prime Minister of Scotland, announced that her Scottish Nationalist Party would appeal to the British Supreme Court to respect the democratic result of the referendum she is planning to hold next year to determine whether Scotland should secede from the United Kingdom. Her party is for the independence of Scotland and, if she succeeds, it will mean that poor BoJo will go down in history as the PM under whose jurisdiction and yes, through his fervent advocacy of Brexit, the United Kingdom fragmented.

Then there is the other troublesome kingdom within the unity -- Northern Ireland, whose regional government, the Stormont parliament, has been virtually suspended because the Opposition Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) refuses to participate until the Westminster government does away with the clauses of the Brexit agreement which BoJo signed with the European Union requiring customs checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from mainland Britain.

BoJo now says that he’s going to placate the DUP by unilaterally changing the international treaty he himself signed. His predecessor as PM, Theresa May, has said in Parliament this week that this would not work and, what’s more, it would be illegal under international law. Does BoJo care?

Enter BoJo’s nominated “attorney general”, one Suella Braverman (or should she now be called Supinella Cowradlyperson -- for reasons you will understand?). She is of the very dodgy and internationally disputed opinion that this treaty with the EU can be unilaterally altered by her and BoJo.

And then there is the disputed decision by BoJo’s home secretary Pritti “Clueless” to deport asylum seekers who arrive in Britain to Rwanda. The European Court of Human Rights, to which the UK is a signatory, had stopped the deportation of the first asylum seeker who Clueless was attempted to send off. Supinella now says she can get Britain out of this European Court of Human Rights altogether and get the deportations to Rwanda moving.

The irony, gentle readers, is devastating and one would cry if one didn’t laugh. Here are two members of Uncle Tom’s Cabinet, themselves descendants of, or immigrants to, Britain, ganging up to defy international law -- leave aside common human compassion -- to keep a few thousand asylum seekers, fleeing terror and death in our God-forsaken world, out of the UK where they live as massively privileged immigrants?

The iron of irony has turned to steel. Ahura Mazda, forgive us -- for I, like Clueless and Supinella, not married into money or the British class system, am an immigrant too!

Where did BoJo make his hubristic statement? Rwanda! At a conference of the Commonwealth leaders. Forgive me, but I had naively thought that the Commonwealth was a conglomerate of countries that had once been part of the British Empire. Was Rwanda???

(Puzzled of Pune!)
Or is BoJo and his chamchis, Clueless and Supinella, trying to establish Rwanda as an international hub of respect to which I may be deported soon for saying so?



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The number of active Covid cases in the country crossed one lakh on Thursday after a gap of 122 days; the number of new cases went up by 18,819 on the same day, another milestone, as it was after four months that a similar leap in the number of new cases was reported.

It is not just in India that the pandemic reports higher numbers. The case is same in more than 100 countries as it stands today. Four nations have reported more than one lakh new infections on Thursday — Brazil (1.51 lakhs), France (1.33 lakhs), the United States (1.24 lakhs) and Germany (1.13 lakhs). Among them, France is gearing up for the third wave which experts say will peak in July-end. The government has asked people to start wearing face masks again, especially in crowded areas such as public transport. The World Health Organisation has consistently been saying that the pandemic has not gone anywhere and that emergence of new variants with more virility could happen any time.

The Union government has already alerted the state governments on the need to monitor the hospitalisation of Covid patients as well as those infected with other influenza-like illnesses or severe acute respiratory infections. Equally important is the whole genome sequencing of the virus as most variants of the SARS CoV-2 virus such as BA.4, BA.5, and BA.2.12.1 which have caused the global surge in cases have been identified in India also. This also brings to focus the need for a renewed thrust on testing, one of the key elements in the five-pronged strategy to check the advance of the pandemic. Several states have practically stopped displaying the alacrity in tracing and testing people who could be potential carriers. The Union government may closely monitor the number of daily tests lest it could give a gap for the virus to rush in.  

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India has done reasonably well in vaccinating its people: the total number of vaccine doses administered is about 200 crores. Given that more than 100 crore people are eligible for vaccination, the coverage looks decent but the fact that it is almost one-and-a-half years that we have started the programme. There is still no adequate literature to decide for sure how long the vaccine would offer protection, which underscores the need to promote administration of booster doses. Reports say several states have not even covered five per cent of the population with it. This means the government needs to redouble the efforts on this count.

Mathematical projections talk of a fourth wave in India, too. While we have been able to put in medical systems based on the experience on handling exigencies, the area that still remains unattended to is that of education. The students who have returned to schools and universities after two years have not just got their lives on the campus back on track. Reports have said a large share of the students had little access to broadband internet and equipment during the lockdown years, virtually keeping them off their education. The government must seriously contemplate the ways to ensure that this is not repeated should a fourth wave visit us.



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The National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Hyderabad on July 2 and 3 will be a historic milestone for the party. Apart from discussing its long-term political strategies, the meeting will also chalk out a comprehensive action plan for the next two years.

The NEC meeting is expected to sound the bugle for the 2024 general elections in the country, and this is all set to happen from Hyderabad.

Though the NEC meets were a regular affair, this could not be done due over the past two years to the Coronavirus pandemic. The last time the BJP held its NEC in Hyderabad was back in 2004, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. The present meeting will focus on bringing BJP back to power at the Centre for the third consecutive time, winning in states where it is not in power, and the Lok Sabha constituencies where it had not won from in the past.

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The meeting in Hyderabad is important for state BJP as the national leadership has made it clear that conquering Telangana is next on its agenda, as this state, after Karnataka, is where the BJP can expand its footprint in the South.

Meanwhile, BJP’s Telangana unit, under national BJP directions, has been reaching out to people, and for the first time, the state leadership undertook a massive exercise, which has never been done in any other state. The networking senior leaders, including Union ministers, MPs, former chief ministers of the party, with the local cadre in all the 119 Assembly segments is a first, and will help senior leaders understand implementation of Central government schemes, and gauge people’s resentment against the TRS government, besides studying organisational issues and steps needed to win in that constituency.

The BJP’s resounding victory in by-elections to Dubbak and Huzurabad, and the impressive show in the GHMC elections have given a new hope to the party that it will not be difficult to wrest victory from TRS in the next elections. The huge response to BJP programmes in the state indicates the mood of the people, and the party is gearing up to face Telangana Assembly elections, whenever they are held.

The BJP national leadership has acknowledged this fact and through the NEC, and the public meeting at Parade Grounds, is planning to send a strong message to the cadre and the people that it is a historic necessity to bring the BJP to power in Telangana as the only alternative for the TRS. Especially with people realising that if they vote for Congress, its MLAs would sell themselves to TRS at a later stage.

At present, there is no party that can challenge the supremacy of BJP at the national level. Though regional parties are stronger in some states, they have their own limitations. Gradually, people are rejecting family-based parties in states, as was evident from the latest by-elections to two Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. The people are also disgusted with unholy alliances between various parties for their political exigencies, as was witnessed in Maharashtra.

The NEC will also provide a new direction to the BJP cadre to help them rise to the occasion in developing India on all fronts in the next 25 years, and to make India a super power by 2047 to coincide with the country’s 100 years of Independence celebrations.

In the last eight years, the BJP leadership and the Narendra Modi government at the Centre have taken several measures for social justice, economic development and the country's sovereignty and security. The way it has selected a tribal woman as the candidate for Presidential elections shows its commitment to the empowerment of 12 crore Adivasis.

Despite the pandemic crippling economies of several countries, including developed nations, India made a remarkable recovery in a short span of time and showed a new direction to the rest of the world with its speedy vaccination drive. India also made rapid strides in various sectors like industries, start-ups, rural development and agriculture under the dynamic rule of Narendra Modi. Even during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war crisis, India displayed its independent foreign policy to protect our interests. And the Agnipath scheme will go a long way in strengthening the military system.

The BJP’s agenda is people’s welfare and country’s development. It will strive for a qualitative change in the national polity, which has no scope for dynastic rule and corruption. Every decision of the BJP is aimed at building India into a great nation and enlightening every citizen of the country to strive for nation building.



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Dial down the hate. Now. One cannot say these words loud or often enough. They capture the greatest need of the hour in this country.
As I write, comes the news of the barbaric hacking to death of Kanhaiya Lal, a tailor in picturesque Udaipur, Rajasthan. The savagery must be condemned unequivocally by everyone. The attackers, identified as Gaus Mohammad and Riyaz, have claimed that their act was in retaliation for the victim’s alleged support of suspended BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma’s remarks about Prophet Mohammed. The duo filmed the hacking and posted it online. Media reports claim that they threatened Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well.

Clearly, the intention of the two men is to rouse hatred and instigate violence. They have been arrested. The National Investigation Agency is probing the crime.

At this point, the immediate priority must be to stop the spread of sectarian passions and sledgehammer the need to start the process of dialling down experiments in hate. The impact of toxic hate speeches and hate crimes in recent years has gone deep into the gut of our society. It cannot be eradicated overnight.

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But we must make a start.

Faced with a deluge of half-truths, blatant lies, and mass-erasure of unpalatable truths, what options do we have? It is easy to give up, yield to despair and say the ordinary person -- who is neither a hero nor a villain -- can do little.

But here is another truth. We owe it to ourselves to protect our minds and souls as much as our bodies. And we can if we try hard enough.
We may not be able to control everything happening around us, but we can protect ourselves to a great extent by being aware that there is a battle of competing narratives and that we must not uncritically buy into anyone else’s assumptions and truths.

This means keeping eyes and ears open, developing our own propaganda detectors, recognising that there is an orchestrated attempt to drown us in half-truths and lies, both of which have been in abundant supply in recent times in our social media-saturated world. Out of the two, the half-truth is the more insidious and dangerous because it contains an element of truth but by being selective and leaving out critical bits, it twists the original.

This is especially important in a hyper-polarised nation.

A starting point can be resistance to stereotyping of any community. It is important to occasionally step back from the “news” of the day or week, to try and understand the process which is strengthening prejudices, “otherising” of communities and belittling their struggles, sorrows and despair. It is especially important not to come to sweeping conclusions about any community due to the misdeeds of some.
As a member of the majority community, in a relatively privileged position, I try to imagine what it is to be like the “other”, for example, a Muslim.

One of my earliest lessons in this direction was when I was commissioned by the late Asghar Ali Engineer, a legendary name in the world of academics, activism and human rights within and outside the country, to do a small, sample survey on marital practices and demographic patterns among Muslims, and how it is affected by family income and educational status of Muslim women.

I carried out the sample survey in Delhi, speaking to people in 30 randomly-selected households. It was my first foray into discovering how half-truths can shape our thoughts, contribute to myth-making and strengthen prejudice. I spent two months in 1990 and 1991 doing the survey. It was published in 1992.

A highly popular myth that was proved completely false by the survey was that the majority of Muslim men were polygamous. In the 30 households surveyed, across different income groups -- high, middle and low -- there was only one instance of a man with two wives.
Another myth that proved to be false pivoted around the supposedly high frequency of divorce and remarriage among Muslims, both men and women. Of the 30 women that I spoke to at length, only two reported that their husbands had been married earlier and had divorced their first wives before marrying them.

The correlation between the educational status of the women I spoke to and the number of children they had also became patently clear. Of the 30 women interviewed, 17 had more than three children. None of them had any formal education though six women could read some Urdu.

Among the rest there were seven women who had been to middle school and beyond. What was interesting -- even illiterate women with smaller families were keen to send their children to school, just like people in the majority community. Equally clear was the correlation between family income and the number of children. The family size became smaller as the income went up.

So how do you check out myths? By finding out for yourself, by questioning. In India, we do not question enough. We must. Only then will we become more aware of half-truths.

Take the latest national family health survey (NFHS-5). One rabidly partisan publication says: “Muslims in India have the highest fertility rate of any religion, whereas Buddhists have the lowest.” There is related information the publication leaves out, but many others note -- NFHS-5 data also reveals a steep decline in the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of the Muslim community over nearly three decades.

The battle to influence worldviews extends to textbooks. Consider the proposed changes to the history textbooks. As academic Anubhuti Maurya, who teaches history at Shiv Nadar University, pointed out in a recent commentary piece: “The stories of India’s past are complex and diverse. It is unjust to fit it into simple accounts of golden and dark ages, of great and bad men, of remembered and imagined hurts. The proposed rewriting of the history textbook seeks to raise future generations of Indians on ahistorical ideas and a unity premised on falsehoods… This new history makes villains of some communities and privileges a fragmented historical narrative which is subject to the demands of community sentiments.”

Once again, an ordinary person who is determined is not entirely helpless. Who can stop any youngster from reading widely, beyond prescribed textbooks, having discussions and coming to his/her own conclusions?

Young or old, we must reclaim our minds and souls. We must reject violence, be it in the name of religion, holy shibboleths, language, or something else. We must equally reject tarring entire communities for the misdeeds of some. Fanatics and hatemongers do not come from any one community or location.



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