The war in Ukraine has encouraged Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to quickly reset relations with his West Asian neighbours so that he is better placed to cope with the serious geopolitical challenges emerging from the conflict.
This process of course-correction began when Israeli president Isaac Herzog visited Turkey on March 9 this year, ending a decade of strained ties, largely on account of Turkey’s support for Palestinian interests. The bonhomie created by the visit has continued, with regular telephonic conversations between the leaders of the two countries and indications that Mr. Erdogan might visit Israel shortly.
The more dramatic Turkish outreach has been to Saudi Arabia, with Mr. Erdogan’s visit on April 28-29. The visit was preceded by the special prosecutor in Turkey transferring the criminal case against 26 Saudi nationals for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi to the kingdom itself, thus closing this sensitive and divisive matter. Saudi Arabia reciprocated by removing the ban on the import of Turkish goods, which had reduced Turkish exports from $3.2 billion in 2019 to $200 million last year.
Before his departure, Mr. Erdogan spoke of a “joint will to start a new period of cooperation”, and specifically mentioned energy, health, food security, finance and defence industry as areas to be pursued. During the visit, he had cordial meetings with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and referred to the kingdom as Turkey’s “friend and brother”.
Besides boosting bilateral economic ties, regional commentators have referred to prospects for cooperation in promoting regional stability, particularly in matters relating to Syria, Iraq, Egypt and the east Mediterranean.
Turkey’s strategic autonomy
A NATO member since 1952, Turkey, under President Erdogan aspires, as Graham Fuller has said, “to a broad regional leadership, unbeholden to any single country or power”. Convinced that the U.S. had some hand in the attempted coup against him in July 2016, Mr. Erdogan moved closer to Russia and, contrary to NATO rules, even purchased the Russian S-400 missile defence system. Its expulsion from the NATO project to develop the F-35 fighter aircraft has encouraged even greater affinity with Russia.
Russia today provides 52% of Turkey’s gas imports, 65% of its grain requirements, and sends seven million tourists annually who make a significant contribution to the Turkish GDP. Russia is also constructing a nuclear power station that in 2030 will meet 30% of Turkey’s energy needs. Bilateral trade last year was $30 billion.
The two countries are also bonded by the 930-km TurkStream gas pipeline that bypasses Ukraine and links the two countries through the Black Sea.
Turkey has also built close ties with Ukraine. The latter provides nearly 15% of Turkey’s grain imports and also sends annually a million tourists to the country. In early February 2022, the two countries entered into a free trade agreement and a defence cooperation agreement. The latter provides for the supply and joint production of Turkey’s lethal Bayratkar TB2 unmanned drones which have boosted Ukraine’s fighting capabilities in the ongoing conflict with Russia.
On March 29, Turkey hosted the second round of Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Istanbul, amidst some hints of progress at that time. Peace talks have halted since then; recent reports indicate that the western allies are not keen on a quick end to the conflict. At the same time, western nations are pursuing efforts to pull Turkey more deeply into their alliance.
So far, Turkey has remained committed to strategic autonomy. It has described the Ukraine conflict as a “war” and, in terms of the Montreux Convention of 1936, the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits have been closed for naval shipping. Mr. Erdogan has described the war as “unacceptable”, while Turkey’s official media has criticised the Russian attack. Turkey also co-sponsored the UN General Assembly resolution that “deplored” the Russian invasion. However, Turkey has refused to join its western allies in imposing economic sanctions on Russia, nor has it closed its airspace to Russian traffic. It has also not sent any fresh arms shipments to Ukraine.
Regional geopolitics
The sinking of the Russian Black Sea fleet flagship, Moskva, on 14 April, possibly through missile attacks from Ukraine, has highlighted the strategic significance of the Black Sea. Through its Black Sea fleet, Russia is anxious to project power in the Mediterranean — hence the expansion and modernisation of its bases in the Crimea, Tartous and Hmeimim in Syria, and the consolidation of its military presence in Libya.
These Russian concerns and ambitions impinge on Turkey’s interests. Hence, not surprisingly, they have been on opposite sides over the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, when in 2020 Turkey backed Azerbaijan against Armenia, a Russian ally. Turkey has also opposed Russia’s occupation of Crimea in 2014 on the ground that Russian control over Crimea and the upgradation of Russian naval capabilities will tilt the maritime balance of power in favour of the latter.
In response, Turkey has enhanced its naval prowess in these waters — in April this year, the “Blue Homeland” naval exercises took place in the Black, Aegean and Mediterranean Seas, involving 122 ships, 41 aircraft and 12,000 personnel. During these war games, Mr. Erdogan pledged to make Turkey “the most powerful naval force in the region”.
Russia’s plan in the Ukraine war to take full control of the Donbas region in east Ukraine and the Ukrainian coast on the Black Sea, and then take over the Transnistria region on the Ukraine-Moldova border — taken together, this would significantly expand Russian influence and revive the traditional Russian-Ottoman rivalry in the region, when the Ottomans had been backed by western allies, Britain and France.
Turkey’s NATO allies hope that, faced with the challenge of an expansionist Russia, Turkey would return as a compliant member of the trans-Atlantic alliance.
But this seems unlikely. Turkey remains uncomfortable with periodic western criticisms of Mr. Erdogan’s authoritarian ways. Turkish public opinion is also largely anti-West. In a survey in January 2022, 39.4% of those polled favoured closer ties with China and Russia, while 37.5% favoured closer relations with the U.S. and the EU; a year earlier, the two figures were, respectively, 27.6% and 40.9%.
Again, in geopolitical terms, Turkey sees the need to work closely with Russia to manage its crucial interests in Central and West Asia, the Caucasus and Afghanistan.
As the war continues and there are increasing domestic and regional pressures on Mr. Erdogan, the Turkish leader will need to depend on his substantial capacity as a crisis manager to take his country through these stormy times.
Talmiz Ahmad is a former diplomat
The State of Tamil Nadu has been witnessing a confrontation between the elected government and the State Governor on the question of giving assent to the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) Bill (linked to an all India pre-medical entrance test) passed by the State Assembly. Giving assent to a Bill passed by the legislature is a normal constitutional act performed by the Governor. But of late, even such normal acts have become a source of confrontation between State governments and the Governors. The conduct of Governors in certain States follows a definite pattern which causes a great deal of disquiet to elected governments as well as to those who have faith in the constitutional order.
On the advice of Ministers
The position of a Governor in the constitutional setup in India needs to be clearly understood in order to grasp the significance of the actions as well as responses of Governors in the politico-administrative contexts emerging from time to time in States. The Governor is an appointee of the President, which means the Union government. Although Article 154(1) of the Constitution vests in the Governor the executive power of the State, he is required to exercise that power in accordance with the Constitution. In other words, the Governor can act only on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers. Though there is not much deviation from the language used in the Government of India Act of 1935 in the context of the powers of the British-era Governors, it is a settled constitutional position that the Governor is only a constitutional head and the executive power of the State is exercised by the Council of Ministers. InShamsher Singh vs State of Punjab (1974), the Supreme Court had clearly affirmed this position in the following words: “We declare the law of this branch of our Constitution to be that the President and Governor, custodians of all executives and other powers under various Articles, shall, by virtue of these provisions, exercise their formal constitutional powers only upon and in accordance with the advice of their Ministers save in a few well known exceptional situations”.
Dr. Ambedkar explained the position of the Governor in the Constituent Assembly as follows: “The Governor under the Constitution has no functions which he can discharge by himself: no functions at all.” The Sarkaria Commission restates this position in its report, “it is a well-recognized principle that so long as the council of ministers enjoys [the] confidence of the Assembly its advice in these matters, unless patently unconstitutional, must be deemed as binding on the governor”. In 2016, a five-judge constitution Bench of the Supreme Court (the Nabam Rebia case) reaffirmed the above position on the governors’ powers in our constitutional setup.
The pathways available
It may be stated here that this analysis of the Governor’s powers is meant to enable readers to have a perspective on the issue of the Governor of Tamil Nadu not deciding on the request for assent to the NEET Bill passed by the Assembly even after the passage of more than two months. What exactly are the options before the Governor in the matter of giving assent to a Bill passed by the Assembly?
Article 200 of the Constitution provides for four alternative courses of action for a Governor when a Bill after being passed by the legislature is presented to him for his assent. Assent of the Governor or the President is necessary for a Bill to become law. The Governor can give his assent straightaway or withhold his assent. He may also reserve it for the consideration of the President, in which case the assent is given or withheld by the President. The fourth option is to return the Bill to the legislature with the request that it may reconsider the Bill or any particular provision of the Bill. The Governor can also suggest any new amendment to the Bill. When such a message is received from the Governor, the legislature is required to reconsider his recommendations quickly. However, if the legislature again passes the Bill without accepting any of the amendments suggested by the Governor he is constitutionally bound to give assent to the Bill.
The Governor of Tamil Nadu returned the NEET Bill to the Assembly for reconsideration of the Bill. Accordingly, the Assembly held a special session in the first week of February and passed it again and presented it to the Governor for his assent. He has not assented to the Bill so far.
A wrong view
In the meantime, some sources in the Raj Bhavan have reportedly said that the Constitution has not fixed any time line within which to act. This, then, is the crux of the issue. The point that is made by these sources is that since the Constitution has not fixed any time frame, the Governor can postpone a decision indefinitely. Needless to say, it is a very wrong view.
While it is true that Article 200 does not lay down any time frame for the Governor to take action under this Article, it is imperative on the part of the Governor to exercise one of the options contained therein. A constitutional authority cannot circumvent a provision of the Constitution by taking advantage of an omission. The option mentioned in Article 200 is meant to be exercised by the Governor without delay. The context of Article 200 needs to be understood to be able to take the correct decision. After a Bill is passed by the legislature, it is sent to the Governor immediately. Although Article 200 does not say by what time the Governor should take the next step, it clearly and unambiguously states the options for him to exercise. It is obvious that if the Governor does not exercise any of those options he will not be acting in conformity with the Constitution because non-action is not an option contained in Article 200.
But sitting on the Bill after the Assembly has passed it again and sent it to him is impermissible under the Constitution. Article 200 (proviso) clearly says that when the Assembly reconsiders the Bill on the recommendations of the Governor and presents it to him, he shall not withhold assent. The Constitution makers could never have intended that the Governor could sit on a Bill passed by the legislature for as long as he wants and take advantage of the absence of any specific time frame.
In fact, the words used in Article 200 “... it shall be presented to the governor and the governor shall declare….” indicates that the Constitution requires the Governor to act without delay upon the presentation of the Bill. The reason is obvious. The legislature passes a Bill because there is an urgency about it. But if the Governor does not act, the will of the legislature is frustrated. It is not the constitutional policy to frustrate the legislative will as expressed through the Bill. Therefore, in view of the mandatory provision in the proviso to Article 200, it is clear that the Constitution does not permit the Governor to sit on a Bill after the Assembly re-submits it to him after reconsideration.
An undemocratic option
Giving assent to a Bill passed by the legislature is a part of the legislative process and not of the executive power. But the Constitution has by providing for definite options made it obligatory for the Governor to exercise any of those options without delay. Withholding of assent, though an option, is not normally exercised by Governors because it will be an extremely unpopular step. Besides, withholding assent to a Bill by the Governor, an appointee of the President, neutralises the entire legislative exercise by an elected legislature enjoying the support of the people. In the opinion of this writer, this option is undemocratic and essentially against federalism. In the United Kingdom it is unconstitutional for the monarch to refuse to assent to a Bill passed by Parliament. Similarly, in Australia, refusal of assent to a Bill by the crown is considered repugnant to the federal system.
In our constitutional system, the Governor or the President is not personally responsible for their acts. It is the elected government that is responsible. Under Article 361, the President or a Governor is not answerable to any court for anything done in the exercise and performance of their powers and duties. But when a Governor does not take any decision on a Bill which is put up for his assent, he is not acting in exercise and performance of the duties cast upon him.
P.D.T. Achary is former Secretary General, Lok Sabha
The recent announcement by Elon Musk, entrepreneur, investor, business magnate and the world’s richest man, in acquiring a stake in Twitter for $46.5 billion, thereby turning a public limited company to a private one, has made headlines across the world. There are proponents of the deal who say that Mr. Musk will make Twitter more open, ensure freedom of speech and provide choice to users for subscription-based services. However, sceptics are of the opinion that Twitter will become more centralised in its operations and processes, thereby may make its content moderation more biased towards certain ideals that Mr. Musk possibly endorses.
Danger of exclusion
While the devil is in the details and how Mr. Musk plans to change the way in which content moderation is carried out in Twitter, what happens when a significant social media intermediary such as Twitter goes private?
First, economists define a public good as one that is non-excludable and a private good that is excludable. Twitter, having about ‘330 million monthly active users’ has been a forum of expression and the “go-to” place for many including politicians, celebrities, activists and scholars; it resembles a town hall, as Mr. Musk has himself been quoted as saying. Even after upping the word limit to 280 characters, Twitter continues to be the only microblogging platform for powerful short messaging with features such as pinning, Twitter moments, Twitter highlights, and Twitter lists to name a few. The Twitter Application Programming Interfaces (API) along with powerful advanced search features enables users to analyse Tweets for trends in global politics, the media, news and so on.
However, when this public forum is taken to the private space, the danger lies in excludability — exclusion of certain sets of users based on some criterion including the fees that they pay for their services and their orientation towards certain ideologies, race or religion, sexual orientation and even demographics.
Issue of compliance
The second issue is the tussle between large and significant social media intermediaries and national governments. In one of his articles, Professor Edward Lee at the Illinois Tech Chicago-Kent College of Law, U.S., compared these large digital platforms to virtual governments that span the globe. He advocated mutual comity and respect between these virtual governments and national governments to disperse power in cyberpolitics.
It is also pointed out that for Internet platforms to be considered virtual governments, they should adhere to basic democratic accountability in formulating their policies and procedures, including being transparent and improving public participation and promoting non-partisan decision making. Twitter, which currently has more than 25 million users in India, has exhibited a lackadaisical approach in reacting to the requirements of the Government. It took a visit by the Delhi police to its office in India for Twitter to adhere to the Information Technology Rules 2021 in appointing compliance, nodal and grievance redress officers, way past the due date prescribed in the rules. What is the guarantee that Mr. Musk’s Twitter will be any better in responding to such policies and regulations of national governments, outside the U.S. for promoting grievance redress and content moderation to name a few?
The right model
The third issue is the subscription-based model, as suggested by Mr. Musk. Professor Hal Varian at the University of California Berkeley, as Google’s Chief Economist, invented and deployed a variation of the Generalized Second-Price auction in Google sponsored advertisements. This model, quite contrary to a subscription-based pricing model, subsidises search users for zero payment for services. While privacy advocates argue that personal information of users is being traded for advertisement revenue (that has reached more than $200 billion annually for Google), the model exhibits a number of externalities that include opening up a doodle search window for all things in life, all at the click of a mouse. The model also provides an outlet for small and niche businesses to market and sell their products and services to the world at large. This model that minimises information asymmetry, even for those in unprivileged sections of society, has become possible only due to the free and open search, subsidised by advertisement revenue.
On the other hand, the subscription-based model promotes excludability; at the same time, it creates a chasm between those who have subscribed and those who have not, possibly creating tension across these groups. Though the possible privacy violations that occur in the advertisement model of Internet firms are harmful to users in certain settings, the alternative does not seem to be any better.
It is with this that we look at Mr. Musk’s takeover of Twitter with scepticism. Open questions include whether any strong competitor to Twitter would emerge as an alternative for microblogging users; whether Twitter will indeed become more transparent, accountable and responsible; and whether the platform that started with the tweet “just setting up my twttr.”, published on March 21, 2006, by its co-founder Jack Dorsey, will stand the test of time.
V. Sridhar, Professor at IIIT Bangalore, is currently visiting the University of Southern California. The views expressed are personal
After many years of refusing to recognise there is a jobs crisis in India, the government of India, faced with relentless data to the contrary, has now resorted to misinformation. Scholars associated with the government have contributed to this effort. Two pieces — “Here’s why it’s V not K”, March 3, 2022 inThe Times of India and “A hazy picture on employment in India”, February 1, 2022 inThe Hindu are cases in point and are examined here. Regrettably, both pieces show an inadequacy in understanding the jobs situation.
As compared to the 8% per annum GDP growth in the period 200414, and 7.5 million new non-farm jobs created each year over 2005 to 2012 (NSO’s employment-unemployment survey), the number of new nonfarm jobs generated between 20132019 was only 2.9 million, when at least 5 million were joining the labour force annually (NSO’s Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS)). The NSO itself states clearly that the two surveys provide comparable data; the claim that those two surveys are not comparable is not correct.
Unpaid family labour
A claim is made that between 2017-18 and 2019-20, the worker participation rate (WPR) and labour force participation rate (LFPR) was rising, showing improvement in the labour market. The next question is: how come these rates were rising, exactly when the economy was slowing down sharply from 2017 to 2020? The reality is that this rise in WPR and LFPR is misleading. It was caused mostly by increasing unpaid family labour, mostly by women.
The claim that manufacturing employment increased between 2017-18 and 2019-20 by 1.8 million is correct (based on PLFS). What this ignores is that between 2011-12 and 2017-18, manufacturing employment fell in absolute terms by 3 million, so a recovery is hardly any consolation. Manufacturing as a share of GDP fell from 17% in 2016 to 15%, then 13% in 2020, despite ‘Make in India’.
Meanwhile, another argument offered is that GDP in FY22 “could not have returned to pre-COVID FY20 level without workers returning to work and MSMEs recovering too”. Clearly, this fails to recognise that organised economic activity could recover without a corresponding increase in unorganised activities, thus cancelling each other out, and still leave the jobless without work, or even less work. Second, a fall in urban unemployment after July 2020 to January-March 2021 has now been reversed, with urban unemployment rate rising in April-June 2021 back to mid-2020 level, and labour force participation falling again. This is a K-shaped recovery.
In any case, the authors provide no evidence that MSMEs, that provide most of the non-farm employment, have recovered to pre-COVID levels. Meanwhile, here is the evidence. The Consortium of Indian Association (CIA) conducted a survey of over 81,000 micro businesses across Indian in June 2021, two months after the second wave was over. Of them 59% reduced their staff compared to pre-COVID levels; 88% respondents had not availed of any government stimulus packages; 28% reported they were unable to get payment dues from their customers from private or government; 64% reported banks were not giving loans.
Farm employment
In any case, the recovery of urban employment till March 2021 clearly ignores that urban employment barely captures a third of total employment. Besides, agriculture output may have performed well during COVID, and free rations may have alleviated acute distress. This completely ignores that between 2019 and 2020, the absolute number of workers in agriculture increased from 200 million to 232 million, depressing rural wages — a reversal of the absolute fall in farm employment of 37 million between 2005-2012, when non-farm jobs were growing 7.5 million annually, real wages were rising, and number of poor falling. Rising farm employment is a reversal of the structural change underway until 2014.
Finally, another dubious argument is offered to supplement the claim that organised formal employment is rising, because new registration in employment provident fund rose in the last two years. One limitation of EPFO-based payroll data is the absence of data on unique existing contributors. Employees join, leave and then rejoin leading to continuous revisions in EPFO enrolment.
There has been a massive increase in joblessness of at least 10 million due to COVID-19, on top of the 30 million already unemployed in 2019. This happened while the CMIE is reporting the employment rate has fallen from nearly 43% in 2016 to 37% in just four years. Poverty had already increased during pre-COVID times, and increased further post-COVID by all estimates.
Santosh Mehrotra is Research Fellow, IZA Institute of Labour Economics, Germany
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government, by securing the consent of the Central government for the proposal mooted through a resolution of the Tamil Nadu Assembly to provide humanitarian aid to Sri Lanka, has deftly managed the issue.
The nod from the Centre was communicated by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar in his letter on May 1 to Chief Minister M.K Stalin.
On April 29, the House adopted unanimously the motion to have relief material, worth Rs. 123 crore, supplied to the people of the island-nation, which is reeling under an unprecedented economic crisis. Significantly, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), the principal Opposition party, backed the resolution which had proposed the supply of 40,000 tonnes of rice (valued at Rs. 80 crore), 137 life-saving drugs (Rs. 28 crore) and 500 tonnes of milk powder for children (Rs. 15 crore).
The resolution marked a nuanced shift in the stand of the DMK government, which completes one year in office on May 6, from what it stated in the memorandum submitted by Mr. Stalin to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 31. Originally, the request was for a nod to the State government to supply essential commodities and life-saving drugs to Sri Lankan Tamils in northern and eastern provinces of Sri Lanka and in Colombo, apart from those working in the plantation sector.
As pointed out by Mr. Stalin in the Assembly at the time of passing the resolution, several Tamil leaders and bodies in Sri Lanka had also appealed to him to not discriminate against the people of other ethnic groups as everyone was suffering from the economic crisis.
After the 1983 Black July anti-Tamil pogrom, Tamil Nadu had, on a number of occasions, sent relief material to Sri Lanka. The services of the Red Cross Society had also been tapped. Of course, the most sensational episode took place in June 1987 when Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister and M.G. Ramachandran was the Chief Minister.
The beginning of 1987 saw the resumption of hostilities between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Sri Lankan forces. On May 26, 1987, the latter began what was called the Vadamarachchi campaign or “Operation Liberation.” These events had cumulatively created a humanitarian crisis in the form of shortage of food and other essential commodities for people of Jaffna, who, to quote the then India’s High Commissioner J.N. Dixit in his memoirs,Assignment Colombo , “suffered extreme hardship due to the economic blockade imposed against the [northern] province since January 1987.” It was then that the Central government had decided to send essential commodities, weighing 950 tonnes, through a convoy of 19 fishing boats, apart from a boat carrying media persons and representatives of the Red Cross. The convoy, which left Rameswaram on June 3 for Jaffna, was stopped by the Sri Lankan navy off Katchatheevu. The next day was the day of “Operation Poomalai” (garland of flowers). Indian Air Force’s five AN-32 aircraft, accompanied by four mirage fighters, dropped 22 tonnes of relief material over Jaffna. This event changed India’s role from that of a mediator to a direct participant in the resolution of the Tamil question. What followed later, as they say, is history.
Tamil Nadu’s present initiative is aimed at helping those who are in distress, regardless of ethnicity. It is hoped that the move can even pave the way for building closer ties between the people of India and Sri Lanka.
ramakrishnan.t@thehindu.co.in
The Supreme Court in a decisive order has laid out a fine balance between individual liberty and the state’s right to impose restrictions in the interests of public safety. An individual had the right to refuse vaccination and though the Government could “impose limitations” on rights of individuals, it had to be “reasonable and proportionate” to the extent that it achieved the objective, in this case, containing the spread of the coronavirus. The current evidence, the Court reasoned, suggested that unvaccinated individuals were no more likely to spread the virus than those vaccinated and, therefore, people could not be denied access to public places, services and resources for being unvaccinated. However, this was no blanket order, and if infection rates increased and vaccines demonstrably reduced susceptibility to infections, the Government was within its rights to impose restrictions. The order underscores scientific reasoning and that the pandemic also continues to pose tough, science conundrums that generate new knowledge and challenge received wisdom. Last year, this time, India was besieged by the second pandemic and also woefully short of vaccines. The central policy then was to rationalise access to vaccines because demand outstripped supply. While availability was a key factor, it was also because scientific evidence showed vaccination stemmed progression to severe disease and the priority was to save lives.
Close to 75% of Indians have had at least one vaccine shot and a good proportion have hybrid immunity. Newer, highly transmissible variants and the West’s experience, of infections being rife despite triple-shots, have all depressed demand for boosters in India. While last year, before the second wave, vaccine hesitancy was ascribed to the low uptake, it is quite likely now that people are exercising their option of waiting for more kinds of the vaccine. The current attitude is foregrounded in the ground reality that daily infections are low despite a complete opening up of normal life. In the first year of the pandemic, when vaccines were in a nascent stage and the virus was raging, the scientific wisdom was that lock-downs and vaccination of two thirds of the population would end the pandemic — an idea that has not come to pass. Thus, it could very well be that newer kinds of vaccines (proven to curb transmission), may change the understanding of the best possible means to contain the blight. The suppression of individual liberty for the greater good is perhaps among the oldest and toughest questions that democracies grapple with; and beyond the orders, it is judicial reasoning that influences policy and future discourse when the facts on the ground change. The authorities must keep scientific evidence at the forefront when they take decisions that affect individual choice.
It is unfortunate that the proposal by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) for a national judicial infrastructure corporation with corresponding bodies at the State level, did not find favour with many Chief Ministers at the recent joint conference of Chief Justices and Chief Ministers. A special purpose vehicle, vested with statutory powers to plan and implement infrastructure projects for the judiciary, would have been immensely helpful in augmenting facilities for the judiciary, given the inadequacies in court complexes across the country. However, it is a matter of relief that there was agreement on the idea of State-level bodies for the same purpose, with representation to the Chief Ministers so that they are fully involved in the implementation. The CJI, N.V. Ramana, who had mooted the proposal some months ago, sought to dispel the impression that a national body would usurp the powers of the executive, and underscored that it could have adequate representation of the Union/States. He had flagged the gulf between the available infrastructure and the justice needs of the people. If his proposal had been accepted, the available funding as a centrally sponsored scheme, with the Centre and States sharing the burden on a 60:40 ratio, could have been gone to the national authority, which would allocate the funds through high courts based on need. It is likely that Chief Ministers did not favour the idea as they wanted a greater say in the matter.
Given the experience of allocated funds for judicial infrastructure going unspent in many States, it remains to be seen how far the proposed State-level bodies would be successful in identifying needs and speeding up implementation. It will naturally require greater coordination between States and the respective High Courts. Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju has promised assistance from the Centre to the States for creating the required infrastructure, especially for the lower judiciary. While it is a welcome sign that the focus is on infrastructure, unmitigated pendency, chronic shortage of judges and the burgeoning docket size remain major challenges. CJI Ramana flagged some aspects of the Government’s contribution to the burden of the judiciary — the failure or unwillingness to implement court orders, leaving crucial questions to be decided by the courts and the absence of forethought and broad-based consultation before passing legislation. While this may be unpalatable to the executive, it is quite true that litigation spawned by government action or inaction constitutes a huge part of the courts’ case burden. The conversation between the judiciary and the executive at the level of Chief Justices and Chief Ministers may help bring about an atmosphere of cooperation so that judicial appointments, infrastructure upgradation and downsizing pendency are seen as common concerns.
Bangalore, May 3: The Minister in-charge of border affairs in Mysore, Mr. K. H. Patil said here to-day that there was no question of the State deviating from its stand in regard to the Mysore-Maharashtra (and Kerala) border dispute. This, at any rate, was the position “uptil now”, he said. Mr. Patil, who was replying to questions by pressmen in recent developments on the border issue, said that not only himself but the entire Mysore State “stood by the Mahajan Commission report”. The (previous) State Assembly had passed a resolution to that effect, he said, and asked: “How can I go against the resolution of the Assembly?” Pressmen had drawn his attention to reports that the Centre had revived its original proposal to bifurcate Belgaum as a solution to the Mysore-Maharashtra border dispute and that K. C. Pant, Union Minister of State for Home, had sounded the Chief Minister on that point during his recent visit to Bangalore. Mr. Patil denied knowledge of the suggestion for bifurcation of Belgaum and said that he was not aware of what discussions the Union Minister had with the Mysore Chief Minister. When Parliament was seized of the matter, what comment could he make on the border issue, he asked.
Under present conditions, a European has the right to claim to be tried by his own countrymen either in the shape of trial before an European Magistrate or before a jury more than half of which is composed of his own countrymen and has the right of appeal to the High Courts in all cases. Under the amended procedure, he could be tried before an Indian Magistrate with right of appeal to a Sessions Court and finally the High Court and in cases of jury trial, he would be tried before a jury composed of five Europeans and four Indians. To test the application of this proposal, assume the case of an European on a limited salary wrongfully charged with assault at a time of strong racial excitement. He is charged before an Indian Magistrate who, being convinced of his innocence, acquits him. The results of the Magistrate living among the disaffected portion of the population requires little imagination for they will embrace in all probability the terrors of social boycott and persecution.
On Monday, the Supreme Court did the right thing in asking the government and private agencies to apply the proportionality principle while applying Covid vaccine-related restrictions. The Court invoked the Puttaswamy verdict of 2017 to say that a person’s “right to bodily integrity and personal autonomy” under Article 21 includes the right to refuse vaccination. But the two-judge bench struck a fine balance between an individual’s right to privacy and public health imperatives. Since infection rates are currently low, the Court asked “all authorities, including private organisations and education authorities to review orders and instructions imposing restrictions on unvaccinated individuals in terms of access to public places, services and resources”. It has clarified that these directives are limited to the “present situation alone” and the executive should not feel that its hands are tied in imposing restrictions on unvaccinated people, “if the situation so warrants”.
In the past three weeks, Covid cases have increased in some parts of the country. Experts have, however, assured that this shouldn’t be a cause of worry because most patients have shown mild symptoms and hospitalisation is negligible. The Court is, therefore, right in ruling “that the vaccine mandates by state governments cannot be said to be proportionate”. The Centre and state governments could also not place before the SC any data to show that unvaccinated people are more likely to transmit the disease compared to those who have received both shots. But this deficit should not be used to cast any shadow on the efficacy of vaccines. Since the last quarter of 2021, it has been evident that vaccinations have prevented the virus from turning virulent in several parts of the world, even when a large number of the inoculated got infected. As the court pointed out, “There is abundant evidence to show that getting vaccinated continues to be the dominant expert advice even in the face of new variants”.
Unlike in several countries, including many in the developed world, India’s healthcare workers, administrators and policymakers have found creative ways to take on the challenge of vaccine hesitancy. It’s a testament to their efforts that close to 85 per cent of the country’s adult population has received both shots of the vaccine. Efforts to build trust in the vaccines must continue with the inoculation project becoming more expansive in recent months with the introduction of “precautionary” third doses and shots for children above the age of 12. The SC has flagged a crucial concern. It has asked the Centre to make post-immunisation data publicly accessible. The CoWin portal shows that only 0.006 per cent of the country’s vaccinated population reported serious reactions after being administered the shots. Reports have, however, shown that the fear of adverse events is among the major reasons for vaccine hesitancy. The Centre should, therefore, show urgency in implementing the SC’s directive. Putting comprehensive data in the public sphere will put the fears of parents to rest.
This editorial first appeared in the print edition on May 4, 2022 under the title ‘Injecting trust’.
Last week the Reserve Bank of India released the Report on Currency and Finance 2021-22. It provides a frank assessment of the state of the Indian economy, beginning from its analysis of the economic slowdown prior to the pandemic, and going on to its evaluation of the post-Covid scenario, and the challenges facing the economy. Considering that one of its observations is that “India is expected to overcome Covid-19 losses in 2034-35”, close attention needs to be paid to the concerns highlighted in the report, and its policy prescriptions.
India’s economic prospects had worsened even prior to the pandemic, with growth beginning to slow down in 2017-18. This slowdown, as the report notes, “coincided with sluggishness in the labour market”. Subdued labour market prospects, coupled with household leverage and domestic shocks pulled down private consumption, which forms the backbone of the Indian economy, even prior to Covid. These weaknesses were exacerbated by the pandemic. As the report notes, “the Indian labour market witnessed a sharp deterioration during the first wave of the pandemic with unemployment rate touching a record high and the labour force participation rate plummeting”. And while the economy staged a quick recovery from the depths seen during the peak of the pandemic, the recovery has been uneven. Sectors such as trade, hotels, transport, communication and services, which are also labour intensive, have fared poorly. While the healthier firms have fared better, “weak firms remained vulnerable with negative profitability, indicating a divergent recovery within the organised corporate sector”. And this is only the formal sector. The toll on the informal sector has been considerably higher. However, despite this uneven recovery, the report has assumed that the economy will grow at 7.2 per cent in 2022-23, and 7.5 per cent thereafter to recoup the losses due to Covid. But considering current trends, and that the economy had slowed down to below 4 per cent towards the end of 2019-20, it would appear that these growth projections are optimistic. It may take longer to fully overcome the setback.
The report has also outlined the policy agenda for a post Covid economy, beginning with the “rebalancing” of monetary and fiscal policies. This will involve draining out excess liquidity, for monetary policy to focus on price stability, and for the general government debt-to-GDP ratio to fall to more manageable levels over the next five years. These steps are needed to secure the country’s medium term growth prospects, which the report has pegged at between 6.5-8.6 per cent.
On Monday night, one of India’s oldest tournaments, which seemed to have lost its charm and relevance, was brought back to life by two states where football is a way of life. The Santosh Trophy final might no longer occupy the position of pride on the domestic calendar, but Kerala and West Bengal made it an affair to remember. Kerala reclaimed the national championship after being egged on by a partisan crowd, and through sheer grit shown by a bunch of semi-professional players.
For those used to watching teams that indulge in telegraphed passing and players who swerve and weave past their opponents as if they don’t exist, it would’ve been easy to dismiss the quality of football dished out. But in doing so, they miss a point: Football, often, is about context and narrative. And on those fronts, the Santosh Trophy final did not disappoint. These were two giants of Indian football fighting for a national title in front of some of the most passionate fans. The buzz at Payyanad Stadium in Manjeri in the build-up to the final, the hush when the home side conceded, the frenzied celebrations when they equalised, and the deafening roar when the net bulged after the final penalty kick went in provided a unique soundtrack to the match, which could rival atmosphere anywhere in the world.
The thousands in the stands and many more who streamed it live, in the absence of live TV coverage or any promotion by the All India Football Federation, showed the appetite for the domestic game, be it the Indian Super League, I-League or the Santosh Trophy, which at its core is the only pan-India football tournament. Kerala’s triumphant campaign, just like Mizoram’s title run in 2013-14, underlines the sentimental value still attached to this tournament despite very little strategy or planning. Monday’s final has breathed life into a dying championship. It’s important to ensure it doesn’t go back on life support.
The RBI has decided to take the bull by the horns. It has raised the repo rate by 40 basis points and the cash reserve ratio (CRR) by 50 basis points to fight inflation. We believe these simultaneous policy announcements of adjusting both the rate and quantum of liquidity is a clever ploy. Interestingly, research clearly shows that the credibility and reputation of the central bank is best recognised only when the market response to central bank liquidity operations is stronger. To that extent, the RBI seems to have killed two birds with one stone and has emerged stronger as an inflation targeting central bank. In fact, the surprise mid-term announcement by the RBI Governor today is a clear departure from past practices. It also signals the extraordinary times we live in.
The most interesting aspect of the rate hike today is the continuation of the accommodative policy stance. While the markets seem to have been taken aback, we believe today’s rate hike should be seen more from a strategy perspective, rather than as a change in the monetary policy stance. We believe this is a pragmatic decision as the CRR hike may be just an attempt to build up a war chest on the liquidity front. To be more precise, liquidity inflows to the financial system could be either policy induced by the central bank (for example changes in reserves, open market operations etc) or non-policy induced (foreign exchange reserves, government cash balances, and currency in circulation). Given that non-policy induced liquidity inflows have been recently impacted (outflows of portfolio capital) and given the huge size of the government borrowing programme, the RBI also needs to support the market through some means. Impounding bank reserves through the CRR (Rs 87,000 crore) could give some space to the central bank to conduct open market purchases of bonds from banks and thus inject concomitant liquidity some time in the future if the need so arises. The RBI had followed a similar strategy during 2003-08 when the market stabilisation bonds were introduced, the CRR was also hiked. The CRR rate hike is thus an important tool to possibly manage G-sec yields. The markets may have missed the fine print of this move.
Across the world, major central banks have of late gone on a rate hike spree, waking up to the realisation of inflationary pressures not being transitory in nature. The US Fed has been on the offensive battling a 40-year high surge in prices. It has tapered its bond purchase programme drastically while suggesting in no uncertain terms the pace of rate hikes needed to combat inflation. The European Union has been slow to respond but voices are growing to correct the path at the earliest. Banks like the Central Bank of Brazil or Russian Central Bank have almost jumped the gun (in keeping the benchmark or key rates in double digits.)
Emerging economies have been doubly hit — the days of easy liquidity are well behind them even as their economic resources remain constrained to support an uneven proportion of population coming out of the strains induced by successive waves of the pandemic. To this extent, the decision by the RBI to frontload the rate hikes ahead of the Fed decision is again an attempt to stem capital outflows.
Including the RBI’s decision today to push the benchmark rate to align with the current market realities, 21 countries have increased interest rates so far. Of these, 14 countries have hiked rates more than or equal to 50 bps. Markets are also expecting a 50-bps rate hike by the US Fed in its policy meeting concluding today – the biggest since 2000. It would also be the first time in 16 years that the US Fed will hike borrowing costs at two consecutive meetings.
A historical disaggregation of India’s retail inflation (as measured by CPI) to ascertain the various macro-factors that drove inflation dynamics, indicates that the inflationary pressures can be attributed mainly to adverse cost-push factors, coming from supply-side shocks in food and fuel prices, even as weak aggregate demand conditions continued to exert downward pressure on inflation. The RBI statement thus cites food inflation as a major source of discomfort.
Additionally, nominal rural wages for both agricultural and non-agricultural labourers picked up during the second half 2021-22. However, such wage growth has remained soft. The weighted contribution of wage growth in CPI build-up remains modest and this is a good sign as far as anchoring of inflationary expectations is concerned.
Measures to ameliorate supply-side cost pressures would be thus critical at this juncture, especially in terms of a calibrated reduction of taxes on petrol and diesel. On the policy side, however, it would mean that even after rate hikes, inflation may continue to remain high for some time.
As retail loans have increasingly been benchmarked to the external rate (mostly to RBI’s repo rate) with quarterly reset clause, the loans benchmarked to the repo rate may increase in the range of 35-40 bps, passing on the hike in full, as banks don’t keep a wider spread in retail loans to remain competitive in the market. As of December 2021, around 39.2 per cent of the loans are benchmarked to external benchmarks, so the increase in repo rate will increase interest costs on consumers and may impact them from the next quarter onwards.
The MCLR (Marginal Cost of Funds based Lending Rate) linked loans have a share of around 53 per cent in the overall loan kitty. With the rise in CRR and expected future hikes in the benchmark rates, there would be an increase in MCLR due to a negative carry. Furthermore, if banks raise the deposit rates then the cost of funds will also increase and subsequently the MCLR will increase too.
The RBI, in our view, has acted prudently in responding to market forces that could impact India’s growth prospects if inflationary concerns were not addressed now. At the same time, by pledging to remain accommodative to spur, and reinvigorate growth, it has reaffirmed its commitment to being a trusted partner in the growth of the country. We also believe the rate hike will be beneficial for the banking sector as the risk will get re-priced properly. However, be prepared for a series of rate hikes now.
The writer is Group Chief Economic Advisor, State Bank of India. Views are personal. He thanks Ashish Kumar for inputs.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Berlin for the sixth Indo-German Inter-Governmental Consultations (IGC) is significant for its timing and substantial results. Chancellor Olaf Scholz, despite the shock of the Ukraine crisis, recently visited Japan and then hosted PM Modi. In public perception, the visit was about adjusting to the Ukraine crisis and whether Germany would try to persuade India to follow its line. The reality differed as both got down to serious business beyond Ukraine.
Germany is a reluctant player in the anti-Russian movement. It criticises Russia for invading Ukraine, which set back Germany’s — and Europe’s — search for strategic autonomy. This broadened their outlook towards neglected partners such as India.
The Ukraine crisis created an urgency to engage with India as part of Germany’s fledgling Indo-Pacific policy. For India, it was important to prevent Germany from being overwhelmed by the Ukraine crisis and bring its focus to the Indo-Pacific. This includes a reassessment of China’s role in world affairs. There are signs that Germany will be doing this and therein lies an opportunity for India. The Bundestag will discuss the situation of Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang on May 7. Any departures from China will bring business engagement to India.
Germany and India do not have a traditional strategic partnership. It is a green partnership based on trade, investment, technology, functional collaboration, skill development, and sustainability. There are several initiatives like the Indo-German energy forum, environmental forum, partnership on urban mobility, skill development and science and technology.
The biggest gain from the IGC has been the Joint Declaration of Intent (JDI) establishing the Green and Sustainable Development Partnership. This will raise the quality and quantum of the existing partnership between the two countries. Germany is reaching out with new and additional financing of €10 billion to fund green projects in India under public, private and PPP models.
To support this, a ministerial segment is being introduced under the IGC. This biennial ministerial forum will review all the partnerships and provide “high-level coordination and political direction to the Partnership”. This will prevent inertia. At present, partnership fora meet sporadically and the ministers meet for a few hours before the IGC plenary. A coordinated institutional mechanism is being created now. The IGC is the only such format that India has with any country. This presents a whole-of-government outlook and shows India’s commitment to the climate agenda and support for the SDGs.
Another significant development is the JDI on Triangular Development Cooperation for projects in third countries. This will provide avenues to work together in the Indo-Pacific, Africa and beyond. Climate-friendly and SDG related training and projects, possibly drawing upon the successful implementation of similar versions in India, are envisaged.
India and the EU have agreed to restart, in June 2022, discussions on an FTA, an investment agreement. At this IGC, the focus was on harnessing the entrepreneurship and private sector of both countries to take the climate-friendly achievement of SDGs forward. The CEOs who met the leaders had a contemporary mix this time. Besides the large companies, there were newer investors on both sides, particularly from technology, digital, green infrastructure, and renewable energy.
The Indo-German Education Partnership, which the German Bundestag passed in 2016 as a New Passage to India, has borne fruit — from about 4,000 students in 2015, there are nearly 29,000 Indian students in Germany. New IITs like IIT-Indore have engaged with several technical universities in Germany for joint programmes. The Indo-German Science and Technology Centre has made valuable contributions. Now, under the energy partnership, the Green Hydrogen Task Force will develop a Green Hydrogen Roadmap. This will attempt to take R&D to the level of commercialisation.
The JDI on migration and mobility is an important step taken during this IGC. This will facilitate a larger number of Indian students to study and work in Germany. It may facilitate the movement of Indian professionals. This will lead to a larger trade in services and augment the efforts for digital partnerships, which are among the focal points of Indo-German efforts.
The joint statement is long at 56 paragraphs and shows immense congruence and commonality on the UN, Afghanistan and terrorism.
With the new coalition government in Germany, a reorientation of the relationship with India was anticipated: It was mentioned in their coalition compact. Its direction and intensity were uncertain. The period of Angela Merkel, who started the IGC with India in 2011, and saw it through five editions, is over.
A new period is reflecting new priorities in view of crises like the pandemic, the economic downturn and now, Ukraine. The German response to India as evidenced through the IGC has been promising. Both sides may justifiably call it a defining moment in the Indo-German partnership.
This column first appeared in the print edition on May 4, 2022 under the title ‘Amid crisis, a defining moment’. The writer is former ambassador to Germany
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ascent to power has not just brought about a more frenetic form of Indian diplomacy but has also resulted in what may be called “personalised diplomacy”. Modi believes that taking time out with global leaders and investing in personal relations makes a difference in relations between States. To his credit, he has made enormous efforts to cultivate global leaders and leverage it to India’s benefit. Who can forget “chai pe charcha” with former US President Barack Obama at Hyderabad House in 2015 when Modi was relatively new to the game of global diplomacy. After eight years of non-stop interaction with world leaders, I would single out two leaders with whom Modi has struck a really close and trusting relationship. One is obviously the Japanese leader Shinzo Abe who has since retired from political life.
The other leader is the French President Emmanuel Macron. In June 2017, as I was packing my bags for retirement after 36 years in the Indian Foreign Service, I got a call from the then foreign secretary and the present External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar informing me that the PM will be making a visit to France shortly to meet the newly elected French leader Emmanuel Macron. This was brilliant on the part of Modi because Macron was a completely unknown quantity at the time and Modi was one of the first overseas leaders to visit him in Paris after the latter’s election. Macron had stormed into the French presidency, much like Modi when he became Indian PM in 2014. Since then, the two leaders have met on numerous occasions, and it is fair to say they get along like a house on fire.
The strategic convergence between India and France is not skin-deep. It is based on the fundamental conviction of both countries in a multipolar world and in the concept of strategic autonomy. More importantly, France has stood by India through thick and thin, beginning with 1998 when India conducted nuclear tests and the entire world was ranged against us. Since then, India and France have deepened their strategic partnership to such an extent that there is really no outstanding problem or irritant in the relationship today.
The visit by Modi to France on May 4 will not just be to congratulate Macron on his stunning re-election but also to survey the international strategic landscape and take stock of bilateral ties. The war in Ukraine will certainly figure in the discussions. France, of all countries, should be able to understand where India is coming from on this issue. Modi has met Putin umpteen number of times and Macron has spoken to Putin for several hours on the phone. Indeed, if there are two major leaders in the world today who are capable of picking up the phone and talking to Putin, it is Macron and Modi. Can they jointly explore, even tentatively, how to bring this horrific war in Europe to an end?
Bilateral defence ties are in fine fettle and France has largely stuck to the promised delivery of Rafale aircrafts to India. The challenge here is to move from a buyer-seller relationship to an investor-investee one by making defence equipment in India accompanied by a transfer of technology. Again. France has done this before (think submarines and light helicopters) and is well placed to do so in the future, such as making military engines in India for combat aircraft. France is a preferred partner in the Indo-Pacific and there is now a blueprint for cooperation in this field in the form of a Joint Strategic Vision for cooperation in the Indian Ocean Region concluded by both countries in 2018. The shared concerns of India and France go beyond maritime security, ensuring respect for international law by all states, freedom of navigation and overflight, fight against organised crime and combating climate change. One important development is the idea of Franco-Indian joint patrolling in the Indian Ocean. The joint naval exercises in the form of Varuna have proceeded apace and moves are afoot for mutual and complete maritime domain awareness in the Indian Ocean region.
Space has always been central to the strategic partnership of our two countries. Again, for the first time, the two countries concluded a Joint Vision for Space Cooperation in 2018. The vision document talks of bringing societal benefits of space technology, situational awareness in space domain and cooperation in satellite navigation and related technologies. As for nuclear energy, the two leaders must review progress in the joint construction of the world’s largest nuclear park in Jaitapur, Maharashtra. The project has stalled a bit and it could do with some political impetus.
Apart from the above traditional areas, discussions between the two leaders may dwell on newer areas of cooperation such as connectivity, climate change, cyber-security and science and technology. In these important areas, the two leaders will be briefed by officials about progress made so that roadblocks, if any, can be tackled.
It is important to remember that France holds the rotating presidency of the EU till the end of June this year. In this regard, two issues will be of cardinal interest to India. One, Modi must brief Macron on the FTA and the Investment Agreement that India is negotiating with the EU and persuade Macron to weigh in favourably with the Brussels bureaucracy and other stakeholders. Two, it would be useful for Modi to hear first-hand about France’s assessment of the Sino-Russian axis and EU’s own choppy relations with China. Macron will doubtless be interested in hearing our assessment of the situation in Ladakh and the state of Sino-Indian ties such as they are.
The PM’s visit to France on May 4 is a crucial one. I fully expect the M&M jodi (Modi and Macron) to interact warmly with each other and reinforce their “dosti”. The two leaders may as well sing in unison: “yeh dosti hum nahin todenge”.
This column first appeared in the print edition on May 4, 2022 under the title ‘The tango in Paris’. The writer is a former Indian Ambassador to France. Views are personal
The blazing red heat maps of South Asia show record temperature levels not seen in more than a century. With the heat wave stronger and more widespread than ever, four to eight degrees above normal, 200-odd forest fires blazing, power cuts, it seems like the apocalyptic future that novelists like Kim Stanley Robinson had described in “The Ministry for the Future” are within the realm of possibility.
The novel begins with a catastrophic heat wave in North India killing millions, but it then tells a varied and hopeful story of different responses to climate change. Where the opening scene erred in its rhetorical force was in the suggestion that India was uniquely vulnerable to such a catastrophe. India will bear the brunt of climate change. But larger heat waves and large-scale deaths induced by heat are now a possibility everywhere: From Chicago to California, from Australia to Europe. India may be reeling now, but climate cannot be the “it will happen over there’’ problem.
There was also some criticism of the catastrophism of the opening scene. Twenty million dying of a heat wave. Surely, that is an exaggeration? The discomforting thought is that we can no longer be confident that this is entirely out of the realm of possibility. In 2019, a year of global heat waves, Lancet estimated an excess of about 3,50,000 excess deaths world-wide due to heat. We will, of course, never fully know the extent of excess mortality or health effects of the current wave in India. But imagine the heat that India is experiencing now, coinciding with high humidity levels, where the body cannot cool off because sweat does not evaporate. There is some truth to the charge that the fiction of climate catastrophism can generate scepticism. But it is hard to deny that dire conditions are already at hand.
The recently released IPCC Synthesis Report tried to make the same point powerfully: The future is already here. We may well be past the point where limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees is virtually impossible. But what makes this moment so fraught is the sense of unreality about climate change. We used to worry about climate deniers and peddlers of fake news. But it turns out our challenge is far worse. It is more that those who do not deny climate change are imprisoned by a sense of unreality, where instead of collectively solving our problems, we simply have discourse respond to discourse, argument to counter argument, while the world burns away. Collective action in relation to climate change was always going to be a problem so long as every country thinks only in terms of its national interest. But even national interest is now defined not in terms of measures that will actually solve the problem or mitigate its worst effects, but purely in terms of who has the upper hand in global discourse.
The developed world has unconscionably failed to accept its historical responsibility. It has returned to an old gambit: Putting disproportionate blame on developing countries. In some ways, the last two years under the Biden Administration have seen a regression in progress made on climate change: The volume of displacing blame onto other countries has increased, the will to live up to or up the already modest Paris climate targets has diminished, the war in Ukraine has been opportunistically used to rehabilitate fossil fuels on a massive scale. While the US Treasury has pressed for more climate related development finance of developing countries, the blunt truth is that the flow will be paltry. The experience of Covid vaccines has convinced the world that no developed country will be serious about providing global public goods.
In turn, developing countries like India have upped their ante on their “anti-colonial” stance, where the global climate debate is seen as another ruse to trap developing countries. Many officials have expressed criticism of the IPCC’s alarmism, not because it is not founded in facts, but because it might be used as a wedge to pressure developing countries more. After the Paris Agreement there was some hope that the unhelpful distinctions between developed and developing countries would be blurred. But the bulk of the rhetorical energy in the global climate debate is back to square one. Developing country officials from India, for instance, spend more of the rhetorical ballast fighting the discourse of climate colonialism than finding creative solutions for combating climate change. Colonialism and climate change are connected. But to pretend that rhetorical victories on the colonialism argument are a solution to climate change is to be gripped by an unreality.
India’s record is strong in global perspective. It has always gone with the science. Ramping up capacity in renewables and keeping fuel taxes high are two areas where it does well. Globally, also, there is much progress: Investment in “green technologies” is accelerating, a lot more of the private sector is on board, and there is at least some financial help available for countries that want to get off the fossil fuel path. But the sense of unreality is this. While some of these measures might help, it is hard to shake off the feeling that they are more about business opportunities, ticking off boxes in the global climate debate, and creating networks of patronage. They cannot disguise the blunt fact that the IPCC Synthesis Report points out: We are making it harder not easier to reach the 1.5 degree Celsius global warming target. All this sound and fury about technology, investments, green bonds, and yet the time horizon in which to save the planet seems to be shrinking.
Domestically, also, we are gripped by unreality. Tall claims about India’s increasing forest cover, commitment to renewables, leapfrogging to electric vehicles, and its venerable ecological traditions cannot disguise the fact that our cities are hotter, our water more precarious, our health more subject to the vagaries of climate, and our dependence on fossil fuels higher than necessary. This is because climate change cannot be thought of as a series of projects. The hard question we have to ask is whether they are achieving the objective of making India more habitable. We also have to recognise that regardless of what happens globally we have to up our environmental game by orders of magnitude domestically on almost a war footing. But our experience with the tractable problem of air pollution has been so dispiriting that it is hard not to conclude that in the case of climate change we are all, like Nero, fiddling, while the planet burns. The world would rather normalise catastrophe than work for preventing it.
This column first appeared in the print edition on May 4, 2022 under the title ‘Red hot planet’. The writer is contributing editor, The Indian Express.
The observations and recommendations of Prashant Kishor (PK) are available on 85 slides circulating on social media. There are some comments that what is circulating is an early draft, but even if it is, it contains much of what has been reported as its key content. So, even if the Congress does not have PK, it does have what he wants the party to do. The question of what and how much of his observations the party is ready to accept will become clear at the three-day chintan shivir that has been tentatively scheduled for mid-May. Therefore, even as PK decides his destiny lies outside the party, “PK Thought” is very much out in the open. I think we need to distinguish the man from his thinking.
It is certainly unusual for consultants to wish to become executives. I doubt that McKinsey or Boston Consulting Group or Ernst & Young have ever suggested that they get co opted to the board to ensure that their recommendations are carried out. That is for the company who hired them to make up their minds. I suspect that some PK recommendations will eventually be accepted and some not; sometimes, the recommendations accepted would be those that really matter; sometimes, it is only the fringe suggestions that would find acceptance. That is in the nature of the consulting game. And PK was only in the consulting game till the Congress turned to him. He did his best — and surely what he has turned out is PK at his best. But, as is par for the course, those whom he was advising sought time to digest what he himself might have found self-evident. But parties do not exist for consultants. It is normally the other way round.
Also, PK has brushed aside all nonsense of running the Congress without the Gandhis. He has suggested alternative scenarios of the role the Gandhis may play but in each of them, he has ensured that the Gandhi triumvirate is accommodated in the highest positions. This will displease the armies of Gandhi-baiters but will resonate with the Congress rank-and-file as the family is built into their DNA. Among those whose DNA is not so constructed are to be found the defectors and potential defectors, but for those who do not abandon ship even at this critical juncture, there is the deep and abiding conviction that it is the Gandhis who together constitute the glue, or the bonding adhesive, that keeps the party together and gives it an all-India profile. They are, of course, aware of the dire straits in which the Congress finds itself at present but are each persuaded that our condition would be even worse but for the pervasive presence of the mother and the siblings in the party leadership. Recognition of this is one major merit of the PK proposals.
The other major merit is that his proposals open the doors for elected leaders to occupy key positions from which to guide the party out of the shoals. That is what G-23 mean by “collective leadership”. Instead of a group of favourites constituting a non-transparent coterie around the leader, PK’s proposals give various alternatives that would ensure the presence of elected and, therefore, “representative” and “responsible” voices in the deliberations of the key policy and organisational bodies of the Congress. (These two phrases are not PK’s but Rajiv Gandhi’s in the context of Panchayati Raj).
To my mind, the most persuasive of these is the proposal that Priyanka Vadra be made the general secretary in charge of coordination. While this may cause some heartburn to the current and any aspiring general secretary (organisation), I would reckon hard decisions emanating from Priyanka after due consideration and debate on controversial issues would carry wider sanction within the party than from other sources. This is essential to keep the party together.
The crux of my argument is that PK has given the party a great deal of hard data and many suggestions on which to collectively reflect. Those points remain on the table, with it being open to wiser heads to give their own presentations. There is nothing “take-it-or-leave it” about PK’s proposals — even if the man’s personality and personal attitudes give the impression of a know-it-all who would be rebuffed if anything were changed. However, by suggesting alternative scenarios at every turning, the proposals, in themselves, leave it to the party to pick the preferred route or even to explore yet other alternatives. What is important is not each particular but preserving the integrity of the perceptions and predictions that inform the PK narrative. They are less rigid and self-assured than the proposer might be personally.
It would, of course, have helped if PK had been available to gently guide the deliberations, but he reportedly put down several conditions that the party, and especially those who felt their present perch threatened, understandably found unacceptable. But the empowered group already constituted would have every opportunity of deliberating on the minutiae of the PK proposals and even inviting into consideration those who have fundamental objections or basic choices or amendments to suggest. Ideally, the report of the empowered committee could be made available at the chintan shivir in Udaipur just a few weeks from now — and thus we could move to a consensus within the party on the way forward. Independent (and, even more, biased) observers (and, perhaps, PK himself) might well pick holes in the consensus that emerges but, at the end of the day, it is Congressmen and women who will determine the fate of the Congress. No one has a greater vested interest in their future than members of the Congress.
This column first appeared in the print edition on May 4, 2022 under the title ‘Note to Congress’. The writer is a former Union minister
It is an uncertain world and the threats that emerge nowadays seem to be entirely unforeseen. First, there was the Covid pandemic, then the war in Europe. What can a society do to ensure its well-being in such uncertain times? Fortunately, humans have the ability to imagine a future and plan for it.
A future for society is the product of its collective imagination. It is generated through large numbers of people sharing ideas over long periods. It is, therefore, a matter of some wonderment that in India there is so little public discussion on what might be the shape of our future. Isn’t it important that we foster an ability to imagine possible futures for our country?
Imagining different futures also means planning for them. We cannot know precisely what crises are in store for us. But we can certainly strengthen knowledge resources and develop the ability to mine those resources for possible solutions as and when the need arises.
As things stand, building up knowledge capital is a task that, even today, is seen in India as a costly exercise that doesn’t bring immediate profit. For some decades now, there have been two perverse attitudes that obstruct the creation and expansion of knowledge. One is the extreme belief, nurtured by those educated in modern institutions, that there is a political angle to all knowledge. The other is an obstinate commitment to demanding immediate, visible profit from everything. Both attitudes are harmful to any creation or dissemination of knowledge.
An obsession with immediate returns has consequences for everything; from public policy to technology development to social development and economic growth. It is one reason why India, despite a large presence in IT services, has had little to show by way of independent innovation. Even something as basic as creating a system for online payment of GST and income tax has been fairly difficult for Indians to develop.
It is unreasonable to expect individuals to plan several decades ahead for a collective goal. That is the mandate of social institutions. Institutions in India seem to work on a limited-time horizon. Recently, a vice-chancellor from one of the top Indian universities presented a five-year plan in a talk at Cambridge University. The university told the official that they were used to plans looking 30 years ahead. A short-term approach at the institutional level has serious social costs.
It was a series of short-term actions that led to the coal crisis some years ago. In 2014, when the Supreme Court cancelled the allotment of 204 blocks, which had been allotted since 1993, on the grounds of non-transparent processes, there was a major crisis. The coal ministry devised a transparent online bidding procedure for auctioning the blocks rather successfully. The auctions not only met the demands of industry but also generated revenue for the government. The point is that well-structured rules and regulations are needed all the time not only for the regular business of government but across sectors. Devising those rules and regulations in a fair manner after considering the views of all stakeholders, is a sunk cost. Revising rules regularly to match changed realities is also a sunk cost. Following proper scientific methods, whether in science labs or in business or in government is a sunk cost. Yet social investment in good rules and regulations, documentation, building up knowledge capital, remains very low in India.
The ability to imagine a future means a degree of comfort with sunk costs. Most of the technologies that we depend on today, whether the internet, mobile phone, electric cars, batteries or penicillin, took decades to develop; even centuries. A model of the electric car, for instance, was developed even before the petrol engine, but it wasn’t practical to use. What is practicable at what point in time depends entirely on circumstances.
For societies to refuse to invest in innovation for the future would be self-defeating. Such societies would have nothing to fall back upon in moments of crisis.
This column first appeared in the print edition on May 4, 2022 under the title ‘Our possible futures’. The writer is an IAS officer of the 1990 batch. Views are personal.
A little over three week after their last meeting, RBI’s monetary policy committee held an off-cycle meeting and unanimously voted to increase its policy interest rate, repo rate, by 40 basis points from 4% to 4.4%. It’s the first repo increase since August 2018 and marks the definitive end of about three years of loose monetary policy which prioritised boosting economic growth over inflation.
The main messages from RBI governor Shaktikanta Das’ statement explaining these measures are that latent inflation risks are rapidly materialising. Moreover, it’s hard to get a clear picture of what lies ahead because we are in the midst of a very uncertain environment.
Most worrisome, is the heightened risk to food inflation.
Other than repo rate, RBI will soon increase the cash reserve ratio of banks by 50 basis points to 4.5%, which will pull out about Rs 87,000 crore of liquidity from the financial system.
The sudden turn in the approach of MPC during an unscheduled meeting raises the question: What is the main objective of the surprise announcement? MPC, according to Das, hopes to preserve “macro-financial “stability” amidst increasing volatility in the financial markets.
It’s likely that MPC is in part reacting to interest increases in major Western financial markets as it is leading to a reallocation of global investment portfolios. Separately, the extended mismatch between retail inflation rates and the repo rate, which is a benchmark for many other commercial interest rates, may lead to Indian savers taking unwarranted risks as protection against high inflation.
Today’s announcement is a sign that going forward it is fiscal policy which has to take the lead in protecting Indian consumers from an erosion in their purchasing power. As for RBI, it’s going to focus on its core task of controlling inflation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Germany, the first leg of his three-nation European tour, set the stage for an essential aspect of India’s development pathway. One of the three strands of the bilateral talks was on climate and energy. Following talks, foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra identified the joint declaration of intent on green and sustainable development partnership as perhaps the most important one. It will play out initially through two channels. Both countries will create a Green Hydrogen Task Force and Germany will support India’s green growth plans with an additional development assistance of €10 billion by 2030.
These developments need to be located in a larger context. The urgency of mitigating climate change is stark. IPCC’s report in 2021 said that the global surface temperature was 1.09 degrees higher in 2011-20 than the 1850-1900 baseline. Its consequences are already evident. India has contributed only 4% of cumulative greenhouse gas emissions between 1850 and 2017. However, with a coastline of about 7,516 km and 17% of the world’s population, it is already at the frontline of the fallout of climate change. Therefore, it’s in our interest to enhance the use of non-fossil fuel sources for incremental economic growth.
Modi last year outlined a net-zero commitment by 2070 as India’s overarching aim. It is to be realised through two interrelated steps by 2030. India is to reduce its projected carbon emissions by 1 billion tonnes and 50% of its energy needs are to be sourced through renewables. This is where India’s goals tie in with the EU’s vision. Having set a net-zero target by 2050, the EU is in the midst of a transition to sourcing most of its energy needs from renewables. Denmark, for example, has already sourced about 32% of its energy consumption in 2020 from renewables.
Renewables represent a menu of energy options. In the EU, wind and water provide most of the renewable electricity. This is being complemented by solar. Advances in R&D are opening up more options which also allows countries to de-risk their sourcing of renewable energy. It is in this context that PM Modi’s three-nation tour holds significant long-term potential. Despite the current scramble for securing fossil fuel supplies following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the long-term trends won’t change. India needs more than development assistance. It also has to be a part of the EU’s renewables supply chain with access to technology. This trip will lay the foundation.
Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren is on a sticky wicket, with the Election Commission asking him to explain why he should not be disqualified for securing a mining lease for himself. Soren is accused of violating Section 9A of the Representation of the People Act, which disqualifies MPs/MLAs who enter into contracts with government for execution of works or supply of goods and Constitution’s Article 191, which disqualifies MLAs holding an office of profit under the government. Soren says that he has now surrendered the lease and had transparently mentioned it was due for renewal in his 2019 election affidavit. Jharkhand high court is also vetting the matter.
Irrespective of the outcomes, Soren as minister in charge of the department and CM granting himself a lease reeks of conflict of interest. GoI’s Code of Conduct that applies to Union and state ministers specifically enjoins them to divest all interests in businesses primarily dependent on “licences, permits, quotas, leases, etc” received from the government. But unlike Soren’s rare case or the infamous 1993 JMM bribery scandal where illicit cash was deposited in bank accounts, high-level corruption is tough to detect because netas depend on proxies like corporate groups, contractors and benamis where paper trails are hard to establish.
The Jharkhand government is in disarray after this and other financial exposes against the Soren family. If Soren quits, there’s no clear line of succession. To make matters worse, the Congress-JMM alliance has been turbulent. For BJP, JMM’s self-inflicted wounds are a huge reprieve after being beaten in 2019 by tribal and minority votes consolidating. But Soren may not be the biggest casualty of the bruising legal and political battle. From 42% of Jharkhand’s population being multidimensionally poor and just 57% of those over 15 having received two doses of vaccines to its electricity woes, state capacity is already suffering from painful attention deficit disorder.
With 63% of its population Christian, it would be easy to see the resistance to abortions in the US singularly as a majoritarian religious demand. As the 1973 Roe vs Wade ruling set down, the right to abortion is about women having control over their own bodies. For India, where abortion has been legal since 1971, the law has progressed over the years to provide women safer, easier options for terminating a pregnancy. In the US, too, abortion has been legalised but with restrictions and accessibility varying across states. But, on Tuesday, a leaked document on confidential deliberations made by the US Supreme Court - responding to the state of Mississippi's demand to have abortion criminalised in individual states - suggests a U-turn. This would be a regression of huge proportions in a country that considers itself, and is considered by many others, as 'leader of the free world'.
India is no stranger to societal tussles using personal space as a legal battleground. But at the core of any individual's personal space is the body. Social prejudices in the form of religious mores must not ride roughshod over individual freedom. True, the published leak is of deliberations, not judgment. But 13 US states have already passed 'trigger laws' that will ban abortion if Roe vs Wade is overruled by the court in late June-early July. According to healthcare organisation Planned Parenthood, this could result in some 36 million women across 22 of the US' 50 states losing access to safe medical termination of pregnancy.
Overwhelmingly Catholic countries like Italy and Ireland have overturned anti-abortion laws, the former in 1978, the latter in late 2018. The argument of personal freedom is buttressed by the more realistic fact of abortions 'going underground', thereby conducted by methods and agents lying outside the purview of safe medical healthcare. The US must avoid sliding into legalised misogyny. Making abortion illegal in American states has certainly no place in a country that was a crucible for the Rights of Man, and Woman.
<
Read in source website
RBI's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has stepped outside its calendar to hike the policy repo rate by 0.4 percentage points to 4.4%, reversing the second leg of its cut in interest rates in 2020. The hike was expected since the MPC's April review, when RBI had introduced the standing deposit facility as the new floor for the liquidity adjustment corridor that was 40 basis points (bps) higher than the reverse repo rate and restored the policy band to its pre-pandemic 50 bps. RBI has, since last year, been drawing out liquidity from the system through variable reverse-repo auctions where the cut-offs were approaching the 4% repo rate. Gilt yields have been rising in anticipation of the rate hike. Banks are also ahead of RBI in passing on higher borrowing costs.
The element of surprise that roiled bond and equity markets was the timing of Shaktikanta Das' announcement. The markets were gearing up this week for steep rate hike and balance sheet reduction announcements by central banks led by the US Federal Reserve, and had not factored RBI jumping into the fray. RBI's position on inflation has altered significantly since its policy review in February, when it considered price pressures in India as considerably different from those working the West. The MPC now sees India importing higher fuel and food prices, threatening to raise the trajectory expected a month ago. Re-anchoring inflationary expectations, after a spurt in March followed by an expected rise in April, is now key to stabilising the economy.
The MPC has retained its accommodative stance with India that will be caught in a global slowdown. Alongside deciding to raise the cash reserve ratio (CRR) by 50 bps, Das again confirmed RBI support to revive consumption and investment demand.
<
Read in source website
Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das surprised everyone when he said that the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the central bank convened an unscheduled meeting between May 2 and 4, and decided to hike the policy rate by 40 basis points and the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) by 50 basis points. As a result, the revised policy rate and CRR now stand at 4.4% and 4.5% respectively.
While the MPC has kept the official stance of monetary policy as accommodative, it has reiterated that it is being “accommodative while focusing on withdrawal of accommodation to ensure that inflation remains within the target”. That a reversal in the easy money policy, both in terms of interest rates and liquidity, was on the cards was clear from the tone of the April MPC resolution. But what forced the MPC to announce a rate hike and CRR increase in an unscheduled meeting? Various factors such as the expectation of a sharp interest rate hike by the United States Federal Reserve — RBI’s announcement came hours before it — or a higher-than-expected inflation reading in April 2022 — the Consumer Price Index growth in March 2022 was 6.95% — could have played a role. However, what the MPC resolution says explicitly to justify its action is that there are “significant upside risks to the inflation trajectory set out in the April statement of the MPC”. The policy implication of RBI’s latest action is easier to understand than the immediate trigger. This sends a clear signal that inflation is going to be a more significant policy challenge than growth for the Indian economy. The unscheduled surprise element also seems to suggest that RBI realises that the optics of fighting inflation — interest rate hikes might not be the most effective tool to fight inflation when a large part of it is being driven by a global surge in commodity prices — will be critical in shaping both inflation expectations as well as the larger perception about India’s economic policy.
While the MPC resolution has put up a brave face on the economy’s growth prospects, the increased burden on household loans is bound to put pressure on private demand. This will come as an additional headwind along with the inflation-driven squeeze on purchasing power, especially for the not so well-off. To put it simply, the economic situation will continue to remain volatile in the near-term.
The battle to stake claim to a strident Hindutva identity plumbed new depths in Maharashtra this week as different political outfits jockeyed to take credit for a criminal act: The illegal demolition of Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. The Shiv Sena has long claimed that its members were responsible for bringing down the disputed structure in Ayodhya, a fact underlined by chief minister (CM) Uddhav Thackeray in a recent speech. Days later, former CM Devendra Fadnavis held a press conference to counter the Sena’s claim, and said that while he was “proud” to have been in Ayodhya to bring the structure down, there was no Shiv Sainik at the spot. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, in its perennial pursuit of a slice of Balasaheb Thackeray’s legacy, also jumped into the fray, quoting Hindu leaders to claim that no Shiv Sainik was present when the mosque was razed by a mob.
This is an unseemly debate. Various judicial pronouncements have repeatedly called the demoli-tion of the 16th century structure a criminal act — one for which the then government in the state was dismissed. Even the landmark 2019 verdict of the Supreme Court that paved the way for a Ram Temple in Ayodhya held that the demolition was illegal, and asked the authorities to allot an alternative plot of land to build a mosque.
For mainstream political leaders to claim “credit” for this dark episode in the country’s democratic history is not only shameful, but also an indication of the creeping majoritarianism in Indian polity. There can be no pride in condoning an illegal act and political leaders would do well to steer clear of such polarising issues and focus on questions of governance.
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi completes his three-nation tour of Europe, there is suddenly a new energy and momentum in India’s ties with the West. And, the remarkable aspect of this change is that it is happening at a time when few expected this to happen. India has continued to maintain its position on the Ukrainian crisis even as the West continues to ratchet up the pressure on Russia. New Delhi has been consistent in its advocacy of diplomacy and dialogue within the parameters set by international law and the United Nations (UN) charter. It has refrained from publicly condemning Russia though a clear disappointment can be discerned in India’s growing concern about the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Ukraine as the war drags on.
The West has been asking India to do more and the western media has lectured India on its democratic responsibilities. But western governments seem to comprehend India’s challenges much better, and so, in an ironic way, this crisis has provided the means to both New Delhi and the West to come closer and to engage each other more substantively. From Washington and London to Berlin and Paris, India is being viewed as a strategic opportunity that has to be nurtured, not as a perpetual naysayer, that is a challenge.
This remarkable shift in the outreach by the West can be attributed to three key factors. First, of course, is the wider structural shift in the global balance of power. With the centre of gravity of global politics and economics now firmly located in the Indo-Pacific, China’s challenge to the international order can no longer be brushed aside as a mere irritant that will self-correct eventually. China’s aggression in pursuit of its manifest destiny and its attempt to dictate terms of engagement to others has made it imperative for global powers to react in search of a rules-based order in the region. The Chinese Communist Party’s attempts to weaponise trade and launch misinformation campaigns to destabilise democracies resulted in a collective response of a kind leading to a global fragmentation not seen since the heyday of the Cold War. For the West, a partnership with India has become a veritable necessity to manage the widespread disruption in the international system.
The second factor has been a reassessment by western Europe of its own identity as a global actor. For long, the European desire was to escape from history and even in some ways, transcend it. The European Union (EU), according to many of its fervent believers, was an attempt to remould the forces of history.
The EU, as per this logic, would first reshape the European strategic landscape and then eventually help in transcending the pernicious logic of geopolitics in the global order, thereby heralding a new phase in international relations. And, so, while American might and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization were to manage Russia, economic cooperation was to be the most potent antidote to Chinese expansionism.
But while the EU was busy trying to transcend geopolitics, geopolitical challenges were enveloping the European landscape. From simmering disconnect within the EU to the externalities emanating from China’s rise and Russia’s revisionism, western Europe today is going back to the basics. China is today not only the EU’s “systemic rival” but under Xi Jinping, it has generated intense distrust across Europe, leading to debates on issues as wide-ranging as critical infrastructure security to supply chain resilience. With its strategy for the Indo-Pacific, the EU wants a larger footprint in this vital maritime geography. And with the Russian onslaught on Ukraine, even Germany has been forced to reorient its post-World War II foreign policy and national security outlook. This new strategic reorientation of western Europe is well aligned with India’s priorities and the newfound convergence is leading to an ever more robust engagement.
The final, and perhaps the most important, element in this shifting approach of the West is not about the West at all but about India’s response to its strategic priorities. Today’s self-confident India has a new voice on the global firmament — clear, rooted to the domestic realities and civilisational ethos as well as firm in the pursuit of its vital interests. As external affairs minister S Jaishankar remarked at last week’s Raisina Dialogue, it is better to engage with the world on the basis of “who we are” rather than try and please the world. If India is confident about its identity and priorities, the world will engage with India on its terms. Over the last few years, New Delhi has not been averse in challenging its adversaries and in courting its friends without the ideological baggage of the past. From being the only global power to challenge Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative as far back as 2014 to responding to Chinese military aggression with a strong military push back, from trying to work with the United States without entering the full embrace of an alliance to engaging the western world for building domestic capacities, India has been pragmatic to the core and willing to use the extant balance of power to its advantage.
India’s focus today is on enhancing its capabilities in every possible sector and that allows for a more clear-eyed engagement with its partners. The West, often used to a pontificating India of the past, today hears an Indian voice on the global stage that is capable of articulating a narrative of a responsible stakeholder that is firmly steeped in its own ethos. And this, more than anything else, has allowed a new reality to dawn in western capitals that today’s India means business and it can’t be business as usual. Therefore, a substantive western engagement with India is a natural consequence, the Ukraine crisis notwithstanding.
Harsh V Pant is vice-president, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi and professor at King’s College London The views expressed are personal
Social media platforms achieved unbridled growth by adopting a laissez faire approach to user-generated content. This approach was underpinned by legislative frameworks around the world which sought to indemnify content hosting internet intermediaries from liability arising out of user-generated content. At the same time, as private companies, social media platforms have the freedom to decide what content they want to host. This freedom is reflected in differential content standards across different platforms and differential application of standards for the same piece of content.
Platforms have carte blanche to decide what content they want to host and distribute. However, since all major social media platforms were based primarily in the United States (US), their content moderation policies drew upon American First Amendment principles (which prohibit government from curtailing free speech, among other freedoms) to restrict only narrowly defined categories of content. Platforms have similarly sought recourse to First Amendment free speech principles to reject calls for an interventionist approach towards misinformation. Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook are all on the record stating their aversion to being the “arbiters of truth” and that the platforms should be a marketplace of ideas.
Taken at face value, these platforms’ proclivity towards “free speech” seems not just reasonable, but laudable. However, it can be argued that, for social media platforms, “free speech” is a business model instead of a principled imperative. It is evident that a hands-off approach to speech is operationally simpler since content moderation is not just complex but also politically fraught. Moreover, important high-profile content moderation decisions by platforms are often ad hoc and driven by external pressure — especially government, media, and public relations — instead of coherent speech policies. Further, platforms have been known to take down or block content (including critical political speech) based on government requests while also making exceptions for powerful users linked to the government and its affiliates.
Most importantly, platforms have opportunistically used “free speech” and the protection against liability for intermediaries to advance their business models. Traditional news media is liable for published content and must thus invest time and resources to vet information before publishing. Platforms compete with traditional news publishers for advertising revenue while enjoying the double advantage of speed (to get content to users) and protection from liability (for unvetted content). Since, advertising revenue is directly proportional to the amount of time users spend, platforms have exploited this twin advantage to boost user engagement without caring about the deleterious impact of a surfeit of misinformation on the information ecosystem and wider democracy.
Social media platforms keep users engaged by constantly keeping their feeds populated with new content from sources and content creators that the user has not proactively followed. This deliberate boost to the organic reach of a subset of content by the platforms is known as “amplification”. Since quality and value-based amplification is difficult due to the challenge of determining “quality” and “value”, platforms rely on amplification based primarily on engagement signals.
This approach absolves platforms of the need to exclude vast swathes of bad content while remaining value agnostic and avoiding charges of editorial control. Since hateful and polarising content gets more engagement (as admitted by platforms themselves), this value-neutral and engagement-driven approach is resulting in amplification of misinformation and other harmful content.
It is this turbocharged distribution through social media platforms, which has made misinformation and propaganda invasive and pervasive. These platforms have further elided the distinction between different sources of information which has removed an important signal of credibility and ideological positioning of the consumed content. Instead, engagement is perceived to be a bigger driver of the importance — and by extension — credibility of a piece of news.
This equal treatment (appearance and placement of different and unequal sources of information) and making virality instead of quality the primary determinant of a source’s credibility and/or a piece of content’s importance has eroded the distinction between vetted information, propaganda and misinformation in the minds of the user. The impact is acute in India because platforms have de-facto control over the distribution of the message combined with low-digital literacy among users.
It is a testament to the efficacy of the lobbying efforts of social media platforms that instead of focusing on the amplified distribution of misinformation, the discourse has exclusively framed measures to reduce misinformation as being in “tension” with freedom of expression, an issue which can arise only in the case of outright removal. Moreover, since platforms are private companies, the issue even in the case of outright removal of content, is not freedom of speech but political neutrality of the platform. The degree of permissiveness for misinformation, hate speech, etc is thus a political and/or commercial choice by the platforms.
It is clear that even if “free speech” was an article of faith for social media platforms, it has now evolved into a justification for a lucrative business model that privileges user engagement over information quality. Moreover, the platform-fuelled binary between misinformation and free speech is a red herring designed to obfuscate platforms’ role in the distribution and amplification of misinformation. The first step to addressing the problem of disinformation is to reset the terms of the debate in a manner which helps our democracy instead of private platforms.
Ruchi Gupta is executive director of the Future of India Foundation. This article is based on the Foundation’s upcoming report, Politics of Disinformation. The views expressed are personal
The suicide bombing in Karachi on April 26, which killed three Chinese tutors, is a glaring sign that China’s bet on gaining influence in Pakistan is a risky gamble that is backfiring. The targeted attack, claimed by the separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), was not the first strike against the Chinese in Pakistan. In July 2021, 10 Chinese engineers and workers were killed and 26 more injured in a suicide blast in Dasu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which was attributed to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Numerous other attacks and abductions aimed at Chinese citizens and diplomats have taken place since 2017. China has committed over $65 billion in loans and investments in Pakistan and has trumpeted the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as the crown jewel of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The serial insecurity faced by Chinese citizens in Pakistan conveys that many Pakistanis do not buy the official narrative of their government and of Chinese propaganda outlets that China is lifting Pakistan out of poverty. The grievances and ideologies of the BLA and the TTP are varied, but if both are gunning for Chinese soft targets in Pakistan, it means the disillusionment about what China is doing to its “all-weather-ally” goes deep.
The neo-colonial conditionalities imposed on Pakistan under the CPEC deals and the lack of consultation with affected Pakistanis along the corridor’s construction sites have often triggered non-violent protests against Chinese exploitation and the resultant loss of sovereignty for Pakistan. The terrorist attacks on the Chinese in Pakistan ought to be seen in this wider context of perceived enslavement of Pakistan. Yet, Pakistan’s establishment has not heeded popular concerns about the ill-effects of the Chinese debt trap because the army and its associated corporations are reaping a windfall from CPEC. The CPEC Authority, an apex institution “striving for the success of CPEC and socio-economic development of people of Pakistan”, is dominated by Pakistan’s military. Appeasing “creditor number one” China has not been easy for Pakistan’s politically fractured civilian politicians and their ineffective bureaucratic machinery. Therefore, the task of keeping China happy has been appropriated by the army.
As Pakistani citizens reel under record inflation, terrible power shortages and unmanageable debt-servicing obligations, can they be blamed for feeling frustrated for not receiving any of the touted benefits of Chinese assistance? The fact that Pakistan keeps applying endlessly for financial bailouts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to stay macro-economically afloat, even as Pakistani elites praise relations with China as “higher than mountains, deeper than oceans, and sweeter than honey”, carries a bitter taste.
Owing to the hegemonic intent and devastating effects of China’s presence in Pakistan, the backlash against the former within Pakistan will continue in a variety of forms. Yet, China’s obsession with counterbalancing India by propping up Pakistan, and China’s geo-political objective of accessing the Indian Ocean via Pakistan’s Makran coast, are higher order priorities in Beijing.
The investments that China has already sunk into CPEC and its strategy of ensuring India is kept under check in South Asia so that it cannot compete with China across Asia and the Indo-Pacific mean that Beijing will keep ploughing ahead with its fraught endeavour of trying to take over Pakistan inch-by-inch.
China’s Communist Party is so outraged at the ineptitude and inability of the Pakistani State to protect Chinese citizens that one of its loudest bullhorns, journalist Hu Xijin, said that the Chinese military should launch “direct air strikes” against terrorists inside Pakistan “after getting approval of the Pakistani government”. Such an eventuality is not inconceivable, given the utter web of dependence China has spun to keep Pakistan under its sway. But if Pakistan is China’s biggest problem child, one must not forget the converse reality — China is Pakistan’s worst exploiter. This mutual vicious cycle is unfortunately bound to produce more rounds of violence and terrorism in the future.
Sreeram Chaulia is dean at the Jindal School of International Affairs The views expressed are personal
Last month, there were reports of kangaroos that had been trafficked into North Bengal in India. A forest range officer discovered them in West Bengal after villagers reported seeing strange wild animals. Three kangaroos were recovered. In Australia, there are at least forty million kangaroos, more than there are people.
Outside of Africa, the largest wild hippopotamus population is in Colombia. Drug lord Pablo Escobar kept a few of them as part of his private zoo. After his death, they escaped. Colombian authorities did not bother to track them down. Today, there are around 100 descended from Escobar’s hippos. Scientific reports mention that are the first large herbivores in the region since the late Pleistocene around 100,000 years ago.
Exotic hippos and kangaroos make good headlines. But they do not threaten their introduced countries in the same way that some other animals do. Dogs and cats are among the most popular pets in the world, but in the wild, they can be a menace to wildlife. Dogs are the most abundant carnivores. There are estimated to be more than a billion dogs worldwide.
In India, the widespread use of diclofenac led to the precipitous drop in the population of vultures which served as important scavengers. As a result, many types of vultures are vanishing. At the same time, the population of feral dogs has been on the rise.
In 2020, a report in Down to Earth magazine estimated that there were 60 million dogs in India, of which 35 million were feral. These wild dogs are a threat to wildlife. A research article by Chandrima Home and her team published in Animal Conservation in 2017 found that “dogs attacked 80 species, of which 31 were IUCN Red list threatened species, including four Critically Endangered species… Approximately 68% of the attacks were carried out by dogs unaccompanied by humans.”
India also reports around 20,000 cases of rabies each year, which is the highest number of cases in the world. Feral animals spread other viral, fungal, and bacterial diseases too.
A continent away, in Australia, the management of feral cat and fox populations is a priority of animal conservationists. Writing in The Conversation, Alyson Stobo-Wilson and her colleagues note that “Cats and foxes, for example, have played a big role in most of Australia's 34 mammal extinctions, including the desert rat-kangaroo which rapidly declined once foxes reached their region.”
A research article published in the scientific journal Diversity and Distributions on March 15 by these authors found that foxes and cats kill roughly 700 million reptiles, 510 million birds, and 1.4 billion mammals.
Cats were introduced in Australia likely in the early 1800s and they flourished in open spaces in the absence of large predators. Today, there are over six million cats in Australia of which roughly half are kept as pets and the other half are feral.
Cats kill over two billion animals in Australia each year. These are staggering numbers. Without cat control, many more native animals will likely go extinct in the next few years. Cat eradication programs are underway on islands and in enclosed spaces. Some researchers are shooting poison at cats in the hope that those fastidious animals will lick their coats and perish. But Australian officials admit that their eradication programmes are behind the target. And they’re controversial programs often loathed by urban pet lovers who have more of an emotional connection with cats than they do with native animals.
Indeed, there’s a moral dilemma that needs to be resolved. Humans are responsible for the proliferation of millions of feral cats and dogs. But they will lead to the extinction of many other animals. Do we now have a moral imperative to intervene on behalf of the species that they threaten?
Cats and dogs are popular pets. Millions of people love them and find them as sources of companionship. Through no fault of their own, they’re now roaming freely in millions, destroying habitats, and killing endangered species. But we are in a calamitous situation. If we do nothing, feral animals may lead to the extinction of many native animals which also deserve to live on in their own right.
Anirban Mahapatra is a scientist by training and the author of a book on COVID-19. He’s working on a second popular-science book.
The views expressed are personal
The war in Ukraine is indeed on the minds of German Chancellor Olaf Sholtz and French President Emmanuel Macron, and on the minds of the leaders of Denmark, Sweden, Norway. But the conflict now raging in the European continent is not going to be a little more than an irritant to visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Neither Mr Scholtz nor Mr Macron are great enthusiasts about a boycott of Russia and President Vladimir Putin the way that US President Joe Biden, British PM Boris Johnson and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen may be. Mr Scholtz may not have pressed the issue of India condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine beyond a point. But there can be little doubt that Germany, France and every other European country is forthright in their condemnation of Russia.
But India is not really under any pressure even though Ursula von der Leyen and Boris Johnson have tried and failed to get India to condemn Russia. India has withstood the pressure and persuasion of the Europeans and Americans quite well, and the Prime Minister can take credit for it. But India has been pressing hard for a strong position in the Indo-Pacific, which satisfies New Delhi because it is indirectly directed against China. The Europeans are not friends with Russia because there is no meeting of minds there, but European leaders are realistic enough to acknowledge that China is an important economic player in global markets. They recognise India as a potential big player too and that is why they keen to woo India.
The Europeans would not go beyond polite words to speak out against China in the context of the India-China conflict and confrontation. This will no doubt irritate Indian leaders, but they must put up with it. Mr Modi, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and external affairs minister S. Jaishankar will no doubt be annoyed by Europe’s lukewarm criticism of China and that too indirectly. The positions of German’s Olaf Scholtz and France’s Emmanuel Macron are complex. They condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, something that India would not, but they also know that they must calibrate their moves against Russia.
India enjoys the status of a spectator, as Mr Modi had acknowledged in his press statement in Berlin on Monday. So, the India-German statement included a slightly elaborate reference to the Indo-Pacific, which pleases India, but their real concern is the war next door in Ukraine. Mr Modi and his team — this is the first that the Prime Minister is flanked by the finance minister and the external affairs minister — is interested in getting bilateral agreements on key aspects, including business, technology and investments.
Mr Modi, however, had to acknowledge that the war in Ukraine is having a negative impact on the global economy as in the rise in the prices of oil and food. The tepid remarks clearly showed that Mr Modi had nothing emphatic to say about the war in Ukraine: “India is deeply concerned by the humanitarian impact of this conflict. We have sent humanitarian aid for Ukraine on our behalf. We are also trying to help other friendly countries through food exports, oil supplies and economic assistance.” The heart of the matter for Prime Minister Modi was: “…Germany has decided to help India’s green growth plans with an additional development assistance of 10 billion euros by 2030. For this, I thank Germany and Chancellor Scholtz.” He also said: “India’s skilled workers and professionals have benefited the economies of many countries. I am confident that the Comprehensive Migration and Mobility Partnership Agreement between India and Germany will facilitate the movement of people between the two countries.”
The German point of view had obviously a different emphasis in the joint statement: “Through its attack on Ukraine, Russia violated fundamental principles of international law. The war and the brutal attacks against the civilian population in Ukraine show an unrestrained Russia has been violating the fundamental principles of the UN Charter.” Chancellor Scholz then added: “I repeat my appeal to Putin to end the war, to end the senseless killing.” German economics minister Robert Habeck of the Green Party said Germany would back an immediate ban on all Russian oil and gas imports, though that would be a burden for Germany.
So, Germany was dealing with Mr Modi and India at a different level, even as it was taking a vital decision on the war in Ukraine and its relations with Russia.
The story will remain the same as Mr Modi travels to Denmark, where he will speak at the India-Nordic Summit in Copenhagen, and then on to France. It will be argued that Mr Modi is only pursuing India’s national interest. He is of course doing that. Whether India is able to rise above its national interest and show concern about the crisis in Europe remains a moot question. Of course, the Indian strategy pundits would say that it is none of India’s business to be concerned about the war in Ukraine because that is Europe’s concern. They would argue that India’s self-absorption is justified because no other country would spare any thought for India. The Narendra Modi government has latched on to this principle and it has raised navel-gazing into a supreme art.
The question, however, is this: What should India be doing as a middle-rung world leader? Should it be doing more than uttering platitudes on diplomacy and dialogue as the only way out of the war in Ukraine, or should it take initiative, suggest a concrete plan, either at the United Nations or at the G-20 meeting next month? The efforts may come to nought as was seen when Mr Macron, and then Chancellor Scholtz, travelled to Moscow. Even unwilling leaders like the German Chancellor and the French President would be compelled to join the others in a war against Russia. It is true that neither Russia nor Ukraine, along with the rest of the Nato and EU countries, are ever going to accept the presence of UN peacekeeping forces as it would have been in Africa and Asia. Should India and Mr Modi speak up about the dangers of expanding Nato eastwards, even if it means the Nato members would not like it. But it would have given India the room to tell Russia to refrain from wanton killing and destruction in Ukraine. That would have meant India would be able to speak truth to power. But then, the truth has no place in realpolitik.
Warriors of the Indian armed forces, past or present, tend to take its unique value system for granted. Little is it realised how ignorant and impervious the majority of the public is, which knows very little about all this. This value system is imbibed by one and all among those who wear the uniform. Different aspects contribute to the value system; there is basic discipline, unquestioning attitude towards orders and the willingness to defend the honour of the nation and the cap badge that warriors adorn on their embellishments. The spirit of pluralism that prevails at every level of the warrior community is one of the most valuable of these aspects. In the armed forces, no one looks at your faith, caste or ethnicity. It’s immaterial whether you are a part of a mixed or a single class entity, or from which faith or region you hail. The only thing important is that you are serving the regiment you belong to and the nation. This is such an important quality of our armed forces that it’s a pity that a large segment of the Indian public is unaware of something that should make them all proud. The principle of unity in diversity, one of the most beautiful of India’s characteristics, is best epitomised by its warriors.
For officers, there is a very simple saying — “the faith of the officer is the faith that his jawans follow”. This is something quite alien to all those outside the forces. Many do not realise that I, as a Muslim, will follow every ritual of my troops, who are all Hindu. My troops have equal respect for my faith, and will go to great lengths to ensure that every sensitivity of mine is respected, just like I respect theirs.
It is sometimes amazing how much the troops know about faiths other than their own, without any formal instruction. In a profession where life and death are based upon the trust and faith between the leader and the led, there is little scope for choice of spirituality. All along the Line of Control troops following different faiths ensure they maintain and respect the hundreds of Pir Babas related to the Sufi faith. As an unwritten rule, no warrior consumes non-vegetarian fare or liquor on Thursdays, which has been designated as Pir Baba day by no order or edict. It does not need a Sufi cleric to say the prayers if you happen to visit a Sufi shrine in the precincts of an Army post or even in a garrison. Every soldier is a cleric and the unit religious teacher (RT) will happily lead the prayers and distribute the “prasad” (it’s actually called “prasad”, and why shouldn’t it?). I never tire of relating that my parents, in their time, and my wife and I in ours, inevitably led the “pooja” of my parental unit, comprising the most devout Hindus from Uttarakhand, men of the Garhwal Rifles. I made the pilgrimage to Badrinath many times, but also necessarily out of compulsion as the head of the regiment in senior ranks. That is because Badri Vishal, the personification of Lord Vishnu, happens to be our presiding deity. My men and I went into every operation with the name of Badri Vishal on our lips and, when necessary, screaming our war cry — “Bol Badri Vishal Ki Jai” (victory to the followers of Lord Vishnu). Could I be less of a Muslim by being also a follower of Lord Vishnu? That is nothing unique because officers belonging to faiths other than Muslim who command Muslim sub-units in the Grenadiers, Rajputana Rifles or the Rajput Regiment always ensure they keep all “rozas” through the period of Ramzan, and even say their prayers with the troops five times a day.
Young officers of all regiments visit their recruiting areas to learn of the culture of the region from where their men hail, thus imbibing details from every practical angle.
None of this appears to be known to ordinary citizens in India because the armed forces remain isolated in their own unique culture and never wish to be affected by much of the negativity that is prevailing outside. Little wonder then that when the customary “iftar” function is held in Jammu and Kashmir and the Army plays host to some local people, there are objections posted all over by the owner of a right-wing extremist television channel. Ordinarily, the Army would ignore it as just another shenanigan. This time, its Jammu-based PRO, unlettered in the ways of the social media, decided to take down the photographs which he had rightly posted to showcase the Army’s unique inclusive culture and respect for local customs. Taking down a social media post is akin to endorsing the viewpoint of those who had objected to its contents. That is where the controversy started. Many vouched for the Army’s culture but equally many questioned the need for the Army to hold such events. Thankfully, we have an Army which does not wilt. In less than 48 hours, it posted a photograph of the Chinar Corps commander (an appointment which I once held very proudly) saying the traditional Id prayers at the JAK LI Regimental Centre’s Mandir-Masjid-Gurdwara (commonly called MMG) in the company of officers of different faiths. That is a unique institution where a Sikh granthi may lead the namaz or the prarthna, with total approval of all. The photograph went viral and helped expose the Army’s truly inclusive culture. To the question why an iftar was organised for the locals, there is a simple answer. It’s not for nothing that the Army follows the principles of Military Civic Action and pursues Operation Sadbhavna (goodwill) in all border areas affected by irregular threats. Let everyone understand that the centre of gravity of CI/CT campaigns is always the people of that geographic sub-region; anything and everything done to win their hearts and minds contributes to the Army’s overall intent of neutralising enemy propaganda and keeping the people strongly on our side. Success in this does not come easy, but then success in anything the Army pursues does not come easy. It does, however, expect the people of the nation to support those efforts.
Its own unique inclusive culture is a natural bond with local people. However, the people in the rest of the nation can surely understand this better and not work against the intent of what their Army is pursuing with such passion and heart. Unity never hurts a nation; that is what your Army is pursuing and truly showing the way.
After Sunday’s air shocker, when a SpiceJet-operated aircraft — a Boeing 737-800 which had on board 189 passengers — besides six staffers including two pilots and four cabin crew members — encountered severe turbulence that led to grievous injuries, India must comprehensively review its entire civil aviation industry beyond the mandatory ongoing investigation by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
The flight, which took off from Mumbai and was bound for Durgapur, West Bengal, met with severe turbulence, which is not a rare possibility while flying. Turbulence is a risk that comes with the turf and can be written off, but what is problematic is that, as per the initial report of the DGCA, there were too many instances of neglect in maintenance as well as slack on part of the employees.
As the plane suffered mid-air shock with dynamic G-forces acting on the craft, airspeed fell and rose dramatically, throwing the people aboard up and down, during which time, the autopilot got disengaged, leaving the skilled alert pilots no option but to manually control the flight.
After enduring the zero-gravity situation mid-air, the plane landed safely, which left two passengers with injuries serious enough to put them in the ICU. Twelve other passengers were hurt, too, besides three among the cabin crew.
Passenger videos that have gone viral show how, during the landing, malfunctioning baggage compartments fell open and the plane’s floor was seen strewn with stuff. Oxygen panels, too, opened up and masks popped out. An overhead decorative panel was found broken, some of the hand rests of seats broke off, and the food gallery was shattered and opened up.
The DGCA made its report after carrying out a mandatory regulatory inspection and ordered the de-rostering of the involved crew, two SpiceJet employees from the maintenance department, for allowing the plane to move from Durgapur to Kolkata before a formal inquiry. A detailed probe will follow. The aircraft, too, has been grounded.
While India’s aviation industry is rebounding after over two years of immense angst due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with reports indicating that nearly 84 million passengers used domestic flights last year and that over 12 million flew in the month of December, its overall functioning leaves much to be desired in terms of birthing the larger vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who aims to make flying an accessible mode of travel for most Indians and wishes to harness the potential for fast growth of the sector.
The civil aviation sector, with a Jyotiraditya Scindia as its ministerial head, can be rebooted to make it a flagship of the economy. The industry immediately needs a customer-complaint and service levels managing and enforcing ombudsman on lines similar to the banking, insurance or telecom sectors.
Pricing — from tickets to food to cancellation charges — while best left to the market for their regulation — needs a slight supervision in order to ensure there is no whimsical overcharging or presence of unfair trade practices. Changes in rules and processes, too, need to be communicated with passengers with special care for the old, less tech-friendly and less literate. A citizen’s audit panel can be created to comprehensively review all processes and touch points — online and offline — so that benchmarks can be set and adhered to. Penalties for airlines from failing to stick to airport service level agreements (SLAs) must be entertained quickly and disposed of fairly, and the entire process of navigating airports must be made reasonably uniform.
All this must be done, and can be done, and if done well, the Indian economy would truly reach the skies, with no mid-air shocks to suffer along the way.
The unanimous resolution of the Tamil Nadu Assembly seeking the permission of the Union government to allow it to deliver humanitarian help in the form of food and medicine to crisis-ridden Sri Lanka and the proactive position of the government promptly allowing it could write a new chapter in the history of friendship between the two neighbouring nations.
While moving the resolution last week, which was supported by all parties in the House, Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin had said 40,000 tonnes of rice, 500 tonnes of milk powder and 137 boxes of medicines would be sent as the first installment to the island nation through the Indian High Commission. The chief minister had also revealed that, when he wanted to send relief to the Tamils, many Tamil leaders and groups there had told him not to differentiate between the people on linguistic lines as the whole of Sri Lanka was suffering due to the economic crisis there.
As it is being worked out, the Tamil Nadu government will now coordinate with the Union government as the Sri Lankan government accepts inclusive relief on a government-to-government basis. The government of Sri Lanka will distribute the material “appropriately in the current circumstances”, as per the ministry of external affairs.
India, and Tamil Nadu specifically, share historic ties with Sri Lanka but it is a fact that the people of Tamil Nadu have many a grievance against their neighbour across the Palk Strait: they had to watch helplessly the genocide of their brethren by the government there; the authorities there show no sympathy towards the fishermen from the state when they are caught while inadvertently crossing the border. But none of them has ever come in the way of extending a hand in the hour of extreme crisis there.