Continued ….

 

Comparison with 2017 report

• The 2019 survey has found an increase of 5,188 sq km in total forest and tree cover in the country.
• Tree and forest cover together made up 24.56% (8,07,276 sq km) of India’s area. In the last assessment it was 24.39%.
• The nation’s tree and forest cover has largely hovered from 21-25% and is short of the National Forest Policy, 1988, which envisages 33% to be under such cover.
• Mangrove cover in the country has increased by 54 sq km (1.10%) as compared to the previous assessment.

Various factors attributed to the increasing trend

The increasing trend of forest cover is largely due to the various national policies aimed at Conservation and sustainable management of our forests. Few of them are:

Green India Mission: It has the broad objective of both increasing the forest and tree cover by  5 million ha,  as well as increasing the quality of the existing forest and tree cover in another 5 million ha of forest/ non forest lands in 10 years.

PM Ujjwala Yojana: In India 67 per cent of the rural households depend on firewood for cooking.In order to address this problem, the Ujjwala scheme provides free LPG connections to BPL families in remote rural areas.

National Agroforestry Policy (NAP): A dynamic ecologically based concept which integrates woody perennials in the agricultural landscape diversifies and sustains production.

 REDD+ policy:  Its objective is to mitigate climate change through reducing net emissions of greenhouse gases through enhanced forest management in developing countries.

Joint forest management (JFM): It is the concept of developing relationships between fringe forest groups and forest department on the basis of mutual trust and jointly defined roles and responsibilities for forest protection and development.

National Afforestation Programme: It provides support, both in physical and capacity building terms, to the Forest Development Agencies (FDAs) which in turn are the main organs to move forward institutionalization of Joint Forest Management.

CAMPA: Funds under Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) has proved instrumental in compensating forest land diverted for non-forest purpose which would mitigate impact of diversion of such forest land.

Critical evaluation of the report

• The latest report should seem heartening given, today this stands at 7.12 lakh sq km, up from 6.7 lakh sq km in 2005—that too, in the face of development needs compelling the diversion of forest land.
• The depletion in the northeastern states forest cover is worrying given these are very old forests, and have greater carbon sequestration capacity.
• The rapid increase in forest cover, especially with a fair share of the gain being concentrated in the dense forests category (canopy density higher than 40%), is likely rooted in two factors.

Flaws with the satellite imaging

• The Forest Survey of India has been using better satellite imagery with a 1:50,000 scale, compared to the 1:250,000 scale earlier.
• This means any area, even as small as 0.01 sq km, with a canopy density of more than 10% is captured as a forest; the earlier resolution meant land units under 0.25 sq km didn’t get captured as forest.
• Thus, land that has been denuded of forest cover but did not get recorded as forest earlier because it fell below the 0.25 sq km threshold now figures in the ISFR as a “gain” in forest cover.

Canopy as a basis of identification

• The tree canopy basis of identification doesn’t differentiate between natural forests, plantations, orchards, or even palm groves.
• This means the loss in diversity doesn’t get captured by the data.
• Thus, the growth in forest-cover could be attributed to fast-growing plantation trees like eucalyptus that are favoured in compensatory afforestation programmes.

Accounting plantation

• ISFR 2019, for the first time ever, gives data for forest diversity.
• The ‘plantations/trees outside forests’ already account for nearly 9% of the total area under forests—making plantations the fourth largest group.
• Some of these are fast-growing species such as bamboo in the north-eastern region and also rubber and coconut plantations in the southern states.
• Monoculture practices cannot substitute natural forests in biodiversity or ecological services.

Less realistic data

• The last two decades have been almost drought for Andhra Pradesh, and 60% of Karnataka reeled under drought in 9-11 years between 2001 and 2015.
• It is hard to see how the two states have performed so well in increasing forest cover.

Conclusion

• Where forest cover is concerned, India has set itself a target that needs a much higher rate of afforestation in the coming years than the current one of 35 million tonnes per year carbon dioxide equivalent.
• Even though a progress has been made in increasing the green cover over the past few years, India is still quite far from achieving its target of 33 per cent of the total geographical area by 2030.
• India has committed to the UNFCCC as part of its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) that, besides reducing emission intensity of its GDP by 33-35 per cent by 2030.
• The forest data needs to reflect more of the ground reality instead of becoming a tool to lull the country into inaction on forests.

 

 

---

---

References

https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/india-state-of-forest-report-isfr/

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/total-tree-forest-cover-in-country-increases-by-5188-sq-km-forest-report/article30431835.ece

https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/indias-forest-cover-growing-isfr-data-masking-harsher-on-ground-realities/1809920/

https://swachhindia.ndtv.com/tree-plantation-while-green-cover-in-india-has-increased-existing-forests-are-thining-india-state-of-forest-report-2019-40722/

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/specials/clean-tech/time-to-step-up-forest-cover-pace/article30445513.ece

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/one-fifth-of-countrys-forests-prone-to-fires-study/article30446295.ece

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330222412_Potential_of_Short_Rotation_Forestry_and_Agroforestry_for_Climate_Change_Mitigation_and_Sustainability 

Context

• Forests play an extremely important role in ensuring ecological balance and existence of life on the earth.
• However, rampant cutting of trees and thinning of forests has been taking place in the country due to activities related to development and infrastructure building, emphasise the environmental experts.
• Thus, in a bid to keep up the pace of conservation of forests amidst developmental activities, the Forest Survey of India (FSI), an organisation under MoEFCC started monitoring forest cover in 1987.
• Under the same initiative, FSI released its biennial assessment report, India State of Forest Report 2019.

 India State of Forest Report (ISFR)

• The ISFR is a biennial report published by the Forest Survey of India (FSI).
• FSI has been mandated to assess the forest and tree resources of the country including wall-to-wall forest cover mapping in a biennial cycle.
• Starting 1987, 16 assessments have been completed so far. ISFR 2019 is the 16th report in the series.

Highlights of the report

• In the present assessment, the total forest and tree cover of the country is 80.73 million hectare which is 24.56 per cent of the geographical area of the country.
• As compared to the assessment of 2017, there is an increase of 5,188 sq. km in the total forest and tree cover of the country.
• Out of this, the increase in the forest cover has been observed as 3,976 sq km and that in tree cover is 1,212 sq. km.
• Range increase in forest cover has been observed in open forest followed by very dense forest and moderately dense forest.
• The top three states showing increase in forest cover are Karnataka (1,025 sq. km) followed by Andhra Pradesh (990 sq km) and Kerala (823 sq km).

Some Major Findings

• Area-wise Madhya Pradesh has the largest forest cover in the country followed by Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Maharashtra.
• In terms of forest cover as percentage of total geographical area, the top five States are Mizoram (85.41%), Arunachal Pradesh (79.63%), Meghalaya (76.33%), Manipur (75.46%) and Nagaland (75.31%).

Increase in the tree cover

• Tree cover comprises of tree patches of size less than 1 hectare occurring outside the recorded forest area.
• The tree cover of the country is estimated as 95,027 sq km which is 2.89% of the geographical area.
• Maharashtra has had the highest increase in tree cover and a large part of that is due to horticulture.

Forest Cover in Tribal Districts

• The total forest cover in the tribal districts is 4,22,351 sq km, which is 37.54% of the geographical area of these districts.
• There has been a decrease of 741 sq km of forest cover within the Recorded Forest Area/ Green Wash (RFA/GW) in the tribal districts and an increase of 1,922 sq km outside.
• There has been a decline in tree cover inside forests due to tribal populations getting “land titles” (patta) and there has been a rise in trees outside the forest area due to an increase in tree plantation and afforestation.

Mangroves

• Mangrove cover has been separately reported in the ISFR 2019 and the total mangrove cover in the country is 4,975 sq km.
• An increase of 54 sq Km in mangrove cover has been observed as compared to the previous assessment of 2017.
• Top three states showing mangrove cover increase are Gujarat (37 sq km) followed by Maharashtra (16 sq km) and Odisha (8 sq km).

Bamboo

• The extent of bamboo bearing area of the country has been estimated 16.00 million hectare.
• There is an increase of 0.32 million hectare in bamboo bearing area as compared to the last assessment of ISFR 2017.

Wetlands

• Wetlands within forest areas form important ecosystems and add richness to the biodiversity in forest areas, both of faunal and floral species.
• Due to importance of wetlands, FSI has carried out an exercise at the national level to identify wetlands of more than 1 ha within RFA.
• There are 62,466 wetlands covering 3.8% of the area within the RFA/GW of the country.

Carbon Stock

• Under the current assessment the total carbon stock in country’s forest is estimated 7,124.6 million tonnes.
• There an increase of 42.6 million tonnes in the carbon stock of country as compared to the last assessment of 2017.
• The annual increase in the carbon stock is 21.3 million tonnes, which is 78.2 million tonnes CO2 eq.

Decline of Forest Cover in North Eastern

• Total forest cover in the North Eastern region is 1,70,541 sq km, which is 65.05% of its geographical area.
• There has been a decrease of forest cover to the extent of 765 sq km (0.45%) in the region.
• Except Assam and Tripura, all the States in the region show decrease in forest cover.

Forest Fires

• About 21.40% of forest cover in India is prone to fires, with forests in the north-eastern region and central India being the most vulnerable a/c to the report.
• The forest fire points (FFP) identified during the 13 years add up to 2,77,758.
• They were analysed using a moderate resolution imaging spectro-radiometer (MODIS) by overlaying the points coverage over the grid coverage of 5 km x 5 km.
• The analysis showed that extremely fire-prone areas account for 3.89% of total forest cover, very highly fire-prone areas account for 6.01% and highly fire-prone areas for 11.50%.
• Together, the three categories come to 21.40 % of forest cover.

 

to be continued …….

Note: Part-II of the same Burning Issue will be published by 20:00 hrs.

---

Context

• The Anti-Maritime Piracy Bill, 2019 was introduced in Lok Sabha by the Ministry of External Affairs, Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar this month.
• The Bill provides for prevention of maritime piracy and prosecution of persons for such piracy-related crimes. 
• It provides for stringent punishment, including the death penalty, for those involved in piracy at sea.

Why need such a Bill?

• The introduction of the bill comes days after some 18 Indians aboard a crude oil carrier were kidnapped off the coast of Nigeria.
• India is still negotiating the release of its nationals.
• At present, India does not have a separate legislation dealing in piracy, despite the fact that many Indian nationals fall prey to the menace.
• The provisions of the IPC pertaining to armed robbery and the admiralty jurisdiction of certain courts have been invoked in the past to prosecute pirates apprehended by the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard, it adds.
• But in the absence of any specific law relating to the offence of maritime piracy in India, problems are being faced in ensuring effective prosecution of the pirates.
• The Anti-Maritime Piracy Bill 2019 is aimed at promoting the safety and security of India’s maritime trade, and the safety of its crew members.
• The government’s aim in drafting the proposed legislation was to keep up with India’s commitment to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which concluded in 1982.
• India had ratified the UNCLOS in 1995.

About UNCLOS:

• The Law of the Sea Treaty formally known as the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was adopted in 1982 at Montego Bay, Jamaica.It entered into force in 1994.
• The convention establishes a comprehensive set of rules governing the oceans and to replace previous U.N. Conventions on the Law of the Sea
• The convention defines distance of 12 nautical miles from the baseline as Territorial Sea limit and a distance of 200 nautical miles distance as Exclusive Economic Zone limit.

Impact of Maritime Piracy

• In recent years, thousands of seafarers have been killed, injured, assaulted, taken hostage or threatened as piracy and armed robbery have increased dramatically.
• Attacks which previously were limited to Nigerian and Somali coastal waters have now expanded eastwards, across the Indian Ocean.

Seafarers

• Seafarers are on the frontline of the piracy problem.
• All seafarers transiting the Gulf of Aden and Northern Indian Ocean, have to live with the risk of attack.
• When ships are attacked by pirates, crews suffer the stress of being fired upon with guns and rocket-propelled grenades and those captured can be held hostage for months. F
• a piracy attack those involved can be seriously affected by post-traumatic stress.

Shipping Industry

• For the shipping industry, costs are soaring.
• Operators now face rising insurance premiums for a high-risk area that now covers most of the Indian Ocean and one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
• Other costs include installing preventative measures and protection on board, employing private security personnel, as well as ransom payments.

Economic Impact

• Impact of sea piracy on economic activities is wider.
• Shipowners are finding it increasingly hard to justify putting seafarers at risk.
• They are also struggling to find crews that are willing to transit the area.
• As the situation worsens a blockade of the area becomes more likely. This would add several days to most voyages, would push up transport costs, would see oil prices skyrocket and would have a huge impact on the world economy.
• If the attacks move further into the Gulf, oil supplies worldwide may be severely affected.

Key features of the Bill include

Defining Piracy

• The Bill defines piracy as any illegal act of violence, detention, or destruction committed against a ship, aircraft, person or property, for private purposes, by the crew or passengers of a private ship or aircraft. 
• Such acts may be carried out on the high seas or in any place outside the jurisdiction of India.  Inciting or intentionally facilitating such acts would also qualify as piracy. 
• Piracy also includes voluntary participation in the operations of a pirate ship or aircraft. It also includes any other act that is considered piracy under international law.
• This includes a ship or aircraft which is either:

1. intended to be used for committing any act of piracy, or
2. has been used to commit an act of piracy, and is still under the control of the persons guilty of such act. 

Applicability of the Bill

• The Bill will apply to all parts of the sea adjacent to and beyond the limits of the Exclusive Economic Zone of India. 
• Exclusive Economic Zone refers to the area of sea to which India has exclusive rights for economic activities.

Offences and penalties

• An act of piracy will be punishable with: (i) imprisonment for life; or (ii) death, if the act of piracy includes attempted murder, or causes death. 
• An attempt to commit, aid, abet, or procure for an act of piracy, or directing others to participate in an act of piracy will be punishable with up to 14 years of imprisonment, and a fine.  
• Offences will be considered extraditable.  This means that the accused can be transferred to any country for prosecution with which India has signed an extradition treaty.  
• In the absence of such treaties, offences will be extraditable on the basis of reciprocity between the countries.

Arrest and seizure

• A ship or aircraft under the control of pirates may be seized, persons aboard may be arrested, and the property on board may also be seized. 
• The seizure may be carried out only by:

1. a warship or military aircraft of the Indian Navy,
2. a ship or aircraft of the India Coast Guard, or
3. ships or aircraft on government service, and authorised for such purpose.

Designated Court

• The central government, in consultation with the Chief Justice of the concerned High Court, may notify the Sessions Courts to be the Designated Courts under this Bill. 
• It may also notify the territorial jurisdiction of each Designated Court.

Jurisdiction of the Court

• The Designated Court will try offences committed by:

1. a person in the custody of the Indian Navy or Coast Guard, regardless of his nationality,
2. a citizen of India, a resident foreign nationals in India, or a stateless person. 

• Further, the Court may try a person even if the person is not physically present in the Court. 
• The Court will not have jurisdiction over offences committed on a foreign ship unless an intervention is requested by:

1. the country of origin of the ship,
2. the shipowner, or
3. any other person on the ship.

• Warships and government ships employed for non-commercial purposes will not be under the jurisdiction of the Court.

Presumption of guilt

The presumption of guilt will be on the accused if:

1. the accused is in possession of arms, explosives and other equipment which were used or intended for use in committing the offence,
2. there is evidence of use of force against the ship’s crew or passengers, and
3. there is evidence of the intended use of bombs and arms against the crew, passengers or cargo of a ship.

It was very important to have a domestic anti-piracy legislation to provide the necessary legal framework within the country for the prosecution of those involved in piracy-related crimes and the bill is the right move in the direction.

 

---

---

References:

http://prsindia.org/billtrack/anti-maritime-piracy-bill-2019

https://www.livemint.com/news/india/anti-maritime-piracy-bill-introduced-in-lok-sabha-11575893586086.html

---

Context

• The 25th annual talks under the UNFCCC referred to as the Conference of Parties (COP) ended in Madrid.
• The countries party to the Paris Agreement failed to agree on various important aspects regarding climate change like:
  • rules and procedures to govern a global carbon market
  • finance for losses caused by extreme weather events
  • on meeting the commitments made before the agreement and on raising their ambitions.
• This two weeks of negotiations in the longest COP ever hence is regarded as a spectacular failure.

What was the agenda set for Madrid COP?

• There was only one major agenda for the Madrid talks to negotiate and decide — the rules for a new carbon market to be set up under the Paris Agreement.
• That would have completed the Paris Agreement rulebook that was finalized in Katowice in 2018, without the provisions related to carbon markets on which countries had major disagreements.
• Two other issues came to dominate the discussions were:

1. First, relating to the demand to enhance climate actions being currently taken, and;
2. Second, to make developed countries accountable to their climate obligations in the pre-2020 period

What did India pursue?

• India played a mixed role. It demanded the carryover of the untraded emission reduction certificates held by Indian companies (estimated at 750 million Certified Emissions Reductions or CERs), which they can sell to raise funds.
• On the question of ‘loss and damage’, India urged developed countries to give financial teeth to the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage (WIM).
• India’s current efforts are already much more compared to even rich and developed countries. Thus, India reiterated its stand for ”Common but Differentiated Responsibilities”.
• India played a strong role in critiquing the developed world’s continuing poor record on climate action.
• India also took a lead in calling for more finance for developing countries for climate action, with the minister emphasizing that “not even 2 per cent” of the promised “$1 trillion in the last 10 years” had been delivered.

Outcomes: An incompetent agreement

• The first draft of the agreement had these options but was heavily bracketed — each bracket representing a difference of opinion and different option on the table.
• The revised draft was put before the negotiators on, many of the earlier options had been removed. This triggered angry reactions from whoever was backing those.
• The European Union, Spain, Bangladesh, Belize, Colombia, Grenada and many others pointed out that the draft text did not strongly ask the countries to raise the “ambition”.

Lack of ambition

• This was supposed to be a COP of ambition. However, these ambitions were reflected in nowhere.
• Countries such as India and China lamented the fact that a provision on creating a work programme to assess the performance of developed countries on their pre-2020 promises had been dropped.
• The problems we are facing today are not because of lack of intent but because of lack of implementation which is very glaringly visible in the unmet pre-2020 targets.

The US deviance

• China had already made it clear that strong provisions on the assessment of pre-2020 actions was “very important for all developing countries”, and needed to be strongly reflected in the final agreement.
• The United States strongly objected to even a mention of assessment of pre-2020 actions and demanded that it be removed.

Carbon Markets ignored yet again

• While all this was being discussed, the draft text on carbon markets had not even been finalised.
• The provisions related to carbon markets have been deeply contested with India, Brazil, China and some other developing countries.

The most contested issue: Article 6

• Ahead of COP25, many expected a key focus to be agreeing rules for “Article 6” carbon markets and other forms of international cooperation.
• This deals with the question of how to deal with billions of Kyoto-era carbon offset “units”, potentially amounting to more than five billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent.
• These units were mostly generated under the Clean Development Mechanism, where projects in developing countries created “certified emissions reductions” (CERs) in the developing world.
• This was the last remaining piece of the Paris regime to be resolved after the rest of its “rulebook” was agreed in late 2018.

What is it all about?

• Article 6 contains three separate mechanisms for “voluntary cooperation” towards climate goals, with the overarching aim of raising ambition.
• Article 6.2 governs bilateral cooperation via “internationally traded mitigation outcomes” (so-called ITMOs), which could include emissions cuts measured in tonnes of CO2 or kilowatt-hours of renewable electricity.
• If these rules are well-implemented, supporters argue that Article 6 could unlock higher ambition or reduce costs, while drawing in the private sector and spreading finance, technology and expertise around the world.

‘OMGE’ for net climate benefits

• The final major area of Article 6 disagreement was around the idea of securing “overall mitigation in global emissions” (OMGE), a concept introduced in the Paris text for Article 6.4.
• OMGE is supposed to ensure a net-benefit for the atmosphere, rather than a zero-sum outcome where emissions in one place are offset by reductions elsewhere.
• Some groups argued that the only way to achieve OMGE was to automatically cancel a portion of any offsets created under Article 6.
• They argued that applying this cancellation would create an imbalance that could skew the market.

Few successes to count

Finance

• While the main financial matter being discussed at this year’s COP was how to support countries affected by extreme climate impacts, the usual standing items were also being considered.
• Both the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) guidance documents were caught up in the debate around whether to instruct them to start working more specifically on loss and damage.
• There was also some discussion about the creation of a new climate finance goal, now that the deadline for “$100bn by 2020” (agreed in 2009 at the Copenhagen COP) is almost up.
• Another issue being considered was long-term climate finance (LTF), a workstream that examines progress and scaling up of climate finance, but which is due to end in 2020.

Gender action plan

• A rare success story at this year’s COP was a decision on a new five-year gender action plan (GAP), intended to “support the implementation of gender-related decisions and mandates in the UNFCCC process”.
• The original plan, agreed at COP20 in Lima, “seeks to advance women’s full, equal and meaningful participation and promote gender-responsive climate policy and the mainstreaming of a gender perspective”.
• Early negotiations did not go smoothly. Parties initially failed to deliver a text for consideration, owing in part to disagreements about the inclusion of text relating to human rights and just transition.

What is sought next?

• A number of countries — mainly the ones most threatened by climate change, such as small island states, some developed countries and civil society organisations — had been demanding that countries take more climate actions.
• They called upon all the countries to update their climate action plans, called Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs, with greater commitments by next year.

Conclusion

• The Madrid talks were expected to nudge all countries to scale up their commitments under the Paris Pact — Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs.
• The developed countries including the EU and US were, however, non-committal when it came to honouring their previous pledges on funds and technology transfers to the developing countries.
• CoP 25 was an opportunity to answer the questions that have been raised over the UNFCCC’s processes.
• Unfortunately, the two weeks of negotiations have been an opportunity lost.

 

---

---

References

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/united-nations-climate-change-conference-cop25-madrid-6170239/

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/cop-25-climate-change-talks-in-madrid-6170500/

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/climate-change/climate-emergency-cop-25-india-s-mixed-role-68449

https://thewire.in/environment/developed-world-sabotages-un-climate-summit-now-declared-a-failure

Context

• The Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) became law after receiving the President’s assent following a bruising debate in Parliament.
• Since then, Assam has been in the throes of violence with its capital under indefinite curfew, and Army and paramilitary columns rolling across multiple towns.
• The protest has also rocked various colleges and university campuses across the nation along with protests in Delhi. Civil society, students and various political parties have opposed the law on various grounds.
• At least three opposition ruled states Kerala, Punjab and West Bengal have said they will not implement the new citizenship law and legal challenges have been made in the Supreme Court.

What is the Citizenship (Amendment) Act?

• The act is sought to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955 to make Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian illegal migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, eligible for citizenship of India.
• In other words, it intends to make it easier for non-Muslim immigrants from India’s three Muslim-majority neighbours to become citizens of India.
• Under The Citizenship Act, 1955, one of the requirements for citizenship by naturalization is that the applicant must have resided in India during the last 12 months, as well as for 11 of the previous 14 years.
• The amendment relaxes the second requirement from 11 years to 6 years as a specific condition for applicants belonging to these six religions, and the aforementioned three countries.

Defining Illegal migrants

• Illegal migrants cannot become Indian citizens in accordance with the present laws.
• Under the Act, an illegal migrant is a foreigner who: (i) enters the country without valid travel documents like a passport and visa, or (ii) enters with valid documents, but stays beyond the permitted time period.
• Illegal migrants may be put in jail or deported under the Foreigners Act, 1946 and The Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920.
• The Bill provides that illegal migrants who fulfil four conditions will not be treated as illegal migrants under the Act.  The conditions are:

1. they are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis or Christians;
2. they are from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan;
3. they entered India on or before December 31, 2014;
4. they are not in certain tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, or Tripura included in the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution, or areas under the “Inner Line” permit, i.e., Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Nagaland.

How many people could now be given Indian citizenship under the new law?

• As of December 31, 2014, the government had identified 2, 89,394 “stateless persons in India”, according to data presented in Parliament by the Home Ministry in 2016.
• The majority were from Bangladesh (1,03,817) and Sri Lanka (1,02,467), followed by Tibet (58,155), Myanmar (12,434), Pakistan (8,799) and Afghanistan (3,469).
• The figures are for stateless persons of all religions. For those who came after December 31, 2014, the regular route of seeking refuge in India will apply.
• If they are regarded as illegal immigrants, they cannot apply for citizenship through naturalization, irrespective of religion.

States exempted from the Act

• Citizenship, aliens and naturalization are subjects listed in List 1 of the Seventh Schedule and fall exclusively under the domain of Parliament.
• Most states of the Northeast are, however, wholly or partially exempted under special provisions for tribal areas, such as Inner Line Permit (Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram and now extended to Manipur) and the Sixth Schedule with special provisions in practically all of Meghalaya, and a large chunk of Tripura.

Are the communities mentioned indeed persecuted in these three countries?

• The MHA relied on news reports as evidence of religious persecution against minorities in Pakistan, ranging from forced conversion to the demolition of temples and other religious structures.
• Notable examples were Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian convicted of blasphemy who spent eight years on death row before being acquitted by the Pakistan Supreme Court.
• In Bangladesh, cases of killings of atheists by Islamic militants are well-documented.
• Although Home Minister referred to non-Muslim religions as persecuted minorities, the law avoids using the word persecution in its text.

Controversy with the Act

• There are two kinds of protests that are taking place across India right now, against the Act. In the northeast, the protest is against the Act’s implementation in their areas.
• Most of them fear that if implemented, the Act will cause a rush of immigrants that may alter their demographic and linguistic uniqueness.
• In the rest of India, like in Kerala, West Bengal and in Delhi, people are protesting against the exclusion of Muslims, alleging it to be against the ethos of the Constitution.
• The fundamental criticism of the Bill has been that it specifically targets Muslims. Critics argue that it is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to equality.

I. Country of origin

• The Act classifies migrants based on their country of origin to include only Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
• The statement of objects and reasons states that India has had historic migration of people with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and these countries have a state religion, which has resulted in religious persecution of minority groups.

II. Deviation from its own purpose

• Given that the objective of the Bill is to provide citizenship to migrants escaping from religious persecution, it is not clear why illegal migrants belonging to religious minorities from these countries have been excluded from the Bill.
• India shares a border with Myanmar, which has had a history of persecution of a religious minority, the Rohingya Muslims.
• Sri Lanka has had a history of persecution of a linguistic minority in the country, the Tamil Eelam.

III. Other religious minorities are ignored

• It is unclear why illegal migrants from only six specified religious minorities have been included in the Act.
• For example, over the years, there have been reports of persecution of Ahmadiyya Muslims who are considered non-Muslims in Pakistan have significant population in India.

IV. Date of Entry

• It is also unclear why there is a differential treatment of migrants based on their date of entry into India, i.e., whether they entered India before or after December 31, 2014.
• The logic justifying the date has not been discussed while passing of the said act.

V. Exclusion of Sixth Schedule Areas

• The act excludes illegal migrants residing in areas covered by the Sixth Schedule, that is, notified tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura.
• The act so excludes the Inner Line Permit areas. Inner Line regulates the entry of persons, including Indian citizens, into Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland.
• Once an illegal migrant residing in these areas acquires citizenship, he would be subject to the same restrictions in these areas, as are applicable to other Indian citizens.
• Therefore, it is unclear why the Bill excludes illegal migrants residing in these areas.

Assam Connection

Why is Assam fuming with protests?

• In Assam, what is primarily driving the protests is not who are excluded from the ambit of the new law, but how many are included.
• The protesters are worried about the prospect of the arrival of more migrants, irrespective of religion, in a state whose demography and politics have been defined by migration.
• The Assam Movement (1979-85) was built around migration from Bangladesh which many Assamese see as a threat to their culture and language, besides putting pressure on land resources and job opportunities.
• The protesters’ argument is that the new law violates the Assam Accord of 1985, which sets March 24, 1971, as the cutoff for Indian citizenship.
• If both CAB and the NRC will be implemented, the non-Muslims excluded under the NRC will be included under CAB.
• The net result will be that only Muslims will be identified as illegal migrants and excluded.
• The Assamese fear that Banglaspeakers will easily outnumber Assamese-speaking people in the state, as it has happened in Tripura where Bengali-Hindu immigrants from East Bengal now dominate political power, pushing the original tribals to the margins.
• The Assamese look at the issue from the linguistic, and not any religious angle. For them, Bengalis are one large linguistic community who are growing in numbers and could, one day, become numerically stronger than them.
• Hence, the Assamese view the CAB (Citizenship Amendment Bill) as legislation that will grant citizenship to Bengali-speaking migrants from Bangladesh. And that is something they do not want.

How much of Assam is exempted?

• In Assam, three Autonomous Districts are exempted but the new law remains applicable to the major area.
• This also raises the question: can there be two citizenship laws applicable to the same state?
• Under Clause 5.8 of the Assam Accord, “Foreigners who came to Assam on or after March 25, 1971, shall continue to be detected; deleted and practical steps shall be taken to expel such foreigners.”

Legality and constitutionality check

• Legal experts and Opposition leaders have argued that it violates the letter and spirit of the Constitution.
• One argument made in Parliament is that the law violates Article 14 that guarantees equal protection of laws.
• According to the legal test prescribed by courts, for a law to satisfy the conditions under Article 14, it has to first create a “reasonable class” of subjects that it seeks to govern under the law.
• Second, the legislation has to show a “rational nexus” between the subject and the object it seeks to achieve. Even if the classification is reasonable, any person who falls in that category has to be treated alike.
• If protecting the persecuted minorities is ostensibly the objective of the law, then the exclusions of some countries and using religion as a yardstick may fall foul of the test.

How is this act referred to here?

• Granting citizenship on the grounds of religion is seen to be against the secular nature of the Constitution which has been recognised as part of the basic structure that cannot be altered by Parliament.
• It is argued that persecuted minorities in three neighbouring countries, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, whose state religion is Islam, is a reasonable classification.
• Another argument is that the law does not account for other categories of migrants who may claim persecution in other countries.

Justification of the Law given by the Central Government

• It is argued that Muslims can never be persecuted in Islamic countries.
• Sri Lanka and Bhutan both Bhutan and Sri Lanka offer constitutional patronage to the state religion, Buddhism.
• Defending the exclusion of Shias and Ahmadiyyas from Pakistan it was argued by the government that a persecuted Shia would rather go to Iran than come to India.
• There are thousands of refugees in India of Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Christians and Parsis who have entered India after facing religious persecution in countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan without any valid document.
• These refugees have been facing difficulty in getting Long Term Visa (LTV) or Citizenship.
• For Naturalization they have to stay at least 12 years in India.
• Those minorities who are persecuted due to their religion have no other place to go except India as the three nations are declared Islamic Nations.

It excludes only “non-Indian” Muslims

• On the face of it, the amendment is not to exclude any Indian citizen. However, the NRC in Assam and the latest citizenship law cannot be decoupled.
• The new law gives a fresh chance to the Bengali Hindus left out to acquire citizenship, whereas the same benefit will not be available to a Muslim left out, who will have to fight a legal battle.
• Plugged with NRC, the new amendment becomes an enabling law to potentially disenfranchise an individual of a religion not mentioned in the amendment.
• Politically, the law is expected to impact West Bengal and Northeastern states. Assam and West Bengal head for polls in 2021.

Conclusion

• India is a constitutional democracy with a basic structure that assures a secure and spacious home for all Indians, including and especially its
• India has to undertake a balancing act here. India’s citizenship provisions are derived from the perception of the country as a secular republic.
• In fact, it is a refutation of the two-nation theory that proposed a Hindu India and a Muslim Pakistan. Granting citizenship based on religious identity violates this principle.
• That being said, we need to balance the civilization duties to protect those who are prosecuted in the neighbourhood.
• Hopefully, the government pays heed to the voices of different communities and takes an action only after a consensus is achieved.

 

---

---

References

https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/explained-nehru-liaquat-agreement-of-1950/

https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/exemption-categories-under-cab/

https://www.livemint.com/news/india/citizenship-amendment-act-2019-all-you-need-to-know-11576401546515.html

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/brute-majority-citizenship-amendment-bill-6162515/

https://www.newindianexpress.com/thesundaystandard/2019/dec/15/citizenship-act-escaping-religious-persecution-the-broken-finally-break-free-2076236.html

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-how-to-be-a-citizen-of-india-earlier-now-6165960/

http://prsindia.org/billtrack/citizenship-amendment-bill-2019

---

Context

The Parliament has passed the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2019, with the Rajya Sabha approving it by a voice vote. The Lok Sabha had already passed the bill in December 2018.

Why need such a bill?

• Transgender individuals in India often face stigma and systematic exclusion in education and employment.
• As a result, some feel they have no alternative but to turn to sex work.
• Trans individuals also face disproportionate public violence and police brutalities.

Background:

• In 2013, the government set up an expert committee to study the problems of transgenders and recommend solutions.
• The committee, comprising experts from various fields and members of the community, also looked at past experience as in the State of Tamil Nadu, which had set up a welfare board for transgender persons.
• TN has made recommendations right from allowing a ‘third gender’ in official forms, to setting up of special toilets and customizing health interventions.
• In 2014, a private member Bill, The Rights of Transgendered Persons, was introduced in the Rajya Sabha by Tiruchi Siva, a Member of Parliament from Tamil Nadu.
• It looked at a range of entitlements of such persons, providing specifically for them in health, education sectors, skill development and employment opportunities, and protection from abuse and torture.
• It was passed in the Rajya Sabha.
• In 2016, the Government introduced its own Bill in the Lok Sabha which made a number of recommendations including defining the term persons with intersex variations, granting reservations for socially and educationally backward classes, and recognition of civil rights including marriage, partnership, divorce and adoption. However, with the dissolution of the 16th Lok Sabha (2014-19), that Bill lapsed.

Judicial subordination

• Indian courts have long held that trans people deserve the government’s recognition on their own terms, without mandatory intervention or discrimination.
• In 2014, the Indian Supreme Court in NALSA v. India ruled that transgender people should be recognized as a third gender and enjoy all fundamental rights, while also being entitled to specific benefits in education and employment.
• Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan, writing for the bench, ordered that “Transgender persons’ right to decide their self-identified gender” should be recognized by state and federal authorities.
• The court made clear that any insistence for [sex reassignment surgery] for declaring one’s gender is immoral and illegal.

Transgender in India

Count

• Indian census has never recognized the third gender, i.e., transgender while collecting census data for years.
• According to the 2011 Census, the number of persons who do not identify as ‘male’ or ‘female’ but as ‘other’ stands at 4,87,803 (0.04% of the total population)
• The 2011 census also reported 55,000 children as transgenders identified by their parents.

Issues

• Sexual health issues
  • Transgender communities face several sexual health issues including HIV.
  • Both personal- and contextual- level factors influence sexual health condition and access to and use of sexual health services.
• Mental health issues
  • Some of the mental health issues reported in different community forums include depression and suicidal tendencies, possibly secondary to societal stigma, lack of social support and violence-related stress.
  • Most transgender people, especially youth, face great challenges in coming to terms with one’s own gender identity which are opposite to that of the gender identity imposed on them on the basis of their biological sex.
  • They face several other related issues such as: shame, fear, and internalized transphobia; adjusting, adapting, or not adapting to social pressure to conform; fear of loss of relationships; and self-imposed limitations on expression or aspirations.
• Violence

Multiple studies have shown that transgender people across the age spectrum face alarmingly high rates of physical and verbal violence, including child abuse, sexual violence, intimate partner violence, workplace violence and hate crimes.

• Social Exclusion

Social Exclusion Framework is increasingly used in highlighting the issues and problems faced by disadvantaged and disenfranchised groups.

• Family – Most families do not accept if their male child starts behaving in ways that are considered feminine or inappropriate to the expected gender role. Consequently, family members may threaten, scold or even assault their son/sibling from behaving or dressing-up like a girl or woman.
• Heath care Setting – Often, healthcare providers rarely had the opportunity to understand the sexual diversities and they do not have adequate knowledge about the health issues of sexual minorities.
• Lack of livelihood options – Most employers deny employment for even qualified and skilled transgender people. Lack of livelihood options is a key reason for a significant proportion of transgender people to choose or continue to be in sex work.
• Residence – The community is grossly discriminated by Indian Society when it comes to renting or selling the house to a transgender.
• Insurance – Health insurance companies often systematically exclude transition-related care and in many cases, these exclusions are used to deny coverage for a wide range of care for transgender people that may or may not have any connection to gender transition.

Various Provisions of The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2019 includes:

Defining Transperson

• The Bill defines a transgender person as one whose gender does not match the gender assigned at birth.
• It includes trans-men and trans-women, persons with intersex variations, gender-queers, and persons with socio-cultural identities, such as kinnar and hijra (eunuch).

Prohibition against discrimination

• It prohibits the discrimination against a transgender person, including denial of service or unfair treatment in relation to education, employment, healthcare, access to, or enjoyment of goods, facilities, opportunities available to the public.
• Every transgender person shall have a right to reside and be included in his household.
• No government or private entity can discriminate against a transgender person in employment matters, including recruitment, and promotion.

HRD measures

• A transgender person may make an application to the District Magistrate for a certificate of identity, indicating the gender as ‘transgender’.
• Educational institutions funded or recognised by the relevant government shall provide inclusive facilities for transgender persons, without discrimination.
• The government must provide health facilities to transgender persons including separate HIV surveillance centres, and sex reassignment surgeries.

Grievances redressal

• The National Council for Transgender persons (NCT) chaired by Union Minister for Social Justice, will advise the central government as well as monitor the impact of policies with respect to transgender persons.
• It will also redress the grievances of transgender persons.

Legal Protection

The Bill imposes penalties for the offences against transgender persons like bonded labour, denial of use of public places, removal from household & village and physical, sexual, verbal, emotional or economic abuse.

Positive Impact of the Bill:

• The Bill will benefit a large number of transgender persons, mitigate the stigma, discrimination and abuse against this marginalized section and bring them into the mainstream of society.
• This will lead to inclusiveness and will make the transgender persons productive members of society.

What were the objections to the Bill?

Binary concept of gender

• Activists had problems right from the beginning, starting with the name.
• ‘Transgender’ was restrictive, they argued, and it showed a lack of understanding of the complexities in people who do not conform to the gender binary, male/female.
• Rejecting ‘Transgender’ as the nomenclature, they suggested instead that the title should be a comprehensive “Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics (Protection of Rights) Bill”, and in definition, sought to introduce the distinction between transgender and intersex persons upfront.
• Members of the community perceive transgender as different from intersex and were insistent that the distinction be made in the Bill.

No Self-determination

• While the Act is progressive in that it allows self-perception of identity, it mandates a certificate from a district magistrate declaring the holder to be transgender.
• This goes against the principle of self-determination itself, activists argue, also pointing out that there is no room for redress in case an appeal for such a certificate is rejected.

Others

• One long-pending demand has been to declare forced, unnecessary and non-consensual sex reassignment surgery illegal, and to enforce punitive action for violations.
• Transgender and intersex persons might require a range of unique health care needs, and that should have been incorporated into the Act, activists say.
• While the Act envisages the setting up of a National Council to provide the institutional framework for its implementation, suggestions on the composition of such a council, or the demand to set up a working group for a Council for Intersex Persons were also ignored.

Way Forward: 

• The mention of intersex persons in the Indian bill is an important inclusion but the bill should be renamed the Rights of Transgender and Intersex Persons Bill and include explicit protections for intersex people in line with India’s international human rights obligations.
• The bill should be revised to emphasize training teachers to help them adopt inclusive teaching methods to ensure that children are not harassed or discriminated against by staff or other children.
• Certain provisions of Private member bill introduced in 2014 by Tiruchi Siva can also be incorporated such as reserving 2% of seats in education institutions funded by the government, formation of special employment exchanges for transgender people n government jobs, etc.
• The bill should be provisioned in such a manner that it is able to integrate transgender persons seamlessly into the fabric of everyday public life be it public spaces, at workplaces, and in normative domestic spaces.
• Policies and regulation alone won’t help there is a need to increase awareness and inculcate a sense of respect and acceptance for the transgender community.
• Their grievance of being not included in policies formulation or decision making needs to be allayed and chances for their public participation should increase.
• The government should implement stigma and discrimination reduction measures through a variety of ways like mass media awareness for the general public to focused training and sensitization for police and health care providers.
• India should take lessons from Thailand. It is one of those model countries wherein all the required facilities are being made available to the Transgender Community.
• Parents of the Transgender need to be counselled appropriately in order to treat Kinnar children at par with other normal children
• There should be a proper census of the community. The community should be involved in this exercise. For the time being, the United Nations Development Programme(UNDP has more authentic data on Transgender in India. It could be used for planning welfare schemes.
• Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment should take up research studies to generate more evidence to design the programs and interventions for the community.
• The ministry should also compile the existing experiences /interventions taken by many states like Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Sikkim, and Delhi etc.

The Bill must recognise that gender identity must go beyond biological; gender identity is an individual’s deep and personal experience. It need not correspond to the sex assigned at birth. It includes the personal sense of the body and other expressions such as one’s own personal inducing proceeds.

---

---

References

https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/parliament-passes-transgender-persons-protection-of-rights-bill-2019/

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/why-are-there-objections-to-the-transgender-persons-bill/article30125894.ece

https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/12/05/indias-transgender-rights-law-isnt-worth-celebrating

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/what-the-transgenders-rights-bill-passed-by-lok-sabha-says-5896444/

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/nartaki-nataraj-tiruchi-siva-my-gender-is-my-right-transgender-community-6144704/

---

Context

• In the biggest privatization drive, the Union Cabinet has approved sale of the government’s stake to cut shareholding in select public sector firms below 51% to boost revenue collections that have been hit by slowing economy.
• These CPSE’s include blue-chip oil firm Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) and on-land cargo mover Container Corporation of India (Concor).

Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs)

• A state-owned enterprise in India is called a public sector undertaking (PSU) or a public sector enterprise.
• These companies are owned by the union government of India or one of the many state or territorial governments or both.
• The company stock needs to be majority-owned by the government to be a PSU.
• PSUs strictly may be classified as central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) or state level public enterprises (SLPEs).
• CPSEs are companies in which the direct holding of the Central Government or other CPSEs is 51% or more.
• They are administered by the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises.

What is Disinvestment?

• Privatization involves transforming the ownership of a public sector business to the private sector known as strategic buyer.
• Disinvestment is also a transformation process that happens while retaining 26% or, in some contexts, 51% percent of share right (i.e. the voting power) with the public sector organization.
• Strategic disinvestment implies the sale of portion of the Government share holding of a central public sector enterprise (CPSE) of upto 50%, or such higher percentage as the competent authority may determine, along with transfer of management control.

Objectives of strategic disinvestment

The following main objectives of disinvestment were outlined:

• To reduce the financial burden on the Government.
• To improve public finances.
• To introduce, competition and market discipline.
• To fund growth.
• To encourage wider share of ownership.
• To depoliticize non-essential services.

When did the disinvestment process begin in India?

• The disinvestment process in India began in the year 1991-92, with 31 selected PSUs disinvested for Rs.3,038 crore.
• In August 1996, the Disinvestment Commission, chaired by G V Ramakrishna was set up to advice, supervise, monitor and publicize gradual disinvestment of Indian PSUs.

Immediate causes

• The new economic policy initiated in July 1991 clearly indicated that PSUs had shown a very negative rate of return on capital employed.
• Inefficient PSUs had become and were continuing to be a drag on the Government’s resources turning to be more of liabilities to the Government than being assets.
• In relation to the capital employed, the levels of profits were too low. Of the various factors responsible for low profits in the PSUs, the following were identified as particularly important:

1. Price policy of public sector undertakings
2. Under–utilization of capacity
3. Problems related to planning and construction of projects
4. Problems of labour, personnel and management
5. Lack of autonomy

Criterion for disinvestment

The Union Government has mandated the NITI Aayog to identify the CPSEs that require disinvestment. The NITI Aayog identifies such CPSEs based on the certain criteria laid down by the Central Government itself. The criteria are mentioned below:

• National Security
• Sovereign function at arm’s length
• Market Imperfections and Public Purpose
• Profitability or loss of the CPSEs is not considered as a relevant criterion.

 Issues with  PSUs through years

Inherent flaws in PSU’s

• Public sector undertakings were established in India as a part of mixed economy with the objective of providing necessary infrastructure for the fast growth of economy & to safeguard against monopoly of industrialist community.
• However, the entire mechanism did not turn out as efficient as it ought to be, all thanks to the prevailing hierarchy and bureaucracy.
• Inefficient PSU’s were largely responsible for the macro-economic crisis faced by India during 1980’s.

Lack of autonomy

• Lack of autonomy, political interference, nepotism & corruption has further deteriorated the situation.
• For instance, the head of a PSU is appointed by the Government, who in turn appoints all employees who play major roles in the organization.
• So directly or indirectly the Government itself controls the appointment of all manpower in these organizations.

Revenue losses

• Due to the expenditure on items such as interest payments, wages and salaries of PSU employees and subsidies, the Government is left with hardly any surplus for capital expenditure on social and physical infrastructure.
• Additionally, the continued existence of the PSEs is forcing the Government to commit further resources for the sustenance of many non-viable PSEs.
• All this makes Disinvestment of the Government stake in the PSEs absolutely imperative.

Lack of Competitiveness

• In an era of LPG industrial competitiveness has especially assumed an important role, necessitating privatization or disinvestment of PSUs.
• Though it is claimed by many that ownership isn’t all that an important indicator of an organization’s functioning as is its management, it has been proven by an ample number of examples that private controls of an organization bring about drastic changes in its effectiveness.
• This is especially true today when competitiveness is essential not only for leading the industry but for mere survival.

Poor performance

• Despite the huge injection of funds in the past decades, the functioning of many public sector units (PSUs) has traditionally been characterized by poor management, slow decision-making procedures, lack of accountability, low productivity, unsatisfactory quality of goods, excessive manpower utilization etc.
• However, with increasing privatization, disinvestment or change of control into the hands of professional managers, many organizations have seen the tables turn.
• Some examples are IRCTC and CRIS to facilitate the functioning of Indian Railways etc.

Importance of Disinvestment

• Disinvestment also assumes significance due to the prevalence of an increasingly competitive environment, which makes it difficult for many PSUs to operate profitably.
• This leads to a rapid erosion of the value of the public assets making it critical to disinvest early to realize a high value.
• Presently, the Government has about Rs. 2 lakh crore locked up in PSUs.
• Disinvestment of the Government stake is, thus, far too significant. The importance of disinvestment lies in the utilization of funds for:

1. Financing the increasing fiscal deficit
2. Financing large-scale infrastructure development
3. For investing in the economy to encourage spending
4. For retiring Government debt- Almost 40-45% of the Centre’s revenue receipts go towards repaying public
   debt/interest
5. For social programs like health and education

Implications on Economy

• If India wants a continuous increased growth, it has to scale to the next level of performance. This is not an option but a necessity and disinvestment is a tool to get there.
• Increased population, unemployment, and poverty levels are the main reasons why India needs to scale.
• It needs a 10% rate of growth every year in its GDP to continue to be competitive with China and potential emergent nations in South East Asia.

Successful examples

• In the context of macroeconomics, time has shown us how countries like Chile, the UK, China, New Zealand, Poland successfully used disinvestment to achieve new economic heights.
• Many countries used disinvestment as a sure means of restoring budgetary balance & to revive growth on a sustainable basis after facing an economic crisis in the 80s.
• Analysis of these countries before & after disinvestment shows that market-driven economies are more efficient than the state-planned economies

Attracting foreign investments

• Disinvestment shows that govt means business which will attract FDI, FII to finance projects in India.
• It will allow PSU to raise capital to fund their expansion plans and improve resource allocation in the economy. It will allow the government to stimulate the economy while resorting to less debt market borrowing.
• Private borrowers won’t be crowded out of the markets by the government and will have to pay less to borrow from the open market.

Democratization of industries

• Disinvestment will be extremely positive for the Indian equity markets and the economy.
• It will also draw a lot of domestic money into the markets.
• Thus it would encourage citizens’ participation in the management of public enterprises and improve the capitalization of stock markets.

Concerns over Disinvestment in India:

• Process of disinvestment is not favoured socially as it is against the interest of socially disadvantageous people.
• Political pressure from left and opposition.
• Loss-making units don’t attract investment so easily.
• Over the years, the policy of divestment has increasingly become a tool to raise resources to cover the fiscal deficit with little focus on market discipline or strategic objective.
• Sometimes the emergence of private monopolies, consumer welfare will be reduced.
• It is argued that mere change of ownership, from public to private, does not ensure higher efficiency and productivity.
• It may lead to retrenchment of workers who will be deprived of the means of their livelihood.
• Private sector, governed as they are by the profit motive, has a tendency to use capital-intensive techniques which will worsen the unemployment problem in India.
• Fiscal 2016-17 is the seventh year in a row where the government is not meeting the disinvestment target fixed in the Budget.

Why criticism over the recent move of disinvestment?

• BPCL is a profitable refiner and oil marketing company that has consistently paid a healthy dividend.
• It has also made investments in upstream energy resources and holds interests in overseas hydrocarbon blocks.

• With the dismal track record of several PSUs, the Centre cannot be blamed for the decision to divest.
•  Times have changed and the economy now has other engines of growth. But it should not be hastily inferred that all PSUs have failed us.
• Let not the ideological blinkers like ‘public sector is bad’ and ‘privatization is the panacea’ unintelligible reality.
• But when a sterling company like BPCL is also being offered for ‘strategic disinvestment’  the nation naturally expects to know the strategy behind it.

The Way Ahead: What should be the Objectives of Public Sector Enterprises Disinvestment and Restructuring?

The means of achieving these objectives involve considerations such as the injection of greater competition into the industrial economy in order to foster a healthier market structure.

Conclusion

 

---

---

References

Disinvestment Policy in India.

http://www.bsepsu.com/importance-disinvestment.asp

https://www.business-standard.com/article/markets/select-psus-rally-on-in-principle-nod-for-strategic-disinvestment-119112000797_1.html

https://www.ukessays.com/essays/economics/impact-of-disinvestment-for-indian-economy-economics-essay.php

https://archive.india.gov.in/spotlight/spotlight_archive.php?id=78

https://www.newindianexpress.com/opinions/2019/dec/06/why-is-the-govt-privatising-profitable-psus-2072124.html

---

Context

From December 1, lanes on NH toll plazas across India has started accepting toll only through FASTag. One hybrid lane will continue to accept cash in addition to being tag-enabled.

What is ‘FASTag’?

• FASTags are stickers that are affixed to the windscreen of vehicles and use Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to enable digital, contactless payment of tolls without having to stop at toll gates.
• The tags are linked to bank accounts and other payment methods.
• As a car crosses a toll plaza, the amount is automatically deducted, and a notification is sent to the registered mobile phone number.

How does it work?

• The device employs Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology for payments directly from the prepaid or savings account linked to it.
• It is affixed on the windscreen, so the vehicle can drive through plazas without stopping.
• RFID technology is similar to that used in transport access-control systems, like Metro smart card.
• If the tag is linked to a prepaid account like a wallet, or a debit/credit card, then owners need to recharge/top up the tag.
• If it is linked to a savings account, rthen money will get deducted automatically after the balance goes below a pre-defined threshold.
• Once a vehicle crosses the toll, the owner will get an SMS alert on the deduction. In that it is like a prepaid e-wallet.

How can one buy it?

• E-commerce portals like Amazon and PayTM sell these tags issued by various banks.
• Places, where these counters are set up, include Road Transport Authority offices, transport hubs, bank branches, and selected petrol pumps.
• A FASTag bought from NHAI comes with a one-time fee of Rs 100 besides a refundable security deposit of Rs 150.
• Apart from the currently free tags at NHAI booths, there is also a cashback of 2.5 per cent on FASTag transactions as an offer.
• In the tag taken from NHAI, the Rs 150 security deposit, which the government is bearing as a promotion, comes back to the user as wallet value if the FASTag is linked to the NHAI e-wallet in the “My FASTag app” mobile app.
• So in this particular scheme, the user gets Rs 150 back without even paying it.

Penalties

• A FASTag is valid for five years, and can be recharged as and when required.
• Vehicles entering FASTag lanes without FASTag will be charged twice the toll amount.

Will those living close to toll roads did not end up paying more frequently?

• As per a government notification, users living within 10 km of a toll plaza can avail a concession on toll to be paid via FASTag.
• They need to submit proof of residence and nearest point-of-sale location to validate.
• Once the address is verified, the concession is ensured via FASTag affixed on the vehicle.

Benefits of Fastags

• FASTag will help to reduce the waiting time at the plaza
• Accommodating the increasing traffic without additional lanes
• Eliminating the acceleration and idling, harmful vehicular emissions and air using FASTag
• Reducing congestion around plazas
• Pollution reduction
• To save fuel for the future which will also help to reduce the operating cost of the vehicles
• To provide customers the flexibility of paying their plaza bill’s with RFID Tag
• Reduce cash handling which aids in enhanced audit control by centralizing user accounts
• Enhancing data collection, information such as vehicle count of the day

Is it working smoothly?

• The tags sold by banks are not “bank-neutral”.
• A FASTag bought from one bank can be recharged through that particular bank only and not through other banks.
• However, tags sold/distributed by NHAI are bank-neutral as one can use any bank account to recharge/top up the value in the tag.

What about state highways?

• Under a new “One Nation One FASTag” scheme, the NHAI is trying to get states on board so that one tag can be used seamlessly across highways, irrespective of whether it is the state or the Centre that owns/manages it.
• Recently as part of a pilot, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Haryana signed MoUs with the Centre to accept FASTags in state highways also.

 

---

---

References

https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/explained-fastags/

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/travel/destinations/fastags-in-india-why-is-it-mandatory-for-your-vehicles-to-have-one-now/as72333185.cms

https://www.indiatoday.in/information/story/fastag-know-how-works-benefits-details-1622964-2019-11-27

---

Context

• Labour and Employment Ministry has introduced the Labour Code on Industrial Relations bill in the Lok Sabha.
• As part of labour reform initiatives, the labour ministry has decided to amalgamate 44 labour laws into four codes—on wages, industrial relations, social security and safety, health and working conditions.
• The industrial relations code is the third of four labour codes that have got approval from the cabinet.

The Industrial Relations Code Bill, 2019

• It proposes to amalgamate

1. The Trade Unions Act, 1926,
2. The Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, and
3. The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.

• This is the third Code in the government’s proposed codification of central labour laws into four Codes.

Aims and objectives

• The bill aims to improve the business environment in the country largely by reducing the labour compliance burden of industries.
• It proposes to make it easier for an employer to engage and disengage workers based on requirement.
• This will make the process of hiring and firing smoother depending on elasticity of demand in the shop floor.

Key propositions of the Bill

I. Fixed-term employment

• The most important aspect of the Bill is that it presents the legal framework for ushering in the concept of ‘fixed-term employment’ through contract workers on a pan-India basis.
• Currently, companies hire contract workers through contractors.
• With the introduction of fixed-term employment, they will be able to hire workers directly under a fixed-term contract, with the flexibility to tweak the length of the contract based on the seasonality of industry.
• These workers will be treated on a par with regular workers during the tenure of the contract.
• The move to include it in a central law will help in wider reach, and states are expected to follow similar applicability.

II. Recognition of Negotiating Union

• To help employers check constant unionism, the bill introduces this feature under which a trade union will be recognized as sole ‘negotiating union’ if it has the support of 75% or more of the workers on the rolls of an establishment.
• As several trade unions are active in companies, it will be tough for any one group to manage 75% support.
• This, thus, takes away the negotiating rights of unions. In such a case, a negotiating council will be constituted for negotiation, according to the bill.

IV. Fixed Term Employment Workman

• Earlier the government had included the category of ‘Fixed Term Employment Workman’ for all sectors in the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946.
• This was only applicable to ‘central sphere’ establishments, and the states did not follow suit.
• Finance Minister saif that workers under a fixed-term contract would be taken up depending upon the seasonality of the industry, but would be treated on a par with regular workers.

Special offerings of the bill

• The threshold required for government permission for retrenchment has been kept unchanged at 100 employees, as against the proposal for 300 employees in an earlier draft of the Bill, which was opposed by trade unions.
• Instead, the government has now provided flexibility for changing the threshold through notification.
• The rigidity of labour laws about laying off labour has often been cited by industry as the main reason limiting scalability and employment generation.
• At present, any company having 100 workers or more has to seek government approval for retrenchment.
• The provision of fixed-term employment, which helps in the flow of social security benefits to all workers along with making it easier for companies to hire and fire, in The Industrial Relations Code Bill.
• Layoffs usually happen due to skill issues or company performance. The bill also has a provision to create a re-skilling fund for the benefit of workers.

Criticisms

• Critics question the welfare context in this Code. The bill wants to contractualize the workforce, take their collective bargaining right, curtail their right to strike and even on mass leave.
• Hiring and firing is what the government seeks to formalize through this, they argue.
• Any discretion in law leads to uncertainty, lack of clarity, discriminatory implementation, and provides scope for unnecessary usage.
• Provisions like fixed term employment will also instill fear of failure in startup founders and future entrepreneurs which isn’t encouraging for job creation.

Conclusion

• The move aims to build positivity in business environment, but workers unions called it a systemic attack on employee welfare.
• It showcases the government’s intention to create an eco-system for job creation.

 

 

---

---

References

https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/the-industrial-relations-code-bill-2019/

https://www.livemint.com/news/india/labour-code-on-industrial-relations-bill-introduced-in-parliament-11574951810922.html

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/industrial-relations-code-non-renewal-of-contract-wont-be-retrenchment/articleshow/72250456.cms

---

Context

 

Recently Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected as new President of Sri Lanka. This election was based on security issues that emerged after a suicide bombing attack claimed by Islamic State on Easter Sunday this year.

As Gotabaya settles into office and visits India end of this week, on the 29th, the Indian government would hope that its hands-off approach in the 2019 Sri Lankan elections pays off.

Brief background of India-SL relations:

 

• India is the only neighbour of Sri Lanka, separated by the Palk Strait; both nations occupy a strategic position in South Asia and have sought to build a common security umbrella in the Indian Ocean.
• There are deep racial and cultural links between the two countries. Both share a maritime border.
• The India- SL relations have been however tested by the Sri Lankan Civil War and by the controversy of Indian intervention during the war.
• In recent years Sri Lanka has moved closer to China, especially in terms of naval agreements.
• India has signed a nuclear energy deal to improve relations and made a nuclear energy pact with Sri Lanka in 2015.

 

India’s role in the Lankan Civil War

 

• In the 1970s–1980s, the RAW and the state government of Tamil Nadu were believed to be encouraging the funding and training for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist insurgent force.
• In 1987, faced with growing anger amongst its own Tamils, and a flood of refugees India intervened directly in the conflict for the first time.
• This was after the Sri Lankan government attempted to regain control of the northern Jaffna region by means of an economic blockade and military assaults; India supplied food and medicine by air and sea.

Why did India intervene?

• Indian intervention in Sri Lankan civil war became inevitable as that civil war threatened India’s unity, national interest and territorial integrity.
• This threat came in three ways:

1. On the one hand, external powers could take advantage of the situation to establish their base in Sri Lanka thus posing a threat to India;
2. On the other, the LTTE’s dream of a sovereign Tamil Eelam comprising all the Tamil inhibited areas (of Sri Lanka and India) posed a threat to India’s territorial integrity.
3. There was extensive military involvement of Pakistan in the conflict by supplying lethal weaponry and encouraging Sri Lanka to pursue military action rather than peaceful negotiations to end the civil war.

Outcomes

• After subsequent negotiations, India and Sri Lanka entered into an agreement.
• The peace accord assigned a certain degree of regional autonomy in the Tamil areas with a body controlling the regional council and called for the Tamil militant groups to lay down their arms.
• Further India was to send a peacekeeping force, named the IPKF to Sri Lanka to enforce the disarmament and to watch over the regional council.
• The accord failed over the issue of representations. The result was that the LTTE now found itself engaged in military conflict with the Indian Army.
• The ruthlessness of this campaign and the Indian army’s subsequent anti-LTTE operations made it extremely unpopular amongst many Tamils in Sri Lanka.
• The conflict between the LTTE and the Indian Army left over 1,000 Indian soldiers dead.

Areas of cooperation

 

Economic relations

• India and Sri Lanka are member nations of several regional and multilateral organizations such as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), South Asia Co-operative Environment Programme, South Asian Economic Union and BIMSTEC.
• Since a bilateral free trade agreement was signed and came into effect in 2000, Indo-Sri Lankan trade rose 128% by 2004 and quadrupled by 2006, reaching US$2.6 billion.
• Indian exports account for 14% of Sri Lanka’s global imports. India is also the fifth largest export destination for Sri Lankan goods, accounting for 3.6% of its exports.
• Both nations are also signatories of the South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA).
• India’s National Thermal Power Corp (NTPC) is also scheduled to build a 500 MW thermal power plant in Sampoor (Sampur). The NTPC claims that this plan will take the Indo-Sri Lankan relationship to a new level.

Development co-operation

• Line of Credit: India is active in a number of areas of development activity in Sri Lanka. About one-sixth of the total development credit granted by India is made available to Sri Lanka.
• In the recent past, three lines of credit were extended to Sri Lanka: US$100 million for capital goods, consumer durables, consultancy services, and food items, US$31 million for the supply of 300,000 MT of wheat and US$150 million for purchase of petroleum products.
• Fishing Sector: Projects for providing fishing equipment to the fishermen in the East of Sri Lanka and solar energy aided computer education in 25 rural schools in Eastern Sri Lanka are under consideration.
• Healthcare: India has supplied medical equipment to hospitals at Hambantota and Point Pedro, supplied 4 state-of-the-art ambulances to the Central Province etc.
• Tourism: Indian governments have also showed interest in collaborating with their Sri Lankan counterparts on building tourism between the two countries based on shared religious heritage.

Defense and strategic cooperation

• India and Sri Lanka conducts one of the largest joint Military exercises called ‘Mitra Shakti’. Both conducts joint Naval exercise called ‘SLINEX’
• India is the largest provider of defense training program to Sri Lankan soldiers and Defence officials
• India, Sri Lanka, and Maldives has signed trilateral maritime security cooperation in the Indian Ocean region. The cooperation aims at improving surveillance, anti-piracy operations and reducing maritime pollution

 

Major outstanding issues

 

Fishing disputes

• There have been several alleged incidents of Sri Lankan Navy personnel firing on Indian fishermen fishing in the Palk Strait, where India and Sri Lanka are only separated by 12 nautical miles.
• The issue started because of Indian fishermen having used mechanized trawlers, which deprived the Sri Lankan fishermen (including Tamils) of their catch and damaged their fishing boats.
• The Sri Lankan government wants India to ban use of mechanized trawlers in the Palk Strait region, and negotiations on this subject are undergoing.
• So far, no concrete agreement has been reached since India favors regulating these trawlers instead of banning them altogether.
• Another cause of anger amongst the Sri Lankan side is the use of mechanized trawlers, which they view as ecologically damaging.

Alleged political interference

• A media report from Colombo soon after Rajapaksa’s defeat in the January 8 elections of 2015 had said that an Indian Intelligence official was instrumental in uniting rival political parties — the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the United National Party (UNP) — against him during the polls.
• In October 2018, President Sirisena alleged that Indian intelligence agencies were plotting his assassination.
• He made this comment in the cabinet meeting, after CID of Sri Lanka Police arrested an Indian national in September for the alleged assassination of Sirisena and Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

China factor

• SL has a history of taking independent decisions even if they cause misgivings in India.
• In the period of low profile relationship between the two nations, SL apparently started favoring China over India.
• India and Sri Lanka in February 2015 signed a nuclear energy deal to improve relationships.
• China has taken for lease the Hambantota deep sea port and Mattala international airport in Sri Lanka.
• The earlier government treated our concerns about China’s increasing presence on the island with “strategic autonomy”, pursuing, as usual, a balancing approach.

Katchatheevu Island

• It is an uninhabited island that India ceded to Sri Lanka in 1974 based on a conditional agreement called “Kachchativu island pact”.
• Later on, Sri Lanka declared Katchatheevu, a sacred land given the presence of a Catholic shrine
• The central government recognizes Sri Lanka’s sovereignty over the island as per the 1974 accord. But Tamil Nadu claimed that Katchatheevu falls under the Indian territory and Tamil fishermen have traditionally believed that it belongs to them and therefore want to preserve the right to fish there.

 

Why is Sri Lanka important to India?

• India is Sri Lanka’s closest neighbor. Both sides have built upon a legacy of intellectual, cultural, religious and linguistic interaction.
• Sri Lanka has always been politically and economically important to India given its strategic geographical position in the Indian Ocean. The relationship has been marked by close contacts at all levels.
• Sri Lanka sits at the epicenter of the arc connecting the Persian Gulf to the Strait of Malacca. An island nation with an economy that’s mainly reliant on tourism and tea exports, Sri Lanka’s blessed geography puts it at a crucial juncture of the busy shipping lanes of the Indian Ocean.
• India also has a vital strategic stake in Sri Lanka for its own security interests. An unfriendly Sri Lanka or a Sri Lanka under influence of a power unfriendly to India would strategically discomfit India.
• For the Indian Navy, Sri Lanka is important as the switching of naval fleets from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea and vice versa requires the fleets to go around the island nation.
• Both countries share a common broad understanding on major issues of international interest and experience common social-political problems relating to community divides.

SL needs India too

• The humanitarian work by Indian agencies like supplies of medicines, doctors and providing refuge to more than 3 lakhs IDP’s during the decade-old civil war has created a sense of mutual cooperation among the countries natives.
• SL is one of the leading recipients of India’s Line of Credits.
• India has always rushed for the relief at the first signs of the rains and floods in SL recently. SL still commends the post-tsunami HADR relief operations carried out by India in the end-2004.
• India’s military, intelligence and security establishment has maintained its relations with its Sri Lankan counterpart, and both sides have been on the same page at all times.
• The security environment in the neighborhood will be discussed in light of the 21 April Easter Church bombings, and lessons learned from it.
• India is also the largest provider of defense training programs for Sri Lankan soldiers and Defence officials.

The Rajapaksa Factor

 

• Rajapaksa is a controversial family that is known for its pro-China tilt and also infamously remembered for its brutal acts against Tamil minorities in pursuit of ending the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009.
• Sri Lanka witnessed an authoritarian family rule under former president Mahinda Rajapaksa between 2005 and 2015.
• Gotabaya Rajapaksa (brother of Mahinda Rajapaksa), a former defence secretary and intelligence officer, accused of committing human rights violations, hailed by many for ending the civil war.
• Also, India’s relations with Sri Lanka went through a troubled patch during the Mahinda Rajapaksa presidency due to his proximity with China.

Unresolved legacy issues

• Given Gotabaya’s role as defense minister in Mahinda’s government in the LTTE’s elimination and charges of war crimes and human rights violations, this polarization raises questions about the course of domestic politics ahead.
• The EAM has, during his recent visit, conveyed to President Gotabaya India’s expectation that his government will proceed with national reconciliation, with a solution that meets Tamil aspirations.
• These are, of course, the right words for the occasion and do not necessarily guarantee what happens next.
• The Tamils would be concerned at the choice of Anuradhapura as the venue for the President’s inauguration and General Gunaratne, reputedly the scourge of Tamils in the war, as defense minister.

Greater role for India

 

Gathering convergence towards SL

• Delhi needs to invest some political capital in resolving problems such as the long-standing dispute over fisheries.
• Beyond its objection to China’s BRI projects, Delhi, either alone or in partnership with like-minded countries like Japan, should offer sustainable terms for infrastructure development.
• Delhi also needs to contribute more to the development of Colombo’s defence and counter-terror capabilities.

Answering the Tamil Question

• The second structural factor shaping India’s relations with Sri Lanka is the Tamil question.
• Delhi has certainly learned the dangers of being drawn too deep into the domestic conflicts of neighboring countries.
• If the new government in Colombo can advance reconciliation with the Tamil minority, it will be easier for India to strengthen ties with the Gotabaya government.

No china factor indeed

• Labeling governments in Sri Lanka as “pro-China” or “pro-India” is irrelevant. It is evident that China’s economic and strategic salience in the subcontinent is not tied to the regime leadership.
• Previous Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena who considered as pro-India came to power criticizing the Chinese projects in Sri Lanka, but within two years into power, it extended full backing to the Chinese projects.

Harnessing the  ray of hope

• Our challenges in Sri Lanka will continue, but we are off to a good start with the new government.
• The new president has made repeated statements that his government would like Sri Lanka to be a “neutral country” and that “Sri Lanka won’t do anything that will harm India’s interests.”
• Gotabaya was also critical of the previous government giving Hambantota Port on a 99-year lease to China.
• He went on to add that giving land as investment for developing a hotel or a commercial property was not a problem but the strategically important, economically important harbor, giving that is not acceptable.
• The Rajapaksas have acknowledged that India has not interfered in the recent elections.
• The first visit abroad by Gotabaya Rajapaksa to India has its own symbolic significance, translating into a diplomatic gesture his statement to the EAM that while China is a trade partner, India is a relative.

Way Forward

 

• During the last few years, various constitutional amendments have weakened the Sri Lankan president’s powers considerably and it would be interesting to watch the relationship between the president and the parliament, which cannot be dissolved before February 2020 — unless it votes itself to do so.
• This stability in the Indian government should find synergy with the new Sri Lankan president policy which includes “neutrality” and “non-alignment” between major powers.
• Rather than focusing on building the case against China, New Delhi must step up its efforts to show what it is for.
• India can never match Beijing’s economic wherewithal to make a difference to Colombo’s developmental requirements.
• But it can carve out a niche role in some areas and also partner smartly with likeminded strategic partners like Japan to make an economic and strategic difference in Sri Lanka.

Conclusion

• The challenges for India to protect its interests remained even with the friendly Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government in power in Sri Lanka.
• One of the biggest challenges for Indian diplomacy in the subcontinent is to persuade its neighbor that India is an opportunity and not a threat.
• Progressive trade and economic ties are key to prosperity in India Sri Lanka relations and the free trade agreement acts as a catalyst to address this solution.
• Sri Lanka should be allowed for recovering stable polity and growing economic ties with India through various channels.
• The China question is only part of the recalibration that will be needed to get India-Sri Lanka relations on the right track.

 

 

---

---

References

https://www.civilsdaily.com/burning-issue-constitutional-crisis-in-sri-lanka/

https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/india-sri-lanka-president-gotabaya-bilateral-relations-security-political-stability

https://idsa.in/idsacomments/problem-of-fishermen-in-india-sri-lanka-relations_gsen_200516

https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/why-india-needs-re-calibrate-relations-sri-lanka/

https://thediplomat.com/2019/11/what-will-rajapaksas-return-mean-for-india-sri-lanka-relations/

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/gotabaya-rajapaksa-sri-lanka-elections-colombo-6126280/

 

---

Context

• The 11th summit of the BRICS grouping comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa was held in Brasilia last week.
• Pitted as a counterweight to G7, the combine of developed economies, BRICS represents the world’s top emerging economies and claims to serve as a bridge between the developed and developing world.
• Questions are also being raised about its efficacy and impact. Its significance for India has also been put to questions several times.

What is BRICS?

 

• BRICS is an acronym for the grouping of the world’s leading emerging economies, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
• The BRICS Leaders’ Summit is convened annually. It does not exist in form of organization, but it is an annual summit between the supreme leaders of five nations.

inception

• On November 30, 2001, Jim O’Neill, a British economist who was then chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, coined the term ‘BRIC’ to describe the four emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China.
• He made a case for BRIC on the basis of econometric analyses projecting that the four economies would individually and collectively occupy far greater economic space and become among the world’s largest economies in the next 50 years or so.

Formation

• The grouping was formalized during the first meeting of BRIC Foreign Ministers on the margins of the UNGA in New York in September 2006.
• The first BRIC Summit took place in 2009 in the Russian Federation and focused on issues such as reform of the global financial architecture.

Members

• South Africa was invited to join BRIC in December 2010, after which the group adopted the acronym BRICS. South Africa subsequently attended the Third BRICS Summit in Sanya, China, in March 2011.
• The Chairmanship of the forum is rotated annually among the members, in accordance with the acronym B-R-I-C-S.
• BRICS now brings together five economies accounting for 42% of the world’s population, 23% of the global GDP and an around 17% share of world trade.
• The five BRICS countries are also members of G-20
• The group at each summit elects one of the heads of state of the component countries to serve as President Pro Tempore of the BRICS. This year it was Brazil.

Financial Architecture of BRICS

 

 

Currently, there are two components that make up the financial architecture of BRICS, namely:

1. the New Development Bank (NDB) or sometimes referred to as the BRICS Development Bank and
2. the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA).

• Both of these components were signed into a treaty in 2014 and became active in 2015.

New Development Bank

• The proposed NDB or the BRICS Development Bank is a multilateral development bank operated by the BRICS states.
• The bank’s primary focus of lending will be infrastructure projects with authorized lending of up to $34 billion annually.
• South Africa will be the African Headquarters of the Bank named the “New Development Bank Africa Regional Centre”.
• The bank will have starting capital of $50 billion (members contributing $10 billion each) with capital increased to $100 billion over time.

BRICS CRA

• The BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) is a framework for providing protection against global liquidity pressures.
• This includes currency issues where members’ national currencies are being adversely affected by global financial pressures.
• It is found that emerging economies that experienced rapid economic liberalization went through increased economic volatility, bringing uncertain macroeconomic environment.
• The CRA is generally seen as a competitor to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and along with the New Development Bank is viewed as an example of increasing South-South cooperation.
• It was established in 2015 by the BRICS countries. The legal basis is formed by the Treaty for the Establishment of a BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement, signed at Fortaleza, Brazil on 15 July 2014.

 

Significant feats of BRICS

 

I. Johannesburg Declaration, 2018

• The 2018 summit saw the BRICS leaders come together and discuss various international and regional issues of common concern and adopted the ‘Johannesburg Declaration‘ by consensus.
• It implies that this important multilateral grouping has a lot to say about the state of the world.
• The leaders jointly reaffirmed their commitment to the principles of mutual respect, sovereign equality, democracy, inclusiveness and strengthened collaboration.
• The BRICS leaders have used the summit to reject the growing unilateralism and instead reiterate their commitment to the strengthening of multilateral institutions, calling for stronger intra-trade within member states.

II. Focus on New Industrial Revolution

• The other big idea emanating from the summit is to help nations to prepare for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
• Participants embraced it, articulating the need for a new strategy on employment, education and skill development as the digital revolution unfolds.
• The leaders commended the establishment of the BRICS Partnership on New Industrial Revolution (PartNIR).
• The BRICS Partnership on New Industrial Revolution (PartNIR) aims to deepen BRICS cooperation in digitalisation, industrialisation, innovation, inclusiveness and investment and to maximise the opportunities and address the challenges arising from the 4th Industrial Revolution.

III. BRICS Plus

• The BRICS outreach to Africa began at the last summit hosted by South Africa, in 2013.
• It has picked up momentum now but African leaders want more
• They need big loans from the New Development Bank (NDB) for their infrastructure projects
• China introduced the “BRICS Plus” format at the Xiamen summit last year by inviting a few countries from different regions.
• South Africa emulated it, arranging the attendance of top-level representation of five nations of its choice: Argentina, Jamaica, Turkey, Indonesia and Egypt
• The precise role of “BRICS Plus” countries will take time to evolve but an immediate benefit is the immense opportunities it provides for networking among leaders.

IV. Brasilia outcome

• During Brazil’s chairmanship, the grouping reported 30 new outcomes, initiatives and documents.
• The latest summit needed a 73 para-long Brasilia Declaration to spell out the leaders’ shared worldview and spectrum of their work.
• Much to India’s satisfaction, the commitment of BRICS to counterterrorism seems to be getting strengthened.
• Its working group on countering terrorism has expanded its activities through five thematic subgroups that deal with terrorist financing, use of Internet for terrorist purposes, countering radicalization etc.
• Where the BRICS shows signs of advancing is in the economic domain. Here, five facets need to be highlighted.

V. NDB projects

• The New Development Bank (NDB), the grouping’s flagship achievement, has 44 projects with its lending touching $12.4 billion, in just five years.
• This is not a small gain, but the bank needs to grow as “a global development finance institution”. A move is now afoot to open its membership selectively.
• NDB has opened its regional centres in South Africa and Brazil, and will do so in Russia and India in 2020.

VI. Local currency Bond Fund

• With a successful Contingent Reserve Arrangement in the bag, BRICS governments are set to establish a local currency Bond Fund.
• But the earlier proposal to launch a credit rating agency remains shelved due to internal differences.

VII. Business promotion

• Business promotion among member-states has been accorded a new salience.
• The BRICS Business Council held a substantive dialogue to foster cooperation in areas ranging from infrastructure and energy to financial services, regional aviation and digital economy.
• Its cooperation with the NDB is being encouraged. The national trade promotion agencies signed an MoU on cooperation among themselves.
• A BRICS Women Business Alliance was also created, both as a women empowerment measure and as a tool to bring “a distinctive perspective on issues of interest for the business community.”

VIII. Commitment on NIR

• Following up on the decisions taken at the previous summit, operationalisation of the Partnership on New Industrial Revolution is underway.
• It is focused on cooperation in digitalisation, industrialisation, innovation, inclusiveness and investment.
• This partnership will be concretized by establishing industrial and science parks, innovation centres and business incubators.

 

Relevance of BRICS

There are three major factors that threaten the relevance of the BRICS grouping and render it just another multilateral grouping in an already bloated set of groupings:

I. Political

• These countries are not all on the same page at the same time. While India and Russia share historically close ties, India-China relations experience swing from warm to frosty and back like a pendulum.
• Russia and China have been united by a common adversary. US-led West-imposed sanctions on Russia and Washington and Beijing’s trade war have pushed the world’s second and third-largest military powers closer together.

II. Economic

• There isn’t much convergence. From being four economies to watch out for back in 2001, they (along with South Africa) are all in the middle of some sort of economic doldrums.
• But the reasons for the states of these economies vary vastly.
• BRICS can be broken into two groups — those that took advantage of globalization’s march to integrate themselves into global supply chains (primarily China and India).
• The other faction includes those that took advantage of globalization to sell their abundant natural resources (primarily Brazil, Russia and South Africa).

III. Strategic

• A small positive, if that, is that it gives India one more mechanism, occasion and opportunity to hold dialogue with China.
• There may be little tangible movement in India-China ties, however, if diplomacy is to work, sustained interaction between parties is essential.
• A counterpoint to this point, however, is that India and China already have several points of contact bilaterally and multilaterally (at the UN, SCO, East Asia Summit etc.) and that one extra platform isn’t going to make a whole lot of difference.
• Perhaps that is true, but the glorified talk-shop that discusses “futuristic subjects” that is BRICS will continue to exist despite its irrelevance, and any little benefits it affords should be appreciated.

IV. People-to-People exchange

• BRICS members have recognised the need for strengthening People-to-People exchanges and to foster closer cooperation in the areas of culture, sport, education, film and youth.
• People-to-People exchanges seek to forge new friendships; deepen relations and mutual understanding between BRICS peoples in the spirit of openness, inclusiveness, diversity and mutual learning.
• Such People to people exchanges include the Young Diplomats Forum, Parliamentarian Forum, Trade Union Forum, Civil BRICS as well as the Media Forum.

 

India’s position amongst BRICS

 

• Eighteen years later, India finds itself as one of the emerging economies in the grouping and beyond, especially
• As PM Modi attends the 11th BRICS Summit in Brasilia, his sixth since he assumed office in 2014, it will be the beginning of what New Delhi sees as the “second cycle” of BRICS.
• From the Indian perspective, BRICS has emerged the voice of developing countries or the global south.
• As these countries face an aggressive club of developed countries, raising challenges on issues from WTO to climate change, India believes BRICS has to protect the rights of the developing countries.
• Also, India has to maintain the balancing act between Russia-China on the one side and the US on the other.

India’s successes

• The fact that BRICS has put counter-terrorism on top of the agenda has been a success for India.
• That was evident in the BRICS Summit in Xiamen in September 2017, with China as the chair.
• The fact that it was achieved, despite the strained ties due to the standoff in Doklam, was a testimony to the value Beijing and New Delhi attach to the outcomes of the grouping.
• On the question of multilateralism, India has articulated a vision for strengthening and reforming the multilateral system itself.
• When India calls for multilateralism, it is not a call to reinforce the status quo of multilateralism but to reform it since this is what BRICS had originally set out to do.

Challenges confronting India at the BRICS

 

Some of the crucial challenges are:

I. China’s massive economic weight in the forum

• Its GDP at nearly $12 trillion is now more than twice that of the other four members put together.
• This has changed the internal balance in the BRICS in favour of Beijing.

II. China led Globalization

• Apprehension about US-led globalization was one of the motivations behind India’s quest for a multipolar world in the past.
• But India is now struggling with the issue of China-led globalization. The Belt and Road initiative has added to India’s concerns about China’s rise.

Major disappointments at BRICS

 

• Despite of the Brasilia Outcome it is difficult to identify new elements in the BRICS’s endeavour to strengthen and reform the multilateral system.
• The “urgent need” to reform the UN, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and other international organisations was stressed once again, even as little progress has occurred on this score.
• Interest in open and free trade was reiterated, despite growing protectionist tendencies.
• On the expansion of the UN Security Council, BRICS exposed its disunity yet again by sticking to the formulation that refuses to go beyond China and Russia supporting the “aspiration” of Brazil, India and South Africa.

A critical evaluation

• Overall, while the BRICS grouping may have completed a decade, it continues to face the challenges of the lack of a binding ideology, bilateral differences, diversity in terms of socio-cultural and political systems, and China’s overwhelming presence, which reduces the space for other countries in the grouping.
• It has transformed into an amorphous collective with its fingers in all sorts of pies, but an inability to commit to very many common goals.

I. Goals yet not clear

• The contribution of BRICS to project the perspectives of developing economies is laudable.
• However, by hosting outreach meetings with countries in its neighbouring (or broader) region, each chair (with Brazil’s exception) gave the impression that BRICS would do more for them.
• But the NDB has been lagging behind on this score. It needs to start extending loans for projects in non-BRICS countries to create a solid constituency of supporters.
• Also, is such a plethora of meetings really essential? Do the results justify the expenditure? India’s representatives should ask, do they help the poor and vulnerable sections of the BRICS community?
• Finally, BRICS should ponder if in the short term it needs to focus on fulfilling existing commitments instead of taking on new ones.

II. Namesake consensus against Terrorism

• In 2016, it was noted that successive declarations by the BRICS nations tended to echo the same throwaway lines on terrorism, but do little about assuaging one another’s real concerns.
• The 2019 iteration is no different with its “We condemn terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, which should not be associated with any religion, nationality or civilisation…”.
• Through it all, China continues to show brazen disregard to India’s concerns about terrorism emanating from Pakistan. This is unlikely to change anytime soon.

III. Kindleberger Trap

• As China rises and positions itself as the sole challenger to American hegemony, there is a growing discussion about the possible Kindleberger Trap.
• This is a situation where China may fail to provide global public goods like a clean environment and financial stability, despite being a superpower.
• Small countries have little incentive to contribute to global public goods and it is generally the responsibility of great powers to provide global governance.
• The idea of the Kindleberger Trap is also applicable to rising powers like India, which have global ambitions.

IV. Climate at peril

• Climate governance too has been highlighted as an area where BRICS members have a lot of potential to contribute, but so far, that has not happened.
• Russia has been ambivalent towards climate change and has recently joined the Paris Agreement.
• India has taken initiatives outside the grouping to project itself as a leader in the fight against climate change, such as the launch of the International Solar Alliance in 2015 with France.
• Apart from the global agenda, BRICS allows New Delhi to send out messages about its foreign policy priorities, underscoring its desire to be part of issue-based coalitions.

Way Forward

 

• A close examination of India’s record in BRICS reveals that New Delhi has used its membership to make a substantial contribution to the global financial architecture, while also making efforts to address glaring gaps in areas such as counter-terrorism, the fight against climate change and UNSC reform.
• India is not a free-rider in a system of global governance dominated by the West, and continues to provide a vision of global governance.
• The BRICS needs to expand its agenda for increasing its relevance in the global order. As of now, climate change and development finance, aimed at building infrastructure must dominate its agenda.
• For BRICS to remain relevant over the next decade, each of its members must make a realistic assessment of the initiative’s opportunities and inherent limitations.

 

 

 

 

---

---

References

 

https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/op-ed-snap-the-big-five-at-10/

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/brics-on-the-ball/article30009282.ece

https://www.firstpost.com/india/brics-summit-2019-relevance-of-grouping-in-2019-unclear-but-it-does-provide-india-one-major-benefit-7655521.html

https://www.orfonline.org/research/india-and-its-brics-dilemmas-57891/

---

Context

In a unanimous judgment, a bench headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi asked the Centre to formulate a scheme within three months and set up a trust to manage the property and construct a temple.

Centre had acquired the entire 67.73 acres of land including the 2.77 acre of the disputed Ramjanmabhumi-Babri Masjid premises in 1993.

Background

 

• The Ayodhya dispute was a political, historical, and socio-religious debate in India, centered on a plot of land in the city of Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh.
• The issues revolve around the control of a site traditionally regarded among Hindus to be the birthplace of their deity Rama, the history and location of the Babri Masjid at the site, and whether a previous Hindu temple was demolished or modified to create a mosque.
• The mosque there, the Babri Masjid, was demolished during a political rally which turned into a riot on 6 December 1992.
• The first recorded instances of religious violence in Ayodhya occurred in the 1850s over a nearby mosque at Hanuman Garhi. The Babri mosque was attacked in the process.
• Since then, local groups made occasional demands that they should have the possession of the site and that they should be allowed to build a temple on the site, all of which were denied by the colonial government.

The Mosque over temple

 

• Babur was the first Mughal emperor of India and the founder of the Mughal empire.
• It is believed that one of his generals, Mir Baqi, built the Babri Masjid (“Babur’s Mosque”) in 1528 on his orders.
• The belief came into currency since 1813–14, when the East India Company’s surveyor Francis Buchanan reported that he found an inscription on the mosque walls which attested to this fact.
• He also recorded the local tradition, which believed that emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707) built the mosque after demolishing a temple dedicated to Rama.

Testimony of excavations

• In its judgment, the Supreme Court referred to an Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) report to observe that the Babri Masjid, which stood on the disputed site until its demolition in 1992.
• It reported that Mosque was not built on vacant land and there was evidence of a temple-like structure having existed on the land before the mosque was built.
• Considering the ASI report valid, the Supreme Court said what was found in the excavation “was not an Islamic structure”.

Judicial intervention

 

Allahabad High Court Judgment of 2011

A suit was filed by the Sunni Wakf Board for declaration and possession of the site. The Allahabad high court bench began hearing the case in 2002, which was completed in 2010.

After the Supreme Court dismissed a plea to defer the High Court verdict on 30 September 2010, the High Court of Allahabad, the three-member bench ruled that the disputed land be split into three parts.

The judgment which was pronounced with majority decision of 2:1 held that the 2.77 acres land located in Ayodhya will be divided into a three-way division — one-third for the Sunni Waqf Board, one-third for the Nirmohi Akhara and one-third to the party for ‘Ram Lalla’ or infant Ram represented by the Hindu Maha Sabha.

 

The Final Verdict

• The Hindus would get the entire disputed 2.77 acres in Ayodhya where the demolished Babri Masjid once stood.
• Possession of disputed 2.77-acre land will remain with the Central government receiver.
• The Muslims will get alternate five acres of land either in the surplus 67 acres acquired in and around the disputed structure by the central government or any other “prominent” place.
• A trust will be formed in 3 months to build a temple on the disputed land. The court held that the Nirmohi Akhara is not the shebait or devotee of the deity Ram Lalla but will get to be a member of the Trust.

What the verdict relied upon?

• In the backdrop of the said dispute then P.V. Narasimha Rao government enacted, in September 1991, a special law to freeze the status of places of worship as they were on August 15, 1947.
• The law kept the disputed structure at Ayodhya out of its purview, mainly because it was the subject of prolonged litigation.
• It was also aimed at providing scope for a possible negotiated settlement.

Places of Worship Act, 1994

• The Act declares that the religious character of a place of worship shall continue to be the same as it was on August 15, 1947.
• It says no person shall convert any place of worship of any religious denomination into one of a different denomination or section.
• It declares that all suits, appeals or any other proceedings regarding converting the character of a place of worship, which are pending before any court or authority on August 15, 1947, will abate as soon as the law comes into force.
• However, there is an exception to the bar on instituting fresh proceedings with regard to suits that related to the conversion of status that happened after August 15, 1947.
• This saves legal proceedings, suits, and appeals regarding the chance of status that took place after the cut-off date.
• These provisions will not apply to ancient and historical monuments and archaeological sites and remains that are covered by the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958.

How did SC use the act?

• In its verdict, the Supreme Court commended the enactment as one that preserved the constitutional value of secularism by not permitting the status of a place of worship to be changed.
• The state has, by enacting the law, enforced a constitutional commitment and operationalized its constitutional obligations to uphold the equality of all religions and secularism, which is a part of the basic features of the Constitution.
• It said the Places of Worship Act imposes a non-derogable obligation towards enforcing our commitment to secularism.
• The court observed that non-retrogression is a foundational feature of the fundamental constitutional principles, of which secularism is a core component.

Article 142 invoked by SC

Article 142(1) states that “The Supreme Court in the exercise of its jurisdiction may pass such decree or make such order as is necessary for doing complete justice in any cause or matter pending before it, and any decree so passed or order so made shall be enforceable throughout the territory of India in such manner as may be prescribed by or under any law made by Parliament and, until provision in that behalf is so made, in such manner as the President may by order prescribe”.

• The Supreme Court, implicitly referring to the demolition of the Babri Masjid at the disputed site, said that it was invoking Article 142 “to ensure that a wrong committed must be remedied”.
• This was the first time that the court invoked this power in a case involving a civil dispute over an immovable property, involving private parties.

 

Significance of the verdict

 

Communal politics comes to an end

• Ayodhya in the past was the center stage for communal politics and a tool for polarization before elections.
• The high-pitched events not only disrupted daily life and business, but also endangered communal harmony in the region.
• By settling the dispute between communities by the intervention of the Supreme court and other democratic institutions supporting this landmark judgment, a new era of Economic progress in the region is expected.
• This, in turn, will lead to the exploration of tourism and synergy to business development at the priority of the Govt and all the stakeholders in the region.

Victory of harmony over hate

• The date on which the verdict had been delivered, November 9, was particularly significant as it was on that day that the Berlin Wall, dividing East and West Germany, had been brought down and people on opposite sides reconciled PM Modi said.
• India also saw the opening of the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor. Ayodhya verdict on this day, therefore, is telling us that the message from the date is to be united in harmony and amity.

Law stands apart over political considerations, religion and beliefs

• The judges declared that the demolition of the 16th century Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, was “an egregious violation of the rule of law” and “a calculated act of destroying a place of public worship”.
• The Muslims have been wrongly deprived of a mosque which had been constructed well over 450 years ago, the Bench said.
• The Court referred to the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act of 1991, which prohibits the conversion of the status any place of worship, to say that all religions are equal.
• After giving the disputed land to Hindus and a separate five acres for construction of a mosque in Ayodhya, the SC shut the door for fresh litigation to alter the status quo of sites such as those in Kashi and Mathura, which have also seen discord over worship.
• “The Constitution does not make a distinction between the faith and belief of one religion and another. All forms of belief, worship, and prayer are equal,”
• The Bench said the Act “speaks to the future by mandating that the character of a place of public worship shall not be altered”.
• “Places of Worship Act is an affirmation of the solemn duty which was cast upon the State to preserve and protect the equality of all faiths as an essential constitutional value, a norm which has the status of being a basic feature of the Constitution,” the Supreme Court addressed the government.
• In the times to come and given India’s demographic and cultural complexity, the judgment may prove to be an invaluable legal treatise that upholds “justness” and delivers impartial treatment to a vexed and emotional case.

Latent implications of the ruling

 

Ruling is regarded as majoritarian coercion

• The Supreme Court has averted an immediate crisis, insofar as there has been neither outbreak of violence, nor any reports of bloodshed in the aftermath of the Ayodhya verdict.
• The point is that majoritarian coercion over time has deepened and legitimized a process where institutional remedies for highly charged communal disputes are sought.
• What mattered ultimately was comfort, peace and tranquility and the judgment — by its so-called ‘balancing act’, it is argued — holds immense promise.
• But perhaps the greater crisis that the Court has involuntarily invited is that of minorities losing their faith in the institution of the judiciary.
• In an environment where the legislature and the executive are turning majoritarianism as accused by some parliamentarians, they are left with no choice but to repose their faith in the courts.

Worrisome silence

• The response from Muslim denominational organizations is guarded. It ranges from immediate acceptance to muted disagreement to appeals to “move on”.
• There are various social media postings that have appealed to the Sunni Waqf Board to decline the compensatory gift of five acres of land.
• Nevertheless, a state of shock and incredulity runs deep; the silence and stillness is far more worrisome.
• The demolition of the mosque in 1992 had indeed left its impact on generations to come, as the Nellie (1983), Gujarat (2002) and Bhagalpur (1989) riots did.

Conclusion

• The issue inherently has a religious angle, and to appease these sentiments there is a larger need to address the issue of communalism.
• The verdict attempts to bring an end the festering one-and-a-half centuries-old legal battle over the title to the disputed structure.
• The judgment did result in a victory for the majority and coincidentally for the mob that demolished the Babri but a reading of the judgment clearly shows disapproval and disavowal of the mob.
• The legal victory is indeed based upon secular principles and pluralist ethos. This can be projected as the victory of secularism too.

---

---

Let’s have a look at the chronology of the Ayodhya dispute

 

1528:

First Mughal Emperor Babar is believed to have constructed Babri Masjid

1885:

Mahant Raghbir Das moves Faizabad court seeking permission to construct a temple in the vicinity of the Babri Masjid. The plea is declined.

December 22-23, 1949:

Idols of Lord Ram is mysteriously found inside the mosque

1950:

Gopal Visharad and Ramachandra Das moves Faizabad court for permission to worship the idols

1959:

Nirmohi Akhara files plea seeking possession of the disputed land.

1961:

Central Sunni Waqf Board, U.P., moves court for declaration of title of the disputed land and removal of the idols inside the mosque.

February 1986:

Faizabad court allows Hindus to worship the idols.

August 1989:

Allahabad High Court takes over the title dispute. Orders status quo.

November 1989:

The Rajiv Gandhi government allows Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) to perform puja near the disputed site.

September 1990:

BJP leader L.K. Advani begins rath yatra

December 1992:

Kar sevaks demolish Babri Masjid. Justice Liberhan Commission appointed to probe.

1993:

P.V. Narasimha Rao government acquires 67 acres of land adjoining the disputed site. The Supreme Court upholds the acquisition in its Dr. Ismail Faruqui judgment.

April 2002:

Allahabad High Court commences hearing the title suits.

March 2003:

SC bans religious activity in the acquired lands in Mohd. Aslam @Bhurre case.

2009:

Liberhan Committee submits inquiry report.

September 30, 2010:

High Court delivers a majority judgment for three-way partition of the disputed property among Hindus, Muslims and Nirmohi Akhara.

May 2011:

SC stays the high court judgment on cross-appeals filed by the parties.

August 2017:

A three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court led by Justice Dipak Misra begins hearing the appeals. The main title issue is side-tracked. Muslim parties seek a reference of a contentious observation made in the Faruqui judgment that worshipping in mosques are not integral to Islam to a Constitution Bench. A majority judgment is pronounced declining the prayer.

January 2019:

A Constitution Bench of five judges led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi resumes hearing the title appeals but suggests mediation first.

August 6, 2019:

Mediation committee led by former Supreme Court judge, Justice F.M.I. Kalifulla fails to draw a consensus and court hearing commences.

October 16, 2019:

After 40 days of hearings, the Constitution Bench reserves judgment

November 9, 2019:

Constitution Bench clears the way for constructing Ram Temple at the disputed site. It orders the government to provide five-acre land to Muslims at a prominent place in Ayodhya.

 

 

---

---

References:

https://thewire.in/law/ayodhya-dispute-public-justice

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a-chronology-of-the-ayodhya-dispute/article29929198.ece

https://www.bloombergquint.com/opinion/ayodhya-verdict-beliefs-do-matter

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-50065277

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/some-questions-on-ayodhya-verdict/article29985922.ece

https://www.indiatoday.in/india-today-insight/story/why-critics-of-majoritarianism-on-the-ayodhya-verdict-are-wrong-1617787-2019-11-11

https://thewire.in/communalism/ayodhya-verdict-babri-masjid-ram-temple-dn-jha

---

Context

• The 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to three economists for their pioneering research into the use of experimental approaches to fight global poverty.
• The new Nobel laureates are considered to be instrumental in using randomized controlled trials to test the effectiveness of various policy interventions to alleviate poverty.

Why have Banerjee, Duflo, and Kremer won the Nobel Prize?

• The research conducted by this year’s Laureates has considerably improved our ability to fight global poverty, the Nobel citation says.
• Their new experiment-based approach has transformed development economics.
• In Poor Economics, Banerjee and Duflo bemoaned how the debates on poverty “tend to be fixated on the ‘big questions’: What is the ultimate cause of poverty? How much faith should we place in free markets? Is democracy good for the poor? Does foreign aid have a role to play? And so on”.
• Banerjee, Duflo and Kremer, who have been working together since the mid 1990s, are different in that they do not get stuck with the “big questions”.
• Instead, they break down a problem, study its different aspects, conduct various experiments and, based on such “evidence”, decide what needs to be done.

Randomized Controlled Trial

• A RCT is an experiment that is designed to isolate the influence that a certain intervention or variable has on an outcome or event.
• A social science researcher who wants to find the effect that employing more teachers in schools has on children’s learning outcomes, for instance, can conduct a randomized controlled trial to find the answer.
• The Nobel laureates’ trio applied RCT to the field of economics beginning in the 1990s.
• Kremer first used the technique to study the impact that free meals and books had on learning in Kenyan schools.
• Banerjee and Ms. Duflo later conducted similar experiments in India and further popularized RCTs through their book Poor Economics, published in 2011.

A small testimony

• Esther Duflo, along with Raghav Chattopadhyay, did an outstanding study of India’s decision to reserve some of the leadership of local governments — village panchayats — for women.
• Since the choice of which seats are to be reserved for women is done by lottery in India, since 1993, following a constitutional amendment, this turned out to be a perfect setting for studying how the election of women leaders could affect economic well-being in the locality.
• By studying a massive data set from West Bengal and Rajasthan, they proved that the provision of local public goods, like water supply, improves in statistically significant ways in villages where women are elected to lead.
• Likewise, Michael Kremer’s research, done with Ted Miguel, on what de-worming in schools in Kenya could do for child health and absenteeism of school students was quite remarkable.
• By doing a massive randomised controlled study, they showed that benefits of deworming could be staggering, way beyond the costs of such an intervention.

How does this approach work in practice?

• Breaking down the poverty problem and focussing on the smaller issues such as “how best to fix diarrhoea or dengue” yielded some very surprising results.
• For instance, it is often believed that many poor countries (like India) do not have the resources to adequately provide education, and that this resource crunch is the reason why school-going children do not learn more.
• But their field experiments showed that lack of resources is not the primary problem.
• In fact, studies showed that neither providing more textbooks nor free school meals improved learning outcomes.
• Instead, as was brought out in schools in Mumbai and Vadodara, the biggest problem is that teaching is not sufficiently adapted to the pupils’ needs.
• In other words, providing teaching assistants to the weakest students was a far more effective way of improving education in the short to medium term.
• Similarly, on tackling teacher absenteeism, what worked better was to employ them on short-term contracts (which could be extended if they showed good results) instead of having fewer students per “permanent” teacher, in order to reduce the burden on teachers and incentivise them to teach.

Why is RCT so popular?

• At any point in time, there are multiple factors that work in tandem to influence various social events.
• RCTs allow economists and other social science researchers to isolate the individual impact that a certain factor alone has on the overall event.
• For instance, to measure the impact that hiring more teachers can have on children’s learning, researchers must control for the effect that other factors such as intelligence, nutrition, climate, economic and social status etc., which may also influence learning outcomes to various degrees, have on the final event.
• RCTs promise to overcome this problem through the use of randomly picked samples.

Significance

• Many development economists believe that RCTs can help governments to find, in a thoroughly scientific way, the most potent policy measures that could help end poverty rapidly.
• Research done by Abhijit, Esther and Michael has transformed the way development economics is practised nowadays, not just in United States but the world over.

Criticisms of RCT

• A popular critic of randomized controlled trials is economist Angus Deaton, who won the economics Nobel Prize in 2015.
• He has contended in his works that simply choosing samples for an RCT experiment in a random manner does not really make these samples identical in their many characteristics.
• While two randomly chosen samples might turn out to be similar in some cases, he argued, there are greater chances that most samples are not really similar to each other.
• RCTs are more suited for research in the physical sciences where it may be easier to carry out controlled experiments.
• More fundamentally, RCTs do not guarantee if something that worked in Kerala will work in Bihar, or if something that worked for a small group will also work at scale.
• This Nobel, albeit indirectly, for RCTs will likely stoke this debate again.

 

 

 

---

---

References

https://finshots.in/archive/abhijeet-banerjee-nobel-prize/

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/abhijit-banerjee-nobel-prize-economics-policy-making-6069266/

https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/explained-randomized-controlled-trial-rct/