THE HINDU – CURRENT NOTE 22 March
SC calls for out-of-court settlement in Ayodhya case
•Suggesting an out-of-court rapprochement among rival parties in the 68-year-old Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute, Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar advised peace negotiations instead of a pitched court battle, even offering help to settle the fight amicably.
•The dispute, which has seen much tension and violence over the past decades, debuted in court in 1950 when Gopal Simla Visharad filed the first suit in Faizabad civil court for rights to perform pooja to Ram Lalla. The same year saw Paramahansa Ramachandra Das also file a suit for continuation of pooja and keeping idols in the structure. Nine years later, in 1959, Nirmohi Akhara floowed with a third suit for directions to hand over the charge of the disputed site. U.P. Sunni Central Wakf Board filed the fourth suit in 1961 for declaration and possession. The fifth was in 1989 in the name of Ram Lalla Virajman for declaration and possession.
•On September 2010, a three-judge Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court held that Hindus have the right to the makeshift temple under the central dome of the Babri Masjid. The High Court ruled in favour of a three-part division of the disputed 2.77-acre area among Sunni Waqf Board, Nirmohi Akhara and the Ram Lalla at the disputed site. The Bench had relied on Hindu faith, belief and folklore.
•The Sunni Waqf Board and other parties filed their appeals in the Supreme Court against the 2010 judgment. The appeals is pending in the Supreme Court for the past six years.
•The pendency of the appeal was brought to the attention of the bench led by Justice Khehar by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Tuesday. Mr. Swamy, in an urgent mentioning, sought the court to post the appeals for early hearing.
•Instead, the bench, also comprising Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Sanjay Kishan Kaul, reacted with a different point of view.
•Justice Khehar said parties should understand that these are sensitive issues involving religious sentiments. They should adopt a give and take approach to arrive at a consensus.
•“You (Mr. Swamy) must make fresh attempts to arrive at a consensual decision. If required, you must choose a mediator to end the dispute. If the parties want me (CJI) to sit with mediators chosen by both the sides for negotiations, I am ready,” Justice Khehar said.
•Mr. Swamy's plea to "rebuild" the Ram temple at the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site has been tagged to the appeals.
•The court asked Mr. Swamy to consult the litigating parties about appointing a negotiator for an out-of-court settlement and report back on March 31, 2017.
•A large part of the delay in the Supreme Court owes to the fact that the litigation has records dating back to the 16th Century and written in several languages, including Arabic and Persian. They all have to be translated into English for the court. The High Court judgment itself run into 8,000 pages.
•Justices Sudhir Agarwal and Justice D.V. Sharma on the Allahabad High Court bench had concluded in their separate judgments that Lord Ram, son of King Dashrath, was born within the 1,482.5 square yards of the disputed Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid premises over 900,000 years ago during the Treta Yuga.
•The third judge, Justice S.U. Khan, said his finding was an “informed guess”.
•In May 2011, during a preliminary hearing of the appeals, a Supreme Court bench of Justices (retired) Aftab Alam and R.M. Lodha had described the High Court judgment fixing Lord Ram’s birthplace as a sheer “leap of faith” transgressing into the mythological realm.
Aadhaar to be must for IT returns
•The NDA government has proposed to make Aadhaar mandatory for individuals to apply for a PAN (Permanent Account Number) card and file income tax returns from July 1 this year.
•Finance, Defence and Corporate Affairs Minister Arun Jaitley moved an amendment, to this effect, in the draft Finance Bill 2017 that was taken up by the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
•Earlier this week, the Centre made it mandatory for beneficiaries to quote their Aadhaar number to avail themselves of benefits under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana for skill development, and the Self Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers.
•The Centre had identified 31 schemes in which the Aadhaar could be made mandatory. Notifications have been issued in recent months by departments to make Aadhaar compulsory for getting subsidised foodgrains under the National Food Security Act, jobs under the MGNREGA and pension benefits under the Employees’ Pension Scheme.
Note ban: SC questions Centre
•The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the Centre had left the “people in the lurch” by closing all options for them to deposit demonetised notes beyond the cut-off date of December 30, 2016.
•The court indicated that Parliament had left it to the Centre’s discretion to offer a grace period for those who were genuinely unable to deposit their old Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes by December 30. The Specified Bank Notes (Cessation of Liabilities) Ordinance of 2016 allows Indian citizens abroad and “any other class of persons specified by the Central government” to deposit their old notes beyond the cut-off date of December 31, 2016. However, the Centre restricted the grace period till March 31, 2017 only to Indian citizens who were abroad during the period between November 9 and December 30, 2016.
‘People believed PM’
•“If you see the Prime Minister’s speech on demonetisation on November 8, 2016, he talks clearly about extending the grace period till March 31, 2017. Then comes the RBI notification, which also talks clearly about extending the time. Both gave people hope that there shall be ... there would be an extension. The ordinance promulgated also gives you the discretion to widen the categories of people beyond those who were abroad... So why did you choose to close this window completely,” Chief Justice Khehar said.
•The court said the people believed in the PM’s words that they would be offered a grace period to deposit the old notes till March 31. “With the PM saying so, they had good reason to believe... these may have been people who were hospitalised for the entire duration between November 9 and December 30,” Chief Justice Khehar addressed Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi for the Centre.
•“Parliament through the ordinance gave you the power of choice to extend the window, why did you not give people of other classes a chance,” the Chief Justice asked. Mr. Rohatgi said the Prime Minister’s assurances had been overridden by the parliamentary law. “There was no cause for another window. Just because the law gave me a discretion does not mean I will allow everybody to deposit their old notes,” Mr. Rohatgi said.
•“The government cannot arbitrarily close its window to people in genuine difficulty. That attitude will not work here,” Chief Justice Khehar reacted.The court directed the Centre to file an affidavit explaining why it chose not to extend the deadline post December 30 despite Parliament giving it the discretion to do so.
India slips in human development index
•India slipped down one place from 130 to 131 among the 188 countries ranked in terms of human development, says the 2016 Human Development Report (HDR) released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on Tuesday.
•India’s human development index (HDI) value of 0.624 puts it in the “medium human development” category, alongside countries such as Congo, Namibia and Pakistan. It is ranked third among the SAARC countries, behind Sri Lanka (73) and the Maldives (105), both of which figure in the “high human development” category.
•The world’s top three countries in HDI are Norway (0.949), Australia (0.939) and Switzerland (0.939).
•The HDI is a measure for assessing progress in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge, and access to a decent standard of living.
Public health spending
•The report says 1.5 million people worldwide still live in multidimensional poverty, 54% of them concentrated in South Asia. While poverty fell significantly from 1990 to 2015, inequalities sharpened in the region.
•South Asia also had the highest levels of malnutrition in the world, at 38%, and the lowest public health expenditure as a percentage of the GDP (1.6%, 2014). India’s public health expenditure was even lower, at 1.4% of the GDP. However, it did make some gains between 1990 and 2015, improving life expectancy by 10.4 years in this period. Child malnutrition also declined by 10 percentage points from 2015, and there was a modest gain in infant and under-five mortality rates.
•The report praised India’s reservation policy, observing that even though it “has not remedied caste-based exclusions”, it has “had substantial positive effects”. It pointed out that “in 1965, for example, Dalits held fewer than 2% of senior civil service positions, but the share had grown to 11% by 2001”. The HDR also hailed the national rural employment guarantee programme as a “prime example” of “combining social protection with appropriate employment strategies”.
•The report noted with approval India’s progressive laws, especially the Right to Information, National Food Security, and Right to Education Acts.
•It commended the Indian grassroots group Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghatan for popularising social audits of government schemes.
Gender disparity
•Noting that women, on an average, have lower HDI than men across the world, the report pointed out that the largest gender disparity in development was in South Asia, where the female HDI value is 20% lower than the male value.
•In South Asia, gender gaps in entrepreneurship and labour force participation caused an estimated income loss of 19%. “Between their first and fifth birthdays, girls in India and Pakistan have a 30% to 50% greater chance of dying than boys,” the report noted.
•While India’s HDI value increased from 0.428 in 1990 to 0.624 in 2015, it still had the lowest rank among BRIC nations. However, its average annual growth in HDI (1990-2015) was higher than that of other medium HD countries.
What goes around must come around
•Wastewater is often an afterthought — flushed and forgotten — whether from household or commercial use. We may not know where wastewater ends up and we’re not too troubled by the mystery, just so long as it’s gone.
•The 2017 United Nations’ Water Development Programme’s World Water Development Report (WWDR) – Wastewater: The Untapped Resource makes clear that we can no longer afford this disconnect.
•The report, to be officially released today on World Water Day, notes that more than 80% of the world’s wastewater — over 95% in some least developed countries — is released into the environment untreated. In Thailand, 77% of wastewater was untreated in 2012; it was 81% in Vietnam the same year and 82% in Pakistan in 2011.
Relevant to Asia-Pacific
•Untreated wastewater poses a threat to both human health and our aquatic ecosystems, and is a challenge that is particularly acute in Asia-Pacific.
•This region is in the midst of a profound urban shift that is straining its already limited infrastructure and capacity to effectively treat wastewater. As of 2009, an estimated 30% of urban dwellers in the region lived in slums, low-income areas, where wastewater is often discharged into the nearest surface drain or informal drainage channel. Meanwhile, city-based hospitals and small- and medium-sized enterprises dump a slew of medical waste and toxic chemicals into wastewater systems.
•Socioeconomic factors typically determine access to efficient wastewater management services that can more effectively deal with such pollution loads. Wealthier neighbourhoods are usually better served than slum areas, which are more likely to face the risk of contracting cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio due to consuming faeces-contaminated water. However, even in countries with improved sanitation coverage, only 26% of urban and 34% of rural sanitation and wastewater services prevent human contact with excreta along the entire sanitation chain.
•Along with the human cost, there are enormous economic stakes involved in the effective management of wastewater. The WWDR estimates that for every $1 spent on sanitation, society benefits by an estimated $5.5, and notes that “neglecting the opportunities arising from improved wastewater management is nothing less than unthinkable in the context of a circular economy”.
Untapped resource
•A circular economy is one in which economic development and environmental sustainability are interdependent, with a strong emphasis on minimising pollution, while maximising reuse and recycling. From this perspective, wastewater is an untapped resource of unparalleled potential.
•When safely treated, wastewater can be a source of water, energy, nutrients and other recoverable materials that is both affordable and sustainable. The extraction of wastewater by-products such as salt, nitrogen and phosphorous has proven lucrative in Asia-Pacific. In Southeast Asia, revenues from fertilizer have paid for the operational costs of the systems to extract them several times over.
•While wastewater management receives little social or political attention, water scarcity does. Last year, for example, the World Economic Forum warned that the water crisis would be the greatest global risk faced by people and economies over the next 10 years. The problem is particularly severe in Asia-Pacific — two-thirds of the world’s population live in areas that experience water scarcity for at least one month per year and about 50% of these people live in China and India.
•The lack of attention and resources devoted to effective wastewater management ignores one of the most potentially effective means of addressing the global water crisis.
The Singapore example
•Singapore, for example, is using reclaimed water, branded “NEWater”, to serve up to 30% of its needs. While largely used for industrial purposes, the water is potable and demonstrates what can be accomplished through innovative policy approaches. The largely industrial use of NEWater also points to wastewater’s potential benefits for food production and industrial development.
•More effective and efficient management of wastewater requires greater support of municipalities and local governments, which often lack the human and financial resources they need to enforce environmental rules and improve infrastructure and services. In terms of the former, businesses dumping toxins into local water systems often find it more cost-effective to pay fines rather than to modify their processes.
•As we pursue the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the 663 million people around the world who still lack improved sources of drinking water put into perspective the urgency of our mission. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 specifically focusses on water and sanitation, with Target 3 addressing water quality, but the availability of water is a cross-cutting issue upon which every aspect of development hinges. Put simply, water is life, and without a sustained commitment to improving and benefiting from effective wastewater management, that precious resource, and the billions of lives it nourishes, are in peril.
To eschew isolationism
•Given Donald Trump’s election to the White House, it was perhaps inevitable that the G20 meeting of finance ministers would end in an impasse. First, the U.S. decided in January to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Then it called to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. In more recent weeks, the Trump administration has ratcheted up its rhetoric on the U.S. trade imbalances vis-à-vis Germany and China. Each of these is a pattern of the populist penchant to play the victim card in the global multilateral system, and contributed to the deadlock at the Baden-Baden G20 meeting last weekend.
•This is not to deny that there is some familiarity to the failure of G20 nations to live up to past pledges. In this instance, it was the difficulty of including a clause to unequivocally eschew protectionism in the final communiqué, largely aimed to placate the new U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who was echoing the general anti-globalisation mood in Washington. Notable among the earlier promises to revitalise the world economy is a 2014 commitment to put in place fiscal stimulus policies to boost global annual GDP by about 2% by 2018.
Consolidating gains from globalisation
•At last week’s meeting, European countries, notably France, were keen to incorporate stronger language on the preservation of regulated free trade arrangements and more generally on the consolidation of the rules-based multilateral system. But these nations would do well to recognise that the current uncertain scenario still opens up new avenues. This was Chinese President Xi Jinping’s rallying call at the World Economic Forum in Davos, of the need to consolidate the gains from globalisation. Indeed, such an opportunity becomes a necessity given the moral and political imperatives of narrowing the inequalities arising from uneven economic growth and redistribution. Finding common cause with communist China should not pose much of a concern for democratic countries long wedded to the preservation of the liberal world order they crafted in the post-World War years. Signs of greater openness are already evident in the willingness of Germany and Britain to Chinese acquisitions and mergers in sectors that were earlier a preserve of domestic corporations.
•In his paper to the China Development Forum 2017, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz made a compelling case about why multilateral trade deficits, rather than bilateral ones, really matter over the long term. He argued that states ought to play by the multilateral rule book, even when Mr. Trump regards trade as a zero-sum game. He especially emphasised significant initiatives, such as the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, as alternative fora for cooperation among states. Resoluteness on the part of the global south, aided by like-minded nations, may persuade Washington to see reason and eschew isolationism. The G20 can’t throw in the towel.
