THE HINDU – CURRENT NOTE 25 APRIL
25 CRPF men killed in Maoist attack
Extremists target 74th battalion in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma districtJawans were sanitising the area for a road construction project10-12 Maoists were shot deadin retaliatory firing by securitymen
•In one of the deadliest attacks on security forces, Maoists killed 25 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel and injured seven in Sukma district of south Chhattisgarh on Monday. In retaliatory fire, 10 to 12 Maoists were shot dead.
•The attack took place when a team of around 100 men, belonging to the 74th battalion of the CRPF, based at the Burkapal camp on the Dornapal-Jagargunda road in south Sukma, was out to provide protection for road construction work in the area.
•According to the Anti-Naxal Operations unit of the Chhattisgarh police, the Maoists ambushed the CRPF team at about 12.55 p.m. near Burkapal.
•“Firing lasted about three hours but the seven injured jawans were rescued using a bullet proof vehicle when the firing was going on,” said Chhattisgarh’s Director General of Police A.N. Upadhyay.
•Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, who was in New Delhi, immediately rushed back to Raipur and convened an emergency meeting of his Cabinet.
•Jawan Sheikh Mohammad, injured in the attack, told reporters in Raipur that over 300 Maoists, including some dressed in “black uniform” were involved in the attack.
•According to him, the Maoists first sent some local villagers to check the location of the CRPF team.
•“Our unit was on road construction duty. Many villagers were also carrying weapons and women Maoists were also present,” Mr. Sheikh said.
•“They were carrying automatic weapons such as AK-47, SLR, and INSAS but we returned fire,”he said.
•Mr. Sheikh, who was injured in the legs, claimed that 10 to 12 Maoists were killed in the CRPF retaliation, a claim backed by Mr. Upadhyay and the Chief Minister.
•“I shot dead three Maoists,” he said.
A challenge: Rajnath
•Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the government had taken the attack as a “challenge” and described the incident as “sad and unfortunate.”
•Earlier, Mr. Singh asked Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir to travel to Chhattisgarh to take stock of the situation.
•“Extremely pained to know about the killing of CRPF personnel in Sukma. My tributes to the martyrs and condolences to their families,” Mr. Singh tweeted.
•“No administration has reached this area. CRPF was helping the government construct roads here and while doing so it has come under attack twice in the past two months,” a senior CRPF official said.
Goldman Prize for Niyamgiri hero
Prafulla Samantara led a 12-year battle to stall Vedanta’s bauxite mining
•Activist Prafulla Samantara was named on Monday as one of the six winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize for 2017. The prize citation said he was honoured for his “…historic 12-year legal battle that affirmed the indigenous Dongria Kondhs’ land rights and protected the Niyamgiri Hills from a massive, open-pit aluminum ore mine.”
•Mr. Samantara was one of the key leaders responsible for rallying tribes, indigenous to Odisha’s Niyamgiri region, and using legal provisions to thwart mining-to-metals conglomerate, Vedanta.
•The company was later forced to suspend plans to mine bauxite in the region.
Call for rational policy
•“We must have a national mining policy to rationally decide how much of our natural resources can be used for mining,” Mr. Samantara told The Hindu .
•The annual prize awarded by the Goldman Environmental Foundation honours grassroots environmentalists, who risk their lives to protect the environment and empower those who have the most to lose from industrial projects.
•Mr. Samantara, 65, comes from a family of farmers. Trained as a lawyer and married to a college professor, he has been involved in activism for nearly four decades.
•He is however, best known for his championing of the rights of the Dongria Kondh, an 8,000-member indigenous tribe in Odisha. The Niyamgiri Hills are sacred to them, and as such, the Dongria consider themselves to be its custodians.
•In October 2004, the Odisha State Mining Company (OMC) signed an agreement with U.K.-based Vedanta Resources to mine bauxite, in the Niyamgiri Hills. The mine threatened 1,660 acres of forests.
Dogged pursuit
•In 2003, Mr. Samantara saw an announcement in the newspaper about a public hearing to discuss bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri Hills and alerted the Dongria Kondh. He filed a petition with the Supreme Court’s panel governing mining activities. Almost a decade later, the Supreme Court ruled on April 18, 2013 that gram sabhas (village councils) would have the final say in mining projects on their land. By August 2013, all 12 tribal village councils had unanimously voted against the mine.
•Other prize-winners this year include mark! (sic) Lopez, U.S.; Uroš Macerl, Slovenia; Rodrigo Tot, Guatemala; Rodrigue Katembo, Democratic Republic of Congo and Wendy Bowman, Australia.
•Five other Indians — Medha Patkar, M.C. Mehta, Rasheeda Bi, Champaran Shukla, Ramesh Agrawal — have won the award since it was instituted in 1990.
•Apart from a medal and citation, winners receive a substantial cash award though the exact amount is not revealed. Reuters reported in 2014 that individuals won $175,000 (Rs. 1.13 crore approx) as prize money.
SC for broad anti-torture legislation
Says India being denied extraditions because countries fear the accused would be treated inhumanely
•India may be finding it tough to secure extraditions because there is a fear within the international community that the accused persons would be subject to torture here, the Supreme Court said on Monday.
•A Bench of Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said it was a matter of both Article 21 (fundamental right to life and dignity) and of international reputation that the government must consider promulgating a standalone, comprehensive law to define and punish torture as an instrument of “human degradation” by state authorities.
•“Such a law is in the national interest. The difficulty that India faces in matters of extradition may be because there is torture,” Justice Chandrachud observed.
•The court referred to the setback suffered by the CBI in its efforts to get Kim Davy — a Danish citizen and prime accused in the Purulia arms drop case of 1995 — extradited from Denmark. A Danish court had rejected the plea on the ground that he would risk “torture or other inhuman treatment” in India.
•“This issue needs to be dealt with and dealt with quickly,” Chief Justice Khehar told Solicitor-General Ranjit Kumar, appearing for the Centre.
Tackling torture
•The court agreed with former Union Law Minister Ashwini Kumar, who filed the PIL plea in his personal capacity, that India, which had signed the UN Convention against torture way back in 1997, had still not ratified it. The Convention defines torture as a criminal offence.
•Mr. Kumar submitted that no steps had been taken to implement the Prevention of Torture Bill 2010 even six years after it was passed by the Lok Sabha on May 6, 2010 and recommended by a Select Committee of the Rajya Sabha of which he had been Chairman.
•He informed that the Centre had avoided an independent legislation on torture, saying that some States were not in favour of such a law and the Indian Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code were more than sufficient.
•“It is not understood at all as to why the Government is resisting a standalone legislation to prevent custodial torture considering the mandate of Article 21 and India’s international obligations. A standalone legislation will certainly go a long way in creating the necessary environment to prevent abuse of custodial torture and human dignity of citizen,” Mr. Kumar contended.
Support from States
•He pointed out that 90% of the States had no objection for a special law on torture and the NHRC itself had strongly supported the need for such a law.
•The petition pointed out that the Indian Penal Code did not specifically and comprehensively address the various aspects of custodial torture and was “grossly inadequate in addressing the spiralling situation of custodial violence across the country.”
NHRC kept count
•The petition contended that the NHRC kept count of incidents of custodial torture only if the inhuman treatment led to death and not otherwise. So a majority of cases simply went unreported.
•“Unlike custodial deaths, the police are not required to report cases of torture which do not result in deaths to the NHRC,” Mr. Kumar contended.
•The Solicitor-General said the question of a special law on torture had already been referred to the Law Commission of India. He sought time till May 5, 2017 to respond in detail.
Sukhois join frontline squadron in Punjab
Major force accretion as the ‘Valiants’ are near the border
•The Halwara-based 221 Squadron of the Indian Air Force, “Valiants”, has inducted the frontline Su-30 MKI fighter aircraft. The squadron used to fly MiG-23s till they were phased out in 2009.
•This is a major force accretion as the squadron is based in Punjab facing Pakistan. The Su-30MKI is the most modern multi-role fighter in the Indian Air Force.
•The aircraft were formally inducted by Air Marshal C. Hari Kumar, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Air Command, on Monday during which he handed over the official documents of the squadron to Wing Commander H.S. Luthra, Commanding Officer of the Squadron, the IAF said in a statement.
•The “Valiants” were formed as an offensive fighter squadron on February 14, 1963 at Barrackpore and was equipped with the Vampires, Spitfire, Hurricane and Su-7 aircraft. The “Valiants” were the first to carry out strikes during the Kargil war.
The best laid plans
NITI Aayog’s shift away from five-year plans requires more substance
•Narendra Modi is not the first Chief Minister to have gone on to become Prime Minister. But given his well-known disdain for the erstwhile Planning Commission’s control-and-command approach towards States and his oft-repeated emphasis on ‘cooperative federalism’, there were great expectations from the successor organisation, the NITI Aayog. The Five Year Plans — the last one ended on March 31 — were relegated to history, to be replaced by a three-year action plan. This was to be part of a seven-year strategy that would in turn help realise a 15-year long-term vision. When the Aayog’s Governing Council that includes the Prime Minister and all Chief Ministers met, it was hoped that the fine print as well as the big picture of the new planning approach had been worked out. However, all that was handed out was a draft action agenda for the three years till 2019-20, with 300 specific action points. This agenda is meant to be the first step towards attaining the envisioned outcomes by 2031-32. This ‘New India’, as NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya put it, will ensure housing for all, with toilets, LPG, power and digital connections; access to a personal vehicle, air conditioner and white goods for ‘nearly all’; and a fully literate population with universal health care.
•Assuming that the economy grows at 8% annually hereon, the Aayog has presented estimates about the size of the economy and per capita incomes by 2031-32, though juxtaposing these with China’s performance in the last 15 years is a bit odd. India’s GDP will rise by Rs. 332 lakh crore in the next 15 years, the Aayog reckons. The bare details of the 15-year vision that have been shared seem like motherhood statements with some optimistic numerical guesswork. But even that is more than we know about the seven-year strategy. Without the larger strategy and vision in place, the three-year action plan is likely to be more of an abstract wish list that Chief Ministers will now evaluate and revert on. Effectively, till it is ratified by the Council, there is a vacuum in India’s policy framework — similar to the delayed starts of past Five Year Plans. It is not yet apparent if the 12th Plan’s innovation of painting alternative scenarios (of actions and outcomes) — a more useful tool for longer-term planning — has been adopted. Meanwhile, the PM’s message to States to speed up capital expenditure and infrastructure development is important as pump-priming the economy is not only the Centre’s task. All the same, asking the States to take the initiative on switching India’s financial year to match the calendar year is unusual as it requires the Centre to take the lead by making public the report of the committee that has recommended this. To make cooperative federalism truly effective, the Council, or Team India as Mr. Modi calls it, must meet more often — a nearly two-year gap in doing so is a recipe for communication breakdown.
The climate fight is global
The Paris accord requires vigilance by all global actors in view of the U.S.’s changed stance on climate change
•Farmers from Tamil Nadu were gathered in Delhi recently, carrying skulls, apparently belonging to those among them who had committed suicide. They were seeking government assistance following the worst drought in the State in recent times. Concurrently, there are several droughts in many other parts of the world, including Bolivia and several regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. Scorched lands have led to dying livestock, withering crops, and parched communities.
•Several recent extreme events such as wildfires, droughts, severe heatwaves and cyclones in other places have a clear signature of a changing climate, but in many cases these are exacerbated by other institutional failures. None of this has, however, persuaded the present U.S. government that anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) are responsible for climate change. The U.S. is still the world’s second largest annual emitter of GHGs and has generated more than a quarter of the total anthropogenic GHGs in the atmosphere since 1850.
•Even though the U.S. has not technically withdrawn from the Paris Agreement from last December, when countries came together and set climate-related targets for themselves, President Donald Trump’s recent decisions are a sweeping repudiation of former U.S. President Barack Obama’s policies to reduce and limit pollution and GHGs.
•The curbs on power plant emissions by the Obama administration — the Clean Power Plan (CPP) — were aimed at reducing the power sector’s carbon dioxide emissions by about a third below the 2005 levels by 2030. The regulations would require states and electric utilities to reduce emissions either by deploying renewables, reducing demand or increasing power plant efficiencies.
Effect of Trump’s actions
•Mr. Trump’s orders not only directed federal agencies to cancel or amend policies that might interfere with domestic energy production, but also slashed research budgets for climate change.
•In any case, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) CPP has been in the courts for more than a year due to a legal challenge mounted by over half the U.S. states and a number of companies that opposed the rule. Nevertheless, even if Mr. Trump’s order to eliminate the CPP were to go into effect, his administration is required by a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling to regulate carbon dioxide. Moreover, the EPA’s rules are themselves not easy to reverse by a stroke of the presidential pen, especially given another 2009 EPA finding that GHGs “threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations”.
•How far Mr. Trump will continue to push for curbs on climate change reduction in the U.S. and any possible ripple effects from these remain to be seen. Under the circumstances, most commentators believe that his actions will have a limited impact.
•Still, the recent moves by its President are a clear signal that the U.S. is no longer interested in curbing GHGs to stabilise the climate and neither is it keen to meet its Paris commitments.
•Mr. Trump’s actions also demonstrate that allowing countries to write their own Nationally Determined Contributions, seen as an improvement to a global top-down approach, still has to confront the same political problem — continued implementation of the agreement by successive governments within each country. That a major emitter is retreating from its former commitments is of course a danger to the world’s climate, but this may not be a big step back if other countries persist with their efforts and if renewables continue to get more affordable as they have recently. This move also provides elbow room for renewable energy businesses elsewhere to pick up the slack in interest within the U.S.
•Nonetheless, it does make one wonder how the U.S. or Europe would have responded if another country, say, India, had undertaken similar actions. There may have been little time lost before name-calling and shaming began, following which global trade sanctions would likely have been imposed, or perhaps other kinds of bans or penalties. The chance that any of this will happen now towards the U.S., still a superpower, appears to be slim.
Role of sub-national actors
•Nation states are the proper agencies responsible for curbing emissions to the shared global commons. Nevertheless, Mr. Trump’s recalcitrance shows that a change in political leadership could lead to the backing out of an international treaty by any signatory. Global agreements are often tenuous and need support and pressure from other actors within and across countries who function at many levels: states, territories or provinces within a country, cities, policy think tanks, scientists, philanthropists, local communities, civil society organisations, investors, transnational groups and multinational industries.
•For example, the now global movement created by 350.org and other climate protection advocacy groups in Europe and elsewhere has made impressive progress on many fronts. The regional commitments to reducing GHGs by states in large parts of the U.S., the philanthropies that are supporting improvements in efficiencies and innovations in the climate and energy sector, and cities such as New York and Seattle, which are committed to building a low-carbon future, are all examples of sub-national entities that have a powerful influence. Thus, whether it is Mr. Trump or a Democrat in the White House, the work for these players is quite important. Climate change, like democracy itself, requires vigilance and participation by both state and non-state actors.
‘Only six of top 20 H-1B recipients are Indian firms’
Nasscom refutes U.S. comment on ‘lion’s share’ of visas
•Refuting the U.S. government’s comment on H-1B visa lottery misuse by Indian companies, IT industry body Nasscom on Monday said that only 6 of the top 20 H-1B recipients were Indian.
•The apex body also said two Indian firms, TCS and Infosys, together received only 7,504 approved H-1B visas in FY 2015; that is about 8.8% of the total approved H-1B visas.
•“Nasscom would like to clarify on the statements made by the White House on Indian companies getting the lion’s share of H-1B visas; and highlight that in FY 2015, only 6 of the top 20 H-1B recipients were Indian companies,” Nasscom said in a statement.
•Last week, a U.S. administration official had said that Indian companies like TCS, Infosys and Cognizant were getting the lion’s share of H-1B visas. “…top recipients of the H-1B visa are companies like Tata, Infosys, Cognizant — they will apply for a very large number of visas, more than they get, by putting extra tickets in the lottery raffle, if you will, and then they’ll get the lion’s share of visas,” the official had said.
•In its statement, Nasscom also said all the Indian IT companies cumulatively accounted for less than 20% of the total approved H-1B visas.
•“The annual number of Indian IT specialists working on temporary visas for Indian IT service companies is about 0.009% of the 158-million-member U.S. workforce,” the Nasscom statement said. Indian nationals get about 71% of H-1B visas.
‘India in talks’
•“We are in talks with the U.S. government on the issue,” said Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. “The discussions are not regarding the [Indian] companies but are on the [U.S.] law governing H-1B visas and the commitment made by the U.S. [on the number of such visas]. We are not questioning any country's sovereign right to issue visas, but the number [of H-1B visas] and the process.”
India aims to cut oil products imports as it spurs alternatives
•India is aiming to cut its oil products imports to zero as it turns to alternative fuels such as methanol in its transport sector, a government official said at an investor briefing on Monday.
•“We are trying our level best that the day will come when we don’t need to import any fuel from any country and that we will be self-sufficient,” Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said at a conference organised by Nomura in Singapore.
•But he could not provide a specific timeline for the target due to challenges with the distribution and availability of alternative fuels such as liquefied natural gas (LNG), he said.
•“Auto-rickshaws are using LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) now...LNG is important but the availability of LNG and distribution is a big challenge... we have to develop that,” he said.
•India also plans to start 15 factories to produce second-generation ethanol from biomass, bamboo and cotton straw as it aims to develop its mandate to blend ethanol into 5% of its gasoline, he added. “Bamboo is available from tribal areas... our vision is to be cost effective, import substitute and pollution free,” he said.
•India imported about 33 million tonnes of oil products over April 2016 to February 2017, up almost 24% from the same period a year earlier, government data showed. The majority of the imports comprise petroleum coke and LPG.
Pare carbon footprint
•Energy consumption in India, the world’s third-biggest oil consumer, is expected to grow as it targets between 8% to 9% economic growth this fiscal year from about 7% in 2016/17. To cut the carbon footprint, New Delhi wants to raise the use of natural gas in its energy mix to 15% in 3-4 years from 6.5% now. India is developing LNG bunker ports and plans to develop its electric vehicle fleet, Mr. Gadkari said.
