THE HINDU – CURRENT NOTE 01 MAY
SAARC satellite set for lift-off
All nations in the grouping, except Pakistan, to benefit from ISRO’s May 5 launch
•The ‘South Asia Satellite,’ which India has built for use by countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) will be launched on May 5.
•This was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Mann Ki Baat radio address on Sunday. He said the capacities of the satellite and the facilities it offered “will go a long way in addressing South Asia’s economic and developmental priorities.”
‘A boon for the region’
•“Natural resources mapping, telemedicine, education, deeper IT connectivity or fostering people-to-people contact — this satellite will prove to be a boon in the progress of the entire region. It is an important step by India to enhance co-operation with the entire South Asia… It is an invaluable gift. This is an appropriate example of our commitment to South Asia,” he said.
•Mr. Modi announced the satellite project at the 2014 SAARC summit in Nepal, and all SAARC countries, except Pakistan, have joined it. The total cost of launching the satellite is put at Rs. 235 crore, and it will be met by the Government of India, Minister of State for Atomic Energy and Space Jitendra Singh had said in Parliament.
•The GSAT-09 offers a full range of applications and services in telecommunication and broadcasting: Television, Direct-to-Home (DTH), Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSATs), Tele-education, Telemedicine and Disaster Management Support. The 2,230-kg satellite was built by the Indian Space Research Organisation and has 12 Ku-band transponders. It is cuboid in shape and built around a central cylinder. It has a mission life of over 12 years. It will be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota on the Geostationary Launch Vehicle Mk-II. The GSLV-F09 is about 50 metre tall and is the 11th flight of the GSLV.
Turkey sees role in Kashmir talks
Urging an end to casualties in the Valley, Erdogan offers to help find a lasting solution
•Setting the stage for intense diplomacy, Turkey has urged for a multilateral dialogue to solve the Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan. In comments made to an Indian TV channel, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for an end to the casualties in the Valley, and said Turkey was willing to be involved in finding a lasting solution to the question of Kashmir.
•“We should not allow more casualties to occur and by strengthening multilateral dialogue, we can be involved, and through multilateral dialogue, I think we have to seek out ways to settle this question once and for all, which will benefit both countries,” President Erdogan was quoted as saying in an interview to news channel WION, according to a press release issued by the channel.
Meeting today
•The comments are likely to add to the atmospherics on Monday when President Erdogan will hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other leaders in the capital.
•The External Affairs Ministry on Thursday noted Turkey’s position on Kashmir and Pakistan, and said Turkey-India ties stood “on their own footing”.
•“Our position on the State of Jammu and Kashmir is very well known and ... the entire State of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of the territory of India,” said MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay.
•As per the Simla Pact of 1972, India has sought a resolution of the Kashmir issue through bilateral means and avoided any third party intervention. However, Mr. Erdogan’s statement on Kashmir is in line with the Pakistan-Turkey Joint Statement issued during his November 16-17, 2016 visit to Islamabad when he expressed support for UN resolutions regarding Kashmir.
•India has maintained that the UN has no role to play in this matter and has withdrawn support to the UNMOGIP (UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan).
Pak. entry in NSG
•President Erdogan also indicated that Ankara wished to pursue a hyphenated policy as far as India’s multilateral campaigns were concerned. Though his visit was viewed as an indication of Turkey’s willingness to support India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), his comments tied up New Delhi’s bid for NSG with that of Pakistan.
•“Both India and Pakistan have the right to aspire for NSG membership. I think India should not assume such an attitude. If Turkey was fair enough to support Pakistan, it was fair enough to support India. We are very objective and positive to the NSG process,” he was quoted as saying by the TV channel.
•The statement is particularly significant as it followed hours after India expressed strong support for sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cyprus, which has a decades-old territorial dispute with Turkey.
•“We understand that the two sides in Cyprus have been talking to each other. India hopes that a just and lasting solution will be found to the Cyprus problem in accordance with the UNSC resolutions. We support a peaceful solution between the parties concerned,” Mr. Baglay had said on Thursday.
•Welcoming President Nicos Anastasiades of Cyprus on April 28, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had reiterated India’s historic support to maintain territorial integrity of Cyprus when it faced Turkish invasion in 1974.
•In his statement, Mr. Modi had said at the Hyderabad House on Friday, “India has always stood by Cyprus on all crucial issues. In 1974, India took a firm stand in support of the sovereignty, unity and integrity of the Republic of Cyprus.”
•The Hindu had earlier reported that President Anastasiades had also sought India’s involvement in solving the dispute with Turkey.
Real estate Act will come into force today
Law promises to protect rights of homebuyers
•The much-awaited Real Estate Regulatory Act, which promises to protect the rights of homebuyers and bring in transparency to the sector, comes into force on Monday. Though only 13 States and Union Territories have notified the rules so far, the Centre believes that within the next two months, others too will follow suit.
•“All Sections of the Act will come into force from May 1 and become operational. The clock now begins to tick for registration of ongoing and new housing projects with regulatory authorities within three months,” said a senior official of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, who did not wish to be named.
•Real estate developers shall get all the ongoing projects that have not received completion certificate and the new projects registered with regulatory authorities by July-end. This enables the buyers to enforce their rights and seek redress, a Ministry spokesperson said.
Project necessities
•Under these regulations, developers are required to display sanctioned plans and layout plans of at least 3X2 feet size at all marketing offices, other offices where properties are sold, all branch offices and head office of the promoters in addition to the site of project.
•As per the new act, 70% of the funds would have to be deposited in a separate bank account in case of new projects and 70% of unused funds in case of ongoing projects. Projects with plot size of minimum 500 sq.m or at least eight apartments shall be registered. Both developers and buyers will pay penalty for delays. The liability is on developers for structural defects for five years.
Trade deal needed before Brexit payment, says May
Call for a reciprocal deal on British nationals in EU
•British Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday denied she was “in a different galaxy” after European Union (EU) leaders were reportedly dismayed by her Brexit negotiating demands at a meeting this week.
•Ms. May told European Commission (EC) president Jean-Claude Juncker and chief negotiator Michel Barnier that a detailed potential trade deal needed to be drawn up before Britain would agree to pay its EU divorce bill, according to The Sunday Times . According to the paper, Mr. Juncker told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that Ms. May was “in a different galaxy”, adding that it looked more likely now that no deal would be reached at all.
•Ms. May told BBC’s Andrew Marr Show that she stood by her earlier comment that “no deal was better than a bad deal”, and rejected claims that her negotiating stance was unreasonable.
•“I’m not in a different galaxy. What this shows is that there are going to be times when these negotiations are going to be tough,” she said. “I want to ensure we agree on a trade deal and withdrawal arrangements for...when we leave the European Union.”
•Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel said the EU estimated the bill to be €40-60 billion ($42-65 billion), which mainly covers financial commitments made by the bloc while Britain was a member. EU leaders unanimously backed a tough Brexit strategy at a summit on Saturday, demanding a “serious response” from Britain on the rights of European citizens before trade talks can start.
•Ms. May said there was agreement that the fate of EU nationals living in Britain should be an early priority, but that as Prime Minister she also had “a care for the U.K. citizens living in the other 27 countries of the EU”, calling for a reciprocal deal.
Kashmir’s unending tragedy
Talks and de-escalation must go together — it is not wise to make them sequential
•The dreadful violence and low turnout in a by-election in Kashmir has again raised intense debate in New Delhi. Unfortunately this debate has been mainly abusive rather than productive, and as a result it has masked the real issues.
•Somehow we have created a binary in which there are only two opposing groups — those in mainland India who consider Kashmiris to be pro-Pakistan Wahhabis who support terrorism, and those in the Valley who consider Indians to be rabid communalists. Each has a grain of truth insofar as there are constituencies of extremists on both sides, but only a grain. The majority of Kashmiris want to live in freedom, peace and dignity, just as the majority of Indians do, and we all look to our governments, at the Centre and in Jammu and Kashmir, to provide us with these.
Towards the extremes
•The growing influence of this ugly mutual propaganda, seen not only in social media but also on our television channels, will drive more people to extremism and that, surely, is a cause for concern to citizens as well as the government. There is no denying that the Islamic State-type perversion of Islam has gained ground amongst a few in the Valley, nor that stone-pelting has been organised in many instances. But there should equally be no denying that anger in the Valley is higher than it has been in two decades and has reached alarming proportions. Nor can we deny that at least one major cause of this anger is the lack of a peace and reconciliation process, which the Bharatiya Janata Party-Peoples Democratic Party (BJP-PDP) coalition promised, or that another major cause is the lack of an honest and accountable administration.
•We have allowed our security forces (Army, Central Reserve Police Force and State police) to be the only visible face of India in the Valley — our legislators and civil government are not to be seen. The security forces have had to bear the brunt of public anger, and after almost a decade of being stoned, it is not surprising that they commit human rights abuses. But that does not, and must not, mean that we justify abuse or add to it. We need rather to focus on the restoration of trust in administration so that our forces are no longer needed for internal security. We have done a gross injustice to our troops by keeping them in internal conflict situations for decades on end. The forces can at most contain internal violence and that too only if it is a short-term task; after that it is the responsibility of the administration and political representatives to step in. In the absence of a political and reconciliation process, asking security forces to show restraint in the face of constant stoning is not feasible.
Peace process and violence
•Past experience shows that when there has been a peace process, incidents of violence, including stone-pelting, have died down. In 2010, when I was one of three interlocutors sent to the Valley, the government initiated a multitrack process combining humanitarian and political dialogue with security reforms that ranged from tightening the anti-infiltration grid to distinguishing between first-time offenders and ringleaders, and tackling economic woes. It was the combination of these elements that worked then, and they created conditions for political talks that could have significantly improved relations between the Valley and the rest of India.
•I am often asked what happened to our report. All I know is that the United Progressive Alliance government, the parliamentary delegation that had recommended the creation of our group, as well as the State government failed to follow through on any of our political and constitutional recommendations, while the BJP rejected it in toto. That failure was a major setback, especially for the several thousand people who spoke to us.
•Another such opportunity was offered by the Agenda for Alliance. The BJP and the PDP had fought a bitterly divisive election campaign against each other, and their coming together held out a hope of reconciliation for the State. There are political commitments in the Agenda for Alliance that would go a long way to alleviating anger in the Valley, Jammu and Ladakh and they could have been implemented without alienating any of the regions. They still can be, and it would be an important confidence booster if the leaders of the two parties sit down and choose which of the political commitments to honour.
•True, the failure to sustain a political process until resolution can be found is not new. It has been repeated for decades — indeed we could go back to the 1950s — but that only compounds the problem, it does not justify continuing inaction. It is more difficult to make peace today than it was five years ago, and it was more difficult then that in the previous five years. That means it will be even worse in another five years and soon it will be insuperable.
•What about the role of Pakistan? History shows us that they have tried to foster an anti-India jihad in Jammu and Kashmir since 1947 but without much success until the late 1980s, by which time Article 370 of the Constitution had been rendered a dead letter. By 1988, repeated Indian interference in J&K’s internal political processes led thousands of young Kashmiris to an armed uprising. Since then we have struggled to put those years behind us, and succeeded insofar as free and fair elections are concerned. But our failure to seize windows for political reconciliation has played into Pakistani hands and it is doing so again, while we waste our time in futile debates about who is more nationalist amongst Indians and who is more traitorous amongst Kashmiris.
•As innumerable commentators have pointed out, the best way to prevent Pakistan from making hay is for talks with Kashmiri dissidents. Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti recently said, on her discussion with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that there will be a political dialogue, but only after some peace is restored. Talks and de-escalation, however, go together, and it is not wise to make them sequential.
•Nor is it clear whom the government will talk to. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the Supreme Court a few days ago that the government will not talk to people who demand independence or secession. Presumably he meant the Hurriyat, JKLF and allied groups. Such a position makes talks a non-starter — to repeat a platitude, you do not make peace with your friends but with your opponents. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the then Home Minister L.K. Advani saw this point clearly, as did their successors, Manmohan Singh and P. Chidambaram. Mr. Vajpayee’s most brilliant strategy was to accept the Hurriyat’s offer to act as a bridge to Pakistan — the Pakistan government could not refuse to listen to Kashmiris. Of course, in their usual way, the Pakistan government did not wind up its training, arming and sanctuaries for Islamist guerrillas fighting India but they did get them to lie low, and as a result the lack of public support for militancy was able to make itself evident.
Address rights abuses
•We should not also forget the Hurriyat and dissident leaders, including of armed groups, who gave their lives in the search for peace with India. Abdul Ghani Lone, the People’s Conference leader who said that the time for armed militancy was over, was assassinated in an Inter-Services Intelligence operation. Pro-Pakistan militants murdered Majid Dar, the Hizbul Mujahideen commander who engaged in talks for a ceasefire with army representatives. More recently, Hurriyat leader Fazal Haq Qureshi was shot by local militants for talks with Mr. Chidambaram, and almost died. There are many within the Hurriyat who would consider talks again, just as there are many in the Valley who are worried about the lumpenisation of Islam that the stone-pelters represent. None of them, however, will or can cooperate as long as we fail to offer them a political process and redress human rights abuses.
•If the government wants to restore peace to the Valley, it cannot do it by force — talks with dissidents is the only option. The demonisation of Kashmiris by ruling party spokespersons — all stone-pelters are traitors, really? — does not give much hope. Perhaps the Supreme Court will help.
Years after war, trials of resettlement
It is time for the Sri Lankan government to get its act together on the ground
•After 20 years in India, wearing a “refugee” tag that led her from one camp to another, it was only in December 2016 that Edward Selyn, 55, returned home. Until a few days ago, she was among a group of people seated under a tent in Mullikulam village in Mannar, in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, protesting in the scorching heat for a month, demanding that the Sri Lankan Navy release her land.
•She was displaced in 1996 with her entire family, after the civil war broke out. Now, eight years after the war ended and months after her return, Ms. Selyn has not stopped feeling displaced. “I had all my documents and deeds, but still could not get back to the land where my home was. I did not think we would come back to such a situation,” she says.
•Several thousand acres of formerly civilian-owned or occupied land across the conflict-affected Northern and Eastern Provinces remained with the Sri Lankan armed forces after the war ended in 2009, severely hampering post-war resettlement in Sri Lanka.
Right to return
•After waiting for decades, frustrated northern Tamils and Muslims organised a wave of protests in the past few months, asking for their lands. Pressured by their relentless agitations, the military began returning land in different areas, and on Saturday (April 29) released Ms. Selyn’s land. The Resettlement Ministry claims that the armed forces have so far released 70,000 acres of land they held, but no one knows exactly how much yet remains under their control, or when exactly those lands might be released. Neither the national unity government nor the Ministry was proactive in communicating with the affected people, leaving them in the dark about their future.
•A couple of hundred metres away from Ms. Selyn’s protest were nearly 100 Muslim men seated in a large semicircle, outside a pale green mosque in Marichchukaddi village of Musali. Their protest, too, is about the right to return. After the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam expelled them from the north in the early 1990s, thousands of Tamil-speaking Muslim families were displaced to other parts of the island for nearly three decades. And just as some of them had begun resettling in their areas of origin, amid the hazy optimism after some land was released, a heavy blow struck them by way of a recent gazette notification. The hastily drafted notification suddenly expanded the limits of the Wilpattu National Park, in Sri Lanka’s North Western and North Central Provinces, declaring their adjoining villages “forest reserve”, out of bounds to them.
•“The linking of the wildlife forest and our former homes is new and very unfair,” Ali Khan, one of the protesters, complains. “We lived in those villages for generations, no one encroached on the forest area.”
•The situation Ms. Selyn faced or Mr. Khan is in is symptomatic of the grossly woeful resettlement project that the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration, formerly in power, flagged off. A militarised state apparatus hung over on its war “victory”, attempts by the state to settle Sinhala villagers in the North and East, and recurring bureaucratic lethargy have effectively stalled resettlement for scores of families.
•Almost everywhere across the Northern Province, protesters are quick to credit President Maithripala Sirisena, who they helped come to power in 2015, for enabling a democratic environment in which they can protest without fear. All the same, they are now disillusioned with his government’s piecemeal approach to resettlement, at best ad hoc and half-hearted and at worst blatantly insensitive. It has failed to factor in the varied needs of communities trying to restart their lives after years of strife. The rare hope that people felt initially is vanishing, making way for familiar disappointment.
•Recent instances of the military returning some of the occupied land brings much-needed relief to communities, but getting back to their land only means facing new challenges. G. Jayalakshmi is among the few to have recovered her land in Pilakkudiyiruppu village in Mullaitivu. While the return itself came after a month-long protest by residents, what followed was a classic case of thoughtlessness and neglect on the part of the state. Under a makeshift tent on barren land, families like hers live without drinking water, sanitation or electricity. “We have to go a little far there for our needs,” she says, pointing at the silhouettes of a few surviving trees a few yards away, in the dim light of hurricane lamps hanging from their branches. “What else can we do?” she asks, raising her voice over the shrill bark of a lone dog.
•Meanwhile, local government officials are asking them to give up the house they lived in — that displaced families got some years ago — in return for new homes here. “There is nothing on this land, our [old] homes were fully razed down. How can we give up our homes elsewhere already? What if nothing comes up here?” Ms. Jayalakshmi asks.
•For those who kept asking when they might get back to their land, the prospect also brings with it the promise of a livelihood. Speaking of their land, the protesters foreground concerns over livelihood in the same breath. For hundreds of years before the war, the people of the north were predominantly farmers or fisherfolk. Whether cultivation for trade or subsistence, it was their land and waters that gave them a sense of place and importantly, economic security. The civil war and the multiple displacements it caused denied them access to both.
•Recalling a time when Tamils and Muslims of Mannar owned neighbouring plots of land and had more cordial relations, Mr. Khan says the communities cultivated land or collected honey for a living. “There were fertile plots and ponds in our village. While many of us struggle without jobs now, we can’t use any of that. They say it is conservation.”
•Mr. Khan also points to outdated numbers in government records that don’t account for successive generations. “Our village limits should be redrawn keeping in mind the increase in population,” he says, highlighting the plight of the landless.
Lives, lands and livelihoods
•Resettlement was never going to be easy and the government knows that. Headline housing schemes and vocational training centres alone cannot provide solutions to people who have been subjected to brutal violence and displacement. It takes a far more comprehensive approach and a thoughtful strategy to rebuild a war-battered community. It must be one that appreciates the intimate link between the lives of a people to their land and livelihoods, and in keeping with their current realities. For eight years, the northern people have put up with a rather messy resettlement process, counting only on their resilience. Their protests are nothing but a reflection of their waning patience.
•After much grandstanding at the UN Human Rights Council and international forums about its commitment to reconciliation, it is time for the Sri Lankan government to get its act together on the ground. Communities cannot reconcile as long as some citizens do not feel secure. It is not the state’s benevolence or patronage that the people want. As citizens, they simply want the state to do its duty. And that is to make everyone on this island feel at home.
Reining in the sharks
The Real Estate Act largely addresses consumer interests, but some creases are still to be ironed out
•The much awaited Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Act is now in effect. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation recently notified 69 out of the 92 sections in total, which set the ball rolling for States to formulate, within six months, rules and regulations as statutorily mandated. Since land is a State subject under the Constitution, even after the Centre enacts the legislation, State governments will have to ratify them. States will have to set up the Real Estate Regulatory Authority’s (RERA) and the Real Estate Appellate Tribunals and have only a maximum of a year from the coming into effect of the Act to do so.
•The Act’s preamble details the legislative intention which is to primarily protect the interests of consumers and bring in efficiency and transparency in the sale/purchase of real estate. The Act also attempts to establish an adjudicatory mechanism for the speedy redress of disputes. RERA and the Appellate Tribunal are expected to decide on complaints within an ambitious period of 60 days. But no legislation can protect the interest of only one class. As one of the largest job creators, the real estate sector contributes almost 6% towards the GDP. Mindful of this, the Act seeks to assist developers by giving the regulator powers to make recommendations to State governments to create a single window clearance for approvals in a time-bound manner.
Moving towards transparency
•Key provisions of the Act include a requirement for developers to now register projects with RERA prior to any advertisement and sale. Developers are also expected to have all sanction plans approved and regulatory clearances in place prior to commencement of sale. Subsequent changes have to be approved by a majority of buyers and the regulator. The Act again ambitiously stipulates an electronic system, maintained on the website of RERA, where developers are expected to update on a quarterly basis the status of their projects, and submit regular audits and architectural reports. Notably, non-registration of projects is a serious matter. If there is non-compliance, RERA has the power to order up to three years imprisonment of the promoters of a project.
•Importantly, it requires developers to maintain separate escrow accounts in relation to each project and deposit 70% of the collections in such an account to ensure that funds collected are utilised only for the specific project. The Act also requires real estate brokers and agents to register themselves with the regulator.
Builder grievances
•While consumer interests have been protected, developers find provisions of the Act to be exceptionally burdensome on a sector already ailing from a paucity of funds and multiple regulatory challenges. The builder lobby has been demanding “industry” status for the real estate sector as it would help in the availability of bank loans. Real estate companies say that most delays are because of the failure of authorities to grant approvals/sanctions on time. While the Act addresses some of this, it does not deal with the concerns of developers regarding force majeure (acts of god outside their control) which result in a shortage of labour or issues on account of there not being a central repository of land titles/deeds.
•Some of these concerns are legitimate but the real estate sector has become a sort of untamed horse galloping in all directions. The cracks emerging in their books are largely of their own making. Once 100% foreign direct investment was permitted in real estate, international money flooded the market. Builders/developers overstretched themselves and diverted funds while some began to cross-invest in non-core activities. In the race to announce the next “mega project” one came across, in many instances, real estate companies embarking on projects without even consolidating land.
•Like with any new legislation, it takes time to iron out the creases. In fact, the 22 sections still to be notified relate to functions/duties of promoters, rights/duties of allottees, recovery of interest on penalties and other offences. It appears that the law makers have consciously delayed the notification of these provisions till such time as regulators, developers and buyers familiarise themselves with the new legislation.
•Eventually the benefit of any statute is contingent on its effective implementation. Despite a model set of rules, only a few States have notified their rules. The onus is now on States to formulate rules and establish the regulatory authorities on time. There shouldn’t be just paper compliance, by designating an existing authority to take additional charge as the real estate regulator, as that would affect the timeliness prescribed under the Act.
•Finally, the new legislation is a welcome enactment. It will go a long way in assisting upstanding developers. More importantly, it will ease the burden on innocent home buyers who put their life’s savings into a real estate investment in the hope of having a roof over their head but often find their dreams come tumbling down.
Malleable information is not journalism
The vexatious questions that arise from the contested interface between digital technologies and journalism
•In philosophy, the accent is on coming up with a right question. The underlying principle is that there is an answer to every right question. At some level, questioning is cerebral. However, providing answers is the task of sloggers. They have to delve deep into available literature, triangulate multiple strands to eliminate internal contradictions, and provide a clue that is consistent with both the legal and ethical frameworks. One of the frequent requests we receive is for a takedown of a particular story from our digital archive. These readers invoke the right to be forgotten and often cite the European Court of Justice’s 2014 judgment that directed the search engine, Google, to remove thousands of web links. The primacy of privacy supersedes freedom of expression and the accuracy of historical record in this judgment.
•Why does this newspaper not encourage takedown requests? Does the non-existence of a particular material online erase it from all other forms of archiving? What about the existence of the physical newspaper, with the content that some readers want to take down, that exists not only in the newspaper’s office but also across various public libraries? Is the onus of monitoring and restricting a specific web link the job of a search engine? If a particular string is blocked by an algorithm, what prevents the interested parties from creating parallel strings to keep the expunged content alive online? Is it not important to remember the observation of the founders of Google: “The web is a vast collection of completely uncontrolled heterogeneous collections”?
For a transformative change
•A scholar I rely on when dealing with the vexatious questions that arise from the contested interface between digital technologies and journalism is George Brock, a well-known journalist who worked for the Observer and The Times . Mr. Brock is now the head of the Graduate School of Journalism at City University, London and he served as president of the World Editors Forum. His 2013 book,Out of Print , argued that journalism can flourish in a new digital world if it is willing to adopt a transformative change while retaining its four core tasks: verification, sense-making, eye-witness and investigation.
•Mr. Brock in his last book, The Right to be Forgotten (Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford) looked at the rules that govern the preservation of information of public value, its contours and boundaries, and did not restrict himself to only what is in public interest now but what might be of interest in the future. He explains the power data harvesters have to alter the normal effects of the passage of time in the present context where information never fades into the past but often returns to the present with a keystroke. He wryly cites Lucas D. Introna and Helen Nissenbaum: “In twenty first century life, to exist is to be indexed by a search engine.” He concedes that there are problems that flow from this instant retrieval system where the information has a perpetual existence. For him, the issue goes beyond immediate concerns such as “censorship” or “deleting history on any scale”. He is rightly worried about ratchet moves that can extend the law’s grasp to shrink free expression. The carelessness of tech giants, with the unintended consequences of data protection, he argues, may have been the moral force behind legal restraint. But, he asserts, that should not lead to a situation that falls much short of the basic legal tenet of “specific and proportionate remedies for identifiable wrongs”.
•Mr. Brock looks at a range of court cases, requests for delisting, the response of the search engines and the new growing industry of attorneys who claim that their efforts have led “to the successful removal of links that include information relating to past/spent convictions, disciplinary sanctions, offensive blog articles, news reports, private/intimate images, work place investigations and employment disputes”. He explains that the Google Spain case was not about defamation, which remains an expensive area of law; that it was not about inaccurate information as there was no dispute as to the newspaper’s original announcement; that it was not about wrongful release of private information as the announcement was meant to be public; and that it was not about information doing harm. It was about the petitioner’s claim that he had been embarrassed, which the court made it clear was not a requirement to de-index, yet which gave a verdict that may put free speech and journalism on a slippery slope.
Price caps are a bad idea
As expected, the government’s decision to cap the price of stents is leadingto some problems
•Cardiac stents, the medical devices used to prevent fatal heart attacks by allowing the easier flow of blood, are a lifesaver for millions of patients in India. It was no wonder that when the government decided in February this year to cap the price of stents to improve affordability, it brought a huge sigh of relief.
•The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) slashed the price of stents by up to 85%. The price of bare metal stents (BMS) was fixed at Rs. 7,623 and drug-eluting stents (DES) at Rs. 31,080; down from Rs. 45,000 and Rs. 1.21 lakh respectively. The NPPA later raised the price cap by around 2% from April to compensate for the rise in the input costs of producers.
•The government estimated that the control of stent prices could save as much as Rs. 4,450 crore a year for patients. That obviously sounds fabulous. But what if the price cap has other unseen effects? Government policies often have unintended consequences, as economists have long warned. And when it comes to price caps on life-saving devices, actions taken for the public good may actually be fatal for patients.
Unintended consequences
•In particular, price caps have some unintended consequences. For instance, by adversely affecting the returns pharmaceutical companies can earn on making stents, price caps can reduce their supply. For instance, fixing the price of stents below their cost of production would offer no economic incentive for firms to continue production. It wasn’t any surprise then that last week, three international manufacturers (Abbott Healthcare, Boston Scientific, and Medtronic India) that supply stents in India threatened to pull out of the market. The NPPA refused to approve the withdrawal request of two of the companies, shedding bad light on doing business in India. In addition, there came reports of stents shortages immediately following the price cap order in February.
•The NPPA has justified the price cap saying that these companies can earn profits even at the lower prices mandated by it. This misses the point that investors judge the attractiveness of an investment based on its expected return compared to other investments. Thus, as long as price caps affect relative returns, it would affect the amount and urgency of investments into making stents.
•None of this is new. The price caps imposed on 74 drugs under the Drugs (Prices Control) Order (DPCO) 1995 led to the stoppage in production of half the drugs. The DPCO 2013, which capped the price of 348 drugs, dried up any new investments in them — something crucial to lowering drug prices in a sustainable manner. The government’s desire now to go down the same failed path suggests it has not learned any lessons.
How the Islamic State rose
Insights into the fault lines in West Asia
•The rapid and violent rise of the Islamic State (IS) baffled many. Unheard of until 2013, the IS suddenly started making headlines with its brutal tactics and solid military victories in Iraq and Syria. Within a few months of announcing its formation, it captured huge swathes of territories in both countries, effectively erasing the border between them. What helped Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his men defeat even conventional forces such as the Iraqi military and gobble up territories in such little time?
•Veteran journalist Patrick Cockburn’s book, The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution , one of the first books to be published on the IS, seeks to answer this question. Mr. Cockburn, who covers West Asia for The Independentnewspaper, goes deeper into the roots of today’s IS to the 1980s Mujahideen jihadism in Afghanistan that was backed by the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. What has allowed the IS to emerge today is the region’s geopolitics. The Syrian civil war, in which different countries in the region are involved through their proxies, destabilised the country leaving territories for jihadists to capture and turn into havens.
•Willian McCants, who directs the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution, takes this narrative forward in The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State . If Mr. Cockburn’s tiny book stays focussed on the rise of the IS, Mr. McCants goes into the military strategy and sectarian ideology of the organisation. The IS’s actions may look barbaric, but the group had a plan. It used the spectacle of violence to stir up religious fervour among disaffected youth worldwide and drew them to its core, tied up with the former Ba’athists in Iraq, and moved ahead with a clear blueprint to establish the ‘Caliphate’.
•In ISIS: The State of Terror , Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger offer a detailed description of the rise and reign of the group. The IS is more than a bunch of crazy fighters and a Caliph.
•In a couple of years, the IS has evolved into one of the most potent terrorist machineries. The State of Terror covers the different arms of the group — its foreign fighters, social jihad, electronic brigades, and so on. The IS may now be losing territories to Kurdish rebels in Syria and the Iraqi Army in Iraq, both backed by the U.S. But its ideology, like that of al-Qaeda and other jihadist organisations, is unlikely to fade away in the near future given the geopolitical and sectarian fault lines of West Asia. And these books offer insights into these fault lines.
India, U.S. to hold talks to strengthen trade ties
Discussions to take place despite recent visa and IP issues
•India and the U.S. are slated to hold trade talks in May to identify opportunities in sectors such as infrastructure, digital technologies and smart cities even as commercial ties have soured by the recent visa and intellectual property (IP) issues.
•Government and industry representatives from both the nations will hold talks during the ‘Annual West Coast Summit’ in Menlo Park, California on May 8. The discussions apart from food processing and supply chain logistics will focus on financial services, virtual currencies, clean energy, healthcare and manufacturing from a technology partnership perspective.
•The ‘Annual West Coast Summit' — to be attended among others by Food Processing Industries Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, senior representatives from the Indian government, and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu — will also have discussions on U.S.-India technology partnerships in ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT), smart city planning, India’s move towards a cashless economy and the future of technology relationship as well as investment opportunities in food retail and food processing.
•During the mega trade expo called ‘Glorious India’ in New Jersey on May 27-28, the focus of the talks will shift to garments, gems and jewellery, travel & tourism and real estate.
‘Glorious India’
•About 400 companies from India will take part in ‘Glorious India’ backed by the Indian Commerce and Industry Ministry (leading the ‘Make in India programme’) and Tourism Ministry (spearheading the ‘Incredible India’ initiative).
•India-US trade in goods and services had risen to around $115 billion in 2016 from $109 billion in 2015, according to U.S. government data, and the aim is to raise this to $500 billion soon.
•The U.S. Presidential Executive Order on ‘Buy American and Hire American’ on April 18 had said the H-1B visa (temporary work visa for non-immigrants) programme will soon be ‘reformed’ to ensure that the visas are awarded to the most skilled or highest-paid petition beneficiaries, a move that may hit the Indian technology sector.
•This indication of visa curbs came close on the heels of the U.S. government on March 3 “temporarily suspending premium processing for all H-1B petitions, including cap-exempt petitions, for up to six months.”
•Also, much to India’s chagrin, the 2017 “Special 301” Report on trade and intellectual property (IP) issues released by the U.S. government in April had said, “India remains on the ‘Priority Watch List’ this year for lack of sufficient measurable improvements to its IP framework…”
•Notwithstanding these hurdles, there will be several high-level India-U.S. interactions in May.
•As per the industry body U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC), its members will on May 3 interact with the Indian Road Transport and Highways and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari on opportunities for U.S.-India supply chain and infrastructure collaboration.
•During that discussion on the sidelines of the ‘India Integrated Transport & Logistics Summit 2017’ (learnt to be a ‘precursor to the formation of the Indian government’s dedicated working group on logistics’), the USIBC will unveil a task force on supply chain standards.
Food retail
•This will be followed by meetings on May 5, 8 and 10 with Ms. Badal on the “emerging reform landscape in the food processing industry and food retail” as well as on the ‘World Food Forum in India’ that Ms. Badal’s ministry is slated to host in New Delhi in November 2017, according to the USIBC.
•On May 9, there will be talks on legal and policy issues relating to the use of digital technologies like the IoT and cloud computing.
NITI Aayog urges labour reforms
•NITI Aayog has pressed for ‘substantive’ reforms in labour laws to take the country out of the current low-productivity and low-wage jobs situation.
•It has also said that unifying the existing large number of labour laws into four codes without reforming them will serve little purpose.
•A panel, headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, is mulling converting 44 labour laws into four simplified codes. They relate to industrial relations, wages, social security and safety.
•“These (labour) reforms must begin as soon as possible even though their completion may take some years,” said the government’s think tank in its 3—year draft action agenda.
