📰 ‘Bodh Gaya attack was to avenge Rohingya killings’
Juvenile Board holds 18-year-old guilty of planting bombs at the temple complex that is revered as a Buddhist pilgrimage site
•The Juvenile Justice Board that held an 18-year-old boy guilty of planting explosives at the Bodh Gaya temple complex in Bihar in 2013 has said the attack was to avenge the atrocities against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
•The juvenile placed a bomb under the 80-ft statue of Gautama Buddha at the revered temple complex as “Buddhists from all over the world used to come there and a message will be sent to all,” an order of the juvenile court that convicted the boy of terrorist activities said.
•The board sentenced him to three years in a remand home on October 11.
Raised suspicion
•A monk from Thailand, a prime witness in the case, told National Investigation Agency (NIA) officials that he became suspicious when he saw one of the accused doing the “wrong parikrama [rituals]” at the temple complex. A copy of the order available with The Hindu says three months later, the accused planned another series of explosions at Gandhi Maidan in Patna during an electoral rally of Narendra Modi, then Gujarat Chief Minister and NDA’s prime ministerial candidate. Six people were killed and 89 injured in the explosions.
•Myanmar, a Buddhist country, has seen the exodus of thousands of Rohingya Muslims from the Rakhine province over the past several decades. Before this year’s exodus, the mass migration intensified in 2012-13 when hundreds of Rohingya fled to neighbouring countries, including India.
•On July 7, 2013, the juvenile and other accused planted 13 bombs at the Maha Bodhi temple complex. Two monks were injured and three unexploded bombs were recovered.
•One of the accused, Haidar Ali, told the NIA that on the day of the blast, he along with the juvenile and others came from Ranchi and had 13 bombs with them. “Two accused — Mujibullah and Imtiyaz — got down at the monastery. The juvenile and another accused, Tarique Ansari, were directed to put the bomb under the 80-ft statue of Lord Buddha. Haidar Ali proceeded towards the Mahabodhi complex, changed to a monk’s attire and first planted a bomb at Animesh Lochan temple, the second at Mahabodhi tree, the third under an ambulance and the fourth at a small temple. The bombs were timed to explode between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m.,” the Board’s order said. The accused, residents of Ranchi and Raipur, came together to avenge the killings of Muslims in the 2002 Gujarat riots and were also affected by the civil war in Yemen.
•Haidar Ali, who was associated with the banned Students Islamic Movement of India, “drew a map of the temple and decided to plant the explosives early in the morning as Buddhists and local people would be present in large numbers to offer prayers,” the order said. Ali was closely linked to the Indian Mujahideen.
•“The Board’s order was the first judgment in the Bodh Gaya and Patna blast cases.
•The case against the other accused is pending trial,” an NIA official said.
📰 SC lets kin join terminally-ill Ukranian prisoner
Ship captain, hospitalised in Chennai, was held in 2013 after arms were found in vessel
•The Supreme Court allowed a prayer by a terminally-ill Ukranian prisoner in Chennai that his fundamental right to life includes the right to die with dignity in the company of family members.
•A Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra has allowed the wife and family members of an Ukrainian national, diagnosed with cancer, to be with him in Chennai’s Apollo Hospital.
•Dudnyk Valentyn, was the captain of M.V. Seaman Guard Ohio, a Sierra Leone-registered vessel owned by a company in Washington D.C., found anchored off the Thoothukudi port in Tamil Nadu in 2013 with a huge cache of prohibited firearms, ammunition and fuel.
Judgment pending
•Valentyn is serving his sentence for offences under the Arms Act. The judgment on his appeal has been pending in the Madras High Court for over a year.
•In 2016, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer with multiple skeletal, nodal and liver metastases.
•“The petitioner [Valentyn] is terminally ill, with no hope of recovery,” the petition, represented by advocates Liz Mathew and Raghenth Basant, submitted.
•Mr. Basant argued that the right to live with human dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution included “some of the finer graces of human civilisation, which makes life worth living”.
•“Further, the expanded concept of life also found that the right to live with human dignity included the right to co-mingle with fellow human beings,” the petition quoted an SC judgment.
Plea for repatriation
•The petition further argued that the right to life for the petitioner, who is a foreign national, would also include the right to be repatriated to his country of origin to spend his last few days. However, the court did not address this question.
•Instead, the CJI Bench asked the Madras HC to deliver the judgment on the appeal as expeditiously as possible.
•Valentyn’s vessel was found stationed 10.8 nautical miles from the Thoothukudi port on October 11, 2013.
📰 Making caste slur on SC/STs over phone an offence, says SC
‘Could warrant five years in prison’
•The Supreme Court has ruled that using casteist remarks over phone in a public place against the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe category amounts to criminal offence, warranting a jail of a maximum five years.
•The apex court refused to stay criminal proceedings and quash an FIR against a person, who allegedly used derogatory casteist remarks over phone to a woman from the the SC/ST category.
•A bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and S. Abdul Nazeer declined to interfere with the August 17 order of the Allahabad High Court, which rejected the plea of a Uttar Pradesh resident, seeking quashing of the FIR against him by the woman.
•It dismissed his plea saying he has to prove during the trial that he had not talked to the woman over phone in a public place.
•Advocate Vivek Vishnoi, appearing for the accused, said that at the time of the said conversation, both the woman and his client were in different cities and it could not be stated that it was in public view.
•He said that section 3(1)(s) of SC/ST Act relates to a person, who abuses any member of a SC or ST by caste name in any place “within public view“.
•“In this case, both persons were in different cities and the conversation took place over the phone, which can’t be said to be in a public view. This was a private conversation. The apex court had already settled what ‘public view’ means in its earlier verdict of 2008,” he said.
•Vishnoi said the issue involved in the petition was that whether a private conversation on mobile phone between two individuals can come within the ambit of expression “within public view“.
‘Defining public place’
•He said that by no stretch of imagination, a private conversation between two indviduals on mobile phone can come within the ambit of expression “within public view” and that the charges framed against the petitioner need to be quashed.
•The lawyer further said that the complainant has made some vague allegations regarding land sale transactions but no specific averments were made which may prima facie show that offence of cheating and intimidation were made out.
•The bench, however, refused to agree with the contention and said it was only in the trial that the accused could prove if he was talking on phone in public view or not.
📰 New J&K surrender policy to target local militants
“We are after foreign terrorists. At the same time, we want to give chance to local boys to surrender... I hope mothers of other militants too will ask them to rejoin the mainstream,” J&K DGP S.P. Vaid said.
•With a fresh surrender policy being framed by the government, the Army and the J&K Police, in a joint appeal on Sunday, asked all local militants to give up arms and assured them “full cooperation” to join the mainstream. Over 130 local militants are still active in the Valley.
•“We are after foreign terrorists. We want to give the local boys a chance to surrender. The return of Majid Khan (who had joined the Lashkar-e-Taiba) will start a new phase. I hope mothers of other militants will follow suit [in making an appeal]. I foresee a violence-free and disturbance-free Kashmir soon,” said J&K DGP S.P. Vaid.
•He was addressing a press conference with Lt. Gen. J.S. Sandhu, the General Officer Commanding of the Army’s 15 Corps; A.S. Raju, GOC, Victor Force; Kashmir Inspector General of Police Muneer Khan; and the IG Operations, CRPF, Zulfikar Hassan.
•They said local militants could use the helpline if they want to come back. A police official said the government has taken inputs from all security agencies to frame the fresh policy
•Earlier, the surrender policy was limited to those who crossed the Line of Control into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in the early 1990s and were stuck there.
•The new surrender policy is considering provision of “passports and jobs to any local youth who gives up the gun” and “support for his full assimilation into society,” official sources said.
•Meanwhile, parents of two more militants — Ashiq Hussain Bhat from Shopian and Manzoor Ahmad Baba from Pulwama — have appealed through the media to their sons to give up militancy and rejoin the family.
•Around 60 boys have already been “brought back into the fold”, said the police. At least 190 militants have been killed this year. Of these, 66 were locals. “There is a remarkable change in the situation. The agitation that peaked earlier this year has been brought under control,” said GOC Sandhu. On the Hajin operation, in which six LeT militants were killed on Saturday, DGP Vaid said, “These militants killed [former counter-insurgency personnel] Rashid Billa and Ramzan Parray, an officer, and attempted a fidayeen attack in Bandipora.”
📰 The Constitution conundrum
In Sri Lanka, the biggest obstacle to constitutional reforms comes from within the government
•Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his team’s attempts to change the Constitution have been facing a series of obstacles. President Maithripala Sirisena and his Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) are not enthusiastically backing the reforms initiative and almost all Buddhist monks are opposed to any constitutional change.
•Mr. Wickremesinghe’s constitutional reforms project envisages the abolition of the presidential system and return to a revised version of the Westminster model, replacement of the proportional system of elections with a mixed system, and greater devolution to provincial councils.
Attempts of the past
•This is the second time that a serious attempt is being made to replace the 1978 Constitution enacted by J.R. Jayewardene, who became Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister in 1977 and then the President upon the enactment of the new system. Chandrika Kumaratunga as President initiated a reform process in 1994, which ended in failure in 2000. Taking forward her politics of reform, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in 2005 and 2009, promised to change the Constitution, but did not take concrete steps apart from appointing two committees to make recommendations. Nonetheless, Mr. Rajapaksa did an unusual thing by amending the Constitution in 2010 in order to enhance, not reduce, the powers of the President, despite the fact that ‘executive presidency’ was the darkest feature of the Jayewardene Constitution.
•History appears to repeat itself. The most ardent opponents of the reform initiatives now are Sinhalese nationalist forces, led by Buddhist monks. Parliamentary opposition, led by Mr. Rajapaksa, is in the forefront of the secular campaign against constitutional reform. The opposition by Buddhist monks revolves around two points. One, further devolution would amount to giving in to the demands of the Tamil and Muslim minorities as well as appeasing the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam diaspora and foreign powers. Two, abolition of the presidential system would weaken the Sri Lankan state. The Sangha leaders are also worried that the new Constitution might drop the “foremost place” position that is accorded to Buddhism as per the current Constitution.
•Prime Minister Wickremesinghe seems to be aware of all this, which is why he has adopted the strategy of drafting the new Constitution through the Parliament acting as a Constitutional Assembly. The proceedings of the Constitutional Assembly were conducted in a low-key fashion with little controversy. Mr. Wickremesinghe seems to have thought, quite wisely, that avoiding political drama over the reform process would be the best option.
Political drama over reform
•However, constitutional reform is nothing short of state reform being carried out partly to resolve the ethnic conflict politically, which its opponents, more than its proponents, are acutely sensitive to. This is why political drama over constitutional reforms, the very thing that Mr. Wickremesinghe wanted to avoid, has erupted.
•Three weeks ago, an interim report of the Assembly’s Standing Committee was released. It is neither a final report nor a constitutional draft, but a statement of the various positions of groups in Parliament on reform topics. However, the political debate it unleashed in Sinhalese society has conveniently ignored this fact. This too is for strategic reasons. The opponents appear to be determined to block any progress in the reform process beyond its present state of being confined to an interim report. Preventing a sober national discussion by unleashing an ideological war is a time-tested strategy.
A divided government
•Meanwhile, something different seems to happening in Sri Lanka this time around. The opponents to constitutional reform seem to have exhausted their energy and arguments, ironically amidst the government’s own inertia and reluctance to publicly defend its positions. The government is divided on the nature and scope of reform. While the Prime Minister wants a new Constitution and abolition of the presidential system, President Sirisena wants only electoral reforms. Interestingly, the discord within the ruling coalition is paralleled by the loss of political energy in the opposition campaign. These two unconnected developments appeared clear when the Constitutional Assembly debated the interim report. The best ideas that were contributed to the debate were from the proponents of reform. The joint opposition’s speakers, led by Mr. Rajapaksa, lacked any new ideas.
•Despite this, Mr. Wickremesinghe will still find it difficult to manage the politics of constitutional reform. First, there is the timing of the whole exercise. The government of ‘good governance’, as the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe coalition regime calls itself, is no longer as politically strong as it was a year ago. Corruption scandals, slowing down of investigations against individuals of the previous government, and economic stagnation have all seriously undermined the political credibility of Mr. Wickremesinghe’s side of the coalition.
•Also, personal and political differences between the Prime Minister and the President have surfaced in a manner that continues to baffle even the government’s supporters. The Sirisena camp believes that Mr. Wickremesinghe has a secret understanding with the Rajapaksa brothers to prevent the SLFP from becoming a future electoral threat to Mr. Wickremesinghe’s United National Party. The Prime Minister apparently believes that a divided SLFP would be to the UNP’s electoral advantage. After two and a half years of working together, Mr. Sirisena and Mr. Wickremesinghe seem to have discovered that there are serious differences between them. There are signs of them even trying to undermine each other in order to reconfigure the balance of power within the coalition.
•Sensing the arrival of Mr. Wickremesinghe’s weak moment amidst the corruption scandals, Mr. Sirisena has recently moved in the direction of further weakening the Prime Minister’s position by asserting his own authority within the ruling coalition government. The balance of power between the two within the coalition regime may or may not change. Yet, the unfolding cold war is likely to further weaken the government’s capacity to advance the constitutional reforms initiative. A weakened government with self-inflicted wounds can hardly be the agency for a crucial project of state reform.
•Thus the biggest obstacle to the progress of the constitutional reforms initiative comes from within the government, not outside. This is the real political conundrum in Sri Lanka today. Although the 19th Amendment to the Constitution created a system of diarchy in the structure of government, the two centres of power managed to function in a spirit of cooperation. That relationship has been damaged. Unless the two leaders repair it, their relationship might even degenerate into competition and antagonism. That will not be good for Sri Lanka’s democracy and political stability.
📰 India Inc: who’s growing, who’s slowing
Quarterly numbers suggest many sectors staged a comeback from demonetisation, facing only a minor hurdle in GST
•Have demonetisation and the rocky transition to GST brought Indian businesses to a grinding halt? Ever since the CSO released its quick GDP estimates for the April-June 2017 quarter, pegging growth at 5.7%, there has been a heated debate on this. The debate has generated little light given that GDP estimates provide only broad-brush data on the economy.
•For a micro picture on growth trends, we decided to turn to the quarterly results filed by listed companies, breaking them down into individual sectors. Over 1015 companies have filed their results for the last six quarters beginning April-June 2016 and ending July-September 2017. Studying their sales growth patterns threw up these findings.
Consumption revives
•The note ban did deliver a body blow to consumer confidence, data from listed firms show. Almost every consumer-facing sector saw a sharp dip in sales for the October-December 2016 quarter — the months when the note ban was in force. But most sectors charted a quick recovery from that blow. Some have even seen growth rates return to levels better than a year earlier.
•Aggregate sales growth for Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies slumped from 6.5% in July-September 2016 to 2.9% in the demonetisation quarter. Automobile sales shifted into first gear from 13.2% growth in July-September 2016 to 4.2% in the October-December quarter. Sales for retailers fell off a precipice from a 31% growth to a measly 1%. Consumer durable sales, already sluggish before demonetisation grew at just 3.5% in the note ban quarter.
•But all these sectors staged an unexpectedly quick bounce-back from the note ban. FMCGs saw growth pick up to 9.6% in the January-March 2017 quarter itself. Consumer durables saw sales growth zooming to 13% in the quarter immediately following demonetisation, further accelerating to 20% and 16% in the subsequent quarters. Even paints, a discretionary purchase item, saw a doubling of growth in January-March 2017 from the note ban trough. The GST roll-out didn’t pose as much of a challenge for the listed firms. Consumer goods such as FMCG, apparel and automobiles saw a blip in April-June 2017, but were back on the fast track by July-September 2017. In fact, listed firms in FMCGs, paints, durables, apparel and automobiles have all demonstrated their strongest growth in the last two years in the latest July-September quarter.
Services lag goods
•Consumer services, however, had a somewhat different story to tell. Revenue growth for telecom, entertainment, hospitality, and media took a sharp knock in the quarter in which demonetisation occurred.
•Telecom services went from 7.1% growth in July-September 2016 to a 1.7% contraction in October-December 2016. Entertainment (multiplexes, cable TV providers) saw a halving of growth from 14% to 7% and media firms’ (newspapers, broadcasters, television channels) slowed sharply from 9.2% to 1.2%.
•Growth in these sectors has continued to be anaemic through 2017, with the GST transition probably playing a role in subdued sales. Banks alone have seen a marginal uptick in revenue growth post demonetisation, understandable given their deposit windfall.
•Why have consumer goods taken less of a hit from GST than consumer services? One explanation could lie in the GST tax structure. GST has reduced the indirect tax burden on most consumer goods, fitting them into lower rate slabs than before.
•But it has raised effective taxes on services. Consumer goods firms have therefore been able to use the savings from GST to woo consumers back with discounts and lower selling prices. But service providers, who are already victims of intense competition (think mobile phones and hotel tariffs) in their sectors, haven’t had this luxury. The higher tax incidence in their case has probably dented demand.
•In reading the above numbers, it is important to remember that growth rates cited here are a blend of volume and price growth. Commentary from most consumer goods firms suggest an improvement in volume growth in the latest quarter. In the case of services such as telecom or hotels, competition has lowered tariffs.
Capital goods — divided
•If the consumer goods firms are signalling a clear revival in 2017 and a limited impact from the GST roll-out, how’s the investment leg of the economy faring? Not as well, show the numbers. Revenue numbers for turnkey infrastructure developers, construction firms and real estate developers were already shrinking in the quarter prior to the note ban (July-September 2016).
•After the note ban, they staged a patchy recovery over the next two quarters to hit a growth patch by April-June 2017. But the latest July-September 2017 quarter has seen them back in the doldrums.
•These firms seem to have received some order flows from the front-ended Government splurge on roads, railways, rural electrification and the Bharatnet this fiscal. But the flows have dried up lately as the Centre has tightened its purse strings. Private sector capital expenditure continues to remain at a low ebb.
•However, not all capital goods makers struggled with poor order flows. While capital goods suppliers to industrial firms were buffeted by the investment slump, those that cater to consumer firms managed business-as-usual.
•Auto components, cables and telecom equipment have seen a steady improvement in growth rates through the three quarters of 2017, ending the July-September quarter with growth of 14%, 33% and 14% respectively. These firms seem to have benefitted from the trickle-down effect of demand revival in their user industries.
•The gloomy picture on capital expenditure sits oddly with the strong show from sectors such as steel, cement, mining, metals and refineries — suppliers of basic feedstock to industry. But this trend owes a great deal to the rising global prices of industrial commodities which has propped up realisations, amid middling volume growth.
•Export-oriented sectors, after sailing through the note ban months, have had a rocky transition to GST. Jewellery, software and pharmaceuticals displayed dwindling growth in the first three quarters of 2017. Textiles and shipping shrank last year and managed a mild revival this year.
•GST apart, sector-specific issues have also played villain to some export-oriented sectors.
•For software services, the backlash against offshoring and changing business models have posed a challenge. For pharmaceutical exporters, pricing pressure on generics in the U.S. market and regulatory crackdowns have hit growth.
•Overall, numbers from India Inc. suggest that, while the economy isn’t back to firing on all cylinders, the accelerating sectors outnumber the slowing ones.
•Extrapolating sector-wise numbers to the economy as a whole should come with caveats. In India, only the largest and most established firms tend to list themselves in the public markets. Therefore, these numbers essentially capture the trends for the best and brightest of Indian businesses.
•Given that the ‘formal sector’ is widely believed to have made marketshare gains at the expense of unorganised players and unincorporated entities due to the note ban and GST, it is likely that the latter fared much worse. But having said this, the 1,015 firms analysed here account for about 35% of GDP by value.
📰 Over 200 govt. websites made Aadhaar details public: UIDAI
Says it took note of the breach and removed the data
•More than 200 Central and State government websites publicly displayed details such as names and addresses of some Aadhaar beneficiaries, the Unique Identification Authority of India has said.
•In response to an RTI query, the Aadhaar-issuing body said it had taken note of the breach and got the data removed from those websites. It, however, did not specify when the breach took place.
•It said Aadhaar details have never been made public from/by UIDAI.
•“However, it was found that approximately 210 websites of Central and State government departments, including educational institutes, were displaying the list of beneficiaries along with their name, address, other details and Aadhaar numbers for information of general public,” it said.
•The Centre is in the process of making Aadhaar mandatory to grant benefits of various social service schemes.
•“UIDAI has a well-designed, multi-layer approach and a robust security system in place and the same is being constantly upgraded to maintain the highest level of data security and integrity,” the RTI reply said.
•The architecture of the Aadhaar ecosystem has been designed to ensure data security and privacy which is an integral part of the system from the initial design to the final stage, it said.
Continuous updates
•“Various policies and procedures have been defined, these are reviewed and updated continually thereby appropriately controlling and monitoring any movement of people, material and data in and out of UIDAI premises, particularly the data centres,” the UIDAI said. It said security audits are conducted on a regular basis to further strengthen security and privacy of data. Besides this, all possible steps are taken to protect the data, the authority said.
📰 RBI to launch multimedia campaign
•The Reserve Bank is planning to launch a full-fledged multimedia and multilingual campaign to create general awareness among citizens of its regulations and initiatives.
•The RBI’s communication department has sought applications from advertising agencies for designing the creatives for the pan-India awareness campaign.
•“The campaign will be in 14 languages — Hindi, Assamese, Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, and English — with focus on regional languages,” said the expression of interest document.
•The media mix will include traditional ones such as newspapers, magazines, radio, television channels and cinema halls and new ones that include digital.
•“The list is illustrative and not exhaustive,” the document said.
•The key functions of the creative agency, the document said, will be to create advertising content to “successfully convey the desired messages”.
•The RBI is planning close to 15 TV commercials, 15 radio spots and 15 print advertisements each year.
•It also plans to create an awareness campaign — Suno RBI Kya Kehta Hai — through SMSs to warn the public against falling prey to unsolicited and fictitious offers from fraudsters.
📰 ‘Wilful defaulters must not buy IBC assets’
Centre asks banks to exercise vigil
•To ensure the success of the bankruptcy process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), the Finance Ministry has asked banks to be vigilant to ensure that wilful defaulters are prevented from buying stressed assets again, official sources said.
Total outstanding
•As many as 12 accounts, each having more than ₹5,000 crore of outstanding loans, and accounting for 25% of total NPAs of banks are under the insolvency and bankruptcy resolution process.
•The total outstanding of these accounts, taken together, is ₹1.75 lakh crore.
•Besides, banks are in the process of taking other large non-performing accounts to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) under the insolvency and bankruptcy code.
•It has been brought to the notice of the Finance Ministry that some wilful defaulters were making a bid to buy the assets of those cases which have been referred under IBC, a senior official said.
•The resolution is crucial to the entire banking sector and therefore banks have been advised to be vigilant so that wilful defaulters do not get benefits of the process, the official said, adding banks have to be very conscious of the fact that such defaulters do not get into the system again.
•Non-performing assets of public sector banks have increased to ₹7.33 lakh crore as of June 2017, from ₹2.78 lakh crore in March 2015.
📰 How succulents survive without water decoded
Such plants make use of enhanced form of photosynthesis
•Drought-resistant plants such as cacti and succulents, make use of an enhanced form of photosynthesis to minimise water loss, scientists say.
•The research, published in journal The Plant Cell, could be used to help produce new crops that can thrive in previously inhospitable, hot and dry regions across the world.
•Photosynthesis involves taking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to convert into sugars using sunlight.
•Scientists at the University of Liverpool in the U.K. found that these drought-resistant plants, such as cacti, agaves and succulents, make use of an enhanced form of photosynthesis known as crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM).
•Unlike other plants, CAM plants are able to take up CO2 during the cooler night, which reduces water loss, and store captured CO2 as malic acid inside the cell, allowing its use for photosynthesis without water loss during the next day.
•CAM photosynthesis is regulated by the plant’s internal circadian clock, which allows plants to differentiate and pre-empt day and night and adjust their metabolism accordingly.
Little is known
•However, relatively little is known about the exact molecular processes that underpin the optimal timing of CO2 being stored and released in this unique way.
•Researchers looked at an enzyme called PPCK that is involved in controlling the conversion of CO2 to its overnight stored form.
•They wanted to know if PPCK is a necessary component for engineering CAM photosynthesis and tested this by switching the PPCK gene off in the succulent CAM plant Kalanchoe fedtschenkoi. They found that, for CAM to work properly, the cells must switch on PPCK each night driven by internal circadian clock.
📰 Pacific Ocean’s 11: on TPP without U.S.
The revival of the Trans-Pacific Partnership minus the U.S. opens opportunities for India
•When Donald Trump abandoned the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in his very first week after being sworn in as U.S. President, there were doubts whether the trade agreement, painstakingly negotiated over more than a decade, would survive. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had termed the TPP without the United States — which contributed 60% of the combined Gross Domestic Product of the 12 members — as “meaningless”. Ten months on, exactly at a time when Mr. Trump was visiting Vietnam, trade ministers from the remaining 11 nations agreed in Danang in principle to a new pact, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), revising some of the features of the TPP. For the agreement to take effect, the pact requires domestic ratification, which is expected to be complete by 2019. This major step taken by the 11 countries of the Pacific Rim excluding the U.S. is a reflection of two things. First, these countries recognise that multilateral free trade, contrary to any misgivings, is beneficial in the long run. The TPP in its current form has significant protections for labour and environment and is in this regard an advance over other free trade agreements. Second, the U.S.’s self-exclusion reflects a failure on the part of the Trump administration; studies have shown significant benefits in comparison to minor costs — in terms of jobs — to the U.S. on account of the pact.
•As things stand, the pact without the U.S. can only be interpreted as yet another step that diminishes American power and the international order that it has so far led. Already, Mr. Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord and his repudiation of the Iran nuclear deal have raised suspicions about American commitment to well-negotiated treaties that seek to solve or have solved long-standing issues. Mr. Trump couches his regime’s policies as populist nationalism — ‘protecting labour’ in the case of the abandonment of the TPP, promoting jobs in fossil fuel-intensive sectors to justify the repudiation of the Paris Accord, and retaining American exceptionalism in West Asian policy in scrapping the Iran nuclear deal. While rhetoric to this effect had fuelled his presidential campaign with a heavy dose of populism, the actual effect of going through with these actions has been to create a suspicion among America’s allies about his reliability when it comes to standing by old commitments. Mr. Trump’s agenda to pull his country out of multilateral agreements has coincided, ironically, with the rise of China as the leading world power promoting globalisation. Now the ASEAN-plus-six Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), on which China is pushing for an agreement, could benefit from complementarities with the CPTPP. India, which is also negotiating the RCEP, must utilise this opportunity to win concessions on services trade liberalisation as part of the plan.
📰 More than just a counting game
Urban India must focus on more than toilets to address sanitation woes
•Yesterday, November 19, 2017, was World Toilet Day, with the theme ‘Wastewater and Faecal Sludge Management’. In India, there is greater awareness about the importance of using toilets, largely due to the high profile, flagship programme Swachh Bharat Mission launched in 2014, so much so that even Bollywood capitalised on this topic in the recent film Akshay Kumar starrer, Toilet — Ek Prem Katha, where a marriage is saved thanks to toilets. However, in real life, the sanitation story only begins with toilets, something clearly stated by the targets under the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals. These targets are not just about ‘toilets’ but also suggest improvements to the entire cycle of sanitation, which certainly begins with toilets but has to end with safe waste disposal.
Four stage cycle
•Sanitation is intrinsically linked to health, and unless faecal waste is treated properly and disposed of safely, it will find its way back into our bodies and make us sick either by contaminating our sources of drinking water or getting into the food chain. The full cycle of sanitation has four stages: access to toilets; safe containment; conveyance either through the sewerage network or de-sludging trucks, and treatment and disposal. The faecal waste needs to be handled safely at each of these stages in order to gain public health benefits.
•As recognised in the last decade, urban India faces considerable gaps along the full cycle of sanitation. One probable reason for these deficits was the belief that sewerage and sewage treatment systems could be built in all cities. Sewerage refers to fully sealed pipes, that are underground, and must not be confused with open storm water drains that are supposed to carry only rainwater. After decades of investment, India has managed to connect only a little more than a third of its urban households, most of which are located in metropolitan cities, to sewerage systems. This is because sewerage systems and sewage treatment plants (STPs) — a preferred system in most western countries — are not only expensive but are also complicated to maintain.
•An alternative to sewerage systems is something known as on-site systems. Septic tanks and pit latrines, which are prevalent in many Indian households, fall into this category. If these systems are designed, constructed and managed properly, they can be perfectly safe options. Safe containment, collection and treatment is known as septage management or faecal sludge management (FSM), and is being increasingly recognised by the Government of India as a viable option.
Multi-stage challenges
•Though viable, there are several challenges for FSM across all stages.
•Emerging evidence from across the country indicates that on-site systems are not constructed properly. While the designs of ‘septic’ tanks and leach pits have been set out in standards issued in government documents, houseowners and masons are often not aware of these. The most severe consequence of these poorly designed pits is the potential contamination of groundwater. In addition, they are not de-sludged at regular intervals. Faecal waste needs to be transported using de-sludging vehicles (and not manually) but only some States, Tamil Nadu for example, have these vehicles. Once collected, the waste needs to treated properly to ensure that it does not land up in our lakes and rivers. There aren’t enough treatment facilities to guarantee proper treatment of the sludge.
A way forward
•After the National Urban Sanitation Policy (NUSP) in 2008, a national policy on Faecal Sludge and Septage Management (FSSM) was released earlier this year. Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Odisha have released State-wide septage management guidelines and taken concrete steps to execute these policies. While de-sludging vehicles and robust informal markets exist for de-sludging services in some States, others are either procuring vehicles for their urban local bodies or encouraging private players to get into this.
•Tamil Nadu has decided to utilise existing infrastructure, namely STPs, and allowed the co-treatment of faecal sludge in these facilities. It has also put in additional infrastructure called decanting stations at some pumping stations to make it easier for de-sludging vehicles to deposit their waste. Devanahalli in Bengaluru has a dedicated Faecal Sludge Treatment Plant (FSTP) operational since 2015. Others of varying sizes are either under construction or already running in Kochi (Kerala), Tiruchi (Tamil Nadu) and as far as Leh. Thus, there are many promising steps being taken, but much more needs to be done if we are to truly become an open-defecation free nation.
•Here are some suggestions that both the government and us, citizens, can work towards.
•Raising awareness about correct design and construction practices of on-site systems (new and legacy) will perhaps remain the biggest hurdle in the years to come. But, urban local bodies and State governments could start by ensuring that the larger containment systems such as community toilets and public toilets are properly constructed and managed. In addition, permission could be granted to new buildings, especially large apartment complexes only when the applicants show proper septage construction designs. The safety of sanitary workers who clean tanks and pits must be ensured by enforcing occupational safety precautions and the use of personal protective equipment as set out in the law. The last two suggestions are actions for us as citizens. As home-owners and residents, our tanks and pits must be emptied regularly, thereby preventing leaks and overflow. We must ask our governments to invest in creating treatment facilities that our cities can afford.
•Let us move beyond the cute poop emojis on our smartphones and make this an acceptable discussion topic in the drawing room. Maybe the biggest victory will come when citizens realise that the focus needs to be on more than just toilets.
