📰 India committed to boosting BIMSTEC connectivity: PM
‘The region is a meeting point for India’s Neighbourhood First, Act East policies’
•Making a strong pitch for enhanced regional connectivity, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday that India was committed to working with the BIMSTEC member states in the critical sector and to combating the menace of terrorism and drug trafficking.
•“I believe that there is a big opportunity for connectivity — trade connectivity, economic connectivity, transport connectivity, digital connectivity, and people-to-people connectivity,” Mr. Modi said, addressing the inaugural session of the fourth BIMSTEC summit here.
•The Prime Minister said the region had become a meeting point for India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ and ‘Act East’ policies. “India is committed to working with the BIMSTEC member states to enhance regional connectivity,” he said.
•The BIMSTEC is a regional grouping, comprising India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal.
•“There is no country in the region which has not suffered from terrorism and transnational crimes, such as drug trafficking linked to networks of terrorism,” Mr. Modi told the summit, which was inaugurated by Nepal Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli.
‘No substitute’
•Addressing the summit, Mr. Oli said the BIMSTEC was not a substitute to the SAARC, and the two organisations could complement each other. He underlined the need for implementing the BIMSTEC poverty plan as well as the Millennium Development Goals for the benefit of the member states. He stressed the need for deeper economic integration and collaboration among the members for speedy development of the region.
•Addressing the summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the BIMSTEC member states, situated between the Himalayas and the Bay of Bengal, face frequent natural disasters such as flood, cyclone and earthquake, and called for “cooperation and coordination” among them in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts.
•“As no single country can move alone for attaining peace, prosperity and development, we need to collaborate and cooperate with each other in this interconnected world,” he said.
•For research on art, culture and other subjects in the Bay of Bengal, India would set up a Centre for Bay of Bengal Studies at the Nalanda University, he said.
•Prime Minister Modi said India will host the International Buddhist Conclave in August 2020 and invited all BIMSTEC leaders to attend the event as guests of honour.
•He also said India was committed to enhance its national knowledge network in the field of digital connectivity in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal. India also plans to extend it to Myanmar and Thailand. Mr. Modi hoped that the BIMSTEC member states will attend the India Mobile Congress in New Delhi scheduled for October.
📰 Heavy water discharge from China threatens Arunachal
Deputy Commissioners of districts along Siang’s path issue flood alerts
•Heavy discharge of water from China, the highest in 50 years, is threatening to submerge at least 12 villages along the river Siang in Arunachal Pradesh.
•Hydrological experts said the “unusually high” discharge indicates sudden release of water from man-made barriers or a natural dam that was formed due to landslips caused by major earthquakes in the Tibetan region of China in November 2017.
•T. Tatak, the Deputy Commissioner of Arunachal Pradesh’s East Siang district, had on Wednesday issued an advisory, warning the people of the 12 villages to be on alert because of the sudden surge in the Siang’s water level. The villages are near district headquarters Pasighat, about 560 km northeast of Guwahati.
•He cited a report received by New Delhi from the Chinese government, saying the Yarlung Zangbo (Tsangpo) was swelling with observed discharge of 9,020 cumec due to heavy rainfall in Tibet. But the “incremental discharge of 950 cumec” compared to a discharge of 8,070 cumec in the Tsangpo reported on August 14 “should not be a cause for panic”, he said.
Assam follows
•Laya Madduri, the Deputy Commissioner of Assam’s Dibrugarh district downstream of Siang, issued a similar alert on Thursday in view of the rise in water levels.
•But people in the 12 vulnerable villages in Mebo circle of East Siang district are worried. The Siang has already eroded 12 acres in Borguli village while at least 10 families of Seram village nearby have dismantled their houses and shifted to a safer location.
•“The situation is grim, and the government needs to come up with effective anti-erosion measures, besides talking to China, for ensuring safety of downstream areas in India,” H. Tayeng, a local leader, said.
•Guwahati-based water expert Partha Jyoti Das said agencies such as the Central Water Commission need to closely monitor the level and quality of Siang’s water. “There is a lot of concern at the international, national and local levels about the geologically and strategically important Siang that impacts Bangladesh too,” he said.
•“The unusualness lies in the highest discharge of water in decades.
•It has all the indications of water being suddenly released from a natural or man-made dam. When earthquakes triggered landslides and dammed Tsangpo last year resulting in Siang’s water turning muddy, many in India talked about sudden collapse of the earthen dam in the future leading to moderate to big flood downstream in Arunachal Pradesh and Assam,” Mr. Das told The Hindu.
•But there was no serious follow-up action by the government, he said.
•Congress MP Ninong Ering, who represents Arunachal East in the Lok Sabha, attributed the turbidity of Siang’s water last year to China’s plan to divert Tsangpo to the parched Xinjiang province via a 1,000 km tunnel.
📰 Pan-India reservation rule applies to Delhi: Supreme Court
Quota is State-specific, says court.
•Reservation is State-specific, but Delhi is a ‘miniature India’ where the “pan-India reservation rule” applies, the Supreme Court held on Thursday.
•A five-judge Constitution Bench led by Justice Ranjan Gogoi unanimously held that “a person belonging to a Scheduled Caste in one State cannot be deemed to be a Scheduled Caste person in relation to any other State to which he migrates for the purpose of employment or education.”
•“The benefits of reservation provided for by the Constitution would stand confined to the geographical territories of a State/Union Territory in respect of which the lists of Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes have been notified by the Presidential Orders issued from time to time,” Justice Gogoi, who spoke for the Bench, wrote in the main judgment.
•The other members of the Bench were Justices N.V. Ramana, R. Banumathi, M.M. Shantanagoudar and S. Abdul Nazeer.
Dissenting opinion
•But Justice Banumathi, in a separate opinion, dissented with the majority opinion on the point that the pan-India reservation rule for Delhi was “fully in accord with the constitutional structure of a federal polity.”
•Justice Banumathi said the very object of the constitutional scheme of upliftment of the SCs/STs of these Union Territories would be defeated if pan-India reservation is allowed in Union Territories like Delhi.
•However, Justice Banumathi agreed that reservation should be State-specific.
•The Constitution Bench was answering a reference made to it in Bir Singh versus Delhi Jal Board, a 2013 case, on the legal question whether a Scheduled Caste person from a State would be accorded the same concessions in employment in another State.
📰 Pride and foreign aid
India’s refusal to take help in times of natural disasters is self-defeating and against the federal spirit
•The Central government’s decision to decline offers of humanitarian aid from the United Arab Emirates and other concerned countries for Kerala, in the aftermath of the worst flood in the State in close to a century, is unfortunate. Whichever way one plays it, New Delhi’s unwillingness to accept foreign aid reflects poor judgment, is bad optics, and goes against the spirit of cooperative federalism. Moreover, this decision, when read with the National Democratic Alliance government’s adversarial attitude towards foreign-funded NGO activism in the country, suggests a sense of insecurity and paranoia that hardly befits a rising power.
•While the government itself has been very cryptic in its response to the recent foreign aid offers, those in support of the government’s informal decision have essentially made five sets of arguments to justify the government’s decision. Let’s examine their merit.
Policy precedent
•The strongest argument by far for refusing foreign aid flows from past policy and practice. It is argued that there is a policy in place since 2004, enunciated by the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, to not accept foreign aid in times of natural disasters. Dr. Singh had stated in the wake of the tsunami in December that year, “We feel that we can cope with the situation on our own and we will take their help if needed.” The practice thereafter has been to shun foreign aid during natural calamities because the government has been confident of “coping with the situation” using internal sources.
•However, it is important to note that the 2004 statement by Dr. Singh was a political articulation, not a legal directive or policy document. In any case, his statement did not close the door to external aid (“we will take their help if needed”). Does Kerala need help? Yes, it desperately does. Former National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, in a recent tweet, explained the 2004 decision in the following words: “If memory serves, the 2004 decision was to not accept foreign participation in relief but accept it for long term rehabilitation case by case.”
•In any case, since 2004, various policy documents have explicitly and implicitly suggested that the government may accept foreign aid during emergencies. The 2016 National Disaster Management Plan states: “…if the national government of another country voluntarily offers assistance as a goodwill gesture in solidarity with the disaster victims, the Central Government may accept the offer.” Similarly, the National Policy on Disaster Management of 2009 and the Disaster Management Act of 2005 are both positively inclined to coordinating with external agencies and institutions for disaster relief. The 2009 document even argues — thoughtfully so — that “disasters do not recognise geographical boundaries.”
•In short, while the 2004 policy says that foreign aid can be accepted if need be, the 2016 policy document states that the government “may” accept foreign aid. The question is whether the situation in Kerala can persuade the Centre to operationalise the word “may” in a generous manner.
National pride
•The second argument against accepting foreign aid seems to flow from a sense of national pride: that India is a not a poor country any longer and hence it doesn’t need anyone’s charity. There was a time we were forced to go abroad with a begging bowl, but those days are over and we can look after ourselves, goes the argument. Despite its powerful emotional appeal, this argument is misplaced at several levels. For one, it is misleading to say that only poor states accept foreign aid in times of natural disasters. For instance, India’s offer of aid was accepted by the U.S. in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and by China after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. The reality is that countries reeling under natural calamities routinely accept emergency aid from other countries irrespective of how rich or poor they are.
Self-sufficiency
•The third argument is that India is self-sufficient and hence does not need relief material to deal with natural disasters. Here, it is important to make a distinction between foreign aid during normal periods and emergency humanitarian and reconstruction assistance. Besides, in the case of Kerala, by providing only a fraction of the emergency and reconstruction assistance requested by the State government despite repeated appeals, the Central government seems to have implicitly indicated that there aren’t sufficient funds available. Although New Delhi has taken the line that “in line with the existing policy, the government is committed to meeting the requirements for relief and rehabilitation through domestic efforts,” its actions so far fly in the face of this tall claim. So, if New Delhi is unable to heed Thiruvananthapuram’s urgent requests, shouldn’t it let Kerala take help from outside?
Aid with strings
•Then there is the argument that foreign aid comes with strings attached. Yes, it has in the past, especially developmental assistance from Western nations or the World Bank. Aid and loans often came with demands of economic restructuring or resetting governance priorities, and an occasional sermon on human rights. But there is again a fundamental difference between such funding and humanitarian assistance. Hence the argument that UAE’s disaster relief to Kerala would come with strings attached is ludicrous. Abu Dhabi’s rationale for offering aid to Kerala is straightforward: the Malayali population in UAE has been crucial in its development, and the aid offer is a recognition of that bond.
•A related issue is the paranoia displayed by successive governments in New Delhi about the ‘foreign hand/s’ constantly trying to undermine the Indian state. This has increased over the years, particularly under the current regime: consider the manner in which it cancelled the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) licenses of thousands of NGOs, including Greenpeace and Amnesty, depriving them of foreign funding.
•Ironically, even as New Delhi vows to continue the policy of not allowing foreign humanitarian aid, and of restricting the activities of foreign-funded NGOs, it recently amended the FCRA to allow foreign funding of Indian political parties.
Money won’t bring relief
•The fifth argument is that airdropping monetary aid doesn’t help in the absence of pre-existing administrative capacity for proper distribution, reconstruction and governance. In fact, some would argue that monetary aid without a focus on governance capacity building is useless or could even make the situation worse. While there is some merit in such an argument, this holds little relevance to the case of Kerala which happens to be one of India’s best governed States. What Kerala requires at the moment is monetary assistance, not lessons in governance.
•New Delhi’s unilateral decision to not let humanitarian assistance reach a needy State also does not befit the federal character of the country as the spirit of federalism demands that such crucial decisions be taken after consultations with the stakeholders. The Union government should consult the affected federating units, which have large populations to care for, before crucial decisions of this nature are taken.
•The argument here is not that India should seek/ receive regular foreign aid, but that it should accept foreign aid in times of humanitarian emergency, as do several countries, including the U.S., China and Japan. Moreover, there is an urgent need to evolve sensible, practical and empathetic guidelines on receiving emergency aid for the federal units in times of dire need.
📰 The fear of a black flag
It is a worrying sign when the state begins to display zero tolerance for political activism among students
•In July, two girls from Allahabad University, Neha Yadav and Rama Yadav, and another student, Kishan Maurya, waved black flags in front of Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah’s convoy. They were protesting against the treatment of students by the Uttar Pradesh government. The response from the government was brutal. The flag-waving girls were dragged by the hair, beaten, and had cases slapped against them on charges of rioting and disturbing the peace.
•This is not the first such case. Last year, another student from U.P., Pooja Shukla, had to spend nearly a month in jail for showing black flags to U.P. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. There are two pertinent points to consider here: the black flag, and the person waving it, a university student. What is it about this combo that seems to terrify the state so much?
•Waving a black flag is perhaps the most innocuous form of non-violent protest imaginable. It is not a dharna, it is not a march or a public rally, and it doesn’t involve the narrative build-up of a rousing speech — all of which are legitimate means of protest protected under the Indian Constitution. However, while all of these are collective expressions of dissent, requiring resources and coordination among a good number of like-minded people, waving a black flag requires nothing more than a piece of black cloth or a rag. It is a form of protest that is available to the lone individual, to a citizen unaffiliated to any political party or group but who nonetheless wants to communicate her dissent to a representative of the state that she believes has grown deaf to her complaints.
•Unlike a hunger strike, which, too, is a means of protest available to the individual, waving a black flag doesn’t even need publicity from the mass media to build pressure in favour of thedemands. All that is needed is for a few others — fellow citizens, onlookers — to witness the few seconds of the gesture, and it is done. But today even this modest symbolic protest seems intolerable to the public servants of a country that prides itself on being a democracy.
•What is particularly ironic is that the state’s reprisals — Ms. Shukla claimed that she has been denied admission to a postgraduate course because of her act of protest — are being visited upon girl students. This makes a mockery of the ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ campaign that is being propagated extensively using public money. Police cases and jail time, in addition to being academically disruptive, are bound to damage a young student’s career prospects. This is a steep price to pay for exercising one’s constitutional right. It is a worrying sign when a government that has seen scores of elected representatives emerge from student politics begins to display zero tolerance for political activism among students.
📰 Speeding up the adoption process
On the Juvenile Justice Amendment Bill of 2018
•Early this January, the Supreme Court observed that the “future of the country depends on our children”. Yet, an affidavit filed by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights shows that of 203 special adoption agencies audited, merely eight deserved positive reviews. It has been observed that there is an inordinate delay in issuing adoption orders by the courts due to the heavy workload.
•As of July 20, 2018, there are 629 cases for adoption pending in various courts across the country. Due to delay in the issuing of adoption orders by the courts, children continue to stay in childcare institutions, even after getting a family.
•The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Bill of 2018seeks to remedy the situation. In the best interest of the child, it proposes to amend the Juvenile Justice Act to empower the District Magistrate, instead of the court, to issue adoption orders. This would ensure timely processing of adoption cases and provide orphaned, abandoned and surrendered children with familial care and protection.
•The Juvenile Justice Act of 2015 introduces comprehensive provisions for children in conflict with the law and children in need of care and protection. It was enacted keeping in view the standards prescribed in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the United Nations Millennium Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice, 1985 (the Beijing Rules), the United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty (1990), the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in respect of Inter-country Adoption (1993) and other related international instruments.
•Chapter 8 of this Act deals with adoption. Subsection (1) of Section 56 of the Act says “adoption shall be resorted to for ensuring right to family for the orphaned, abandoned and surrendered children.” Section 63 of the Act states that the adoption is final on the issuance of the adoption order by the court concerned. Subsection (2) of Section 61 of the Act provides that “the adoption proceedings shall be held in camera and the case shall be disposed of by the court within a period of two months from the date of filing the adoption.”
📰 Law Commission calls for re-think on sedition clause
Asks if contempt of court invites punishment, what about contempt of govt.
•Dissent and criticism of the government are essential ingredients of a robust public debate in a vibrant democracy, the Law Commission of India said on Thursday.
•The Commission, which is the Centre’s topmost advisory body on laws, headed by former Supreme Court judge, Justice B.S. Chauhan, published a consultation paper recommending that it is time to re-think or even repeal the provision of sedition (Section 124A) from the Indian Penal Code.
Right to free speech
•The Commission has invited public opinion on the prospect of either redefining or doing away with Section 124A in the “largest democracy of the world, considering that right to free speech and expression is an essential ingredient of democracy.” Why should India retain sedition when the British, who introduced sedition to oppress Indians, have themselves abolished the law in their country, the Commission asked. Sedition attracts imprisonment from three years to life.
•The Commission said an “expression of frustration over the state of affairs cannot be treated as sedition.”
Safety valve
•The consultation paper was published a day after the Supreme Court lashed out at the government, saying “dissent is the safety valve of democracy,” while hearing a petition challenging the pan-India crackdown and arrests of five activists.
•“For merely expressing a thought that is not in consonance with the policy of the government of the day, a person should not be charged under the Section… If the country is not open to positive criticism, there lies little difference between the pre- and post-Independence eras. Right to criticise one’s own history and the right to offend are rights protected under free speech. While it is essential to protect national integrity, it should not be misused as a tool to curb free speech,” the Commission said in its consultation paper.
•“In a democracy, singing from the same songbook is not a benchmark of patriotism. People should be at liberty to show their affection towards their country in their own way,” the Commission said.
•It said “every restriction on free speech and expression must be carefully scrutinised to avoid unwarranted restrictions.”
•But the Commission has also posed the query that if contempt of court invites penal action, should “contempt of government” also attract punishment. The Commission asks whether it would be “worthwhile” to rename Section 124A and find a “suitable substitute” for the term ‘sedition’.
📰 Panel’s draft bats for simultaneous polls
Says the move will save public money
•The Law Commission of India on Thursday recommended holding of simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and the State Assemblies to save public money.
•The Commission, in draft recommendations, said simultaneous polls would help the government of the day focus on “developmental activities rather than in electioneering.”
Policy implementation
•The exercise would also stop the drain on the administrative set-up and security forces. Simultaneous elections would further ensure better implementation of government policies on time.
•The Commission said the draft recommendations were published as the issue was of magnitude. This draft is a product of a balanced view taken by the Commission after receiving public suggestions in favour and against simultaneous polls. The Commission said simultaneous polls should be achieved by introducing “bare minimum” constitutional amendments and with the ratification of the States.
•As one of the options, the Commission recommends that elections to 12 State Assemblies and one Union Territory (with legislature) can be synchronised with the general elections in 2019. Simultaneous polls can be achieved if there is “political will” and if the States “agree voluntarily.”
•It said elections to the Assemblies of five States are due with the elections to the Lok Sabha and therefore already stand synchronised.
📰 No troops to Afghanistan: China
Says it is supporting the war-torn country to develop its defence and counterterrorism capacity
•The Chinese Defence Ministry on Thursday said it was neither setting up a military base in Afghanistan nor was sending troops to the strife-torn country.
•The Ministry, however, acknowledged that China was supporting Afghanistan to develop its defence and counterterrorism capacity. “China and the international community are all supporting Afghanistan to strengthen its defence and counterterrorism building efforts,” Defence Ministry spokesperson Wu Qian said during a press conference.
•On Wednesday, the South China Morning Post reported that the construction of a base had started, and “China will send at least one battalion of troops, along with weapons and equipment, to be stationed there and provide training to their Afghan counterparts”.
•Later, the daily updated its report quoting the Afghan embassy in Beijing as saying that China was helping Afghanistan set up a mountain brigade in the country’s north to boost counterterrorism efforts. But it stressed that “there will be no Chinese military personnel of any kind on Afghan soil at any time”.
Security cooperation
•The Chinese Defence Ministry corroborated the Afghan embassy statement that it was not stationing troops in Afghanistan. “As for the so-called reports on China stationing forces in Afghanistan, this does not accord with the facts,” Mr. Wu said.
•However, in response to a question on China’s role in training an Afghan mountain brigade, the spokesperson said China and Afghanistan had “normal military and security cooperation”.
•The Hindu had reported on January 10, that China would fund construction of an Afghan counterterrorism base in Badakhshan province to block cross-border infiltration of the ethnic Uighur militants. The report cited Fergana News Agency (FNA), which quoted Gen. Dawlat Waziri of the Afghan Defence Ministry, as saying that China would provide financial support to build the base, whose precise location inside Badakhshan, in northern Afghansitan, was yet to the determined.
•Gen. Waziri had then said the Chinese side would cover all material and technical expenses for this base — weaponry, uniforms for soldiers, military equipment and everything else necessary for its functioning.
•According to FNA, the decision to build the facility was taken during the December 2017 visit to China by Afghan Defence Minister Tariq Shah Bahrami. During his visit, Mr. Bahrami had met his former Chinese counterpart Chang Wanquan, and other senior officials. FNA said Mr. Bahrami and Gen. Chang agreed that their counterterrorism focus should not only be confined to Badakhshan, but Afghanistan’s entire northern region.
Flow of militants
•Afghan analysts said the largest group of Uighur militants already resides in Badakhshan, from where they can rapidly shift to China, destabilising Xinjiang province and impeding Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative.
•Earlier, Hu Shisheng, Director of the Institute of South and Southeast Asian and Oceanian Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, had told The Hindu “those in Xinjiang who seek independence... choose the route between China, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and even Pakistan to West Asia... We want to plug this flow between Xinjiang and Tajikistan and Tajikistan and Afghanistan.”
📰 Russia, China set to launch joint military exercises
The five-day Vostok 2018 drills will be held from Sept. 11
•China will join Russia in a giant military exercise, sending a message of deterrence to the U.S. which has designated Beijing and Moscow as “revisionist powers”.
•The five-day Vostok 2018 exercises, to be held from September 11, will be bigger than Zapad 81 — the mammoth manoeuvres carried out in Eastern Europe by the former Soviet Union in 1981. Mongolia will be the third country participating in the drills.
•The Vostok-2018 will involve 300,000 troops. They will engage in tri-service mock-operations, involving 1,000 military aircraft, two of Russia’s naval fleets and all its airborne units, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday.
•Nearly 36,000 military vehicles will participate in the drills that will take place at Russia’s Tsugol training range in the trans-Baikal region. China will dispatch about 3,200 troops, along with more than 900 pieces of weaponry, as well as 30 fixed-wing aircraft and helicoptersstate-run Xinhua reported, citing China's Ministry of National Defence.
•These exercises are taking place amid Washington’s growing friction with Russia and China, which include mounting sanctions and a trade war. The Pentagon’s national defence strategy unveiled in January focused on Russia and China as principle strategic challenges to the U.S. In presenting the new strategy, U.S. Defence Secretary James Mattis called China and Russia “revisionist powers” that “seek to create a world consistent with their authoritarian models”.
•He stressed that “great power competition, not terrorism, is now the primary focus of U.S. national security”.
•Russian foreign policy commentator Mark Sleboda was quoted by Sputnik as saying the upcoming exercises are “a clear indication to the U.S. that it’s a response to their national security strategy, as well as a response to U.S. and NATO posturing in the South China Sea, in the Taiwanese Straits, as well as…the permanent stationing of troops that we are seeing on Russia’s western border”.
•He also quoted an editorial re-published by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) website, which spotlights the exercise as a response to the intentions of “hegemonic powers”. “Some hegemonic powers target China and Russia as their biggest threats, giving heavy blows to the two countries in political, economic and military areas.
•Such actions have severely threatened regional and even global peace and stability,” says the edit. “Therefore, the China-Russia alliance is a reasonable stance against the hegemonic impulse and for safeguarding peace and stability of the region and the world,” it added.
•Mr. Sleboda points out that since last year, China and Russia have begun joint missile defence exercises — a signal that Beijing and Moscow “foresee that any strategic nuclear conflict that embroils one would, naturally, involve both”.
•A PLA affiliated website, China Military Online, cited experts who said the upcoming exercise shows that the China-Russia “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination is further deepening in the military and security fields”.
•The article asserts that China’s participation in mega-drills have dispelled doubts that ‘Vostok-2018’ might be directed against Beijing. It notes that the manoeuvres concentrate on “traditional security, unlike previous China-Russia joint military exercises which focused on non-traditional security challenges”.
•The write-up cited Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of Russia’s National Defence magazine, as saying that in view of the escalating pressure exerted by the U.S. on Russia and China, “such military drills show that America's attempt to contain Russia and China will not work”.
📰 The Nilgiri tahr climbs population charts
The species, however, remains under threat from invasive plants
•In a heartening development for conservationists, a recent census has revealed that the population of the Nilgiri tahr (an endangered mountain goat) at the Mukurthi National Park has grown by an impressive 18% in the last two years, from 480 to 568.
•Tamil Nadu Forest Department officials said that a count conducted in 2016 had put the population in the national park at around 480, but a revised count in 2017 pegged it at 438. “Getting an exact figure each year is difficult, so there is always a small discrepancy in numbers. This year, however, there is a definite increase in the number of animals in the only pristine habitat left in the Nilgiris for the tahr,” said a Forest Department official.
•The population estimation exercise, completed in May, was conducted jointly by the Forest Department and the Department of Zoology and Wildlife Biology, Government Arts College, Udhagamandalam.
•B. Ramakrishnan, assistant professor in the department, said that apart from the increase in numbers, the sex ratio, too, was encouraging. “From what we have recorded, there are two adult females for every male. This indicates a viable breeding population, and hints at further population growth,” he said.
Several threats
•If that is the good news, the bad news is that the population also faces several threats. Researchers point to the continuing spread of invasive species of flora, such as wattle and pine, and exotic weeds like scotch broom (Cystisus scoparius) and gorse, which end up diminishing grazing land.
•“We don’t know how the consumption of exotic weeds will affect the animals. So we need a large-scale project to remove exotic plants,” said Mr. Ramakrishnan.
•The rise in the animals’ population has led to a few herds migrating out of the national park, into the erstwhile Nilgiris South Forest Division.
•S. Senbagapriya, Deputy Director, Mudumalai Tiger Reserve and Mukurthi National Park, said that the Forest Department was stepping up efforts to remove exotics, with wattle eliminated in over 125 hectares of Shola grasslands.
📰 The shale gas challenge
We need a sector-specific environment impact assessment manual on exploration and production
•On August 1, 2018, the Central government approved a far-reaching policy that allows private and government players to explore and exploit unconventional hydrocarbons (including shale gas) in contract areas that were primarily allocated for extracting conventional hydrocarbons. Unlike conventional hydrocarbons that can be sponged out of permeable rocks easily, shale gas is trapped under low permeable rocks. Therefore, a mixture of ‘pressurised water, chemicals, and sand’ (shale fluid) is required to break low permeable rocks in order to unlock the shale gas reserves. The process requires around 5 to 9 million litres of water per extraction activity, posing a daunting challenge to India’s fresh water resources.
•Acknowledging this challenge, the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) issued a guideline on environment management during shale gas extraction, stating that “overall volume of fracture fluid is 5 to 10 times that of conventional hydraulic fracturing” and “the (fracturing) activities are likely to deplete water sources and cause pollution due to the disposal of flowback (produced) water.” However, the guideline falters and states that these challenges will be dealt while granting environmental clearances as per the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) process. The EIA process, however, does not differentiate between conventional and unconventional hydrocarbons, and the DGH acknowledges this issue: “No differentiation has been made in the EIA notification between conventional and unconventional oil and gas exploration in this sector.”
Water-specific issues
•Sensing this regulatory gap, the DGH in its guideline proposes five new reference points (term of references) relating to water issues in the fracking process that a project proponent must explain while applying for the environmental clearance. However, these five reference points are not succinct to resolve the water-specific issues posed by the fracking activities. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), which generally releases sector-specific manual for environment clearance, is yet to come out with a manual specific to fracking activities.
•Despite acknowledging the enormity of water requirement for fracking activities, the DGH guideline fails to give a general estimate of water requirement per unit of shale gas over the lifetime of a shale well. A recent study from Duke University observes that from 2011 through 2016, the water use per well in the U.S. increased up to 770% resulting in some shale wells consuming up to 42 million litres of water per well. The study further conveys that over a period of time, the usage of water dramatically increases for extracting the same amount of shale gas from a well. The importance of clarity in water usage and the place of shale gas extraction in India is linked directly with water requirements of priority sectors like agriculture.
•Shale rocks are usually adjacent to rocks containing useable/ drinking water known as ‘aquifers’. As noted by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2017, while fracking, the shale fluid could possibly penetrate aquifers leading to methane poisoning of groundwater used for drinking and irrigational purposes. Several researches conclude that such contamination can be controlled, if not avoided, provided a project proponent maintains a distance of 600 m between the aquifers and shale gas fracture zones. Acknowledging this complexity and the myriad structures of aquifers in India, the DGH guideline states that a project proponent must “design and construct wells with proper barriers to isolate and protect groundwater”, but misses out on broadly describing the nature or properties of a barrier that can be considered ‘proper’ to isolate and protect the groundwater.
•Water cycle in a typical fracking process is different than other conventional hydrocarbon production activities. When shale fluid is injected underground at high pressure to fracture the rock, 5-50% (depending on the local geology) of the fluid returns to the surface, known as ‘flowback water’. Return flows continue as oil and gas is pumped from the well. The flowback water is usually methane-contaminated, and therefore it poses different recycling and leakage issues than usual wastewater. The Duke University study says, in the U.S., the flowback and produced water volumes generated within the first year of shale production increased up to 1,440% from 2011 through 2016. The DGH guideline again touches upon the exclusive nature of the flowback water but neither proposes any substantive treatment method nor recognises the increase in flowback water during repeated extraction of shale gas from a well over a period of time.
Implementation gaps
•Indian households and irrigation thrive on groundwater. Implementation of the fracking processes without a consultative thought through process, especially on ‘water usage policy’, may result in larger issues including water stress, contamination of groundwater, and related health hazards. But as the process stands today, we are missing an opportunity to comprehensively regulate the fracking process for a sustainable shale gas exploration in India. As a first step, a sector-specific EIA manual on exploration and production of unconventional hydrocarbon resources may be a good idea.
📰 Money, money, money: on demonetisation
The Centre may not own up to the fiasco of demonetisation, but it could sort out wrinkles
•The Reserve Bank of India’s annual report for 2017-18 reveals that 99.3% of currency notes that were demonetised at midnight on November 8, 2016 have returned to the banking system. This is only marginally higher than its provisional estimate last year that over 99% — or ₹15.28 lakh crore worth of the old ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes — out of the ₹15.44 lakh crore that were in circulation at the time had been deposited by June 30, 2017. This makes a couple of things crystal clear. First, the hope that a large chunk of unaccounted money would not return to the system — arguably, the principal reason for the exercise — was almost wholly belied. As a result, the plan to transfer the arising surplus from the RBI to the Centre, which was not formally declared but strongly rumoured, was a non-starter. Second, given the sheer logistical difficulty in penalising all those who converted unaccounted money into legal tender, demonetisation worked as an unintended amnesty scheme. Despite the significant cost to the economy, demonetisation, to the disappointment of the Prime Minister’s critics, had no political fallout. Narendra Modi succeeded in portraying the move as one that would knock out the corrupt rich — a harsh but necessary shock therapy. This was perhaps why the massive disruption caused by the overnight removal of 86% of the currency in value terms did not cause agitations.
•Nevertheless, the RBI report, which points to a spurt in counterfeiting of the new ₹500 and ₹2,000 notes, raises the old question all over again. Was it worth the slowdown in growth, the damage to informal sector supply chains, and job losses in sectors such as construction that were the bulwark of employment creation for the unskilled? True, there have been some benefits. For instance, the number of income tax returns filed has surged a little over the trend growth rate. But surely this could have been achieved by other policy measures. Cashless modes of payment have become more common, but financial savings in the form of currency have also risen, suggesting that people still value cash. Not all policy choices work out and accepting mistakes or planning flaws helps strengthen governance processes. For example, learning from the UPA’s mistakes, a cleaner auction process for natural resources has been worked out. The government must not disown its biggest reform attempt or try to sidestep parliamentary scrutiny of the outcomes of demonetisation. Instead, it could focus on fixing the problems that people still face — transactions with ₹2,000 notes in the absence of ₹1,000 notes are difficult as it is a departure from the currency denomination principle (every note should be twice or two and a half times its preceding denomination). Even as these issues are sorted out, the larger lesson must be heeded: sudden shocks to the economy don’t always yield intended policy objectives.
📰 Shocking negligence: on need for materio-vigilance
A faulty prosthetics issue shows the need for a materio-vigilance programme to track devices
•An expert committee report on faulty hip prosthetics sold by a subsidiary of the U.S. firm Johnson & Johnson has revealed incriminating details about its negligence in dealing with Indian patients. The report, commissioned by the Union Health Ministry in 2017, was published this week. Though it restricts its criticism to J&J, the report makes it clear that the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation also failed in its job of protecting Indian patients. It began in 2006, when DePuy International Ltd., a subsidiary of J&J, registered three types of articular surface replacement implants with the CDSCO. Made of cobalt, chromium and molybdenum, these were meant to replace ball-and-socket joints in patients with degenerative diseases. By 2007, the first indication that something was wrong came from the Australian Orthopaedic Association National Joint Replacement Registry. Its data showed that an extraordinarily high number of implant recipients had to undergo repeat surgeries. It emerged that the device was leaking cobalt and chromium, causing side-effects. Australia recalled the product in 2009.
•Yet, the report says, J&J did not inform the Indian regulator and Indians kept using the implants until the firm began a voluntary global recall in 2010. In the following years, J&J’s actions in India differed widely from those in other countries. While it began corrective surgeries almost immediately in the U.S., the first Indian surgery happened in 2014. The company claims it had trouble tracking patients in India; of 4,700 implants done, only 1,032 recipients had been contacted till March 2017. J&J paid $2.47 billion in claims to about 8,000 patients in the U.S., but no Indian patient received compensation. If these facts are troubling, so is the CDSCO’s ineptitude in ensuring patient safety. Though the global recall occurred in 2010, the drug regulator did not issue an alert until 2013. Another learning is the importance of a materio-vigilance programme to track adverse events of medical devices. India established one in 2015. But if a programme along the lines of Australia’s NJRR had existed in 2006, perhaps Indian patients would have received help sooner. Even today, eight years after the recall, the Indian government seems to be in no hurry to take things forward. After the expert committee report was published, Health Minister J.P. Nadda said the government was still “deliberating” on the issue. With an unknown number of implant recipients still unaware that they could have received a faulty device (J&J hasn’t disclosed the number of recipients), time for deliberation is past. The authorities must show that when private corporations fail to protect patient interests, they will be held accountable.
📰 Pollution may affect thinking skills, says study
It analysed how long-term exposure to pollutants affected performance in math and word-recognition tests
•A large study in China suggests a link between air pollution and negative effects on people’s language and math skills.
•The link between pollution and respiratory diseases is well known, and most experts now believe that small particulates may also raise the risk for strokes and heart attacks. Whether this form of air pollution impairs cognition is not yet certain, but several studies have hinted at a connection.
•The latest study, by researchers based in China and the U.S., analysed how long-term exposure to air pollution affected performance on nationwide math and word-recognition tests by more than 25,000 people across 162 Chinese counties. It was published on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .
Weather, pollution data
•The authors based their findings on models they built that combined weather and pollution data from specific locations in China, where people had taken nationwide tests in 2010 and 2014, as well as the test scores themselves. Their analysis tried to document how short and long-term pollution exposure might have affected the scores — and, by extension, the test-takers’ brains.
•The authors found that the cognitive impact of cumulative exposure among the test takers was especially pronounced among older men, and that the results were troubling in part because cognitive decline and impairment are risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.
•The study “further amplifies the need to tackle air pollution now to protect the health of particularly the young and elderly populations,” Heather Adair-Rohani, a technical officer for public health and environment at the World Health Organization in Geneva, said in an email.
•Atmospheric pollution has long been recognised as a significant threat to global public health.
•A 2014 study found that traffic-related pollution in greater London was associated with declining cognitive functions over time among study participants, who had an average age of 66.
•The study used test scores from the 2010 and 2014 editions of China Family Panel Studies, an interview-based exam given nationwide, as well as air-quality data from readings of three types of pollutants: sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter that is between 2.5 and 10 micrometers in diameter, called PM10.
Elderly vulnerable
•“Essentially, we compare the same person in two time periods,” said Zhang Xin, the study’s lead author.
•The study found that “accumulative exposure” had a pronounced impact on verbal test scores — especially for older, less-educated men.
•Critics say the research tried to minimise the impact of other variables. For example, it excluded test takers who migrated across counties between 2010 and 2014, and others who worked in mining, smelting, wood processing and other “polluted occupations.”
•In another critique, Rajasekhar Balasubramanian, an air quality expert at the National University of Singapore, noted that while the study’s authors speculate that continued exposure to pollution can alter brain chemistry, they offered no clinical proof. (The authors agreed, writing that the hypothesis should be explored further.)
•But Mr. Balasubramanian said the study was useful in part because, while the effects of pollution on children’s cognition had been documented by epidemiologists, this was the first to focus on such risks to China’s older people. He said similar research was now needed in other countries.
📰 Trapped heat below Arctic surface could melt entire region’s ice: study
Warmer water that originated hundreds of miles away has penetrated deep into its interior
•‘Archived’ heat trapped below the surface of the Arctic has the potential to melt the entire region’s sea ice, scientists warn.
•The study, published in the journal Science Advances , shows that Arctic sea ice is not just threatened by the melting of ice around its edges.
•Warmer water that originated hundreds of miles away has penetrated deep into the interior of the Arctic, researchers found.
•“We document a striking ocean warming in one of the main basins of the interior Arctic Ocean, the Canadian Basin,” said Mary-Louise Timmermans, a Professor at Yale University in the U.S. The upper ocean in the Canadian Basin has seen a two-fold increase in heat content over the past 30 years, the researchers said.
•They traced the source to waters hundreds of miles to the south, where reduced sea ice has left the surface ocean more exposed to summer solar warming. In turn, Arctic winds are driving the warmer water north, but below the surface waters.
•“This means the effects of sea-ice loss are not limited to the ice-free regions themselves, but also lead to increased heat accumulation in the interior of the Arctic Ocean that can have climate effects well beyond the summer season,” Ms. Timmermans said.
•“Presently this heat is trapped below the surface layer. Should it be mixed up to the surface, there is enough heat to entirely melt the sea-ice pack that covers this region for most of the year,” she said.
