📰 Push for cross-party support for Jallianwala Bagh apology
Event does not represent modern British values: motion
•Indian-origin Labour MP Virendra Sharma is urging British parliamentarians from across the political spectrum to come together to support his parliamentary motion pushing for a formal apology from the British government for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
•Mr. Sharma, the Labour MP for Ealing Southall, tabled the Early Day Motion — a formal parliamentary means for MPs to draw attention to an issue — earlier this week, and has so far attracted 8 signatories from across the political spectrum, including Labour, the Conservatives, the Scottish National Party, the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland.
•“This event [the massacre] does not represent modern British values,” the motion says.
•Mr. Sharma said he expected to garner further political support.
‘Historical fact’
•“It’s not a question for any political party, it’s a historical fact that the people of Britain should know about. It hurt deeply then and it hurts deeply now,” he said.
•While Mr. Sharma does not anticipate an immediate debate in the House of Commons on the issue, he said he planned to launch a number of other initiatives to raise awareness of the issue and the need for an apology and greater education through community events, as well as in the House of Commons.
•“There are parts of the history that are unacceptable but which people must know about… its missing in large part from history books in this country,” he said.
•The debate over the impact of the British Empire more widely has gained increasing prominence in the past year, with the focus on Brexit and Britain’s desire to expand beyond the European Union, with some harking back to the days of it being a great trading nation, and the Empire.
📰 Unravelling of the Iran deal
•Last week U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he could no longer certify that continuing the sanctions waiver for Iran, under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), contributes to U.S. national security interests in view of Iran’s aggressive behaviour. However, he carefully refrained from accusing Iran of violating the JCPOA given that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano has publicly stated that Iran is in full compliance with the deal and subject to the world’s most robust nuclear verification regime. Mr. Trump’s new policy therefore aims to “neutralize Iran’s destabilizing influence and constrain… its support for terrorism… and ballistic missile [programme]”.
•Mr. Trump’s decision does not re-impose the nuclear-related sanctions that were waived (though he could also have done so) but passes the ball to the U.S. Congress. Though Secretaries of State Rex Tillerson and of Defence James Mattis as well as Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford had bluntly stated that they were not in favour of the U.S. scrapping the deal, Mr. Trump’s mind had been made up long ago.
A divide
•For the first time since 1945, a clear divide with European allies has emerged, with German, French and British leaders jointly declaring that preserving the JCPOA is in their shared national security interests. The European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini that the world cannot afford “to dismantle a nuclear agreement that is working”. Only two countries have applauded Mr. Trump’s decision — Saudi Arabia praised the U.S.’s firm strategy and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conveyed his congratulations.
•The JCPOA, signed on July 14, 2015, was the result of prolonged negotiations between Iran and P5+1 (U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China, Germany and EU). Talks began in 2003 between Iran and E-3 (Germany, France and U.K.), and in 2005 expanded to the P5+1 format. Negotiations frequently stalled leading to new sanctions on Iran but became purposeful after Hassan Rouhani’s election as President in 2013.
•In 2004, Iran had around 1000 centrifuges, and by 2015 the number had grown to 20,000. The U.S. concluded that Iran had recovered from the Stuxnet debacle and was barely months away from producing enough highly enriched uranium (20-25 kg) to produce a nuclear device. While other aspects of Iran’s regional behaviour remained worrisome, the rationale driving the Obama administration was that a nuclear armed Iran would be more threatening. Therefore the JCPOA focussed exclusively on rolling back Iran’s nuclear activities.
•Under the JCPOA, Iran ended certain activities (converting the underground Fordow enrichment facility into a research centre and dismantling of the Arak heavy water research reactor), accepted restraints on other activities (reducing the number of operational centrifuges to 5060 at Natanz for 10 years, restricting enrichment level to 3.6% for 15 years, limiting the low enriched uranium stocks to 300 kg by shipping out nearly 10 tonnes of extra stocks and refraining from setting up a research reactor for 15 years) and accepted a highly rigorous inspection regime. In return, about $100 billion of Iranian assets were unfrozen and Iran was allowed to resume sales of oil. January 16 last year was declared Implementation Day when the IAEA certified Iranian compliance and sanctions relief kicked in. The UN Security Council (UNSC) unanimously adopted Resolution 2231, endorsing the JCPOA and lifting the UNSC sanctions.
U.S. sanctions waiver
•However, U.S. sanctions relief was more convoluted because of a multiplicity of sanctions (relating to nuclear and missile activities, human rights violations and terrorism) which also had extra-territorial application, implying that third country companies would be penalised if they engaged in activities from which U.S. companies were barred. Here, the relief was limited to “secondary” nuclear sanctions since U.S. companies still remained barred from dealings with Iran on account of the other sanctions, but third country companies were now free to engage with Iran. An exception was made in the civil aviation sector that enabled Boeing to secure a deal for nearly a hundred aircraft; otherwise Airbus would have locked it out of the Iranian market.
•Since the Obama administration’s negotiations with Iran did not enjoy support in the Republican-dominated Congress, an additional piece of legislation, Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA) was passed in May 2015 under Senator Bob Corker’s stewardship as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The objective was to constrain presidential authority to waive sanctions on Iran by obliging him to certify every 90 days that Iran was in full compliance with the deal and that continuing the waiver contributed to U.S. national security interests. INARA also obliged the President to provide a report on Iran’s support to terrorism, human rights violations and ballistic missile activities.
•Given the hostility to the JCPOA, Barack Obama did not submit the JCPOA to the Senate for ratification as is mandated for a “treaty”; instead, JCPOA was described as a “political commitment” between P5+1 and Iran which lies within executive purview. According to a study carried out by Professors Jeffrey Peake and Glen Krutz, 94% of U.S. agreements with other countries, since 1930, have been on the basis of ‘executive agreements’. The JCPOA assumed legal character when it became part of the UNSC resolution 2231. However, unlike the JCPOA and the mandatory lifting of the U.S.’s secondary nuclear sanctions which is part of international law, INARA is U.S. domestic law.
•In January, before handing over, the Obama administration had provided both the certification under INARA (to be renewed every 90 days) and the waiver of secondary nuclear sanctions under section 1245 of the National Defense Authorization Act (2012) that needs renewal every 120 days. Mr. Trump provided the INARA certification on April 18 and July 18 but drew the line last week.
•He also renewed the waiver on secondary sanctions on May 17 and last month on September 14. This is why the U.S. sanctions have not kicked in because the current waiver will hold for 120 days, till mid-January 2018.
An isolated U.S.
•Since Mr. Trump had made his opinion about the JCPOA quite clear, describing it as the “worst deal ever”, he could have withheld renewal of sanctions waiver last month but that would have triggered re-imposition of secondary nuclear sanctions and violated international law since Iran remains in compliance with the JCPOA. It was therefore politically expedient to kick the ball to the Congress. Mr. Trump would like Congress to end some of the sunset clauses of 10/15 years in the JCPOA by making it permanent and also establish new benchmarks on missile activities and regional behaviour for continuing sanctions relief. This would imply an implicit renegotiation of the JCPOA, something that would attract a veto by both Russia and China were it to be taken up in the UNSC.
•Amending INARA would require 60 votes in the Senate, eight more than the current Republican strength and not all Republicans will support Mr. Trump. Relations between Mr. Trump and Senator Corker have deteriorated with Mr. Trump blaming Mr. Corker for the “horrendous deal” and Mr. Corker comparing the White House to “an adult day care centre”. Congress could also do nothing, which would put Mr. Trump in the awkward position in January 2018 of either renewing the sanctions waiver for another 120 days or withholding it, which would put the U.S. in violation of the JCPOA.
•In either case, the deal has broken down because Iran is not prepared to renegotiate it. Other countries have promised to uphold it but their ability to do so will depend on how their companies can be firewalled from U.S. sanctions if they continue their engagement with Iran.
•However, implications of the breakdown are not limited to U.S.-Iran relations. Iran can make things difficult for the U.S. in Afghanistan as also in Iraq and Syria. The U.S.’s ability to work with Russia in Syria or with China regarding North Korea will also be impacted. And sooner or later, questions will be asked in Iran about why it should continue with the restrictions and inspections that it accepted under the JCPOA, which would have far-reaching implications for the global nuclear architecture. Coming after the rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris climate change accord and the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mr. Trump’s decision further diminishes U.S. credibility.
📰 A day in Delhi for Ghani and Tillerson
The visits will provide India opportunity to hold talks on crucial regional and security-related issues
•Continuing with close bilateral consultation, Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani will visit India on October 24. The official confirmation about the visit came even as the Ministry of External Affairs reiterated India’s commitment to ‘rule-based international order’, setting the stage for the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to the capital on the same day.
•The visit by President Ghani comes within days of a visit to Kabul by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Thursday’s Taliban attack on the Afghan National Army base in Kandahar province that killed at least fifty-eight security personnel. When asked about the details of the Afghan leader’s agenda, an MEA official source said that the visit was being “worked upon” and a statement on the agenda would be made soon.
•Mr. Ghani’s visit, which is likely to last for half-a-day, is significant as it comes two-months after U.S. President Donald Trump announced his government’s new Afghanistan policy for which he has urged India to do more.
Crucial talks
•The visits of Mr. Ghani and Mr. Tillerson to Delhi indicate that they will provide all three — the U.S., Afghanistan and India — the opportunity to hold talks on crucial regional and security-related issues.
•Indicating at India’s stance to Mr. Tillerson’s visit, MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said, “We appreciate his positive evaluation of the relationship and share his optimism about its future directions. We look forward to welcoming him in India next week for detailed discussions on further strengthening of our partnership.”
•The Ministry’s statement was a response to Mr. Tillerson’s October 18 comments at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington DC, where he highlighted his two decades-long personal ties with India and said,
Centre of gravity
•“The world’s centre of gravity is shifting to the heart of the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. and India — with our shared goals of peace, security, freedom of navigation, and a free and open architecture — must serve as the eastern and western beacons of the Indo-Pacific.”
•Mr. Tillerson had also pointed out that China’s rise as an international power had been “less peaceful.” The Asia-Pacific component of the visit will unfold soon after the latest congress of the Communist Party of China which led to the consolidation of power of President Xi Jinping and his re-election for one more term.
📰 Govt. plans to boost rural employment
•The Rural Development Ministry, in a bid to addresss one of the biggest challenges for the Modi government, is in the midst of examining proposals that promises to leapfrog job creation for the rural youth.
•The proposals emerged from a two-day conclave the Ministry hosted last week, that was addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
•Several out of the box suggestions such as a migrant tracking system, low-cost accommodation for urban workers, and changing the word “labour” to “professional workers,” are now being compiled into a draft note that will eventually be sent to the Prime Minister’s Office.
•“Our ministry already runs the biggest rural employment programme in the form of MNREGA. Now, we are focussing on specific livelihood missions to scale up employability of rural youth,” said a senior official of the ministry, who did not wish to be identified.
•The note on skill development, accessed by The Hindu , points out that the Ministry’s flagship skill development programme — Deen Dayal Updadhaya Gramin Kaushal Yojana — needs to “reinvent itself to reach the next level.”
•Experts have suggested a cluster approach, where villages with similar socio-economic conditions should be clubbed and every village should have a gram vikas prerak (village development motivator), and call the “bottom of the pyramid as the foundation of the pyramid.”
Rural digital index
•“Like a smart city index, we need to have a rural digital index,” the note points out and says skill development programmes of the government should work backwards from the future and link it to the market demands.
•“Link skill to entrepreneurship development and do not over-emphasize wage employment,” reads one of the 18 recommendations that have so far been crystallized.
📰 U.S. starts anti-dumping probe into PTFE resin from India
China too on radar as U.S suspects below-cost resin imports from both countries
•The U.S. has initiated anti-dumping duty investigations against import of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) resin from India and China, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
•The probe is being started to determine whether imports of PTFE resin from China and India “are being dumped in the U.S., and a countervailing duty investigation to determine whether producers of PTFE resin in India are receiving alleged unfair subsidies,” the department said in a statement.
‘Alleged margins’
•The PTFE is mostly used as a non-stick coating for utensils. The department has stated that the estimated dumping margins alleged by the petitioner range from 23.4%-408.9% for China and 15.8% to 128.1% for India.
•In the anti-dumping investigations, it said the department would determine whether imports of the resin from China and India were being dumped in the American market at less than fair value.
•On the other hand, it said, in the countervailing investigation, it will determine whether Indian producers of PTFE resin are receiving unfair government subsidies.
•If the department establishes that the products are being dumped, they can impose duties on those imports.
•“In 2016, imports of PTFE resin from China and India were valued at an estimated $24.6 million and $14.3 million, respectively,” it added.
•Countries initiate anti-dumping probes to determine if the domestic industry has been hurt by a surge in below-cost imports. As a counter-measure, they impose duties under the multilateral WTO regime.
•Anti-dumping measures are taken to ensure fair trade and provide a level-playing field to the domestic industry. They are not a measure to restrict imports or cause an unjustified increase in cost of products.
📰 A flood of questions
Several issues must be sorted out first before the ambitious river linking plan is taken up
•The National Democratic Alliance government is all set to begin work on an estimated $87 billion plan to connect around 60 of India’s largest rivers; this includes the Ganga. Once complete, it is expected to help end farmers’ dependence on fickle monsoon rains, bring millions of hectares of cultivable land under irrigation and help generate thousands of megawatts of electricity.
Water management
•The river-linking plan was first proposed in 2002 by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government. However, it was stalled as States failed to end differences over water sharing contracts and clearances. This government has been able push through clearances for the first phase of the project. Work is now set to link the Betwa and Ken rivers which pass through Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, States ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
•Several issues should be sorted out first before billions of rupees are spent on a project like this. Water is listed as entry 17 in List II of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. While the government has initiated discussions to bring the subject under the concurrent list, it may not be an easy task to achieve. Also, if there are changes in the political dispensation in various States, the government in a State that is upstream, for example, may refuse to share water with downstream States. When there has been a deficient monsoon, we have seen conflicts arise among States over water access. Thus, without having a full-fledged architecture to solve disputes, it would not be prudent to embark on a mammoth project like this.
•Second, India is technically poor with respect to data related to the water sector. Unlike other countries, the Central Statistics Office has neither attempted nor funded studies to gather data on water tables at an all-India or State level. Many water stressed countries produce these on a regular basis at a regional level and link them to national accounts statistics. Basically, ‘water resource accounts provide an accounting framework that enables the integration of specialised physical resource sector data with other information on the economics of water supply and use in a structure that is consistent with the way data on economic activities are organised in the system of national accounts. In addition to facilitating the integration and sharing of a more comprehensive knowledge base, the natural resource accounting framework provides the basis for evaluating the consistency between the objectives and priorities of water resource management and broader goals of economic development planning and policy at a national and local scale. This in turn improves communication between various agencies generating and using information about water for various purposes and contributes to better coordination, packaging and analyses of such information that are more relevant to the needs of water managers and policy-makers’. The advantage of such an account is that it makes it possible to capture direct, indirect and induced water demand in the process of economic production. Since indirect and induced water demands are typically higher/closer to direct demand, it is essential to include them in combination with water supply table data while estimating the water balance situation in a region.
Context of agriculture
•Fourth, the government should pay more attention to its ‘more crop per drop’ mission, to what extent Indian agriculture follows this practice and whether water-stressed regions are water exporters due to the crops they cultivate. However, there is a dearth of studies in the Indian context — unlike other countries — addressing the gap by first analysing water flows embodied (virtual/hidden) in agriculture products moving between the States to create knowledge on the flows. The absence of a well-informed water policy reflects a knowledge governance gap. A recent study (Katyaini and Barua, 2016) on virtual water (VW) flow assessment in respect of foodgrains indicates that though the north zone is highly water scarce, it is a net VW exporter to the highly water scarce west and south, which are net VW importers. Among the north zone States, Punjab has the highest water losses, while Maharashtra (west) and Tamil Nadu (south) the highest water savings in 1996–2005 and 2005–2014, respectively. Therefore, at a subnational scale, VW flows are not consistent with relative water scarcity. This finding is also crucial as it emphasises the need to carry out a subnational VW flow assessment. Such analysis for all the major crops at subnational levels is a must for efficient planning of a scarce resource such as water.
📰 Centre pushes for cash-free campuses
Public, private institutions to be within digital ambit
•The Ministry of Human Resource Development aims to make financial transactions completely digital in all higher education institutions.
•“The HRD Minister is likely to write to the heads of all institutions to shift completely to digital transactions, preferably from December itself. Our vision is to have no cash transactions on these campuses,” said a senior official, who did not wish to be named.
•“The higher education regulators — University Grants Commission (UGC) and All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) — are also being taken on board to help facilitate the transition,” the official said.
•The move will bring within the digital ambit all such institutions — public and private — including Central and State universities, IITs, NITs, business schools, etc., Eventually, the Centre aims to fully digitise all campus processes — including admissions, assistance, assessments, result declaration, admission, etc. — with all these processes going on an integrated IT platform.
•HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar had in his presentation on higher education at the governors' conference last week, advocated that payments through digital mode be made mandatory in all institutions of higher education. In addition, he said, all in-house transactions, including in-campus canteens, would be made through the BHIM app.
•“We have given the work of developing modules for the internal process to an agency. Within six to eight months, we should go completely digital,” IIT Delhi director V. Ramgopal Rao told The Hindu.
•The Centre had launched the Vittiya Saksharta Abhiyan (VISAKA), meaning financial literacy campaign, for digital financial literacy early in 2017, enrolling lakhs of volunteers from among students to train families in their neighbourhood to conduct financial transactions digitally through the BHIM app. They were also asked to go to major markets, talk to shopkeepers, vendors and merchants' associations to help shift to digital transactions.
•As many as 2000 higher education institutions were also made digital as part of this initiative.
📰 Most pollution-linked deaths occur in India
Over a quarter of all fatalities in 2015 were in country: study.
•With 2.51 million deaths in 2015, India has been ranked No. 1 in pollutionrelated deaths, according to a report by The Lancet Commission on pollution and health. China recorded the second highest number of such deaths (1.8 million). India accounted for about 28 per cent of an estimated nine million pollution linked deaths worldwide in 2015.
•The Lancet Commission on pollution and health is a two-year project in which more than 40 international health and environmental authors led by environmental scientist Philip Landrigan were involved.
•At 6.5 million premature deaths globally, air pollutionwas the leading cause of deaths in 2015. Among the world’s 10 most populous countries that year, the largest increase in numbers of pollution related deaths were seen in India and Bangladesh. But the absolute number of air pollution deaths in Bangladesh was only 0.2 million.
•With 1.58 million, China had the second-highest number of air pollution deaths after India (1.81 million). But the number of water pollution deaths in China was only about 34,000, compared to 0.64 million in the case of India.
•Nearly 25% of all deaths in India in 2015 were caused by pollution; Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, and Kenya too reported that one in four deaths were caused by pollution.
•In the case of air pollution, the number of deaths in India from ambient air pollution was 1.09 million, while deaths from household air pollution from solid fuels were 0.97 million. In the case of water pollution, 0.5 million deaths were caused by unsafe water source, while unsafe sanitation caused 0.32 million deaths.
•The results were published in The Lancet.
•Several cities in India and China recorded average annual concentrations of particulate matter PM2•5 pollution of greater than 100 μg/m³, and more than 50% of global deaths due to ambient air pollution in 2015 occurred in India and China.
•Deaths from air pollution were a result of diseases such as heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Pollution has been responsible for the most non-communicable disease deaths. “In 2015, all forms of pollution combined were responsible for 21% of all deaths from cardiovascular disease, 26% of deaths due to ischaemic heart disease, 23% due to stroke, 51% to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and 43% due to lung cancer,” says the report.
•“Pollution is responsible for more deaths than a high-sodium diet (4•1 million), obesity (4•0 million), alcohol (2•3 million), road accidents (1•4 million), or child and maternal malnutrition (1•4 million). Pollution was also responsible for three times as many deaths as AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined,” it says.
Pollution Check
•Air quality index in key cities on Deepavali day at 4 p.m., ranging from 'good' to 'severe'. Numbers range from 0-500
