📰 SC asks States to make it clear whether reservation should remain within 50% or not
It decided to examine whether its nearly three-decade-old judgment, which fixed quota for the marginalised and the poor in government jobs and educational institutions at 50%, needs a re-look.
•The Supreme Court on Monday decided to examine whether its nearly three-decade-old judgment, which fixed reservation for the marginalised and the poor in government jobs and educational institutions at 50%, needs a re-look.
•In 1992, a nine-judge Bench of the court had drawn the “Lakshman rekha” for reservation in jobs and education at 50%, except in “extraordinary circumstances”.
•However, over the years, several States such as Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have crossed the rubicon and passed laws which allows reservation shooting over 60%.
Maratha quota law
•A five-judge Bench led by Justice Ashok Bhushan, on Monday, set up to hear the challenge to the Maratha quota law, decided not to confine the question of reservation spilling over 50% limit to just Maharashtra.
•The Bench expanded the ambit of the case by making other States party and inviting them to make their stand clear on the question of whether reservation should continue to remain within the 50% boundary or not.
Hearing from March 15
•Justice Bhushan, leading the Constitution Bench, decided to start the hearing from March 15, giving time for the other States to prepare their arguments.
•The court, meanwhile framed a series of questions, which include whether the Indira Sawhney verdict of 1992, fixing 50% limit on quota, needs to be re-looked by a larger Bench of more than nine judges.
•Another question is whether the Maharashtra State Reservation for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) Act of 2018, which provides 12% to 13% quota benefits for the Maratha community, and thus, taking the reservation percentage in the State across the 50% mark was enacted under “extraordinary circumstances”.
•The Indira Sawhney judgment had categorically said “50% shall be the rule, only in certain exceptional and extraordinary situations for bringing far-flung and remote areas population into mainstream said 50% rule can be relaxed”.
•The court will also examine whether Maharashtra State Backward Classes Commission under the chairmanship of Justice M.C. Gaikwad had made up a case of “extraordinary circumstances” of deprivation suffered by the Maratha community, requiring the helping hand of reservation even at the cost of crossing the 50% line.
•In fact, the Bombay High Court had, in June 2019, reduced the quantum of reservation for Marathas from the 16% recommended by the Gaikwad Commission to 12% in education and 13% in employment.
•A significant question the Bench wants to judge is whether the Constitution (One Hundred Second Amendment) Act of 2018, which introduces the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC), interferes with the authority of State Legislatures to provide benefit to the social and educationally backward communities in their own jurisdiction.
•The Constitution Amendment Act had introduced Articles 338B and 342A in the Constitution. Article 338B deals with the newly established the NCBC. Article 342A empowers the President to specify the socially and educationally backward communities in a State. It says that it is for the Parliament to include a community in the Central List for socially and backward classes for grant of reservation benefits.
•The court wants to delve into the issue whether Article 342A strips State Legislatures of their discretionary power to include their backward communities in the State List.
Push laggard States as children susceptible to diseases: Panel
•Only half of government schools and anganwadis have tap water supply, despite a 100-day campaign for 100% coverage being launched by the Jal Shakti Ministry in October 2020, according to information provided to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Water Resources.
•Less than 8% of schools in Uttar Pradesh and 11% in West Bengal have it, while it is available in only 2-6% of anganwadis in Assam, Jharkhand, U.P., Chhattisgarh and Bengal.
•At a time when schools and anganwadis are just starting to reopen after a yearlong shutdown, COVID-19 safety protocols require repeated handwashing by students and teachers. In its report on the demand for grants submitted to the Lok Sabha on Monday, the Standing Committee urged the Ministry to take up the matter with laggard States.
•The campaign to provide potable piped water supply for drinking and cooking purposes and tap water for hand washing and in toilets in every school, anganwadi and ashramshala or residential tribal school was launched on October 2, Gandhi Jayanti. The 100-day period should have ended on January 10, 2021. However, as of February 15, only 48.5% of anganwadis and 53.3% of schools had tap water supply, the Ministry told the Parliamentary panel.
•Seven States — Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Punjab — achieved 100% coverage. A number of other States also made significant progress in that time, and 1.82 lakh grey water management structures and 1.42 lakh rainwater harvesting structures were also constructed in schools and anganwadi centres. “However, some States/ UTs have indicated that they need more time to complete the task and sustain the efforts. Therefore, the campaign has been extended till March 31, 2021,” the Ministry said.
•The panel noted that “children are more susceptible to water borne diseases, more so, when there is also a need for repeated washing of hands as a precautionary measure during the pandemic”.
•“Considering the health hazards in the children on account of lack of potable drinking water, the Committee urges the Department to take up the matter with those States which are lagging in providing drinking water and toilet facilities in their schools and anganwadi centres,” said the panel adding that the Centre should also take measures to set up water purification or reverse osmosis (RO) plants on an urgent basis so that children do not suffer due to contamination of drinking water.
•In a broader comment on the flagship Jal Jeevan Mission, which aims to provide tap water to every rural household by 2024, the Standing Committee noted that “mere provision of tap connection without ensuring assured availability of water in the pipeline would not serve the purpose and will defeat the very objective of JJM”. It called for real-time monitoring of water supply at the district level. “The Committee finds from their collective experience and ground reality that there are instances galore, wherein taps are being fitted but water supply is not there,” it said.
📰 An alarming diktat: On Satyadeo Narain Arya's assent
Haryana’s new ‘75% jobs for locals’ law is a harbinger of doom
•Haryana Governor Satyadeo Narain Arya’s assent to a law regulating private sector hiring portends a potentially perilous slide in India’s investment climate and its socio-economic framework. The Haryana State Employment of Local Candidates Act of 2020 seeks to ensure that 75% of all jobs with gross monthly salaries of up to ₹50,000 are provided to the State’s own residents. The clamour for preserving economic activity for ‘sons of the soil’ is a recurrent theme now — Andhra Pradesh (AP) had passed a similar law in 2019, and the Madhya Pradesh CM has promised one to reserve 70% private sector jobs. Haryana’s law could face legal challenges like AP’s did, as it ostensibly flies in the face of the Constitution, especially Article 19(1)(g) and Article 16(2). Operationally, the law imposes onerous and contentious responsibilities on key personnel of firms in the State, including those with as few as 10 employees. There are three critical action points for businesses, attached to severe monetary penalties for perceived non-compliance. They need to register every employee earning ₹50,000 on an official portal and employing 75% of locals in such jobs (presumably by removing existing non-Haryanvi employees beyond the 25% limit). Most preposterous is seeking exemptions to the law — firms can hire outsiders by proving that local candidates for a desired skill are not available.
•Apart from the power to enter firms’ premises for inspections, officials will decide if a firm can hire an outsider or should train local candidates instead, till they become proficient enough. Even if this harks back to an ‘Inspector Raj’ system, the process would dissuade employers from operating in the State, thus defeating the idea of boosting local jobs when unemployment is running high. But this is not just about ‘Happening Haryana’ becoming a difficult place to do business. A single disruption in the Gurgaon back office operations of a global firm or the supplies of auto components, on account of the new law, would be damaging to India’s already fragile reputation as a stable, trustworthy investment destination with a talented workforce. A possible investor exodus aside, this runs counter to the Prime Minister’s ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’ and ‘One Nation One Market’ slogans. Rising unemployment could spur more States to follow suit, and the logic could be extended to internal capital flows next. Bihar CM Nitish Kumar has already pointed out that Bihar’s deposits into the banking system are not matched by credit disbursals into the State. It is time the Centre dissuades such legislation which threatens to not only unleash a sort of ‘work visa’ regime for Indians within the country but also damage crucial workplace diversity. Immobilising a much-vaunted young workforce and rupturing the social fabric with this push for insularity would be the start of an unstoppable slide.
📰 The contours of the endgame in Afghanistan
The U.S.’s objective of a just and durable peace while ensuring Afghanistan’s unity is a tall order
•The peace process in Afghanistan has reached a critical turning point. As when then U.S. President Barack Obama announced the exit of U.S. forces from Afghanistan (and the Taliban famously exulted – ‘you may have the watches, but we have the time’), and more recently, when the Doha Agreement was concluded a year ago between the U.S. Government and the Taliban. Now, a more decisive step is in store.
A U.S. review
•Afghan social media and political circles are rife with details, corroborated by official sources in Afghanistan, that the U.S. Secretary of State, Antony J. Blinken, has unveiled the initial conclusions of the review by the United States of its strategy in Afghanistan in a letter he has addressed simultaneously to Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani and the head of the Afghan High Council for National Reconciliation of Afghanistan, Abdullah Abdullah. Mr. Ghani has been virtually read the riot act by Mr. Blinken, whose letter confirms the intention to fully withdraw all U.S. military forces from Afghanistan as early as May 1, as specified in the Doha Agreement. Mr. Ghani has been warned that without them, the security situation will deteriorate and the Taliban could make rapid gains.
•Despite the Doha Agreement, the Taliban has not ended its ties with the al-Qaeda and other similar terrorist groups. Nor have intra-Afghan negotiations progressed. The policy review ordered in Washington DC by U.S. President Joe Biden has been shrouded in secrecy. What appeared in the U.S. media indicates that some within the U.S. Administration are voicing the need to defend American values. Protagonists in the Pentagon are passionate about keeping a modicum of U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.
•Mr. Biden has long held, even as Vice-President, that Pakistan is strategically more important to the U.S. than Afghanistan, and that U.S. troops should be pulled out of the Afghan battlefield as soon as possible. Donald Trump was doing nothing different from his predecessor, only in his inimitable way, which Mr. Biden wishes to distance himself from and leave a narrative of orderly exit.
•The ongoing review had raised hopes in Kabul of a turnaround in U.S. policy. That is not happening in substance. The U.S. is anxious to proceed to a final settlement rapidly on terms visible from the very outset of the peace process. The continuation of Zalmay Khalilzad as the Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation at the State Department was an early sign that, in substance, U.S. policy is going to remain unaltered.
•The U.S. maintains that its objective is to bring about a just and durable peace through political negotiations in a manner that Afghanistan remains united, sovereign, and democratic, and preserves the gains made over the past two decades. This is a tall order, as it contradicts the abiding U.S. priority, to cut its losses and be out of Afghanistan at the earliest.
•The conundrum for the U.S. is that it cannot disengage from Afghanistan, if that is its priority, without accepting Pakistan’s terms. These would not be acceptable to Afghan patriots who want freedom for Afghanistan to choose its political direction.
•If training, combat support, and the supply of weapons are stopped from Pakistan, the Taliban could be on its knees. The U.S. Government is wary but resigned about Pakistan’s negative role. Instead of pressuring Pakistan, it is seeking Afghan acquiescence for a power-sharing arrangement with the Taliban, enabling the exit of U.S. soldiers.
The road map
•The U.S. Government is advocating ‘a new, inclusive government’ in Afghanistan, which implies an immediate 50% share for the Taliban in an interim government, as a quid pro quo for a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire. This will be without reference to a mandate from the people as elections will be held only in the future, after the principles guiding Afghanistan’s future constitutional and governing arrangements are worked out.
•As a prelude to the ceasefire, the U.S. has proposed to the Taliban to reduce violence for three months, intended to head off the Taliban’s threatened spring offensive.
•When the intra-Afghan negotiations envisaged under the Doha Agreement stalled, Russia offered Moscow as an alternate venue. Instead, the United Nations is being asked to convene, with Turkey being asked to host a meeting of foreign ministers or envoys from China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and the U.S. to discuss a unified approach to supporting peace in Afghanistan.
•Mr. Ghani is being encouraged to work closely with a broad consultative group, for which the core leaders identified are Abdullah Abdullah, former President Karzai, and an important former Mujahideen commander, Professor Abdul Rasul Sayyaf. The objective of this exercise is to build consensus on specific goals and objectives for negotiations with the Taliban on power-sharing, governance, and essential supporting principles.
The implications for India
•India remains fully committed to Afghanistan. Despite the policy flux there, bilateral relations are flourishing. There have been frequent and productive high-level exchanges between Indian and Afghan leaders. The Afghanistan acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mohammad Haneef Atmar, is visiting New Delhi on March 22.
•India is to be part of the future consultation process on Afghanistan. Invites to prominent elders and senior Afghan leaders such as Abdullah Abdullah, Ustad Ata Muhammad Noor, and General Abdul Rashid Dostum over the past few months have helped India reconnect with the political spectrum in Afghanistan.
•India has stayed the course with a long-term commitment to supporting state institutions in Afghanistan, expanding its development partnership, working with all communities across the country, and asking leaders of all Afghan ethnicities to remain together. That policy has been well-received by most of the Afghan people and government, it was well-suited to the time, and it has served India well.
•The moment has now come to directly engage with those leaders on the ground who will determine the course that the peace process will take. The patriotic Afghan people admire their erstwhile leaders, President Najibullah and Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, who were committed to building the nation. Prints and postcards of their portraits are still popular in the streets and bazaars of Kabul. Their photographs are displayed on the windscreens of many Kabul taxis. Such people look to India as a friend and expect solidarity.
•If the American plan results only in a ‘reduction in violence’ and not its complete cessation, and U.S. forces are pulled out, India must step up to assist materially those who want to defend the Afghan republic. It should explore commonalities with key countries in dealing with the rapidly evolving situation. When in the late 1990s no country was willing to help the democratic forces in Afghanistan, India and Iran had scaled up their support. That time is again at hand.
📰 Pursuing the American dream with ‘WFA’
U.S. immigration is unlikely to change soon, but those hoping to access opportunities could still have a new choice
•For companies and workers facing woes dealing with United States immigration, there is good news and a practical solution. Work-from-anywhere.
•For years, high-skilled economic migrants seeking to relocate to the U.S. have faced uncertainty due to lack of clarity and flexibility in the H-1B visa programme. This uncertainty grew even worse under the Trump administration, with visa denial rates rising significantly. In addition to the negative effects this had on individual migrants and their families, restrictions on the H-1B policy led to economic costs. In recent research with coauthors Dany Bahar and Britta Glennon, we find that (former) U.S. President Donald Trump’s June 2020 Executive Order limiting entry of migrants to the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic led to an estimated loss of around $100 billion in valuation for publicly traded Fortune 500 companies.
•As the U.S. adjusts to a new administration, there are signs that the immigration climate might improve. U.S. President Joe Biden has made reforming the immigration system a priority in his coming term.
•However, with the ongoing pandemic and economic crisis, uncertainty remains. In the meantime, high-skilled workers facing immigration woes can take advantage of another emerging employment trend — companies offering their employees the ability to work-from-anywhere (WFA). I will first shed light on the Biden administration proposal to fix the H-1B programme and then describe how WFA can mitigate immigration woes.
U.S. immigration reform
•In January 2020, Mr. Biden had floated a proposal to overhaul the U.S. immigration system, expanding pathways for legal immigration for both family-based and employment-based migrants. Crucially, for high-skilled migrants, Mr. Biden’s proposal would remove country-specific quotas for employment-based visas, and would exempt anyone with a STEM PhD from a U.S. institution from all quotas to receive a green card. In addition, current H-4 visa holders (i.e., spouses and children of H-1B visa holders) would become eligible for work permits.
•However, it is important to note that this is still just a proposal. There is a long road ahead before the proposal becomes the law of the land, needing to pass through both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Given partisan divisions in the U.S. legislature, it is quite unlikely that the proposal in its current form will ever become law.
•With U.S. immigration unlikely to change in the immediate future, those hoping to access U.S.-based opportunities do have an alternative: embrace work-from-anywhere.
The difference
•Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, companies were beginning to explore remote work options. The pandemic accelerated this trend across all industries for millions of workers. Unlike a traditional work-from-home (WFH) model that allows workers to WFH a few days every week and from an office for the rest of the week, work-from-anywhere grants individuals the choice to live in their preferred locations. This gives them the flexibility to live in a town, city, or country, far away from where the company or its customers have a physical office.
•As I discussed in a recent Harvard Business Review article (https://bit.ly/3sTwXjs), work-from-anywhere can benefit workers, organisations, and society at large. Workers can relocate to their hometown, be closer to family and friends, manage dual career situations and move somewhere where they can enjoy better weather or a better cultural and culinary fit. Workers can also benefit by moving to (or continuing to live in) a lower cost-of-living location. Organisations can benefit from work-from-anywhere as well, and research I conducted at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) found that worker productivity under a work-from-anywhere policy was 4.4% greater than when workers were in a traditional work-from-home environment (https://bit.ly/2OvrC2Y). As more of the workforce shifts to remote work, organisations can also reduce and reimagine the utility of the physical office, reducing real estate costs. Society, too, can benefit, as daily work commutes are a major source of carbon emissions; the USPTO estimated that shifting to remote work cut emissions by their employees by more than 44,000 tons. In another article, I argue that work-from-anywhere can help talent move back from congested large cities to smaller towns.
A case study
•Companies of all sizes and in all kinds of industries are embracing work-from-anywhere. It is most popular among start-ups, where WFA allows new companies to access a global pool of talent with relatively low investment in office space. That said, larger, more established companies are beginning to explore work-from-anywhere and hybrid remote models as well. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) made headlines during the pandemic when it announced that its 400,000-plus employees will be 75% remote by 2025. TCS has rolled out a ‘25-25 remote-work model’: 25% of the workforce will be in a physical office at any one time, and workers will only be expected to work from an office for 25% of their working hours.
•In a recent Harvard Business School case (https://bit.ly/2OB7Y5v), I explored the changes being implemented by TCS. In this 25-25 model, TCS workers are mostly ‘location independent’. This enables TCS clients to access the best talent within TCS, independent of the location of talent. The model also offers TCS employees an opportunity to simultaneously work on multiple projects around the globe, without relocating to the client site or worrying about immigration. The TCS Chief Operating Officer N.G. Subramaniam recently joined my Harvard class to share the internal debates on how to effectively implement this model. Current priorities include ensuring remote workers interact informally with peers and receive mentorship from senior managers. Thought also needs to be given on navigating through the regulatory changes needed to enable work-from-anywhere.
•The TCS example shows how work-from-anywhere can help Indian companies and workers mitigate the challenges of immigration. While U.S. immigration policies may change for the better, high-skilled workers should view work-from-anywhere as a viable alternative to physical relocation, allowing them to work globally without queuing up for an H1-B visa.
