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Saturday, October 29, 2022

The HINDU Notes – 29th October 2022

12:39

 


📰 ‘One nation, one police uniform’ is ideal: Modi

Prime Minister says he is not imposing his views on States and adds that common uniforms will give a distinct identity to the police, ensure brand recall and quality gear

•Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday mooted the idea of ‘one nation, one police uniform’. He was addressing the State Home Ministers’ conference on internal security issues in Faridabad, Haryana.

•Mr. Modi said he was not imposing his views on States, but it was an idea worth deliberating on. He said police uniforms should have a brand recall just like the red-and-black post boxes in the country.

•“On the lines of ‘one nation, one ration card’; ‘one nation, one mobility card’; ‘one nation, one sign language’, we should think of ‘one nation, one police uniform’. This will benefit the police personnel as quality product will be available. The production of belts, caps and uniform will be on a mass scale,” he said.

•He added that just like post boxes could be identified from a distance even by unlettered persons, a common uniform would ensure a distinct identity to the police.

•Most police forces adorn shades of khaki, a few such as the police in Kolkata, Tamil Nadu and Goa don white uniforms.

Nagaland’s appeal

•Speaking at the conference, Nagaland’s Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister Y. Patton said he hoped that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) would be removed from more areas in Nagaland in future.

•He added that due to continuous improvement in the law and order situation in the State, the Centre had removed the AFSPA from 15 police station limits in seven districts and the State Police had put in place a special security plan in all the de-notified areas.

•Mr. Patton said: “We are sure that with the situation becoming even better, the Centre will consider bringing out more areas from the AFSPA in the near future and trusting the State government to take full responsibility of the security and law and order in all these areas.”

📰 21.4 lakh TB cases notified in India in 2021: Health Ministry

•India’s TB incidence for the year 2021 is 210 per 100,000 population – compared to the baseline year of 2015 (incidence was 256 per lakh population in India) and there has been an 18% decline which is 7 percentage points better than the global average of 11%, said the Health Ministry on Friday, while reacting to the World Health Organization (WHO) Global TB Report 2022, released on October 27.

•Stating that India had done better in major metrics as compared to other countries over time, the Ministry said the figures placed India at the 36th position in terms of incidence rates (from the largest to the smallest incidence numbers).

•According to the WHO report, an estimated 10.6 million people fell ill with tuberculosis (TB) in 2021, an increase of 4.5% from 2020, and 1.6 million people died from TB (including 187 000 among HIV positive people).

•“While the COVID-19 pandemic impacted TB Programmes across the world, India was able to successfully offset the disruptions caused, through the introduction of critical interventions in 2020 and 2021 – this led to the National TB Elimination Programme notifying over 21.4 lakh TB cases – 18% higher than 2020,’’ said the Ministry.

📰 The death penalty and humanising criminal justice

•As a conservative agency of the state, the Supreme Court of India is ordinarily expected to tread the path laid out by the written text of law and the binding precedents. But there do come some exceptional moments when, either because of inspired leadership or the burden of anomalous operations of criminal justice, the agencies feel free to break the shackles that force it to the conservative frame. It must go to the credit of the Chief Justice of India (CJI), Justice U.U. Lalit that as the 49th CJI of India, he has ushered in that rare moment by taking several bold initiatives to correct certain grave anomalies that have persisted in operation of the death penalty law. Even before taking up the office of the CJI, Justice Lalit had displayed unique sensitivity to the plight of the condemned ‘death-row prisoners’ in Anokhilal vs State of M.P. (2019), Irfan vs State of M.P., Manoj and Ors vs State of M.P. (May 2022), and impart corrections in the form of creative directions/guidelines. Such a corrective line of judicial decisions under the CJI’s leadership has continued in the Prakash Vishwanath and review petition order in the Mohd. Firoz cases.

•The empirical evidence and research findings contained in the Death Penalty India Report (2016) and the ‘Deathworthy’ report (Project 39A of the National Law University Delhi) came in handy to buttress the exceptional sensitivities of Justice Lalit. It is a happy augury that the CJI had the unique opportunity of teaming up with like-minded judges such as Justices P.S. Narasimha, S. Ravindra Bhat, Bela M. Trivedi, and Sudhanshu Dhulia.

On policies and uniformity

•The focus here is on reframing ‘Framing Guidelines Regarding Potential Mitigating Circumstances to be Considered While Imposing Death Sentences’, a decision authored by the three judge Bench (the current CJI and Justices Ravindra Bhat and Sudhanshu Dhulia, September 19, 2022).

•The decision stands out because of the thrust on the trial court’s death sentencing policies and the practice and desire to elicit, from a larger Bench, directions to ensure some kind of uniformity in the matter. Such a reference to a larger Bench would constitute yet another step in the direction of death penalty sentencing justice reform such as the legislative limitation flowing from Section 354(3) in the Code of Criminal Procedure; judicial limitation flowing from the ‘rarest of rare’ case; and ‘oral hearing’ after all the remedies to the condemned are exhausted.

•Justice Ravindra Bhat’s decision (concurred by the CJI and Justice Dhulia) has summed up the core issue that displays a special concern for the legislative mandate under Section 235(2) conferring a right to pre-sentence hearing after conviction and its endorsement by the full Bench ruling in Bachan Singh; the trial courts and the appellate court’s display of a conflicting patterns of compliances. As an ardent follower of the theory of binding precedents for a cause, Justice Ravindra Bhat did not stop at paying lip service to ‘rarest of rare’ case limitation, but also required the sentencing court to take the trouble of balancing the aggravating factors and mitigating factors, as per the full Bench ruling.

Sentencing incongruities

•With this foundational background and the context of the wide-spread discrepancies in the interpretation of the law, the following observations of the Court are significant: “It is also a fact that in all cases where imposition of capital sentence is a choice of sentence, aggravating circumstances would always be on record, and would be part of [the] prosecutor’s evidence, leading to conviction, whereas the accused can scarcely be expected to place mitigating circumstances on the record, for the reason that the stage for doing so is after conviction. This places the convict at a hopeless disadvantage, tilting the scales heavily against him.” (emphasis supplied). The three-judge Bench decision seems to have gone beyond sentencing incongruities when it observes: “This court is of the opinion that it is necessary to have clarity in the matter to ensure a uniform approach on the question of granting real and meaningful opportunity, as opposed to formal hearing to the accused/convict on the issue of sentence.” (emphasis supplied).

•How is a real and meaningful opportunity to be transformed into reality? What would be the implications of such a ‘real hearing’ limited only to the matters of sentence?

•Such questions need answers that must be given by future society. It is significant that the sentencing lacunae pointed out by the three judge Bench have received a positive response from academics and the media. For instance, an editorial in this daily (September 20, 2022) said: “The Constitution Bench may come up with new guidelines under which the trial courts themselves can hold a comprehensive investigation into factors related to upbringing, education and socio-economic conditions of an offender before deciding the punishment...” Another leading daily, elaborating further on the subjective factors identified in Manoj and Ors. vs State of M.P., said: “trial court must take into account the social milieu, the educational levels, whether the accused had faced trauma earlier in life, family circumstances, psychological evaluation of a convict and post-conviction conduct, were relevant factors at the time of considering whether the death penalty ought to be imposed upon the accused”.

‘Quality’ of guilt

•The euphoria and appreciation generated by the bold initiative of the three judge Bench under the leadership of the CJI might have made a positive mark, but the future shape of the mission to humanise criminal justice will ultimately depend upon two things. The first is the composition of the larger Bench and the inclination of the judiciary to continue in its onward creative path, as the CJI retires on November 8. Second, the extent to which society is prepared to broaden the horizons of meaningful hearing, even to the earlier guilt determination stage. Hitherto, criminal liability is a product of the component of culpability/guilt and sanction/punishment. The consideration of these two components in isolation leads to a disconnect between the wrongdoer and his punishment or sentence. Should the ‘mitigating factors’ influence only the sentence, and not alter the nature and quality of the guilty mind, or the ‘guilt’ that constitutes the stock justification for punishment? How long and at what cost should we continue to ignore the ‘quality’ of the guilty mind of the ‘death row prisoners’ who suffer from severe to mild psychiatric disorders before and after crime (according to empirical evidence in chapter IV of the Deathworthy report?

•Perhaps, there will be some answers from leads given by western critical criminal law scholars who have already begun making a distinction between ‘early guilt’ that is regressive, prosecutory and punitive, and ‘mature guilt’ that is developmental and progressive. A recent article by Professor Alan Norrie, “Taking Guilt Seriously – Towards a Mature Retributivism” (On Crime, Society, and Responsibility in The Work of Nicola Lacey) has covered the trajectory of criminal justice humanisation succinctly.

📰 At COP27, move the needle on climate action
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Friday, October 28, 2022

The HINDU Notes – 28th October 2022

14:39

 


📰 States should have a uniform policy on law and order: Shah

Home Minister calls for centralisation of data on terror and other crimes; each State to have a National Investigation Agency office by 2024 with powers to confiscate property in terror cases

•Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Thursday that States should have a uniform law and order policy as certain crimes such as cross-border terrorism and cybercrimes transcend regional and international boundaries.

•Mr. Shah said that by 2024, to counter terror activities, each State would have a National Investigation Agency (NIA) office as the agency had been given “extra territorial jurisdiction” and additional powers to confiscate property in terror-related cases. He called for centralisation of data on terror and other crimes and said that following the principle of “one data, one entry,” the NIA had been entrusted with the task of maintaining a national terror database, the Enforcement Directorate a dataset on financial crimes and the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on narco crimes.

•The Minister urged the States to utilise the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) that was operational now. The NATGRID brings datasets of 11 agencies on a common platform.

•Mr. Shah said, “The nature of crimes is changing, and they are becoming borderless, that is why all States will have to battle these by having a common strategy. To formulate and implement this under the spirit of ‘cooperative federalism’, cooperation, coordination and collaboration between the Centre and the States is required.”

•Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla said though law and order was a State subject, the Constitution provided that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) could intervene in matters concerning national security and the Ministry from time to time sent advisories to States.

•Mr. Shah was addressing State Home Ministers, Home Secretaries and Directors-General of Police and Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) at the two-day Chintan Shivir (brainstorming session) on various internal security issues in Haryana’s Faridabad on the outskirts of Delhi.

📰 The dismal case of slashing schemes and cutting funds

•Over the past three years, over 50% of existing central government-sponsored schemes have been discontinued, subsumed, revamped or rationalised into other schemes. The impact has been varied across Ministries. For example, for the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development, there are just three schemes now out of 19 schemes, i.e., Mission Shakti, Mission Vatsalya, Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0. Mission Shakti itself replaced 14 schemes which included the ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ scheme.

•In the case of the Ministry of Animal Husbandry and Dairy, just two schemes remain out of 12. Additionally, the Ministry has ended three schemes which include Dairying through Cooperatives, National Dairy Plan-II, etc. For the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, there are now three out of 20 (Krishonnati Yojana, Integrated Scheme on Agricultural Cooperatives and the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana), while there is little information on the National Project on Organic Farming or the National Agroforestry Policy. There may be some who believe that a reduction in government schemes is a notable achievement. But does this lead to better governance, through less government? Are we reducing the state to the bare bones?

•For schemes that exist, there are challenges such as funding cuts, disbursement and utilisation of funds. As of June 2022, ₹1.2 lakh crore of funds meant for central government-sponsored schemes are with banks which earn interest income for the Centre.

•The Nirbhaya fund (2013) with its focus on funding projects to improve the public safety of women in public spaces and encourage their participation in economic and social activities is an interesting case; ₹1,000 crore was allocated to the fund annually (2013-16), and remained largely unspent. As of FY21-22, approximately ₹6,214 crore was allocated to the fund since its launch, but only ₹4,138 crore was disbursed. Of this, just ₹2,922 crore was utilised; ₹660 crore was disbursed to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, but only ₹181 crore was utilised as of July 2021. Yet, a variety of women-focused development schemes across States are being turned down or ended. Meanwhile, women continue to face significant risks while in public spaces.

•Farmers have not been spared either with fertilizer subsidies having been in decline over the last few years; actual government spending on fertilizers in FY20-21 reached ₹1,27,921 crore. In the FY21-22 Budget, the allocation was ₹79,529 crore (later revised to ₹1,40,122 crore amidst the COVID-19 pandemic). In the FY22-23 Budget, the allocation was ₹1,05,222 crore. Allocation for NPK fertilizers (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) was 35% lower than revised estimates in FY21-22. Such budgetary cuts, when fertilizer prices have risen sharply after the Ukraine war, have led to fertilizer shortages and farmer anguish. How will we incentivise farmers to continue agricultural operations?

Employment programmes

•It is the same story with the rural poor. The allocation for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) went down by approximately 25% in the FY22-23 Budget earlier this year, with the allocated budget at ₹73,000 crore when compared to the FY21-22 revised estimates of ₹98,000 crore. The Economic Survey 2022-23 has highlighted that demand for the scheme was higher than pre-pandemic levels as rural distress continues. Anecdotal cases show that actual funding disbursal for MGNREGA has often been delayed, leading to a decline in confidence in the scheme. The Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan (June 2020, for a period of 125 days) sought to provide immediate employment and livelihood opportunities to the rural poor; approximately 50.78 crore person days of employment were provided at an expenditure of approximately ₹39,293 crore (against an announced budget of ₹50,000 crore, Ministry for Rural Development). One must also note that the scheme subsumed 15 other schemes. With between 60 million to 100 million migrant workers who seek informal jobs, such a scheme should have been expanded.

In health care too

•Now to health-care workers. For Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA), who are the first responders, there have been delays in salaries for up to six months. Regularisation of their jobs continues to be a struggle, with wages and honorariums stuck at minimum levels.

•There is one more example. Biodiversity has also been ignored. Funding for wildlife habitat development under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has declined: from ₹165 crore ( FY18-19), to ₹124.5 crore (FY19-20), to ₹87.6 crore (FY20-21). Allocations for Project Tiger have been slashed — ₹323 crore ( FY18-19) to ₹194.5 crore ( FY20-21). A pertinent question is about meeting climate change obligations in the face of funding cuts.

•Rather than downsizing government schemes and cutting funding, one should right size the government. After the Goods and Services Tax reform, the Centre-State relationship has been transformed, with fiscal firepower skewed towards the Centre. Our public services require more doctors, teachers, engineers and fewer data entry clerks. We need to build capacity for an efficient civil service to meet today’s challenges, i.e., providing a corruption-free welfare system, running a modern economy and providing better public goods. Rather than having a target of fewer government schemes, we should raise our aspirations towards better public service delivery.

📰 Should governments sell liquor and run lotteries?

•Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan recently criticised the State government for relying heavily on liquor and lottery to generate revenue. He said the State government was making poor people spend their earnings on lottery tickets and getting them addicted to alcohol. Should governments sell liquor and run lotteries? Nimai Mehta and Jayan Jose Thomas discuss the question in a conversation moderated by Prashanth Perumal J. Edited excerpts:

Should the government sell sin goods?

•Nimai Mehta: I don’t believe the government should be in sin business or in any business. But there are specific reasons why the government should not be involved in providing goods like alcohol. First, the role of the state is to provide public goods. The consumption of sin goods is instead linked with ‘public bad’. The negative effects of these sin goods disproportionately impact the weaker sections of society.

•Second, the role of the state needs to be considered not just from the supply side, but from the demand side as well, because the rising demand for alcohol is a public health concern. The Indian state, at least since Independence, has regulated all aspects of alcohol on the supply side. Despite that, there is a rapidly growing demand for alcohol. This needs to be brought into the picture when you want to assess the proper role of the state.

•Finally, historically, the state’s involvement in sin goods has been motivated by the desire to raise revenue. So, we’ve got this problem where the revenue-maximising objective takes precedence over public interest. Many States are heavily dependent on alcohol-based revenues. It’s not a healthy position for any state to be so dependent on a single commodity.

•Jayan Jose Thomas: I have a slightly different view. The state can play a positive role in regulating the sale and consumption of sin goods. An important instrument is taxes. Studies have shown that raising the tax rates on, and thereby the prices of, sin goods will discourage people from consuming them, at least in the long run. At the same time, the taxes collected form a significant source of financial resources for the state, which can be used for development programmes. So, some argue that such sin taxes create a win-win situation.

•Taxes on the sale of alcohol do form a considerable part of the revenues in several States. But this situation must be viewed against the larger context of Centre-State financial resources and responsibilities. In 2019-20, own tax revenues, collected by the States, accounted for only 43.5% of the total revenues of all States and Union Territories combined. State governments are heavily dependent on the financial devolutions from the Centre. At the same time, they have a greater responsibility for expenditure on social sectors. With the introduction of GST, there are only a limited number of goods and services — mainly alcohol and petroleum products — on which the State governments can independently set tax rates. So, if State finances are increasingly dependent on taxes from alcohol, it has mainly to do with the limited autonomy that the States enjoy in raising financial resources.

Can government monopoly in liquor and lottery lead to adverse consequences in terms of the product’s quality and price?

•NM: There is a lot of variation in the structure of state control over the alcohol industry in India. There are forms of direct and indirect control. These vary across States and from vary year to year, especially in the way excise and license fees are being set. But, yes, in principle, when you have a monopoly and the intention is to restrict supply, you should expect an increase in prices. You should also expect to see new entrants in the market, who could compete on quality, being discouraged. In the U.S., some 15 out of the 50 States have some form of direct control in the supply of spirits. If you look at the price of alcohol in those States, it is higher than in States with no controls. In States where the liquor trade was privatised, prices have come down, but they have not come down by much because price also depends on other factors such as indirect controls (for example, licensing policies and taxes) and/or consumer demand.

•Does government intervention increase the risk of capture of sin goods industries by special interest groups? For instance, some have argued that special interest groups in India have discouraged the consumption of low-alcohol beverages like toddy.

•NM: Among economists, there is a consensus that public goods such as health ought to be a primary concern of the state. But when it comes to practice, we should be taking into account the role of special interest groups. Legislators, politicians, bureaucrats, regulators, experts in the enforcement side... each of them has their own interests. Once we recognise that these special interest groups exist, the net effect is uncertain. Like in the case of toddy, you could have special interest groups coming together in a way that goes against true public interest. In the U.S., the FDA (Federal Drug Administration) decided to ban the sale of e-cigarettes by Juul, a multinational company. Many in the scientific community recognise that as a regressive step because vaping is less harmful than smoking tobacco. In this case, there was a mix of internal interests (in the form of the preferences of FDA regulators) and external interests (in the form of the interests of advocacy groups which were against e-cigarettes).

•JJT: I agree that the concerns of all stakeholders must be looked into while formulating policy interventions to restrict the consumption of sin goods. Consider, for instance, the tobacco industry. In 2017-18, it provided employment to 3.4 million Indians, 3 million of whom were women. Measures to limit the consumption of tobacco should go hand in hand with steps for providing alternative livelihood opportunities for those engaged in tobacco farming and processing.

What is the specific impact of governments selling sin goods on the poor compared to other classes?

•JJT: There are limitations to using taxes or high prices as the only instrument to restrict the consumption of sin goods. If a person addicted to alcohol is unable to let go of that habit despite high prices, his household will suffer. So, it is important to deploy other instruments too, such as public campaigns against the abuse of intoxicants. In any case, there is some reason for cheer. The proportion of men who drink alcohol in India decreased from 29% in 2015-16 to 22% in 2019-21 (NFHS data).

•NM: If you go back in time, you can see how the Temperance movement that began in the 1880s later transformed itself and fuelled the Independence movement. The concern has always been about drinking habits and the impact they have had on the vulnerable sections in society. During the Temperance movement, it was the lower castes and tribes that ended up joining the movement in large numbers. All those movements were directed against the role of the British Imperial state in encouraging the sale of alcohol. So, the poor have always had to bear a disproportionate burden of alcohol consumption. Now fast forward to 2016, when Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar introduced a draconian prohibition law. He too was responding to the poor housewives in Bihar who had suffered as a result of excessive drinking by their husbands. India still has a large share of abstainers, but the drinking habits among the poor stand out. The poor tend to drink liquor that has higher alcohol content relative to upper- and middle-class individuals.

•Sin taxes can discourage consumption, but there is a regressive effect on the poor. This is because such taxes don’t work directly through a price effect, but rather through an income effect on the poor. So, while the middle and upper-middle classes may continue to consume their favourite alcohol, the poor may tend to switch to the consumption of illicit, lower quality alcohol that is cheaper but dangerous to health. Also, over the last two decades, there is a rise in demand for alcohol, as preferences are shifting. So, irrespective of what the sin tax is, if the demand itself is shifting outwards, there is a limit to which we can control demand simply through sin taxes. So, we need to take lessons from the Temperance movement.

Is the real problem then that alcohol consumption is becoming more socially acceptable?

•NM: Yes. The increase in consumption is on the part of women, and the middle and upper-middle classes. A rising aspirational demand is fuelling the rise in alcohol consumption. Also, norms of abstinence have been falling. Cultural and religious norms are no longer as effective as they may have been earlier. We have to rethink how this rising demand can be influenced by some form of intervention on the demand side by the state, but also in terms of individuals taking more responsibility for the social impact of their drinking.

•JJT: The fight against alcohol abuse, gambling, and so on must be long-term and multi-pronged. Taxing these goods alone will not help us win this fight. There have to be public education programmes to wean people away from, and thereby reduce the demand for, sin goods.

📰 Limits of pleasure
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Thursday, October 27, 2022

The HINDU Notes – 27th October 2022

19:30

 


📰 Bats evicted from Manipur cave for tourism, says study

•A colony of bats was evicted from a Manipur cave system with a Palaeolithic past to make it tourist-friendly, a zoological study that recorded new fauna in the State has said.

•The Khangkhui, locally called Khangkhui Mangsor, is a natural limestone cave about 15 km from Ukhrul, the headquarters of Ukhrul district. Excavations carried out by Manipur’s archaeologists had revealed the cave was home to Stone Age communities.

•The cave was also used as a shelter by the local people during the Second World War after the Japanese forces advanced to Manipur and the adjoining Nagaland. More importantly for conservationists, the cave housed large roosting populations of bats belonging to the Rhinolophidae and Hipposideridae families.

•A study published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa by researchers from the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) cited local guides as saying that the bats were killed and evicted from the Khangkhui cave after 2016-17 purportedly to make it “more tourist-friendly”.

•The researchers — Uttam Saikia and A.B. Meetei, both from ZSI’s North East Research Centre in Shillong — recorded Blyth’s horseshoe bat in the Khangkhui cave during two extensive field surveys covering nine districts of Manipur in 2019 and 2021.

•This bat was one of 12 new species added to Manipur’s mammalian fauna. The others included the ashy roundleaf bat, the intermediate horseshoe bat, the northern woolly horseshoe bat, the greater false vampire bat, the hairy-faced bat, Hodgson’s bat, Hutton’s tube-nosed bat and the round-eared tube-nosed bat.

•Shanngam Shaliwo, Divisional Forest Officer, denied any planned extermination of the flying mammals. “No such killing of bats has been reported in our office,” he told The Hindu. He said the cave has been steeped in the folklore of the dominant Tangkhul community, whose ancestors believed it was the abode of a protective deity.

•The study mentions places in Manipur where bats are eaten for “supposed medicinal properties or as a supplementary source of protein”.

•“In Wailou village in Chandel district, we were informed that people do occasionally hunt bats in a cave though this practice is not widespread throughout the State. Another serious threat we noticed is the death of bats as unintended victims of illegal bird traps,” the study said.

📰 Colonialism and its discontents today

•A popular theme at seminars this autumn is de-colonisation. The concept notes explaining the theme treat it like a new deodorant — much required, of course, and expected to cure a chronic problem for good. Not that earlier generations had ignored it, but perhaps they lacked determination and propitious circumstances. The urge to undo the various legacies of colonisation was always there. Why the previous struggles failed arouses little curiosity in today’s crusaders against the colonial mindset. There is something about the idea of fighting colonialism that it excites each time the call is made.

•As an ideology, colonialism has an inbuilt device to deal with reactive moods of the colonised. These moods vary according to economic and political seasons. Citizens of former colonies typically feel more comfortable when they are passing through a good phase of their collective economic life. Conversely, they get twitchy when growth slows down. Another mood swinger is politics. The colonial phase of history is a great political resource. In a multi-party system, it is easy to invoke the ghost of colonial legacy. Once aroused, the ghost performs reliable tricks to attract public attention.

Stances and politics

•The young often wonder why the freedom struggle did not suffice to de-colonise. Good history teachers know how to explain that the legacies of colonial rule include the strategies that helped attain freedom and some of the rights we enjoy today. It is a complex idea and its absorption depends on whether history is taught in order to develop historical sense rather than to demarcate periods. In a recent official presentation at an international forum, India tried to make a distinction between foreign attacks and colonisation. Though it is probably the first time that India took this position, the idea itself is not new. The temptation to privilege one historical phase over another is part of an urge to use the past as a political resource. And this urge is not confined to the colonised nations. India’s coloniser, Britain, has been doing this quite avidly in the recent years.

•De-colonisation received a major official push in several African colonies after they attained freedom. In education, language was a focus area, but the choice did not prove wise. Entrenched social inequalities came in the way of ideal goals. In India, we have experienced this trajectory several times over, but the fascination of radical stances has not diminished. Removal of English is a big draw among political parties which promise to exorcise India’s mind, body and soul from the ghost of colonialism. Alas, among the youth, English shows no sign of becoming unpopular. As Snigdha Poonam has documented in her remarkable study of provincial youth culture, ‘spoken English’ has emerged as a major component of the coaching industry.

Macaulay’s ghost

•Several years ago, a colleague wrote an article, ‘De-Macaulaying Indian Education’ and asked me to comment on it. The title was a bit awkward, but that was hardly a problem, I assured him. What he did not appreciate was the critical point that Macaulay contributed little to the British policy on education in India. It would have been just the same even if Macaulay had not written his poisonous note. My colleague was not amused. Most people feel quite disappointed when they learn that the history of education in colonial India was not much affected by Macaulay’s famous minute. His racist ideas and the policies implied in his analysis of the Indian situation were far too flat to be of much use for British administrators in charge of education in different regions. Nevertheless, it is a fact that Macaulay resides in the hearts of examination paper setters for the B.Ed. degree. Take him out, and the syllabus of colonial education loses its favourite sting. Not just students, all lovers of simplified history depend on Macaulay to show off their shooting skills.

•Colonisation was experienced differently across regions, classes and castes. That is a prime reason why de-colonisation remains so elusive. The various Indian discourses of the latter half of the 19th century show why it is difficult to paint colonial education in any single colour. Majoritarian nationalism has picked up English as a de-colonisation plank. Phule’s appreciation of English education was grounded in its potential to wipe out discrimination against the lower castes.

•Nationalism is a fine guiding spirit of progress, but seldom proves accommodative enough to denounce the diverse legacies of colonialism. They evolved regionally in different time frames, creating complex contours of public perception. When a clarion call is made to overcome the ‘colonial mindset’, it seems inspired by colonialism itself.

•Since Independence, enormous change has occurred in every social sphere, and some of it demonstrates the continued legacy of colonial history. No one-dimensional theory of colonialism and modernity can explain the changes that have occurred in different regions. Within education too, anti-colonial voices have taken so many twisted turns that a school-going child’s parent or teacher does not quite know whom to believe or follow. This is certainly one reason why valid, sincere calls to abandon English receive little attention from young parents.

Its stamp remains

•Colonial rule is a faint collective memory now. Though many of its icons have been removed or replaced, its stamp on governance remains intact. The colonial citizen was an object of suspicion. The core pedagogy of colonial rule consisted of reaching out to the citizen with the state’s moral rhetoric. Colonial civics assumed that average citizens are docile and ignorant, that it is the state’s job to enlighten — and not just serve — them. That they must participate is a popular political and official rhetoric. It has become a lot louder in the digital age, without making much of an impact on the everyday reality of the citizenry.

•It is never a good idea to fight with the past, no matter how old it is. Maturity lies in learning to live with the past, not in it — under the illusion that it can be changed. The past is the past, therefore inaccessible for human intervention. To study it with curiosity is a preferable option to quarrelling with it or harming the few tangible relics it has left behind. Colonised societies suffered similar consequences, such as drainage of wealth and the emergence of a state apparatus that the common people found difficult to identify with. Their fear of the state and the state’s distrust of the citizen ought to be the prime agenda for anyone pursuing de-colonisation.

📰 Improving access to entertainment content

•As a cricket fan, I was eager to “watch” the film 83. I am blind since birth. When the movie became available on a streaming platform, I was disappointed to learn that it did not have audio description, thus making the movie inaccessible to me. As a blind Indian citizen, I have often been shut out from many life activities, including consuming entertainment content. Going to the movies helps us de-stress. But what happens when entertainment content is not designed with the needs of the disabled in mind?

Untapped potential

•Two important tools that help make entertainment content disabled friendly are audio description and subtitling. Audio description refers to the visual aspects of the content being spoken out for the benefit of those who cannot see. Subtitling refers to the auditory components of the content being displayed in textual form for the benefit of those who cannot hear. In India, the potential of these two tools to make entertainment content disabled friendly has largely remained untapped.

•The Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act provides guidance to remedy this issue. Section 29(h) of the Act requires the appropriate government to take measures to ensure that “persons with hearing impairment can have access to television programmes with sign language interpretation or sub-titles.” Further, Section 42(ii) requires the appropriate government to take measures to ensure that “persons with disabilities have access to electronic media by providing audio description, sign language interpretation and close captioning.”

•In October 2019, the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B Ministry) issued a letter to the Central Board for Film Certification (CBFC) requesting the Board to motivate and persuade its associated members to make audio description part of the production and distribution of a film. In a panel discussion co-hosted by the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and the Billion Readers Initiative that I moderated recently, Sonali Rai from the Royal National Institute of Blind People, U.K., and Dipendra Minocha from Saksham spoke about the practical roadblocks they face in pushing for greater audio description. They would know. Saksham has pioneered audio description for films in India. It has developed an app called XL Cinema which syncs audio-described tracks with movies. On buying an audio ticket for a movie that has been audio described, a user can hear the audio description of the movie in a theatre at the same time when the movie is being showcased. Movies that have been audio described this way include Sanju, Andhadun and Romeo Akbar Walter. Saksham started audio description with the film Black. Yet, “most production houses are not convinced about the need for this,” said Deepti Prasad, XL Cinema’s co-founder.

Steps towards inclusivity

•First, as Mr. Minocha said, film producers do not think there is a large demand for audio description in India. The voice of users with disabilities asking for audio description is still muted. Until a critical mass of users puts pressure on platforms to provide audio description and subtitling, this issue will get pushed down the priority list of the powers that be. Even if production houses are inclusive in intent, their behaviour excludes the disabled in effect. When it is time to release a movie, amidst all the responsibilities that film studios have to discharge, accessibility for the disabled takes a back seat. Studios must realise that making disabled-friendly content is the right thing to do — morally, legally and commercially.

•Second, production houses may lack the know-how, human resources or adequate lead time before the launch of any new content to make it disabled friendly. User organisations must undertake targeted interventions to sensitise filmmakers and engage in capacity-building initiatives.

•Third, civil society groups must draw on the court system to translate written legal guarantees into improved real-world outcomes. The principal authority for grievance redressal set up under the RPwD Act at the central level is the court of Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities (CCPD). On perusing the recommendations issued by the CCPD in the last 12 months, I could not find a single recommendation that relates to making entertainment content disabled friendly. Citizens with disabilities must demand accountability from the government, filmmakers, streaming platforms and others in the entertainment ecosystem through the judicial process. We need legal precedents underscoring the proposition that not accounting for the disabled when making entertainment content is unacceptable.

•Finally, the I&B Ministry has been dragging its feet on notifying the Accessibility Standards for Television Programmes for Hearing Impaired for three years. These must be notified promptly, and similar standards must be framed for the visually impaired. Every disabled citizen must be able to enjoy entertainment content on their platform of choice on equal terms as their able-bodied counterparts.

📰 The FM’s call for industrial investment

•Why did the Union Finance Minister urge industry giants to invest in manufacturing? Is private sector financing at an all-time low? Has government intervention to boost and spend aggressively on infrastructure come at an opportune time?

•Last month, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asked captains of industry what was holding them back from investing in manufacturing. She said that, “This is the time for India… We cannot miss the bus”.

•In an article in The Hindu, Pulapre Balakrishnan, argued that capital expenditure by the government is a precursor to private investment but that it would take a sustained trend in public spending, for about half a decade at least, to help kindle enthusiasm in the private sector.

•Private companies invest when they are able to estimate profits, and that comes from demand. CMIE’s consumer sentiment index is still below pre-pandemic levels but is far higher than what was seen 12-18 months ago.

The story so far:

•Last month, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asked captains of industry what was holding them back from investing in manufacturing. She likened industry to Lord Hanuman from the Ramayana by stating that industry did not realise its own strength and that it should forge ahead with confidence. She said, “This is the time for India… We cannot miss the bus”.

Why did she urge them thus?

•Clearly, the Finance Minister did not see investments happening at a pace she would have liked. In the hope of revitalising private investment, the government had in September 2019 cut the tax rate for domestic companies from 30% to 22% if they stopped availing of any other tax SOP (standard operating procedure).

•Niranjan Rajadhyaksha, CEO of Artha Global, says that Indian private sector investment has been weak for almost a decade now. “If we look at drivers of economic growth right now, there are amber lights flashing. The export story will be under threat because of the global slowdown, the government’s ability to support domestic demand would also be limited as the fiscal deficit comes down. Because of the K-shaped recovery, private consumption is only concentrated in some parts of the income pyramid.”

What is the current scenario?

•Let’s look at some indicators over the past few months; generally, changes in numbers are with respect to year-earlier figures, but when we have been through something as sudden and life-changing as a pandemic for at least two years, it is useful to see how figures from quarter to quarter or month to month have changed. This gives us an idea of how well or poorly we are recovering. In the GDP figures for the quarter ended June, gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) at 2011-12 prices rose 9.6% to ₹12.77 lakh crore, from ₹11.66 lakh crore in Q1 of FY20, which was the pre-pandemic period. This is in context of the overall GDP growth of 2.8% to ₹36.85 lakh crore in Q1 FY23 from ₹35.85 lakh crore in Q1 of FY20. Manufacturing GVA (gross value added) also rose 6.5% to ₹6,05,104 in Q1 FY23 from ₹5,68,104 in Q1, FY20. However, when one observes manufacturing growth from the immediately preceding quarter April-June vs January-March, we see that the sector has suffered a 10.5% contraction. While private final consumption expenditure, an essential pillar of our economy, climbed 26% year-on-year for the June quarter, the ₹22.08 lakh crore of private spending in April-June 2022 was a significant ₹54,000 crore, or 2.4%, less than that spent in the preceding quarter. And GFCF, which is viewed as a proxy for private investment, shrank quarter-on-quarter by 6.8%.

•Industrial production has shown growth in each of the first five months of this fiscal year starting April, compared with a year earlier; but worryingly, monthly numbers as seen on the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) and the S&P Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for Manufacturing have progressed in fits and starts. In an article in The Hindu, Pulapre Balakrishnan, argued that capital expenditure by the government is a precursor to private investment but that it would take a sustained trend in public spending, for about half a decade at least, to help kindle enthusiasm in the private sector. While the government’s intent to spend aggressively on infrastructure in its Budget for this fiscal is encouraging, he says this cycle should have started a few years ago. With the government having now announced intent, he says it must now focus on a couple of priorities; one that it must identify the right projects — investments must be made in productivity-enhancing infrastructure. Two, he warns that inflation could derail the best designed public spending programmes, and urges a step up in agricultural produce to help rein in food inflation.

What is happening to demand?

•Private companies invest when they are able to estimate profits, and that comes from demand. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy’s (CMIE) consumer sentiment index is still below pre-pandemic levels but is far higher than what was seen 12-18 months ago. RBI’s Monetary policy report dated September 30 says, “Data for Q2 [ended Sept] indicate that aggregate demand remained buoyant, supported by the ongoing recovery in private consumption and investment demand.” It shows that seasonally adjusted capacity utilisation rose to 74.3% in Q1 — the highest in the last three years.

•And this, along with household savings intentions remaining high, might hold the key to the investment cycle kicking in.

📰 GEAC gives its nod for commercial cultivation of GM mustard yet again
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Wednesday, October 26, 2022

The HINDU Notes – 26th October 2022

16:00

 


📰 ‘India’s exports to China growing faster than inbound shipments’

PLI schemes for different sectors will help reduce dependence on imports over time; technical regulations framed for products such as toys, electronics, chemicals and fertilizers will check sub-standard imports, says government official

•India’s trade equation with China has been improving in recent years with outbound shipments rising faster than imports, whose growth is being driven largely by vital raw materials and to meet demand from high-growth sectors such as telecom and power, a senior government official said.

•China is one of India’s large trading partners, with trade flows between the two countries having grown 59% from about $72 billion in 2014-15 (FY15), to $115.4 billion in FY22.

•“Since India-China trade started picking up, the growth in exports to China has been much higher than the import growth,” a Commerce Ministry official told The Hindu. From $11.9 billion in FY15, India’s exports to China had risen 78.1% to $21.25 billion last year, while imports stood at $94.16 billion, 55.8% over the $60.4 billion recorded in FY15. By contrast, imports from China had increased 192% between 2006-07 and 2013-14, when they had crossed $51 billion, he pointed out.

•Intermediate goods account for more than a third of India’s imports from China, while capital goods constitute another 19.3%, with telecom and power sector gear being key drivers, which helped meet domestic demand in these fast-expanding sectors, the official said. The major items of import from China are electronic components, computer hardware and peripherals, telecom instruments, organic chemicals, industrial machinery for dairy, residual chemicals and allied products, electronic instruments, bulk drugs and intermediates.

•The production-linked incentive schemes for different sectors will help reduce the dependence on such imports over time, even as technical regulations framed for products such as toys, electronics, chemicals and fertilizers will check sub-standard imports, he emphasised.

📰 A renewable energy revolution, rooted in agriculture

•The beginnings of a renewable energy revolution rooted in agriculture are taking shape in India with the first bio-energy plant of a private company in Sangrur district of Punjab having commenced commercial operations on October 18. It will produce Compressed Bio Gas (CBG) from paddy straw, thus converting agricultural waste into wealth.

•It has become common practice among farmers in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh to dispose of paddy stubble and the biomass by setting it on fire to prepare fields for the next crop, which has to be sown in a window of three to four weeks. This is spread over millions of hectares. The resultant clouds of smoke engulf the entire National Capital Territory of Delhi and neighbouring States for several weeks between October to December. This plays havoc with the environment and affects human and livestock health.

Some measures

•The Government of India has put in place several measures and spent a lot of money in tackling the problem. The Commission for Air Quality Management in National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas (CAQM) had developed a framework and action plan for the effective prevention and control of stubble burning. The framework/action plan includes in-situ management, i.e., incorporation of paddy straw and stubble in the soil using heavily subsidised machinery (supported by crop residue management (CRM) Scheme of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare). Ex-situ CRM efforts include the use of paddy straw for biomass power projects and co-firing in thermal power plants, and as feedstock for 2G ethanol plants, feed stock in CBG plants, fuel in industrial boilers, waste-to-energy (WTE) plants, and in packaging materials, etc.

•Additionally, measures are in place to ban stubble burning, to monitor and enforce this, and initiating awareness generation. Despite these efforts, farm fires continued unabated.

•Though paddy stubble burning in northwest India has received a lot of attention because of its severity of pollution, the reality is that crop residue burning is spreading even to rabi crops and the rest of the country. Unless these practices are stopped, the problem will assume catastrophic proportions.

A project in place

•In its search for a workable solution, NITI Aayog approached FAO India in 2019 to explore converting paddy straw and stubble into energy and identify possible ex-situ uses of rice straw to complement the in-situ programme. In technical consultations with the public and private sectors, the FAO published its study on developing a crop residue supply chain in Punjab that can allow the collection, storage and final use of rice straw for other productive services, specifically for the production of renewable energy.

•The results suggest that to mobilise 30% of the rice straw produced in Punjab, an investment of around ₹2,201 crore ($309 million) would be needed to collect, transport and store it within a 20-day period. This would reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by about 9.7 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent and around 66,000 tonnes of PM2.5. Further, depending on market conditions, farmers can expect to earn between ₹550 and ₹1,500 per ton of rice straw sold, depending on market conditions.

•A techno-economic assessment of energy technologies suggested that rice straw can be cost-effective for producing CBG and pellets. Pellets can be used in thermal power plants as a substitute of coal and CBG as a transport fuel. With 30% of the rice straw produced in Punjab, a 5% CBG production target set by the Government of India scheme, “Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT)” can be met. It could also increase local entrepreneurship, increase farmers’ income and reduce open burning of rice straw. In Punjab, Sangrur, Ludhiana and Barnala were recommended as the most promising districts for these interventions. Verbio India Private Limited, a 100% subsidiary of the German Verbio AG, got approval from the Punjab government in April 2018 to set up a bio-CNG project that will utilise about 2.1 lakh tonnes of a total of 18.32 million tonnes of paddy straw annually. The plant is in Bhutal Kalan village of Lehragaga tehsil in Sangrur district, Punjab. The plant will use one lakh tonnes of paddy straw produced from approximately 16,000 hectares of paddy fields. Paddy residue will be collected from this year to produce 33 tons of CBG and 600-650 tonnes of fermented organic manure/slurry per day — this will reduce up to 1.5 lakh tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.

Many benefits

•Thus, from paddy stubble, CBG valued at ₹46 per kg as per the SATAT scheme will be produced. Paddy straw from one acre of crop can yield energy output (CBG) worth more than ₹17,000 — an addition of more than 30% to the main output of grain. This initiative is an ideal example of a ‘wealth from waste’ approach and circular economy.

•There are several other benefits: the slurry or fermented organic manure from the plant (CBG) will be useful as compost to replenish soils heavily depleted of organic matter, and reduce dependence on chemical fertilizers. The plant will also provide employment opportunities to rural youth in the large value chain, from paddy harvest, collection, baling, transport and handling of biomass and in the CBG plant. This will boost the economy of Punjab. It is pertinent to mention that straw from many other crops contains higher energy than paddy straw.

•This appears to be a first win-win initiative in the form of environmental benefits, renewable energy, value addition to the economy, farmers’ income and sustainability. This initiative is replicable and scaleable across the country and can be a game changer for the rural economy.

📰 Ending dominance
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Saturday, October 22, 2022

The HINDU Notes – 22nd October 2022

14:30

 


📰 Pakistan is out of FATF ‘grey list’ on terror funding

•Four years after it was placed on the ‘grey list’ and penalised with severe financial strictures by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Pakistan won a major reprieve on Friday, as the international watchdog on terror financing and money laundering agreed to remove Pakistan’s name from the list of countries under ‘increased monitoring’.

•Reacting to the decision, the Ministry of External Affairs said that Pakistan must continue to take “credible, verifiable, irreversible and sustainable” action against terror groups on its soil.

•FATF said Pakistan had completed two action plans comprising a 34-point tasklist since 2018.

📰 A crisis is brewing in the coffee industry
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The HINDU Notes – 21st October 2022

07:01

 


📰 Forest Conservation Rules infringe upon land rights of tribespeople: NCST chief

•It is the duty of the commission to “caution the government” when its policies have the potential to affect the well-being and rights of tribal people, Harsh Chouhan, Chairperson of the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST), told The Hindu on Thursday.

•He said this was why the NCST had recommended to the Union Environment and Forest Ministry to put the new Forest Conservation Rules, 2022, on hold.

•“We wrote to the government about the rules, which essentially eliminate the requirement of consent of local tribespeople and forest dwellers for diversion of forest land for other purposes,” Mr. Chouhan said. He said this would amount to infringing upon the land rights of tribespeople under the Forest Rights Act. 

•The rules were issued by the Environment Ministry in June this year under the Forest Conservation Act and both Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav and Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda have repeatedly defended the rules. 

Six-member group

•But soon after the rules were issued, the NCST formed a six-member working group that included members of the commission and experts to look into whether the rules issued in June violated any provisions in the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and if they infringed upon the rights of tribal people, according to officials.

•Based on the conclusion of this working group and repeated dialogue with villagers in forest areas and other stakeholders, the commission decided to recommend that the new rules be put on hold, Mr. Chouhan said.

•The NCST chief then wrote to the Environment Ministry on September 2, pointing out that the Ministry should, for now, focus on implementing the rules framed in 2017 and put on hold the new rules issued this year.

•It also dismissed the Tribal Affairs Ministry’s and Environment Ministry’s defence that provisions of the FRA are implemented parallelly and that the rules will not affect or dilute land rights of tribes people. 

📰 This Hindi – and Hindi alone – counsel is flawed

•The 11th volume of the Report of the Official Language Committee submitted to the President of India on September 9, 2022, did not seem to evoke much interest in the media. Except the Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, no other political leader reacted to the recommendations made.

A special status

•The main recommendations, as reported in a section of the print media, are that Hindi should replace English as the language of examinations for recruitment to the government; Hindi should be the only medium of instruction in Kendriya Vidyalayas, Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and central universities; it should be constitutionally binding on State governments to propagate Hindi, etc. The official language committee is a statutory committee constituted under Section 4 in the Official Language Act, 1963. Its duty is to review the progress made in the use of Hindi for the official purposes of the Union and submit a report to the President. The Act makes it obligatory for the President to issue directions “in accordance with the whole or any part of the report” (Section 4(4)). It can thus be seen that the committee’s recommendations are required to be acted upon.

•It is the special status of this committee’s recommendations which is crucial to the understanding of the official language policy in India. The recommendations have a mandatory character as is clear from the words “in accordance with” (Section 4(4)).

•Article 343 of the Constitution declares that Hindi in Devanagari script shall be the official language of the Union. It is common knowledge that the Constituent Assembly had witnessed a heated debate on the question of official language. The chapter on ‘Official language’ in the Constitution took final shape as a result of compromises made by the protagonists of diverse opinions. Finally, Hindi was declared the official language of the Union and it was also provided that the English language will continue for 15 years from the commencement of the Constitution. It was further provided that, if needed, Parliament may provide by law that English will continue even after the period of 15 years. Accordingly, Parliament enacted the official languages Act in 1963, providing for the continuance of English indefinitely as official language along with Hindi for the official purposes of the Union and for transaction of business in Parliament.

•The reported recommendations of the official language committee pose a problem for the President in as much as the committee says that Hindi should totally replace English as medium of instruction in central universities, IIMs, IITs, etc. The remit of the committee is to review the progress made in the use of Hindi for the official purposes of the Union and report to the President there on. Obviously the committee is not mandated to recommend the medium of instruction in universities and professional institutions. Further, since Parliament has declared by law that English shall continue along with Hindi, a statutory committee constituted under that very Act has no mandate to recommend the discontinuation of English.

Fallout in non-Hindi States

•India has seen great emotional upsurge, violent protests and immolations etc. in the country’s southern parts in the 1960s as a result of an attempt by the then Union government to exclude English and replace it with Hindi. So, Parliament had to provide for the continuance of English also to assuage troubled feelings in the southern region. The provision allowing English to be used indefinitely helped douse the flames. It does not require any great research to understand that the language issue has the potential to emotionally divide people. It is not a question of the willingness or the unwillingness of people of a region to learn Hindi. The issues are more complex. An example. Once Hindi replaces English, the language used in the examination for recruitment to the all India services will be Hindi alone.

•Therefore, candidates from the non-Hindi States, the south in particular, will face a great disadvantage when compared to those whose mother tongue is Hindi. The result would be a gradual elimination of candidates from the non-Hindi region from the all India services. The Constitution makers anticipated this problem, which is why the Constitution provides in Article 344(3) that the commission on official language shall have “due regard to the just claims and interests of persons belonging to the non-Hindi speaking areas in regard to public services”.

•India has two major groups of languages — the Indo-European language group and the Dravidian language group. Hindi belongs to the former and Tamil ( more ancient than Sanskrit) belongs to the latter. All the prominent languages in the Dravidian group, i.e., Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada, have rich literature. However, it was English which brought the northern and southern regions together. In the Constituent Assembly, Maulana Azad had said: “we have got to admit that so far as language is concerned North and South are two different parts. The union of North and South has been made possible only through the medium of English. If today we give up English then this linguistic relationship will cease to exist”.

•The idea of one official language for the Union is a product of the freedom struggle which promoted Hindustani, a mixture of Hindi and Urdu. Later, when the Constitution was framed, the idea of Hindustani was given up and Hindi in the Devanagari script was adopted as the sole official language. In a country where there are two major language groups, the idea of one official language may not go far in fostering the unity of the people. It may, in the long run, give rise to serious imbalances in regional representation in the all India services as well as the personnel structure of the Union government.

A changing world requires English use

•Further, since the southern States cannot decide who will rule from Delhi and influence the decision making of the Union, it is all the more necessary to address the concerns of the people of this region on account of language. Hindi is a simple and elegant language which has been given its rightful place as the official language of the Union. While doing so the Constitution makers took care to see to it that English continues to be used as an official language along with Hindi. They left it to Parliament to decide the future of English which decided, through a legislative measure, to continue with English indefinitely. The mood of the Constituent Assembly was in large measure influenced by the freedom struggle, the nationalistic fervour it generated and, above all, Gandhiji’s strong advocacy of a national language for the country. That mood slowly changed over the years as India began interacting with the world. So, by the 1960s, the political class realised that English was crucial in acquiring knowledge in science and technology as well as in other fields of human activity. Therefore, Parliament decided to continue with English.

•The overwhelming public opinion in the south is that English should continue as one of the official languages. Today, the Union has Hindi and English as two official languages — as in Canada which has English and French as its official languages. In these circumstances, the policymakers should seriously think of making the provision constitutionally that Hindi and English should be the official languages of the Union. We love Hindi and all other Indian languages. Therefore, all efforts should be made to ensure their natural development so as to be able to meet the requirements of modern science and technology. At the same time we need English to better understand science and the world around us and beyond.

📰 Withdraw new AIIMS rules for treating MPs that promote ‘VIP culture’: doctors to Health Minister

•The Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) has demanded immediate withdrawal of the new set of standard operating procedures (SOP) issued by M. Srinivas, Director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, aimed at streamlining treatment arrangements for sitting MPs at the outpatient department, emergency consultation, and for in-patient hospitalisation.

•In his letter earlier this week to Y.M. Kandpal, Joint Secretary, Lok Sabha Secretariat, the AIIMS Director said duty officers, who are qualified medical professionals, from the Department of Hospital Administration will be available at the AIIMS control room round the clock to coordinate and facilitate arrangements for MPs.

•Stating that this goes against the culture of AIIMS and promotes “VIP culture”, the FAIMA on Thursday wrote to Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya seeking his urgent intervention.

•The association said the orders had adversely affected the morale of doctors, and added that inequality in terms of health care was unacceptable.

•Rohan Krishnan, the FAIMA president, said it was disheartening that an institution like AIIMS was setting a bad precedent. “Every patient in this country deserves good treatment — that includes an MP and also a homeless person,” Dr. Krishnan said.

•The Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FRDA) also condemned the move and said no patient should suffer at the cost of another’s privileges. “Having said this, a protocol to streamline things should not be viewed as derogatory, provided it doesn’t hamper patient care,” the FRDA noted.

Fresh set of directions

•“...The officer on duty will be the nodal officer to coordinate and facilitate requisite medical care arrangements for sitting MPs,” the AIIMS Director’s letter said.

•Dr. Srinivas, in his communication, said in case a sitting MP requires OPD consultation from a speciality/super-speciality department, the Lok Sabha/Rajya Sabha Secretariat or the personal staff of the MP will contact the duty officer and provide details about the ailment and specialist/super-specialist doctor to be consulted.

📰 Addressing north India’s burning issue sustainably

•The monsoon has receded, and North India is bracing for a smoggy winter. And with that the feverish focus on crop stubble burning has returned to India’s public discourse. Like each year, discussions have begun on how bad this year’s stubble burning season will likely be and what potential ad hoc techno-fixes could solve the issue — in the short term.

A problem that is historic

•We will soon read in-depth analyses of satellite image-derived counts of the number of fires observed on each day, and source apportionment studies that determine the exact contribution of stubble burning to poor air quality. The purportedly apathetic farmer who cares little about the well-being of Delhi’s urban citizenry will be held to a high standard of environmental stewardship, and the inevitable political mudslinging will follow soon. However, this heated public discourse adopts an unhelpful adversarial frame to a complex challenge. The problem is a historic one that cannot be fixed with short-term, unsustainable solutions.

•The root cause of stubble burning can be traced back to the 1960s-70s, when to meet the urgent challenge of feeding its rapidly growing population, India introduced several measures as part of its Green Revolution. The Green Revolution transformed the way agriculture was practised, especially in Punjab and Haryana. The economics of high-yielding varieties of paddy and wheat, supported by a guaranteed buyer (the government) and minimum support prices led to a crop duopoly oriented solely around increasing caloric intakes, supplanting the earlier diversity of crops grown in the region.

•Further policy moves in subsequent decades, which included the introduction of subsidies for electricity and fertilizers, and ease of access for credit in agriculture only served to cement this duopoly. But this transition to a two-crop agricultural praxis, while filling godowns and feeding mouths, has been depleting the water table, increasing pesticide and fertilizer use exponentially. It has also led to the consolidation of small farms into larger landholdings.

•In an attempt to address the growing water crisis, the Punjab and Haryana governments introduced laws around water conservation, encouraging farmers to look to the monsoon rather than groundwater to irrigate their crops. The shortened harvesting season that arose resulting from a not clearly thought-out policy move brought about the need for farmers to rapidly clear their fields between the kharif and rabi crops; the quickest of these ways was to burn off the remaining stubble post-harvest.

•The repercussion of stubble burning is felt all through the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) airshed, where what is burned in Punjab and Haryana has an impact on air quality all the way down to Bihar and West Bengal. With studies showing a large contribution of stubble burning emissions on winter air quality in the National Capital Region, the demand for governments to act on this seemingly avoidable practice translated initially into a criminalisation of the act.

No significant improvement

•More recently, however, with concerted focus on the subject, a series of short-term ex-situ and in-situ solutions have been rolled out by the Union and State governments. In-situ solutions include happy seeders and bio-decomposers, while the ex-situ solutions include collecting and using stubble as fuel in boilers, to produce ethanol, or to simply burn away alongside coal in thermal power plants. Economic incentives to reduce burning have also been tested with limited success. With crores invested in these solutions over the last five years, we have yet to see any significant improvement in the situation.

Meaningful steps that are needed

•Driven largely by short-term thinking, these techno-fixes or alternative uses work at the margins, without addressing the root cause. As pointed out in a recent article, the entire value-chain of agriculture in the region needs to change if air quality, water, nutrition, and climate goals are to be addressed. In practical terms, this means substantially reducing the amount of paddy being grown in the region and replacing it with other crops that are equally high-yielding, in-demand, and agro-ecologically suitable such as cotton, maize, pulses and oil seeds. It will also require building trust with farmers to ensure they are seen as partners (rather than perpetrators) and providing them the financial support necessary.

•At a policy level, it also requires recognising that agriculture, nutrition, water, the environment, and the economy are all deeply intertwined in the era of the Anthropocene. One cannot be addressed in a silo without having second and third order effects on the other. Therefore, taking the long view on this would also mean establishing a mechanism for intersectoral policymaking that aligns our goals for sectoral policy within the broad frame of sustainable development we wish to follow.

•A transition at this scale has not been witnessed since the Green Revolution, but it is what is required if we are to address stubble burning in the long run. Fostering the conditions necessary for such a transition is complex. Whether our institutions have the right mix of political will and professional skill to do so remains to be seen.

📰 Saving the vultures of Tamil Nadu
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