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September 2013 PREPARATION BEGINS HERE ` 40

This magazine is aimed specifically to provide relevant
content and fulfills a felt need of Civil Services aspirants
who are overloaded with information and many a times
miss out on the core issues. I wish CS Synopsis Readers
Happy 'Relevant' Reading.
Dr. Avinash Kumar, I.F.S.
Chief Patron-C.S.SYNOPSIS

First of all thanks from the entire team of CS Synopsis for the great response
that was accorded to our first issue (August 2013) and now we are out with our
second issue (September 2013) in which we have tried to cover all the relevant
news stories at one place with background information and any other information
which will make your understanding complete from UPSC point of view. The Civil
Services Exam is not for the faint-hearted and to crack this exam one needs to do
smart hard-work and it is the mission of Team CS Synopsis to deliver the best relevant
content at one place for easier reading, retention and ultimately reproduction in exam
environment.In this September edition we have covered a gamut of issues ranging from
the need for setting up a Second State Re-organization Commission,Estimation of
Poverty Line, CSR, burgeoning CAD, Syria Crisis, GSLV etc. and more. The issues have
been carefully picked to cover all that has been happening and give the readers an
insight into the news events in an exam oriented manner. This edition also contains a
CS Synopsis Special section on essay writing paper where we have shared some tips and
tricks for writing a high-scoring essay. We look forward to your continued support and
feedbackfor making this magazine even more useful from examperspective.
Please share your comments/ feedback at cs.synopsis@gmail.com
Dear Readers,
Abhishek Mishra
B.E.,PGCBM (XLRI)
CHIEF EDITOR
(C.S.SYNOPSIS)
1
CONTENTS
Polity
1. Need for Second State Reorganisation Commission 2
2. Ordinance Route Use or Abuse? 4
3. Parliamentary Supremacy Under Attack 7
4. Suspension of a Civil Servant 9
5. This is no childs play Juvenile Justice Act 10
6. A task only half finished Criminal Law Amendment Act 2013 11
7. Restoring the Supreme Courts exclusivity Special Leave Petitions 13
8. Panchayat Raj Institutions 15
Estimating Poverty Away from reality 18
2. NSEL - An exchange in a spot 20
3. Rising Current Account Deficit 22
4. Rupees Slide 24
5. Less Corporate, More Social CSR 26
Farm Mechanization 29
2. Government Initiatives to Empower Women 30
3. National Food Security Ordinance 34
4. Geographical Indications (GI) Tag 36
5. Great power and greater responsibility 37
6. Leaving no stone unturned Archaeological Survey of India 38
7. Suspension of Indian Olympic Association 40
Disaster Management 42
2. Saving Tiger 42
Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project 44
2. A strategic milestone INS Arihant (ATV) 47
3. Turning out to be rocket science GSLV 48
Elections in Bangladesh 51
2. A settlement long overdue Indo Bangladesh Relations 52
3. Cautious approval for Zimbabwe polls 54
4. Intimidation of Whistleblower - Manning verdict 55
5. No starting point to resolution Srilanka Tamil Issue 55
6. Rouhani to form govt. of wisdom and hope in Iran 57
7. International Criminal Court 58
8. India-Myanmar Relations 60
9. In the Levant, Arab Springs bitter end Syria Crisis 62
10. Make medicines while the sun shines TRIPS 63
Courtesy : The Hindu; Frontline; Yojana; Kurukshetra; Science Reporter
Economics
1.
1.
National/Social
1.
Science & Technology
Environment
1.
International Relations
1.
65
CS Synopsis Special Strategy & Tips For UPSC (MAINS) Essay Paper
C.S.SYNOPSIS- SEP, 2013
1. POLITY
Need for Second State Reorganisation
Commission
(Polity The Frontline)
The ever rising demand for separate statehood in
various parts of the country is forcing governments
to examine the complex relationships intersecting
the boundaries of identity, region, language, culture,
caste, class and the state. The time is ripe for a second
States Re-organisation Commission to address these
issues at the earliest.
The demand for a separate Telangana State has finally
been met after more than a long, intense struggle of six
decades. Although much has been written about the
region of Telangana before and after its merger with
the State of Andhra Pradesh in 1956, it is still a puzzle
where one ponders over the mechanisms that go into
the making of a State. It is a well-known fact that the
States Reorganisation Commission (1953-56)

did not favour the idea of merging Telangana with
Andhra Pradesh and it provided various safeguards
to protect the interests of the people of the region for
some years to come.
Are we witnessing the beginning of a new era marked
by sheer political expediency and calculation of vote
bank politics taking precedence over the legitimate
historical social-cultural and political justifications
for the demands for separate statehood? How do
the demands for separate statehood strike a balance
between the political representation and democratic
legitimation of power? Does the identitarian politics
based on region, caste, class, gender, language
or ethnicity enable or disable a particular kind of
economic development in a culturally diverse and
institutionally federal country such as India? It will
be important to see whether in the years to come
Telangana statehood leads us to a new wave of re-
organisation and its modular forms.
The Central government is disproportionately
empowered to make new States and change its
boundaries under Article 3 of the Indian Constitution.
The role of the State Assembly is limited to passing the
resolution forwarded to it by the Central government.
However, the most contentious issue will be the state
of Hyderabad city, declared to be the joint capital
of both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana for the first
10 years. The proposal to set up a new capital for
Seemandhra (Rayalaseema and coastal Andhra)
after 10 years may not be an easy option. The
experiences with Chandigarh (Haryana and Punjab)
and Dehradun (Uttarakhand) reveal how difficult
it is to create or shift State capitals that have been
established and have functioned as such for some
years.
Where the parties stand - In a multi-party
democratic set-up, and in the era of coalition
governments both at the Centre and in the States, it
is not surprising to see various political parties either
supporting or opposing the idea of a carving out a
new State. The two national parties, the Congress
and Bharatiya Janata Party, have vacillated on this
issue over the past several decades whereas several
regional and State-level parties have from time to
time voiced their support or opposition to specific
demands for statehood.
Statehood and violence - History shows how
modern states have emerged from the vortex of social
violence of all kinds. Andhra Pradesh witnessed
violent protests immediately after the Telangana
announcement, leading to the deployment of
paramilitary forces in Hyderabad and in other towns
of coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema districts. A
number of leaders associated with the demand for
separate statehoodof Gorkhaland, Bodoland and
Vidarbha in particularhave already started their
agitations. The closure of public offices, schools and
educational institutions and disruption of daily life in
West Bengal and Assam are indicative of the desire
and desperation of people for separate States for
their regions. Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) chief
Bimal Gurung has resigned as the chief executive of
the Gorkha Territorial Administration (GTA), which
was set up in 2011, to press his partys demand for
Union Territory status for the Gorkhaland area of the
Darjeeling hills. The GTA, as a regional autonomous
council, had started functioning from August
2012 following a tripartite agreement between the
Government of India, the West Bengal government
and the GJM.
The Bodo Territorial Council (BTC), which was
formed in 2003 after the Bodo leaders ended their
armed struggle, is now considered incapable of
addressing the demands of the Bodos, the Karbis, the
Dimasas and the Koch-Rajbangshis. The demand of
statehood for Vidarbha too has re-emerged.
2
The list is long: Awadh Pradesh and Bhojpur
(Uttar Pradesh and Bihar), Bodoland (Assam),
Bundelkhand (Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh),
Coorg (Karnataka), Gorkhaland (West Bengal), Harit
Pradesh (Western Uttar Pradesh), Konkan Pradesh
(Konkan region), Marathwada (Maharashtra),
Mahakoshal (Odisha), Mithilachal (Bihar), Muru
Pradesh (Rajasthan), Poorvanchal (Uttar Pradesh),
Saurashtra (Gujarat), Vidarbha (Maharashtra), and
so on. These demands make us examine the complex
relationships intersecting the boundaries of identity,
region, language, culture, caste, class, and the state.
Why a second State Re-organisation
Commission is needed?
The government has not acted upon the demand
raised by several political parties in the past decade
for the constitution of a second State Reorganisation
Commission. Unlike the first SRC, SRC-II will have
to consider a number of demands for separate
statehood from different parts of the country. It will
need to pay attention to the size and shape as well
as the democratic-developmental governance of the
State that needs reorganisation. Reorganisation can
no longer be simply based on a workable formula or
sheer political expediency.
A larger democratic consensus needs to emerge on
pertinent questions such as whether smaller States
are economically more viable and sustainable. The
developmental indices of smaller and larger States in
terms of economic growth, social security, education,
health, ecology, child mortality, gender equity, and
intra-State regional disparities, among others, need
to be analysed to arrive at some kind of a rational
criteria for the creation of newer and smaller States.
Is it useful to compare States of unequal sizes and
shapes irrespective of their historical-cultural and
geo-linguistic context? States that are created out
of political compulsions or the politics of the day
cannot survive because of the inherent undemocratic
impulses within them.
If small is beautiful, India can certainly have more
than 28 States in the near future. It might be the
case that smaller States may do better at times than
the larger States from which they were carved out.
For example, the three new States of Chhattisgarh,
Jharkhand and Uttarakhand formed in the year 2000
do not tell a uniform story of growth and development.
It is difficult to judge whether Uttarakhand would have
done better than Uttar Pradesh without its special
status, which entails extra aid and economic package
from the Central government for its developmental
needs. However, its drive for industrialisation
without addressing the ecological issues has been
a cause of concern and is unsustainable in the long
run. Jharkhand is not a model to emulate for political
stability and democratic legitimacythe two virtues
always associated with the idea of a small State. It
shows how political anarchism can affect economic
rationalism or growth adversely. Chhattisgarh has
performed quite poorly on its social-moral and
political accountability.
The new Telangana State will, therefore, have to
move carefully on the road of development, not
simply to ensure faster economic growth and intra-
regional equality but to offer reasonable prospects
for better governance, responsible and adequate
devolution of power to people and equitable
utilisation of resources. For the people of a small
State, being closer to the corridors of power and its
resources might prove beneficial; States of equality
and justice might be more accessible to all sections,
particularly to the most disadvantaged ones. The new
State should break the caste-class hierarchical nexus
and proceed to build the moral fibre of the political
economy of development.
Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde seems to think
that the government will no longer create new States
on the basis of language. But he needs to see how
close and organic the relationship between language
and region, or language and land (territory) is in the
various demands for smaller States and how central
to the idea of a geo-linguistic notion of territorial
identity to their imagination of a political community.
The decision to grant statehood to Telangana has set
off a chain reaction, with dormant movements for
new States getting a sudden momentum.
CS Synopsis Special Constitutional
Process For Creating a New State
To protect the unity and integrity of India A, rticle
3 of the Constitution vests the power to form new
States in Parliament, which may pass the law on the
subject.
3
Article 3 provides the following procedure:
1. Presidential reference is sent to State
Assembly.
2. After presidential reference, a resolution is
tabled and passed in Assembly.
3. Assembly has to pass a Bill creating the new
State/States.
4. A separate Bill has to be ratified by
Parliament
Article 2 of the Indian Constitution reads:
Parliament is empowered to enact a law to admit
into the Union, or establish, new States on such terms
and conditions as it thinks fit. The power to admit
new States into the Union, under this provision, is
considered very wide because its exercise is often
guided by complex political factors. The decision to
separate Telangana from Andhra Pradesh stemmed
from a resolution passed by the Congress Working
Committee (CWC), which was preceded by agreement
within the United Progressive Alliances coordination
committee on July 30. Both the CWC and the UPA
coordination committee are political bodies and
their decisions are naturally outcomes of discussions
among leaders belonging to the ruling coalition. The
factors relied on by these leaders for their decisions
may not be of judicially manageable standards.
However, the Supreme Court held in a case in 1993
that Article 2 does not confer on Parliament an
unreviewable and unfettered power immune from
judicial scrutiny. The court said: The power is limited
by the fundamentals of the Indian constitutionalism
and those terms and conditions which Parliament
may deem fit to impose cannot be inconsistent and
irreconcilable with the foundational principles of
the Constitution and cannot violate or subvert the
constitutional scheme. This is not to say that the
conditions subject to which a new State or territory is
admitted into the Union ought to be exactly the same
as those that govern all other States as at the time of
the commencement of the Constitution.
Article 3 enables Parliament to effect by law
reorganisation inter se of the territories of the States
constituting the Indian Union. Thus, Parliament may
by law form a new State by the separation of territory
from any State or by uniting two or more States or
parts of States or by uniting any territory to a part
of any State. The law so made under Articles 2
and 3 may alter or amend the First Schedule
of the Constitution, which sets out the names
of States and the description of territories,
and the Fourth Schedule, which allots seats to
States in the Rajya Sabha.
The purpose of both Articles 2 and 3 is to provide
for an easy and simple method of reorganisation of
States, rather than through an amendment to the
Constitution. The proviso to Article 3, however,
says that no Bill for the purpose shall be introduced
in either House of Parliament except on the
recommendation of the President and unless, where
the proposal contained in the Bill affects the area,
boundaries or name of any of the States, the Bill has
been referred by the President to the Legislature of
that State for expressing its views thereon within
such period as may be specified in the reference or
within such further period as the President may allow
and the period so specified or allowed has expired.
As the proviso to Article 3 only requires expression
of views on such a Bill by the parent Assembly,
it is clear that its consent is not at all required for
Parliament to pass the necessary legislation to set
up the new State. At the time of reorganisation of
States, there was a genuine apprehension that some
big States would oppose territories being taken away
from them so as to constitute new States or to be
merged with other States. Therefore, the consent of
the States to reorganisation was not made mandatory,
even though absence of such consent is contrary to
the federal principle.
The Supreme Court held in 1960 in a case relating to
the formation of Maharashtra and Gujarat: All that is
contemplated is that Parliament should have before it
the views of the State legislatures as to the proposals
contained in the Bill and then be free to deal with the
Bill in any manner it thinks fit, following the usual
practice and procedure prescribed by and under the
rules of business.
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Ordinance route Use or Abuse?
(Polity The Frontline)
The ordinance-making power of the executive needs
to be suitably restrained to create a balance of power
4
between the executive and the legislature in India
and to check the misuse of the same.

PRESIDENT Pranab Mukherjee gave his assent
to the Food Security Ordinance on July 5, allowing
the United Progressive Alliance government to start
the rollout of the programme which is estimated to
cost Rs.1.25 lakh crore annually. Political parties
and commentators alike have criticised the move
to promulgate the ordinance as an election-year
gimmick. A deeper investigation of the use of the
ordinance-making power granted to the executive
under Article 123 of the Constitution reveals a
casual disregard for the norms of democratic politics
typified by parliamentary supremacy. A careful
analysis of the pattern of promulgating ordinances
may compel more deliberation on the efficacy of this
power as it currently exists. In doing so, it traces
judicial pronouncements on this power, along with
an examination of some of the emergent reasons
provided by different governments for legislating
through ordinances.
Executive authority - Article 123 of the
Constitution enables the President of India to
promulgate an ordinance if neither House of
Parliament is in session and circumstances exist,
which render it necessary for him to take immediate
action. Every ordinance has to be laid before
Parliament, and ceases to exist six weeks from
the end of the next sitting of Parliament. Since the
Constitution mandates that Parliament be called into
session at least once every six months, ordinances
have a de facto expiration period of approximately
seven and a half months. Article 213 gives the same
power to the Governor of a State.
Ordinance-making power is not a new feature added
to the Indian Constitution. Articles 42 and 43 of the
Government of India Act, 1935, gave the same power
to the Governor General. Members of the Constituent
Assembly, having experience of abuse of such power,
were understandably wary of including the same in
the Constitution.
It is clear that the framers of the Constitution
envisaged ordinance-making powers only for
unforeseen, sudden situations and where the
executive required additional legal sanction to
address the situation. The executive, however,
decided to completely disregard this requirement of
necessity for immediate action. According to data
furnished in the Statistical Handbook of the Ministry
of Parliamentary Affairs, more than 41 ordinances
were promulgated during the term of the first Lok
Sabha itself. Indeed, in the pre- Indira Gandhi period,
that is, before 1966, more than 75 ordinances were
passed by the Central government. The necessity of
taking immediate action by promulgating ordinances
has remained debatable at best through the years.
Instances of necessity of immediate action
- Parliamentary debates indicate that in many cases
where ordinances have been promulgated, the
necessity for promulgating them has been extremely
debatable. Some instances of ordinance-making from
the past 15 years (1997 onwards) highlight this truth.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)
was created in 1997 first by an ordinance and then by
an Act of Parliament. The Minister in charge stated
that the ordinance route was taken since ...we were
facing difficulties in attracting private investment
without an authority like the TRAI. Private investors...
were not convinced about our ongoing processes of
privatisation and liberalisation. Important as it is to
send out a signal of commitment towards a particular
government policy, in this case liberalisation of the
telecommunications sector, it is hard to make the
case that had immediate action by promulgating
an ordinance not been taken, private investment in
the telecommunications sector would never have
happened.
Similarly, the Electricity Regulatory Commissions
Ordinance was promulgated on April 25, 1998, one
day before the government of the day decided to
convene the next session of Parliament. The National
Commission for Minority Educational Institutions
(Amendment) Ordinance, 2006, was promulgated
in January 2006, even though Parliament was to
convene from February 16, 2006. In both cases, no
satisfactory reason was given for promulgating these
ordinances in haste.
There is thus a repeated and deliberate attempt
to push through policy prerogatives by taking the
ordinance route. Sometimes this has been justified on
the grounds of delays by parliamentary committees
and at others by giving reasons that do not seem to
meet the necessary... to take immediate action
test. To be fair, there have been instances where
the use of the ordinance-making power has seemed
5
more legitimate. One example would be the Ancient
Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains
(Amendment and Validation) Ordinance, 2010, which
was promulgated to meet a deadline imposed by the
Delhi High Court. Yet, the overarching narrative
has been that of misuse, if not outright abuse. One
check against this move may have been strong
judicial review of the grounds on which ordinances
are promulgated. The approach of the apex court has,
however, been to protect the sanctity of this power of
the executive rather than subject it to strict review.
Judicial review - Courts have uniformly held, in
varying formulations, that the power of the President
and the Governors to issue ordinances is in the
nature of an emergency power. In A.K. Roy vs Union
of India and R.C. Cooper vs Union of India (bank)
nationalisation case), the Supreme Court said that
ordinance-making power was a legislative
power given to the President and was not
similar to the exercise of his executive
powers. As such, ordinances are also law under
Article 13. Using the same reasoning, the Supreme
Court reached damaging conclusions in Venkata
Reddy vs State of Andhra Pradesh and K. Nagaraj
and Ors. vs State of Andhra Pradesh. In Venkata
Reddy, the constitutional validity of the Andhra
Pradesh Abolition of Posts of Part-time Village
Officers Ordinance, 1984, was challenged. One of
the grounds of challenge was that the ordinance was
void on account of the lack of application of mind
by the Governor. The court asked itself the question
whether the validity of an ordinance can be tested
on grounds similar to those on which an executive or
judicial action is tested. In answering the question it
cited its earlier judgment in K. Nagaraj and held that
since promulgating an ordinance was a legislative
action, the grounds on which it could be challenged
were the same as those on which laws made by
Parliament could be challenged. The motives of the
legislature in passing a statute is beyond the scrutiny
of courts. That the motives of the legislature are not
gone into when the validity of a law is considered
is a settled principle in law. It is a settled principle
because it is difficult to ascribe a single, clear motive
for the enactment of a law to the entire legislative
body. Members of the same legislature may support
(or oppose) the enactment of a law for different
reasons. Therefore, courts refrain from scrutinising
the motives of legislatures.
Ordinances are, however, framed by the executive,
which is a single, unified entity. The President
or the Governor (in the States) is the head of the
executive who acts on the advice of the Council of
Ministers when promulgating ordinances. Under our
constitutional scheme the Council of Ministers shares
collective responsibility. In addition, ordinances are
only to be promulgated when it is necessary to take
immediate action. There is then no great difficulty
in ascertaining the motives of the President or the
Governor when an ordinance is promulgated to meet
an immediate situation.
The Supreme Court has slowly been compelled to
move in this direction as well. D.C. Wadhwa vs State
of Bihar relates to the State of Bihar promulgating
and re-promulgating ordinances on a massive scale.
Between 1967 and 1981, as many as 256 ordinances
were promulgated and re-promulgated, and some
of them continued in existence this way for up to
14 years. In pronouncing its judgment the Supreme
Court departed from the above-mentioned precedent
and went into the relevant governmental information
preceding the promulgation and re-promulgation of
these ordinances.
The power of review over ordinances was implicitly
taken one step further in 1998 in the case of Krishna
Kumar Singh vs State of Bihar , where the court
struck down a number of ordinances, stating that
no basis for the exercise of ordinance-making power
had been shown. It stated explicitly:
There is also no
explanation offered for promulgating one ordinance
after another. Though the sheer profligacy in
ordinance-making compelled the Supreme Court to
start performing some sort of judicial review, there
is as of now no clarity on the nature and extent of
judicial review over ordinance-making.
Conclusion - Data reveal there are two distinct
periods when the Central government used
ordinances particularly proactively: the period
coinciding with Indira Gandhis tenure, and the
early and mid-1990s. Both these periods, for various
reasons, can be characterised as those of a muscular
executive and a comparatively weak and/or unstable
Parliament. The mid-1990s especially were marked
by the beginning of coalition politics and short-
lived governments. Though by no means conclusive,
the linkage between weak Parliaments and
proactive ordinance-making is disturbing.
If nothing else, it indicates a casual disregard of
6
legislatures whenever the executive is in a position
to do so. Our Constitution gives vast powers to the
executive to act independently of Parliament. It
can, for example, declare a state of emergency, set
up important administrative authorities such as the
Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority
(PFRDA) and the Unique Identification Authority of
India (UIDAI), and indeed the Planning Commission
without having to seek parliamentary approval first.
It then becomes imperative that the ordinance-
making power be suitably restrained to create
a balance of power between the executive and
the legislature. Creating strong judicial review over
ordinance-making may be one such mechanism to
check the abuse of a power that was intended only
for rare use.
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Parliamentary supremacy under attack
(Polity The Hindu)
The executives attempts to circumvent the
legislature and the growing influence of money
power in deciding elections have eroded peoples
legitimate aspirations
Parliament is the custodian of the Constitution of
India. The Preamble to the Constitution proclaims
the supremacy of the people of the country. They
exercise their supremacy through their elected
representatives who are the Members of Parliament.
Nowadays, the non-functioning of Parliament is
making headlines. And rightly so. The 15th Lok Sabha
could be termed the least productive in the annals
of Indian Parliament. As per the statistics prepared
by the Lok Sabha secretariat, only 1,157 hours of
sittings took place until the 12th session of the 15th
Lok Sabha. This is far behind the record of the 14th
Lok Sabha, which had 1,736 hours and 55 minutes of
sittings. In fact, the first Lok Sabha held 677 sittings
of about 3,784 hours during its 14 sessions. The story
is no different in the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of
Parliament. For the first time in its history, the Upper
House returned the budget without any discussion.
UID bill in abeyance
However this is not the only thing corroding the
functioning of democracy. The executive has taken
most policy decisions without the concurrence
of the supreme legislative body of our country. A
classic example of this is the Aadhar, a much hyped
programme of the UPA government. The Aadhar
card is regarded as a pre-requisite for getting all
government benefits. Without the Aadhar number, a
student would not get any benefit from the Central
and State governments. Direct Benefit Transfer is
based on Aadhar numbers. Bank accounts are to be
linked to it. But what is the legislative backing for
Aadhar? The UID bill is supposed to be the law for
the implementation of Aadhar. But the Parliamentary
Standing Committee had submitted its reports with
serious objections to most provisions of the bill. The
government has kept it in cold storage and is not
ready to move the bill in Parliament in any form for
consideration and passing. But Aadhar has already
become a reality and an unavoidable part of the life
of an Indian citizen.
This covert approach of the government was also
visible when it introduced the contributory pension
scheme for Central and State government employees.
All the State governments in our country are collecting
the contribution from crores of their employees for
the Pension Fund. But we find that the bill relating to
it is still pending in Parliament. What is the legality
of collecting hundreds of crores of rupees during all
these years? These are only a few instances of the
government bypassing Parliament for implementing
major policy decisions.
The Constitution clearly defines and demarcates the
powers of different organs of the democratic system.
When Parliament passes a law, it becomes the law
of the land. All citizens of the country are bound
to adhere to it. But this constitutional mandate is
observed more in its violation.
Unanimous decision overruled
While presenting the Union Budget 2012-13, the then
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had introduced
retrospective taxation. Both Houses passed the
Finance Bill unanimously with these provisions. But
when P. Chidambaram became the Finance Minister,
the scene dramatically changed. He constituted a one-
man committee to review this new tax reform. Within
a week of submission of the report by Parthasarathi
Shome, the tax expert, the government decided to
defer the retrospective taxation for three years. Can
7
the unanimous decision of the supreme legislative
body of this country be overruled by an expert?
Usurpation
Parliamentary committees are considered a
miniature of Parliament. Usually, the committees
consist of Members of Parliament representing
most political parties. In developed democracies,
only Parliament can overrule the decision of the
parliamentary committees. But in India, the executive
has the right to adopt or reject the recommendations
of a parliamentary committee. If the government
incorporates a new clause in a bill, which was not
there in the original bill, it should again send it to
the committee for its consideration. But contrary to
this constitutional convention practised hitherto, for
the first time in the history of the Indian republic,
the government constituted an expert committee to
evaluate the recommendations of a Parliamentary
Standing Committee. To our surprise, when the
Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance
submitted its report on Direct Tax Code, we found
the Finance Ministry immediately constituting a
committee on this report. Though the ministry gave
some explanations when the controversy erupted, can
it be considered fair or just? Was it not usurpation
of parliamentary authority and a way of curbing the
voice of the people?
All these are nothing but clear indications of a plan to
undermine the legislative powers of Parliament. This
is further highlighted in other policy issues too. Before
the 1990s, the common man in India would eagerly
wait before his TV set or radio for the announcement
of budget proposals in order to learn about the
changes in tax rates, changes in prices of different
commodities, rail fares, etc. But nowadays, no one is
serious about the budget. Of late, we find that not only
Parliament but also the executive has no power in the
pricing of petroleum products. The government has
handed over the power to oil companies. According
to the last Railway Budget, the train fares would be
decided by a regulatory authority.
The government is now preparing to pass the
Constitution Amendment Bill for Implementing
Goods and Services Tax. As per the draft bill,
Parliament has no power to decide the tax rates. The
GST Council has the powers to decide the tax rate
for the Centre and the States. With Parliament and
the Legislative Assemblies having no say in these
processes, would the budget become a time pass
exercise? Are peoples representatives being robbed
of their constitutionally conferred responsibilities?
After serious protests from different sections of
society, the government made a change to this clause
in the bill, rendering the powers of the GST Council
recommendatory. But there is little doubt that these
recommendations will tie the hands of forthcoming
Finance Ministers and thus lead to further dilution of
the financial powers of Parliament.
Another serious threat to the parliamentary system in
India is the steep decline in the representative nature
of Indian society in this fundamental institution. As
per Election Watch statistics, as many as 306 MPs in
the 15th Lok Sabha are crorepatis. This is more than
a 100 per cent increase over the 14th Lok Sabha. The
average asset of an MP is nearly Rs 5.8 crore. Is it not
a farce that they are the representatives of a society
where the daily consumption of more than 77 per cent
of people is below Rs. 20? Another statistic is that 32
per cent of the candidates who have assets of more
than Rs 5 crore won in last Lok Sabha elections. The
winning chance of the candidates with assets between
Rs 50 lakh and Rs 5 crore is 18.5 per cent; for those
with assets below Rs 10 lakh, it is only 2.6 per cent.
This clearly indicates that money power is one of the
major factors in the election system of a liberalised
economy.
The Indian democratic system has a progressive
nature up to a certain extent. But it has been attacked
by the same class that runs the state. Defending the
representative nature of Parliament and protecting
its legislative supremacy are responsibilities to which
we are constitutionally wedded. Parliament is the
vehicle through which peoples aspirations and needs
can be met. It is the mechanism to establish the rule
of law and distributive justice. Denying and depriving
it of its powers and responsibilities can only lead to
the erosion of the legitimate aspirations of the people
themselves.
----------x----------x----------x----------
8
Suspension of a Civil Servant
(Polity The Hindu)
At worst, its a criminal conspiracy; and at best, its
cynical politics. Either way, nothing can possibly
justify the suspension of Uttar Pradesh IAS officer
Durga Shakti Nagpal by the Samajwadi Party
government. Even going by Chief Minister Akhilesh
Yadavs explanation that action against her was taken
as the government anticipated communal trouble
after an illegally constructed wall of a mosque was
demolished under her supervision, the hastily-
ordered suspension makes no sense. While the
villagers are upset at the demolition of the wall, they
also insist there is no danger of violence. The most
charitable explanation for Ms Nagpals suspension
would have to be that the SP is trying to play politics
with the religious sentiments of the people. But at
what cost?
What makes Ms Nagpals suspension as the
Gautambudhnagar sub-divisional magistrate doubly
alarming is that she was active in the crackdown
against illegal sand mining on the Yamuna and
Hindon river banks. The rules governing tenure for
the bureaucracy, including all-India services like the
IAS, are complicated. While there is no easy way for
the Central government to intervene in favour of Ms
Nagpal, as suggested by Congress president Sonia
Gandhi in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh, the Uttar Pradesh government must realise
its mistake and revoke the suspension immediately.
The facts being what they are, this is not a matter that
ought to be escalated as a dispute between the Centre
and the State; hopefully, Chief Minister Yadav will see
sense, and not sacrifice the interests of governance
and administrative efficiency for some imaginary
political gain.
CS Synopsis Special - Background CON -
STITUTIONAL PROTECTION TO CIVIL
SERVANTS
Civil Servants are considered as the back bone of
the administration. In order to ensure the progress
of the country it is essential to strengthen the
administration by protecting civil servants from
political and personal influence. So provisions
have been included in the Constitution of India to
protect the interest of civil servants along with the
protection of national security and public interest.
Part XIV of the Constitution of India deals with
Services under The Union and The State. Article
309 empowers the Parliament and the State
legislature regulate the recruitment, and
conditions of service of persons appointed,
to public services and posts in connection with the
affairs of the Union or of any State respectively.
Doctrine of Pleasure - Article 310 of the
Constitution of India incorporates the English
doctrine of pleasure by clearly stating that every
person who is a member of a defence service or of a
civil service of the Union or of an all India service or
holds any post connected with defence or any civil
post under the Union, holds office during the pleasure
of the President, and every person who is a member of
a civil service of a State or holds any civil post under a
State holds office during the pleasure of the Governor
of the State. But this power of the Government is not
absolute. Article 311 puts certain restriction
on the absolute power of the President or
Governor for dismissal, removal or reduction
in rank of an officer
. The protective safe guards
given under Article 311 are applicable only to civil
servants, i.e. public officers. They are not available to
defence personnel.
The Constitution of India through Article 311, thus
protects and safegurds the rights of civil servants
in Government service against arbitrary dismissal,
removal and reduction in rank. Such protection
enables the civil servants to discharge their functions
boldly, efficiently and effectively. The public interest
and security of India is given predominance over
the rights of employees. So conviction for criminal
offence, impracticability and inexpediency in the
interest of the security of the State are recognised
as exceptions. The judiciary has given necessary
guidelines and clarifications to supplement the law in
Article 311.
The judicial norms and constitutional provisions are
helpful to strengthen the civil service by giving civil
servants sufficient security of tenure. But there may
arise instances where these protective provisions are
used as a shield by civil servants to abuse their official
powers without fear of being dismissed. Disciplinary
proceedings initiated by Government departments
against corrupt officials are time consuming. The
mandate of reasonable opportunity of being heard in
departmental inquiry encompasses the Principles of
9
Natural Justice which is a wider and elastic concept
to accommodate a number of norms on fair hearing.
Violation of Principles of Natural Justice enable the
courts to set aside the disciplinary proceedings on
grounds of bias and procedural defects.
----------x----------x----------x----------
This is no childs play Juvenile -
Justice Act
(Polity The Hindu)
The role of minors in heinous crimes has aroused
public interest. Among the questions raised are: why
should children be accorded different treatment from
adults in matters of serious offences? What should be
the age standard for differentiating a child from an
adult?
In July, the Supreme Court disposed of several
petitions, filed mostly in the aftermath of the
infamous Delhi gang rape incident of December 2012,
which questioned the constitutional validity of
the Juvenile Justice Act. These petitions had
questioned the very idea of different treatment to
the child offender, propagated way back in 1919-20
by the Indian Jail Committee. This principle, which
was enshrined in the pre-independence Provincial
Children Acts and was supported by Supreme Court
rulings in the late 1970s and early 1980s, received
legislative recognition in the first uniform and
comprehensive Central Law Juvenile Justice Act,
1986, followed by the JJ Act.
The U.N. Standard Minimum Rules for the
Administration of Juvenile Justice, 1985 and the U.N.
Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989
(ratified by the Government of India in 1992)
significantly influenced our new laws in defining
juveniles and children, providing processing and
dispositional alternatives.
The petitions that challenged the Act did so on three
grounds -
The JJ Act is violative of Articles 14 and 21 and thus
ultra vires the Constitution
Section 2(k) and (l) of the Act that defines juvenile
or child as any person below the age of 18 years runs
contrary to Sections 82, 83 of Penal Code that confers
total exemption to children below seven years of age
and partial exemption to those below 12 years only.
Sections 19 and 21 that prohibit creating judicial
records of juvenile proceedings and publication of
juvenile names and identity are in conflict with the
interests of the society.
At stake in these hearings was over nine decades of
juvenile justice jurisprudence in India. Fortunately,
the Supreme Court squarely rebutted the
constitutional ultra vires arguments in its ruling
disposing of the petitions: The JJ Act is in tune with
the provisions of the Constitution and the various
declarations and conventions adopted by the world
community represented by the United Nations.
New jurisprudence - In doing so, the court
also propagated a thesis that after the adoption
of the Constitution, a new jurisprudence
relating to children evolved and different
treatment to child offenders was a part of this
new child-centric jurisprudence. The court
was equally emphatic in its rejection of the
arguments for lowering the age to 16 years for
two main reasons: first, Article 1 of the UNCRC
requires the state parties to treat all persons
below 18, irrespective of gender, as children,
and second, there is adequate scientific data
to indicate that brain growth continues till
the age of 18. Therefore, the court explicitly
preferred to go with the collective wisdom of
the Parliament on the issue of age. The court
also appeared to be giving a fair chance to
the petitioner when it invited scientific data
to prove the earlier onset of cognitivity. This
way the court answered and dismissed all the
petitions in a logical and a legal manner. But
was this enough? Since this verdict came from
a three-judge Bench, it is likely to give to the
juvenile justice law a fairly long lease of life
Reacting to failures - What prompted the
petitioners in those cases to mount a challenge to
the JJ Act? It is possible that a small section among
them may have been opposed to juvenile justice
law in principle, but a majority was simply reacting
to failures in implementing the Act. They were
convinced that the care and protection of under-
privileged children was more or less a sham; that
unscrupulous persons were deploying children for
10
the commission of organised crimes such as drug
racketeering and human trafficking; that uneducated
young men pose a menace to girls and young women,
and so on. In fact, many of these concerns were
brought expressly to the attention of the court. The
courts own observation reveals it was fully aware of
the risks of non-implemented or under-implemented
juvenile justice law. In dismissing these petitions, why
then did the court not go beyond the point of a simple
no? Why did it not do anything more to address the
anxieties of the interveners and scores of others who
aspire for an effective juvenile justice system, and the
growing despair reflected in the petitions? Why were
those responsible for the implementation of juvenile
justice law not asked awkward questions and not
directed to work on an urgent action programme?
It maybe be alright to talk of the virtues of judicial
restraint and institutional conservatism in ordinary
state of things, but when issues are raised concerning
the most vulnerable sections of our society and doubts
are raised about universally accepted norms and
ideas, the occasion arises for a higher responsibility
on public institutions to speak up loud and clear, and
speak in a manner that will change things in the right
direction.
The Supreme Court has rightly dismissed
challenges to the Juvenile Justice Act, but needs
to do more to ensure its proper implementation
----------x----------x----------x----------
A task only half finished Criminal
Law Amendment Act 2013
(Polity The Hindu)
Despite the recurring frequency of crimes against
women, the public discourse on law reform has
come to a halt following the passage of the Criminal
Law (Amendment) Act 2013 in April. While the Act
certainly introduced long, overdue changes in the
law, it is but a first step in the long journey to ending
violence against women in India through criminal
law, police reforms and curricular reforms intended
to change the mentality of future generations.
Overdue changes - The Criminal Law
(Amendment) Act 2013 (Act) took the historic
step of amending the Indian Penal Code (IPC)
to provide for the new offences of rape causing
death or a vegetative state, sexual intercourse by a
person in authority, gang rape and repeat offences.
Importantly, the Act also introduced several other
new offences such as causing grievous hurt through
acid attacks, sexual harassment, use of criminal force
on a woman with intent to disrobe, voyeurism and
stalking. Importantly, the Act further amended the
IPC to criminalise the failure of a public servant to
obey directions under law. It has also made the
non-treatment of a rape victim by any public
or private hospital an offence. While these
amendments to the IPC constitute a major legislative
stride forward, corresponding steps forward have not
been taken in the amendment of criminal procedure.
The Act amended the Code of Criminal Procedure
(CrPC) to provide for a woman officer to record
evidence from a woman against whom certain
offences have been committed. If the victim of such
offences has been mentally or physically disabled,
temporarily or permanently, then the woman officer
must record the evidence at the victims residence or
the victims place of choice. These requirements apply
to offences such as causing voluntarily, grievous hurt
by the use of acid, sexual harassment, assault or use
of criminal force against a woman with intent to
disrobe, voyeurism, stalking, rape, gang rape, sexual
intercourse by a person in authority, and a word,
gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a
woman.
The CrPC was further amended to provide for a court
to ensure that when the evidence of a victim of rape
below 18 years has to be recorded, the accused does
not confront the victim. However, many procedural
issues critical to making the criminal justice
system functional in the case of rape and serving
as a deterrent against further crime have not been
addressed by the Act.
Areas to be looked into -
The starting point is of
course the registration of the FIR itself. The courts are
divided over whether the police have an obligation or
not by law to investigate allegations of rape before
registering an FIR. If a police investigation has to
take place before the registration of an FIR, delays
will inevitably occur and the failure to register FIRs
in rape cases will continue. Moreover, the C r ime
and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems
11
(CCTNS), an ambitious Rs.2,000 crore project of
the Home Ministry, which would enable at least
the e-filing of FIRs, is expected to be implemented
only in 2015. The second procedural issue is fast
track courts. Section 309 of the Criminal Procedure
Code (CrPC), as amended by the Act, provides that
the trial of offences under Section 376 (rape) and
Sections 376A-D (covering punishment for causing
death or resulting in persistent vegetative state of the
victim, sexual intercourse by husband upon his wife
during separation, sexual intercourse by a person in
authority and gang rape) must be completed within
two months from the date of filing the charge sheet.
However, the Delhi rape case, prosecuted in a fast
track court, has already taken over eight months.
Therefore, procedural rules must be examined
including the grounds for an order of in camera
proceedings. They are usually ordered only where
a matter of national security is involved or a
party asserts that communications are privileged.
In camera proceedings are not ordered on the
grounds that the accuseds safety is at risk as in the
Delhi case. Indeed, the courts order of in camera
proceedings in this case has resulted in it being
secluded from media attention, thereby reducing
public pressure for further reforms.
Samaritans & jurisdiction -
A third issue is the
protection of good Samaritans. The CrPC must be
amended to provide that members of the public
who act as good Samaritans should not be treated
as wrongdoers and unnecessarily questioned or
harassed by the police. The current situation in which
bystanders do not help victims of crime reflects a
sad state of societal affairs and must be addressed.
While the Act has made limited changes to criminal
procedure, the police have been left out of legislative
reforms altogether. The only reforms were those
announced by the then Delhi Police Commissioner,
Neeraj Kumar, on January 18, 2013, including
that Zero First Information Reports (FIR) may be
registered on the basis of a womans statement
at any police station irrespective of jurisdiction.
Jurisdiction is a very important issue as, in the Delhi
case, the victims friend stated that the police wasted
30 minutes arguing over jurisdiction, although the
victim and her friend were lying on the road for
two hours. The police chief also announced a series
of other measures such as the recruitment of 418
women sub-inspectors and 2,088 women constables,
PCR vans to be deployed outside womens colleges,
provision for women to call 100 to seek assistance
to be given a lift home at night by a PCR van, and
24-hour police cover for areas around entertainment
hubs with increased security between 8 p.m. and 1
a.m. Despite these reforms, in the succeeding months,
police actions in subsequent rape cases have caused
much alarm. In the case of the rape of a five-year-
old child, the police were accused of offering a bribe
of Rs. 2,000 to the victims family to refrain from
filing a case. Police officers have also been filmed on
video beating women of all ages because they had the
audacity to protest a rape.
Model Police Act - Despite the clear need for
reform of police handling of rape cases, the M odel
Police Act of 2006 drafted by the Police Act
Drafting Committee (PADC) constituted by
the Ministry of Home Affairs in September
2005, and chaired by Mr. Soli Sorabjee, is in
cold storage. The Model Act, which was intended to
replace the archaic Indian Police Act of 1861,
was drafted with the purpose of not only meeting
the challenges of policing but also fulfilling the
democratic aspirations of a modern society. The
PADC envisioned a modern police force which was
responsive to the needs of the people while being
accountable to the rule of law. A few of the key
concepts underlying the police Act were: 1) functional
autonomy; 2) encouraging professionalism; 3)
accountability; and, presciently, 4) jurisdiction.
First, functional autonomy was viewed as a means of
removing the nexus between police and politicians
who treat the police as their personal security service.
It proposed the establishment of a panel to receive
complaints from police officers of pressure from
higher officials to commit illegal or unconstitutional
acts. The PADC felt that the law should be the master
of the police, not politicians. A fixed tenure of two
years was suggested to avoid transfers arbitrarily.
Second, the Model Act focussed on encouraging
professionalism. The PADC recommended abolition
of the rank of constable and replacing it with a primary
rank of Grade II civil police officer. However, a recruit
can attain this officer rank only after undergoing a
three-year training course as a stipendiary cadet,
culminating in a bachelors degree in police studies.
As a result, even the lowest level of the police force
12
will have a bachelors degree.
Third was the principle of accountability. The police
Act proposed introducing criminal penalties for the
most common defaults of the police such as non-
registration of FIRs, unlawful arrest, detention,
search or seizure.
Fourth, and most presciently, was the issue of
jurisdiction. Underpinning the Model Police Act is
the notion that police officers should be duty-bound
to assist victims of sexual offences irrespective of the
crimes jurisdiction. As the Model Police Act was never
implemented, it took the tragic Delhi case for reforms
regarding jurisdiction to be announced. In short,
while the passage of the Criminal Law (Amendment)
Act 2013 is a milestone in criminal law reform in
rape cases, the creation of offences is not sufficient.
Instead, the punishment of those committing these
offences through the police and the criminal justice
system is critical in providing effective deterrence
against future crimes.
----------x----------x----------x----------
Restoring the Supreme Courts exclu -
sivity Special Leave Petitions
(Polity The Hindu)
The countrys highest judicial institution has
lost its original character by a vast self-en-
largement of its jurisdiction that has virtu-
ally turned it into a general court of appeal
The Supreme Court of India is perceived by the
lay public as the most potent institution in the
Constitution by its appellate authority over all courts
and tribunals and by its striking orders correcting
and supervising government actions. In the public
euphoria over this functioning of the Supreme Court,
there is no awareness that the Supreme Court has
radically changed its character and stature which was
prescribed by the makers of the Constitution.
When the Supreme Court was established in
1950, the Constitution conferred on it limited but
important functions of deciding cases involving
fundamental rights, cases of Constitutional
importance and substantial questions of law
of general importance . The Supreme Court was
given a residuary power to grant special leave to
appeal, in its discretion from any judgment of any
Court or Tribunal ( Article 136 of the Constitution)
sparingly and in exceptional cases. The Supreme
Court was not to be the apex court to decide ordinary
disputes between litigants. Only exceptionally, such
disputes between litigants would be decided by the
Court. The lower courts and the High Courts were
considered as generally competent and adequate for
the dispensation of justice between litigants.
Small and compact - Consistently with this
restricted jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, the
Constitution provided that the Supreme Court, like
Supreme Courts in other jurisdictions, would be
a small, compact court of the Chief Justice and not
more than seven judges unless Parliament otherwise
provided. Further, as substantial questions relating
to the interpretation of the Constitution were of the
utmost importance, the Constitution provided that
such questions should be decided by large benches of
judges and the minimum number of judges who were
to sit for deciding such questions should be five. From
1950 to about 1990, the Supreme Court generally
retained this character comparable to the character of
Supreme Courts in other jurisdictions. Special leave
to appeal from a decision of a High Court or tribunal
was sparingly given in the discretion of the Court.
The composition of the Court was of benches of three
judges, and five judges and, exceptionally, benches
of seven judges and even 13 judges, as in the famous
case of Kesavananda Bharati , decided important
cases.
Progressive dilution -
Today, all this has changed.
The Supreme Court of India has lost its original
character by a vast self-enlargement of its jurisdiction
making itself a general court of appeal by routinely
entertaining special leave petitions between litigants
which do not involve important constitutional issues
or issues of law of general importance. Up to June
2013, 35,439 special leave petitions which do not
involve such issues are pending in the Court.
Public
Interest Litigation (PIL), which was laudably
innovated by the Supreme Court in 1970 to
redress the rights of disadvantaged sections
of the society, has been converted into litigation
for correcting government actions from corruption
scams to banning tinted glasses on automobiles. Writ
petitions to enforce fundamental rights under Article
32 of the Constitution are less than one per cent of the
13
petitions annually admitted by the Court.
Cases of constitutional and national importance
have been sidelined and not heard for years. The
last major Constitutional case with a bench of nine
judges was decided in 2007 in I.R. Coelho vs. State
of Tamil Nadu which considered Parliaments
power to amend the Constitution by including
statutes in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution.
Important Constitutional cases referred to nine
judges such as the scope of Interstate Trade,
Commerce & Intercourse, the right of States to tax
minerals have not been heard for several years. At
least five cases for consideration by seven judges,
and 36 cases for consideration by a bench of five
judges are pending for several years. Only 15 cases
were decided by five judges between 2011 to 2013.
Bench strength - With the increasing load of
appeals from High Court decisions the number of
judges have had to be increased periodically from
eight judges in 1950 when the Constitution came
into force to 31 in 2008. Presently, the Supreme
Court is composed of one bench of the Chief
Justices Court of three judges and 13 or 14 benches
of two judges in 13 or 14 courtrooms sitting regularly
day after day. In no Supreme Court of other
jurisdictions are there benches of 13 to 14 courts
of two judges each as the Indian Supreme Court
now has. Supreme Courts of other jurisdictions
such as the United States, the United Kingdom,
Canada, Australia and South Africa sit either e n
banc , i.e. of its full strength, or in large benches
of five or more judges considering the importance
of the case, as such a large composition of judges is
considered fitting for deciding important cases in
the highest court.
By contrast, the Supreme Court of India today
decides cases of major importance by benches of two
judges. Recently, the Supreme Court nullified
Section 8(4) of the Representation of the
People Act, 1951 . This important decision on the
interpretation of Parliaments legislative powers
on members of legislatures convicted of offences
was delivered by a bench of two judges of the
Court despite the Constitutional requirement
that substantial questions of interpretation
of the Constitution should be decided by not
less than five judges. Important policy matters are
decided by a bench of two judges of the Court. In the
2G Spectrum Case, a bench of two judges prescribed
a national policy for disposing of all public resources
by public auctioning. A bench of two judges has
laid down the law in the vexing cases of inordinate
delay in the disposing of petitions for clemency by
the President in death penalty cases. The important
question of decriminalising homosexuality under the
Indian Penal Code has been heard, and the judgment
which is reserved will be given by a bench of two
judges.
When Sir B.N. Rau, the Constitutional Advisor at the
time of the framing of the Constitution met Justice
Frankfurter of the U.S. Supreme Court, he was told by
Justice Frankfurter that the jurisdiction exercisable
by the Supreme Court should be exercised by the
full court and the highest court of appeal in the land
should not sit in divisions. The Drafting Committee
of the Indian Constitution also drew attention to the
practice in the U.S. Supreme Court of not sitting in
divisions and how the judges of the Supreme Court
of the U.S. attached the greatest importance to this
practice.
Separate court - In most of the other Supreme
Courts, the cases decided by them are few and are of
constitutional and national importance leaving the
lower Courts to decide finally the cases which the
Supreme Courts do not consider deciding to overload
themselves with. The Supreme Court of the U.S.
selects from among 7,000 petitions for c e rtiorari
(admission) around 100 cases in which c e rtiorari
is granted. On an average per year about 80 cases
are decided by the Supreme Court of the U.K., the
Supreme Court of Canada and the High Court of
Australia. The Constitutional Court of South Africa
which has been ably functioning since 1994 deciding
major constitutional cases and cases of national
importance decides on an average 38 cases per
year. In contrast in 2012, the Supreme Court of India
decided 898 cases, with few cases of constitutional or
national importance.
The Supreme Court of India understandably is
compelled to take up cases from 24 High Courts
whose judgments increasingly require correction,
and litigants have no forum for their correction
except the Supreme Court. In this situation, the only
solution to preserve the exclusivity and standing of
14
the Supreme Court is to create a separate national
court of appeals distinct from the Supreme Court
in which appeals from High Courts and Tribunals
can be entertained. Such a provision for a Supreme
appellate court at the highest level distinct from a
Constitutional Court is provided by the Constitution
of South Africa. Simultaneously, the number of
judges of the Supreme Court can be reduced from
31 to a smaller strength and the Court can function
with benches of three and five judges as it functioned
earlier. Above all, it is imperative to create awareness
by lawyers, judges and informed public opinion of
the necessity for restoring the character and standing
of our Supreme Court comparable to the Supreme
Courts in other jurisdictions.
----------x----------x----------x----------
Panchayat Raj Institutions
(Polity Yojana)
Panchayat Raj in India has a long history going
back into a millennial past but articulated during
the Freedom Movement most conspicuously and
perspicaciously by the Father of the Nation, Mahatma
Gandhi.
The discussion was carried forward in the debates in
the Constituent Assembly which led to Article 40 of
the Directive Principles of State Policy laying down the
injunction that: The State shall take steps to organize
village panchayats and endow them with such powers
and authority as may be necessary to enable them
to function as units of self-government.Schedule
7 of the Constitution placed the operationalisation
of this Article at Entry 5 of the State List (List II):
Local government, that is to say, the constitution
of powers of municipal corporations, improvement
trusts, district boards, mining settlement authorities
and other local authorities for the purpose of self-
government or village administration. These
constitute the origins of Article 243G of Part IX
of the Constitution which refers to the three-
tier Panchayat Raj system as institutions of self-
government, not self-governance.
Subsequently, the Centre in the 1950s, under Minister
S.K. Dey, started the Community Development
Programme. Based on the experience gathered
through that Programme, the Balvantray Mehta Study
Team (1957) recommended a contemporary form
of Panchayat Raj or Democratic Decentralization,
adapted to the development requirements of rural
areas in independent India, with the block as the
optimum unit. The key points included in the
Committees recommendations were:
The Government should divest itself completely
of certain duties and responsibilities and devolve
them to a body which will have the entire charge
of all development work within its jurisdiction,
reserving to itself only the functions of guidance,
supervision and higher planning
At the block level, an effective self-governing
institution should be set up with its jurisdiction
co-extensive with a development block
The Panchayat Samiti should be constituted by
indirect elections from the panchayats.
These ideas were broadly welcomed by the entire
political spectrum in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
However, once the initial enthusiasm had run its
course, and particularly after the passing away of
Prime Minister Nehru in May 1964, there was a
gradual withering away of Panchayat Raj in many
parts of the country.
This led to the National Development Council
establishing in 1977 a high- powered Committee,
including several State Chief Ministers and other
veterans and experts, under the chairmanship of
Shri Asoka Mehta, to recommend measures to secure
the maximum degree of decentralization, both
in planning and implementation. Reporting the
following year, on 14 August 1978, the Committee
assessed the state of Panchayat Raj in the country as
a story of ups and downs passing through three
phases: the phase of ascendancy (1959-64); the phase
of stagnation (1965-69); and the phase of decline
(1969-77). Among the measures recommended by
the Asoka Mehta Committee were:
The establishment of democratic bodies
below the State level is an imperative from the
political and socio-economic perspectives
Transfer substantial quantum of powers from
the State Government to the local bodies.
When they (State Governments) delegate the
responsibilities for implementation to lower
levels, they can concentrate on refining strategies
of higher level policy making.
District should be the first point of
decentralization under policy supervision.
15
Grouping a number of villages to constitute
Mandal Panchayats to facilitate the forging of
necessary linkages with schemes for development
of focal points and growth centres.
The Block level Panchayat Samitis ... would
be converted into non- statutory executive
committees of Zila Parishads.
At the village level the people would be involved
in Mandal Panchayats through the Village
Committees.
Innovative ideas contained in the Report was for
an amendment to the Constitution
This suggestion for constitutional status was
picked up about a decade later by Prime
Minister Rajiv Gandhi to accord sanction and
sanctity to Panchayat Raj as the one sure way
of ensuring grassroots development through
democratically elected institutions of local-
self government. The express objective was to
render Panchayat Raj ineluctable, irreversible
and irremovable by :
making it Constitutionally mandatory to have
a democratically-elected three-tier Panchayat
system responsible to Gram Sabhas (village
assemblies) comprising the entire adult
population of all habitations in a village-level
Panchayat
securing reservations for women at all three levels
so as to fully involve them in the management of
community affairs
securing reservations for Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes (and sub-quotas for women
belonging to these social categories) to meet
apprehensions about elite capture of PRIs.
for STs, this was complemented by PESA - The
Provisions of The Panchayats (Extension to
Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 - mandated by the
Constitution [Article 243M(b)] to safeguard and
promote the interests of the tribal communities
living in their habitations in Fifth Schedule areas
guaranteeing regular, timely elections to
the Panchayats at all levels, organized by an
independent, qualified, statutory State Election
Commission
ending arbitrary suspensions and dissolutions of
local bodies by State governments
exponentially increasing the number of
elected representatives relative to the size of
the electorate with a view to bridging the gap
between the elected and the electors, thus
bringing governance to the grassroots, the better
to ensure inclusive growth through inclusive
governance
detailing by law and administrative orders the
responsibilities of the different tiers of PRIs
through Activity Mapping
widening and deepening, through laws passed
by State legislatures, opportunities for the
deployment of Indias vast human resources in
governance at the grassroots by empowering
the Panchayats to function as institutions
of self-government, not self-governance, in
regard to the preparation of plans for economic
development and social justice (bottom-up
planning) and for implementing schemes...as
may be entrusted to them
linking economic development to social justice,
particularly with a view to meeting concerns of
elite capture of PRIs
securing the sound finance of the Panchayats
through State Finance Commissions, established
once every five years, that would determine the
apportionment of State revenues between the
State and its Panchayats; the assignation of
sources of revenue to the Panchayats, including
those that may be appropriated by the
Panchayats for their own use; and grants-in-aid
to the Panchayats from the Consolidated Fund of
the State
subjecting the Panchayats to social audit and
formal audit
In short, projecting Panchayat Raj as a demonstration
of faith in the people to manage their own affairs by
securing to the people Maximum Democracy
and Maximum Devolution with a view to
ensuring Power to the People.
On 22/23 December 1992, the Lok Sabha and
the Rajya Sabha, respectively passed the 73rd
and 74th amendments to the Constitution,
which were enshrined subsequently, after half the
States of the Union had approved the Amendments
and the President had given his consent,Paasrt
IX (The Panchayats) and Part IXA (The
Municipalities) of the Constitution
. Part IX
was published in the Gazette of India on 24 April
1993. Since 2008, it has been celebrated as National
Panchayat Raj Day.
CS Synopsis Special - THE STATE OF
16
THE PANCHAYATS TWENTY YEARS
ON
How relevant is panchayat raj in the everyday lives
of the people? What is the role of panchayat raj
institutions (PRIs) in poverty alleviation and human
development? Is poverty alleviation possible through
a peripheral role for panchayats as conceived in
various Central sector schemes?
Taking up these questions, the Mani Shankar
Aiyar-led Expert Committee on Leveraging
Panchayat Raj Institutions for effective
delivery of public goods and services, which
submitted its report to the government recently, has
suggested that the Gram Sabha should be empowered
to monitor and make decisions on all the social sector
schemes Central and State. Citing MGNREGA
(Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee Act) scheme as the model for other
schemes, Mr. Aiyar emphasised that this move will
remove the lacunae in the last mile delivery of the
schemes.
A panchayat-driven social sector expenditure model
empowers the community with a sense of ownership
as against the bureaucracy-driven, top-down model
currently inbuilt in the Central sector schemes. It
calls for a rethink on the way central sector schemes
(CSS) on poverty alleviation are designed and the
need to retrieve PRIs from the fringes to their rightful
place as drivers of rural welfare.
Outcomes are not in sync with the outlays, says
the report. The multifold increase in social sector
expenditure has barely translated into positive
outcomes. There was no tangible rise in the Human
Development Indices, despite the exponential
increase in social sector expenditure.
The Committee drawing its template from the
Prime Ministers address to the Conference of
Chief Ministers in 2004 that calls for a rethink on
the top-down design of programmes prescribes
Activity Mapping for each CSS. Activity Mapping
envisions clear delineation of functions, finances
and functionaries, shifting the ownership of Schemes
from the line departments to elected Panchayats.
Grassroots devolution - When the Panchayat Raj
experiment was started two decades ago, there was
a certain degree of navet in believing that effective
devolution would just happen. Unlike the West,
with its local government experience in parishes and
counties, here local government was imposed from
above. We had to devolve, while the West evolved
from local governments. But, ours was the first
such experiment at grassroots devolution leading to
tangible social engineering, says Mr. Aiyar.
The Committees recommendations include a Centre-
drafted model Gram Sabha law to motivate State
legislation; freezing of rotation of reserved seats
to two or three terms to incentivise good work and
facilitate capacity building of panchayat leadership;
incentivise PRIs for transparency and accountability
and the States to devolve; reorient the outlook of
lower bureaucracy to panchayats. The report also
prescribes collateral and institutional measures such
electronic tagging of funds, setting up of a National
Commission for Panchayat Raj, and strengthening
Gram Sabhas in PESA areas (Panchayats Extension
to Scheduled Areas) (tribal areas to which the
Panchayat system has been extended by law).
The report recommends the MGNREGA scheme
and BRGF (Backward Regions Grant Fund) model
that locate PRIs as central to implementation. While
the Committee advocates strong Gram Sabhas that
the panchayats are accountable to, the Bill on Land
Acquisition lends only consultative powers to the
Gram Sabhas. Even as Mr. Aiyar sees no inherent
conflict between intent and action, he does believe
there are vested interests. Also, most States have not
legislated on powers for the Gram Sabhas.
According to the report, effective devolution leads to
better outcomes, which in turn engenders political
will. It was lack of bureaucratic will and not political
will that has stalled effective devolution, says Mr.
Aiyar. The political class did not bear down on the
bureaucracy like it did with MGNREGA.
It is bureaucracy that will have to produce the
methodology of devolution.
----------x----------x----------x----------
17
Estimating Poverty Away from reality
(Economics The Frontline)
Yet again the Central government has mired itself in
controversy by releasing its latest poverty estimates
based on the consumption expenditure survey of
the NSSO (National Sample Survey Office) Survey
of 2011-12. The Planning Commissions poverty
line, using methodology suggested by the Tendulkar
Committee in 2010, is now apparently defined as
the spending of Rs. 27.20 per capita per day in rural
areas and Rs.33.40 in urban areas. Using these lines
yields a significant decline in poverty compared with
a decade earlier: the Planning Commission now
estimates that the aggregate incidence of poverty has
fallen from 37.2 per cent of the population in 2004-
05 to 29.8 per cent in 2009-10, to 22 per cent in 2011-
12 (25.7 per cent in rural areas and as low as 13.7 per
cent in urban India). The total number of poor people
is now estimated at just below 270 million, of which
around 216 million reside in rural India.
Of course, these poverty lines are appallingly low, and
so it is just as well that the media have finally woken
up to this fact in the past few years after decades
of relatively uncritical acceptance of the official
position. Not surprisingly, the release of these latest
estimates has created a public furore once again, as
yet another example of the relative insensitivity of the
government. The responses have ranged from anger
to disdainand certainly these numbers are hard to
justify in terms of any minimally civilised notion of
what the basic needs of a citizen could be.
The poverty line drawn up in the early 1970s was on
the basis of the consumption expenditure level of a
household in which per capita calorie consumption
was 2,400 kilocalories (kcal) in rural areas and
2,100 kcal in urban areas. Subsequently, the calorie
component was in effect dropped, as these lines were
simply revised upwards according to the movement
of the consumer price indices.
The Tendulkar Committee suggested an alternative
approach, which is rather opaque in that it really
did little more than extrapolate the urban line to
rural areas. The resulting lines were based on some
rough estimates of expenditure for buying food worth
1,700 calories and also a familys monthly spend on
education, health, electricity and transport.
It is seldom realised thatdespite the change in
definitionthe Tendulkar-style estimates give
slightly higher poverty lines (and, therefore, higher
incidence of poverty) than would have been generated
by the earlier method. This means that some of the
public outcry comes from those who had never really
looked at poverty lines earlier and are, therefore,
shocked to realise that they put the bar so low as to
rule out almost everyone but the absolutely destitute.
The crucial point is that these poverty lines are still
obviously far too low and make a cruel joke of the
actual living standards of the bulk of the population
that are thereby lifted out of poverty. This is why
the Central government had, in fact, promised
the Supreme Court of India that it would use a
multidimensional approach to the measurement of
poverty and would not use these lines to decide who
is poor. Yet another committee has been constituted,
this time headed by Dr. C. Rangarajan. However,
since the report of that committee is not expected for
another year or so, the government decided to use
the Tendulkar-based estimates to announce a huge
decline in poverty.
Let us for the moment leave aside the question of the
results of the NSSO survey or the prior question of
why the government decided to undertake another
large survey well before the usual quinquennium
(ostensibly on the grounds that the 2009-10 survey
was conducted in a drought year, although this had
also occurred in the past, such as in 1987-88). Let us
focus instead on the use of these particular poverty
lines, not for determining trends over time but for
deciding public allocations with respect to below
poverty line (BPL) households. So, the poverty line
itself is a matter for direct public concern because it
continues to drive the Central governments approach
to the delivery of a wide range of goods and public
services.
In other words, the representative of the Planning
Commission effectively lied to the Supreme Court
when he declared that these lines would not be used
to determine povertythey continue to be absolutely
decisive in determining Central allocations to States
for all major areas, including the current public food
distribution system. The government has, indeed,
conducted a socio-economic census in States to derive
what will supposedly be a multidimensional definition
of poverty. But this, too, has several problemsmost
significant of which is the likelihood (in fact, the
2. Economics
18
near certainty) that the Central government will not
accept State governments estimates of how many
poor households they have, and continue to use some
national measure.
In all of this brouhaha, it is surprising that some of
the more obvious solutions are not being suggested.
Why should the Government of India, in the second
decade of the 21st century, be stuck with definitions
of poverty that were developed nearly half a century
ago in very different economic circumstances? Why
does it not simply take a basket of the essential goods
and services that urban and rural residents require to
live in a minimally decent manner and estimate their
prices to derive the poverty line? This is the approach
followed in many other developing countries,
including those with much lower per capita incomes
than India.
Some officials respond that this method is too
cumbersome, and estimating prices of the required
basket would be tedious, complicated and not
sensitive to regional differences. Yet, these same
officials blithely accept estimates of Indias national
income based on the Purchasing Power Parity
(PPP) exchange rates of the World Bank, which are
themselves based on a nationally irrelevant global
basket of goods and very infrequent price surveys
(the last one was conducted in 2005). In any case, if
countries such as South Africa and even Rwanda can
engage in such an exercise, surely it is not too much
to expect the same in the would-be global economic
giant that is India.
Doing this would at least eliminate some of the
more obvious anomalies in the current poverty
lines. Consider, for example, the urban poverty line.
Most of the discussion has been about the price of
food, and there the grim hilarity of the numbers is
already evident. But in any case, life consists of more
than eating. There are all the other necessary daily
expenses that are a necessary part of existence. In
most cities and towns today, rents take up a huge part
of the income of the poor, yet the imputed rents are
estimated to be ridiculously low for most urban areas.
Daily life also requires some mobility, at the very
minimum to get to and from ones place of work. So
consider a casual worker living in a slum settlement
in South Delhi, say Ambedkar Nagar near Khanpur
Bus Depot. Suppose this labourer is able to find work
somewhere near the Old Secretariat, the seat of the
citys government. The cheapest public transport
available would cost a minimum of Rs.40 for a return
trip, while using the metro and linked feeder buses
would cost Rs.54. This is significantly higher than
the national urban poverty line of Rs.33.40, which is
supposed to cover the total of all daily expenses.
Presumably, even ruling party representatives and
government officials would recognise that the ability
to use public transport should be within the scope
of all citizens. Yet, according to present definitions,
anyone who can afford to use public transport is
automatically above the declared poverty line. Does
anyone really need to be told how stupid this is?
It is still not too late for the government to admit
to some past stupidities and move forward with a
more realistic (and more internationally consistent)
definition of poverty that would include all those
who do not have the means to ensure what is socially
accepted as a minimally decent life. But then, first of
all, the Marie Antoinettes in the government must be
firmly put in their place.
CS Synopsis Special Important Points
on Poverty
Data released by the Planning Commission on 22
July, 2013, suggested that poverty in India had
declined from 37.2 percent in 2004-05 to 21.9
percent by 2011-12.
A poverty line is identified in monetary units as
the level of income or consumption expenditure
required in order to avoid poverty.
The consumption expenditure in order to avoid
poverty is set at Rs 816 per person per month
in the rural areas and Rs 1,000 per person per
month in the urban areas. For a family of five
people, this amounts to Rs 4,080 per month in
rural areas and Rs 5000 per month in urban
areas. These numbers were set by the report
of the expert group to review methodology for
estimation of poverty. The report was released
in November 2009 It is better known as the
Tendulkar committee report). The committee
arrived at that numbers taking into account
the expenditure on food, clothing, footwear,
durables, education and health.
Interestingly, the Tendulkar committee poverty
line was an improvement on the earlier poverty
line which only took into account the expenditure
required to consume an identified number of
19
food calories. For rural India this number was
2,400 calories. For urban India this number was
at 2,100 calories. Anyone consuming less than
this was deemed to be poor.
The Tendulkar committee made the poverty line
multidimensional, by considering several other
expenditures other than just food.
An immediate impact of this was that the poverty
ratio for 2004-05, went up from 27.5 percent to
37.2 percent of the total population.
From that level, the poverty ratio has come down
to 21.9 percent in 2011-12. So prima facie this
sounds good.
The trouble crops up when Rs 816/Rs 1000 per
month is converted into expenditure per day.
Assuming 30 days in a month, this expenditure
comes to Rs 27.5 per day for the rural areas and
Rs 33.33 for urban areas. Hence, anyone whose
expenditure per day is less than these amounts is
categorised as poor.
Rs 27-33 per day expenditure as a cut off for
poverty is too low. But the argument is not as
simple as that. As we saw the current poverty line
is an improvement on the earlier line.
The simple solution it seems is to increase the
poverty line. But increasing the poverty line has
its own serious repercussions. Also, even if we
were to increase the poverty line, the percentage
of decline of in poverty will remain the same.
India has just reduced its number of poor from
407 million to 269 million, a fall of 138 million in
seven years between 2004-05 and 2011-12. This
is faster than Chinas poverty reduction rate at a
comparable stage of development, though for a
much shorter period. Instead of trying to make
these slightly nuanced points the
The Planning Commission was set up by a
Resolution of the Government of India in March
1950 in pursuance of declared objectives of
the Government to promote a rapid rise in the
standard of living of the people by efficient
exploitation of the resources of the country,
increasing production and offering opportunities
to all for employment in the service of the
community.
Meanwhile, there is another committee at
work with the brief to come up with a new
better poverty line. This line will be needed
to justify the massive food security scheme. If
only 21.9 percent of Indias population is poor,
then its difficult for the government to justify
distributing heavily subsidised rice and wheat to
nearly 67 percent of Indias population. So what
is needed is a new poverty line which shows that
67 percent of Indias population is actually poor.
The government found it difficult to say this
was good politics even if it was bad economics.
Instead, it appointed the Rangarajan Committee
to devise a higher poverty line.
----------x----------x----------x----------
NSEL - An exchange in a spot
(Economics The Hindu)
The NSELs mandate is to offer a national electronic
spot trading platform for commodities.
First, a brief look at NSEL and what it does. NSEL
is part of Financial Technologies (India) Ltd.,
(FTIL), which has also promoted Multi-Commodity
Exchange (MCX) and MCX- SX, a stock exchange.
FTIL and MCX are listed on the exchanges.
NSEL is the premier spot exchange for trading of
commodities with a 99 per cent share of the market
and deals in agri- commodities and metals. It has
817 members with over 56,000 trader work stations
across the country and in 2012-13 it turned over
Rs.2.95 lakh crore.
Spot contracts have to be settled within 11 days as per
provisions of the Forward Contracts Regulation Act
(FCRA), that is, delivery of the commodity and cash
settlement has to be completed within this period.
Agri-commodities were the dominant products
traded on the exchange accounting for three-fourths
of the daily turnover of around Rs.600 crore. NSEL,
which has warehouses in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh,
Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Bihar and Orissa,
counts organisations such as Food Corporation
of India, MMTC, Cotton Corporation of India and
NAFED among its members.
Though it was founded mainly to offer a national
spot market for commodities, the exchange secured
specific approval from the government in 2007 to
offer one-day forward contracts. The conditions
were that there would be no short- sales and that
all outstanding positions will be settled by delivery.
20
However, NSEL allowed forward contracts to be
rolled over under the excuse that the FCRA does
not prescribe a period for delivery. It also appears
to have turned a blind eye to short-sales by traders
speculating in the forward market.
Booming business
Spotting the opportunity, brokers and traders
started offering products tailored for their clients
with assured returns of 15 per cent and more for
speculating in commodities on NSEL. And with
equity markets listless, business started booming
with turnover zooming from Rs.2,182 crore at the end
of its first year of operations in 2009 to the present
level of close to Rs.2.95 lakh crore. Forward contracts
became the mainstay of its business with spot trading
being the poor sibling.
In February, 2012, the government, probably
noticing what was happening, brought the NSEL
under the purview of the commodities market
regulator, Forward Markets Commission (FMC). But
that changed little on the ground. The party was well
and truly on until the Ministry of Consumer Affairs
(MCA), which oversees commodities bourses, and the
FMC snatched the punch bowl away by asking NSEL
to stop launching new contracts until further orders.
The FMC also sought an undertaking that all existing
contracts will be settled on their due dates.
Bowing to the directives, NSEL told its members
that contracts have to be settled within 11 days and it
would be on a trade-to-trade basis, that is, payment
against delivery of the commodity. This lead to a fall
in trading volumes as traders, who were active in
forwards, lost interest in spot trading.
As traders failed to roll-over their contracts and
demanded settlement, the exchange ran into trouble
leading to its July 31 decision of a 15-day moratorium
on settlement of existing contracts. NSEL was also
forced to down its shutters by suspending trading in
order to counter speculation of a payments crisis.
Now, to the questions: First, how did the government
give permission for one-day forward contracts to
a spot exchange, especially when it was outside the
purview of the regulator, FMC? From 2007 and
till February, 2012, NSELs forward trading was
practically operating in a regulatory vacuum. Second,
how is it that the FMC failed to notice the raucous
party that was on at NSEL even if it was not under
its watch? Shouldnt the FMC have similarly reined in
NSEL before things came to this pass? Having let the
party go on, the government appears to have acted
clumsily by stopping the music suddenly. Instead
of asking NSEL to stop new contracts forthwith, the
MCA could have told the exchange to gradually wind
down all forward contracts which would have been
more orderly and not shocked the system.
A number of big broking houses, active in the stock
market, are said to also have exposures in NSEL. In
the worst case scenario, a payments crisis in NSEL
(though unlikely as of now) could thus spread to the
stock market too. This is quite apart from the losses
to investors caused by the precipitous fall in the stock
prices of Financial Technologies and MCX. An orderly
wind down would have contained the damage.
Finally, it is indeed shocking to note the extent of lax
regulation of a market institution with a daily business
of Rs.600 crore. It is clear that the FMC either did not
notice or chose to look the other way after the NSEL
was brought under its watch in February 2012. Either
which way, it has a lot to answer for.
CS Synopsis Special - Background on
SPOT Markets and Terminology
National Spot Exchange ( NSEL
) is a Commodities
exchange in India, and is a joint venture of Financial
Technologies (India) Ltd. (FTIL) and National
Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation
of India (NAFED). Its mission is to develop a
common Indian market by setting up a nation-wide
electronic spot market and providing state of art
trading, delivery, and settlement facilities in various
commodities.
A spot market
is a public financial market, in which
financial instruments or commodities are traded
for immediate delivery. It contrasts with a futures
market in which delivery is due at a later date.
A forward contract is a non-standardized contract
between two parties to buy or to sell an asset at a
specified future time at a price agreed upon today.
This is in contrast to a spot contract, which is an
agreement to buy or sell an asset today.
21
Short selling is the practice of selling securities
or other financial instruments that are not
currently owned, with the intention of subsequently
repurchasing them (covering) at a lower price. In
the event of an interim price decline, the short seller
will profit, since the cost of repurchase will be less
than the proceeds received upon the initial (short)
sale. Conversely, the short seller will incur a loss
in the event that the price of a shorted instrument
should rise prior to repurchase.
Forward Markets Commission (FMC) is the
chief regulator of forwards and futures markets in
India. It is headquartered in Mumbai and its work is
overseen by the Ministry of Finance.
----------x----------x----------x----------
Rising Current Account Deficit
Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said that the
government would further liberalise the foreign
direct investment policy in the coming days. Mr.
Chidambaram also said that some more steps were
in the offing to contain the widening current account
deficit (CAD). This year, I promise we will tackle
both (fiscal and revenue) deficits. The target for
fiscal deficit is 4.8 per cent of gross domestic product
(GDP). It is a red line, and it will not be breached
under any circumstances.
The other steps being considered by the government
to deal with the CAD include relaxing the external
commercial borrowing (ECB) norms, attracting
investments from sovereign wealth and pension
funds, and NRI deposits. Responding to questions on
the falling rupee, the Finance Minister said though
he did not have any fixed target in mind, he would
endeavour to check volatility and end speculative
trades in the domestic currency.
Import duty - He said the government was also
looking at raising import duty on non-essential
luxury items and promoting exports to contain CAD,
which had soared to a high of 4.8 per cent of the GDP
last fiscal. Finance Ministry officials were preparing
a list of non-essential goods with a view to limiting
their inward shipments. Electronic hardware can be
manufactured in states like Rajasthan and Kerala,
he said.
GDP Growth Rate - Mr. Chidambaram was
confident that the economy would record a growth
rate of 5.5 to 6 per cent in the current fiscal, up from
5 per cent a year ago.
Investor sentiment - Underlining the need to
revive investor sentiment, he said that the industry
must play its part. Industrial houses appear to
be confident when they decide to invest abroad.
The same confidence must be exhibited in order to
invest in India.The price of credit is indeed high,
but it is not so dauntingly high that it should hold
back investment, he said. He further said that even
without the additional measures, inflows would be
well above $80 billion, enough to comfortably finance
the CAD.
Gold imports - The government took some strong
measures to contain the import of gold. In June, it
was down to 31 million tonnes but went up to 45
million tonnes in July. However, gold import in June
and July in the current fiscal were less than what was
recorded in corresponding months last year. We
hope to contain gold imports at a level well below last
years total imports of 845 million tonnes, and save a
considerable amount of foreign exchange which will
have a positive impact on CAD, he added.
Asked if the government had any specific value of
rupee in mind, Mr. Chidambaram said: We do not
target any specific value of rupee, but we certainly
do not countenance speculative transactions on
the rupee, especially in the overseas market.
Therefore, in last two weeks, Reserve Bank of India
(RBI), in consultation with the government, had
taken a number of measures to stabilise the rupee.
We need to stabilise the rupee, and, going forward,
take steps to promote growth.
Acting on the bigger picture
A multi-pronged strategy to shore up the rupee was
widely expected and this is what Finance Minister P.
Chidambaram announced. Three sets of measures by
the RBI have given only limited respite with the rupee
falling relentlessly after a brief period of trading in a
22
narrow range of between 59 and 60 to the dollar. The
time has come to view the rapid rupee depreciation
in a larger perspective as a highly visible symptom
of a much deeper economic malaise represented by
the burgeoning current account deficit (CAD),
which, at over $90 billion, threatens macroeconomic
stability. Through its latest measures, the government
hopes to bring the CAD down to $70 billion, or
around 3.7 per cent of GDP, a level it considers to be
manageable at the present juncture. Towards that
end, the new package seeks to address supply-side
issues, curbing the import of gold, silver and a few
non-essential items as well as oil. Tariff walls for
gold and silver are being raised. The government
ambitiously expects to shave off $4 billion from the
gold import bill alone.
The other part of the strategy is to stimulate dollar
inflows by further liberalising external commercial
borrowings (ECBs), freeing interest rates on non-
resident Indian deposits, and directing a few public
sector finance companies to mop up dollars by
issuing quasi-sovereign bonds. The government
hopes to bring in $11 billion through these measures
but will the new strategy pay off? The near term
goal of calming the rupee might not be achieved but
what ought to be the real test is the governments
determination to get a handle on the CAD. There are
pitfalls to be sure. The governments neat estimates of
dollar accruals and savings might be embarrassingly
wrong. For instance, despite previous hikes in import
duties, gold imports have surged. Oil imports have
been inelastic and it is not clear how bulk consumers
will reduce their consumption. Further relaxations
in ECB norms will not be an unmixed blessing.
Hedging costs for the corporates have soared, and
non-hedging is extremely risky. It is hoped that the
proposal to issue quasi- sovereign bonds has been
duly deliberated upon. Their timing at this juncture
is apt to send wrong signals to overseas investors.
Forced into a corner, the government has at last
looked at the big picture. But that should not be an
occasion for espousing short-termism or untested
policies.
Costly fight for a stable rupee
Policy-makers must have valid reasons for going
all out to defend the rupee, but the time has come
to assess the impact of recent policy measures in
their totality. Does the end justify the means? The
collateral damage that some of these measures inflict
cannot be ignored for long.
Both the government and the Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) have said that a stable rupee is at the top
of their agenda. So far in this fiscal, the domestic
currency has lost 12 per cent. As much as the extent
of depreciation, it is the apparent inability of policy
to arrest the decline that is extremely worrying. Since
the middle of July, the RBI has been acting tough
pushing up the interest rates and draining liquidity to
check speculation on the rupee. Although backed by
administrative measures, it has had limited success.
While its commitment for a stable rupee is not in
doubt, the means at its disposal do not appear to be
sufficient.
The government, which was never a passive onlooker,
stepped in vigorously to attack the burgeoning
current account deficit (CAD). On August 12, the
Finance Minister promised to contain the CAD to
within $70 billion or 3.7 per cent of gross domestic
product (GDP) this year considerably lower than
the nearly 5 per cent at the end of fiscal 2013. To
achieve the steep reduction, a series of measures
were announced to boost dollar supply, on the one
hand, and to moderate its demand, on the other.
Import duty on gold, silver and platinum were raised
in a swift follow-up action. The government hopes to
bring about a reduction in the import bill of petroleum
products through demand compression (assuming
an unproven price elasticity), and by persuading bulk
consumers to moderate their demand. The savings
in the import bill will be substantial, $4 billion for
gold alone and another $1.5 billion for petroleum.
Dollar-boosting measures on the supply side include
easing of norms for external commercial borrowings
(ECBs), trade finance from abroad, and freeing of
interest rates on non-resident external accounts.
Select public sector finance companies have been
asked to raise quasi-sovereign bonds to the extent of
$4 billion. If the governments arithmetic holds good,
the CAD will be within $70 billion. It was RBIs turn
on Wednesday with a barrage of measures that strike
at the convertibility status of the Indian currency.
Capital outflows by individuals and companies have
been reined in. While current account transactions
have not been restricted, Indias march toward full
convertibility has received a setback.
The rupee battle, now being fought on several fronts,
has raised some pertinent issues for the broader
23
economy. Monetary action has raised interest rates
and lowered the financing windows for banks and is
seen to be anti-growth. The governments focus on
the current account deficit is welcome. But policy
reversals that are implicit in some of its high-profile
announcements do raise concerns. Take gold imports.
However high the tariff walls might be, it will not be
possible to reduce the demand for the metal within
India. Only, instead of legal imports, the trade will
shift underground with its attendant deleterious
consequences for the economy and even the society
at large as past experiences with gold control proved.
Relaxations in ECB norms and non-resident deposit
interest rates might be expedient now but because
they increase the levels of debt are not recommended
in the normal course. Besides, the new higher yielding
non-resident deposits might cannibalise existing
ones. Companies might borrow abroad but the new
loans will be on far onerous terms and might, in fact,
go towards ever- greening without adding anything
substantial to Indias forex kitty.
Finally, quasi-sovereign bonds are still an unknown
quantity. Do the public sector undertakings really
want them? Who will bear the exchange risk? What
are the other hidden costs? Moreover, the Finance
Ministers announcement to tap the dollar bond
market is ill-timed, and will not help in securing the
best terms for the borrower. Policy options are not
easy at this juncture. It would help if there is greater
transparency.
CS Synopsis Special What is CAD?
The current account is a section in a countrys balance
of payments (BOP) that records its current
transactions. The account is divided into four
sections: goods, services, income (such as salaries
and investment income) and unilateral transfers (for
example, workers remittances).
A current account deficit (CAD) occurs when more
money is being paid out than brought into a country.
A substantial current account deficit is not necessarily
a bad thing for certain countries. Developing counties
may run a current account deficit in the short term to
increase local productivity and exports in the future.
In order to try and boost its gross domestic
production (GDP) and future growth, a country may
go into debt, taking on liabilities to other countries. It
then becomes what is termed as a net debtor to the
world. However, a problematic deficit can result if a
government has not planned out a sound economic
policy and used its debts for consumption purposes,
not future growth.
----------x----------x----------x----------
Rupees Slide
With the RBI refusing to lower interest rates, foreign
investors have lost confidence in the government,
and speculation on the rupee has mounted
Till barely a month ago, industry was pleading with
the Reserve Bank of India to end the high interest
rate regime that has brought its growth to a standstill
and caused a wholesale flight of savings from the
share market into land and gold. So the most puzzling
feature of its reaction to the RBIs July 30 decision
to keep policy interest rates unchanged has been its
silence.
Dire threat
This curious reversal begins to make sense only
when seen against the backdrop of the dire threat the
Indian economy now faces. This is the imminence of
a foreign exchange crisis that can wreck the economy
in much the same way as the 1990-91 crisis almost
did. The parallels between 2013 and 1991 are striking.
At close to $400 billion, Indias foreign debt is a third
larger than its reserves. The short-term component
of the debt has risen sharply in the last two years.
Partly because of this, the servicing of the debt will
absorb a staggering 59 per cent $169 billion of
the countrys total reserves in the coming 12 months.
To this must be added a deficit in the current account
balance of payments that had risen alarmingly to $88
billion 4.8 per cent of the GDP in 2012-13. It
is no surprise, therefore, that hedge funds abroad
have begun to circle the Indian economy, sensing the
possibility of another kill.
A foreign exchange crisis now will be far more
damaging than the crisis of 1991. In 1990, when Iraqs
invasion of Kuwait triggered the crisis, industry
was growing at 12.8 per cent. What is more, Indian
companies had raised no capital abroad. So the
foreign exchange crisis did not threaten them directly
with insolvency. All they needed to resume growth
24
was a renewed supply of foreign exchange and the
freedom to grow. Today, industrys growth rate has
been below one per cent for 20 months. So it has little
of the resilience that it had in 1992.
But what is giving Indias entrepreneurs nightmares
is the foreign debt they have contracted since 2006-
07. The outstanding amount is now $140 billion and
the rupees fall is making this increasingly difficult to
service and repay. What is worse, all but a fraction of
the debt has been incurred by around 100 large Indian
firms that also account for close to 70 per cent of the
domestic credit extended by commercial banks. If a
rising debt service burden abroad forces them into
insolvency, it will create a domestic liquidity crisis
that will bring bank-lending to industry to a halt.
For the embattled firms, the only way out will be to
sell their prize assets. Since there will be many sellers
and few buyers, this sale will take place at bargain
basement prices and, as happened in Thailand and
Indonesia in 1998-99, foreign companies will cherry-
pick the best of them. Suzlons attempts to stave off
bankruptcy by selling three quarters of its Indian
assets, and Jet Airways agreement to sell Etihad
Airways a controlling share in the company are
therefore only harbingers of the flood that will follow.
This catastrophe can be averted only by reversing
the outflow of capital from the country. For that to
happen, foreign institutional investors have to start
believing once again that they can make money by
investing in the Indian economy. They will do so only
when share prices begin a sustained rise. For this
to happen, there must be a revival of demand and
investment in the economy. And this, in turn, will
only happen if the RBI brings interest rates sharply
down.
Had the RBI cut rates two years ago when the rupee
was at 44.15 to the dollar and foreign exchange
reserves were comfortably in excess of debt, FIIs
would not have needed much convincing. But today
the government needs to combine a cut in interest
rates with steps to bring down the current account
BoP deficit (CAD) sharply, and reduce the private
sectors exposure to debt. For only then will investors
feel reassured that the rise in imports that will
accompany a revival of demand and investment will
not tip India over into a balance of payments crisis.
Need for decisive action
The need of the hour, therefore, is coordinated and
decisive action on several fronts. But the governments
responses have been uncoordinated and almost
entirely reactive. Over six weeks, the government and
the RBI have quadrupled the customs duty on gold
and limited its imports to five times the export of
ornaments and jewellery; eased the entry of foreign
direct investment into 12 sectors and raised the
interest rate on bank borrowing from the Marginal
Standing Facility by two per cent.
But the RBI has refused to lower interest rates
and Delhi has remained a helpless spectator. It
is no surprise therefore that confidence in the
governments capacity to manage the economy has
seeped away and speculative pressures on the rupee
have mounted steadily.
In June, $9 billion of foreign capital left the equity
and debt markets. Since then, the pessimism abroad
about Indias future has deepened. One indicator of
how deep it runs is that on July 30, when the RBI
again did not lower the interest rates, commercial
banks borrowed Rs 26,500 crore $4.25 billion
from the Marginal Standing Facility at 10.25 per
cent to enable their depositors to buy dollars. As the
French bank, Credit Agricole, put it, the situation
in India is quickly turning into a vicious circle. [...]
Higher rates [...] lead to higher debt-servicing cost
and worsening fundamentals (such as slackening
demand and higher investment risk), which are the
root cause of the rupees weakness. Not surprisingly,
the rupee ended almost 3 per cent lower in a single
day.
Unsuccessful attempts
Delhis attempts to attract FDI have been equally
unsuccessful. On the very day that it eased FDI entry
in 12 sectors of industry, Posco, the Korean steel
giant, pulled out of its 6 million tonne steel plant
venture in India. Arcelor Mittal followed a day later.
Walmart has yet to invest a single dollar in the retail
sector.
India still has one shield against catastrophe the
rupees lack of full capital account convertibility. By
slowing down the fall of the rupee it is once more
buying the government time, as it did in 1997, to
turn the economy around. If the government acts
25
decisively now, it can do so with relative ease. India is
already well on the way to reducing the CAD, for the
import of gold has fallen from $7 billion in April and
8.4 billion in May to $2.45 billion in June and about
$4 billion in July. Since gold and jewellery exports
totalled $70 billion last year, the pegging of gold
imports to jewellery exports is likely to bring future
imports of gold from the current 800-1000 tonnes to
between 300 and 400 tonnes a year. This will cut the
import bill by $25 billion to 30 billion.
There has also been a seven per cent drop in the price
of oil and an 11 per cent drop in those of industrial
inputs since January. This should shave another $
15 billion off the import bill. Exports also seem set
to rise by about 10 per cent. India does not therefore
need to do much more to limit the CAD to 2.5 per cent
of the GDP.
Another measure that can ease the pressure on the
rupee is the closure of the automatic approval route
for external commercial borrowing, till stability is
restored. This will halve new borrowing and give the
RBI more room for manoeuvre.
But all of these will prove to be temporary palliatives if
the RBI does not lower interest rates, not two months
from now as it has half-promised but within days.
For till FIIs sense the possibility of making money
on rising share prices once again, the pressure on the
rupee will continue to grow until it overwhelms the
puny defences the government has set up.
----------x----------x----------x----------
Less corporate, more social - CSR
The Companies Bill (2012) shall replace a six
decade-old antiquated law after Presidential assent.
The Bill, which was passed in the Upper House was
earlier approved by the Lok Sabha in December
2012 and reflects a number of amendments to the
Companies Bill, 2011, based on the recommendations
of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on
Finance. It encompasses important areas for the
effective governance of companies including clauses
on mergers, audit and auditors, appointment
of company directors, aside from providing
for constitution of a National Company
Law Tribunal and a National Company Law
Appellate Tribunal to fast-track company law
cases and corporate structuring.
Perhaps, the most important new element introduced
in Clause 135 of the Bill is the notion of
mandatory Corporate Social Responsibility
(CSR) . Colloquially referred to as the 2 per cent
clause, it has the potential to transform the landscape
of CSR in India. Indian businesses have been loath to
go beyond the glorified worker towns syndrome or
providing employee services and benefits passed off
as social interventions. Indeed, Corporate India has
fared rather poorly when it comes to affirmative action
in employment, environmental responsibility and in
resource efficiency and revitalisation over the years.
Therefore, a scheme that potentially transfers profits
towards social causes, environmental management
and inclusive development could be the much needed
medicine for a nation with such deep socio- economic
cleavages. This provision in the new bill must be
welcomed and its efficient implementation must be
ensured.
It is important that Clause 135 is complemented
and supplemented with regulatory and institutional
mechanisms to ensure that it actually results in a new
paradigm of stakeholder responsibility and
does not become another scheme where a paternalistic
government is able to create another framework of
patronage that the politician-businessperson nexus
finds favourable for its dealings. This hypothesis
needs to be carefully examined, particularly in the
context of the upcoming general election, when
political masters are at once beholden to corporates
for election funding, and where constituency-level
CSR commitments could be politically useful.
However, beyond the profit for patronage issue,
there are some other aspects that must be discussed.
The new law will make it incumbent for companies
having a net worth of Rs.500 crore or more,
or a turnover of Rs.1,000 crore or more or a
net profit of Rs.5 crore or more, during any
financial year, to spend at least two per cent
of net profits towards CSR activities. While this
seems uncomplicated, the efficacy in implementation
may be in doubt for more than one reason.
The whole concept of CSR must, by its very definition,
be a product of the fundamental need to price services,
26
infrastructure and resources that societies provide
businesses located in their proximity. By mandating
a plain vanilla formula for allocation of two per cent
of net profits towards CSR, the law will create a
locational distortion, delinking CSR from community
responsibility. Businesses must be responsible
for proximate communities first, rather than
being able to choose the destination of this
commitment to society.
There is also a temporal distortion in the construct
of CSR as spelt out by the Bill. Paragraph 5 of Clause
135 states that two per cent of the average net profit
over three immediately preceding years must be
allocated for CSR activities. In the case of most large
companies of the sort that would be mandated to
allocate net profits, business operations would have
had a run-off effect on societies and would have fed
off communities for more than three years. Therefore,
must not the commitment to these communities and
geographies reflect the impact of these businesses
over their operation periods? And is there not a
case for ensuring sustained plough back by the
company in these geographies before diverting their
commitments elsewhere?
Implementation
Even as we begin to debate how best to address these
time-place distortions, it is certain that the CSR
mandate must be made more robust, ensuring that
at the very least it stands up to some simple tests of
reasonableness and fairness.
Counterpoint on mandating CSR
The new law stipulates that companies above
a certain size have to spend two per cent
of their average net profit of the last three
years on CSR. This is the first time that CSR has
been mandated by law in any country in the world
and that the government means business is evident
from the fact that the companys board has to
create a committee to oversee CSR activities
and the companys policy in this regard has
to be posted on its website. The board is also
answerable if it fails to spend the mandated sum on
CSR in a particular year.
The intent behind the provision is obviously noble
and meant to nudge companies to give back to society
a little of what they take from it. Yet, there are a few
dangers of mandating CSR on companies which are
basically profit-seeking enterprises answerable to
their shareholders.
There are companies and industry houses such as the
Tatas that are known to spend liberally on CSR but
on activities that are carefully chosen by them or their
trusts established specifically for this purpose. What
happens if the activities under the CSR rules to be
framed now do not fit into the existing programmes
which benefit society anyway? There is a danger here
that the best will turn an enemy of the good. Second,
there is genuine concern that companies will now
be open to arm-twisting by local politicians seeking
funds for activities that further their own interests.
What protection do companies have in such an event?
Third, to cut down on compliance costs, companies
may well opt to mark the required contribution to
the Prime Ministers National Relief Fund or similar
such schemes recognised by the Act as CSR spending.
Given that these contributions also offer tax- breaks,
the temptation will be tremendous indeed. In such
an event, the larger purpose of the provision will
obviously be defeated.
The rules governing the provision to be framed in
the next few months will, therefore, be crucial to
the success of this initiative. It is important that the
government involves industry associations such as
CII and FICCI in this matter.
CS Synopsis Special Background on
CSR
Corporate social responsibility (CSR), also called
corporate conscience, corporate citizenship is a
form of corporate self-regulation integrated into
a business model. CSR policy functions as a built-
in, self-regulating mechanism whereby a business
monitors and ensures its active compliance with the
spirit of the law, ethical standards, and international
norms. In some models, a firms implementation
of CSR goes beyond compliance and engages in
actions that appear to further some social good,
beyond the interests of the firm and that which is
required by law. CSR is a process with the aim to
embrace responsibility for the companys actions
and encourage a positive impact through its activities
on the environment, consumers, employees,
communities, and all other members of the public
sphere who may also be considered as stakeholders.
27
The term corporate social responsibility came
into common use in the late 1960s and early 1970s
after many multinational corporations formed
the term stakeholder, meaning those on whom an
organizations activities have an impact. It was used
to describe corporate owners beyond shareholders as
a result of an influential book by R. Edward Freeman,
Strategic management: a stakeholder approach in
1984.
Proponents argue that corporations make more long
term profits by operating with a perspective, while
critics argue that CSR distracts from the economic
role of businesses. Some argue that CSR is merely
window-dressing, or an attempt to pre-empt the
role of governments as a watchdog over powerful
multinational corporations.
CSR is titled to aid an organizations mission as well
as a guide to what the company stands for and will
uphold to its consumers. ISO 26000 is the recognized
international standard for CSR. Public sector
organizations (the United Nations for example)
adhere to the triple bottom line (TBL - People, Planet
and Profit). It is widely accepted that CSR adheres to
similar principles but with no formal act of legislation.
The UN has developed the Principles for Responsible
Investment as guidelines for investing entities.
----------x----------x----------x----------
28
Farm Mechanization
(National/Social Kurukshetra)
Agriculture is the single largest private sector
occupation and plays a pivotal role in the overall
s0cio-economic fabric of India. In 2009-10,
agriculture and its allied sectors accounted for 15.7%
of the Indias gross domestic product (GDP). During
the 60 years of Planning between 1950-51 and 2009-
10, the contribution of agriculture (primary sector) in
GDP has fallen sharply by more than two third from
55% to 15%.
On the other hand, the share of industry (secondary
sector) and services (tertiary sector) in output has
increased dramatically within the last 20 years,
resulting in their rising share in GDP. As the Indian
economy modernizes, secondary and tertiary sectors
have gained importance, and are generally associated
with higher productivity as compared to the primary
sector. This indeed is a welcome change.
On the other side of the growth story, there has to
be a structural shift in the pattern of employment,
both quantitative and qualitative, signifying better
work conditions. It indicates the shift of workforce
from primary sector to secondary and tertiary
sectors. In India, the structural shift in the pattern of
employment is happening but, at lower rate. During
the last 60 year planning period, the share of work
force in agriculture sector has fallen from 72% to
52% only. India is the second fastest growing large
economy after China in the world. To keep this
growth sustainable and viable shift in the pattern
of employment is essential so that the benefits of
economic growth will trickle to the bottom of the
social pyramid.
In this direction the Government of India came with
inclusive growth as focus of the 12
th
five year plan.
Other indication in this direction like, the share of
agriculture in total employment has fallen from 57
per cent in 2005 to 52 per cent in 2010, which has
been accompanied by an absolute shift in workers
from agriculture of 15 million to industrial and
services sectors. Most worrying fact of the structural
shift in employment is that most of the times it is
happening desperately. Workforce is moving away
from agriculture not because it became skilled or
semiskilled but in search of better alternatives
of livelihood for themselves and for their future
generations in urban centres and to be away from less
profitable agriculture. Agricultural farms are known
for difficult times, hard work, and little pay in the end.
Male migration out of rural areas has increased and
continues to increase feminization of agriculture.
As there was no corresponding increase in product
prices as that of factor costs especially costs of labour,
fertilizer and other inputs, even large farmers are
fetching less which has led to their migration to urban
centres for profitable alternatives. These conditions
led to low investment on farming, absentee farming
and cultivation of such crops which are less labour
intensive and require less investment.
This necessitates the mechanization of Indian
agriculture as the need of the hour. Farm
mechanization helps in increasing agricultural
production and productivity by achieving timeliness
in agricultural operations, bringing precision
and perfection in placement of inputs, increasing
utilization efficiency of costly inputs viz., seed
pesticide, fertilizer, irrigation etc. Timeliness of
operations in agriculture is more important as it
gives optimum yields, quality of produce, protects
from vagaries of climate etc. Timeliness of operations
can be brought by mechanization. It also helps in
increasing cropping intensity. Farm mechanization is
essentially a judicious mix of resources, implements,
machines, and power sources. Higher productivity
of land is also another factor, which clearly justifies
farm mechanization. Besides these, it also helps in
reducing cost of production and there by fetching
profitability, and bring competitiveness in the cost
of operation. In addition, mechanization of farm
operations has many other advantages.
Earlier, popular myth was that mechanization creates
unemployment. However with time and development
this notion has been proved wrong and subsequently
observed that, agricultural mechanization besides
increasing production and productivity also
generates income and employment opportunities.
Mechanization creates skilled and semi-skilled jobs
in manufacturing, repair and service shops and the
sale services. Mechanization of farming operation is
the only way of reducing drudgery. This will relieve
farm women and children particularly from the
tedious and labour intensive work of many farming
operations. This finally calls for greater engineering
inputs, which will require development and/or
introduction of high capacity precision reliable and
energy efficient equipment.
3. National/Social
29
Mechanization of harvesting can also potentially
reduce human contact with food and thus reduce
contamination possibilities. Mechanization in Indian
agriculture is the need of the time but the way it has
to be adopted or promoted is the biggest challenge
due to vast majority of small and/or marginal and
uneconomical farms. Process of mechanization
should able to address sensitivity of farm women also.
To address this, promoting cooperative management
of farm machinery, providing extension services to
advise the suitability of various makes, models and
equipment power for different size of operational
holdings, devising smaller machinery suitable for
small farms which constitute the vast majority of
farmers but the machinery has to be effective and
less costly. The farm machinery suitable for different
types of soil and operations for important crops
should be developed.
----------x----------x----------x----------
Government Initiatives to Empower
Women
(National/Social Kurukshetra)
Empowerment as a process that aims at creating the
conditions for the self-determination of a particular
people or group.

Empowerment with women is the central issue that
has been pervading the development debate after the
80s. Improving their status and empowering them
would go a long way in accomplishing egalitarian
gender relations in society. Women who are hitherto
constrained by their social structure for their self-
expression constitute the target of most of the
development programmes, which aim at bringing
them into the mainstream of the development.

Constitutional Guarantee: The Constitution of
India guarantees to all women equality [Article14];
no discrimination by the State [Article 15 (1)];
equality of opportunity [Article 16] ; equal pay of
equal work [Article 39 (d)]; renounce practices
derogatory to the dignity of women [Article 51 (a)
(c]. The Constitution also allows the State to make
special provision in favor of women and children
[Article 15 (3)]; and securing just and humane
conditions of work and maternity relief [Article 42].
Acknowledging the world-wide significance of
women empowerment the Government of India
declared 2001 as the Year of Womens
Empowerment and the National Policy for
the Empowerment of Women came into force
from 2001.
Women Empowerment Indicators: Draft
Country paper of India for the 4the World Conference
on women held in Beijing in 1995 proposed
certain qualitative and quantitative indicators for
evaluating womens empowerment. The qualitative
aspects included self-esteem and self-confidence,
articulation, leisure time, workloads, roles and
responsibilities, domestic violence, women economic
contribution and decision making. Quantitative
aspects included demographic trends, number of
women in participation, access and control over
resources, physical health status, literacy levels and
political participation at the local level.
Government Programmes for Women
Empowerment: The government of India has
been implementing various programmes through
its different departments to bring about womens
development and their empowerment. For lack of
an overarching policy that would have provided
a common understanding and a unified vision,
each department has defined and operationalized
empowerment through its own prism and from its
own perspective and understanding.
In the case of some departments, the stated goal is
not to bring about womens empowerment, but the
emphasis is on bringing about their overall efficiency
and economic development. For example [i] Social
Welfare Board aims at bringing about womens
development and empowerment through partnership
with NGOs [ii] Department of Rural Development
focuses on economic self- reliance as an indicator of
womens development [iii] Agriculture Department
endeavors to make women better agricultural
workers by increasing their understanding about
the use of technology in agriculture [iv] Horticulture
Department aims at providing training to women
for vegetable and fruit production, preservation and
link them to the market so that they can become
economically self-reliant [v] Dairy Department,
in the name of Womens Dairy, has started a new
scheme whereby women are given training in animal
care, a traditional occupation followed by them
and are encouraged to set up their own dairy and
thereby become economically self-reliant [vi] Social
Welfare Department offers various scholarships and
pension schemes and thereby provides economic
support to certain vulnerable groups to bring about
their upliftment [vii] Education Department, in
order to bring about gender equality, has initiated
special programs for girls whereby they can be
30
mainstreamed with the existing programs [viii] Adult
Education program of the Education Department
considers womens literacy as the first step towards
their empowerment and is pursuing the Continuing
Education program through the self-help group
(SHGs) in order to bring about their economic
self-reliance [ix] The Department of Womens
Empowerment and Child Development is running
various schemes and programs for the empowerment
of women by setting up self-help group (SHGs) with
the help of NGOs.
Welfare Schemes for Women and Girls:
Most of the schemes currently implemented by the
Department of Womens Empowerment and Child
Development and those by the State Social Welfare
Board and Department of Health fall in following
category:
Department of Women Empowerment and
Child Development implements programs viz.
[i]The Integrated Child Development Services
(ICDS) program: This is a flagship program of the
department. While providing Anganwadi (crche)
services and health and nutritional supplements to
infants, ICDS also provides pre and post-natal care
for pregnant and lactating mothers. The anganwadi
workers have to dispense iron tablets and iodine-
fortified salt to pregnant and lactating mothers. The
pregnant and lactating mothers also have to receive
dry rations from the anganwadi workers.
[ii] Kishori Balika Yojana (Scheme for the
adolescent girls): As part of the ICDS program, a
special scheme for the adolescent girls was initiated
from 2001 onwards, with assistance from the
Government of India as well as from the World Bank.
The Scheme is intended for adolescent girls in the 11-
18 age group who belong to the BPL (below poverty
line) households. The scheme intends to provide
training to these girls in order to bring about their
overall development. The areas in which training
would be provided include information about how to
take care of their bodies, the meaning of a balanced
diet, importance of family welfare, besides providing
them interpersonal skills and making them self-
confident and training them in vocational skills
so that they can become independent. The ICDS
program is run by the Department itself.
The other programs of the Department include:
[a] Old Age Pension Scheme: This scheme is
applicable to both men and women and is meant for
both urban as well as rural areas and providers Rs.
400 per month to those who are above 60 years of age
[b] Pension scheme for widows/homeless/
aged/disabled: The scheme is applicable only in
rural areas and is implemented by the district Social
Welfare Officer on the basis of the recommendation
received from the Pradhan of the Gram Panchayat
as well as the Minister, Panchayats, and forwarded
through the Block office.
[c] Financial assistance to destitute widows:
Destitute widows are entitled to receive a sum of Rs.
400 per month. This is a scheme for rural areas and is
being implemented by the Gram Panchayats
[d] Financial assistance for re-marriage of
widows: A sum of Rs. 11,000 is provided for the re-
marriage of a widow below the age of 35 years
[e] Grant to female student who has passed
intermediate from BPL (below poverty line)
family to enable her to pursue her studies:

A onetime grant of Rs. 25,000 is being given since
2006-07 to a female student to enable her to complete
her graduation.
Social Welfare Board set up in 2003 received
funding from the Central Government to run its
schemes. The state government has the responsibility
for the day-to-day functioning of the Board. All the
schemes of the Board are implemented through the
NGOs. These schemes include:
[i] Hostels for working womens
[ii] Womens Helpline Family Counseling Centres
[iii] Campaign against female foeticide
[iv] Vocational training programs
[v] Crches
[vi] Condensed courses for women
[vii] Short-stay homes for women.

Department of Health: In order to reduce the
maternal and infant mortality rates, there is a scheme
for the safe delivery of pregnant mothers as well as
care of their infants The schemes is applicable to
women who belong to the BPL households and
who are taken to the government health centre or
hospital for their delivery. A pregnant woman can
be accompanied by an ASHA (health) worker or by
the local dai (midwife) and an allowance is paid
to this person. In case a pregnant women delivers
her baby in hospital in the rural area, she is paid an
amount Rs. 1400/ and Rs. 1000 if she is taken to a
hospital in the urban areas. The pregnant woman is
also provided the tetanus injection and newly born
infant is provided vaccinations against six dangerous
diseases at periodic intervals.
31

Department of Education; [Empowerment
and Gender Equity Schemes]:
Under the Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan, Department of Education has
initiated schemes to reduce the gender gap in the
education of children, viz
[i] Early Child Care Education Centres: These
Centres are set up to ensure better enrolment and
retention of girls in the primary schools. Since the
girl-child has the responsibility to look after the
young siblings and is therefore deprived of school
education an ECCE Centre attached to the school
would ensure that girls would come to school. It is
intended that if school-going girls have access to such
centres, they would get enrolled in schools, and would
be retained in schools. The scheme also envisages
provision of good quality education to such girls. At
the ECCE centers, the physical and psychological
growth and development of all children in the 3-6
age group, is provided for. The education department
at the district level has the responsibility for Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan and Department of Social Welfare
(through the Integrated Child Development Services
Programme) have the responsibility for running the
ECCE Centers.
[ii] National Programme on Education for
Girls at Elementary Level (NPEGEL): Since
education is a concurrent subject, this national
program is also being implemented at the state level
in some select districts and blocks since 2003. It is
intended to increase the enrolment rates of girls
belonging to SC/ST communities at the elementary
stage. The scheme intends to focus attention on the
educationally deprived sections and to encourage the
enrolment, retention and quality education of the
girls belonging to the SC/ST communities. It offers
materials incentives such as stationery and introduces
additional incentives like awards, remedial teaching
and bridge courses as well as development of a model
upper primary school in each cluster.
[iii] Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya
(KGBV): The scheme is being implemented in
educationally backward blocks with a wider gender
gap. The scheme is intended for girls belonging to
the scheduled castes (SCs), scheduled tribes (STs),
other backward classes (OBCs) religious minorities
and below poverty line (BPL) households. Funded
by the Government of India, under the Sarva
Shikhsa Abhiyan, the basic idea behind the scheme
is to give a second chance for mainstreaming rural
girls belonging to deprived social backgrounds
who could not study up to or beyond class V. The
second opportunity consists of the facility to stay in a
hostel while studying for the upper primary stage of
elementary education namely classes VI to VIII. They
are set up in areas where there are a minimum of 50
school going girls who are school drop-outs. As all the
girls are primary school drop-outs, they are above 10
years of age and are mostly in their teens.
[iv] Innovative scheme for the adolescent
girls: In order to create and sustain the interest of
girls in education, they are trained to produce items
that can be used in their daily lives. They are also
offered components of empowerment strategies
such as personal development, confidence building
abilities, and life-skills oriented education.
[v] Mahila Samakhya (Education for womens
Equality): The basic objectives of Mahila Samakhya
are:
[a] As a gender-based program, to create an ambience
in the society for tolerance and mutual respect for
women
[b] To ensure that education becomes accessible to
the socially and economically marginalized women
and girls
[c] To encourage and promote a gender- based
discourse in society
[d] To enhance the self-image and self-confidence of
women and enable them to critically analyze their role
as individual women and as members of society so
that they can begin to challenge that role collectively
and initiate a process of social change
[e] To collectively participate in decision
making and seek equal rights and
opportunities for a more egalitarian society
[f] To enhance participation of women and
girls in formal and non-formal education
programs.
Education Department of the Ministry of Human
Resource Development, Government of India,
launched Mahila Samakhya as a major program
for bringing about womens development as well
as empowerment in 1989 on a pilot bases in 6
states of India, with funding from the Netherlands
Government.
Department of Horticulture: The Horticulture
Department has a special scheme for training women
in fruit preservation, viz. pickles, jams, chutneys, fruit
juices, etc. The aim is to give fillip to local production
and to ensure that women become economically self-
reliant.
Dairy Department: Women dairy development
32
scheme originated in1994-95 and its main aim was
to bring about rural womens economic and social
development as well as ensure that they assume
leadership positions. The scheme envisages 100 per
cent participation of women and ensures that the
womens milk cooperative would be run and managed
entirely by the women themselves. For the Womens
Dairy Development scheme, women are formed into
groups at the village level by the department. A milk
collection centre is then opened at the village level and
it is the responsibility of the womens group to ensure
that the milk that collected at the centre is then sent
to the dairying plant. The department arranges for
the technical training of the womens group.

Emerging Trends: A synoptic overview of what is
happening with regard to womens empowerment
programs in India is briefly presented here. Some
of the emerging trends are [i] Percolation of the
discourse of empowerment to the ground
level: There are two district strands in the womens
programs in India. These are welfare programs and
gender equity and womens empowerment programs.
As the term empowerment is widely used it has led
to its dilution. But on the other hand, it has raised
awareness levels among women on various issues
such as their legal rights, their entitlements under
the different government schemes, about how they
can better their social and economic conditions and
so on.
[ii] SHGs form the mainstay of womens
empowerment programs: SHGs have grown
phenomenally in recent years in the country.
Womens collectives as forums of womens
empowerment have not been a new phenomenon
in the country. Thus, Mahila Mandals as part of
community development initiatives dates back to
the 1950s, however, it was NGOs such as S E WA
(Self Employed Womens Association) and the
WWF (Working Womens Forum) that gave fillip to
formation of womens collectives by linking them to
credit. Experience of SEWA and of WWF showed that
women were not defaulters with regard to repayment
of credit. The collective ensured that there was peer
pressure on women to repay loans and the resulting
high repayment rates meant that lenders were willing
to forego collateral.
[iii] Is Empowerment a top-down or a bottom-
up process? As mentioned in the theoretical debate
on empowerment, empowerment is itself a form of
power. In feminist literature, power, is disaggregated
into power-over (domination), power to
(capacity), power within (inner strength), and
power with (achieved through cooperation and
alliance). In feminist use of empowerment, the
emphasis is clearly on power to and power with and
not on power over. If conceived thus, empowerment
has to be a bottom up rather than a top-down process.
If women are considered powerless, then the idea of
empowering women can imply a top-down approach.
On the other hand, if it is argued that despite
patriarchal considerations, women have power, then
empowerment would be perceived as a bottom up
process. A question that needs to be asked about the
NGOs that are involved in the womens empowerment
programs is whether empowerment is perceived as
capacity building to cope with the requirements of
life as opposed to capacity building to transform the
conditions of life and assert alternative gender roles.
Since NGOs received funding from government and
have already indicated the compromises they are
required to make to ensure continuity of funding.
It appears highly likely that a majority of them are
engaged in capacity building in order to promote
status-quo and not address social justice and equity
issues.
[iv] Empowerment of individual women to
improve their efficiency and productivity
rather than organizing and building a
movement for womens equality:
There was
a tendency to focus on the efficiency dimension of
empowerment of individual women. Thus women
had to become aware, self-confident, independent,
and capable of taking decisions. While these are
important dimensions of empowerment, the
transformative potential of empowerment that could
be brought about through womens organizations
was not part of the consciousness of a large number
of NGOs.
[v] Are SHGs really reaching the poor women?
Since a majority of NGOs indicated that they worked
with a mixed group of women belonging to different
socio-economic background and varied caste groups,
a question can be raised whether SHGs are really
inclusive of poor women. One of the realities of
micro-credit phenomenon that has been established
by studies is that it fails to include in its fold the very
poor. While the poor are the target, in order to ensure
economic sustainability of the program, whoever can
pay becomes part of the program. In other words,
realities of micro-credit demand a certain capacity
to pay and to save, thereby creating exclusions right
33
from the groups inception.
[vii] Use of technology in womens training
programs: As this is an ICT era, thus various
information tools such as community radio,
community television, community newspaper should
be used to empower the rural women.
Necessary Dimensions for attention to
Facilitate Meaningful Women Empowerment:
Dimensions to facilitate women empowerment
include
[i] Economic empowerment: The fact is that
women though largely absent from the formal
workplace and hence from official labor statistic
are nevertheless heavily engaged in subsistence
agricultural and informal sector of economy.
Womens economic right is definitely an important
indicator for enhancement of their status. So, women
labor needs to be recognized. Education, more
employment avenues, political awareness etc. would
all lead to womens economic emancipation.
[ii] Social empowerment: A major limitation to
the advancement of women is the intuitional set of
social prescriptions that limit their input in decision
making efforts to increase the potential for womens
social participation extend down to the level of the
household.
[iii] Physical Empowerment: Most women in
the third world countries work very long hours at
numerous tedious tasks as well as take care of their
children and homes. Until we recognized the physical
hardships endured by women from meeting their
productive and reproductive responsibilities and
make concerted efforts to improve up their health
status, other advancements will have limited impact
for them. Physical empowerment is dependent upon
each of the other dimensions as all have contributory
effects.
[iv] Psychological Empowerment: It is a
common occurrence for women in third World
Countries to belittle their own position in the society
and their contribution to the economy. When asked of
their occupation the majority of rural women will say
they have none, despite the fact that they may engage
in three or more income generating and productive
activities to help meet the needs of their families due
to cultural view of the low position of women in many
societies the women themselves often have a negative
view of their potential and importance.
Full potential of benefits envisaged under various
Government programs meant for women socio-
economic welfare and empowerment can be harnessed
if areas of serious concern are timely attended, viz.
[i] Education: Studies confirm that female literacy
has a significant influence in improving social and
economic status of women. The female literacy rate
is woefully lower than that male. Compared to boys,
far fewer girls are enrolled in schools and many of
them are drop out. According to the National Sample
Survey data of 2011, only Kerala and Mizoram have
approached universal female literacy rate. According
to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the chief
barriers to female education in India are inadequate
school and sanitary facilities, shortage of female
teachers and gender bias in curriculum.
[ii] Work participation: Though the country has
large percentage of women workers, contribution as
workers women in the paid work force than those
of men. In rural areas, agriculture and allied sector
employed as many as 89.5 per cent of total female
labor. Womens average contribution, in overall
farm output, is estimated at 55 per cent to 66 per
cent of the total labor. According to 1991 World Bank
report, women accounted for 94 per cent of total
employment in dairy sector. Women contributed 51
per cent of total employment in forest-based small-
scale enterprises.
[iii] Female-headed Households: According
to 2010-11 year data, while only 12 per cent of
households in India were female-headed, about 88
per cent of the households below poverty line were
female-headed.
[iv] Land and property Rights: In most Indian
families, women do not own any property in their own
names and do not get a share of parental property.
Some of the laws discriminate against women,
when it comes to land and property rights. Married
daughters, when faced with marital harassment, have
no residential rights in the ancestral home.
----------x----------x----------x----------
National Food Security Ordinance
(National/Social The Hindu)
The National Food Security Bill, now an ordinance,
has been a target of sustained attacks in the business
media in recent weeks. There is nothing wrong, of
course, in being critical of the bill, or even opposed
to it. Indeed, the bill has many flaws. What is a little
34
troubling, however, is the shrill and ill-informed
nature of many of these attacks. The fact that the food
bill could bring some relief in the lives of millions of
people who live in conditions of terrifying insecurity
seems to count for very little.
Findings - Meanwhile, recent studies shed some
useful light on the state of Indias Public Distribution
System (PDS) one of the controversial foundations
of the bill. As far as the below poverty line (BPL)
quota is concerned, there is a clear trend of steady
improvement in many States, including some that
had a very poor PDS not so long ago. A recent study of
the PDS in Koraput, one of Odishas poorest districts,
found that almost all BPL households were receiving
their full monthly quota of 25 kg of rice at the stipulated
price. Similar findings emerged from a survey of the
PDS in two districts of Uttar Pradesh (Lakhimpur
Kheri and Chitrakoot), where most BPL households
were getting their due 35 kg of rice or wheat per
month. The main problem was the restrictive nature
of the BPL list, which left many households excluded.
These surveys confirm earlier findings of a study by
the Indian Institute of Technology in 2011 that BPL
households in nine sample States received 84 per
cent of their PDS entitlements.
It is in the above poverty line (APL) quota that
embezzlement continues in many States. In Uttar
Pradesh (U.P.), APL households are supposed to
get 10 kg of wheat per month, but most of the APL
quota goes straight to the black market. Recent
investigations suggest that leakages in the APL quota
are also very high in Bihar, Jharkhand, and Madhya
Pradesh, among other prime offenders.
The main reason for this vulnerability is that the
APL quota is treated as a dumping ground for
excess foodgrain stocks. In recent years, foodgrain
procurement has increased by leaps and bounds, but
distribution under the BPL andAntyodaya quotas
has remained much the same, since allocations
are fixed and lifting is close to 100 per cent. To
moderate the accumulation of excess stocks, the
Central government has been pushing larger and
larger amounts of foodgrain into the APL quota,
which is now almost as large as the BPL quota (close
to 20 million tonnes of foodgrains in 2012-13). One
consequence of this dumping is that the entitlements
of APL households are, by nature, unclear and
unstable; in fact, they are not entitlements but a d
hoc handouts. This gives middlemen a field day, since
APL households are often confused as to what they
are supposed to get, or whether and when their quota
has arrived. The current situation in U.P., where most
of the APL quota goes straight to the black market
without anyone raising the alarm, is just an extreme
example of this situation.
Rectifies PDS defects - The food bill is an
opportunity to clean up this mess, and to cure two
basic defects of the PDS: large exclusion errors,
and the leaky nature of the APL quota. In effect,
the bill abolishes the APL quota and gives common
entitlements to a majority of the population: 75 per
cent in rural areas and 50 per cent in urban areas.
These are national coverage ratios, to be adjusted
State-wise so that the coverage is higher in the
poorer States. In this new framework, peoples
entitlements will be much clearer, and there will be
greater pressure on the system to work. Indeed, wide
coverage and clear entitlements are two pillars of the
fairly effective PDS reforms that have been carried
out in many States in recent years (other aspects
of these reforms include de-privatisation of ration
shops, computerisation of records and transparency
measures). Seen in this light, the bill can be a good
move not only for food security, but also from the
point of view of ending a massive waste of public
resources under the APL quota.
Cash transfers - The main goal of the PDS is to
bring some security in peoples lives, starting with
protection from hunger but going well beyond that.
A well-functioning PDS liberates people from the
constant fear that it might be difficult to make ends
meet if crop fails, or if someone falls ill, or if there
is no work. The value of this arrangement has been
well demonstrated in many States Tamil Nadu,
Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Rajasthan, among others.
Whether a system of cash transfers could serve the
same purpose at lower cost, and how long it would
take to put in place, are issues that need further
scrutiny and debate. Meanwhile, the PDS is in place,
there is a ration shop in every village, and huge food
stocks keep piling up. It seems sensible to use these
resources without delay. In any case, the food bill does
not preclude a cautious transition to cash transfers if
and when they prove more effective than the PDS.
Three problems - Having said this, there are many
reasons for concern over the impact of the bill. Three
related problems look increasingly serious. First, there
35
is a danger of over-centralisation of the PDS under
the bill, at a time when many State governments are
making good progress with reforming the PDS on their
own. To illustrate, the bill seeks to impose a system of
per-capita entitlements (e.g. 5 kg of foodgrains per
person per month) across the country, as opposed to
household entitlements (e.g. 25 kg per household).
Per capita entitlements are certainly more equitable
and logical than household entitlements. But the
transition from the latter to the former is not a simple
matter, and could be very disruptive if it is imposed
overnight from the top. Just think about how an old
widow in Rajasthan, who lives alone and survives on
her monthly quota of 25 kg of PDS rice, would feel on
being told that her entitlement is being slashed to 5
kg per month.
Political tool -
The second danger is excessive haste.
As the country gears up for a string of elections, the
Central government and some State governments
are keen to fast track the roll-out of the bill for
electoral purposes. A sense of urgency is certainly
appropriate as far as food security is concerned,
but undue haste could be very counterproductive.
For instance, some State governments apparently
propose to use the BPL Census of 2002 to identify
eligible households, instead of the more recent and
reliable Socio-Economic and Caste Census just to
speed things up. This is a disastrous idea. A better
way of fast tracking the roll-out of the bill would be to
universalise the PDS in the countrys poorest districts
or blocks.
It remains to be seen whether the monsoon session
of Parliament will provide an opportunity to repair
this damage, and also to consider the much-needed
amendments to the bill. The silver lining is that
food security has finally become a lively focus of
democratic politics in India. Whatever happens to
the bill, State governments are under great pressure
to reform their PDS and make it work for people
rather than for corrupt middlemen and their political
masters. This was long overdue.
----------x----------x----------x----------
The juicy Nagpur orange, the famous tribal Warli
art, Dharmavaram saris and Keralas Kaipad
rice have been cleared for inclusion in Geographical
Indications (GI) registry in the country. The logo for
Leather Toys of Indore (already a GI product) was
also approved. These products were approved at a
consultative expert meeting organised by Controller
General of Patents at Hyderabad. They will be
notified after providing four months for the public to
file its objections.
The Warli tribal art, representing the folklore of
the Warli tribe, is mostly practised by women and
has become popular among the art connoisseurs
in recent times. The famous saris coming from
Dharmavaram, a weaving cluster in Ananthpur of
Andhra Pradesh, have been described by the Andhra
Pradesh Weavers Cooperative Society Ltd. as saris
with broad solid colour borders with contrastpallus
woven with brocaded gold patterns. Kaipad rice is
the system of paddy cultivation in brackish water.
Hyderabad Biryani again has to wait The wait
for the famous Hyderabad Biryani to get the GI tag
continues as the application was kept pending for
want of documents. The Connoisseurs of Deccani
Biryani Maker Association, the applicant for the GI
tag, was not able to produce historical records such as
gazette or writings in the recent meeting.
CS Synopsis Special Background
Warlis or Varlis are an indigenous tribe or Adivasis,
living in Mountainous as well as coastal areas of
Maharashtra-Gujarat border and surrounding areas.
Geographical Indications of Goods are defined as
that aspect of industrial property which refer to the
geographical indication referring to a country or to a
place situated therein as being the country or place of
origin of that product. Typically, such a nam conveys
an assurance of quality and distinctiveness
which is essentially attributable to the fact of
its origin in that defined geographical locality,
region or country. Under Articles 1 (2) and 10 of
the Paris Convention for the Protection of
Industrial Property , geographical indications are
covered as an element of IPRs. They are also covered
under Articles 22 to 24 of the Trade Related Aspects
of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement
Geographical Indications (GI) Tag
36
,
which was part of the Agreements concluding the
Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations. India, as a
member of the World Trade Organization (WTO),
enacted the Geographical Indications of Goods
(Registration & Protection)Act, 1999
which
has come into force with effect from 15th September
2003.
----------x----------x----------x----------
Great power and greater responsi-
bility
Last Saturday, a biker lost his life when the police
opened fire to tame an unruly group of stunt
motorcyclists near India Gate in New Delhi. The
bikers death is the tragic denouement in a rather
recent phenomenon of rowdy bikers proclaiming a
part of the city as their zone and having a good time
on their own terms, and, in the process, cocking a
snook at the policeman, armed with the simple lathi.
Fellow motorists and other users of public spaces have
found themselves at the receiving end of these bikers
boisterous energy. As week after week the bikers
insisted on celebrating their peculiar entitlement to
thrill and danger, the public mocked the policemen
at their helplessness in the face of these daredevils on
powerful machines.
Still, whenever a life is lost, it is a matter of regret
and sadness, more so when the life lost is so young
and so unlived. Saturdays loss, too, is to be mourned.
Since the police have come to be perceived as an
unreasonable and uncontrolled force, there is the
predictable accusation of police brutality. Accounts
of how the death occurred would differ and once again
the police will come in for a scathing indictment for
their presumed lack of finesse in using force against
innocent citizens.
One of the close relatives of the dead biker was
reported to have argued that the young man was
neither a terrorist nor a thief and if he was being a
social nuisance all the police had to do was to arrest
him. In the limited logic of the case, this is a valid
point but, not so valid in the inherent logic of the
defiance that the bikers had persistently flaunted.
Beyond being a thief or a terrorist, there is indeed
much more space in the arena of citizenship.
The larger issue goes straight to the heart of one of
the major failings of our democratic quest: we have
collectively ignored, that too at our great disadvantage
as a nation, that the rites of citizenship entail rights
and privileges as well as duties and obligations.
It is obvious that we have invested too much time
and energy and intellectual capital in the nation-
building processes without emphasising the citizens
obligations to fellow-citizens as well as to the state.
We have definitely neglected the task of society-
building and of nurturing habits and attitudes, which
enjoin every citizen to do his bit for the larger good,
enhancing social capital and collective well-being.
An established order rests on a social compact, in
which everyone undertakes to observe restraint on
his freedom in exchange for a minimum expectation
of security of life and liberty. For instance, a motorist
halts at a red light in the reciprocal expectation that
the other motorists too would observe the traffic
rules; and, then, there is the traffic policeman to see
to it that everyone gets to use the road safely with
minimum of inconvenience.
A protocol of mutually beneficial restraints and
responsibilities is at the heart of the social compact.
The authority has a duty to protect the citizens
from harm from other nations, as also to impose
reasonable restrictions in order to ensure an ordered
and just social existence; in return, the citizens offer
allegiance to the nation-state and undertake to obey
reasonable laws, reasonably crafted and reasonably
enforced.
At the beginning of our national journey, Jawaharlal
Nehru had the self-assurance of a true national leader
and the conviction of a freedom fighter to preach to
the citizens the virtues and necessity of self-sacrifice
if India was to attain its national destiny. He would
mince no words in reminding the students of the
highest degree of self-discipline, the capacity for
working together, selfless devotion, and a sense of
the practical combined with the enduring passion of
a noble idealism. He would often proclaim at public
meetings that I would like to remind you that you
and I have together to bear the burden of the tasks
before us.
Rights & obligations
Somewhere in the mid-1960s this sense of a fine
balance between rights and obligations of the citizens
37
got lost. The state proclaimed that it could do anything
and would indeed do everything for its citizens. The
welfare state and its (politically elected) operatives
spelled out for themselves a maximalist mandate,
and enticed the citizens (the voters) to support them
in this venture. Except for a token of support at the
election time, the state and its managers promised to
bring sunshine into every life in every hamlet. Perhaps
it was a natural extension of the Gandhian promise of
wiping every tear from every eye. However, while
this caring state project was undertaken, nothing was
asked of the citizen, except docility and a nominal
obedience; no corresponding duties to contribute to
social capital, or self-discipline or self-sacrifice for
the larger glory of Mother India.
And, in good time, political ineptitude, bureaucratic
arrogance and personal corruption combined to sour
up the caring state project. As soon as the Garibi
Hatao promise faltered, the political opposition
closed in, inciting a challenge to the status quo and
stagnation, but never summoning the moral clarity
to demand the re-building of the broken down
capacities or insisting on the re-capitalising of the
depleted social assets.
The JP movement in fact elevated this proclivity for
social irresponsibility to a moral high. Instead of
asking students to be observant and diligent seekers
of knowledge, they were instigated to be concerned
observers of good governance. Street power or Lok
Shakti was deemed as the magical cure for all our
deficiencies and difficulties. Since then, it has become
an acceptable form for this or that group to invite
citizens to non-co-operate with the government;
the naxals and the jihadis are extreme manifestations
of this rejection of the social compact.
Liberal societies thrive because sites of social capital
schools, churches, universities, playgrounds,
community projects reinforce the rigours of
citizenship. In our country this task of social
renewal has been traditionally undertaken by the
religious functionary, at least the enlightened one.
The neighbourhood priest or the maulvi or katha-
vachak had the skill and the acceptance to de-wean
the congregation from social evils and harmful social
practices. Unfortunately the social leader too has
joined the politicians partisan animosities. The likes
of Baba Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar have not
been able to resist the temptation of partisan politics
and have, in the process, lost their credentials to read
the riot act to their followers, devotes and audience.
Unappetising divide - Democracy and its
imperfections have taken a toll on societys morals.
And because we ask nothing of our citizens not
sacrifice, not restraint, not moderation we have
ended up creating a morally unappetising divide
between the haves and have-nots: under instigation
from the bogus vendors of good governance the
haves have started asking why they should pay taxes
if their wealth was to be wasted on giving food or
medical care to the poor. A most extreme version:
why should we pay taxes to a government that we
have declared to be corrupt?
This is part of an unending and ever expanding
narrative of the Great Helmsman. Instead of
stressing the importance of collective and individual
responsibility for looking after our schools,
neighbourhoods, public transport, rivers and forests,
we insist on searching for a great transformer who
will magically fix every broken pipe and fill every
pothole.
It is not enough that a citizen not be a terrorist or
thief; it is very essential that the citizen fulfils with
responsibility and diligence his part of the social
compact. In no society is the rule of law or good
governance available off the shelf; citizens have to earn
it. Without practices and precepts of a responsible
citizenry, there will be neither a responsible market
nor a responsible state.
CS Synopsis Special
Point from the above article can be used for Essay
Writing on Being a Model Citizen / Rights and Duties
of Citizen Towards Nation etc.
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Leaving no stone unturned
(Culture & Heritage The Hindu)
For the purpose of public discussion, in May 2013,
the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) released the
draft of a new National Conservation Policy
(NCP). It pertains to monuments, archaeological
sites and remains protected by the ASI. Although the
ASI has periodically amended its conservation policies
38
to broadly adhere to international charters, the draft
represents the first serious relook of conservation
guidelines that it has followed since 1923.
This new 2013 draft has lofty aims. All edifices at the
approximately 3,600 ASI sites are to be preserved in a
strategic and sensitive manner. For instance, eroded
or defaced, figural, relief carvings and wall paintings
are not to be reconstructed and chemical cleaners are
to be used sparingly. While conducting renovations,
newly quarried and dressed stones are at once to be
harmoniously fitted into a buildings original fabric
and to be discernible from it. All conservation efforts
are to be documented. Furthermore, in recognition
of our countrys vast and varied population, the draft
policy permits diverse uses of monuments. It also
acknowledges the importance of making monuments
more accessible to visitors including those with
disabilities.
However, despite its scope and content, the NCP
draft leaves much to be desired. First, it barely
acknowledges the existence of thousands of
sophisticated monuments that are not protected
by the ASI. Standing in every part of the country in
various states of completion and preservation, some
of these monuments are today under the jurisdiction
of State archaeology and culture departments.
Trusts, committees and even private individuals
control others. Shared architectural typologies,
pilgrimage circuits, patronage structures and the
circulation of processional images are some ways
in which these sites are connected to those that are
today recipients of ASI protection. The draft policys
attempt to conserve only ASI monuments may be
likened to a scheme that envisions the conservation
of a charismatic species such as the tiger, without
adequately making provisions for understanding or
protecting co-predators, prey-species and habitat
variables.
The ASI could conserve many high-medieval and
early modern step-wells, tanks, kundas , naulas and
other water structures that are currently threatened
by forces of man and nature by initiating partnerships
with organisations such as the Peoples Science
Institute and the Centre for Science and Environment
that have expertise in water management
Furthermore, as the case of the exquisitely sculpted
stone door jambs of temples at the UNESCO
World Heritage site of Pavagadh in Gujarat
attests they are currently lying amid heaps of non-
biodegradable waste the ASI could actively partner
with civic groups to promote the use of natural
materials and construct incinerators. Meanwhile,
initiating collaborations with groups involved in
wildlife conservation work holds forth the possibility
of receiving up-to-date reports on the state of
little known antiquities and bringing new finds to
the ASIs notice. For instance, in recent months,
a team of ecologists working in the T e r ai forests
has encountered remains of a sandstone surround
dateable to the First-Third century CE and several
monolithic, votive shrines dateable to the 10th- 12th
century CE. Finally, instead of confining public-
private partnerships at ASI sites to the construction
of restrooms and drinking water fountains, the ASI
could meaningfully engage interested institutions,
non-governmental organisations, corporations and
individuals to develop and maintain interpretation
centres.
Tapping hereditary skills - In seeking to protect
monuments, the proposed NCP policy advocates the
utilisation of the skills of hereditary craftspeople, by
arguing that they are living repositories of ancient
architectural formulae and construction techniques.
Giving livelihood to accomplished masons, stone
carvers, and stucco-workers is undoubtedly a worthy
endeavour. However, one is unsure how many master
craftspeople working today are knowledgeable of
techniques used to excavate the Fifth century caves
at Ajanta or to adapt the Vastupurushamandala to
generate aspects of the plan and elevation of the 11th
century temples at Khajuraho. In those few instances,
where master craftspeople are knowledgeable of
traditional forms and construction techniques, it is
of rather late typologies such as the Nayaka period
architecture of Tamil Nadu or the revivalist Maru-
Gurjaraesque tradition of western India. Therefore,
the careful conservation of monuments cannot be left
to a few modern practitioners with limited abilities.
Revision and training - The raising of an army
of highly qualified and self-motivated individuals
to follow the guidelines of the proposed policy, to
carefully interpret its provisions, and to develop
new measures are critical needs that have been
insufficiently considered by the draft policy. Such
endeavours may begin with revising the curriculum
of the ASI-run Institute of Archaeology, the training
39
ground for its officers. Teachers therefore ought
to train students to recognise local, regional, and
trans-regional forms and meanings of Indian art
and architecture. This is important as builders often
self-consciously incorporated or juxtaposed forms,
iconographies and construction techniques. For
instance, at Mahakuta in Karnataka, Eighth Century
temples built in northern and southern Indian modes
stand side by side.
The NCP draft wisely and repeatedly cautions
against the completion of fragmentary inscriptions.
However, not once does the draft propose training
ASI officers to read inscriptions. Rigorous epigraphy
and paleography courses need to be instituted and
enrolment in them encouraged. In addition, the ASI
might increase its ranks of highly trained individuals
by hiring professionals in formal advisory positions
and on short-term basis as consultants to specific
projects. Attractive schemes similar to the Armys
short-service commission may be instituted and
widely advertised. Finally, it is proposed that the ASI
regularly organise scholarly symposia to deliberate
on vexed questions that lie at the heart of its draft
policy. For example, what does it mean to preserve
the authenticity and integrity of the Lingaraja
temple complex at Bhubaneswar in Odisha, which
has been a consecrated site since at least the Eighth
century and where shrines and sculptures continue to
be renovated and installed? Or, how might a site such
as Batesara in Madhya Pradesh, where the remains
of over a hundred Pratihara period shrines lie strewn
about, be conserved?
Storage - One long followed ASI policy that has
received official sanction in the NCP draft also
needs to be reassessed. This is the conversion of
certain arbitrarily selected monuments into locked
ASI storerooms and offices. At Menal, in Rajasthan
a Twelfth Century Pashupata Shaiva monastic
complex one of the few surviving examples of
this building typology has been converted into a
warehouse to store sanitaryware and construction
materials. At Baijnath, in Uttarakhand, a sizeable
temple assignable to the Eleventh Century has been
transformed into a godown for storing hundreds of
medieval schist stelae. The storage of these sculptures
has undoubted safeguarded them from vandalism
and theft. However, the next imperative step would
be establish a site museum to display these images,
which are hitherto unknown to scholars and to
hundreds of pilgrims from all over India who visit
Baijnath daily.
To conclude, along with institutions such as the census
and the topographical survey, the ASI was partly
established as an instrument to aid colonial rule.
Setting carefully selected and tactically conserved
monuments on cushions of velvet grass, they sought
to capture and display trophies of their conquest.
Sixty-six years after independence, we need to reflect
on what remainders of the past mean to us today and
how we intend to look after them for generations to
come. Sustained conversations between the ASI and
other custodians of our monumental heritage, more
meaningful public-private partnerships, greater
efforts to train a multitude of highly skilled persons,
and a deeper commitment to working closely with
scholars worldwide may help achieve the previously
mentioned aims.
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Suspension of Indian Olympic
Association
By its unabashed posturing against the suggested
course of return to the Olympic fold, the Indian
Olympic Association (IOA) has staked Indias
future in the sporting movement. In amending its
constitution to bar only those convicted for
two years or more, instead of those charge
sheeted by a court, as suggested by both the
International Olympic Committee (IOC) and
the Union Government, the IOA has kept the
door ajar for a possible return to power by officials
being prosecuted in the 2010 Commonwealth Games
(CWG) scam. For decades, sports administrators in
India have been in the news for all the wrong reasons.
The cloak of autonomy granted to them by the IOC
gives officials the freedom to perpetuate their reign.
The set of government guidelines for National Sports
Federations, formulated in 1975, which stipulated an
eight-year tenure at a stretch for any office-bearer,
was an attempt to break the hegemony of vested
interests. The guidelines, violated at will from the
mid-1980s, were revised by the then Sports Minister
M.S. Gill in 2010 to provide them with more teeth.
Subsequent legal battles, formulation of the National
40
Sports Code and redrafting of the National Sports
Development Bill after it failed to clear a Cabinet
meeting, all contributed to a churning out process at
the end of which the IOA still looks the winner.
By agreeing to dilute the clauses on tenure and age
prior to a meeting convened by the IOC in Lausanne
last May, the Sports Ministry has effectively handed
over the reins of federations to officials for 20 years
eight years as secretary followed by 12 as president
if they can beat the age bar of 70. With a fresh
start to any prospective candidate being suggested
by the IOA, it will mean that anyone can begin a
second 20-year term now! Much is being made out
of the formation of the new Ethics Commission but
it should be noted that the IOA has had two such
commissions within the past two years. The one that
recommended barring Suresh Kalmadi and others
involved in the CWG scam from holding any position
in the IOA was thrown out shortly after its verdict in
2011. The focus will remain on the IOC as the country
waits for the suspension to end. Facing open defiance
for the first time since it suspended the Indian body
last December, the IOC may not have much in its
rules to extend a ban on the charge sheet issue. But
if it is to be seen as endorsing the principles of good
governance mooted by the Olympic Congress of
2009, it will have to strike a hard bargain with the IOA
before lifting the suspension. The government needs
to bring the parties back to the negotiating table, not
to give further concessions, but to talk tough.
IOC
The International Olympic Committee (IOC)
(French: Comit international olympique, CIO) is a
Swiss non-profit, non-governmental organisation
based in Lausanne, Switzerland, created by Pierre,
Baron de Coubertin, on 23 June 1894 with Greek
Demetrios Vikelas as its first president. Today its
membership consists of 100 active members, 33
honorary members, and 1 honour member.
The IOC organises the modern Olympic Games
and Youth Olympic Games, held in Summer and
Winter, every four years. The first Summer Olympics
organised by the International Olympic Committee
were held in Athens, Greece, in 1896; the first Winter
Olympics were in Chamonix, France, in 1924. Until
1992, both Summer and Winter Olympics were
held in the same year. After that year, however, the
IOC shifted the Winter Olympics to the even years
between Summer Games, to help space the planning
of the two events two years apart from one another,
and improve the financial balance of the IOC, which
receives greater income on Olympic years.
The IOC Session elects, by secret ballot, the IOC
President from among its members for a term of eight
years renewable once for a term of four years. The
current IOC President, Thomas Bach (German),
was elected for an eight-year term on 10 September
2013.
----------x----------x----------x----------
41
Disaster Management
(Environment Science Reporter)
The recent widespread devastation unleashed by
cloudbursts and sudden torrential rains in thehills
of Uttarakhand was tragic. Thousands lost their
lives, villages were washed away, buildings crashed
into rivers, those who survived lost their livelihoods.
Many are still missing and the state of Uttarakhand is
busy counting its losses.
Well, natural phenomena unleash disasters all the
time. But natural disasters transform into national
calamities only because of human action and inaction.
Gross commercialisation, burgeoning buildings and
structures, and uncontrolled tourism have robbed the
hills of their beauty and tranquil calm. Mindless and
unplanned development, rampant mining, blasting
of hills to make way for roads, uprooting of trees,
change in the soil structure, unabated expansion
of hydro-power projects, and an overall insensitive
attitude towards the highly ecologically sensitive
region has led to widespread ecological degradation
of the hills. This, in turn, has severely compromised
the carrying capacity of the hills, robbing them of
their natural strength and resilience.
With thousands of trees uprooted to make way
for buildings and structures on hill slopes, the soil
structure on the slopes has undergone a change and is
unable to hold water. The fragile Himalayas are home
to more than 200 glacial lakes formed by glacial melt
that can turn dangerous when they breach their walls
leading to what is known as a glacial lake outburst
flood. When rampaging flood waters come rushing
down, there is nothing to hold them back, and the
mushrooming building structures merely become
weapons in the hands of the racing flood waters to
unleash more damage. Rivers in the hills are also
under tremendous pressure because they have had
their beds filled up with silt and construction material
and sewage. When they change course, destruction is
bound to happen, especially in places where human
intervention has exceeded beyond a point.
There is a dire need for some sense and sensitivity to
prevail when it comes to drawing development plans
for hilly regions with fragile ecologies. There is a need
for sensitizing the political andthe bureaucratic
class that development at any cost will one day
extract a huge cost, and that phenomena like global
warming and extreme weather are no more in the
realm of fiction. The recent devastation should serve
as a good case study to communicate to policy makers
and people at large the dangers of exploiting the hills
meager resources beyond a point.
Nature gives its own warnings. Heed them and only
then will the drama of death and misery not play out
every time there is a natural disaster.
----------x----------x----------x----------
Saving The Tiger
(Environment The Hindu)
The findings of the survey conducted jointly with
India to avoid double counting in the protected areas
that overlap the national boundaries revealed that
the estimated number of tigers in Nepal has risen
from 121 in 2008 to 198 in 2012, a growth of 63 per
cent that has elated the conservationists. Though
conducted simultaneously in the border areas of
both countries, the surveys India results are still
being tallied and a joint status report is expected in
December.
This is what happened in the third week of June 2013,
and will again happen if those who matter in managing
the affairs of the hills continue to look the other way
while the hills of the young Himalayas are crushed
need for early warning systems to warn of impending
disasters. There is also need for emergency plans to
evacuate people under such circumstances. But why
not a stitch in time?
under the weight of human greed. There is definitely
The International Tiger Day was created in 2010,
at the St. Petersburg Tigers Summit of 13 tiger
range countries. It resulted in a pledge to heighten
national efforts to double the number of tigers in each
country by 2022, the year of the tiger in the Chinese
calendar.
The Terai Arc Landscape is the conservation area
to the west of River Bhagmati and east of River
Yamuna. It includes four important national parks
in terms of tiger population two in Nepal Chitwan
and Bardiya; and two in India, the Dudhwa and
Valmiki. It has the worlds highest density of Bengal
tiger population. A meeting of Nepalese and Indian
4. Environment
42
officials held early this year in Dudhwa, the sixth of
its kind in trans-boundary biodiversity conservation,
called for a joint strategy to recover tiger population.
Increased cooperation with China and India, for
reducing poaching and trade of tigers, and for
improving connectivity have helped, as has the
expansion of habitat Nepal created a new national
park in Banke district in 2011 and has expanded the
buffer zone in the Bardiya reserve in addition to
maintaining the prey species such as the monkeys,
deer and boars.
Conservationists say challenges are not over. Given
Nepals increasing human population density in the
Terai, worrying signs of human-tiger conflicts are
already visible with tigers attacking a school outside
of Chitwan Park, as well as the rising number of man
eaters and the young tigers attacked by the adults in
their territory.
CS Synopsis Special Background
Project Tiger
At the turn of the century, the estimated tiger
population in India was placed at 40,000 but the first
ever all India tiger census in 1972 shockingly revealed
the existence of only 1827 tigers. Before that a ban
on tiger hunting was imposed in the year 1970 and in
1972 the Wildlife Protection Act came into force.
Thereafter a Task Force was set up to formulate a
project for tiger conservation.
With the launch of Project tiger in 1973 ,
various tiger reserves were created in different
parts of the country on a core-buffer strategy.
Under this strategy, the core areas were freed from
all human activities and the buffer areas were to
have conservation oriented land use. The main
achievements of this project are excellent recovery
of the habitat and consequent increase in the tiger
population in the reserve areas, from a mere 268 in 9
reserves in 1972 to 1576 in 27 reserves in 2003.
The main objective of Project Tiger is to ensure a viable
population of tiger in India for scientific, economic,
aesthetic, cultural and ecological values and to
preserve for all time, areas of biological importance
as a natural heritage for the benefit, education and
enjoyment of the people. Main objectives under the
scheme include wildlife management, protection
measures and site specific eco-development to reduce
the dependency of local communities on tiger reserve
resources.
Project Tiger is undisputedly a custodian of major
gene pool. It is also a repository of some of the most
valuable ecosystem and habitats for wildlife.
The core area is kept free of biotic disturbances and
forestry operations, where collection of minor forest
produce, grazing, human disturbances are not allowed
within. However, the buffer zone is managed as a
multiple use area with twin objectives of providing
habitat supplement to the spill-over population of
wild animals from the core conservation unit, and
to provide site specific eco-developmental inputs to
surrounding villages for relieving their impact on
the core. Except for the National Parks portion if
contained within, normally no relocation of villages is
visualised in the buffer area, and forestry operations,
NTFP (Non Timber Forest Produce) collection and
other rights and concessions to the local people are
permitted in a regulated manner to complement the
initiatives in the core unit.
Project Tiger has put the tiger on an assured course
of recovery from the brink of extinction, and has
resurrected the floral and faunal genetic diversity
in some of our unique and endangered wilderness
ecosystem. The population of tigers in the country
has increased significantly to about 4000 from
less than 2000 at the time of launch of the project.
There are 53 tiger reserves in India (2011) which are
governed by Project Tiger which is administered by
the National Tiger Conservation Authority.
----------x----------x----------x----------
43
5. Science & Technology
Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project
(Science & Technology The Frontline)
With the first unit of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power
Project reaching criticality on July 13, a project that
was envisaged some 25 years ago draws close to
fruition.
It was indeed a great day for Nuclear Power
Corporation of India Limiteds (NPCIL) engineers
and staff when the KKNPPs first unit, with a capacity
of 1,000 MWe, went critical at 11-05 p.m. on July
13 and applause erupted in the reactors state-of-
the-art control room. The much-awaited but long-
delayed event demonstrated that India had come of
age in a high technology areathat it could not only
absorb the Light Water Reactor (LWR) technology
from Russia but build LWRs on its own. At 1,000
MWe, KKNPP-1 has the distinction of being
the largest single power generating unit in the
country. The second unit at Kudankulam, also with
a capacity of 1,000 MWe, is all set to reach criticality
in eight months from now.
Today, the KKNPP, with its two Russian VVER-
1000 units, stands as the model of ideal cooperation
between India and Russia. But though the Russians
supplied the designs, drawings and all the equipment
for the two identical reactors, the NPCIL built them.
In the process, the NPCIL had to contend with a new
technology, that of LWRs. The sheer size of everything
about the two reactors did not deter the NPCIL from
insisting in 1998 that its engineers would build the
two reactors when a supplementary agreement to the
earlier Inter-Governmental Agreement of 1988 was
signed on the Kudankulam project.
Massive civil structures and huge mechanical
contraptions greet you everywhere at Kudankulam.
The reactor building is 80 metres tall. Three hundred
pillars support the turbine hall. The reactor pressure
vessel (RPV), which forms the heart of a nuclear
power plant, weighs 316 tonnes. Made of stainless
steel, it is 19.5 metres tall and has a diameter of 4.5
metres. The turbine-generator weighs 380 tonnes.
The core-catcher, into which the molten fuel core will
drop in the unlikely scenario of an extreme accident,
is a huge vessel that weighs 101 tonnes. A mini-port
has been built at the Kudankulam site for unloading
the massive equipment from Russia by erecting a
dyke that needed 30 lakh tonnes of rock in the waters
of Gulf of Mannar. Two caissons, concrete structures
each weighing 2,500 tonnes, float in the sea.
The next couple of weeks will see the reactor operators
performing experiments on the physics of the reactor.
After that they will step up the reactor power in
stages. KKNPP-1 will generate 400 MWe in 30 to
45 days and the plant will be synchronised with the
southern grid. In subsequent stages, after completing
the procedural and regulatory requirements, power
will be increased in steps of 50 per cent, 75 per cent,
90 per cent and 100 per cent power.
The first unit reaching criticality was a joyous
occasion because it could generate power in a safe
and sustained manner and bridge the energy gap in
the country. Normally, nuclear power reactors were
imported on the basis of a turnkey agreement, but
India insisted that the Kudankulam project would
be based on a technical agreement. That is, while the
Russians would provide the drawings, designs and
all the equipment, India would build the reactors.
Today, the KKNPP is a symbol of self-reliance and
marshalling of the LWR technology.
Protests - On July 17, the reactor operators were
busy with reactor physics experiments, which would
be followed by a small break. The NPCIL engineers
were preparing for the next step of power rating of
the reactor and synchronisation with the electricity
grid. On July 14, the day after the first reactor reached
criticality, the mood was sombre at Idinthakarai, a
few kilometres from Kudankulam, which has become
the arena of a sustained agitation for two years now
against the Kudankulam project. S.P. Udayakumar,
coordinator, Peoples Movement Against Nuclear
Energy (PMANE), which has been spearheading the
agitation against the KKNPP at Idinthakarai, Uvari,
Vijayapathi and other neighbouring villages, said
that the non-violent non-cooperation with this evil
of nuclear power will continue.
KKNPP-1 is the 21st nuclear power reactor in India
and the countrys first Pressurised Water Reactor
(PWR) belonging to the LWR category. The installed
total capacity of these 21 reactors is 5,780 MWe.
However, only 20 reactors are operational because
the first unit (100 MWe) at Rawatbhatta in Rajasthan
has been shut down permanently. The 20 operational
reactors have a total capacity of 5,680 MWe. The
VVER-1000 units are located in Radhapuram taluk in
44
Tirunelveli district. They have come up on the shore
of the Gulf of Mannar in the Bay of Bengal. They
use enriched uranium as fuel and light water
as both coolant and moderator . According
to experts, there are 55 VVER units operational
across the world, and of them 25 are VVER-1000
that generate 1,000 MWe each. The VVER-1000
units have a lineage, having evolved over the years,
incorporating advanced active and safety features.
They have evolved from variants such as V-187,
V-338, V-320, V-413, V-392 and V-428. Of these,
V-392 has the most advanced design features and it is
this design that the VVER-1000 units have adopted.
Out of 2,000 MWe to be generated from the two
reactors at Kudankulam, Tamil Nadus share will be
925 MWe. Karnataka will receive 442 MWe, Kerala
266 MWe, Puducherry 67 MWe and the unallocated
share will be 300 MWe. The NPCIL will sell the
electricity generated from the Kudankulam reactors
to the State utilities at Rs.2.50 a unit.
While the original cost of the two units was Rs.13,171
crore, the revised cost is Rs.17,270 crore. Russia had
advanced a credit of Rs.6,416 crore to both the units.
With the first unit having been started up, all eyes
are now on the second unit. As on July 16, 100
dummy fuel assemblies out of a total of 163 have
already been loaded into this units reactor core. The
loading of dummy fuel bundles into a reactor marks
the commencement of the process of its reaching
criticality. Dummy fuel assemblies are loaded into the
reactor for conducting full-scale thermo-hydraulic
tests of the reactor systems, prior to the loading of the
actual fuel, to assess the design performance of the
design systems. The dummy fuel assemblies are made
of lead instead of uranium, each bundle weighing 705
kg. The dummy fuel assemblies are a replica of the
actual nuclear fuel assemblies, both in dimension and
in weight. Each assembly has a length of 4.57 metres.
Perhaps no other nuclear power project has
alternated between hope and despair as much as the
Kudankulam project, which has been buffeted by legal
battles and sustained agitations. Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi and Soviet President Mikhail
Gorbachev signed the Inter-Governmental
Agreement (IGA) in November 20, 1988,
on setting up the KKNPP . But soon the project
was as dead as a doornail with the Soviet Union
disintegrating and differences cropping up between
India and Russia over the rupee-rouble repayment
ratio. The project, however, erupted into life when,
on June 21, 1998, a supplementary agreement to
the earlier IGA was signed in New Delhi by Russian
Minister for Atomic Energy Yevgeny Adamov and
AEC Chairman R. Chidambaram. That Russia stuck
its neck out to sign this agreement within a month of
India conducting five nuclear tests in May 1998 and
becoming an international outcast showed how much
Russia valued its friendship with India.
The Kudankulam project began with the first pour
of the concrete taking place on March 31, 2002.
But delays in the supply of designs, drawings and
equipment by the Russians decelerated the projects
further progress, and the project fell behind schedule
by a couple of years. The sustained agitation by
the PMANE from September 2011 added to the
KKNPPs troubles. Fishermen and other residents
of the neighbouring villages held the plant hostage
for several months by blocking the entry of NPCIL
employees. What forced the State governments
hand was the fact that Tamil Nadu was suffering
from a debilitating power cut of more than 12 hours
a dayit was facing a shortfall of 4,000 MW. There
were protests all over Tamil Nadu against the State
governments handling of the power crisis.
On September 13, 2012, the Supreme Court declined
to stay the loading of the fuel into the [first] reactor but
agreed to examine the risk associated with the project
in view of the safety of the people living around the
plant. The apex court threw out the appeal on May 6,
2013, and allowed the commissioning of the reactor,
subject to conditions. The Bench said, We have to
balance economic, scientific benefits with that of
minor radiological detriments. It was part of the
national policy to develop, control and use atomic
energy for the welfare of the people and economic
growth, the judges said. Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan
and Dipak Misra, in concurring judgments, listed 15
conditions to be followed before the plant could be
commissioned. One of them was that the plant should
not be made operational unless the Atomic Energy
Regulatory Board (AERB), the NPCIL and the DAE
accorded final clearance after ensuring the quality
of various components and systems because their
reliability was of vital importance. Another direction
wanted the AERB, the NPCIL, the Union Ministry
of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and the Tamil
Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) to oversee
each and every aspect of the matter including the
45
safety of the plant, the impact on environment, the
quality of components and systems in the plant
before the commissioning of the plant. A report to
that effect should be filed before the Supreme Court
before the plants commissioning, the order said.
The AERB, the NPCIL, the MoEF and the DAE
duly submitted their reports to the Supreme Court,
certifying the safety of the systems and the quality of
the components used.
A specialised group of Indian physicists and experts
from the Kurchatov Institute at Moscow, which is a
leading research and development organisation in
nuclear energy, monitored the process of criticality.
CS Synopsis Special Nuclear
Vocabulary
Nuclear fission: Nuclear fission is the splitting of
atoms to produce energy in the form of heat. Uranium,
a naturally occurring metal, is radioactive. The atoms
of uranium are the largest and the heaviest known to
occur on earth. Being heavy, they are unstable. The
nucleus of a uranium atom can easily break up into
smaller pieces. This process is called fission. Uranium
is the only element in which fission takes place
easily, setting off a chain reaction or a self-sustained
splitting of atoms. The energy produced in fission is
called nuclear energy or atomic energy. When fission
generates heat in uranium, there is no flame or
smoke. Besides uranium, the atoms of plutonium are
fissionable. But plutonium does not occur in nature.
It is a by-product of uranium used as fuel in nuclear
reactors.
Criticality: When the chain reaction takes place for
the first time in a nuclear electricity reactor, it means
that the reactor has reached its first criticality.
Nuclear power reactor: A nuclear power reactor
is a device that converts nuclear energy into heat
energy. Heat is produced in the reactor when the
uranium atom splits. The heat released by chain
reaction in the reactor is used to convert water
into steam. This steam drives a turbine, which is
connected to an electricity generator. Turbines have
blades. The movement of the blades in the turbine
powers the generator to produce electricity, which
is wheeled into the grid and thence on to factories,
homes, hospitals, schools, and so on. In a nuclear
bomb, an extremely rapid, multiplying chain reaction
causes the explosive release of energy. In a reactor,
the pace of chain reaction is controlled to produce
heat.
Fuel: A nuclear reactor can use different types of
fuel to generate electricity. The fuel can be natural
uranium, low-enriched uranium, plutonium-uranium
oxide/carbide and, thorium-uranium 233.
Coolant: Light water, that is, ordinary water, and
heavy water are normally used as coolants in a
reactor. A coolant is a substance circulated through a
nuclear reactor to remove or transfer heat.
Moderator: Light water, heavy water, graphite or
liquid sodium can be a moderator in a reactor. It
surrounds the fuel core of the reactor and slows down
neutrons, thus increasing their chances of fissioning.
Heavy water: In heavy water, the two hydrogen
atoms are replaced by two atoms of deuterium, that
is, its formula is D2O.
Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR):
In a PHWR, the fuel used is natural uranium, and
heavy water is both the coolant and the moderator.
It is called pressurised because the coolant is under
high pressure. Natural uranium is used as a fuel in
a PHWR. Natural uranium contains two kinds of
isotopes: uranium-238 and uranium-235. It contains
99.3 per cent of uranium-238 which is not fissile, and
only 0.7 per cent of uranium-235, which is fissile. So
it is the less abundant U-235 isotope that splits and
generates energy.
Light Water Reactor (LWR): In an LWR, the fuel
is low-enriched uranium, and light water is used both
as a coolant and as a moderator. The Kudankulam
reactors are LWRs.
Enriched uranium: If the non-fissile U-238
is removed from natural uranium, the U-235
concentration will go up. This is known as uranium
enrichment. Enrichment is achieved by a series of
chemical and physical processes in centrifuges. In
Rare India, the enrichment of uranium is done at
Materials Plant, Ratnahalli, Mysore. If enriched
uranium is used as fuel in a reactor, the availability
of neutrons is high enough to generate electricity,
46
and light water can be used as both coolant and
moderator.
----------x----------x----------x----------
A strategic milestone INS Arihant
(Science & Technology The Hindu)
Technical accomplishments aside, the true
significance of the reactor on board Indias first
Indian nuclear submarine achieving criticality is
strategic. INS Arihant marks the first step towards
completing the third component of the triad of air,
mobile land-based and sea-based deterrent forces
envisaged in Indias nuclear doctrine. The advantage
of nuclear submarines over conventional ones is
their ability to remain under water for long without
refuelling, and thus to travel long distances. It will,
however, be a long haul from here on towards making
this sea-based naval nuclear asset fully operational.
Having validated the performance of the primary
power pack, it has to be proven that the propulsion
system can indeed be driven by nuclear power. The
subsequent sea trials, which would involve complex
speed, pitch and rolling manoeuvres, will test the
ability of the reactor to withstand high acceleration
loads and the fast response needed for rapid power
ramp-up. These issues have posed serious nuclear
fuel, material and engineering challenges, not
hitherto encountered in land-based reactor systems.
The Department of Atomic Energy and the Defence
Research and Development Organisation deserve
credit for successfully overcoming these. The full fleet,
according to reports, will include seven such boats
over a decade. This calls for enhanced submarine
building and reactor fabrication capacity. More
important perhaps would be preparing the operating
personnel psychologically for long endurance inside
an underwater cocoon.
Considering that most submarine accidents
have involved nuclear submarines most
of them Russian safety assumes great
importance. Especially since there seems
to have been substantial Russian assistance
in the design of both the boat as well as the
power pack. From a safety perspective, there
is a larger issue that needs to be addressed.
The entire strategic sector has remained out
of purview of the Atomic Energy Regulatory
Board and the safety overview system in
place for strategic nuclear systems has never
been discussed in public. The issue obviously
gets more complicated for sea-based nuclear
assets. Moreover, the DRDO and the Indian
Navy, under whom the nuclear submarines
will operate, have limited expertise in nuclear-
related matters. In terms of technology,
India has now clearly demonstrated that
it has the requisite expertise to launch a
parallel stream of enriched-uranium based
Pressurised Water Reactors (PWRs). The
land-based prototype 80 MWt PWR reactor
at Kalpakkam is expected to serve as a
platform for the proposed chain of 900 MWe
PWR power reactors in the country, whose
design is stated to have been completed. But
that would call for a substantial increase in
uranium enrichment capacity as well.
INS Arihant
INS Arihant, Indias first nuclear-powered ballistic
missile submarine, which went critical over the
weekend, has enabled India to join a select club
of nations like the US, Russia, China, the UK and
France, which possess nuclear-powered submarines.
The story of the Advanced Technology Vessel
(ATV) project , of which the INS Arihant is a part, is
really the story of the incredible hard work, long-term
strategy and clear thinking employed by generations
of Indias political leaders cutting across party lines,
defence experts, foreign policy mandarins and
scientists, to build indigenous capability that could
give India the chance of becoming a serious power.
The Arihant was launched on July 26, 2009,
exactly ten years after the end of the Kargil conflict,
which means it has taken four years for its nuclear
reactor to achieve criticality. Its design is based
on the Russian Akula-1 class submarines, of
which the best-known example is the INS Chakra,
a nuclear submarine leased for ten years by India
from Russia in 2011 and formally commissioned
into the Indian navy in 2012. The 100-member
Indian crew for the Arihant, besides training at the
School for Advanced Underwater Warfare at
47
Vishakapatnam, is also training on the new INS
Chakra.
The Arihants 83Mw pressurised water reactor
(PWR) has also been built with considerable
assistance from the Russians, who are said to have
helped scientists at the Bhabha Atomic Research
Centre (BARC) in miniaturising the reactor to fit
into the 10m diameter hull of the nuclear submarine.
But it is equally true that the Arihant is more than
a sum of its imported parts, transfer of technology
and consultancy given by the Russians. The Rare
Materials Project of the Department of
Atomic Energy (DAE) in Ratnahalli, Mysore,
supplied the highly enriched uranium, while
the submarine itself was built in a completely
enclosed dry dock at the Shipbuilding Centre in
Vishakapatnam.
Indias private sector helped out the $2.9-billion
project in significant ways. The hull for the vessel
was built by L&Ts Hazira shipbuilding facility, Tata
Power built the control-systems for the submarine,
while the systems for the steam turbine integrated
with the reactor are supplied by Walchandnagar
Industries.
The ATV project was launched as long ago as 1974
in the wake of the India-Pakistan war when the US
aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, was deployed in
the Indian Ocean as a warning to India, in response
to which the Soviets despatched ships armed with
nuclear missiles as well as a nuclear submarine to
ward off the threat posed by the Americans. Then
prime minister Indira Gandhi was said to have been
considerably impressed by the power of the Soviet
Unions nuclear-armed flotilla to change the course
of the war and ordered the launch of the ATV project
in 1974.
By 1998, Atal Behari Vajpayees government had
taken power, gone nuclear and announced its no-
first-use nuclear policy. The ATV project got a big
boost at this time, when in November 2003, the
miniaturised nuclear reactor went critical inside
a simulated submarine hull (seeking to replicate
Arihant conditions) on land at Kalpakkam.
In 2006, under the Congress-led first Manmohan
Singh government, this land-based prototype nuclear
reactor at Kalpakkam was declared operational, and
in January 2008, it was integrated into the Arihant.
The Indo-US nuclear deal would allow India to open
negotiations with the outside world, like France,
Russia and the US, to build pressurised water
reactors (which use natural uranium, from places like
Jadugoda in Jharkhand, as fuel and heavy water as
coolant and moderator) for the production of clean
electricity. BARC officials have confirmed that for
large-scale commercial nuclear power stations (that
will be built by outside powers like France, Russia
and the US), which require much larger quantities of
enriched uranium, the special material enrichment
facility in Chitradurga district in Karnataka will be
used.
Meanwhile, the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier
or the INS Vikramaditya is completing its sea trials
in Russia and will soon move into the White Sea for
aviation trials for fighter jets landing and taking-off.
The Russians have told India that it will hand the
warship over in end-2013.
India is now said to be constructing a n u c lear
submarine base on its eastern coast that
will be named INS Varsha, for which Rs 160
crore is sanctioned in the 2011-12 budget. These
will berth the INS Arihant, the INS Chakra as well
as the new nuclear submarines under construction.
Notwithstanding these incredible markers on the
road to self-defence, it is likely to be decades before
the Navy can send an Arihant-class submarine into
waters close to Pakistan or China. This is because the
Arihant is still very noisy and at an underwater speed
of 24 knots cannot run away easily. With a 500 kg
Sagarika missile on board, whose range is about 700
km, it can at best threaten Pakistan.
----------x----------x----------x----------
Turning out to be rocket science - GSLV
(Science & Technology The Hindu)
Once again, a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch
Vehicle (GSLV) is on the launch pad at Sriharikota.
This launch will be crucial after two successive
failures of the rocket, the Indian Space Research
Organisation can ill afford one more troubled flight.
Moreover, the space agency needs to demonstrate
48
that, after 20 years of effort, it has now mastered
cryogenic technology.
The GSLV retains the first two stages of its predecessor,
the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). In order to
carry heavier satellites than the latter, the third stage
of the GSLV uses cryogenic propulsion. Running
on liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, a cryogenic
engine offers greater energy efficiency than those
that use other propellants. The improved efficiency
means that the upper stage can carry less propellant,
with the weight saved translating directly into more
payload.
ISRO tried to purchase cryogenic technology from
what was then the Soviet Union, but the deal that was
signed in 1991 ran into trouble after the U.S. imposed
sanctions. Russia, which inherited the deal after the
breakup of the Soviet Union, backed out of providing
the technology but agreed to supply seven flight-
worthy stages for the GSLV. Left with no option,
ISRO began the Cryogenic Upper Stage Project in
April 1994 for developing an indigenous version of
the Russian cryogenic engine and stage. While this
technology development was in progress, it could fly
the GSLV with Russian-made stages.
The GSLV, equipped with a Russian cryogenic
stage, first flew in 2001. However, unlike the
PSLV, which shook off the failure of its first
launch and went on to notch up 23 consecu-
tive successes, the GSLV has been trouble
prone. In its seven flights so far, three were
outright failures and another two suffered se-
rious problems.
In April 2010, the GSLV flew for the first time
with an indigenous cryogenic stage. Close to
five minutes after lift-off, the cryogenic en-
gine came to life but only very briefly. With
thrust from that engine failing to pick up, the
rocket soon tumbled into the sea.
In December the same year, the GSLV was
flown again, this time with a Russian cryogen-
ic stage. But disaster struck yet again, with the
vehicle going out of control less than a min -
ute into the flight, breaking up into pieces and
exploding into flames over Sriharikota. ISRO
has gone to great lengths to learn from those
failures and adopt suitable changes, say se-
nior officials of the space agency.
The Russian cryogenic engine and stage design is
complicated. Booster turbo-pumps installed at the
bottom of the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen
tanks maintain a steady flow of propellants to the
main turbo-pump.
Glitch rectified - Analysis of the data radioed
down by the rocket during its April 2010 flight
showed that the booster turbopump supplying liquid
hydrogen had caused the problem. The review led
to a tightening of manufacturing tolerances for the
booster turbopumps parts as well as more stringent
procedures for its assembly. Extensive testing has also
been introduced, including of the fully-assembled
turbopumps.
The starting sequence for a cryogenic engine is a
complex process, involving split-second timing. The
cryogenic engine as well as the stages two small
steering engines were tested briefly under simulated
high-altitude conditions at ISROs Mahendragiri
facility in Tamil Nadu to ensure that their ignition
went smoothly.
In its forthcoming mission, the GSLV is carrying
GSAT-14, a communication satellite weighing close
to two tonnes. The rocket could launch seven more
spacecraft over the next four years, according to ISRO
Chairman K. Radhakrishnan. This could include
four communication satellites, a meteorological
satellite identical to the Insat-3D that was launched
last month on Europes Ariane 5 rocket, the GISAT
remote sensing satellite as well as Chandrayaan- 2,
the countrys next lunar exploration mission.
The cost of launching Insat-3D on Ariane 5, not
including insurance, came to $82 million (Rs.490
crore). The marginal cost of each GSLV that is,
the additional expense the space agency incurs on
the launch vehicle but which does not include all the
organisational costs and investments for supporting
the mission came to about Rs.200 crore.
However, the current version of the GSLV will
probably not be able to carry communication
satellites weighing more than about 2.2 tonnes. ISRO
has already launched several considerably heavier
communication satellites aboard Ariane rockets. The
49
Department of Spaces latest annual report shows
eight more communication satellites being launched
abroad over the next four years, including the GSAT-
7 that will fly on the Ariane 5 later this month.
ISRO is in the process of developing a more powerful
rocket, the GSLV Mark-III, that will be capable of
carrying four- tonne-class communication satellites.
The rockets giant solid propellant booster and its big
liquid propellant stage have already been successfully
tested on the ground. But an entirely new cryogenic
engine and stage have also to be prepared. Test firing
of the GSLV Mark-IIIs cryogenic engine would start
soon and the intention was to have the entire vehicle
ready for its first developmental flight by 2016-17,
according to the ISRO chairman.
After years of effort and back-to-back failures,
todays GSLV launch is crucial to ISROs quest for an
indigenous cryogenic engine
----------x----------x----------x----------
50
6. International Relations
Elections in Bangladesh
(International Relations The
Frontline)
BANGLADESH is only five months away from a
general election if the schedule in the Constitution
is adhered to. However, the conduct of the election
remains uncertain because of the political stand-
off between the ruling and opposition alliances
over the need for a neutral interim government
during the election. While the opposition wants
such a government, the ruling alliance rejects the
proposition.
The election is crucial for both alliances. For the
ruling alliance, led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas
Awami League, winning the election is crucial to,
among other things, complete the war crimes trials
relating to the nations liberation war 42 years ago.
While some Islamist cohorts of the Pakistan Army
have already been convicted for crimes against
humanity, some others, mostly belonging to the
Jamaat-e-Islami, face charges of genocide, rape,
arson and kidnapping in the two tribunals.
The trial is viewed as a moral and historical obligation
to the nation: in the 1971 war three million people lost
their lives and over two million women were raped.
The Sheikh Hasina government also wants to return
to power to implement its policies to consolidate the
secular pro-liberation spirit and restore regional
cooperation in order to boost amity and cooperation.
For the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party
(BNP) led by Khaleda Zia and the Jamaat-e-Islami,
the fundamentalist party that is desperate to
dominate the politics of Bangladesh, whose formation
it had violently opposed, the election is perhaps more
important. The rightist-fundamentalist combine
supported by Islamist groups wants to foil the war
crimes trial, understandably for political reasons,
and undo the anti-Islamic and anti-Bangladesh
measures of the Sheikh Hasina government.
However, the worry for the ruling alliance is that
the voters who gave them a more-than-two-thirds
majority in the December 2008 parliamentary
elections did not endorse them after four and a half
years. It is generally believed that the government has
done a tremendous amount of development work and
restored the pro-liberation spirit, which the greater
population wanted, yet the voters did not endorse it.
To suggest that the electoral debacle of the ruling
party can be attributed only to the vigorous opposition
propaganda, particularly the use of religion, is to
give little credit to the acuity of the voters. Most
independent observers agree that the ruling partys
failure was because of its inability to see the reality
and to counter the propaganda. Thousands of
people were alleged to have been killed when the
law enforcers dispersed tens of thousands of Hefazat-
e-Islam supporters in Dhaka on the night of May
5-6. Therefore, voters were implored to vote for
opposition candidates to save Islam.
Although this was mere Islamist propaganda and
a flagrant violation of the election code of conduct,
many analysts say the allegation might have worked in
terms of the political opposition shaping the mind of
the innocent and religious-minded voter. The Awami
League failed to come up with an effective strategy
to counter the sensitive allegation. At the height
of the Hefazat mayhem in Dhaka, the government
had no option but to assert its authority, which the
law-enforcing authorities did with minimal use of
force. This success in flushing the radicals out had
disappointed the propagandists, who then reportedly
opened a new front with worse propaganda.
Religion was always used, albeit unsuccessfully, in
the major political events in the country. Even during
the historic Bengali language movement of 1952, the
propaganda was spread that the Bengali language
campaigners had come from across the border.
Throughout the Bengali nationalist movement in
the 1960s, religion was used, again unsuccessfully,
to defuse the secular national uprising. During the
1971 war of liberation, too, the Islamist card was used
widely, but it did not work. When the war crimes trials
began, the Islamists played the same card again, and
succeeded, albeit partially.
51
Shahbagh effect - A new term, atheist, was
brought into the political discourse to counter the
unique youth-awakening of Shahbagh, which marked
the revival of national pride and patriotism. The
outcome was the crystallisation of Hefazats 13-point
demandall of which go against the very ethos of
the nations independence and the Constitution
to punish the atheist Shahbagh bloggers for
making derogatory comments about the Prophet
Muhammad. The madrassa-based fundamentalists
were organised to come out in the tens of thousands
to vent their anger, although most of them did not
understand what a blog was and who bloggers
were.
The Shahbagh movement, as it is popularly known,
had nothing to do with religion; it was a symbolic
outburst of the young generation to see those people
who committed crimes against humanity in the
liberation war punished. Yet, the Islamists constantly
maligned the movement which touched the hearts
and souls of Bengalis who believed in the history and
spirit of their national independence.
The uncertainty over the next parliamentary election
has become acute because of the sharply opposite
stands of the Awami League and the BNP. The
government insists that the election must be held the
way it is held in other parliamentary democracies,
while the BNP is firm that there must be a non-party
caretaker government to conduct it. The caretaker
provision was removed from the Constitution
following a High Court verdict that declared such an
interim authority undemocratic and unconstitutional.
A powerful segment of civil society as well as anti-
government politicians are supportive of having a
caretaker set-up. If the issue remains unresolved, the
resultant crisis may push the country towards civil
strife, the consequences of which, many analysts fear,
can be dangerous.
The Sheikh Hasina government opened a new front
with its criticism of the Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad
Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, for his
political role and foreign lobbying. It is believed
that through Yunus removal from the Grameen Bank
two years ago on the charge of flouting banking rules,
and the subsequent tug of war with the World Bank,
the government has alienated powerful Western
lobbies who favour the microcredit pioneer.
Many political parties, including the BNP, and a
significant section of civil society have sided with
Yunus and warned the government of consequences
if it did anything to break up the Grameen Bank. The
bank has 8.5 million stakeholders, who also declared
that if need be they would bring the government down.
Most analysts have concluded that the corporation
elections were a wake-up call for Sheikh Hasina and
suggested that the debacle be assessed objectively so
as to avoid defeat in the general election.
There is a saying in Bangladesh that when the Awami
League wins an election, it is the party that wins,
but when it loses, all those who upheld the ideals of
the liberation war and everything progressive that
they symbolise lose. Despite the shortcomings and
criticisms, many of them justified, the Awami League
is still the largest political force of pro-liberation
politics, which symbolises the secular national spirit.
It is up to the party to heed the warning shot from
the voters and do a course-correction to regain the
peoples trust.
----------x----------x----------x----------
A settlement long overdue Indo Ban -
gladesh Relations
(International Relations The Hindu)
The ratification of the Indo-Bangladesh land
boundary agreement will reduce the difficulties in
administering border enclaves, and improve the
conditions of those living there
Bangladesh foreign minister Dipu Monis July visit to
India has rekindled the discussion surrounding the
agreement between the two countries in respect of
52
exchange of enclaves. With the governments in both
the countries approaching the end of their respective
tenures, there is urgency in building political
consensus on The Constitution (One Hundred and
Nineteenth) Amendment Bill, 2013, which seeks to
ratify the agreement. The bill is likely to be introduced
in the ongoing monsoon session of Parliament.
The Bill has met with opposition on the grounds that
(i) the proposed exchange of enclaves will result
in a national loss of 10,000 acres of land; (ii) it will
fuel secessionist tendencies in other parts of India.
This piece highlights why it is important to ratify
the Indo-Bangladesh agreement on this matter in a
timely manner.
What are enclaves?
In international law, states exercise sovereignty
over their territories. There is no requirement that
the territory must be contiguous or geographically
proximate. An example of geographically non-
contiguous territories constituting one state is
that of Pakistan before 1971. This possibility of
territories lacking geographical contiguity forming
parts of one state sometimes results in some parts
being surrounded by the territory of another state.
Such territories are termed enclaves. The situation
can be further complicated by an enclave within an
enclave (counter-enclave) or even an enclave within a
counter-enclave (counter-counter-enclave).
One aspect of sovereignty enjoyed by states is a
near-absolute right to restrict or regulate access to
and transportation in their territories. This results
in practical difficulties in the context of enclaves.
Being surrounded by the territory of another state,
the residents of an enclave cannot travel to their
home state without crossing international borders
and obtaining the necessary permission for the same.
Similarly, governmental agencies of the home state
cannot access the enclave, despite its sovereignty over
it, without the permission of the state that surrounds
the enclave. In the absence of specific international
agreements between the states concerned, this results
in the exclusion of governmental services, essential
facilities and opportunities to residents of enclaves,
counter-enclaves and counter-counter enclaves.
These rules and practical problems relating to
enclaves came to Indias aid during the liberation
of Portuguese possessions in the region. Dadra
and Nagar Haveli, over which Portugal claimed
sovereignty, were enclaved within Indian territory,
and could not be accessed from other Portuguese
possessions without crossing Indian territory. In
1954, when Portuguese authorities wished to contain
the uprising in Dadra and Nagar Haveli, India
refused the right of passage to Portuguese officers,
armed forces, etc.. Though Portugal challenged
Indias action before the International Court of
Justice, the Court found that India was within its
rights in international law to refuse permission to the
Portuguese authorities to access the enclaves through
Indian territory. This clearly highlights how the
practical and legal difficulties in accessing enclaves
can render sovereignty over them illusory.
As per the joint verification carried out by the
Indian and Bangladeshi governments in April 1997,
there are 111 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh and
51 Bangladeshi enclaves in India. These include a
few counter-enclaves, which are enclaves within
enclaves, as well as a counter-counter enclave a
parcel of Bangladeshi territory surrounded by Indian
territory, itself surrounded by Bangladeshi territory!
In India, these slivers of Bangladesh are in the States
of West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura. The
residents of these enclaves do not enjoy the same
basic amenities that the mainland citizens of their
country enjoy, only for practical problems of access.
The residents find it difficult to travel outside their
enclaves either, since they have no opportunity to
obtain valid travel documents.
They are essentially prisoners within those enclaves,
with fewer facilities than prisoners in these countries
enjoy. The same is, of course, true of residents of the
Indian enclaves surrounded by Bangladeshi territory.
Exchange of land
By the Land Boundary Agreement of 1974 between
the two countries, and the 2011 Protocol to the said
Agreement, India and Bangladesh agreed to exchange
these small parcels of land and better demarcate the
land boundary between them. The borders of the
Indian States of Assam, West Bengal, Meghalaya and
Tripura will be affected by this exchange of territory.
This Agreement has not been implemented yet. The
Constitution (One Hundred and Nineteenth)
Amendment Bill, 2013 proposes to give
53
effect to this proposed land exchange. This
long overdue exchange will endeavour to harmonise
Indias land boundaries and, more importantly,
improve the lives of all those residents of the enclaves
who, by an unfortunate twist of fate, have been living
without a national identity and without enjoying
or ever knowing the quality of life enjoyed by their
neighbours.
If one were to compare the area of land that India
receives in this exchange to what India gives away,
the former falls short of the latter by 10,000 acres.
While it may appear like a net loss of territory,
such loss is illusory. What we lose are enclaves we
cannot access, govern or use in any way without the
consent of Bangladesh. The enclaves surrounded by
Bangladeshi territory were never part of any political
campaigns, never on the agenda for development
or reforms of any kind. In fact, except on paper,
mainland India would never know the loss of those
territories.
It would also be a great stretch of imagination to
believe that such a land exchange can give rise
to calls for secession in other parts of India. An
enclave is a very unique position, geographically and
administratively they cannot be compared to any
other situation worldwide. Claiming a right to secede
is an expression of the will of the people (whether
rightfully or otherwise). Amending the Constitution
of India to give effect to the exchange of these parcels
of land is not an expression of the will of the people
residing in those land areas. Even if the residents of
an Indian enclave in Bangladesh wished to remain
part of Indian territory, it would be an administrative
nightmare (as it has been for the past several
decades). Whether they wish to remain Indian, and
seek to relocate to India, is a separate question. Thus,
the proposed transfer, unlike secession, is motivated
by the need for efficient administration and for the
welfare of those residing in those regions rather than
dictated by the will of the people.
No more gambles please
According to some sources, the Indo-Bangladesh
enclaves have their origins in chess games between
the Raja of Cooch Behar and the Nawab of Rangpur
who wagered in these territories. The outcomes of
these wagers have meant virtual exclusion from of
all governmental services and denial of essential
facilities for the residents of these territories for
decades. While The Constitution (One Hundred
and Nineteenth) Amendment Bill, 2013 proposes
a solution, due care must be taken to ensure that
another series of political wagers does not prolong
the sad state of affairs.
----------x----------x----------x----------
Cautious approval for Zimbabwe polls
The African Union and the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) offered a cautious
endorsement of Zimbabwes hastily conducted
election that is likely to see Robert Gabriel Mugabe
extend his 33-year tenure as President.
The AU and SADC preliminary reports were presented
a day after Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, Mr.
Mugabes lead challenger, described the elections
as a huge farce. In their reports, both bodies took
note of serious deficiencies in the election process
but concluded that these did not fatally damage the
credibility of the election.
The Zimbabwe Election Commission is yet to declare
the results of the Presidential polls, but early results
indicate that Mr. Mugabes ZANU (PF) party is likely
to win with an unprecedented margin.
AUs preliminary report expressed grave concerns
over several aspects of the electoral process, including
the registration of voters, the preparation of voter
rolls, the overprinting of ballot papers, missing ballot
papers and polarization of the national media. That
the final voters roll was made publicly available two
days before the election, the report noted, made it
rather late for meaningful inspection by voters,
parties and candidates.
SADC took a similar position in their preliminary
report, noting that the voting process was free and
largely peaceful, but stopped short of declaring
the elections credible as their final report is still in
preparation.
Meanwhile at the ZANU (PF) headquarters, Justice
Minister and senior party member Patrick Chinamasa
described the election as a watershed election. These
were crucial elections for the country to decide to
54
turn left or right, to move forward or back. To be
swallowed by the beast of western countries or to
remain outside the beast, he said. Mr. Chinamasa
refuted the oppositions charges that the election
commission acted at the behest of the ZANU (PF).
CS Synopsis Special - Background on
AU and SADC
African Union is a union consisting of 54 African
states. The only all-African state not in the AU is
Morocco. The AU was established on 26 May 2001 in
Addis Ababa and launched on 9 July 2002 in South
Africa to replace the Organisation of African Unity
(OAU). The most important decisions of the AU are
made by the Assembly of the African Union, a semi-
annual meeting of the heads of state and government
of its member states. The AUs secretariat, the
African Union Commission, is based in Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia.
Southern African Development Community
(SADC) is an inter-governmental organization
headquartered in Gaborone, Botswana. Its goal is to
further socio-economic cooperation and integration
as well as political and security cooperation among
15 southern African states. It complements the role of
the African Union.
----------x----------x----------x----------
Intimidation of Whistleblower
Manning Verdict
Bradley Manning faces a sentence of up to 130
years in prison and civil rights groups accuse the
U.S. government of seeking to intimidate future
whistleblowers
Civil rights groups have accused the United
States government of seeking to intimidate future
whistleblowers after Army private Bradley Manning
was convicted by a military court of most of the
charges against him for passing the biggest cache of
state secrets in history to WikiLeaks.
Although he was found not guilty of the most serious
charge, aiding the enemy, Manning faces a sentence
of up to 130 years in prison for several violations of
the Espionage Act.
Col. Lind also accepted Mannings version of several
of the key dates in the WikiLeaks disclosures, and
took some of the edge from other less serious charges.
But the overriding toughness of the verdict remains:
the soldier was found guilty in their entirety of 17
out of the 22 counts against him, and of an amended
version of four others. That guilty ruling could still
have wide ramifications for news organisations
working on investigations relating to U.S. national
security. Once the counts are added up, the prospects
for Manning are bleak. Barring reduction of sentence
for mitigation, which becomes the subject of another
mini-trial dedicated to sentencing that starts on
Wednesday, Manning will face a substantial chunk of
his adult life in military custody.
Among those who will also be closely analysing
the verdict are Edward Snowden, the former NSA
contractor who has disclosed the existence of secret
government dragnets of the phone records of millions
of Americans, who has indicated that the treatment
of Manning was one reason for his decision to seek
asylum in another country rather than face similar
aggressive prosecution in America.
Another party that will be intimately engaged with
the verdict is WikiLeaks, and its founder, Julian
Assange. They have been the subject of a secret grand
jury investigation in Virginia that has been looking
into whether to prosecute them for their role in the
Manning disclosures.
----------x----------x----------x----------
No starting point to resolution Sril -
anka Tamil Issue
(International Relations The Hin-
du)
The Northern Provincial Council (NPC) election in
Sri Lanka is expected to take place later this year.
Colombo is entertaining hopes that holding the
elections will help win Indias support in multilateral
venues. New Delhi has made the 13th amendment
to the Sri Lankan constitution a by-
product of the 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord the
centrepiece of a political solution. The Indo-Lanka
55
Accord purportedly addresses the Tamil issue but
most importantly for India, also contains important
provisions on security-related matters between
the two states. Safeguarding the 13th amendment
in some form is important to keep the Indo-Lanka
Accord alive. The Sri Lankan government has been
playing the China card to lessen pressure from
India. New Delhi returned the favour by its qualified
support to the two U.S.-sponsored resolutions on Sri
Lanka at the U.N. Human Rights Council in March
2012 and March 2013.
Show of nationalism
President Mahinda Rajapaksa would have liked to
amend the 13th amendment before the NPC election,
but has no option but to leave it untouched, thanks
to pressure exerted by India. Nonetheless, Indias
breathing down Colombos neck is allowing for a more
strident expression of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism
to take hold. The pioneers of this increasingly brazen
show of nationalism, led by the Defence Secretary and
Rajapaksas brother, Gotabhaya, as well as ministers
within the ruling coalition, are calling for the 13th
amendment to be repealed or amended into nothing.
As such calls grow, President Rajapaksas stance
appears increasingly duplicitous silently
encouraging the anti-13th amendment hysteria, while
distancing himself from it to appear presentable to
India and the West. For now, he seems to have shelved
plans to dilute the 13th amendment. Nevertheless,
Colombo has not given up totally on this goal
presumably, the 13th amendment will be watered
down after the NPC election. Given the state of the
judiciary in Sri Lanka, following the impeachment
of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in
January 2013, as well as the two-thirds majority
Rajapaksa enjoys in Parliament, there seems to be no
significant challenge to passing these amendments
post-elections. While some left leaning parties in
Rajapaksas coalition and the Sri Lanka Muslim
Congress have asserted that they will not support
any such move, these critics have previously proved
themselves to be politically amenable. For India, the
NPC election being held without any amendments to
the 13th amendment will suffice.
The Tamil people have been reduced to
mere spectators in this powwow between
the two governments. No one has asked
the Tamil people what they stand to gain
by holding the Northern Provincial Coun-
cil election or more widely, with the 13th
amendment.
Tamil concerns
The 13th amendment is no starting point to a political
solution. It sits within a highly inflexible unitary
state framework. The Governor of the Province, a
Presidential appointee, must consent to any bill
that has financial consequences and can delay
legislation brought before the provincial council
under the pretext of unconstitutionality. He/she has
plenary powers (appointment, dismissal and transfer
powers) over the Provincial Public Service. State land
alienation, prime among Tamil concerns, continues to
be vested almost exclusively with the President. Most
policing powers remain retained for the National
Police. Crucially, issues relating to the developmental
and livelihood needs of the Tamil people are not
devolved to the provincial councils. As it is, the 13th
amendment has been further weakened by successive
governments through unilateral Central government
legislation and executive fiat.
Conflict years
Up to the end of the armed conflict, Tamils have
consistently rejected the 13th amendment not
only the LTTE, but also the Tamil United Liberation
Front (TULF) which had initially been engaged
in a dialogue with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi
regarding its contents. Poignantly, at that time, the
TULF asserted that Sri Lanka did not show the final
version of the 13th amendment to India before it
was presented to Parliament. The current leader of
the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), R. Sambanthan
was part of the trio who represented the TULF, in the
TULF-Rajiv Gandhi talks.
The TNA is under pressure from India to accept a
solution based on the 13th amendment, and does not
want to be seen as rejecting something that President
Rajapaksa is reluctant to offer. As a result, Tamil
representatives are engaged in a futile battle with
those who call for it to be repealed, to save whatever
little is left in the 13th amendment. It is a wholly
nonsensical debate: those who want to repeal the
13th amendment argue, quite misleadingly, that it
significantly devolves land and police powers to the
56
provinces. They also call for Parliament to be stripped
of its powers to enable a merger of the North and
Eastern provinces when even the main opposition
party (the United National Party) is against such
a move. Just as misleading are attempts by those
campaigning for the 13th amendment, including
India and the TNA, to convey to the Tamil people that
it is a good starting point to a political solution.
What then is the future of the 13th amendment? The
more prudent sections of the Sri Lankan government
are likely to prevail and the amendment, in some form
or the other, will be retained. However, it is probable
that the Government after the Northern Provincial
Council election may try to remove the symbolic
references in the 13th amendment that create the
impression of granting land and police powers to
the province; and make a merger of the North and
East a legal impossibility. India may object to such
measures: but in the midst of all this hysteria, any
attempt towards finding a genuine political solution
will be lost.
----------x----------x----------x----------
Rouhani to form govt. of wisdom and
hope in Iran
In the midst of parliamentarians, senior clerics, top
officials and an array of foreign dignitaries, Hassan
Rouhani was sworn in as Irans new President. A
moderate cleric backed by the former President
Mohammad Khatami and the reformists, Mr. Rouhani
has emerged as a unifying figure his comprehensive
victory in the June elections amid high turnout being
widely interpreted as an event that brought closure to
the divisive and fractious 2009 presidential elections.
A regime insider, who is open to a constructive
engagement with Irans detractors in the West and
elsewhere, Mr. Rouhani has unveiled the template
of his four years tenure in the presidential office,
which commenced on Saturday, when he was
formally endorsed by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei. During an hour-long ceremony on
Saturday, Mr. Rouhani laid out it his priorities:
revival of the economy, removal of sanctions, political
stability and pursuit of a flexible foreign policy that is
open to engagement.
Mr. Rouhani has been emphatic about promoting
social cohesion and inclusivity. On Sunday, he told
Parliament that he would form a government of
wisdom and hope, where all Iranians would be
represented. All of those who voted, whether they
voted for me, someone else, or even if they didnt vote,
all of them are Iranian citizens and have citizenship
rights.
Championing gender rights, Mr. Rouhani pledged
to advance womens rights and freedoms, and
discourage governmental interference in peoples
lives. However, he slammed sanctions as a
counterproductive instrument adopted by the West,
which has impeded a breakthrough in talks. If you
want an adequate response, you shouldnt speak the
language of sanctions, you should speak the language
of respect, said the President.
During the ceremony, there was sufficient symbolism
about Tehrans willingness to turn a new leaf in its
dialogue with the West, in the form of presence of
Javier Solana who was extended a special
invitation the former foreign policy chief of
the European Union (EU) who has vast experience
of conducting successful nuclear diplomacy with Mr.
Rouhani, Irans former chief negotiator during the
nuclear talks.
Deepening of India-Iran energy ties, a
win-win outcome
India and Iran seem set to reinforce their energy ties
a move that could help New Delhi arrest the sharp
decline in the value of the rupee versus the dollar, and
benefit Tehran, which has been badly hit by unilateral
sanctions marshalled by the United States.
For the first time since April, the Mangalore Refinery
and Petrochemicals Ltd. (MRPL) has received 85,000
metric tonnes of Iranian crude. Bloomberg quoted
MRPL managing director P.P. Upadhyay as saying
the cargo had been received on August 17, and three
more shipments of a similar size are in the pipeline.
This is the first cargo weve got from Iran this
financial year and well see how many more we can
import in the rest of the year, said Mr. Upadhyay.
The same ship has returned to Iran and will bring
the additional cargoes.
The transaction follows a comment in Parliament
57
earlier this month by Finance Minister P.
Chidambaram, signalling that India could buy more
from Iran, as part of a string of steps to the defend
the falling rupee. Within the U.N. sanctions and fully
complying with the sanctions, there may be more
space for imports from Iran, said Mr. Chidambaram.
Irans Fars News Agency had earlier reported that
India and Iran had explored avenues to bolster their
energy ties during talks, late in May, between Irans
visiting former Oil Minister Rostam Qassemi and
his Indian counterpart, M. Veerappa Moily. India
complies with U.N. sanctions, but has, in line with
emerging countries such as China and Russia, opposed
the imposition of unilateral energy sanctions against
Iran by the Obama-administration. The Obama
administration has passed the Comprehensive Iran
Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act
(CISADA), which seeks to starve import-dependent
Iran of gasoline and other refined products, by serving
notice to foreign gasoline exporting countries that
the continuation of their dealings with Tehran could
compromise their business activities in the United
States. Separately, the U.S.-led sanctions also target
Irans Central Bank by penalising all foreign financial
institutions that do business with it.
Unlike payments for its oil imports in dollars with
other countries, India and Iran have worked out a
complex mechanism that allows India to pay for its
oil in rupees, which are then converted into physical
goods that flow into Iran. The payments are made to
the Kolkata-based UCO bank where the Iranians have
opened an account. The rupee deposit is then used
to pay Indian exporters, obviating the demand for
dollars, and lowering the pressure on the currency to
rise. Indias exports to Iran in 2012-13 had jumped by
39.4 per cent to $3.36 billion over the previous year.
Insurance fund
According to Bloomberg, India has been preparing a
$314-million insurance fund to cover future imports,
as Indian insures declined to cover refineries process
Iranian oil. On their part, the Iranians have this year
taken delivery of seven supertankers, all made in
China, to escape the sanctions dragnet.
In combating sanctions, Iran has made a conscious
effort to orient its trade and commercial ties towards
the East, by consciously forging new economic
bonds with countries such as China, India, South
Korea, Japan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates
(UAE). By the first quarter of 2013, 75 per cent of
Irans trade has been channelled to Asia, and only 25
per cent towards the rest of the world. The decline
in trade with the EU is startling. From 27.8 billion
in 2011, trade with the EU plunged to 12.8 billion
dollars in 2012.
----------x----------x----------x----------
International Criminal Court
On July 17, 1998, the Rome Statute for
establishing a permanent International
Criminal Court (ICC) was adopted: 120 countries
voted it in, the United States, Iraq, China, Israel,
Qatar, Yemen and Libya voted against, and 21
countries abstained, India among them. It was a
dramatic moment, when governments spanning
continents and political cultures acknowledged that
the criminal laws of states were not bringing the
perpetrators of mass crimes to justice. The word
impunity had acquired a significance that was no
longer possible to ignore. Where states are unable or
unwilling to investigate and prosecute perpetrators
of mass crimes, the ICC could step in, breaching the
structures of impunity that had set in over the years.
The Court would try individuals and not states.
On July 1, 2002, the Statute came into force. By now,
122 countries have signed and ratified th e Rome
Statute, testimony to the anxiety over the escalation
and pervasiveness of large-scale atrocities across the
world. Thirty-one countries have signed up but not
yet ratified it. Of these, the U.S., Israel and Sudan
have withdrawn as signatories to the Statute a
process not known to international law intending
to communicate that they will not be moving towards
its adoption, and may even now act in ways contrary
to its object and purpose.
Indias stance
The ICC challenges impunity. It is striking that when
the issue of impunity was raised in discussions on the
Rome Statute in India during 1997-98, there were
very few who were acquainted with the term. Half-a-
decade later, the word had entered common parlance.
58
The events in Gujarat helped. When discussions
were held with civil liberties groups, there was
little interest in the ICC which was, in 1997, seen as
irrelevant for India; in 2002, this changed. India has
been hostile to the idea of internationalising criminal
justice and is not a party to the ICC. Whats more, in
December 2002, India inked a Bilateral Immunity
Agreement with the U.S. which has signed over
a 100 such agreements to nullify the ICCs impact
as far as U.S. personnel are concerned with an
eagerness that was embarrassing. The stodgy silence
that India has maintained on the role and functioning
of international criminal tribunals investigating mass
crimes in Rwanda and Yugoslavia, and the cases
before the ICC itself, belies the Indian claim for a
permanent seat on the Security Council.
The Indian position, that India does not need the ICC
because it is perfectly capable of dealing with mass
crimes, is misleading. The ICC only steps in when
the state does not act, or acts in ways that shield
perpetrators. In line with its founding principle of
complementarity between national courts and
international tribunals, the ICC defers to the formers
role in the domestic criminal justice system. But the
responsibility for developing criminal jurisprudence
in relation to mass crimes rests with the ICC, and the
role of the states parties, the prosecutor, the judges
and the states that cooperate with the court is not
negligible; India has abdicated this space altogether.
Specific
When the Rome Statute was adopted in 1998, it
defined and detailed three crimes genocide, crimes
against humanity, and war crimes. The specific crimes,
reflecting historical precedent, include murder,
enslavement, extermination, torture, enforced
disappearances, the crime of apartheid, persecution
against any identifiable group or collectivity on
grounds including political, national, religion and
gender, rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution,
forced pregnancy and forced sterilisation when they
are committed as part of a widespread or systematic
attack. The importance of not allowing impunity to
become the practice of states when such crimes occur
needs no debate.
Most cases from Africa
A fourth, the crime of aggression, was listed in
the Statute, but was defined only later, in June
2010. It is the use of armed force by a state against
the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political
independence of another state, or in any other
manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United
Nations.
Planning, preparation, initiation or execution by a
person in a leadership position of an act of aggression
falls within this category. These represent strides
in international accountability for the crime of
aggression, but where it is committed by citizens
belonging to, or in the territory of, a state that is not
a party to the Statute, there can be no prosecution
even if the victims of this crime belong to a state that
is a state party to the Rome Statute. So, U.S. nationals
cannot be tried, even if they are apprehended outside
the U.S., because the U.S. is not a state party.
Right from the start, getting powerful nations on
board the ICCs mandate was a matter of concern,
and that concern has not vanished. It is also asked,
with more than a dash of irony, whether this is an
international court of justice for Africa. The cases
currently before the court are from Uganda, the
Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African
Republic, Darfur in Sudan, Kenya, Libya, Cote
dIvoire and Mali. The fact, however, is that Africa has
been at the forefront of establishing the court, and
has a demonstrable interest in working through an
international court. There are complexities, for sure:
two prominent Kenyan politicians, Uhuru Kenyatta
and William Ruto who face crimes against humanity
charges before the ICC for their role in the 2007-2008
post-election violence, joined hands as coalition allies
in the 2013 election, winning the polls to become,
respectively, the President and Deputy President of
Kenya. Protecting witnesses, especially, is proving
a problem. But that is not unique to international
tribunals, and does little to diminish the relevance of
the court.
Large-scale violence has become endemic around
the world, and in many instances, criminal justice
systems seem to fail victims. Standing testimony
to this sobering fact are 30 truth commissions in
countries as varied as Argentina, Nigeria, Morocco,
Chad, Nepal, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, South Korea and
Uruguay; two international criminal tribunals set up
by the U.N. Security Council for erstwhile Yugoslavia
and Rwanda, and a national criminal tribunal to
59
deal with mass crimes in times of transition, as in
Bangladesh.
The ICCs relevance is heightened in this context. As
it slowly gathers both history and jurisprudence, this
much can be said: that the cover has been blown on
impunity. Equality before the law remains a dream
for many, but given that the ICC itself seemed an
impossibility when the Rome Statute was adopted 15
years ago, there is no telling what may happen next.
CS Synopsis Special Difference
between International Criminal Court
and International Court of Justice
The International Criminal Court (ICC) and
the International Court of Justice (ICJ) sound like
two very similar bodies and are often confused as
the same organization. However, the two are actually
distinct organizations with no direct links.

The ICJ was established in 1946 as the judicial
wing of the UN. The ICC was established as an
independent international organization in 2002 and
is not governed by the UN. Both bodies are located in
The Hague, Netherlands.
The ICJ settles disputes between member states, with
their consent, on issues of sovereignty, trade, natural
resources, treaty violations, treaty interpretation,
and etc. The ICC tries individual people for genocide,
crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of
aggression, according to the Rome Statute.
Although the ICC and the ICJ are unrelated
organizations with different functions, both are
essential parts of the international justice system
and help further the aims of worldwide stability and
peace.
----------x----------x----------x----------
India-Myanmar Relations
(International Relations - MEA)
India-Myanmar relations are rooted in shared
historical, ethnic, cultural and religious ties. As the
land of Lord Buddha, India is a country of pilgrimage
for the people of Myanmar. India and Myanmar
relations have stood the test of time. The geographical
proximity of the two countries has also helped
develop and sustain cordial relations and facilitated
people-to-people contact. India and Myanmar share
a long land border of over 1600 km and a maritime
boundary in the Bay of Bengal. A large population
of Indian origin (according to some estimates about
2.5 million) lives in Myanmar. India and Myanmar
signed a Treaty of Friendship in 1951.
A number of agreements for enhancing bilateral
cooperation have been signed between the two
countries. Institutional mechanisms for facilitating
regular dialogue on a range of issues of bilateral
interest have also been established. Indian Consulate
General in Mandalay was re-opened in 2002 and
the Consulate General of Myanmar was set up in
Kolkata. India has been responsive to the needs of
friendly people of Myanmar and has been providing
relief materials and assistance. India also provided
assistance of US $1 million for humanitarian relief
and rehabilitation in the areas affected by the severe
earthquake in Shan State in March 2011. India also
provided assistance of US$ 200,000 to the communal
riot affected people of Rakhine State in August 2012.
Major Indian Projects in Myanmar
Development cooperation is a key of our relationship
and we have offered technical and financial assistance
for projects in Myanmar, both in infrastructural and
non- infrastructural areas. These include a national
centre of excellence- the Myanmar Institute of
Information Technology (MIIT) being set up at
Mandalay; an Advanced Centre for Agricultural
Research and Education (ACARE) along with a Rice
Bio Park at Yezin Agriculture University Nay Pyi Taw.
Recognising the importance of connectivity, India
in coordination with Myanmar is implementing the
various connectivity projects: Kaladan Multimodal
Transit Transport Project, building/upgrading 71
bridges on the Tamu-Kalewa-Kalemyo road; pledged
to construct/upgrade the Kalewa-Yargyi section
of the trilateral highway which envisages seamless
connectivity between India, Myanmar and Thailand
by 2016. Government of India is also closely working
with Government of Myanmar to implement the
MOU on Border Area Development where India has
granted an assistance of USD 5 Million each year
for next five years. An India-Myanmar Industrial
Training Centre has been set up by HMT(I) in
Pakokku with the assistance of GOI, a second centre
60
is being set up in Myingyan. Myanmar-India Centre
for English Language (MICELT), a Myanmar-India
Entrepreneurship Development Centre (MIEDC)
and an India-Myanmar Centre for Enhancement
of IT Skills (IMCEITS) have been set up under GOI
assistance and are running successfully.
Other projects include restoration of the Ananda
Temple in Bagan, upgradation of the Yangon
Childrens Hospital, Sittwe General Hospital along
with proposed upgradation of Monywa General
Hospital.
Commercial and Economic Relations
There has been steady expansion of bilateral trade
from US$ 12.4 million in 1980-81 to US$ 1.92
million in 2012-13. Indias imports from Myanmar
are dominated by agricultural items (beans, pulses
and forest based products from 90% of our imports).
Indias main exports to Myanmar are primary &
semi-finished steel and pharmaceuticals.
A Bilateral Investment Promotion Agreement (BIPA)
and a Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA)
were also signed in 2008. India and Myanmar are
both signatories to the India-ASEAN Trade in Goods
Agreement, which was signed in August 2009.
Myanmar is also a beneficiary country under Indias
Duty Free Tariff Preference Scheme for LDCs.
Border Trade
India and Myanmar signed a border trade agreement
in 1994 and have two operational border trade points:
Moreh-Tamu and Zowkhatar Rhi on the 1643 km
long border. A third border trade point is proposed to
be opened at Avakhung-Pansat/Somrai. The border
trade between India and Myanmar had a quantum
jump during the year 2012-13 touching US$ 36.2
million from US$ 15.4 million.
The Sarnath Style Buddha Statue donated by GOI to
people of Myanmar and installed at the Shwedagon
Pagoda premises was also unveiled in Yangon
in Decmeber 2012. India is also working on the
restoration/preservation of Ananda Temple in Bagan.
Indian Diaspora
The origin of the Indian community in Myanmar is
traced back to the mid-19
th
century with the advent
of the British rule in Lower Burma in 1852. The two
cities of the Myanmar namely Yangon and Mandalay
had a dominating presence of Indians in various
fields such as civil services, education, trade and
commerce during the British rule. A large number
of the Indian community (nearly 150,000) live in
Bago and Tanintharyi Region and Mon State and are
primarily engaged in farming. The NRI families in
Myanmar mainly live in urban/cities and are engaged
in export import business or are employees of MNCs
based in India, Singapore and Thailand.
Cooperation between India and
Myanmar in the regional/sub-regional
context
ASEAN: Myanmar became a member of ASEAN in
July 1997. As the only ASEAN country which shares a
land border with India, Myanmar is a bridge between
India and ASEAN. A few proposals for cooperation
have been implemented and some are under
discussions with Myanmar within the framework
of ASEANs IAI (Initiative for ASEAN Integration)
programme.
BIMSTEC: Myanmar became a member of
BIMSTEC in December 1997. Myanmar is a signatory
to the BIMSTEC Free Trade Agreement. Myanmar
is the lead country for the energy sector. Myanmar
trades mostly with Thailand and India in the
BIMSTEC region. Myanmars major exports to India
are agricultural products like beans, pulses and maize
and forest products such as teak and hardwoods.
Its imports from India include chemical products,
pharmaceuticals, electrical appliances and transport
equipment. The 13th BIMSTEC Ministerial Meeting
was held in Myanmar in January 2011. The 3rd
BIMSTEC Summit meeting is expected to be held in
Myanmar during the year.
Mekong Ganga Cooperation: Myanmar is a
member of the Mekong Ganga Cooperation (MGC)
since its inception in November 2000. MGC is an
initiative by six countries India and five ASEAN
countries namely, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar,
Thailand and Vietnam for cooperation in the
fields of tourism, education, culture, transport
and communication. The chairmanship of MGC is
assumed by member countries in alphabetical order.
SAARC: Myanmar was given the status of observer
in SAARC in August 2008.
61
Recent News on Myanmar Unrest in
Rakhine Province
The United Nations (U.N.) has called for dialogue
after another violent clash in a camp for dispossessed
Rohingya Muslims in western Myanmar. Conflict
between local Buddhist and Muslim communities in
the state last year left some 200 dead and 140,000
homeless. Attacks against Muslims who make up
an estimated four per cent of Myanmars population
have exposed deep fractures in the Buddhist-
majority nation and cast a shadow over its emergence
from army rule. Tensions in Rakhine have remained
high since two outbreaks of violence in June and
October last year left around 200 people dead,
mainly Rohingya who are seen by many in Myanmar
as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Reformist
President Thein Sein last month denied accusations
by Human Rights Watch (HRW) of ethnic cleansing
against the Rohingya. They are denied citizenship by
Myanmar, leaving them effectively stateless.
----------x----------x----------x----------
In the Levant, Arab Springs bitter end
Syria Crisis
Over the weekend of August 16-18, 30,0000 Syrians
crossed into Iraq over the Peshkhabour Bridge that
spans River Tigris. They left the towns of Aleppo,
Efrin, Hassake and Qamishly for the Kurdish region,
where UNHCR field officers were stunned to see them.
Thousands continue to make the transit, leaving a
Syria paralysed by what U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi
calls a civil war, a sectarian war, and a proxy war,
and entering Iraq, where a string of car bombs over
the past month has brought the highest death toll
since 2008. A major bomb blast in Beiruts southern
district of Dahieh (which means suburb) rattled
Lebanon, where one million Syrians have sought
refuge now one in four of the people who live in
this small Levantine country. Sounds of gunfire and
bombs have become routine from the Mediterranean
coast to the Iranian border, from the souqs of Egypt
to the small coastal towns of Libya.
Since the Arab Spring of 2011 opened up in
North Africa, all eyes are focused there once more as
events seem to turn the clock backwards. In Tunisia,
assassinations of left-wing leaders (Chokri Belaid
and Mohammed Brahmi) convulsed the country into
recriminations. Next-door Libya has been beset with
major security challenges, and the new government of
Ali Zeidan finds his Interior Ministers and his defence
chiefs playing an uneasy game of musical chairs. The
most dramatic events are reserved for Egypt, the self-
defined centre of the Arab world. The massacres of
August 14 portend for many a turn in Egypt toward
the kind of slide into darkness that took place in Syria
through the second half of 2011. Crackdowns against
peaceful protests, there as well, morphed into a major
collapse of state hegemony and the development of a
serious and unending civil war.
Keeping the lines open - A year ago, the U.N.
turned to its veteran Lakhdar Brahimito start a
political process in Syria. Its previous envoy, former
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, had failed, as had
every detachment from the Arab League. When Mr.
Brahimi began he was sceptical, but nonetheless met
with the various opposition groups as well as Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad. After a meeting with the
latter in December 2012, Mr. Brahimi found himself
the brunt of a hostile speech by Mr. Assad the next
month. The Syrian state media, Mr. Brahimi said in
an interview this month, was not only critical of my
declarations which would be perfectly acceptable
but insulting, at times in the most vulgar terms.
Mr. Brahimis deputy, Mokhtar Lamani, maintains
an office in Damascus and keeps an open line to the
regime. The myriad and fractious opposition groups
are also in touch with Mr. Brahimi, whose calls for an
end to the supply of arms to both sides has led to some
conflict with the rebel groups. There is no question
that the war inside Syria remains asymmetrical,
despite some defections from the armed forces to the
rebellion, and that the destruction of the cities and
the killing of civilians have proceeded apace. The
biggest concern, Mr. Brahimi says mournfully, is
that one day Syrians and everyone else will wake up
to find that Syria has been completely destroyed.
Unwilling to relent - Does an exit remain for the
carnage that has claimed over 100,000 lives? Neither
side in the conflict is genuine about a ceasefire and
a peace process. Mr. Brahimi called for a four-day
ceasefire over the Id al-Adha holiday, which was
accepted by all parties. But it did not hold. The Assad
regime believes that it has the upper hand on the
ground, with the rebels defeated in several strongholds
along their logistical supply chain (notably when the
62
regime took back Al Qusayr and Homs). The local
geo-politics has also altered to Mr. Assads favour.
The Gezi Park protests in Turkey as well as the
revival of the Kurdish resistance have dampened the
Erdogan governments neo-Ottoman policy. The new
emir of Qatar has had to drawdown the ambitions of
the small emirate as their ally has fallen in Egypt and
as their old rivalry with Saudi Arabia has given the
advantage to the latter. The Syrian opposition, on the
other hand, is undaunted as Saudi Arabia presses its
advantage amongst them with its funds and as the
North Atlantic states continue to give verbal support
to their ambitions.
Sucked into the vortex - The powers that live far
from the region (the U.S. and Russia) play their Cold
War type antics in Syria, whose neighbours will have
to suffer the consequences of its social haemorrhage.
Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq are being sucked into the
vortex of the civil war, says Mr. Brahimi. But they
are not the only ones who will suffer. Remember 11
September 2001, asks Mr. Brahimi chillingly. That
was the direct result of the neglect of the conflict in
Afghanistan. The U.S. and Russia have committed
themselves to a process that is called Geneva II ,
whose meeting has been repeatedly postponed
because, as Mr. Brahimi notes, the conditions for
starting that conference with a reasonable chance of
success are not there yet. The reason Mr. Brahimi
did not create a peace plan over the course of the year
is that he believes Mr. Annans plan is sufficient. It
is not the lack of a peace plan that stops the process;
it is the lack of trust between the parties to agree to
any plan.
If the far powers (U.S./Russia) cannot or will not
broker such a peace, two other blocs exist for the task.
One of them, the Syria Contact Group (Egypt, Iran,
Saudi Arabia and Turkey), worked in 2012 with no
support from the international community. In fact,
the U.S. and the Russians consistently undermined
it. With the turmoil in Egypt and Turkey, and with
an ascendant Saudi Arabia, it is unlikely that the
Contact Group will be revived. Prince Bandar bin
Sultan, head of the Saudi Intelligence Directorate,
travelled to Moscow to insert the Kingdom into the
process but returned with nothing concrete. It is a
sign that Riyadh wants to have a seat at the table with
Moscow and Washington, rather than be part of a
regional platform. If the regional players have failed,
convulsed by the implosion of the Arab Spring, and
the far powers are uninterested in a foundation for
peace, it is perhaps appropriate for the Non-Aligned
Movement (NAM) to send envoys to both the Assad
regime and the opposition. India could play a crucial
role in such an endeavour.
Indias advantage - The Syrian government and
the opposition see India as a sober party. Indias votes
at the U.N. have depended on the merits of each vote
rather than based on partisan support in one direction
or another. Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs
statement at the 2012 NAM meeting in Tehran set
out a course that appeals to all sides: India supports
popular aspirations for a democratic and pluralistic
order. Nevertheless, such transformations cannot be
prompted by external intervention, which exacerbate
the suffering of ordinary citizens. Verbal support is
no longer enough. India needs to push for a NAM, a
BRICS delegation or a Sino-Indian delegation to visit
all sides and press for a ceasefire and a new peace
process. It is the kind of initiative that Mr. Brahimi
needs, anything to revive the dialogue and prevent
Syria from slipping into a social coma.
----------x----------x----------x----------
Make medicines while the sun shines -
TRIPS
Countries in the South-East Asia region must use
the opportunity of the extended deadline on TRIPS
adherence to promote inexpensive access to drugs,
vaccines and diagnostics
In June 2013, member states of the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) agreed to extend the transition
period for adherence to the Agreement on Trade-
Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
(TRIPS) among least-developed countries (LDCs).
What this meant was that LDCs need not comply
with international rules of intellectual
property rights (IPR) protection for
pharmaceutical patents till up to July 1, 2021.
This decision has major implications for public
health. Access to essential medicines has been a
pressing concern for several decades. Countries such
63
as India and others in its geography of south Asia
as well as the 10 co-members of the World Health
Organisation South-East Asia Region (WHO SEAR)
need to use this opportunity to productively and
imaginatively promote access to medical products
such as medicines, vaccines and diagnostics.
To be fair, this is not a new issue. The period since
the adoption of WTOs Doha Declaration in
2001 has seen dramatic growth in the quantum
and diversity of participants in international policy
debates concerning innovation and access to medical
technologies. Access to medical products in the
context of intellectual property protection was initially
examined within the WHO by the Commission on
Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public
Health (CIPIH), set up in 2003.
In April 2006, the CIPIH published its report. It
contained a number of recommendations aimed
at fostering innovation and improving access to
medicines. In 2008, a World Health Assembly
resolution referred to the Global Strategy and Plan of
Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual
Property. It aimed to promote new thinking on
innovation and access to medicines, for needs-
driven, essential health research and development,
relevant to diseases that disproportionately affected
developing countries. It has been established that
prices fall steeply as soon as drugs go off patent and
when there are generics competitors. Logically, the
price fall seems to be greater when more generics
competitors enter the market. There is a need to use
the policy space available with the extension in the
TRIPS agreement and encourage price reductions by
facilitating the entry of generics producers.
For India this places a dual challenge as a user of
medicines and a society committed to minimising
health-access inequity and as an economy with a
robust pharmaceutical industry, especially in the
generics space.
Economies of scale - For many developing
countries, including some of Indias partners in
the WHOs Southeast Asia Region (SEAR), options
are limited by the small size of their markets and
lack of indigenous technological, productive and
regulatory capacities. This lack of capacity to create
a competitive environment needs to be addressed.
The critical issue is that the economics of supply to
an individual country with a limited market may be
insufficient to attract potential generics suppliers. To
allow, therefore, for economies of scale and a degree
of competition, it is important that small markets
engage together as much as is possible.
International institutions such as the WHO or
the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis
and Malaria (GFATM) could be associated to
assist SEAR countries in facilitating and financing
group purchases from both branded and generics
manufacturers to promote access to medical
products. This is also a time for such countries to
consolidate new approaches to intellectual property
management for public health. From the time
that Indonesia focussed the attention of the global
health community on sharing of viruses that led to
the WHO Pandemic Influenza Preparedness (PIP)
Framework, a new platform for benefit sharing has
emerged. The Framework enables the sharing of
benefits derived from such viruses and includes
new methods of management of related intellectual
property (IP) through developing Standard Material
Transfer Agreements. In turn, these provide for a
range of options for biological material recipients,
such as influenza vaccine manufacturers, to enter
into benefit-sharing agreements.
This is for the first time that the use of genetic
resources and associated right of prior informed
consent, primarily under the domain of the
Convention on Biological Diversity and in keeping
with the principles of the Nagoya Protocol on
Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair
and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising
from their Utilisation, which of course awaits
ratification has been applied to health products.
Genetic resources - The success of the PIP
framework has opened the door to exploring
future collaborations in access to medicines, both
traditional and modern. India has a wide variety of
genetic resources and we need to explore strategies
to optimise the lessons of PIP in the context of
medical products. It is known that traditional
medicine provides leads for the development of new
treatments. Many modern medicines were originally
based on herbal products. For example, oseltamivir,
used to treat various influenza infections, is based
64
on shikimic acid, which is isolated from Chinese star
anise, a cooking spice used in traditional Chinese
medicine. Current malaria treatments contain
synthetic derivatives of artemisinin, which is derived
from a plant, sweet wormwood or Artemisia annua.
This is an ancient Chinese medicine that was in
fact used to treat malaria-stricken soldiers during
the Vietnam War and was developed, through
an international partnership, into a widely-used
pharmaceutical product for malaria treatment. These
are noteworthy precedents. We have to learn from
them, and use the intellectual-property window over
the next eight years to address the issue of access to
medicines for the longer term.
----------x----------x----------x----------
Essay Writing - Civil Services Mains
Examination : Strategy & Tips
The UPSC Civil Services Mains Examination has an
important paper on Essay writing for 250 marks from
2013 Main Exam onwards, earlier the paper was of
200 marks. The essay paper has a choice of at least
5-6 topics covering all the broad areas that a UPSC
aspirant is expected to know.
The UPSC demands the following from the candidates
in its essay paper:
Candidates are required to write an essay
on a specific topic out of the choice of topics
given
Candidates are expected to keep closely to
the subject of the essay
Candidates are expected to arrange their
ideas in orderly fashion
Candidates are expected to write concisely
Credit will be given for effective and exact
expression
While the above mentioned guidelines given by UPSC
may seem very innocuous, but understanding it and
adhering to these guiding principles can easily fetch
one a really good score of 180+ in essay paper.
Choice of Topic - First and foremost thing while
writing an essay is to select the topic you are most
comfortable with as otherwise you will invariably run
out of ideas while writing your essay. The topic about
which you know the most would be your best bet for
getting a decent score.
Brainstorming - Once you have zeroed down on
the topic, the next and most crucial step is to ideate,
i.e., to brainstorm for at least a good 30-45 minutes
and jot down all the ideas that come to your mind
about the topic in question.
Orderly Arrangement of Ideas - Once one has
jotted down all the points, one should arrange them
in coherent, logical sequence. One should then think
of an introduction and conclusion of the essay from
the points jotted down.
Length of Essay - The length of the essay should
be around 1000-1200 words and any essay much
shorter or much longer would be a waste of time and
effort. The heading of the essay should be written in a
neat fashion and underlined.
Sticking to the Essay Topic - A common
pitfall while writing essay for UPSC Civil Services
Mains Examination is that candidates tend to get
carried away from the topic of the essay and this
is counterproductive and goes against the UPSC
guideline of keeping closely to the subject of the essay.
Not keeping this important tenet in mind would lead
you to digress from the topic of the essay and lessen
your chances of getting a decent score.
Quoting Facts and Figures One can and should
quote statistics in the essay if it helps in emphasising
ones point of view but there is no harm in not quoting
any figures if one is not sure or does not remember
any particular statistic. Avoid bluffing and making up
any kind of statistic in the essay paper as it will be a
big negative and can lead to very poor scores.
Effective and Exact Expression - While UPSC
does not expect candidates to write an essay using
flowery language but it does expect the candidates to
write essay using simple but grammatically correct
sentences. A good vocabulary helps the candidate to
use the right expression and convey the exact meaning
without writing too much. For this, a candidate
should focus on improving ones vocabulary and rely
on constructing simple sentences rather than using a
difficult word out of context just for the sake of using
it.
65
Tianhe-2 is the fastest super computer
having 33. 86 petafl op l ocated in Guangzhou,
China is manufactured in China.
GSAT-7(INSAT-4F) satel lite developed by
ISRO has been successful ly launched. It is
Indi as first mi litary satel lite. It will i mpr ove
the mari time communications among Indian
Navy warshi p.
Croatia (after i ndependence from
Yugosl avia) becomes the 28th member to join
European Uni on (EU).
Mastero Zubin Mehta has been awarded
Annual Tagor e award for Cul tural Harmony
for the year 2013.
Indi as advanced weather satelli te INSAT-
3D, launched from Kourou, French Guyana
Jaisalmer fort becomes worlds fir st
inhabi ted Heri ta ge Monument.
Andy Murray & Marion Bartoli sweeps
Wimbledon 2013.
Indian Badminton League (IBL)
Mumbai Masters, Hyderabad Hotshots,
Lucknow Warri ors, Delhi Smasher s, Pune
Pistons & Bang a Beats wer e the 6 teams.
Egypt has been recently suspended fr om the
Afri can Union over mili ta ry coup following
the removal of Presi dent Morsi.
Mamnoon Hus sain - a Indi a born (Agra)
Paki stani businessman has been elected as
the 12
th
Presi dent of Paki stan.
Irish govt . passes a law Governments
Protecti on of Li fe During Pregnancy Bi ll in
the wa ke of the tragi c death of Indian denti st
Savita Hal appanava r of bl ood poisoning due
to misca rria ge.
Govt. issued Ordinance for Nati onal Food
Security Pr ogramme. It would provide highly
subsidized food to about two-thirds of Indi as
populati on.
Roshani- was in news r ecentl y which is
related to Skil l Development & Tr aining
Progr am for tr ibal youth. It is a Rs. 100 crore
project j oi ntly funded by state and central at
the ratio of 75: 25. 50% of t he beneficiary
to be women. The scheme will fol low the
Himayat which was launched in J&K.
National Urban Aajeevika Mission to
be launched i n 2013-14 for poverty
all evi ation, in urban areas. This program has
replaced Swarna Jayanti Sahar i Rojg ar
Yoj ana.
UMEED was i n news r ecentl y whi ch is
related to a scheme for the empower ment of
women in Jammu & Kashmir .
Nat io nal Teeka Express launched at
Al war, Raj asthan to protect children from
li fe-threatening chi ldhood diseases.
Desi gnated vehi cl es under the brand name of
National Teeka Express wil l help not onl y in
distri bution of the vacci nes a nd
compl ementary logisti cs from last cold cha in
point to immuni zation session sites but wil l
also ensur e holding of sessions at the mobi le
vacci nation centr e now.
Practice is the Key - For getting a good score in
essay paper, one should practice writing down points
for at least 8-10 probable essay topics and 2-4 full
length essays and get them evaluated from a subject
expert. Few topics that can be prepared for essay
writing are Democracy and its Challenges, Women
Empowerment and Violence Against Women,
Climate Change and Disaster Management, Curbing
Corruption in Public Life, Growing Role of Social
Media in Forming public Opinion etc.
----------x----------x----------x----------
Prelims Corner

In a Supreme Court judgment it has been
decided that MPs and MLAs convicted of
a crime would stand disqualified from
the date of conviction.
Indi a unveils new Cyber Security
Policy aimed at protecting publi c and
private i nfrastructure from cyber attacks. It
intends to safeguard personal i nformati on,
financial and banking information &
sovereign data.
Rashtriya Adarsh Vidyalaya a new
initi ati ve by Central govt. & Corporate Indi a.
A PPP model which i s going to change the
face of secondary educati on. Trusts, soci eti es
or not for profi t organi zation will buil d and
manage schools in which 40% students wil l
be from under privil eged sections. Schools
wil l be free to fix the fee for rest of the 60%
students. Centre wil l reimburse Rs. 22,000/-
per year for each underprivi leged students.
Funding wi ll be in the ratio of 75:25 between
centre and state.
Justice P. Sathasivam sworn i n as Chief
Justice of India.
Malala Yousuf zai is the yongest nominee
for the Nobel Peace Prize. deli vered a
lecture on need of providi ng universal
primary education.
Surjit Hans has transl ated all works of
Will iam Shakespeare into Punjabi. He has
been honoured at London Eali ng Mayors
parlour.
Douglas Engelbarts Father of Computer
Mouse.
Malayalam language has got the cl assical
status. It has joined other Dravidian
languages Tami l, Kannada & Tel egu i n the
li st.
Kunjupani village is first money l ender
free vi llage l ocated in Nilgiri district
Roberto Azevedo of Brazil wil l succeed
France's Pascal Lamy in September as the
new chief of WTO.
C.S.SYNOPSIS SPECIAL
(Compiled By : ASHIM)
FOR ANY QUERIES PLEASE WRITE TO US AT cs.synopsis@gmail.com http://upsc-prelims.blogspot.in
66
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Highlights of October Issue of Civil Services Synopsis
Personal Laws Vs Uniform Civil Code
Restructuring Civil Services For Inclusive Growth
State Funding of Elections A Good Idea?
Arihant's Advantages ( Nuclear Submarine)

Inconsistencies in Special Marriage Act
Food Security or Electoral Security
Regenerative Medicine
Educating Girl Child
India - Pakistan Relations
Egypt Crisis
Strategy and Sources For New Areas Introduced in Mains Exam
Prelims Corner containing facts and information useful for UPSC Prelims
Profile Praffula Chandra Ray (1861-1944) And Much More .
All the relevant content for UPSC Civil Services
Exam at one source with background information
and insight for easier retention synopsis of all
major current happenings collated from public
domain to save your time and maximize your gains !!!!!

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