The decision to abrogate Article 370 was taken amid high tension, lockdown, rumour-mongering and the echo of jackboots in Jammu and Kashmir

The process of abrogation of Article 370 has been as controversial as the provisions of the Article itself. In its bid to reshape the political landscape of Jammu and Kashmir, the Modi Government, buoyed by the massive mandate it received to return to the seat of power for a second term, scrapped the special status granted to the volatile state by the Constitution of India.

As is the case with most decisions taken in a democracy, unsavoury or otherwise, in a matter of minutes a political slugfest ensued, following the announcement. While some, mostly those occupying the Treasury benches in the House, saw it as a “glorious day” for India, others called it a “dark day” for parliamentary democracy.

Nonetheless, the decision to abrogate Article 370 was taken amidst high tension, lockdown, rumour mongering and the echo of jackboots in J&K. The Centre restricted public movement by imposing Section 144 of CrPC and several important political leaders of the state were detained and put under house arrest. The Amarnath Yatra was suspended early, tourists were asked to leave and all forms of communication channels were paralysed, isolating the state from the rest of the country, ironically, all in the name of promoting better integration.

Article 370, which granted special status to J&K and Article 35A that empowered the state legislature to define the “permanent residents”  of J&K and their special rights and privileges, has long been under the shadow of controversy. It has been a contested constitutional question whether the provisions of Article 370 were that of a temporary nature and was the Parliament ever empowered to abrogate it.

If we revisit history, it becomes evident from clause 7 of the Instrument of Accession signed by Maharaja Hari Singh that the state could not be compelled to accept any future Constitution of India. Furthermore, J&K was well within its rights to draft its own constitution and to decide for itself what additional powers to extend to the Central Government. Article 370 was designed to protect these special rights agreed upon under the Instrument of Accession.

Though Article 370 of the Constitution states that the President may, by public notification, declare that this article shall cease to be operative or shall be operative only with such exceptions and modifications and from such date as he may specify, however, provisio to Article 370 clearly states that recommendation of the constituent Assembly of the state referred to in clause 2 of Article 370 shall be necessary before the President issues such a notification. But, since the J&K constituent Assembly later created the State’s constitution and dissolved itself without recommending the abrogation of Article 370, the Article was deemed to have become a permanent feature of the Indian Constitution.

The Supreme Court (SC) as well as High Courts of states on several occasions have specifically stated that Article 370 of the Constitution is not a temporary provision. In Kumari Vijayalakshmi Jha vs. Union of India (2017), the Delhi High Court rejected a petition claiming that Article 370 was temporary. In 2018, the SC stated that Article 370 is not a temporary provision. Similarly the apex court in SBI vs. Zaffar Ullah Nehru (2016) held that J&K has a special status and that Article 370 is not temporary.

On the other hand, Article 3 of the Indian Constitution empowers the Parliament to amend the Constitution by a simple majority to change or alter the boundaries of a state but only when the Bill concerning the same is first referred to the state Assembly concerned for its opinion. But, the decision to create two new Union Territories, J&K and Ladakh, was taken by Parliament without referring the same to J&K Assembly.

As the Assembly was dissolved by an order under Article 356, there was no constitutional body to make the recommendations either under Article 370 (3) or under Article 3.

In such a context, a shortcut was found in the provision of Article 356 (1) (b) that allowed the President to declare that the powers of the state legislature shall be exercisable by or under the authority of the President while President’s Rule was in operation in a state.

In the process, perhaps for the first time in the history of state reorganisation in India, a state was converted into two Union Territories, reversing the hitherto existing trend.

Needless to say that Indian federalism became the biggest casualty of our political leaders’ desire to create history in one stroke. With the Valley being under lockdown and an unprecedented number of boots on the ground to maintain peace, one is tempted to question the hurried need for abrogating Article 370 without taking the people and the political leaders of J&K into confidence. Can the Centre justify the manner in which all this was done? In law, especially in Constitutional law, procedure is as important as the outcome. It may be recalled that the 1971 election of Indira Gandhi was declared null and void by the Allahabad High Court on grounds of a procedural illegality.

More than the act itself, what is worrisome, is the manner in which it has been dealt with and the subsequent lockdown of the Valley that put curbs on the liberty of citizens of the state.

Such a sensitive matter certainly needed political maturity on the part of the powers that be, who, would have done well to focus on confidence building measure, by way of discussion with key stakeholders.

Unfortunately, neither was the spirit of a deliberative democracy respected, nor was any consensus building attempt made in the frenzied hurry to abrogate Article 370.

The whole episode, therefore, not only undermined the very spirit of democratic functioning but also demonstrated the centralising tendency compromising the framework of asymmetrical federalism that the Constitution of India envisaged.

When the democratic State starts behaving and functioning like a majoritarian and authoritarian one, not only does the constitutional promise get shattered, the future prospects of unity and integrity look bleak.

This, therefore, should be a moment of introspection and not that of celebration. Looking at the lockdown in the Valley and the virtual imprisonment of its people in blatant disregard of their rights in the name of greater integration and the so-called development of the region, one is prompted to ask whether India has pushed Kashmir to the point of no return.

The answer is probably blowing in the wind in the bleeding Valley.

Unfortunately, we have no access to read the writing on the wall of the Valley, with the region being virtually cut off from the rest of the country and both the free movement of the fact finding teams to the state and reporting from the Valley being restricted to a great extent.

However, one can safely assume that in yet another bid to write history in one stroke, the country is going to learn the historic lesson that the project of national integration promoting greater unity and integrity calls for moving beyond the desire of over-centralisation and the idea of forced integration by focussing more on sharing of political power and simultaneously pursuing policies of greater accommodation.

(Pankaj Sarma is an Assistant Professor of political science at Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi, and Popimoni Sharma is a former Guest Lecturer of GB Law College, Guwahati)

Writer: Pankaj Sharma Popimoni Sharma

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Though lives were saved, poor compliance means years of precious research have been lost at the elite institution

The intensity of the massive blaze at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, and the leaping fury with which it engulfed its floors in a matter of moments can be gauged from the fact that it took nearly three dozen fire tenders over eight long hours to be doused.  Had not AIIMS been a prized institution, perhaps the emergency response wouldn’t have been activated with as much urgency and wilfulness but the fact remains that even the safety protocols at the most aware of places had not been reviewed in three years, the last time being in 2016. AIIMS is one of the few hospitals in the city that has an interconnecting ramp to move patients in times of disasters. Perhaps this is why lives weren’t lost in the country’s premier hospital but imagine this in any other government facility and the mind addles to think what could be. Thankfully, the fire was confined to the pre-clinical and teaching blocks in the country’s sought after facility but it did have all the hallmarks of a major disaster. And while AIIMS authorities are particular about top-notch research, they ought to be as sharp about protecting them. For though no human life has been lost, there has been immense loss of intellectual property in the long-term. Hundreds of blood samples at the micro-biology lab, rare viruses, crucial research, scholarly papers, case updates and expensive machines have been completely gutted. Findings are the basis of any medical breakthrough and the foundation for that is gone forever. And if administrators of such an evolved centre cannot be far-sighted about basic safety compliances or build efficiencies in awareness, then there is little to be expected of others. The Delhi Fire Department has said that some of the buildings, including the one that caught fire, did not have the requisite No Objection Certificate (NOC). The NOC is mandatory in the fire safety document, which is renewed every three years and certified annually.

Intriguingly, the general apathy to hospital and patient safety persists despite repeated outbreaks of fire at medical facilities across the country claiming scores of lives. Be it the AMRI episode in Kolkata, which claimed 92 lives, the ESIC Hospital in Mumbai or the SMU Hospital in Bhubaneswar, post-mortem has revealed how they blatantly ignored warnings and safety recommendations or pushed them out of the priority list in their greed to acquire more cutting-edge competitiveness in services. Yet patient care and safety in times of earthquakes, fire or floods do not even merit an intra-institution workshop. While the Delhi Police is waiting for the forensic report to deduce what led to this catastrophe, there are too many questions that demand answers. The hospital was not only ill-prepared but failed to adhere to the guidelines on hospital safety as mandated by the National Disaster Management Authority in 2016 and the National Building Code (NBC) 2005, which made the fire safety certificate mandatory for all buildings taller than 15 m. In fact, most Government buildings as also shop owners, restaurants, hotels, and other private buildings openly flout norms. Needless to say, the situation is all the more precarious in a hospital environment, which is home to those who are incapacitated and, thus, movement becomes challenging in case of a fire or any untoward incident. Even so, where building codes like alarms, sprinkler systems, hosepipes and insulation panels among others are in place, and where the builder claims to have used materials in line with the regulations, the actuals turn out to be about fake compliance, the certificates usually got by greasing palms of local officials. In cases where NOC has been obtained, rarely are fire safety audits carried out. Most post-fire probes have revealed how encroachments and tweaks in open areas have made it really difficult for the firemen to even get into the core zone. They say no tragedy is dark enough that the gloom cannot be lifted. Two babies were born amid the raging fire. Which means going forward, beyond taking action against those responsible for the incident to ensure accountability, there needs to be a strict penal clause, including deregistration of the establishment concerned, if the prescribed safety norms are not met. Third-party audits, too, must be made mandatory to avoid conflict of interest between the municipal authorities and Government officials. Unless a system of checks and balances is put in place, we will never internalise the spirit of risk containment and expose ourselves to unimaginable dangers. And that would be foolhardy indeed.

Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer

With the economy sinking and a failed bid at the UNSC, Islamabad is in no position to declare war or embrace peace. It will do well to focus on its internal problems

A fortnight after the Modi Government defanged Article 370, scrapped its illegal appendage, Article 35A and split the northern State into the Union Territories of Ladakh and Jammu & Kashmir, Islamabad is groping for a coherent response. In May 1998, when the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee stunned the world by testing five nuclear devices (Pokhran-II) and made India a full-fledged nuclear state, Islamabad swiftly showcased its own nuclear capability.

This time, most world capitals overcame their surprise and accepted the changes in Jammu & Kashmir as India’s internal matter; Pakistan was supported by the colonial-minded Western media and China, which arranged “closed consultations” (unrecorded) in the UN Security Council. India’s action was breathtaking in its simplicity and audacity: Operating within the Line of Control (LoC), it took long-suffering Ladakh to its bosom as a directly-administered Union Territory  while Jammu & Kashmir provinces were declared a separate Union Territory with an elected legislature. The Union Home Ministry will have direct supervision of both.

Political parties and dynasties that misused Article 370 to nurture separatist sentiments in the Valley while neglecting Jammu and Ladakh regions have been downsized and separatists put on notice. A zero-tolerance policy towards terrorism was already in place. Caught between a perilous economic situation with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) breathing down its neck on one side, and its jihadi groups on the other, Islamabad is in no position to declare war or to embrace peace.

Prime Minister Modi’s artful jugglery has subtly avenged India’s exclusion from the Afghanistan talks, making it difficult for Washington and Islamabad to put the Taliban in power in Kabul, with the acquiescence of Moscow and Beijing. This gives a breather to the Kabul regime that was also excluded from four-party negotiations. Washington is, thus, likely to remain trapped in the graveyard of empires because successive Presidents from George Bush Jr, Barack Obama and now Donald Trump would not consider gifting the impressive American arsenal to the Afghan Army, training it to use the same and making a dignified retreat.

Washington is unconcerned about the fate of President Ashraf Ghani, former President Hamid Karzai, their colleagues and supporters, should Taliban return to Kabul. But for India, this is a matter of deep concern. New Delhi’s checkmate has put Islamabad in a bind: It cannot clinch the Taliban deal for Washington: It cannot compensate its jihadi mercenaries with escalated action in Jammu, Kashmir or Ladakh. Its position is unenviable: To exit a cul-de-sac one must go back the way one entered but this route is not open to Pakistan. In the Mahabharata, Abhimanyu did not know how to escape the chakravyu; Imran does but it is just not possible.

Scholars Asma Khalid and Mobeen Jafar Mir of the think tank, Islamabad Policy Institute, blame Pakistan for failing to anticipate and challenge India’s hollowing of Article 370 despite clear signals. In a report, Abrogation of Article 370: Implications & Policy Choices for Pakistan, they urge Islamabad to launch a diplomatic blitzkrieg against India by emphasising the “disputed status of Kashmir”, highlighting India’s alleged human rights excesses and the threats to regional stability.

In a clear sign of Islamabad’s political bankruptcy and lack of choices, Khalid and Mir urged their Government to work for convening an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the situation; at the “closed meeting” the four other permanent members said changing Jammu & Kashmir’s Constitutional status is India’s internal matter. Islamabad is unlikely to accept the suggestion to move the International Court of Justice (ICJ) after its resounding defeat in the matter of consular access to Indian citizen Kulbhushan Jadhav.

Khalid and Mir bemoan the loss of Jammu & Kashmir’s separate Constitution, flag and autonomy in all matters barring foreign affairs, defence and communications. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), they say, always proclaimed its intentions in its election manifestoes and in 2019, reiterated its determination to annul the Kashmir-specific Articles 370 and 35A.

Article 35A, introduced via Presidential order under Article 370 in 1954, empowered the State Legislature to define permanent residents and barred Indians from outside the state from permanently settling, buying land, holding local Government jobs or winning education scholarships there. It also barred female residents (and their children) from property rights in the event of marriage outside Kashmir. The spirit behind this legislation was to protect the identity and culture of Kashmiris and preserve Kashmir’s demographic character.

Interestingly, the scholars allege that the BJP’s agenda is to secure demographic change in the Valley through resettlement of refugees from West Pakistan, Azad Kashmir and Chhamb. It is true that the BJP has been concerned about justice for the refugees, who entered Jammu & Kashmir during Partition and after, and the Scheduled Castes invited by Sheikh Abdullah to clean the city on promise of citizenship. However, Abdullah, supported by former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, later denied them State subject status and its accompanying benefits. The issue is now redundant with the extension of the Constitution of India in its entirety to the new Union Territory.

Azad Kashmir is a sliver of Jammu Province, where pro-Pakistan radicals created trouble for Maharaja Hari Singh in 1946. Pakistan dubbed it as Azad Kashmir when it seized the area in 1947-48. Chhamb in Hamirpur district of Himachal Pradesh was an area of conflict in the 1965 and 1971 wars. Khalid and Mir charge that India will try to enhance Hindu representation in the Valley to reduce the influence of Kashmiri (read Muslim) political parties in the event of a plebiscite under UN auspices, an idea scotched by Kofi Annan in 2001.

Moreover, the Security Council Resolution of 1948 is explicit that Pakistan must withdraw all military and civilian personnel from the occupied territory who were not there before August 14, 1947; India is to retain its military in Srinagar to administer the plebiscite. Hence, the Pakistani scholars’ attempt to project India as an occupying power in the kingdom of Maharaja Hari Singh is a non-starter.

Pakistani fears that India’s action of August 5, 2019, may impact the Indus Water Treaty are premature as India can achieve much by merely utilising its legitimate share of the Indus waters. As for the occupied territories, Home Minister Amit Shah has reiterated India’s claim to the undivided kingdom, including Azad Kashmir, Gilgit Baltistan, and Aksai Chin. Pakistan would do well to focus on its internal problems.

(The writer is Senior Fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library; the views expressed are personal)

Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer

It may be a wonder material but its overuse has an environmental cost. Are replacements worthy?

When we first synthesised plastic polymers from crude oil residues, mankind hardly knew how dominant a part they would become of modern life. Like it or not, we cannot imagine modern life without plastics. Think of it this way — it is cheaper today for us to manufacture plastic cutlery than hand out wooden spoons. From the cars we drive and the planes we fly, to almost every product that every single human being comes in contact with, there is a bit of plastic somewhere. And this is a result of not just the fact that it is cheap but also extremely durable, immune to most types of corrosion and weather. Ergo, it has become the material of choice in several applications. Most beverages, for example, are not sold in glass bottles but in breakage-free plastic containers.

But since it takes centuries to degrade,  landfills and oceans are getting filled with its remains. With animals, birds and marine life also being impacted, many humans have ingested it through food. Make no mistake, plastics are harmful — they can block digestive passages of animals. Several whales have starved to death because of choking. In major metropolitan areas though, such as Delhi, plastic pollution has moved from being a potential danger to a threat to life itself. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) found that the capital city topped the nation in the amount of plastic waste it generates. This has spurred the authorities into action. The change, however,  must not be driven by the Government alone. Human behaviour and buying habits have to radically change for plastic use to decline. At the same time, we should not rush for solutions without studying the replacement material’s impact on the earth. Paper-fibre bags, which are quite popular as a being “environmentally friendly”, also degrade slowly and are equally damaging to drains. And unlike many plastics, they cannot even be recycled. While we can do a lot better such as reuse bags, buy fewer packages — a big bottle instead of sachets for example — we should also not go down a route of damning plastics altogether, because they are essential in far too many aspects of our lives. We should develop better ways of recycling them and disposing variants we can’t instead of dumping them.

Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer

Faults in our morality and actions lead to suffering and natural calamities. And it’s time that we realise this direct connection between catastrophes and human psyche, says Rajyogi Brahmakumar Nikunj Ji

There are a few common things between the incessant rainfall in Mumbai and a potential war between the US and Iran after its drone was shot down by the Iranian forces. While the former was a result of the ‘fury’ of the nature and was caused by some geological faults, whereas the latter was the ‘fury’ of antagonistic human minds, which was caused by the faults in the human psyche and character. In Mumbai, the movement of clouds led to heavy showers, which, in turn, led to destruction and devastation of property and habitats. In the latter case, the rough and rugged motives, deep in the minds of men, led to clashes. And in both the cases, the forces — geological and psychological or political — became active due to certain gaps. In the first example, the outbursts were in a flood-prone area and in the latter, in the anger and hatred-prone human minds.

There was lightning in both the cases — electrostatic behavioural — but no safety or remedial measures were taken in either of the cases. However, this should not point towards a misleading conclusion that the natural catastrophes are more devastating than the man-made ones. History is evidence that man-made calamities could lead to death and destruction on a gigantic scale. World War II is one of the major examples, which was caused mainly by the faults in the personality of a dictator and his coterie, which was enough to illustrate what a massive destruction the eruption of volcanoes in human minds can lead to. But one might wonder as to whether there is any link between the human mind and natural calamities? Can the faults in the characters of humans lead to a catastrophe?

If we seek answer to the first question on the basis of the philosophy of karma, the answer would be positive because as per the philosophy, there shouldn’t be any sufferings without faults in our moral structure. The anger and actions of the rich and the powerful may destruct the habitats of those in the remote areas. World has seen many such examples of devastation as a consequence of intense enmity and hatred between two different nations.

Furthermore, the two events might be connected. Faults in human minds and actions could lead to a natural calamity too as it’s after all, man-made industrialisation that has led to a destruction and an upheavel in the natural ecosystem. Also, those who are not affected by these tremors may also be partly instrumental as, for example, people of a superpower nation are instrumental indirectly for the immense suffering inflicted on a developing nation. But even if many people find it hard to believe that there are such connections, there should be no hurdle in believing that ‘faults’ and fissures in human morality do lead to sufferings.

Writer: Rajyogi Brahmakumar Nikunj ji

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Our diplomatic offensive at UNSC was weather-proofed enough to drown out both Pakistan and China

Given the suddenness of the revocation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, its bifurcation and changed status to a Union Territory, Modi 2.0, in contrast, had amply prepared its diplomatic offensive, anticipating queries, anxieties and sensitivities of the Big Five members of the United Nations, other world leaders and predictable hitbacks from neighbours Pakistan and China. So although China, being an all-weather friend of Pakistan, backed its push for an informal consultation on Kashmir in the UN Security Council, in the end there was status quo on it being a bilateral matter and acceptance that abrogation of Article 370 was facilitated by a legal clause and, therefore, qualified as an internal matter of India compliant with its statutes. Even US President Donald Trump, who had stirred up a hornet’s nest by offering to mediate, has now advised Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to settle the issue within the bilateral framework. Having failed to internationalise Kashmir enough, a desperate Pakistan did not relent, calling Kashmir a “nuclear flashpoint” even after the UNSC rebuff. While it is but expected to keep the storm and fury going, if only to justify its long-term politics, fact is that the US has made its value to it contingent upon its role in managing the Taliban in Afghanistan post its intended pullout from the region. Besides, the Trump administration has also cut back some funding to it despite Khan’s latest visit to Washington. The huff and puff is, therefore, posturing for a long-held constituency that it has nurtured in the Valley, which has been tamed by India’s pitch of Pakistan-exported terror camouflaging itself as self-determination, and now the complete revocation of special status which swamps all separatist sentiments. Truth be told, even India had clouded the “no first use” theorem a day before, saying it could be reviewed depending on the nature of external provocation. Our western neighbour, too, took off on this statement. India has anyway been predicating the Kashmir question on a tremendous threat perception from Pakistan just as the latter is seeking to externalise our internal matter. To that extent, this bluster works for both. Of course, the lockdown of the information highway has not helped either and strengthened stereotypes rather than reconciliation. If the government indeed wants to push its development narrative, then a tight-fisted channelisation of information is clearly counter-productive. There has to be a mature way of dealing with protests on the subversion of what has held together Kashmir’s matrix with us since Independence. And a jackboots approach to suppressing debate in a digital age may actually quite backfire and damage the tide of opinion in our favour at the moment.  

China may not be too happy about the UT status to Ladakh that would give India strategic heft in a region that lies next to Aksai Chin. But so long as the Line of Actual Control is as it is, it won’t have any ground to push its belligerence on Kashmir. China, which got the Shaksgam Valley in 1963 from Pakistan, has so far argued that its claim there is contingent on the final resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. Now it is part of the UT of Ladakh, nullifying that legitimacy. But China will have to unwillingly accept this considering that it is looking at greater economic cooperation with India and wouldn’t want to jeopardise that template of neutrality with a resurrection of border issues. Besides, if it accuses India of making territorial changes, then it also is not exactly immune to helping Pakistan make those changes courtesy the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Its own oppressive role in the Hong Kong protests and Tibet has denied it a moral standpoint at a global forum. And it is this record that didn’t wash with other members. Over the years, China has been pushing its agenda of winning hearts of Ladakhis through its own kind of cultural diplomacy, influencing several Buddhist sects and groups and playing them against each other. It has been funding monasteries in the area to link them to the larger Chinese Buddhism, a strategy which has allowed it to make inroads in the Buddhist countries of Southeast Asia too. Given Dalai Lama’s ill health, China is already preparing to have a say in the dominant Tibetan Buddhism in the region. The reorganisation now allows New Delhi direct decision-making and first-hand engagement with the Buddhists of Ladakh and could well strengthen  Himalayan Buddhism as a counterpoint. China may be an irritant but depending on the relevance of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), that allows it a backhand entry to India without pushing the Belt and Road Initiative, and its stumbling trade block with the US, it is but posturing at the moment.

Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer

The chances of Hong Kong turning into ‘Tiananmen Square 2’ are not remote, a few believe. However, for many in international politics, if the Chinese Government comes into direct confrontation with the protesters, it will permanently change the liberal atmosphere and political freedom available to the islanders

Hong Kong is no more an “Economic City” for mainland China. It’s turned itself into a massive political hotbed. Protest is not ebbing away. The city has entered into the third month of demonstrations. Gradually, the protesters are making the city a theatre of all political activities. Starting from the resignation of city chief Carrie Lam, they have started demanding full autonomy from the central Government in Beijing, an independent commission to investigate police brutality, and wider political reforms to allow for direct elections to elect the representatives of the Legislative Council. The way the demonstrations are carried out and the black-clad vanguards are handling the current situation, it seems it would not bring an end to the crisis sooner or later. Are they inviting another “Tiananmen Square” type crackdown that struck China way back in June 1989. Will the communist bosses in Beijing allow them the kind of autonomy the Hong Kongers are demanding? How long the crisis in the island will continue? For many in international politics, these are baffling questions that might take away the existing liberal atmosphere and political freedom available to the islanders forever if the Chinese Government directly comes in confrontation with the protesters.

This summer, Hong Kong has witnessed the worst political turmoil ever since the territory’s handover to China in July 1997. The current bout of protests stated with a demand for withdrawing the controversial extradition law proposed by the city Government. And eventually, that Bill was dropped by the Legislative Council for an indefinite period, as Lam clarified.

There is another question: is Hong Kong still crucial for China? Experts say that if China behaves more in Mao-era style, it might have to depend on the island more in commercial terms than political perspective. As China has not brought financial and legal reforms demanded by the global business enterprises, it would have been possible for the Communist Party leadership to make Hong Kong gradually irrelevant for long-term business transactions. But what has happened is that China, particularly under Xi Jinping, has grown beyond the traditional Communist closet. China has reached out to almost all destinations of the globe. China has grown fast and entered into the globalised world at ease, but it has not opened up as it was expected in the West.

This has made the economy of Hong Kong critically important for mainland China. The most important aspect of its economy is that it has been successful in registering a status within a body of international laws and rules around the world. This has made Hong Kong possible to provide it seamless access to the privileged western markets. This status has many aspects: a higher credit rating, low risk weights for banks, and counter party exposures, the ability to clear dollars at ease, independent membership of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), equivalent status of its stock exchange in the US, Europe and Japan, recognised as a developed stock market by global index firms and cooperation agreements with a number of top security regulators. Besides, most of the foreign direct investment (FDI) mainly flows through Hong Kong. The stock domiciled in the island territory has nearly doubled in the last decade up to $2 trillion. Despite the islanders developing suspicious attitude towards mainland China, the territory’s share of total FDI flowing into the latter, has remained stable at 60 per cent. This is very striking. It must be admitted that China has become an international growth machine. The Government has turned the country and its massive human resources into a hub of foreign investment opportunities. Needless to say that this has resulted into a situation where the movement of the FDI flowing into the country has increased at an alarming rate. But the reality is that most of the global investors always prefer to have a legal stamp from Hong Kong. This is because of China’s direct refusal to carry out major reforms as demanded by a global market economy.

Besides being an Asian financial hub, Hong Kong hosts major regional headquarters of the giant multi-national corporations. And ironically, even after the withdrawal of British suzerainty over the island since July 1997, such offices have increased by two-thirds to 1,500. But the American techno giants such as the Amazon, Google and Facebook have settled their offices in Singapore. With the protests raging to a record high level, there has been constant fears that many of such regional offices might move to Singapore in the near future.

A direct military intervention by China is quite unlikely for now. It seems, the Xi administration is solely banking on the leadership of Lam and Hong Kong Police for sending the protesters back home. By all possibilities, Lam administration is hoping that the protesters will lose steam soon. Even the security experts feel that very fast popular support would be dwindling for them. Initially, parents were marching with their children. But then now mostly young ones are on the road and their parents are highly concerned about the growing violence that is fast engulfing the entire movement. Many of the parents are not giving pocket money to their wards so that they have to head home soon. Another expectation is that with the beginning of the new academic session from early September, the college and university students have to go back to their classrooms.

Currently, China and America are locked in a trade war. Thus Trump is cheering the protesters in Hong Kong and is also saying that Chinese troops are moving towards the border with the island. In fact, China knows very well that Trump has a formidable weapon to use in the form of Hong Kong Policy Act 1992 that recognises Hong Kong as a separate legal and economic entity from China. It also makes Hong Kong an open economy by all standards. This might stop China from intervening in the territory directly in the form of a military attack. This will eventually breach the above act.

But the bottom line is that continued protest will block all the avenues for a peaceful advocacy of resolving the conundrum for now and in future as well. Hope the protesters listen to the writings on the wall. Else Hong Kong will soon be turning into a boiling point of Asia. This will provide more ammunition to the Chinese army to intervene just to maintain the law and order situation in its own territory.

(The writer is an expert on international affairs)

Writer: Makhan Saikia
Courtesy: The Pioneer

Human activity had wiped out, between 1970 and 2014, 60 per cent of all animals with backbones — fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals

The International Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) latest report, released earlier this month and stating that the process of producing and making food available accounts annually for a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, requires serious attention. The second in the series of the organisation’s specially-focussed reports and entitled Climate Change and Land, the validity of its observations is hardly in doubt.

Agriculture cuts both ways. As the report says, it accounts for 37 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions if one takes into account both the percentage generated by global food production and activities like transportation and the work of energy and food processing industries. On its part, climate change adversely impacts agriculture by affecting cropping pattern and reducing crop output through changing temperatures and unpredictable weather fluctuations. Worse, a quarter of the food produced is lost or wasted and, as the report further points out, “global food loss and waste contributed 8 to 10 per cent of total anthropogenic (man-made) GHQ (greenhouse gas) emissions” during 2010 and 2016.

Besides agriculture, a number of land-based activities like forestry, cattle-rearing and urbanisation have contributed to the carbon load. While noting this, the report also takes into account the manner in which climate change impacts these. It further argues that measures like reduction in food wastage, sustainable agricultural practices and the consumption of more plant-based rather than animal-based food could reduce the emission of greenhouse gases estimated to be about 49 billion tonnes of CO2 annually.

It will not be easy to implement the report’s recommendations. It will take a huge exercise of will by several billion human beings. Dietary habits, evolving ever since humankind appeared on earth, will be difficult to change. These, however, will have to, particularly since options are available. The alternative can be as drastic as the extinction of the species.

The danger is very real. Other species have been disappearing at an alarming rate. A report by the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) conservation group, titled Living Planet, said human activity had wiped out, between 1970 and 2014, 60 per cent of all animals with backbones — fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles and mammals. Referring to such activity, the WWF International’s director-general, Marco Lambertini, has said that hunting, shrinking habitat, pollution, illegal trade and climate change had been too much for them to overcome.

The subject of mass extinction has been causing worry for quite some time. Ian Johnston writing in The Independent of the United Kingdom in 2017, cited scientists writing in a special edition of the magazine, Nature, that humans were causing the sixth mass extinction of life on earth. Earlier, Elizabeth Kolbert had written in The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (first published in 2014), “Very, very occasionally in the distant past, the planet has undergone change so wrenching that the diversity of life has plummeted. Five of these ancient events were catastrophic enough that they’re put in their own category: The so-called Big Five. In what seems like a fantastic coincidence, but is probably no coincidence at all, the history of these events is recovered just as people come to realise that they are causing another one.”

There is no reason why humans can escape the process. A major cause is the population increase under way. Referring to it, Desmond Morris predicts in The Naked Ape: A Zoologist’s Study of the Human Animal, that a time will come when “the densities we are now experiencing in our major cities would exist in every corner of the globe. The consequences of all this for all forms of wild animals is obvious. The effect it would have on our own species is equally depressing.”

Morris adds shortly thereafter, “Long before our populations reach the levels envisaged above we shall have broken so many of the rules that govern our biological nature, that we shall have collapsed as a dominant species….Many exciting species have become extinct in the past and we are no exception.” Morris’ critics argue that the human mind will, through technology, find a way of preventing this. This is laughable. Technology would remain a formulation on paper if the environment in which it has to be applied disappears. Humankind has evolved, and is sustained by, support from a wide range of plant and animal species providing it with food and habitat. No technology can sustain it if these disappear.

Particularly severe will be the impact of mass extinctions on the human mind, which Paul Shepard writes in Thinking Animals: Animals and the Development of Human Intelligence, is at the centre of humanity’s pride in its independence “from animals and animality.” According to him “the mind and its organ, the brain, are in reality that part of us most dependent on the survival of animals. We are connected to animals not merely in the convenience of figures of speech — a zoological equivalent of ‘flowery speech’ — but by sinews that link speech to rationality, insight, intuition, and consciousness’. Animal images and forms play a critical role in the shaping of human “personality, identity, and social consciousness. They are basic to the development of speech and thought.”

The situation is grim. Addressing a preparatory meeting of the UN Climate Action Summit scheduled to be held in September, 2019, the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres had said in Abu Dhabi on June 30 that climate change was advancing at a rate that was outpacing efforts to address it. While lauding the Paris agreement, he said that the world would face a catastrophic three degrees Celsius rise in temperature by the end of, century.

Things would start becoming worse even earlier. The Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, released by IPCC on October 7, 2018, had observed that at the current rate, the global mean temperature — which is already one degree Celsius above the pre-industrial revolution level — is likely to rise to the 1.5-degree mark sometime between 2030 and 2052. It further stated that warming, even if limited to 1.5°C, would not reduce the risks and impacts of climate change. Sea levels will continue to rise beyond 2100, threatening coastal ecosystems and infrastructure. Flooding, drought and extreme weather events will wreak havoc on communities around the globe. Many species will continue to be driven toward extinction and marine ecosystems could face “irreversible loss.”

The September meeting of the UN Climate Action Summit has its work cut out.

(The writer is Consultant Editor, The Pioneer, and an author)

Writer: Hiranmay Karlekar

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Air India becomes first Indian airline to take the Arctic fly path and save us miles

At a time when its privatisation and strategic disinvestment only highlight the morass our national carrier has crashed into, Air India has done the country proud by conquering an uncharted path. On Independence Day, it became the first Indian airline to fly over the North Pole, making the world look much smaller than before and in climate-challenged times, minimising carbon footprints and cutting costs on aviation fuel. An Air India flight first flew over the North Pole 13 years ago when Captain Amitabh Singh took an unconventional flight path after taking the delivery of a brand new aircraft and bringing it back from Seattle to New Delhi. The difference this time round was that AI 123 from Delhi to San Francisco had 243 passengers, making it a fully commercial flight. This may just be one of the last laurels to the Maharaja’s credit before it unburdens the state exchequer and parcels itself to private players. But the silver lining is that in its supposedly last feat, it has achieved a new aviation milestone by adopting one of the oldest tricks, one used by many international carriers, to give the passengers the bonus of not only smoother flights but also some breathtaking views of the vast sheets of Arctic ice. So now, instead of flying over Bangladesh, Myanmar, China and Japan before crossing the Pacific to reach the US, the aircraft would fly over Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, the Arctic Ocean, Canada and then descend in the US, thus cutting travel time by 90 minutes. On the Atlantic side, we do not have to bother about the frequent closure of the Pakistani airspace. The advent of this transpolar flight also offers multiple benefits ranging from a reduction in fuel consumption cost to reduction in damage to the environment. Statistically, it is expected to yield fuel savings in the range of 2,000 to 7,000 kg per flight and also reduce carbon emission — in the range of 6,000 to 21,000 kg, per flight.

However, flying commercial jets over the Arctic Circle comes with its own risks and herein, lies the challenge. Pertinent among them relate to passenger’s safety infrastructure and logistics. Thanks to technological advancements, what was once considered to be too challenging a path is now being conquered by newcomers. The area of magnetic unreliability, limited choices for diversion to alternative airports, solar radiation, fuel freezing possibilities, passenger and aircraft retrieval in case of diversions, are some specific factors requiring active mitigation to ensure equivalent levels of safety. Specialised crew training, weather monitoring, alternate selection and aircraft serviceability, too, will have to be of the highest standards to ensure viable operations.

Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer

Extra-budgetary resources translate to about 2.3 per cent of the GDP. Had they been included, the FD for 2018-19 would have been 5.7 instead of 3.4 per cent

All through its tenure beginning 2014, the Modi Government demonstrated a high degree of sensitivity to millions of poor and downtrodden and spent prodigious sums on providing basic amenities such as affordable housing, electricity, sanitation, toilets, fuel and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), health care, education etc to improve their lot.

In the last five years, it built 1.5 crore affordable housing units and nine crore toilets, gave 2.6 crore and seven crore electricity and gas connections respectively and assured free medical treatment up to Rs 500,000 that covered 10 crore families (or 50 crore people).

Under Modi 2.0, the government has vowed to build 1.9 crore houses by 2022, give 1.4 crore electricity connections and provide safe drinking water to all homes under the ‘Jal Shakti Abhiyan’.

It is also investing Rs 100 lakh crore in building infrastructure such as irrigation facilities, roads, national highways, expressways, railway projects, ports, airports, waterways etc that would indirectly help improve the quality of life of millions of citizens. For instance, a vast network of rural roads enables farmers to carry their produce to the market with ease and in lesser time, thereby improving price realization and augmenting income.

These are welcome measures that have helped millions extricate themselves from poverty. Indeed, this was a major factor that enabled Modi to secure a resounding mandate to be at the helm of affairs of the country for another term. But, there’s a flip side to it, which relates to financing of these investments that are being done in an ‘opaque’ and ‘non-transparent’ manner.

During 2018-19, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) raised Rs 30,000 crore to finance the Union Government’s rural affordable housing, sanitation and irrigation projects. The Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) and National Housing Bank (NHB) provided Rs 20,000 crore to finance affordable urban housing projects. Likewise, the Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) and Power Finance Corporation (PFC) raised Rs 19,331 crore to fund the Centre’s rural electrification schemes which include free electricity connections to households.

The Food Corporation of India (FCI) borrowed Rs 70,000 crore from the National Small Savings Fund (NSSF) to finance the shortfall in food subsidy allocation vis-à-vis the actual requirement (including loans taken during 2016-17 and 2017-18 which were not paid back despite the Centre’s commitment to do so. Incidentally, the FCI’s cumulative borrowing from the NSSF is around Rs 200,000 crore).

Similarly, fertiliser manufacturers borrowed Rs 33,000 crore from commercial banks under a special banking arrangement (SBA) to fund the shortfall in budget provision for fertiliser subsidy as against the actual need.

Likewise, in the case of fuel subsidy, the Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) involved in marketing of LPG and kerosene, for instance Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) took loans to the tune of Rs 25,000 crore during 2018-19 to make up for unpaid dues by the Centre.

In the infrastructure sector, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) borrowed Rs 61,000 crore for executing highways projects; Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) borrowed Rs 52,297 crore to fund implementation of railway projects and Power Finance Corporation (PFC) took a loan of Rs 97,000 crore to finance government-sector power projects.

All these loans or Extra-Budgetary Resources (EBRs), though taken by PSUs, other state agencies and fertiliser manufacturers under SBA are on behalf of the Union Government and backed by sovereign guarantee. The Union Government is solely responsible for discharging these liabilities, yet, it decides not to reflect this on its balance sheet. As such, these debts are not included in the reported Fiscal Deficit (FD).

All put together, the EBRs add up to a whopping Rs 407,628 crore that translates to about 2.3 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Had they been included, the FD for 2018-19 would have been 5.7 per cent instead of 3.4 per cent reported in the Union Budget. During 2017-18 also, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), the FD was suppressed by 2.4 per cent, courtesy the EBRs.

Most of the off-Budget borrowings are meant for financing current consumptions like subsidies on food, fertilisers, fuel etc or investment for a better life for millions of poor families by providing them affordable housing, free electricity connections, free gas connections, toilets and so on. These expenditure or investments don’t yield any returns for the Union Government. Even spending on infrastructure fails to generate adequate revenue to fully amortise the investment, as a sizeable chunk of the services and utilities offered through these projects are underpriced. A few cases in point being, power to farmers and poor households, subsidised rail fare for passengers and toll-free roads, etc.

This inability to make even interest payments and the ever-increasing gap between available resources and actual requirement having to be met by more borrowings, leads to debt pile-up to ‘unsustainable’ levels. What makes the scenario appalling is that this debt is not even seen on the balance sheet of the Union Government. It seems that the Centre is sitting on an ‘invisible’ fiscal volcano which could erupt without any warning, and cause widespread devastation of unimaginable dimensions in the process.

A government hiding its real state of fiscal health gives wrong signals to various stakeholders, including foreign investors. It can prompt them to review their decision to invest in India (the plan to go for overseas sovereign borrowings — announced in the Union Budget for 2019-20 — could be in jeopardy). The greater damage will be inflicted by way of further postponement of long-pending reforms in crucial sectors like food, fertilisers, power, fuel etc, which otherwise have huge potential for expenditure saving.

For funding the `100 lakh crore investments, in infrastructure in five years, the government is banking a lot on participation of the private sector. If, the former keeps an easy option on the table (read: EBRs by PSUs and other agencies), there would be less effort in garnering the support and involvement of the latter.

There is an urgent need for bringing about transparency in funding of welfare schemes and investment in infrastructure. All loans taken on behalf of the sovereign government, irrespective of who borrows, should appear on its books and be included in the FD. This will give a true and fair view of the Centre’s finances and enable investors to make credible assessment and take informed decisions.

The government will be forced to shed populism and restrict welfare schemes only to the most deserving. It will also have to carry out long-pending reforms in key sectors such as food, fertilisers, fuel, power etc to allow for an increased role of market forces with a view to reduce cost and enhance efficiency in operations and give subsidies only via Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT). This, together with increasing tax collection (we are still far from realizing the full potential of the Goods and Services Tax) will help in garnering the required resources for infrastructure and welfare of the poor, even while sticking to the fiscal target.

The CAG has recommended that the government should put in place a policy framework for reining in EBRs which, amongst others, should also include disclosure to the Parliament. This lacklustre approach won’t do. Modi should go for completely doing away with the practice of off-budget financing.

(The writer is a New Delhi-based policy analyst)

Writer: Uttam Gupta

Courtesy: The Pioneer

Jointmanship won’t have a cascading impact unless we upgrade the basic infrastructure and tech edge of our forces

After pitching a nationalist campaign foregrounding the valour of our forces post-Balakot, the Modi 2.0 regime was considered as cold-shouldering them when it slow-pedalled their concerns on One Rank One Pension, cut their disability pension before retracting it and generally didn’t talk anything about reforms or shortage of infrastructure. So although Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the creation of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) post in his Independence Day speech, it was long overdue and almost a necessity in the time of short-term, intense but technology-driven and multi-pronged warfare. What this essentially means is creating a single point-of-contact in coordinating with the three armed services to synergise functioning, training, logistics, planning and procurements among the forces and evolve a unified and targetted crisis response module. What this practically works out to is better utilisation of existing limited resources, better harvesting of intelligence for a unified approach to preparedness (the demand for CDS emerged after we were taken quite unaware in Kargil) and given the worsening nature of conflicts worldwide, build a robust expert advisory that can guide the political executive of the day on swift and decisive action. Of course, the fact that the post will become operational nearly 20 years after it was first conceived or that we are among the last nuclear weapon States to do so and well past our time, is not registering yet. The bigger question to answer is whether joint service command is allowed to function the way it should or serve to be another bureaucratic front. What our forces need to look into urgently, particularly in times of technology-driven warfare, is to upgrade fleet, equipment, weapons systems and infrastructure and manpower, the essential requisites for developing strategic depth, some of which have attained a critical mass of deficits. With a chronic crunch in funds, the lack of standardised indigenous systems and an overt focus on Army deployments, there needs to be a shift of balance to the Air Force and Navy requirements, Balakot exposing the chronic need to have state-of-the-art fighter jets. No matter how able, empowered the CDS is, it cannot take a call on such policy issues.

Have we learnt enough lessons from Kargil, where in the absence of air support, our soldiers were almost faced with hand-to-hand combat? Have we enough rifles and ammunition to save our soldiers who make for easy fodder even now? The Navy is saddled with outdated aircraft carriers. Even though India has inducted the Arihant as a nuclear submarine and has leased an Akula-class submarine from Russia, China’s navy has built a fleet of attack submarines as well as several ballistic missile submarines with which they can contain India. We have only 11 destroyers, China has 36, all commissioned after 1999 or Kargil. China may not match the smart American Navy but in a short time has emerged as the second-most powerful Navy in the world. Unrealistic planning, a socialist mindset towards protecting PSUs in the defence sector without upgrading or revamping them and corruption in defence deals have meant that we continue to be the world’s largest importer of military hardware when we should be making and customising our own. And if we could make our space programmes work, there is no reason why we cannot sharpen our defence capabilities with affordable and innovative technologies. For example, much like other advanced military nations, India has proven anti-satellite capabilities. But more resources have to be poured into research and development of military potential. There needs to be far more thought and money put into building up India’s military preparedness. Even if a war isn’t around the corner, we should not fall back decades behind and not anticipate scenarios. India’s chest-thumping nationalism will not have much dare if we don’t develop real power and build ground-up rather than a fancy imposition top-down. Our military mediocrity is the reason why even the neighbourhood is not convinced of our potential strategic weight and gets drawn by China’s assumed superiority. As the CDS decision shows, it comes after a prolonged debate on political consensus. Modi may not have a consensus problem anymore but then that consensus should now set the compass of course correction.

Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer