yourNEWSpage

March 1st-2nd, 2021

Your 10 minute read!

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LAW, POLICY & GOVERNANCE

Daily snippets

(i). PM calls for water conservation drive

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said there was a need to start conserving water right away and that the Jal Shakti Ministry would be launching a 100day “catch the rain” campaign soon.

(ii). Swiss neutrality in world affairs attractive again: envoy

Switzerland’s traditional foreign policy of neutrality has become attractive again because of the changing political reality in the world, said its Ambassador Ralf Heckner at a think tank event. He said neutrality has become necessary as a foreign policy tool as the phase of power politics has returned in world affairs.

(iii). HC flays police report on Tanha ‘confession’ leak to media

The Delhi High Court expressed displeasure at the city police’s vigilance inquiry report on the allegation of leaking to the media a confessional statement of a Jamia Millia Islamia student arrested in connection with the north-east Delhi riots. The court’s direction came while hearing the plea of Asif Iqbal Tanha, who was aggrieved by various news reports appearing in electronic media that alleged that he had confessed to organising and inciting riots in north east Delhi last year.

(iv). Haryana seeks permission for mining in the Aravali Hills

The Haryana government has appealed to the Supreme Court to permit it to resume mining in the Aravali Hills on the grounds that the pandemic had ground the State’s economy to a halt. The Supreme Court is slated to hear the petition on Thursday.
Mining in the region has been banned since 2002 under the Supreme Court orders, unless expressly permitted by the Union Environment Ministry.

(v). Government examining WhatsApp's new policy

The Central government informed the Delhi High Court that it was examining WhatsApp’s controversial new privacy policy, which is scheduled to come into effect from May 15, at the highest level.
Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva granted three weeks' time to the Centre to submit a status report on the issue. The court was hearing a petition filed by advocate Chaitanya Rohilla, who has claimed that WhatsApp’s new privacy policy violates the right to privacy guaranteed under the Constitution.

(vi). NHRC issues notices on Hirakud displacement

The National Human Rights Commission issued notices to the Chief Secretaries of Odisha and Chhattisgarh over the action taken to alleviate the sufferings of people displaced by the construction of the Hirakud dam over the Mahanadi river about six decades ago. Human rights lawyer Radhakant Tripathy had moved NHRC alleging that 26,561 families were displaced for the project and due compensation was not paid to evictees.

(vii). Chief Justice of India – Master of Roster

This is the singular power of the CJI as the Master of the Roster – i.e., the vesting of exclusive discretion in the Chief Justice to constitute benches and allocate cases. It makes the CJI the sole point of defence of the Court against executive interference.
This power is predicated upon the CJI’s seniority in the top court and the resultant presumption of propriety. In Asok Pande v. Supreme Court of India (2018), a three judge bench of the Court held that Master of the Roster is the CJI’s exclusive power.
Thereafter, a two-judge bench in Shanti Bhushan v. Supreme Court of India (2018) rejected the plea that the Master of the Roster should be interpreted as the collegium. Therefore, while the CJI’s other powers such as recommending appointments to constitutional courts are shared with other senior judges, the power of Master of the Roster is enjoyed without scrutiny.
When Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister ordered punitive transfers of High Court judges and superseded judges to appoint the CJI, the Supreme Court formulated the collegium system in response. However, this system has failed to keep executive interference at bay from the Supreme Court. This is for two reasons: first, there is an attractive lure of postretirement jobs; and as the privilege of Master of the Roster shows, the CJI’s allocation of cases is an unchecked power.

NATIONAL NEWS/ INTERVENTIONS

Daily snippets

(i). Eviction of prawn gherries restarts at Chilika Lake

After a hiatus, the Odisha government has started evicting illegal prawn enclosures in Chilika Lake, which is likely to improve the ecological health of Asia’s largest brackish water lagoon. The Chilika Development Authority (CDA), the regulatory body for the lake, has begun planned eviction of prawn gherries (enclosures).
Endangered Irrawaddy dolphins were the first beneficiaries of the eviction drive. The mammals could move unhindered in Chilika Lake. In the Rambha sector, dolphins were sighted for the first time in three decades. Besides, there was a sudden increase in the population of ducks who prefer to dive in open water. Their population was noticed during the current season, particularly in the prawn gherries evicted areas.

(ii). Need to reset IndiaChina trade ties: Foreign Secretary

Remarking that a normal bilateral trade relationship with China was contingent on peace and tranquillity on other fronts, Indian Foreign Secretary H.V. Shringla said the country was looking to diversify its trade dependencies. “The current bilateral trade with China at $78 billion is heavily tilted in the latter’s favour and that will need a reset. India on its part is simultaneously working on diversifying its sourcing to ensure a more resilient supply chain in the future,” said the Foreign Secretary. Mr. Shringla was speaking during the penultimate panel discussion titled 'India as Global Partner' at the fifth Asia Economic Dialogue (AED) 2021, jointly hosted by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Pune International Centre (PIC).

(iii). Chinese cyber attack foiled: Power Ministry

“State-sponsored” Chinese hacker groups targeted various Indian power centres, the Union Power Ministry said, but added that these groups have been thwarted after government cyber agencies warned about their activities. While the government refused to confirm or deny The New York Times report, based on a U.S. cybersecurity firm's claim that the Mumbai power outage in October 2020 was part of a coordinated cyberattack by China, it said it has suffered “no data breach”.
Specifically naming the Chinese group “Red Echo”, which has been identified in the U.S. company Recorded Future’s report as responsible for the Mumbai outage, officials said they had been warned by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s (MeitY’s) Cyber Emergency Response Team (India) (CERTin) about the threat from malware called “ShadowPad” in November 2020, and by the NTRO’s National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) in February 2021, of the threats, weeks before the Recorded Future report was released. China’s Foreign Ministry hit out at the report, calling it “irresponsible”, and attacked it for not offering evidence. “China firmly opposes and cracks down on all forms of cyber attacks,” spokesperson Wang Wenbin said.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS/EVENTS/ PERSONALITIES

Daily snippets

(i). China Parliament to mull expanded border drone use

The annual convening of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC), or Parliament, on March 5 will hear a proposal for the wider deployment of more advanced drones along border areas, with a legislator proposing the move in the wake of last year’s clash between Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
The Communist Party of China exercises control over all branches of state, including the legislature. The NPC convenes every year and approves policies, including a government work report that sets the policy agenda, and the defence budget for the military.
While the PLA would not necessarily require the NPC to approve the deployment of drones, the proposal comes amid renewed public attention in China on last year’s border clash. The June 15, 2020, clash in the Galwan Valley has been among the most widely discussed subjects in the leadup to this year’s Congress, having received belated attention in the wake of the PLA, on February 19, honouring five soldiers, four of them posthumously.
Twenty Indian soldiers died in the clash, that marked the worst violence along the border since 1967. The PLA announcement, eight months after the clash and a week after India and China announced disengagement along some areas of the LAC, triggered an outpouring of sentiment on Chinese social media. Some NPC proposals in the past have often grappled with topics in the public spotlight, with the broader aim of underlining how the government was addressing those issues.

(ii). New York Governor faces sex harassment charge

A second ex-employee of powerful New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo has accused him of sexual harassment, charges the Governor denied on Saturday. A 25-year old former aide alleged that he sexually harassed her in the spring of 2020.

(iii). Navalny begins serving time for parole violation

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has been transferred to a penal colony east of Moscow to serve a term for violating parole, a public commission that monitors detainees' rights has said. He was sentenced to two and half years last month.
Alexei Anatolievich Navalny is a Russian opposition leader, lawyer, and anti-corruption activist. He came to international prominence by organizing anti-government demonstrations and running for office to advocate reforms against corruption in Russia, and against President Vladimir Putin and his government.

(iv). Trump hints at 2024 run for presidency

Donald Trump told conservatives he was considering running for president again in 2024, as he reasserted dominance over the Republican Party and warned of a “struggle” for America’s very survival. Echoing the grievance politics of his 2016 campaign and the harsh rhetoric of his one-term presidency, the 74-year old fired up an enthusiastic crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando.
In a keynote speech, his first since leaving the White House on January 20, he repeated his claims that he won the election instead of President Joe Biden, and hammered establishment Republicans who voted against him in the latest impeachment drama.

(v). U.S. to keep hard line on China trade

The Biden administration’s trade agenda will make pandemic recovery a top priority and focus on the American worker, according to the 2021 President’s Trade Agenda and 2020 Annual Report, an annual document submitted by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to Congress. The administration will push for labour standards in its trade agreements, negotiate environmental standards and address China’s “coercive and unfair” trade practices, the document said.
The Biden administration’s trade priorities will also include negotiating and implementing “strong environmental standards”. It will also seek to promote equitable economic growth through trade. The impact of trade policy on racial minorities within the U.S. will also be a priority. The new administration is also likely to follow an aggressive agricultural trade policy.
Addressing human rights abuses against the Uighurs and others will be a top priority for the administration, as per the report. It will also collaborate with allies to address the market distortions created by industrial overcapacity issues.
The U.S. will work with allies to “ implement necessary reforms to the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) substantive rules and procedures to address the challenges facing the global trading system, including growing inequality, digital transformation, and impediments to small business trade”, the report said

(vi). Nomadland, Borat 2 win top Golden Globes

Drama Nomadland and satire Borat Subsequent Moviefilm won movie honours at the Golden Globes on Sunday in a mostly virtual bicoastal ceremony. Nomadland, a moving drama about van dwellers in recession hit America, also took the best director prize for Chloe Zhao. It made Ms. Zhao only the second woman to win at the Globes in that category, and the first woman director of Asian descent to win.
Sacha Baron Cohen, the creator of Borat Subsequent Movie film from Amazon Studios was named best comedy movie actor, while Andra Day was a surprise winner for playing singer Billie Holiday in The United States vs Billie Holiday. British royal drama The Crown, comedy Schitt's Creek, and The Queen's Gambit won the top awards in television.

(vii). Former French President Sarkozy gets 3-year jail term for corruption

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was found guilty of corruption and handed a three year prison sentence, in a ruling that deals a major blow to any lingering political ambitions. The sentence includes two years suspended and the remaining one year would be converted into a non-custodial sentence, meaning it is unlikely Mr. Sarkozy will end up behind bars over this case.
He is almost certain to appeal and remains free, with no arrest warrant issued, but he faces several other corruption investigations over campaign financing and alleged influence peddling. The sentence for seeking to illegally influence a judge is the latest twist in the tumultuous political career of the 66-year old who remains a favourite for many on the right for his combative style and tough talk on crime and immigration. Only one other modern French President, Mr. Sarkozy’s political mentor Jacques Chirac, has been convicted of corruption.

OPINION & ANALYSIS

Commentary : A murder, and business as usual

The declassified version of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report on journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder states in no uncertain terms “that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved [the] operation…to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”
The U.S. Congress had been demanding for over a year that the report be declassified but former President Donald Trump had refused to do so because of his and his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner’s cosy relationship with MBS as well as Mr. Trump’s interest in selling massive amounts of arms to the petrostate. However, the release of the report does not mean a major reversal or even re-evaluation of America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia. It only signifies a short term “recalibration” of Washington’s approach towards the Kingdom. This was indicated by the fact that although some sanctions were imposed on a few Saudis, MBS was not subjected to any penalties.
Saudi Arabia’s strategic importance for Washington derives from the fact that it is America’s principal regional partner in its efforts to contain Iranian influence in West Asia. Riyadh’s strategic value has increased with the sequential normalisation of Israel’s relations with Arab countries allied to it since the success of this process is heavily dependent upon Saudi approval. Such normalisation suits Washington, for it relieves pressure on it to address the Palestinian issue. Furthermore, Mr. Biden cannot afford to alienate the Saudi regime beyond a point because this could intensify Riyadh’s opposition to his stated intention of returning to the Iran nuclear deal.

Commentary : The vital but delicate task of reviving the Iran deal

(i). Story so far

Of all the foreign policy challenges facing the Joe Biden administration, none is more critical than salvaging the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action ( JCPOA, or the Iran nuclear deal). It also seems the most straightforward because Mr. Biden has consistently advocated a return to the JCPOA provided Iran returns to full compliance; Iran has always reiterated its commitment to the JCPOA maintaining that the steps it took are reversible as long as the United States lifts the sanctions imposed by the Trump administration since 2018.

(ii). Making of the Deal

The JCPOA was the result of prolonged negotiations from 2013 and 2015 between Iran and P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union, or the EU). It happened, thanks to the back channel talks between the U.S. and Iran, quietly brokered by Oman, in an attempt to repair the accumulated mistrust since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Former U.S. President Barack Obama described the JCPOA as his greatest diplomatic success.

(iii). Aftermath of Deal reversal

Trump pulled the plug on it in May 2018 and embarked on a policy of ‘maximum pressure’ to coerce Iran back to the negotiating table. The U.S. decision was criticised by all other parties to the JCPOA (including the European allies) because Iran was in compliance with its obligations, as certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). By end 2020, the U.S. had imposed nearly 80 rounds of sanctions targeting close to 1,500 individuals and entities.

(iv). Iran’s response

As the sanctions began to hurt, Tehran shifted to a strategy of ‘maximum resistance’. In January 2020, following the drone strike on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Gen. Qasem Soleiman, Tehran announced that it would no longer observe the JCPOA’s restraints, though its cooperation with the IAEA would continue.

(v). Mayhem in Iran

This came on top of COVID-19 that affected Iran badly. The Iranian economy contracted by 7% in 2019 and another 6% in 2020. In mid-2020, Iran was shaken by a series of unexplained fires and blasts at a number of sensitive sites including one at the Natanz nuclear facility and another at Khojir, a missile fuel fabrication unit. Last November, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a senior nuclear scientist and head of the Research and Innovation Organisation in the Iranian Defence Ministry was killed outside Tehran in a terrorist attack amid rumours of external intelligence agencies’ involvement. The E3 (France, Germany, the U.K.) and the EU’s promised relief Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), created in 2019 to facilitate limited trade with Iran, has been a disappointment.

(vi). The way ahead

If the U.S. waits for Iran to return to full compliance before lifting sanctions or Iran waits for the U.S. to restore sanctions relief before returning to full compliance, it can only lead to one outcome – the collapse of the JCPOA with Iran going nuclear like North Korea; an outcome that would create major reverberations in the region and beyond.
The Biden administration has made a good start by appointing Robert Malley as the U.S. Special Envoy for Iran. Clearing Iran’s applications to the International Monetary Fund for COVID-19 relief and for supply of vaccines under the international COVAX facility can be done relatively easily. After the Al Ula summit, Qatar and Kuwait too are well placed to play a diplomatic role and together, they can urgently explore the possibilities for forward movement in Yemen, with help from the EU and the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy, Martin Griffiths. Brussels has long wanted to be taken seriously as an independent foreign policy actor; it now has the opportunity to take a lead role.

ECONOMICS & FINANCE

Daily snippets

1. NSE glitch

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the recent technical glitch at the National Stock Exchange (NSE), which led to trading being halted for several hours on the bourse, had cost India ‘immensely’. She called for a look at the interoperability norms in payment systems to ensure seamless payments. The NSE had halted trading on its platform just before noon on February 24, and informed market participants at 3:17 p.m. that trading would resume from 3:30 p.m. for extended hours.
The NSE though stated that its interoperability framework allowed traders to continue transacting on other stock exchanges when the NSE halted trading. The minister stressed that the NSE case was an example of the challenges that technology driven platforms could face.
SEBI has already advised NSE to carry out a detailed root cause analysis of the trading halt and also to explain the reasons for trading not migrating to the disaster recovery site.

2. Women and pay-raise

About 85%, or four in ﬁve working women in India believe they have missed out on a raise, promotion, or work oﬀer because of their gender, according to a new report by LinkedIn. As per the ‘The Opportunity Index 2021’ report, this average stands at 60% for the Asia Paciﬁc (APAC) region. “A deeper analysis shows that more women in India have experienced the impact of gender on career development when compared to the APAC region,” as per the LinkedIn report.
The survey, conducted in January, saw participation from more than 10,000 respondents across the APAC region. It covered 2,285 respondents in India.

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & ENVIRONMENT

Daily snippets

1. ISRO puts Brazil's Amazonia-1 into orbit

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on successfully launched Brazil’s optical earth observation satellite, Amazonia-1, and 18 co-passenger satellites – ﬁve from India and 13 from the U.S. – from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota. The satellites were carried on board the PSLV-C51, the 53rd ﬂight of ISRO’s launch vehicle and the ﬁrst dedicated mission of its commercial arm, New Space India Ltd. Amazonia1 was injected into its precise orbit of 758 km in a sun-synchronous polar orbit.
The successful launch of Brazil’s Amazonia-1 satellite marks a new high point in space cooperation between the two countries that began nearly two decades ago. The launch was witnessed by the visiting Brazilian Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Marcos Pontes, and the heads of the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB) and the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) at Sriharikota. Welcoming the news of the launch, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called it a “historic moment” in India Brazil space cooperation. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro said the ﬁrst fully Brazilian made satellite, which would help to monitor the Amazon forests, was a mark of the “increasing investment” the country was making in science and technology.
Brazil and India ﬁrst signed an MoU between the Department of Space and AEB in March 2002, followed by a Framework Agreement in 2004, that is reviewed by a Joint Working Group. In 2007, they inked a special arrangement which allows Indian scientists access to Brazilian ground stations to remote sensing data from the Indian satellites.
Among the satellites from India were – Satish Dhawan SAT (SDSAT) built by Space Kidz India and the UNITYsat, a combination of three satellites for providing radio relay services was also put into orbit. ISRO chairperson K. Sivan said, “This particular mission is special because these Indian satellites are coming under the new space reform announced by the Government of India”.

2. Spectrum Auction

A total of 2251.25 MHz of airwaves, across 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz and 2500 MHz frequency bands, with a total value of ₹3.92 lakh crore at reserve price, will be put up for bidding. The 5G airwaves have not been put up for bidding. As per analysts, telcos will likely bid conservatively for minimum quantities, needed to satisfy the immediate 2-3 quarter capacity requirement, and await prices of regular bands to be cut in subsequent auctions as well as wait for 5G spectrum.
In the last spectrum auctions, which were held in 2016, about 40% of the 2,355 MHz of spectrum (worth ₹5.6 lakh crore) put on auction was sold, generating ₹65,789 crore revenue for the government. According to spectrum auction rules, a ﬁrm can bid for spectrum only as per eligibility point allocated based on its deposit. As per the government, successful bidders may pay the entire bid amount in one go or may exercise the option to pay. In addition to the bid amount, successful bidders will also have to pay 3% of the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) excluding wireline services as spectrum usage charges.
The government received bids worth ₹77,146 crore on the ﬁrst day of the auction for telecom air waves, exceeding its own pre-bid estimates of about ₹45,000 crore. It saw participation from the three private players – Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, who bid for 849.20 MHz on the ﬁrst day out of a total of 2,308.80 MHz put up for sale. However, no bids were received for the premium 700 MHz band as well as the 2500 MHz band.

SPORTS

Daily snippets

1. Djokovic ties Federer's record

Novak Djokovic matched Roger Federer's all-time record for the most weeks as ATP World No. 1 on Monday, holding the top spot for the 310th week. Djokovic's ninth Australian Open title last month ensured the 18-time Grand Slam champion would surpass Federer's record.
The Serb reclaimed the top ranking from Rafael Nadal in February 2020 and ﬁnished as year end number one for the sixth time, tying the mark set by Pete Sampras.

SUGGESTED READINGS

1. UK's Supreme Court ruling on Uber drivers https://www.livelaw.in/columns/gig-economy-uber-drivers-uk-employment-appeal-tribunal-170589

2. Newly notified Information Technology Rules, 2021 https://www.livelaw.in/columns/newly-notified-information-technology-rules-2021-170592

3. Government and sedition https://thewire.in/government/watch-karan-thapar-justice-deepak-gupta-supreme-court-sedition-disha-ravi

4. The Inconsistent policy on Bail https://www.livelaw.in/columns/bail-allahabad-high-court-anticipatory-bail-tandav-munawar-faruqui-freedom-of-speech-krishna-iyer-170555

5. Big government and Big Tech https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/more-about-big-government-than-big-tech/article33956682.ece

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Sources referred to : The Hindu, The Indian Express, Live Law, Bar & Bench

END

February 25th-28th, 2021

Your 10 minute + a little more read!

START

LAW, POLICY & GOVERNANCE

Daily snippets

1. Govt. Withdraws order on online science meets

The government has withdrawn a controversial order that required scientists and researchers, among others, participating in online international scientific seminars and conferences, to get prior clearance from the Ministry of External Affairs. The order, issued on January 31, had drawn severe backlash from scientists.
The restrictions, according to scientists, were too broad based and vague and would have made it impossible for many scientists to participate in online conferences without contravening the law.

2. Plea seeks simplification of child adoption process

Lengthy and cumbersome adoption procedures of the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) and the increasing number of childless couples have given rise to a “grey market” for adoption, an NGO told the Delhi High Court.
A Bench of Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Jasmeet Singh issued notice to the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Delhi government, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and CARA seeking their stand on the NGO’s plea seeking simplification of the adoption procedure.

3. U.P. Assembly passes Bill on conversion amid protests

Amid protests by the Opposition, the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly passed by voice vote a Bill to curb religious conversions carried out by fraudulent or any other undue means, including through marriage.
The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Bill, 2021, seeks to replace the ordinance promulgated in November last year that provides for imprisonment of up to 10 years and a maximum fine of ₹50,000 for violators. Opposing the legislation, parties said that marriage is a personal matter of an individual.

4. Govt. to monitor OTT content

For the first time, the government, under the ambit of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021, has brought in detailed guidelines for digital content on both digital media and Over The Top (OTT) platforms, while giving itself overriding powers. The new rules lay down a three tier grievance redressal mechanism. However, over and above this framework, the government has equipped itself with “emergency” powers to block public access of any information.

5. London court’s nod for Nirav Modi’s extradition

The Westminster Magistrates Court in London allowed India’s extradition request against businessman Nirav Modi, who is wanted in connection with the ₹13,758 crore Punjab National Bank fraud, ruling that a prima facie case had been made out. Notice of application for approval to appeal has to be sought within 14 days of extradition, or discharge, ordered by the Secretary of State.

6. Same-sex marriages will cause havoc, Central govt. tells HC

The Centre opposed any changes to the existing laws on marriage to recognise same-sex marriages, saying such interference would cause “a complete havoc with the delicate balance of personal laws in the country”. Living together as partners and having sexual relationship by same-sex individuals is not comparable with the Indian family unit concept”.
The Centre submitted that “registration of marriage of same-sex persons also results in violation of existing personal as well as codified law provisions”.

7. President’s Rule in Puducherry notified

President’s Rule was imposed in the Union Territory of Puducherry and the Legislative Assembly was placed under suspended animation, according to a notification issued by the Union Home Ministry. Union Territories are administered in accordance with the provisions of Article 239 to 241 of the Constitution, and according to the Allocation of Business Rules, 1961, certain subjects pertaining to Union Territories, namely Legislative matters, Finance and Budget and Services, have been allocated to the Home Ministry. It comes after the fall of Congress govt.

8. SC exploring avenues to offer quick relief to accident victims

The Supreme Court is exploring the creation of a nationwide online mechanism to help road accident victims and their families get compensation within a short time of the accident. A Bench led by Justice S.K. Kaul is considering various avenues to speed up the compensation process, including the setting up of a national grid to seamlessly disburse compensation across States to the online submission of police records and accident claim documents in Motor Accidents Claims Tribunals.
The court’s intervention came on a writ petition filed by one of India’s largest insurance firms, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company, on the plight of victims who have been waiting for years for compensation.

NATIONAL NEWS/ INTERVENTIONS

Daily snippets

1. Disengagement a win-win situation, says Army chief

The Chief of the Army Staff, General Manoj Naravane, said the disengagement in Pangong Tso (lake) was a ‘win-win’ situation for both India and China and it was still a long way toward de-escalation.
China has been in the habit of making small incremental moves like in the South China Sea that were not challenged but the Ladakh standoff has shown that this strategy will not work with India and “every move will be met resolutely”, he said at a webinar organised by Vivekananda International Foundation.

2. India takes on Pak. at Human Rights Council

India hit out at Pakistan at the high-level segment of the 46th Session of the Human Rights Council and said the recent release of Al-Qaeda terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh is a “clear example” of the connection between the Pakistani state and terrorists.
Responding to the comments of Pakistan and Turkey on Kashmir and other issues, the Indian diplomatic team said the government of India is “fully cognizant” of its human rights obligations. “Pakistan has been the home and patron to the largest number of internationally proscribed terrorist entities and individuals in the world,” said diplomat Seema Pujani after the Pakistani delegation raised the Kashmir issue and described the situation in the Valley as “grave”.
India also hit out at Turkey and said the country had “trampled upon'' its own civil society. Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had raised the situation in Kashmir and called upon India to resolve the dispute as per the UNSC Resolutions.

3. India, Pakistan agree to adhere to 2003 ceasefire

In a first joint statement issued by the two sides in years, India and Pakistan on Thursday said they have agreed to a “strict observance of all agreements, understandings and cease firing along the Line of Control (LoC) and all other sectors” with effect from the midnight of February 24-25. The decision was announced after discussions between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of both sides over the established hotline on February 22.

4. Labour rights activist released from jail

Labour rights activist Naudeep Kaur was on Friday released from a Haryana jail after the Punjab and Haryana High Court granted her bail in a case in which faces charges of attempt to murder, rioting among others, in an incident at Haryana’s Kundli of Sonipat district. The 24-year old activist, who was in the Karnal jail, was released after the bail order.

5. 23.79 lakh register for free digital library service

The success of the government run digital library initiative, launched in Karnataka last year in February, weeks before the nationwide lockdown was imposed, has come as a surprise even to the authorities. In one year, over 23.79 lakh people signed up for services during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, a closer look at the data reveals that a majority of subscribers to the free service did not download a single ebook or video. According to data provided by the Department of Public Libraries, around 10.9 lakh ebooks and 5.49 lakh videos have been accessed so far.

6. U.S. welcomes IndiaPak. ceasefire agreement

The United States has welcomed the announcement by India and Pakistan that they would observe the 2003 ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC). The White House called for the two countries to build upon this progress and the State Department encouraged a reduction in tensions and violence along the LoC.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump had ruffled feathers in New Delhi with repeated offers to mediate between India and Pakistan on Kashmir. Mr. Trump had announced in July 2019 that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked him to mediate on Kashmir with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar categorically assured Parliament that no such request was made.
“The Secretary-General is encouraged by the joint statement issued by the militaries of India and Pakistan on their agreement to observe the ceasefire at the Line of Control in Kashmir and engage through established mechanisms,” spokesperson for the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said. The European Union (EU) also welcomed the ceasefire agreement.

7. Panel seeks more data to clear Sputnik V

A Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization has sought more data on Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine trials from Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories to accord emergency use authorization for the COVID19 antidote. The SEC meeting asked Covaxin maker Bharat Biotech, which sought permission to conduct phase III clinical trials of the vaccine candidate in children aged 5-18 years, to submit efficacy and safety data of ongoing Phase III clinical trials in adults along with the age subgroup analysis.
On Friday, Bharat Biotech said it has signed an agreement with Brazil for supplying 20 million doses of Covaxin. Under the deal worth 1.6 billion reals ($290 million), the vaccine will be delivered in the second and third quarter of 2021

8. Vaccines for seniors and 45-plus with comorbidities from March

People above 60 years of age and those above 45 with comorbidities would be given COVID-19 vaccines from March 1, the Union government announced. Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said that under the second phase of vaccination, shots would be given for free at 10,000 government run facilities and for a charge at 20,000 private hospitals. Around 27 crore people are expected to be covered in the second phase. Of this group, around 10 crore people were over 60, he said.
Detailed listing of the co morbidities and pre vaccination requirements would be issued, and strict surveillance and monitoring of those vaccinated would be done as part of the protocol.

9. Punjab to amend Prisons Act to boost jail security

The Punjab government has decided to amend the Prisons Act of 1894 to strengthen security at prisons and curb criminal acts by inmates through more stringent punishment for major oﬀences such as rioting, escape from prison, and other violations of prison discipline and rules.
The Council of Ministers approved a proposal mooted by the Jails department to add new penal provisions in the Act to strengthen security arrangements and prevent the use of mobile phones by the inmates, riots inside the jails, incidents of assault on the jail staﬀ, damage to the jail property, incidents of absconding, possession of drugs inside the jails etc, said an oﬃcial statement.

10. Winter pollution on the rise

The levels of PM 2.5, the most threatening of particulate matter, worsened in 43 of 99 cities whose winter air in 2020 and 2019 was compared by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a nongovernmental research organisation. In the aftermath of the lockdown, several cities reported improved pollution levels but by winter, when the restrictions were signiﬁcantly eased, pollution levels had clawed back to pre COVID-19 levels, the CSE notes, underlining the signiﬁcant contribution of local and regional factors to a city’s pollution levels.
During winter, cool and calm weather traps and spikes daily pollution, particularly in north Indian cities located in the Indo Gangetic Plain. This bouncing back of pollution post lockdown unmasks the high impacts of local and regional pollution. This demands quicker regional reforms to curb pollution from vehicles, industry, power plants and waste burning to curb the winter pollution and also sustain annual improvement at a regional scale with speed. The study emphasises it was the smaller and upcoming cities that were emerging as pollution hotspots.

11. INCOIS to go for aerial mapping of ocean floor

The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) is planning to take the help of the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) for aerial mapping of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep to get a better picture of the ocean ﬂoor, also called ‘bathymetric’ study.
“NRSC has already done a similar high resolution topographic Airborne Laser Terrain Mapping (ALTM) for the entire coastal areas of the country and we are in the process of integrating the da ta for a 3D multi hazard mapping of both the east and west coastline for a more precise picture of the ocean ﬂoor,” said director T Srinivasa Kumar. Such a study has become imperative in view of the recent tsunamis of the Indonesian coasts where more than the quake related high waves, damage was due to landslides under the seabeds causing sudden wave surges leading to much damage without giving suﬃcient time to alert people, he pointed out.

12. Pandemic generation and the impacts

The country is all set to usher in a “pandemic generation”, with 375 million children (from new-borns to 14 year olds) likely to suﬀer long-lasting impacts. The challenges could range from being underweight, stunting and increased child mortality, to losses in education and work productivity, according to the State of Environment Report, 2021, released by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on Thursday. Over 500 million children have been forced out of school globally and India accounts for more than half of them. 115 million additional people might get pushed into extreme poverty by the pandemic — and most of them live in South Asia.
India ranked 117 among 192 nations in terms of sustainable development and was now behind all South Asian nations, except Pakistan, according to the report. Of 88 major industrial clusters in the country, according to the Central Pollution Control Board, 35 showed overall environmental degradation, 33 pointed to worsening air quality, 45 had more polluted water and in 17, land pollution became worse. Tarapur in Maharashtra emerged as the most polluted cluster. When ranked on the basis of achieving Sustainable Development Goals, the best performing States were Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Telangana. The worst performers were Bihar, Jharkhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Uttar Pradesh, the report stated.

13. Second wave of infections

A recent surge in infections notwithstanding, India is unlikely to see a “second wave” in infections, says Manindra Agrawal, Deputy Director, IIT, Kanpur, and one of India’s leading mathematicians who is involved with the National ‘Super Model’ initiative led by the Department of Science and Technology.
The current wave of infections – averaging 13,000 16,000 new conﬁrmed infections a day since February 23 – was primarily being led by Maharashtra and would not last beyond “two three weeks” in March, he said. The reason, he said, is because around 60% of India’s population had already been exposed to the virus and the country had reached herd immunity, or where the number of susceptible individuals were too few to allow the virus to exponentially grow.
Whether herd immunity levels have been reached is moot, because the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) reported that only 21% of Indians were estimated to have been infected, as per its third national serological survey conducted from December 17 to January 8, 2021. The Super Model’s estimate is about thrice that number.
Epidemiologists refer to the second wave as a resurgence of infection in an area where the transmission had decreased to below the outbreak potential but is now continually increasing over a certain period. The pre requisites for deﬁning the second wave are that the ﬁrst wave should have been contained – the reproduction number or R0 is below 1.5 and low rate of infection has been sustained for at least one month. The cumulative test positivity rate below 5% is generally used as a criterion to decide the end of a wave. But all these assumptions would prove wrong if a new variant that shows greater transmissibility either arises in India or those circulating in other countries spreads here. Newer variants, especially those capable of immune escape, can change everything we know, and this is the only way to have a second wave more devastating than the ﬁrst wave.

14. Karnataka to move SC against Tamil Nadu's project

Terming Tamil Nadu’s decision to utilise surplus water in the Cauvery basin ‘illegal’, Karnataka Home, Law and Parliamentary Aﬀairs Minister Basavaraj Bommai said the State would approach the Supreme Court for a legal recourse. The decision follows Tamil Nadu’s move to lay foundation to the Cauvery-Vellaru-Vaigai-Gundar link scheme last Sunday. The link scheme proposes to utilise the surplus water in the Cauvery basin and transfer it to its Southern region.
Mr. Bommai said: “It is not right on the part of Tamil Nadu to utilise surplus water before it is allocated. Under the provisions of The Inter State Water Disputes Act, it is illegal and cannot happen without proper allocation.”

15. Odisha's Puri Heritage corridor

The Naveen Patnaik government aggressively pushed the ₹3,200 crore heritage corridor project for Puri Jagannath Temple. According to the State government, the heritage corridor would be divided into nine zones. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said the mega project was conceptualised keeping three objectives such as the security of the temple, safety of devotees and religious atmosphere for devotees in mind.

16. Tracking the elusive snow leopard in Himachal

Himachal Pradesh’s high altitude hilly terrain could be harbouring as many as 73 snow leopards (Panthera uncia), says a recent study based on a scientiﬁc enumeration of the elusive animal. Snow leopards are one of the most endangered wildlife species. The ﬁrstever such study on snow leopards, a top predator of the Indian Himalaya, was completed in January by the Himachal Pradesh Wildlife Department and the Mysore based Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF).
In Himachal Pradesh, the snow leopard’s habitat covers a greater part of the districts of Lahaul-Spiti and Kinnaur. Its potential habitat also extends into the upper regions of the districts of Shimla, Kullu, Chamba and Kangra. This project is the ﬁrst systematic eﬀort at a large regional scale that utilised a stratiﬁed sampling design to estimate the snow leopard population over an area of 26,112 sq. km. The region was ﬁrst stratiﬁed into three categories – high, low or unknown snow leopard occurrence, based on questionnaire surveys of local communities residing in these areas. Camera trap surveys were then carried out in areas under each of the categories. The studies found that the snow leopard density was positively correlated with the wild prey density, indicating that higher wild prey densities corresponded to higher snow leopard densities. The results reiterate, the study said, that local communities are the strongest allies in conservation, if their concerns can be factored into conservation planning.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS/EVENTS/ PERSONALITIES

Daily snippets

1. U.S. will seek to rejoin UNHRC: Blinken

The U.S. will seek re-election to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced, as he “humbly” asked for the support of UN member states.
This is the latest in a series of moves by the Biden administration to reverse a pattern of retreat from multilateralism that was characteristic of the Trump regime Former President Donald Trump had taken the U.S. out of the Council in 2018, saying it was biased against Israel and had members who were human rights abusers.

2. Imran announces $50 mn defence credit line for Lanka

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan announced a $50 million defence credit line facility for Sri Lanka, even as the two countries stressed the need for “stronger partnership” in security, combating terrorism, organised crime and drug and narcotic trafficking, and intelligence sharing.
Mr. Khan’s visit to Sri Lanka is the first to be undertaken by a head of government, after the pandemic hit the world. It was the first visit by the Pakistani Prime Minister since the formation of the new governments in both the countries and marked Mr. Khan’s return since his cricketing tours to Sri Lanka in 1975 and 1986. Mr. Khan met with representatives of Sri Lanka’s sports fraternity, at an event where Sri Lanka’s Minister of Sports and Youth Namal Rajapaksa announced the commissioning of the ‘Imran Khan High Performance Sports Centre’ in Colombo.

3. ‘JapanU.S. treaty a product of Cold War’

China called the Japan-U.S. mutual security pact a product of the Cold War following U.S. criticism of the presence of Chinese coast guard vessels in Japanese-claimed territorial waters over the weekend. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin also reasserted China’s claim to a string of tiny, uninhabited islands in the East China Sea controlled by Japan.
The verbal exchange followed reports that two Chinese coast guard ships on Sunday twice entered Japanese territorial waters surrounding the islands, known by Japan as Senkaku and by China as Diaoyu. Chief Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said China had “continued to flout international rules” and the U.S. would work with its allies to address such challenges.
Wang did not directly address the criticism but said the islands were “China's inherent territory”. “The U.S. Japan security treaty is a product of the Cold War, which should not harm a third party's interest or endanger regional peace and stability,” Wang said at a daily briefing.

4. Ghana first country to receive COVAX vaccines

Ghana received the world’s first delivery of coronavirus vaccines from the United Nations-backed COVAX initiative – the long awaited start for a program that has thus far fallen short of hopes that it would ensure shots were given quickly to the world’s most vulnerable people.
The arrival of 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the West African country marks the beginning of the largest vaccine procurement and supply operation in history, according to the World Health Organization and UNICEF. However, the initiative has been hampered by the severely limited global supply of doses and logistical problems. Although it aims to deliver 2 billion shots this year, it currently has agreements only for several hundred million shots.

5. France slams ‘repression’ of Uighurs

French Foreign Minister Jean Yves Le Drian denounced what he called the “institutionalised repression” of China’s Uighur minority. Speaking by video link at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Mr. Le Drian said witness accounts from the Chinese region of Xinjiang pointed to “unjustifiable practices towards Uighurs, and a system of large scale surveillance and institutionalised repression.”
Rights groups believe that at least 1 million Uighurs and other Turkic-speaking Muslim minorities are incarcerated in camps in the western region of Xinjiang. Mr. Le Drian cited Xinjiang among several examples of “considerable regressions for human rights” in 2020.

6. Biden revokes Trump’s immigrant visa ban

The Biden administration took another step to undo the previous government’s immigration policy legacy by revoking Donald Trump’s suspension of new immigrant visas, which had been in effect since late April last year. The order had been extended through to March 31 by Mr. Trump. The revoked order (Proclamation 10014) had suspended the entry of certain immigrants and non-immigrants into the U.S. ostensibly on grounds of protecting the U.S. labour market in the wake of COVID-19.
The U.S. issues up to 55,000 immigrant visas (these become “Green Cards” after the recipient enters the U.S.) via its diversity lottery each year to encourage immigration from nationalities that are demographically underrepresented in the U.S.
Mr. Biden, however, did not revoke a Trump administration pause on H1B (skilled worker), L (intra-company transfer) and several other work and exchange visitor visa categories ( and dependents of these visa holders) that went into effect on June 24 last year. H1B visas are predominantly granted to workers in the IT sector, and most of these visas — over 70% — have gone to Indian citizens in recent years.

7. FB bans Myanmar military accounts

Facebook said it has banned all remaining accounts linked to the Myanmar military, citing the junta’s use of deadly force against anti-coup demonstrators. The move, which takes effect immediately, applies to the military and entities controlled by the armed forces on both Facebook and Instagram. It also bans “military-linked commercial entities” from advertising on the platforms.
The junta has steadily increased its use of force against a massive and largely peaceful civil disobedience campaign demanding Myanmar’s Army leaders relinquish power. Pages for government offices now run by the junta remain unaffected.

8. Pakistan will remain on FATF ‘greylist’

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) decided to retain Pakistan on the “greylist” till the next review of its performance during the June plenary session. At a press briefing, FATF president Marcus Pleyer said although Pakistan had made significant progress, it was still to fully comply with three of the 27 point action plans it had been presented with in June 2018 when it was first put on the “greylist”. He urged Pakistan to make fast progress on them.
The three points on which the FATF has sought urgent action by Pakistan pertain to effective steps, in terms of financial sanctions and penalties, against terror funding infrastructure and the entities involved. After assessing the measures taken during the June session, the FATF would verify the implementation and test the sustainability of reforms undertaken by Pakistan to this end. To a query on when Pakistan would be put on the “blacklist”, the FATF chief said it would happen when the country shows progress; it was not the time for such an action.

9. As reserves shrink, Sri Lanka seeks $2.2 billion from China

Sri Lanka is seeking $2.2 billion from Chinese banks, the government said on Thursday, in echoes of a borrowing binge more than a decade ago that resulted in the country having to give up a strategic port to China. Money and Capital Markets Minister Nivard Cabraal said the government was hopeful of finalising a $1.5 billion swap facility with China’s central bank.
Official figures show Sri Lanka’s foreign reserves plummeted to $4.8 billion at the end of January, the lowest since September 2009 when they fell to $4.2 billion. Officials said the country was also in talks with China Development Bank for a $700 million loan that would include the equivalent of $200 million being drawn in Chinese currency.

10. Armenian PM accuses military of coup attempt

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan warned of an attempted military coup against him on Thursday, and thousands took to the streets of the capital to support him after the Army demanded he and his government resign. Mr. Pashinyan, 45, has faced calls to quit since November after what critics said was his disastrous handling of a conflict between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave and surrounding areas. Armenia ceded swathes of the territory to Azerbaijan after Mr. Pashinyan signed a peace deal last November.

11. India cannot abandon us, says Sri Lanka

Seeking India’s “proactive” support at the UN Human Rights Council, where a resolution on Sri Lanka will be soon put to vote, the Secretary to Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, “India cannot abandon us”. “Sri Lanka is in dire need of support from our friendly neighbours. And we are not asking anything extraordinary, we are asking something based on your neighbourhood first policy, based on Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR).”
His appeal comes at a time when Indo-Lanka bilateral ties have come under strain, following a series of decisions taken by Colombo on development projects involving India and China. It remains to be seen how India might vote on the Sri Lanka resolution that draws from UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet’s damning report on Sri Lanka's “alarming path towards recurrence of grave human rights violations”, which Colombo has categorically rejected. On Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s recent visit to Colombo, he said it should not be seen as Sri Lanka attempting “to join a bloc” or country, against others. “It is a bilateral visit.”

12. Sri Lanka to allow burial of virus victims

Sri Lanka on Friday cleared the burial of COVID-19 victims, reversing its nearly year long policy of mandatory cremations that the country’s Muslim community denounced. The change in the government’s position follows Pakistani PM Imran Khan’s recent visit, when he reportedly urged the Rajapaksa administration to respect Muslims’ burial rights.
In April, a month after the pandemic struck Sri Lanka, the government banned burials of victims, based on unsubstantiated claims that the practice might contaminate groundwater, further spreading the virus. Despite senior virologists terming the claim baseless, and the World Health Organization permitting both burials and cremation, the government stuck to its position.
Several members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) had raised the issue, both in Sri Lanka and at global fora, including the 46th session of the UNHRC. As many as 15 OIC countries are among the 47 current members of the Council, and will soon get to vote on a contested resolution on Sri Lanka.

13. Gunmen abduct 317 Nigerian schoolgirls

Gunmen abducted 317 girls from a boarding school in northern Nigeria on Friday, police said, the latest in a series of mass kidnappings of students in the West African nation. Nigeria has seen several such attacks and kidnappings over the years, notably the mass abduction in April 2014 by jihadist group Boko Haram of 276 girls from the secondary school in Chibok in Borno State. More than a hundred of the girls are still missing.

14. U.S. strikes on Iran-backed militias in Syria kill at least 22

The U.S. military has struck Iran Backed militias in eastern Syria, killing at least 22 fighters, according to a war monitor. In its first military action against Iran Linked groups since Joe Biden became President five weeks ago, the Pentagon said it had carried out air strikes on Thursday at a Syria-Iraq border control point used by Iran-backed groups, destroying “multiple facilities”, in retaliation for a spate of rocket attacks targeting its troops in Iraq.

15. Bangladeshis protest death of writer in jail

Protesters blocked a busy intersection in Bangladesh’s capital to protest the death in prison of a writer and commentator, who was arrested on charges of violating a sweeping digital security law that critics say stifles freedom of expression.
Mushtaq Ahmed, 53, was arrested in Dhaka in May last year for making comments on social media that criticised Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. He had been denied bail at least six times. It was not immediately clear how Mr. Ahmed died on Thursday. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said an investigation would follow.

16. MBS behind ‘capture or kill Khashoggi’ operation

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, commonly known as MBS, approved of an operation to capture or kill dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi who was murdered in 2018, according to a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment released in a manner choreographed to limit damage to the U.S.-Saudi ties.
Khashoggi, a U.S. resident who wrote columns for The Washington Post critical of the Crown Prince’s policies, was killed and dismembered by a team of operatives linked to the Crown Prince in the kingdom’s Consulate in Istanbul. Riyadh has denied any involvement by the Crown Prince, Saudi Arabia’s de-facto ruler.

OPINION & ANALYSIS

Commentary : Bail as right

(i). In granting bail for six months to poet Varvara Rao in the Bhima Koregoan case on medical grounds, the Bombay High Court has affirmed the principle that even the stringent provisions of an antiterrorism law are not invincible before a prisoner’s constitutional rights.

(ii). The court overruled the National Investigation Agency’s objection that bail should not be granted on medical grounds once an undertrial prisoner’s bail application was rejected on merits under UAPA, as long as access to treatment in a government hospital was available. The court looked at Mr. Rao’s plight from the perspective of his right to life under Article 21.

(iii). Bail is routinely denied in most cases under UAPA. It became a watertight embargo since the Supreme Court in 2019 gave a ruling that made it nearly impossible for anyone arrested under UAPA to be released on bail, unless the accused could demonstrate that the charges against them were prima facie untrue. However, a few recent judicial decisions have sought to carve out exceptions. The Supreme Court laid down recently that prolonged incarceration without any possibility of an early completion of trial could be a ground for granting bail.

Analysis : Inhibiting free speech

(i). Background

The Delhi Assembly summoned Facebook honcho Ajit Mohan to depose before its Peace and Harmony Committee, it unwittingly provoked a litigation that may have far-reaching implications on federalism, the separation of powers and fundamental rights in India.

(ii). What the principles says : Federalism vs Parliamentary privilege

Federalism imposes an insuperable challenge to the traditional broad reading of parliamentary privilege. The argument goes: Unlike the House of Commons, the powers of State Assemblies are more limited. If the State Assembly cannot pass a law on a subject, how can it claim a right to discuss it or call witnesses for it?
Legislatures also have a separate non judicial power of inquiry which has been judicially regarded as being inherent to the legislature, flowing perhaps from what Walter Bagehot would call the expressive and informative function of the House.
Second, the legislative lists frequently overlap and courts resolve any conflict by adopting a test of pith and substance of the law in question. Third, we live in the era of cooperative federalism. Fourth, there is the delicate issue of whether the courts can or ought to sit in judgment on the proceedings of State Assemblies determining what can or cannot be discussed based on the courts’ view of the topic. The experiences of Canada and Australia, both common law federal jurisdictions, are also instructive.

ECONOMICS & FINANCE

Daily snippets

1. Modi on government assets

Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged foreign investors to tap investment opportunities thrown up by the government’s decision to privatise most public sector entities and monetise ‘unutilised and underutilised assets’ such as airports that have an estimated investment potential of ₹2.5 lakh crore. The government’s mantra is ‘Monetise or Modernise’, the PM said, stressing that the funds raised from the exercise will help empower citizens by building homes for the poor and ensuring clean water reaches all.
Mr. Modi said government oﬃcials in charge of PSUs are often scared of taking decisions and there is a tendency to maintain status quo. The private sector can not only bring capital but also introduce global best practices and quality manpower and modernise enterprises, the PM pointed out.

2. Private banks can handle government business

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the embargo on private banks handling government business had been lifted, paving the way for such lenders to handle tax payments, pension payments and even small savings schemes. The government’s decision has been conveyed to the Reserve Bank of India, the Finance Ministry said in a statement, as the central bank is entrusted with authorising private banks to undertake handling of government and its agencies’ business.

3. Cabinet approves PLI plan for pharma, IT hardware

The Union Cabinet approved the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for the pharmaceuticals and IT hardware sectors, entailing an outlay of ₹15,000 crore and ₹7,350 crore, respectively. The PLI scheme for pharmaceuticals, for nine years till 2028-29, will beneﬁt domestic manufacturers, help create employment and is expected to contribute to the availability of a wider range of aﬀordable medicines for consumers, the government said. The scheme is expected to bring in investment of ₹15,000 crore in the pharmaceutical sector.
The scheme also aims to create global champions from India that have the potential to grow in size and scale using cutting edge technology and thereby penetrate global value chains. The Cabinet also approved the PLI Scheme for IT hardware such as laptops, tablets, all in one PCs and servers. The scheme, under which an incentive will be given on net incremental sales of goods manufactured in India for four years, will beneﬁt ﬁve ‘major global players’ and ten domestic ‘champions’ in IT hardware, the government said.

4. Proposed 'Bad Banks' move will not hit existing Asset reconstruction companies (ARC)

The ‘bad bank’ proposed in the Union Budget will not jeopardise the activity of existing asset reconstruction companies (ARCs) , said Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das. Advocating a durable push for Indian exports through free trade pacts with ‘strategically important economies,’ Mr. Das warned that the recovery in global trade was uneven and sought urgent attention from global policymakers to rein in disruptions in global supply chains caused by a steep surge in shipping costs and delivery times.
“It’s not really a bad bank (but) an ARC type entity that will be set up to take over the stressed assets from the books of public sector banks (PSBs) and try to resolve them like any other ARC. So that is targeting a speciﬁc set of bad assets which certain groups of PSBs hold. In no way will it jeopardise the activity of existing ARCs.” On free trade pacts, he said, “Key considerations should be to identify countries and regions that not only have the potential as a market for domestic goods and services but also have the scope to enhance domestic competitiveness.”

5. Current inflation target band apt for next five years, says RBI report

With the next review of the ﬂexible inﬂation targeting (FIT) framework coming up soon, the Reserve Bank of India, in the Report on Currency and Finance for FY21, said the current inﬂation target of 4% with a +/2% tolerance band is appropriate for the next ﬁve years.
The report said the trend inﬂation had fallen from above 9% before FIT to a range of 3.84.3 % during FIT, indicating that 4% is the appropriate level of the inﬂation target. The report said an inﬂation rate of 6% is the appropriate upper tolerance limit for the target. A lower bound above 2% can lead to actual inﬂation frequently dipping below the tolerance band while a lower bound below 2% will hamper growth, indicating that an inﬂation rate of 2 % is the appropriate lower tolerance bound.

6. India 'out of recession', GDP grows 0.4%

India’s economy resurfaced to growth territory in the third quarter of ﬁscal year (FY) 202021, clocking a 0.4% rise in the gross domestic product (GDP), as per data from the National Statistical Oﬃce (NSO). GDP had shrunk in the ﬁrst two quarters by 24.4% and 7.3% as per revised data, amid the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns, marking a technical recession.
The Finance Ministry termed the 0.4% real GDP growth in Q3 as a return to ‘the pre pandemic times of positive growth rates’ and a reﬂection of a ‘further strengthening of V shaped recovery that began in Q2’. India’s farm sector remained resilient, clocking a 3.9% growth in Gross Value Added (GVA) to the economy in the October-to-December quarter, after recording a 3.3% and 3% rise in the ﬁrst two quarters, respectively. In Q3, manufacturing, construction and ﬁnancial, real estate and professional services staged a return to growth for the ﬁrst time in the year after two bad quarters.
The Finance Ministry said the resurgence in manufacturing and construction augured well for them to drive growth in FY22 and added that services, which account for more than 50% of India’s GVA and the biggest source for pushing consumption, had done remarkably better in Q3.
What is Gross Value Added? In economics, gross value added is the measure of the value of goods and services produced in an area, industry or sector of an economy.

7. Coffee output may drop

Untimely rains and hail stones that lashed plantations in the last six days causing large scale berry dropping is expected to impact arabica and robusta coﬀee production by 30% for the 202021 crop year, as per estimates by planters. According to Coﬀee Board’s post monsoon estimates, during the crop year 2020-21, India was expecting an arabica production of 1.02 lakh metric tonnes (MT) and robusta production of 2.4 lakh MT.

8. India's import guidelines review with China

The government has placed curbs on the procurement of ﬁnished goods from China by ﬁrms supplying goods and services under the public procurement system, while allowing the use of Chinese raw material or components without prior permission. “A bidder is permitted to procure raw material, components, subassemblies, etc. from the vendors from such countries which shares a land border,” the Department of Expenditure in the Finance Ministry has said in a memo, arguing that such procurement cannot be equated with subcontracting.
Vendors proposing to source ﬁnished goods from Chinese suppliers will need to seek registration with the committee. The development assumes signiﬁcance at a time the government is considering rebooting approvals for China-related investment proposals following the disengagement at the Indo-Chinese border after an extended period of tension.

SPORTS

Daily snippets

1. Motera stadium named after PM Modi

The world’s largest cricket arena at Motera in Ahmedabad, the Sardar Patel Cricket Stadium, was renamed Narendra Modi Stadium and was inaugurated on Wednesday by President Ram Nath Kovind. The rebuilt stadium is part of the proposed Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Sports Enclave to be spread over 220 acres on the Sabarmati river bank in the North East of Ahmedabad.It will comprise a natatorium, athletics track, football, hockey and tennis stadia, velodrome/skating area among other facilities.
The refurbished venue is spread over 63 acres and has a seating capacity of 1.1 lakh, more than double the previous number of 49,000. The ground has been equipped with LED ﬂoodlights, a ﬁrst for any Indian sports site.

2. Ankita Raina : The new Indian on the bloc

Last week, Ankita Raina became India’s ﬁrst WTA champion since Sania Mirza, when she won the doubles title at Phillip Island Trophy in Melbourne. She became the third Indian woman after Sania Mirza and Shikha Uberoi to enter the top100 in doubles while representing India.

3. PM Modi inaugurates Khelo India Winter Games

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the second edition of the Khelo India Winter Games and said hosting such events will make J&K a sports hub. He said the second edition of the Winter Games at Gulmarg will prepare sportsmen for bigger international platforms like the Olympics. Modi said the players participating in the event epitomises the ‘one India, one nation’ spirit. Around 1200 athletes and guests from across the country will participate in multiple events, including snowshoe race, ice skating, ice hockey, skiing, Nordic ski, snowboarding, ski mountaineering, ice stock, etc.

4. Bronze for Indian men's skeet team

Angad Vir Singh Bajwa, Mairaj Ahmad Khan and Gurjoat Khangura narrowly missed a chance to ﬁght for the gold, but clinched the skeet team bronze in the Shotgun World Cup being held in Cairo. The Indian team shot 146 out of 150 to reach a total of 491 and tied with Russia, while Czech Republic topped with 498. India beat Kazakhstan 62 to win the bronze.
The Indian women’s team of Parinaaz Dhaliwal, Ganemat Sekhon and Karttiki Singh Shaktawat lost the battle for bronze 46 to Kazakhstan, while Russia beat Czech Republic 62 for the gold.

SUGGESTED READINGS

1. New social media rules https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/social-media-rules-messaging-platforms-to-trace-first-originator-of-messages-170408

2. The absurdity of the anti-defection law https://www.pressreader.com/india/the-hindu/20210226/281758452013157

3. GOI limitations on International Webinars https://www.livelaw.in/columns/freedom-of-speech-right-to-education-academic-freedom-limitations-international-webinar-170451

4. Making Indian Judiciary more economically responsible https://thewire.in/economy/india-judiciary-economically-responsible-environment

5. Federalism and India's human capital https://www.pressreader.com/india/the-hindu/20210225/281831466454989

6. Explainer : Australian government vs Facebook https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/facebook-australia-law-media-7196280/

7. Who is Nodeep Kaur and why she was arrested https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/who-is-nodeep-kaur-and-why-was-she-arrested/article33790286.ece

Download Page : https://e-clat.com/dailynewspage

Sources referred to : The Hindu, The Indian Express, Live Law, Bar & Bench

END

February 23rd-24th, 2021

Your 10 minute read!

START

LAW, POLICY & GOVERNANCE

Daily snippets

1. Give Rs1 lakh each to two custodial torture victims’

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has recommended that the Ministry of Home Affairs pay Rs1 lakh each to two victims of custodial torture at Delhi’s Adarsh Nagar police station in a 2019 case.
“The commission was convinced that from the material on record, prima facie it is established that the complainant and his nephew were given third degree torture. They were assaulted by the police personnel, as named in the FIR, and are now facing trial before the court,...the commission held that since the police officers failed to act as responsible public servants, therefore, departmental proceedings against them should also be initiated, and they should be punished accordingly. The State is vicariously liable for the action of public servants/police officers and hence the victims are entitled for compensation.”

2. Schools told to sensitise students on cyber bullying

The Delhi government has issued a circular to all the heads of schools to educate students and their parents about the safe use of Internet and sensitise them about cyberbullying and online threats as they continue to attend classes online due to the pandemic.
The Directorate of Education (DoE) said a study has been conducted by India Child Protection Fund (ICPF) regarding online exploitation of children and increase in activities related to child sexual abuse material, which indicates a sharp rise in demand for online child pornography during the lockdown.

3. Delhi court grants bail to Disha

Terming the ‘toolkit’ shared by climate change activist Disha Ravi as “innocuous”, a Delhi court granted her bail. Additional sessions judge Dharmender Rana said, “The perusal of the said ‘toolkit’ reveals that any call for any kind of violence is conspicuously absent.”
Dealing with the interpretation of the word ‘sedition’, a charge slapped by the Delhi Police on the 22-year old activist, the judge said, “Law proscribes only such activities as would be intended, or have a tendency, to create disorder or disturbance of public peace by resort to violence”.

NATIONAL NEWS/ INTERVENTIONS

Daily snippets

1. Xi may visit India for BRICS summit

China’s President Xi Jinping may visit India in the second half of this year to attend the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) leaders’ meeting, if a physical summit is held as is increasingly expected. The visit will come in the aftermath of the most serious border crisis between the neighbours in decades. China on Monday expressed its “support” for India hosting this year’s meeting, and said the meeting would not be impacted by the border crisis.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to make his first overseas trip after the pandemic to Bangladesh in March and is also likely to attend the India-E.U. meet in Portugal in May and the G7 summit in the U.K., where India has been invited as a guest country, the following month.
In 2017, Prime Minister Modi visited China to attend the BRICS summit five days after Indian and Chinese troops ended a 72-day standoff on the Doklam plateau. The timing of the summit, officials in India and China said at the time, pushed both sides to arrive at a deal. While disengagement is under way along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, having been completed last week at Pangong Lake and now in progress in other areas, de-escalation is yet to take place, with thousands of troops on both sides still present in depth areas beyond the LAC and yet to return to their peacetime positions.

2. ‘₹70,221 cr. reserved for domestic buying’

About ₹70,000 crore of the capital allocation of ₹1.35 lakh crore in the defence budget would be reserved for domestic procurements and a second negative list of items that could be procured only locally by the Services would be issued, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said.
In the budgetary allocation for 2021-22, the capital allocation for defence saw an increase of ₹21,326 crore or 18.75% compared to Budget Estimates (BE) of last year. Last year, for the first time, the government introduced a separate allocation for domestic procurement within the defence budget and reserved ₹52,000 crore for 2020-21. Mr. Singh announced that to support start-ups, the Ministry planned to channelise about ₹1000 crore during 2021-22 for procurement from start-ups under the Innovation for Defence Excellence (iDEX) initiative.

3. Ministry disowns ‘cow science’ examination

With the Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog (RKA) having cancelled its “indigenous cow science” examination after widespread criticism about its promotion of fake claims and pseudoscience, the Animal Husbandry Department said the two year old body had “no mandate” to conduct such an examination. Any future awareness programme would be conducted “on a scientific basis”, said a senior official overseeing the RKA.
Under the leadership of Vallabhbhai Kathiria, the body’s Chairman, the RKA had announced a national “Kamdhenu Gau Vigyan Prachar Prasar Exam'' to be held on February 25. Reference materials for the exam made a number of unscientific claims, including that the dung of indigenous cows protected against radioactivity, their milk had traces of gold, and that cow slaughter caused earthquakes. The RKA had the backing of the University Grants Commission (UGC), which publicised the examination, causing widespread outrage.

4. Indradhanush 3.0 to fill gap in immunisation due to COVID

The States and Union Territories (UTs) have rolled out the Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) 3.0 scheme to cover children and pregnant women who missed routine immunisation during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Health Ministry said. More than 29,000 children and 5,000 pregnant women were covered on the first day, it added. The campaign is scheduled to have two rounds of immunisation lasting 15 days (excluding routine immunisation and holidays). It is being conducted in 250 pre-identified districts/urban areas across 29 States/UTs.

5. Animal Husbandry

The center announced the Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF) last year. As an allied industry of agriculture, the animal husbandry and dairy sector collectively employs more than 100 million people. Since the bulk of establishments in this sector is concentrated in rural India, the socio-economic relevance of this sector cannot be overstated.
The AHIDF has been set up with an outlay of ₹15,000 crore. As per the provisions of AHIDF, a project will be eligible for a loan amount that covers up to 90% of the estimated cost – with an interest subvention of 3% for all eligible entities. This is the ﬁrst major fund launched by the government that includes a diverse set of stakeholders such as FPOs, private dairy players, individual entrepreneurs, and non-proﬁts within its ambit.
There is also considerable potential to increase the productivity of cattle, especially by enhancing the quality of animal feed. With this in mind, the AHIDF has been designed to support the establishment of animal feed plants of varying capacities. The Ministry in collaboration with Invest India has invited ideas from domestic start-ups for the development of new varieties of green fodder and enriched animal feed. In a similar vein, there are not only economic but nutritional beneﬁts to boosting the poultry segment’s output, eﬃciency and quality. India is the fourth largest chicken meat producer and the second largest egg producer in the world.
Macro beneﬁts regarding climate change and employment are linked to this sector. Enhanced infrastructure can make processing units more energy eﬃcient and help mitigate their carbon footprint.

6. Railways stung by IT breaches

Following instances of cyber attacks during the ongoing pandemic across its network, the Ministry of Railways has roped in the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) to educate its oﬃcials on Internet ethics, cyber hygiene and best practices in the use of IT equipment, including mobile phones. This is a part of its National Cyber Security Strategy. The Railway Board said a number of incidents had come to notice regarding breaches in various IT applications as electronic working has further proliferated. A majority of them were applications related. Incidents occurred due to “improper handling of the IT assets by the personnel''.

7. Mizoram group seeks asylum for coup-hit Myanmar villagers

Mizoram’s apex students’ body has asked the State government to provide asylum to some villagers in Myanmar aﬀected by the military coup there. The State’s Mizo National Front (MNF) government, headed by Chief Minister Zoramthanga, said asylum would be considered if there was a formal request cleared by the Centre.
People belonging to Myanmar’s Chin community were seeking to migrate to Mizoram to escape a military crackdown, primarily because of the Chin National Army (CNA), an extremist group seeking self determination in Chin State across the border. The Chin community and the Mizos in India belong to the Zo ethnic group, which share the same ancestry. Claiming that the Chins have been aﬀected by the civil unrest in Myanmar, the Mizo Students’ Union appealed to the State government to play a proactive role and accept those aﬀected as refugees.

8. Terrorism is a crime against humanity

Terrorism is a “crime against humanity”, said External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on. Addressing the High Level Segment of the 46th Session of Human Rights Council (HRC), he said India’s commitment to human rights is seen in the way the government has handled the pandemic. Mr. Jaishankar said human rights agenda in the world is facing a major challenge from terrorism and expressed India’s desire to work with other members of the HRC. He highlighted the special importance of the rights that are enshrined in the Constitution as the Fundamental Rights.
The Minister’s comments came days after India reacted angrily to observations by the Special Rapporteurs on Minority Issues and Freedom of Religion or Belief on apparent erosion of rights in Kashmir and the rest of India. The Ministry had termed the observations as “deplorable”.
Mr. Jaishankar reached out to the HRC: “Our approach to the UN Human Rights Council is guided by our spirit of engagement, dialogue and consultation. We believe that equal emphasis should be placed on both promotion and protection of human rights. Both are best pursued through dialogue, consultation and cooperation among States as well as technical assistance and capacity building.” He said the government provided “direct food support to 800 million Indians and ﬁnancial support to 400 million” to counter the impact of the pandemic.

9. Government will ensure healthcare for all : Prime Minister

Stating that the budget allocation for the health sector this ﬁnancial year has been unprecedented, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said this indicated his government’s commitment to providing healthcare to every citizen. The Prime Minister said this was the inspiration behind the PM AtmaNirbhar Swasth Bharat scheme.
“The government is working with a four pronged strategy for a healthy India. The ﬁrst is prevention of illness and promotion of wellness, including measures such as Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, yoga, timely care and treatment of pregnant women and children. The second is to provide cheap and eﬀective treatment to the poorest of the poor. The third is to increase the quality of health infrastructure and health care professionals, while the fourth is to work on a mission mode to overcome obstacles,” he said.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS/EVENTS/ PERSONALITIES

Daily snippets

1. Iran, IAEA reach deal on inspections

The UN nuclear watchdog chief announced a “temporary solution” to allow Iranian facility inspections to continue after days of talks with officials, giving some much needed breathing space for diplomatic negotiations. However, IAEA Director General, Rafael Grossi, admitted that under the new three month arrangement, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would not have the same level of access after a law comes into force limiting some inspections.
Mr. Grossi’s visit to Iran came amid stepped up efforts between the U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration, European powers and Tehran to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal that has been on the brink of collapse since the former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from it and went on to impose sanctions on the nation. In December, Iran’s conservative-dominated Parliament passed the law demanding a suspension of some inspections if the U.S. failed to lift sanctions by this Sunday.
However, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the Islamic republic could boost uranium enrichment to 60% if needed, vowing to “not back down on the nuclear issue”. That would be far above the 3.67% limit Iran had accepted under the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, but still short of the around 90% required to make an atomic bomb.

2. Pandemic used as ‘pretext’ to crush dissent: UN chief

The UN on Monday slammed countries that are using the pandemic to justify cracking down on dissent and suppressing criticism. Speaking at the opening of the UN Human Rights Council’s main annual session, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres charged that authorities in a number of nations were using restrictions meant to halt the spread of COVID-19 to weaken opposition.
In addition to inequalities within countries, the UN chief slammed inequalities between nations when it comes to accessing the COVID-19 vaccines coming to market as a “moral outrage”. A full 75% of all vaccine doses have been administered in just 10 countries, he pointed out, while more than 130 countries have yet to receive a single dose.

3. Maldives Parliament debates defence deal with India

A day after Male and New Delhi signed an agreement to jointly develop the Maldives National Defence Force Coast Guard Harbour, Maldives’s Parliament, ‘the People’s Majlis’, took up an emergency motion, demanding greater transparency on the bilateral pact.
Concerns over “Indian military presence” were flagged in 2018 too, when the Yameen government asked India to take back two helicopters it had gifted, with a crew and support staff, causing a major strain in bilateral ties. Following the September 2018 defeat of the Yameen administration, which was known for its China tilt, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s government has been pursuing an “India first” policy.
However, not all in the ruling coalition agree with the government’s current foreign policy. During Monday’s debate in Parliament, government MP Ali Hussain said Male should avoid seeking assistance on military matters from any big power. “Whether it is India, China or the U.S., their agreements here are bound to have conflicting interests. We should not end up in a situation where we have to choose one partner over another, we should not become part of a proxy [geopolitical] war”. Last year, New Delhi welcomed the Maldives’s decision to sign a military agreement with the U.S.

4. Facebook to end Australia news blackout

Facebook said it would lift a contentious ban on Australian news and pay local media companies for content, after a lastgasp deal on pending landmark legislation. Australia’s Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced a face saving compromise that will see Google and Facebook plunge tens of millions of dollars into the struggling local news sector. In return the U.S. digital firms will, for now, avoid being subjected to mandatory payments that could cost them vastly more and create what they see as an alarming global precedent.
The social media firm sparked global outrage last week by blacking out news for its Australian users in protest against the proposed legislation, and inadvertently blocking a series of non-news Facebook pages linked to everything from cancer charities to emergency response services.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison angrily accused Facebook of making a decision to “unfriend” Australia. Google has already brokered deals worth millions of dollars with local media companies, including the two largest: Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Nine Entertainment.

5. Imran pitches economic corridor to Sri Lanka

Pitching the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as a connectivity booster, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, said Pakistan would find “ways and means to enhance trade and connectivity” with Sri Lanka. Mr. Khan is the first head of government to visit Sri Lanka since the pandemic struck the world. He held a one on one bilateral meeting with counterpart Mahinda Rajapaksa, and is scheduled to meet President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Wednesday.
Members of Sri Lanka’s minority Muslim community held a demonstration on Tuesday, urging the government to reverse its mandatory cremations policy for COVID-19 victims. The Sri Lankan government, which had earlier said Mr. Khan would address Parliament, cancelled the programme closer to his arrival, citing “scheduling issues” and safety concerns linked to the pandemic.

6. Biden, Trudeau to lay out road map to rebuild ties

U.S President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will lay out a “road map” for rebuilding U.S.-Canada relations during their first bilateral meeting, a senior official said, although the scrapped Keystone pipeline could present a hurdle. Mr. Biden and Mr. Trudeau will address several mutual priorities, including tackling climate change, revving up the North American economy, the Arctic, and threats to democracy in Myanmar and Venezuela.

7. Afghanistan warring sides return to table

With violence spiking, Afghanistan’s warring sides have returned to the negotiation table, ending more than a month of delays amid hopes that the two sides can agree on a reduction of violence – and eventually, an outright ceasefire. Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem tweeted that talks had resumed in Qatar, where the insurgent movement maintains a political office.
When talks ended abruptly in January, just days after beginning, both sides submitted their wish lists for agendas. The task now is for the two sides to sift through the respective wish lists, agree on items to negotiate and the order in which they will be tackled.
The priority for the Afghan government, Washington and NATO is a serious reduction in violence leading to a ceasefire. The Taliban has said it is negotiable, but until now has resisted any immediate ceasefire. Washington is reviewing the February 2020 peace deal the previous Trump administration signed with the Taliban that calls for the final withdrawal of international forces by May 1. The Taliban has resisted suggestions of even a brief extension, but a consensus is mounting in Washington for a delay in the withdrawal deadline. There is even a suggestion of a smaller intelligence based force staying behind.

8. Hong Kong to disqualify officials, politicians ‘disloyal’ to China

Hong Kong announced plans to ramp up the ideological vetting of politicians and officials, with anyone seen to be disloyal to China or a national security threat barred from office. The draft law will be sent next month to the city’s legislature, a body now devoid of opposition after a number of figures were disqualified because their political views were deemed a security threat.
Officials have detailed a “negative list” of offences that could see their colleagues removed from office, including acts that endanger national security, advocating for independence or refusing to accept China’s sovereignty over Hong Kong.

OPINION & ANALYSIS

Commentary : Dealing with the bigger neighbour, China

(i). Background

Since 1993, India and China had reached a number of agreements to maintain peace and tranquillity and promote confidence building measures (CBMs) in the border areas.

(ii). Key features of the agreements

The boundary question would be resolved peacefully; neither side would use or threaten to use force against the other “by any means”.
That the two sides would respect and observe the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
That they would jointly check and determine the segments of the LAC where they had different views as to its alignment and further, speed up clarification and confirmation of the LAC since a common understanding of the Line was necessary.
That military forces (including field army, border defence forces, paramilitary forces) and major categories of armaments in mutually agreed geographical zones along the LAC would be kept to a minimum level compatible with friendly and good neighbourly relations and the “requirements of mutual and equal security.”
Military exercises would be undertaken only at specified levels with prior notification being given for such exercises near the LAC; prior notice would be given regarding flights of combat aircraft within 10 kilometres from the LAC.
If border personnel of the two sides came face-to-face due to differences in alignment of the LAC they would exercise self-restraint and avoid an escalation of the situation; channels of communication and border personnel meetings in case of contingencies were stipulated.

(iii). Where our experience with China on CBMs and tension reduction along the border differs from the experience of Russia

First, the five Agreements we signed between 1993 and 2013 were not nurtured in an environment of a steady enhancement of mutual trust and political commitment for building a strong infrastructure of bilateral relations between India and China that promoted both bilateral and regional understanding and cooperative endeavour.
Second, unlike in the Russia-China case, no final boundary settlement accompanied these CBMs to sustain and strengthen their operation. Even a joint clarification of the LAC remained unattainable.
Third, China as the bigger power, unlike the Soviet Union under Gorbachev in its dealings with Beijing, has never signalled willingness to make asymmetric or unilateral concessions to India or act in a manner, especially in our neighbourhood, that enhances India’s trust or confidence.

Commentary : Tibetology

(i). Background

A media report on January 28 said that officers would study “Tibetan history, culture, and language on both sides of the Line of Actual Control” in order to “counter Chinese influence and propaganda”. Indeed, India-China relations cannot be approached through a strictly bilateral prism that excludes Tibet and the Himalaya.

(ii). Tibetian span

According to the Proceedings of the Tenth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies (2003), the region includes not just **UTsang **(present day Tibet Autonomous Region), Amdo, and Kham, but large areas in the Himalaya, including parts of Nepal and Bhutan, Sikkim, Ladakh, and Tawang.

(iii). Tibet & British India

Colonial Britain recognised the importance of Sikkim and Bhutan in securing its interests in Tibet, and its Political Officer in Sikkim cultivated close relations with aristocratic families in the region. Simultaneously, from Warren Hastings in the 1770s to Francis Younghusband in 1903-04, an army of cartographers, mountaineers, missionaries, linguists, and botanists worked to produce definitive knowledge about Tibet for British India.

(iv). Tibet’s importance in Independent India

Independent India recognised the economic and cultural ties that traversed the Himalayas and the role of Buddhism as the connecting tissue. Dedicated to Tibetan and Buddhist studies, the Central Institute for Buddhist Studies and the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies were established in Leh and Sarnath, Varanasi, respectively, as was the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology in the erstwhile kingdom of Sikkim.
By understanding Tibet as a buffer zone in India-China relations, the former often leads to an ahistorical narrative of India and Tibet as “natural allies”, eschewing the history of complex political engagements between successive administrations in Lhasa and India over issues ranging from frontiers to customary rights of grazing and trade. It does not account for the centrality of Tibet in India’s relationship with Bhutan and Sikkim (before 1975).

(v). Defining Tibetology

In defining Tibetology so narrowly, we miss an opportunity to understand contemporary India. The postcolonial Indian state was not forged in the centres of Delhi and Calcutta alone. Nor were its mountains and plains integrated into a single nation state uniformly. The Himalaya is home to interconnected yet diverse ecologies, societies, and polities that crisscross many contemporary borders. India hosts the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, the Central Tibetan Administration, Tibetan refugee settlements and a plethora of Tibetan institutes.

Commentary : Sedition lies in the effect, not in the content

(i). Background

Recent charges of sedition against individuals have brought back focus to a law introduced in the Indian Penal Code in 1870. In Kedar Nath Singh v. State of Bihar (1962), the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of sedition and noted it as being a reasonable restriction on free speech as provided in Article 19(2) of the Constitution. Following the Kedar Nath case, the Bombay High Court, in the case of cartoonist Aseem Trivedi, issued guidelines which the police must follow prior to invoking the provisions of sedition.

(ii). How the law stands

Courts have on numerous occasions cautioned law enforcement agencies not to misuse the provisions on sedition, and follow court directions, regrettably, they are grossly ignored. The problem therefore lies in the poor implementation of the law and guidelines. This is evident from recent reports, based on data from the National Crime Records Bureau on cases of sedition. Notably, many charged were individuals protesting government action, which the Constitution Bench in KedarNath held falls outside the ambit of sedition.
This data and the gross misuse of the legal provisions compel one to state that even though a Constitution Bench upheld the vires of the law of sedition, the circumstances now require a complete relook at the provision.

(iii). Need to relook

The U.K. repealed the offence of sedition in 2010 and India is holding onto a relic of the British Empire. It also sought consideration on whether keeping Section 124A would serve any purpose and whether reducing the rigour of the law of sedition would be detrimental or beneficial to the nation.
Courts must adopt what Western countries follow: an effect based test which examines the effects of the seditious text rather than a content-based test which reviews the text alone.
To conclude, the only ‘toolkit’ we all really need is our Constitution and the principles it enshrines to protect citizen freedoms, life and liberty. It is not the alleged seditious acts that are creating fragments in our society; it is in fact the persecution of individuals and labelling them that are really creating cracks in our socio-politico ecosystem.

ECONOMICS & FINANCE

Daily snippets

1. India Ratings raises banking sector outlook to stable

India Ratings and Research revised its outlook on the overall banking sector to ‘stable’ for FY22 from ‘negative’ even as it saw higher stress emerging in the retail loan segment. It estimated that overall stressed assets (gross non performing assets + restructured assets) could rise 30% for the banking system; the increase is almost 1.7 times in the retail segment in the second half of FY22.
The agency also revised credit growth estimates to 6.9% for FY21 from the earlier 1.8%, and forecast 8.9% for FY22. It said that a lot of the retail stress was coming from unsecured advances and that it would be seen more in private banks because of their higher exposure to unsecured loans. The agency also expected deposit rates to rise as credit growth revives and capital market ﬂows are enhanced.

2. Growth momentum needs to be strengthened

The growth momentum needs to be strengthened for a sustained revival of the economy and a quick return to the pre-COVID trajectory, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said. “Growth, although uneven, is recovering and gathering momentum, and the outlook has improved significantly with the rollout of the vaccine programme in the country. The growth momentum, however, needs to strengthen further for a sustained revival of the economy and for a quick return of the level of output to the pre-COVID trajectory,” he added.
Given the sharp moderation in inﬂation along with a stable near-term outlook, he said, the monetary policy needed to continue with the accommodative stance to ensure that the recovery gained greater traction and became broad-based. Deputy Governor Michael Patra said overall, the near-term outlook for inﬂation appeared less risky than the near-term challenges for growth which warrant continuing policy support.
What is monetary policy? It is the macroeconomic policy laid down by the central bank. It involves management of money supply and interest rate and is the demand side economic policy used by the government of a country to achieve macroeconomic objectives like inflation, consumption, growth and liquidity.

3. Government to review anti-dumping duty on Chinese products

The Commerce Ministry’s investigation arm DGTR has initiated a probe to review the need for continuing imposition of antidumping duty on certain types of steel products – seamless tubes, pipes and hollow proﬁles of iron, alloy or non alloy steel imported from China, following complaints from domestic industry, according to a notiﬁcation.
The complaint alleges that dumping of these products from China have continued even after imposition of antidumping duty, and there has been a signiﬁcant increase in the volume of imports. DGTR would review the need for continued imposition of the duties in force and examine whether the expiry of existing duties is likely to lead to continuation or recurrence of dumping and impact the domestic industry.

4. Pharma exports to Arab countries

India has urged Arab countries to make it easier to export pharmaceutical products to the region and asked them to tap Indian farms to secure food supplies, as it seeks to diversify the $160 billion trade basket with the Arab bloc beyond hydrocarbons. India-Arab trade accounts for 20% of India’s overall trade, but is still concentrated in hydrocarbons.

SPORTS

Daily snippets

1. National TT championship

G. Sathiyan’s wait to lay his hands on the winner’s trophy of the National table tennis championship has ﬁnally ended. Playing his fourth ﬁnal in seven years, Sathiyan ended the jinx by beating nine time winner Sharath Kamal 11-6, 11-7, 10-12, 7-11, 11-8, 11-8 in under 50 minutes. Sathiyan received ₹2.50 lakh and a trophy while Sharath collected ₹1.65 lakh and the runner-up trophy.

SUGGESTED READINGS

1. Statutory Provisions of arrest and remand https://www.livelaw.in/columns/arrest-remand-code-of-criminal-procedure-code-disha-ravis-arrest-duty-magistrate-170252

2. Dissent is not sedition https://www.barandbench.com/columns/dissent-is-not-sedition

3. Appointment of the Chief Justice of India https://www.livelaw.in/columns/appointing-the-chief-justice-of-indiawhat-is-the-criteria-170306

4. Suspecting the disquiet in democracy https://thewire.in/law/descent-of-democracy-hate-fear-indian-society-sedition

5. Excise duty-fiscal policy contradiction https://www.pressreader.com/india/the-hindu/20210224/281857236256471

Download Page : https://e-clat.com/dailynewspage

Sources referred to : The Hindu, The Indian Express, Live Law, Bar & Bench

END

February 21st-22nd, 2021

Your 10 minute read!

START

LAW, POLICY & GOVERNANCE

Daily snippets

1. Centre may rethink order on international seminars

The government would relook at the controversial order issued by the Ministry of Education in January that many scientists said curbs free scientific discussion at international fora, K. Vijay-Raghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, said.
On January 15, the Ministry updated the guidelines governing online conferences, seminars and training programmes that required, among others, scientists at the highest grades of seniority to get a clearance from the Ministry of External Affairs.

2. ‘Right to peaceful protest is a nonnegotiable human right’

Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg has extended her support to Disha Ravi, the 22year old environmental activist who has been charged with sedition for allegedly editing an advocacy toolkit on the farmers’ protest, and sharing it with Ms. Thunberg. “Freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest and assembly are non-negotiable human rights. These must be a fundamental part of any democracy”.
The Poetic Justice Foundation (PJF), a Canada-based non profit, has been at the centre of a roving investigation launched by Delhi Police regarding a social media campaign around the ongoing farmers agitation.

3. Child abuse is unpardonable, says HC

An offence involving abuse of a child victim is unpardonable, the Delhi High Court remarked while refusing to lower the sentence awarded to a teacher, who was convicted for sodomising a 7-year old boy. Justice Subramaniam Prasad said releasing such convicts “by reducing the sentence will send a wrong signal to the society and will be against the purpose for which the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences ) Act was enacted”.

NATIONAL NEWS/ INTERVENTIONS

Daily snippets

1. Promote Indian languages: Venkaiah

Ahead of International Mother Language Day, Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu wrote to all members of the Upper House urging them to promote and preserve Indian languages. He lamented that regional languages were being given short shrift. Writing to each member in his or her own language, Mr. Naidu said India was home to 19,500 languages and dialects, of which 200 were facing the threat of immediate extinction.

2. India and Maldives sign defence pact

India and the Maldives signed a defence Line of Credit agreement worth $50 million during the ongoing visit by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar. Both sides agreed to maintain peace and security in the Indian Ocean Region.
“The defence Line of Credit will facilitate capability building in the maritime domain”, Mr. Jaishankar said in a social media message. The two sides agreed to strengthen coordination in enhancing regional maritime security. Indicating deepening security cooperation, an agreement to develop, support and maintain a Maldives National Defence Force Coast Guard Harbour at Sifvaru was also signed.

3. PM urges states to ease path for businesses

States should work towards reducing compliance burden for citizens to ensure ease of living and to promote ease of doing business, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said speaking at the sixth meeting of the NITI Aayog Governing Council, stressing the importance of a better coordination between the Centre and the States for the development of the country.
Twenty six Chief Ministers, three Lieutenant Governors and two administrators attended the meeting, besides Union Ministers, special invitees and NITI Aayog oﬃcials. Most of the Chief Ministers emphasised on developmental agenda and timely completion of infrastructure projects.
NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant added that agriculture issues which were discussed included aligning the cropping system to agro climatic conditions at district level for optimal resource utilisation, and promoting water conservation. Mr. Modi asked the States to take advantage of Central schemes such as the production linked incentive scheme to attract investments. He pointed out that States had a 40% share in the National Infrastructure Pipeline and therefore, it was imperative that the States and the Centre synergise their budgets, make plans, and set priorities.

4. Punjab seeks center's help to ramp up health infrastructure

In his speech at the NITI Aayog meeting, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh also urged the Central government to provide immediate ﬁnancial assistance of at least ₹300 crore to upgrade health infrastructure, equipment and other healthcare needs (medicines and consumables etc.) in view of the pandemic. The Chief Minister also requested the Central government to release the pending amount of GST compensation to the State and sought extension in the period of GST compensation beyond the current 5 years for States like Punjab.
He reiterated his government’s stand that agriculture is a State subject and law-making on it should be left to the States in the true spirit of “cooperative federalism” enshrined in the Constitution.
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal sought the Central government’s intervention in resolving the long pending issue of the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) and the Hansi-Butana Link Canals so that the State could get its legitimate share of river water.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS/EVENTS/ PERSONALITIES

Daily snippets

1. India backs the Maldives on UN role

India reiterated its support for a greater role for the Maldives in multilateral affairs. Speaking at a joint media event in the Maldives’ capital Male, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said Maldives’ Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid is “best equipped” to be the President of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly.
“I reiterate today India’s strong support to the candidature of Foreign Minister Abdullah Shahid for the President of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly next year. Foreign Minister Shahid with his vast diplomatic experience and his leadership qualities is in our view the best equipped to preside over the General Assembly of 193 nations of the world. We will work together to make this a reality. We would really like to work with you during our membership of the UN Security Council for 2021-22,” said Dr. Jaishankar in his remarks.

2. With media blitz, China crafts new narrative on border crisis

Chinese state media outlets highlighted the announcement of honours for five soldiers, four awarded posthumously. The names and images of the five were being shared widely on Chinese social media, along with their personal stories, all leading to an outpouring of sentiment.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said the announcement, made eight months after the clash in which 20 Indian soldiers lost their lives, was aimed at honouring the soldiers and “setting the record straight”, after it accused India of “distorting the truth” and “slandering the Chinese border troops”.
The broader aim of the narrative appeared aimed at underlining the message that the Communist Party had defended China and to portray India as the aggressor – a message that was repeated in the official media. This is a narrative that turns on its head the genesis of last year’s border crisis, which began with a mass mobilisation of PLA troops along the border following a military exercise that caught India by surprise, and multiple transgressions across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) that led India to lose access to territory and multiple patrolling points, an unusual outcome for any supposed aggressor.

3. China’s Coast Guard law raises concern

The U.S. has voiced concern over China’s recently enacted Coast Guard law, which it said may escalate the ongoing disputes in the region and can be invoked to assert unlawful claims. China passed a law last month which explicitly allows its Coast Guard to fire on foreign vessels. “The U.S. joins the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan and other countries in expressing concern with China’s Coast Guard law, which may escalate the territorial and maritime disputes,” State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said.

4. Moscow court upholds prison term for Navalny

A Moscow court upheld a ruling to jail the Kremlin’s most prominent opponent, Alexei Navalny, sealing his first lengthy prison sentence after a decade of legal battles with Russian authorities. Mr. Navalny was ordered on February 2 to serve the time in a penal colony for breaching his parole terms while he was in Germany recovering from a nerve agent poisoning he blames on the Kremlin.
The anti-corruption campaigner appeared in court inside a glass cage for defendants, wearing a plaid shirt, smiling and flashing the V for victory symbol. In a closing address that often broke from his usual sarcastic tone, Mr. Navalny referenced the Bible and said he had no doubts about his decision to return to Russia. “The Bible says: ‘Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness, for they will be satisfied,’” he told the court.
He described the legal process to jail him as “absurd” and called on Russians to take action to make the country a better place. Prosecutors lashed out at Mr. Navalny, saying he acted as if he was above the law and had “an exclusive right to do as he pleases”.

5. China detains 3 bloggers for ‘insulting’ Galwan soldiers

Authorities in China have detained three people for “insulting” Chinese soldiers who died in the Galwan Valley clash last year, a day after Beijing officially confirmed the deaths.
Among the arrested was Qiu Ziming (38), an investigative journalist formerly with The Economic Observer. Mr. Qiu was arrested on Saturday in Nanjing, where he lives, after questioning China’s official account of the Galwan clash. A second blogger was detained in Beijing on Sunday, for comments made during a group chat on WeChat, the Chinese social media and messaging app. A third person, identified as a 25-year old surnamed Yang, was detained in southwestern Sichuan province, in the city of Mianyang, after he was reported by Internet users for posting “smears toward the PLA soldiers, who fought in the China-India border clash.”
The Chinese military announced honours for five People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers, including four who died and one regimental commander who was injured, in the clash on June 15, 2020, which marked the worst violence on the India-China border since 1967. Twenty Indian soldiers lost their lives in the clash.
The announcement of the honours for the soldiers on Friday, coming eight months after the clash, was widely covered in the Chinese state media and has led to an outpouring of sentiment, with the topic among the most widely discussed on social media over the past three days.
State media reports have highlighted the valour of the soldiers, while also releasing new footage from the clash. The announcement and video release, eight months after the clash, came a week after India and China announced a plan to begin disengagement, which has been completed on the north and south banks of Pangong Lake while talks are ongoing to take the process forward in other areas along the Line of Actual Control.

6. Iran says talks with IAEA chief ‘fruitful’

Iran said it had held “fruitful discussions'' with UN nuclear watchdog IAEA chief Rafael Grossi in Tehran, ahead of a deadline when it is set to restrict the agency’s inspections unless the United States lifts painful sanctions. Mr. Grossi’s visit comes amid stepped up efforts between the U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration, European powers and Iran to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal that has been on the brink of collapse since former President Donald Trump withdrew from it.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, before meeting Mr. Grossi, signalled that the Islamic republic wants to avoid an “impasse”, but also warned it could step further away from its commitments if Washington does not lift the sanctions.
Iran’s conservative dominated Parliament months ago demanded that if the U.S. does not lift sanctions by this Sunday, Iran will suspend some IAEA inspections from Tuesday. But Iran has stressed it will not cease working with the IAEA or expel its inspectors.

7. Australia won’t advertise COVID19 vaccine on Facebook

Australia’s government pledged a publicity campaign for its rollout of COVID-19 vaccine on Sunday – but not in Facebook advertisements, as a feud continues over the social media giant blocking news content from its platform in the country. Facebook Inc’s abrupt decision on Thursday to stop Australians from sharing news on its platform and strip the pages of domestic and foreign media outlets also blacked out several state government and emergency department accounts, drawing furious responses from lawmakers around the world.
Hours before Australia began inoculations with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, Health Minister Greg Hunt said the government would embark on a wide ranging communication campaign, including online, to ensure vulnerable people turned up for a shot. But a ban on health department spending to advertise on Facebook would remain in place until the dispute between the BigTech company and Australia – over a new law to make Facebook pay for news content – was resolved.
Under the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code Bill 2020, tech and social media giants such as Facebook and Google will have to pay local news outlets for using their content. The move is being studied worldwide as it will set a precedent in the use of Web-based news and content that may permanently impact the use of the Internet in Australia.

OPINION & ANALYSIS

Story : Extinction Rebellion – Rebels with a green cause (https://rb.gy/igvbpw)

(i). Background

When the Extinction Rebellion (XR) set out to literally block the path of the fossil fuel-powered economy in the U.K., in the autumn of 2018, the core of its philosophy was that stopping public activity with even small actions would change politics. It would shock a status quoist, cynically manipulative system, and turn public attention to the world’s biggest problems: climate change and biodiversity loss.

(ii). Founders of XR

The vision of its small group of founders led by Roger Hallam, an organic farmer turned researcher of civil disobedience at King’s College, London, and Gail Bradbrook, a molecular biology scholar from Yorkshire who had launched her activism in the Occupy movement after the 2008 financial crisis, draws heavily from the U.S. civil rights struggle and Gandhian civil disobedience.

(iii). Demands of XR

The movement has three primary demands : all governments ‘Tell the Truth’ about the climate crisis and the mass extinction of species, commit themselves to act on net zero carbon emissions by 2025, create citizens’ assemblies that will advise them on a just transition.

(iv). The journey continues

XR moved to the mainstream as it linked up with activists such as Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Future campaign she inspired and acquired a wider base of supporters connected with the arts, sciences, law, and finance.
With every new crisis – wildfires, failed agriculture, drought, flood, heat waves and cold waves – governments and corporations are apprehensive that XR’s idea of “collaborative rebellion” will challenge locked-in policies on fossil fuels.
Tool-kit arrests India: Disha Ravi, who organised Fridays for Future events in India, activists Nikita Jacob and Shantanu Muluk have provoked the government’s ire. The implications of growing environmental and climate crises merging with other struggles, such as the farmers’ agitation, add to the establishment's worries. XR is constantly tweaking its toolkit for nonviolent direct action, attracting public attention and demanding responsible replies from governments.

Commentary : Time and perseverance

(i). Background

The recent NASA mission, Mars 2020, that was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on June 30, 2020, landed on the Jezero Crater in Mars on February 18, to much celebration. Of special magnificence was the entry, descent and landing of the mission’s Perseverance rover, described as the ‘shortest and most intense part’. Entering the Martian atmosphere at about 20,000 km per hour, the mission had to bring the Perseverance rover to a halt on the surface in just seven minutes.

(ii). Exploration of Mars

NASA’s exploration of Mars has focused on finding traces and trails of water that may have existed, and relate it to finding evidence of ancient life. Its earlier Mars expedition which carried the Curiosity rover, landed on August 5, 2012. It identified regions that could have hosted life.
Expected to last at least the duration of one Mars year, or about 687 earth days, the science goals this time are to look for signs of ancient life and collect rock and soil samples. Perseverance will take the inquiry made by Curiosity to the next level and search for signs of past life by studying the Jezero Crater. The crater was chosen for study as based on an earlier aerial survey, it was found to be home to an ancient delta. The rover also carries a helicopter named Ingenuity that is specially designed to fly in Mars’s thin atmosphere; its sole purpose would be to demonstrate flight on Mars.

Commentary : The fight for dignity in the feminist struggle

(i). Background

It is heartening to note that journalist Priya Ramani, against whom a defamation charge was filed by former journalist and minister M.J. Akbar, has been acquitted by a Delhi court and her right to dignity has been upheld. Ms. Ramani fought for over two years, and those years must not have been easy ones.
The verdict for Ms. Ramani allows us to relish a moment of quiet satisfaction that in some contexts, at least the victim’s speech may be granted the legitimacy that is often denied.

(ii). Some related matters

First, one may face the trauma of repression and speaking out long after they have experienced harassment or violence.
Second, sexual harassment exists as part of a wide spectrum of acts, which may range from casual demeaning speech to sexual threats and actual acts of assault. We need a robust culture of open speech and the right to defend our claims to dignity and justice in public, without being threatened with defamation or more.
Third, the vulnerability of being sexually exploitable appears to be part of the working conditions that bind women in all sectors, and more so in so called informal work. To date, neither the Vishaka judgment nor the Act for sexual harassment at workplaces has been helpful in any of these contexts.
It is important to build feminist jurisprudence on the subject and think about local support systems that can enable women to stand up for their rights. Lastly, there is the question of restorative justice that some are interested in, and how that might apply in matters where bodily integrity is at stake.

Analysis : The road for reducing public sector role

(i). Background

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her Budget speech for 202122, announced a new policy for central public sector enterprises (CPSEs), “We have kept four areas that are strategic where bare minimum CPSEs will be maintained and rest privatised. In the remaining sectors, all CPSEs will be privatised,” the Minister said.

(ii). What goes outside the government ambit

The strategic sectors are – atomic energy, space and defence, transport and telecommunications, power, petroleum, coal and other minerals, and banking, insurance and ﬁnancial services. While the initial plan was to retain one to four public sector ﬁrms in these sectors, this has now been replaced by the phrase “bare minimum presence”.
For all ﬁrms in sectors considered non strategic, privatisation or closure are the only two options being considered. The policy’s objective is to minimise the public sector’s role and create new investment space for the private sector, in the hope that the infusion of private capital, technology and management practices will contribute to growth and new jobs. The proceeds from the sale of these ﬁrms would ﬁnance various government run social sector and developmental programmes.

(iii). How is it different from policies in the past

This is the ﬁrst time since 2004 that India is working on a slew of privatisation deals. Earlier, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government between 1999 and 2004 had managed to sell oﬀ majority stakes in a dozen odd public sector enterprises. The new policy goes beyond the Vajpayee era privatisation drive, which was limited to a ‘case by case’ sale of entities in nonstrategic sectors, by stressing that even strategic sectors will have a ‘bare minimum’ presence of government owned ﬁrms.

(iv). What is likely to be sold

The government hopes to conclude the sale of Air India, BPCL and some other entities. Ms. Sitharaman also promised the sale of two more public sector banks and a general insurance player in her Budget speech, along with plans to list the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India on the stock markets. The Union Budget has estimated ₹1.75 lakh crore as receipts from PSU stake sales in the year, compared to its target of ₹2.10 lakh crore for 2020-21.

(v). Process for selecting the CPSE

The NITI Aayog has been entrusted with suggesting which public sector ﬁrms in strategic sectors should be retained, considered for privatisation or merger or ‘subsidiarisation’ with another public sector ﬁrm, or simply closed. A core group of secretaries on disinvestment will consider the NITI Aayog’s suggestions and forward its views to a ministerial group.
After the ministerial group’s nod, the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management in the Finance Ministry will move a proposal to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Aﬀairs for an ‘in-principle’ nod to sell speciﬁc CPSEs.
Public sector ﬁrms and corporations engaged in activities allied to the farm sector will not be privatised. Similarly, the policy excludes departments with commercial operations like Railways and Posts, ﬁrms making appliances for the physically challenged, and those providing support to vulnerable groups, security printing and minting companies, will also be retained in the public sector.

ECONOMICS & FINANCE

Daily snippets

1. CSR shouldn't be mandated

Wipro founder and philanthropist Azim Premji said companies should not be legally mandated to engage in corporate social responsibility as contributions to society need to “come from within”. Mr. Premji, who contributed ₹7,904 crore in donations last year, also highlighted that the COVID-19 crisis was a “wake up call” to look at fundamental issues like the need to improve public systems like health, and changing the structure of society to make it more equal and just.

2. India urges credit rating agencies to put more insight in its numbers

India is urging global credit rating agencies to look at its ﬁscal deﬁcit and debt numbers in the context of the stimulus spending requirements posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said. Stressing that the government’s infrastructure spending push would have an ‘immediate impact’ on core sectors, opportunities for labour, and demand creation at the industry as well as consumer level, the Minister said she expected the Indian economy to recover and record good, sustainable growth in the next decade.
“We are spending but we are also very clearly telling even the credit rating agencies that every country is going through the pandemic and every country has to spend to keep the stimulus going, so every country’s rating will have to be in relative terms, and not just into the silo of India, ‘x’ or ‘y’ country. So spending, borrowing are all relative terms and we would want every institution to look at it with a sense of the relative understanding and context,” she said. The Minister also said the government was privatising public sector units not for them to be closed down but for improving their operational eﬃciency with professional skills available outside the government.

SPORTS

Daily snippets

1. Osaka, Djokovic reign at Melbourne

Japan's Naomi Osaka dismissed Jennifer Brady 6-4, 6-3 in front of thousands of fans to win the Australian Open in style for her fourth Grand Slam title. The 23-year old, who becomes only the third player after Monica Seles and Roger Federer to win their ﬁrst four Major ﬁnals, will now rise to second in the world rankings.
World No. 1 Novak Djokovic demolished Russia's Daniil Medvedev in straight sets to win his ninth Australian Open title and extend his record breaking reign at Melbourne Park. Djokovic overpowered the fourth seed 7-5, 6-2, 6-2. In winning a third straight Australian Open for the second time, the Serb claimed his 18th Grand Slam title to move within two of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal who have 20 each. The win reinforced Djokovic's status as World No. 1, where he will mark his 311th week when the new rankings come out on Monday, surpassing Federer's record of 310.

SUGGESTED READINGS

1. India's first Dictatorship : The emergency 1975-77 https://www.livelaw.in/columns/justice-sesha-iyengar-rangarajan-delhi-high-court-emergency-kuldip-nayar-170186

2. Law students: Then and now https://www.barandbench.com/columns/law-students-then-and-now

3. Suspicion and proof https://thewire.in/law/suspicion-however-strong-cannot-take-the-place-of-proof-supreme-court

4. WASH program across health facilities in India https://www.pressreader.com/india/the-hindu/20210221/282080574550546

Download Page : https://e-clat.com/dailynewspage

Sources referred to : The Hindu, The Indian Express, Live Law, Bar & Bench

END

February 19th-20th, 2021

Your 10 minute read!

START

LAW, POLICY & GOVERNANCE

Daily snippets

1. WhatsApp messaging users on privacy

WhatsApp, which faced a severe backlash over the latest update to its privacy policy, will now leverage its own platform to reach out to users directly via the “status” feature, while also putting up banners on the application, to share detailed information on the proposed policy updates.
However, amid criticism and confusion over the updates resulting in sharing of users’ data with Facebook, the company had pushed back the rollout to May 15. It has since clarified that this update does not expand its ability to share data with Facebook.

2. ‘Reply to appeals by Natasha, Devangana’

The Delhi High Court sought response of Delhi Police on appeals by JNU students and Pinjra Tod members Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita challenging the rejection of their bail pleas by a trial court.
A Bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and A.J. Bhambhani also issued notice to the Delhi government and sought their stand by the next hearing. Both Ms. Narwal and Ms. Kalita are booked under the anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in north east Delhi riots case.

3. Contract workers must get maternity leave: HC

Coming down strongly on the Karnataka government for terminating the service of a woman employed on contract basis, merely because she had sought maternity leave, the Karnataka High Court observed that “it would be power at wrong hands when men who man such offices become insensitive”.
“The action of the DMA cannot be countenanced, as the Maternity Benefit Act, 1967, does not classify or qualify a mother to be a government servant, temporary employee, employee on contract or an employee on daily wages,” the court held.
The court also imposed a cost of ₹25,000 on the government while quashing the order of termination and directed the authorities to reinstate the petitioner with 50% back wages from the date of termination of her contract.

4. Banks cannot disclaim responsibility on lockers: SC

Banks cannot wash their hands of any liability if any harm is caused to their customers’ lockers or safe deposits in an era when miscreants can manipulate technology to gain access to electronically operated bank lockers, the Supreme Court observed in a judgment.
The court gave the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) six months to lay down “comprehensive directions mandating the steps to be taken by banks with respect to locker facility/safe deposit facility management”. The judgment came on an appeal filed against the Union Bank of India.

5. SC refuses petition against M.P. ordinance

The Supreme Court declined to entertain a petition challenging the validity of the controversial Madhya Pradesh ordinance regulating religious conversions through inter faith marriages. The Bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sharad A. Bobde asked petitioner Vishal Thakre to approach the Madhya Pradesh High Court.
The plea said the law, which followed a similar ordinance made by Uttar Pradesh, infringed a person’s right to privacy and freedom of choice, leading to violations of fundamental rights under Articles 14, 19(1)(a) and 21 of the Constitution.

NATIONAL NEWS/ INTERVENTIONS

Daily snippets

1. Biometric authentication to benefit farmers : Centre

In a bid to cut out the middleman and ensure greater transparency in the procurement of farm produce, the Centre is encouraging the States to deploy biometric authentication of farmers. The practice, already adopted in Uttar Pradesh and set to be rolled out in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha this year, will aid in tracking the end use beneﬁciary, Food Minister Piyush Goyal said.
“This initiative reduced the need for extensive paperwork, prevented leakages and speeded up the process of procurement, with payment settlement being completed within 72 hours. The other advantage is that the farmer gets a receipt for his goods, showing the quantity and the MSP price, so nobody can cheat the farmer,” said Mr. Goyal.

2. Visible changes in J&K, says envoy

The 24 envoys, who toured Jammu on their second day visit to J&K, told Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha that the situation was “witnessing a visible change” in the Union Territory (UT). “Change is visible in J&K. The envoys’ visit to J&K is an eye opener and improved the understanding of important issues concerning J&K,” Eritrea Ambassador Alem Tsehaye Woldermariam said.
“Eﬀorts of the Prime Minister have ushered the UT into a new era, bringing socio-economic development in the region and empowerment of people. We have developed an ecosystem of democratic values, welfare principles and economic development in J&K,” the LG said. He apprised the envoys of investments made in infrastructure, industries, education, healthcare, skill development and sustainable livelihood. Around 26 people representing civil society groups and elected members met the envoys too.
J&K Congress president G.A Mir termed the envoys’ meetings as “stage managed show”. National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah said, “Thank you for visiting Kashmir. Now please send some real tourists from your countries to visit J&K.”

3. 25 cities in Nurturing Neighbourhoods contest

The Urban Aﬀairs Ministry announced the names of the 25 cities selected for the Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge under the Smart Cities Mission. The shortlisted cities would carry out projects for making early childhood friendly neighbourhoods, the Ministry said.

4. Hyderabad wins global ‘Tree City’ status

Hyderabad has won a green contest among cities in India, and emerged one of the ‘Tree Cities of the World’. That title has been bestowed by the Arbor Day Foundation and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Hyderabad has been selected for its commitment to growing and maintaining urban forestry, a statement from the GHMC said on Thursday.
With the recognition, the city joins 120 others from 23 countries, including the U.S., the U.K., Canada, and Australia. The Municipal Administration and Urban Development Department applied for consideration, citing the State government’s Haritha Haram programme and its Urban Forest Parks plan, the statement said.
The city was evaluated on five metrics : ‘Establish Responsibility’, ‘Set the Rules’, ‘Know What You Have’, ‘Allocate the Resources’, and ‘Celebrate the Achievements’.

5. PM moots special visa scheme for medical staff in South Asia

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at a workshop on “COVID-19 management: exchange of good practices in tackling pandemic and the way forward” with nine neighbouring countries, suggested that they consider creating a special visa scheme for doctors and nurses so that they can travel quickly within the region during health emergencies, on the request of the receiving country.
India is hosting a Secretary Level virtual meeting on COVID-19 management with the countries including Pakistan. It is being chaired by Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan. The Prime Minister suggested that the Civil Aviation Ministries could coordinate a regional air ambulance agreement for contingencies, and countries could come together to create a regional platform for collating, compiling and studying data about the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines among our populations. Highlighting the work done during the pandemic, he said that when it hit the world last year, many experts voiced special concern about our densely populated region.

6. Make private traders pay MSP: Kisan Sabha

Minimum support prices for farm produce should be paid by private traders, not just the government, the All India Kisan Sabha said. The Left-affiliated farmers organisation, which is part of the ongoing farm protests, argued that its proposal for legally guaranteed MSPs would not place the entire additional burden on the government budget, or ultimately, the taxpayer. Instead, the large corporates who make large profits from agribusiness must be forced to share their surplus with the primary producers, AIKS general secretary Hannan Mollah told journalists.

7. Dr. Reddy’s to seek nod for use of Sputnik V

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. announced that it had initiated the process with the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of human adenoviral vector-based platform vaccine candidate Sputnik V.
G.V. Prasad, co-chairman and managing director of Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, said, “The efficacy of Sputnik V was reported to be 91.6 % by the Lancet. The initiation of the EUA process will be a critical step forward for us in ensuring speedy access to the Sputnik V vaccine in India.” Dr. Reddy’s has partnered with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) to conduct the clinical trials.

8. New tourist points to be identified at the Sambhar Lake

New tourist points for witnessing the ﬂora and fauna and having a glimpse of salt harvesting will be identiﬁed at the world famous Sambhar Salt Lake, situated 80 km away from Jaipur.
The Sambhar Lake, which formed part of the desert circuit in the Centre’s Swadesh Darshan Scheme, had an immense potential for tourism. In addition to the migratory birds, the natural process of salt getting deposited in the lake could be displayed to the tourists. A constant monitoring for protection of migratory birds would be ensured at the lake, where the mass death of birds had occurred in 2019 because of avian botulism(https://rb.gy/2ihqrj).

9. NEP is a milestone to self-reliant India : PM

Describing the new education policy as a major milestone in the making of a self reliant nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore developed systems at Visva Bharati which were the medium of modernising Indian education and freeing it from the shackles of slavery. Mr. Modi, who was virtually addressing the convocation at Visva Bharati University, said the new education policy promoted entrepreneurship and self employment, research and innovation.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS/EVENTS/ PERSONALITIES

Daily snippets

1. Quad meet: India, U.S. call for rule of law in Myanmar

India joined Australia, Japan and the United States for a ministerial meeting under the quadrilateral grouping during which key issues, including Myanmar, came up for discussion. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said the military takeover in Myanmar featured in the talks and participants reiterated democratic values for the region.
India also emphasised in its statement that the meeting expressed commitment to “upholding rules based international order” and “peaceful resolution of disputes”.
The leaders referred to the military crackdown in Myanmar, with the U.S. highlighting “the urgent need to restore the democratically elected government in Burma, and the priority of strengthening democratic resilience in the broader region”.

2. FB blocks access to news in Australia

Facebook blocked Australians from sharing news stories, escalating a fight with the government over whether powerful tech companies should have to pay news organisations for content. The digital platforms fear that what is happening in Australia will become an expensive precedent for other countries. Facebook acted after the House of Representatives passed legislation that would make it and Google pay for Australian journalism, said Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. He said he was given no warning before Facebook acted. The legislation must be passed by the Senate to become law.
The move was swiftly criticised by news producers, politicians and human rights advocates, many of whom pointed out that official health and meteorology information had also been scrubbed during the coronavirus pandemic and at the height of Australia’s summer bushfire season.
Facebook’s drastic move represents a split from search giant Google after they initially joined together to campaign against the laws. Both had threatened to cancel services in Australia, but Google has instead sealed deals with several outlets in recent days.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp was the latest to announce a deal, in which it will receive “significant payments” from Google in return for providing content for the search engine’s News Showcase account. The Australian law would require Facebook and Google to reach commercial deals with news outlets, whose links drive traffic to their platforms, or be subjected to forced arbitration to agree a price.

3. Texas shivers amid power outages, water shortages

Power was gradually being restored but hundreds of thousands of households remained without electricity on Thursday across Texas, the oil and gas capital of the U.S., with some facing water shortages as a deadly winter cold spell that pummelled the southeastern part of the country headed east.
The National Weather Service (NWS) issued a winter storm warning. It said the storm would bring ice, sleet and heavy snow to parts of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi as it tracks to the northeast, causing power outages, tree damage and making driving hazardous.
Even though the Arctic air mass was beginning to lose its grip on an area of the country not used to such extreme cold, the frigid temperatures would continue, the NWS said. More than 30 storm related deaths have been reported.

4. Belarus jails journalists over protest coverage

A Belarus court sentenced a pair of television journalists to two years in prison for covering a protest last year, the first lengthy jail term in a legal crackdown on independent news media. Standing defiant in a cage, Katerina Bakhvalova, 27, and Daria Chultsova, 23, flashed “V” for victory signs.
The two women were detained in November while filming anti government rallies after strongman Alexander Lukashenko claimed victory in an August election.

5. China steps up online control over bloggers

Beginning next week, the Cyberspace Administration of China will require bloggers and influencers to have a government approved credential before they can publish on a wide range of subjects. Some fear that only state media and official propaganda accounts will get permission. While permits have been needed since at least 2017 to write about topics such as political and military affairs, enforcement has not been widespread. The new rules expand that requirement to health, economics, education and judicial matters. The move is in line with restrictive regulations under President Xi Jinping that constrict an already narrow space for discourse.

6. Bhutan General, 2 judges held for ‘overthrow’ bid

Police in Bhutan have detained a top General and two judges over an alleged plot to overthrow the country’s top military officer and Chief Justice. Former Royal Bodyguard Commandant Brigadier Thinley Tobgay, Supreme Court judge Kuenley Tshering and top district court judge Yeshey Dorji appeared in court on Wednesday after being detained at their homes. The three have been accused of plotting to overthrow the country’s top military officer, Lieutenant General Batoo Tshering, by implicating him in a corruption scandal.
All were denied bail by the Thimphu district court and remanded in custody until a first formal hearing on February 27. According to reports, Brigadier Tobgay was alleged to have illegally obtained military documents on the procurement of vehicles from the United Nations. The Bhutanese newspaper said that while the tender was handled publicly and fairly, the documents were to be used to undermine the position of the military number one.

7. U.S. ready for talks on Iran deal

The Biden administration has said that it will participate in talks with Iran with a view to reinstate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action ( JCPOA) or the ‘Iran nuclear deal’, which has been unravelling since the U.S.’s departure from the deal in 2018.
In 2018, Mr. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the JCPOA, an agreement between Iran, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany, which lifted long standing international sanctions against Iran in exchange for Tehran scuttling its nuclear programme. The U.S. had reinstated ramped up sanctions against Iran as part of what it called a ‘maximum pressure campaign’, after leaving the deal.
Also on Thursday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told his counterparts from the U.K, France and Germany (’the E3’) that the U.S. is prepared to talk to Iran and was prepared to re-enter the JCPOA if Iran also returned to compliance with it. Iran has threatened to partially stop International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections next week if other parties to the JCPOA do not meet their commitments under the deal – a move the West cautioned against.

8. Transatlantic alliance is back, says Biden

U.S President Joe Biden declared the “transatlantic alliance is back” on Friday in a powerful speech seeking to reestablish the U.S. as leader of the West against what he called a global assault on democracy.
The address to the annual Munich Security Conference – held by video link – dovetailed with German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s welcoming of a return to “multilateralism” after the confrontational years of Mr. Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump. Mr. Biden said he was not seeking a return to “the rigid blocs of the Cold War”, but warned about the threats posed by Russia and China.
“The Kremlin attacks our democracies and weaponises corruption to try and undermine our system of governance,” he said. Similarly, U.S. partners should stand together against “the Chinese government’s economic abuses and coercion that undercut the foundations of the international economic system,” he said.

9. Northern Tamils sceptical ahead of ‘another Geneva session

The 46th Regular Session of the Human Rights Council will take place from 22 February to 23 March 2021 in Geneva. Ahead of the session , the Sri Lankan government, Tamil polity, civil society, and diaspora groups are frantically lobbying member countries, hoping for different outcomes. So far, none of the past UN resolutions or governmental mechanisms has delivered a convincing outcome.
Sri Lanka’s long civil war played out across the Tamil majority north and east, but Mullaitivu bore the brunt of its gruesome end. According to UN estimates, some 40,000 civilians were trapped and killed in the final battle between the armed forces and the separatist LTTE, at the Nandikadal lagoon in May 2009.
The Rajapaksa administration in power then and now, except from 2015 to 2019, has repeatedly denied the number of civilian casualties, deeming it an “exaggeration”. The numbers may be contested, but survivors’ suffering is hard to miss, following death and destruction all around.
Districts in the former war zone are among the poorest in the country. Neither appropriate development, nor adequate jobs have come their way. Mullaitivu district remains militarised, with even traffic checkpoints run by armed military men.
Months after Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected President in late 2019, Sri Lanka said it would withdraw from the existing UN resolution on postwar accountability and reconciliation. It has instead proposed a domestic mechanism that Tamils have even less faith in, compared to international ones.
It is in this climate that thousands of Tamilspeaking people recently took out a mass rally from Pothuvil in the eastern Ampara district to Polihandy in Jaffna (titled ‘P2P’), demanding the rights of Tamil and Muslim minorities. “Whether Geneva delivers or not, people are certain that this government will not. That is why we pursue international mechanisms despite all the limitations,” says Shanthi Sriskantharajah, a former MP from the district

10. Uber drivers entitled to workers’ rights: U.K. SC

Britain’s top court ruled that ride hailing giant Uber’s drivers are entitled to workers’ rights, in a judgment with huge implications for the “gig economy”. The Supreme Court ruling that the drivers were employees followed a years long legal battle with the Silicon Valley taxi and delivery company. “This has been a gruelling four year legal battle for our members – but it ended in a historic win,” said Mick Rix, from the GMB trade union. “The Supreme Court has upheld the decision of three previous courts, backing up what GMB has said all along; Uber drivers are workers and entitled to breaks, holiday pay and minimum wage,” he added.

11. U.S. reaffirms Saudi ‘defence partnership’

Washington has reaffirmed its “strategic defence partnership” with Riyadh in the face of increased attacks by Yemeni rebels. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin condemned the Houthi attacks in a telephone call with his Saudi counterpart, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “The secretary has condemned the recent Houthi cross border attacks,” the official Saudi Press Agency said

12. Indian-American behind NASA rover’s Mars landing

Indian-American scientist Swati Mohan, who leads the guidance, navigation, and control operations of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, played a pivotal role in landing the U.S. space agency’s historic Perseverance rover on the Martian surface on Friday. Ms. Mohan was also the first to confirm that the rover had successfully touched down on the Martian surface after surviving a particularly tricky plunge through the atmosphere of the Red Planet.
Raised in the Northern VirginiaWashington DC metro area, she completed her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, and her M.S. and Ph.D from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Aeronautics/Astronautics.
Mars 2020 is a Mars rover mission by NASA's Mars Exploration Program that includes the rover Perseverance and the small robotic helicopter Ingenuity. NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover will look for signs of past microbial life, cache rock and soil samples, and prepare for future human exploration.

OPINION & ANALYSIS

Commentary : The pressing need to adjudicate, not mediate

(i). Background

The recent judgment of the Supreme Court that refused to review its earlier verdict on the Shaheen Bagh protest is inseparable from its political context. The verdict of October 7, 2020 declared that there is no absolute right to protest, and it could be subjected to the orders of the authority regarding the place and time.

(ii). Analysis

The top court could not exercise its constitutional role and ensure judicial scrutiny on an aggrandising executive and an equally imposing Parliament by exercising its counter majoritarian function. Having failed to do so, the kind of ‘balancing’ which the Court now tries to attain by way of the Shaheen Bagh orders will pose more questions than it answers.
In the original judgment on Shaheen Bagh, the Court attempted to “mediate” the issue and admitted in the judgment that it “did not produce any solution”. The Court’s duty during the testing times is to adjudicate, and not to mediate. A reconciliatory approach is not a substitute for juridical assertion.
When fear is the new normal for the average Indian, the court’s only role is to act as the guardian of the right to dissent. In the review petition, the petitioners rightly apprehended that the observations in the earlier judgment against the indefinite occupation of public space “may prove to be a license in the hands of the police to commit atrocities on legitimate voice of protest”.

Study : Stress levels lower among yoga practitioners

A study by IIT Delhi scientists has revealed that those who practised yoga during the pandemic induced lockdown had lower stress, anxiety and depression, higher wellbeing and more peace of mind as compared to nonpractitioners. The study was undertaken by National Resource Centre for Value Education in Engineering (NRCVEE), an academic centre at IIT Delhi.
The study was carried on a total of 668 adults during lockdown between April 26 and June 8, 2020. The participants were grouped as yoga practitioners, other spiritual practitioners, and non practitioners. Yoga practitioners were further examined based on the duration of practice as long term, midterm, and beginners.
“The long-term practitioners reported higher personal control and lower illness concern in contracting COVID-19 than the midterm or beginner group. The long term and midterm practitioners also reported perceiving lower emotional impact of COVID-19 and lower risk in contracting the virus than the beginners,” the institute said. Further, the long-term practitioners were found to have the highest peace of mind, lowest depression and anxiety with no signiﬁcant diﬀerence in the midterm and the beginner group. The research pitches for the inclusion of yoga as an alternate therapy for self management of stress-related problems during conditions like COVID-19 pandemic.

ECONOMICS & FINANCE

Daily snippets

1. New PSE policy envisages at most 4 strategic-sector firms

The new public sector enterprises policy envisages that the strategic sectors have limited number of players restricting it to maximum four public sector enterprises of a holding nature. The remaining enterprises would be rationalised in terms of mergers, amalgamations and privatisation if feasible.
As part of the ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced that there would be a maximum of four public sector companies in strategic sectors, and state-owned ﬁrms in other segments would eventually be privatised.

2. Government likely to file appeal against Cairn arbitration award

The Centre is likely to ﬁle an appeal against the $1.4 billion international arbitration award won by Cairn Energy in a tax dispute. The government intends to defend its sovereign right in taxation and will ﬁle an appeal.
Cairn has indicated it could seize overseas assets such as aircraft and ships if New Delhi fails to comply with the arbitration award and return the value of the shares sold, dividend seized and tax refund withheld by the income tax department to recover part of the tax demand it had raised using retrospective legislation. Indian government has kept open the possibility of a resolution within Indian laws. The options include Cairn opting for the Vivad se Vishwas scheme, which gives relief on interest and penalty if the principal tax demand is paid.

3. Indian IT workers to benefit from US immigration bill

In a major move that will beneﬁt thousands of Indian IT professionals in America, the Biden administration has introduced an immigration bill in Congress, which, among other things, proposes to eliminate the per country cap for employment based green cards.
The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 proposes a pathway to citizenship to 11 million undocumented workers, elimination of per country quota for employment based green cards and work authorisation for dependents of H1B foreign work. Authors of the bill, Senator Bob Menendez and Congresswoman Linda San chez, said the bill establishes a vision of immigration reform that is expansive and inclusive.

SPORTS

Daily snippets

1. Player Profiles

Achanta Sharath Kamal : He is a professional table tennis player from Tamil Nadu. He is the first Indian table tennis player ever to become nine times Senior National Champion. Recently he received the fourth highest civilian award, Padma Shri. Sharath won the men's singles gold in the 16th Commonwealth table tennis championship in 2004. He won the US Open Table Tennis Men's championships in July 2010. He also won the gold medal at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. He represented India in the 2004 Olympics in Athens and is still the top Indian TT player. He also represented the country in the 2006 Asian Games at Qatar.

2. Ankita Raina claims maiden WTA 250 doubles title

Ankita Raina, partnering Russia’s Kamilla Rakhimova, captured her maiden WTA 250 doubles title. The win is the biggest of Ankita’s career, making her India’s ﬁrst WTA champion since Sania Mirza.

SUGGESTED READINGS

1. Transit anticipatory bail https://www.livelaw.in/know-the-law/what-is-transit-anticipatory-bail-when-can-transit-bail-be-granted-170161

2. Nagaland's first solar electrified village https://nenow.in/north-east-news/nagaland/nagalands-remote-village-electrified-with-solar-light.html

Download Page : https://e-clat.com/dailynewspage

Sources referred to : The Hindu, The Indian Express, Live Law, Bar & Bench

END

February 17th-18th, 2021

Your 10 minute read!

START

LAW, POLICY & GOVERNANCE

Daily snippets

1. ‘Sedition law can’t be used to quell disquiet: court

Charges of sedition “cannot be invoked to quieten the disquiet under the pretence of muzzling the miscreants”, a Delhi Court observed while granting bail to a 21-year old labourer. The youth was arrested for posting a fake video on Facebook about the Delhi police on the farmers’ agitation.

2. Kiran Bedi removed as Puducherry L-G

Kiran Bedi was removed as the Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry. Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundarajan has been given additional charge of the Union Territory until regular arrangements are made. The statement did not specify any reason behind Ms. Bedi’s removal. In fact, she had put up a two minute video reviewing the reasons for the low rate of COVID-19 vaccination in the UT.

3. SC seeks Centre’s response on plea for safety system at airports

Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sharad A. Bobde visualized the horror and tragedy of an air crash while hearing a petition alleging “deliberate omission” on the part of the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to install a failsafe system to stop an aircraft from overshooting runways at vulnerable airports like Mangalore and Kozhikode.
The court asked Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for the government and agreeing with the CJI’s oral observations, to file its response to the petition.
The writ petition filed by Delhi resident Rajen Mehta sought the installation of the Engineered Material Arresting System (EMAS) in at risk airports across the country, more importantly at table-top airports in Kozhikode and Mangalore. Mr. Mehta also sought an inquiry into the delay in installing EMAS despite specific knowledge about the vulnerability.

4. Toolkit content does not disclose sedition: ex-judge

Publicly available content of the toolkit, which led to the arrest of 22 year old climate activist Disha Ravi, does not disclose sedition, the former Supreme Court judge Justice Deepak Gupta said. Justice Gupta said charges in the toolkit case show a “non-application of mind”.

5. Explain action taken on OTTs, SC tells govt.

The Supreme Court did not appear convinced with the government’s submission that it is “contemplating” regulations for OTT (over-the-top) platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. The court issued notice on a plea seeking a proper board/institution/association for monitoring and managing the content of different OTT/streaming and digital media platforms.

6. 2016 JNU sedition case: Delhi court summons Kanhaiya and nine others

A Delhi court has taken cognizance of a charge sheet filed by Delhi Police against former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar and nine others in a 2016 sedition case. The court’s order came almost a year after the Delhi government gave its nod to police to prosecute Mr. Kumar and nine others for their involvement in a procession where they had allegedly supported seditious slogans raised on the varsity’s campus during an event on February 9, 2016.
The accused have been charged with offences under – Sections 124A (sedition), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record), 143 (punishment for being a member of an unlawful assembly), 149 (being a member of an unlawful assembly), 147 (punishment for rioting) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.

7. Priya Ramani – MJ Akbar case

A Delhi court threw out a criminal defamation case filed by former Union Minister M.J. Akbar against journalist Priya Ramani for her tweets accusing him of sexual harassment. “The woman has a right to put her grievance at any platform of her choice and even after decades,” said Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate. “Despite how well respected some persons are in society, they – in their personal lives – could show extreme cruelty to the females,” the court observed.
Mr. Akbar had in his criminal defamation complaint claimed that Ms. Ramani’s tweet and her article accusing him of sexual harassment were defamatory and lowered his reputation. He also said that Ms. Ramani did not produce any evidence to prove her story. However, Ms. Ramani pleaded that truth was her defence in relation to the allegations of sexual harassment against Mr. Akbar.
Following a Delhi court’s verdict acquitting her in a defamation case filed by former Union Minister M.J. Akbar, journalist Priya Ramani said she felt vindicated on behalf of all women who have ever spoken up against sexual harassment at the workplace.

8. No role in Tamil Nadu govt.’s quota decisions, Centre tells SC

The Centre has told the Supreme Court that it has no role in the choices made by the Tamil Nadu government with regard to the provision of reservation for specific castes or communities in State government jobs and admissions. The Centre was responding to a petition challenging the constitutionality of the Tamil Nadu Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Act of 1993, which provides 69% reservation in the State.
The case came up for hearing before a Bench, led by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar. Tamil Nadu sought time to file a response. The case has been adjourned to February 25.

9. Govt. denies link between Char Dham project, floods

The government denied in the Supreme Court any link between the Char Dham road widening project in Uttarakhand and the recent flash floods in the Rishiganga valley. The denial, before a Bench led by Justice Rohinton Nariman, came from Attorney General K.K. Venugopal, in response to a communication from a high-powered committee (HPC) chairperson Ravi Chopra, connected the tragedy with the Char Dham project. The court asked the government to file a response in two weeks.

NATIONAL NEWS/ INTERVENTIONS

Daily snippets

1. Team to study J&K situation

European Union Ambassador Ugo Astuto is expected to lead a delegation of Ambassadors, including some from European countries, to Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday, beginning with Srinagar, in a visit expected to study the “situation on the ground” there ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Porto in May for the E.U.-India summit. In addition to Mr. Astuto, European Ambassadors from France, Portugal, Ireland, Sweden, Belgium, Estonia and Italy are expected to be part of the delegation, as well as envoys from other regions like Bangladesh, Chile, Brazil and Ghana.
The J&K administration has extended invitations to Valley-based civil society groups, media persons and grassroots representatives and DDC members, to meet the delegation.

2. India, China pull back troops from Pangong

With the withdrawal of tanks from the forward areas on the south bank of Pangong Tso (lake) completed, India and China have started pulling back troops in large numbers from the north and south banks and also restoring land that was dug up during the heavy buildup of defences last year.
Videos released by the Army show the People’s Liberation Army troops dismantling tents and bunkers and moving equipment in vehicles. Infantry troops can be seen moving out on foot as well as long convoys of vehicles with stores and troops as part of the disengagement agreement.
The Chinese troops have started clearing out from the ridgelines of Finger 4, a major area of contention. On the north bank, the Chinese troops will withdraw to the east of Finger 8, while the Indian troops will move to the Dhan Singh Thapa post near Finger 3.

3. Oxford jab gets WHO green light

The World Health Organization (WHO) listed two versions of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, giving the green light for them to be rolled out globally through COVAX. The vaccines are produced by AstraZeneca-SKBio (Republic of Korea) and the Serum Institute of India (SII). The world body had also listed the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for emergency use on December 31.

4. India to gift 2 lakh vaccine doses to UN peacekeepers

India announced a gift of 2,00,000 doses of vaccine to the UN Peacekeeping Forces. The announcement was made by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar during his remarks at a UN Security Council open debate on the implementation of resolution 2532 (2020), passed last year, noting the impact of COVID-19 globally and calling for the cessation of hostilities around the world to help combat the pandemic. The debate was attended by the Foreign Ministers of the UNSC member countries. The Minister said India had already sent vaccines to 25 countries under its Vaccine Maitri programme and that 49 more countries would be supplied in the coming days.
Mr. Jaishankar told his counterparts that COVAX (a global initiative to develop, purchase and deliver vaccines worldwide) would need to be strengthened, to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines. However, the government has been criticised for getting ahead of the science. Its approval of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin vaccine for emergency use authorisation in India before its efficacy was established via Phase-III trials had created a stir last month.
Disparity in vaccine accessibility : Several rich countries have ordered more vaccine doses than required for their population, depriving developing economies of access to these doses. Just its orders of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines alone are enough to cover all adults in the U.S. This still leaves its orders of AstraZeneca, Novavax and Johnson and Johnson vaccines, which add up to over 500 million more doses. “There currently exists a glaring disparity in accessibility of vaccines globally. Equity in access to vaccines is important for mitigating the impact of pandemic,” Mr. Jaishankar said.

5. Sikh pilgrims denied permission to visit Pak.

The Union Home Ministry has denied permission to a Sikh jattha (group) of nearly 600 pilgrims to visit Pakistan for the 100th anniversary of the Saka Nankana Sahib. The group was expected to visit five gurdwaras in Pakistan from February 18 to 21. The Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), an apex Sikh religious body, had sought permission from the Ministry.
It added that the Ministry had not accorded permission to the group for crossing over to Pakistan, which was mandatory in the wake of the suspension of traffic between the two countries due to the pandemic. According to a 1974 bilateral protocol with Pakistan, four Sikh jatthas visit important gurdwaras in Pakistan every year.

6. Leopard population tracking

Experts from three organisations, one of them Assam based Aaranyak, have come up with a system, SMR (Spatial Mark-Resight models), that helps in properly estimating the leopard population in areas sustaining a mix of rosette and melanistic individuals.
Rosettes are jagged black circular marks on the tawny coat of a leopard. Like the tiger’s stripes, the rosettes of each leopard are unique in shape and size, making the species identiﬁable individually. But melanistic leopards – commonly called black leopards or black panthers or ghongs (Assamese) – have been diﬃcult to estimate as their rosettes are invisible.
“When a population has only rosette leopard, estimating their population size becomes easy because all the individuals can be identiﬁed. Unlike rosette leopards, a black leopard can often not be reliably identiﬁed individually, although special cases exist. We are, therefore, unable to completely estimate population sizes of leopards, a metric that is very critical for their conservation,” Dipankar Lahkar, a tiger biologist with Aaranyak, said.
This problem is acute in the tropical and subtropical moist forests of South and Southeast Asia where the frequency of melanistic leopards is high and leopards also face the greatest threat. No precise estimates of leopard population could thus be done in protected areas and non protected areas in India except on some occasions.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS/EVENTS/ PERSONALITIES

Daily snippets

1. France passes Bill to battle extremism

Lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a Bill that would strengthen oversight of mosques, schools and sports clubs to safeguard France from radical Islamists and ensure respect for French values – one of President Emmanuel Macron’s landmark projects.
The vote in the lower house was the first critical hurdle for the legislation that has been long in the making after two weeks of intense debate. The Bill passed 347 to 151 with 65 abstentions. The Bill that covers most aspects of French life has been hotly contested by Muslims, lawmakers and others, who fear the state is intruding on essential freedoms and pointing a finger at Islam, the nation’s second major religion.

2. Dhaka court sentences 5 to death for killing writer

Five Islamist extremists were sentenced to death over the brutal murder of a Bangladeshi-American writer and rights activist Avijit Roy six years ago. Avijit Roy, a prolific blogger and the author of 10 books including the bestselling Biswasher Virus (“Virus of Faith”), was hacked to death outside Bangladesh’s largest book fair by machete wielding extremists in February 2015.
The murder, part of a reign of terror by extremists at the time, enraged the Muslim-majority nation’s secular activists who staged days of protests. Roy was born in Bangladesh in 1972 and moved to the U.S. in 2006 from where he continued to criticise the government for the jailing of atheist bloggers.

3. ‘North Korean hackers target vaccine tech’

North Korean hackers attempted to steal information about coronavirus vaccines and treatments, South Korea’s intelligence service said, but it denied a lawmaker’s claim that vaccine maker Pfizer Inc. was targeted. Earlier on Tuesday, Ha Taekeung, a Member of Parliament’s intelligence committee, told reporters that the National Intelligence Service told him and other lawmakers during a closed door briefing that North Korea hacked Pfizer to obtain COVID-19 vaccine technology.
After Mr. Ha’s comments made headlines, the NIS said it didn’t mention any pharmaceutical company by name. Mr. Ha, however, stood by his claim when contacted by the Associated Press.

4. Sri Lanka considering India’s grant instead of China project

In an apparent bid to displace a Chinese company that had won the contract to install renewable energy systems in three small islands off Jaffna Peninsula in northern Sri Lanka, India has offered a grant of $12 million to execute it.
Sri Lanka’s Minister of Power Dullas Alahapperuma has recently said that the government would consider India’s proposal, and that he would present a Cabinet paper on the matter soon. Newspaper reports quoted him as saying that receiving a grant “is an advantage” that would ease the burden on the Treasury, as opposed to an Asian Development Bank (ADB) loan, as per the original project proposal, that would have to be repaid.
The development comes less than a month after the Cabinet cleared a project to install hybrid renewable energy systems in Nainativu, Delft or Neduntheevu, and Analaitivu, located in the Palk Bay, some 50 km off Tamil Nadu.
The Cabinet decisions taken on January 18, published officially, included a proposal to award the contract to Sinosoar Etechwin Joint Venture in China, with funding from the ADB. India’s swift offer comes in the wake of being ejected, along with Japan, out of the East Container Terminal (ECT) development project at the Colombo Port, following another Cabinet decision taken on February 1 this year.

5. ‘No immediate plan to end presence in Sahel’

France has no immediate plans to adjust its military presence in Africa’s Sahel region, and any changes will depend on other countries contributing troops, President Emmanuel Macron told a news conference. Mr. Macron added there was an increased willingness from other European countries to take part in the Takuba military force in Sahel. France is searching for an exit strategy after years of military intervention against Islamist militants.
The Sahel is the ecoclimatic and biogeographic realm of transition in Africa between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian savanna to the south.
The Takuba Task Force is a European military task force led by France which will advise, assist and accompany Malian Armed Forces, in coordination with G5-Sahel partners and other international actors on the ground.
G5-Sahel or G5S is an institutional framework for coordination of regional cooperation in development policies and security matters in west Africa. It was formed on 16 February 2014 in Nouakchott, Mauritania, at a summit of five Sahel countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger.

6. ‘U.S. will pay over $200 million to WHO’

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that his country would pay the World Health Organization (WHO) $200 million by the end of this month. The announcement is significant as the former U.S. President Donald Trump had begun the process of withdrawing the U.S. from the WHO, a process stopped by his successor, President Joe Biden.
Mr. Blinken called for transparency on outbreak data, saying countries should participate in “transparent and robust processes” in their prevention and response to health emergencies. The U.S. is the largest funder of the WHO, contributing more than 15% of its total funds. “We plan to provide significant financial support to COVAX through Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. And we’ll work to strengthen other multilateral initiatives involved in the global COVID-19 response — for example, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria,” Mr. Blinken said.

7. China blocked Ma’s IPO over ‘political links’

China’s President Xi Jinping pushed for blocking what would have been a record breaking initial public offering (IPO) for billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Group last year because of Communist Party linked “political families” who stood to gain billions of dollars through opaque investment vehicles, according to a new report.
Investment companies linked to the grandson of former President Jiang Zemin and the son in law of former Politburo Standing Committee member Jia Qinglin stood to profit from the IPO, the Wall Street Journal reported, with their ownership in the Ant Group, the financial payments arm of Mr. Ma’s Alibaba empire, held through “layers of opaque investment vehicles that own stakes in the firm”.
Among them is Boyu Capital, a private equity firm founded by Mr. Jiang’s grandson, Jiang Zhicheng. Another is Li Botan, who controls the Beijing Zhaode Group, that has invested in Ant through three layers of investment vehicles, the report said. Mr. Li is the son-in-law of Jia Qinglin, a senior leader who served on the top Politburo Standing Committee for ten years until 2012 and is close to Mr. Jiang.
The suspension of the $35 billion IPO of the Ant Group, which is Alibaba’s financial arm and behind Alipay, a digital payments company, triggered intense speculation about the fate of Mr. Ma, but subsequent reports have said he is working with regulators to address their concerns.
In December, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said it had launched a probe into Alibaba’s “suspected monopolistic acts'' including “forcing merchants to choose one platform between two competitors”. Financial risks were cited as one concern, with the group emerging as a lender to millions of small businesses, and operating, like other fintech companies, without some of the capital requirements that apply to banks. Ant’s access to troves of consumer credit data was also under the lens.

8. ‘Pak. to remain in FATF grey list until June’

Pakistan is unlikely to exit the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) ‘grey’ list until June, despite its efforts to garner support from the member nations ahead of the plenary meeting of the global terror financing and money laundering watchdog next week, according to a media report.
The FATF’s Plenary and Working Group meetings, scheduled to be held from February 21 to 26 in Paris, is all set to decide on Pakistan’s grey list status. Pakistan was placed on the ‘grey’ list in June 2018 and given a timeline to implement 27 action points.

9. Sri Lanka cancels Pakistan PM’s address to Parliament

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s coming visit to Sri Lanka, Colombo has cancelled his Parliament address scheduled next week, sparking speculation in political and diplomatic circles in the capital. Government officials have cited “COVID-19 constraints” as reason for the decision, while a Parliament spokesman attributed it to “scheduling issues”.
Colombo’s revision of the visiting leader’s itinerary has raised questions for obvious reasons. It comes barely a week before Sri Lanka faces a likely contested resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, in which Pakistan is currently a member.
The cancellation is also being viewed in the context of Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s assurance to Parliament on February 10 that burial of COVID-19 victims would be allowed, amid a persisting campaign from Sri Lanka’s Muslim community, seeking burial rights. But a week since, the government is yet to reverse its contested policy of enforcing cremations for COVID-19 victims, being followed despite the WHO clearing both burial and cremation.

OPINION & ANALYSIS

Commentary : A growing rights crisis in Lanka

(i). Background

The human rights situation in Sri Lanka has worsened since Gotabaya Rajapaksa became President in 2019. At its next session starting February 22, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) will face a crucial test in taking action for protecting vulnerable Sri Lankans and upholding international law. India, as a council member, will have a key role.

(ii). Rajapaska’s abuse of human rights

Rajapaksa was the defence secretary in the government led by his brother Mahinda from 2005 to 2015, a period marked by particularly egregious human rights abuses. Critics of the government were murdered, tortured, and forcibly made to disappear. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed in the civil war which ended in 2009 between government forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), with both sides responsible for numerous war crimes. In the final months of the war, the armed forces indiscriminately shelled civilians and summarily executed suspected LTTE fighters.
In January, the authorities bulldozed a memorial at Jaffna university that commemorated Tamil civilian victims of the civil war.

(iii). The current situation

The Rajapaksa government, in 2020, renounced its commitments under the 2015 Human Rights Council resolution and is threatening victims’ families and activists who supported it.
The Rajapaksa government has shown outright disdain for accountability. Since 2012, the Human Rights Council has sought to work with Sri Lanka to promote reconciliation and accountability, efforts that India has backed. Sri Lanka is now rejecting that endeavour, instead proposing a new domestic commission that UN experts have dismissed as lacking credibility or independence. The UNHRC should recognise the government’s actions for what they are – an effort to impede justice.

Commentary : Freedom and security

By calling on social media platforms operating in India to follow the law of the land, the government has not just stated the seemingly obvious but also delivered a warning to Twitter that it ought not to defy its orders again, the way it did in early February, when the government wanted certain handles blocked for spreading incendiary content.
The government wanted problematic hashtags blocked is understandable, given the tense situation on the ground on the day of the farmer protests, but what is difficult to appreciate is that it also wanted handles of some journalists, activists and politicians to be blocked.
If either one of the parties had decided to escalate the issue, the contentious law under which social media platforms are required to comply with blocking orders could come under legal scrutiny. The reference is to Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, under which the government can order a digital intermediary to block any content on grounds including security of the state and public order.
It is, therefore, important that freedom of speech is not seen as the antithesis of security of the state, but as one of its key facilitators.

ECONOMICS & FINANCE

Daily snippets

1. Telcos ask government to defer net neutrality rules

The COAI has urged the government to bring over the top (OTT) service providers such as WhatsApp under the licensing regime and defer net neutrality rules on telecom operators till the time ‘same service, same rules’ are applied on the applications. “Till the time any decision is taken regarding licensing of OTT communication providers, the unequitability between TSPs (telecom service providers) and OTTs should not be increased further. Till such time, no new licensing conditions, including that of traﬃc management practices for net neutrality etc., should be imposed on TSPs,” Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said.
Net neutrality principle – The net neutrality principles prohibit service providers from discriminating against Internet content and services by blocking, throttling or according preferential higher speeds.

2. Cairn files case in US against claims of $1.2 billion award from India

Cairn Energy has ﬁled a case in a U.S. district court to enforce a $1.2 billion arbitration award it won in a tax dispute against India. In December, an arbitration body awarded the British ﬁrm damages of more than $1.2 billion plus interest and costs. The tribunal ruled India breached an investment treaty with Britain and said New Delhi was liable to pay.
The case marked a ﬁrst step in Cairn’s eﬀorts towards recovering its dues, potentially by seizing Indian assets, if the government did not pay. It was reported last month that Cairn was identifying India’s overseas assets, including bank accounts and even Air India planes or Indian ships, that could be seized in the absence of a settlement.

3. Cabinet approves PLI plan for telecom

The Union Cabinet approved the production linked incentive scheme for the telecom sector with an outlay of ₹12,195 crore over ﬁve years. The scheme, which aims to make India a global hub for manufacturing telecom equipment, is expected to lead to an incremental production of about ₹2.4 lakh crore, with exports of about ₹2 lakh crore over ﬁve years and bring in investments of more than ₹3,000 crore.
The scheme was also likely to generate 40,000 direct and indirect employment opportunities and generate tax revenue of ₹17,000 crore from telecom equipment manufacturing, including core transmission equipment, 4G/5G Next Generation Radio Access Network and wireless equipment, access and Customer Premises Equipment (CPE), Internet of Things (IoT) access devices, other wireless equipment and enterprise equipment such as switches and routers.

4. Start-ups must create world class products : PM

Start-ups in India should not focus only on valuations and exit strategies, but on creating institutions that will outlast this century and products that set the global benchmark on excellence, to help India become a global leader in technology, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said speaking at the NASSCOM Technology and Leadership Forum (NTLF).

5. India's economic march in 2021

S&P Global Ratings said India will be one of the fastest growing emerging market economies with a 10% growth in the next ﬁscal, and future sovereign rating action would hinge on lowering ﬁscal deﬁcit and sustaining debt burden.
The forecast for India in 2021 is on the stronger side and shows that a lot of economic activity, which was frozen last year, is coming back on line to normalisation, there by brightening the growth prospects. S&P said India’s economy has stabilised over recent months, with progressively better manufacturing, services, labour market and revenue data.

SUGGESTED READINGS

1. Priya Ramani – MJ Akbar case & the #Metoo movement https://thewire.in/women/priya-ramani-vs-m-j-akbar-ahead-of-verdict-a-recap-of-the-metoo-case-that-shook-india

2. Judiciary and its independence https://www.barandbench.com/columns/litigation-columns/the-judiciarys-quest-towards-compromising-its-independence

3. Supreme Court and farm laws https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/supreme-court-constitution-judiciary-farm-laws-farmers-protest-article-14-article-19-169987

4. Scaling up the Indian advantage in telehealth https://www.pressreader.com/india/the-hindu/20210217/281822876504920

Download Page : https://e-clat.com/dailynewspage

Sources referred to : The Hindu, The Indian Express, Live Law, Bar & Bench

END

February 16th, 2021

Your 10 minute read!

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LAW, POLICY & GOVERNANCE

Daily snippets

1. Indians concerned about privacy: CJI

Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde said Indians have “grave apprehensions” about privacy from Facebook and WhatsApp. “We are telling you what we heard and read – people think that if A sends a WhatsApp message to B and B to C, the circuit of messages is revealed to Facebook,” he addressed senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Arvind Datar, for the companies. The hearing concerned the new privacy policy introduced by WhatsApp on January 4. The allegation is that it scraps users’ ‘opt-out policy’. SC issued notices to WhatsApp, Facebook

2. Lawyers flag violation of norms in Disha arrest

The Delhi police have claimed that all norms and procedures were followed when they arrested 22 year – old climate activist Disha A. Ravi from her residence in Bengaluru. Several leading advocates and jurists have raised concerns over reported violations of norms and guidelines laid down by the Ministry of Home Affairs and multiple Delhi High Court and Supreme Court judgments.

NATIONAL NEWS/ INTERVENTIONS

Daily snippets

1. Geospatial data policy liberalised

In sweeping changes to the country’s mapping policy, the government announced liberalisation of norms governing the acquisition and production of geospatial data, a move to help boost innovation in the sector and create a level playing ﬁeld for public and private entities. Under the new guidelines, the sector will be deregulated and aspects such as prior approvals for surveying, mapping and building applications based on those have been done away with.
For Indian entities, there will be complete deregulation with no prior approvals, security clearances and licences for the acquisition and production of geospatial data and geospatial data services, including maps. The Prime Minister said that “the reform will beneﬁt the country’s farmers, start-ups, the private sector, the public sector, and research institutions to drive innovations and build scalable solutions leveraging the potential of geospatial and remote sensing data”.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS/EVENTS/ PERSONALITIES

Daily snippets

1. ‘Israeli missile strikes in Syria kill 9’

Israeli missile strikes against several targets near Syria’s capital Damascus killed at least nine pro-regime militia fighters. Since the outbreak of Syria’s civil war in 2011, Israel has routinely carried out raids in the country, mostly targeting Iranian forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters as well as government troops. Iran and Hezbollah have backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in the neardecadelong war.

2. Nigeria’s OkonjoIweala appointed WTO head

Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo Iweala was appointed as the first female and first African head of the beleaguered World Trade Organization (WTO), saying a stronger WTO would be vital for the global COVID-19 recovery. The WTO called a virtual special General Council meeting at which member states officially selected the former Nigerian Finance Minister and World Bank veteran as the global trade body’s new Director-General.
She will take up her post on March 1 and her term, which is renewable, will run until August 31, 2025. The near paralysed institution desperately needs a kick start – something Ms. OkonjoIweala immediately addressed after being confirmed in the job. “A strong WTO is vital if we are to recover fully and rapidly from the devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic,” the 66-yearold economist said in a statement.

3. Bangladesh authorities send more Rohingya to island

Bangladesh authorities sent a fourth group of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar to a newly developed island in the Bay of Bengal despite calls by human rights groups for a halt to the process. The roughly 2,000 Rohingya, who had been living in the sprawling refugee camps of Cox’s Bazar, were sent to Bhasan Char, an island specifically developed to accommodate 1,00,000 of the 1 million Rohingya who have fled from neighbouring Myanmar.
With Monday’s group, more than 7,000 refugees have moved to the island since the process started in December. While human rights groups have criticised the move and some are being forced to go against their will, the government has insisted that refugees moving to the island have done so voluntarily.

OPINION & ANALYSIS

Commentary : Continuity, not change, is Biden’s plan for Palestine

(i). Background

Will President Joe Biden change the U.S.’s policy towards the Palestinian issue? The short answer is no. There are many reasons for this gloomy prognosis.

(ii). Why the same line?

The most important is Mr. Biden’s track record on Israel and especially on its continued occupation of Palestinian territories. He has been a firm supporter of Israel for decades and relatively unsympathetic to the Palestinian’s political concerns despite his support for a two-state solution.
The Biden administration is willing to live with the status quo that allows Israel to continue its harsh occupation, build settlements, cantonise the West Bank, and eventually foreclose the two-state option leaving the Palestinians stateless in their own land.
Thanks to Israeli propaganda, the conventional wisdom in Washington, D.C. has been that Palestinians ``never miss the opportunity to miss an opportunity”. The U.S. has stuck to this narrative despite evidence to the contrary over decades that Israeli governments through the building of settlements and confiscation of Palestinian lands have negated the possibility of a viable Palestinian state emerging in the occupied territories.
Although the U.S.’s unquestioning support for Israel has complicated its relations with the Arab world for decades, the perception of Israel’s importance to American strategy in West Asia as the U.S.’s one stable ally persists. Consequently, many in the region believe that American policy towards West Asia is made in Jerusalem and not in Washington.

Critical Analysis : Farm laws and 'taxation' of farmers

(i). Background : Net Taxation

Over the past three decades, a major rationale offered in favour of liberalising Indian agriculture was that farmers were “net taxed”. It was argued that this “net taxation” existed because protectionist policies deprived farmers of higher international prices, and the administered price system deprived farmers of higher domestic market prices.

(ii). A case for farm laws

If there were more liberal domestic markets and freer global trade, prices received by farmers would rise. Farm laws are necessary to end the net taxation of agriculture. For this purpose, data on Producer Support Estimate (PSE) are used. The farm laws would weaken restrictive trade and marketing policies in India and “get the markets right”. This, in turn, would eliminate negative support and raise farmers’ prices.

(iii). The case of milk

There is no Minimum Support Price (MSP) in milk, and a substantial share of milk sales takes place through the private sector, including multinationals like Nestle and Hatsun. Yet, India’s milk sector is growing faster than the foodgrain sector. If the milk sector can grow without MSP and with private corporates, why cannot other agricultural commodities.

(iv). How is the PSE estimated?

The PSE is estimated using a methodology advocated by the OECD. The PSE has two components – the first is market price support (MPS), the second is budgetary transfers (BOT).
The OECD estimates of MPS and PSE to show the perils of restrictive markets. By the same logic then, if the increasing penetration of private companies and the absence of MSP in milk are positive features, we should expect positive and rising MPS and PSE for milk.
Milk had the highest negative MPS among India’s major agricultural commodities in 2019. The reason is that the OECD methodology, either for milk or for other commodities, does not offer any realistic assessment of the extent of taxation or subsidisation.

(v). Building a logic

To conclude, In the debates, it is telling that these advocates (a) use the OECD estimates to highlight the overall negative MPS for agriculture as a problem; (b) but conveniently remain silent on the negative MPS for milk; and © yet, argue in the same breath that milk producers have benefited from the growth of private firms. The absence of logic in this line of argument is nothing but appalling. (https://rb.gy/zt8kzl)

Story : Giant Leatherback turtle nesting sites and Andaman development project

(i). Background

Proposals for tourism and port development in the Andaman and Nicobar (A&N) Islands have conservationists worried over the fate of some of the most important nesting populations of the Giant Leatherback turtle in this part of the Indian Ocean.

(ii). About the Leatherback turtles

The largest of the seven species of sea turtles on the planet and also the most long ranging, Leatherbacks are found in all oceans except the Arctic and the Antarctic.
Within the Indian Ocean, they nest only in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and are also listed in Schedule I of India’s Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, according it the highest legal protection.
There is concern now, however, that at least three key nesting beaches – two on Little Andaman Island and one on Great Nicobar Island – are under threat due to mega “development” plans announced in recent months.

(iii). The development-conservation dichotomy

The Little Andaman plan, which proposes phased growth of tourism on this virtually untouched island, has sought the de-reservation of over 200 sq km of pristine rainforest and also of about 140 sq km of the Onge Tribal Reserve. Two sites where key components of the tourism plan are to be implemented are both Leatherback nesting sites – South Bay along the southern coast of the island and West Bay along its western coast. The roughly 7-km long beach at West Bay has been the site of ongoing marine turtle research projects.
Not only are the numbers of females nesting here signiﬁcant, satellite telemetry has revealed hitherto unknown migration patterns. Satellite tagged female turtles have been tracked swimming up to 13,000 km after nesting on West Bay, towards the western coast of Australia and southwest towards the eastern coast of Africa.

(iv). National Marine Turtle Action Plan

The A&N Islands are prominent in the National Marine Turtle Action Plan released on February 1, 2021, by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. West Bay on Little Andaman and Galathea on Great Nicobar, along with other nesting beaches in the islands, find a speciﬁc mention here as “Important Marine Turtle Habitats in India” and the largest Leatherback nesting grounds in India.
The plan identiﬁes coastal development, including construction of ports, jet ties, resorts and industries, as major threats to turtle populations. It also asks for assessments of the environmental impact of marine and coastal development that may aﬀect marine turtle populations and their habitats.

ECONOMICS & FINANCE

Daily snippets

1. States fiscal deficit to narrow to 4.3% of GDP in FY22 : Ind-Ra

The aggregate ﬁscal deﬁcit of States is likely to be at 4.3% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021-22 compared with 4.6% in 2020-21, says a report by India Ratings and Research. The rating agency has revised the outlook on State ﬁnances to stable for FY22 from stable to negative.
The agency estimates the nominal GDP to grow 14.5% in FY22, and believes a gradual pickup in revenue collections could lead to an improvement in the capital expenditure from FY22. The report said due to the economic downturn, even the union government’s ﬁnances are under pressure, leading to a lower than budgeted devolution of ₹5.50 lakh crore to States in FY21.

2. Indian smartphone market fell 1.7% in 2020

While the Indian smartphone market declined by 1.7% in 2020, it is expected to witness high single digit growth in the current year, mainly driven by customers upgrading their devices, according to a report by the International Data Corporation (IDC). The India smartphone market exited 2020 at 150 million units, a 1.7% year-on-year decline.

3. IT revenue to grow to $194 bn in FY21 : NASSCOM

Indian IT industry’s revenue is estimated to grow 2.3% year-on-year in FY21 to $194 billion on the back of a rapid acceleration in digital transformation and technology adoption, according to industry apex body NASSCOM. During the ﬁscal, software exports are expected to touch $150 billion, a 1.9% growth over the year earlier period.
India has a huge opportunity to become a talent nation for the entire world and investments will go where the talent is, said Debjani Ghosh, president, NASSCOM. The industry added more than 1.38 lakh to its head count in FY21, taking the total to 4.47 million, as per a NASSCOM survey.

SUGGESTED READINGS

1. Remembering Justice P.B Sawant https://rb.gy/mtqev9

2. Disha Ravi case https://rb.gy/xna1g6

Download Page : https://e-clat.com/dailynewspage

Sources referred to : The Hindu, The Indian Express, Live Law, Bar & Bench

END

February 14th-15th, 2021

Your 10 minute read!

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LAW, POLICY & GOVERNANCE

Daily snippets

1. SC refuses to review verdict on protesters

The Supreme Court has refused to reconsider its judgement that the Shaheen Bagh protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act were inconvenient for commuters. The original judgment of October 7 last year declared the demonstrations and road blockades in the Shaheen Bagh area of the national capital as “unacceptable”. The Review Bench, which comprised the same judges who delivered the original judgment, said it did not find any “error apparent warranting reconsideration” in the verdict.

2. Lockdown: SC allows 100% fee collection by Rajasthan schools

The Supreme Court has stayed a Rajasthan High Court order to schools affiliated to Central and State secondary education boards to collect only 60% of the tuition fee for the lockdown period. Bench led by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar allowed schools to collect the entire arrears in six monthly instalments from March to August 2021.
In case parents have difficulty in paying the arrears, they should be allowed to approach the school authorities through individual representations. The management would consider them on a “case to case basis sympathetically”, the apex court said.

3. 22-year-old activist sent to Delhi police custody

Disha Ravi, a 22year old climate activist, was remanded in custody of the Delhi police for five days after she was arrested from Bengaluru for allegedly sharing with Greta Thunberg a “toolkit” related to the farmers’ protests. The police said Ms. Ravi had edited the “toolkit” on February 3. According to the police, the activist is an editor of the “Toolkit Google Doc” and was a key conspirator in the document’s formulation and dissemination.

4. Farm unions call Disha Ravi arrest an ‘intimidation tactic’

Protesting farm unions condemned the arrest of Bengaluru based climate activist Disha Ravi, who has been charged in connection with a “toolkit” to coordinate support for their protest. Climate activist charged with sedition for supporting ‘toolkit’.

NATIONAL NEWS/ INTERVENTIONS

Daily snippets

1. YouTubers back to tickle Valley’s funny bone

Kashmir’s comic YouTubers, who were rendered jobless and lost lakhs of followers after the August 5, 2019, decision to snap high speed Internet in the Valley, are back with their humour and sense of fun. It has been a week since the J&K administration restored 4G mobile Internet after 18 months, and the buzz is back on Valley Based YouTube channels, including the popular ‘Kashmiri Kalkharabs’ (Kashmiri quirks) with 7.2 lakh subscribers. There are over 100 YouTubers in Kashmir, mainly from modest backgrounds, who earn a living by uploading comedic content.

2. West Bengal to host Sanskriti Mahotsav

The Union Culture Ministry’s flagship festival, the Rashtriya Sanskriti Mahotsav (RSM), will be held in West Bengal this time, the Ministry said in a statement. Renowned artists, including local artistes, would participate in the festival of folk art forms, it said. The festival would give visitors a chance to reconnect with indigenous culture. The 10th edition of the festival was held in Madhya Pradesh in October 2019.

3. PM hands over Arjun Mk-1A tank to Army

Prime Minister Narendra Modi handed over the indigenous main battle tank Arjun Mk1A to the Army in a function at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai. Chief of the Army Staff General Manoj Mukund Naravane received the model of the tank, designed and developed by Chennai-based Combat Vehicles Research & Development Establishment (CVRDE), a unit of the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO).
“We will continue working to make our armed forces one of the most modern forces in the world. At the same time, the focus on making India atma nirbhar (self reliant) in the defence sector moves with full speed,” the Prime Minister said at the event.
The Arjun Mk1A has superior firepower, high mobility, excellent protection and crew comfort, with 14 major upgrades from Arjun Mk1, according to the CVRDE. The indent for 118 of these tanks would be placed shortly with the Heavy Vehicle Factory (HVF) at Avadi near Chennai.

4. ‘Inter-State boundary issue creating bad blood

A day after Andhra Pradesh held an election in a disputed region in Odisha’s Koraput district, Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said it was a matter of concern that a State had conducted panchayat elections inside another State’s geographical boundary.

5. Farm income mission off target

In the last year of its mission to double farmers income, the Centre admits that no actual assessment of farm income has been carried out since 2013. Ashok Dalwai, head of the committee on doubling farmers income, said that only the implementation of strategies was being monitored, rather than actual outcomes. He cautioned that the impact of the pandemic could have a dampening eﬀect on reaching the income target.
The government also did not provide any details on what the base year for this goal is or what the targeted income to be achieved by the 2022 deadline was, on questions raised in the Parliament. In response to a request for State-wise, year-wise income data, and the annual growth percentage required to achieve the 2022 targets, the Ministry responded that the National Sample Survey Oﬃce’s last survey on agricultural households was conducted in 2013. Asked how the Centre intended to monitor progress without such surveys, it was told that the “government has constituted an ‘Empowered Body’ to review and monitor the progress”.
Seven strategies had been identiﬁed by the committee: improvement in crop and livestock productivity, savings in production cost through eﬃcient use of resources, higher cropping intensity and diversiﬁcation towards high value crops, better price realisation and a shift to nonfarm jobs. “We presume that if the State and the Central governments are making progress on these strategies, then incomes also must be increasing,” Dr. Dalwai said.
His committee had used the NSSO’s 2013 income data and extrapolated it for 2015-16, chosen as the base year. The base income in that year was estimated at more than ₹97,000 per annum. “We estimated that the target income should be about ₹2 lakh per annum, from both farm and non farm income, by 2022,” he said.

6. UT status for J&K is temporary : Amit Shah

Home Minister Amit Shah told the Lok Sabha that the government would restore full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir at an appropriate time. Mr. Shah was replying to a discussion on the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2021, in the Lok Sabha. “This legislation has nothing to do with statehood, and Jammu and Kashmir will be accorded the status at an appropriate time,“ Mr. Shah said.
The J&K Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill seeks to merge the all-India services J&K cadre with the Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram Union Territory (AGMUT) cadre. He said the region’s Union Territory status is temporary just like Article 370 itself granting special status to Jammu and Kashmir was supposed to be. Decentralisation and devolution of power have taken place in the UT following the revocation of Article 370, Mr. Shah said, noting that panchayat elections saw over 51% voting.
He assured the people of Jammu and Kashmir that “no one will lose their land”, adding that the government had suﬃcient land for development. Mr. Shah said the government expects around 25,000 government jobs to be created by 2022.

7. Inceltivize states for disinvestment in PSEs : Finance Commission Chairperson

The Centre should incentivise States to come clean on their ﬁscal deﬁcit positions, bring oﬀ-Budget liabilities above board and take up their own strategic disinvestment programmes for State-owned public sector enterprises, Fifteenth Finance Commission Chairperson N.K. Singh mooted in an interview.
Terming the Centre’s decision to “transparently” acknowledge a ﬁscal deﬁcit of 9.5% of GDP this year as “a very positive development”, Mr. Singh said that the Centre could incentivise the States to adopt a similar practice to enhance the conﬁdence of investors in India’s overall debt and ﬁscal deficit trajectory.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS/EVENTS/ PERSONALITIES

Daily snippets

1. PLA paper offers clues to China’s moves

As India and China began the first steps of implementing a disengagement plan after more than nine months of a tense standoff at multiple points along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the causes of last year’s border crisis still remain a mystery.
A once-in-a-decade military strategy document released by the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) leading think tank in 2013 offers some clues to China’s border moves, as it called for putting a stop to “nibbling” of territory as well as warned of India’s expanding maritime reach as it looked to stabilise its land borders, a development it viewed as a threat to China’s security interests. ‘The Science of Military Strategy’ released in 2013 by the Academy of Military Sciences was the third edition of the text, following previous versions in 1987 and 2001.
It outlined three stages of India’s military strategy since 1947 : a limited offensive strategy until the early 1960s, a period of “expansion on two fronts” from the 1960s to the early 1970s; a “maintain the land and control the sea” until the late 1980s, and “a major adjustment” after the end of the Cold War from “regional offence” to “regional deterrence” that stressed “the role of deterrence and not emphasising conquest and occupation of territory”.
In the view of the PLA think tank, India carried on with some aspects of what it inherited from British India’s military strategic thought, the core of which was “to treat Kashmir, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and Assam as the internal lines of India’s defence; to incorporate Tibet into its sphere of influence as a buffer state; and to treat the illegally concocted McMahon Line [which China doesn’t recognise, on the eastern sector] and the Ardagh-Johnson Line [in the western sector] as its security inner ring”.
The text claimed that with the rise of India’s national power, the “offensive” elements “have been increasing” but “restricted to the South Asian subcontinent and the Indian Ocean situation”. For China, it noted that while “the possibility of a large scale land invasion war occurring is fairly low nonetheless some border demarcation problems are hanging in the balance, and some border area nibbling and counter nibbling, and frictional and counter frictional struggles will be present for the long term”.
China has unresolved land borders with India and Bhutan. The PLA strategy predicted that India would look to stabilise its land borders and pay more attention to the sea, a development it viewed as unfavourable for China’s interests. Written eight years ago, it **foresaw deepening ties among the Quad *– India, U.S., Japan and Australia – and noted “against this backdrop, Japan’s going southward and India’s advancing eastward might intersect in the South China Sea, forming ‘dual arcs’ from the directions of two oceans, and Japan and Australia would constitute ‘dual anchors’ at the south and north ends of the Western Pacific*”

2. Draghi sworn in as new PM as Italy hopes to turn the page

Former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi was formally sworn in as Italy’s new Prime Minister, against the backdrop of the deadly coronavirus pandemic and a crippling recession. The appointment of the 73-year old known as “Super Mario” capped weeks of political instability for the country still in the grips of the health crisis that has killed more than 93,000 people.
Mr. Draghi was parachuted in by Mr. Mattarella after the previous centre-left coalition under premier Giuseppe Conte collapsed, leading Italy rudderless amid the worst recession since the Second World War. After assembling a broad based coalition, on Friday night Mr. Draghi formally accepted the post of premier, publicly revealing the new Cabinet for the first time.

3. Biden wants to shut prison at Guantanamo

U.S. President Joe Biden wants to close the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects before the end of his term, the White House said on Friday, echoing an unfulfilled campaign promise from Barack Obama’s administration. Asked at a press conference about a possible closure of the prison in Cuba during Mr. Biden’s tenure, spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, “That certainly is our goal and our intention.”
In his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump expressed willingness to keep the Guantanamo prison open and “fill it with bad guys”. The Republican retained this position once elected. However, some detainees were promised their release from Guantanamo under his Democratic predecessor Obama, but he never succeeded in working out a compromise with Congress.

4. Senate acquits Trump of incitement

Former U.S. President Donald Trump was acquitted by the U.S. Senate in the impeachment trial of inciting an insurrection with regard to the January 6 attack on the Capitol by a mob of his supporters seeking to stop the certification of the Electoral College results. At the conclusion of proceedings that began last week, the Senate voted 57-43 on Saturday to acquit Mr. Trump.
A majority of 67 votes would have been required for a conviction. Mr. Trump’s second impeachment trial was shorter than his first in 2020 and relied in large measure on video footage of the former President’s incendiary remarks and the Capitol attack. The defence argued that he did not incite “what was already going to happen'' on January 6 and that his comments were protected by his right to free speech by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

5. Russia’s Foreign Minister holds talks on climate with U.S. envoy

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed climate change with U.S. envoy John Kerry and the two agreed to cooperate further within the Arctic Council, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “During the conversation, questions were raised about the implementation of the Paris climate accord,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement released late on Saturday.
The Foreign Minister told Mr. Kerry, a former Secretary of State who is now the U.S. climate envoy, that he “welcomed” the decision by new U.S. President Joe Biden to rejoin the landmark Paris Agreement on curbing global emissions of greenhouse gases. Mr. Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump had pulled out of the 2015 accord.
The two men also “underlined the need for as wide a cooperation as possible” in the area of the environment. They also agreed to “develop cooperation” within the Arctic Council — a high-level intergovernmental forum that addresses various issues, including sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic region.
The conversation came at a time when already strained relations between Russia and the West have been further exacerbated by the arrest and imprisonment of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny and Moscow’s merciless crackdown on the ensuing protests. Earlier this month, Mr. Biden said the U.S. would no longer be “rolling over in the face of Russia’s aggressive actions'' and demanded Mr. Navalny’s release.

6. Pakistan Army conducts exercises in Thar Desert

The Pakistan Army is holding a month-long exercise in the Thar Desert, located in the Sindh province, to prepare for conflict in extreme desert environments. The exercise, codenamed ‘JidarulHadeed’, began on January 28 and is scheduled to conclude on February 28.
The Army has a Desert Warfare School at Chhor, which is 165 km from Hyderabad, Sindh. The school was established in 1987 to promote desert warfare. The Thar Desert is an arid region that covers over 2,00,000 sq km. It forms a natural boundary along the border between India and Pakistan. Meanwhile, a multinational naval exercise hosted by Pakistan, Aman-2021, began in the Arabian Sea. It will conclude on February 16. As many as 45 countries, including the U.S., Russia, China and Turkey, will be participating in the exercise.

7. UAE’s Hope Probe sends home first image of Mars

The UAE’s Hope Probe sent back its first image of Mars, the national space agency said Sunday, days after the spacecraft successfully entered the Red Planet’s orbit. The picture “captured the largest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons, emerging into the early morning sunlight”, it said in a statement. The image was taken from an altitude of 24,700 km above the Martian surface, a day after the probe entered Mars’ orbit, it said in a statement.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid AlMaktoum, UAE Prime Minister and Dubai’s ruler, shared the coloured image on Twitter. “The first picture of Mars captured by the first ever Arab probe in history,” he wrote. The mission is designed to reveal the secrets of Martian weather, but the UAE also wants it to serve as an inspiration for the region’s youth.
Hope became the first of three spacecraft to arrive at the Red Planet this month after China and the U.S. also launched missions in July, taking advantage of a period when the Earth and Mars are nearest. The UAE’s venture is also timed to mark the 50th anniversary of the unification of the nation’s seven emirates. Hope will orbit the Red Planet for at least one Martian year, or 687 days.

8. Russia’s increasing poverty rates fuel political discontent

The COVID-19 pandemic has delivered a new blow to Russia’s stagnating economy, which was already chafing under Western sanctions, low oil prices and weak corporate investment. Observers say that rising poverty, falling incomes and lack of tangible government support during the pandemic are fuelling discontent with President Vladimir Putin’s two decade rule and strengthening the opposition.
Answering the jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s call, tens of thousands of people have protested across Russia over the past few weeks. Russians’ real disposable incomes have been falling for the past half decade, and contracted by 3.5% in 2020, while the cost of basic foodstuff has surged.

OPINION & ANALYSIS

Analysis : Spotlight on dams after Chamoli disaster

(i). The story so far

A snow avalanche triggered possibly by a landslide caused a flash flood in the Rishi Ganga river, a tributary of the Alaknanda in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, washing away a functional small hydroelectric project and destroying the under construction 520 MW Tapovan Vishnugad project of the NTPC on the Dhauli Ganga river.

(ii). Why did it happen?

Union Home Minister Amit Shah told Parliament that satellite imagery from Planet Labs indicated that the landslide avalanche event at an altitude of 5,600 metres occurred in a glacier in the Rishi Ganga catchment, and covered an area of 14 sq. km, causing the flood.

(iii). Why is the Chamoli incident of concern?

Uttarakhand, which gained a distinct identity in the year 2000 as a separate State carved out from Uttar Pradesh, is geologically unique. As a part of the lesser Himalaya, in the populated terrane – a region bounded by earth faults – it remains active in terms of deep movement of rock assemblages.
There are several researchers who refer to other characteristics that call into question the wisdom of committing vast resources to large dam building in Uttarakhand. A key concern is the active nature of rock fractures, known as faults, which respond to earthquakes, creating enormous instability, especially along slopes.
Moreover, the geology of mountains in many parts of Uttarakhand is such that the threat of landslides is high. Rocks here have been weakened by natural processes across time and are vulnerable to intense rainfall as well as human interference, in the form of house building and road construction. The careless disposal of enormous debris from mining and construction projects has added to the problem, blocking flow paths and providing additional debris.

(iv). Should Uttarakhand worry about the effects of climate change?

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate found that in the Himalayan ranges, there could be variations in overall water availability, but floods, avalanches and landslides were all forecast to increase. Changes in monsoonal precipitation could also bring more frequent disasters. In 2013, catastrophic loss of lives was seen in the floods that swept Kedarnath. They were triggered by heavy rainfall over a short period in June, first destroying a river training wall, and then triggering a landslide that led to the breaching of the Chorabari moraine dammed lake, devastating Kedarnath town. What this means is that aberrations in the Indian summer monsoon caused by changes to long term climate could produce even greater damage, by bringing debris and silt down the river courses, destroying physical structures, reducing dam life, and causing enormous losses.

(v). Are expensive hydroelectric projects worth the investment today?

The International Renewable Energy Agency estimated that in 2019, the average levelized cost of electricity in India was $0.060 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for small hydropower projects added over the last decade. In comparison, the global cost for solar power was $0.068 per kWh in 2019 for utility scale projects. Though hydropower has been reliable where suitable dam capacity exists, in places such as Uttarakhand, the net benefit of big dams is controversial because of the collateral and unquantified damage in terms of loss of lives, livelihoods and destruction of ecology. Chipko movement activist Sunderlal Bahuguna argued that large dams with an expected life of about 100 years, that involve deforestation and destruction, massively and permanently alter the character and health of the hills.

Analysis : Endless war in Yemen

(i). Background

The Biden administration’s decision to end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s Yemen war is a signal to Riyadh that the Trump-era open support it had enjoyed is a matter of the past.

(ii). Obama & Trump favoured Saudi-Arabia

The U.S. offered support to Saudi Arabia’s campaign against the Houthi rebels in Yemen when Barack Obama was the President. Donald Trump continued that policy, overlooking the disastrous effects of the war that has turned Yemen, one of the poorest Arab countries, into a humanitarian catastrophe.
In its last hours, the Trump State Department designated the Houthis, who are backed by Iran, as a terrorist organisation. Rights groups have condemned the move, saying that the designation would complicate aid efforts as the Houthis control a sizable part of Yemen, including the capital.

(iii). Biden’s withdrawal of support

Mr. Biden has now taken a different line, initiating steps to remove the Houthis from the terror list, among other actions. This is part of his larger attempts to rewrite the U.S.’s West Asia policy which, under Mr. Trump, was almost entirely focused on containing Iran. The administration’s message seems to have reached Riyadh.

(iv). Gain for Qatar

Saudi Arabia ended a nearly four year long blockade of Qatar, another American ally, after Mr. Biden was elected President. It has also signalled that it would carry out domestic reforms keeping human rights in focus. But it is yet to make any definite moves to wrap up the Yemen conflict.

(v). Saudi-Arabia’s Role in Yemen

Yemen is a case study for a war that has gone wrong on all fronts. When the Saudis started bombing the country in March 2015, their plan was to oust the Houthis from Sana’a and restore a pro-Riyadh government. Despite the Saudi-led attacks, the Houthis held on to the territories they captured, while the Saudi-backed government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi was teetering on the brink of collapse. Saudi Arabia has failed to oust the Houthis from Sana’a and is now facing frequent rocket and drone attacks by the rebels.

(vi). Role of UAE in Yemen

After five years of fighting, the United Arab Emirates pulled out of the war last year. And the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council wants southern Yemen to be an independent entity. While these multiple factions continued to fight, more than 10,000 people were killed in attacks and tens of thousands more died of preventable diseases. Yemen also stares at famine. It is a lose-lose war for everyone. The Houthis are living in permanent war, unable to provide even basic services to the people in the territories they control.
Yemen’s internationally recognised government practically lacks any power and legitimacy at home as the war is being fought by other players. Ending the war is in the best interest of all parties. Mr. Biden should push Saudi Arabia and its allies to end their blockade of Yemen and initiate talks with the country’s multiple rebel factions.

Commentary : Fuzzy law, unclear jurisprudence, trampled rights

(i). Background

On February 1, 2021, in the wake of the intensification of the farmers’ protests and reports of violent incidents on January 26 – a number of Twitter accounts became inaccessible in India.
As outrage mounted, the Government of India clarified that it had invoked Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, and ordered Twitter to block access to these accounts. The reason, it appeared, was the use of the hashtag #ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide, which was deemed a threat to public order.
Soon after, Twitter restored access to many of the withheld accounts. This prompted a sharp reaction from the government. Twitter’s employees would be prosecuted for violating Section 69A. The government’s own actions in directing it to withhold access to the accounts of journalists, activists, and politicians, violated Indian law, and the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of speech.

(ii). Legal Analysis

These events of the last few days throw into sharp relief the unsatisfactory state of Indian law and how it is interpreted and applied by censorship happy governments. The root of the problem is Section 69A of the IT Act.
There are a number of problems with this legal structure. The first is that it makes censorship an easy and almost completely costless option, for the government. Second, the confidentiality requirement means that the user will not even know why their account has been blocked and, therefore, will be in no position to challenge it. Third, there are no procedural safeguards – no opportunity for a hearing to affected parties, and no need for reasoned orders.
A combination of bad law and unclear jurisprudence has created a situation where Twitter or the intermediary that might be caught in the government’s crosshairs is the only entity that is in a position to defend the free speech rights of Indian citizens. There is, thus, an urgent need for both legal and jurisprudential reform.

What’s new : Clubhouse : The new kid in town

(i). Background

It is being touted as the next big thing in social media. It was launched last March and already has 2 million users and is reportedly worth $1 billion. It is funded by one of the most prominent venture capital ﬁrms in the world, Andreessen Horowitz. Clubhouse, the app that describes itself as “a new type of network based on voice”, has generated a lot of buzz in recent weeks.

(ii). The new concept

Clubhouse app is centred around people talking real time, no cameras on. “Voice is so universal but in the world of social networking, it’s relatively new,” Paul Davison, Clubhouse’s co-founder, said.
Once inside the app, what you see are ‘rooms’, lots and lots of them. Each ‘room’ is a space where a conversation is happening. You can enter one, listen in, even participate if allowed. It is much like having a wide choice of radio channels but here you can take part too. Also, you can even start a ‘room’ of your own.
Coming into the scene much after the disruptive new conversational spaces brought forth by the ﬁrst generation of social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, Clubhouse may not operate by the playbook of its predecessors. “The focus is on authentic human connection and dialogue rather than likes or followers”, said Mr. Davison. There is also no record of Clubhouse conversations to come back to. If you miss them once, you miss them forever.
Not everything is for everyone. It can be a private conversation that one has with one more person, much like a phone conversation, or something that reaches many, many people. The decision about who should be let into a conversation rests with those who initiate the conversation. Clubhouse also can’t be immune to the issues of hate speech and dis information faced by other platforms, and it insists systems to deal with them are in place. It wants to build monetisation strategies for its creators, so that they can make money from listeners via subscription and tickets.

SPORTS

Daily snippets

1. Para Athletics : India claims four more gold medals

Indian men’s javelin throwers came up with a brilliant show as reigning World champion Sandeep Chaudhary (F44), Ajeet Singh (F46) and Navdeep (F41) won gold on the third day of the 12th Fazza International World Para Athletics Grand Prix on Friday. They were later joined by Pranav Prashant Desai in the men’s 200m F64, while World champion javelin thrower Sundar Singh Gurjar (F46) ﬁnished with a bronze. Navdeep and Arvind also secured quotas for the upcoming Tokyo Paralympics as India’s tally swelled to 17 medals, including nine gold.

SUGGESTED READINGS

1. The wages of struggle : Putting Impunity First https://www.livelaw.in/columns/the-wages-of-struggle-putting-impunity-first-dr-upendra-baxis-kannabiran-memorial-lectures-169852

2. Wider access to legal resources https://www.livelaw.in/columns/supreme-courts-e-committee-legal-resources-scrs-and-ilrs-169847

3. India's web censorship regime https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/twitter-govt-row-india-web-censorship-system-unconstitutional-needs-reform-secrecy-unfairness#read-more

4. Cruelty to animals https://www.lawnn.com/cruelty-to-animals/

5. Privacy of people : Supreme Court https://www.legaleraonline.com/from-the-courts/the-privacy-of-people-is-more-important-than-your-money-supreme-court-issues-notice-to-whatsapp-726880

Download Page : https://e-clat.com/dailynewspage

Sources referred to : The Hindu, The Indian Express, Live Law, Bar & Bench

END

February 12th-13th, 2021

Your 10 minute read!

START

LAW, POLICY & GOVERNANCE

Daily snippets

1. 17 major OTT players adopt self regulatory toolkit

Even as the government is soon expected to come out with regulations for OTT platforms, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) said 17 platforms have adopted a ‘toolkit’ for effective implementation of the self regulation code introduced last year. The industry body added that it will set up an ‘IAMAI Secretariat for the Code’, comprising representatives from the signatories to the Code, as well as the IAMAI, for its implementation.

2. Consider as representation plea against tree felling for metro work’

The Delhi High Court asked a Central Empowered Committee (CEC), set up by the Supreme Court, to look into environment issues to consider as representation a petition to change from overground to underground the nature of Phase-IV of metro expansion to prevent cutting of over 11,000 trees.

3. Disabled entitled to facilities: SC

The government is not conferring “largesse” on disabled people by facilitating a scribe during the course of the Civil Services Examination, the Supreme Court held. The court said it is high time the government shed its “fundamental fallacy” that only persons with “bench-mark disability” or specified disability of 40% or more should be accommodated with a scribe while taking competitive tests like the Civil Services Examination.
This is a clear violation of the intent to provide “reasonable accommodation” for disabled persons under the Right to Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act of 2016. The judgment was based on an appeal filed on behalf of Vikash Kumar, a candidate with Writer’s cramp, a chronic neurological condition. He was denied a scribe for the Civil Services Exam by the UPSC in 2018, on the ground that he did not come within the definition of a person with bench-mark disability.

4. ‘Most buses still wheelchair-unfriendly’

Less than 7% of public buses in the country were fully accessible to wheelchair users as of December 2020, with the target of 25% of buses being accessible by June 2022 under the Accessible India Campaign getting closer, according to government data.
Apart from public buses, the Accessible India Campaign, was aimed at making government buildings, airports, railway stations and government websites accessible to persons with disabilities.

5. Intermarriages can reduce caste tensions, says court

Educated youngsters are showing the way forward to reduce caste and community tensions in India by tying the knot in intermarriages, the Supreme Court said in a recent judgment. The judgment came in a case filed by a lecturer, an MBA graduate, who fled from Bengaluru to Delhi to marry a man, an M. Tech. and assistant professor.
The court quashed the case against the couple and directed the police authorities to not only counsel the investigating officers but devise a training programme to deal with such cases for the benefit of the police personnel.

6. President will decide on Rajoana’s plea

The government informed the Supreme Court that President Ram Nath Kovind will take a decision on the mercy plea of Balwant Singh Rajoana, who has been in jail for 26 years for the assassination of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh. Solicitor-General points to gravity of facts in Beant Singh assassination case.
The court said the law was settled that once the government had decided to recommend a presidential pardon for a condemned man, the pendency of appeals in the Supreme Court of his co-accused cannot delay the process initiated under Article 72 (presidential pardon) of the Constitution (https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1008926/).

7. SC seeks response on petition against Twitter

The Supreme Court decided to examine a plea that says the social media platform Twitter is “sympathetic to terrorist groups”. Twitter has been accused of promoting and circulating prohibited content and hate messages. And, there was no mechanism or law to deal with the problem.

NATIONAL NEWS/ INTERVENTIONS

Daily snippets

1. Coordinated disengagement at Pangong Tso, Rajnath tells RS

India and China have reached an agreement on disengagement in the Pangong lake area to cease their forward deployments in a phased, coordinated and verified manner and it would substantially restore the situation to that existing prior to the commencement of the standoff last year, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said.
Tanks and mechanised elements have started moving back from the South Bank and distances, including the latitudes and longitudes, up to which they have to move back, had been agreed upon in the agreement. Both sides have worked out a detailed step by step plan for pullback of troops and equipment. Joint verification would be done together at each step.
In a pre-emptive move on August 29 and 30, 2020, the Army had occupied some unoccupied heights in the Chushul sector from Thakung to Rechin La within the Indian perception of the LAC, foiling the Chinese People’s Liberation Army attempts to dominate the heights. As part of the agreement, the Indian Army will vacate these peaks and pull back troops and equipment, while China would remove structures between Finger 4 to Finger 8 on the North Bank and withdraw troops.

2. Analysis : On the Uttarakhand deluge and challenges of hydropower development, Ravi Chopra

It’s a folly to be building dams, and hydro power projects above elevations of 2,200 metres. The cost of solar power has been dramatically reduced and it makes no sense to generate power at ₹7-8 per unit when solar power is ₹2. Also, there is no sustainable way to develop such projects given the ﬂouting of environmental norms and challenges with the disposal of debris, accumulated muck. Dams in the paraglacial zone (above 2,200 m) are a danger to the people below.
In Uttarakhand, we need a services based economy on information technology companies that will not be power intensive. And we also need to develop our roads, improve access and go about it in a thoughtful sustained manner such that it contributes to tourism. We must have a solar power based development. Industrial development here also has to be thought through.

3. India-China disengagement

The disengagement on the south bank of Pangong Tso (lake) will see Indian troops moving to their post in Chushul and Chinese troops to the Moldo garrison. In the next phase, additional Indian troops will move further down, around 40 km, to Tara-Rhongo post and Chinese troops to Dorjo. The next priority is Depsang and Gogra-Hot Springs.
The official spokesperson of the Ministry of Defence said that the Line of Actual Control was at Finger 8 and not at Finger 4 at Pangong Tso. The Ministry said India had not conceded any territory as a result of this agreement. In August 2020, Indian troops had taken advantageous positions on the hills on the south bank following which China matched presence, leading to an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation. This incident followed China blocking Indian patrols at multiple locations in eastern Ladakh — north Pangong, Gogra-Hot Springs, Galwan, Depsang and CNN sector in Demchok – followed by amassing of troops and armaments.
The Defence Ministry stated that the assertion that the Indian territory is up to Finger 4 at Pangong Tso is categorically false, it said the territory of India is as depicted by the map of India and includes more than 43,000 sq km currently under illegal occupation of China since 1962.
Permanent posts of both sides of the north bank of Pangong Tso are longstanding and well-established, the Ministry said. On the Indian side, it is Dhan Singh Thapa Post near Finger 3 and on the Chinese side, east of Finger 8.

4. Railways to connect Aizawl by 2023

By March 2023, Aizawl will be linked to India’s railway grid, making Mizoram the fourth of the eight north eastern States to get railway connectivity. A statement issued by the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) said ₹1,000-crore has been allocated for the 2021-22 ﬁscal to be spent on the Bairabi-Sairang railway project that the Railway Ministry wants completed within the next two years. State capital Aizawl is 18 km uphill of Sairang.
Northeast Frontier Railway has been working on a project to link all State capitals in the region. So far, the capitals of three northeastern States have railway connectivity. These are Dispur (Assam), Agartala (Tripura) and Itanagar (Arunachal).

5. Against curbing social-media : Vice President

At a time when the government is involved in a tug-of-war with social media giant Twitter, Rajya Sabha Chairperson M. Venkaiah Naidu called for ‘moderation’ in the use of social media to prevent abuse. He suggested that these platforms should not be converted into war theatre and principle of moderation should be followed.
“Content for social media should be generated in a restrained and responsible manner by keeping the reactions to such content in mind. Such reﬂection would minimise oﬀensive posts. Provocation should not be the objective. Sharing of views for better perspectives should be,” he said.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS/EVENTS/ PERSONALITIES

Daily snippets

1. U.S. imposes sanctions on Myanmar

Anti Coup protesters took to the streets of Myanmar for a sixth consecutive day, after the U.S. President Joe Biden announced sanctions against the Southeast Asian nation’s Generals and demanded they relinquish power. There has been an outpouring of anger and defiance since the military ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi last week and detained her along with other senior figures of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.
Western nations have repeatedly denounced the coup, with the U.S. leading calls for the Generals to relinquish power. In the most significant concrete action to pressure the junta, Mr. Biden announced on Wednesday that his administration was cutting off the Generals’ access to $1 billion in funds in the U.S. European Union Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell has also warned the bloc could impose fresh sanctions on Myanmar’s military.

2. China pulls BBC World News off air for content ‘violation’

China’s broadcasting regulator announced it has pulled BBC World News from the air, saying the channel’s content had “seriously” violated guidelines for reporting in the country. In a statement, China’s National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA) said BBC World News reports about China were found to “seriously violate” broadcast guidelines, including “the requirement that news should be truthful and fair” and not “harm China’s national interests”.
The move comes after the BBC aired a report on February 3 detailing harrowing accounts of torture and sexual violence against Uighur women in Chinese camps. The NRTA “does not permit the BBC to continue broadcasting in China, and does not accept its new annual application for broadcast,” the statement from Beijing said. The BBC said it was disappointed with the move. “The BBC is the world’s most trusted international news broadcaster and reports on stories from around the world fairly, impartially and without fear or favour,” a BBC spokesperson said.

3. In call with Xi, Biden talks of ‘unfair economic practices’

U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, the first call between the two leaders since Mr. Biden assumed office on January 20. Mr. Biden highlighted concerns about Beijing’s economic practices, its human rights record and “assertive actions in the region”, while affirming his priority of preserving a “free and open Indo-Pacific”, the White House said in a readout of the call.
“President Biden affirmed his priorities of protecting the American people’s security, prosperity, health, and way of life, and preserving a free and open IndoPacific. President Biden underscored his fundamental concerns about Beijing’s coercive and unfair economic practices, crackdown in Hong Kong, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and increasingly assertive actions in the region, including toward Taiwan,” the White House said.
Mr. Xi, however, is reported to have said that Hong Kong, Taiwan and Xinjiang are matters internal to China, as per China’s state run Xinhua news agency

4. Erdogan’s call for revamped Constitution stirs suspicions

Four years after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan assumed sweeping powers, he has wrongfooted his opponents once again by calling for a new Constitution, sparking accusations of trying to set up a diversion from the country’s woes.
The timing aroused immediate suspicions over the intentions of a man who has been at the apex of Turkish political life since 2003, first as Prime Minister and as President since 2014. The 66-year old Turkish leader is facing a sudden burst of student protests, an economy that was under strain even before the COVID-19 pandemic struck last year, and polls showing a melting support base.
The current Constitution was changed in a controversial 2017 referendum, which created an executive presidency. It went into force barely a year later when Mr. Erdogan won re-election, with the amendments allowing him to consolidate his power. Since then the only politicians demanding constitutional changes have been members of the opposition, all calling for a return to the previous parliamentary democracy.

5. Biden to allow asylum seekers into U.S

The U.S. government will begin to gradually process asylum seekers forced to wait in Mexico under a controversial programme put in place by former President Donald Trump. The moves are part of a plan by the administration of President Joe Biden to end the programme, known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).
The Trump administration launched the programme in 2019 as part of a wide-ranging crackdown on the ability to seek asylum in the U.S., the initiative forced more than 65,000 non-Mexican asylum seekers back across the border to wait for their U.S. court hearings. Mr. Biden vowed on the campaign trail to roll back restrictive Trump-era immigration policies, including MPP. Republicans embracing Mr. Trump’s hardline immigration views have criticised the ending of MPP and could use it as fuel for political at tacks if illegal immigration increases on Mr. Biden’s watch.
Under the new rules, migrants will need to register with international organisations over the Internet or by phone and await instructions. An international organisation will test migrants for COVID-19 while they are in Mexico.

6. Slap sanctions on Myanmar, say UN rights envoy

The United Nations human rights investigator for Myanmar urged the UN Security Council to consider imposing punitive sanctions, arms embargoes and travel bans in response to a military coup. The United States, which imposed its own sanctions on Thursday, urged other UN member states to follow suit, in its ﬁrst remarks to the Human Rights Council since returning to the forum.
China and Russia, which have close ties to Myanmar’s military, said they opposed holding the session. “What happened in Myanmar is essentially Myanmar’s internal aﬀairs,” said Chen Xu, China’s ambassador. Russian ambassador Gennady Gatilov said human rights issues should be addressed through “open dialogue and cooperation”.

7. Child malnutrition in Yemen

About 4,00,000 children under the age of ﬁve are in danger of dying of acute malnutrition in war torn and impoverished Yemen, UN agencies said. They said half of those in the most vulnerable age bracket, or 2.3 million small children, are projected to suﬀer from severe malnutrition this year. The number of Yemeni children in danger of death from lack of food has increased to 4,00,000, an increase of 22% over 2020.

8. Mario Draghi is set to be Italy's new Prime Minister

With almost all the political parties behind him, Mario Draghi is said to form a new government to lead Italy through the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the 73-year old economist has shown he is willing to take his time, and could take a few more days to ﬁnalise his cabinet. Italy has high hopes from the former European Central Bank Chief Mr. Draghi, dubbed ‘Super Mario’ after vowing to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro single currency in the 2010s debt crisis.

OPINIONS & ANALYSIS

Analysis : In Biden’s policy pursuit, the world order challenge

(i). Background

Mr. Biden in office has already revealed that despite some differences in policy content and diplomatic style, his term is likely to show more continuity than change where the U.S. 's core interests are concerned, specifically in its ties with Russia, China and Iran.

(ii). US-Russia

The White House said that, in his conversation with Russian President Vladmir Putin, he made it clear that the U.S. “will act firmly in defence of our national interests in response to actions by Russia” and brought up Ukraine, the cyber attacks and the poisoning of Russian Opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

(iii). US-Iran (JCPOA)

In office, Mr. Biden has shown little urgency on the JCPOA matter. Despite the sanctions, Iran’s regional influence remains significant, based on the backing of Shia militia in such diverse locales as Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Syria. The Iranian ability to mobilise militants across the region is viewed by Israel and some the Gulf Arab states as threatening their security, the latter being concerned about Iran’s influence with their Shia populations as well.
There will thus be no dramatic change in the U.S.’s approach to Iran on the nuclear question. The appointment of a Special Envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, suggests that the U.S. is looking at a long-term diplomatic engagement not just on nuclear issues but on all matters that have security implications for the U.S. and its regional partners.
Battle lines will thus remain in place in the region – Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will be in a faceoff with Iran and its allies, Iraq, Syria and its Shia militia – in a prolonged war of attrition that does not resolve any issue, but continues to wreak death and destruction.

(iv). Role of Qatar

Alternatively, we could see a genuine regional effort to ease tensions and promote regional confidence, spearheaded by Qatar, working with Russia and, possibly, China. Qatar’s Foreign Minister has already proposed direct engagement with Iran.

(v). New World Order

Not only is Russia now an influential player in the region, China, too, with its Belt and Road Initiative, has high stakes in regional stability. Mr. Biden will thus witness a new world order, shaped by a coalition of Russia, China and Iran, in which the U.S. is no longer the most significant role player. This tectonic change will define international affairs in coming decades.

Commentary : From Myanmar to Pakistan, lots of words but no action

(i). Background

Two days after the February 1 coup ousting Aung San Suu Kyi and other National League for Democracy (NLD) leaders from power in Myanmar, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing found fault with the November 2020 general elections that returned the NLD to power with an increased majority.

(ii). Similarities and differences

Like in Pakistan, coups and decades of military rule in Myanmar have been institutional. There has been little room for a cabal of officers to take over (though attempts have been made); coup leaders have survived (and thrived) only because they had institutional support from their officers and men.
The international context is key for the survival of the generals – Ayub in Pakistan was much loved by the West, especially the Americans. Zia, from being shunned, turned out to be a ‘saviour’ for the Americans after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Gen. Musharraf, correctly accused of presiding over a military establishment that promoted terror groups, gave up Al-Qaeda leaders in instalments and placated an angry U.S. President George W. Bush.
In contrast, the West never engaged with isolationist Burmese generals. In the end, while first words matter, actions speak louder. Military rulers have contributed little to improving the lot of common people – in Myanmar or in Pakistan. They simply ended up perpetuating uniformed establishments.

Analysis : India's digital service tax

(i). Background

Concerns have been raised, citing it discriminatory, a 2% tax that India has charged since April 2020 on revenues from digital services, applicable only to non-resident companies.

(ii). The evolution

In 2013, the Base Erosion and Proﬁt Shifting (BEPS) programme by the OECD [Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development] was launched at the behest of the G20 countries. Under the 15 action points, action point one was to look at the tax challenges of the digital economy.
The main problem was to ﬁnd a new way of taxing digital companies that are not adequately taxed because of how the rules are designed. The primary concern was that companies don’t have a physical location in the markets where they operate. And use the intangibles, which are hard to value. India, in 2016, became the ﬁrst country to implement the equalisation levy, on advertising services at 6%. This was basically on payments made to a non-resident by a resident advertising on the platform.
In 2016, the Akhilesh Ranjan Committee Report had suggested that in order to create a level playing ﬁeld between online businesses and brick-and-mortar businesses, digital businesses which do not have a physical presence in India but are able to enjoy a sustainable economic presence should be paying a certain amount of tax. This was how the equalisation levy of 2016 was conceptualised.
India, originally in 2018, had introduced a test for signiﬁcant economic presence in the Income Tax Act, according to which, if a company had users in India, it sort of deﬁned its economic connection with India, and therefore gives India the right to tax. While this was introduced in the Act, it did not have any value because the treaties would have to incorporate a similar provision for it to be applicable.
However, Unlike the 2016 levy, this 2020 levy was devoid of any sort of public consultation. It was a major surprise for the digital community. Other countries introduced DSTs akin to India’s equalisation levy. However, these have not been devoid of public consultation.

(iii). The U.K tax

One of the primary criticisms against India’s equalisation levy is that it is a tax on revenue as opposed to being a tax on proﬁts. U.K. allows companies to not pay any tax if their net operating margin is negative.
Companies that sell their own inventories are explicitly excluded from the scope of the U.K. DST. Whereas, India’s equalisation levy covers everything under the sun. A transaction that involves three jurisdictions, take the example of an Indian user located in the U.K., receiving services from a U.S. company. The U.K. DST contemplates that only 50% of the revenues from such a transaction would be chargeable to the U.K. DST.

(iv). Why the USTR finds India's DST problematic

The investigation ﬁnds that India’s equalisation levy discriminates against U.S. companies in particular. The reason for it is that the tax incident by design is on non-resident companies. And because the incident of the equalisation levy is mostly on U.S. companies, which is 72%. It’s arbitrary, as per the U.S. The USTR report also says that the same services oﬀered non-digitally are not taxed.
The report also claims that DST taxes companies with no permanent establishment in India, contravening international tax principles. The BEPS project is based on the fact that digital companies are able to enjoy sustained economic presence in other jurisdictions without being physically present. The international community is moving towards a scenario where such transactions ought to be taxed. Therefore, the USTR's argument is not on the fair side.
The report also claims that DST taxes a company’s revenue rather than its income. This is inconsistent with international tax practice that income, not revenue, is the appropriate basis of corporate taxation. The threshold that India has laid down for the equalisation levy is actually much below what the EU envisages.
The USTR and the 301 investigation : Section 301 investigations are unilateral in nature, because the USTR is essentially deciding whether a measure is violative of the U.S. 's rights. After the WTO law and the dispute settlement mechanism came into picture and the scope of the General Agreement on Trade in Services were expanded to include services as well, countries have been of the view that an international body should be looking at such disputes.

Commentary : Regulation lite : OTT platforms

India’s Internet Based Over-The-Top (OTT) streaming services have operationalised a code of self regulation from February 10, soon after the I&B Ministry announced that it had prepared a set of guidelines and directives for the industry.
The FIRs in U.P. against the Amazon Prime Video series, Tandav, invoking legal provisions on cyber terrorism, obscenity, promoting social enmity and defiling places of worship, on the ground that its portrayal of god was derogatory, and a plea in M.P. on the same series seeking a court direction to bring OTT channels under censorship laws indicate the growing oppressive environment. It is time the Centre took a firm stand against displays of manufactured out-rage and let newer channels of creativity flourish.
The collective initiative of the OTT services under the aegis of the Internet and Mobile Association of India, which places emphasis on abiding by the IPC, laws on women’s and children’s rights, copyright and age appropriate certification and parental control, while upholding Constitutional provisions on free speech, should be given an opportunity to work.
The idea that films must be pre-censored and arbitrary cuts made by government appointed nominees, mostly out of prejudice, is antiquated and repugnant to liberal societies. A policed approach to films and media can only grow a monoculture of propaganda.

ECONOMICS & FINANCE

Daily snippets

1. Amazon moves SC in Future case

E-commerce major Amazon moved the Supreme Court to stay the operation of a Delhi High Court order of February 8, which had revoked an earlier direction to Future Group to maintain status quo on the sale of its retail assets to Reliance Industries. Amazon said the February 8 order was ‘ex-facie arbitrary and illegal’. The order was passed by a Division Bench of the High Court on an appeal ﬁled by Future Retail Limited (FRL).
Amazon urged the apex court to protect its interests by granting an ex-parte stay on the deal between FRL and Reliance. The U.S. ﬁrm said the court should intervene to protect its rights as the “balance of convenience” was in its favour.

2. GM closure of Maharashtra plant

The labour union of General Motors Company has urged the management to reconsider its decision to shut the Talegaon plant and either revive production till the unit is sold to GWM or keep it functional. The U.S. automobile ﬁrm had made it clear that its decision to close down the Talegaon plant in Maharashtra was ﬁnal and the company would not facilitate any automatic transfer of employees to China’s Great Wall Motors (GWM) along with the plant.
GM stated the closure decision was taken because there was no demand in export markets for the vehicles previously produced in Talegaon.

3. Dorsey, Jay-Z partner to promote bitcoin in India

Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey plans to endow a trust with 500 BTC or bitcoins (about $23.7 million as of this writing) along with rapper Jay-Z to aid bitcoin development, with an initial focus on India and Africa. They said that It’ll be set up as a blind irrevocable trust, taking zero direction from them.
The Centre plans to ban private cryptocurrencies and is expected to introduce the Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Oﬃcial Digital Currency Bill, 2021, in the ongoing Budget session of Parliament. The Bill, however, is expected to provide some exceptions so as to aid the development of the technology underlying cryptocurrencies.

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & ENVIRONMENT

Daily snippets

1. Excessive alcohol can cause irreversible changes to DNA

Excessive alcohol consumption can cause irreversible changes to the DNA and these can persist even when alcohol is no longer consumed, revealed a study conducted by a team of researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) in Bengaluru. The eﬀects of alcohol were more pronounced in those who had started drinking at an early age. This suggests that starting to drink early may physically alter many genes, including those of the brain.
“Although we inherit genes from our parents, their expression is regulated in a unique manner in each person, and may be inﬂuenced by their lifestyle. Exposure to alcohol aﬀects the pattern of gene expression, and may explain some of the systemic complications,” said Dr. Murthy, a consultant in the Centre.

SPORTS

Daily snippets

1. India in 12th Fazza International World Para Athletics grand Prix

Para-athletes Devender Kumar and Nimisha Suresh Chakkungalparambil won a gold medal each as India started its campaign at the 12th Fazza International World Para Athletics Grand Prix event by winning six medals here on Thursday.
India took the one-two position in men’s discus throw F44, with Pardeep winning the silver with a throw of 41.77m. Pranav Desai ran 11.76 seconds to claim the silver medal in men's 100m T64 event, while Vinod Kumar took the bronze in men's discus throw F52 with a throw of 18.52 metres. Rakshita Raju (5:22.15min) also clinched a bronze medal in the women's 1500m T11 event.

2. Mori to quit over 'sexist remarks'

Tokyo Olympics chief Yoshiro Mori is to resign after he sparked outrage in Japan and abroad by claiming that women talk too much in meetings. The former prime minister has come under increasing pressure since remarks he made last week to members of the Japanese Olympic Committee. He apologised for the ‘sexist remarks’, while insisting he was repeating complaints made by others.

SUGGESTED READINGS

1. Victim Restitution https://www.livelaw.in/columns/victimology-criminal-justice-criminology-code-of-criminal-procedure-law-commission-169733

2. Domestic violence in India https://thewire.in/women/domestic-violence-india-underreported

3. Rajasthan and updating prison manual https://thewire.in/caste/rajasthan-prison-manual-amended-caste-labour

4. Shaheen Bagh verdict and Right to protest https://www.thequint.com/news/law/supreme-court-shaheen-bagh-judgment-impact-right-to-protest-violation-of-sc-judgment-international-law-experts#read-more

5. Animals and right to get protection https://www.livelaw.in/news-updates/karnataka-high-court-right-to-live-animals-human-being-right-to-get-protection-169794

Download Page : https://e-clat.com/dailynewspage

Sources referred to : The Hindu, The Indian Express, Live Law, Bar & Bench

END

February 10th-11th, 2021

Your 10 minute read!

START

LAW, POLICY & GOVERNANCE

Daily snippets

1. Punjabi actor-activist Deep Sidhu arrested over Red Fort vandalism

Punjabi actor activist Deep Sidhu, who was wanted in the Red Fort violence case, was arrested by the Delhi police. He was later produced in court and remanded in police custody for seven days. The police said Mr. Sidhu had instigated the mob to breach barricades with tractors and deviate from the approved tractor rally route.

2. Army raises a specialist unit to ‘sniff out’ COVID-19

Casper and Jaya have been deployed in Chandigarh and Delhi to screen samples and detect COVID-19 among soldiers posted to forward areas of the Northern Command. They are the first two canines trained to detect COVID-19 cases from sweat and urine samples.
Samples identified as positive by the dogs are confirmed through the RTPCR test. A dog can screen approximately 100 samples in an hour with a rest period of five minutes after every 15 minutes.

3. Rajya Sabha passes Bill extending protection to illegal constructions

The Rajya Sabha passed the National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which extended the protections from punitive action for certain kinds of unauthorised constructions by three years. Legislation replaces ordinance promulgated by the Centre in December last year

4. Centre objects to plea against Special Marriage Act

The Centre has objected to a petition seeking to discontinue with the provision of inviting objection from the public while applying for marriage registration under the Special Marriage Act (SMA). In an affidavit filed before the Delhi High Court, the Ministry of Law and Justice said that the intention behind the provision in SMA was to “keep adequate safe-guards to the interest of various parties involved”.
The provision was challenged by an interfaith couple on the ground that the 30 days gestation period was not warranted as the same objective can be mitigated on the basis of certificates issued by government hospitals and on the basis of undertaking by them.

5. SC stays curbs on activist Rehana

The Supreme Court stayed a blanket ban imposed by the Kerala High Court on activist Rehana Fathima using any kind of media to express or share her views. However, a Bench led by Justice Rohinton F. Nariman retained a condition imposed by the High Court that Ms. Fathima should not use the media to hurt religious feelings.
The December 2018 and November 2020 orders of the High Court concerned bail granted to Ms. Fathima in a case of committing “deliberate and malicious acts” to hurt religious feelings under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code.

6. POCSO doesn’t brook dilution

The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act was enacted in 2012 especially to protect children (aged less than 18) from sexual assault.
The difference between POCSO and IPC, as far as the offence of sexual assault is concerned, is twofold – First, the definition of ‘assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty’ given in the IPC is generic whereas in POCSO, the acts of sexual assault are explicitly mentioned such as touching various private parts or doing any other act which involves physical contact without penetration. Two, whereas the IPC provides punishment for the offence irrespective of any age of the victim, POCSO is specific for the protection of children.
The essence of a woman’s modesty is her sex and the culpable intention of the accused is the crux of the matter in the cases of sexual assault. In the absence of any specific provision in the POCSO Act which requires skin to skin touch as a mandatory element of an offence, any interpretation which dilutes protection to children must be declared ultra vires.

7. Twitter must follow Indian laws: Centre

With the government and Twitter at loggerheads over issues related to content removal and freedom of expression, the Centre expressed “deep disappointment” over the microblogging platform’s partial compliance of its orders “grudgingly” and with substantial delay. In a meeting requested by Twitter, it was informed that the government expected full compliance of the blocking orders and that it was unlikely to revisit the list.

8. 2.2% UAPA cases ended in conviction in 3 years

Only 2.2 % of cases registered under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act between 2016 and 2019 ended in convictions by court, according to data presented by the Union Home Ministry in the Rajya Sabha. Union Minister of State for Home G. Kishan Reddy informed the Upper House that as per the 2019 Crime in India Report compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau, the total number of persons arrested under the Act in 2019 is 1,948.
In another reply, the Minister stated that in the year 2019, as many as 96 persons were arrested for sedition (Section 194A IPC) but only two were convicted and 29 persons were acquitted. Of the 93 cases of sedition, the charge sheet was filed in 40 cases the same year.

9. Editors Guild expresses concern over raids on News Click office

The Editors Guild of India (EGI) expressed concern over raids by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) at the office of the news website NewsClick.in, and the residences of its editor-in-chief and promoter, the editor and senior management. The Press Club of India also expressed concern and called the raid an “unsavoury attack on the media in a bid to intimidate and silence critical journalism”.

10. Reinstate LGBT member of U.P. Home Guards: HC

Treating a person’s sexual orientation as an offence would be interference in the individual’s right of privacy, the Allahabad High Court noted as it directed the Uttar Pradesh Home Guards to reinstate a staff member belonging to the LGBT community whose appointment was cancelled after a video revealing the person’s sexual orientation was widely shared.
The sexual orientation of the petitioner had been stated to be “indulgence in untoward activity”, which was completely in violation of the observations of the Supreme Court in Navtej Singh Johar vs. Union of India, the court said.
Any display of affection among the members of the LGBT community towards their partners in public, so long as it did not amount to indecency or had the potentiality to disturb public order, could not be bogged down by majority perception, the court further said referring to the Supreme Court case.

11. ‘School closure led to loss in foundational abilities’

A field study by Azim Premji University paints a grim picture. Children not only missed out on the regular curricular learning they would have acquired had schools remained open, but are also ‘forgetting’ what they had learnt in previous years. Study says 92% of students from Classes II to VI have lost at least one specific ability in languages.
Foundational abilities are those that form the basis for further learning. Some of the suggestions included eliminating vacations, extending the academic year well into 2021 and perhaps beyond depending on when schools open and reconfiguring the syllabus.

12. Tigress Avni killing: SC notice to forest officials

The Supreme Court prima facie said “celebrations” after the killing of tigress Avni in November 2018 “clearly violated” the law. A Bench led by Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde issued notice to Vikas Kharge, Principal Secretary, Department of Revenue and Forests, Mumbai, and other Maharashtra Forest Department officials on a contempt petition filed by activist and petitioner in person Sangeeta Dogra.

NATIONAL NEWS/ INTERVENTIONS

Daily snippets

1. New variety of marigold

The new variety of marigold developed by the Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR) will fetch money even if they get spoiled as it can be used for extraction of crude carotene, which is mainly used in the pharmaceutical sector. All marigolds have a carotene content of up to 1.4%. However, the Arka Shubha variety of marigold has a carotene content of 2.8%, which is the highest content from a plant source.Presently, India imports most of its carotene from China and other countries. The Arka Shubha variety is of use in the poultry sector as well. Its petals could be used as feed to get quality yolk. It is used as feed for sheep too.

2. ED searches offices of digital news platform

The Enforcement Directorate conducted searches on the premises of digital news platform NewsClick and several other places in connection with alleged receipt of about ₹30 crore from overseas in the past three years. The ED oﬃcials said: “The searches have been carried out under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, based on an FIR registered by the Delhi police a few months ago. We have so far found evidence showing receipt of about ₹30 crore from abroad.” According to the agency, the company running NewsClick allegedly showed ex ports from a premises, which was closed for the past about two years.
DIGIPUB News India Foundation issued a statement, strongly condemning the searches “at the oﬃce of NewsClick and the homes of its directors and editor Prabir Purkayastha. DIGIPUB News India Foundation believes that the ED raids on NewsClick, its editor and directors, is a clear attempt to suppress journalism critical of the government and its allies,” it said.

3. Actor Rajiv Kapoor passes away

Actor-director Rajiv Kapoor, son of celebrated ﬁlmmaker-actor Raj Kapoor, died on Tuesday after a heart attack. Rajiv Kapoor made his acting debut with 1983 ﬁlm Ek Jaan Hain Hum, but made his ﬁrst appearance as a leading man in blockbuster Ram Teri Ganga Maili, which was Raj Kapoor's last directorial venture.

4. Both sides disengaging from Pangong lake area, says China

China’s military announced that frontline troops of India and China had begun disengaging in a “synchronised and organised” manner from the north and south banks of Pangong lake, where both sides have been locked in a standoff for months which, an official source in Delhi said, was the first step in the long process of disengagement and deescalation.
This restarts the stalled process of disengagement in the most protracted military standoff between India and China in decades that resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese casualties at Galwan last year. This is the first phase of disengagement with some tanks and armoured elements on the south bank being withdrawn as well as thinning down of troops on the north bank, a Government of India source said. However, troops continue to remain in key positions. It would be a multistep process for disengagement and de-escalation along the Line of Actual Control and would take time.
The focus of the Corps Commander talks has been on the north and south banks, which has seen tensions with warning shots also fired in the south last year, the first firing incidents along the border since 1975. As part of the first phase of disengagement last June, both sides had pulled back troops by equal distance from Patrolling Points (PP) 14 in the Galwan valley and PP15 in GograHot Springs. It was during the disengagement at Galwan that violent clashes occurred. China and India have agreed to return to the pre-April 2020 positions in eastern Ladakh along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), according to the latest disengagement plan being implemented on the ground.
India and China have been engaged in a faceoff in various pockets in eastern Ladakh since April last year after China stopped Indian patrols in the Finger area of Pangong Tso. The troops have not been able to patrol beyond Finger 4 since the last week of April 2020 after China had ingressed about 8 km. Earlier, the troops could patrol up to Finger 8. The other areas where the buildup continues are the Depsang plains, Galwan, GograHot Springs and the south bank of Pangong.

5. Naga students’ body slams Governor for ‘gag order’

The Naga Students’ Federation (NSF) has slammed Nagaland Governor R.N. Ravi for a “gag order” that prescribes stern penal and disciplinary action against government servants who post “seditious and subversive” content on social media. The Governor’s office in the State capital Kohima had on January 16 informed Chief Secretary JaneAlam about some government servants taking to social media to indulge in “seditious and subversive writings challenging the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country”.

6. SC orders status quo on INS Viraat dismantling

The Supreme Court ordered a status quo on the dismantling of the Navy’s decommissioned aircraft carrier, INS Viraat. The warship is currently awaiting dismantling at the ship-breaking yard at Alang in Gujarat. The petitioners have argued that Viraat, which was the oldest serving warship at the time of its decommissioning, should not be sold as scrap.
In the High Court, the Centre had reportedly said that the 67-year old ship, which had served the Navy for about three decades, was sold to the Gujarat-based Shree Ram Group, a ship breaking ﬁrm, which won the bid. It had said that communications to various States for proposals on the ship were unanswered.

7. Lahaul-Spiti residents want hydro projects in the region scrapped

There is increased anxiety among the people in the Lahaul-Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh who have been up in arms against the hydropower projects proposed in this tribal region. Among the projects proposed in Lahaul-Spiti are Tandi (104 Mega Watt), Rashil (102 MW), Bardang (126 MW), Miyar (90 MW) and Jispa (300 MW). Locals have been voicing their concerns for a long time now.

8. India to better its disaster management

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the World Sustainable Development Summit, 2021, organised by The Energy Resources Institute, in Delhi. “We must enhance our disaster management capabilities. The way to do this is to improve our human resources as well as technology. India is part of the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure. We are working in this direction. We are working towards whatever needs to be done to achieve this. Our human centric approach could act as a force multiplier to achieve this,” the PM said.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS/EVENTS/ PERSONALITIES

Daily snippets

1. WHO on Wuhan link to COVID-19

The virus responsible for COVID-19 was unlikely to have leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, and the evidence pointed to natural origins, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) and China joint expert team that concluded a visit to Wuhan, where the pandemic began. The team also concluded that there was no indication of SARS-CoV-2 having spread among the population there prior to December 2019, when Wuhan’s hospitals ﬁrst began reporting a pneumonia outbreak.
“Our initial ﬁndings suggest that the introduction through an intermediary host species is the most likely pathway and one that will require more studies and more speciﬁc, targeted research,” WHO scientist Peter Ben Embarek, who led the international team said. The location of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in the city had led to theories suggesting the virus may have leaked from a laboratory.
The team examined four pathways: direct transmission from wildlife, transmission through intermediate hosts, transmission via cold chain products, and a laboratory leak. While so far the intermediate host has not been identiﬁed, samples of some animals known to be susceptible to coronaviruses were identiﬁed at the market and some of those traced back to farms or parts of China that harboured bat environments.

2. UAE’s Hope Probe enters Mars orbit

The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) first mission to Mars reached the red planet and entered orbit on Tuesday after a seven-month, 494 million km journey, allowing it to start sending data about the Martian atmosphere. “Contact with #HopeProbe has been established again. The Mars Orbit Insertion is now complete,” the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) said.

3. Saudi authorities release women’s rights activist

Saudi authorities released prominent women’s rights activist Loujain alHathloul after nearly three years in detention, her family said, as the kingdom faces renewed U.S. pressure over its human rights record. Ms. Hathloul, 31, was arrested in May 2018 with about a dozen other women activists weeks before the historic lifting of a decades long ban on female drivers, a reform they had long campaigned for, sparking a torrent of international criticism.
In late December, a Saudi court handed Ms. Hathloul a prison term of five years and eight months for terrorism related crimes, but her family said a partially suspended sentence paved the way for her early release. Her release comes after the U.S. President Joe Biden pledged to intensify scrutiny of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s human rights record.

OPINIONS & ANALYSIS

Analysis : Taking the long view with China

(i). Background

In late January, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said that while both India and China remained committed to a multipolar world, they should recognise that a “multipolar Asia'' was one of its essential constituents. As it moves to becoming the third largest economy in the world, India needs to have a cleareyed world view and strategy as it makes hard choices. It needs to reject the developing country regional mindset that has hobbled national aims and foreign policy.
The External Affairs Ministry is also now more forthright. We have a “special and privileged strategic partnership” with Russia, which provides more than three quarter of India’s military equipment, and a “comprehensive global strategic partnership” with the U.S. despite the United States Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific, 2018, wishing that India sees the U.S. as its preferred partner on security issues.

(ii). Diplomatic challenge

The foreign policy challenge for India is really two sides of the China conundrum : defining engagement with its neighbour which is consolidating an expanding Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) while remaining involved with the strategic, security and technological concerns of the U.S. located across the vast Pacific Ocean.
In the financial sphere, there is the real possibility of the Chinese renminbi becoming a global reserve currency or eyuan becoming the digital payments currency. China is the world’s largest trading economy. It could soon become the world’s largest economy – the Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest companies by revenue for the first time contains more companies based in China, including Hong Kong, than in the U.S.

(iii). Policy elements

Some form of the EU’s China policy of seeing the emerging superpower as a partner, competitor, and economic rival depending on the policy area in question is going to be the global norm. The EU’s reaching out to China despite misgivings of the U.S. means the West has given up on containing the rise of China.
The China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has increased its membership to 100 countries. China is now the second biggest financial contributor to the UN and has published more high impact research papers than the U.S. did in 23 out of 30 “hot” research fields and enhancing its ‘soft power’ nearly to levels achieved by the U.S. earlier. Instead of an alternate development model, India should move the Quad towards supplementing the infrastructure push of the BRI in line with other strategic concerns in the region.

(iv). Policy evolution

Another area where India can play a ‘bridging role’ is global governance whose principles, institutions and structures now have to accommodate other views for issue based understandings. President Xi Jinping’s “community with shared future for mankind”, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “climate justice” and asking how long India will be excluded from the UN Security Council, challenge the frame of the liberal order without providing specific alternatives. With respect to digital data, the defining issue of the 21st century, India has recently expressed that there must be reciprocity in data sharing, and this is the kind of ‘big idea’ for sharing prosperity that will gain traction with other countries.

Commentary : Denying women the right over their bodies

(i). Background

The Indian Parliament will consider an amendment to our abortion laws this Budget Session but unlike the Argentina law which is touted as being historic, the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (MTP Bill), will not translate into greater autonomy for women over their own bodies.

(ii). What’s in the proposed bill

The proposed amendment still *requires one doctor** to sign off on termination of pregnancies up to 20 weeks old, and two doctors for pregnancies between 20 and 24 weeks old. Thus, it is not based on any request or isn’t at the pregnant person’s will but on a doctor’s opinion.
The Bill also mandates the government to set up a medical board in every State and UT. Medical boards can rely on the facts of the case but personal beliefs could impact the medical board’s opinion, which is one of the biggest challenges in having a third party opinion on a decision which is very personal.
While the current Bill provides that safe abortions can be performed at any stage of the pregnancy in case of foetal “abnormalities,” it fails to consider any other reason such as personal choice, a sudden change in circumstances due to separation from or death of a partner, and domestic violence.
The proposed amendment uses the word “women” throughout, denying access to safe abortion to transgender, intersex and gender diverse persons.

Analysis : Cutting trans fat

(i). Background

India will join a select group of countries limiting trans fat to 2% by mass of the total oils/fats present in the product. In mid-2016, the trans fat content limit was halved from 10% to 5%, and in December 2020, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) capped it to 3% by 2021.
While trans fat is naturally present in red meat and dairy products, the focus is on restricting the industrially produced trans fat used solely to prolong the shelf life of products at less cost. The government’s notiﬁcation speciﬁcally mentions edible oils and fats that are used as ingredients, it also applies to emulsions such as margarines.

(ii). Nuances on trans fat

Even when the fat/oil contains less than 2% trans fat, repeated use at high temperature can increase the trans fat content.
The focus on cutting down trans fat content in food arises from its proclivity to negatively alter the lipoprotein cholesterol proﬁle by increasing the level of bad cholesterol (LDL) while decreasing the level of HDL or good cholesterol. These changes in the lipoprotein cholesterol proﬁle increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
In 2004, Denmark became the first country to limit trans fat content in all foods to 2% of fats and oils. In April 2019, the European Union (EU) adopted a new regulation – from April 2021 – to limit the amount of industrially produced trans fat to 2% in all foods sold within the EU. According to a 2020 report of WHO, 32 countries already have some form of mandatory limits on trans fat. It is now well known that trans fat can be completely eliminated and replaced with healthier substitutes without any change in the food taste or cost.

ECONOMICS & FINANCE

Daily snippets

1. Government to clarify e-commerce FDI rules

The Centre plans to issue a clariﬁcation on the foreign direct investment (FDI) policy for the e-commerce sector in the wake of investigations into some foreign players’ operations following complaints about malpractices, according to Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal.
“To reiterate, e-commerce is supposed to provide an agnostic platform so that buyers and sellers can trade with each other, the platform should not become a part of the trading transaction, neither should it be funding it or having algorithms that give preference to one or the other. They should neither be promoting their own products, but provide all data required to make a rational choice and the choice should be the free choice of the consumers,” Mr. Goyal explained.

2. Government asks auto firms to not sell vehicles low on safety

The government expressed concern over reports that manufacturers are selling vehicles with purposefully downgraded safety standards in India and asked them to stop the ‘unpardonable’ practice.
Over the past few years, vehicle safety group Global NCAP, under its safer cars for India campaign, had found in various tests that some models sold in India were found to have inferior safety ratings as compared to the export version of the same model sold in developed markets.

3. SEBI fines NSE

In the high proﬁle, co-location case, markets regulator SEBI imposed a penalty of ₹1 crore on the NSE for failing to provide a level playing ﬁeld for trading members subscribing to its tick-by-tick (TBT) data feed system. In addition, the regulator levied a ﬁne of ₹25 lakh each on NSE’s former managing directors and chief executive officers.
The National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) colocation facility allows stock brokers to colocate their servers and systems within the exchange premises, which helps reduce latency for connectivity to the exchange’s trading systems. In its order, SEBI said unequal access was apparent at diﬀerent stages of the technology process and that NSE failed to ensure a level playing ﬁeld for trading members subscribing to its TBT data feed system.

SUGGESTED READINGS

1. Priya Ramani vs M.J Akbar case https://thewire.in/women/priya-ramani-vs-m-j-akbar-ahead-of-verdict-a-recap-of-the-metoo-case-that-shook-india

2. Remembering K.T Shah https://www.livelaw.in/columns/constitution-making-professor-k-t-shah-constituent-assembly-dr-ambedkar-169639

3. Election Commission and its power to de-register parties https://www.livelaw.in/columns/election-commission-representation-of-people-act-political-party-de-register-169650

4. International best practices for whistle-blowers https://www.livelaw.in/columns/whistle-blowers-protection-act-rti-official-secrets-act-wbpa-corruption-169677

5. Disinformation and cyber-security https://www.pressreader.com/india/the-hindu/20210211/281762746951975

Download Page : https://e-clat.com/dailynewspage

Sources referred to : The Hindu, The Indian Express, Live Law, Bar & Bench

END