Machiavellian moves / Jitendra

On December 21, 2014, the Rajasthan government passed an ordinance which barred illiterate candidates from contesting panchayat elections. Earlier that month, on December 8, it had passed another ordinance that made it compulsory for people contesting panchayat elections to have a toilet in their house.

On the face of it, the laws appear progressive. But experts say that they are just a mechanism used by state governments to keep institutions of local self governance in check. The trend is not new and Rajasthan is not the only state in the country to have passed such laws. On November 9, 2014, Gujarat made voting compulsory in municipal and panchayat elections. The law goes against an earlier provision of the same government which called for electing local representatives by consensus, instead of polls. Under the provision, titled Samras, a village gets Rs 10 lakh if panchayat members are chosen through consensus.

The beginning of such laws can be traced to the late 1990s when several states barred people having more than two children from contesting municipal and panchayat elections. The rule was conceptualised as a measure to check population. Whether it helped or not is yet to be assessed, but many studies have indicated that marginalised classes—women, dalits and minorities—have been targeted by such provisions. A study by Delhi-based non-profit Hunger Project showed that till 2007, about 900 women in Madhya Pradesh and 800 in Chhattisgarh had been disqualified for violating the two-child norm.

“We have documented hundreds of cases where elected women, dalits, and people belonging to the minorities were made to resign. Cases of forced abortion, abandonment of children, divorce, forging of birth certificates also became rampant due to such laws,” says Shaheena Parveen of Hunger Project. “The 73rd amendment of the Constitution ensured reservation of 50 per cent seats for women at the local level, but such provisions have come under attack by draconian laws made by states,” she adds.

Parveen is working in Bihar on issues

related to women empowerment. There are cases that substantiate her point. In 2011, Rehana Khatoon, 35, was removed as ward councillor in Patna’s Phulwari Sharif municipality after the birth of her fourth child. “I had three daughters when I was elected ward councillor,” says Rehana. “Desiring a boy, my husband compelled me to have another baby. Later, the state election commission removed me from the post,” she says.

“In another case in Gaya district, a dalit woman representative was removed in 2010 through a conspiracy by opposite parties. They forged documents to show that the woman had had her third child after she got elected. But this was not the case,” says Parveen.

In 2005, the Union Ministry of Panachayti Raj issued an advisory to Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Haryana to do away with the two-child policy. But only Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have done so. In 2007, Bihar too introduced the policy in urban local bodies, with the promise to include such provision in panchayats.

Right to remove

Right to remove is another provision which has faced severe opposition. The rule, which is in force in all the states of the country, empowers bureaucrats to remove elected representatives on criminal or corruption charges, says S C Behar, former chief secretary of Madhya Pradesh.

In the absence of clear guidelines, the rule is often used by bureaucrats, at the behest of their political bosses, to target leaders belonging to opposition parties. “There are no defined regulations to implement this law,” says Amitabh Singh, a Bhopal-based social worker who studied the impact of the provision. “Bureaucrats make arbitrary rules and officials of sub-divisional magistrate rank are empowered to remove elected representatives,” he says.

In 2010, while hearing the case of Sharda Kailash Mittal, who was removed from the post of councillor in Madhya Pradesh’s Muraina district on charges of corruption, the Supreme Court termed the removal illegal. “The judgement pointed out that such laws are an insult to local democracy,” says Singh.

“During the British period, the government had the right to dissolve elected bodies. This provision reminds one of that era,” says Behar. After the 73rd Amendment in 1993, states cannot keep local bodies in a dissolved state for more than six months, but the removal provision has raised new questions, Behar adds. “Empowering bureaucrats to remove elected representatives belittles the democratic process. Empowering gram sabhas to remove its representatives would have been a better move,” says Ved Bhardwaj of Hunger Project. Madhya Pradesh has a similar provision in its panchayat rules under which people can be allowed to recall their representatives to local bodies. But the provision has not been implemented.

Power game

Yogesh Kumar of Bhopal-based non-profit Samarthan says such laws are aimed at keeping local governance weak. “The Centre does not want strong states and the states do not want strong local bodies,” says Kumar. “We call it a politics of exclusion,” says Subhas Mendhapurkar, a Himachal Pradesh-based social activist working on local governance issues. “The class which wields power imposes its wishes to exclude those who are weak.”

Experts also argue against the educational and compulsory voting provisions. The literacy criterion is another way of telling women and tribal people not to contest, says Renuka Pamecha of Jaipur-based non-profit Vividha. Nandana Reddy, convener of Karnataka-based Gram Panchayat Hakkathay Andolan goes a step further and says the rule is unconstitutional. “Literacy certificate is not the sole criterion of being intelligent, nor does it guarantee incorruptibility,” she says. Similarly, the compulsory voting provision of the Gujarat government has not found much support. “The decision is not going to stand the test of law,” says T R Raghunadan, former joint secretary in the Union Ministry of Rural Development. “It is constitutionally unacceptable. If I have the right to vote, then I also have the right to not vote,” he says.

B K Sinha, who is working for strengthening local governance in Bihar, offers the clinching argument: “Why doesn’t the government implement such provisions for MLAs and MPs?

Source: http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/machiavellian-moves

Scientists without a scientific temper / Pushpa M. Bhargava

Jawaharlal Nehru coined the term ‘scientific temper’ in his book The Discovery of India , which was published in 1946. He was also the President of the Association of Scientific Workers of India (ASWI), which was registered as a Trade Union, and with which I was closely associated with in the 1940s and the early 1950s. (This may be the only example of a Prime Minister of a democracy being the President of a Trade Union.) One of the objectives of ASWI was to propagate scientific temper. It was very active in the beginning, but fizzled out by the 1960s as the bulk of scientists in the country, including many who were occupying high positions, were themselves not committed to scientific temper which calls for rationality, reason and lack of belief in any dogma, superstition or manifest falsehood.

The conclusion that our very own scientists — who would be expected to be leaders in the development of scientific temper — did not possess scientific temper themselves and were just as superstitious as any other group was supported by another incident in 1964. Following a statement by Satish Dhawan (who later became Secretary, Department of Space), Abdur Rahman (a distinguished historian of science) and I, set up an organisation called The Society for Scientific Temper, in January 1964, the founding members of which included distinguished scientists like Francis Crick, a Nobel Prize winner. For membership to the society, the following statement had to be signed: “ I believe that knowledge can be acquired only through human endeavour and not through revelation, and that all problems can and must be faced in terms of man’s moral and intellectual resources without invoking supernatural powers .”

We were disillusioned when we approached scientist after scientist and all of them refused to sign the statement. Clearly they were devoid of scientific temper. Following this disillusionment, I persuaded Professor Nurul Hasan, then Education Minister, to have the following clause included in Article 51A in the 42nd Amendment of the Constitution in 1976: “It shall be the duty of every citizen of Indian “to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of enquiry and reform.”

This should have woken up our scientists and reminded them of their duty vis-à-vis scientific temper, but I do not believe that the situation in this respect is any better, even today, than what it was 50-60 years ago. Let me cite three examples.

Little improvement

During the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, then Human Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi asked the University Grants Commission to issue a circular to all universities stating that they should start a degree course in astrology. For this, he said, a special grant would be given. My colleague Chandana Chakrabarti and I filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court challenging this dispensation. Our lawyer was Prashant Bhushan. The petition was admitted but was eventually dismissed (as could be expected), for belief in astrology — which is totally unscientific and irrational and has been repeatedly shown to be a myth — is widespread, with those who dispense justice also not being immune to it. Not one scientist came forward in support of us; nor did any of the six national science academies we have, on which a substantial amount of public funds are spent every year. Our supporters, who even sent us unsolicited funds to fight the case, were all non-scientists. In fact, recognising the above inadequacies of our science academies and their insensitivity to science-related social problems in general, I resigned from the fellowship of three of our science academies in 1993.

The second example would be the silence of our scientists and the six science academies when, last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing a group of scientists in Mumbai, claimed that organ transplantation was known in ancient India — he gave Ganesha with his elephant head and human torso as an example.

The third example would be the much publicised symposium on “Ancient Sciences through Sanskrit” at the 102nd Indian Science Congress in Mumbai, which was held earlier this month. At this meeting, it was said that India had jumbo aircraft (60 x 60 feet; in some cases 200 feet long) that flew between continents and planets 9,000 years ago (some 4,500 years before Harappa and Mohenjo-daro). Not only that, it was also claimed that we had a radar system better than the present one, based on the principle that every animate or inanimate object emits energy all the time. And in the 21st century, “fusion of science and spirituality will happen because of the law of inter-penetration,” it was said. I doubt if any serious academic would have heard of this law which would not make any sense. These and many other absurd claims made at the symposium were an insult to the several real scientific accomplishments of ancient and medieval India.

Winding up academies

None of our so-called scientists of note and scientific academies has raised a voice against these claims. Surely, the distinguished scientists who organised the Science Congress knew what was likely to be said at the symposium, but, perhaps, they believed in it all or were pressurised politically. Therefore, there is a strong case for the annual Indian Science Congress to be banned (as I also argued in my article in The Hindu, “Why the Indian Science Congress meets should be stopped” (Open Page, September 30, 1997), or its name to be changed to Indian Anti-science Congress.

As regards the science academies, they can easily be wound up without any damage being caused to Indian science. India has not produced any Nobel Prize winner in science in the last 85 years – largely because of the lack of a scientific environment in the country, of which scientific temper would be an important component.

(Pushpa M. Bhargava is the founder-director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology at Hyderabad, and chairman of the Southern Regional Centre of Council for Social Development.)

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/scientists-without-a-scientific-temper/article6795458.ece

raising the quarterly buffer stock and strategic reserve limits of Food Corporation of India

Recently the government approved raising the quarterly buffer stock and strategic reserve limits of Food Corporation of India (FCI) for both wheat and rice, for the first time since 2005. Examine the reasons and its implications.

India has over 30% of population under poverty line and 40% of children are malnourished, Government PDS and role of FCI ensures food security and play central role in Indian agro-economy. Our procurement policy has come under sharp criticism from both domestic and foreign economists. We are in dilemma of handling paradoxical situation of record production and persistent food inflation.

The cabinet approval of raising quarterly buffer stock is triggered by following reasons:
1) Our buffer stock is way higher then stipulated norms. As we can't export and sell in open market, FCI is said to be violating norms. To avoid violation, raising reserve limits will be a quick-fix to problem.
2) Because of deficient rainfall, rabi harvest is likely to be low. To avoid any shortage of food for PDS, government wanted to procure grains beforehand.
3) To implement National Food Security Act, 2013, we need a huge quantity of grains and cereals to feed 66% of population which is 80 crore people.
4) By diverting these stocks to open market, we can bring retail inflation (CPI) down which is key measure to our monetary policy.

However there are certain implications in holding huge reserves:
1) As FCI storage capacity is limited, there will be huge carrying costs. It might result in bad quality of grains and pilferage.
2) Hoarding by vested interests can be controlled.
3) We can align our domestic markets with international markets. When commodity prices are high in markets, we can export and bring prosperity to agrarian community.

We need to diversify our food production base, develop food processing industry and open our agriculture sector to markets to transform farmers lives. We can't tackle poverty, inflation, underdeveloped agri market with less-optimal tools like APMC, MSP, loan waivers.

Lifting Olympus / Justice Katju

The Russian threat runs out of fuel / Daniel Gros

For Europe, the defining event of 2014 was Russia's annexation of Crimea and military intervention in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region. The Kremlin's actions directly challenged key principles that have guided Europe for more than six decades, particularly the renunciation of the use of force to alter national borders. But Russia is in no position to sustain its aggressive foreign policy.

It has often been argued that Russia was reacting to the perceived encroachment on its "near abroad" by theEuropean Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato). But history suggests a simpler explanation: a decade of steadily rising oil prices had emboldened Russia, leaving it ready to seize any opportunity to deploy its military power.

Indeed the Soviet Union had a similar experience 40 years ago, when a protracted period of rising oil revenues fuelled an increasingly assertive foreign policy, which culminated in the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. Oil prices quadrupled following the first oil embargo in 1973, and the discovery of large reserves in the 1970s underpinned a massive increase in Soviet output. As a result, from 1965 to 1980, the value of Soviet oil production soared by a factor of almost 20.

Burgeoning oil wealth bolstered the regime's credibility - not least by enabling a significant increase in military spending - and rising economic and military strength gave the Soviet Union's geriatric leadership a rejuvenated sense of invulnerability. The invasion of Afghanistan was not merely an improvised response to a local development (a putsch in Kabul); it was also a direct result of this trend.

Vladimir Putin's reaction to the Euromaidan demonstrations in Ukraine followed a similar pattern. In both cases, a seemingly low-cost opportunity was viewed as yielding a large strategic gain - at least in the short run. Indeed while the devastating consequences of the Soviet Union's Afghan adventure are now well known, at the time the invasion was viewed as a major defeat for the West.

The Soviet army's retreat in 1988 is usually ascribed to the Afghan insurgency, led by Pakistan-trained mujahideen with support from the United States. But the decline in oil prices during the 1980s, which cut the value of Soviet output to one-third of its peak level, undoubtedly played a role. Indeed it led to a period of extreme economic weakness - a key factor in the Soviet Union's dissolution just three years after its withdrawal from Afghanistan.

During the 1990s, Russia was too preoccupied with its own post-Soviet political turmoil to object to EU or Nato enlargement to the east. Nor did it have the wherewithal, as its own production and oil prices continued to decline, hitting a trough of $10 a barrel in 1999-2000.

Russia's stance changed gradually during the early 2000s, as world oil prices - and Russian output - recovered, reinvigorating the country's economic base at a time when its leadership was becoming increasingly autocratic. Only then did Russia start to claim that the United States and its European allies had offered some implicit pledge not to expand Nato eastward.

With oil prices steadily rising, the value of Russian oil production reached a new peak, roughly 10 times the 1999 level, in 2008; Russia invaded Georgia the same year. Though prices collapsed during the Great Recession of 2009, they quickly recovered, with the value of Russian output reaching another peak in 2012-2013 - precisely when Russia's position on the EU-Ukraine association agreement hardened. Given that the EU and Ukraine had already been negotiating the deal for more than two years, without much reaction from Russia, the EU was blindsided by the Kremlin's sudden sharp objections.

Clearly, Russia's attitude toward its near abroad is not quite as erratic as it may seem. When oil prices rise, Russia expresses its latent resentments more aggressively, often employing its military. Moreover, at higher prices, the oil industry crowds out other export sectors that support open markets and a less aggressive foreign policy.

The Soviet war in Afghanistan was followed by a long-term decline in oil prices. The recent price slide - to $50-60 a barrel, halving the value of Russia's oil production - suggests that history is about to repeat itself.

And oil prices are not Russia's only problem. Western sanctions, which seemed to constitute only a pinprick a few months ago, appear to have inflicted serious damage, with the rouble having lost nearly half its value against the dollar last year. Though financial markets will calm down when the rouble's exchange rate settles into its new equilibrium, Russia's economy will remain weak, forcing the country's leaders to make tough choices.

Against this background, a stalemate in the Donbas seems more likely than an outright offensive aimed at occupying the remainder of the region and establishing a land corridor to Crimea - the outcome that many in the West initially feared. President Putin's new Novorossya project simply cannot progress with oil prices at their current level.

To be sure, Russia will continue to challenge Europe. But no amount of posturing can offset the disintegration of the economy's material base caused by the new equilibrium in the oil market. In this sense, the United States has come to Europe's rescue in a different way: its production of shale oil and gas is likely to play a greater role in keeping Russia at bay than Nato troops on Europe's eastern borders.

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source: http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/daniel-gros-the-russian-threat-runs-out-of-fuel-115011601338_1.html

The Naxal challenge to electoral process / Navin B. Chawla

India’s general election is the largest exercise of its kind in the democratic world. Since it fell on me to oversee four out of five phases of the election in 2009, it was also viewed by the country as being my responsibility. This task included every aspect of its planning, including visits to the naxal-affected States in the run-up to the election. With 716 million voters, almost 8,35,000 polling stations and several million officials in service, there was no dearth of problems, all of which had either to have been anticipated or attended to in the shortest period. Time was short. In this case, there were barely 76 days from the announcement of polls to the date of counting of votes.

I do not intend to go into the reasons that have caused the growth of armed insurgency, a protracted war of sorts, that has been waged against the state since the 1960s. Its history is complex and arguments, for and against, continue to be made. Underlying the Maoist philosophy has been its opposition to the very concept of the democratic state. The Maoist view (and which still remains) was that it was a people’s war against an unjust government. Hence, conducting elections was to be opposed by all means available, and which justified the use of extreme violence. Towards this end, anyone who opposed its call for a boycott was a potential target, and which included political parties and candidates, election staff and ordinary voters. My task was to ensure that the election would be conducted on schedule but by avoiding the risk of loss of life or limb using all means available.

Dangers in the Red Corridor

By 2009, naxal-related violence was estimated to have spread up to 180 administrative districts (out of a total of 610 districts in the country), spread over nine States — Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Odisha, Maharashtra, Karnataka, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. It was estimated that there were about 20,000 armed cadres.

The most significant challenge in all this was the open threat by Maoists to prevent or severely disrupt the holding of elections. It was well recognised that in the “Red Corridor” of deeply forested Central India, the Maoist threat was all too real. Much of the infrastructure that we needed, schools and other government buildings to set up poll stations, was badly damaged; several roads, bridges and mobile towers had been blown up. Therefore, the major issues that concerned us were movement, communication and safety.

But our problems were by no means confined to these remote areas; there were a number of urban pockets which provided the Maoists shelter and weapons, and where they were indistinguishable from the population at large. Hence, our canvas was very wide indeed.

From earlier elections, the Maoist’s modus operandi was well known. In order to prevent vehicular movement on arterial roads, they had planted explosive devices, often deep under road surfaces. Aimed against any and all security forces, these lethal elements were implanted sometimes at the time of road laying. Gelatin sticks and explosives, often stolen from sites of mining operations, were strategically hidden under bridges and culverts. Compounding our problems were the huge number of landmines the Maoists had buried under jungle footpaths as well. Further, to specifically deter voters, Maoists have been known to chop off the fingers of the first voter in queues at election booths. All of this made political activity, the very life blood of elections, as hard as possible for political parties. However, the security forces remained their special targets. By killing them, they could also loot their weaponry in order to stock their own requirements.

The early signs were ominous. On April 13, 10 policemen were killed when Maoists attacked a bauxite mine in Koraput district of Odisha, where they also seized explosives. Since I had already begun to undertake detailed reviews in the region, these attacks heralded the naxal warning of their own readiness to thwart the process.

Duty before life

The efforts that went into the setting up of polling stations in these troubled areas necessitated attention to detail. These were carried out in the main by district magistrates/collectors and superintendents of police under the general supervision of the Election Commission. It is not known to the public how difficult these duties are or were for our poll officials. Most often teachers and revenue officials, they had to walk long distances over dangerous terrain (with electronic voting machines) in order to set up their stations. Walking became necessary because transportation by road was infinitely more dangerous. In all these cases, these brave civilian officials put duty before life, and in my mind, remain the true heroes of the election.

Voter insecurity was another issue that had to be looked into, for if they did not feel confident enough to come out to vote, the Maoists would have achieved their aim. Equally important, candidates needed to move around for electioneering. The constantly fluid situation did not make for easy movement as the basic precautions they needed to take were being constantly spelt out to them by the district authorities. This was vital, as timely information and putting in place alternative plans very often helped save many lives. Witness the carnage in Bastar on May 25, 2013, when ignoring basic ground rules cost the lives of a number of Congress leaders and security personnel in Bastar, making it one of the most deadly attacks on the political establishment in recent years as far as Naxal-related violence in India is concerned. The prospect of even a single casualty worried me constantly. Therefore, no detail was too small, no travel too inconvenient and 24 hours not time enough to sort out problems. The Commission’s three indefatigable IAS officers, R. Balakrishnan, J.P. Prakash and Vinod Zutshi, were stretched to the extent possible.

We soon realised that a vital requirement was in having helicopters from the Indian Air Force, thereby reducing the need for long and dangerous jungle treks. Their use would also help send police officials where needed, or rescue electoral staff in case of danger. I also wanted two helicopters to be converted into air ambulances.

The initial response was not too encouraging, but when I explained to the authorities how the use of helicopters would play a key role in saving lives, providing deterrence, and ultimately help in strengthening the democratic process, I was able to get almost everything that I needed. The presence of the machines was a strong psychological reassurance. I also acknowledge the efforts of the brave flight crew as well.

Growing threat

Inspite of the many obstacles, including 17 deaths from Maoist attacks in two States, elections were held on time. There was 55 per cent polling in the first phase and 65 per cent in the second. This was quite a good turnout considering the circumstances, and the press commented on the triumph of ballot over bullet. Yet, there were violent incidents and loss of life. These continued immediately after the election process was over, when on May 21, 16 police personnel including five policewomen were gunned down in Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra.

In 2006, the Prime Minister described the naxal threat as the greatest internal security problem that India faced. Between 2006 and 2010, there were an estimated 9,000 incidents in Maoist-dominated States; in the election year of 2009, when there was also an Assembly election in Jharkhand, there were as many as 1,100 incidents.

This internal conflict has deeply affected India’s governance, security, economy and rule of law. In February 2009, the government initiated an Integrated Action Plan. This involves broad and more coordinated operations alongside grass-root economic development projects. However, our track record in understanding this very complex problem has been spasmodic at best. A much more comprehensive, holistic and sustained policy involving across-the-board views particularly within the severely affected States, is long overdue. From the singular point of the conduct of future elections, our reputation as a successful democratic beacon will henceforth depend on the ability of the government to find solutions to this growing problem within our polity.

(Navin B. Chawla, Chief Election Commissioner of India from April 16, 2009 to July 29, 2010, conducted the country’s general election to the 15th Lok Sabha.)

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/the-naxal-challenge-to-electoral-process/article6782396.ece

Urban Heat Islands

Urban heat islands is the phenomenon where the urban regions experience elevated temperatures than their rural surroundings. This increase in temperature can vary from 1 to 3 degree Celsius.( 1 million city)

Causes of UHI:

1. Reduced vegetation in urban areas:
Vegetation provides shade, evapotranspiration, moisture, and permeable ground surface which all help in lowering temperatures. But in its, absence, urban areas have higher temperatures.

2. Urban materials
Urban materials, such as roof, paving etc. have lower albedo, higher heat capacity and thermal emmisivity than their rural surroundings, and thus absorb more sunlight thus increasing temperatures.

3. Urban geometry
Urban areas discourage proper wind flow, and thus hampering the cooling effect of wind.

4. Anthropogenic heat: i.e. heat from human activities.

Consequences of UHI:
1. Increased energy consumption.
The increased need for cooling increases consumption

2. Elevated emission of air pollutants and green house gases.
Increased energy demand for cooling needs increases energy production and consequent emission.

3. Compromised human health and comfort.
Due to Heating and increased pollution.

4. Impaired water quality
Surface urban heat degrades water quality.

When amendment amounts to nullification / RAMASWAMY R. IYER

This article will not go into the question of the propriety of the ordinance route to legislation in this case, but will try to present a broad-brush picture of what the ordinance does to The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013, hereafter LARR Act 2013.

The general industry view, accepted by the present government, is that the LARR Act 2013 was a radical and draconian law which will bring industrial development to a halt. That view led to the conclusion that the Act needed to be urgently amended drastically. It is therefore necessary to take a brief look at the history of the Act.

Attempt at fair resolution

The inter-ministerial debate on a national displacement/rehabilitation policy and on the related issue of a need to overhaul the colonial Land Acquisition Act 1894 began in the 1980s and continued over nearly three decades under successive governments. In parallel, there were conferences and debates in civil society too. The attempt to find a generally acceptable compromise which would reconcile the conflicting interests of industry and farmers/landowners continued intermittently. Eventually this resulted in the LARR Act 2013. This was generally considered a well-meant attempt at a fair resolution of a difficult and almost intractable conflict, though it continued to be criticised by both sides to the conflict. The point to note is that the LARR Act 2013 was not a hasty doctrinaire, ill-considered piece of legislation, but the final outcome of almost three decades of debate and consultation within government, among political parties and between state and civil society. The Bharatiya Janata Party (National Democratic Alliance) was a party to the passing of the 2013 Act. Barely a year later, with little experience of its working, that Act is now regarded as wholly retrograde, unacceptable and in need of root-and-branch “reform”. This arises out of industry’s impatient desire for the easy acquisition of land for its projects, and the centrality of industry in the present government’s view of “development”.

It is not being argued that the concerns expressed by industry and by commentators sympathetic to it should not be considered, or that the government’s desire to accelerate industrial projects is illegitimate. However, given those concerns, the government could have reopened the debate, held wide-ranging consultations all over the country, and tried to arrive at a fresh compromise between conflicting interests. Instead, it has wholly accepted one perception of the conflict, and sought to undo the compromise embodied in the 2013 Act without a review. Apart from the merits of the ordinance, this is an authoritarian, partisan and undemocratic procedure.

Losing a way of life

It has been argued that development necessarily entails the transfer of land from agriculture to industry, but this is something that happens over a period of time. It does not follow that this must be actively facilitated, supported and actually brought about by the state using its sovereign powers. It is curious that those who argue for reducing the role of the state and “deregulating” industry want the state to take land away from farmers and give it to industry.

Should the process of diversion of land from agricultural use to industrial use be in fact easy? Should there not be some salutary difficulty here? First, there is the question of food security. The transfer of land from agriculture to other use cannot and should not be prevented, but some consideration of what the unregulated transfer of land away from agriculture implies for the food security of the country seems necessary. LARR 2013 ruled out the acquisition of multi-cropped agricultural land. That provision has been criticised, but it showed a certain concern that was legitimate. That concern has disappeared in the present ordinance.

A second justification for a degree of difficulty in land acquisition is the protection of the interests of the landowner. No doubt the ordinance retains the generous compensation provisions of the 2013 Act, but is it solely a question of money? The acquisition of land means not merely loss of land and homestead, but also loss of livelihoods, loss of a community and cultural continuities, loss of a way of life. This is bound to be a traumatic experience. The Social Impact Assessment (SIA) provisions of the 2013 Act would have brought to notice the wider social and cultural implications of the acquisition of land, but that Act itself had exempted irrigation projects from this requirement, and now SIA has been virtually dropped in the amendment ordinance, considering the very large number of cases to which it will not apply.

The role of the state should surely be not merely to facilitate the availability of land for industry but also to minimise pain to the landowners (who are also citizens), protect their fundamental and human rights and ensure justice to them. Should the state use its sovereign powers only to make things easy for industry? Any such impression, if it gains ground, would unwittingly lend weight to criticisms (doubtless wrong) of the present government as pro-industry and anti-farmer, and as holding “development” to be synonymous with industrial projects.

Acquisition by the state

Let us turn to eminent domain, which means the sovereign right of the state to override private property. In the intermittent debate during the years from the 1980s to 2013, this was a prominent issue. It was felt by many that the continued use of the old colonial Act of 1894 for the acquisition of land was unfortunate, and that there was no case at all for the state to exercise its sovereign power to take over private property and give it to companies in the private sector for “projects” regarded by the state as serving a “public purpose”. While this was not the universal view, there was a strong body of opinion in favour of limiting acquisition by the state for private entities. The 2013 Act met this partially by limiting the acquisition by the state to 20 per cent in the case of a private company and 30 per cent in that of a public-private partnership (PPP) project, if the owners’ consent for the transfer of 80 per cent in the case of the former and 70 per cent in that of the latter had been obtained. This meant that the view of the community as a whole on the transfer of land had a certain weight. This safeguard virtually disappears in the ordinance because it will not apply in most cases. Apart from the virtual dropping of community consent, this change also means the return of the eminent domain of the state in full strength. This again is a non-democratic, authoritarian stance.

By way of a digression it may be added that property rights are presumably sacrosanct in capitalism, but evidently this does not apply to a farmer’s right to his or her land. The property of an industrialist is inviolable, and nationalisation is socialism and therefore anathema; but the acquisition of land from a farmer — which corresponds to nationalisation in the industrial sector — is evidently good capitalism!

One has to ask: after the amendment what is left of the Act? If we consider the huge exemption list (Section 10A introduced by the ordinance), and the concomitant disappearance of the SIA and the 80 per cent/70 per cent consent provision in most cases, it becomes clear that the Act has become purely ornamental. What the ordinance does is not to amend the 2013 Act, but virtually repeal it. Having done so, the ordinance sanctimoniously brings acquisitions under a number of other Acts within the purview of the amended Act and claims much credit for this. The Congress Party says that the coverage of those Acts was already foreseen in the 2013 Act. That response misses the point, which is that there is not much virtue in first rendering the Act toothless and then bringing other Acts within its purview. This is disingenuous, to say the least. One can only hope that the ordinance will be withdrawn or lapse for want of parliamentary support to the needed legislation. Alas, the hope is not very robust.

(Ramaswamy R. Iyer is a former Secretary, Water Resources, Government of India.)

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/when-amendment-amounts-to-nullification/article6789569.ece?homepage=true

Cold War 2.0

After the disintegration of erstwhile USSR, a large no. of political thinkers hoped for a "global village". But sadly their expectation remained a chimera . NATO & EU expansion are largely to be blamed for this newly evolving COLD WAR 2.0..

1. NATO ,despite the disappearance of WARSAW Pact, has existed & its gradually spreading its tentacles.
2. Due to the increasing presence of NATO along the eastern border of Russia, the later is ostensibly feeling vulnerable. 
3. Also entry of Baltic countries like Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia are scuttling Russian dream of establishing the grand "Eurasian economic union".
4. The sanctions of EU on Russia, are making these inclusions more bitter for the latter. EU is the largest oil & natural gas customer of the Russia.
5. It will also deter the Moscow's hegemony on the neighbouring nations.
6. Thus as per the theory of "Prisoner's dilemma", Russia is also behaving in more aggressive manner. Annexation of Crimea & continuous interference in eastern Ukraine are aggravating the situation.
7. The sanctions on Moscow is also not auguring well for India ,as it is paving way for defence partnership between Pakistan- Russia.

Thus after 23 years of apparent detente, it seems cold war has again revived. Its imperative for the involving nation to shun hubris & play more constructive role.

Voting Rights to NRI

A democracy is always defined by the freedom enjoyed by the people in selecting their leaders.The makers of the constitution understood it clearly and included it in the Fundamental Rights.

Prior to 2010,one who resides within the domestic boundaries of the country could only vote.However,an excellent measure via Article 20A ,RPA was taken in 2010 by which an NRI migrated temporarily for offIcial or other reasons could cast his vote.But,the voter needed to be physically present in India to cast his vote.This somewhat lowered the institution of legislature.

Recent measures by the Govt include:
1)The Election commisSion in collaboration with MEA,Law Ministry etc proposes to Amend article 20A, RPA,2010 by which the voter need not be physically present
2)Options of E-Ballot,Postal Ballot taken into consideration.
Critics claim that only people influenced by the domestic factors and whose vote deters their functioning be allowed to vote.However,its a flawed claim in this century of Cross-Border migration with Job & Educational aspirations on the rise.

Many countries have adopted this measure already."Better late than never",this move will surely deepen our democracy via 
1)More Citizen participation in deciding their future
2)Higher voter turnout thereby strengthening the democratic setup
3)Create a sense of responsibilty among Leaders who wish to stand for election as their rule will be viewed globally by the Indian Diaspora.
4)Instill a sense of Belongingness towards the nation