EDITORIAL

Facebook Group: Indian Administrative Service (Raz Kr)

NOIDA/DELHI

THE HINDU

Not measure for measure

P
Uday Balakrishnan

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2015

AAPs day
in the sun

elhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has

clearly indicated that he is a man in a hurry.
Even before assuming office on Saturday, he
had placed before Prime Minister Narendra
Modi his governments priorities. His tenor was conciliatory, his arguments seemingly reasonable while he
took care not to include in his Ministry controversial
Ministers from his first tenure. In his inaugural speech
as Chief Minister, Mr. Kejriwal said he impressed on
Mr. Modi the point that Delhi would not prosper without constructive cooperation between the Centre and
the State. The unstated part of Mr. Kejriwals message
was that he intended to set the agenda for Delhi. Yet the
AAPs demand for full statehood that, if accepted,
would give the Delhi government control over two critical areas of governance, land and the police will be
contentious, not least because the Centre would be
loath to give more powers and greater independence
of action to the new AAP regime. Mr. Kejriwal has
already broached the subject with Mr. Modi, who has
been non-committal. This is an issue that has larger
dimensions, and it remains to be seen how it unfolds in
the dynamics of relations between the AAP and the
Modi government.
Having come to power primarily on an anti-corruption plank, Mr. Kejriwals first goal will be to enact the
controversial Lokpal Bill. The failure to clear it in his
first stint in office had made him take the ill-judged step
to quit. Now, with 67 MLAs in a 70-seat Assembly, Mr.
Kejriwal should have no problem pushing it through
but, after that, it will require ratification by the Centre.
How that turns out depends on the BJPs disposition.
The last time, the 32 BJP MLAs in the Delhi Assembly
had opposed the Bill. While senior AAP leaders have
indicated that the party has learnt from its first innings
in power that a path of confrontation has its limits, the
likelihood of flashpoints in the coming months cannot
be ruled out as the tussle for the control of Delhi
continues. In governance terms, what can Mr. Kejriwal
do without getting full statehood? He may be able to
reduce electricity and water tariffs, but will remain
dependent on neighbouring States and the Centre for
supply. He may also be able to fulfil his promises on
education if funds are forthcoming, and certainly he can
make a difference in reducing everyday corruption.
Going forward, with the heightened public expectations
of the AAP as the party of the common person, Mr.
Kejriwal must demonstrate that his is a government
with a difference. He should take transparent steps to
unveil a governance structure emphasising accountability and accessibility. That is the real hope that the
AAP embodies to thousands of its well-wishers.

urchasing Power Parity or PPP has

validated a long held surmise that
the poorer countries are not as badly
off as they are made out to be nor the
richer ones as well off as they seem. A nominal GDP ranking puts India at tenth place
while a PPP one pushes it up to third, behind
the United States and China. The Big Mac
Index of The Economist loosely corroborates. Travelling to expensive parts of the
world from our country brings this home to
us tellingly.
A 2011 issue of The Economist published a
controversial piece Comparing Indian
states and territories with countries: An Indian Summary which purported to show
that for all its size and population, the economy of Uttar Pradesh was roughly just that of
Qatar, and Maharashtras no bigger than Singapores, while that of Tamil Nadu was no
larger than Angolas all very confusing and
probably wrong when in PPP terms, India as
a whole is placed third in the world. So, where
do we stand and what standard should one
pitch for to measure ourselves against the
rest of the world?

A land of opportunities
We would be wise to guardedly settle for
PPP. The world too has done likewise. India,
like those of several other similarly placed
countries, does have an economy worth several times larger than its nominal GDP indicates. This fact has not gone unnoticed
where it matters, especially in the boardrooms of multinationals or corporate India
which indefatigably seek to add an inch to
every Indiamans shirt tail. Some strong endorsement for this comes from the management guru, the late C.K. Prahalad.
Unsurprisingly, for companies like Suzuki
and Honda, India has emerged as their largest market for cars and two-wheelers and Vodafone, despite an unresolved retrospective
tax issue, is very much here to stay. India of
course enjoys the sheer strength of numbers.
Everything that happens here, as in China,
has to necessarily be on a gargantuan scale
invariably in several millions. It takes an outsider to marvel at our scale and make us
conscious of it. But the scale exists!
After China, India has more mobile owners
than any other country. The smartphone revolution has just hit us big and India is more
likely than not to emerge as the second largest market for that too. India is also one of two
largest motorcycle manufacturers. The

CARTOONSCAPE

Prospects
for peace

oubts over the durability of peace in Ukraine

despite the ceasefire that formally came into
effect on Sunday, represent a dangerous augury in the months-long, bloody and bitter
conflict between government and separatist rebel
forces. Prospects of any swift cessation of hostilities
were thrown into jeopardy after differences surfaced
even as the deal was being drawn up, with some players
advocating an immediate suspension of violence and
others insisting upon some preparatory delay. During
the run-up to Sunday, the objective of the opposing
forces seems to have been to consolidate their respective
positions. The sea coast near Mariupol and the city of
Debaltseve, which are in Ukrainian control, are said to
be critical for the breakaway republics of Donetsk and
Luhansk. Thus, uncertainty seems to have been written
into the accord brokered last week by the leaders of
France and Germany with their Russian and Ukrainian
counterparts. The current developments remind you of
how the September 2014 ceasefire fell apart almost as
soon as it was agreed upon, leading to a further escalation in the crisis that has now claimed more than 5,000
lives and led to the displacement of a million people.
The fluid situation on the ground is bound to strengthen the Congressional hawks, who have been urging
Washington to rethink the current provision of nonlethal aid in favour of backing Kiev with arms. Conversely, the conservative and social democratic partners in
Germanys ruling grand coalition, with French President Francois Hollande, have been almost categorical in
their opposition to any military solution to the crisis in
Europes eastern flanks. The German Chancellor, in fact,
made an analogous reference to the erection of the
Berlin Wall as she elaborated on Europes position on
Ukraine at the annual Munich security conference the
previous weekend. Angela Merkel pointed out that the
western powers did not resort to force to counter the
action. Republican Senator John McCains allusion, in
his speech at the same conference, to the response of the
western powers to the Berlin blockade provided shades
of the American stance. An unequivocal commitment to
finding a peaceful resolution to the conflict is imperative, given the interdependence between Europe and
Russia in the areas of economic and energy cooperation.
The conflagration in Ukraine also demonstrates that the
prospects for peace over the long term depend in no
small measure on containing nationalist tendencies in
the states of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). In this context, the continued expansion of
the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) into
Russias neighbourhood about 25 years after the end of
the Cold War, could prove counterproductive.
CM
YK

With a plethora of government departments and

international organisations putting out so much
statistical data in the public space, often
contradicting one another, it is the governments
duty to clear the air with up-to-date and coherent
statistical data linking social and economic
indicators

country continues its run as one of two largest producers of rice and a third of wheat as
well as fruits and milk. Of course we know
that in per capita in agro and dairy products,
we are still way behind much smaller producers but are likely to get there thanks to
developments in science technology. In all
these segments India is sitting on the cusp of
an opportunity. If the green revolution surprised us, managed right, the future growth
in agriculture will astound the world.
E-commerce is another area we mistakenly thought we had lost out on. Just as we
were despairing at the success of Alibaba in
China, we now see serious investment coming into e-retailing. It is not for nothing that
Japans SoftBank is investing heavily in
Snapdeal; Ratan Tata, ever ready to spot an
emerging opportunity, had bet on it much
earlier. The best known of Indias e-retailers,
Flipkart, has attracted significant investors
too. Meanwhile, Amazon, even as it threatens

PDP chief Mufti Mohammad

Sayeeds endorsement of Prime
Minister Narendra Modis offer of
talks with his counterpart in
Pakistan, at the same time also
counselling him to engage with
dissenters within Jammu and
Kashmir, is not without political
significance (Feb.15). Coming as it
does from the probable ally of the
BJP, Mr. Modi would do well to pay
heed to this suggestion.
In this context, I would also like
to comment on the calling off of
Secretary-level talks last year in
protest against the Pakistan High
Commissioners meeting with
Hurriyat leaders: that was an
overreaction. What happens if the
Pakistan High Commissioner this
time round decides to repeat what
he did? Even though it is unlikely,
will India call off the scheduled
meeting again? If such a thing does
happen, it will be a diplomatic loss
of face for us. Though one might
presume that there might have been
some
high-level
diplomatic
initiatives on our part to persuade
the Pakistani establishment to
refrain from any such provocative
step, one has to wait and watch.
S.K. Choudhury,
Bengaluru

Statewide indices for the world

wildfire on the web. India needs to proof

itself against this by coming up with some
convincing measures of its own that attract
rather than turn away potential investors
using available data without tweaking. A start
can be made by leaving the countrys PPP
ranking alone while more effectively highlighting and deploying region-wise as well as
State-wise indices for everything, from gender inequality to ease of doing business as
well as infrastructure and migration.
Internal rankings of States, as what a leading Indian magazine brings out annually, is
so much like water off a ducks back, that the
game changer will be when the country configures the rankings for global consumption.
This will become particularly important now
when States are competing with each other
for investments. This should also make State
governments sit up and take note that governance matters. Chhattisgarh is an early
mover here. It is carpet bombing the print
and television media with advertisements
that project it as an investment destination
of choice, with a visionary Chief Minister as
its efficient CEO. States with poor social indices will strive to match and possibly overtake the better off ones, creating a virtuous
circle. Then, there is something called shaming that every State would like to avoid.

The country as a whole is nowhere as bad Migrant labour

The debt the richer parts of the country
as these indices show but together they do
bring out that India is a poor bet only because owe to its poorer places is one of the dirty
we have been inept at better stating our secrets we hardly talk about, but look at the
vacant eyes of an emaciated young security
guard in Kochi or the young woman at a
construction site carrying material up preThe game changer will be when India configures the internal
carious ladders in Bengaluru, and you immerankings of its States for global consumption.
diately connect to their homes far away.
Millions are spilling out of Indias poorer
States to run services in the better off ones.
to leave, is expanding its footprint here. In- strengths while unfailingly adept at inviting Mumbai would not run for a day without
dia, it turns out, is a glass half full and filling attention to our weaknesses. The question to migrant workers and Kerala the entire
ask is should India be taken as a country at State would come to a grinding halt if the
rather than half-empty and emptying.
all for such indicators to stick? India is more near three million from Assam and Bengal as
Social indicators and evidence
populous than the whole of Africa and rough- well as U.P., Odisha and Bihar were to enBut before we start rejoicing we need to ly equal to Europe and the Americas com- masse go elsewhere. The Government of Inreconcile flattering national economic indi- bined on that count. We need a better way of dia would therefore do well to bring out an
cators with some very odious social ones. being compared clearly, it is absurd to rank annual State-wise status report on migrant
Indias ranking in the UNDPs Human Devel- the country alongside say Lesotho or Guinea labour detailing where they come from and
opment Report (2011) is 134. In gender in- Bissau the first has a population of less the jobs they do and how much they contribequality, it comes out marginally better but than three million and the other two. Singa- ute to State economies rather than ungratestill a rotten 129th out of 187 countries. Then pore, for all its achievements, is about the fully treat them as parasites. This should cool
on the ease of doing business, India is a mi- size of Bengaluru and its suburbs.
rampant xenophobia of the kind the Shiva
serable 134th, pretty much at the bottom of
Apart from the absurdity of comparing ap- Sena promotes and make us grateful for a
the heap. So things are that horrible. Or are ples with ladoos, such indices, as borderless India.
The Economist notes, blacken a countrys
they only being made out to be terrible?
We now learn that the government is
Given the scale of poverty in India, it is name. It can, as it states, also spread like about to release the religious mix of the
country as brought out by the 2011 census.
Leaks indicate that the number of Muslims
has gone up marginally, but where? In its
most miserable parts, where along with a
majority of Hindus, most lead ultra squalid
lives and are crying to get better. The most
important message, that the Muslims even in
very backward parts constitute the underclass, cannot be overemphasised though of
course some migration from Bangladesh into
Assam and West Bengal cannot be
discounted.
We need statistics we can trust and be
informed. Unfortunately, with a plethora of
agencies, government departments and international organisations putting out so
much statistical data in the public space, often contradicting each another, we have very
little chance of being properly informed. It is
the governments duty to clear the air with
up-to-date and coherent statistical data linking social and economic indicators. Only this
can lead to more mature public understanding and reaction than one which suggests
that Hinduism is in danger or Muslims are
consciously having more children. In the
noise, one can ignore that fertility rates have
fallen among the Muslims too and if they too
could derive the benefits of economic development through education, their numbers
will fall just as fast. The last especially deserves to be widely known. In context, statistics can lead to better understandings;
deployed out of context, they can kill.
(Dr. Uday Balakrishnan is at the Centre for
Contemporary Studies, Indian Institute of
Science, Bangalore.)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Talks with Pakistan

very difficult not to make these rankings

stick and lot of visual evidence exists. Mukesh Ambanis massive residence in Mumbai
coexists with a sea of slums nearby. Get out of
many of Indias airports, and most especially
Mumbai, and one is confronted with every
kind of misery one can think of. Stop at the
traffic lights and the poor of India come
knocking on your car window. The better off
in our country live in sanitised islands of
relative calm defended by the very kind
drawn from the ranks of those it seeks to
keep out. But as we all know, visuals, even
powerful ones, do not so much reflect reality
as point out the shocking that we tend to
ignore or deliberately disregard.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2015

for any sort of dialogue. It must be

noted that Pakistan has not missed
any chance to complain about India;
one of the issues relates to Indias
quest for a permanent membership
of the Security Council. Pakistan
has remained a bte noire of India
and appears incapable of balanced
thinking.
K.V. Seetharamaiah,
Hassan

Rail accident

Letters emailed to letters@thehindu.co.in must carry the full

postal address and the full name or the name with initials.
again points to the railways being
unable to get the basics right. All
issues of bullet trains and highspeed trains can come up for
discussion at a later stage. The first
task before the railways is to ensure
that the common person has a safe
journey.
Ganapathi Bhat,
Akola
There are too many accidents
involving derailments, perhaps
because of poor maintenance, aging
rails and rolling stock. It is a fact
that outdated signalling methods
and traction methods are still being
employed. One wonders how safe
even our railway bridges are. The
Indian Railways requires a
stupendous amount of capital to
modernise
railway
carriage
technology, rolling stock, signalling
systems and the augmentation of
technical manpower.
V. Balasubramanian,
Bengaluru

It is unfortunate that precious lives

have been lost in the train accident
near Anekal (Feb.14). The incident
once again raises issues of safety
and supervision, such as the quality
of tracks and signalling systems,
lack of modern technology and
virtually non-existent disaster
management preparedness. Now
that the budget is not far away, the
Railway Ministry must allocate
funds for manpower training and
safety management. The railways
should have a independent disaster
management cell in each zone, with
periodic reviews being done.
Manickam Ravindran, Neglected
tropical
diseases
Dubai continue to cause significant
morbidity and mortality in the
Irrespective of whether the cause developing world (Medicines in
for the derailment/accident was a India, for India, Feb.14). According
difference in track gauge or a rail to a study, of the 1,556 new drugs
fracture or even a boulder rolling on approved between 1975 and 2004,
to the tracks, the fact is that the only 21 were for tropical diseases
It is odd that India has to take the accident yet another one points even though these diseases
initiative to resume the talks. The to the railways inability to constitute over 11 per cent of the
dialogue of 2014 was stalled because maintain the tracks and to its global disease burden. Researchof Pakistans confabulations with failure to keep vigil over routes that based pharmaceutical companies
separatist elements. There is no need constant attention. It is sad focus on the most lucrative
point in India expressing its that there is very little attention products, rather than on what is
willingness for any resumption of paid to having adequate first aid most needed, a move that
dialogue without Pakistan first facilities on trains (Doctors save predominantly hurts the global
creating a conducive atmosphere Polish womans leg, Feb.15), which poor whose diseases will never be

Drug research

profitable enough to attract the

industry. The oft-quoted figure that
it costs over $1 billion to develop a
new drug is eye-catching but
difficult to verify. The real challenge
is to fund drug discoveries for
diseases that affect millions in
countries like India that struggle to
provide basic health care. A more
practical approach may be to
persuade big pharma, along with
our numerous national institutes
and research bodies, to become
engaged with diseases that are of
primary concern to our nation. Our
academia and national institutes
may not be able to do this on their
own.
H.N. Ramakrishna,
Bengaluru

Budget wishlist

Low oil prices and a favourable base

effect may well have been the
reasons for inflation moving
southward
(A
budget
to
transform, Feb.14). However, the
Finance Minister should know that
items like education and health care
that constitute a significant
percentage of peoples income have
not been included in the inflation
index. Thus, the governments
inflation numbers have long
remained an artificial construct,
and not reflective of ground
realities. The situation now could
be similar to the one in June-July
2009, when inflation was negative,
but shot up to 7 per cent in
December 2009. The sharp decline
in inflation between then and now is
primarily due to the decline in oil
prices. Unlike in the U.S. or China,
food prices in India have been very
high, forming a substantial part of

an ordinary persons income. It is

also intriguing why the recent
reductions in the prices of petrol
and diesel have not been adequately
reflected in food prices. While there
is no guarantee that oil prices would
remain low for long, Arvind
Mayaram feels that Indias
Consumer Price Index data are
imperfect, and therefore not
entirely reliable as an indicator of
the inflation model. The budget
should take these realities into
consideration while formulating
tax-cuts and benefits.
Kangayam R. Narasimhan,
Chennai
Much of the demographic dividend
that we are proud of is to come from
rural India. Therefore it makes
sense to promote and encourage
capital formation in this sector. Not
only does infrastructure-building in
agriculture boost productivity and
reduce the cost of production, but
also higher income generation as a
product of greater market access
will result in higher disposable
incomes. This in turn will enable
rural poor and lower middle class
families to encourage children to
pursue education rather than drop
out of schools and colleges. Even
the U.S. has been successful in
greater job creation concentrating
on middle class economics which
seeks to encourage the creation of
small and medium jobs. Indias
geographical conditions are suited
for multiple crop patterns in a year,
and this should encourage us
towards greater public investments
in this sector.
Harsha Vardhan K.S.,
Hyderabad
ND-ND

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COMMENT

NOIDA/DELHI

THE HINDU

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2015

FROM THE READERS' EDITOR

Will troll toll work?

O

ne of the biggest challenges in this digital era is how to harness the

participatory agency of readers without falling prey to the aggression
of trolls. I have touched upon this topic in a couple of my earlier columns:
Saving public sphere from trolls (August 25, 2014) and Yes to criticism,
no to vitriol (November 25, 2013). The WAN-IFRA (World Association
of Newspapers and News Publishers) published a detailed report on the
best practices for online moderation.
The authors of the report observed: It is impossible to limit
commenting to those who do have something constructive to say, and
discussions frequently descend into torrents of insults that are utterly
irrelevant to the original article. Maybe its the fact that anonymity and
distance often allow consequence-free behaviour and a chance to defy
social norms, or may be its a factor of the structure of online
conversations, but comment threads
on websites can frequently shock due
to abusive, uninformed, not to
mention badly written
contributions.
While most media outlets have
opted for moderation, some do not
impose any editorial control and
permit all sorts of comments on their
webpage. There are two forms of
moderations. The Hindu has opted
for prepublication moderation,
where moderators clear comments.
There are also media houses that
practise post-publication
moderation, where comments are
removed if found offensive or
insensitive.
However, with the increased
presence of organised trolls, some
major media organisations have decided to close their comments
sections. Popular Science, Bloomberg and Chicago Sun-Times have killed
their comments section. Reuters has shut down its comments section for
news stories. This, some media scholars feel, is an extreme step.

Making content, not comments, free

The Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University recently
documented an interesting development that turned the governing rules
on its head. On February 10, 2015, it reported about an unusual step taken
by the Jewish site, Tablet, to deal with unruly commenters: charging
readers who want to submit or even view comments on their site.
This is different from the conventional paywall mechanism, where
readers are charged for content. In Tablets case, content is free but
posting comment is not.
Tablets editor, Alana Newhouse, said that the new talk-back charge
was aimed at heightening the discourse on the website: We take pride in
our community of readers, and are thrilled that you choose to engage with
us in a way that is both thoughtful and thought-provoking. But the
Internet, for all of its wonders, poses challenges to civilised and
constructive discussion, sometimes allowing destructive and, often,
anonymous individuals to drag it down with invective (and worse).
Instead of shutting off comments altogether (as some outlets are starting
to do), we are going to try something else: Ask those of you whod like to
comment on the site to pay a nominal fee less a paywall than a gesture
of your own commitment to the cause of great conversation.
Caroline ODonovan of Nieman Journalism Lab also cites other
examples aimed at taming the trolls. She talks about putting up another
barrier one that necessitates a credit card, or at least a PayPal account
with the aim to disincentivise individuals, whose only motivation is to
troll, from joining the conversation. She refers to the group blog,
Metafilter, as one of the few to try a version of this model. Its members
make a single payment of $5 for the ability to share links and comment on
the site; reading remains free. The website says this system helps ensure
trust in the community and that the quality of contributions is high. The
comedy website Something Awful has a similar system, charging a
one-time $10 fee for posting and reading access to its forums.
Ms. ODonovan observes that publishers who kill the comments like to
point out that with news brands and journalists available on a myriad
of social platforms readers arent exactly at a loss for ways to get in
touch. According to her, the response to Tablets move on Twitter was
split between those excited about a new approach to comments and those
worried about decreased quality, loss of equal access, and the price of
commenting privileges.

Revenue model for digital platforms?

Tablets move may have been aimed at controlling trolls and improving
the quality of debate in virtual space. But, it may, willy-nilly, pave the way
for a meaningful revenue model for digital platforms. So far, no legacy
media organisation has managed to secure substantial revenue to justify
their spending on technology, though their digital presence has helped
many to reach audiences outside their conventional geographical
markets. The technological disruption, that infamous term from the
Silicon Valley, has played havoc with media economics, and undermined
the sustainability of many a media house. In the current scenario, only
Internet service providers and digital behemoths such as Google,
Facebook and Twitter are making money. But, this disruption has also
stoked peoples imagination to be a part of a conversation that forms our
sociopolitical narrative. They may be hesitant to pay for news and
content but may be prepared to fund their own articulation. A well
thought-out multi-tier paywall mechanism for a public talk-back system
may be the elusive revenue model the media was looking for in this digital
era.
readerseditor@thehindu.co.in

Golds lustre lures Turkish savers

rom the outside, it looks like any

other automatic bank machine on
the streets of Istanbul. But rather than
notes, this one distributes small pieces of gold.
Gold is hugely prized in Turkey not
just for ornamentation or investment
by banks but as a secure way for private individuals to hold their savings.
Many people in Turkey which has
one of the lowest private savings rates
among major economies keep gold
as security for a rainy day rather
than products offered by banks.
According to estimates, Turks hold
some 3,500 tonnes of gold. Banks have
sought to capitalise on the tradition by
offering accounts denominated in
gold.
We were thinking about putting all
that gold back into the financial system somehow, so we decided to create
gold accounts for our clients, said Seda Yilmaz, marketing manager of the
Kuveyt Turk Bank, the first to do so, in
2007.
So we bought one kilo of gold, and
the demand on the first day was three
kilos. It was a very good decision, so
we decided to move ahead.
Eight years on, Kuveyt Turk manages 200,000 gold accounts with different products allowing sales by cheque,
bank transfer or mobile phone.
Now with the introduction of the
first ATMs that issue gold as well as
the usual banknotes, consumers can
withdraw pieces of gold weighing 1.0
or 1.5 grammes.
The success of the ATMs started a
trend, with many other Turkish banks
latching on. The volume of gold in
their reserves has gone from two
tonnes in 2007 to 250 tonnes.
The government has also tried to
CM
YK

join the bandwagon with the central

bank allowing commercial businesses
to hold some of their reserves in gold
and opening this up to private
investors.
Thanks to this measure, our sales
jumped 85 per cent last year, said
Aysen Esen, head of a leading gold
refinery in the country.
Over the last two years, banks have
taken in some 40 tonnes of gold that
people had stashed under their beds.
And its just a small proportion of the
reserves.

Large reserves
Turkey, where the mythical Phrygian King Midas turned everything to
gold and Trojan King Priam was said
to amass his gold hoard, has historically been a centre for gold mining.
The first gold was mined in Anatolia
several millennia before the birth of
Christ but until recent years there had
been a long break in extraction.
This changed in the 1980s with new
legislation facilitating foreign investments, resulting in the discovery of
new gold deposits at home. The extraction of gold has since risen exponentially, from two tonnes mined in
2002 to 33.5 tonnes in 2013. A bright
future is assured, with underground
reserves estimated at 6,500 tonnes.
The main reason for this boom is
that we still dont have any tax on
gross gold transactions, we only pay
VAT (value added tax) on finished
products, said Ali Bulut chief executive of Turkeys number one gold retailer Altinbas. Even if exchange rate
variations have an effect on activity
and profits, Turks rank fourth as global consumers of gold and second as
exporters. AFP

Profitability without accountability

With the Indian government acting in favour of the nuclear industry, contrary to the interests
of potential victims of a disaster, the question of liability deserves greater attention
M.V. Ramana and Suvrat Raju

that victims will receive a lower compensation, in real terms, for future accidents.
Finally, the FAQs assert that the liability act, ipso facto, takes away the rights of
victims to sue suppliers even under other
laws. If this interpretation of the law is
correct, then it implies that suppliers
cannot be prosecuted even for criminal
negligence.

n its efforts to promote nuclear

commerce with the United States,
the Narendra Modi government
has run into a dichotomy that lies at
the heart of this industry. While multinational nuclear suppliers, such as G.E. and
Westinghouse publicly insist that their
products are extraordinarily safe, they
are adamant that they will not accept any
liability should an accident occur at one
of their reactors. The joint announcement by Mr. Modi and U.S. President
Barack Obama last month raised concerns that the government would move
to effectively indemnify suppliers, contrary to the interests of potential victims.
The list of frequently asked questions
(FAQs) on nuclear liability released by
the Ministry of External Affairs on February 8 confirms the suspicion that the
Modi government is trying to reinterpret
Indias liability law by executive fiat in
order to protect nuclear vendors.
The government has disingenuously
suggested that it achieved the recent
breakthrough by establishing an insurance pool to support suppliers. However,
to focus on this arrangement is to miss
the wood for the trees as even a cursory
analysis of the economics of nuclear
plants shows.
A section in the Indian law called the
right of recourse allows the Nuclear
Power Corporation of India Ltd.
(NPCIL) to claim compensation from
suppliers up to a maximum of Rs.1,500
crore ($240 million). This pales in comparison with the total cost of the six
planned Westinghouse reactors at Mithi
Virdi in Gujarat; estimates from similar
plants under construction in the U.S.
suggest that this may be as high as Rs.2.5
lakh crore. In the U.S., all nuclear plant
operators must have third-party insurance for at least $375 million, and suppliers could easily set aside a small portion
of their profits to do the same for reactors
sold in India.

Double standards

SELL OUT? The move to perpetually limit supplier liability to a

nominal amount defies basic economic principles, and implies that
victims will receive a lower compensation, in real terms, for future
accidents. Picture shows the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in
Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu. PHOTO: N. RAJESH

Just because the

Manmohan Singh
government accepted the
Faustian Indo-U.S. nuclear
pact does not mean that
India needs to bend its
laws and spend billions of
dollars on U.S. reactors

tes in India. The FAQs released by the

government are meant to reassure nuclear vendors on these counts.
The FAQs claim that the provision allowing the NPCIL a right of recourse is
to be read in the context of the contract between the operator and supplier.
This goes beyond the law, where the right
of recourse exists independently of a
contract.
Problematic principle
In 2010, when a parliamentary standWhat suppliers are worried about is ing committee suggested such a linkage,
not the amount, but the principle. More its recommendation was rejected by the
concretely, if the law places some respon- Cabinet after a public outcry. Although
sibility on suppliers, then a future Indian the FAQs later state that a provision
government could use this to gain lev- that was expressly excluded from the
erage by forcing them to pay substantial- statute cannot be read into the statute by
ly more for a serious disaster. Moreover, interpretation, this is precisely what the
their executives could be held account- government is doing here.
able under other civil and criminal statuThe FAQs suggest that the government

is also committed to the interests of the

public sector NPCIL which would insist
that ... contracts contain provisions that
provide for a right of recourse consistent
with Rule 24 of CLND Rules of 2011.
However, this is a cunning sleight of
hand. A central element of these rules is
that the provision for right of recourse
shall be for the duration of initial license, which is usually granted only for
five years. In contrast, the promised lifetime of modern reactors is 60 years, and
failure rates tend to increase in later
years. Therefore, linking the right of recourse to a contract is an attempt to water down supplier liability to a
meaningless level.
The FAQs also declare that suppliers
cannot be asked to pay more compensation in the future than currently provided under the law. However, this
ignores the fact that the law itself has a
provision for revising liability, which
states that the Central Government may
from time to time specify, by notification, a higher amount.
A revision of the cap with time is only
natural. Several decades from now, Rs.
1,500 crore may be worth much less than
it is currently. Therefore, the governments move to perpetually limit supplier liability to this nominal amount defies
basic economic principles, and implies

This provides a striking example of

double standards. Under U.S. law, suppliers can be held legally responsible for
accidents. Consequently, for decades, the
U.S. refused to join any international
convention that would require it to legally indemnify suppliers. When it engineered
the
Convention
on
Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage, it inserted a grandfather
clause to ensure that it would not have
to alter its own law. In contrast, the Indian government seems willing to meekly
surrender the rights of its citizens.
It is sometimes argued that India must
make these concessions to repay the
U.S. for its help in facilitating Indias access to international nuclear commerce.
U.S. policymakers pushed for such access
in a calculated attempt to induce India to
support its geostrategic objectives and to
ensure that U.S. companies would have
access to the emerging Indian nuclear
market. However, just because the Manmohan Singh government accepted this
Faustian pact and even cast an unconscionable vote against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency
does not mean that the country needs to
repay this self-serving favour endlessly
by bending its laws and spending billions
of dollars on U.S. reactors.
Although the question of liability is
somewhat abstruse, it deserves greater
public attention because it serves as a
clear lens to understand the central conflict involved in Indias nuclear expansion: the desire of nuclear vendors to
have profitability without accountability
and the interests of ordinary people who
could be potential victims. The governments attempt to resolve this conflict in
favour of the industry is a revealing indicator of its priorities.
(M.V. Ramana and Suvrat Raju are
physicists with the Coalition for Nuclear
Disarmament and Peace. Ramana is the
author of The Power of Promise:
Examining Nuclear Energy in India,
2012.)

Using law to bully comedians

The controversy surrounding the AIB roast video makes it clear that Indian law is still
very prone to abuse by those who wish to exercise the hecklers veto
Chinmayi Arun

sidered as a whole panders to the prurient

and is obscene must be judged by the
courts and ultimately by this Court.
Mr. Vaswani and Dr. Ghuges demands
would involve either the government or
private parties making these critical decisions about speech. This would undermine the right to freedom of expression.

law teacher has joined the league of

self-appointed censors after watching
the controversial AIB Knockout roast video. She has petitioned the Bombay High
Court asking that YouTube videos be
monitored for offensive content before
they are uploaded. Her demand for a censored public sphere echoes Kamlesh Vaswanis plea to the Supreme Court that
intermediaries should be made to filter
out all online pornography. These wellmeaning citizens may wrench the online
intermediary liability debate back by a
decade.
The online intermediary liability debate in India began in 2004 when a sexually explicit video of two minors was sold on
Baazee.com. This led to the arrest of Avnish Bajaj, CEO of the company that owned the website, triggering a conversation
about the implications of holding online
platforms intermediaries that enable
circulation of other peoples information
responsible for user-generated content
that they host.

An opaque system

Pre-screening and scanning

After the Baazee.com case, the Information Technology Act was amended to
add what is known as a safe harbor clause
for platforms like YouTube and Baazee.com. The safe harbor in the amended IT
Act ensures that law criminalising content like obscenity cannot be used to punish a platform like YouTube if it is unaware
that it is hosting illegal content. Without
this protection, YouTube would have to
monitor all its videos before hosting them
online. This is because criminal law in
India penalises circulation of obscene
content, even when the person circulating
it does so unknowingly.
Dr. Ghuges demand for pre-screening
all YouTube videos asks to undo the safe
harbor clause that was painstakingly
crafted by an expert committee, and approved by a parliamentary standing committee, before Parliament chose to enact
it. The reason that the safe harbor clause
is necessary is that social networks, online
auction platforms and video hosting services handle a very large volume of content. Requiring them to monitor all of it
would reduce the vibrant, generative Internet to less than a shadow of itself. If
YouTube had to screen the hundred hours
of video content uploaded per minute by
users on its platform, it would become as
limited as television. The volume of online
content makes monitoring impossible.
Some argue that keyword filtering may
be used as a way to automate the screening of online content. This means that
content would automatically be scanned
for particular terms like pornography
and filtered out accordingly.
However, automated scanning means
that legitimate content is often misidentified as illegal and this leads to over fil-

ILLUSTRATION: SATWIK GADE

expression is not about the protection only of speech that is palatable to everyone.
In fairness to Mr. Vaswani and Dr.
Ghuge, it is not always clear whether certain kinds of controversial speech have
constitutional protection or not. It can be
difficult to decide whether a particular
Well-meaning paternalists
portrayal of religion in a film is a deliberThe AIB Knockout video begins with a ate and malicious act intended to outrage
warning that it will be
religious feelings,
offensive. People with a Requiring networks,
or whether a
predisposition towards
book meets the
being offended, like the platforms and hosting
fairly ambiguous
law teacher Dr. Sharmi- services to monitor
legal standard for
la Ghuge, could easily
obscenity under
have avoided it. But Dr. content would reduce the the IPC.
Ghuge said her primary Internet to less than a
Forms of exconcern is that other
pression ranging
people are watching shadow of itself
from the film
this video.
The Da Vinci
Both Dr. Ghuge and Mr. Vaswani fret Code to D.H. Lawrences Lady Chatterabout the effects of speech on the youth of leys Lover and Shekhar Kapurs film
this country. Dr. Ghuge finds the language Bandit Queen have been difficult to
in the AIB video unbearable for any cul- classify it has taken judicial interventured and reputed person of civilised tion to determine whether they may be
background. She worries about the ef- regulated or whether they be shielded by
fects of the roast on women and gays the freedom of expression right in Article
(term used in her petition), and wants the 19 of the Constitution of India.
It is for the judiciary to make the final
video banned so that the morality of society is not affected adversely. Mr. Vaswani is determination about whether speech is
concerned about the effects of pornog- constitutionally protected or not. In Ranraphy on youth and advocates the imme- jit Udeshi v. State of Maharashtra, which
diate blocking of all obscene content dealt with questions of constitutional probased on a connection that he draws be- tection of allegedly obscene speech, the
tween obscene content and sexual Supreme Court suggested that the court
must apply itself to consider each work at
violence.
Both need to ask themselves whether a time. The necessity of judicial review
they can reasonably expect everyone in was stated more baldly in Chandrakant
this diverse country to have consistent Kalyandas Kakodar v. State of Maharasviews about what is offensive or obscene. thra in which the Supreme Court said,
The universal human right to freedom of whether the book or article or story con-

tering. The U.K. government learned this

in a very public and embarrassing way
when what is known as David Camerons
porn filter resulted in blocking legitimate
content, including information on rape
crises, sex education and breastfeeding.

The Indian government already has a

questionable track record in the context
of blocking online content. The system
followed to block content under the IT Act
is opaque it neither notifies speakers
and readers that content has been
blocked, nor permits intermediaries to
disclose what content the government has
asked them to block. If speakers and readers have no way of finding out that the
government has ordered the blocking of
particular speech, they will not be able to
challenge the governments decision to
censor before the judiciary. This means
that the judiciary will not be able to check
whether the government is using its power to block online content consistently
with the Constitution. This lack of accountability leaves the system open to
government misuse to block politically
threatening speech.
The controversy surrounding the AIB
roast video makes it clear that Indian law
is still very prone to abuse by those who
wish to exercise the hecklers veto. Entertainers who gave viewers every opportunity to avoid potentially offensive speech
are being bullied using the law. Everything ranging from the infamous 66A of
the IT Act to Section 294 of the IPC
(which criminalises obscene acts and
songs) is being thrown at them. Worse still
is that the law is being used to intimidate
those who helped them, so that outrageous speakers will find it difficult to find
venues and audiences. Dr. Ghuge has taken the bullying one step further and has
asked for a highly regressive alteration of
intermediary liability policy. Dr. Ghuge
and Mr. Vaswani may destroy the free
flow of information that is the soul of our
democracy through their well-intentioned efforts to decide what other citizens should not see. Instead of looking for
ways to leverage the freedom and endless
possibilities of communication offered by
the Internet, these two petitioners threaten to unravel the safe harbor protection
that keeps the Internet free and
accessible.
Whether the AIB video is offensive or
not has become irrelevant. The real question we should be asking is whether our
sensibilities are so delicate that we would
sacrifice our rich public discourse and the
new media that carry our chatter, because
we cannot handle being offended now and
then.
(Chinmayi Arun is research director,
Centre for Communications Governance,
National Law University, New Delhi.)
ND-ND