Civil Services Mentor September 2016

Join Online Coaching For IAS Pre & Mains Exams
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/courses
International Solar Alliance Cell and World Bank Signs Declaration for Promoting Solar Energy
INTERNATIONAL SOLAR ALLIANCE CELL AND WORLD BANK

SIGNS DECLARATION FOR PROMOTING SOLAR ENERGY
International Solar Alliance is
part of Prime Ministers vision to bring
clean and affordable energy within
the reach of all and create a
sustainable world. International solar
alliance is a common platform for
cooperation among solar resource
rich countries lying fully or practically
between the Tropics of Cancer and
Capricorn. The alliance includes
around 120 countries that support the
declaration on the occasion to launch
the international solar alliance of
countries dedicated to the
promotion of solar energy.
Sustainable development, universal
energy access, and energy security
are critical to the shared prosperity
and future of our planet, and
acknowledging that clean and
renewable energy needs to be made
affordable for all. India and France
have launched an International Solar
Alliance to boost solar energy in
developing countries. The initiative
was launched at the UN Climate
Change Conference in Paris on 30
November by Indian Prime Minister
Narendera Modi and French
President Francois Hollande.
2
Objective of the International

solar alliance is to significantly
augment solar power generation in
countries. International solar alliance
intends to make joint efforts through
innovative policies, projects,
programmes, capacity building
measures and financial instruments to
mobilize more than 1000 Billion US
Dollars of investments that are
needed by 2030 for the massive
deployment of affordable solar
energy. Reduced cost of finance
would enable countries to undertake
more ambitious solar energy
programmes to bring development
and prosperity for people.
International solar alliance aims to
establish an international alliance of
countries dedicated to the
promotion of solar energy as an
effective mechanism of cooperation.
An International Steering Committee
would be created to provide the
necessary guidance, direction and
advice to establish the international
solar alliance. International solar
alliance will help in achieving
universal energy access and energy
security of the present and future
generations.
Recently world bank also gave
support to the PM Narendra Modi's
brain child (International Solar
Alliance). On the occasion of the visit
of the World Bank President to India,
the Interim Administrative Cell of the
International Solar Alliance (ISA Cell)
and the World Bank declared their
intention to promote solar energy
globally. World bank decided to
work jointly for the promotion of
International Solar Alliance. Major
areas identified for working jointly
include:
Developing a roadmap to
mobilize financing
Developing
financing
instruments including credit
enhancement, reduce hedging
costs/currency risk, bond
raising in locally denominated
currencies etc. which support
solar energy development and
deployment
Supporting ISAs plans for solar
energy through technical
assistance and knowledge
transfer;
Working on mobilization of
http://www.iasexamportal.com
Buy Printed Study Material for IAS Exams
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/study-kit

concessional financing through
existing or, if needed, new trust
funds
Supporting RE-INVEST events.
In addition, both sides decided
to work in other areas and
themes as jointly decided.
The Joint Declaration by the ISA
cell and the World Bank will help in
accelerating mobilization of finance
for solar energy, and the Bank will
have a major role in mobilizing more
than US $1000 billion in investments
that will be needed by 2030, to meet
ISAs goals for the massive
deployment of affordable solar
energy.
India had committed to
reducing its emissions intensity by 3335 per cent by 2030, compared with
2005 levels. India has proposed 175
gigawatts of renewable energy that
India plans to create by 2030. Out of
this 175 gigawatts, 100 gigawatts is
just solar energy. India's current
capacity is just 5 gigawatts.
International solar alliance will help
in achieving India's commitments
made in Paris. In a short span of time
ISA activities have increased
significantly. Two Programmes of the
ISA Affordable finance at scale and

Scaling solar applications for
agricultural use, have been
launched. In addition, USA, UK and
EU have evinced interest in
developing additional programmes.
Further, Interim Administrative Cell of
International Solar Alliance (ISA Cell)
and the UNDP have joined hands for
promoting ISA objectives in 121
prospective ISA member countries.
This apart establishment of 24x7
knowledge centre is under way with
the help of UNDP and NIC,
Government of India.

FUND OF FUNDS FOR FUNDING SUPPORT TO START-UPS

In
order
to
boost
entrepreneurship in the country
government came up with the start
up India programme earlier this year.
Startup India aims at promoting bank
financing for start-up ventures to
boost entrepreneurship and
encourage start ups with jobs
creation. A startup is an entity that is
headquartered in India which was
opened less than five years ago and
has an annual turnover less than ?25
crore. The Start Up India campaign is
focused on to restrict role of States in
policy domain and to get rid of
"license raj" and hindrances like in
land permissions, foreign investment
proposal, environmental clearances.
It was organized by Department of
Industrial Policy and Promotion
(DIPP). Start up India mission
includes:
Launch social ventures in a way
that they can scale
Scale social ventures in a way
that they generate impact
Seed first-generation social
entrepreneurs in last-mile
communities
Catalyze the influence and
4
resources of business,
government and media
towards fostering many more
social ventures
Despite the startup India
campaign, startups is India face
several challenges. Important among
them are given below:
limited availability of domestic
risk capital;
constraints of conventional
bank finance;
information asymmetry and lack
of hand holding support from
credible agencies.
A large majority of the
successful Start-ups have been
funded by foreign venture funds and
many of them are locating outside the
country to receive such funding. In
order to solve or reducethe problem
of startup funding government has
come up with aa fund of funds for
the strat ups. The Union Cabinet has
approved the establishment of "Fund
of Funds for Startups" (FFS) at Small
Industries Development Bank of India
(SIDBI) for contribution to various
Alternative Investment Funds (AIF),
registered with Securities and
Exchange Board of India (SEBI)

which would extend funding
support to Startups. This is in line with
the Start up India Action Plan
unveiled by Government in January
2016.
The corpus of FFS is Rs.10,000
crore which shall be built up over the
14th and 15th Finance Commission
cycles subject to progress of the
scheme and availability of funds. An
amount of Rs.500 crore has already
been provided to the corpus of FFS
in 2015-16 and Rs.600 crore
earmarked in the 2016-17. The Fund
is expected to generate employment
for 18 lakh persons on full
deployment.
Further provisions will be made
as grant assistance through Gross
Budgetary Support by Department of
Industrial Policy and Promotion
(DIPP) which will monitor and review
performance in line with the Start up
India Action Plan. The FFS emanates
from the Start up India Action Plan,
an initiative of Department of
Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP).
The expertise of SIDBI would be
utilized to manage the day to day

Fund of Funds for funding support to Start-ups

operations of the FFS. The monitoring
and review of performance would be
linked to the implementation of the
Start Up Action Plan to enable
execution as per timelines and
milestones.
A corpus of Rs. 10,000 crore
could potentially be the nucleus for
catalyzing Rs. 60,000 crore of equity
investment and twice as much debt
investment. This would provide a
stable and predictable source of
funding for Start up enterprises and
thereby facilitate large scale job
creation. Accelerating innovation
driven entrepreneurship and
business creation through Start-ups
is crucial for large-scale employment
generation. An expert committee on
Venture Capital (VC) has opined that

"India has the potential to build about
2500 highly scalable businesses in the
next 10 years, and given the
probability of entrepreneurial
success that means 10000 Start ups
will need to be spawned to get 2500
large scale businesses".
Accelerating innovation driven
entrepreneurship and business
creation through Start-ups is crucial
for large-scale employment
generation. An expert committee on
Venture Capital (VC) has opined that
"India has the potential to build about
2500 highly scalable businesses in the
next 10 years, and given the
probability of entrepreneurial
success that means 10000 Start ups

will need to be spawned to get 2500
large scale businesses".
A dedicated fund for carrying
out Fund of Funds operations would
address the issues faced by the start
ups and enable flow of assistance to
innovative Start ups through their
journey to becoming full fledged
business entities. This would
encompass support at seed stage,
early stage and growth stage.
Government contribution to the
target corpus of the individual Fund
as an investor would encourage
greater participation of private capital
and thus help leverage mobilization
of larger resources.

National Issues
NATIONAL ISSUES
All party meet to discuss
Kashmir issue
Prime Minister Narendra

Modi will hold talks with all
political parties on the
Kashmir unrest, Home
Minister Rajnath Singh
informed the Rajya Sabha.
The House also passed a
unanimous
resolution
appealing to the people of
the Kashmir Valley to restore
peace and harmony, adding
that there cannot be any
compromise on national
security.
Asserting that security forces
were asked to show
maximum restraint in using
pellet
guns
against
protesters, Mr. Singh was
non-committal on their
immediate withdrawal.
He said Lashkar-e-Taiba
(LeT) terrorists were issuing
threats to family members of
security forces and civil
administration officials in the
Valley.
Mr. Singh said there was no
question of handing over
Kashmir to the Army and
rumours were being spread
deliberately.
First unit of Kudankulam
started
A President, a Prime Minister

and a Chief Minister sitting in
three different cities met
virtually to dedicate the first
6
unit of the Kudankulam

Nuclear Power Project
(KKNPP) to the nation.
Nearly 28 years after Russia
and India signed the
agreement to set up the plant,
PM Narendra Modi, Russian
President and Tamil Nadu CM
did the honours through a
video conference organised
from Moscow, Delhi,
Chennai, and Kudankulam.
The 1,000-MWe KNPP-1 is the
largest single unit of
electrical power in India. In
years ahead, we are
determined to pursue an
ambitious agenda of nuclear
power generation.
At Kudankulam alone, five
more units of 1,000 MWe each
are planned, Mr. Modi said.
He said the government
planned to build a series of
bigger nuclear power units in
cooperation with Russia.
But Mr. Modi, a big
proponent of solar power,
also made a case for building
partnerships for green
growth.
Search operations still on for

missing An-32
Finding no trace of the An-32

aircraft that went missing
over the Bay of Bengal on
July 22, two specialised
vessels have now been
deployed to beef up the
search.
Oceanographic research
vessel Samundra Ratnakar of

the Geological Survey of
India and research vessel
Sagar Nidhi of the National
Institute
of
Ocean
Technology (NIOT) will
undertake sea bed profiling.
Sagar Nidhi , which was in
Mauritius, was specifically
called in for the purpose and
it joined the search.
Assistance of these vessels
was requested after the
searching aircraft and ships
failed to pick up any signal
or visible signs of the aircraft.
They have submersibles,
which can be sent deep once
a possible location is
identified.
Meanwhile, ships and aircraft
of the Navy, the Coast Guard
and the IAF and a submarine
are continuing the search
both in surface and subsurface domains.
Now that it is 20 days since
the aircraft went missing, the
teams are relying on passive
means by scanning the sea
floor.
The depth in the general
search area is about 3-3.5
km. Officials said special
cells had been formed to
keep the families posted on
a daily basis on the search
efforts.
Opposition raised issues in

Citizenship(amendment) bill
The Opposition parties, led

National Issues
by the Congress, want the

Citizenship (Amendment)
Bill, 2016, which was
introduced in the Lok Sabha
by Union Home Minister
Rajnath Singh in July, sent to
a Standing Committee of
Parliament.
The original Act, passed in
1955, lists the ways to
acquire citizenship, denying
to undocumented migrants.
The amendments now seek to
allow
citizenship
to
undocumented migrants of
all faiths barring Islam from
Afghanistan, Pakistan and
Bangladesh.
The 1955 Act defines an
illegal migrant as a foreigner
who enters India without a
valid passport or travel
documents or stays beyond
the permitted time.
But a key amendment readsIn
short, members of every
major religious community
barring Islam coming into
India without legal passports
or staying on without valid
papers will be entitled to
Indian citizenship after six
years of residence in India.
Peeved Opposition MPs are
now pushing for the Bill to be
sent
to
a
Standing
Committee.
A senior Congress member in
the Rajya Sabha said: This
revives memories of 1947.
How can one community be
left out? India is not yet
officially a Hindu state.
Centre says attacks on Dalits

reduced in last two years
Home Minister decried

attempts to create an
impression that the NDA

government was anti-Dalit
He also assured the Lok
Sabha that his Ministry had
told the State governments
that strict and tough action
should be taken against any
anti-social elements, whether
in the name of Gau Raksha or
any other cause.
The government had, after
two back-to-back speeches
on the issue by Prime
Minister Narendra Modi,
decided to give in to
Opposition demands for a
debate in the Lok Sabha.
I do not want to go into
State-wise figures on crimes
against Dalits, but overall
figures show that in 2013 the
cases of violence against
Dalits were 39,346, which
rose to 40,300 in 2014 and
came down again in 2015 to
38,564, Mr. Singh said.
India to give third largest
maternity leave
The Maternity Benefits

(Amendment) Bill allows 26
weeks maternity leave as
against 12 weeks permitted
at present.
However, a woman who has
two or more children will
continue to get only 12 weeks
maternity leave.
Maternity
Benefits
(Amendment) Bill would
vault India to the third
position in terms of the
number of weeks allowed for
maternity leave, behind
Norway (44) and Canada
(50).
However, a woman who has
two or more children will
continue to get only 12 weeks

maternity leave.
For the first time, women
adopting a newborn, aged
below
three,
and
commissioning mothers will
also be entitled to maternity
benefits and will get leave
for three months.
A commissioning mother is
defined as a biological
mother who uses her egg to
create an embryo implanted
in another woman.
The Bill has an enabling
provision which states that if
the nature of work permits,
woman may also be allowed
to work from home after the
period of maternity leave.
Establishments with at least
50 workers will have to
provide crche facilities
within a certain distance and
women will be allowed four
visits to the crche in a day.
Differences between SC and

Centre came out in open
In its sharpest-ever attack in

open court, the SC asked
whether the Centre intends to
bring the entire judiciary to
a grinding halt by sitting on
recommendations of the
Collegium for appointment
and transfer of judges to High
Courts across the country.
Chief Justice of India T.S.
Thakur made it clear to the
Centre, represented by
Attorney-General Mukul
Rohatgi, that the court would
not shy away from a
confrontation with the
government if driven to a
corner.
The CJI cautioned the

National Issues
government that if matters
continued in the same vein,
the court would be forced to
intervene judicially and call
for every file of every
recommendation forwarded
by the Collegium to the
government for clearance.
Chief Justice Thakur had
made an emotional appeal at
a convocation last April in
the presence of Prime
Minister Narendra Modi
about the rising burden of
judges due to vacancies and
pendency.
He was not satisfied with Mr.
Rohatgis assurances that the
issue would be taken up at
the highest level.
100 million for 100 million
campaign for youth
Nobel laureate Kailash

Satyarthi announced that he
was planning to launch a
campaign 100 million for
100 million.
It will target 100 million
youth, whose idealism,
energy and enthusiasm
would help liberate the 100
million children shackled in
slavery and poverty across
the world.
An easy way to direct the
energy of the young people
in universities, colleges and
schools is to make them
champions, spokespersons
and leaders for children, the
Nobel laureate said
For an individual, it is very
important to be educated
and good quality education
is much more rewarding.
A single year of schooling at
primary level would result in
8
an additional return of 10 to
15 per cent income in the
later stage of life; similarly,
every single year of
secondary education would
increase income by 20 to 25
per cent, he said.
A study conducted by the
World Bank some years ago
in 50 different countries
proved with empirical
evidence that one single year
of education in whole
society increased the GDP by
0.37 per cent.
Though the country had
produced a large number of
engineers, around 80 per
cent
of
them
were
unemployable.
The question is whether we
want to create fuel of
economic engine or those
who can care for the nation,
and global society, Mr.
Satyarthi said.
The Nobel laureate urged
teachers to Listen to your
students; the parents of
students; the situation. We
have to learn from the
children, educators must
learn what is happening in
technology, the learning
process must go on.
Joint statement on Naga peace

talk issued
Almost a year after the

framework agreement on
Naga peace talks was
finalised, the Centre and the
NSCN-IM issued a joint
statement saying they were
closer than ever before to
the final settlement and hope
to conclude it sooner than
later.
The joint statement, issued by

government interlocutor for
Naga talks R.N. Ravi and
NSCN-IM general secretary,
said the political initiative of
the two sides to amicably
resolve the Naga political
issue has received a new
urgency during the last two
years.
The Centre had signed the
framework agreement with
NSCN-IM on August 3, 2015
at a much-publicised
ceremony at Prime Minister
Narendra Modis residence.
The peace dialogue has
become more purposeful,
less ritualistic and far more
frequent.
The signing of the framework
agreement came after over 80
rounds of negotiations that
spanned 18 years with first
breakthrough in 1997 when
the ceasefire agreement was
sealed.
Govt notifies significant changes
to OBC list
The Union government has

notified several significant
changes to the Central List of
OBCs toward including,
amending and deleting the
list pertaining to Andhra
Pradesh, and for including
several OBCs in the list for
Telangana.
This is based on the
National Commission for
Backward Classes (NCBC), a
permanent body that
determines
the
backwardness or otherwise
of a caste/community.
87 castes/communities have

National Issues
been included in the

Telangana list, making them
eligible for reservation.
Significant inclusions are the
Dasari
and
Jangam
communities, which are
traditionally engaged in
begging, and the Odde and
Kurmi communities.
The
Commission
is
empowered under an Act of
Parliament to examine
requests for the inclusion of
any class of citizens as a
Backward Class in the list,
take up claims on a periodic
basis for consideration and
recommendation.
It is also empowered to hear
complaints of over-inclusion
and under-inclusion of any
Backward Class in such lists,
and advise the Central
Government as it deems
appropriate.
It
was
constituted
underSection 3 of the
National Commission for
Backward Classes Act, 1993
(27 of 1993) as a follow up
to the implementation of the
Mandal
Commission
recommendations.
Elephant corridors identified by

WWF-India
The Wayanad leg of a Central

project to restore elephant
corridors has remained a
non-starter owing to the
apathy
of
Revenue
Department officials and lack
of coordination between
departments.
The project is aimed at
mitigating human-wildlife
conflict in Wayanad.
The studies suggested the
revival of the PakramthalamPeriya, Periya-Kottiyur,

Nilambur-Gudallur,
Thirunelly-Kuddrakode, and
South Wayanad-Malabar
sanctuary elephant corridors
in the Wayanad region.
The Forest Department had
given priority to the PeriyarKottiyur corridor, which
connects the North Wayanad
forest division and the
Aralam WildlifeSanctuary.
The Centre approved the
project in 2007 at an estimate
of Rs.7.89 crore and
allocated Rs.4.5 crore in
2008.
State of Indian judiciary report
points towards need for reforms
The average hearing time for

listed cases on a particular
day in an Indian high court
could be as little as two
minutes, according to an
analysis of cases pending in
21 high courts.
The findings come from the
State of The Indian
Judiciary report released on
Wednesday by the Bangalore-based
research
organisation DAKSH.
Their Rule of Law Project
aims to move the discussion
beyond merelythe total
number of pending cases in
India estimated to be
around three crore to
investigate the problem of
pendency of cases.
This finding is key to judicial
reform, the report says, as it
is an indicator of the stress
faced by judges on a daily
basis.
The research found that
around 82 per cent of cases

in high courts have been
pending for 10 to 15 years.
The Allahabad High Court has
the highest average pendency
among all Indian high courts,
with a case pending for an
average of a little more than
three years and nine months,
whereas the High Court of
Sikkim has the lowest
average pendency of 10
months.
Tension between India and
Pakistan continues
India and Pakistan exchanged

salvos instead of the usual
Independence Day greetings,
with
Pakistan
High
Commissioner Abdul Basit
calling for Kashmirs freedom
and
India
terming
Islamabads policies on
Kashmir illegal and
absurd.
The government responded
sharply. Minister of State in
the PMO Jitendra Singh said
Pakistan should end its
illegal occupation of PoK.
Our stand is very clear in the
context of the J&K issue. If at
all there is any outstanding
issue with Pakistan, it is how
to liberate the part of J&K
which remains under the
illegal occupation of
Islamabad, he said.
His response came soon
after the Ministry of External
Affairs termed Pakistans
offer to send relief material
to Kashmir as absurd.
President delivers
Independence Day speech
At a time when India and

National Issues
Pakistan are engaged in a

war of words, President
Pranab Mukherjee asserted
that there would no stepping
back on New Delhis
neighbourhood first policy.
In his televised address to
the nation, on the eve of the
sixty-ninth anniversary of
Independence,
Mr.
Mukherjee also spoke about
the attacks on weaker
sections which is against
Indian ethos, and said that
they should be dealt with
firmly.
While maintaining that during
his four years in office he had
seen with some disquiet
forces of divisiveness and
intolerance trying to raise
their ugly head.
Mr. Mukherjee said close
bonds of history, culture,
civilisation and geography
provide the people of South
Asia with an extraordinary
opportunity to carve out a
common destiny and to
march together towards
prosperity.
This opportunity must be
seized without delay. Indias
focus in foreign policy will
remain on peaceful coexistence and harnessing
technology and resources for
its economic development.
Ashok chakra and Shaurya

chakra given to martyrs
HavildarHangpan Dada, who

died after killing three
terrorists, has been awarded
Ashok Chakra, while Lt. Col.
Niranjan Ek who died during
Pathankot operations, was
awarded Shaurya Chakraby
10
President Pranab Mukherjee.

In all, 82 Gallantry Awards
have been awarded this year
to armed forces personnel
and members of paramilitary
forces.
They include one Ashok
Chakra, 14 Shaurya Chakras,
63 Sena Medals (Gallantry),
two Nao Sena Medals
(Gallantry) and two Vayu
Sena Medals (Gallantry).
On May 26, 2016 as four
heavily armed terrorists
sneaked in across the Line of
Control, Hav. Dada along
with his team was tasked to
chase and trap the fleeing
terrorists.
Lt. Col. Niranjan Ek from the
Corps of Engineers was with
the NSG during the terrorist
attack on the Pathankot
airbase in January.
An improvised explosive
device (IED) attached to the
body of one of the slain
terrorists accidentally went
off killing him and injuring
four others.
The President has also
awarded 28 Mention-inDespatches to Army
personnel for significant
contributions in different
military operations which
include five for Operation
Meghdoot, 22 for Operation
Rakshak and one for
Operation Rhino.
The Coast Guard was
awarded one Presidents
Tatrakshak Medal and five
Tatrakshak Medals for
displaying
gallantry,
distinguished
and
meritorious service.
These awards are being

given to the personnel of the
Coast Guard on Republic Day
and Independence Day every
year, since January 26, 1990,
the Coast Guard said.
CAG says Union owes more
than 80000 crores to States
The Centre owes the States

over Rs. 80,000 crore from its
net proceeds of the period
between 1996 and 2015,
according to a Comptroller
and Auditor General (CAG)
report tabled in Parliament.
The revelation has the
potential to significantly
impact the finances of most
States, because most of them
could end up getting a few
thousand crores each.
The report says that
according to Article 279 of
the Constitution, the CAG is
required to ascertain and
certify the net proceeds
(any tax or duty the proceeds
thereof reduced by the cost
of collection), whose
certification shall be final.
The CAG report points out
that in July 2000, the Finance
Ministry requested for CAG
certification of net proceeds
of taxes afresh ante-dated
from 1996-97 because of the
80{+t}{+h}constitutional
amendment.
The amendment resulted from
the recommendations of the
10{+t}{+h}Finance
Commission
for
an
alternative way of sharing
proceeds of union taxes and
duties between Centre and
States.
Online Coaching for IAS PRE General Studies

What candidate will get:
1. All the relevant and required materials of subjects mention in the GS syllabus like:
100% IAS Exam Syllabus Covered with MCQs.

History of India and Indian National Movement.
Indian and World Geography - Physical, Social, Economic Geography of India and the World.
Indian Polity and Governance - Constitution, Political System, Panchayati Raj, Public Policy, Rights
Issues, etc.
Economic and Social Development -Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics,
Social Sector initiatives, etc.
General issues on Environmental Ecology, Bio-diversity and Climate Change - that do not require
subject specialisation
General Science.
Current Affairs.
2. Home assignment: where Multiple Choice Questions of the learned chapters will be
given for selfevaluation.
3. Important current affairs materials for civil services preliminary examination will be
provided
4. Online Tests will be conducted after the end of each subject.
5. At the end of your course, five comprehensive test will be conducted to evaluate your
performance.
Click Here to Join IAS (Pre.) Online Coaching:
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/courses/ias-pre/csat-paper-1

National Issues
PMs Independence Day speech
mentions PoK and Balochistan

Modi launched a sharp attack
on Pakistan for its support to
terrorism and thanked the
people of Balochistan, Gilgit
and
Pakistan-occupied
Kashmir (PoK) for their recent
messages of support.
Addressing the nation from
the ramparts of the Red Fort
on Independence Day, Mr.
Modi, in an obvious
reference to the recent
incidents of atrocities against
Dalits by cow vigilante
groups, also called for social
justice.
On the other hand, we have
a situation where some
people glorify terrorists in
our country, the Prime
Minister said, without naming
Pakistan that described the
slain Hizbul Mujahideen
commander BurhanWani as a
martyr.
In his 90-minute speech, Mr.
Modi said that ever since he
had asked the Pakistani
establishment to look at
human rights abuses in
Balochistan, Gilgit and PoK,
he had been flooded with
messages of gratitude by the
people of these areas.
I am grateful to the people
of Balochistan, Gilgit and
PoK who have thanked me in
the past few days. If people
of Balochistan thank me, they
are thanking the 125 crore
Indians, he said.
The Prime Minister had, in an
all-party meeting on Kashmir
last week, said that Pakistan
had no business speaking

about Jammu and Kashmir
when it was dropping
bombs on its own citizens
in Balochistan and other
areas.
In a novel initiative by the
Mysuru division of railways
used drones
The Mysuru division recently

completed an aerial survey
of the ghat section between
Sakleshpur and Subramanya
using drones in view of the
monsoon.
The concept evolved during
their preparatory meeting,
and since drones were used
even for taking aerial shots
by wedding photographers,
one
of
them
was
commissioned for the task
and it was completed in two
days.
The drone deployed by the
authorities provided them an
aerial perspective by way of
a high resolution video of
nearly two hours which was
closely studied and gave the
Railway authorities better
perspective to act.
It is customary for the zonal
and divisional railways to
take precautionary measures
as part of the annual
monsoon preparedness for
which there is inspection of
waterbodies, canals and
reservoirs close to the
railway tracks.
Identification of vulnerable
sections based on local
history of landslips, tree or
boulders falling on tracks,
identifying them and
deputing personnel to take
suitable action or closely

monitor them.
Committee says drones better to
be used for crop estimation
A committee tasked by the

governments apex planning
body with studying how
unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAVs) can be used in crop
insurance schemes has said
drones trump satellite
technology for the purpose.
The
committee
also
maintained that sharing
cadastral (lands location,
ownership, tenure) details,
Aadhaar card and bank
account
details
is
mandatory for effective
crop insurance policies.
The sub-committee is
expected to submit its report
to the National Institution for
Transforming India (NITI
Aayog).
It is constituted of experts
from the Indian Institute of
Space
Science
and
Technology,
Indian
Agriculture
Research
Institute, weather technology
firm Skymet and international
reinsurance company Swiss
Re.
There are several sub-groups
too constituted by the NITI
Ayog to look at ways to use
technology in agriculture
insurance schemes.
This year, the government
launched the Pradhan
MantriFasalBima Yojana
(PMFBY), replacing the
existing National Agricultural
Insurance Scheme, which
will allow farmers relatively
lower premiums.
11

National Issues
It also allows them to be
insured against post-harvest
losses. The States will bear
the bulk of the premiums and
farmers pay depending on
the type of crop.
The governments apparent
objective is to increase the
number of insured farmers
from the current 20 per cent
to 50 per cent within three
years.
Though
several
crop
insurance schemes are
available, availing funds and
determining the right price is
a challenge.
The
committee
has
recommended pilot surveys
that can estimate varying risk
profiles for different regions
of the country, and that for
schemes such as PMFBY,
drones are a better bet than
satellite imagery.
Review petition filed by BCCI
The Board of Control for

Cricket in India(BCCI)
moved the SC for a re-look
into its judgment upholding
the recommendations of the
former Chief Justice R.M.
Lodha Committee, to
overhaul functioning of the
top cricketing body.
The review petition follows
legal advice rendered by
former Supreme Court judge
Justice Markandey Katju in
his interim report to the
Board that the verdict
smacked
of
judicial
overreach and was thus
unconstitutional.
Justice Katju had said that
though the Supreme Courts
intentions in intervening with
12
the BCCIs working was

good, it amounted to
judicial legislation and
violated the Tamil Nadu
Societies Registration Act
and the Indian Constitution.
The petition follows Justice
Katjus advice that the
Supreme Court plainly
ignored the law that any
change in the rules of the
BCCI should have been made
through a special resolution
initiated under the Tamil
Nadu Societies Registration
Act.
SC refused to pass interim
direction in NEET case
The Supreme Court refused to

pass an interim direction to
the Medical Council of India
(MCI) to publish separate
merit lists for CBSE students
and their counterparts who
studied under the State
syllabus in the NEET exam..
However, a Bench of Justices
sought the Centres response
on petitions filed by several
medical and dental aspirants
drawn largely from Tamil
Nadu against the discrimination shown in the
Centres
new
NEET
ordinance.
The
new
Amending
Ordinance in the Indian
Medical Council Act, 1956,
on the other hand, makes it
mandatory for private
colleges
to
provide
admission
onlythrough
NEET. The court issued
notice also to the MCI and the
CBSE in this regard.
The petitions by the students,
who largely hail from Tamil
Nadu, pleaded with the court

to issue an interim order that
admission to private medical
colleges this academic year.
Ganga act will give final
authority to centre
A first-of-its-kind bill to
regulate a river the Ganga
Act, will draw from the
National Highways Act and
allow the Centre final say
over States during disputes
over management of its
water.
The National Highways
Authority of India Act
empowers the Central
government to have complete
power over roads designated
as national highways.
It also gives them authority
over bridges, culverts and
associated land stretches
near highways.
The Union Water Resources
Ministry is the nodal agency
in charge of implementing
the Rs. 20,000-crore National
Clean Ganga Mission by
2022, and has so far spent
only around Rs. 320 crore,
despite Rs. 2,000 crore being
sanctioned.
Nearly 70% of the budget is
to be apportioned for
commissioning sewage
treatment plants.
This was partly due to a lack
of consensus between the
Ganga States on how money
allotted should be spent
though.
India says ready to talk but only
on terror
India said that Foreign

National Issues
Secretary S. Jaishankar was
willing to travel to
Islamabad to discuss crossborder terror in Kashmir, but
not to discuss Kashmir itself,
as Pakistan had proposed.
In a letter handed over to
Pakistans Foreign Secretary
Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhury by
High Commissioner, the
government said any talks
would have to focus on
terror.
Underlining Indias position
in an address to journalists,
the Foreign Secretary also
referred to the centrality of
the issue of terrorism when
discussing Indias difficulties
in dealing with Pakistan
within South Asia.
He said that despite a great
effort to reach out to Pakistan
by the Modi government,
India has faced several terror
attacks which have made the
relationship difficult to
grow.
Krishna water reallocation
became contentious between
riparian states
The Maharashtra and

Karnataka governments made
forceful pleas to the Krishna
Water Disputes Tribunal
against any steps to
reallocate the Krishna river
water afresh between the
four riparian States.
The purpose of incorporation
of Section 89 in the AP
Reorganisation Act, 2014 was
to make allocation between
the two successor States and
not between the four riparian
States.
The Tribunal should not touch
the allocations made to

Maharashtra as project-wise
allocations had already been
made.
It was for the two successor
States to arrive at an
amicable understanding to
resolve the impasse without
disturbing the allocations
made to the two upper
riparian States.
The two States were
permitted to approach the
Apex Council if they were
unable to arrive at a
consensus over the allocation
in line with the provisions of
the Reorganisation Act.
Supreme Court banned Dahi
Handi celebrations pyramid
above 20 feet
The Supreme Court banned

those under 18 from
participating in the Dahi
Handi celebrations and
limited the height of the
human pyramids to 20 feet.
A Bench of Justices at the
same time voiced its concern
at the near-impossibility of
verifying the age of the Dahi
Handi participants and
ascertaining the heights of
the pyramids.
The Dahi Handi ceremony is
annually
held
on
Janmashtami, the birthday of
Lord Krishna.
In the event that recreates an
episode in the life of Lord
Krishna, people form human
pyramids to break an earthen
pot filled with buttermilk tied
to a string at a height.
Frequent accidents, often
fatal, led to the Child Rights
Commission framing safety
guidelines in February 2014.

Stalemate over draft
memorandum of procedures
continues
The Central government has

accepted
some
Supreme Court collegium on
draft memorandum of
procedures for appointment
of judges.
However
centre
also
reinforced
its
views
regarding certain other key
clauses on which the
collegium had earlier raised
objections.
The government has, in its
recent communication to the
collegium, agreed to lift the
proposed cap on the number
of jurists and lawyers for
appointment as judges in the
Supreme Court.
The draft sent to the Chief
Justice of India in March had
recommended that up to
three judges from among
jurists and lawyers could be
appointed.
While the government had
earlier proposed merit-cumseniority as the criterion for
elevation of judges, only
seniority is now being
considered to be the main
condition.
However, the government
has not changed its stand on
the proposed clause under
which it will have powers to
reject
any
candidate
recommended by the
collegium on grounds of
public interest and national
security.
The collegium had earlier
13

National Issues
rejected the proposal. The
revised draft proposes that
the
government
will
communicate
to
the
collegium the reasons for
rejecting
any
name
recommended by it.
P. V. Sindhu and Sakshi Mittal
saved the pride of India
Young badminton ace P.V.

Sindhu lifted the gloom by
storming into the final of the
womens singles with a 2119, 21-10 win over Japans
NozomiOkuhara.
Sindhu will meet Carolina
Marin of Spain in gold medal
match. The Indians victory
was the icing on the cake
after the bronze medal
triumph by grappler Sakshi
Malik in the womens 58kg
freestyle category.
Facing an opponent against
whom she had tasted success
only once in four outings,
Sindhu produced a solid
performance, similar to the
way she had dispatched
World No. 2 Wang Yihan in
the quarterfinals.
Earlier, the 23-year-old
Sakshi became the toast of
the nation with a hard-fought
win against Asian champion
AisuluuTynybekova
of
Kyrgyztan. The Indian was 50 down in the first threeminute period before pulling
off a sensational upset.
Sakshi had earned a breather
after
losing
to
ValeriiaKoblovaZholobova
in the 1/4 round as the
Russian made the goldmedal contest.
In Repechage, she had a
14
fluent
win
over
OrkhonPurevdorj (Mongolia)
in the first bout before
scripting history, winning
eight points in a row in the
final two minutes.
India clearly says to Pakistan to
leave PoK
The war of words between

India and Pakistan intensified
with Delhi demanding that
Islamabad address more
pressing issues related to
cross-border terrorism.
The Ministry of External
Affairs (MEA) said the latest
offer of dialogue on Kashmir
from Pakistan could progress
only if Islamabad stopped
the export of terror that hit
Kashmir, as well as Mumbai
on 26/11.
MEA also demanded the
earliest possible vacation of
PoK [Pakistan-occupied
Kashmir].
The terror-specific demands
from India came a day after
India rejected Pakistans
proposal for Kashmir
dispute-specific talks and
demanded that the proposed
talks, which were to be held
between the two Foreign
Secretaries, should focus on
cross-border terrorism.
World oldest Tigress in the wild
died
Legendary tigress Machhli,

who was the world's oldest
tigress in the wild, died in
Ranthambhore National Park
in SawaiMadhopur district
ofRajathan.
Also referred to as T-16, the
tigress was named Machhli
because of marks on her face

which resembled a fish.
The celebrity tigress was also
the
world's
mostphotographed big cat and
had a postage stamp and
several documentary films
on her name.
Machhli played a significant
role in populating the
Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve,
as she was blessed with 11
cubs, including seven
females and four males.
According
to
some
estimates,
she
was
contributing Rs. 65 crore a
year as tourism revenue to
the National Park for the last
10 years.
The park management
organised regular feeding to
Machhli for long and at times
drove her away from
periphery into the wellwooded park habitat so as
not to come in conflict with
the villagers.
In one of the most memorable
incidents, a Ranthambhorebased
artist
had
photographed Machhli in a
combat with a 14-foot-long
marsh crocodile across the
bed of Raj Bagh lake.
P. V. Sindhu looses on gold but

created history
Even with an entire country

and its 1.3 billion people
rooting for her, it was a tough
task for P.V. Sindhu.
And though the young Indian
was finally beaten for the first
time in six matches, the
defeat in itself seemed to be
a defining moment in the
fledgling career of the 21-

National Issues
year-old.
The final of the womens
singles, an epic battle in more
ways than one and going the
distance to last an hour and
22 minutes, was one of
fluctuating fortunes before
World No. 1 Carolina Marin
(Spain) came good.
The silver medal around
Sindhus neck still had its own
glitter as she emerged the
first woman athlete from the
country to earn such an
honour at the Games, the
second Indian to win a
badminton medal after Saina
Nehwal (London 2012).
Undoubtedly what stood out
again, as in her earlier
matches, was the grit and
determination displayed by
the Hyderabad-born, a
protege of 2001 All England
champion Pullela Gopi
Chand, to surprise the
Spaniard in the first game.
Sindhu also seemed to be
overcome by fatigue towards
the end as she admitted
defeat, but to the whole of
India she remained the
heroine
they
had
worshipped prior to the start
of the final.
Afghanistan former President
defends Indias comments on
Balochistan
Afghanistans
former
President Hamid Karzai
appreciated Prime Minister
Narendra Modis statement
on the human rights situation
in Balochistan, saying that
India had every right to
respond to Pakistans
provocations.
Pakistani authorities have

spoken freely on Afghanistan
and India, but this is the first
time that the PM of India has
spoken about Balochistan,
Mr. Karzai said, during a visit
to Delhi.
However I dont think India
intends to go to any proxy
wars as it has a tradition of
peaceful coexistence. The
region should not go to proxy
wars.
The remarks from Mr. Karzai,
who has often called out
Pakistan for its support to the
Taliban, come a day after
Bangladesh Information
Minister Hasanul Haq Inu had
also backed Mr. Modi.
In
his
address
on
Independence Day, Mr. Modi
had vowed to take up the
cause of the Baloch people,
facing repression in Pakistan,
on the international stage.
Set of guidelines to be included
in the curriculum of UG medical
courses
There are times when

patients are abused by the
clinician even without their
realisation.
For example, a mother who
had taken her daughter to a
doctor for examination was
asked to wait outside.
The doctor examined the girl
in the absence of a nurse and
the mother realised it only
later that this is not right.
These and many other issues
revolving around unhealthy
doctor-patient relationships
will soon be part of the
curriculum for undergraduate
medical students.
Recognising the need for

specific guidelines for
doctors
on
sexual
boundaries, the Indian
Psychiatric Society (IPS) has
submitted a set of draft
guidelines to the Medical
Council of India (MCI), for
inclusion in the curriculum
for UG medical courses.
The draft guidelines, which
will be released in a week on
the IPS website, will be open
for
suggestions
and
objections by psychiatrists
and the public for a month.
The task force along with the
Bangalore Declaration Group
(a group of doctors) worked
on framing the guidelines for
the last seven years.
Deputy Governor Urjit Patel to
be the next RBI governor
Ending
months
of
speculation,
the
Appointments Committee of
the
Cabinet
(ACC)
announced the appointment
of Reserve Bank of India
Deputy Governor Urijit Patel
as successor to Governor
Raghuram Rajan.
Dr. Patel will take up the top
job for a three-year term on
September 4, the day Dr.
Rajans three-year term
expires.
The choice of Dr. Patel
reflects the governments
preference for continuity to
the Rajan tradition. Dr. Patel,
working closely with Dr.
Rajan, is piloting Indias
transition to a new monetary
policy regime.
According to a press note
15

National Issues
announcing the appointment,
Dr. Patel was picked in a new,
two-step selection process.
For the first time, a
systematic approach and an
objective mechanism have
been put in place, it said.
In the first step, the Financial
Sector
Regulatory
Appointments
Search
Committee (FSRASC) headed
by the Cabinet Secretary P.
K. Sinha made a shortlist for
the consideration of the ACC.
Thereafter,
the
ACC
comprising Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and Home
Minister Rajnath Singh,
settled for Dr. Patel from a
list of five names received
from the FSRASC.
Maharastra protection of
Internal security act to set up
special security zones
Thenewly
drafted
Maharashtra Protection of
Internal Security Act (MPISA)
has proposed setting up of
Special Security Zones
where movement of arms,
explosives and inflow of
unaccounted funds will be
prohibited .
The government made public
the draft MPISA, 2016,
defining
Critical
Infrastructure Sectors (CIS),
and bringing nuclear
reactors, dams, major
projects, coastal areas under
its ambit.
It will also have an emphasis
on maintaining law and order
and combating terrorism,
insurgency, caste-related
violence and communalism.
The government would seek
16
public responses to the

MPISA, asking for suggestions before the Bill is
presented to the legislature
for approval.
Pink bollworm continues to
create problem
Pink bollworm, a pest that

left farmers of Raichur
devastated last year by
destroying Bt cotton crops,
has now reached Haveri
district, where cotton is
grown in about 1 lakh
hectares annually.
This has once again raised
questions over claims by
companies supplying Bt
cotton seeds of immunity
from pink bollworm .
While
the
scientific
community is yet to begin
any study in Haveri over the
extent and severity of the
pest attack, the impact of the
pest is widespread.
A recent visit by a factfinding
committee
comprising
of
environmentalists and farm
experts revealed thatthe
summer
cotton
crop
(cultivated during summer in
irrigated land) has fallen prey
to the pink bollworm.
Pink bollworm attack in
villages of Haveri and
Ranebennur taluks only on
the summer cotton crop and
it is severe.
Summer cotton crop is
cultivated on around 1,010
hectares of land in the district
while kharif sowing is in
69,000 hectares.
Of this, the pest is noticed in
500 hectares and pest attack
is not of alarming level. But

as a precautionary measure
we have taken steps to
sensitise farmers.
Government is weighing
options for pellet guns
As the unrest in the Kashmir

Valley
continues,
a
committee constituted by the
Home Ministry to look for
alternatives to pellet guns.
Pellet guns are used against
stone-pelting protesters is
exploring options such as
enhancing the intensity of
tear- gas used in shells and
using chilli powder and
rubber bullets, a senior
official said.
The
seven-member
committee was constituted
on July 26 and is expected
to submit its report in two
months.
The committee has met five
times and most members had
one major concern any
alternative should not defeat
the primary purpose of
safeguarding the security
forces.
Researchers have decided and
predicted the brain activity
Researchers have, for the

first time, decoded and
predicted the brain activity
patterns of word meanings
within
sentences,
an
advancement that may help
brain injury and stroke
patients communicate better.
The study used functional
magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) to measure human
brain activation where

National Issues
researchers successfully
predicted what the brain
patterns would be for new
sentences.
The study makes key
advances
towards
understanding
how
information is represented
throughout the brain.
To predict the patterns of
particular words within
sentences, researchers used
a broad set of sentences,
with many words shared
between them.
The fMRI data was collected
from 14 participants as they
silently read 240 unique
sentences.
NASA look for origin of life
The idea for a device that

could unveil the origins of
life in our solar system began
with a Solo cup.
Next month, an invention
inspired by that plastic,
disposable beverage cup will
launch into space aboard the
United States first robotic
mission aimed at scooping
up 4.5 billion-year-old dust
from an asteroid.
The $800 million NASA
mission is called OSIRISREx, which stands for
Origins,
Spectral
Interpretation, Resource
Identification, SecurityRegolith Explorer.
The unmanned spacecraft
will travel to an asteroid near
Earth called Bennu to collect
space dust that may reveal
how the materials necessary
for life such as carbon and
ice made their way to our
planet.
The idea is not to land on the

asteroid, but approach
closely and high-five it for
several seconds to gather
some debris that can be
studied more closely back
on Earth.
The problem is that in zero
gravity, such a device could
just scatter dust instead of
collecting it.
PM reached out to people of
Kashmir
Reaching out to the people of

the troubled Kashmir Valley,
PM Modi said there had to be
a dialogue to find a
permanent and lasting
solution to the problem
within the framework of the
Constitution.
In a meeting with leaders of
Opposition parties from
Kashmir, the Prime Minister
stressed that all those who
had lost their lives were part
of us be they youth,
security personnel or
policemen.
Speaking in Jammu on
Sunday, Finance Minister
ArunJaitley had described
stone-throwers
as
aggressors and blamed
Pakistan for the current unrest
in the Valley.
Meeting was expected to last
half-an-hour but the Prime
Minister gave a patient
hearing to the concerns of
the delegation for over 55
minutes and also discussed
ways to tackle the worsening
situation in the State.
National
Conference
president Omar Abdullah,
who led the delegation,

welcomed
the
Prime
Ministers statement and
extended his support for
bringing normality in the
State.
A move that would encourage
witnesses to report accidents to
the police
In a move that could go a

long way in encouraging
witnesses to report accidents
to the police, the Centre
issued a notification ensuring
that the affidavit of Good
Samaritan.
Aperson, who voluntarily
declares himself to be an
eyewitness, shall be treated
by the investigating officer as
a final statement.
The notification is in
response to Supreme Court
directions in an October 2014
case of SaveLIFE Foundation
asking the Centre to issue
directions to save Good
Samaritans until Parliament
frames a law.
The court had directed the
government to frame
Standard
Operating
Procedures (SOPs) for the
examination of a Good
Samaritan. In March, the
court
approved
the
guidelines and the SOPs
issued by the government
with certain modifications.
The crux of the guidelines is
that no bystander rushing to
the rescue of an accident
victim should be subject to
civil or criminal liability and/
or be forced to be a witness.
Any disclosure of personal
information or offer to be a
17

National Issues
witness, in the event of the
Good Samaritan also being
an eyewitness to an accident,
ought to be voluntary.
Further, the examination of
such a volunteer as a witness
shall be done only on a single
occasion and without
harassment or intimidation.
Road map for the power sector
for the next five years to come
soon
A national electricity plan,

which provides a road map
for the power sector for the
next five years, will be ready
by next month.
The national electricity plan,
drafted once every five
years, would indicate the
requirements and the likely
scenario for the next five
years in terms of power
transmission, distribution
and generation.
It would also include
requirement of manpower
and funds. The plan would
provide a break-up of the
projected growth in different
forms of power such as
thermal, hydel, nuclear, solar
and wind energy.
Electrical power survey
would forecast the power
requirements of different
States for the next five years,
was also being prepared to
help provide crucial inputs
to the national electricity
plan.
India might follow Genevas
example of operating ecofriendly electric buses with
flash-charging facility.
These buses can be charged
automatically within 15
18
seconds when it arrives at a

bus-stop. The charging is
done through a structure on
the
bus-top
which
automatically connects to the
power point on the roof of
the bus stop.
After PM's appeal now Home
Minister to lead J&K mission
Following Prime Minister

Narendra Modi expressing
deep concern and pain over
the situation in Kashmir,
Home Minister Rajnath Singh
will undertake a two-day
visit to the Valley.
The Home Minister will
review the situation and may
hold talks with a cross
section of people.
Mr. Singh would not extend
an exclusive invitation to the
separatists but he would
welcome anyone who comes
to meet him during his stay
there.
This is his second visit in a
month to the Valley which
has been witnessing unrest
since July 8 when Hizbul
Mujahideen terrorist Burhan
Wani was killed in an
encounter with security
forces.
As many as 65 people,
including two policemen,
have been killed and several
thousand injured so far in the
violence there.
Mr. Singh has also held
meetings with some nonKashmiri Muslim leaders in
the past few days to find a
solution to the Kashmir crisis.
The government also intends
to rope in the clergy to
spread the message.
Former Jammu and Kashmir

interlocutor M.M. Ansari,
former Orissa High Court
judge Ishrat Masroor
Quddussi and security
analyst Qamar Agha were the
few personalities Mr. Singh
met recently.
U.N. confirmed six address of
Dawood in Pakistan
Indias consistent stand that

Dawood Ibrahim is based in
Pakistan has got a virtual
endorsement from the U.N.
which has confirmed six
addresses of the underworld
don in that country.
The listing of the UN Security
Councils ISIL and Al-Qaida
Sanctions Committee also
includes information about
Dawoods various passports,
including those issued in
Pakistan.
India, in a dossier, had cited
nine addresses in Pakistan as
those frequented by Dawood
of which the UN Security
Councils ISIL and Al-Qaida
Sanctions
Committee
removed three, finding those
incorrect.
The Committee, which
amended
its
entry
concerning Dawood, a UNdesignated terrorist, made no
changes with regard to six
addresses provided by India.
One of the three addresses
which have been dropped by
the Committee from its list
was found similar to that of
a residence of Islamabads
envoy to the U.N. Maleeha
Lodhi.
The addresses were included
in a dossier prepared by

National Issues
India in August last year that
had listed nine residences in
Pakistan of the mastermind of
1993 Mumbai serial blasts as
evidence to show that he is
holed up in that country.
IITs may have 1 lakh seats by
2020
The IIT Council on Tuesday

approved in principle an
increase in number of seats
by 2020, subject to each IITs
assessment
of
its
preparedness.
Govt's vision for 2020 is onelakh seats, though it is up to
the institutes to decide how
to go about it. The studentteacher ratio, which should
be 10:1 is right now 15:1.
New recruitments will,
therefore,
have
to
accompany the capacity
expansion planned. As of
now, the IITs admit 10,500 UG
students, 8,000 PG students
and 3,000 Ph.D students.
Other initiatives are planned
to improve the IITs.
The government is planning
to put in place an engineering
aptitude test that students of
classes 11 and 12 can take up
to assess their ability to excel
as engineers beforehand.
This apart, plans for global
collaborations have also got
the nod of the IIT Council.
A Prime Minister Research
Fellowship would be started
so that bright students do not
suffer for lack of funds. He
also gave details of the
progress of some other
initiatives.
He said 92 projects have till
now been accepted under the
Uchhatar Avishkar Yojana

(UAY) aimed at giving
students
of
premier
institutions like the IITs a
more
market-oriented
mindset at an expense of
Rs. 282-crore.
Under the Global Initiative
for Academic Networks
(GIAN),
260
foreign
academics have already
come and delivered lectures
in classrooms. The lectures
have also been recorded.
Over 800 academics will
come to India from abroad
under this initiative, he
added.
Bihar CM discussed flood

situation with PM
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish

Kumar met Prime Minister
Narendra Modi here and
requested him to send a team
of experts to assess the
unprecedented situation in
the State and prompt action
on a national silt management
policy.
He also expressed concerns
that the Farakka barrage in
West Bengal had led to silting
in
the
Ganga
and
exacerbated the floods in
Bihar.
The Farakka barrage has 104
gates and they are being
opened to manage nearly 11
lakh cusecs of water that
have inundated Bihar and
affected nearly 10 lakh
residents in the past week.
It is not possible to protect
Bihar from devastating
floods without removal of
the Farakka barrage on the
Ganga, Mr. Kumar had said,
before an aerial survey of the

flood-hit districts.
The barrage, built in 1975
close to the Bangladesh
border, was designed to
transfer 1,100 cubic metres
per second of water from the
Ganga to the Hoogly to flush
out sediments.
However it has been
controversial,
with
complaints that it is choking
up the rivers natural flow
and affecting aquatic life.
The Ganga and five other
rivers are still flowing above
danger mark in many parts of
Bihar, triggering a flood-like
situation, while in Uttar
Pradesh water level of major
rivers has crossed the red
mark at several places in the
State.
At least 22 persons have been
killed while 23.71 lakh
people affected in the Bihar
floods with many areas,
especially the riverine belt of
12 districts was badly
reeling under water in the
State.
The floods caused by a spate
in rivers Ganga, Sone,
Punpun, Burhi Gandak,
Ghaghra and Kosi have
affected 23.71 lakh people in
1,115 villages under 362
panchayats in 12 districts of
the state.
Central Water Commission and

the Central Ground Water Board
could be merged
The Prime Ministers Office

(PMO), it is learnt, is
receptive to the idea of
forming the proposed
National Water Commission
19
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/test-series/online-ias-pre

National Issues
(NWC) by merging the

Central Water Commission
(CWC) and the Central
Ground
Water
Board
(CGWB).
The NWC was the key
recommendation of a report
submitted last month by a
committee headed by water
expert Mihir Shah that was
tasked with reorganising
river water management in
the country.
Since 1945 the CWC has been
tasked with managing surface
water and its associated
structures such as dams and
barrages. The CGWB, on the
other hand, is largely
concerned with the quality of
groundwater.
The proposed NWC pushes
for an integrated policy,
greater cognisance of overextraction of groundwater.
It will also maintain
environmental stability by
ensuring States that share
water do not draw from river
basins more than what is
ecologically tenable.
As of today, States must get
a technical clearance from
the CWC before they can go
ahead with constructing
dams and other reservoirs.
Were an NWC to come into
being, this power would
devolve to the States and
other research institutions,
with the Central body
becoming a research
organisation and a repository
of data on Indias river
basins.
India began investigations to

determine the extent of leak in
20
submarine data
India began multiple

investigations to determine
the extent of damage caused
by the reported leak of huge
quantity of secret data
detailing the combat and
stealth capabilities of soonto-be-inducted Scorpene
submarines.
The Navy, in its early
response, said the leak was
from outside India while
downplaying the operational
impact of the leak.
The source of the leak, if
confirmed, can have a
serious bearing on the
significantly large defence
ties between India and
France
with
French
companies in the race for
deals worth billions of
dollars including the Rafale
fighter deal.
The incident emerged in a
news report in The Australian
, which also released a few
sample documents.
ISRO set to conduct airbreathing propulsion
experiment using its RH-560
rocket
The Indian Space Research

Organisation (ISRO) is set to
conduct
air-breathing
propulsion experiment using
its RH-560 rocket fitted with
a supersonic combustion
ramjet (Scramjet) engine on
August 28 from Sriharikota.
ISRO is looking forward to
conducting the air-breathing
propulsion test using the twostage, three-tonne RH-560
rocket because it involves
cutting edge technologies.

The test was to have been
done on July 28 but the
search by the Indian Air
Force and the Navy for the
IAFs transport aircraft An-32,
which disappeared over the
Bay of Bengal has delayed it
by a month.
The Vikram Sarabhai Space
Centre
(VSSC),
Thiruvananthapuram, has
developed the engines to be
used in the RH-560 rocket:
the booster engine in the first
stage; and the sustainer and
the scramjet engines in the
second stage.
Air-breathing propulsion
along with re-usable launch
vehicles is the key to low
cost access to space.
Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill,
2016, banning commercial
surrogacy in India cleared
The Union Cabinet cleared

the Surrogacy (Regulation)
Bill,
2016,
banning
commercial surrogacy in
India.
The Bill also bars foreigners,
homosexual couples, people
in live-in relationships and
single individuals, making
only childless, straight Indian
couple married for a
minimum of five years
eligible for surrogacy.
Eligible couples will have to
turn to close relatives, not
necessarily related by blood
for altruistic surrogacy
where no money exchanges
hands
between
the
commissioning couple and
the surrogate mother.
Minister for External Affairs

National Issues
Sushma Swaraj defended
making
homosexuals
ineligible for surrogacy.
The Bill also prohibits
couples who already have
biological or adopted
children from commissioning
babies through surrogacy.
Deforestation reduces summer
rainfall in Ganga Basin, northeast
Using satellite data and

regional climate models, IIT
Bombay researchers have
found that deforestation in
north-east India and northcentral India has led to a 100200 mm reduction in summer
monsoon rainfall in these
two regions.
The land use information is
based on satellite data for
two time periods 19801990 and 2000-2010. The
results were published on
August 24 in the journal
Scientific Reports
During the initial phase of a
monsoon, oceanic sources
play a major role in bringing
rain and charging the soil
with moisture.
But at the end of the monsoon
period, evotranspiration
from vegetation contributes
to rainfall. Evotranspiration
is a local moisture source for
rainfall.
Recycled
precipitation
contributes to 20-25 per cent
of the total monsoon rainfall
during the end of the
monsoon and is very
prominent in the Ganga Basin
and north-east India.
Home Minister says future of
India and Kashmir is linked
The future of India and

Kashmir are linked, Union
Home Minister Rajnath Singh
said, stating that the Centre
was willing to talk to all
groups, including the
separatists.
During his visit to Kashmir,
the Minister announced
reconciliatory measures to
douse the 47-day unrest in the
State, including replacing
pellet guns and sending an
all-party delegation.
Addressing a joint press
conference with Chief
Minister Mehbooba Mufti,
Mr. Singh said, An expert
committee on pellet guns
will submit its report soon to
find an alternative."
"Whether a civilian or a
soldier dies, it pains the
entire nation. However,
nobody will be allowed to
play with the future of
Kashmir.
He said the forces were
exercising
maximum
restraint and more than
4,600 security personnel had
been injured so far.
More leaked documents on
scorpene submarine published
More documents were made

public from the 22,400 pages
of the data on the combat and
stealth capabilities of the
Scorpene submarines which
were leaked from the French
manufacturer, DCNS.
The
Australian,
the
newspaper which reported
the data leak, posted nine
pages on its website,
consisting of the technical

manual related to the
Scorpenes underwater
warfare sub-system and the
operating instruction manual.
The government claimed that
it was taking up the issue
with foreign governments
through diplomatic channels.
The Indian Navy has taken
up the matter with the
Director
General
of
Armament of the French
Government, expressing
concern over this incident,
and has requested the French
Government to investigate
this incident with urgency and
share their findings with the
Indian side, the Navy said in
a statement.
India hardened its position on
talks with Pakistan
Hardening its position on

talks, New Delhi has sent
another letter to Islamabad
outlining the need for talks on
its core concern of battling
terror emanating from
Pakistan that targets not just
India, but other countries in
the region.
Mr Jaishankar have repeated
that India is prepared to
speak to Pakistan only about
terrorism issues including the
investigations into the
Pathankot airbase attack in
January 2016 and Mumbai
26/11 attacks in 2008.
However this time with the
addition of a new demand
that Pakistan vacate Pakistanoccupied
Kashmir
immediately.
The letter also details the
confession of arrested
21

National Issues
militant Bahadur Ali, who

admitted to being trained by
the Lashkar-e-Toiba in
Pakistan, and travelling to
Jammu and Kashmir to carry
out attacks here.
Last week, India had
responded sharply to a
suggestion from the U.N.
High Commissioner for
Human Rights Jordanian
Prince Zeid Raad Al Hussein
who had asked to visit
Kashmir.
Confirming that the decision
to engage other neighbours
like
Bangladesh
and
Afghanistan, who have also
complained about attacks
from terror groups in
Pakistan, is a deliberate one.
Bangladesh, angry over the
Dhaka caf attack and others
that it links to Pakistani
support, has refused to send
high level officials to any of
the SAARC related events in
Pakistan.
In a visit to Delhi this month,
the Bangladesh Interior
Minister Hassanul Haq Inu
squarely blamed Pakistani
groups for the attacks, and is
understood to have discussed
these with Indian officials.
Afghanistans President Ghani
has also said terror attack on
the American University in
Kabul where 13 people
including teachers and
students were killed, was
organised in Pakistan.
China urged India to do more to

reinforce peace and stability
along the border
China urged India to do more

to reinforce peace and
22
stability along the border,

following reports that New
Delhi
was
deploying
advanced cruise missiles in
the eastern sector.
To maintain peace and
stability along the IndiaChina border is an important
consensus reached by the
two sides, Chinese defence
ministry said.
The BrahMos can be launched
from submarines, ships,
aircraft or land. A result of
India-Russia collaboration,
the missile was inducted in
the Army in 2007 and was
being tested for induction in
the Su-30 fleet of the Indian
Air Force (IAF).
The controversy precedes the
visit of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi to Hangzhou
next month for a meeting of
the G-20 countries. He is
expected to meet Chinese
President Xi Jinping on the
sidelines of the summit.
Mr. Modi will reach
Hangzhou after visiting
Vietnam,
which
has
expressed its interest in
buying the BrahMos missiles.
India is free to export these
missiles as it has got the
membership of the Missile
Technology Control Regime.
Haji Ali Dargah opened for

women
Women be permitted to enter

the sanctum sanctorum of the
Haji Ali Dargah at par with
men, ruled the Bombay High
Court in a landmark verdict
allowing the entry of women
up to the mazar in the
revered Sufi dargah in south
central Mumbai.
However, the Division Bench
of Justices V.M. Kanade and
Revati Mohite-Dere granted a
six-week stay on the order on
a request by the Haji Ali
Dargah Trust to enable it to
go on appeal before the
Supreme Court.
Court said that the ban order
by the Trust contravened
Article 14, 15 and 25 of the
Constitution.
The Bench said: The Trust is
always at liberty to take
steps to prevent sexual
harassment of women, by
having separate queues for
men and women, as was
done earlier.
Maharastra Govt to look for
consensus on internal security
bill
Maharashtra government
decided to withdraw the
draft, posted on its official
website, and evolve a
political consensus before
placing it for Cabinet
approval.
The legislation proposes
special security zones where
movement
of
arms,
explosives and inflow of
unaccounted funds will be
prohibited.
The draft Bill, if passed, will
make Maharashtra the first
state to implement such a
law, and came under fire
from the Opposition as well
as Shiv Sena.
The draft has also come in for
sharp criticism from Mumbai
citizens pressure groups, the
Commonwealth Human
Rights Initiative (CHRI) and

National Issues
Police Reforms Watch (PRW),
which question both the
necessity and justification for
a new internal security law.
The Bill tried to deal with
challenges of terrorism,
insurgency, communalism,
and caste violence , and
does not differentiate
between the nature of the
threats from each.
Task force for Olympic Games
made by PM

Modi announced the setting
up of a task force which will
help to plan for the effective
participation of Indian
sportspersons in the next
three Olympics, to be held in
2020, 2024 and 2028.
He made the announcement
at the monthly meeting of the
Union Council of Ministers
and said the structure of the
task force would be in place
in the next few days.
The task force will prepare
an overall strategy for
facilities, training, selection
procedures and other related
matters.
The government will look at
in-house and outside experts
for this task force.
India had to content itself
with two medals in the Rio
Olympics, although a larger
number of sportspersons
qualified for the 2016 Games
than for the previous events.
The medal tally, however,
came down from six in
London Olympics of 2012 to
just two.
Mr. Modi had asked for a
report on the doping charges
against wrestler Narsingh

Yadav, and was disturbed by
some of the controversies
that came up in relation to
the Indian contingent in Rio
during the Games.
PM stressed on need for antipoverty programs
A meeting of chief ministers

of BJP-ruled states, called by
party president Amit Shah,
has set up a committee to
devise an agenda for poverty
alleviation that could be
replicated in all States ruled
by the party.
The committee would
comprise Madhya Pradesh
chief minister Shivraj Singh
Chauhan, Jharkhand chief
minister Raghubar Das,
Maharashtra chief minister
Devendra Fadnavis and BJP
vice
president
Vinay
Sahasrabuddhe.
Modi said in the meeting that
in BJP-ruled states at least,
the Centres schemes for
poverty alleviation and other
schemes related to social
security
should
be
implemented in an ideal
way .
There are some schemes that
are only applicable to one
State, others that are
replicable. This committee
will go through all that and
come up with a Poverty
Alleviation Agenda, that will
be implemented in BJP-ruled
states.
BRICS nations should develop
arbitration mechanism says
Finance minister
It is extremely important that

the BRICS nations develop an
arbitration
mechanism
among themselves at a time
when certain centres in the
world have monopolised the
bulk of the cases, Union
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley
said.
It is extremely important that
we develop a [dispute
resolution] mechanism as far
as the BRICS nations are
concerned, Mr. Jaitley said
while speaking at a
conference on international
arbitration in BRICS.
The experience over the
years, Mr. Jaitley said, was
that some centres did
monopolise the bulk of the
international arbitrations,
and that many countries fear.
Theyhave
periodically
voiced concerns about the
fact that a lot of the awards
emerging
from
these
arbitration centres are
loaded against the emerging
economies.
Speaking about the role of
BRICS in the world, Mr.
Jaitley highlighted how, in a
troubled global economy, the
five BRICS nations have
shouldered the global burden
of growth.
President says there should be
no room for hatred in
universities
President Pranab Mukherjee

said universities must be
bastions of free speech and
expression where there
should be no room for
intolerance and hatred.
Addressing
the
first
23

National Issues
convocation ceremony of
Nalanda University, Mr.
Mukherjee said a university
must be the arena where
diverse and conflicting
schools of thought contend.
There should be no room for
intolerance, prejudice and
hatred within the spaces of
this institution.
Mr. Mukherjee said Nalanda
University is a symbol of
Asian resurgence that
stands not merely for quality
education but also for global
cooperation.
At a time when the world is
facing complex challenges
and the destinies of the
people across continents are
interlinked, institutions of
knowledge such as Nalanda
University are of critical
importance, he said.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish
Kumar recalled how the
concept
of
Nalanda
University came into being.
Mr. Kumar hoped that all
ancient universities of the
country would be revived
like Nalanda University and,
India once again will
become the seat of learning
and intellectuals.
Thalassaemia
Thalassaemia is an inherited
genetic blood disorder
where patients cannot
produce adequate healthy
haemoglobin,
thereby
needing continual blood
transfusion.
The transfused blood, which
saves their lives, creates an
iron overload in the system.
The excess iron must be
24
chelated out of their system

and the drug Desferal 500 mg
is used to treat the iron
overload.
There are over 1 lakh
thalassaemia major patients
in India, according to WHO.
PM touches imp. issues in
Mann ki baat program

Modi talked of the tense
situation in Jammu and
Kashmir, saying that any loss
of life, whether of any youth
or security personnel, is our
loss, a loss of our own
people and our country.
He warned those pushing
youngsters towards violence
that they would be held
accountable some day.
Unity and compassion in
dealing with the situation in
the State were the two things
that the Prime Minister said
he took away from his recent
interactions with various
political groups on the
Kashmir policy.
Its a view of 125 crore
people of this country ...
from a pradhan of a village
to the Prime Minister, that if
any life is lost in Kashmir it
is our loss, a loss of our
people and our country.
The Prime Minister said the
country had always made
sincere efforts to strengthen
its relationship with its
neighbours.
launched Akashvani Maitri
channel, which will connect
us with Bangladesh in a
deeper way.
Mr. Modi also touched upon
a variety of subjects, among

them GST. He credited all
parties with unanimously
approving the GST Bill
which, he said, displayed the
strength of unity.
India became only the fourth
nation to flight-test a scramjet
engine
India became only the fourth

nation to flight-test a scramjet
engine, a technology that
scientists claim could change
the way space travel is
undertaken.
Though the full development
of the engine, for an air
breathing propulsion system
that significantly reduces the
amount of fuel needed to fire
up engines on a rocket, is
decades away.
ISRO conducted its first trial
of the engine, from the Satish
Dhawan Space Centre,
Sriharikota. It used an
Advanced
Technology
Vehicle (ATV), a sounding
rocket, for the test.
The ATV with the scramjet
engines weighed 3,277 kg at
lift-off.
India is planning a major
diplomatic outreach ahead of
the UNGA
India is planning a major

diplomatic outreach ahead of
the 71st session of the United
Nations General Assembly in
order to push through the
Comprehensive Convention
on International Terrorism
(CCIT).
CCIT addresses, among other
things, the issue of Pakistans
alleged support for cross-

National Issues
border terrorism in south
Asia.
India will brief visiting Peter
Thomson, President-elect of
the U.N. General Assembly,
on CCIT, and launch the
campaign
during
the
September 13-18 Non
Aligned Movement summit in
Venezuela.
The run-up to the UNGA
session has been tense after
the Organisation of Islamic
Cooperation
(OIC)
expressed deep concern
over the situation in Jammu
and Kashmir after Pakistan
reached out to the OIC on the
issue.
Indias strategy for the CCIT
is independent of the one on
Kashmir as it is a bilateral
issue.
The U.S. will push for Indias
membership of the Nuclear
Suppliers Group
The U.S. will push for Indias

membership of the Nuclear
Suppliers Group when the
issue is taken up later this
year, at the highest levels,
U.S. Ambassador to India
Richard Verma has said.
The Obama administration
will hold its last round of the
Strategic and Commercial
Dialogue (S&CD) with India,
when Mr. Kerry and U.S.
Commerce Secretary will
meet their counterparts
Sushma Swaraj and Nirmala
Sitharaman.
U.S. will take up Indias case
at the highest levels, i.e.
between President Obama
and President Xi, possibly
during their upcoming
meeting at G-20 next week.

In 2008, former President
George Bushs phone call to
former Chinese President Hu
Jintao swung a waiver from
the NSG in Indias favour.
Indicating that Chinas tough
position on the South China
Sea and the Indo-U.S. Joint
vision for the Asia Pacific
will also be discussed during
the S&CD meet.
Bahrain government has
offered to extend financial help
to the Odisha family
Moved by reports of a man

carrying his wifes body on
his shoulder for burial in
Odisha,
the
Bahrain
government has reportedly
offered to extend financial
help to the grieving family.
The Indian embassy in
Bahrain is, however, yet to
receive
an
official
confirmation from the office
of Bahrain Prime Minister
Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al
Khalifa about the amount.
The Bahraini Prime Minister
responded to media reports
on the episode and has made
an offer for humanitarian
assistance.
He has decided to make a
contribution but we have not
yet received any official
confirmation regarding the
amount of money or when it
will be made.
Situations slowly eases in
Kashmir valley
With an all-party delegation

headed by Union Home
Minister Rajnath Singh set to
visit Kashmir Valley on

September 4, lifting of curfew
and security restrictions
eased life for locals for the
first time in 51 days.
Police said the curbs were
withdrawn in the wake of
improvement
in
the
situation. Of 10 districts in
the Valley, only Pampore
town in south Kashmir and
two police station areas in
Srinagar city continued to
remain under curfew.
Private vehicles plied in the
commercial hub of Lal
Chowk,
where
many
government offices and
banks resumed functioning.
However, shops, petrol
pumps,
business
establishments
and
educational
institutes
remained closed in response
to the separatists shutdown
call till September 1.
Mr. Singh will head an allparty delegation to J&K for a
dialogue with stakeholders to
restore normality in the
Valley, where the killing of
militant commander Burhan
Wani on July 8 sparked a
cycle of violence.
Chief Minister Mehbooba
Mufti said Prime Minister
Narendra Modi had the
mandate to take bold
decisions on the lines of
Vajpayeeji.
A credible mechanism for
dialogue, reconciliation and
resolution needs to be put in
place. It should not be halfhearted efforts made in
similar situations after the
2008 and 2010 unrests, she
added.
25

National Issues
West Bengal Legislative
Assembly passed a resolution
changing the name of the State
The West Bengal Legislative

Assembly on Monday passed
a resolution changing the
name of the State to Bengal
in English and Bangla in
Bengali.
Despite the Trinamool
Congress governments
strong efforts to forge a
consensus on the name
change resolution, the
Congress, the Left Front and
the BJP did not support the
resolution.
Consent of the Parliament is
necessary to effect the name
change. After a vociferous
debate, the resolution, under
Rule 169 of the rules of
procedures of the House,
was passed by a voice vote.
Centre moves on vote totaliser
machines
The Union government is

working overtime to take a
final decision on the issue of
introducing
totaliser
machines for mixing of votes
from various booth for
counting, as recommended
by the Election Commission.
The Supreme Court, while
hearing a writ petition on
August 5, had given the
government eight weeks time
to take a final decision.
A team of Union Ministers has
been constituted on the
direction of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi to deliberate
on
the
Election
Commissions proposal in
November 2008, which was
26
seconded by
Commission.
the
Law
Expert committee on use of

pellet guns has submitted its
report to the Home Ministry
An expert committee on use

of pellet guns, which
submitted its report to the
Home Ministry on Monday,
has recommended that metal
pellets be replaced with
polymer, rubber and paper
bullets.
As the committee was not in
favour of completely phasing
out the use of pellet guns in
the Kashmir valley, their use
will be regulated.
The seven-member expert
committee, headed by
T.V.S.N Prasad, Joint
Secretary, Ministry of Home
Affairs (MHA), constituted on
July 26 to look into the
alternatives to pellet guns,
submitted its report.
There will be no blanket ban
on the use of pellet guns. At
the most, it will be used in
rarest of rare cases. We
cannot make our security
forces a sitting duck,.
The other alternative that the
committee has suggested is
the use of chilli grenade
shells.
The committee also explored
the use of acoustics but it
was not found fit to be used
in the Kashmir context as
they have not been found to
be a viable option wherever
used.
The Ordnance Factory Board,
which manufactures the
pump action guns, has been
asked to produce the other
types of pellets as well.

The committee also explored
the use of Vehicle Mounted
Active Denial System
developed by the U.S.
military but rejected the
option as it works on
millimetre wave technology,
which immobilises the body
and its health implications
are not known yet.
The Border Security Force
has already been asked to
supply chilli grenades,
capsicin-laced tear gas
smoke shells to the Kashmir
valley for effective crowd
control.
India and the U.S. signed the
Logistics Exchange
Memorandum of Agreement
India and the U.S. signed the

Logistics
Exchange
(LEMOA) that will give the
militaries of both countries
access to each others
facilities for supplies and
repairs.
Defence Minister Manohar
Parrikar and U.S. Defence
Secretary Ash Carter said in
a joint statement that the
pact
will
facilitate
additional opportunities for
practical engagement and
exchange.
While it is an enabling
agreement, LEMOA does not
make logistical support
automatic or obligatory for
either party.
The agreement does not
involve allowing military
bases either. Each case will
require individual clearance.
The services or supplies

National Issues
accessed will be on a
reimbursable basis.
National Crime Records Bureau
comes out
Incidents of rioting remained

almost the same in 2015 as
compared to 2014, but as
communal riots decreased,
big increases were seen in
other categories agrarian
riots, sectarian riots, student
riots and caste conflicts.
This data comes from the
Crime in India report for
2015 released by the National
Crime Records Bureau
(NCRB).
Recorded incidents of
agrarian riots saw a 327 per
cent increase from 628 in
2014 to 2683 in 2015.
The number of people
arrested also increased
nearly three fold from 3540
to 10353.
Sectarian riots defined as
violence between different
sects of the same religion not
considering caste conflict
showed a 2,700 and 9,000 per
cent jump in incidents.
The decrease in communal
riots incidents recorded by
NCRB from 1,227 in 2014
to 789 in 2015 however
does not mesh with data
released by the Ministry of
Home Affairs in response to
a parliamentary question in
July 2016.
Ministry data showed a slight
increase from 644 incidents
in 2014 to 751 in 2015.
Chennai recorded the lowest
rate of total crimes among
major cities (154.3 per 1 lakh
population). Among all

cities, only Surat (86.9),
Kannur and Dhanbad had
better rates.
India finds an ally in US against
Terrorism
Echoing Indias concerns for

an end to distinction
between good terrorism
and bad terrorism, the
United States sought action
from Pakistan on 26/11
attacks and the attack on the
Pathankot airbase.
The tough announcement
against terrorism was the
highlight of the Strategic and
Commercial
Dialogue
(S&CD).
It saw Secretary of State John
Kerry and address Indian
concerns on a wide range of
issues like counter-terror,
multi-lateralism and easier
visa regime for Indian
workers to the U.S.
Mr. Kerrys announcement of
a trilateral is a significant
move ahead and indicates a
hardening position on terror
that hurts South Asia.
The first and second trilateral
dialogues including India, the
U.S. and Afghanistan were
held in 2012 and 2013.
The comments from the
visiting Secretary of State of
the
outgoing
Obama
administration came a day
after
he
supported
Bangladesh in its fight against
international terrorism.
However,
Mr.
Kerry
acknowledged that Pakistan
had acted against the
Haqqani network.
Number of rape offenders

known to the victim shows an
increase
Following a worrisome
trend, the number of rape
offenders known to the
victim increased from 86 per
cent in 2014 to 95.5 per cent
in 2015, data released by the
National Crime Records
Bureau (NCRB).
Of the total cases reported in
2015, 33,098 offenders were
known to the victim. In 25 per
cent of the cases (8,788
incidents) neighbours were
identified as offenders.
Overall, the number of
reported
rape
cases
witnessed a five per cent
decline from 2014 to 2015,
This is the first time in the last
six years that this figure has
decreased.
A total of 34,651 rape cases
were reported in 2015
around 95 cases every day
down from 36,735 in 2014.
82,422 cases of molestation
were reported, categorised
as Assault on Women with
Intent to Outrage her
Modesty.
Delhi and Mumbai had the
highest number of total
reported rape incidents. But
Jodhpur, with 152 incidents,
had the highest crime rate for
rapes, with 13.4 rapes per
lakh women.
Half of all the rape victims
were in the age group of 1830. About 442 victims were
below the age of 6 and 97
were aged greater than 60.
27
UPSC (GS) (Pre) -1
1800
1500
05 2016
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/study-kit/ias-pre/csat-paper-1-hindi

International Issues
INTERNATIONAL ISSUES
US supports Indias aid in
Afghanistan
The U.S. is in favour of India

providing greater security
assistance to Afghanistan.
The gift of four MI-25 attack
helicopters by India to
Afghanistan was specially
cited by the U.S. military
commander while flagging
the crucial role India is
playing in the war-torn
country.
The tremendous cooperation
India has made in the human
capital of Afghan security
forces is the one contribution
that is going to be enduring.
He said efforts were under
way to create a facility in
Afghanistan for servicing
Russian made military
equipment such as the MI-25
helicopters they got from
India.
The fight against Taliban, he
said, is making progress.
Last year, Afghan forces
suffered over 5,000 deaths.
But by the end of the year,
they were able to take
control of all major
population centres.
After President Obama gave
authority to attack the IS in
January this year, U.S. forces
have been aggressively
targeting them.
Difference between Russia and
Ukraine on the rise again
28
Ukraines President put his

Army on combat alert along
the countrys de facto
borders with Crimea as a
war of words between Russia
and Ukraine threatened to
heat up the largely frozen
conflict over the Black Sea
peninsula.
Ukrainian
President
PetroPoroshenko issued the
order after Moscow accused
his country of sending in
saboteurs to carry out
attacks in Crimea.
Russia annexed Crimea from
Ukraine in March 2014
following a hastily called
referendum, a move that
sparked fighting between
Russia-backed separatists
and government forces in
eastern Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir
Putin upped the ante when he
directly
accused
the
Ukrainian government of
plotting the attacks and
called a meeting of the
countrys top brass to discuss
boosting security in Crimea.
Peace talks in the Belarusian
capital of Minsk in 2015
helped ease the fighting but
did not solve the crisis.
While the separatists never
allowed Ukrainian forces to
regain control of the border,
Ukraine has also not adopted
legislation to provide broad
autonomy to these territories.
China says India can still get

NSG membership
As Chinese Foreign Minister

began his three-day India
visit
from
Goa,
a
commentary in the state-run
Xinhua news agency stated
that the door is not shut on
Indias entry into the Nuclear
Suppliers Group (NSG).
The write-up pointed out that
so far, there is no precedent
for
a
nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)
signatory to become an NSG
member.
Any future discussions need
to be based on safeguarding
an international nuclear nonproliferation mechanism, in
which India itself has a huge
stake.
Without stating that a quid
pro quo could be in the
offing, the article followed its
observations on Indias
stalled bid for the NSG with
an elaboration of the South
China Sea issue.
China insists on a direct
dialogue
among
the
disputants on the South China
Sea issue.
India- China talks about Indias
entry into NSG
India on Saturday offered a

new mechanism of talks to
China on the Nuclear
Suppliers Group (NSG) issue.
External Affairs Minister

Sushma
Swaraj
also
expressed concern to the
visiting Chinese Foreign
Minister Wang Yi about the
China Pakistan Economic
Corridor.
The proposed talks featuring
the Directors-General on
disarmament issues on both
sides would be a new track
to convince China about
Indias needs to be integrated
into the global nuclear
technology market.
External Affairs Minister
outlined importance of
meeting our clean energy
goals in the context of COP21. Offered to discuss any
technical issues China may
have. It was agreed that the
DGs of Disarmament of the
two countries would meet
soon.
The proposal for a separate
track for discussion on
nuclear issues came weeks
after India failed to get into
the NSG during the June 2324
plenary
of
the
organisation in Seoul.
India had said only one
country (indirectly referring
to China) had raised a
procedural objection to
Indias inclusion into the
NSG.
China had opposed Indias
candidature saying that its
application for membership
lacked merit as India had not
signed the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty (NPT).
So far, India and China
maintained the mechanism of
bilateral dialogue at the level
of Special Representatives
(SR),
which
covers
comprehensive diplomatic
and strategic affairs.
Ms. Swaraj also urged
China to reconsider its
opposition to Indias UNlevel campaign to blacklist
Pakistan-based
terror
mastermind Masood Azhar,
who is wanted for his role in
multiple terror attacks
including in Pathankot.
China had placed a technical
hold or a diplomatic note of
opposition to Indias
campaign to include Azhar
on the list of globally
designated terrorists.
The technical hold will turn
into a formal blockade in
early September unless
China cooperates.
Worlds first quantum
communication satellite to be
launched by China
China is set to launch the worlds

first quantum communication
satellite which boasts of
hack-proof ultra high security
features
to
prevent
wiretapping and intercepts.
If the satellite works well, it will
pave the way to a hack-proof
communication system, staterun Xinhua news agency
reported. It will launch the
satellite in a matter of days.
In July 2015, a quantumcomputing lab jointly
established by Chinese
Academy of Science and
Chinese Internet giant
Alibaba opened in Shanghai.
Stricter
enforcement
of
environmental standards in
China
China will use the stricter
enforcement
of
environmental standards as
well as tougher credit
controls to help fight against
overcapacity
in
key
industrial sectors, the
government said.
The world's second-largest
economy has identified
overcapacity as one of its
key challenges and it has
already pledged mass
closures in the steel and coal
sectors, but it has so far
fallen behind on its targets.
Govt would normalize the
stricter implementation and
enforcement of mandatory
standards
to
tackle
overcapacity in sectors such
as steel.
Firms that fail to comply with
new energy efficiency targets
would be given six months to
rectify and would be closed
if they fail to make progress.
Massive human rights violation
in Balochistan for decades
Prime Minister Modis

reference to Balochistan in
his Independence Day speech
signals an aggressive shift in
Indias approach towards
Pakistan.
Mr. Modi said: The time has
come for Pakistan to answer
the world, on atrocities
against
people
in
Balochistan and Pakistanoccupied Kashmir.
The Indian strategy could be
drawing global attention
towards one of the oldest
internal problems faced by
Pakistan.
Balochistan, home to over 13
million people, mostly
Balochis, is Pakistans largest
29

30
but
least
developed
province.
Similar
to
Kashmirs, the roots of the
conflict go back to
Independence.
When Pakistan was born in
1947, the rulers of the
Khanate of Kalat, a princely
state under the British and
part of todays Balochistan,
refused to join the new
nation. Pakistan sent troops
in March 1948 to annex the
territory.
After the 1948 rebellion was
put down, crisis erupt- ed in
1958. In 1962-63 and1973-77,
Baloch nationalists mounted
violent campaigns for
independence from Pakistan.
But tensions started building
up after General Pervez
Musharraf seized power in
1999. When the military
started building new
cantonments in Balochistan,
radical nationalist factions
saw it as a bid by the Army
to tighten control over the
region.
The fifth wave of insurgency
that broke out in this context
is still on. The province has
several separatist groups, the
strongest
being
the
Balochistan Liberation Army
(BLA), designated as a
terrorist group by Pakistan.
Balochi nationalists accuse
Islamabad of deliberately
keeping the mineralrich
province poor, while
Pakistans rulers say it is the
insurgency that has slowed
down
the
pace
of
development.
But a bigger allegation
Pakistan is facing, something
which the Prime Minister

tried to highlight in his
speech, is the large-scale
human rights violations, both
by the Army and the
militants.
Every time there is unrest in
the region, the Army uses
brute force to retain order.
Even the Air Force was used
against
the
civilian
population many times. The
Pakistani atrocities had
attracted
international
condemnation.
The province now holds
greater importance in
Pakistans grand economic
and geopolitical strategies.
It is one of the important
locations in the economic
corridor China has proposed
to build at an investment of
$46 billion linking the
deepwater port of Gwadar
with the city of Kashgar, a
trading hub in the western
Chinese region of Xinjiang.
The much publicised IranPakistan gas pipeline is
planned to run through
Balochistan.
Stalled Myitsone dam project

came under focus
The stalled Myitsone dam

project widely seen as a
litmus test of a new phase of
ties between China and
Myanmar came under
sharp focus during talks
between the visiting leader
Aung San Suu Kyi and
Chinese Prime Minister.
China signalled that the
Myanmar government was
reconsidering its position on
the $3.6 billion project, and
hoped to arrive at a
resolution that suited both
sides.
The mega project, which has
been
criticised
by
environmental groups, was
frozen in 2011 by Myanmars
previous government led by
President TheinSein.
Analysts say Myanmar is
expected to balance its ties
between China and its other
neighbours including India.
China is Myanmars foremost
foreign investors, with
investments of $15.4 billion
already in the bag.
Apart from the Myitsone
project, the government
commission will also review
other
proposed
hydroelectric dams along the
Thanlwin River. It is expected
to submit its report by
November 11.
The two sides have also
decided to build a bridge at
Kunlong, 32 km from the
border in northeastern
Myanmar, as part of
counterinsurgency exercise.
The bridge will be close to
the Kokang region, where an
ethnic Chinese group battled
the Myanmars troops last
year.
The Irrawaddy noted that
Myanmars main and
immediate concern is how to
make use of Chinese
influence on the ethnic armed
organisations along the SinoBurma border.
After decades of delay Pakistan

tabled Hindu Marriage bill
After decades of delay and

inaction, the much-debated

Hindu Marriage Bill 2016 has
finally been tabled in
Pakistans
National
Assembly.
The report of the Standing
Committee on Law and
Justice on the Hindu
Marriage Bill 2016 was
presented in the National
Assembly and is just one step
away from being approved
as the ruling Pakistan Muslim
League-Nawaz (PML-N)
party is supporting it.
The bill is expected to put an
end to the practice of
abduction of married Hindu
women and to curtail forced
conversions.
UNESCO denies report on
delisting of Dambulla temple
The
United
Nations
Educational, Scientific and
Cultural
Organisation
(UNESCO) has said that no
reference was ever made to
the delisting of the Golden
Temple of Dambulla.
It is one of the eight World
Heritage sites in Sri Lanka.
Located about 175 km from
here, the Temple was
declared a World Heritage
site in 1991.
A sacred pilgrimage site for
many centuries, this cave
monastery, with its five
sanctuaries, is the largest,
best-preserved cave-temple
complex in Sri Lanka,
according to the UNESCOs
website.
It contains Buddhist mural
paintings, covering an area
of 2,100 sq. m and contains
157 statues.
There have been reports of
concern over the state of

conservation
of
the
monument.
In March 2015, the
International Committee on
Monuments and Sites, the
UNESCOs advisory body for
cultural properties, had
dispatched a monitoring
mission to assess the
situation.
India performs unsatisfactory in
broadband adoption
India ranks a low 39th in

terms of fixed broadband
adoption among Asia Pacific
countries, with just 1.3 per
cent of its citizens
subscribing to such a service
in 2015, according to a study
by the ESCAP.
India ranks lower than
countries such as Bhutan, Sri
Lanka and Bangladesh in
fixed
broadband
subscriptions per 100
inhabitants in ESCAP
countries in 2015, according
to the report State of ICT in
Asia and the Pacific 2016.
Hong Kong, New Zealand,
Japan, Macao, Australia and
Singapore topped the list of
53 countries covered in the
report. According to the
latest ITU data for 2015, more
than half of the global fixed
broadband subscriptions are
from Asia and the Pacific.
This is followed by Europe
(21.9 per cent) and North
America (14.1 per cent).
The report pointed out that
this was a dramatic increase
from
2005
when
subscriptions in the ESCAP
region merely constituted
38.1% of the global total

fixed
broadband
subscriptions, followed by
Europe (28.6 per cent).
China gets new country,
Myanmar, under Silk Road
project
Myanmars State Counsellor

Aung San Suu Kyi concluded
her visit to China after
embarking on a tough
balancing act of seeking
Beijings support for her
countrys infrastructure
projects and demands of
environmental groups back
home.
During the visit, media
attention remained largely
fixed on the Myitsone
project, the controversial
China-backed undertaking
worth $3.6 billion stalled
since 2011 on the grounds of
causing extensive ecological
damage.
Ms. Suu Kyi placed on record
Myanmars support for
Chinas Belt and Road
connectivity initiative along
the ancient Silk Road.
It also supported the
Bangladesh-China-IndiaMyanmar economic corridor
meant to industrialise a
stretch spanning more than
2,000-km linking Kunming in
China with Mandalay in
Myanmar, passing through
Bangladesh, and ending at
Kolkata in India.
Significantly, it made
nomention of the South China
Sea dispute, an achievement
for Beijing, which has been
working hard to avoid
negative references to the
31

issue among members of the
Association of South East
Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Prior to Ms. Suu Kyis visit,
Myanmars media had
highlighted that she was
likely to look for Chinese
support for her governments
initiatives in achieving
reconciliation with insurgent
groups in Myanmar.
An open letter to State
Counsellor pointed out that
hydropower dams on the
Salween River would block
water flow and create
hardship for those who rely
on
the
waterway,
particularly for agriculture,
in Burma, Thailand and
China.
Turkeys Minister says Fethullah
gulden terrorist organisation has
infiltrated India
FethullahGulen Terrorist
Organisation
(FETO),
blamed for last months coup
attempt to topple President
Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey,
has infiltrated India,
according to Turkish Foreign
Minister MevlutCavusoglu.
Asserting that the FETO is
secretive transnational
criminal network with
presence around the world,
Mr.
Cavusoglu
said,
Unfortunately, the FETO has
also infiltrated India through
associations and schools.
External Affairs Ministry
Spokesperson said the
Indian side was sensitive to
Turkish concerns and Indian
security agencies were
looking into Ankaras
demand for closure of
32
associations connected with

the FETO.
PM Modi promises to stand by
Afghanistan
Highlighting
close
friendship between the two
countries, India reached out
to the government of
President Ashraf Ghani of
Afghanistan and said that
New Delhi will always be
there to support the country.
Inaugurating the newly
restored Stor Palace in
Kabul, a stately building
which had been damaged in
the civil war, Prime Minister
Narendra Modi said the
palace, which is also known
as the Star Palace or Kasreestar, is a sign of the rich
heritage of Afghanistan.
Mr. Modi stressed that,
whatever may be the odds,
India will work with you for
a bright future for all
Afghans.
Presenting the views of the
Afghan side, President Ghani
said the logic of peace and
benevolence will defeat the
logic of terror and violence.
India and Afghanistan have
always been close friends,
he added.
The Stor Palace was built
during the reign of Amir
Abdul Rahman Khan in 1880.
It underwent a series of
renovations till 1965 when
most of the functions were
shifted to another building.
The building is expected to
regain its stature with the
restoration process now
completed.
Tension rises between Israel

and Gaza
Israel said its forces carried

out dozens of air and tank
strikes in Gaza in response
to a rocket that hit a southern
Israeli town.
Palestinian medical officials
said four people were
wounded in the strikes
launched after a rocket was
fired from Gaza into the city
of Sderot.
Bases of Hamass military
wing, the Ezzedine AlQassam Brigades, as well as
of two smaller militant
groups were hit, the security
officials said.
A spokesman for Hamas said
Israel carries responsibility
for the escalation in the Gaza
Strip and this new aggression
will not succeed in
weakening the movement.
U.S.s security assistance to
Pakistan has slowed
significantly
The U.S.s security assistance

to Pakistan has declined by
73 per cent since 2011 due
to the deterioration in ties
following the killing of
Osama bin Laden, according
to a Congressional report.
The report, prepared for the
U.S. Congress by the
Congressional Research
Service (CRS), covers both
military and economic
assistance given between
2002 and 2015 as well as
those earmarked for fiscal
years 2016 and 2017.
The bilateral relationship
started deteriorating after the

killing of al-Qaeda chief
Osama bin Laden in a raid in
Abbottabad and a U.S. air
strike on a Pakistani border
post in Salala that killed 24
Pakistani soldiers.
Earlier this month, the
Pentagon decided not to pay
$300 million in military
reimbursements
to
Islamabad over its alleged
reluctance to act against the
Haqqani network, a charge
Islamabad had immediately
rejected.
Security aid fell 73 per cent
from nearly $1.3 billion in
2011 to $343 million in 2015.
Economic aid declined from
nearly $1.2 billion in 2011 to
$561 million in 2015, the
report said.
The CSF accounted for as
much as one-fifth of
Pakistans total military
expenditures from 2002 to
2014, said the CRS, a U.S.
government news and
analysis
service
for
Congress.
A powerful earthquake rattled
Italy
A powerful earthquake
rattled a remote area of
central Italy, leaving at least
120 people dead and scenes
of carnage in mountain
villages.
With 368 people injured and
an unknown number trapped
under rubble, the figure of
dead and wounded was
expected to rise in the wake
of the pre-dawn quake.
The devastated area is just
north of LAquila, the city
where some 300 people died
in another quake in 2009.

The shocks were strong
enough to be felt 150 km
away in Rome, where
authorities ordered structural
tests on the Colosseum.
UN investigation said that
President Bashar carried out
chemical attacks
A UN investigation has
established that President
Bashar al-Assads forces
carried out at least two
chemical attacks in Syria and
that Islamic State jihadists
used mustard gas as a
weapon, according to a
report.
The panel was able to identify
the perpetrators of three
chemical attacks carried out
in 2014 and 2015.
The panel found that the
Islamic State was the only
entity with the ability,
capability, motive and the
means to use sulphur
mustard in an attack on the
town of Marea in northern
Aleppo province on August
21, 2015.
Obama administration wants
second term for Jim Yong Kim
The Obama administration is

nominating current World
Bank President Jim Yong Kim
for a second term leading the
189-nation international
lending organisation.
Treasury Secretary Jacob
Lew praised Kim for using his
first term at the World Bank
to effectively address
todays most pressing global
challenges in innovative
ways, from ending extreme

poverty.
Kim, the former president of
Dartmouth College, was first
tapped by President Barack
Obama to head the World
Bank in 2012.
Assassination attempt on
German Chancellor
An assassination attempt on
German Chancellor Angela
Merkel has reportedly been
foiled here as police in the
Czech Republic detained an
armed man who tried to join
her motorcade.
The perpetrator has been
detained, the Mirror quoted
police spokesman Josef
Bocan as saying.
He is suspected of attempting
to cause a crime: specifically
an attempt to use violence
against an official.
PMs mention of human rights
violations in Baloch praised by
Baloch exile leaders

Modis recent comments on
Balochistan that sought to
bring international attention
to human rights violations in
the Pakistani province were
praised
by
Baloch
nationalists in exile
Mr. Mustikhan thanked Mr.
Modi and mother India for
the support to Baloch people.
Switzerland-based Nawab
Brahumdagh Bugti, leader of
the Baloch Republican Party,
said: It is for the first time
that an Indian Prime Minister
has spoken about the human
rights situation and Pakistani
atrocities in Balochistan.
33

We believe India should have
taken this stand long time
ago. We see it as a very
positive development and
hope India would soon
announce its policy to raise
Balochistan human rights
violations internationally and
support the Baloch cause.
UN urged African nations to
close a gender gap that also has
economic cost
The UN on Sunday urged

African nations to close a
gender gap that is costing an
estimated $95 billion a year
in lost economic potential.
Where there are high levels
of gender inequality,
societies are missing out,
UN Development Fund
(UNDP) director Helen Clark
told AFP.
They are not harnessing the
full potential of women, and
that costs economically, at
34
the family level, community

level and the national level.
In many African nations,
women are banned from
owning or inheriting land,
making it hard for them to
borrow money.
DCNS will go to court against
publishing leaked documents on
the Scorpenes
French
submarine
manufacturer DCNS, which is
set to seek an injunction in
the Supreme Court of New
South Wales, to stop The
Australian from publishing
more leaked documents on
the Scorpenes.
A report in the newspaper
said DCNS has also filed a
complaint against unknown
persons for breach of trust
with the Paris prosecutor
which includes receiving
stolen
goods
and
complicity.
It also contested Defence

Minister Manohar Parrikars
claim that the impact of the
leak was minimal as, among
other things, it does not
include weapons details as
they are from a different
manufacturer.
Boost to Indias diplomatic
outreach for the Bay of Bengal
economic zone
In a boost to Indias
diplomatic outreach for the
Bay of Bengal economic
zone, Prime Minister Sheikh
Hasina of Bangladesh will
participate in the October 1516 BRICS-BIMSTEC event.
Sri Lankan diplomats
indicated that President
Maithripala Sirisena will also
attend the event, which has
received a confirmation from
Myanmar State Counsellor
Aung San Suu Kyi.

India & The World
INDIA & THE WORLD

Modernisation of Su-30 fighters
made significant progress
India and Russia made
significant progress in the
discussions for modernisation of
all Su-30 fighters of the Indian
Air Force (IAF) during the visit
of a Russian team last month.
The upgrade will give the fight
jets new avionics and radar,
improved stealth characteristics
to reduce the radar crosssection, better electronic
warfare capability and new
weapons.
Though the quantum of the deal
is not finalised, some officials
said it could be in the range of
$7-8 billion.
Su-30 are the most modern
fighters and the main stay of the
IAF. Given the delay in
procurement of new fighters,
they are crucial for maintaining
the combat edge of the IAF.
Discussions had been under
way for some time for upgrading
the aircraft to what was called
Super Sukhoi, but the talks
gained momentum recently.
India had signed the initial
agreement with Russia in the
late 1990s for procuring 50 Su30 multi-role fighter jets in a flyaway condition.
Then, it ordered 272 Su-30MKI
fighter jets to be made by
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited
(HAL) at Nasik.
Most of the aircraft to be made
by HAL have been delivered,
and the entire lot of 222 aircraft
is expected to be completed
in the next couple of years. The
HAL has a production rate of

10-12 aircraft a year.
This comes in the backdrop of
the delay in concluding the
final deal for the Fifth
Generation Fighter Aircraft
(FGFA) to be developed by
India and Russia, besides the
delay in concluding an
agreement for the purchase of
the Rafale fighter jets and in the
induction of the indigenous
Light Combat Aircraft.
A preliminary design agreement
was signed in 2010 between
HAL and Russias Sukhoi Design
Bureau to make the FGFA for
use by both countries. So far,
both sides have invested $295
million in the preliminary design.
But, the final agreement got
stuck because of the
disagreements over the work
share and investment.
India gets Bangladeshs support
over Balochistan
Bangladesh came out in support
of Prime Minister Narendra
Modis stand on the Balochistan
issue, saying Dhaka would soon
make a policy declaration on
Pakistans human rights abuses
in Balochistan.
The visiting Minister of
Information said Balochistan
was facing the brunt of
Pakistans military establishment,
which targeted the Bengalis
in East Pakistan in 1971 before
the creation of Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is constitutionally
bound to support liberation
struggles and we will soon

declare an official policy on
Balochistan, he added.
His comment comparing the
Bangladesh Liberation War of
1971 with the situation in
Balochistan came a day after
Minister of State for External
Affairs M J Akbar compared East
Pakistan of 1971 with
simmering Balochistan.
Bangladesh wants India to
partner a joint effort to control
distortion of Islam and history,
which can safeguard the
memory of 1971, the minister
said.
In the last few years, Dhaka has
detected multiple cases where
Pakistani diplomats posted in
Bangladesh were found to have
been involved in terror plots.
Bangladesh, he said, is worried
of the fallout of Pakistans official
policies regarding nationalities
and promotion of cross border
violence.
Non Aligned Movement meeting

in September
Venezuela is counting on Prime
Minister Narendra Modis
attendance at this years NonAligned Movement (NAM)
meeting in September, despite
reports he is unlikely to, said
visiting Foreign Minister.
The Non-Aligned principles
are today more relevant than
ever. So we are sure that India
will attend NAM and attend at
the highest level, the
Venezuelan Foreign Minister
35

India & The World

said.
Ms. Rodriguez met with
Petroleum Minister Dharmendra
Pradhan on the governments
offer of supplying Venezuela
much needed pharmaceutical
products in exchange for oil.
Opposition leaders say that if Mr.
Modi skips the NAM summit, it
would send out the wrong
signal.
BRICS women parliamentarians
forum started at Jaipur
Calling upon BRICS countries to
strengthen
cooperative
mechanisms, Lok Sabha
Speaker said a united front
36
would help in the successful

implementation of the
Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs).
At the first meeting of the BRICS
Women Parliamentarians
Forum, She said while India had
chosen the path of removing
poverty by empowering the
poor, BRICS should innovate
institutional means for meeting
the needs of the member
countries.
The Speaker said that some of
the recent initiatives launched
in the country were promoting
inclusion
and
social
advancement.
The initiatives include Jan Dhan

Yojana,
unleashing
entrepreneurial energies of
people, and the Beti Bachao,
Beti Padhao scheme to bring the
girl child as focus of all
development efforts.
Ms. Mahajan said the women
parliamentarians, as enablers of
achievement of the SDGs,
needed to concentrate on their
role as peoples representatives.
Referring to the 2030 agenda
for the SDGs, Ms. Mahajan said
the women parliamentarians
had added responsibilities in it
because worldwide.
Online Course for Civil Services Preliminary Examination

Online Coaching for CSAT Paper - 1 (GS)
Online Coaching for CSAT Paper - 2 (CSAT)

( 1)
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/courses/ias-pre/csat-paper-1-hindi
(CSAT)
( - 2)
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/courses/ias-pre/csat-paper-2-hindi
Online Course for Civil Services Mains Examination

General Studies Mains (NEW PATTERN - Paper 2,3,4,5)
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/courses/ias-mains-gs
Public Administration for Mains
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/courses/ias-mains-pub-ad
Online Course for One Day Examination

Online Coaching for SSC CGL (Tier-1) Exam
http://sscportal.in/community/courses/ssc-cgl-tier-1
SSC
Online Coaching
http://sscportal.in/community/courses/ssc-cgl-tier-1-hindi
For Full Information about Online Coaching Click below Link:

Study Kit for Preliminary Examinations:

IAS (Pre) GS Paper 1
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/study-kit/ias-pre/csat-paper-1
IAS (Pre) GS Paper 2

http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/study-kit/ias-pre/csat-paper-2
. . . () 2014 -1
. . . (-) 2014 -2
Study Kit for Mains Examinations:

Contemporary Issues
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/study-kit/contemporary-issues-ias-mains
Public Administration
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/study-kit/ias-mains-public-adminstration
Essay Writing
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/study-kit/essay-mains
English Grammar & Comprehension

http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/study-kit/ias-mains-english-compulsory
History
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/study-kit/ias-mains-history
Philosophy
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/study-kit/ias-mains-philosophy
Sociology
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/study-kit/ias-mains-sociology
General Studies
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/study-kit/gs-mains
Study Kit for UPSC Other Examinations:

Armed Police Forces (CAPF)
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/study-kit/capf
Study Kit for Other One Day Examinations:

SSC Combined Graduate Level (Tier - I)
http://sscportal.in/community/study-kit/cgl
(-1)
http://sscportal.in/community/study-kit/cgl/tier-1-hindi
SSC Combined Graduate Level Examination (Tier - II)

http://sscportal.in/community/study-kit/cgl-tier-2
SSC Combined Higher Secondary Level (10+2) Examination

http://sscportal.in/community/study-kit/chsle
IBPS Specialist Officer Study Kit

http://bankexamportal.com/study-kit/ibps-specialist-officer
IBPS Probationary Officer (PO) Study Kit

http://bankexamportal.com/study-kit/ibps-po
IBPS Clerk Study Kit

http://bankexamportal.com/study-kit/ibps-clerk
For Full Information about Study Kits Click below Link:


Economy
ECONOMY
Cabinet approved foreign
investment changes in NBFCs
The Cabinet approved a
proposal to amend rules for
foreign investment in nonbanking finance companies
(NBFCs).
Foreign investment in other
financial services that are not
regulated by any regulators or
by a government agency can be
made via the approval route,
Further, minimum capitalisation
norms as mandated under FDI
policy have been eliminated as
most of the regulators have
already fixed minimum
capitalisation norms
The Cabinet Committee on
Economic Affairs approved a
one-time grant of Rs.900 crores
spread over three years for an
R&D
project
for
the
development of Advanced
Ultra Super Critical (AUSC)
technology for thermal power
plants.
The estimated cost of the
project is Rs.1,554 crore,
according to the government.
The Rs.900 crore, commencing
from 2017-18, is to be provided
as plan gross budgetary support
to Bharat Heavy Electricals
(BHEL) for the implementation
of the R&D project.
The Cabinet gave its ex-post
facto approval for the
amendment of Section 64 and
section
65
and
the
consequential amendment in
Section 115 of the Factories
Act, 1948 by the introduction
of the Factories (Amendment)

Bill, 2016 in Parliament.
The Cabinet also approved the
introduction of pension and
post-retirement
medical
services benefits to the
employees of the Food
Corporation of India.
The
annual
financial
implication for both schemes
combined would be around
Rs.134.4 crore at present level
of salaries of the employees,
the government said.
Govt came up with new norms
for appraisal and approval of
public-funded schemes
Finance Ministry has issued new
norms for the appraisal and
approval of public-funded
schemes as well as to improve
the delivery of goods and
services to citizens.
With the announcement in the
Union Budget 2016-17 of doing
away with Plan Non-Plan
distinction at the end of Twelfth
Five Year Plan, it is imperative
that a plan non-plan neutral
appraisal and approval system
is put into place.
One of the guidelines is that no
new scheme or sub-scheme can
be initiated without the prior inprinciple approval of the
Department of Expenditure.
This will not apply to the
announcements made in the
Budget Speech for any given
year.
The new policy also empowers
ministers
to
approve
expenditure proposals of up to
Rs 500 crore, up from the
previous limit of Rs 150 crore.
The Finance Ministry move is
aimed at improving the delivery
of goods and services to
citizens.
Govt to boost connectivity in
rural areas
About Rs.10,000 crore will be
spent in the current financial
year from the Universal Service
Obligation Fund (USOF) to
execute various digital
infrastructure projects to boost
connectivity in rural areas.
This amount is the highest in
the history of USOF, Telecom
Secretary said at a seminar on
'ICT emerging technologies &
USOF for Digital India.'
The USO Fund is maintained by
the government. Under the
New Telecom Policy, a
provision was made to raise
money for this fund through a
Universal Access Levy, charged
from operators as a percentage
of various licenses fees being
paid by them.
Ease of doing business index
will be improved after GST
Union Finance minister said that
the Goods and Services Tax
regime, once implemented, will
improve the ease of doing
business in the country.
Mr. Jaitley said the NDA
government is committed to
making such enterprises more
competitive and providing
37

Economy
them access to capital.
Starting this year, the census of
MSME units in the country will
be done online instead of
relying on physical surveys with
the intention of creating a
comprehensive database with
real-time information on
different enterprises.
This database will eventually be
used for public procurement
purposes and would also be
used by public sector
enterprises to scale up their
purchases
from
small
enterprises.
Separately, an online finance
facilitation web portal was
unveiled by the National Small
Industries Corporation that
provides credit support to
MSME units for raw material
purchases.
The portal will allow the MSMEs
to apply for loans from the
various banks.
TRAI introduced portal to allow
mobile phone users to check
the call drop rate
Telecom regulator TRAI
introduced a portal that will
allow mobile phone users to
check the call drop rate,
network coverage and call
quality on their operators
network.
This will bring in transparency
about the network performance
as consumers will be able to see
if the call drop situation has
changed.
Further, the regulator is likely to
come out with a consultation
paper on net neutrality and their
final view on the issue of free
data by the end of this month.
Inflation at two year high
Retail inflation accelerated to a
38
two-year high of 6.07 per cent

in July due to higher food
prices, official data showed.
Industrial output for the first
quarter of 2016-17 has grown
by just 0.6 per cent. While the
index of industrial production
(IIP) rose 2.1 per cent in June
2016.
Inflation in the food category of
the Consumer Price Index
accelerated to 8 per cent in July
from 7.5 per cent in June.
Inflation in the housing segment
remained flat at 5.4 per cent in
July, while that in the fuel and
light segment slowed to 2.75
per cent in July from 2.9 per
cent in June.
Inflation in the clothing and
footwear segment accelerated
to 5.2 per cent from 5 per cent
in June.
Analysts said higher inflation will
make it challenging for the
Reserve Bank of India to meet
its inflation target of 5 per cent
set for March 2017.
While the pace of growth (of
IIP) still remains low, there was
an improvement across the
board, according to a report by
Crisil.
The growth in the IIP in June
was mainly driven by the
electricity sector, which grew
8.3 per cent in that month
compared to 4.7 per cent in
June.
Manufacturing sector growth
remained subdued at 1 per
cent in June, up from 0.6 per
cent in May. Activity in the
mining and quarrying sector also
picked up with the sector
growing at 4.7 per cent in June
compared to 1.4 per cent in
May.
The capital goods sector,
however, contracted 16.5 per
cent in June compared to a

contraction of 12.35 per cent.
The consumer durables
segment slowed marginally to
5.6 per cent in June from 6 per
cent in May.
Exports shrink again in July
After rising for the first time in
18 months in June, exports
shrank again in July, contracting
6.84 per cent due to decline in
shipments of engineering goods
and petroleum products.
Gold imports, which till recently
was a matter of concern for the
government, more than halved
to $1.08 billion in the month.
Merchandise exports totalled
$21.69 billion in July as against
$23.28 billion in the same month
last year.
Declining exports as well as in
imports narrowed the trade
deficit in July to $7.76 billion as
against $13.09 billion in the
year-ago period.
Exports have been falling since
December 2014 due to weak
global demand and slide in oil
prices.
As per the data released by
Commerce and Industry
Ministry, imports in July were at
$29.45 billion, down 19.03 per
cent from $36.37 billion in the
same month a year ago.
Gold imports dropped over 64
per cent to $1.08 billion, from
$2.97 billion in July 2015.
Import of the precious metal has
been declining sharply due to
measures like higher customs
duty and gold schemes.
Gold used to be the second
most imported item in the
country after petroleum. Data
revealed that imports of
petroleum, crude and related
products fell 28 per cent in July,

Economy
while that of coal, coke and
briquettes shrank by about 7 per
cent.
Off-grid solar can meet Indias
power demand
The slow pace of capacity
addition in the solar sector has
created room for a variety of offgrid solar solutions to grow and
provide electricity to those as
yet not connected to the power
grid, according to a private
sector industry leader.
Off-grid solar is increasingly
being viewed as the way to
bring sustainable and cheap
lighting to the vast segments of
India that are yet to be
connected to the electricity
grid, especially in difficult
terrain.
Over 300 million people in
India dont have access to the
electricity grid and are living in
complete darkness, Ms. Modi
added.
The coming together of various
factors, both external and
domestic, has meant that there
are several types of household
solar products entering the
market, ranging from simple
solar lanterns powered by inbuilt solar panels, to entire solar
invertors that use rooftop solar
panels.
These off-grid solar solutions,
apart from helping the
government meet its renewable
energy target, also provide
economical savings both to
the government and the
consumer.
The government is spending
Rs.30,000 crore a year on
importing kerosene, which is a
complete waste of foreign
exchange, Ms. Modi said.
The average rural household
uses 18 litres of kerosene a

month, 12 of which are used
only for lighting. The rest is for
cooking. They spend Rs.150 a
month only on kerosene.
However, despite some cost
factors easing in the off-grid
solar industry, others still pinch,
leading to economic activity
that could have taken place in
India moving to China instead.
The battery makes up 30 per
cent of the cost of the product,
according to Ms Modi, and the
company has to pay a 30 per
cent duty on its import. This
renders making solar lanterns
and invertors in India
economically unviable.
Govt to do away with the

minimum educational
qualification for public transport
drivers
The Centre has proposed doing
away with the minimum
educational qualification for
public transport drivers.
At present, it is compulsory for
drivers of all commercial
vehicles, such as buses, trucks
and taxis, to clear class VIII at
the school-level before
applying for a driving licence.
The Centre has proposed
diluting this requirement in the
Motor Vehicles Amendment Bill
of 2016 which was introduced
in Lok Sabha earlier this week.
Taxi drivers may no longer need
to have one years driving
experience in a private vehicle
before being eligible for a
commercial vehicle licence,
provided that one has
undergone specialised training
from
any
government
accredited driving school.
At present, driving a private
vehicle for at least one year is a
must before one can get a

learners licence to drive a
public transport vehicle.
As per the plan, the Central
government will empower a
body to certify schools to impart
training to aspirant drivers
across the country.
The official said that a
structured
training
programme will be formulated
by the Centre, possibly with the
help of National Skill
Development Corporation
(NSDC) so that faster issuance
of transport licences is possible.
The training programme will
likely be for 2-3 months and may
focus on core driving skills,
latest technology exposure,
vehicle maintenance, soft skills,
discipline and health and
hygiene of the drivers, the
official said.Remedial training
At present, after the applicant
has failed the test of
competence more than three
times, he or she can re-apply
only after two months of
appearing for the test.
Now, the applicant will also
have to undergo this remedial
training course compulsorily.
Centre may ease regulatory

norms for Exim Bank, ECGC
The Commerce Ministry to
consider
measures
to
strengthen state-owned export
promotion firms Exim Bank
and Export Credit Guarantee
Corporation (ECGC).
Exim Bank is Indias premier
export finance institution, while
ECGC provides credit risk
insurance cover for Indian
exporters and offers overseas
investment insurance to Indian
companies.
The
proposals
being
39

Economy
40
considered include more

financial support from the
government to augment the two
companies capital, allowing
them to retain the dividend
amount instead of the current
practice of paying it to the
government.
The move comes amidst the
ministrys efforts to ensure a
major turnaround in the
countrys merchandise exports,
which contracted 6.84 percent
year-on-year to $21.69 billion in
July.
The Board of Trade (an
industry-government body set
up for recommending ways to
boost Indias exports) had in
April suggested that it was
important to strengthen Exim
Bank and ECGC.
On the need for more capital
from the government, the
sources said Exim Bank has
sought Rs.1,700 crore for 201617 but the budgetary support
for it this fiscal is only Rs.500
crore.
Regarding ECGC on these two
fronts, they said in the last ten
years (since 2005-06), ECGC
has paid the government Rs.798
crore as dividend and another
Rs.132 crore as dividend
distribution tax, thereby a total
of about Rs.930 crore.
On the other hand, the
government has given ECGC a
budgetary support of just
Rs.600 crore in the ten years
since 2005-06.
It has also been proposed to
increase its leverage ratio, a mix
of owners equity and debt to
finance the companys
operations, from a low level of
around 11 times the banks NetOwned Funds (NOF) to at least
15 times its NOF initially.
IMF raised question marks over

the ability of the RBI to target
inflation
An IMF paper has raised
question marks over the ability
of the Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) to target inflation through
monetary measures.
It said the size of the formal
financial sector is small in India
and may undermine the
effectiveness of interest rate
changes on aggregate demand.
The IMF working paper
assumes significance as the RBI
has recently implemented an
inflation-targeting regime that
requires it to hit publicly
announced targets for retail
inflation, based on Consumer
Price Index (CPI).
Under the new dispensation,
RBI will be required to meet
retail inflation target of 4 per
cent, plus or minus two per cent
over the next five years.
The interest rate from the next
policy, due on October 4, will
be decided by a six-member
monetary policy committee
(MPC) instead of the central
bank governor.
It said that careful studies of the
effectiveness of monetary
transmission in low-income
countries have often found
monetary policy effects that are
counterintuitive, weak or
unreliable.
Next round of RCEP trade talks
to begin in Vietnam
As the next round of RCEP trade
talks begin in Vietnam,
humanitarian aid organisation
Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF)
has called for the removal of
intellectual property (IP)
provisions from the agreement.
The talks are scheduled for

August 15-19.
According to the MSF, the
provisions like patent term
extensions and data exclusivity
could hinder access to
affordable drugs.
The RCEP is a deal being
negotiated between the 10
ASEAN countries, and
Australia, China, India, Japan,
New Zealand and South Korea.
Nearly two-thirds of all the drugs
MSF purchases to treat HIV, TB
and malaria are generic
medicines from India; data
exclusivity provisions under
RCEP could delay the entry of
generic medicines.
Moodys says next central bank
governor should continue tight
policy
RBI Governor Raghuram Rajans
policy of maintaining a tight
leash on inflation has showed
results and the Reserve Bank
should continue with similar
policies and communication
going forward, Moodys
Investors Service has said.
Moodys Investors Service
Senior VP Sovereign Risk Group
Marie Diron said credibility and
effectiveness of monetary
policy are factors which impact
Indias sovereign ratings.
Moodys has a Baa3 rating on
India with a positive outlook.
A monetary policy with tight
leash on inflation is important
especially in India where, in the
past, inflation had risen to very
high levels, negatively affecting
growth and investment
prospects.
Consumer price index or retail
inflation rose by 6.01 per cent
in June, the fastest pace in 23
months and it is expected that

Economy
the implementation of the new
Goods and Services Tax (GST)
may push up inflation further.
Wholesale Price index rose to
3.6 percent
Wholesale price inflation
accelerated to a 23-month high
of 3.6 per cent in July, driven
mainly by higher food prices,
according to official data.
The pace of price gains as
measured by the wholesale
price index more than doubled
in July from 1.62 per cent in
June, leaving the Reserve Bank
of India even less elbow room
to cut benchmark interest rates
at its next meeting.
Food inflation came in at a
blistering 11.8 per cent, the
fastest in 31 months and
compared with Junes 8.2 per
cent.
Within the food category,
inflation in foodgrains
accelerated to 13.6 per cent in
July from 10.9 per cent in June.
The fruits and vegetables
category saw a whopping 22
per cent increase in prices in
July but this could be due to a
low base effect because the
category saw a contraction of
15 per cent in the year-earlier
period.
The Consumer Price Index for
July also saw inflation
accelerating to above 6 per
cent, with the food component
reaching almost 8 per cent.
Overall, the primary articles
segment
saw
inflation
accelerate to 9.4 per cent in July
Within this, the non-food
category also saw a drastic
quickening in the pace of
inflation, moving to 9.5 per cent
in July from 5.7 per cent in June.
Prices in the fuel and power

segment contracted 1 per cent
in July, compared with a
contraction of 3.6 per cent in
June.
Inflation in the manufactured
goods segment accelerated
marginally to 1.8 per cent in July
Manufactured food products
inflation at 10.2 per cent, was
the highest it has been since
September 2012.
Rajan stressed on the need to
improve governance at public
sector
Raghuram Rajan has stressed the
need to improve governance at
public sector banks and said
the task of appointing top
executives and non-official
directors in these entities
should be left to the Bank Board
Bureau (BBB).
At present, the Centre appoints
the chief executive, executive
directors and other board
members.
Mr. Rajans suggestion is in line
with the proposals of the P.J.
Nayak committee set up by the
RBI to look into the issue of
governance in Indian banks.
The Centre set up the BBB in
February this year under the
chairmanship of former
Comptroller and Auditor
General of India Vinod Rai.
At present, BBB is involved in
the short-listing and selection
process of public sector bank
executives.
The
final
appointments are made by the
government.
To fill the ranks in middle
management that have been
thinned out by retirements,
banks should look for talent with
expertise in project evaluation,
risk management and IT,

including cybersecurity, he
said.
In this context, he said rewards
like Employee Stock Ownership
Plans (ESOPs) that give all
employees a stake in the future
of the bank might be helpful.
None of these changes are
easy, but they are also not
impossible, he emphasised.
The RBI governor opined that
public sector undertaking
employees at the lower levels
were overpaid, while those at
the top level were underpaid.
He also said the central bank
and the government should,
over the medium term, reduce
the differences in regulatory
treatment between public
sector banks and private sector
banks.
With several new niche banks
set to begin operations over the
next six to seven months, Mr.
Rajan said the current times are
interesting, profitable, and
challenging for the financial
sector.
The environment would also be
challenging
because
competition and novelty
constituted a particularly
volatile mix in terms of risk, Mr.
Rajan added.
The future of Internet in India

report predicts big increase in
Internet users
The number of Internet users in
India is likely to more than
double to 730 million by 2020,
according to a new report.
As per the report The Future of
Internet in India, compiled by
Nasscom
and
Akamai
Technologies, there were about
330 million Internet users in the
country as of December 2015.
41

Economy
India, which has an Internet
user base next only to China,
will remain the fastest growing
market, the reports authors
wrote, adding that 75 per cent
of the new users would come
from rural areas.
Interestingly, a majority (75 per
cent) of new users are
expected to consume data in
local languages.
Overall, the e-commerce
market in India, which was
valued at $17 billion in 201516, is expected to double to
$34 billion by 2020. The
number of online shoppers is
likely to more than triple to 175
million in that time, from 50
million in 2015.
This will also present a great
opportunity for enterprises to
harness the power of the
Internet to innovate and scale
up operations.
Currently, online ticketing and
room booking facilities are used
by more than 50 million Indians
on a regular basis.
By 2020, online travel is
estimated to account for 40-50
per cent of all travel-related
transactions, up from 12 per
cent in 2015, according to the
report. The growth is being
driven by demand as a larger,
younger population comes
online.
The government plans to set up
100 new cold chain projects
The government plans to set up
100 new cold chain projects at
a cost of Rs. 12,000 crore to
Rs.13,000 crore and has kicked
off the process to invite
investors to set up six new
mega food parks.
More than $1 billion of foreign
direct investment (FDI) has
42
come into the sector in the past

two years, including some very
big multinational firms such as
Kelloggs, McCain Foods and
Mars International.
This does not include every
investment, nor does it include
the impact of the enabling
infrastructure created by the
food processing ministry. A lot
of projects are already
operational on the ground
A Food Processing Ministry
ministry said that expressions of
interest have been invited from
potential investors for six new
mega food parks.
Preference would be given to
bidders with at least 26 per cent
foreign equity in the venture in
order to attract more
technological knowhow in the
food supply chain.
The Ministry of Mines unveiled
a web portal for the easy access
to information
The Ministry of Mines unveiled
a web portal for the easy access
to information regarding the
mining sector in India,
including a framework for rating
mines.
The web portal will have all the
ratings of the mines and will also
have information of the
Sustainable Development
Framework (SDF) for the
mining sector.
The star rating system, which
rates mines out of five stars, is a
two-layered system based on a
self-evaluation by the mine
operator, which is then
validated by the Indian Bureau
of Mines under the Ministry of
Mines.
There will be random third-party
checks to see whether the
information provided by the
operators is correct, and there

should be penalties for those
providing false information.
The star rating system will be
based on parameters such as
efforts taken to mitigate
environmental impact of the
mines and to resettle and
rehabilitate the people
affected and on international
standards for mining operations
and reporting.
India post to began operations
as Payment bank from 2017
India Post Payments Bank has
received the certificate of
incorporation from the Registrar
of Companies, paving the way
for the postal departments
bank to begin operations in
2017 as announced.
This will be the first public
sector undertaking under the
Department of Posts.
The incorporation of the IPPB
Ltd is a significant step forward
as this also paves the way for the
bank to begin hiring of banking
professionals to set up the bank
and begin its operations in
2017.
The Department of Posts is
expected to complete the roll
out of its branches all over the
country by September 2017.
The government said this could
be the fastest roll out for a bank
anywhere in the world.
The new bank is expected to
commence operations by
March 2017 and will set up 650
branches and 5000 ATMs across
the country.
Central board of excise and
customs to come up with Interstate GST
The Central Board of Excise and

Economy
Customs (CBEC) is working on
the process concerning Interstate Goods and Services Tax
(IGST).
Inter-state Goods and Services
Tax will be put in public domain
soon.
GST, although people say it is
not directly related to Customs,
is going to be a reality now.
The target date is April 1, 2017.
What will be the system of levy
of IGST? How revenue will be
taken? All these things are yet
to be decided and this will be
on public domain soon.
Finance minister says in order
to taxes to go down base must
increase
Amid demand from the industry
for a lower Goods and Services
Tax rate, Finance Minister Aurn
Jaitley said for the rate to be
low, the tax base needs to
increase.
If all taxpayers pay their taxes,
it will help bring in tax rates
lower. The more the evasions
and exemptions, the higher will
be the tax rate. So, moderate
tax rates and evasions cannot
co-exist.
Earlier this month, Parliament
passed the much delayed GST
Bill paving the way for the new
tax structurewhich is expected
to kick in from 1 April 2017.
While states like Assam and
Bihar passed the Bill, it has to
be passed at least by 17 more
states with two-third majority for
the Bill to get constitutional
validity.
India is politically integrated
into one country, but
economically we are different
states.
You have to have a free flow of
goods and services across the
country. Youhave to have a

uniform rate of taxation thought
the country, Mr Jaitley said
The peak GST rate will be
finalised by the proposed GST
Council comprising the Union
Finance Minister and his state
counterparts, even as the chief
economic
advisor
has
suggested an 18 per cent peak
rate.
Stating
that
GST
implementation was his
immediate challenge, the
minister said the next challenge
would be strengthening the
banks.
More foreigners visiting India
The number of foreign tourist
arrivals (FTAs) in India rose 17.1
per cent in July 2016 over the
same period a year ago.
Bangladesh accounted for the
highest share of tourist arrivals
followed by the U.S. and the
U.K., according to a government
statement. The government
earned Rs.14, 319 crores as
foreign exchange, stemming
from touristinflows.
The FTAs during July 2016 was
7.36 lakh as compared to 6.28
lakh during the month of July
2015 and 5.69 lakh in July, 2014.
FTAs during the period JanuaryJuly 2016 were 49.22 lakh with
a growth of 10 per cent as
compared to 44.73 lakh with a
growth of 4.6 per cent in
January-July 2015 over JanuaryJuly 2014.
Foreign Exchange Earnings
(FEEs) during July 2016 stood
at Rs.14,319 crore as compared
with Rs.11,982 crore in July
2015 and Rs.10,284 crore in July
2014.
The growth rate in rupee terms
during July 2016 over July 2015
was 19.5 per cent as compared

to 16.5 per cent in July, 2015
over July, 2014.
FEEs during January-July 2016
amounted to Rs.87,384 crore
with a growth of 15 per cent as
compared Rs.76,017 crore with
a growth of 9.5 per cent during
January-July 2015 over JanuaryJuly 2014.
In dollar terms, FEEs in July
2016 amounted to $2.13 billion
as compared to $1.884 billion
in July 2015 and $1.712 billion
in July 2014.
The growth rate in July 2016
over July 2015 was 13.1 per
cent compared with the growth
of 10 per cent in July 2015 over
July, 2014.
NITI Aayog will soon come up
with long-term policy to boost
manufacturing
NITI Aayog may seek Cabinets
approval in a fortnight for a
long-term policy to boost
manufacturing of electronic
products by providing a host of
incentives to attract investment.
In view of great potential of
electronics manufacturing
sector, NITI Aayog has
prepared a draft strategy paper
titled Make in IndiaStrategy
for Electronic Products.
NITI put the draft in public
domain for comments in May this
year. The stakeholders and the
general public were asked to
submit the views and comments
by June 30, 2016.
Aayog had suggested a 10-year
tax holiday for companies
investing over $1 billion in
electronics manufacturing
activities.
The NITI Aayog has also been
asked to devise an exportoriented strategy for the
43

Economy
industry, saying the domestic

market at $65 billion remains
small in relation to the world
market, which is in excess of $2
trillion.
The Aayogs line is big success
requires operating in a large
world market. Therefore, India
must reorient its policy to ensure
the
industry
becomes
competitive in export markets.
Indias domestic consumption
of electronics hardware in
2014-15 was $63.6 billion while
imports accounted for 58 per
cent of this figure.
NITI suggested that the country
needs to forge free trade
agreements (FTAs) to create
duty-free market for electronic
goods.
It had also suggested setting up
coastal economic zones (CEZ)
which may be up to 200-250
kilometres wide from the
coastline.
Government to finalise MPC

members this month
After appointing Urjit Patel as
the next Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) Governor, the government
is now expected to finalise the
names of three members to the
interest rate setting panel MPC
in the next few days.
The government nominees to
the MPC have been shortlisted
by a Search-cum-Selection
Committee headed by the
Cabinet Secretary with RBI
Governor and Economic Affairs
Secretary and three experts in
the field of economics.
The decision is expected in the
next few days or may be in the
beginning of the next month,
sources privy to the
development said.
The next bi-monthly RBI policy,
44
scheduled on October 4, will

be decided by the Monetary
Policy Committee (MPC).
The MPC was set up by
amending the Reserve Bank of
India Act, 1934, through the
Finance Bill 2016.
Since Mr. Urjit Patel has been
elevated as the next RBI
Governor, the monetary policy
department has to be looked
after by any of the three deputy
governors till the appointment
of the fourth regular Deputy
Governor.
So, even if the appointment
takes time, the MPC can
continue the work with regard
to setting up interest rate to
meet the inflation target fixed
by the government.
Under the agreement with the
government, RBI is committed
to anchoring retail inflation at 4
per cent (plus/minus 2 per
cent) and has set itself a target
of 5 per cent by next March as
part of a glide path to
achieving the median mark.
The Governor will have a casting
vote once the country shifts to
the panel system.
India is home to the third

largest number of technologydriven start-ups
India is home to the third largest
number of technology-driven
start-ups in the world, with the
U.S. and the U.K. occupying the
top two positions, according to
a report.
The study, done by Assocham
with Thought Arbitrage
Research Institute, also revealed
that Bengaluru is host to the
largest share of technology
start-ups in the country,
followed by Delhi NCR and
Mumbai, while Hyderabad and
Chennai are also quite popular.

India has moved up to third
position in technology driven
start-ups numbering 4,200 up to
2015, with the U.S. occupying
the top position with more than
47,000 and the U.K. with over
4,500.
The Centre is framing a policy
to enable all major ports to
develop inland waterways
The Centre is framing a policy
to enable all major ports to set
up subsidiary companies to
develop inland waterways. This
is part of its plan to cut logistics
costs for exporters by moving
more cargo on water instead of
over land.
The establishment of separate
units will facilitate easy foreign
funding for inland waterway
projects by capitalizing on the
financial credentials of the
government owned ports.
The objective of the
government is to reduce
logistics costs to make exports
competitive and all ports will be
asked to improve inland
waterways in their periphery to
divert large part of the cargo on
waterways which is cost
effective.
Indias biggest container port
Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust
(JNPT), which posted a profit
of Rs.1,000 crore last year, has
been asked to set up a subsidiary
for this purpose.
JNPT will develop waterways on
seven to eight rivers in
Maharashtra which flow from
Madhya Pradesh. Goa Port will
be the next to follow and will
develop inland waterways on
two rivers. The Detailed Project
Report (DPR) has been
prepared.

Economy
All major ports have a
combined turnover of Rs.4,000
crore and based on that an
amount of Rs.50,000 crore can
be raised as foreign loans at
2.75 per cent interest as against
12 per cent from Indian banks
for inland waterway projects.
The shipping ministry has also
urged the finance ministry to
allocate 5 per cent of the money
collected as cess on diesel and
petrol for inland waterways.
Market remained cautious after
Urjit Patel nomination
Bond prices fell as investors
paused their recent liquidityfuelled
purchases
of
government debt to take stock
of the appointment of Reserve
Bank of India (RBI) Deputy
Governor Urjit Patel as its next
head.
The yield on the benchmark 10year bond rose 6 basis points to
7.16 per cent.
Dr. Patel, who was a key
architect of the new monetary
policy framework that
prescribes inflation-targeting as
the central banks primary
objective and is viewed in the
markets as an inflation hawk.
The medium term objective of
RBI is to attain 4 per cent retail
inflation with a tolerance band
of plus, minus 2 percentage
points. CPI (Consumer Price
Index)-based price gains
accelerated to 6.07 per cent in
July.
Bonds prices had rallied in
recent times and yields
touched 7.08 per cent on Aug.
11, their lowest level since
September 2009.
The Sensex slid 0.33 per cent,
or 91.5 points, to close at
27,985.54, while the Nifty 50
index fell 0.44 per cent to

8629.15.
The central bank will announce
its next monetary policy review
on October 4, most likely under
the new framework where the
rate decision will be taken by
the Monetary Policy Committee,
which is headed by the RBI
Governor.
Not many market participants
expect a rate cut in the October
policy meeting as retail inflation
is higher than the central banks
March 2017 target of 5 per cent.
An authority to administer and
manage its Digital Locker
initiative
The Centre will soon appoint an
authority to administer and
manage its Digital Locker
initiative, one of the key projects
under Digital India programme,
as it looks to push paperless
governance.
The Digital Locker Authority will
be responsible for granting
licenses and to authorise a
private entity to offer these
services.
Besides, it will need to prepare
standards and guidelines, while
also ensuring compliance by
service providers. These
guidelines include those for
data retention and migration,
audit and security and privacy.
The authority will also need to
notify the fee or service charges
a subscriber will have to pay for
availing Digital Locker services
from authorized service
providers.
Currently, the services are
offered for free.
Govt might ban all cash
transactions above 3 lakhs
The government is considering
a recommendation by the
Special Investigation Team to
ban all cash transactions of more
than Rs.3 lakh.
The government was also in
talks with Singapore to
renegotiate the tax treaty
between the two countries
along the lines of the revised
treaty between India and
Mauritius.
While there will be some
differences between the IndiaSingapore and India-Mauritius
treaties, they wont be
significant.
The General Anti-Avoidance
Rule (GAAR) would supersede
all other international tax
treaties India has entered into,
except those with specific
provisions that run counter to
GAAR.
New non-performing assets
formation slowed
The pace of formation of new
non-performing assets (NPAs)
or bad loans has decelerated
although some banks have
posted losses for the first quarter
of the current financial year due
to higher provisioning.
Most of the banks are adequately
capitalised and the government
has promised additional capital
if they require.
In a bid to shore up cashstrapped public sector banks,
the government last month
announced infusion of
Rs.22,915 crore capital in 13
lenders including the State Bank
of India and Indian Overseas
Bank.
Gross non-performing assets of
the public sector banks had
surged from 5.43 per cent
(Rs.2.67 lakh crore) of advances
in 2014-15 to 9.32 per cent
45

Economy
(Rs.4.76 lakh crore) in 2015-16.
India is 7th wealthiest country
in the world
India has figured among the top
10 wealthiest countries in the
world with a total individual
wealth of $5,600 billion while
the U.S. topped the chart.
According to a report by New
World Wealth, India was ranked
7th ahead of Canada ($4,700
billion), Australia ($4,500
billion) and Italy ($4,400
billion), which came in at 8th,
9th and 10th slots, respectively.
The U.S. is the wealthiest in the
world in terms of total individual
wealth held ($48,900 billion)
while China stood second and
Japan third, with total individual
wealth of $17,400 billion and
$15,100 billion, respectively.
Others in the top 10 club
include the United Kingdom
(4th) with a total individual
wealth of $9,200 billion,
followed by Germany (5th,
$9,100 billion) and France (6th,
$6,600 billion).
Air passengers will soon be
able to use Wi-Fi services on
board
Air passengers will soon be able
to use Wi-Fi services on board
while flying anywhere across
the country.
The Union civil aviation ministry
is working with the telecom
ministry and the home ministry
to allow passengers to use WiFi services during the course of
a flight.
The Department of Telecom has
taken up the matter and we are
working on it. In order to enable
Wi-Fi services, the government
was working towards allowing
46
security agencies to monitor the

call and data transmission.
Globally, it is a standard offering
and is a win-win for passengers
and airlines.
It will help common passengers
with in-flight entertainment,
business travellers to work on
last-minute presentations and
help airlines earn money.
Cabinet approved the revised
Double Taxation Avoidance
Agreement with Cyprus
The Cabinet approved the
revised Double Taxation
Avoidance Agreement (DTAA)
with Cyprus, a move that gives
India the right to tax capital
gains on investments routed
through Cyprus prospectively
from April 1, 2017.
The fresh DTAA with Cyprus,
which is considered a haven for
money laundering, roundtripping, and profit-shifting,
assumes significance coming
soon after the signing of the
revised pact with Mauritius.
India is also in the process of
revising its treaty with
Singapore.
With the revision of the treaty
now approved by the Cabinet,
capital gains will be taxed in
India for entities resident in
Cyprus, subject to double tax
relief. In other words, India will
have the right to tax capital gains
arising in India.
The revision of agreements with
Mauritius and Cyprus could see
this debt-restructuring business
moving from the latter to the
former.
Cyprus used to have a DTAA
with India but was blacklisted
on November 1, 2013, by the
Indian government for noncooperation.
Difference between the Cyprus

and Mauritius treaty is the
limitation of benefit clause.
A limitation of benefit clause is
meant to prevent the misuse of
treaties in which they have
threshold saying if you invest a
particular amount in a country
then you are not a shell or paper
company.
RBI has announced a raft of
measures to boost investor
participation
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI)
has announced a raft of
measures to boost investor
participation and market
liquidity in both the corporate
bond and currency markets.
The central bank will allow
commercial banks to issue
rupee bonds in overseas
markets known as Masala
bonds, both for their capital
requirement and for financing
infrastructure and affordable
housing.
It has been now been decided
by the regulator that the
aggregate PCE that will be
provided by the financial
system for a given bond issue
will be increased from the
present level of 20 per cent to
50 per cent of the bond issue
size.
RBI said it has also been
decided to seek suitable legal
amendments to enable it to
accept corporate bonds under
the Liquidity adjustment Facility
(LAF).
In order to ease access to the
foreign exchange market for
hedging in over the counter
(OTC) and exchange-traded
currency derivatives, the RBI
has allowed entities exposed to
exchange rate risk.

Economy
To enhance participation in the
corporate bond market, the RBI
has decided that brokers
authorised as market makers will
be allowed to participate in the
corporate bond repo market.
With an aim to reduce risk in
banking sector, RBI has
proposed to limit exposure of a
bank to a business group to up
to 25 per cent of its capital,
down from the existing 55 per
cent, the central banks said.
India-U.S. talks to focus on
ways to improve the quality of
goods and services
India and the U.S. will focus on
measures to improve the quality
of goods and services, develop
smart cities as well as promote
entrepreneurship
and
innovation
during
the
forthcoming bilateral Strategic
and Commercial Dialogue.
Talks are also likely on ease of
doing business initiatives in the
context of the Parliament
recently
passing
the
Constitution Amendment Bill for
Goods and Services Tax.
The S&CD is the main bilateral
forum to discuss ways to
strengthen cooperation in areas
including trade and defence.
The S&CD will be held in New
Delhi during August 29-31.
This will be the second S&CD
and the first such meeting in
India. The first S&CD was held
in Washington DC in September
2015.
India and the U.S. will also
consider a partnership between
BIS and NIST for analysis of
notifications made at the World
Trade Organisation on food
safety, and animal & plant health
measures as well as on technical
regulations, standards, and
conformity
assessment
procedures.
India and the U.S. will also
assess the progress made by the
Confederation of Indian
Industry and the American
National Standards Institute in
developing an online portal for
standards information that can
be used by the industry.
Another area that will receive
attention during the S&CD is
infrastructure development and
the proposal to build smart
cities in India.
India will agree to facilitate visits
of American delegations for
smart city development, the
sources said, adding that an
American private sector
consortium is keen on master
planning activities to develop
Visakhapatnam.
Bilateral trade in FY16 had
shrunk 3.4 per cent to $62
billion with Indias exports to
the U.S. contracting 5.1 per
cent to $40.3 billion and U.S.
exports to India shrinking by
0.17 per cent to $21.7 billion.
Unified Payment Interface

become operational
National Payments Corporation
of India (NPCI) announced that
bank applications for the
Unified Payment Interface have
officially become operational,
which means that UPI apps of
banks can now be downloaded
and used for transactions:
UPI is a payment system that
allows money transfer between
any two bank accounts by using
a smartphone.
UPI allows a customer to pay
directly from a bank account to
different merchants, both
online and offline, without the
hassle of typing credit card
details, IFSC code, or net

banking/wallet passwords.
The UPI app of 19 banks and it
will be available on the Google
Play Store of Android phones
in the next few days for
customers to download.
It is safe as the customers only
share a virtual address and
provide no other sensitive
information.
Merchant
payments,
remittances, bill payments
among
others.The
per
transaction limit is Rs.1 lakh.
A user can make an in-app
payment for goods or services
purchased online.
With an aim to discourage cash

transactions, govt has set up a
high-level committee
With an aim to discourage cash
transactions, the Finance
Ministry has set up a high-level
committee to suggest steps to
promote card payments
through incentives like tax
rebates and cash back
schemes.
The 11-member committee,
headed by former Finance
Secretary Ratan P Watal, will
recommend various measures
to incentivise transactions
through cards and digital means,
e.g., through tax rebates/
incentives, introduction of cash
back/lottery,.
The panel, which will review
the payments system in the
country and recommend
measures for encouraging
digital payments, has been set
up following a decision taken
by the Cabinet in February.
The panel will also study and
recommend need for changes,
if any, in the regulatory
mechanism under various laws,
47

Economy
relevant for the purpose of
promotion of payments by
digital modes.
Many back-end issues need to
be addressed for early rollout of
GST
Many back-end accounting
issues need to be addressed for
early rollout of Goods and
Services Tax Regime, according
to senior government officials
and private sector experts.
While the Constitutional
Amendment Bill to enable GST
finally secured Parliaments nod
this month, several more steps
remain to be taken on the
political and legislative side to
complete the transition from the
current indirect tax regime.
To start with, at least 15 states
have to ratify the Constitutional
changes in their legislative
assemblies, followed by the
Presidents approval of the
amendments.
A GST Council has to be formed
to determine the actual tax
rates and modalities and then
the Cabinet has to approve the
state, central and integrated
GST laws.
Following this, the CGST and
IGST laws have to be passed in
Parliament. Each state has to
pass the SGST law followed by
the notification of the GST
Rules.
There is still no clarity in the GST
Bill about who the tax collection
authority will be for GST,
whether it will be the banks or
some other body authorised by
the government.
Govt said India is keen to
become a global hub for
international arbitration
48
The international arbitration

system is ad hoc and
unpredictable, Minister for Law
and Justice and Information
Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad
said, adding that India is keen
to become a global hub for
international arbitration.
Mr. Prasad said that only a small
fraction of them was
represented internationally.
Cairn Energy has initiated
international arbitration seeking
$5.6 billion in compensation
from the Indian government
against a retrospective tax
demand of Rs.29,047 crore
made by tax authorities.
In May, Vodafone said the
International Court of Justice
was set to name a presiding
judge for an arbitration panel to
resolve a dispute with the
Indian government over a
retrospective tax demand.
The international arbitration
system is ad hoc and quite
frequently unpredictable, he
said.
That concern is indeed very
important. If BRICS countries
have 42 per cent of the worlds
population and 30 per cent of
the land area and are
contributing so much for the
economic ecosystem of the
world.
Mr. Prasad also referred to the
system of bilateral investment
treaties and how the current
system seemed problematic.
Trade ministers from WTO
member nations to meet in Oslo
Trade ministers from various
World Trade Organisation
(WTO) member nations are
slated to gather at the
Norwegian capital, Oslo, in
October to discuss the need for
further liberalisation of global

trade
amid
growing
protectionism.
The special meet will also
deliberate upon the WTOs
future role in the context of
new challenges for the global
trading system and some
troubling international political
developments.
The high-level political
convergence comes against the
backdrop of WTO DirectorGeneral Roberto Azevdos
statement last month in his Midyear Report on Trade-related
Developments.
The report showed a worrying
rise in the rate of new traderestrictive measures put in place
each month (by WTO member
countries) hitting the highest
monthly average since 2011.
It is also being planned at a time
when the progress in the WTOs
nearly 15-year-old Doha Round
negotiations to further open
up international trade is seen
to be very slow especially due
to
the
perceived
disengagement of the U.S.
The Oslo meet is also likely to
discuss the so-called new
issues considered important by
the rich nations in todays global
trade.
These include efforts to reach
an agreement at the WTO-level
to eliminate tariffs on
environmental & sustainable
goods produced using clean &
green energy.
India is preparing to take the
lead in WTO-level talks to open
up global services trade,
especially to ensure easier
movement
of
skilled
professionals for short-term
projects overseas.
India with a strong services

Economy
sector and a huge pool of skilled
professionals had informally
pitched for a WTO-level TFA
in Services at the Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and
Development ministerial
council meeting in Paris.
The TFA in Services proposal,
similar to the WTOs TFA for
Goods (aimed at easing customs
norms & boosting global
merchandise trade), was then
welcomed by Azevdo and
several trade ministers.
India had also objected to
Britain tightening norms for
foreign skilled workers.
The journey ahead for

introducing the GST may not be
easy
In a historical move for the
country,
the
122nd
Constitutional Amendment Bill
to introduce the Goods and
Services Tax (GST) was
unanimously passed by
Parliament this session.
Widely believed to be the most
important tax reform since
1991, the GST will transform
India into a unitary market, lower
transaction and logistics costs,
spread the tax net wider and
propel investments and growth.
Given the multiplicity of taxes
at the Central and State
Government levels, evolving a
single indirect tax was a
challenge; but all political
parties came together in a
paradigm of cooperation and
consensus to make it a reality.
The journey ahead for
introducing the GST will not be
easy as a number of steps are
required from different
stakeholders.
For industry too, conforming to
the new administrative
processes within a compressed

time-frame will be challenging.
One of the first tasks for the new
GST Council proposed to be set
up under the Bill would be to
decide on the applicable tax
rate.
This rate will be central to the
success of the endeavour as it
would
impact
Indias
macroeconomic indicators,
including GDP growth rate,
inflation, the fiscal condition of
the Central and State
governments, and so on.
It would also impact the
common mans daily life,
employment creation and
external trade as well as the
competitiveness of industry in
a difficult global environment.
The revenue neutral rate (RNR)
ranged from 11.6 per cent to
17.7 per cent. The committee,
after a detailed study,
recommended a reasonable
RNR of 15-15.5 per cent which
would determine the standard
rate of 17-18 per cent and a
lower rate of 12 per cent for
essential goods.
CII broadly concurs with this
standard rate plus a merit and
demerit rate for identified
goods and services. There are
several compelling reasons for
keeping the standard rate at
around 18 per cent.
For one, the standard rate of 18
per cent ensures that the tax
revenues of the Centre and
States would not be adversely
impacted by the introduction of
GST.
The Centre has also assured the
States of full compensation for
five years.
Second, the key impact of a
higher rate would be on prices
which would create an adverse
consumer mindset and would

hamper buy-in.
For example, the tax on
services is currently set at 15 per
cent including cesses, and a
sudden increase beyond an
acceptable standard rate of 18
per cent would lead to lack of
confidence in the GST as a
beneficial tax reform.
Third, the impact on inflation
arising from a tax rate that is set
too high would be inimical to
the entire economy.
A reasonable standard tax rate
of 18 per cent would not only
deter inflation build-up, but
would also protect the
consumers incomes and
interests.
The Subramanian Committee
estimated the impact of a
standard rate of 22 per cent on
inflation as 0.3-0.7 per cent and
stated that a lower RNR would
ensure consumer buy-in, as also
be less regressive relative to
direct income taxes.
Reserve Bank of India Governor

says economic growth showing
signs of picking up
Reserve Bank of India Governor
Raghuram Rajan observed that
economic growth while
showing signs of picking up was
still below the level the country
was capable of.
On inflation, however, the
outgoing central bank governor
said projections were still at the
upper limit of the RBIs inflation
objective, constraining space
for a reduction in interest rates.
The key weakness is in
investment, with private
corporate investment subdued
because of low capacity
utilisation, and public
investment slow in rolling out in
49

Economy
some sectors.
The governor hoped that
monsoon rains, which have
been normal so far this year,
coupled with implementation
of the recommendations of the
Seventh Pay Commission,
would boost consumer
demand.
In the annual report, the central
bank said the near term
domestic outlook appears
somewhat brighter than the
outcome for 2015-16.
It said while a durable pick-up
in investment activity remains
elusive, consumption will
continue to be the main support
to aggregate demand.
Mr. Rajan, however, sounded
cautious on inflation. Inflation
projections were still at the
upper limit of the RBIs
objective and room for a rate
cut would emerge as inflation
slowed.
He reiterated that the short-term
macroeconomic priorities of RBI
continue to be to focus on
bringing down inflation towards
the government-set target of 4
per cent.
Mr. Rajan also observed that the
willingness of banks to cut
lending rates was muted and
there was a reluctance to lend
to industry and small businesses
among the more stressed
public sector banks compared
with the private sector banks.
RBI reiterated that it would
continue to monitor banks asset
quality issues in 2016-17. Banks
have suffered heavy losses in
recent times after the banking
regulator forced them to classify
many accounts as nonperforming.
50
Govt to share subsidy burden to

replace old vehicles
Union Road Transport minister
has asked the Environment
Ministry to share the subsidy
burden
for
replacing
commercial vehicles that are
older than 15 years by tapping
into funds earmarked for
compensatory afforestation.
He said the Environment
Ministry can help subsidise the
interest payable on loans for
new heavy commercial
vehicles under the proposed
policy for scrapping polluting
automobiles.
The CAMPA, set up in 2009,
currently has a corpus of about
Rs.40,000 crore earmarked
explicitly for compensatory
afforestation projects to
replenish forests lost to
industrial and infrastructure
projects.
The Centre now wants to
replace it with a new authority,
backed by a new bill that was
cleared by Parliament in its
monsoon session.
The Road Transport Ministry, has
proposed a framework under
which new vehicles would get
concessions from the Centre,
the state government and the
automobile company in
addition to the scrap value of
the old vehicle.
In its first phase, the scrapping
policy would be restricted to
commercial vehicles older than
15 years, which the Minister said
account for 65 per cent of the
countrys pollution.
While pollution will come
down to that extent, we expect
a benefit of Rs.4,000 crore to the
Centre and Rs.10,000 crore to
the state governments. The auto
industry can also expect sales
growth of around 22 per cent

from this initiative, Mr. Gadkari
said.
Automobile players are
enthusiastic about the idea not
just because it would boost
sales, but also because they will
be able to access the high-grade
metal scrap from old vehicles.
U.S. to look into Indias
concerns on visa fee hike
The U.S. agreed to look into
Indias concerns about Obama
administrations move to
increase fee for H1B and L1
visas.
Indian corporations raised the
issue at the India-U.S. CEO
Forum saying the move will hurt
Indian IT firms, which are the
main users of these nonimmigrant temporary work visas
meant for professionals.
"The move has affected our
people-to-people exchanges. I
would urge you to find a just and
non-discriminatory solution to
these issues, Ms. Swaraj told the
U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry.
India has already dragged the
U.S. to the World Trade
Organisation on the issue saying
it is discriminatory against
Indian firms.
Reserve Bank made a strong
case for providing more capital
to public sector banks
Reserve Bank made a strong
case for providing more capital
to public sector banks to deal
with the problem of stressed
assets and get back to a position
from where they can start
generating internal accruals.
Indian banks got into stress
before implementation of Basel
III and revised IFRS which

Economy
provide protection against
system level stresses.
The government has been
supportive and they have
provided requisite capital for

the public sector banks.
However there is still need to
ensure that stressed asset build-
up is contained so that banks

get back to generate adequate
internal accruals.
51
Prited Study Material forIAS Mains General Studies

(GS I + GS II + GS III + GS IV)
What you will get:
100% G.S. Syllabus Covered
8+ Booklets
More Than 2500+ Pages
Guidance & Support from Our Experts
Our Objectives:
Firstly to cover 100% civil service Mains examination (IAS) syllabus.
Secondly to compile all the required study materials in a single place, So to save the precious time of
the aspirants.
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/study-kit/gs-mains
What you will get:
Login id & Password for online discussion
Question Papers ( 12 Mock Tests : PDF File )
Evaluated Answer Booklet by experts with proper feedback, comments & guidance.
Answer format ( Synopsis ) of Mock Test paper
Comprehensive analysis of previous year questions &
Mode of Discussion: Email ,Telephonic and Online Discussion
Value Addition material like

a.
b.
c.
d.
Current General Studies Magazine

Solved papers of General Studies Mains 2013
Categorised question papers of last ten years of General Studies Mains Exam
Trend Analysis
http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/test-series/ias-mains-gs

Science & Technology
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Cassini spacecraft has
discovered steep-sided canyons
on Titan
NASAs Cassini spacecraft has
discovered
steep-sided
canyons, hundreds of meters
deep, on Saturns moon Titan
that are flooded with liquid
hydrocarbons.
The finding represents the first
direct evidence of the
presence of liquid-filled
channels on Titan, as well as the
first observation of the deep
canyons, NASA said.
The observations show that the
channels in particular, a
network of them named Vid
Flumina are narrow canyons,
generally less than a kilometre
wide, with slopes steeper than
40 degrees.
This suggested that the
channels might also be filled
with liquid, but a direct
detection had not been made
until now.
Cassinis radar was used as an
altimeter, sending pings of radio
waves to the moons surface to
measure the height of features
there.
Earthly examples of both of
these types of canyon-carving
processes are found along the
Colorado River in Arizona.
An example of uplift powering
erosion is the Grand Canyon,
where the terrains rising
altitude caused the river to cut
deeply downward into the
landscape over the course of
several million years.
52
The Wildlife Institute of India

will now house the countrys
first repository on tigers
The Wildlife Institute of India
(WII) here will now house the
countrys first repository on
tigers, under its new Tiger Cell.
The Dehradun-based WII has
about 23,000 images of tigers.
This has to be maintained and
the Tiger Cell will do that,.
Project clearanceThe Tiger Cell
could also help with the
development-conservation
debate.
When a project needs
environmental clearance, our
spatial data can be used to
overlay the project plan on our
maps and check whether the
project would interfere.
Climate change could bring
back age old diseases
The fear now is that this is not a
freak incident and that other
diseases some dating back
to the Ice Age could be
unleashed as global warming
thaws Russias icy northern
expanses.
Russia is warming about 2.5
times more rapidly than the
worlds average, and the Arctic
region is warming quicker than
the rest of the country.
Temperatures there in July were
up to eight degrees higher than
normal, reaching 34 degrees
Celsius.
Anthrax is an infection spread
by spores of the Bacillus
anthracis bacteria which occurs
naturally and can be ingested

by livestock and passed to
humans, usually through skin
contact, causing black lesions.
If left untreated it can be fatal.
Besides anthrax, there are
plenty of other dangers lurking
in shallow Arctic graves which
might be unlocked from the ice
after centuries, said Viktor
Maleyev, deputy chief of
Russias Central Research
Institute of Epidemiology.
The total affected area in the
region, together with an
established buffer zone, is some
12,650 square kilometres.
Scientists lamented that instead
of spending more money on
studying the effects of climate
change, science budgets are
shrinking, and the government
only allocates funds after
emergencies and tragedies.
Bone marrow transplant to
become lot easier
Bone marrow transplants that do
not require dangerous and
often toxic chemotherapy
could soon be possible, U.S.
researchers said after seeing
initial success with experiments
on mice.
The method developed by a
team of scientists at Stanford
University mimics the approach
used in immunotherapy, in
which cancer patients undergo
a treatment that trains their
immune systems to attack
tumour cells.
If it works in humans, it could
help improve treatments for

Science & Technology

lupus, juvenile diabetes,
multiple sclerosis, organ
transplants and even cancer.
Currently, anyone receiving a
bone marrow transplant also
known as a stem cell transplant
must undergo chemotherapy
or radiotherapy to kill the
patients own population of

blood stem cells first.
That makes the potentially lifesaving operation dangerous and
even fatal for up to one in five
patients. Organ, nerve and
brain damage can also result.
So researchers devised a new
approach that includes an

antibody and biologic agents
that helped the mices own
immune systems deplete their
blood-forming stem cells,
making way for transplanted
cells from a donor.
53

Sports
SPORTS
22nd Olympic gold for Phelps
Michael Phelps swept to a jawdropping 22nd Olympic gold,
and fourth of these Games to
become one of only three
athletes to have won titles in the
same individual event at four
straight Games.
The record-breaking American
swimmer, whose place among
the pantheon of sporting greats
has long been cemented,
stormed to victory in the 200
individual medley to match his
London tally four years ago.
Competing in his fifth Olympics,
Phelps joined Al Oerter (discus,
1956-68) and Carl Lewis (longjump, 1984-96) as the only
members of the four-in-a-row
club.
American Ryan Murphy
completed a Rio double after
bullying Mitchell Larkin in the
mens 200m backstroke,
winning in 1:53.62.
The Americans finished day six
with 11 swimming golds, eight
clear of Australia and Hungary.
Big dent to Indian medal hopes
The Indian hopes of a tennis
medal were dashed by the
Czech Republics Radek
Stepanek and Lucie Hradecka,
even as Sania Mirza and Rohan
Bopannatried their best to make
a fight.
The bronze was a welcome
medal Hradecka, who missed
out in the womens doubles this
time after having won silver in
the last edition with Andrea
54
Hlavackova.
Sania and Bopanna were
unable to lift their game at the
crunch though they were
superb in patches.
After the Indian pair had slid to
0-5, Bopanna managed a hold
to avert a first-set bagel.
Sania served two double-faults
in the 11th game and was
broken after saving two
breakpoints, leaving it to
Hradecka to serve the match
out.
The Czechs had one ace and
four double-faults, to the two
aces and six double-faults that
India served up.
Stepanek and Hradecka
converted five of 10
breakpoints while the Indian
pair capitalised on two of four.
Dipa Karmakar finished 4th in

the vault final
Dipa Karmakar impressed all
with her Produnova vault but
an Olympic medal eluded her
as she finished fourth in the
vault final.
It was an improvement for the
23-year-old Dipa, as she had
placed fifth in the last World
championship.
Dipa who executed her second
vault brilliantly for a score of
15.266 after a 14.866 on the first
vault, had a special mention
from the announcer for
revolutionising gymnastics in
India.
It was a great credit to Dipa that
she finished ahead of Wang Yan
of China, Un Jong Hong of
Peoples Republic of Korea,

Oksana herself and Shallon
Olsen of Canada in the eightmember final.
Reaching the Olympic final was
great in itself, but Dipa stamped
her mark to wind up on a
brilliant note.
Dipa, Jitu Rai nominated for the
Khel Ratna
Dipa Karmakars fourth place
finish at the ongoing Rio
Olympics has made gymnast
Dipa Karmakar a household
name across India overnight.
And, now, her historic
achievement is all set to fetch
her the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna,
the highest sporting honour in
the country.
Dipa, alongwith shooter Jitu Rai,
has been recommended for the
Khel Ratna by the awards
committee.
While both failed to finish on the
podium at Rio, Dipa became the
first Indian woman to reach the
final of a gymnastics event at the
Olympics while (10m) pistol
shooter Jitu was the only
marksman other than Abhinav
Bindra to reach the final.
Dipa will be the first gymnast
and the 10th woman athlete to
receive the award. The 23-yearold Tripura-born gymnast
missed bronze in the vault final
by 0.150 points.
India Test captain Virat Kohli was
also in the reckoning but missed
out in an Olympic year.
The committee, however, has
left the door open for inclusion

Sports
of more names, with anyone
winning a medal at Rio being
automatically recommended
for the Khel Ratna.
Usain Bolt makes it triple triple
When Usain Bolt is on schedule,
he not only fills the Olympic
stadium, but draws all attention.
Yet, there were moments that
stood out, apart from Usain Bolt
anchoring Jamaica to gold in the
100-metre relay and winning his
ninth gold medal in the
Olympics.
But, first things first. Bolt along
with Asafa Powell, Yohan Blake
and Nickel Ashmeade clocked
a season best 37.27 seconds to
beat the Japanese who ran an
Asian record of 37.60.
There was no real challenge to
the Jamaican supremacy.
National swimming coach S.
Pradeep Kumar selected for
Dronacharya Award
National swimming coach S.
Pradeep Kumar has expressed
delight at being chosen for the
Dronacharya Award, calling his
career a fantastic journey full
of sound and fury.
Pradeep, who hails from
Thiruvananthapuram, has spent
nearly three decades as head
coach at the Basavanagudi
Aquatic Centre here.
It's not my achievement. I'm
getting this award only because
my swimmers have performed
over the last 29 years. I'm
honoured for them and their
parents. I'm so happy, he said.
Pradeep was grateful to the
BAC and the Karnataka
Swimming Association. It's
been a fantastic journey, he
remarked.
President honoured athletes

honoured the medallists from
Rio P.V. Sindhu and Sakshi
Malik apart from Olympic
finalists, Dipa Karmakar and Jitu
Rai, with the Rajiv Gandhi Khel
Ratna award.
While Sindhu and Sakshi with
their medals were assured of the
award, Dipas good work she
finished fifth in the World
Championship and fourth in the
Olympics, an unprecedented
achievement for an Indian
gymnast.
Even if there had been no
Olympics, shooter Jitu Rai
would have walked away with
the award as he had won
everything in the last three years,
including
the
World
Championship silver and the
Asian Games gold.
The Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna
award, given for the first time to
four at a time, carries with it a
cash prize of Rs.7.5 lakh each.
Lalita Babar, who made the final
in the womens 3000m
steeplechase, boxer Shiva
Thapa, hockey players Rani
Rampal and V.R. Raghunath,
shooters Gurpreet Singh and
Apurvi Chandela, table tennis
player Soumyyajit Ghosh and
wrestler Vinesh Phogat were the
other Olympians, to get the
Arjuna Award.
The Dronacharya Award was
presented to Raj Kumar Sharma,
the coach of Virat Kohli,
Nagapuri Ramesh, athlete Dutee
Chands coach, Bishweshwar
Nandi (Dipas coach), and Sagar
Mal Dhayal in boxing.
Swimming coach S. Pradeep

Kumar and wrestling coach
Mahabir Singh were chosen in
the lifetime achievement
category.
The Dhyan Chand Award was
presented to S. Geetha in
athletics, Sylvanus Dung Dung
in hockey and Rajendra Prahlad
Shelke in rowing. All the awards
carry a cash prize of Rs. 5 lakh.
Good news for yogeshwar dutt
Even though Indias wrestlers
had a controversial, forgettable
outing at the Rio Olympics,
there is good news on the
Yogeshwar Dutt front.
With Russias Besik Kudukhov
being found guilty of using
banned substances, he has
been stripped of his silver
medal at the 2012 Games,
clearing the way for
Yogeshwars bronze medal to
now be upgraded to silver.
The Russian, who beat
Yogeshwar and went on to finish
runner-up, died in an accident
in 2013. He was a four-time
world champion and had won
a bronze medal at the 2008
Olympics.
The Wrestling Federation of
India admitted to having been
informed about the decision
but was waiting for a written
confirmation from the
International
Olympic
Committee before making an
official statement.
With this, Yogeshwar will join
Sushil Kumar as the second
Indian wrestler, and only the
fifth Indian ever, to win an
individual silver medal at the
Olympics.
55

Selected Articles from Various Newspapers & Journals
SELECTED ARTICLES FROM VARIOUS NEWSPAPERS & JOURNALS
On this highway, proceed with

caution
Prime Minister Narendra Modis
event-filled visit to the United States,
from June 6-8, has just ended, though
his oratorical flourishes during his
address to a joint meeting of the U.S.
Congress still reverberate across the
globe. The 3,800-word Joint
Statement is available with the
public. Ignoring the euphoria is not
easy but due diligence about
outcomes may be in order. We need
to make a distinction between good
copy and finite results.
The Prime Minister came
through as more restrained this time
when compared to previous
occasions. An exception was his
address to the U.S. Congress. Even
here, the Prime Minister was more
statesman than politician. For
instance, Mr. Modi displayed a high
degree of strategic wisdom in not
launching an attack on China by
name. Nor was there any criticism of
the U.S. for implicitly acquiescing in
Pakistans employment of terror as a
strategic instrumentality vis--vis
India. The Prime Minister was also
careful not to highlight the difference
in approach between Capitol Hill and
the U.S. administration with regard to
Pakistans record on terrorism, and the
sale of F-16 fighter aircraft to that
country.
The length of the Joint
Statement notwithstanding, the many
specific takeaways are not many.
Important among these are: (i)
creation of a $20 million U.S.-India
Clean Energy Finance initiative and a
$40 million U.S.-India Catalytic Solar
Finance Program, with equal financial
56
contribution from the two countries

and (ii) an announcement that the
U.S. recognises India as a major
defense partner. In both cases, the
benefits are not as unalloyed as they
may seem. The former could impede
Indias efforts to obtain funds from
non-U.S. approved sources, while the
major defence partner label is unlikely
to lead to a firm commitment by the
U.S. to part with the entire range of
dual-use technologies, as export of
sensitive U.S. technologies is solely
dictated by U.S. law. The
coincidence of India of being
admitted into the 34-member Missile
Technology Control Regime during
the Prime Ministers visit to
Washington adds little to Indias
hopes of securing the entire range of
dual-use
technologies.
Announcement of the start of
preparatory work in India for six
Westinghouse nuclear reactors does
mark a significant thaw in civil nuclear
matters after the deep freeze of many
years. When completed, this should
substantially raise the share of nuclear
energy in Indias energy mix.
However, while the Joint Statement
avers that this had become possible
on account of India ratifying the
Convention on Supplementary
Compensation for Nuclear Damage,
it left unsaid whether it also takes into
account the specific obligations
imposed under Indias draconian
Nuclear Liability law.
A degree of opacity and
vagueness surrounds the language
employed with regard to some key
issues, lending itself to differing
interpretations. One relates to Indias
commitment to ratify the Paris Climate
Change Agreement by this year end,

which, according to a U.S.
spokesman, indicated a more
ambitious approach on Indias part
when compared to its previous
timeline. If indeed India has
committed itself to work towards
shared objectives within the 2016
timeframe, then the Prime Minister has
obviously ceded ground, and this
was possibly intended to enable Mr.
Obama to achieve his legacy of global
climate change.
Similarly, uncertainty exists
regarding the signing of the bilateral
Logistics Exchange Memorandum of
Agreement (LEMOA). The wording
is delightfully vague, viz . that it would
now be inked after finalization of its
text. This could either mean it stands
deferred or that it is a done deal. The
absence of specific mention of the
South China Sea (SCS) in the Joint
Statement, though the SCS had found
specific mention in the 2014 and
2015 summit statements, could have
been passed off as a concession to
Chinese concerns. Yet, enigmatic
references to a purported road map
which is not to be disseminated
and which U.S. officials claim
contains specific actions relating to
advancing the joint strategic vision
of India and the U.S. in the AsiaPacific and the Indian Ocean, are
highly intriguing.
The paradox is that all this is
taking place when evidence shows
that many countries are moving closer
to China. Even the U.S. is seen taking
several conciliatory postures
notwithstanding its periodic
declamations against Chinese
expansionism. At the recent
Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore,


U.S. Defence Secretary Ashton Carter
went out of his way to acknowledge
that Washington and Beijing have a
shared view on many global issues
apart from a commonality of interests.
He even talked about the many
available areas of cooperation with
China. The U.S.-China Strategic and
Economic Dialogue, for instance, is
today an important plank for bettering
Sino-U.S. ties.
Vietnam, a country which India
has developed close relations with,
is currently making overtures to China.
At this years Shangri-La Dialogue,
considerable bonhomie was
noticeable between the Chinese and
Vietnamese delegations. Russia has
more recently gone much closer to
China. This was again in evidence
during this years Shangri-La
Dialogue. Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov is already on record as
saying that the Russian-Chinese
partnership had grown into a strategic
relationship in terms of ensuring
global and regional security and
stability.
Given this backdrop, India
needs to carefully weigh the
advantages and disadvantages of
having too close a relationship with
the U.S. Despite the current warmth
in India-U.S. relations, the U.S.s and
Indias objectives still remain far apart.
U.S. dependence on Pakistan is
unlikely to shift substantially due to
continuing U.S. interest in Afghanistan
and Central Asia. While New Delhi
would like Washington to consult it
more actively on Afghanistan, there
is little evidence that this was on the
agenda during the recent ObamaModi meeting. India and the U.S. also
remain far apart on global trade. The
U.S. is neither favourably inclined to
accommodate India in the TransPacific Partnership negotiations nor
has pressed strongly for Indias

membership of Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation. Arms sales
and security dominate the U.S.
agenda. Indias objectives are very
different. It is not in Indias interest to
be involved in any kind of showdown
in the South China Sea, which
involves an established superpower
and a presumptive one, or to align
with the U.S. to prevent China from
dominating Asia. It is far from certain
that this is the key issue in global
geopolitics today.
Nervous takeoff
The civil aviation policy,
unveiled after much ado, ticks all the
right boxes. The intent to fast-track
the sector and harvest its multiplier
effects on the economy, spurring
investments,
tourism
and
employment, is clear. Making flying
affordable and bringing more cities
on the air transport map either by
reviving defunct airports or building
no-frills as well as full-fledged
commercial terminals would boost
domestic traffic, but the target to
more than triple passenger numbers
by 2022 is too ambitious. A critical
reform is the de-politicisation of
identifying destinations. Indeed,
resources ought to be deployed
based on economics rather than as
populist gestures to the hinterland
voter. The regional connectivity
scheme will be purely demanddriven, on the basis of commitments
from airlines and State governments.
Aiming for a Rs.2,500 air ticket for
hour-long flights by securing
concessions from States and airports
and subsidising airlines is a populist
gesture. Implementing a subsidybased network comes with its perils
oil prices tend to swing, and the
wisdom of a dole for flyers on new
routes to be financed by a levy on
flyers on high-traffic routes is

questionable. A complex regime
would make airlines hesitate before
investing in smaller aircraft for such
routes.
Liberalising the right to fly
abroad by scrapping the five-year
domestic flight operations
requirement doesnt create real room
for manoeuvre for investors. Quick
offers of international routes may not
mean much for new airlines; it is not
financially feasible to scale up to a
fleet of 20 aircraft just to get the right
to deploy the next one on an overseas
route. Similarly, while an open sky
policy with SAARC countries is a
positive, it has a misleading ring when
applied to countries beyond a 5,000km radius. India already has unused
flying rights to EU countries and an
open-sky policy with the U.S. and the
U.K. The success of the regional
connectivity plan will hinge on
concessions from States in the form
of free land, lower utility rates and
tax cuts on aircraft fuel. The Centre
has offered to grant special economic
zone status for any aeronautical
manufacturing activity. But such sops
are not as tempting as they used to
be. While the policy promises to
bring down airport user charges and
make flying cheaper, future tariffs at
airports will be calculated on a hybrid
till basis that allows operators to use
just 30 per cent of non-aeronautical
revenues to subsidise costs. This
would not only push up airport costs,
but also run counter to the single till
approach followed by the
independent airport economic
regulator. The trajectory of the policy
seems right, but several unseen
variables remain. These could well
throw Indian aviation off the flight
path that the government has sought
to determine.
57


India and the Brexit forecast
Unlike many other governments
of countries with strong economic
and historical ties with the United
Kingdom, India has refrained from
officially commenting on the crucial
European Union (EU) membership
referendum to be held on June 23.
At a recent debate on Would
Brexit Benefit India at the House of
Commons moderated by journalist
Ashis Ray of Ray Events, Lord Archie
Hamilton, a former Defence Minister
and now Brexit supporter argued that
the EU was the biggest obstacle to
U.K.-India trade. We should be doing
much more business with India with
its middle class of 200 million people,
but we cant because trade with
India is part of what is known as an
EU competence, he said. An EU
trade deal with India is almost
completely out of the question, and
Britain will have to get out of the EU
if we are going to tie up a bilateral
trade deal with India which I am
absolutely certain we can do. In the
absence of any realistic projection on
what a post-Brexit U.K. holds in store,
such claims carry little authority. That
said, India remains deeply vested in
the outcome of the referendum for
two reasons. The first concerns the
welfare of a nearly three-million strong
diaspora of Indian-origin U.K. citizens,
while the second concerns the
interests of a large moving population
of Indians who come to Britain ever
year as tourists, business people,
professionals, students, spouses,
parents and relatives.
Indian industry in the U.K. is
thriving. There are 800 Indian
companies in the country more
than the combined number in the rest
of Europe. According to the India
Tracker 2016 commissioned by the
58
Confederation of Indian Industry

(CII), Indian companies generate
110,000 jobs. The number of Indian
companies growing at more than 10
per cent the key benchmark for
inclusion on the list has nearly
doubled this year over the last. The
total turnover of the fastest growing
Indian companies in the U.K.,
especially in the fast growth sectors
of
technology,
telecom,
pharmaceuticals and financial
services, rose by 18 per cent in 2016
from 22 billion in 2015 to 26
billion this year, according to the
Tracker. Telecom and technology
companies Bharti Airtel and HCL
Technologies top the list of Indian
companies, registering phenomenal
growths of 886 per cent and 728 per
cent respectively. In turnover terms,
the Tata Group still dominates,
although its share has fallen from 83
per cent of total turnover of Indian
companies on the Tracker compared
to 90 per cent last year. Despite the
downturn in the automobile industry,
Jaguar Land Rovers business is still
the success story it was, reporting a
13 per cent growth due to increased
demand for its product range.
Chandrajit Banerjee, Director
General of CII, in a statement that
spoke to a Brexit scenario
underscored the importance of
continued border-free access to
European markets as a key driver for
Indian companies coming to the
U.K.. Anything that lessens this
attractiveness may have a bearing on
future investment decisions, he said.
This pro-Europe sentiment was
echoed in a memo issued to its staff
by the management of Tata Steel
a company currently in the process
of finding a buyer for its Port Talbot
steelworks. The Daily Telegraph
reported that the letter urges staff to
give careful thought to the

referendum because the choice you
make on 23 June will make a
difference to your working life. The
memo stated that access to the EU
market is fundamental to our
business.
The Indian industrialist and
philanthropist Lord Swraj Paul, head
of the Caparo Group, sounded a
strong warning on the perils for British
industry from leaving the EU in
respect of skilled labour supplies, free
trade opportunities in Europe, and
immigration restrictions. On a
historical note, Lord Paul spoke of the
great damage to India and Pakistan
wrought by the Partition of 1947. At
the time of Partition they [citizens of
India and Pakistan] were people with
the same language; yet it was
decided that they should become
separate countries with their own
sovereignty. In my view, and in the
view of many other people, India and
Pakistan are still suffering today from
that decision, he said.
Work-related visa restrictions
have already resulted in a fall in the
number of Indian students studying
in British universities from 22,385 in
2012-13 to 18,320 in 2014-15,
according to the U.K. Council for
International Student Affairs
(UKCISA). Given their tough stance
on cutting immigration, a Brexit
government could be expected to
make such curbs more stringent.
According to Lord Karan Bilimoria,
President of the UKCISA, the clutch
of new visa rules that have impacted
student flows from India especially
the withdrawal in 2012 of the poststudy work visa has had disastrous
consequences. A Brexit vote would
only exacerbate these. Unlike other
countries, Britain classifies overseas
students as immigrants. He argues


that Justice Minister and Brexit
advocate Michael Gove has
recommitted to a post-Brexit
government aiming to reach the
Conservative party target of bringing
immigration down to the tens of
thousands. The latest immigration
figures put the number of immigrants
at between 330-350,000 in 2015, of
which 180,000 are non-EU migrants.
The curry and mango wars are
a part of the Brexit arsenal used by
the U.K.s Employment Minister of
Indian-origin Priti Patel, a leading
voice of the South Asian community
for Brexit. Protectionist EU acts as a
barrier to trade for the U.K., including
from India, she argues, citing the EUled ban on Indian mango shipments
to the U.K. in May 2014 after fruit flies
were found in consignments. The ban
was lifted in early 2015, but not
before Indian exporters and local
traders suffered considerable losses.
High European regulatory standards
are a dampener on Indian exports, as
the mango ban demonstrates.
The Centres big reform push
With India now acknowledged
as the fastest growing large economy
in the world and also edging up in
the World Banks ease of doing
business rankings, the time is ripe for
the country to open its doors wider
to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
This is exactly what the Centre has
done by raising FDI caps in some
sectors (airlines from 49 to 100 per
cent), sweeping others entirely into
the automatic route (cable TV,
brownfield airports) and diluting
preconditions for sectors with
restrictions (relaxation of sourcing
norms in single-brand retail and
technology norms for defence). FDI
is stickier and more resilient to
business cycles than mercurial
Foreign Portfolio Investor (FPI) flows.

At a time when the private sector has
a limited appetite to invest and when
the government is tied down by fiscal
constraints, India needs to seek out
foreign capital to keep its growth
engines purring. That foreign
investors are interested in India is
evident: there has been a 23 per cent
surge in inbound FDI, which touched
a record $55.5 billion in 2015-16.
Even so, it is simplistic to assume
that merely opening up more sectors
or setting more liberal equity caps will
have foreign investors queuing up to
invest. Indias experience suggests
that actual investment interest in the
newly liberalised sectors will be tied
to three factors. One, foreign
investors, like domestic ones, are ROI
(Return on Investment) focussed.
Therefore, sectors that are already
witnessing booming consumer
demand such as DTH television,
airlines and pharmaceuticals are
more likely to attract quick investment
flows than those that are in need of
bailouts (asset reconstruction firms)
or entail long gestation periods
(airports or defence). Two, even if
the Centre is willing to reduce initial
entry barriers, frequent market or
pricing interventions can deter
investors. The Centre seems to have
recognised this in watering down the
sourcing norms for FDI in singlebrand retail. But its attempts to woo
FDI into pharma may be stymied by
increasing price controls and the lack
of clarity in the policy on essential
drugs. Three, the experience with
sectors such as insurance suggests
that foreign investors committing
long-term capital expect to exercise
control over the entities they fund.
Overall, there is no disputing that the
FDI relaxations, irrespective of
whether they were timed to signal the
Centres commitment to reforms in the

face of RBI Governor Raghuram
Rajans exit in September, are a step
in the right direction. But as we have
learnt from the past, the devil is
usually in the detail.
The true devolution of power
Maharashtras desire to be in the
forefront among business-friendly
States promoting the Central
governments pet policies has come
at the expense of its constitutional
responsibility to strengthen local
governance. As the State continues
to prioritise the implementation of
big-ticket schemes such as the Smart
Cities Mission, it is demanding greater
revenue generation and sustained
efforts for overall improvement from
its Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and
Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs). At
the same time, it has taken away their
key sources of income, the local body
tax and octroi, ironically for business
reasons.
In this context, it seems unfair
to expect the ill-equipped local
bodies to rise to the occasion and
support major urban schemes
launched by the Narendra Modi
government,
including
the
development of 100 smart cities,
rejuvenation of 500 cities under the
AMRUT scheme, and the Housing For
All initiative. With ballooning
liabilities and slow growth in own
revenue of the ULBs and PRIs, the
State has been rendered a mere
guarantor to banks and central
agencies on behalf of the local
bodies. Despite the staff strength of
six lakh employees and an
overabundance of over 100 schemes
sponsored by the Centre and the
State governments, Maharashtras 259
ULBs and 28,291 PRIs are still heavily
dependent on the government for
59


revenue receipts. In 2010, the PRIs
received 12 per cent of the States
revenue receipts; this grew to 17 per
cent by the end of 2015. In the
financial year 2014-15, 51 per cent
and 49 per cent of total allocations
were budgeted for ULBs and PRIs
respectively.
The FFC had also laid out a solid
road map by provisioning a major
spend to strengthen the third level
of governance in States. But
Maharashtra did not provide the
required support measures diligently.
The States carelessness in attempting
to put in place safeguards against
misuse of funds by the PRIs has
already been exposed by a report of
the State FFC. The Commission
blamed the successive governments
in Maharashtra which ignored the
horizontal devolution formula
recommended by the Central
Finance Commission (CFC) as a
healthy road map for the
development of local bodies. The
formula took into account population,
size and geography of urban and rural
areas when making a budgetary
provision for local bodies. But this
was never put on priority.
Also, a weak city and villagelevel leadership both elected and
bureaucratic meant there has been
little accountability in the enormous
amount of spending over the years.
The State, despite all its attempts, has
failed to collect audited accounts for
works worth Rs. 70,000 crore at the
local body level in the last five years.
The picture is grimmer in the two
most vital departments of the
government, urban and rural, which
have direct connections with the
development of ULBs and PRIs. Data
shows the State urban development
department did not collect utilisation
certificates to the tune of Rs.3,064
60
crore in 2009, and this number grew

to Rs.12,660 crore at the end of 2014.
The rural development department
in turn did not collect utilisation
certificates for works to the tune of
Rs.7,279 crore carried out at the
village level in 2014. This statistic
presents two alarming scenarios:
either the funds are just lying in the
bank accounts of local bodies or they
have been misused in the name of
local development.
The State has shown a general
unwillingness to adopt reforms and
recommendations that could help
improve its local governance system.
The State machinery has been more
than reluctant to pass on its powers
to purchase at the micro level, while
it continues to suffer from an
obsession to procure goods and
services at every possible
opportunity. For greater and better
participation of ULBs and PRIs in
Central schemes, the State must look
to enhance their powers and
responsibilities through a single
legislation. For example, instead of
the municipalities in Maharashtra
being governed by a host of acts
the Mumbai Municipal Corporation
Act of 1888; the Maharashtra
Municipal
Councils,
Nagar
Panchayats and Industrial Townships
Act of 1965; and the Bombay
Provincial Municipal Corporations Act
of 1949, among others they can
be brought under one Act.
Banking revival must be a
priority
The Modi governments
attempts to accelerate growth and
realise the promise of achche din
face two formidable obstacles today.
One is the adverse global
environment. The other is a banking
sector weighed down by bad loans.
There isnt much we can do about

the first. But the second can be
tackled and should have been
tackled by now. Unfortunately,
precious time has been lost for want
of clarity on the way forward. The
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is better
placed than anybody else to feel the
pulse of the banking sector. It will be
up to the incoming RBI governor,
therefore, to show the way.
The bulk of the bad loans is with
public sector banks (PSBs). As bad
loans mounted and banks had to
make provisions for these, profits fell
at PSBs or losses mounted. PSB
performance suffered in comparison
with private banks. The P.J. Nayak
committee, constituted by the RBI,
came to a quick conclusion in its
report presented in May 2014: the
problem at PSBs was fundamentally
one of governance. The committee
argued that it was a mistake for the
government, the majority owner, to
be an active investor. Instead, it
should become a passive investor. It
should hand over its governance role,
first to professional bankers and then
to independent boards of directors.
As the promoter, it should have no
say in the appointment of chairmen
and managing directors of PSBs. Try
telling this to private sector
promoters.
The Nayak committees
diagnosis was flawed. If governance
at PSBs was so poor, how did PSB
performance show considerable
improvement over most of the postreform period? Yes, there were poor
appointments and bad loan
decisions. But these are not the most
important reasons for the bad loan
problem at PSBs over the past four
years. PSBs had lent to vital sectors,
steel, aviation, mining, infrastructure,
textiles, all of which came to be


impacted by factors beyond the
control of bankers. Steel has been
exposed to heavy dumping by the
Chinese; the telecom sector was
impacted by the cancellation of 2G
licensees; the power sector by the
cancellation of coal blocks; and so
on. Private banks had a relatively
limited exposure to these sectors as
they had chosen to focus on retail
loans. Thats why they fared better.
PSBs have ended up paying a price
for funding the infrastructure boom
that drove Indias phenomenal
growth in 2004-08.
Ultimately, good sense seems to
have prevailed. The government did
not buy the thesis of the Nayak
committee. It has moved to
professionalise appointments at PSBs
but intends to keep government
equity holding at PSBs at a minimum
of 51 per cent. This is welcome. But
the government hasnt gone far
enough in tackling the key issues,
namely, bad loans and bank
recapitalisation. As a result, conditions
in the banking sector have steadily
worsened. The response to a banking
crisis is fairly standard. Recognise and
provide for bad loans. Change
management where necessary.
Infuse capital into banks so that fresh
lending and growth happens. Ours is
not a banking crisis (which involves
multiple failures of banks), we have a
stressed situation. But the steps
required are the same.
In implementing this standard
protocol, we have made several
mistakes. There is a sense that the RBI
has been somewhat harsh in the
norms it has imposed on bad loan
recognition. Not all defaults are wilful
or mala fide. There are situations
where a project is stalled for reasons
beyond the promoters control. In
such situations, additional loans may
be required to see the project

through to completion. If loans in such
cases are declared as nonperforming assets, no further lending
is possible, and the project is
doomed.
Second, almost all bad loan
resolution requires banks to write off
some portion of the loan; otherwise
the firm or the project is unviable.
The RBI came out with schemes that
allowed banks to stretch out loan
repayments over 25 years and to
convert loans into equity. These have
proved inadequate. Loan write-offs
are essential. The RBIs latest
restructuring scheme allows banks to
divide loans into sustainable and
unsustainable portions and to write
off a portion of the latter. This
initiative should have come much
earlier.
Third, given the hysteria
created over the bad loan problem,
bankers are unwilling to take
decisions on loan write-offs. They fear
that they will invite action from the
investigating agencies even after they
have retired. This is understandable
given the way the government has
handled the Kingfisher Airlines case.
Fourth, the government has
been niggardly in infusing capital into
PSBs. It has promised banks Rs.70,000
crore of equity capital over four years
starting 2015-16. Most analysts think
this amount hopelessly inadequate.
It may be enough to meet the
minimum regulatory requirement of
capital, but it does not suffice to
promote loan growth. The intention
seems to be to let some PSBs just stay
afloat until they are merged with
stronger entities or sold to strategic
investors. This is bound to hurt loan
growth.
Fifth, the government is rushing
to merge SBI and its five associate

banks. Ostensibly, this is meant to
create a bank that is in the top 50
banks by size in the world. The
overriding priority today should be
to address the bad loan problem. It
does not help at all to saddle banks
with the managerial headaches
posed by merger. If a merger is
intended, the benefits of the merger
must be clearly articulated to investors
and analysts. No such analysis has
been presented. It is also strange that
attempts at merger should focus on
the strongest PSB when it ought to
focus on the weakest banks.
Public investment is constrained
by self-imposed targets for fiscal
consolidation. Private investment is
held back at least in part by high real
interest rates that flow from the RBIs
policy of inflation-targeting. A revival
of banking cannot happen by
addressing issues specific to the
sector alone, such as settlement of
bad loans and bank recapitalisation.
The answers to banks problems lie
partly in the economy at large. The
government and the incoming RBI
governor need to sit together and
revisit the present economic policy
framework.
Limits of the big freeze
In the preface to his justpublished novel 2017 War with
Russia , recently-retired North
Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)
General Sir Richard Shirreff describes
his depiction of a Russia-NATO war
as not fiction, but fact-based
prediction. He quotes a U.S. Army
Chiefs testimony to the Senate that
Russias nuclear capability poses an
existential threat to America. On
the other side, Russian President
Vladimir Putin last month threatened
retaliation against U.S. missile
61


defence system deployments in
Romania and Poland.
As nature abhors a vacuum, so
geopolitics abhors unipolarity. PostCold War Europe sought to emerge
from the American shadow into an
independent global personality. In
anticipation of its forthcoming
expansion, the European Union (EU)
unveiled an ambitious agenda in
2000, to make EU the most
competitive
and
dynamic
knowledge-based economy in the
world by 2010. Reinforcing this
Lisbon Agenda was a Common
Security and Defence Policy,
envisaging inter alia an autonomous
EU military force to respond to
international crises beyond Europes
borders. Europe thus declared its
ambition to become a dominant
global power by 2010.
The European resurgence
coincided with the rise of Mr. Putin
in Russia, with his declared goal of
restoring Russias political, economic
and military strength. European and
Russian aspirations were compatible.
Russia
needed
European
technologies and investment.
Europe needed cheap Russian gas
and could use Russias technical
manpower. A broad-based mutually
beneficial
Russia-Europe
engagement appeared in prospect.
These first challenges to unipolarity
collided with U.S. neo-conservatism,
which aimed to scotch any threat to
U.S. global power. In 2002-03, the
EU conceded NATOs (and the
U.S.s) primacy in its defence and
security policy. The U.S. invasion of
Iraq divided EU politically even
before it expanded in 2004. The
Eurozone crisis then created new
fault lines. The EU formally buried the
Lisbon Agenda in 2010.
Russia was particularly incensed
62
when NATO moved (in 2008) to offer

membership to Georgia and Ukraine:
NATO in the Black Sea and on the
fringe of the Caucasus threatened its
national security and strategic
ambitions. Mr. Putins military
response to Georgian operations in
South Ossetia (2008) signalled that
Russia was prepared to use force to
protect its vital interests. Tensions
peaked with the Ukraine crisis in
2014. Russia saw a foreign hand in
the unseating of the Ukrainian
government. Fearing a threat to its
naval fleet in Crimea and to its
vulnerable Black Sea coastline, Russia
acted swiftly. Crimea acceded to
Russia after a hastily organised
referendum.
Demands
for
independence then arose in two
regions in Eastern Ukraine, which
degenerated into fighting between
the separatists and the Ukrainian
army.
U.S. and EU sanctions for
annexation of Crimea included
Russias international isolation and
restrictions on finance and
technology transfers. Russia retaliated
with an embargo on agro-product
imports from Europe. A propaganda
war continues. Accusations of
Russian sponsorship of separatism are
countered by allegations of Western
manipulation of Ukraines actions.
Russia accuses the U.S. of armtwisting the Europeans to sustain
tensions; a sanctions-induced
collapse of the Russian economy is a
Western refrain.
The edge of sanctions has
blunted, as technology and finance,
as well as European agro-products
found alternative channels to Russia.
The International Monetary Fund
predicts restoration of Russian growth
in 2017. A fragile ceasefire prevails
in Eastern Ukraine. Russias isolation
has been diluted by U.S.-Russian

collaboration on Iran and Syria.
However, Russia-NATO relations
remain tense and could have farreaching implications for Asia and
Europe.
For India, political, defence and
strategic relations with Russia retain
great importance. We do not want
Cold War-like pressures to curtail this
relationship as the price for
strengthening another. Some areas of
India-Russia relations cannot yet be
substituted by other relationships.
Our
Russian
collaboration
strengthens our leverage with other
partners. Of wider concern is the
recent intensification of Russia-China
cooperation. Until lately, a history of
strategic rivalry ensured that,
notwithstanding flourishing trade,
Russia calibrated its cooperation in
strategic sectors. This reserve
progressively weakened as tensions
with the West increased and Chinas
political and economic support
(particularly as a permanent member
of the UN Security Council) acquired
critical importance. Such support
obviously comes at a price: reports
of recent Russian military transfers to
China are not coincidental.
Europe has to be the catalyst
for this change, since most action is
in Europe which also bears the brunt
of its consequences. During the Cold
War, Europe played a moderating role
in East-West tensions. Today, an
expanded Europe has economic
disparities between north and south
and ideological divergences
between east and west. In the EUs
present course, the pace has been
set by its eastern and northern
members. Moderating voices have
been drowned in the quest for EU
unity. A coherent approach is
needed in the long-term interests of
(CSAT) (Pre) - 2 (Paper - 2)

?
100
1200
2500
For More Information Click Given below link:



its entire membership. The
transformation of eastern Europe
could be pursued in a calibrated
manner, minimising confrontation
and accommodating interests of
Europe and Russia.
This approach requires
statesmanship from leaders of
Europe, the U.S. and Russia. Leaders
of countries like India and Japan
could use their considerable
influence to nudge them in this
direction.
Finding the centre
A few days after India and the
Soviet Union signed the Treaty of
Friendship and Cooperation in
August 1971, Foreign Minister
Swaran Singh flew to Washington to
an icy reception. In his recently
released memoirs, A Life in Diplomacy
, former Foreign Secretary M.K.
Rasgotra has a full account of Swaran
Singhs meeting with U.S. Secretary
of State Will Rogers, where he wasnt
even offered a cup of tea. Instead,
the host railed on about the how the
treaty made Indias policy of nonalignment look like a sham.
Unruffled, the minister replied that
he didnt see any need for the U.S. to
be upset. In fact, he said, My Prime
Minister (Indira Gandhi) has
authorised me to sign an identical
treaty with your government.
The idea may have seemed
laughable, and certainly the U.S.
didnt accept the offer, but the
anecdote has remarkable similarities
to Prime Minister Narendra Modis
own task this month, in reverse order.
Fresh from his visit to Washington,
where the Logistics Exchange
(LEMOA) on defence has been
finalised, and India declared the
U.S.s major defence partner, Mr.
Modi must fly to Tashkent to finalise

documents for Indias accession to
the
Shanghai
Cooperation
Organisation (SCO), a political,
economic and military alliance
spearheaded by Russia and China.
While non-alignment, a term that now
invites raised eyebrows and some
mirth in South Block, has yet to find a
mention in the Prime Ministers
speeches, it may still be a necessity
in his actions, especially with Indias
desired Nuclear Suppliers Group
(NSG) membership hanging in the
balance.
Many assume that Indias push
for the Non-Aligned Movement
(NAM), formed in Belgrade in 1961,
came as a result of its disillusionment
with the U.S., China, and colonial
powers, but actually, non-alignment
was spelt out a year before
independent Indias first bilateral
relations were declared. In a radio
broadcast in September 1946,
Jawaharlal Nehru said Indias foreign
policy would rest on eight pillars: nonalignment with power groups was
the third. Indias break with the U.S.
came in 1951 when Prime Minister
Nehru refused to attend a peace
conference in San Francisco hosted
by U.S. President Harry Truman after
calling the war reparations for Japan
too meagre. The strain grew from
there on as India refused an alliance,
possibly because of its own attempts
at better ties with China and the
Soviet Union, which were themselves
at loggerheads at the time.
It is worthwhile to see what
SCO membership for India entails.
The 2001 declaration on the
establishment of the SCO clearly
states that its aim is jointly preserving
and safeguarding regional peace,
security and stability; and
establishing a democratic, fair and
rational new international political

and economic order. Analysts have
always believed that the reference
to the new order juxtaposes the
Eurasian SCO as a counterpoint to the
transatlantic North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation. It was further spelt out
vividly at the Astana SCO summit
declaration in 2005, a summit in
which India, Pakistan and Iran were
admitted as observer countries. At
Astana the members formulated joint
mechanisms for regional security,
joint planning and conduct of antiterror activities, and jointly
contributing to security issues on
land, at sea, in air space and in outer
space. The SCO also has a
formulation on Asia Pacific, with
members making a declaration
against fault lines appearing both in
the Asia Pacific region and in its
separate constituent parts.
Clearly, adherence to the terms
spelt out in both the western and
eastern alliances would be absurd,
as they could conceivably see the
Indian Navy in joint patrol with the
U.S. and its allies, challenging China
in the South China Sea, even as it
cooperates with China and Russia to
counter U.S.-backed forces across
the fault lines! Equally strange is the
possible vision of the future this
brings: one of India discussing
nuclear safety and non-proliferation
on an equal footing with known
proliferator Pakistan at the NSG, and
also sharing counter-terror operations
with it as part of the SCOs Regional
Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS). In this
scenario, even NAM, with its inherent
confusion and often lip service-only
commitment to neutrality, isnt
fraught with as much contradiction,
and is a group that India has
leadership of. The fact that the next
host of the NAM summit, Venezuela,
63


hasnt been able to declare a date
for it also gives the government some
time to consider Mr. Modis position
on attending it, which he has not
indicated so far.
Nailing the neighbourly
dividend
visit to Dhaka last year raised hopes
for the settlement of old issues
between India and Bangladesh. We
are not just neighbours. We are two
nations bound by the threads of
history, religion, culture, language
and kinship, Mr. Modi said. IndiaBangladesh relations have become
warm through closer economic and
strategic ties 22 agreements were
signed, including the historic
ratification of the Land Boundary
Agreement. One year since, it is time
to reflect on the progress.
One of the worst periods in
India-Bangladesh relations was
between 2001 and 2006. Only minor
protocols or agreements were signed
during that time and there was a surge
in insurgency activities in the
Northeast with the United Liberation
Front of Asom and the Nationalist
Socialist Council of Nagaland, among
other outfits, crossing the border for
training. From 2009 onwards, as
cross-border issues were addressed,
bilateral relationship improved and
progress was made in some key areas.
Bangladesh imported products
worth $5.82 billion from India in the
last fiscal year. India also exports
goods estimated more than $5 billion
through informal channels, making
the volume of official and non-official
trade approximately the same.
Informal trade is mostly due to
corruption and inadequate border
infrastructure. Bangladeshs exports
to India were only at $527 million with
64
almost 20 per cent being ready-made

garments. Other items include jute
products, agro processed and nonprocessed foods, and light
engineering products.
Despite duty-free access,
Bangladeshi exporters face high nontariff barriers in the form of
bureaucratic
and
customs
bottlenecks, delays due to manual
clearance, visa problems, lack of
banking services and warehouse
facilities at the border. The cost of
cross-border trade is quite high.
Border Haats, or markets across the
India-Bangladesh border, were a
successful solution to increase legal
business on the borders. Recently,
Bangladesh and India have agreed
to set up six more haats along their
borders.
One bone of contention has
been cattle trade. In India, the
number of cows is three times more
than what is needed to produce the
volume of milk consumed nationally,
and eating beef is a religious stigma
in many places. These surplus cows
are mostly donated to temples where
they are tied to fences, die from
dehydration and the remains sold to
leather merchants. Exporting such
cows to Bangladesh, which
tantamount to making gains from sunk
capital, is still prohibited, leading to
cattle smuggling.
Border killing of Bangladeshis by
the Indian Border Security Force is a
continued concern. From 20102015, at least 236 Bangladeshis have
been killed by BSF personnel.
Compared to that, killings along the
U.S.-Mexico border by U.S. Border
Patrol since 2010 been only 48
whereas drugs worth billions are
smuggled across the border. Cattle,
even if smuggled, cant be worse than
drugs, and shooting the offenders is
not the right solution when there are

options for imprisonment, fines, and
confiscation. In the most recent
incident, the BSF killed two more
Bangladeshi nationals on Charaldanga
frontier in Chapainawabganj on June
20 for allegedly smuggling illegal
goods. Similarly, the latest decision
by the Indian Home Minister to
completely seal off border with
Assam by June 2017 is inconsistent
with healthy neighbourly relations.
Government-to-government
power trade is 1,300 MW from India
to Bangladesh. Indias state-run
Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited
(BHEL) is building the Rampal coalfired power plant in Bangladesh
despite environmental concerns that
the Sundarbans is situated only 14 km
away from the proposed site. In the
private sector, Reliance Power has
won approval to set up a 750 MW
LNG-based power plant and an LNG
terminal in Bangladesh, paving the
way for $1.3 billion investment, and
Adani Group is set to sell 3,000 MW
power to Bangladesh. On
connectivity, the focus has been on
road, rail, rivers, sea, transmission lines,
petroleum pipelines, and digital links
that would give Delhi access to the
Northeast and to Southeast Asia
through Bangladesh. BangladeshIndia coastal shipping began in March
this year, and trains are set to run from
Kolkata to Agartala, a project to be
completed by 2017. Trucks carrying
Indian goods reached Tripura from
Ashuganj port on June 19, making the
long-cherished idea of transhipment
into reality.
The Teesta water-sharing
agreement had been stalled due to
the West Bengal elections. As
Mamata Banerjee has swept back to
power, it is time to deliver on the
promise. India had also undertaken


the Tipaimukh project on the Barak
river without officially informing
Bangladesh. If built, the dam will
adversely affect nearly 40,000
people in Bangladesh. With
resistance from Bangladesh and
Manipur, the project has been
temporarily deferred. While progress
has been made since Mr. Modis visit,
greater issues are still at bay. The time
is ripe to build on the successes and
resolve the remaining issues. As the
pragmatic
new-generation
Bangladeshis have shed the anti-India
mindset of the 1970s, the challenge
for India is to keep up the momentum
and not to be perceived as being tied
to any particular party or ideology but
only to the people of Bangladesh. As
Mr. Modi stated: We stand at a
moment of huge opportunity in our
relationship we will work together
to harness the rich potential of our
relationship. He is walking but yet to
match his talk, making room for
cautious optimism.
Right man for a big task
Anil Kumbles appointment as
coach of the Indian mens cricket
team has evoked all-round cheer. The
former India captain, one of crickets
greatest bowlers with 956
international wickets, comes to the
job with an established reputation
and a dignity thats been a second
skin to him throughout. This helped
him secure the post ahead of
formidable competitors such as Ravi
Shastri, who until recently was the
Indian teams director. The 45-yearold Kumble does not have the formal
coaching experience that the Board
of Control for Cricket in India had
sought for the coachs position. Yet,
the sheer force of his personality and
his level-headedness, reflected in his
presentation of a blueprint for Indian
cricket, tilted the scales in his favour.

There has been the odd whisper of
an old boys club being at work, as
the Cricket Advisory Committee that
picked Kumble featured former
team-mates Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav
Ganguly and V.V.S. Laxman. But their
credentials too are impossible to fault,
and such trash talk is best ignored.
Kumbles past passes scrutiny it is
adjustment to his new role as coach
that will be closely watched now. He
is aware that guiding an international
side is not for the faint-hearted, and
he returns to the Indian dressing room
at a time of transition and with two
skippers, Virat Kohli in Tests and M.S.
Dhoni in limited-overs cricket.
India has a long season of 17
Tests ahead, with four in the West
Indies and the rest at home. It is an
ideal setting for Kumbles initial oneyear contract, while he trains his eyes
on the 2019 World Cup. Over the next
few months, he can revive his old ties
with both Dhoni and Kohli, reveal his
vision for the team, and most
importantly assist the squad in
acquiring a sense of permanence. In
Tests, for instance, only Kohli, Murali
Vijay, Ajinkya Rahane and R. Ashwin
have cemented their slots. In one-day
and Twenty20 internationals, Kumble
may have to hold Kohlis hand as
Dhoni gets closer to retirement. Great
cricketers walk in with a halo but their
boots can get soiled in the rough and
tumble of coaching international
teams. Kapil Devs and Greg
Chappells coaching stints did not
trigger the same awe as their playing
days did. Kumble should also
effectively answer the conflict of
interest queries that shadow his
sports training and consulting
company Tenvic. He has declared
that it will be addressed before he
formally takes charge. Now his
strength is his reputation, but a year

down the line it will be the Indian
teams performance that will
determine the way he is judged as
the coach.
Stepping into the unknown
The scale of unknowable
consequences that the United
Kingdom has brought upon itself
and the rest of the world with the
vote in Thursdays referendum to
leave the European Union was best
gauged by the relative sobriety with
which one of the Leave camps
most voluble campaigners reacted.
Boris Johnson, considered to be a
leading claimant to Tory leadership,
welcomed the result by saying that
nothing would change right away.
But in the coming days, London will
have to manage the panic in the
financial markets, the anxiety in
Scotland and Northern Ireland, and
the question of the international
ramifications of the British isles
moving away from the continent.
Three years ago when Prime Minister
David Cameron promised a
referendum on the U.K.s membership
in the EU, it was seen as a quick-fix to
deal with the far-right bloc in his
Conservative Party. Right to the end,
few expected that Britons would
actually decide to leave the EU. That
the vote has come as a surprise shows
the distance between London and
the rest, as well as the geographical
divide in the U.K. The chaos
emanating from the vote also holds a
lesson for democracies elsewhere. It
underlines both the recklessness of
populist politics and a referendum
is nothing more than an evasive
measure in a Westminster-style
democracy as well as the
groundswell of support antiestablishment campaigns can today
65


call upon.
Why did Britons choose the
unknown future despite stark
warnings from their own
government, world leaders and
economists that a Brexit would be
extremely risky? Euroscepticism has
been a strong sentiment among
Britons. But over the past few years,
nationalist sentiment has grown
stronger in the U.K. A number of
factors may have contributed to this
shift. One is the public anger in
Britain towards the status quo.
Ordinary Britons, hit hard by the
economic crisis, feel betrayed by
their political leadership. The
Conservative governments austerity
policies have further alienated these
sections. The main opposition
Labour Party, organisationally divided
and ideologically distraught, has
been too weak to tap this
resentment. Its the far-right, ultranationalist sections that stepped into
this space and gave free play to fearmongering on immigration. The
exact implications of the Brexit vote
are hard to predict. But the
resignation of Prime Minister
Cameron, the jubilation of the antiimmigrant ultra-nationalists and the
tumbling of the pound to a 30-year
low offer a taste of whats to come.
The vote puts in doubt the unity of
the country as Scotland has
overwhelmingly voted Remain.
Brexit also poses a challenge to the
European project itself. June 23 is a
day Britain, Europe and the
international community may well
struggle to understand for some time
to come.
The writing on the great wall
The Nuclear Suppliers Group
(NSG) meeting in Seoul last week
ended with no decision on Indias
66
application to join the group as a full

member. This outcome was widely
expected ever since China took a
public stand against a non-signatory
to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT) being granted
membership, since it felt this would
undermine the international nonproliferation regime. It elaborated this
position further by suggesting that the
NSG thoroughly discuss the subject
of membership of non-NPT states so
that a set of objective criteria could
be agreed upon and that no
application was treated as an
exceptional case.
Having taken this stance, China
tried to prevent any formal discussion
on Indias application for
membership, saying that the issue of
agreed criteria for admitting non-NPT
members had to be discussed and
agreed upon first. When Chinese
objections were overcome and a
discussion on Indias application was
held eventually, this did not materially
change the situation since China and
a few other members continued to
oppose a decision on the same
procedural grounds.
The NSG outcome document is
in line with Chinese insistence that
what should remain on the agenda is
the basis on which non-NPT
countries could be considered for
membership without undermining
the NPT as a cornerstone of the
international non-proliferation
regime. Therefore, Indias entry into
the NSG as a unique and exceptional
case may be extremely difficult even
if a determined lobbying effort is
launched in the coming weeks and
months. The only practical possibility
would be for India and Pakistan to
be admitted together, which China
has indicated it would be willing to
support. The problem is that most
NSG members will have to hold their

noses to swallow and digest the
Pakistani application, even if India has
no objection. China has ensured that
India and Pakistan are now joined at
the hip as far as entry into the NSG is
concerned.
In 2008, India was able to get a
waiver from the NSG as an
exceptional case allowing it to
engage in international commerce in
civilian nuclear technology and
equipment even though, as a nuclear
weapon state, it did not have all its
nuclear facilities under international
safeguards as required by the group.
China was opposed to the waiver but
did not take a public stand on it. It
encouraged countries like Ireland,
New Zealand, Austria and
Switzerland to oppose a consensus
on the waiver for India, arguing that it
would seriously undermine the NPT,
that it would upset the nuclear
balance in South Asia and trigger a
nuclear arms race, and that a criteriabased rather than a country-specific
approach should be adopted in
order to avoid the charge of
discriminatory practice. This was
conveyed to me by the then New
Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark
when I called on her to solicit her
countrys support at the NSG.
The NSG drama has brought to
the surface trends which have been
incipient so far but whose
implications go beyond the
immediate issue of NSG membership
and reflect the ongoing changes in
the geopolitical landscape. We
should take advantage of the NSG
experience to carefully assess these
changes, their impact on India and
fashion an appropriate response
strategy. That is more important than
the pursuit of NSG membership.


Shrinking spaces at
the nuclear high table
All is not lost in Indias bid to
join the high table of global nuclear
commerce by gaining membership of
the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG),
which saw a sharp setback at the NSG
plenary in Seoul, South Korea, with
China and at least seven other nations
reiterating concerns about nonsignatories to the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty (NPT) being
admitted. Indian negotiators
emphasised that the countrys entry
into the elite nuclear club, which
frames rules for members nuclear
trade with other nations, is justified
on the basis of its clean nonproliferation record, a factor
important in the NSG giving India a
country-specific waiver in 2008.
Unfortunately, the 48-member Group
could not arrive at a consensus on this
issue. But within days of the plenary,
a U.S. official has said there is a path
forward that could see India
becoming a full member of the
regime by the end of 2016;
meanwhile, an encouraging sign for
South Block has come in the form of
an ambassador being appointed to
facilitate continued discussion on
India. History too points to the
prospects of an emerging inflection
point in Indias campaign for NSG
membership: the waiver granted to
India in September 2008 came in the
wake of an NSG meeting in August of
that year at which strident resistance
to Indias bid was evident, resistance
that was ultimately blunted by
proactive diplomacy.
Nonetheless, the failed attempt
at Seoul is an opportune moment for
New Delhi to introspect about how
much political and diplomatic
currency it is willing to expend in the
face of unrelenting opposition; also

about what alternative means there
are, if any, to secure its strategic goals.
Indeed the 2008 waiver, which
emerged in parallel to the India-U.S.
civil nuclear agreement, has helped
India move forward with nuclear
reactor agreements with others
including Russia and France, and fuel
supply arrangements with Australia.
It is true that under the amendments
introduced to NSG rules between
2010 and 2013, paragraph 6 was
revised to prohibit trade in
enrichment and reprocessing (ENR)
with any non-signatory of the NPT,
effectively an ENR trade ban
between NSG members and India. It
is argued that to prevent such
amendments deleterious to Indian
interests from being passed in the
future, it is better to be an influential
insider than an outsider supplicant.
Yet, is it worth sitting at the NSG table
as a second class citizen subject to
an ENR ban when India has
indigenous ENR options? At its heart,
the NSG quagmire harkens back to
the elemental conundrum of nonalignment. If that concept is today
viewed in terms of India acting with
a strategic autonomy, there is no
need, given our vast energy market,
to be insecure about finding
economic partners on the global
nuclear stage.
Why the British said no to
Europe
The majority vote by Britons to
leave the European Union was an act
of raw democracy. Millions of ordinary
people refused to be bullied,
intimidated and dismissed with open
contempt by their presumed betters
in the major parties, the leaders of the
business and banking oligarchy and
the media.
Immigration was exploited in

the campaign with consummate
cynicism, not only by populist
politicians from the lunar right, but
by Labour politicians drawing on
their own venerable tradition of
promoting and nurturing racism, a
symptom of corruption not at the
bottom but at the top. The reason
millions of refugees have fled the
Middle East first Iraq, now Syria
are the invasions and imperial
mayhem of Britain, the United States,
France, the European Union and
NATO. Before that, there was the
wilful destruction of Yugoslavia.
Before that, there was the theft of
Palestine and the imposition of Israel.
The pith helmets may have long
gone, but the blood has never dried.
A nineteenth century contempt for
countries and peoples, depending
on their degree of colonial usefulness,
remains a centrepiece of modern
globalisation, with its perverse
socialism for the rich and capitalism
for the poor: its freedom for capital
and denial of freedom to labour; its
perfidious politicians and politicised
civil servants. All this has now come
home to Europe, enriching the likes
of Tony Blair and impoverishing and
disempowering millions. On 23 June,
the British said no more.
The
most
effective
propagandists of the European
ideal have not been the far right, but
an insufferably patrician class for
whom metropolitan London is the
United Kingdom. Its leading
members see themselves as liberal,
enlightened, cultivated tribunes of
the 21st century zeitgeist, even
cool. What they really are is a
bourgeoisie with insatiable
consumerist tastes and ancient
instincts of their own superiority. In
their house paper, the Guardian , they
67


have gloated, day after day, at those
who would even consider the EU
profoundly undemocratic, a source
of social injustice and a virulent
extremism known as neoliberalism.
The aim of this extremism is to
install a permanent, capitalist
theocracy that ensures a two-thirds
society, with the majority divided and
indebted, managed by a corporate
class, and a permanent working poor.
In Britain today, 63 per cent of poor
children grow up in families where
one member is working. For them, the
trap has closed. More than 600,000
residents of Britains second city,
Greater Manchester, are, reports a
study, experiencing the effects of
extreme poverty and 1.6 million are
slipping into penury.
Little of this social catastrophe
is acknowledged in the bourgeois
controlled media, notably the
Oxbridge dominated BBC. During
the referendum campaign, almost no
insightful analysis was allowed to
intrude upon the clichd hysteria
about leaving Europe, as if Britain
was about to be towed in hostile
currents somewhere north of Iceland.
The kind of ruthlessness Mr.
Kettle longs for is found in Greece, a
country now airbrushed. There, they
had a referendum and the result was
ignored. Like the Labour Party in
Britain, the leaders of the Syriza
government in Athens are the
products of an affluent, highly
privileged, educated middle class,
groomed in the fakery and political
treachery of post-modernism. The
Greek people courageously used the
referendum to demand their
government sought better terms
with a venal status quo in Brussels that
was crushing the life out of their
country. They were betrayed, as the
British would have been betrayed.
68
In the week of the referendum

vote, no British politician and, to my
knowledge, no journalist referred to
Vladimir Putins speech in St.
Petersburg commemorating the
seventy-fifth anniversary of Nazi
Germanys invasion of the Soviet
Union on 22 June, 1941. The Soviet
victory at a cost of 27 million Soviet
lives and the majority of all German
forces won the Second World
War.
Picking up the pieces from
Seoul
In the run-up to the Nuclear
Suppliers Group (NSG) meeting in
Seoul, it was this sagacity that the
government seemed to be
channelling as it carefully worked
through speaking to members of the
48-nation nuclear club and tackled
the issue of China, which seemed to
be openly challenging Indias efforts.
China is not a problem, explained a
senior government official to a select
group of mediapersons, but if we
keep demonising it, and saying it will
be a problem, it may decide to
become one. The advice was
followed up a few days later by
External Affairs Minister Sushma
Swaraj, who said confidently, China
is not blocking India. There is a
consensus building [in Indias favour],
and no country will break the
consensus.
Just four days later, both the
confidence and the restraint were
abandoned, after the discussion on
Indias membership application failed
to come to a conclusion despite a
special session on the issue of taking
in non-signatories to the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty (NPT) mainly
India that stretched for hours. As
it emerges, the NSG wasnt a
complete washout despite a
perceived loss of face. As a result,

India must pick up the pieces, and
move on from South Korea to
Switzerland, the country that assumes
the NSG chair this year. What is
apparent is that the path is more
difficult and nuanced than the
government had calculated earlier,
and many in the group apart from
China have raised questions on both
the criteria and the principle of
accepting India as a non-NPT state,
which must be answered.
Given that NSG membership is
not an event but a consultative
process, it is extremely likely that
India will need to go into negotiations
with every country not completely
convinced of its special case and the
need for an exception (remember,
Pakistan was not discussed at all), and
China is only the most vocal of those
countries. This will entail the use of
quiet, persuasive diplomacy rather
than vigorous handshakes or strong
arm-flexing in the arc lights of press
conferences.
Some of that diplomacy must be
done internally as well. In the past
few weeks, many have questioned
the governments desire for
membership of the NSG, and asked
why it has betrayed such unnecessary
haste. India has all it needs to
conduct nuclear trade with the 2008
waiver already granted by the NSG,
says this group, raising other valid
questions on the concessions India
may need to give to get what they
call a second-class membership,
that of a non-nuclear weapon state.
What also worries many is that
Pakistan, a known proliferator, may
simply walk through the membership
door opened for India in a criteriabased manner. It is necessary for the
government to address this domestic
debate and explain the need for its


NSG efforts instead of dismissing the
doubts without any consideration as
it has done these past weeks.
Going forward, both New Delhi
and Beijing must repair the ruptures
between them that the past week has
caused. Fortunately, both their
diplomatic teams will have more than
ample occasion to meet and clear up
their differences in the coming
months, as China hosts the G-20 in
Hangzhou in September, and India
hosts the BRICS summit in Goa in
October. Relations between India
and China have reached new lows in
the past two years over several issues,
including tensions at the Line of
Actual Control and over the South
China Sea, but it is an escalating war
that hurts the Asian neighbours
themselves the most, given the trade
ties and the major border they share.
In the NSG context, India cannot wish
away Chinas power, nor can China
wish away the support and goodwill
India enjoys in the group.
Joining the elite nonproliferators
The score appears to have
evened out for India in its multi-year
project of gaining admission to four
elite global non-proliferation clubs,
with one success and one failure
coming within the span of a single
week. The four clubs, the Nuclear
Suppliers Group, the Missile
Technology Control Regime, the
Australia Group and the Wassenaar
Group, make rules for their members
to control the export of sensitive
materials and technologies to nonmembers. Last Friday, the Modi
government faced criticism for
overplaying its hand in its bid to enter
the NSG. A few members, including
China, underlined the need for all
applicants to the NSG to be
signatories of the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty. On Monday, India

officially entered the 34-member
MTCR after years spent in aligning its
export controls with the Regimes. In
the coming years, this membership
of a multilateral export control club
is likely to yield a rich harvest of stateof-the-art technologies for ballistic
missile and drone systems, including
those that are in theory nuclearcapable.
This much is evident on the
surface although there is far less
clarity about the politics of Indias
negotiations with the elite global nonproliferation clubs. For example,
Beijings application to join the MTCR
has been gathering dust for years;
hints from the Ministry of External
Affairs suggest that New Delhi may
use this as a bargaining chip to win
backing for its NSG position. Similarly,
the opposition has been quick to link
Indias MTCR entry to a deal struck
with the sole holdout, Italy, over the
issue of two Italian marines charged
with killing two Indian fishermen.
While India could not have joined
without Italys support, given the
Regimes
consensus-based
approach,
the
principle
underpinning the entry relates to a
broader acceptance of Indias
verifiable export controls and its
perceived potential as a supplier of,
and market for, ballistic and drone
technologies. But no matter what the
political intricacies that have
contributed to the gradual realisation
of Indias non-proliferation dreams, it
would be premature to gloat over the
new pride and glory accruing to India
on the global stage owing to its MTCR
admission. It is indeed a positive
development to be counted among
the responsible nations of the world
from
the
non-proliferation
perspective rather than be

associated with, say, the Abdul
Qadeer Khans of the world. However,
many more strands of interlocking
strategic interest need to be
untangled before full-throttle trade
in sensitive technology, such as the
sale of Indias BrahMos missile to
Vietnam or the purchase of armed
Predator drones from the U.S., could
become a reality.
Why hesitations of history
matter
Brexit, a seismic moment in
Europe, came as a blessing in disguise
for India as it came on the same day
as the setback in Seoul. Indias
miscalculation on the Nuclear
Suppliers Group (NSG) membership
bid paled into insignificance
compared to the British Prime
Ministers misadventure in holding a
referendum on the U.K.s membership
of the European Union. Otherwise
there would have been greater
criticism of the foreign policy fiasco,
which not only resulted in a rebuff to
India but also gave a veto to China on
Indias nuclear credentials and
hyphenated India and Pakistan.
Moreover, we have elevated NSG
membership to such heights that it
appears more important and urgent
than other items on our wish list such
as permanent membership of the UN
Security Council, signing of the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) as a nuclear weapon state, and
membership of Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC).
The Seoul experience should
be a lesson in multilateral diplomacy
for India. First and foremost,
credibility is the hallmark of success
in the international community. Policy
changes should appear slow,
deliberate and logical. Sudden shifts
69


and turns are viewed with suspicion.
India had a fundamental position that
our objective is disarmament and not
merely non-proliferation. Not signing
the NPT and Comprehensive
Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty arose from
the conviction that arms control is not
a substitute to disarmament.
Distancing ourselves from NPTcentred entities was also part of that
philosophy.
Rejection
of
discriminatory regimes and selective
controls appeared logical and just.
Even after declaring ourselves as a
nuclear weapon state, our readiness
for nuclear disarmament maintained
our credibility.
Our sudden anxiety to join the
NSG and other non-proliferation
groupings is a departure from the
traditional Indian position,
particularly since we have not fully
utilised the waiver given to us by the
NSG. An invitation by the U.S. was
not enough to justify our enthusiasm
for membership, and canvassing at
the highest level in selected
countries made matters worse.
Having applied for membership only
in May this year, we did not allow
ourselves time to explain the rationale
of our policy change, not only to the
NSG members but also the other
adherents to the NPT. This explains
the hesitation of many friendly
countries to support us. Any
indication of change in the nonproliferation architecture makes them
nervous.
Our positions on selfdetermination and terrorism are not
fully appreciated in the international
community as yet. It was with
patience,
persistence
and
extraordinary diplomatic skills that
India had managed to steer clear of
embarrassment
or
rebuff.
Approaching multilateralism with an
70
illusion of grandeur or presumption

of justice, fair play and
reasonableness may be hazardous.
Having a powerful nation to pilot
matters of importance to us is helpful,
but even the U.S. does not always get
its way in the multilateral bodies
which require a majority vote or
consensus. It loses votes in the UN
General Assembly not only on
substantive issues but also in
elections. Since the real power is in
the Security Council, the permanent
five manage to wield power there,
but wherever votes are of equal value,
there is no guarantee that they can
get support automatically. The
votaries of non-proliferation tend to
be more loyal than the king and they
are aghast that the U.S. appears to be
undermining the regime that it had
built. In 2008, they went along when
the U.S. moved heaven and earth to
get India a waiver to secure the
nuclear deal, but this time they felt
India was overreaching itself. They
were not supporting China when they
opposed Indias admission but
merely proclaiming their faith. Brazil,
South Africa, Austria and Switzerland
are serious nations with extraordinary
commitment to the NPT, which they
consider to be the cornerstone of
international security.
Another lesson India should
have known is the undesirability of
pursuing too many objectives at the
same time. Indias claim for a
permanent seat on the Security
Council as part of the exercise to
reflect the realities of global power is
well understood, though a global
compact to accomplish it is still
elusive. Our pressing the point in the
appropriate forums is considered
legitimate, but any effort to press it to
a vote to embarrass and pressurise
anyone is bound to fail. At one time,
India made an attempt to have a vote

in the General Assembly to secure a
two-thirds majority just to embarrass
the permanent members. But the
effort failed when the opposition
came not from the permanent
members, but from the African
Group. The art of persuasion works
only when the ground is prepared
and there is a degree of satisfaction
for all parties involved. Our NSG push
in the last two months violated this
sacred principle.
India could have pursued
membership of the NSG quietly,
without making any claims of support
from anyone. It appears that there is
a feeling in the U.S. circles of getting
India entangled in the nonproliferation net instead of leaving it
alone to work on the basis of the
nuclear deal and the NSG waiver. We
should have handled the issue with
dignified detachment and waited for
a consensus to emerge among the
interested countries. If only we had
played by the rules of the multilateral
game, the Seoul fiasco could have
been turned into a victory.
Dangerous times in Turkey
Suicide attack on Istanbuls
Ataturk airport that killed 41 people
is yet another reminder of the
dangerous times Turkey is living
through. Its southern border has
become a transit point for jihadists
travelling to Syria. In the east and
southeast, government troops are
locked in a deadly conflict with
Kurdish militants. The Istanbul attack,
the fourth major terror strike in the
city this year, points to the worsening
security situation in urban centres. No
group has claimed responsibility for
the latest assault. But the Turkish
government and Western analysts say
it is an act of the Islamic State. If so, it


is a blowback for Turkey, after
President Recep Tayyip Erdogans
aggressive Syria policy helped
extremists mushroom in West Asia.
From the advent of the Syrian crisis,
he has led the call for President
Bashar al-Assads resignation. Turkey
teamed up with Mr. Assads other
regional rivals, including Saudi Arabia
and Qatar, in bankrolling the antiregime forces in the Syrian civil war.
And, Turkey kept its 800-km-long
border with Syria open so that
militants from around the world could
transit to Syria. This open-border
approach was pivotal in the ISs
efforts to build an army of foreign
fighters.
But, playing with extremist
groups for short-term goals is
invariably counterproductive in the
long run. By the time Turkey started
changing its policy towards the IS,
partly under pressure from Western
allies, the group was already a
formidable terrorist organisation and
had turned its bombers northwards.
First it attacked two left-wing
gatherings in Turkey, in Suruc and
Ankara last year, and now it is
targeting Istanbul in a stark warning
to the establishment. Mr. Erdogan has
said that Turkey will continue the
fight against terrorism until the end.
But what is his strategy? The major
security challenges Turkey faces
today are directly or indirectly linked
to the Syrian war. Whether Mr.
Erdogan acknowledges it or not, his
ambitious plan to expand Turkish
influence in a post-Assad Syria has
come to naught. The earlier he
changes tack the better for both Syria
and Turkey. To begin with, Ankara
should seal its border with Syria to
stop the cross-border terrorist
movement. It should also cease the
proxy war it is fighting against Mr.
Assad, and join international efforts

to broker peace in Syria between the
regime and the rebels. Having done
this, it could narrow its focus to an
isolated IS and assist in regional
efforts to defeat the group. It will not
be an easy shift to make, given the
geopolitical investment Turkey has
already made in Syria. But no amount
of strategic manoeuvring will serve
Turkeys interests if its cities fall to
chaos and violence.
A Himalayan balancing act
The great Himalayan Divide
between India and China was in
evidence last week following the
Chinese refusal to support Indias
case for entry into the Nuclear
Suppliers Group. While non-entry
into the Group is not the end of the
world, for India lives to fight another
day, of concern is what the Chinese
stance implies for the bilateral
relationship between the two Asian
giants. This is a relationship that has
been assiduously tended over the
years since the mid-seventies when
ambassadorial relations between the
two countries were restored at the
initiative of Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi. Despite the humiliation
suffered in 1962, she famously opined
that we cannot march to Peking and
that normalisation of relations
constituted the triumph of maturity
over the futility of alienation.
In an age of 24/7 electronic
media and social media platforms,
one shudders to imagine what the
consequences of the Sumdorong
Chu confrontation may have been.
Diplomacy, as former External Affairs
Minister Jaswant Singh once said,
must not be conducted in an
amphitheatre. The eighties were a
different era, and although the
situation festered, with the two sides
holding their positions, a discussion

in Parliament apart, the subject found
very limited mention in the media,
which was focussed at that time on
the intervention by the Indian Peace
Keeping Force in Sri Lanka. The
initiative that defused the problem
came from India. It was no white flag,
but an act of strategic boldness.
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi decided
to activate a channel that had lain
dormant since the fateful April 1960
visit of Premier Zhou Enlai to New
Delhi. Since the early eighties, the
Chinese had expressed their
keenness for a visit by the Indian
Prime Minister to Beijing. The Indians
demurred, the view being that such
a high-level visit would expend
critical political capital with no
assurance of success, and that the
consequential fallout would do
further disadvantage to India.
Thus it was that Rajiv Gandhi
went to China on a state visit in the
bleak Beijing winter of 1988. The
warmth of the reception from Deng
Xiaoping and other Chinese leaders
compensated for the cold weather.
The visit was an unquestioned
success, for it not only defused the
tensions at Sumdorong Chu, leading
eventually to the elimination of
dangerously close confrontation
between troops of the two sides in
the area, but also established a
template for bilateral relations that has
been followed to this day. That
template basically enabled the
advancement of relations in a broad
spectrum of areas ranging from trade
to scientific and technological
exchanges, educational and cultural
cooperation, even as efforts to seek a
fair and reasonable solution to the
boundary question between the two
countries continued. The border
issue did not become the arbiter of
71


relations in other fields, which for the
first time since 1962 were allowed to
grow on a relatively independent
trajectory.
Fast-forwarding to the present,
response to questions about the
Chinese attitude on the Nuclear
Suppliers Group (NSG) issue, during
a television interview after the
denouement in Seoul, was measured
and calibrated. He appeared to see
the relationship with China as an
organic continuum, evolving slowly
over the last three decades, a
relationship where experience
foreshadows hope, counselling
pragmatism and careful deliberation.
Foreign relations, he said, are not
about changing mindsets, but about
achieving a meeting of minds.
Geopolitical rivalry and calibrated
cooperation, seemingly antithetical,
coexist within the framework of our
relationship with China.
However, an absence of
friendship, and the prevalence of
suspicion did not prevent the
systematic development of a
management regime in our relations
with China. This regime has
functioned efficiently in transacting
dialogue, managing tensions on the
border through confidence-building
mechanisms, and maintaining highlevel leadership contact. Given the
agenda of national development and
accelerated economic growth to
meet popular aspirations, especially
of our young demographic, the
compass of bilateral relations with
China needs to be carefully set by
India. This is to enable time and space
to grow comprehensive national
strength and especially hone our
economic and strategic capabilities.
It is the easiest thing for China
and India to spew venom against
72
each other. Given the residual

bitterness of the past, this is the
default option. There are already
manifestations of this in the public
space. But, consider the terrain. The
Prime Minister speaks of multialignment, of dexterity in transacting
foreign relations. As a nation, we must
internalise such an approach. This
does not call for being blindly
venturesome, courting risk and
conflict with China, but more
boldness and deftness in
safeguarding the Indian interest
through well-thought-out and
nuanced steps to build even closer
relations with like-minded
democracies like the United States
and Japan, while consolidating
internal strength and resilience. Steps
to further enhance strategic and
defence cooperation with these
countries, as also fulfilling the promise
and potential of the India-U.S. civilian
nuclear cooperation agreement in an
expeditious manner, should be a part
of this process.
And, without indulging in the
national pastime of blamemongering, we must ask ourselves the
basic question on whether the time
was ripe for a concerted campaign
to enter the NSG. From the very outset
of this foray, we should have been
aware of the barometric depths of
Chinese opposition and nonresponsiveness to our case. There lay
dragons. We chose valour instead of
discretion, the whiff of grapeshot to
the battle respite. The India-China
relationship has been diminished by
these latest developments and their
impact on the construction of a
stronger edifice of bilateral
interaction. Independently of the
latter, we need to carefully assess the
pros and cons in pursuing entry into
the NSG in this current phase. On
both fronts, a season of reflection is

called for.
Heeding the 24x7 potential
Removing regulatory barriers to
employ more people in various areas
of economic activity is a national
priority, and the Centres Model
Shops
and
Establishments
(Regulation of Employment and
Conditions of Service) Bill, 2016 to
enable operation of such services all
365 days of the year, and round-theclock, is a significant step forward.
As the Economic Survey for 2015-16
notes, there is a robust annual growth
in services such as trade, hotels,
transport and communications.
Creating a healthy environment for the
growth of consumer-focussed
services will catalyse it further. The
model law, which is available to the
States to either adopt fully or in a
modified form, is to be welcomed for
specifying labour issues such as
working hours, overtime, casual and
earned leave, protection for women
including transport access for those
opting to work night shifts, and
workplace facilities. It is all too
evident that in the existing regulatory
regime, many of these aspects are
impressively inked on paper, but with
poor outcomes in practice. Workers
are left without effective mechanisms
of redress. In the model law,
protections are to be enforced by a
cadre of Chief Facilitators and
Facilitators. This is a moment to strike
a blow for the rights of workers, and
State governments must show as
much concern for labour welfare as
the facilitation of business. The
Labour Ministry can achieve this by
welcoming online registration of
complaints, and the process can be
aided by trade unions.
There is much to welcome in the


model law; its major innovation is the
elimination of the licensing
bureaucracy, and therefore a lot of
corruption. A simplified, online
common registration procedure for
the businesses covered by the Act
should definitely be part of State law;
this would be a big leap in ease of
doing business. State governments
looking to accelerate economic
activity and generate higher revenues
should adopt the law immediately.
Two areas that need urgent reform in
all States are provision of reliable
public transport and strong law
enforcement. Even in big cities with
organised bus, rail and feeder
networks, these systems are not
reliable at night. The new sharing
economy has been filling the gap with
app-based commercial taxi services
operating 24x7, but a decision to
promote retail services round-theclock requires a good, affordable
public transport backbone with
security arrangements to ensure safe
travel. One other aspect of reform to
support employees of shops and
establishments is health care. It should
be mandatory for employers to cover
their medical expenses through
standalone or group insurance
policies, since private health
insurance is generally unaffordable to
such workers.
Pause for a reality check
Indias abortive bid for
membership of the Nuclear Suppliers
Group (NSG) highlights the perils of
high visibility and volatility in
diplomatic negotiations. Indian
diplomacy in the past was careful to
operate under the radar, but there
has been a tendency, of late, to
depart from this time-honoured
practice. Added to this are attempts
seen at times to impart a spin to
developments. The frenzied

campaign for NSG membership and
the failed bid come within this
purview. Recent visits of our Prime
Minister to the United Arab Emirates,
Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan and
Qatar have, undoubtedly, helped
strengthen relations with these
countries, especially in the area of
economics and trade. Each one of
these countries has also been
desirous of partnering India in
development-related activities,
recognising Indias current
importance in Asia and the region.
However, the same cannot be said of
strategic and security relations. Here,
certain brakes require to be applied
to diplomatic hyperbole. For
instance, mere mention in joint
statements of shared security and
strategic concerns, common ideals
and convergence of interests,
enhanced defence ties, etc do not
translate into a strategic relationship.
In such matters there is need to tread
with caution.
Most countries of West Asia have
their own security and strategic
construct. India is not visualised
nor does India see itself as a net
provider of security in the region
and, consequently, India does not
figure prominently in these countries
security and strategic plans. There are
again certain limits to intelligence
and counter-terrorism cooperation,
as serious differences exist between
many of these countries and India on
what constitutes terrorism and who
can be described as a terrorist. Saudi
Arabia, for example, needs to be
seen as a dilettante in security matters
flirting with different nations, most
noticeably the U.S., and frequently
leaning towards Pakistan. Hence,
when the India-Saudi Arabia joint
statement talks of the two countries
responsibilities to promote peace,

security and stability in the region, it
conveys different meanings for the
two countries. For Saudi Arabia,
locked in a near existential conflict
with Iran with which it has
ideological,
doctrinal
and
hegemonistic issues Iran is the
main enemy. For India, Iran is a friend,
and the threat of terrorism emanates
from Pakistan, which remains intent
on employing terror as a strategic
instrumentality to destroy India.
Hence, it is best to avoid an excess
of exuberance in such matters.
Much of this applies in equal, if
not greater, measure to the current
euphoria regarding our relations with
Iran. Dealing with an ancient
civilisation like Iran tends to be
complex and complicated. The
affinity between Persian and Indian
civilisations is a historical fact. That
India is home to the second largest
Shia population in the world is well
known. The umbilical links between
Qom (Iran) and centres of Shia
orthodoxy in India may be less
known, but do exist. Yet, Iran
maintains a certain wariness in its
relations with India. Many attribute
this to Indias negative vote in the
Atomic Energy Agency earlier on,
and to Indias implicit adherence to
U.S. sanctions against Iran more
recently. Other reasons possibly
exist, but clearly New Delhi needs to
work far more strenuously to regain
Tehrans confidence. One highprofile visit by the Prime Minister, or
the inking of the Chabahar port
agreement, may not be enough.
A reference in the India-Iran
joint statement to the importance of
regional connectivity linked to the
development of Chabahar port is
being mistakenly viewed by some
people as a declaration of strategic
73


intent. Chabahar port was solely
intended to be an alternate trade and
transit route to Afghanistan and
conceived as such at the turn of the
century. It aimed to circumvent
Pakistans embargo on movement of
goods from India to Afghanistan with
no strategic overtones. The transit
corridor involving Chabahar to Zaranj
to Delaram (Afghanistan) was to be
complemented by another
International North-South Transit
Corridor from the Iranian port of
Bandar Abbas into Central Asia. The
delay in setting up Chabahar port has,
however, reduced its economic
value and utility, with Chinas One
Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative
to which both Pakistan and Iran
subscribe threatening to outflank
it.
Another impression that the
establishment of Chabahar port gives
India a strategic advantage vis--vis
China is equally misleading.
Comparison with Gwadar port makes
this obvious. Chinas investment in
Gwadar port dwarfs what India
proposes to invest in Chabahar.
Moreover, Chinas relations with Iran
are today on an upswing. Chinese
President Xi Jinping was the first
major world leader to visit Iran after
the lifting of sanctions, signing more
than a dozen deals, including the
OBOR initiative. Iran has openly
welcomed both Chinas OBOR
initiative and Maritime Silk Road
initiative, and sees major economic
benefits to itself once they are
completed. Chinas trade with Iran is
of the order of $52 billion, much
higher than the $9 billion trade
between India and Iran. China
expects to raise this to nearly $600
billion over the next decade. Not to
be ignored is the Pakistan factor,
adding further grist to Chinas efforts.
74
This includes dangling the possibility

of an Iran-Pakistan-China gas
pipeline.
Unfortunately, Afghanistan, for
which Chabahar port was intended
to be the lifeline, is in dire straits today
and its future in jeopardy. Indias
investment in Afghanistan has been
substantial (for which it paid a heavy
price in terms of both development
assistance and the loss of human
lives), including the Rs.1,700 crore
Salma dam in the strategically vital
Herat province (opened by the Prime
Minister on June 4 this year); the new
Afghan Parliament building; and the
218-km long Zaranj-Delaram Highway
in western Afghanistan but it faces
the prospect of losing out on all that
it has invested. Currently, large
swathes of Afghanistan are under
Taliban control. Constant attacks on
government and other targets have
eroded the credibility of the National
Unity Government. Afghanistans
experiment of forming a government
with Ashraf Ghani as President and
Abdullah Abdullah as Chief
Executive does not appear to be
succeeding. Mr. Ghani, a one-time
U.S. acolyte, has tended to alternate
between aligning with Pakistan and
opposing it. Unlike his predecessor,
Hamid Karzai, he displays little
preference for India. Some Afghan
leaders now seem to be leaning
towards the China-dominated
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
and give it a key role in a future
security architecture.
These developments constitute
a strategic reversal for India. In the
new order of things, India faces the
danger of being relegated to a bit
player, with little or no influence.
India has been kept out of the newly
created Quadrilateral Coordination
Group which consists of the U.S.,
China, Pakistan and Afghanistan to

discuss Afghanistans future. Left with
few options and with the anticipated
proliferation of Islamist extremist
groups including the al-Qaeda and
the IS, Indias focus would need to
shift from development to finding
ways and means to ensure that
Afghanistan does not turn into a major
crucible for myriad terrorist groups,
specially the IS and the al-Qaeda in
the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS).
Consequently, the dividend that
India expects from the development
of Chabahar port may well prove to
be highly evanescent. Hence,
premature celebrations are best
avoided. As Indias prospects
recede, the economic advantages
accruing to China from the OBOR
which incorporates Pakistan,
Afghanistan and Iran would
increase. This would further diminish
whatever elbow room exists for India
in that country and in the region.
Free Basics, now through the
backdoor
Over the last one year, Indians
have engaged in a passionate debate
on the concept of Net neutrality,
whereby all content should be
treated equally on the Internet. The
problem of content discrimination on
the Internet got most associated with
Free Basics, an application by
Facebook which provided its own
content and that of its partners free
to consumers, while all other content
remained paid for. This opened the
door for a forked Internet; one
channel of free content but mediated
through a corporate body, extracting
value from the arrangement in various
ways, and the other paid for.
But the Indian public
protested, making light of the Rs.100crore campaign by Facebook


promoting Free Basics as an altruist
project aimed at connecting the
unconnected. Giving in to popular
demand, in February 2016 the
regulator banned Free Basics-like
services based on discriminatory
pricing of content. A decision had
been taken that Internet was first a
public good before being a market
one. But then it was perhaps too was
good to be true. The Goliath of global
Internet business looks set to trounce
the David of public opinion. The
regulator is having second thoughts.
A new consultation paper proposes
models that will get Free Basics back,
though in a slightly altered, and
perhaps disingenuous, way. In
agreeing to ban Free Basics everyone
thought that the regulator agreed
differential pricing to be an
inappropriate practice, for
consumers, including poor
consumers, as also for the larger
society. Indeed, the regulatory order
eloquently argued that price-based
differentiation would make certain
content more attractive to consumers
resulting in altering a consumers
online behaviour (and)... the
knowledge and outlook of those users
would be shaped only by the
information made available through
those select offerings. It further
offered reasons of freedom of
expression and plurality of views for
banning differential pricing.
But the present consultation
paper is a complete turnaround,
suggesting that these were never the
problem. It was not at all the issue
that Free Basics discriminated with
regard to the content as received by
any consumer. The real problem was
that Free Basics had an exclusive
agreement with just one telco to do
so. It would accordingly be fine if
Free Basics entered into a similar
agreement with all telcos. The

problem people had with Free Basics
is now sought to be solved by
making Free Basics equally available
across all telcos, and not just one
network as earlier! However illogical
it may seem, this is what the regulator
seems to be planning to do.
The only significant new feature
of the proposed models is that telcos
will not be able to benefit from
content-based price discrimination.
However, they will facilitate ways
whereby content providers can pick
up the tab for consumers accessing
their content (and not other). Other
suggested models would get the
telco entirely out of the picture, with
consumers reimbursed directly by
content providers for the access of
their content. At the consumer end,
all these models have exactly the
same effect as telco-controlled
models of incentivising accessing
some content and services over
others, undercutting the key
equalising feature of the Internet.
Such an attitude comes from a
problematic trend that has been
called Internet exceptionalism,
whereby the Internet is considered
to be some kind of uniquely
regulation-free zone. The problem is,
Internet activists advocating Net
neutrality are often themselves guilty
of it. The Save the Internet
campaign, by far the most active
group in the Net neutrality struggles,
declared in its first submission on the
issue to the regulator last year that no
new regulatory framework in the
telecom sector is required for Internet
services and apps and no such
regulation should come into effect in
future either.
Laws and regulations should
govern for social outcomes, and not
just technology or business
processes. It is high time that we gave

up the telecom-Internet distinction.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of
India is the regulator for our
communication infrastructure and
systems. Many Internet services and
apps fit this description as much as a
telephone
network
does.
Communication systems of the
society are of such special social
significance as to require committed
regulation and not just be treated as
ordinary market goods.
Having banned Free Basics-like
content discrimination services when
involving a telco, it is ludicrous to now
propose to allow the same by Internet
companies directly. This attempt to
bring back the much-detested Free
Basics through the backdoor, by
making an absurd distinction
between telecom and Internet
services, is the right opportunity for
us to get out of this wrong binary
regulatory mindset. We must consider
our old and new communication
systems as one important social sector
requiring close regulatory watch in
public interest.
A new tryst with Africa
four-nation tour of Africa from July 711 is a historic visit that adds new
dimensions to his motto of India as a
leading power in the world. It
provides high-level gravitas to crucial
bilateral relationships with long-term
consequences for Indias strategic,
economic and soft power ambitions.
Mr. Modi is renowned for setting foot
on countries which have almost
forgotten what it means to receive an
Indian leader. In Mozambique, he will
become the first Indian Prime
Minister to be present since Indira
Gandhi went in 1982. In Kenya, he
will be the first Indian Prime Minister
75


since 1981. Although Manmohan
Singh did go to South Africa in 2013
as Prime Minister, it was in the context
of a BRICS Summit and not an
exclusive bilateral visit to further oneon-one cooperation. By undertaking
dedicated bilateral missions to key
nations of southern Africa, Mr. Modi
is signalling that he values these
countries intrinsically for what they
are.
One of the hallmarks of Mr.
Modis foreign policy is an emphasis
on defence diplomacy to boost
Indias position as a net security
provider for fellow developing
countries. The choice of the four
nations on his itinerary this week is
not a coincidence but part of a wellthought-out doctrine of giving
primacy to the Indian Ocean Region
(IOR), whose westernmost edge is
defined by these countries. The east
coast of Africa is the flank which
Indias expanding naval and
commercial strategy needs to be
aligned with if it is to emerge as a
shaper of stability and peace in the
IOR. Mr. Modis government
purposefully restarted serious
defence dialogue with Mozambique
in 2015 after years of neglect. I recall
meeting the Deputy Minister of
National Defence of Mozambique,
Patricio Jose, earlier this year where
he said that they are eagerly looking
up to India to enhance their coastal
surveillance, military training and
maritime security capabilities.
Mr. Modis mega-modernisation
project of Sagar Mala, which involves
coastal area development, port
infrastructure
advancement,
connectivity and sea-based industrial
synergies, is not merely a domestic
policy priority but interlinked to our
strategic drive to be the defence and
logistical partner for Africas eastern
76
coast. Already, Mr. Modi has been to

Mauritius and Seychelles two
pivotal African countries off the
mainland and ramped up Indias
security assistance there. Now, by
drawing in countries of east Africa
into a trustful embrace where they
have faith in India to share and
transmit sensitive technology and
know-how
in
intelligence,
reconnaissance and training, he is
making a proactive push to be not
merely an economic actor on the
continent but a political one too.
Economics is, of course, never
off the agenda when India interacts
with Africa. But here, too, what is new
is how Mr. Modis flagship Make in
India campaign has the whole of
Africa excited. With the Chinese
economy in slowdown and its
absorption rates for African minerals
at a low point, African governments
and people are on the lookout for an
alternative big Asian power that can
generate steady export revenues for
them and also help them industrialise.
India appears to many Africans as a
preferred, democratic partner whose
outreach is not totally state-driven
(unlike China) and whose private
sector is increasing its footprint on the
continent. The Prime Ministers
personal interest in connecting Indian
agribusinesses with African nations
for food security, and also in joint
exploration and harnessing of energy
sources, is a big draw in Africa.
Mr. Modi needs to satisfy this
critical line of inquiry by not only
offering more novel schemes that
bring Indian technical and
educational expertise to Africa but
also by showing how co-dependent
India and Africa are in the twentyfirst century. We need export markets
as we industrialise, and Africa has the
youthful demography and the rising
purchasing power that will eventually

take our two-way trade from $72
billion to $700 billion or more. Unless
Africa grows in wealth, stability and
confidence,
we
will
be
handicapped. Unless Africa is with
us on the big crises facing the planet,
we can never turn into a great power
in world politics. Our fates are thus
intertwined not just due to
geography, identical views at the
United Nations or common historical
experiences as colonised people,
but also because of the fundamental
complementarity of the future that
awaits both sides.
China has been trumpeting its
South-South cooperation model as a
resounding success in Africa. But the
absence of a human resource
component, a transparency element,
and a social sector or democracy
angle in that model means that India
has an indispensable place on the
continent. We already enjoy a special
place in the hearts of African people
going back centuries. What Mr. Modis
sojourn to the continent can do is to
embed India in the futuristic minds,
pocketbooks and dreams of Africa.
Discovery with Juno
In yet another remarkable
achievement,
the
National
Aeronautics
and
Space
Administrations Juno spacecraft has
successfully entered the orbit around
Jupiter without being knocked down
by the planets intense magnetic field
and radiation. That the spacecraft,
which had travelled 2.8 billion km
since its launch on August 5, 2011,
passed through a spot that was
originally planned for, when it came
closest to the planet, provides a
measure of the level of success of the
mission. Juno, with a diameter of 11.5
ft, is not the first spacecraft to enter


into orbit around Jupiter. But unlike
its predecessor, the Galileo
spacecraft that explored the planet
between 1995 and 2003, Juno will
study Jupiter much more thoroughly
given the array of nine scientific
instruments that it carries on board.
The most important difference
between the two missions is Junos
ability to see below the dense cloud
cover of Jupiter; only a probe of
Galileo entered the planets
atmosphere. Getting as close as 5,000
km from the cloudtops and being
able to see through the clouds will
make it possible for Junos camera,
Junocam, to take close-up photos of
the poles and other points of interest.
The main objectives of the mission
are to understand the origin and
evolution of Jupiter, to find out if the
planet, like Earth, has a solid rocky
core, to uncover the source of its
intense magnetic field, to measure
water and ammonia in deep
atmosphere, and to observe the
auroras.
Though the nine instruments will
be turned on by the end of the week,
the first full set of observations will
not take place before the end of
August when the spacecraft comes
close to Jupiter on its first orbit;
science experiments will begin in full
earnest in mid-October when it gets
into a 14-day orbit. Juno will orbit the
planet from pole-to-pole, minimising
the amount of radiation exposure, but
the orbit will ultimately shift due to
Jupiters intense gravitational field,
making the spacecraft pass through
more intense regions of radiation.
Though shielded by a titanium vault,
the radiation from Jupiter will slowly
but surely compromise the
instruments by the time it finishes its
mission in February 2018. But before
this happens, scientists expect to
collect enough information to further

our understanding of how the giant
planet was formed some 4.5 billion
years ago, and of the origins of the
solar system. The amount of water it
contains and the nature of its core
will provide clues about where the
planet formed early in the systems
life span. After orbiting the planet 37
times and returning invaluable
scientific information, Juno will
incinerate in Jupiters atmosphere in
early 2018 as the Galileo spacecraft
did.
Return to the Durand Line?
The violent clashes between
Pakistan and Afghanistan on the
Torkham border crossing in June
seem to have ended but not the
political issue, security tensions and
the larger bilateral differences
between the two countries. Though
the clashes in Torkham were
triggered by the construction of a
border post by Pakistan on its side,
the border tensions are a symptom of
a larger bilateral malaise. Even on its
Iran border, Pakistan has planned to
construct a border post in Taftan.
Though Taftan is not as violent as
Torkham, this border crossing is also
known for the illegal movement of
people and goods. So is Chaman in
Balochistan and numerous other
border crossings along the Durand
Line. Is there a larger problem for
Pakistan in managing its borders?
Pakistan is right when it says it is
constructing a post in Torkham within
its side of the border. Besides,
Pakistan also claims that it would like
to restrict the movement of people
across the border and make it legal.
Pakistan has been hosting Afghan
refugees in millions; though the rest
of the world looks at Pakistan primarily
through how the refugees were/are
abused, the harsh reality is that no

other state in Afghanistans
neighbourhood has hosted as many
refugees as Pakistan has done until
now. Pakistan wants to control the
movement across its borders. It has
also been accusing Kabul of not doing
enough to prevent the Tehrik-eTaliban Pakistan (TTP) from using
Afghan territory as a safe haven. Its
spokespersons have repeatedly
emphasised that militants use the
unregulated Torkham crossing to
enter into and escape from Pakistan.
Afghanistan from the Amirs
of the 19th century to the Taliban and
now under Ashraf Ghani has never
accepted the Durand Line as a settled
border. Since Afghanistan contests
the entire border, Pakistans claim of
constructing a post within its own
border is objectionable for Kabul.
The Afghans fear that Pakistan is
attempting to convert the Durand
Line into a de facto border. Clearly,
Torkham is not a border problem,
but a broader political issue. Also
Torkham is pursued as a security
issue by Pakistans military. There
exists an imbalance within Pakistans
military and political establishments
vis--vis Afghanistan. Since the
1970s, the military, and not Parliament,
has been shaping Pakistans Afghan
policy.
Torkham (along with Chaman
across Balochistan) is no regular
border crossing. Historically and
culturally, Pashtuns living on both
sides have been crossing the Durand
Line. Many Pashtuns living along the
western side of the Durand Line move
across (into the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas) for social
and economic reasons every day with
no concerns about legal documents
or political sovereignty. According to
reports, around 25,000 people cross
77


the Torkham post every day. While
Chaman and Torkham are major
crossing points, there are numerous
other points from Bajaur to South
Waziristan. The Afghans see this as a
social border, hence object to any
legal sanctification until the border is
politically approved by both
countries.
Afghanistan
is
also
apprehensive that making the border
point in Torkham completely legal
and document-based will affect the
larger movement of Pashtuns across
the Durand Line difficult and
selective. While Pakistans emphasis
is on the Afghan refugees living on its
side of the border, and the need to
regulate, Afghans point to Pakistani
refugees who were displaced and
moved towards Afghanistan,
especially in Khost and Paktika
provinces. While Zarb-e-Azb and the
early military actions in North and
South Waziristan led to Internally
Displaced Persons (IDPs) within
(primarily in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), a
section of those displaced did move
into the eastern provinces of
Afghanistan. Though this cannot be
compared to the size and nature of
Afghan refugee movement into
Pakistan, the issue does remain.
The Afghan government
perhaps sees this legalising of
border movement and border
management as a punitive reaction
for Mr. Ghanis hardening stance vis-vis Pakistan. On multiple occasions,
he has accused Pakistan of
attempting to sabotage the internal
peace process. The failure of the
Quadrilateral Coordination Group
dialogue and the killing of Mullah
Akhtar Mansour, leader of the Afghan
Taliban, in May within Pakistan have
only heightened his apprehensions.
The Pakistan-Afghanistan diplomatic
78
row actually started in late May/early

June, before the clashes in Torkham.
Protesting the introduction of new
legal measures on the border posts,
Afghanistan decided to shut its
consulate in Peshawar in early June.
While the Pakistani foreign office
spokesperson commented that the
Afghans are being misguided by
those who do not want to see peace
in their country as well as in the
region, Afghanistans ambassador to
Pakistan threatened to expose all the
secrets pertaining to boundary.
Diplomatic back-and-forth before
and after the killing of Mansour too
hasnt helped calm bilateral relations.
Grim lessons from the Iraq
invasion
For many, Britains Iraq War
Inquiry report, released on
Wednesday by Sir John Chilcot who
headed the investigation, came as
confirmation of what they already
believed. Yet, the conclusions of a
government-appointed committee
that Prime Minister Tony Blair
exaggerated the case for the 2003
invasion and led Britain to war before
all peaceful options were exhausted
are of great significance. They have
the power to influence both
contemporary politics and future
policy-making. The inquiry also found
that Mr. Blairs government was illprepared to face the consequences
of the war. Thirteen years after the
U.S. and the U.K. invaded Iraq and
toppled the regime of Saddam
Hussein, the real motives of the war
have still not been sufficiently
explained. The case for war built by
Mr. Blair and U.S. President George
W. Bush crumbled to dust after the
invasion. There were no weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq, nor could
the attackers prove any substantial
link between al-Qaeda and Saddam.
As a result, the war lacked all

justification. Hundreds of thousands
of Iraqis were killed and millions
wounded and displaced. The
destruction of the Iraqi state and the
chaos that followed set the stage for
the rise of several extremist groups.
The roots of the Islamic State,
perhaps the most vicious and potent
terrorist machinery today, go back to
one such group, al-Qaeda in Iraq.
What is worse, the big powers
refused to learn any lesson from the
Iraq tragedy. Even after it was clear
that the invasion was disastrous, the
West forced another regime change
in Libya in 2011, repeating the same
mistakes committed in Iraq and
creating another haven for extremists.
British Prime Minister David Cameron,
who voted for the Iraq war in 2003,
wanted military action against Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad, a proposal
rejected by the House of Commons
in 2013. Though the U.S. and the U.K.
shelved the plan to directly attack
Syria, they continued supporting antiregime rebels in the country,
worsening its security situation and
further helping terrorist groups such
as the IS and Jabhat al-Nusra. There
is no disputing the ruthlessness of
these dictators. But toppling them
through wars or weakening their
regimes through proxy civil wars is
far more dangerous, as these crisishit nations would recount. The Iraq
war set off the contemporary chaos
in West Asia and North Africa, and no
one knows where it will all end. Mr.
Blair still has an unapologetic air, but
his successors cant turn a blind eye
towards the Chilcot findings if they
are serious about preventing more
such misadventures. As Jeremy
Corbyn, chief of the Labour Party,
said, All those who took the
decisions laid bare in the Chilcot


report must face up to the
consequences of their actions,
whatever they may be.
To be equal before the law
United Nations Human Rights
Council passed a resolution creating
a post of an independent expert on
sexual orientation and gender
identity. This expert, once officially
appointed, will be tasked with the
job of studying and reporting
annually on the nature, the cause, and
the extent of discrimination faced by
lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender (LGBT) persons around
the world. In many ways, the
establishment of the new post
exemplifies a growing global trend
towards addressing the egregious
human rights violations suffered by
LGBT persons. But to us, in India, it
must come as a matter of grave shame
that our country, in an act utterly
unbecoming of a modern progressive
state, chose to abstain from voting
altogether to appoint the expert.
It is no doubt true that the
Supreme Court is presently seized of
cases
challenging
the
constitutionality of the law that
criminalises homosexuality. But, its
also worth bearing in mind that this
fact, that the issue is sub judice , has
scarcely stopped India from voting
to embrace a series of amendments
that weaken the larger resolution
adopted to appoint an independent
expert. One of these amendments
that were introduced by Pakistan, on
behalf of the Organisation of Islamic
Cooperation, and that was adopted
after India voted in its favour,
explicitly states that the experts
mission would ensure, at all costs,
respect for the sovereign right of
every country to implement its own
national laws in Indias case, this is
a direct reference to Section 377 of

the Indian Penal Code, which makes
even consensual homosexual activity
a crime. Therefore, any report of the
newly appointed expert would have
to give sufficient weight to the fact
that Indias laws proscribe, and even
criminalise, homosexuality.
When viewed in this light, its
clear that Indias abstention in the
principal vote to appoint the expert
is anything but a display of neutrality.
This decision was neither a product
of indecisiveness nor does it signify
any expression of disinterest on the
subject; on the contrary, it must be
viewed as a subtle act of deception
aimed at furthering the reach of a law
that is decidedly iniquitous, that
cruelly denies to several persons their
basic human dignity, and that
impinges on the rights of a sizeable
slice of the populace from
participating fully in the make-up of
our countrys moral bedrock.
In July 2009, the Delhi High
Court, recognising the inherent
injustice in Section 377s operation,
rendered a momentous verdict, and
found that the law, in persecuting a
community purely based on the
sexual orientation of its members, was
patently opposed to the
Constitutions essential promises.
However, just over four years later, in
Suresh Kumar Koushal v. Naz
Foundation , the Supreme Court
reversed this finding. Here, a bench
of two judges, through a judgment
delivered by Justice G.S. Singhvi,
doggedly refused to see the LGBT
community as equal partners in our
citizenry. Instead, the court restored
Section 377 to its archaic
ingloriousness, granting validity, in the
process, to the states ability to
criminalise acts based on perceived
moral grounds, notwithstanding the
effect that such laws might have on

the fundamental right of a person to
be treated with equal concern, and
of the right that such persons have to
be allowed to freely make ethical
choices on how they seek to live their
lives.
Section 377, plainly read,
punishes with imprisonment for life
or for a term of up to 10 years any
person who voluntarily has carnal
intercourse against the order of
nature with any man, woman or
animal. At its core, therefore, is an
intention to enforce a decree against
actions that are professed to be
beyond the warrants of societys
moral compass. Only, that in the case
of criminalising homosexuality, it is
the outlawing of the act that is
immoral, and not the act itself. This
fundamental iniquity in Section 377
is, in fact, evident even from the notes
of its drafter Lord Macaulay, who had
specifically aimed to enforce
Victorian morality through the
criminal justice system. We are
unwilling to insert, either in the text,
or in the notes, any thing which could
give rise to public discussion on this
revolting subject, Macaulay wrote in
his chapter on unnatural offences.
We are decidedly of the opinion
that the injury which would be done
to the morals of the community by
such discussion would far more than
compensate for any benefits which
might be derived from legislative
measures framed with the greatest
precision.
Although the Supreme Court
has already once refused to review
its judgment in Koushal , in February
this year it agreed to list a batch of
curative petitions which question
the correctness of its decision
before a Constitution Bench of five
judges or more. Now, with the
79


curative petitions still left undecided,
a group of five individuals has once
again approached the Supreme
Court questioning the laws validity.
On the face of it, the timing of this
new challenge might appear curious,
given the pendency of the curative
petitions. But regardless of any
concerns over strategy, the issues
implications remain gravely
significant. After all, the questions
raised in the new petition concern
individuals who have each been
treated as an outcast by a society that
purports to be equal.
Whats more, since the
judgment in Koushal , there has been
a rise not only in homophobia but also
in instances of an abuse of the process
of the law contained in Section 377.
Simultaneously, there have been
repeated efforts made by the present
ruling dispensation to further
perpetuate the laws deeply
damaging effects. Among other
developments, at least two private
members bills moved in the Lok
Sabha by Shashi Tharoor, which
sought decriminalisation of
homosexuality, were met with
predictably wicked defeats. It is also
worth considering that although the
referral to a Constitution Bench of the
curative petitions offers a glimmer of
hope, the chances of their success,
given the courts usually guarded
approach to such challenges, are
terrifyingly slim. Viewed thus, the new
petition questioning the validity of
Section 377 which was referred
by a two-judge bench to the Chief
Justice, for him to decide whether it
could be heard in conjunction with
the curative petitions assumes
particular significance.
Ending impunity under AFSPA
Accountability is a facet of the
80
rule of law. This established legal

principle has acquired fresh
significance after the Supreme Court
ruled that the armed forces cannot
escape investigation for excesses in
the course of the discharge of their
duty even in disturbed areas. In
such notified areas, security
personnel enjoy statutory protection
for their use of special powers.
While hearing petitions demanding
an inquiry into 1,528 deaths in
counter-insurgency operations and
related incidents in Manipur, the
court has said the provisions of the
Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act
and the purported immunity it offers
to the use of force even to the extent
of causing death are not invincible.
Such legal protection, especially in a
State that has been under AFSPA for
nearly 60 years, has to yield to larger
principles of human rights, and no
allegation of the use of excessive or
retaliatory force can be ignored
without a thorough inquiry. This is a
requirement both of democracy and
for the preservation of the rule of law.
The court has sought tabulated
details on 62 specific cases in which
there is some evidence that the
deaths involved were not genuine
operational
casualties
but
extrajudicial killings or fake
encounters. Even though the 85page ruling draws its broad principles
from an earlier Constitution Bench
verdict in Naga Peoples Movement
of Human Rights (1997), it has special
meaning in the present context, with
a growing body of opinion that
AFSPA should be repealed or
amended.
The court is not unaware of the
circumstances prevailing in Manipur
and its neighbouring States. What has
caused consternation is the near-total
absence of any inquiry. In most cases,
not even a first information report has

been registered, and in some, the
cases are against the victims. The
court has acknowledged that
additional powers have been given
to the armed forces to deal with
terrorism effectively. However, it also
made clear that this cannot be an
excuse for extrajudicial killings
whenever such allegations surface,
they have to be investigated,
regardless of whether the person
concerned is a dreaded criminal,
terrorist or insurgent. The court has
reminded the authorities of the
circumstances in which the use of
force, even to the point of causing
death, is immune from prosecution
and the Armys own list of dos and
donts while operating in a disturbed
area. It has rejected the notion that
every person bearing arms in a
disturbed area is ipso facto an
enemy. The occasion calls for an
investigation into allegations of
enforced disappearances and
extrajudicial killings, especially those
already documented or partially
probed. It must give momentum to
the demand for the repeal of AFSPA
as a necessary step to end impunity.
Its time for an urban upgrade
An ideal policeman is a myth.
You come across him only in crime
fiction. Equally elusive is good
policing, an idea that even the best
of criminal justice thinkers have found
it difficult to define. This is why, in
what is a chaotic world, we have to
reluctantly settle for an imperfect
policeman and an inadequate
system. The Indian police have been
the target of criticism from several
quarters, some justified and others
not. We (the two authors) should
however admit that the police in our
country has changed only marginally


since Independence, so much so the
average member of the public views
it as an unhelpful and insensitive body
that has to be scrupulously avoided
if possible. Several police reform
bodies have examined this
intractable situation with only
marginal success. What has been
critical is the undoubted absence of
political will to make the system
professional and to insulate it from
the caprice of the street-level
politician.
With the growing size of our
cities and towns, India no longer lives
in the villages. All the action and focus
are in the cities, and the police are
evaluated mainly on what they do
there or fail to do. The recent Swathi
murder case in Chennai is an instance
in point. The initial public outrage
was one that blamed the police for
not giving enough security to working
women. This lasted only for a few
days, until the nearly blind case was
successfully cracked. Criticism slowly
yielded to admiration for the police.
Another key area is traffic
enforcement
amidst
gross
indiscipline on the part of the road
user. Increased technology and
flawless identification of offenders
and harsh penalties on violators of
traffic rules alone can save the
situation. This is a challenge to which
the urban police has responded with
only marginal success. The citizen
expects drastic results, forgetting the
fact that it is he who will make the
difference through dissemination of
the message that submitting oneself
to traffic rules alone will reduce chaos
on the streets.
Again, the Swathi case triggered
a debate on the responsibility and
capability of the police in preventing
such a dastardly crime. The victim
and her parents have been blamed
by some insensitive persons for their

failure to alert the police about the
stalker, who is believed to have done
away with her. There is the other view
which the two of us and many other
former colleagues in the police share
that assuming the victims family
had approached the local police
station, the latter would just have
ignored their complaint. This is the
cynicism that marks all appraisals of
the police, and it is this challenge that
police leaders will have to cope with
in their daily work.
Going by the rising graph of
bodily crime and traffic accidents,
our cities and towns appear to be fast
going beyond redemption. Policing
would collapse not long from now
because of two factors. The first is
the growing geographic sprawl of
our cities. Chennai Corporation has
now a jurisdiction of more than 400
sq.km, twice what it had a decade
ago. This expansion has not been
accompanied by a commensurate
increase in police strength. The
second is the disappointing lack of
consensus on what the police can do,
and what it cannot or should not
attempt to do.
Ultimately, all discussion of
urban policing would lead us to the
important issue: how much money
can a government invest in policing?
India has approximately a little more
than two million policemen (both
armed and unarmed).There are about
12,000 police stations. In the absence
of scientifically determined
yardsticks, the question whether this
is adequate for a country as large as
India is debatable.
The growing tentacles of
terrorism have resulted in a certain
disarray in police thinking, something
for which the police were untrained
or insufficiently trained. An almost
whole-time attention on countering

monstrous outfits such as al-Qaida,
Islamic State, Taliban, Lashkar-eToiba and a host of others, including
our very own Indian Mujahideen, has
robbed the common man of police
services to which he is entitled as a
tax-paying citizen.
Any evaluation of the police will
be grievously wrong if it did not factor
in this development. Also, an attempt
to divest the police station of its
responsibility in this area by raising
an exclusive counter-terror outfit is
ill-advised, because thwarting the
terrorist depends on intelligence
collection at the grass-root, and this
can be done only with the help of a
police station on the ground. The
latest arrest in far away West Bengal
of a suspected IS organiser and
propagandist, who had made Tirupur
in Tamil Nadu his home, would
indicate how growing towns in the
country could provide shelter to antisocial elements and need more
intensive policing than before.
This is the complexity of urban
policing today. Mechanical law
enforcement, not backed by an alert
intelligence apparatus, can result in
disasters of the kind that happened
recently in Dhaka, Amsterdam,
Brussels and Paris. In the ultimate
analysis, it is the consumer of the
police service, the average citizen,
who has the critical role of giving a
continual feedback to the police on
how well the latter are performing.
Without this, no community will get
the police it demands, and possibly
deserves.
Calming the Valley
Burhan Wani, the 22-year-old
commander of the Hizb-ulMujahideen gunned down last week
by the security forces in Anantnag,
81


was credited with mobilising a new
generation of the disaffected in
Jammu and Kashmir. In the violent
aftermath of his death, however,
young men and women have taken
the fight to the security forces on the
street. Pitched battles have engulfed
the Valley. Wani was obviously a prize
catch. His engaging manner had
turned him into a legend before his
death, as he coasted on personal
charisma and social media smarts to
become the poster boy of a new
phase of Kashmiri militancy that is
homegrown. But having got their man,
the security forces failed
spectacularly in managing the
situation. After the death of over a
hundred Kashmiris in the stonepelting protests in the summer of
2010, the J&K police and the
paramilitary forces were said to have
evolved less lethal ways of bringing
under control what is essentially
political mobilisation. The fact that so
many civilians have been killed or
injured in the eye this month, with a
high percentage having possibly lost
vision altogether, suggests that no
care has gone into keeping the
casualties low. Faced with an
attacking mob, policemen are bound
to perceive a sense of siege. But it is
imperative that any response should
be measured and never grossly
disproportionate to the cause of
action forgetting this lesson in
Kashmir has time and again led to the
fuelling of a further cycle of protests,
to attracting more impressionable and
aggrieved youngsters to attack
symbols of authority.
This is a cycle that cannot be
broken by brute force. The Central
and State governments have reached
out to the Opposition and separatist
leaders to dissuade young Kashmiris
from street violence. But appeals for
82
calm must be strengthened with a

demonstrable capacity for a political
conversation. When tens of
thousands of Kashmiris hit the streets
in mourning for a fallen militant, there
is a spectrum of political opinion that
presents itself. They can be
dispersed with pellets. But if
mainstream politics does not speak
to them, if their arguments are not
heard patiently to be countered or
fleshed out, as the case may be, the
calm that eventually obtains will be
an illusion. The Valley has been
restive for more than a year now. In
this period, Wani is not the only
militant whose funeral has drawn
people in the thousands. But after
long, after more than a decade of
violence led by foreign militants, he
was the rare local boy to be seen in a
leadership role. To put his mourners
in a with-us-against-us binary would,
as Omar Abdullah has said, give him
a recruiting power from beyond the
grave.
This time in Africa
Drawing a link between Indian
and South African cultures during his
four-nation visit to Africa, Prime
Minister Narendra Modi referred to
the journey from Gujarat to Durban
as one through the spirit of
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (globalism)
to Ubuntu, the last a Zulu word that
expresses the core of humanism. The
evocative reference imbues the
historical links between India and
African nations with a unique warmth.
But Mr. Modi also made it clear that
this visit was more than about words.
In an interview to a South African
newspaper, he outlined his focus
areas: energy, food and maritime
security. His stops at Mozambique,
South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya
were accompanied by discussions on
securing lines of coal and natural gas

and funding capacity-building in
energy production. In Tanzania and
Mozambique, in particular, there
were discussions on enhancing the
export of pulses to India to meet a
demand shortfall. As he travelled
along the southern coast of Africa, Mr.
Modi spoke to his hosts in detail about
shoring up maritime ties as part of the
Indian Ocean Rim Association
(IORA), and linking Indias own
Sagar-Mala outreach for Indian
Ocean islands with the South Africaauthored Operation Phakisa, that
focusses on Africas combined
strengths in blue economies and
ocean governance. India has been
slow to upgrade ties with Africa, and
it must chart its own trajectory without
competing with, or being inhibited
by, Chinas formidable presence in
the continent. Chinas current hold
in trade and investment in Africa is
three times Indias, and South Africa,
for instance, has a key role in
promoting the Maritime Silk Route
programme as part of the One Belt
One Road initiative.
Mr. Modis visit to these four
countries in southern and east Africa
should, therefore, be seen as a work
in progress. Africa is a continent of
54 countries, and each has diverse
reasons to improve ties with India
from sharing low-cost technologies
and pharmaceuticals, building on the
Solar Alliance and renewable
energies, and growing markets for
each others goods. For instance, 84
per cent of Indias imports from the
Sub-Saharan region still come from
raw materials and natural resources,
not consumer or processed goods.
However, if there was one message
that Mr. Modi could have emphasised
more, it was the concern over racism
in India that students and others from


Africa often face. As he spoke in
Durban to the Indian community on
the history of racism that Indians and
Africans had fought together for many
decades, a line about Indias
commitment to fight the remaining
vestiges of racism domestically would
not have been out of place. The
omission is, in fact, also a reminder
that the outreach to African countries
needs to be sustained back home in
Indian cities too, in the true spirit of
Ubuntu.
Towards a continental shift
India is making a renewed push
to regain relevance in a rapidly
evolving African strategic landscape.
ambitious outreach to the continent
comes soon after President Pranab
Mukherjees visit to Ghana, Ivory Coast
and Namibia in West Africa in June,
and Vice-President Hamid Ansaris
visit to Morocco and Tunisia in North
Africa in May. During his trip, Mr. Modi
visited key states in South and East
Africa: Mozambique, South Africa,
Tanzania and Kenya. This sustained
and systematic outreach to all parts
of Africa is a welcome move after
years of only intermittent attention to
a continent where some of the
worlds 10 fastest growing economies
are located, and with which India
shares old historical ties.
But history is no longer enough
to entice Africa to take India seriously.
Chinas sustained overtures to the
region have led it to emerge as
Africas largest trading partner.
Chinas trade and investment ties with
the continent are one reason why
parts of Africa are growing so rapidly,
though this is also a very controversial
relationship. Africa today has no
dearth of friends and its engagement
with global powers is more pragmatic,
devoid of the ideological trappings

of the Cold War period. India has to
find a way to raise its profile and
ensure that its age-old ties with Africa
get a modern imprimatur.
India hosted the third IndiaAfrica Forum Summit last year with
great fanfare. More than a thousand
delegates from all 54 African
countries attended the summit, with
more than 40 countries represented
at the level of President, Vice
President, Prime Minister and
Monarch. This was the largest ever
gathering of African nations in India
with even some controversial figures
like Sudanese President Omar alBashir and Egyptian President Abdel
Fattah el-Sisi also making their
presence felt. With this mega event,
New Delhi was signalling its readiness
to step up its engagement with Africa,
a relationship which is centuries old,
bolstered by trade across the Indian
Ocean and a million-strong diaspora
across Africa.
It is heartening to see Africa
continuing to get adequate attention
with high-profile visits from India this
year. Such engagements are the only
way to allay the concerns of a
continent with which India has
enjoyed substantive ties since
Independence, but which now no
longer views India as a priority nation
and often complains of indifference
on the part of New Delhi. India today
has growing stakes in Africa. With
some of the fastest growing nations
in the world, the needs of regional
states are divergent and their
strengths are varied. Indias focus
over the last few decades has largely
been on capacity-building on the
continent, providing more than $1
billion in technical assistance and
training to personnel under the Indian
Technical
and
Economic
Cooperation (ITEC) programme.

India has committed $7.5 billion to
African infrastructure, covering 137
projects in more than 40 countries. It
has also offered duty-free market
access to Africas least developed
countries. But Indias trade with
Africa at around $72 billion remains
far below potential.
It is a fallacy to pit India against
China in so far as their ties with Africa
are concerned. With its annual trade
of around $200 billion with Africa,
China is a much bigger player, but
India has its own strengths in its
dealings with Africa. Its democratic
traditions make it a much more
comfortable partner for the West
compared to China in cooperating on
Africa-related issues. India is viewed
as a more productive partner by many
in Africa because Indian companies
are much better integrated into
African society and encourage
technology transfers to their African
partners. New Delhi will have to
leverage its own strengths in making
a lasting compact with Africa and
regain its lost presence on the
continent.
Mr. Modi has quite rightly
offered billions of dollars in credit,
and development financing, to build
a partnership for prosperity for
Africa, underscoring that Indias
focus remains on human
development through trade, rather
than the extraction of resources. But,
though India has committed
considerable resources to Africa,
actual delivery on the ground and
implementation of projects have
been far from satisfactory. Thats the
area India will have to work on if it is
serious about gaining the trust of its
African interlocutors.
There was a strategic dynamic
to Mr. Modis tour as well, with all four
83


countries on his itinerary connected
to India via the Indian Ocean. With
the Indian Ocean acquiring new
salience in global politics, India is
keen to regain its regional strategic
space. The Indian Navy has been
tackling piracy to protect the sea
lanes of communication in the
Eastern African coast and India is
ready to explore joint defence
manufacturing with key African states.
Indias role as a regional security
provider is an important one that New
Delhi is keen to leverage.
Expanding the Idea of India
The Constitution of India, the
longest written Constitution of the
world, has envisaged a holistic
approach towards civic life in a
democratic polity. Certain rights have
been guaranteed within the
Constitution as Fundamental Rights.
Since human conduct cannot be
confined to the realm of Fundamental
Rights, the Constitution has envisaged
certain duties, which are correlated
to the rights, and those duties have
been described as Fundamental
Duties. The framers of the
Constitution did not deem it
appropriate to incorporate those
duties in the text of the Constitution
when it was originally promulgated.
However, the post-Constitution civic
life, for around a quarter century, did
not portray a rosy picture, and
therefore, it was thought fit to have a
framework of duties in the
Constitution itself. It may sound
paradoxical that the preparatory
work for the introduction of
Fundamental Duties by the Swaran
Singh Committee was done when the
Fundamental Rights were under
suspension during the Emergency.
Duty to support bona fide civil
society movements: Citizens have a
84
moral duty to organise themselves or

support citizen groups so that the
gaps in governance left by the
executive can be filled and the rights
guaranteed by the Constitution are
made available to every citizen.
Therefore, it is proposed that there
must be an addition to Part IV-A of
the Constitution to that effect.
Law and diplomacy
on South China Sea
As expected, Beijing lost no
time in rejecting the unanimous ruling
of an international tribunal at The
Hague that China has no legal basis
for much of its claims on the South
China Sea. But given the tribunals lack
of powers to enforce its rulings, a
resolution of the dispute with the
Philippines will have to be the stuff
of international diplomacy. Generally,
this is not such a bad thing as judicial
verdicts on issues of contested
sovereignty can trigger a nationalist
backlash. The court at The Hague
ruled that Chinas claims to the waters
within the so-called nine-dash line,
with wide-ranging economic
interests, was in breach of the UN
Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The case was brought to the court in
2013 by the Philippines, centring on
the Scarborough Shoal, but Beijing
chose to boycott the proceedings.
Yet, Vice Foreign Minister Liu
Zhenmin, while asserting Chinas
sovereignty over the South China Sea,
has committed to negotiations with
the Philippines following the ruling.
Indeed, China now has more
compelling reasons to reconsider its
overall position.
The setback at The Hague

comes at a critical juncture in Chinas
bid to bolster its global economic
status. This relates to its long-standing
ambition to be accorded recognition
as a market economy under the World
Trade Organisation. As the 2016
deadline looms, China insists the
upgrade is automatic as per WTO
rules. The European Parliament thinks
otherwise, and voted overwhelmingly
in a non-binding resolution in May to
delay a decision. Currently, Brussels
levies anti-dumping tariffs on imports
from Beijing to mitigate the effects of
supposedly unfairly low prices on a
range of commodities. Against this
backdrop, the Chinese leadership is
unlikely to allow itself any distraction
in the form of a long-drawn
confrontation in its backyard, with its
adverse diplomatic fallout. Instead,
Beijing is more likely to rally support
to its cause for increased trade.
History bears witness to a more
constructive play of diplomatic forces
in similar high-stakes inter-state
disputes. For instance, although
Washington ignored a 1986 verdict
of the International Court of Justice,
concerted pressure led to the
eventual end to U.S. backing for
Nicaraguan insurgents. In the current
case at The Hague, the U.S. cant
exert much moral pressure as it has
not even ratified the United Nations
Convention. Conversely, as a party to
the law alongside Manila, there is
more pressure on Beijing to comply.
It is possible that big-power plays on
the South China Sea will now be
behind us. After three years of
litigation, this does not seem like a
bad thing after all.
WHY IS IT A WIN-WIN SITUATION FOR THE STUDENTS?
You will be provided current affairs on various important topics on a weekly basis.
Important national and international news from various sources at a single platform for your
convenience.
Each and every topic will be given point wise , making it easier to grasp.
Very handy when it comes to various competitive exams..
VARIOUS CATEGORIES:
Planning Commission
Ministry of External Affairs
National Portal of India
National
International
Economy
India And The World
Sports
In The News
Science and Technology
Burning Issues (Editorials From Different Newspapers)
WHAT YOU WILL GET:
You will get (52 Issues) PDF Only no Hard Copy
For Full Information Click Here:

http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/current-affairs/weekly-update
THE GIST DETAILS:
Medium: English
Price: Rs. 840 Rs. 559
No. of Booklets: 12 (1 Year)
Publisher: IASEXAMPORTAL.COM
File Type: PDF File Only (No Hard Copy)
TOPICS OF THE GIST
Gist of The Hindu
Gist of Yojana
Gist of Kurukshetra
Gist of Press Information Bureau
Gist of Science Reporter
For Full Information Click Here:

http://iasexamportal.com/civilservices/order-form/the-gist-subscription

Civil Services Mentor September 2016

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Civil Services Mentor September 2016

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Join Online Coaching For IAS Pre & Mains Exams

INTERNATIONAL SOLAR ALLIANCE CELL AND WORLD BANK

Objective of the International

Join Online Coaching For IAS Pre & Mains Exams

ISA Affordable finance at scale and

Join Online Coaching For IAS Pre & Mains Exams

FUND OF FUNDS FOR FUNDING SUPPORT TO START-UPS

Exchange Board of India (SEBI)

Join Online Coaching For IAS Pre & Mains Exams

Fund of Funds for funding support to Start-ups

Venture Capital (VC) has opined that

success that means 10000 Start ups

Join Online Coaching For IAS Pre & Mains Exams

Prime Minister Narendra

A President, a Prime Minister

unit of the Kudankulam

Search operations still on for

Finding no trace of the An-32

vessel Samundra Ratnakar of

Opposition raised issues in

The Opposition parties, led

Join Online Coaching For IAS Pre & Mains Exams

by the Congress, want the

Centre says attacks on Dalits

Home Minister decried

impression that the NDA

The Maternity Benefits

continue to get only 12 weeks

Differences between SC and

In its sharpest-ever attack in

Join Online Coaching For IAS Pre & Mains Exams

Nobel laureate Kailash

Joint statement on Naga peace

Almost a year after the

The joint statement, issued by

The Union government has

Join Online Coaching For IAS Pre & Mains Exams

been included in the

Elephant corridors identified by

The Wayanad leg of a Central

revival of the PakramthalamPeriya, Periya-Kottiyur,

The average hearing time for

around 82 per cent of cases

India and Pakistan exchanged

At a time when India and

Join Online Coaching For IAS Pre & Mains Exams

Pakistan are engaged in a

Ashok chakra and Shaurya

HavildarHangpan Dada, who

President Pranab Mukherjee.

These awards are being

The Centre owes the States

Online Coaching for IAS PRE General Studies

100% IAS Exam Syllabus Covered with MCQs.

Click Here to Join IAS (Pre.) Online Coaching:

Join Online Coaching For IAS Pre & Mains Exams

Prime Minister Narendra

had no business speaking

The Mysuru division recently

suitable action or closely

A committee tasked by the

Join Online Coaching For IAS Pre & Mains Exams

The Board of Control for

the BCCIs working was