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The government’s committee on the MSP (minimum support price), natural farming and crop diversification held its first meeting on Monday during which three internal sub-groups were formed to deliberate on the mandated topics.
The committee, headed by former Agriculture Secretary Sanjay Agrawal, has 26 members including the chairman and three membership slots are kept for SamyuktaKisanMorcha (SKM) that had rejected the committee and stayed away from the meeting.
The broad discussions were held on the committee’s three-point agenda — the MSP, natural farming and crop diversification. This was the first meeting of the panel notified on July 18, 2022, and preliminary discussions were held.
The official said that during the meeting, it was decided to form internal informal groups on all three agenda points for deliberations. The groups will overlap with each other.
While no official statement was issued, the Agriculture Ministry tweeted, “During the first meeting of the committee, suggestions were made regarding programmes and plans for area expansion under Indian natural farming system through value-chain development and research for future requirements.”
Suggestions were also made regarding a systematic implementation of farmer-friendly alternative certification and marketing system for natural farming processes and products.
The ministry said that suggestions were made on the development of a chain of laboratories for international coordination on methods and organic certification of the products produced to strengthen the value-chain development of natural farming.
As per the Agriculture Ministry’s July 18 notification, the committee will give “suggestions to make available MSP to farmers of the country by making the system more effective and transparent.
It will also give suggestions on “practicality to give more autonomy to the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) and measures to make it more scientific.
It will also give recommendations to “strengthen the agricultural marketing system as per the changing requirements to ensure higher value to the farmers through remunerative prices of their produce by taking advantage of the domestic and export opportunities.
Express Network
SarbanandaSonowal focusses on bilateral ties,trade via chabahar port (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
The government said India Ports & Global Company (IPGL) will open offices in Tehran and Chabahar to promote trade and transit through the strategically important Chabahar port in Iran.
The announcement was made after Union Ports, Shipping and Waterways Minister SarbanandaSonowal called on Iran’s Vice President, Mohammad Mokhber, in Tehran and reiterated commitment to strengthen the bilateral relations, according to an official statement.
The statement said the two sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on recognition of certificates of competency in unlimited voyages to help seafarers from both countries as per provisions of International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watch Keeping for Seafarers.
It said India Ports & Global Company (IPGL) will open offices in Tehran and Chabahar to promote trade and transit via Chabahar port.
According to the statement, while Mokhber noted that development of Chabahar port will lead to increase in trade and shipment volume, Sonowal underscored the importance for both sides to collaborate on further steps to be taken to make Chabahar an instrument for regional growth in trade shipment.
Chabahar’s role as a trade multiplier for the region was highlighted by Sonowal at the meeting, as the port’s potential to act as a swift, economical trade conduit between Central Asia and South Asia, even South East Asia, remains to be tapped.
Since IPGPL assumed operations of ShahidBeheshti Port at Chabahar, it has handled more than 4.8 million tonnes of bulk cargo.
In 2020, India supplied 7,50,00 tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan as part of humanitarian assistance programme to Iran via Chabahar port in a concerted effort to mitigate locust threat to agriculture and enhance food security in the region.
Sonowal is on a three-day official trip to Iran. Following his Iran visit, he will be on a day-long official visit to the UAE, where he will visit Jebel Ali port and participate in bilateral meetings and an investors’ meet.
SC agrees to hear plea against its order on PMLA validity (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)
The Supreme Court agreed to list for hearing a petition seeking review of its July 27 order upholding the constitutional validity of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, as amended from time to time, including those dealing with the powers of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) with regard to arrest, search, attachment and seizure in money laundering offences.
It was mentioned before Chief Justice of India (CJI) N V Ramana who asked the lawyer “is this on Justice Khanwilkar’s judgment”, to which the counsel answered in the affirmative, following which the CJI said “ok, we will list it”.
Though it upheld the provisions of the law, a three-judge bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and C T Ravikumar left the question whether the amendments could have brought about by way of Finance Acts in 2015, 2016, 2018, and 2019, respectively, to a seven-judge bench which is already seized of similar question arising in the matter of some other legislation.
The court underlined that “the principle of innocence of the accused/offender is regarded as a human right” but “that presumption can be interdicted by a law made by the Parliament/Legislature”.
It refused to accept the contention that the procedure followed by the ED in registering the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) is opaque, arbitrary and violative of the constitutional rights of an accused and that the procedure followed under PMLA is draconian.
The court said an ECIR cannot be equated with an FIR, that supplying an ECIR in every case to the person concerned is not mandatory and “it is enough if the ED, at the time of arrest, discloses the grounds of such arrest”.
Rejecting the argument that it will amount to money laundering only if the proceeds of crime are projected as untainted property, it said, “Section 3 of the 2002 Act has a wider reach and captures every process and activity, direct or indirect, in dealing with the proceeds of crime and is not limited to the happening of the final act of integration of tainted property in the formal economy.”
It said that “from the bare language of Section 3 of the 2002 Act, it is amply clear that the offence of money laundering is an independent offence regarding the process or activity connected with the proceeds of crime which had been derived or obtained as a result of criminal activity relating to or in relation to a scheduled offence.
The process or activity can be in any form — be it one of concealment, possession, acquisition, use of proceeds of crime as much as projecting it as untainted property or claiming it to be so. Thus, involvement in any one of such processes or activity connected with the proceeds of crime would constitute offence of money laundering”.
The Editorial Page
Our bilkis moment (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The visuals of BilkisBano’s rapists and the murderers of her family being garlanded are fresh for all to see. The Union government’s silence is deafening.
This nation is being drip fed via the BJP’s insidious propaganda system that the state of Gujarat had nothing to do with the release of these 11 convicted men, now being celebrated as heroes, as Bilkis’s husband painfully puts it, and that it acted on the Supreme Court’s direction.
In fact, the court only noted the applicable remission policy, which allows for remission of the sentences of convicts who have spent 14 years in jail. It did not compel the release of the convicts.
The decision to free the rapists and killers — instead of letting them remain in jail, as the policy allows — was entirely that of the government.
For those of us who deal with the BJP’s Goebbelsian doublespeak on a daily basis, this should come as no surprise. And yet, this time feels different.
The stark facts of a young pregnant woman being gang-raped in front of her mother, then forced to watch the rape of her mother and her two sisters.
Then made to watch her three-year-old’s head smashed. Make no mistake — these facts were proven in court and the “sanskari Brahmins” found guilty.
This is no case of innocent till proven guilty, no case of undertrials being given the benefit of doubt. These 11 were proven guilty and sentenced to life in prison for the most heinous crimes of gang-rape and murder. No one, not even the most ardentSanghi, can dispute this inalienable fact.
How, then, in a country where average pendencies are upwards of 14 years, where undertrials serve years in prison without being charge-sheeted, where convicts with crimes far less heinous than that of the 11 in the BilkisBano case serve 30-40 years of life terms without being considered for remission, did these men walk free?
It has taken a special blend of the right-wing’s hatred for Muslims, its visceral disregard for women as equals, its absolute belief that the law is fundamentally an ass, and its desire to reap electoral benefits from every situation, no matter how unfortunate, that has reprised Polonius’s dictum: Though this be evil, yet there is method in it.
This method is what led to the BJP using the order of the Supreme Court as a smokescreen to aver that the court had somehow compelled the remission.
Veeranganas of the nation (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day speech was transformative. It did not just trace a historical journey but outlined how the unsung warriors of pre-independence Bharat contributed to the nation.
He also underlined the role of women — veeranganas — in our freedom movement. The initiative highlighting the brave women of our freedom struggle, under the broader celebration of AzadiKaAmritMahotsav, will mark a turning point in Indian feminist history writing from an Indic perspective.
The construction of the “new India” PM Modi has envisaged since taking office is a synthesis of two major elements — the principles, ideas and values of our national ethos and freedom movement; and new ideas and policies to face new and emerging challenges.
The veeranganas are a potent symbol of nationalism and patriotism. They can overturn oppressive attitudes towards women in society.
Their role and celebration in popular culture also refutes the colonial allegations about the suppression of women throughout Indian history.
But it is essential to discover, rewrite and reinterpret the role and representation of these heroic women in the liberation of the motherland. Such rewriting and reinterpretation might also provide a method to deal with the reactionary and androcentric approach of society.
The historical memories of courage and sacrifice are preserved in folktales, songs and regional lore. They reveal the less-celebrated character of Indian society, in which women’s power was acknowledged.
The PM paid tribute not only to celebrated women but also to unsung veeranganas. Rani Lakshmi Bai, the first woman warrior of the revolt of 1857, is known to every young woman in India.
Begum Hazrat Mahal took to the battlefields along with Lakshmi Bai in 1857 and till her last breath in 1879, fought the British. Remembered as the “Agni of India”, Durgawati Devi was an armed revolutionary and active member of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association and a close associate of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru.
There is also Jhalkari Bai, whose tales of bravery have travelled far and wide. Her story presents a social reality where even a Dalit woman had acquired social and cultural significance. Like Jhalkari Bai, Uda Devi also belonged to the Dalit community from Awadh, a significant centre during the revolt of 1857.
She is said to have formed a women’s battalion, comprising mostly Dalit women, popularly known as “veerangana” or “warrior women”. The story of Asha Devi Gurjari follows a similar trajectory — a Dalit, she led women in a bid to restore the political self-respect of the motherland.
These stories of the valour of veeranganas were not limited to any time or area. Rather, they are of a piece with the national consciousness of the times.
The Idea Page
A tale of Putin and Xi (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
“India wishes to sit on top of the mountain to watch the tigers fight.” This was the assessment of a Chinese scholar reviewing India’s approach to the unfolding conflict in Taiwan.
In a column for the Global Times, Liu Zongyi argues that India will be a major beneficiary if the US can contain China in East Asia and the Western Pacific.
Some Chinese might extend the argument to Europe as well — that the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began six months ago this week, suits Delhi.
The conflict between the Kremlin and the West, they might believe, weakens both sides and would eventually benefit a rising India. There is no doubt that both Russia and the West are wooing India to support them in this conflict.
That kind of hyper-realist Chinese thinking, however, has not been part of India’s strategic culture. In fact, independent India has been far too idealistic. Nothing illustrates it more than Delhi’s enduring illusion of building an “Asian Century” in partnership with Beijing.
At a time when China was isolated in Asia and the world in the 1950s and 1960s, India campaigned with the rest of the world to engage with China. It sought to serenade China before a sceptical Asian audience at Bandung in 1955.
Delhi also insisted that Beijing is the rightful owner of a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council. India pursued for long a “China-first strategy” despite persistent evidence that Delhi’s contradictions with Beijing are structural and not amenable to easy resolution.
Delhi’s reluctance to come to terms with that reality has cost India dearly. The Galwan clash two years ago, which followed China tearing apart three decades of peace and tranquillity on the disputed frontier, appears to have made Delhi wiser.
It certainly has cured at least parts of the Indian establishment of chronic Sinophilia.
Returning to Liu’s geopolitics, there is no mountain for India to retreat to and watch the US, Russia, and China tear each other apart. In today’s deeply integrated world, great power conflict has systemic effects and consequences for everyone.
The Russian war in Ukraine and the Western sanctions in response have roiled global oil markets, disrupted the food supply chains and pushed the global economy into a fresh crisis.
For India, which was just about recovering from the devastating economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been no joy in watching the war in Ukraine. It has no reason to wish for another great power war in the East.
If the current tensions around Taiwan boil over into a shooting war, the global economy will sink even faster and take India down with it. Taiwan’s geopolitical location, its special place in US-China relations, and its centrality to global manufacturing supply chains will make a war in Asia far more consequential than the European one.
Explained Page
PandurangKhankhoje:Indian revolutionary and agricultural scientist revered in Mexico (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 1, History)
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, who is currently in Canada for the 65th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, will travel to Mexico where he will unveil statues of Swami Vivekananda and Maharashtra-born freedom fighter and agriculturalist PandurangKhankhoje (1883-1967).
Khankhoje had a close connection with Mexico, the country in which he sought refuge due to his association with the radical pro-Indian independence Ghadar Party.
The Speaker’s visit is part of the government’s efforts to honour lesser-known Indian-origin leaders outside India. From Mexico, Birla will travel to Suriname on the northern coast of South America, where he will hold discussions with the country’s Indian-origin President, ChandrikapersadSantokhi.
Born in Wardha, Maharashtra, in the late 19th century, PandurangKhankhojecame in contact with other revolutionaries early on.
His daughter SavitriSawhney, who wrote his biography, wrote of his early years: “As a student, Khankhoje was an ardent admirer of the French Revolution and of the American War of Independence.
Closer to home, the Hindu reformer Swami Dayanand and his Arya Samaj movement, which called for a spirit of reform and social change, became the hero to a young student group led by Khankhoje.”
Khankhoje decided to go abroad for further training in revolutionary methods and militaristic strategy. At this time, the British government’s suspicions of him were also growing due to his anti-government activities.
Before leaving, he visited Bal GangadharTilak, by whom he was inspired. Tilak advised him to go to Japan, which was itself a strong, anti-West Asian imperialistic force then.
After spending time with nationalists from Japan and China, Khankhoje eventually moved to the US, where he enrolled in college as a student of agriculture. But a year later, he joined the Mount Tamalpais Military Academy in California to fulfil his original purpose of leaving India.
Khankhoje was one of the founding members of the Ghadar Party, established by Indians living abroad in 1914, mostly belonging to Punjab. Its aim was to lead a revolutionary fight against the British in India.
While in the US, Khankhoje met LalaHarDayal, an Indian intellectual teaching at Stanford University. “HarDayal had begun a propaganda campaign, publishing a newspaper that featured patriotic songs and articles in the vernacular languages of India. This was the seed from which the Ghadar Party would emerge”, wrote Sawhney.
Ways to privatise PSB’s (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Last month, ExplainSpeaking marked the 53rd anniversary of bank nationalisation with the piece titled “Bank Nationalisation: Blunder or Masterstroke”. This piece provided two ways to debate the issue.
This week, we will approach the same topic albeit by using a more contemporary concern: The privatisation of public sector banks.
That’s because — for better or worse — bank nationalisation has already happened in the past. What matters now is to assess if it needs to be addressed by a summary reversal — overnight turning over all PSBs to the private sector — or some other alternative, which might either involve privatising some while keeping others in the public sector fold and might also involve stretching out the process of privatisation.
Over the past decade, India’s public sector banks have struggled with high levels of non-performing assets (NPAs). Simply put, NPAs are loans that the borrower fails to pay back to the bank.
Predictably, high levels of NPAs erode a bank’s profitability. In the case of many a PSBs, it even meant that the RBI, which is the banking sector regulator, had to restrict the normal functioning of the banks — this is referred to as the banks being put under Prompt Corrective Action (or PCA) — and forced them to improve their financial performance metrics before being allowed to resume normal banking activities.
High levels of NPAs, and the ensuing actions, meant that PSBs struggled to finance India’s growth needs. The government even had to recapitalise many PSBs to ensure that they stayed in business.
Understandably, there were growing demands that instead of wasting taxpayers’ money to recapitalise PSBs, the government should simply sell them off to the private sector.
Doing so would reduce the financial burden on the government while also ensuring that PSBs become more efficient and profit-making entities under private ownership.
By 2021, the government had reached a point that, in the Union Budget 2021-22, it announced its decision to start by privatising two PSBs.
A recent paper by Poonam Gupta of NCAER and Arvind Panagariya of Columbia University, titled “Privatization of Public Sector Banks in India Why, How and How Far?”, argues that “the government should move as rapidly as politically feasible”.
Economy
Eye on wilful defaulters, FinMin tweaks overseas investment rules (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Any Indian resident, who has been classified as a wilful defaulter or is under investigation by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED) or Serious Frauds Investigation Office (SFIO), will have to obtain a no-objection certificate (NOC) from his or her bank, regulatory body or investigative agency before making any overseas “financial commitment” or disinvestment of overseas assets.
The rules also provide that if lenders, the concerned regulatory body or investigative agency fail to furnish the NOC within 60 days of receiving an application, it may be presumed that they have no objection to the proposed transaction.
This has been done through the newly introduced Foreign Exchange Management (Overseas Investment) Rules, 2022 and Foreign Exchange Management (Overseas) Regulations, 2022 notified.
Additionally, the new rules also prohibit Indian resident from making investments into foreign entities that are engaged in real estate activity, gambling in any form, and dealing with financial products linked to the Indian rupee without the specific approval of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
While these particular rules make it difficult for wilful defaulters to send funds out of the country, they also make it easier for domestic corporates to invest abroad.
In view of the evolving needs of businesses in India, in an increasingly integrated global market, there is need of Indian corporates to be part of global value chain.
The revised regulatory framework for overseas investment provides for simplification of the existing framework for overseas investment and has been aligned with the current business and economic dynamics.
Clarity on Overseas Direct Investment and Overseas Portfolio Investment has been brought in and various overseas investment related transactions that were earlier under approval route are now under automatic route, significantly enhancing ‘ease of doing business’. Last year, the government in consultation with the RBI undertook an exercise to simplify these regulations.