Whatsapp 93125-11015 For Details
Flagging off infrastructure and development projects worth Rs 75,000 crore in Nagpur, including Phase-1 of the Samruddhi Expressway to Mumbai and the Nagpur Metro, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Sunday hit out at political parties that, he said, were indulging in the “politics of shortcuts” and destroying the country’s economy for their “personal interest”.
Addressing a gathering at the MIHAN (multi-modal international passenger and cargo hub airport at Nagpur), the Prime Minister called for “sustainable development and sustainable solutions” so that the country can emulate the progress charted by nations such as Singapore and South Korea which, he said, were once considered poor.
“I also want to caution the people of Maharashtra and the people of the country about a distortion coming in the politics of India. This is the deformity of shortcut politics. This is the deformity of looting the country’s money for political interests.
This is the deformity of looting the hard-earned money of taxpayers. These political parties who are adopting shortcuts, these political leaders are the biggest enemies of every taxpayer of the country.
Those whose aim is only to come to power, whose aim is only to grab the government by making false promises, they can never build the country.
Referring to the popular saying in Hindi, “Aamdhaniatthannikharcharupaiya”, on expenditure far in excess of income, Modi said, “The political parties, which have adopted this bad policy, will make this country hollow from inside.
Modi did not name any party or individual but he has previously spoken out against the politics of “freebies” — a call that his party has seized on to mainly target the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi, which won the MCD elections last week.
Express Network
‘25% of POCSO cases are romantic relations’ (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
One in every four cases under the Protection of Children from of Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act in West Bengal, Assam and Maharashtra constituted “romantic cases”, where the victim was found to be in a consensual relationship with the accused, a study by Enfold Proactive Health Trust and UNICEF-India has found.
Significantly, the study also found that in nearly half of the “romantic cases” (46.6%), the girl was between 16 to 18 years. The findings echo Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud’s call to lawmakers to address the “growing concern” on the criminalisation of adolescents, who engage in consensual sexual activity.
The study authored by researchers Swagata Raha and Shruti Ramakrishnan looked at all 7,064 POCSO judgments registered between 2016 and 2020 in the states of Assam, Maharashtra and West Bengal and found that in 1,715 cases, court documents revealed admission of consensual relationship between the complainant and the accused.
The study released on December 10 also found that in 1,508 cases (87.9% of the “romantic cases”), the girl admitted to being in a “romantic relationship” with the accused, either during the investigation stage or evidence stage, or both.
The might of the criminal justice system was instead invoked more often to control and deter girls from being in relationships against the wishes of their family, and to coerce the girls to return home if they had eloped. In a few cases, it also served as a device to compel the accused to honour his promise of marriage.
Given the narrow definition we adopted for terming it a romantic case — where the victim, her family or any prosecutorial witness admitted the romantic relationship or where the court concluded it was romantic — this number would be much higher if we draw inferences from court decisions.
The study also found that convictions were recorded only in exceptional cases and acquittals were the norm in “romantic cases”.
The Editorial Page
Listening to President (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Addressing the Law Day event at the Supreme Court on November 26 President DroupadiMurmu raised the issue of the plight of a large number of undertrials holed up in the prisons of India, particularly in Odisha and Jharkhand.
The latest official NCRB statistics indicate that over the last 10 years, the number of undertrials in jails has risen constantly and peaked in 2021.
The most alarming still is the condition of countless poor and resourceless who continue to be disproportionately arrested, routinely remanded to judicial custody in prisons, face long-winding trials and are unable to seek and secure bail either because of lack of economic resources or because of fear of the social stigma outside.
The sad predicament of long and indefinitely detained undertrials was brought to light earlier thanks to public-spirited PILs before the Supreme Court in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the series of “Hussainara Khatoon” petitions, leading to amendments in the code of criminal procedure and the current court practices. However, to address some very pertinent worries aired by the kind-hearted President, the reasons for the current condition must be examined.
Despite every new government making tall promises about decriminalisation, at the ground level, most of the old and colonial penal statutes continue to rule the roost.
The Penal Code of 1860 is a classic example and offences such as Section 124A (sedition), Section 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of his public function), Section 188 (disobedience to an order lawfully promulgated by a public servant, if such disobedience causes obstruction, annoyance or injury to persons lawfully employed) are its representative samples. Likewise, there exist many other postcolonial statutes that are designed mainly to control and repress behaviours that are an outcome of social and economic tensions that may be better addressed through non-punitive measures.
Currently, the process of criminal law reform is underway and the Draft IPC and CrPC reform proposals are being actively considered by the central government. We can hope the law will be able to soon rid itself of the colonial legacy.
Second, the extensive powers to arrest are yet another offshoot of a colonial procedural scheme that is often adopted today as a sine qua non of good governance.
Unhealthy Subsidies (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Two ambitious schemes of the Narendra Modi government — Soil Health Card and mandatory neem-coating of urea — were supposed to promote balanced use of fertilisers.
However, far from weaning farmers from urea, annual consumption of this nitrogenous fertiliser has only risen from 30 to 35 million tonnes (mt) in the last five years.
This year, not only have urea sales gone up by 3.7 per cent during April-October over the same period of 2021, it has grown even more, at 16.9 per cent, for di-ammonium phosphate (DAP).
This has come even as sales of all other fertilisers — including complexes containing nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), K (potash) and sulphur (S) in different proportions – have fallen.
In other words, instead of balanced use of plant nutrients based on soil testing and specific crop requirement, Indian farmers are effectively applying just urea and DAP — both high-analysis fertilisers containing 46 per cent N and P respectively.
The government has fixed the maximum retail price (MRP) of urea at Rs 5,628 per tonne. The MRPs of other fertilisers are technically decontrolled, but companies have been “told” not to charge more than Rs 27,000/tonne for DAP.
The informally-fixed MRPs are higher at Rs 29,000-31,000 and Rs 34,000 per tonne for NPKS complexes and muriate of potash (MOP) respectively, but farmers have little incentive to buy at these prices. W
The fact that DAP does not contain K, S or other macro and micro nutrients wouldn’t matter to a majority of farmers. For them, choice of fertilisers is primarily a function of prices. Underpricing of urea (a historical phenomenon) and DAP (recent) is a product of subsidy-induced market distortions, for which the blame lies squarely with the Modi government. The compulsions of electoral politics have clearly trumped concerns over soil nutrient imbalances.
The effects of these – the current NPK ratio is about 13:5:1, as against the ideal 4:2:1 – would ultimately show up in crop yields. Plants, like humans, will respond poorly to fertilisers if only one or two nutrients are given in excess.
The Ideas Page
Example and a warning (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
As India takes over the G20 presidency, one of the big jobs under the finance track is to ensure that G20 nations come up with a credible policy framework to tame inflation, especially food inflation, while protecting growth and ensuring overall financial stability.
The massive stimulus that was injected in almost all G20 nations to circumvent the fear of recession during Covid-19 has come back to haunt them in the form of excess liquidity, causing inflation.
On top of that, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has flared fuel and food prices while climate change in the form of intense heat waves, floods and droughts, is also hitting at food prices in several countries.
The central bankers of the G20 have been on the job, using monetary policy tools to douse inflation pressures. But the job is not yet over. The year 2023 will be a test case for the collective wisdom of the G20 in taming inflation and protecting growth.
In Turkey, food inflation is surging at 103 per cent. Argentina’s food inflation is at 91.6 per cent. One wonders how they are controlling social unrest in their countries as the life-long savings of people are being eroded.
Even in Germany, food inflation is at 17.7 per cent – an unprecedented phenomenon in decades. India is in a much better position with 7 per cent food inflation. The RBI governor has recently pronounced that the worst of inflation is behind us.
Perhaps it is time to appreciate the RBI’s policy in managing inflation. The beauty is that India is taming inflation while scoring the highest GDP growth (6.1 per cent in 2023), as forecasted by the IMF’s World Economic Outlook.
In terms of GDP growth, China is likely to be at 4.4 per cent, the US at 1 per cent, the Eurozone at 0.5 per cent and the UK at just 0.3 per cent (see Infographics).
Incidentally, global growth is likely to tumble from 6 per cent in 2021 to just 3.2 per cent in 2022 and 2.7 per cent in 2023. Advanced economies are likely to see even lower growth at only 2.4 per cent and 1.1 per cent in 2022 and 2023 respectively. Similarly, China’s growth has been downgraded to 3.2 per cent in 2022 (the lowest growth in more than four decades, excluding the initial Covid crisis in 2020), and a tad higher to 4.4 per cent in 2023.
Express Network
Focus on commercial use of NavIC, ISRO’s future satellites to get additional frequency (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
With an aim to promote the civilian use of NAVigation with the Indian Constellation (NavIC), the regional navigation satellite system developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the space agency is introducing the L1 frequency in all its future satellites.
The next satellites, starting from NVS-01 onwards, will have an L1 band for civilian navigational use,” said Union Minister of State for the Department of Space Jitendra Singh in a written reply in Parliament.
The L1 frequency, one of the most commonly used frequencies in the Global Positioning System (GPS), will increase the use of the regional navigation system in wearable devices and personal trackers that use low-power, single-frequency chips. At present, the satellites operate on two frequencies — L5 and S bands.
The NVS-01 satellite, according to previous annual reports of the Department of Space, is set to replace one of ISRO’s seven navigational satellites currently in space. Two of these satellites — IRNSS-1B and IRNSS-1C — will complete their 10-year mission life in 2024.
The NavIC-enabled chipsets first made their way to cell phones in 2019 even though the first three satellites of the constellation were launched in 2013 and 2014.
Experts say only three satellites are needed to make a navigational constellation partially operational; however, before 2017, the space agency did not take interest in developing the user segment.
In fact, a 2018 report by the Comptroller and Auditor General notes that even though ISRO received a go ahead for Rs 200 crore funding from the Cabinet to develop the user receivers in 2006, work on it only started in March 2017, by when all three atomic clocks aboard the first satellite — IRNSS-1A (Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System) — had failed and two other satellites had lost two to three years of their mission life.
Explained
The Centre’s Subsidy bill (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Narendra Modi government sought Parliament’s approval for fresh expenditure of Rs 214,580.88 crore towards major subsidies, over and above the Rs 317,865.91 crore budgeted for 2022-23 (April-March).
The extra subsidy outgo, for which the Finance Ministry presented its first tranche of supplementary demand for grants, includes Rs 109,288.95 crore on fertilisers, Rs 80,348.25 crore on food and Rs 24,943.68 crore on petroleum.
If passed by both Houses – and assuming no further batches of demands for additional expenditures – it will take the total subsidy bill to Rs 532,446.79 crore: Food (Rs 287,179.34 crore), fertiliser (Rs 214,511.27 crore) and petroleum (Rs 30,756.18 crore).
The Rs 532,446.79 crore spending on subsidy in 2022-23 would be the second highest after the Rs 706,006.53 crore of 2020-21. However, there’s a difference between 2020-21 and 2022-23.
In 2020-21, the spike in subsidies (see Table 1) was on account of the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman making a one-time provision to clear all dues to the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and fertiliser companies.
The Centre, in previous years, wasn’t providing fully for subsidy, arising from these entities selling grain and fertilisers at below cost to PDS (public distribution system) consumers and farmers respectively.
Not wholly funding the difference and on time forced them to borrow, with FCI alone availing loans from the National Small Savings Fund (NSSF) at 7.4-8.8% interest during 2016-17 to 2019-20.
The final subsidy provision of Rs 706,006.53 crore (as against the originally budgeted Rs 227,793.89) helped FCI repay Rs 339,236 crore of outstanding NSSF loans and also clear the fertiliser industry’s subsidy arrears.
This exercise of coming clean – the Centre owning up its expenditures, rather than transferring to the balance sheets of FCI and fertiliser firms – led to a spiraling of the subsidy bill. The latter constituted 43.2% of the Centre’s revenue receipts and 20.1% of its total expenditure in 2020-21.
What’s at stake in Turkey’s new Syria escalation? (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
After weeks of deadly Turkish airstrikes in northern Syria, Kurdish forces and international players are trying to gauge whether Ankara’s threats of a ground invasion are serious.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly warned of a new land incursion to drive Kurdish groups away from the Turkish-Syrian border, following a deadly Nov. 13 bombing in Istanbul.
Turkish authorities blamed the attack on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and on the Syria-based People’s Protection Units, or YPG. Both have denied involvement.
Ankara launched a barrage of airstrikes, killing dozens, including civilians as well as Kurdish fighters and Syrian government troops. Human Rights Watch has warned that the strikes are exacerbating a humanitarian crisis by disrupting power, fuel and aid.
In the most recent development, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin flew to Turkey this week for talks on the situation in Syria.
Turkey sees the Kurdish forces along its border with Syria as a threat and has launched three major military incursions since 2016, taking control of large swaths of territory.
Erdogan hopes to relocate many of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey to northern Syria and has begun building housing units there.
The plan could address growing anti-refugee sentiment in Turkey and bolster Erdogan’s support ahead of next year’s elections, while diluting historically Kurdish-majority areas by resettling non-Kurdish Syrian refugees there.
Erdogan has also touted plans to create a 30-kilometer (19-mile) security corridor in areas currently under Kurdish control. A planned Turkish invasion earlier this year was halted amid opposition by the U.S. and Russia.
Biennale (Page no. 15)
(Miscellaneous)
Postponed twice due to the pandemic, as the fifth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale opens on December 12, it will have on display the works of over 90 artists from across the globe in varied media.
In its tenth year, curated by Singapore-based Indian-origin artist Shubigi Rao, the central exhibition of the showcase will centre on the theme “In Our Views Flow Ink and Fire”.
Spread across multiple venues in Kochi, the four-month-long celebration of art is expected to attract tourists from the world over, and is scheduled to see several discussions, performances and film screenings. As it opens its doors, we look at the history of art Biennales and their significance.
An international large-scale showcase of art that takes place every two years at a particular site, biennales are usually non-commercial enterprises – unlike art fairs – that centre around a curatorial theme.
One of the most prestigious and oldest biennales in the world, the Venice Biennale was established through a resolution by the city council in 1893 to celebrate national artistic talent.
Coinciding with the silver anniversary of King Umberto and Margherita of Savoy, it had in attendance artists, critics, curators and patrons. With its rising popularity, the 1900s saw the emergence of Biennales across the world, with Bienal de São Paulo being instituted as the first non-European biennial in 1951.
In 2009, a global Biennale Foundation was established with an “aim to create a platform for dialogue, networking, and knowledge sharing among contemporary art biennials around the world”. It lists a directory of over 200 biennales that are held at present.
Though most biennales do not allow for direct purchase of art, an invitation and participation in the global showcase is often viewed as a validation of an artist’s work, and an assertion that they are being noticed.