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On august 5 this year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) imposed a monetary penalty of Rs 32 lakh on a public sector bank for non-compliance with certain provisions of Reserve Bank of India (Fraud classification and reporting by commercial banks and select FIs) Directions 2016. However, it did not provide details of the non-compliance or violations by the bank.
Since January 2020, the banking regulator has imposed monetary penalties worth Rs 73.06 crore in 48 cases involving banks, including public, private and foreign banks, for violation of provisions or contravention of certain directions through orders that are brief and without details.
These sparsely worded orders from RBI have drawn criticism from various quarters, with some observers even calling for the setting up of an appellate court like the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) to challenge the central bank’s decisions.
The Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC), headed by Justice BN Srikrishna, had earlier recommended a financial sector appellate tribunal for all the regulators including the RBI.
In almost all these orders, the RBI said the action was taken against the bank for ‘non-compliance with certain provisions of directions issued by the RBI’.
The orders are released on its website in two to three paragraphs with minimum details giving hardly any clue to investors and bank customers about the violations.
Compared to this, the penalty orders passed by the two other regulators – the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDAI) – for any non-compliance are more elaborate with details about the violation and the modus operandi.
Narmada waters creating ripples in arid kutch despite hiccups (Page no. 3)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The nearly 150 families in Mod Kuba, a remote village on the edge of Arabian Sea in Kutch district, prefer to retire early on most days, which usually begin at dawn for them.
But July 7 this year was no ordinary day for the residents of Mod Kuba, which marks the tail-end of the 357-km-long Kutch Branch Canal (KBC) of the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) on the Narmada river, which has been among the centrepieces of the BJP’s campaign narrative in poll-bound Gujarat.
Shimmering under a half moon, as water started flowing through the Narmada canal around midnight, the villagers rejoiced, breaking into loud cheers and setting off firecrackers.
“We wanted to celebrate the moment we waited for months and years,” says 68-year-old Kiritbhai Bhanushali, who places his support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi above his loyalty for the BJP since its Jan Sangh days.
But their joy was short-lived, with a section of the canal near the village developing a breach within 24 hours. “In July, water was released as part of a test to assess the structural safety of the canal, which got delayed due to land acquisition issues. Later, the breaches were identified and repaired,” says a top official of the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd (SSNNL).
On August 28, PM Modi officially inaugurated the KBC, which is a branch of the Narmada Main Canal (NMC), which originates at Kevadia. However, the water supply has once again come to a halt in the canal due to another “breach”, say villagers.
“There was an accident in which a few youths drowned in the canal recently, forcing us to stop flow of water. Also, the Rabi sowing season has just started. Water will be released in phases based on assessment of aggregate demand from a number of areas at a time,” says the SSNNL official.
Express Network
Govt unveils framework to curb fake reviews on e-commerce sites (Page no. 4)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Union government Monday unveiled a framework of standards to curb fake reviews on e-commerce websites. The framework, ‘Indian Standard (IS) 19000:2022’, has been prepared by the Bureau of Indian Standards and will come into effect from November 25.
Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh said the standards will apply to every online platform which publishes consumer reviews.
“IS 19000:2022 is the standard that the BIS [Bureau of Indian Standards] has formulated for us, in consultation with us and the industry. Public consultations have taken place.
Now, this is ready to be launched. While we unveil the main provisions of this standard today, this will be published on Friday… On 25th [November] this will be in place,” Singh said, addressing a press conference.
Singh said: “ Reviews play a critical role in shopping in e-commerce. They are more important in three sectors — tour and travel; restaurant and eateries; and consumer durables.”
“We were getting complaints that these reviews are becoming menace… Not only for us but all over the world, countries are struggling with how to handle the fake reviews… All the countries where e-commerce is getting more and more privileged and popular, so they are all struggling with this.
Some are making rules; some are making legal provisions. But I think we are the first country… which is making a standard and we will take the standards rule,” Singh said.
Editorial Page
Too little too late (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The 27th Conference of Parties (COP-27) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change concluded on Sunday, November 20, after the inevitable extension beyond the scheduled closure. The outcome was underwhelming.
The UN Secretary-General had declared at the start of the conference, “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator.” Post the climate summit, we are still hurtling towards the abyss even if the foot is marginally off the accelerator.
There has been celebration over the agreement, in principle, to set up a fund for compensating vulnerable countries, which have suffered irreversible damage from climate change.
This has been a longstanding demand, particularly of vulnerable African and small island developing states. But the funding source and scale of this financial facility and its operating procedures have been left to a transitional committee which will present its report at COP-28 next year.
Having been through such tortuous negotiations in the past, I see the focus on the loss and damage issue as a clever ploy by developed countries to use up all the oxygen at the summit and deflect attention from the really critical issues, including the repeated failure of the developed countries to own up to their historical responsibility for climate change, their refusal to make deep cuts in their own emissions and deliver on commitments for providing adequate finance and technology to enable developing countries to undertake climate action. On this score, the can has been rolled further down the road.
The Sharm El-Sheikh Implementation Plan is an advance over Glasgow in its more categoric commitment to pursue “efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees centigrade.”
It acknowledges that such a goal will require “rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions”. Drawing from the latest 6th Assessment Report of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it even quantifies the scale of reduction required by 2030 over the 2019 level- 43 per cent.
Ideas Page
New frontiers in space (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
The launch of the Vikram S rocket last week has been rightly hailed as an important milestone in India’s outer space journey. It is the first privately built Indian rocket to make it to space, and is a result of a major push by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to open up the Indian space programme for greater participation by Indian start-ups.
While the “Prarambh” mission of Vikram is a good beginning, India has much distance to travel before it catches up with the rest of the world in private sector participation in space programmes.
The country’s private sector has the talent and experience to shorten that distance if Delhi creates the enabling policy environment.
When space emerged as an important endeavour in the second half of the 20th century, governments were in the lead. The cost, complexity and research-intensity of the space effort meant the space programmes everywhere became a government monopoly.
But in the 21st century, the role of the private sector has dramatically expanded. Satellites were once owned only by governments but today private companies lead the satellite business.
Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite system is now a major player with more than 2,300 satellites in low earth orbit — they deliver a variety of space services including useful military information to the armed forces of Ukraine in their fight against Russian forces.
Amazon’s Project Kuiper plans to launch more than 3,000 satellites in the coming years to offer a range of services, including broadband internet. This will involve making at least three satellites a day.
Airtel in India is a partner in the OneWeb corporation that offers connectivity through its system of nearly 500 satellites.
The business of launch vehicles — the most demanding of space activities — remained a state monopoly until recently. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has broken through that launch monopoly and Amazon’s Blue Origin rocket will soon be in the market too.
Explained
Development of Great Nicobar: strategic imperative and ecological concerns (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Infrastructure)
Last month, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change gave environmental clearance for the ambitious Rs 72,000 crore development project on the strategically important Great Nicobar Island. The project is to be implemented in three phases over the next 30 years.
A “greenfield city” has been proposed, including an International Container Transhipment Terminal (ICTT), a greenfield international airport, a power plant, and a township for the personnel who will implement the project.
The proposed port will allow Great Nicobar to participate in the regional and global maritime economy by becoming a major player in cargo transshipment.
The port will be controlled by the Indian Navy, while the airport will have dual military-civilian functions and will cater to tourism as well. Roads, public transport, water supply and waste management facilities, and several hotels have been planned to cater to tourists.
A total 166.1 sq km along the southeastern and southern coasts of the island have been identified for project along a coastal strip of width between 2 km and 4 km. Some 130 sq km of forests have been sanctioned for diversion, and 9.64 lakh trees are likely to be felled.
Development activities are proposed to commence in the current financial year, and the port is expected to be commissioned by 2027–28. More than 1 lakh new direct jobs and 1.5 lakh indirect jobs are likely to be created on the island over the period of development.
Great Nicobar, the southernmost of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, has an area of 910 sq km. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are a cluster of about 836 islands in the eastern Bay of Bengal, the two groups of which are separated by the 150-km wide Ten Degree Channel. The Andaman Islands lie to the north of the channel, and the Nicobar Islands to the south.
Indira Point on the southern tip of Great Nicobar Island is India’s southernmost point, less than 150 km from the northernmost island of the Indonesian archipelago.
Great Nicobar is home to two national parks, a biosphere reserve, and the Shompen and Nicobarese tribal peoples, along with ex-servicemen from Punjab, Maharashtra, and Andhra Pradesh who were settled on the island in the 1970s.
Slowing dragon, racing elephant (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 1, Social Issues)
This year and the next will see two landmark demographic events. In 2022, China will for the first time register an absolute decline in its population. And in 2023, India’s population, projected by the United Nations to reach 1,428.63 million, will surpass China’s 1,425.67 million.
The potential economic implications are huge. But the first question to ask is: What has been behind these shifts? There are two primary drivers of population change.
Mortality falls with increased education levels, public health and vaccination programmes, access to food and medical care, and provision of safe drinking water and sanitation facilities.
The crude death rate (CDR) — the number of persons dying per year per 1,000 population — was 23.2 for China and 22.2 for India in 1950.
It fell to single digits for China first in 1974 (to 9.5) and for India in 1994 (9.8), and further to 7.3-7.4 for both in 2020.
Another mortality indicator is life expectancy at birth. Between 1950 and 2020, it went up from 43.7 to 78.1 years for China and from 41.7 to 70.1 years for India.
Reduction in mortality normally leads to a rising population. A drop in fertility, on the other hand, slows down population growth, ultimately resulting in absolute declines.
The total fertility rate (TFR) — the number of babies an average woman bears over her lifetime — was as high as 5.8 for China and 5.7 for India in 1950.
Chart 1 shows how sharply the TFR has fallen for India in the last three decades. Between 1992-93 and 2019-21, it came down from 3.4 to 2; the fall was especially significant in the rural areas.
In 1992-93, the average rural Indian woman produced one extra child compared to her urban counterpart (3.7 versus 2.7). By 2019-21, that gap had halved (2.1 versus 1.6).
A TFR of 2.1 is considered as “replacement-level fertility”. Simply understood, a woman having two children basically replaces herself and her partner with two new lives.
Since all infants may not survive to realise their reproductive potential, the replacement TFR is taken at slightly above two. It ensures that each generation replaces itself.
Jewel theft that derailed Saudi-Thai ties 30 years ago (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met Thailand’s prime minister last week in Bangkok and signed agreements to expand diplomatic relations between the two countries.
The relations were restored only earlier this year, three decades after a high-profile jewellery theft, also known as the Blue Diamond Affair, snapped ties between the two nations.
In January this year, Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha’s landmark visit to Saudi Arabia marked the highest level of contact between the two countries after the $20-million heist controversy, resuming full diplomatic ties.
Now, Salman’s visit to Thailand came on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. The crown prince said restoration of ties has benefits for both countries, as the two leaders inked agreements pledging to increase trade and investment.
It all started with the theft of jewelry and other valuable gems from the palace of Prince Faisal bin Fahd, the eldest son of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, in 1989.
Kriangkrai Techamong, a Thai worker employed as a servant at the palace, stole precious gems worth $20 million from Prince Faisal’s home, which also included a rare 50-carat blue diamond, which is still missing.
According to reports, Kriangkrai, who had access to the royal bedroom, one evening sneaked into Prince Faisal’s chamber after he learned of safes that were kept unlocked.
He stole valuables worth about $20 million, hiding some in vacuum cleaner bags while some jewels were stuck to his own body using duct tape, a BBC report said.
He hid the loot in a large cargo delivery he was sending home to Thailand, and left the country by the time the theft was discovered.