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Economics of Solid Waste in IndiaThis article provides an overview of the economics of solid waste, and related issues. Public attention tosolid waste and recycling has increased in India.

For many years, economists engaged in research studies related to municipal solid waste (MSW) werehampered by the general lack of data. Very few municipal governments bothered to keep accurate dataon the quantity of waste generated, its composition, information about landfills

Rapid urbanisation and population growth increased solid waste generation in the past decade.Inadequate solid waste management policy and the absence of appropriate guidelines led to serioushealth and environmental problems all over India. The Municipal Solid Waste Management HandlingRules, 2000 indicated that all the municipal authorities should take the responsibility of waste collection,transportation, disposal, and segregation of solid waste.

In India, municipal agencies spend about 5%25% of their budgets on solid waste management.Although, most local governments manage MSW collection and disposal in many parts of Indian states,many states had inefficient construction and operation of MSW landfills and incinerators.

Landfills become increasingly expensive because of rising costs of construction and operations. Yet, theavailable space for landfills decreased and land prices rose, while the environment had either no priceor had non-optimal prices assigned to it, which in turn had led to overuse or over-exploitation of thesefunctions and resulted in misallocation of resource. Therefore, environmental problems such as solidwaste management are problems of non-optimal pricing and misallocation, which means overuse ofresources, and unforeseen externalities.

In India, urban local bodies spend around Rs 500 to Rs 1,500 per metric tonne of solid waste, out ofwhich 60% to 70% is usually spent on collection alone, and 20% to 30% is on transportation. Animproper solid waste management approach resulted in all types of pollution air, solid and water and as much as 95% was discarded as MSW.

environment urban waste EPW CurrentAffairs solid waste

Sat, Jun 20, 2015

Solid waste management had traditionally been addressed with command and control (CAC)regulations, which regulated behaviour directly by prescribing specific legislations and standards whichshould be achieved and by enforcing their compliance through the levy of penalties. EconomicInstruments (EIs), such as environmental taxes and subsidies sought to change the behaviour ofpersons indirectly by changing relative prices (and hence incentives) that individuals and businesseshad to bear.

The use of EIs increased in developed countries and they could be effective in reducing wastegeneration, diverting waste from disposal to recycling, and by converting waste to energy.

In addition, the polluter pays principle (PPP) could also be invoked. In the context of solid wastemanagement, PPP implied that all waste generators, including households and companies wereresponsible for bearing costs associated with wastes they had generated. The PPP means that bothproducers and consumers should pay in India. The large negative benefit was due to the fact that theland costs were estimated to be about Rs 25 crore. Both biomethanation and sanitary landfill systemsemit greenhouse gases, the main difference being that sanitary landfills emit some methane (even afterthe provision for gas collection), which is much more detrimental to the environment than carbondioxide.

The inefficient mechanism of waste collection and recycling by municipalities has led to a growinginformal economy, based on the collection of reusable wastes by ragpickers, which amounts to morethan $280 million annually in economic value (Kapur 2011). With slow, scattered, and inefficientgovernment initiatives to solve Indias solid waste problems, the country might find a solution, or a partof the solution, in the informal networks that currently exist in the country.

India generates more than 100 million tonnes of municipal waste every year. On a per capita basis, thiswas far lower than most developed countries, but the amount of garbage generated has been growingfast.

Many thousands of people in developing cities depended on the recycling of materials collected fromwaste for their livelihood. With the focus of the Millennium Development Goals on poverty reductionand of waste management strategies for improving recycling rates, one of the major challenges indeveloping countries is about how best to work in this informal sector to improve livelihoods, workingconditions, and efficiency of recycling (Wilson, Velis and Cheeseman 2006).

Worldwide, more than 15 million people make a living in the informal collection, recycling, and handlingof solid waste. Informal refuse collection could be a profitable activity.

In Mumbai, more than 30,000 waste pickers had recovered reusable items that could be recycled fromthe stream of waste. Waste pickers had created more than 400 micro enterprises that processed wastematerials and made consumer products out of them. The economic impact of these activities had beenestimated at $600 million to 1 billion a year

Making a Show: The Black Money Bill

Black Money Bill EPW polity CurrentAffairs

Sat, Jun 6, 2015

During the Budget Session, Parliament passed the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income andAssets) and Imposition of Tax Bill, 2015, paving the way for imposition of tough penalties and jail termson Indian residents unaccounted incomes and wealth holding in foreign locations that have avoidedthe taxmans scrutiny. The bill, it must be noted, is limited in scope, since it applies only to illegal moneyheld or earned abroad, though there is the promise of a separate bill for unaccounted/unreportedincomes held in different forms within the country.

The 2015 bill legalises the right of the government to impose a 30% tax on undisclosed income or thevalue of an undisclosed asset held abroad by a resident assessee, starting from assessment year 201617 (tax year 201516). If the sum involved has been earned or invested in a year prior to the yearimmediately preceding the assessment year, it would be subject to penalties of up to 90% and a jailterm that can go up to 10 years. In sum, as and when undisclosed income from a source is discovered,it would come under the purview of the law irrespective of when in the past that income had beenearned and remained undisclosed in a return. Since only a small fraction of the taxable but unreportedincome or the assets acquired with it would have been earned or acquired in 201516, almost all suchundisclosed income would be subject to the maximum penalty and its holders subject to criminalprosecution.

Implementing the law, of course, requires identifying undisclosed income stashed or invested in aforeign location. That, as past experience reveals, is neither easy nor rigorously pursued. In an effort toshow that the government is bringing back black money held abroad, the new law has an amnestyclause. It provides for a short compliance window during which those holding such unreportedincomes or assets abroad can declare them and pay the 30% tax and an additional 30% penalty. Since a120% tax-cum-penalty that would operate once the window is closed is equivalent to confiscation andthe imposition of a fine, besides imprisonment, the thrust here is to get holders of black money abroadto exploit the amnesty window. The benefit being offered to them is that they would lose only 60% ofthis wealth in return for exemption from confiscation, an implicit 20% penalty and the ignominy andhardship of jail, if discovered.

It must be noted that even as of now the taxation laws and those relating to the management of foreignexchange allow for the prosecution of those residents holding undisclosed incomes and assets abroad,and the imposition of taxes and penalties on those monies. despite the law, the process of transferringunreported incomes (often illegally acquired and therefore unreportable) abroad through illegalchannels has continued.

It is not clear whether the Special Investigation Team to hunt down black money and its sources, set upin compliance with a Supreme Court order, has thus far obtained more information than thegovernment already has.

it is not the weakness of the law that results in the accumulation of the black money, but the failure ofthe monitoring and prosecuting mechanism to prevent the generation of illegal incomes and identifytax evasion even on legally earned incomes. In fact, the way the tax laws and the system are structured,merely unearthing what is black and making it white would not, in itself, make much difference to thenature and the outcome of Indias development trajectory.

India's Killer Heat Waves

environment EPW CurrentAffairs heat waves

Sat, May 30, 2015

India's Killer Heat WavesThe heat waves in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Odisha, Telangana and other states have killed over 1,200people so far. the disaster management authorities have admitted it is the poor, the ill and the oldthemost vulnerablewho are the worst affected. Instead of bland and useless instructions, what is neededare well-coordinated measures that range from the preventive to the curative.

almost every year the heat waves kill people all over the country, even if in smaller numbers.

What is notable about this phenomenon is that in developing countries its impact tends to be muchmore severe due to a range of contributory factors like poverty, inequality, lack of public infrastructureand an inability of public bodies to address the symptoms. Added to this there are issues of poorsanitation and a larger disease load for the majority of the population. For people who are unable to getenough nutrition, cannot access medicines and doctors, are without shelter and are unaware ofgovernment schemes, the heat spikes lead to spikes in morbidity and mortality.

Perhaps the first step must be the recognition of heat waves as a disaster that affects public health. In2013, the National Disaster Management Authority had written to the Prime Minister of the need toinclude heat waves in the list of natural disasters. However, the group of ministers entrusted with thetask of taking a decision on the matter did not reach any conclusion

We are living in the times of climate change. Some of these intense heat waves are expected to increasein their intensity and spread. We need adaptation measures which address not only the long-termpattern of intense summer heat, which has been a traditional killer of the poor and destitute, but alsokeep in mind the unexpected manner in which these heat waves will come and go. It is a tall task andone which seems herculean for our callous and inept governments.

Implications for Local GovernmentsThe subject of local governments has not been comprehensively treated by the Fourteenth FinanceCommission. The implications of the new inter se distribution formula of the commission's award forlocal governments have not been thought through and important conditionalities have been changedor watered down.

The Fourteenth Finance Commission (FFC) has attracted considerable attention for increasing thestates share of the divisible pool to 42% and for further expanding the fiscal space to sub-nationalgovernments. Avowedly taking a comprehensive view 1 of intergovernmental fiscal relations, publicfinance, plan/non-plan distinction and so on while working towards cooperative federalism, the FFCoutlines the arguments for reforming the existing system of fiscal transfers.

Equity is and should be the overarching concern of any federal polity worth the name. It is theunderlying rationale for federalism. The criteria chosen for inter se distribution of transfers aretherefore very important in determining the share of each state. Generally they are governed by the

Finance Commission local government EPW polity

Fourteenth Finance Commission CurrentAffairs

Sat, May 23, 2015

objectives to be served by the transfers. For inter se distribution of local government grants to thestates, the FFC uses the 2011 population with weight of 90% and area 10%.

The decision to use 1971 population followed from the days of the Seventh Finance Commission wastaken to avoid possible bias or disadvantage to any state that might choose to pursue family planningto contain population, a policy initiated and vigorously incentivised by the central government.Demographic changes obviously involves changes in fertility rate, ageing, migration (this is taken intoaccount in tax devolution) and so on. That the choice of 2011 population has adversely affected stateslike Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh is abundantly clear from the fact that thepopulation share of Kerala in 1971 was 3.93%, Tamil Nadu 7.59%, West Bengal 8.16% and AndhraPradesh 5.10% while the corresponding share in 2011, is 2.76% for Kerala, 5.96% for Tamil Nadu and7.55% for West Bengal. The 90% weightage to population is unprecedented and certainly a quantumjump compared to the 50% followed by the Thirteenth Finance Commission and 40% by the Twelfth andEleventh Finance Commissions.

Constitutional Responsibilities

A finance commission constituted after the historic 73rd/74th constitutional amendments has a moral ifnot mandatory responsibility to respect the letter and spirit of Part IX and Part IXA of the Constitutionwhich demand a vibrant and viable local democracy for the country. In fact, all the previouscommissions used criteria relating to devolution and decentralisation for inter se distribution. Here it isinstructive to listen to FFC which says:

Indeed, there was no need to promote a particular model of decentralization. However, theConstitution mandates the creation of gram sabhas, peoples participation, five yearly elections,reservation of seats for women and backward communities, creation of institutions of self-government 3 at the level of panchayats and municipalities, tasked to prepare plans for economicdevelopment and social justice (Article 243G and 243W) establishment of the District PlanningCommittee to consolidate the plans at the local levels and prepare a draft development plan for thedistrict as a whole (Article 243ZD) and the like which proclaim a sui generis model of democraticdecentralisation.

Again, no union finance commission can ignore the state finance commission (Articles 243I and 243Y),because Article 280(3) establishing the union finance commission was amended as part of the73rd/74th constitutional amendments, adding sub-clauses (bb) and (c) to 280(3) requiring tosupplement the consolidated fund of a state through appropriate measures on the basis of therecommendations of the state finance commission.

Also the language of the provisions establishing the union and state finance commissions withreference to their tasks does not differ substantially except that the former was designed to rectify thefiscal imbalances at the centrestate level and the latter at the state sub-state level.

Some Hits and Misses

Finance Commission EPW polity Fourteenth Finance Commission

CurrentAffairs Chaturvedi committee

Sat, May 23, 2015

The Fourteenth Finance Commission has come up with some bold and game-changingrecommendations such as an increase in the tax share going to states from 32% to 42%, setting up ofthe Fiscal Council to make the centre accountable, and doing away with direct transfers to states undercentrally-sponsored schemes. But unlike the Thirteenth Finance Commission the FFC has not botheredto estimate the impact of the Goods and Services Tax and disinvestment proceeds on gross domesticproduct as well as fiscal space.

1 Positive Recommendations

The Fourteenth Finance Commission (FFC) has for the first time in the history of finance commissions ofIndia shown the guts to recommend a very large increase in the share of taxes going to the states. Thisincrease in the share from 32% to 42% of tax devolvement has largely resulted from a change in themagnitude and composition of some specific purpose grants, on the one hand, and the clubbing up ofthe component of direct transfers to the total resource pool, on the other. As is known, until 201415,when finally the report of the Chaturvedi Committee (2011) was implemented by the centre, theamount of such direct transfers was being passed on to the independent agencies in different states,through centrally-sponsored schemes (CSS) without being routed through the states exchequer.

The FFC also explicitly notes that the fiscal space of the central government is not going to be reduceddue to the increased share of tax proceeds and that the changes are more in the form of compositionand character of the transfers (FFC 2015). However there is a little confusion here because the note ofdissent by one of the members of the FFC clearly mentions that the net tax resources of the centrewould shrink by about 1 percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) as a result of higher devolution.

Since the terms of reference (TOR) did not bind the FFC to look only at the items of non-plan allocations,it could take a comprehensive view on all transfers, including both plan and non-plan. Variouscommittees and commissions in the past had also advocated removing the artificial distinction betweenplan and non-plan funds for various reasons, implying that this change was long overdue.

A clear and loud message was also given in the report of the FFC that there has to be a symmetrybetween the union and the states in regard to fiscal discipline. If the states are made answerable, theunion government has also to be answerable about its fiscal (mis)management. For this purpose theFFC recommended the setting up of the institutional mechanism of the Fiscal Council.

Incidentally, the FFC did not accept the concept of the effective revenue deficit introduced in 2012through revision of the FRBM Act by the earlier government. Instead, it advocated the use of thetraditional concept of the revenue deficit, namely, the gap between all revenue receipts and revenueexpenditure, for setting the fiscal targets. Thus, it reintroduced the traditional concept in the revisedFRBM Act by making appropriate amendments to replace the effective revenue deficit. Putting its footdown in this matter was important to avoid manipulation of figures resulting from a change in thedefinition that was made in 2012.

Net Neutrality Is Basically InternetEgalitarianism

EPW net neutrality science & tech CurrentAffairs

Sat, May 9, 2015

Net neutrality is neither a technical principle nor something necessary to uphold free markets. It is anegalitarian principle as applied to a key building block of the new social system of the internet. But it isequally important to check the concurrent tendencies of rapid centralisation of power in so many areasthat the networked social logic has caused.

Developing countries, including their otherwise politically conscious and active groups, have to datemostly engaged with issues of basic access to the internet, and the quality or bandwidth of connectivity.It is often considered premature to talk about internet-related architectural and governance issueswhen people do not have basic access. Taking advantage of such apathy, telcos and big internetcompanies (those providing content and applications) have chosen developing countries to beginfiddling with the basic egalitarian design of the internet. The purpose is to set up permanent rent-seeking positions over this most important techno-social infrastructure of the current times.

Facebook and Google have got into agreements with internet service providers (ISPs) to make availabletheir services free of data charges. This tilts the playing field against competing services, including thoseprovided by start-ups or by non-profit organisations who cannot afford to pay the ISPs to make theirservices similarly available with no data charges. Facebook has gone a step forward and pulled togethera bouquet of different kinds of services called the Internet.org which is being provided free of datacharges.

If this rot is not checked, the basic egalitarian model of the internet that ensures equal status for allcontent and applications prided through it will be deformed forever. such fundamental distortions inthe architecture of the internet have society-wide implications in terms of how egalitarian or otherwiseour emerging social systems would be.

Net neutrality is a principle that the ISPs will treat all content, applications and services equally, and notprioritise or degrade any in relation to others. Telcos have the obvious incentive to build prioritychannels and charge more for them. Dominant internet companies have the incentive to rent suchpriority channels, thus employing their financial muscle to suppress competition which often comesfrom poorly-resourced start-ups. Such kinds of commercial deals, though prima facie unfair, arecommon in most economic areas. It is important then to understand why regulatory interventions areneeded to ensure that no discrimination on commercial grounds takes place in relation to the internet.

It is therefore important to seek clarity about what net neutrality really is, and what is the basis of sucha regulatory principle. One can start by pointing to what net neutrality is not. It is true that the internetsinitial architecture was built on the principle that the carrier pipe will be completely dumb, with nocapacity to discriminate among the bytes passing over it. All intelligence was at the peripheryin theend devices which collated the bytes into intelligible patterns. For a long time now, however,considerable intelligence has been built into the network, which is able to discriminate between bytesfor many purposes, especially for traffic management, to ensure good internet experience for all users.As long as such discrimination is not done for commercial considerations, whether to favour an ISPsown offerings, or that of their commercial partners, it is not considered a violation of net neutrality. Netneutrality as any kind of technical principle is therefore long dead. The term is today used primarily inthe meaning of a regulatory intervention.

A lot of people like to present net neutrality as upholding the free market. Net neutrality also getsdefined as the right of a user (or consumer) to access and use any content, application or service of herchoice. But the question arises: does invoking the states regulatory authority to disallow many possible

business models to the telcos not amount to an interference with the free market and free choice?

Much more than free choice, net neutrality is about equal opportunity. Just as the common schoolsystem is a way to ensure a certain equality of opportunity for all children, net neutrality can beunderstood basically as an attempt to provide equal opportunity to various social actors and activitiesthat employ the internet for many different purposes. This certainly includes start-up internetcompanies, and since they certainly are not among the most oppressed classes of people, their case forequal opportunity is promoted in the name of ensuring innovation. Unfortunately, it is the language ofthe market that is somewhat exclusively employed in net neutrality discussions. In order to get to thereal significance of the net neutrality principle, the internet must be claimed for its larger socialmoorings. The internet can be seen as providing a general playing field for shaping and supporting avery broad range of social activities and institutions, the market being just one of them. Maintaining anevenness or neutrality of this playing fieldmeaning the internetis important for the consumers,producers and innovatorsthe market actors. But before that, it is important to us in terms of ouridentity as social beings and citizens. It is becoming a key infrastructure for our social relationships,practising culture, and vitalising democracy.

A much better basis for net neutrality than free market ideals is the common carriage principle whichcomes from the telecom regulation. It has precedence in many areas of transport, roads and bridges,and postal services. As per this principle, a carrier service represents a public utility, and has to beequally available to all possible traffic over it, in a non-discriminatory manner. Recently, the USregulator had to reclassify the internet as a telecommunication service from its earlier status of aninformation service, to be able to apply the common carriage principle to it. This provided the basis fornet neutrality regulation.

Indeed, the internet today is quite more than just a channel of communication. To start with, it isuniversally recognised as a new form of media. Apart from the common carriage principle, applicationof some media regulatory principles to this new media of the internet can provide a good basis forprotecting and promoting its non-discriminatory, public nature. The media is recognised as a sector ofsuch exceptional social importance that it is customary not only to prohibit various kinds ofdiscriminations, which may be commonplace in regular commercial services, but also to ensure thingslike checks on vertical integration (for instance, between carrier and content layers), limits on cross-media or cross-platform ownership, clear separation between editorial and commercial content,positive discrimination to protect diversities of various kinds, and so on

It is important to keep the internet neutral, as it becomes not just the infrastructure but the matrix of somuch social activity, and of societys organisations and institutions. It would not be hyperbolic to saythat we are moving towards an internet-mediated society. It is a societys political decision what it treatsas the playing field issues, sectors or conditions, whereby a certain degree of equity is enforced insuch areas through policy or regulation. And, what are considered as the play areas in which regardpeople can compete and accordingly win (or lose) access to resources. Traditionally, governance,justice and basic security are considered such playing field areas, as also basic education, health, and anincreasing number of what are understood as peoples rights. Whether or not some basic internetservices are to be provided equitably to allnot only as consumers of services, but also as producers,sharers, innovators, citizens, and so onis therefore a sociopolitical decision depending on what kindof society we want. It is on such larger sociopolitical considerations that the regulatory principle of net

neutrality is premised. In fact, it will be appropriate to locate the internet in a rights-based framework,not only of negative rights like freedom of expression and privacy, but also positive rights like universalaccess and a certain degree of basic neutrality and egalitarianism of the internet.

As all major social systemsfrom media, business, politics and governance to education, health,agriculture and transporttransform via their digitalisation, datafication and networking, there arestrong tendencies for centralised controls and dominations being built into them. Numerous instancesof such a process exist, and it will be useful to extrapolate current early developments into likely futuremature scenarios to understand the required role of policy and regulation in the respective sectors. Thepublic internet is the all-important connector of all these systems to people. If net neutrality is enforced,the public internet at least remains a layer that can protect a basic level of openness in the digitally-mediated world and keep available avenues for possible structural reforms if the new systems are seengoing too askew on the equity front. However, if this open and public layer too is deprived of itsegalitarian qualities and dominant players are able to rent exclusive favoured channels to people, theend-to-end, tightly-controlled systems that will get developed are likely to be extremely unfair andexploitative.

Global Banking in Retreat?Two broad trends are becoming visible in global banking. One, the form of international banking ischanging: cross-border flows are being replaced by a focus on lending through local affiliates. Two, thebig international banks that are withdrawing are being replaced by others, including those with a moreregional focus.

Since 2008, cross-border claims of banks have declined sharply (as a proportion of recipient countriestotal banking assets) while those of local loans extended by affiliates of foreign banks have increased.As a result, the share of the latter in total claims (cross-border loans plus local lending) has grown fromless than 43% to 49%. We are seeing a shift from cross-border lending to local lending.

Moreover, the retreat of global banks is felt in emerging and developing Europe where outstandingforeign claims are below their pre-crisis levels. It is not true of Asia and the Pacific region, where foreignclaims are nearly double their 2008 trough. Nor is it true of Latin America and the Caribbean whereforeign claims exceed their pre-crisis peak.

Banks from the non-Euro areas have offset only in part the reduction on account of Euro-area banks. Asa result, in the aggregate, total claims of international banks have declined. However, we cannotgeneralise from the actions of some high-profile European banks and say that global banking is inretreat or that the retreat applies to all parts of the globe.

In some regions, there is evidence that the withdrawal of Euro-area banks has been made up for byregional banks.

Even as Euro-area banks are retrenching, Japanese and Chinese banks are spreading their reach,though mainly in Asia. A similar trend towards regionalisation is evident in Africa but not in LatinAmerica.

EPW economics CurrentAffairs global banking banking sector

Sat, May 9, 2015

What explains these trends in global banking? The key factor clearly is changes in bank regulationfollowing the crisis of 2007. The GFSR cites an econometric analysis carried out for the report. Theanalysis showed that half the reduction in cross-border claims as a percentage of the gross domesticproduct since the period 200507 can be attributed to regulatory changes.

We should not be surprised. Regulation is affecting cross-border lending of international banks in manyways. The most obvious way is the higher capital requirements imposed under Basel 3 rules. Wherebanks have difficulty in raising more capital, they resort to deleveraging, that is, reduction in the sizeof their balance sheets. Assets in distant markets, where the banks do not have a clear competitiveadvantage, are prime candidates for banks seeking to reduce their balance sheets. Deleveraging alsobecomes necessary where expansion in foreign markets has been heavily dependent on borrowingfrom wholesale markets in the developed world.

A second way in which regulation affects international banking, as the Economist (2015) points out, isthat regulators tend to treat foreign exposures more harshly in stress tests, that is, to assume thatforeign assets will not be as easily available for meeting liabilities as domestic assets.

Third, regulators assume that more foreign exposures mean a higher bill for domestic taxpayers; theywould, accordingly, require more capital to be held by banks with such exposures.

Bringing Women on BoardCoaxed and prodded by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), listed companies in Indiabegan appointing a woman member on their board of directors since the beginning of 2015. SEBI hadset 1 April as the deadline for compliance since the earlier one of 1 October 2014 failed to get muchresponse. The mandatory clause in the Companies Act, 2013 (along with the threat of a hefty gradedpenalty for breach of the rule) and the fact that it evokes the highly controversial aura of reservationhave led to a great deal of angst about ramming gender equality down corporate throats.

Whether it is about employing qualified persons from among the disabled, giving equal employmentopportunities to people from marginalised castes and communities or any other socially orenvironmentally responsible act, it has almost always been found wanting. Indias corporates havejealously guarded their right as the private sector to appoint on the basis of merit. The little thatIndia Inc has done for equal opportunities, representation and social responsibility has been, with rareexceptions, only to gain publicity through philanthropy. The same law also makes corporate socialresponsibility (CSR) mandatory.

The widespread patriarchal prejudice, much deeper perhaps in Indias caste networked businesscommunities than in other urban professions, that few women understand finance and business seemsto have been the main reason for the reluctance to appoint women directors. Most Indian companiesare family- dominated and the men have traditionally controlled business with no role for women.

social EPW gender gender inequality CurrentAffairs

women

Sat, May 9, 2015

According to an industry estimate, before SEBIs directive only 6% of directors of the 1,463 companieslisted on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) were women. As of April this year, the financial mediareported that 88% or 1,456 of the total companies listed on the NSE have appointed a woman director.There are a total of 8,000 listed companies in the country according to SEBI. Norway was the first toreserve a quota for women on corporate boards followed by Italy and France; it is now the norm inmany market-friendly countries. Not surprisingly, these countries have the highest percentage ofwomen in top corporate leadership positions now, with Norway leading with 33%.

Notwithstanding the allegations of proxy and backseat driving by husbands and other male relatives,often hurled at female panchayat and local governing body members elected under womensreservations, there is much to commend this 33% quota. It has made women visible in places that theydid not dare to be seen in, and it has acquainted them with rules, procedures and protocols that werehitherto closed off to them; the more spirited among them have become assertive about their rightsand in many cases forced issues of community interests to be given top priority. Most importantly,these have awakened aspirations in younger women to aim for these positions. In the case of corporateIndia too the focus should no longer be confined to the mere token of a one-woman member. It mustlearn to appreciate the different and valuable perspectives and talent that women bring to the table (orthe board in this case).

A Border SettledAs is well known by now, the LBA was worked out between India and Bangladesh by Indira Gandhi andSheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1974. The assassination of Mujibur Rahman in 1975 and the coming topower of the Janata Party government in India in 1977, with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh members asministers, derailed this agreement. Since then, it has often been revived but was unable to overcomethe legislative hurdle as Hindutva parties and groups, as well as other chauvinist parties and forces likethe Asom Gana Parishad ratcheted up a shrill campaign against it every time the issue was raised. Itgoes to the credit of the previous United Progressive Alliance government that it finally concluded theagreement in 2011 with the Bangladesh government on the details of the transfer of territories andenclaves as well as the status of the people living in them. This agreement was, unfortunately, againdelayed due to the strident opposition of the BJP as well as the opportunistic position of the newly-elected government of Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal.

There are a total of 111 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh and 51 Bangladeshi enclaves in India. Someenclaves of one country are contained inside the others enclaves, called second order enclaves. Thereis also a 1.7 acre jute field belonging to India within a Bangladeshi enclave situated within India, whichitself is an enclave within Bangladesh! Tens of thousands of people live in such enclaves and suffer dailyharassment from border guards of both countries and are unable to access any of the rights andbenefits of citizenship. The agreement simplifies the territorial divisionitself a tragic legacy ofpartition. It also gives the people living in these enclaves the right to chose whether they would like tocontinue living where they are and take on the citizenship of the country where the territory now falls,or to migrate to the country whose citizens they presently are.

bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement EPW international

China India border LBA CurrentAffairs

Sat, May 9, 2015

In the seven decades since independence, India has not managed to repair the mess that it wasbequeathed in the form of contentious borders; where there has been some progress, there has alsobeen many additions to the problems of settling borders. With Pakistan and China, it could well beargued that Indias failings were matched by their own acts of omission and commission. However,there was little other than political incompetence and national chauvinism holding back a borderagreement with Bangladesh. One could be pessimistic and say that if an agreement with a friendlyneighbour could take so long to fructify, what hope is there that the far more intractable borderdisagreements with China and Pakistan will be settled. However, the very fact that the borderagreement with Bangladesh has been settled shows a path to the settlement of similar problems withChina, if not with Pakistan.

Reflections on Indian Political Economythe difficulty of organising collective action towards long-term public investment in infrastructure, a keyingredient of economic growth, in a country where even the elite is fragmented and finds it difficult toget its act together in doing something that would have benefited most of its members. With this failureof collective action, the public surplus is often frittered away in short-term subsidies and handouts.

the same elite fragmentation that acts as a constraint on economic growth can work as a safeguard forthe resilience of democracy in India, where the divided groups may agree on the procedures ofdemocracy as a means of keeping one another within some bounds of moderation in theirtransactional negotiations. 1

Collective Action Issue

The economic growth fundamentals for India are now potentially quite strong (stronger than it seemedin 1984):

Domestic saving and investment rates are relatively high for a poor country.

After the opening of the Indian economy the alacrity with which a part of the hitherto protectedIndian business adapted to the demands of global competition and thrived suggests a remarkableadaptability.

Vigorous entrepreneurial spirit in all corners of the economy, rejuvenated by the infusion of businessentries from hitherto subordinate castes and regional capitalists.

The majority of the population is quite young, with the potential of a large and productive youngworkforce.

With better transport and communication (particularly with the remarkably fast spread of mobilephones), connectivity is increasing in a way that is likely to speed up enhancement of productivity.

But there are major structural and institutional problems blocking the full realisation of these stronggrowth fundamentals:

political economy EPW polity CurrentAffairs Sat, May 2, 2015

(a) The physical infrastructure (roads, electricity, ports, railways, etc) is weak. Public budgets laden withheavy subsidies, salaries and debt servicing have very little left for infrastructure investment, leading toincreasing frequency of public-private partnerships on infrastructure.

(b) Secondary education is a minimum qualification for many good non-farm jobs, and yet the childrenfrom poor families overwhelmingly drop out before entering or completing secondary schools, onaccount of economic and, particularly in the case of girls, also social compulsions.

(c) The average quality of school and college education is not sufficient for employable skills for many,

(d) in matters of public health and sanitation, where India lags behind even some African countries. 2

(e) Environmental degradation has been a major drag on net economic growth.

Governance Ineffectiveness

All of the aboveinfrastructure, education, public health and sanitation, environmentinvolve thegovernance effectiveness issue with respect to delivery of key public goods and services, which is ratherlow in India, and, of course, varies a great deal between different states in India

Governance ineffectiveness is often regarded as a lack of state capacity, that many point to as Indiasmajor failing. tate capacity is sometimes weak not necessarily because of a dearth of capable peoplebut because of a systemic impasse.Extraordinary state capacity may be observed in some episodicmatters, for example, in organising the complex logistics of the worlds largest elections, the worldssecond largest census, and some of the worlds largest religious festivals. But extraordinarily poor statecapacity is displayed in, for example, some regular essential activities like cost-effective pricing anddistribution of electricitythe key input for the economy.

Four Structural Issues

(a) There is a brewing legitimisation crisis of capitalism in India for many sections of the people onaccount of (1) rising inequality of wealth, (2) the flourishing of crony capitalism (exemplified by the so-called Gujarat model of development), (3) the displacements and dispossession of common peoplefrom their land and degradation of their environment, and (4) deterioration in the supply of basic publicservices (water, safety, etc) in the burgeoning cities and towns, while the rich arrange for private accessto these services.

(b) More than citizen rights and welfare, the young people who are the majority of aspirational Indiaseem to be demanding jobs. Over the next decade or so this can be a major source of political turmoil,particularly because over many decades job growth in India has been very sluggish. Every month thereare about a million new entries into the non-farm labour force, but outside the construction sector, thegrowth elasticity of job creation so far has been extremely low. Most recent economic success stories inIndia have been in relatively skill-intensive or capital-intensive industries (software, pharmaceuticals,vehicles, auto parts, etc).

(c) Even when jobs are created, there is a major regional discrepancy between job demand and supply,which may turn the so-called demographic dividend from large numbers of young people into a tickingtime bomb in parts of the country. For demographic reasons these young people are more in the largepopulous states of North India (where poor governance and infrastructural deficiency limit job growth

as well as delivery of welfare services). But jobs, when created, are more in states in west and southIndia. Interstate migration can be a partial relief but, given the staggering numbers, it cannot be asolution if one wants to avoid large costs of dislocation and nativist unrest.

(d) Tension between rentier and entrepreneurial capitalism: There are three major sources of rent: (1)Traded natural resource intensive goods (like minerals). In the last decade the mining mafia had its way,but with global recession and slowing down of the Chinese economy this source of rental income is abit weaker now. (2) Non-traded natural resource-intensive goods and services (like land and real estate).(3) Political rent in other activities (following from collusion between politicians/bureaucrats andconnected sets of favoured businessmen). Even after liberalisation, capital crucially depends on variouskinds of regulatory discretion of officials as well as loans from public bankslarge corporate defaulterson the latter have recently been described by the Reserve Bank of India Governor as freeloaders.

Supreme Court's Tryst with Secularism andHindutvaIn February this year, the Supreme Court held that although Muslim personal law permits a man tomarry four women, this does not offer protection against service rules that prohibit more than onespouse.

Introduction

India is home to eight major religions of the world. A necessary concomitant for peaceful coexistencethen in such a diverse state is equality before law for all religions.

This phenomenon of equal/principled distance from all religions has over the years shuttled acrossvarious judge-centric interpretations ranging from tolerance to a way of life to Indianisation to equality.In the absence of a ready-made definition, the burden fell on the Supreme Court to lay down a standardmeaning. In February this year, in a landmark judgment, the court reignited the debate and held thatthe statutory rule prescribing termination of service on contracting a second marriage withoutdissolving the first did not violate the freedom to practise religion under Article 25.

In Keshvananda Bharati, 3 Chief Justice Sikri named secular character as one of the basic features ofthe Constitution, also similarly worded and affirmed by Justices Shelat, Grover and Jaganmohan Reddy.However, a contradiction arose between the judiciary-constructed concept of secularism and the earlierviews in Ahmedabad St Xaviers College Society vs State of Gujarat 4 where Justices Chandrachud andMatthew wrote:

In short secularism in the context of our Constitution means only an attitude of live and let livedeveloping into the attitude of live and help live.

In S R Bommai vs Union of India, 5 the Court however once again confirmed secularism as part of theConstitution. Seven out of the nine judges reiterated that secularism was one of the basic features ofthe Constitution.

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S Radhakrishnan in his famous Upton Lectures (1926) had for the first time characterised Hinduism as away of life rather than a religion based on dogma. This description was heavily relied upon in theTemple Entry case. 8 The apex court once again made an attempt to settle this rampant confusion inthe Hindutva judgments. 9 It used Hindu, Hinduism and Hindutva interchangeably and went on tosay that these terms are not amenable to any precise definition and no narrow construction can beapplied to lay down a specific definition. The three major grounds as crafted by Justice Verma were:

(a) A speech with secular stance 10 which is alleged to discriminate against other religions andpromising to create a state for a particular religion cannot be treated to be a corrupt practice u/s 123(3)as an appeal to vote on grounds of religion as the basis of such stance is promoting secularism.

(b) The constitutional vision and wisdom does not expect to create a duty to get political parties in linewith secularism considering the statement was merely an expectation in the form of a ray of hope.

(c) Hindutva and Hinduism were equated39. Ordinarily, Hindutva is understood as a way of life or astate of mind and it is not to be equated with, or understood as religious Hindu fundamentalism. Theabove opinion indicates that the word Hindutva is used and understood as a synonym ofIndianisation, i e, development of uniform culture by obliterating the differences between all thecultures coexisting in the country.

A Reputation for Rescue and ReliefIndias disaster and emergency response seems to have matured and is now dependable when anysuch event strikes. One only has to discern the professionalism of the response to the presentearthquake and compare it with the reaction in 2001 to the Bhuj earthquake to realise how much of animprovement there has been; or compare the response to the 1999 cyclone in Odisha with the reactionto Cyclone Phailin.

The watershed event for Indias disaster response seems to have been the tsunami of December 2004.Some lessonsinstitutional as well as policywere learnt and implemented by both the government aswell as non-governmental actors. The National Disaster Management Authority was formed, protocolsfor responding to disasters were drawn up, and a range of non-governmental actors were involved inconsultation and formulation of policies. Later, the NDRF was drawn up with contributions from thecentral police and security forces. The Navy and the Air Force too have built capacities to deal withcivilian emergencies in coordination with the NDRF. Indias attempts at building a blue water Navy andits larger policy of projecting its emerging power status have together also contributed to its enhancedcapabilities. This has been evident during the process of evacuation from war zones like Iraq, Libya and,most recently, Yemen.

This enhancement in capabilities of meeting disasters seems, at present, to be restricted to suddendestruction and damage of war, earthquakes and cyclones. It has not been in evidence with equalefficiency and professionalism in facing floods, nor in dealing with situations of terrorist attacks, riots or

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mob violence. India confronts a continuing, and growing, disaster of road accidents and even therelatively minor matter of reaching first aid to victims and transporting them to hospitals remainsgrossly inefficient. Nor has there been any perceptible improvement in dealing with fire accidents.

Further, while the rescue and immediate relief measures have seen improvements, there has not beena parallel advance in preparing for disasters (perhaps Cyclone Phailin was an exception). The buildingcode for earthquake-prone areas is poorly enforced; safety drills and civil defence measures are poorand there has been little investment of time, money or attention to fulfilling any of these standards andcourses of action. The longer, more difficult, work of rehabilitation too remains patchy and haphazardat best and grossly neglected at most times. Victims of disaster are left, after the first flush of rescueand relief, to fend for themselves as they try to rebuild their lives. Matters of class, caste and genderdiscrimination, bureaucratic sloth and callousness, political one-upmanship and such other venalitieshave, more often than not, blighted whatever feeble attempts made at rehabilitation. The few successstories can be traced either to the ability of local communities to come together to help themselves orto the individual initiative of some administrator or politician. Unfortunately, these have not beencodified into standard operating procedures, or institutionalised into protocols.

Pharma Patents after 10 YearsTen years on, the progressive provisions of the amended Indian Patents Act are being watered down.

Ten years have passed since the Indian Patents Act, 1970 was amended in 2005 to bring the countryslaws in line with the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Themost important of the 2005 amendments was the introduction of product patents for 20 years,including for pharmaceutical products, but with the following safeguards: the amended Section 3(d) ofthe Patents Act that put paid to attempts to evergreen patents (extending patent protection by makingminor changes to the original drug), the expanded compulsory licence (CL) provisions and the retentionof pre-grant (and the introduction of post-grant) opposition to patents. Section 3(d) incorporates a strictbar for what constitutes an invention and clarifies what is not patentable in India: mere discovery of anew form of a known substance which does not result in the enhancement of the known efficacy of thatsubstance or the mere discovery of any new property or new use of a known substance

This single provision, cited in a slew of cases, has prevented the runaway pricing of medicines seekingpatentsnotably Novartiss Glivec (imatinib mesylate, an anti-cancer agent). The case of the CL onBayers patent on Nexavar (sorafenib tosylate, also an anti-cancer agent) issued to Natco clarified thecircumstances under which a CL could be issued. These cases have subsequently shown the true cost ofmanufacture once generic competition sets in. Several of these patent case rulings since 2005 havetaken cognisance of the overpricing and consequent lack of access to patented medicines. In the Natcocase, they constituted sufficient grounds for the issue of a CL.

n truth, there is nothing voluntary about voluntary licensing. It is an act that ties the hands of Indianpharma by dangling short-term profits and convenience at the expense of longer term autonomy andagency.

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Section 3(d) as well as the CL provisions in the Patents Act have been painted the villains of the piece bypharma lobbies in the US and European Union (EU), and their governments. Every time one of theforeign pharma companies loses a patent-related case in India, or when the Government of India talksof price control of patented medicines, there is a chorus of voices from these embedded lobbies thatIndia is violating TRIPS provisions. Or that India is not investment friendly, the reality notwithstanding.Every one of the 2005 amendments is well within the TRIPS provisions and the World TradeOrganizations (WTO) 2001 Doha clarification on patents and public health.

If anything, it is the Indian government, especially the Narendra Modi government, that seems to havedeveloped cold feet because it thinks that diluting the balance in Indias patent laws by agreeing to dataexclusivity (likely to be introduced first for pesticides) and introducing pro-evergreening provisions willhelp it cosy up to its strategic partners in the West. A similar piece of sad capitulation is the ditheringon bilateral trade negotiations, including whether to agree to private arbitration beyond the pale ofIndian courts and the reluctance to argue for the issue of CLs. A government-appointed committee,with scant regard to conflict of interest of its members, is elucidating an IPR policy that conflatesinnovation with patent protection, ignores open source and open access models, and pays mere lipservice to public interest.

Strategy to Quash Dissentthe accountability of foreign-funded NGOs Few will question the need to set up structures ofaccountability and transparency in organisations handling large funds, including those that come fromoutside India. But the government appears less concerned about transparency and more about theissues these organisations have chosen to raise. It has focused on two categories of NGOs: those raisinguncomfortable questions about the environmental fallout of some of Indias energy choices, particularlynuclear and coal, and groups highlighting human rights concerns, especially around the Gujarat 2002violence. If these NGOs happen to be partly funded from foreign sources, then inevitably thegovernment spots a conspiracy threatening national security.

If the government was only concerned about the accountability of organisations that receive foreignfunds, it could have adopted a different route. This issue has been raised earlier and in fact, in 2007 theprevious government had prepared a National Policy on the Voluntary Sector. It envisaged a system ofaccreditation for all NGOs through a National Accreditation Council of India (NACI), comprisingrepresentatives of government and NGOs. The concept went through various levels of consultation butthe NACI was never constituted. The Modi government has not yet made any mention of setting upsomething similar.

The more important question is whether this government accepts that there is a legitimate space forNGOs in a democratic society, irrespective of how they are funded. It is here that we can legitimatelyquestion the governments agenda. While the previous government also displayed some amount ofparanoia about NGOs working on tribal rights and environment, and saw them as obstructionist, theywere not targeted in this way. In the last decade, through institutions like the National Advisory Counciland the Planning Commission, several civil society groups had avenues through which to offer their

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perspectives to policymakers. Today, all such mechanisms have been set aside. Thus, barring agitation,resistance and other forms of advocacy, there is no other way for people with a different perspective tobe heard. The space for dissent and questioning, particularly in an atmosphere when all this is deemedanti-national and suspect, is rapidly shrinking.

So while NGOs are not faultless and could do with greater accountability and transparency, there canbe no justification for the kind of hounding that we are witnessing today. Whether these organisationssurvive this battering or not, the message that is being sent out to civil society is clear: this governmentwill not tolerate NGOs that come in its way and will use multiple strategies, including shutting offsources of funding, to squash them. None of this bodes well for the health of a democracy.

Article 370 of the ConstitutionA brief history of why Article 370 of the Constitution was framed in a certain manner and theimportance of the text of the Article from the viewpoint of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

The princely states comprised almost half of the Indian territories in the subcontinent at the time of theproclamation of 1858 by the British colonial powers and their princes enjoyed full sovereignty in theinternal matters subject only to the paramountcy of the British Crown.

The princely state of Jammu and Kashmir was one such state of the Indian India ruled by the Dogralineage of kings under British paramountcy.

The Cabinet Mission of 1946 through their memorandum articulated clearly the policy of the newgovernment towards the native princes on the withdrawal of British Rule from India. It affirmed that therights surrendered by the Indian states to the British Crown would revert to the rulers of the stateswhen the new dominions of India and Pakistan came into existence following the withdrawal of theBritish from India. The Cabinet Mission, however, advised the native states to evolve their relationshipwith the successor governments as the British would no longer be in a position to extend to them anyprotection. Legally speaking, the princely states of Indian India became fully independent with the lapseof British paramountcy on the coming into force of the Indian Independence Act, 1947 passed by theBritish Parliament, creating two dominions out of British India, namely, India and Pakistan.

The native Indian states numbering 565 at that time, of which Jammu and Kashmir was one, were nowleft with three choices: (i) to remain completely independent; (ii) to accede to India; or (iii) to accede toPakistan. The power to make the choice was vested in the ruler of the state concerned. Jammu andKashmir state which bordered both India and Pakistan and was ruled by Hari Singh, the then Dograking, vacillated in making a prompt choice and did not sign the instrument of accession in favour ofeither India or Pakistan on the date of transfer of power by the British in August 1947. Perhaps, heharboured an ambition of keeping an independent existence, free from both India and Pakistan whicheventually proved to be a costly political blunder for him and his people.

Peace in Kashmir was not to last long after the withdrawal of the British. Barely two months afterindependence, on 20 October 1947, a large number of armed tribesmen invaded Kashmir from the sideof the border with Pakistan causing grave devastation and carrying out killings, rapes, loot and plunder

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in the Valley of Kashmir. Unable to meet the situation with his own forces, Hari Singh was now left witha Hobsons choice. He addressed a letter to Lord Mountbatten, the Governor General of India, seekingIndian help to save the state from the raiders, and attached his signed Instrument of Accession to Indiafor acceptance by the Indian Government.

In March 1948, Hari Singh made a proclamation by which his council of ministers were to convene aNational Assembly based on adult franchise to work out a new constitution for Jammu and Kashmir. On20 June 1949, he issued another proclamation conferring all his royal powers, functions andprerogatives as ruler of the state on Yuvraj Karan Singh Bahadur to be exercised by him during theabsence of the maharaja who had by then shifted to his Jammu residence.

While India was a democratic republic as per the Constitution of India, something significant happenedin the state of Jammu and Kashmir soon thereafter. Yuvraj Karan Singh, now vested with the powers ofthe ruler by Hari Singh, issued a proclamation convening a National Constituent Assembly for Jammuand Kashmir on the basis of adult suffrage for drafting a constitution for the state. It was also to decidethe future of the question of accession with India. On 15 February 1954, the states ConstituentAssembly ratified the states accession to India. Section 3 of the states Constitution reads: the state ofJammu and Kashmir shall be an integral part of India. Section 147 of the states Constitution has madethis article unamendable by a future legislative assembly of the state. This completed the process of thestates legal integration with India.

As already stated, the Instrument of Accession with India conferred powers on the Union of India inmatters of only external affairs, defence and communications. Internal administration was retained bythe state as is evident from the Clause 8 of the instrument. The instrument was a standard text asengaged into by other native states as well. But while other native states voluntarily lost theirindependence in internal administration by signing supplementary treaties with India and by acceptingin totality the Constitution of India, it was not so with Jammu and Kashmir. This special legal status ofthe state of Jammu and Kashmir was upheld by the Supreme Court in Premnath Kaul vs State of Jammuand Kashmir (A 1959 SC 749) and was again reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in Rehman Shagoo vsState of Jammu and Kashmir (A 1960 SC 1).

Let the Children PlayBan it or regulate it, the debate over child labour seems unending. Meantime, the numbers of childrencompelled to work, mostly because of poverty, continue to grow. With all this talk about Make in India,we so easily forget that a substantial portion of what is made in India is crafted by the hands of poorchildren who ought to be in school rather than working in fields, forests, mines, shops, homes or inhighly hazardous sweatshops. The fact of children working in all kinds of occupations remains one ofIndias worst-kept secrets.

the existing Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986. It introduced a bill to amend the 1986act that would have effectively prohibited all children below 14 years of age from any occupation thatwould keep them out of school. The amendment would also have banned children between 14 and 18

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years of age from working in hazardous industries (earlier, that applied only to children less than 14years old). While the former was to ensure that children between the ages of 6 and 14 years could beenrolled in schools under the Right to Education Act, 2009, the latter was being brought in to complywith the International Labour Organizations Convention on conditions of work of adolescents.

the National Democratic Alliance government is reportedly planning to introduce another amendmentto the law. Arguing that banning children from engaging in any form of work leads to inspector raj andplaces inordinate powers in the hands of labour inspectors, the government appears to be consideringallowing children to work with their families in certain occupations. These include working in the fieldsor forests, or in home-based industries. Although there is to be a condition that such work participationis permitted only during vacations or after school, how can this be monitored? Child rights activistsargue that if such an amendment is made, inevitably the most affected would be girls as parents couldthen legitimately keep their daughters at home to engage in family occupations. This would go directlyagainst the efforts to increase the enrolment of girls in school that is substantially lower than that ofboys.

In any case, irrespective of the earlier ban on children under 14 years of age working in hazardousindustries, hundreds of them continue to work in factories making firecrackers and matchboxes, and inthe carpet industry. Worse still, the ban has made little difference to children employed in mines whereentire families are virtually bonded to contractors. These children have little chance of schooling in anycase as their parents migrate constantly to find work. In such a poverty-ridden and transient existence,the provisions of a law that is mostly followed in the breach make little material difference.

Apart from the known areas where children are employed, in recent years there has been a spurt ofchildren being used for domestic work. With the increase in urbanisation and the growth of a middleclass that can employ domestic help, children become a ready choice. Every now and then, the curtainof silence surrounding this is flung apart when a child escapes with tales of horror.

There is no pat solution to end child labour. That is evident after years of effort by many non-governmental organisations, as well as by government. Giving children the right to be educated is a verysmall step. It has to be followed up with specific enabling tools such as accessible and affordableschools, subsidised books and uniforms, transport and other special assistance. Where governmentshave done this, as in Bihar for instance, there has been a marked increase in enrolment, especially ofgirls.

Khadi Production in IndiaA green economy is one that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantlyreducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities The single-most important challenge thathumanity faces today is the need for economic development within ecological limits. Humanity mustlive within clear planetary boundaries to attain sustainability in the long run (Rockstrm et al 2009).Human well-being/prosperity should be the core agenda of an economy, which motivates economicactivity and justifies economic output.

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The effects of climate change are uncertain, and threaten potentially destabilising costs on society. Ifnecessary action is not taken, it might lead to a loss of 5% to 20% of gross domestic product (GDP) peryear (Spash 2007). But curtailing climate change is not an easy task. According to the InternationalEnergy Agency, at least $11 trillion required between now and 2030 to shift away from fossil fuels (IEA2009). According to familiar axioms, the problem of climate change may be tackled by internalisingexternal costs such as environmental and social costs into the market value of a product.

1 Criteria for Green Enterprise

a green economy enterprise should be based on shared (socially just), and lasting (ecologicallysustainable) prosperity. It should not be just delivering goods and services, but should also maintain,and enhance social and environmental well-being. It should also help people to thrive and communitiesto flourish by providing stability in markets, security in employments, ecological integrity, sustainabilityin supply chains, and fairness.

The following are the five criteria of a green economy enterprise set by Jackson and Victor (2013),

(i)Providing equitable distribution of goods and services needed for prosperity

(ii)Using as little as possible in the way of materials and energy.

(iii) Causing as little damage as possible to ecosystems and ecological assets.

(iv) Offering people meaningful employment and the opportunity to participate in society.

(v) Contributing to the vitality of the community.

2Khadi as Case Study

Khadi was promoted as an ideology of self-reliance and self-sufficiency. Khadi became a key symbol ofthe Indian freedom struggle. During the first half of the 20th century in India, most farmers were idlefor about four months due to the dry season. At the same time the second biggest occupation in thecountry, the textile sector, which was mainly a decentralised rural industry, was suffering due to exportof Indian cotton to England, and subsequent import of costly finished cloth. In the process it deprivedthe local population of work and profit.

Gandhi raised this issue to protest against British rule, and to simultaneously provide employment formillions of underemployed rural folk. Gandhi urged people to grow and harvest their own cotton,produce their own cloth by spinning and weaving during the dry agriculture seasons. Any person caneasily learn spinning on wheels and weaving on looms.

Khadi is a decentralised labour-intensive tool-based local cloth production, and encourages localconsumption. It brings power to the grass roots from the top, it places non-violence in front of force,constructive work instead of class conflict, democracy instead of controls, aiming at the sanctity ofmeans instead of final objectives and a philosophy about the individual instead of a collectivistphilosophy, it is not just merely a piece of cloth but a way of life

Assessing Khadi Enterprises

3.1Equitable Distribution

Currently, 1.2 billion people are under extreme poverty around the globe (UN 2013b) and inequality isincreasing (UN 2013a). This clearly shows that still the green and industrial revolutions are not

completely successful in eradicating poverty and lessening the gap between the poor and rich.

Instead, if we have to provide full employment for all by increasing large-scale industries, the goodsproduced on this massive scale will be too much to consume at the domestic level and will have to beexported to other countries. But the crux of the problem is that all countries cannot export all thegoods simultaneously to other countries, because they will also have excesses. It is becomingincreasingly difficult to provide jobs in modern industries, especially in countries like India, becausemodern industries are centralised in nature and they need huge capital and infrastructure investments .Hence, to tackle poverty and unemployment, economic activity must be encouraged at a communitylevel.

To sustain economic activity at the community level needs continuous market support. It is not easy fora community to be involved in production. So, any production system in the present situation should beable to give employment to people as well as provide them some decent purchasing power. Producinglocal products using local resources for the local market decreases the cost of goods compared to thegoods produced in a distant place if we include environmental costs. Hence, it is necessary to includeenvironmental costs on all goods produced. Once it is done, locally produced goods will becomecheaper than goods produced by large-scale industries. In a community-run enterprise the cost oforganisation, management, market, infrastructure and machinery, procurement of raw materials will beminimal. The cost of the final product will be lower. When this cost is lower, marketing becomes easy atthe local level.

3.2Less Materials and Energy

The tools used in khadi enterprise like the spinning wheel and handlooms, are extremely simple andinexpensive. These instruments are constructed from renewable resources like wood or bamboo withina few hours by any carpenter and are easily available to all including the weakest in the society

3.3Minimal Damage

The core idea of khadi is self-reliance (SR) (Gandhi 1955). Hence it is intimately linked with ecologicalbalance as Johan Galtung, the father of modern peace research argues,

3.4Employment

A khadi enterprise does not produce just a piece of cloth; it creates self-sustained growth. Employmentfor all the members of a community is necessary not only to produce goods but also to sustain thesame by creating necessary demand for goods. Khadi creates self-employment as well as purchasingpower where none exists. Since khadi operates as self-employment, there will be no chronicexploitation of natural resources as well as human resource.

Vitality of the Community

In khadi enterprise, an entire community with different intelligent capacities as well as the physicallychallenged can involve themselves since it is simple and easy to learn and pursue (

Critiques

Khadi has been criticised for its slow production. The khadi workers returns are high since he uses localresources and there will be very less spending of income on management, organisation, sales,advertisements, transportation, storage, electricity, machinery, factories, buildings, financial institutions,

etc, as happens with large-scale industries. Hence, the slowness of khadi is therefore outweighed bywhat it alone can save in terms of all the monumental expenditures of production and distributionnecessitated by other large-scale industries. What is relevant about khadi is not its speed but itssimplicity and its consequent availability to one and all including the weakest, so that the market isassured to all in the society.

Khadi is a sign of economic backwardness and implies poverty, a view some people have. It is anentirely wrong notion. It is now clear that, if we consider the standard of living of industrialisedcountries as high, then it is not possible from every world community to attain the same standardbecause of ecological constraints. Hence, the contemporary economic system in future will lead tomassive crisis and chaos.

Shreya Singhal and 66AThe Shreya Singhal order is said to be unprecedented at least for the last four decades and alsoprecedent setting as its lucidity, some believe, will cause a ripple effect in opposition to a restrictiveunderstanding of freedom of speech and expression, and an expansiveness around reasonablerestrictions. Let us examine each of the three sections that the bench dealt with.

The Section in Question

Section 66A of the IT Act was introduced in a hastily-passed amendment. Unfortunately, the languageused in this section was a pastiche of outdated foreign laws such as the UK Communications Act of2003, Malicious Communications Act of 1988 and the US Telecommunications Act, 1996. 1 Since theamendment, this section has been misused to make public examples out of innocent, yetuncomfortable speech, in order to socially engineer all Indian netizens into self-censorship. 2

Summary: The Court struck down Section 66A of the IT Act in its entirety holding that it was not savedby Article 19(2) of the Constitution on account of the expressions used in the section, such asannoying, grossly offensive, menacing,, causing annoyance. The Court justified this by goingthrough the reasonable restrictions that it considered relevant to the arguments and testing themagainst S66A. S66A was struck down on the grounds of vagueness, over-breadth and chilling effect. TheCourt considered whether some parts of the section could be saved, and then concluded that no part ofS66A was severable and declared the entire section unconstitutional.

Article 14 Challenge

The Article 14 challenge brought forward by the petitioners contended that Section 66A violated theirfundamental right to equality because it differentiated between offline and online speech in terms ofthe length of maximum sentence, and was hence unconstitutional. The Court held that an intelligibledifferentia, indeed, did exist. It found so on two grounds. First, the internet offered people a mediumthrough which they can express views at negligible or no cost. Second, the Court likened the rate ofdissemination of information on the internet to the speed of lightning and could potentially reachmillions of people all over the world.

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Section 79

Section 79 was partially read down. This section, again introduced during the 2008 amendment, wassupposed to give legal immunity to intermediaries for third party content by giving a quick redressal forthose affected by providing a mechanism for takedown notices in the Intermediaries Guidelines Rulesnotified in April 2011. But the section and rules had enabled unchecked invisible censorship 13 in Indiaand has had a demonstrated chilling effect on speech 14 because of the following reasons:

One, there are additional unconstitutional restrictions on speech and expression. Rule 3(2) required astandard rules and regulation, terms and condition or user agreement that would have to beincorporated by all intermediaries. Under these rules, users are prohibited from hosting, displaying,uploading, modifying, publishing, transmitting, updating or sharing any information that falls intodifferent content categories, a majority of which are restrictions on speech which are completely out ofthe scope of Article 19(2).

Two, a state-mandated private censorship regime is created. You could ban speech online withoutapproaching the court or the government. Risk-aversive private intermediaries who do not have thelegal resources to subjectively determine the legitimacy of a legal claim err on the side of caution andtakedown content.

Three, the principles of natural justice are not observed by the rules of the new censorship regime. Thecreator of information is not required to be notified nor given a chance to be heard by the intermediary.There is no requirement for the intermediary to give a reasoned decision.

Four, different classes of intermediaries are all treated alike. Since the internet is not an uniformassemblage of homogeneous components, but rather a complex ecosystem of diverse entities, thedifferent classes of intermediaries perform different functions and therefore contribute differently tothe causal chain of harm to the affected person. If upstream intermediaries like registrars for domainnames are treated exactly like a web-hosting service or social media service then there will be over-blocking of content.

Five, there are no safeguards to prevent abuse of takedown notices. Frivolous complaints could be usedto suppress legitimate expressions without any fear of repercussions and given that it is not possible toexpedite reinstatement of content, the harm to the creator of information may be irreversible if theinformation is perishable. Transparency requirements with sufficient amounts of detail are alsonecessary given that a human right was being circumscribed. There is no procedure to have theremoved information reinstated by filing a counter notice or by appealing to a higher authority.

Section 69A

The Court upheld S69A which deals with website blocking, and found that it was a narrowly-drawnprovision with adequate safeguards, and, hence, not constitutionally infirm. In reality, unfortunately,website blocking usually by internet service providers (ISPs) is an opaque process in India.

Transparency

Usually, the reasons for blocking a website are unknown both to the originator of material as well asthose trying to access the blocked URL. The general public also get no information about the nature andscale of censorship unlike offline censorship where the court orders banning books and movies are

usually part of public discourse. In spite of the Court choosing to leave Section 69A intact, it stressed theimportance of a written order for blocking, so that a writ may be filed before a high court under Article226 of the Constitution.

Extrajudicial ExecutionsThe Supreme Court has failed the citizen on encounter killings.

the disturbing increase in police-executed extrajudicial killings, crudely referred to as encounterkillings, threatens the lives of citizens. On paper, police encounters are said to comprise aspontaneous shoot-out between police officers and armed civilians in which the police are fired upon,and (in self-defence) fire back, killing the alleged criminals.

Police reports of encounter killings usually follow this shoot-out narrative. Yet the distinction betweensupposedly legitimate encounters and so-called fake encounters is, in practice, illusory. More oftenthan not, evidence indicates that these police narratives are false, and that the alleged encounters havein fact been staged: guns and ammunition are planted at the scene by police, victims bodies arecremated before independent autopsies can be conducted, police officers rarely sustain injuries fromostensible exchanges of fire, and witness accounts tell of police rounding up victims for execution.Shockingly, police officers are frequently rewarded for such murders, creating an incentive to stagefurther killings. Encounters thus constitute a gross violation of the right to life, a tenet enshrined in theConstitution and in international human rights law.

Thanks in large part to the efforts of victims family members and advocacy groups, many cases ofextrajudicial killings that would otherwise have gone unreported are being challenged in court. Yet,even cases that reach the superior courts are not guaranteed of a just resolution.

This situation is largely attributable to the Supreme Courts failure to enunciate clear proceduralguidelines for reporting and investigating extrajudicial killings, a failure exemplified by the Courtsindefinite stay of proceedings of a 2009 extrajudicial killings case, appealed from the AP High Courtdecision, AP Civil Liberties Committee (APCLC) vs The Government of AP. In 2014, in an importantjudgment the Supreme Court laid out the procedure in investigating police encounters ( PeoplesUnion for Civil Liberties & Anr vs State of Maharashtra & Ors ). It would be helpful if both the AP andTelangana Police in the recent cases were tested against the procedure laid out. However, the AP PoliceAssociations challenge to the AP High Court judgment is yet to be taken up.

, the High Court of Andhra Pradesh clarified current law as it relates to extrajudicial executions Thecourt held that all instances of encounter killings involving police officers must follow the properchannels of legal procedure, including registration of each killing as a culpable homicide in an FIR,proper investigation of each incident by an independent body, and judicial determination of thecriminal culpability of the police officer(s) involved.

The absence of a binding FIR requirementan official record in which perpetrators of extrajudicialkillings stand suspected of culpable homicide until a judicial hearing on the matterallows policeofficers to escape judicial oversight for unlawful killings. Currently, it is common practice for fellow

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police officers to administratively excuse perpetrators of extrajudicial killings from wrongdoing, withoutrecourse to an independent investigation or judicial hearing. Interestingly, the Union Ministry of HomeAffairs does not maintain adequate records of extrajudicial killings, largely because police frequently failto report incidents, or simply because encounter killing is not an enumerated category.

Shockingly, the Supreme Courts ambiguous response to the phenomenon of extrajudicial killings inIndia is indicative of a wider societal tolerance of such behaviour. The prominence of so-calledencounter specialists is evidence of the societal acceptance of police extrajudicial killings.

The status quo on extrajudicial encounter killings in India and the tolerance of a police practiceinvolving summary executions of persons who have neither undergone trial nor necessarily engagedtheir killers in a firefight to begin with, is reminiscent of the repression unleashed by the British colonialgovernment in pre-independence India. By delaying the APCLC appeal indefinitely, the Supreme Courthas, by default, sanctioned the ongoing, extralegal practice of encounter killings.

Abuse of PowerThe Jat caste was already in the state list of OBCs in a number of states in North India. But the NationalCommission for Backward Classes (NCBC) had as far back as 1997 rejected demands to include Jats inthe national OBC list.

The Supreme Court on an examination of all the relevant facts has correctly overturned the notification.It has now been commonplace for all governmentsat the centre and the statesto use reservationsas a political instrument to attract electoral support. They often anoint a particular caste into the list atthe 11th hour on the eve of elections. We have had two such instances in little over a year.

Yet, the decision is not always to expand the list of reservations. Political ideologies can drive theremoval of certain groups from the reservation.

There is also the rivalry between different groups to keep intact their privileges which is adding to socialtensions. In 200708, the opposition by the Meenas to the Gujjar demand to migrate to the ScheduledTribe (ST) category from the OBC list in Rajasthan had led to violence. It was ironical that the Gujjarswere agitating to be included into the ST list, a social climbdown.

After clearly explaining why the central government order on Jat reservation had to be nullified, theSupreme Court ventured into making vague and unconnected remarks on the larger issue of caste andreservations. The judgment spoke of new determinants of backwardness, revision of the OBC list notonly for inclusion but also exclusion, and that greater attention needed to be paid to emerging socialgroups like transgenders. The prime measure for backwardness is social backwardness, the Courtstated, adding that new practices, methods and yardsticks have to be continuously evolved movingaway from caste centric definition of backwardness.

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The Supreme Court went on to even argue that caste cannot be the only standard to determinebackwardness, though it admitted it is an important factor. It also held that self-proclaimedbackwardness cannot be valid to determine backwardness.

It was somewhat unusual for the Supreme Court to make such observations, which are not relevant tothe writ petition it was hearing. The observations are also random and inconsistent and do not in anyway add to jurisprudence on reservations. The benchmark there remains Indra Sawhney (1992), whichupheld the implementation of separate reservations forOBCs, to which the most recent judgmentmakes no further contribution.

Ethics and TheatricsIn a curious, but quite unsurprising, development, this preventive, restraining action is immediatelytransformed by the media into a ban, and the legal issue is hijacked to become one of freedom ofexpression; this is then further confused and confounded by the Government of India and sundryparliamentarians who declare that far from being about freedom of expression, it is really aboutforeigners conspiring to defame the country, by insulting the honour of Indian womanhood.

These slippages may or may not be opportunistic, may or may not be partisan and self-righteous, butthey provide us with an opportunity to disentangle the many strands in this story, now that the firstflurry of charges and countercharges has abated, and the film been seen by any and everybody whowants to.

There is nothing new about crime fiction or, for that matter, with recreating a crime on screen byinterviewing a convict. When filmed, this is normally done in the form of a documentary, but suchdocumentaries are made after there has been a final closure to the case. They are also made when aperson suspected of a crime has not yet been charged, and the film-maker provides evidence which canlead to charges being brought.

Indias Daughter falls into ne