Brief of newspaper articles for the day bearing
relevance to Civil Services preparation
What is 9 PM brief?
- GS PAPER 1
- Goa’s jail by the sea to turn museum {Art and Culture}
- GS PAPER 2
- SC upholds law on criminal defamation {Polity}
- Protection to public servants upheld {Polity}
- Indian vessel released as U.N. lifts sanctions {International Organisation}
- Five-year plans passe, 3-level framework soon {Governance}
- Madhesis on the warpath again {Foreign Policy}
- Brexit: IMF warns of economic ruin {Foreign Policy}
- GS PAPER 3
- New IPR policy retains access to cheap drugs {IPR}
- Can India grow at 8 to 9 per cent? {Economy}
- Exports shrink 6.7 per cent in April {Economy}
- Core inflation higher than desired: Rajan {Economy}
GS PAPER 1
[1] Goa’s jail by the sea to turn museum
Issue
- The Aguada Central Jail, Goa’s erstwhile prison that stands in a scenic spot overlooking the Arabian sea, is to be transformed into a museum.
Facts
- The Goa Tourism Development Corporation’s (GTDC) will convert the jail into a historical and heritage centre.
- Aguada Jail Museum will join the ranks of Dhagshai Jail Museum in Himachal Pradesh and the Cellular Jail Museum in the Andamans.
- Plans for the museum include light and sound shows depicting Goa’s freedom struggle.
- Cells of the Aguada Central Jail stand on the site that once formed the citadel of the hilltop Fort Aguada. The four-hundred-year-old fort dates back to the Portuguese rule in parts of India.
GS PAPER 2
[1] SC upholds law on criminal defamation + A disappointing verdict + Speak no evil
The Hindu The Hindu Indian Express
What happened?
- The Supreme Court has maintained the constitutional validity of Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalise defamation.
Section 499 defines defamation
Defamation.—Whoever, by words either spoken or intended to be read, or by signs or by visible representations, makes or publishes any imputation concerning any person intending to harm, or knowing or having reason to believe that such imputation will harm, the reputation of such person, is said, except in the cases hereinafter expected, to defame that person.
Section 500 defines Punishment for defamation
- Whoever defames another shall be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.
Reasoning given by the court
- Court said that the reputation of an individual was an equally important right and stood on the same pedestal as free speech.
- The court said it would be a stretch to say that upholding criminal defamation in modern times would amount to imposition of silence.
- The court held that criminalisation of defamation to protect individual dignity of life and reputation is a “reasonable restriction” on the fundamental right of free speech and expression.
- The right to reputation is a constituent of Article 21 of the Constitution. It is an individual’s fundamental right.
- Court held that deliberate injury to the reputation of an individual is not a mere private wrong, worth only a civil case for damages.
- Instead, it is a “crime” committed against society at large and the State has a duty to redress the hurt caused to its citizen’s dignity.
Analysis of the judgement
- The judgment holds far-reaching implications for political dissent and a free press.
- Existence of criminal defamation on the statute book leads to self-censorship, and that it is often used to stifle legitimate criticism.
- It is true that ‘defamation’ is one of the reasonable restrictions to free speech envisaged in the Constitution, but this is not enough to justify retaining its criminal component.
- In the Indian context, criminal defamation is not generally a dispute between two individuals.
- It is invariably a shield for public servants, political leaders, corporations and institutions against critical scrutiny as well as questions from the media and citizens.
- The protection of reputations is a reasonable goal, in practice, the law is used as a tool for harassment and intimidation.
- By criminalising defamation, the law inflicts the extreme punishment of loss of liberty.
What could have been done?
- The two-judge Bench could have referred the matter to a Constitution Bench.
What should be done?
- Defamation should be decriminalised and it should be reduced to a civil offence.
[2] Protection to public servants upheld
Issue
- There is provision in CrPC which allows public servants to file a complaint in a sessions court through a public prosecutor for alleged defamatory comments on their official acts.
- Its validity was challenged in Supreme Court.
Judgement
- Calling public servants a “different class”, the Supreme Court on Friday upheld the validity of a provision.
- Upholding the constitutional validity of criminal defamation the court rejected demands to strike down Section 199(2) to (4) of the Cr.PC.
- The court rejected the argument that this section creates a separate class. It also dismissed the contention that the classification enumerated in this provision has no rationale and does not bear constitutional scrutiny.
- The court said Public functions stand on a different footing. The provision gives them protection for their official acts. There cannot be defamatory attacks on them because of discharge of their due functions. In that sense, they constitute a different class.
- Endorsing a public servant’s right to use the State machinery to fight a defamation case against another citizen, the apex court reasoned, “one is bound to tolerate criticism, dissent and discordance but not expected to tolerate defamatory attack.”
[3] Indian vessel released as U.N. lifts sanctions
Issue
- Indian vessel, which was detained by the United Nations for carrying disputed Libyan oil, has been freed after the U.N. lifted its sanctions on the vessel.
Background
- The tanker, owned by Mumbai-based Arya Shipping, was blacklisted by the U.N. on April 26 when it sailed from the Al-Herega port in Libya after picking up over 6.5 lakh barrels of oil for Malta.
- It was charged that the vessel violated the sanctions of the U.N. as the interim Government of Libya is not recognised by the global body.
- Following the instructions of the DG Shipping, the vessel sailed back to Libya and discharged its entire oil cargo.
[4] Five-year plans passe, 3-level framework soon
Issue
- Prime Minister earlier this week approved a three-level planning framework for replacing the five-year plans, the last of which ends in March next year.
Provisions of the policy
- In the new framework, there will be a 3-year Action Plan for 2017-18 to 2019-20, aligned to the award period of the 14th Finance Commission.
- In it there is also a 7-year strategy from 2017-18 to 2023-24 to convert “longer vision into implementable policy and action as part of the “National Development Agenda” with a mid-term review after three years, in the financial year ending March 2020.
- Finally, it will have an over-arching 15-year aspirational plan for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
- The 15-year plan’s main theme will be poverty.
[5] Madhesis on the warpath again
What happened?
- The Madhesi protesters under the leadership of the United Madhesi Democratic Front (UMDF) of Nepal declared that they will start a new round of agitation enforcing a blockade on the capital Kathmandu.
- The protest will start three months after the end of a crippling economic blockade that the UMDF had launched demanding citizenship rights for the Madhesis of Nepal.
What are the demands of the protesters?
- Protesters said that they will not let government function unless it carries out amendments to the Nepali Constitution guaranteeing citizenship rights.
[6] Brexit: IMF warns of economic ruin
Context
- A majority of economic analysts agree that a Brexit vote could push the U.K. into recession.
International Monetary Fund’s predictions
- A vote to leave the EU would be costly in the long run, even after the uncertainty has been resolved.
- In the short term, there is also risk of an adverse market reaction to a leave vote. This would imply a depreciation of the sterling and large contractions of investment and consumption.
- If the U.K. did not remain after some weakening as we saw earlier this year, we would expect growth to rebound over the remaining of the year, reaching just about 2 per cent with continued lowered employment and inflation.
Additional points:-
- U.S. President Barack Obama has openly appealed to Britain to stay in Europe.
- Five former NATO secretaries-general have said that Brexit would undoubtedly lead to a loss of British influence, undermine NATO, and give succour to the West’s enemies just when we need to stand shoulder-to-shoulder across the Euro-Atlantic community against common threats.
GS PAPER 3
[1] New IPR policy retains access to cheap drugs
Issue
- Government has announced the long-pending, “all-encompassing” National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy.
What is intellectual property
- Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names and images used in commerce.
Analysis
- The Policy, to be reviewed every five years, aims to push IPRs as a marketable financial asset, promote innovation and entrepreneurship, while protecting public interest including ensuring the availability of essential and life-saving drugs at affordable prices.
- The government has clarified that the policy will ensure that no changes are made in that Section (which prevents ever-greening of drug patents) and the patent-disabling Compulsory Licensing regime.
- The policy comes in the backdrop of the US Trade Representative (USTR), in its annual (2016 edition) Special 301 Report (on the global state of IPR protection and enforcement) retaining India on the ‘Priority Watch List’ this year for “lack of sufficient measurable improvements to its IPR framework.”
(For more info see Editorial Today #18 – Trade Facilitation Act and Its Impact)
- The policy states India will continue to utilise the legislative space and flexibilities available in international treaties and the TRIPS Agreement.” These flexibilities include the sovereign right of countries to use provisions such as Section 3(d) and CLs for ensuring the availability of essential and life-saving drugs at affordable prices.
- The Policy says that to have strong and effective IPR laws, which balance the interests of rights owners with larger public interest, steps could be taken — including review of existing IP laws — to update and improve them or to remove anomalies and inconsistencies. The review will be done in consultation with stakeholders.
What is evergreening
- As long as a company has patent for A drug, others cannot manufacture it. But when the patent is about to expire, the company just slightly modifies the original drug formula to create a new drug and seeks patent for that new drug. This practice is known as “everygreening”
- Under section 3(d) of Indian patent act Evergreening is prohibited.
What is compulsory license
- A compulsory license provides that the owner of a patent or copyright licenses the use of their rights against payment either set by law or determined through some form of adjudication or arbitration. In essence, under a compulsory license, an individual or company seeking to use another’s intellectual property can do so without seeking the rights holder’s consent, and pays the rights holder a set fee for the license. This is an exception to the general rule under intellectual property laws that the intellectual property owner enjoys exclusive rights that it may license – or decline to license – to others.
Encourage IPR filings
- The Policy also seeks to facilitate domestic IPR filings, for the entire value chain from IPR generation to commercialisation.
- It also aims to promote research and development through tax benefits.
- Another significant measure includes the proposal to create an effective loan guarantee scheme to encourage start-ups.
Counterview
- Some expert believe that new Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) policy, could pose a “serious” hurdle to allowing access to affordable drugs and the South Asian nation missed a chance to put in place a progressive policy.
- With so much focus on turning all knowledge into patentable property, the big weakness in the document is that it is pitting innovation against access. It is like saying that we reserve the right to give compulsory licences. But what is the point of reserving that right, if we are never actually going to issue licences because of pressure from the industry.
[2] Can India grow at 8 to 9 per cent?
Issue
- What is the potential rate of growth of India?
How this potential is measured
- Normally, potential growth is measured using trends with some filters. In one sense, these are backward-looking measures, since they depend on historically observed data.
- In the case of measuring capacity utilisation in manufacturing, the maximum capacity is very often taken as the maximum output achieved in the recent period.
- Perhaps, in the case of determining the potential rate of growth of the economy also, one can take the maximum growth rate achieved in the recent past as the lowest estimate of the potential.
- However, this assumption will be valid only if there is reason to believe that the maximum growth rate achieved in the recent past was not a one-off event and that the growth rate achieved was robust and replicable.
High growth phase
- India achieved a growth rate of 9.5 per cent in 2005-06, followed by 9.6 per cent and 9.3 per cent in the subsequent two years. After declining a bit in the wake of international financial crisis, the growth rate went back to 8.9 per cent in 2010-11.
- In many ways the growth rate achieved in the high phase period of 2005-06 to 2007-08 was robust. The domestic savings rate during this period was high; the gross capital formation rate was also high. The current account deficit (CAD) remained low, agricultural growth during this period was good and the annual manufacturing growth rate was good.
- The capital flows were large but as the CAD remained low, the accretion to reserves amounted to $144 billion.
- Inflation during the period was low.
- The combined fiscal deficit of the Centre and States was 5.2 per cent of GDP, well below the stipulated 6 per cent. Thus on many dimensions the growth rate was robust.
- Unlike in the 1980s when the pick-up in growth was accompanied by deterioration in fiscal deficit and current account, the sharp increase in growth between 2005-06 and 2007-08 happened with the stability parameters at desired levels.
- Also, a booming external environment provided good support.
Can this be replicated?
- To assess whether the high growth phase can be replicated, we need to understand the factors that led to the slowdown since 2011-12. Three sets of reasons are attributed for the slowdown.
- First, the external environment had deteriorated sharply. One country after another in the developed world came under pressure. Strangely, however, international commodity prices including crude oil prices remained high until a couple of years ago. All this had an adverse impact on developing countries, including India. However, it would be wrong to attribute the slowdown in India primarily to external factors. The domestic factors are the key.
- Second, there were severe supply bottlenecks. Agricultural production fell sharply in 2009-10 because of a severe drought. This triggered an inflation which lasted for several years thereafter. Coal output fell. Iron ore output fell, partly because of court decisions.
- The third set of reasons is basically non-economic which led collectively to a weakening of investment. A multitude of issues relating to scams and perceived delays in decision-making created an element of uncertainty in the minds of investors. New investments began to fall.
Productivity of capital
- An analysis of the data of the period since 2012-13 reveals two trends.
- First, there has been a decline in investment rate. Second, the decline in growth rate is greater than the decline in investment rate indicating a rise in the incremental capital-output ratio (ICOR).
(Incremental Capital Output Ratio (ICOR) is the additional capital required to increase one unit of output. This ratio is used to measure the efficiency of an industrial unit or country as an economic unit. Lesser the ICOR, more efficient is the organization.)
- The rise in ICOR can be attributed to the delay in completion of projects or the lack of complementary investments. In some cases, it can also be due to non-availability of critical inputs. The delay in completion of projects can be due to internal reasons as well as policy constraints. It is here questions relating to land and environment enter.
- Thus what is needed to achieve the “potential” is to raise the investment rate and improve the productivity of capital.
Gazing into the future
- Incremental capital output ratio is a catch-all variable which is influenced by a host of factors. Obviously, it depends on technology. It also depends upon the skill of the labour force which in turn depends on the quality of the education system.
- Another catch-all expression “ease of doing business” is also relevant. Bureaucratic hurdles which impede speedy execution of projects need to be removed. Thus improving the productivity of capital needs action on several fronts.
[3] Exports shrink 6.7 per cent in April
News
- Official data for exports and imports has been released by the Government and it does not look good.
Key points
- India’s shipments shrank 6.7 per cent in April for the seventeenth successive month as imports fell 23 per cent, narrowing the trade deficit by 20 per cent, government data showed.
- The cost of raw material has gone up because of restrictive measures on crucial imports which go into the export products.
- In what could be a reflection of the slowdown in industrial activity and new capex investments, the import of machinery (both electrical & non-electrical) has contracted, which is not a good news.
[4] Core inflation higher than desired: Rajan
News
- Analysis of the economic conditions by the RBI Governor.
What did he said?
- India’s core inflation remains a bit higher than policymakers would like, but the economy’s recovery should accelerate with a good monsoon.
- One issue for India is that banks remain reluctant to lend and to reduce rates for borrowers, despite 150 bps basis points of rate cuts in the past year.
- To ensure rate cuts feed into the economy, the RBI has injected billions of rupees via open-market bond purchases and cut daily maintenance of bank cash reserve ratios.
What is core inflation?
- Core inflation is a measure of inflation that excludes certain items that face volatile price movements.
- Core inflation eliminates products that can have temporary price shocks because these shocks can diverge from the overall trend of inflation and give a false measure of inflation.
- A dynamic consumption basket is considered the basis to obtain core inflation. Some goods and commodities have extremely volatile price movements.
- Core inflation is calculated using the Consumer Price Index (CPI) by excluding such commodities.
- If temporary price shocks are taken into account, they may affect the estimated overall inflation numbers in such a way that they are different from actual inflation.
- To eliminate this possibility, core inflation is calculated to gauge the actual inflation apart from temporary shocks and volatility.
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