Brief of newspaper articles for the day bearing
relevance to Civil Services preparation
- GS PAPER 2
- Africa reaches out to States {Foreign Policy}
- Climate, energy top Modi’s agenda during U.S. visit {Foreign Policy}
- The road to empowering city governments {Governance}
- Swiss back India’s bid for nuclear group membership {Foreign Policy}
- Election Commission writes to Centre, seeks power to postpone, revoke polls {Bills and Laws}
- GS PAPER 3
GS PAPER 2
[1] Africa reaches out to States
Issue
- African countries are coming forward for direct engagement with Indian States.
What are the reasons that African countries are coming up with plans for engaging the States?
Business Opportunities
- This tradition started when South Africa began State-centric approach by forging ties with Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
- Tamil Nadu is one of the most important centres of textile industry in India and Mali is one of the top cotton producers of the world, so Tamil Nadu seems like a natural investment ground to Mali.
- Mali also look towards Goa to use its best practices to contribute to Mali’s famed tourist hotspot of Timbuktu.
- Sudan showed interest when it participated in Defexpo 2016 in Goa and preferred doing business away from Delhi.
- Tunisia and Morocco which have emerged as crucial sources for phosphate for India.
- Phosphate trade has drawn Tunisia towards Gujarat due to the State’s history of being business-friendly and the Gujarat State Fertilizer and Chemicals Ltd which is a major partner of Tunisia.
Students’ well-being
- African countries are exploring Indian States because large number of African students study in educational hubs of Maharashtra, Punjab, and smaller towns of Karnataka.
- And if African countries will maintain good relations with these states, then they will be able to look after African students in a better way.
[2] Climate, energy top Modi’s agenda during U.S. visit
Issue
- Agenda of upcoming visit of US of Mr. Modi.
What will be the agenda?
- Boosting the pioneering Climate change and Clean energy agenda.
- Across the Indo-Pacific region, further enhancement of our security and diplomatic cooperation.
What else?
- He will address a joint session of the U.S. Congress.
- It reflects healthy relationship between India and US.
- It is good news for India as the U.S. Constitution gives Congress extensive powers to shape foreign policy.
- Lawmakers seldom interact directly with other nations on policy, but the laws that Congress passes, or treaties and nominations the Senate approves, can influence U.S. interactions with other countries.
- Mr. Modi will also interact with U.S. CEOs and investors at the annual meeting of the U.S-India Business Council (USIBC)
- The USIBC is also lobbying with the U.S and Indian governments to restart the negotiations for a bilateral investment treaty.
- Whereas in India, the Government is facing protests from some factions over the intellectual property rights policy which was recently announced by the government.
- They have appealed the Government to withstand the pressure from the U.S. government and corporations.
- These groups have asked the Indian Government to defend the people’s interests and not to compromise the country’s ability to ensure affordable drugs.
[3] The road to empowering city governments
Context:
- City Governance
- In 1992 India recognised metropolitan regions as agglomerations.
- India also felt the need of a law for coordinated economic and spatial planning.
- Government passed 74th constitutional amendment. Contains provisions of Municipal Corporation.
But it required a sustained effort on various fronts:
- Strengthen metropolitan governance:
a) Article 243 ZE: Establishment of the Metropolitan Planning Committee (MPC) to prepare a draft development plan focusing on shared resources, investments, infrastructure and environmental conservation for the region as a whole for approval by the state government. But it failed because of two reasons.- state governments are reluctant to concede power.
- MPC as a supra-municipal authority has limitations. Because it does not have executive powers, staff and budgets.
Recently, Maharashtra announced steps that could alter the paradigm of metropolitan governance, planning and development in India. but it is mere a replacement of the failed metropolitan planning committees across cities.
So what will be the solution?
- A more democratic approach by providing the MPCs with a full-time secretariat, which includes, staff, budgets and executive powers.
- This body can be the middle layer between the municipal bodies and the state government.
- Municipal commissioners could report both metropolitan commissioner and elected governments to facilitate coordinated governance.
- MPC could have participation from members of Parliament.
- There will be some sort of balance of power at the city level and ensure the central government has some stake in metropolitan cities as defined in the Constitution.
- Housing, transport and police should be in the 12th Schedule.
- Currently State governments continue to hold these functions.
- This control provides state governments with unrestrained power over capital-intensive sectors, indirectly enabling them to control cities.
- Municipal bodies have limited finance and resources to cater to demands from state-controlled bodies such as housing boards and slum redevelopment authorities to provide basic services around the housing colonies they develop, irrespective of their capacity to deliver.
- Ultimately move to a directly elected mayoral system of urban governance.
- In July 2015, a special committee constituted to suggest recommendation to split the city of 8.5 million into five different municipalities, each to be governed by a directly elected mayor.
- Unfortunately, India does not have directly elected mayor being a parliamentary democracies.
- India must consider moving to the system of a directly elected mayor similar to London.
Some facts:
- India is on the way to have 69 metropolitan cities by 2025.
- By 2030, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region will be more populous than Australia and, with its GDP at about $230 billion in 2030, its economy will be bigger than that of Thailand or Hong Kong today.
Conclusion:
- India is in big need for better urban governance today and the need will increase day by day.
- Parliamentarians across party lines need to work on a constitutional amendment that lays out the road map for urban governance reform.
[4] Swiss back India’s bid for nuclear group membership
Context
There have been two recent developments between India and Switzerland :
- Switzerland has agreed to support India for membership of Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
- Both India and Switzerland have agreed to cooperate on dealing with the menace of black money. A major chunk of black money find its way into the swiss banks.
What Swiss backing for NSG means for India?
- Switzerland is one of the members of the 48 membered NSG and support from Switzerland would mean that another top member backs India in its NSG membership bid.
- Also, a meeting of NSG members is scheduled to happen recently in Seoul, with support of top members like USA, UK and now Switzerland, India’s lobby is bound to get stronger.
- Since entry to NSG can happen only if all the members agree to it, such support from key members will exert sufficient pressure on China to agree to India’s membership.It is worthwhile to note here that China has been opposing India’s membership to NSG.
What the Swiss cooperation on black money means for India?
- The cooperation on black money front is also important as many Indians have stashed their money in swiss bank accounts.
- This is unaccountable and untaxed money and an exchange of information between India and Switzerland on these offenders would help India recover a large amount of black money which accounts to almost 20% of India’s GDP
Apart from the two major developments India and Switzerland have also agreed to cooperate:
- In the areas of trade, investments and vocational training
- Both have also agreed to back each other on their respective efforts to become the non permanent members of United Nations Security Council.
[5] Election Commission writes to Centre, seeks power to postpone, revoke polls
Context
- Election Commission has asked the central govt to give it the powers to postpone or rescind polls if it there is an evidence that money powers has been used to influence voters.
- This is to be done by amending the Representation of Peoples act (RoPA).
Present stance of Representation of Peoples Act
- There are provisions in the RoPA (clause 58A) which empowers the Election Commission to cancel the polls in case of booth capturing or when there is use of muscle power. But there is no clause empowering the EC to do the same if there is use of money power in elections.
What changes has EC asked for?
- Election Commission has asked to introduce a new clause – 58B in RoPA.
- This new clause would allow the commission to cancel and also reschedule the poll if there is a use of money to influence the voters in the polling area.
Conclusion
- Although even today EC can cancel the polls if there is use of money power but for that it has to invoke that action under Article 324 of the constitution. The problem is that the constitutional provisions can only be invoked sparingly.
- Thus, EC is right in demanding an amendment of RoPA to make it easier to take action in case of unfair polling.
GS PAPER 3
[1] State lenders to get Centre’s backing to reduce bad loans: FM
Issue
- Proposals to clean up Public sector banks’ balance sheets
What are the proposals?
- There is a proposal to empower Banks through various provisions including legal provisions.
- There will be protection for big, legitimate decisions by the top managements to ensure speedy resolution of stressed assets.
- The proposals will be fine-tuned after taking into consideration suggestions from the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA).
Objective of these proposals
- They aim at encouraging bankers to enter into ‘reasonable and fair settlements’ with regard to those stressed accounts where full recovery is considered difficult, without fears of fishing expeditions of investigative agencies later on.
- It will quicken the pace of recovery and cleaning up of banks’ balance sheets.
What else?
- On the issue of bank consolidation the government has reiterated that it supports Bank consolidation but at the moment it is only concerned about consolidation of SBI associates and there are no other consolidations proposals in the pipeline.
- It will soon approve State Bank of India’s (SBI) proposal to consolidate within itself its five associate banks—State Bank of Travancore, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Patiala and State Bank of Hyderabad—and the Bharatiya Mahila Bank.
[2] Ships get relief from piracy related insurance premium at Indian ports
News:
- Now ships which commute from Indian ports are not required to pay a piracy related additional insurance premium.
- This will surely help thousands of vessels.
Why this development has come?
- Seas near India’s western coast were removed from the list of the High Risk Areas (HRA) for piracy.
- Ships, that called on Indian ports between 2010 and 2015, paid approx Rs.8,500 crore additional war risk premium (AWRP).
Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS) meeting in Mahe, India was chosen to co-chair the Working Group on improving maritime situational awareness in the region through consensus.
Earlier, members of the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS) had decided to move the longitude marking of the HRA from 65 Degrees to 78 Degrees East, it will extend the high risk area close to the Indian coastline.
But it was redrawn at 65 degrees.
Extra points:
High Risk Areas (HRA) for piracy:
High Risk Areas for piracy (HRA) have been declared in different parts of the world to reflect precautions to be taken when ships transit them
| Area | Agency | Northern Limit | Eastern Limit | Southern Limit | Western Limit | Remarks |
| HRA | Shipping Industry, Contact Group of Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS) | Suez and Strait of Hormuz | 65°E | 10°S | Eastern Coast of Somalia and other littorals | Promulgated in August 2011, Revised in October 2015 |
CGPCS: Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia was set up as a group of affected nations, industry associations and multilateral agencies to take steps for checking piracy in the Indian Ocean.
[3] Clear the air on FDI in retail
Context
- Only increasing the FDI in retail will not increase the inflow of investments in the country. Ambiguous norms and regulations such as those on ‘domestic sourcing’ has hampered the investments and will keep on doing so unless such complexities are removed.
What has happened in the recent past?
- Government allowed 100% FDI in single brand product retailing with the hopes that it would translate to increasing FDI inflows.
- However, certain conditions – any company having more than 51% ownership must source 30% good from India and even in this the medium, small and micro industries should be the ones that are preferred.
Because of this norm the FDI inflows did not pick up despite allowing 100% FDI. The govt then changed the norms
The changed norms
- Changing the sourcing norms, the govt has now exempted those companies which sell “products having ‘state-of-the-art’ and ‘cutting-edge’ technology” from the sourcing conditions.
- It also exempted those companies “where local sourcing is not possible”.
- Recently Apple has asked for waiver based on these exemption clause to open company owned stores in India.
Are the changed norms any good?
- These norms have increased the ambiguity even more as there are no proper standards which would decide if the product is state of the art or if local sourcing is possible or not.
- The entire decision to grant such exemptions will be in the hands of commerce ministry. This opens to door to arbitrary grants, lack of transparency and favouritism.
What should be the solution?
Instead of having such complex and arbitrary norms, these sourcing norms should be eliminated altogether.
They have an immense potential to breed negative sentiments where one player gets the exemptions and other does not. This will not only affect India’s image as a lucrative FDI destination but will also not be a positive step towards ease of doing business.
[4] A basic income
Context
- Swiss voters rejected the proposal which aimed that the govt would provide a guaranteed basic income to each citizen. This basic income would be same for everyone, no matter if they are employed or unemployed.
Why such a proposal was made?
- This proposal was made so that everyone gets access to a minimum basic standard of living. At the face of it the idea might seem to be a really good one considering the inefficiency of public welfare delivery system and contracting labour market in Switzerland. But still it was rejected with astounding majority.
Why was it rejected?
- The reason it was rejected was that the govt would have to spend 3 times of what it is spending today and for spending such high amounts it would have to increase the tax rate to the levels which seem infeasible.
- Also since the govt would be providing basic income, it would have to stop all other social sector benefits
What can India learn from this?
India itself is hell bent to try its hands on policies like Direct Cash Transfer which is similar to providing a basic income.
- However, it must learn that if a country like Switzerland which is capable enough to provide such basic income has rejected the proposal, where does India stand in context of capability and feasibility.
- Hard cash in the hands is not the only solution to a deformed welfare delivery system. There is a need to look if the welfare delivery system itself can be reformed rather than substituting it completely by providing a basic income without any good rationale.
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