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Today’s brief reads three articles. Anil Wadhwa of the Vivekananda International Foundation writes that China lost the case of 2016 and took the water anyway. V. Anantha Nageswaran in The Hindu holds that the agreement with Britain is worth most for the competition it lets in. Sushant Kishore and Navneet Sharma in the Deccan Herald argue that a language learnt under compulsion does not stay with the student.
China lost the arbitration of 2016 and has taken control of the water since.
Anil Wadhwa writes in the tenth year of the arbitration award on the South China Sea. The Permanent Court of Arbitration rejected the claim of China to historic rights in those waters. China has since built the control the award denied it. Wadhwa argues that Beijing did not answer the law with law. It answered with presence on the water. Reefs are now military hubs. The coast guard and the fishing fleet do the daily work of control. The award stands, and the sea is Chinese in practice.
The record
- The Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague gave its award in July 2016. The Philippines had brought the case against China under UNCLOS.
- The tribunal held that the claim of China to historic rights within the nine-dash line has no legal basis under UNCLOS.
- It held that none of the islands, reefs and features China occupies in the disputed area can generate extensive maritime claims.
- It found that Chinese activity infringed the sovereign rights of the Philippines within its Exclusive Economic Zone. It also criticised the damage done to the marine environment.
- China called the award null and void from the first day. It has never accepted the jurisdiction of the tribunal.
- Mischief Reef, Subi Reef and Fiery Cross Reef are now military hubs. They carry runways, dredged harbours, aircraft hangars, radar systems and missiles.
- The China Coast Guard is the main instrument of enforcement at sea. Fishing vessels reorganised as a maritime militia work in coordinated swarms.
- The methods of the grey zone are blocking operations, water cannons, dangerous manoeuvres and lasers. They stay below the level of open conflict.
- The Philippines won the case and still faces restricted fishing access. Resupply of its men on the grounded BRP Sierra Madre is obstructed. Second Thomas Shoal and Scarborough Shoal are the points of confrontation.
- Vietnam has strengthened its island infrastructure and its defence partnerships. Malaysia and Brunei protect their offshore energy interests. Indonesia defends its Exclusive Economic Zone near the Natuna Islands.
- ASEAN has no united answer. Talks on a Code of Conduct have run for years without a result.
- The United States has expanded freedom of navigation operations. It has extended its mutual defence commitment to Philippine vessels in the South China Sea.
- Japan supplies patrol vessels and training to countries of the region. Australia takes part in joint patrols. European navies deploy there from time to time.
- Nearly fifty per cent of the external trade of India passes through the South China Sea. Critical energy imports are part of it.
- The Andaman and Nicobar Command overlooks the western approaches to the Malacca Strait.
- Wadhwa asks for better surveillance, maritime domain awareness, underwater sensor networks and closer operational cooperation with partners, including the Quad countries.
The argument
The case is an instance of law that nobody enforces. A tribunal can hold a claim to be without basis. It cannot take the runways off a reef. China stayed below the level of war and changed the map of control. Read the decade in realist terms and the lesson is simple. Capability settled the question, not the text of the award.
For India the stake is trade and energy, not the ownership of reefs. India supports UNCLOS and freedom of navigation. It stays out of the sovereignty disputes. The answer Wadhwa asks for is capability. That means the Andaman and Nicobar Command, knowledge of what moves in the water, and work with the Quad. The wider risk is to the law of the sea itself. If occupation can supersede legal norms, the authority of UNCLOS weakens for every dispute that follows.
“China’s achievement has not been to win the legal argument. Rather, it has resorted to operational control to gradually eclipse legal legitimacy in a sustained manner.”
Anil Wadhwa
The agreement with Britain is worth more for what India has agreed to import than for what it will export.
V. Anantha Nageswaran writes on the trade agreement between India and the United Kingdom. An agreement of this kind is usually sold on the exports it will help. He argues that its deeper worth lies in what it obliges the country to import. Duty free entry into Britain helps the sectors that employ the most workers. The slow opening of the Indian market to British cars and to Scotch whisky is the part that will make some people uncomfortable. Nageswaran holds that this is the useful part.
The record
- The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between India and the United Kingdom came into force in July 2026.
- From 15 July about 99 per cent of Indian exports by value enter Britain free of duty.
- The duties removed cover textiles and garments, leather and footwear, marine products, processed food, engineering items and auto components. These sectors are labour intensive.
- A duty of 12 per cent or 16 per cent at the British border often decided whether a garment unit in Tiruppur or a footwear cluster in Agra won an order.
- Bangladesh, Pakistan and Cambodia already sent garments into Britain free of duty while Indian goods paid the tax. That gap is now closed.
- India is the largest supplier of generic medicines in the world. Britain buys close to 30 billion dollars of pharmaceuticals a year.
- The Double Contribution Convention exempts Indian professionals posted to Britain, and their employers, from paying into the British social security system for up to five years.
- More than 75,000 workers and about 900 companies stand to save on the order of 600 million dollars a year.
- India will bring its duty on cars built in Britain down from about 110 per cent towards 10 per cent. The tax on Scotch whisky falls from 150 per cent towards 40 per cent over a decade. The cuts are phased across years and capped by quotas.
- India and Britain intend to double their trade, from about 56 billion dollars, by the end of the decade.
The argument
The argument is about protection. Nageswaran writes that protection without an end does not build strong industries. It preserves weak ones. An industry never made to face a better product never has to make one. Indian carmakers became good in small and mid-sized vehicles, where they had to compete at home and abroad. Where the wall was high they had little reason to improve. A limited number of British cars will not overwhelm anyone. It will remind the Indian producer that the customer, and not the tariff schedule, is the person he must satisfy.
The second half of the argument is about implementation. Signing an agreement and making it work are two different tasks. The gains become real only if exporters are ready and procedures are clean. The rate at which Indian firms use free trade agreements has room to improve. Nageswaran asks the government and the large industry bodies to work with associations of small enterprise. Market access on its own does not produce export growth.
“Exposure to competition is not a concession to a trading partner. It is a favour we Indians do ourselves.”
V. Anantha Nageswaran
“Trade policy is, in the end, about jobs.”
V. Anantha Nageswaran
A third language ordered from the board does not become a language the student keeps.
Sushant Kishore and Navneet Sharma write on the language order of the Central Board of Secondary Education. Students of Class IX must now study three languages, and at least two of them must be Indian languages. The authors read this as a paradox. English is pushed into the non-native corner, while fourteen states and union territories use it for governance, law and administration. Their second argument is about learning itself. A language taken up to satisfy a rule does not survive the examination that tests it.
The record
- The Central Board of Secondary Education governs over 28,000 affiliated schools.
- The board has made the three language formula compulsory in phases for Class IX. A student takes three languages, called R1, R2 and R3. At least two must be Indian languages.
- Most schools of the board teach in English.
- English is the sole official language of Nagaland and of Arunachal Pradesh.
- Fourteen states and union territories recognise English as an official or an additional official language for governance, law and administration.
- The press release of 29 June and the circular of 10 July gave a one time relaxation to students of Classes VII, VIII and IX. A student already studying two non-native languages may keep both, if one Indian language is added as the third.
- The board has said that the third language will be assessed only within the school.
- The order came two months into the academic year. Textbooks were not ready, and schools were told to use the books of Class VI as a stopgap.
- The authors set out two motivations for learning a language. Instrumental motivation is the use of a language for survival or for economic advancement. Integrative motivation is the wish to connect with a culture and its people. A rule from a board, they write, creates a third and weaker category.
- Sushant Kishore teaches English at VIT, Vellore. Navneet Sharma teaches Education at CUHP, Dharamshala.
The argument
This is the language question of Indian federalism in a new dress. A rule written for the whole country reaches every classroom in every state. The board defends it as decolonisation and as cultural rootedness. The authors answer that the same policy treats the language of fourteen states as foreign. The question of national integration sits on one side and the diversity of Indian languages on the other. Neither side is served by an order that arrived without textbooks.
The second argument is about the way a language survives at all. Languages live in the street, in work, in the family and in the media. They die when they become marks in a register. The authors ask for organic cultivation in place of compulsion. The counter argument is worth stating as well. Indian languages have lost ground in schools that teach only in English, and a board that does nothing leaves that drift in place. What the article shows is that a rule announced two months into the year, with the books of Class VI as a substitute, is not the way to correct it.
Where this belongs in your syllabus
Open the note and read the full topic.
The questions this feeds
Questions from earlier years that today’s reading speaks to. Where the answer is written, the red link opens it. The full set is in the PYQ Vault.
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