Farm lessons from China (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level: Cropping pattern
Mains level : Research and Development in Agriculture sector

Context

• India and China, the world’s most populous countries, have limited arable land — China has about 120 million hectares (mha) and India 156 mha.
• The challenge before the two countries is to produce enough food, fodder and fibre for their population.

Similar stories

• Both have adopted modern technologies in agriculture, starting with high yield variety (HYV) seeds, in the mid-1960s, increasing irrigation cover and using more chemical fertilisers to produce more food from limited land.
• China’s irrigation cover is 41 per cent of the country’s cultivated area, while India’s irrigation cover is 48 per cent.
• China’s total sown area, as a result of such irrigation, is 166 mha, compared to India’s gross cropped area of 198 mha.

Output differs

• Even though China has less land under cultivation, its agriculture output is valued at $1,367 billion, more than three times that of India’s agriculture output, $407 billion.

How has China made this possible?

• China spends a lot more on agriculture knowledge and innovation system (AKIS), which includes agri R and D and extension.
• China invested $7.8 billion on AKIS in 2018-19, 5.6 times the amount spent by India — $1.4 billion.
• A study on the impact of investment and subsidies on agri-GDP growth and poverty alleviation revealed that the highest impact is from investments in agriculture research and education (R and E).
• The study estimated that for every rupee invested in R and E, agriculture GDP increases by Rs 11.2; and for every million rupees spent on agri-R and E, 328 people are brought out of poverty.

Are there lessons in China’s experience for India?

• India invests just about 0.35 per cent of its agri-Gross Value Added (GVA) while China spends 0.8 per cent (expenditure by Centre only).
• To increase total factor productivity, India needs to increase expenditure on agri-R and D, while making the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) accountable for targeted deliveries.
• China invested $7.8 billion on AKIS in 2018-19, 5.6 times the amount spent by India — $1.4 billion.

Better seeds that result from higher R and D expenditures

• The incentive structure as measured by producer support estimates (PSEs) is much better for Chinese farmers than Indian farmers.
• The PSE concept adopted by 52 countries, that produce more than three-fourths of the global agri-output, measures the output prices that farmers get in a free trade scenario.
• It also measures the input subsidies received by them. For Chinese farmers, the PSE was 15.3 per cent of the gross farm receipts during the triennium average ending (TE) 2018-19.
• Indian farmers had a PSE of negative 5.7 per cent. In a way, this reflects that Indian farmers had been taxed much more than they have been subsidised — despite high amounts of input subsidies.
• This negative PSE (support) is a fallout of restrictive marketing and trade policies that do not allow Indian farmers to get free trade prices for their output.
• This negative market price support is so strong that it exceeds the input subsidy support the government gives to farmers through low prices of fertilisers, power, irrigation, agri-credit and crop insurance.
• The solution for correcting this situation is to carry out large scale agri-marketing reforms (APMC and Essential Commodities Act). But instead of doing that, the Indian government has been trying to jack up minimum support prices (MSPs) for 23 crops for farmers.

Pertains to direct income support schemes

• China has combined its major input subsidies in a single scheme, which allows direct payment to farmers on per hectare basis and has spent $20.7 billion for this purpose in 2018-19.
• This gives the farmers freedom to produce any crop rather than incentivising them to produce specific crops.
• Inputs are priced at market prices giving right signals to farmers to use resources optimally. India, on the other hand, spent only 3 billion dollars under its direct income scheme, PM-KISAN in 2018-19, but the country has spent $27 billion on heavily subsidising fertilisers, power, irrigation, insurance and credit.
• This leads to large inefficiency in their use and also creates environmental problems.
• It may be better for India to also consolidate all its input subsidies and give them directly to farmers on per hectare basis and free up prices from all controls.
• This would go a long way to spur efficiency and productivity in Indian agriculture.

Way forward

• India can learn three lessons from China — investing more in agri-R and D and innovations, improving incentives for farmers by carrying out agri-marketing reforms, and collapsing input subsidies into direct income support on per hectare basis.
• This could put India’s agriculture on a high growth trajectory.

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Chandigarh’s Sukhna Lake (Live Mint)

Mains Paper 3: Environment
Prelims level: Sukhna Lake
Mains level: Draft notification for Sukhna Lake

Context

• The Chandigarh administration had on Monday issued a draft notification for declaring Sukhna Lake as a wetland under the Wetland (Conservation and Management) Rule, 2017.
• Suggestions and objections have been invited from residents for the same.
• Sukhna Lake was declared a wetland more than 30 years ago as well. A status report placed before the Punjab and Haryana High Court recently stated that the UT administrator had issued such a notification on July 6, 1988, as well.
• The new notification will include the public’s suggestions and objections as required under the 2017 rules.

When was this decision taken?

• In July this year, the Chandigarh Wetlands Authority had unanimously decided to declare the Sukhna Lake as a wetland.
• It was the second meeting of the Union Territory of Chandigarh Wetlands Authority that was chaired by Punjab Governor and Chandigarh Administrator V P Singh Badnore.
• At the meeting, officers of the Punjab and Haryana government were also asked to join UT in conserving the lake.

How will this help Sukhna?

• Declaring Sukhna a wetland will help preserve the lake and conserve its ecological and biodiversity.
• A major threat to Sukhna is the discharge of pollutants from neighbouring areas. Sukhna Wetland is spread over 565 acres.
• The catchment area of Sukhna Wetland spreading over 10,395 acres as finalised by the Survey of India includes 2,525 acres of Haryana and 684 acres of Punjab.
• With this, various activities will be prohibited/regulated/ promoted both in the wetland as well catchment areas.

What activities will be prohibited?

• Encroachment of any kind, setting up of any industry and expansion of existing industries, manufacturing or handling or storage or disposal of construction and demolition waste covered under the Construction and Demolition Waste Management Rules, 2016.
• The hazardous substances covered under the Manufacture, Storage and Import of Hazardous Chemical Rules, 1989, or the Rules for Manufacture, Use, Import, Export and Storage of Hazardous Micro-organisms Genetically Engineered Organisms or Cells, 1989, or the Hazardous Waste (Management, Handling and Trans-Boundary Movement) Rules, 2008.
• This also includes electronic waste covered under the E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2016, solid waste dumping, discharge of untreated waste and effluents from industries, cities, towns, villages and other human settlements and any construction of a permanent nature within specific distance of the wetland.

Way ahead

• The administration had recently introduced a programme to include villagers of Kaimbwala under the ‘Friends of Sukhna’ — a voluntary program to keep a check on activities taking place in the area.

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A health warning (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2: Health
Prelims level: Tuberculosis (TB) report
Mains level: Relation to Tuberculosis (TB) report with malnutrition

Context

• The Annual India Tuberculosis (TB) report released by the government says that India is now home to about a quarter of the total global TB patients.
• The current government is committed to ending TB in India by 2025.

TB in relations with Malnutrition and Sanitation

• Prime Minister declared that rural India was open defecation free (ODF).
• The Global Hunger Index 2019 put India at 102 in a list of 117 countries. India’s ranking was below Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
• It has been established beyond doubt that TB is more of a social disease owing to its roots to poverty, malnutrition and poor sanitary conditions.

State of TB in India

• The TB report reveals the progress on the government’s action plan on combating TB.
• As per the report, 21.5 lakh TB cases were reported in the country in 2018. This is the highest number of TB cases registered in any country.
• The report says that with the introduction of Nikshay – the computer-based surveillance programme for TB patients, the reporting of TB cases has improved dramatically.

Discuss the barriers to TB notifications

• The working of such a surveillance programme in an unequal country like India should be taken with a pinch of salt.
• In a paper published in the BMJ Open concluded that despite a national notification system of Nikshay other factors decide notification of patients.
• Issues like patient confidentiality, poor knowledge of notification system, etc, prevented notification of TB patients in a hospital setting.
• These factors are social and without intervening at that level, it is hard to believe that notification of TB cases can reach a significant number by 2025.
• Of the total notifications, 5.4 lakh cases were from the private sector, an increase of 40% from last year. More than 80% of healthcare is now being delivered by private health enterprises.

Key issues in TB control for public health system

Public health

• An increase in the notification of TB patients could be heartening for the government. But is not a good indicator for the public health system.

Hunger

• The GHI report reminds that a hungry India cannot be free of TB.
• Dietary deprivation is a direct indicator of inequality. Unequal societies cannot be made free of disease and infirmity.
• BMC Pulmonary Medicine journal from Ethiopia shows that the proportion of malnutrition in TB patients was nearly 60%.
• Even a very distal reason for malnutrition in the community became a proximal cause for TB.

Open Defecation

• TB and sanitation have a direct causal relationship.
• The Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme run by the National Centre for Disease Control maintains a web portal that details the outbreak of epidemics.
• The validity of the claims of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SAB) through this data shows that there was no statistically significant reduction in the occurrence of vector-borne epidemics in the country, two years after the launch of SAB.

Conclusion

• To end TB is not possible till we end malnutrition, poverty and poor sanitation.
• We need a paradigm shift in the response to TB. This should include a more sensitive approach on gender and towards the underprivileged.

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National dishonour (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2: Social Justice
Prelims level: GHI
Mains level: Steps towards curbing hunger and malnutrition problems

Context

• Despite unprecedented quantities of wealth and the vulgar ostentation which has become customary in the gaudy glitter of city life, India is unable to overcome hunger and malnourishment.
• This is even more unconscionable when government warehouses are overflowing with stocks of rotting rice and wheat.

About Hunger

• Hunger is the failure to access the calories that are necessary to sustain an active and healthy life.
• It results in intense human suffering and indignity, as their brains and bodies are unable to grow to full potential and they fall ill too often and are snatched away too early.

Reasons behind calling it dishonour

• With appropriate public policies — sensitively designed, adequately resourced and effectively implemented — the country has both the wealth and the food stocks many times over to end hunger entirely.
• Nepal emerging from 15 years of civil war and Pakistan still torn by internal conflict — is a sobering reminder of what India has not accomplished. This failure does not spur public outrage and the introspection that it should.

GHI report ranks

• The GHI report ranks India at a lowly 102 out of 117 countries listed.
• The GHI scores are based on four indicators.
• Undernourishment (the share of population with insufficient calorie intake);
• Child wasting (children with low weight for height, indicating acute undernutrition);
• Child stunting (children with low height for age, reflecting chronic undernutrition); and
• Child mortality (death rate of children under five).

Report highlights and the success story of Nepal and Bangladesh

• India has the highest rate of child wasting (which rose from the 2008-2012 level of 16.5 per cent to 20.8 per cent). Its child stunting rate (at 37.9 per cent) also remains shockingly high.
• The report is instructive as it explains why Bangladesh and Nepal have surged ahead of a much wealthier India.
• The Bangladesh success story is attributed to pro-poor economic growth raising household incomes as well as significant improvements in “nutrition-sensitive” sectors like education, sanitation and health.
• Nepal, likewise, shows increased household wealth, maternal education, sanitation, health and nutrition programmes.

Boosting farm sector

• The largest population of food-insecure people being food producers — farm workers, tenants, marginal and small farmers, fish workers and forest gatherers.
• To end hunger, food producers must be supported to receive adequate remuneration.
• Need to be taken sound measures to protect farmer incomes, including income transfers to farmers, minimum support-price guarantees and crop insurance, and a massive expansion of farm credit.
• For farm workers, a refocus on land reforms is called for, and, a greatly expanded and effectively managed rural employment guarantee programme with attention to land and watershed development, small irrigation and afforestation.
• There must also be an urgent and comprehensive shift to sustainable agricultural technologies less dependent on irrigation, chemical fertilisers and pesticides, to reverse our agri-ecological crisis.

Introducing an urban employment guarantee programme

• The other large food-vulnerable population comprises informal workers.
• Hunger can’t be combated without addressing the burgeoning job crisis.
• It also entails labour reforms which protect job security, fair work conditions and social security of all workers.
• The time has come for an urban employment guarantee programme, to help build basic public services and infrastructure for the urban poor — especially slum and pavement residents, and the homeless.
• This should also include employment in the care economy, with services for child-care, children and adults with disability and older persons.

Revitalising the Public distribution system

• The Public Distribution System must be universalised (excluding income tax payees), and should distribute not just cereals but also pulses and edible oils.
• We need to reimagine it as a decentralised system where a variety of crops are procured and distributed locally. Both pre-school feeding and school meals need adequate budgets, and the meals should be supplemented with nutrient-rich foods such as dairy products, eggs and fruits.
• Social protection also entails universal pension for persons not covered by formal schemes, universal maternity entitlements to enable all women in informal work to rest and breast-feed their children, a vastly expanded creche scheme, and residential schools for homeless children and child workers.
• Malnourishment results not just from inadequate food intakes, but also because food is not absorbed due to frequent infections caused by bad drinking water, poor sanitation and lack of healthcare.
• India’s nutrition failures are also because of persisting gaps in securing potable water to all citizens, and continued open defecation despite optimistic official reporting.
• There is an urgent requirement for a legally enforceable right to healthcare, with universal and free out-patient and hospital-based care, free diagnostics and free medicines.

Way ahead

• India continues to fail children born in impoverished households, to homeless people and single mothers, and to oppressed castes and social groups.
• Our economic policy continues to be trapped in an elite capture, dominated by measures that support big businesses to the exclusion of farmers and workers. Social rights are broken and betrayed.

Conclusion

• At its core, the reason for India’s continuing failures to end hunger and malnutrition of its millions is the indifference of people who have never known the agony of involuntary hunger.
• This is ultimately the result of our enormous cultural comfort with inequality, our gravest and most culpable civilisational flaw.

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On BSNL-MTNL merger: A delayed imperative (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level: BSNL-MTNL merger
Mains level: Significance of the merger

Context

• The Cabinet’s approval this week for a plan to revive the loss-making public sector telecommunications providers Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL).
• MTNL has come not a moment too soon. From having been monopoly providers of telephone connectivity, the state-run telecoms have had to contend with sweeping change since the opening up of the industry to private players and entry of wireless telephony in the 1990s.

Background

• In just over two decades, the mobile phone revolution has catapulted India to the second rank in terms of wireless subscribers, with only China ahead.
• But the radical transformation of the industry landscape - wrought by the runaway growth in user numbers, rapid technological advances, and bruising competition - has come at a substantial price.
• The private sector saw the relatively older, large firms using mergers and acquisitions to consolidate as smaller rivals found themselves unable to cope with bitter tariff wars and the capital costs of bidding for spectrum and upgrading their technologies.
• BSNL, for its part, was saddled with the legacy of having been a large-scale provider of jobs as well as state-mandated connectivity to remote corners of the country.
• It is in the fulfilment of the state’s social objectives that the public sector enterprises (PSEs) racked up substantial costs, which the Centre’s revival plan aims to help address.

Significance of the merger

• The proposal includes the allotment of critical spectrum to the two PSEs for offering fourth-generation wireless services, including broadband.
• The Centre will fund the spectrum’s cost through an infusion of ₹20,140 crore of capital while also bearing the related GST levy of ₹3,674 crore.
• And besides providing a sovereign guarantee on ₹15,000 crore of long-term bonds, which would help the firms restructure debt and partly fund expenses, the government will extend budgetary support of ₹17,169 crore for ex-gratia payments on a crucial voluntary retirement scheme.
• A lot will hinge on this VRS plan given that BSNL’s workforce of over 1,65,000 employees end up cornering about 75% of the telco’s total income. The Cabinet has also given an ‘in-principle’ nod for the two PSEs to merge, a move that would add market heft to the merged entity.

Way forward

• A successful revival of BSNL will have far-reaching implications for the industry, this at a time when two of the three surviving private players are faced with not only sliding market share but a government bill of about ₹75,000 crore following the loss of a legal challenge.
• The reach of its network, especially in remote parts, makes BSNL a “strategic asset” that has national security implications given its role in serving the armed forces and responding to natural disasters.
• The revival plan, even if years late, is a clear recognition by the government of this indisputable fact.

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Consumption before festival season was bleak; but things could improve (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level: FMCG
Mains level: Highlights of the FMCG report on domestic consumption

Context

• Growth in private final consumption in the June 2019 quarter slid to 6.2 per cent, down from 14.1 per cent in the September quarter of 2018; industrial production contracted by 1.1 per cent in August, wholesale price index moved close to zero, and Markit India Services PMI crashed to 48.7 in September.
• The slowdown seems to have impacted rural consumption of fast-moving consumer goods.

Highlights of the FMCG report

• Nielson Holding Plc’s report on the FMCG segment for the September 2019 quarter has pointed out that overall growth in value of FMCG sales halved in the September 2019 quarter, compared to last year.
• Growth in FMCG volumes has dived from 13.9 per cent in the third quarter of 2018 to 3.9 per cent this year.
• What is of greater worry is that rural sales grew 5 per cent in the recent quarter, much slower than the growth in urban sales, which was 8 per cent.
• The Confederation of All India Traders is also of the opinion that the consumption slowdown, along with shift to online purchases, has affected festival sales.
• Gold-jewellery makers have been hurt by the sharp increase in gold prices dampening demand.
• This, along with the higher import duty, is said to be behind the lacklustre sales in the period before Diwali this year.

Shifting sales pattern

• However, there is optimism among jewellery makers that with the wedding season to begin soon, jewellery sales can revive in the penultimate months of this calendar.
• Automakers are also adopting a positive tone in their management notes, stating that the foot-falls in show rooms have improved in recent months.
• A bright spot in the festival season sales in 2019 has been online sales.
• E-commerce majors including Amazon and Flipkart have claimed a lofty 33 per cent growth in festival shopping over last year, towards the beginning of October.
• These sales are said to be led by loans by banks, attractive EMIs and exchange schemes, and availability of a wide range of products.

Way forward

• What is heartening is that demand from rural customers has been robust in online sales, with Amazon India claiming that 88 per cent of its customers were from smaller towns and rural areas.
• The Nielson report states that FMCG sales can revive by the end of this year as the festival season progresses and e-commerce sales increase.
• It may be a little too soon to write off rural consumption just yet.

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Writ in water (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 3 : Environment
Prelims level : India Meteorological Department
Mains level : Environmental Impact Assessment

Context

• India’s monsoon season officially ended on Monday. But a telling image of the vagaries of climate was captured by a photograph taken that day.

Highlights the affected regions

• Bihar is amongst the worst hit by the late monsoon rains that have inundated several parts of the country.
• Nearly 30 people have lost their lives in the state.
• In neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, floods have claimed more than 100 people.
• The death toll in Maharashtra is more than 20. A common feature of the flood stories in all three states is that of civic authorities caught unawares.

Paradigm shift of India’s monsoon

• Normally, the monsoon begins to retreat in the first week of September.
• But this year, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) reckons that the monsoons will not withdraw from the northwest of the country before October 7.
• As a result, the rainy season is likely to linger till October 15. This, according to the IMD, is the most extended monsoon season in more than 50 years — in 1961, the monsoons withdrew on October 1.
• The recent floods are not the only ones to have hit the country in the current monsoon season. In fact, the season began with Bihar being deluged by a flash flood.
• Maharashtra, too, had an earlier spell of floods this year. Karnataka, Gujarat, Assam and Kerala have also suffered the ravages of incessant rainfall.
• Such extreme precipitation events interspersed by dry spells, several studies reckon, could become the new normal for the country.

What needs to be addressed?

• Dealing with the changing contours of the monsoons would, however, require coordination between weather authorities and state governments.
• For instance, authorities in Bihar were not prepared in spite of the red alert issued by the met department.
• Moreover, the drainage systems of most Indian cities are ill-equipped to withstand this change in precipitation patterns.
• Patna it had more than 1,000 water bodies, which would absorb excess rainfall, 30 years ago. Their number has gone down to less than 500.
• Pune’s canals and streams are similarly encroached upon. Disregard for hydrology has, in fact, been the Achilles heel of planning in most Indian cities.

Conclusion

• Reviving drainage systems might take time.
• But civic authorities could make a beginning by unclogging stormwater drains, which often become garbage dumps in several Indian cities.
• Urban planners should read the warning in the floods this year.

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Bopal In Times of Niti Aayog (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2 : Governance
Prelims level : Niti Aayog
Mains level : Principles of the decision Bopal

Context

• In the 90s of the last century, an outrageous idea started to emerge.
• It held that apart from the government agencies, corporates, the cooperative sector, and other citizens could get together for common developmental causes.
• In some ways this was the creative and “developmental” aspect of what is today loosely called the Fifth Estate.
  Role of NGOs
• The development required technology, capital, and other resources.
• But above all, the motivation and capability of the concerned people to utilise their resources in an efficient, equitable, and sustainable manner.
• The decade of the 90s saw sweeping changes in the way rural development — particularly matters relating to natural resources.
• Rural communities were required to prepare and implement micro plans appropriate to local conditions and needs. Joint Forest Management (1990), watershed development (1995), participatory irrigation management (1997) and Swajaldhara (2003) are good examples.
• Those working for participatory management of natural resources were hoping to strengthen and carry forward the participatory approach in 2000-2001 at the time of the formulation of the Tenth Plan.
• The trends in the 10th Five Year Plan point to distortions and reversals of the healthy trends of the 90s.

The decision at Bhopal – 8 principles

• This led to a national-level meeting on January 16, 2005 at Bopal. It was attended by leaders from NGO community, academics and policymakers from various parts of India.
• It prepared eight declarations based on eight principles:
• The centrality of community-based organisations (CBOs)
• Equity
• Decentralisation.
• Need of a facilitating agency
• Monitoring and evaluation
• Training and software
• Sustained momentum of development
• Organisational restructuring

Challenges facing NGOs

• There were conflicts with government and corporate entities — all those who had “sanctioned budgets”.
• There was corruption and no one to lead the well meaning when problems arose.

Way ahead

• If we decide to plan again with the large number of new schemes that were declared after planning was abolished, we must reinvent these principles.

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States at centre (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 3 : Economy
Prelims level : UDAY
Mains level : Challenges in state finances

Context

• In recent times, economic discussion in India has focused largely on the stress on central government finances. But state government finances are also facing headwinds.

Situation of state finances

• States increasingly account for a larger share in general government (Centre and state) spending, this has grave implications for the economy.
• As an RBI report on state finances notes, over the past two years, the overall size of state budgets has reduced which may have “inadvertently deepened” the economic slowdown.
• States have pegged their revenues to grow at a slower pace largely due to lower tax devolution and grants.
• And as revenue expenditure tends to be sticky in nature — it is also rising due to higher interest and pension payments — states have offset slower revenue growth by curtailing capital spending, which will lower overall public sector capex.

Key challenges faced in state finances

• The strains on state finances stem from several sources.
• States are increasingly undertaking capital expenditure through state public sector enterprises.
• States extend support to these enterprises through guarantees on their borrowings, “weak cost recovery mechanisms”, as in the case of the power and transport sectors, pose a fiscal risk.
• Under UDAY agreements, states have to take over incremental losses of power discoms. This exerts pressure on already stretched finances.
• Sharp cuts in corporate taxes and sluggish GST collections will also impact tax devolution to states.
• There are concerns over the fiscal costs of Ayushman Bharat.
• The Centre has been increasingly relying on collections through cesses and surcharges to fund its expenditure.
• Revenue through these sources does not form part of the divisible tax pool, it is not shared with states.
• In 2019-20, the Centre hopes to mop up Rs 3.69 lakh crore through cesses and surcharges (or 15 per cent of its gross tax revenue), implying that states’ share in gross tax revenue works out to just 32.9 per cent.
• This amount is more than the Centre’s capital expenditure or its allocation to centrally sponsored schemes.
• Centre has also asked the 15th Finance Commission to look into the possibility of providing funds for defence and internal security. These are likely to come at the expense of states.

Conclusion

• In this scenario, states must focus on resource mobilisation. But with little scope to raise own-tax revenue, they must focus on raising non-tax revenue, through hiking user charges on services like power and irrigation.

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Furthering this neighbourhood friendship (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2 : International Relations
Prelims level : India-Bangladesh
Mains level : Present state of the relations between two countries

Context

• Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will make her first official visit to India from October 3-6, post the general elections in Bangladesh (December 2018) and India (May 2019).
• She will address the World Economic Forum’s India Economic Summit followed by the bilateral visit.
• India and Bangladesh today enjoy one of the best periods of their relationship, with positive development in the areas of diplomatic, political, economic and security relations.

Despite gains, the issues

• The current Bangladesh government has uprooted security threats and acts of insurgency against India and today, the India-Bangladesh border is one of India’s most secured.
• The signing of the Land Boundary Agreement in 2015 was a milestone, where the two neighbours amicably resolved a long-outstanding issue.

Bilateral trade increase

• Bilateral trade was a little over $9 billion in FY 2017-18 and Bangladeshi exports increased by 42.91%, reaching $1.25 billion in FY 2018-2019.
• Removal of non-tariff barriers will help Bangladeshi exports such as harmonising the standards for goods accepted by India.
• In 2018, in addition to the 660 MW of power imported by Bangladesh, Indian export of electricity increased by another 500 MW.
• A 1,600 MW power station with a dedicated transmission system is being developed to boost power trade.

Improving transport system

• Land routes have gained popularity over air travel, and are preferred by 85.6% of Bangladeshis visiting India. Train services on the Dhaka-Kolkata and Kolkata-Khulna are doing well, while a third, on the Agartala
  Akhaura route, is under construction.
• Five additional bus services were introduced in 2018; this March, the first ever Dhaka-Kolkata cruise ship was launched.
• Bangladeshi tourists accounted for 21.6% of the total percentage of tourists visiting India in 2018 (83.7% tourists and 10.28% medical patients).
• Today, Bangladesh contributes 50% of India’s health tourism revenue.

Other issues needs to be addressed

• A few major outstanding issues still remain, with the most pressing being the Teesta Water Sharing Agreement.
• West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s refusal to endorse water-sharing terms agreed upon by Prime Minister Modi in 2015 has resulted in the current impasse.
• A lack of water has affected 100,000 hectares of land, with contamination affecting the soil; the increased cost of pesticides and irrigation has made farming less profitable.
• The National Register of Citizens (NRC) has left out 1.9 million Assamese from the list with a group labelled as “illegal immigrants from Bangladesh” living in Assam post-1971.
• Bangladesh remains firm in its stance that no migrants travelled to Assam illegally during the 1971 war of independence and that the controversial NRC risks hurting relations.
• Border killings have decreased. India’s Border Security Force (BSF) claims that most of the firing is in self-defence in tackling cattle trafficking. However, since the ban by India on cattle export, cattle trade has fallen from 23 lakh in 2013 to 75,000 till the end of May this year — which makes the argument unconvincing.
• Since 2010, India has approved three lines of credit to Bangladesh of $7.362 billion to finance development projects.
• Due to bureaucratic red tape, just $442 million has been disbursed till December 2018.

Subject of Rohingya

• The Rohingya issue and India’s remarks in 2017 on the issue have been upsetting for Bangladesh which has been facing the challenge of providing shelter to more than a million Rohingya refugees fleeing persecution by one of the world’s most brutal military regimes.
• The recent visit to Dhaka by India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar (August 19-21), saw a marked departure in India’s position; he had said then: “We agreed that safe, speedy and sustainable return of displaced persons (Rohingyas) is in the national interest of all three countries - Bangladesh, Myanmar, and India.”
• However, it is China that is mediating when, given its geographical proximity, it is India which is ideally positioned to play a positive role in regional leadership.

Way ahead

• India-Bangladesh relations have matured in the last decade with development in many areas of cooperation. In a neighbourhood where distrust and cynicism prevail over friendship and hope, the relationship between the two countries has given hope for optimism.
• But the sooner existing challenges are resolved, the better it is.
• On the sidelines of the 74th UN General Assembly late last month, Mr. Modi assured Sheikh Hasina that she would not need to worry about the NRC and water-sharing as bilateral relations are very good. It is now time to walk the talk.

Conclusion

• The shared colonial legacy, history and socio-cultural bonds demand that the political leadership of the two countries inject momentum into India-Bangladesh relations.
• Sheikh Hasina’s trip to India will hopefully help relations graduate to the next level of strengthening the three Cs: cooperation, coordination, and consolidation.

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A sound review: On SC judgment against atrocities on SCs/STs (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2 : Polity
Prelims level : SC/ST Act
Mains level : Highlights the judgment on SC/ST ruling

Context

• After last year’s amendments aimed at nullifying the effect of a Supreme Court judgment that was seen as diluting the law against atrocities on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the apex court’s decision recalling the earlier verdict may not appear very significant.
• However, the latest order by a three-judge Bench on the Centre’s petition seeking a review is more than a mere academic exercise.

Background

• The March 2018 decision laid down three new rules as safeguards against the Act’s possible misuse.
• The bar on anticipatory bail under Section 18 need not prevent courts from granting advance bail; that a person can be arrested only if the “appointing authority” (in the case of a public servant) or the SP (in the case of others) approves such arrest; and that there should be a preliminary enquiry into all complaints.
• It caused an uproar among Dalits, and a nation-wide protest in August last year turned violent in some places.
• There was political clamour for Parliament’s intervention to restore the anti-atrocities law to its original rigour.
• That the Bench declined to stay its own order when a review was sought spurred the government into action.

What the court’s can do?

• It was even argued that the Centre was under political compulsion to undo the perception that the interests of the SCs and STs were in danger.
• The court’s re-examination, on the contrary, is anchored in sound principles.
• It first underscores that special laws for the protection of SC and ST communities flow from social realities, the discrimination they still face and the circumstances that preclude them from mustering the courage to lodge a complaint in the first place.
• The court assails the assumption that SC/ST members are more likely to give false complaints than the general population (as evidenced by the fact that there is no preliminary enquiry or prior sanction for arrest envisaged for other complaints).

Way ahead

• In other words, the additional “safeguards” against the alleged abuse of law by Dalits is another form of discrimination, the court has pointed out.
• It rejects the idea of treating Dalits as people prone to lodging false complaints.
• The directions for getting an authority’s sanction for arrest or holding a preliminary enquiry for this class of cases alone are extra-statutory, and clearly amount to the judiciary engaging in legislation.

Conclusion

• The review is a timely reminder that the top court’s power to pass any order required to uphold justice cannot be used to give directives contrary to existing laws or to supplant them altogether.

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Housing crisis, untouched

• In India, economic growth has been slowing down. One of the sectors which has been worst hit is the housing sector. To counter this problem recently, Model Tenancy Act, 2019 was released by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
• In this context, it is necessary to understand the problems in housing and real estate sector, the provisions of the act, its consequences and way forward.

Problems in housing and real estate sector

• There are issues between the tenants and owners which end up in the courts and the hearings are prolonged. Thus there is a need for special courts.
• Absence of a holistic law covering residential and commercial properties.
• Model Tenancy Act, 2019
• The Act aims to promote rental housing and ‘balance the interests’ of landowners and tenants.
• It covers residential and nonresidential properties, but it is apparent from the framing that it is largely aimed at the urban residential sector.
• One of the provisions is the constitution of Rent Courts and Tribunals - courts to hear cases is limited to the tenancy agreement submitted to the Rent Authority.

Consequences of the Act:

• For the Act to be applicable, the property must be a registered one but in India, there is a trend of having property ownership transfered mostly without proper registration.
• Thus, either a majority of the rental agreements will continue to be unregistered thus nullifying the legislative intent of the Act, or
• The Act might formalise existing arrangements and lead to gentrification and, consequently, an increase in rents, which is the opposite of what it sought to achieve.

Way forward

• There needs to be a greater focus on the upper end of the housing market in order to make a difference in the lower end of the market.
• For instance, across urban India, vacancy rates in urban areas is 10.1% while in slums it is 7.3%.
• We see several empty apartment projects in our cities, but rarely an unoccupied slum or lowincome colony/
• The Act needs to differentiate between commercial tenancies that attract a lot more institutional investment and residential tenancies that are largely held between individuals and households/
• There needs to be a supply of formal affordable rental housing- This requires investment on the part of the Central and State governments.
• There can social initiatives like housing built to rent for migrants, low wage informal and formal workers, and students; rent to own housing for unsteady low wage households; and even rental housing allowances/vouchers for the most marginalised in the housing market.

Conclusion

• Thus the Model tenancy Act 2019 is the step in the right direction but more needs to be done in this regard considering the Indian housing sector.

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Two Asian powers and an island

• India’s diplomatic ties with its neighbours have been fairly on track except those with Pakistan. One of the important neighbours for India has been Sri Lanka with a shared culture, traditions, waters, mythology, religion etc.
• But in recent times China has been gaining greater importance in Sri Lanka because of its projects there. In this context, it is necessary to understand the diplomatic ties of Sri Lanka with the two Asian powers of India and China.
• Thus with delayed projects like the joint development of oil storage facility in Trincomalee is one such project which has been discussed for years, China seems to clearly have an upper hand considering the development projects.

Evaluation of ties

• China-funded infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka may look great, but India-Sri Lanka ties are deeper and more complex.
• India’s assistance during the 2004 tsunami and Mr Modi’s visit to Colombo in June (the first foreign dignitary to do so) in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday attacks show India’s sincerity of approach.
• Though there were some bitter events between India and Sri Lanka like.
• Events such as the withdrawal of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in March 1990.
• The assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the LTTE episode there is scope for the ties to get better.

Way forward

• India needs to pay more attention to the development of the eastern and northern parts of Sri Lanka which were war-torn.
• Response from political leadership should be brought in India’s favour.
• India should also focus on the holistic development of Sri Lanka’s youth and the hill country Tamils, regarded as the most backward in Sri Lanka.
• There needs to be an attempt to encourage the voluntary repatriation of nearly 95,000 refugees who live in Tamil Nadu back to Sri Lanka and as a step towards this direction, the authorities should resume ferry services between Talaimannar and Rameswaram at the earliest.
• Thus it is suggested that a benign and comprehensive approach, backed by the sincerity of purpose, will not only earn India greater respect of Sri Lankans but also send a message to other international players about the strength of its ties with Sri Lanka.

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Trust deficit: On Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank issue

Failures such as PMC Bank’s must be pre-empted to retain public faith in the system

• The financial system of a country comprises of the Financial Institutions which need a regulating authority for their proper functioning and for the prudence of the national economy. This role is performed in India by the Reserve bank of India(RBI).
• Financial institutions, also known as financial intermediaries provide banking services to financial markets. There are three major types of financial institutions.
• Depository institutions – deposit-taking institutions that accept and manage deposits and make loans, including banks, building societies, credit unions, trust companies, and mortgage loan companies;
• Contractual institutions – insurance companies and pension funds
• Investment institutions – investment banks, underwriters, brokerage firms.

The Depository institutions mostly banks can be categorised as:

• Commercial Banks - Provide banking services to the general public and companies which are owned and operated.
• Cooperative Banks - Cooperative banking is retail and commercial banking organized on a cooperative basis (i.e. owned and operated by its members).

Need for cooperative banks:

• They need to offer above-average services.
• They must provide credit at competitive and lower interest rates.
• They also can work in the areas of insurance, lending, and investment dealings.
• In a co-operative bank, each share older has one vote irrespective of the quantum of shares held by her as against commercial banks where voting rights are determined based on shares held. This gives them a democratic structure.
• Mostly provide credit in rural areas but have a federal structure with the local level, district level, state level and Central cooperative banks present support for the agriculture sector.
• To understand the regulatory role of RBI over cooperative banks, one needs to understand the structure of cooperative banks in India.

Structure of cooperative banks in India:

The Cooperative banks in India are of two kinds:

• Urban Cooperative Banks
• Rural Cooperative Banks which provide short term and long term credit.
• The short-term co-operative credit structure operates with a three-tier system –
• Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) at the village level,
• Central Cooperative Banks (CCBs) at the district level and
• State Cooperative Banks (StCBs) at the State level
• RBI’s regulation of cooperative banks.

These are regulated as per the legal framework comprising of the following laws:

• Banking Regulation Act, 1949.
• State Cooperative Societies Act.
• Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act, 2002.
• PACS are outside the purview of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 and hence not regulated by the Reserve Bank of India.
• StCBs/DCCBs and UCBs are registered under the provisions of State Cooperative Societies Act of the State concerned and are regulated by the Reserve Bank through National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development (NABARD) under Sec 35 A of the Banking Regulation Act to conduct an inspection of State and Central Cooperative Banks.

Recent issues with respect to cooperative banks:

• Recently, the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank (PMC), who were told last Tuesday by the Reserve Bank of India that no more than ₹1,000 could be withdrawn from their accounts for a period of six months which was reasoned by RBI to be in depositors’ interests due to financial irregularities, failure of internal control etc.

Way forward

• There is a need to improve the regulatory machinery by RBI to encourage people to keep depositing in the Cooperative banks and have their confidence high on them.

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Home and abroad: On India’s rightful place in the world

• The United Nations General Assembly is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), the only one in which all member nations have equal representation.
• The purpose of the UNGA is to discuss and work together on a wide array of international issues covered by the Charter of the United Nations, such as development, peace and security, international law, etc.
• The 74th UNGA session was held at the United Nations headquarters at New York, the United States of America the outcomes of which along with the way forward are necessary to understand.

Positive outcomes

• Indian Prime Minister in his speech mentioned about the welfare and development schemes that he had initiated and it can be accepted that India’s achievements in housing, sanitation, health care, banking and education are significant.
• The public campaign of the Indian leadership on issues such as water conservation, environment and girls’ education has brought these issues to the centre of the development discourse and the incumbent government deserves full credit for it.

Negative outcomes

• But it is opined that the view of the Indian Government that almost all issues of a country can be insulated from having global implications undermines the
  role of international institutions like the United Nations itself.
• The human rights, democracy and liberty are as much global questions as climate change, health and terrorism is not understood by the Indian leadership.

Way forward

• It is thus suggested that it is to be understood that the best — and the only way — to keep domestic issues domestic is to resolve them through internal dialogue and accommodation.

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At hot sea (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 3 : Environment
Prelims level : Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Mains level : Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on climate change

Context

• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) expressed, “By 2100, oceans all over the world will absorb five to seven times more heat than they have done in the past 50 years, if we do not reduce our emissions trajectory”.

Key highlights of the report

• This report warns, will lead to global sea- levels rising by at least a metre, submerging several coastal cities, including Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Surat.
• Marine heatwaves are projected to be more intense, they would last longer and occur 50 times more often.
• Sea-level rise could also lead to an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events, which occur, for example, during high tides and intense storms.

Background

• Oceans cover more than 70 per cent of the earth’s surface and provide critical ecosystem services such as soaking up heat and distributing it evenly.
• So, as the planet warms, it’s the oceans that get most of the extra energy.
• But hotter oceans also mean stronger cyclones and storms. This could mean unprecedented volatility in several coastal regions.

Threat to climatic incident happened worldwide

• In 2014, Cyclone Nilofar was the first extremely severe cyclone to be recorded in the Arabian Sea in the post-monsoon season.
• Earlier cyclones impacting the country generally originated in the Bay of Bengal and made their landfall on India’s eastern coast. Cyclone Nilofar did not make a landfall but it led to heavy rains in the country’s west coast.
• And in October last year, a higher than normal surge in sea-level due to the dual impact of Cyclone Luban and high tide swamped several beaches in Goa.
• Some of them, in fact, went completely under water for a few hours.
• Warming seas have changed cyclone behaviour in other ways as well.
• In 2017, Cyclone Ockhi, which originated in the Bay of Bengal, travelled more than 2,000 km to wreak havoc on India’s western coast — the first cyclone to do so in 30 years.

Way forward

• The IPCC report warns of more “frequent El Nino and La Nina events”.
• These events in the Pacific Ocean are critically linked to the southwest monsoons in India. In fact, a El Nino caused a severe drought in the country in 2015.
• This means that countries will not only have to upscale efforts to check GHG emissions, they will also need to ramp up investments in infrastructure and knowledge systems that help build up peoples’ resilience against extreme weather events.
• However, after the Paris Climate Treaty, progress on both counts has been patchy at best. The latest IPCC report should serve as a wake-up call.

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Threshold in orbit (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 3 : Science and Tech
Prelims level : Reusable rocket system
Mains level : Reusable rocket system and its key benefits

Context

• A rocket system that can ferry people back and forth between earth and orbit is the threshold for the leap to the planets and the stars.

Background

• Space entrepreneur Elon Musk, long criticised for setting unrealistic deadlines, and then criticised some more for trying to meet them with an inhuman work schedule, has done it again.
• He threatens to put a prototype of his heavy and reusable rocket Starship into orbit in six months. It’s a deadline that even the engineers of the Apollo 11 mission, who won the race to space, would have balked at, and
  they had a government budget and a huge space industry at their command.

Reusable rocket system

• A reusable rocket system — rather than single-use rockets for every flight — is the Holy Grail of space exploration.
• A rocket system that can ferry people back and forth between earth and orbit is the threshold for the leap to the planets and the stars.
• It is speculated that craft with other propulsion modes unsuitable for use near planets, like ion drives, could take over from there, propelling crews at tremendous speeds to distances now unimaginable.
• The existing transport system on earth works efficiently because people can easily change modes bus to train or plane, then bus or taxi to the final destination.
• Space mass transport would probably be similarly variegated and interconnected.

Why is Musk in such a hurry to extend consciousness beyond earth?

• It is because he believes that consciousness is up to no good down here.
• Musk has repeatedly sounded warnings about artificial intelligence, currently the Holy Grail of communications technology, running wild.
• Even if the AIs don’t get us, climate change will. It appears certain that extreme events at shorelines will be experienced by people alive today.
• Against this grim backdrop, the sands of Mars as depicted by Edgar Rice Burroughs may seem inviting, and reaching earth orbit would be the first leg of the journey to safety.

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Labour pains: Draft social security code has little to offer (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2 : Social Justice
Prelims level : Draft social security code
Mains level : Key highlights of the Draft social security code 2019

Context

• The third draft on the Code on Social Security, 2019 falls short of its stated aim to “amalgamate, simplify and rationalise” the relevant provisions of eight existing central labour laws.
• It merely clubs together existing schemes in the organised sector, while skirting ambiguities over the basic criteria for availing social security benefits such as the minimum number of employees in an organisation and length of service.

Basic structural and conceptual flaws

• There is no uniform definition of “social security”, nor is there a central fund.
• The corpus is proposed to be split into numerous small funds creating a multiplicity of authorities and confusion.
• It is not clear how the proposed dismantling of the existing and functional structures, such as the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) with its corpus of ₹10 lakh crore which will be handed over to a government-appointed central board is a better alternative.
• The crucial categories such as “workers”; “wages”; “principal-agent” in a contractual situation; and “organised-unorganised” sectors have not been clearly defined.
• This will continue to impede the extension of key social security benefits such as PF, gratuity, maternity benefits, and healthcare to all sections of workers.
• There is no commitment on the government’s part to contribute to the listed social security measures, even as the Code is clear about employee and employer contributions.

Loopholes in existing policy

• Existing benefits for unorganised workers have failed to materialise for similar reasons. For instance, construction workers have not been able to avail of the Building and Construction Workers’ Cess Fund effectively, owing to the Fund’s failure to register them.
• While the Fund has been in existence for over 22 years, less than three crore workers have been registered with all the State welfare boards put together.
• Official estimates alone put the figure of total construction workers at over five crore; unions estimate these numbers at about 10 crore.
• It is a similar situation for almost all other welfare schemes run for the unorganised workers by the Central or State governments.

Way ahead

• What’s more, in these cases, the nature of the relationship between the company and the working staff, and hence the obligations, is not defined.
• If employers in the unorganised sectors are expected to foot the bill for EPFO contributions, that will substantially hike the cost of doing business.

Conclusion

• The draft Code merely cuts and pastes the relevant sections of the existing statute without specifying how these issues are to be addressed.
• The government should address long-pending structural issues and deliver on its promise to actually simplify the existing labour laws.

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Dangerous precedent: On Sikkim CM's disqualification (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2 : Polity
Prelims level : Election Commission
Mains level : Disqualification of a legislature

Context

• The Election Commission (EC)’s order reducing the period of Sikkim Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang’s disqualification from electoral contest is morally wrong and a dangerous precedent that may end up reversing the trend towards decriminalising politics.

Background behind disqualification

• Under Section 11 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, the EC indeed has the power to remove or reduce the disqualification attached to a conviction.
• However, this has been used rarely, and seldom in a case involving a conviction for corruption. Mr. Tamang was convicted under the Prevention of Corruption Act for misappropriating ₹9.50 lakh in the purchase of milch cows for distribution in 1996-97.
• His one-year prison term was upheld by the High Court and the Supreme Court. He went to jail and was released on August 10, 2018.
• Tamang did not contest, but was elected legislature party leader by the Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM), which won the election.
• His appointment as Chief Minister was challenged in the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, he approached the EC for removing his disqualification.
• His main argument was that the law prevailing at the time of his offence entailed disqualification only if the sentence was for a term of two years or more; and that the amendment in 2003, under which any conviction under the anti-corruption law would attract the six-year disqualification norm, should not be applied to him.

Decisions taken by ECI

• Disqualification from contest is a civil disability created by electoral law to keep those convicted by criminal courts from entering elected offices.
• It is not a second punishment in a criminal sense. Mr. Tamang cannot argue that disqualification for a one-year term amounts to being given a punishment not prevalent at the time of the offence.
• The EC decision also goes against the grain of a series of legislative and judicial measures to strengthen the legal framework against corruption in recent years.
• The apex court has described corruption as a serious malady and one impinging on the economy.
• In 2013, the protection given to sitting legislators from immediate disqualification was removed. Further, common sense would suggest that disqualification should be more strictly applied to those convicted for corruption. Legislators handle public funds, and there is good reason to keep out those guilty of misusing them.
• Mr. Tamang, even by virtue of the order reducing his disqualification to one-year-and-a-month, was not eligible to be sworn in, as his disqualification continued till September 10.

Conclusion

• Yet, he is now eligible to contest a byelection and retain his post.
• The EC is already battling a perception that its actions are partisan.
• Its order in favour of Mr. Tamang, coming just a day after the BJP struck an alliance with the SKM for bypolls to be held on October 21, is bound to further strain its credibility.

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Much ado about language (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2 : Polity
Prelims level : Hindi Diwas
Mains level : Provision of the official languages and Rajyabhasa

Context

• It all starts with the department of Hindi in the Central government, which has been given the responsibility of spreading Hindi across the country.
• It recruits only those who have done an MA in Hindi. It is officially called “Rajbhasha Vibhag” and is under the control of the home ministry.
• No effort is made to recruit MAs in English to help out in drafting laws, rules, regulations and directives from the government in a comprehensible language.

Absence of English language

• In the absence of an English rajbhasha vibhag, the language of the laws of India remains incomprehensible, even to those who draft it.
• The intention behind the law may be good but, frequently, it requires the wisdom of the honourable courts of justice to make sense of whatever was written in the law.
• The latest such example concerns the historic law, written in English, which the Parliament discussed in August, to partially modify Article 370.
• It was full of horrific spelling and grammatical mistakes. It took almost a month for the government to issue a corrected version of the law which Parliament had passed.
• Central government offices, in non-Hindi areas, also have a “Hindi” officer, once again an MA in Hindi, whose sole task is to promote the Hindi language within that office.
• In many such offices, where the Hindi officer is a bit conscientious, there is also a Hindi board, alongside the one which announces the name, address and phone number of the officer to contact in case of corruption complaints.
• The corruption board is some sort of a quasi statutory thing because of directions from the Central Vigilance Commissioner.
• The Hindi board is more of a voluntary effort. The offices of the Panjab University, for example, have no such Hindi board.

Historical consequences

• In the mid-1960s, when Gulzarilal Nanda was the home minister, it even resulted in riots in many parts of the country when he announced, in 1965, the departure of the English language from government and the arrival of Hindi as the official language of governance in India.
• The anti-Hindi riots in south Indian cities used to be paralleled by anti-English riots in the markets of Bihar, UP and Madhya Pradesh.
• The eagerness to burn property was common to both sets of rioters. There was no reported desire to learn any language.
• A language, after all, is a device for communication between people.
• This is a point that we need to remember, always.
• As in the case of the Phonepe advertisement, and in the context of the annual war that erupts in India because someone in the government promises to impose Hindi on everyone else, the point is simply this:
• There has to be a strong reason to learn a language. Otherwise, no one other than the learned types are willing to waste time learning a new language.
• In the past, a common Indian was said to know at least three languages. Most Indians, even today, do. Mahatma Gandhi knew five. Narasimha Rao, knew as many as 10 languages.

Conclusion

• As for the language of Bharat Sarkar, whether it uses Hindi or English, there is an urgent need for it to appoint a “Simple Language Commission”.
• No rule, law, directive should be issued by the government unless it is written in a simple, commonsensical language with no convolutions and legalese.
• The one that even a 10th-pass can comprehend, which by the way is 90 per cent of the all the workers in the organised and unorganised sector in India.

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