To strengthen national security without reforming the police would be futile (Mint)

Mains Paper 3: Defense and security
Prelims level: Not Much
Mains level: Police Reforms

Context

• The country’s internal security architecture continues to be fragile. In the wake of the 26/11 terrorist attack in 2008, a slew of measures were taken to strengthen the police forces, reinforce coastal security and decentralise the deployment of National Security Guard.
• However, after that, a complacency of sorts seems to have set in, mainly because there has been no major terrorist attack since then.
• Whatever upgradation of police has happened during the intervening period has essentially been of a cosmetic nature.

ISIS threat across subcontinent regions

• The ISIS, which is committed to spreading “volcanoes of jihad” everywhere, recently perpetrated a horrific attack in Sri Lanka.
• The organisation has made significant inroads in Tamil Nadu and Kerala and has sympathisers in other areas of the country.
• It recently announced a separate branch, Wilayah-e-Hind, to focus on the Subcontinent. In the neighborhood, the ISIS has support bases in Bangladesh and Maldives.
• The government has been playing down the ISIS’s threat. It has been arguing that considering the huge Muslim population of the country, a very small percentage has been drawn to or got involved in the ISIS’s activities.
• That may be true, but a small percentage of a huge population works out to a significant number and it would be naïve to ignore the threat.
• Pakistan has taken some half-hearted measures against terrorist formations in the country, which are euphemistically called non-state actors largely due to pressure from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF.)
• These measures are more for show than substance.
• Besides, the ISI has been, for years, making well-orchestrated attempts to revive militancy in Punjab and trying to disrupt our economy by flooding the country with counterfeit currency.

Role of police to preventing terrorism

• The police in every major state should have a force on the pattern of Greyhounds to deal with any terrorist attack.
• The country must also have a law on the lines of Maharashtra Control of Organised Crimes Act (MCOCA) to deal with organised crimes.
• Investigation of cyber-crime would require specialist staff. Training the constables and darogas for the job will not take us far. The police must draw recruits from the IITs for the purpose.
• The National Counter-Terrorism Centre must be set up with such modifications as may be necessary to meet the legitimate objections of the states.
• The law to deal with terror the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act needs more teeth. Successive governments have only fiddled with the law.
• We have had the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), followed by the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) followed by the present UAPA.

Bringing police in the Concurrent List

• Police problems were simpler and of a local nature when the Constitution was framed. Since then, the pattern of crime and the dimensions of law and order problems have undergone a sea change.
• Drugs trafficked from the Myanmar border traverse the Subcontinent and find their way to Europe or even the US. Arms are smuggled from China to India’s Northeast via Thailand and Bangladesh.
• They are then distributed to insurgent groups in different parts of the country.
• States today are incapable of managing the slightest disruption in law and order.
• Central forces are deployed to assist the states round the year. Bringing police in the Concurrent List would only amount to giving de jure status to what prevails on the ground.

Reforming CBI

• The CBI’s image needs to refurbished.
• It is time that an Act was legislated to define the charter and regulate the functioning of the premier investigating agency.
• It is ridiculous that the CBI draws its mandate from the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act of 1946 and that the organisation was created through a resolution passed more than 50 years ago.
• The Central Armed Police Forces are not in the best of health.
• It would be desirable that a high-level commission is appointed to go into their problems of deployment, utilisation, discipline, morale and promotional opportunities.

Way Forward

• The major internal security threats today are in J and K, in the Northeast and from Maoists in Central India.
• These would need to be dealt with in a manner which while addressing legitimate demands and removing genuine grievances ensures that the intransigent elements are isolated and effectively dealt with.
• The Hurriyat leaders must be cut down to size and the cases against them pursued to their logical conclusion. The framework agreement with the Naga rebels must be finalised and the NSCN (IM) should be firmly told that the government can go thus far and no further.
• The Maoists need to be dealt with in a more sensitive manner.
• Now that government has got the upper hand, it should seriously consider holding out the olive branch, inviting them for peace talks while taking precaution at the same time that the insurgents do not utilise the peace period as a breather to augment their strength.

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Need of the liberal arts and humanities (Mint)

Mains Paper 2: Governance
Prelims level: Not Much
Mains level: Education reforms

Context

• In these “pragmatic” times, it is not easy to plead for liberal education.
• The new generation who have just cleared the board examinations and are willing to enter the domain of higher learning, to realise that education is not merely “skill learning” or a means to inculcate the market-driven technocratic rationality.
• Education is also about deep awareness of culture and politics, art and history, and literature and philosophy.
• In fact, a society that discourages its young minds to reflect on the interplay of the “self” and the “world”, and restricts their horizon in the name of job-oriented technical education, begins to decay.
• Such a society eventually prepares the ground for a potentially one-dimensional/consumerist culture that negates critical thinking and emancipatory quest.

Producing hierarchy in knowledge traditions

• The school education continues to reproduce this hierarchy in knowledge traditions. Whereas science or commerce is projected as “high status” knowledge, not much cognitive prestige is attached to humanities and liberal arts.
• In a way, this is like demotivating young minds and discouraging them from taking an active interest in history, literature, philosophy and political studies.
• Possibly, the standardised “ambition” that schools and anxiety-ridden parents cultivate among the teenagers makes it difficult for them to accept that it is possible to imagine yet another world beyond the “secure” career options in medical science, engineering and commerce.
• Certainly, it is not the sign of a healthy society if what is popularly known as PCM (physics-chemistry-mathematics), or IIT JEE, becomes the national obsession, and all youngsters flock to a town like Kota in Rajasthan, known for the notorious chain of coaching centres selling the dreams of “success”, and simultaneously causing mental agony, psychic disorder and chronic fear of failure.

The state of liberal education

• With demotivated students, teachers who do not have any passion, empty classrooms, routine examinations and the widespread circulation of “notes” and “guide books”, everything loses its meaning.
• History is a set of facts to be memorised, sociology is just common sense or a bit of jargon for describing the dynamics of family/marriage/caste/kinship, literature is time pass and political science is television news.
• Even though the state of science education is not very good, the trivialisation of liberal arts is truly shocking.

Conclusion

• In the absence of adequate liberal education, we have begun to produce technically-skilled but culturally-impoverished professionals.
• Techniques have triumphed and wisdom has disappeared. We seem to be producing well-fed, well-paid and well-clothed slaves.
• Therefore, no hesitation in becoming somewhat “impractical”, and inviting fresh/young minds somehow perplexed and thrilled by their “successes” in board examinations to the domain of liberal education.

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The bus to better transport (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Improving bus transport system in India

Context

• The great cities of the world use one guiding principle in planning services for residents and visitors: working with finite space.
• In big cities, new roads are not possible, and no new land is available.
• But they must prepare to serve more and more people who arrive each year. Successful plans build better mobility.

Congestion Problem

• When cities fail at mobility, the result is congestion, lost productivity, worsening pollution and a terrible quality of life.
• India’s big cities have all these attributes, and 14 of them were in the list of the 15 most polluted cities worldwide last year.
• Congestion in the four biggest metros causes annual economic losses of over $22 billion, the NITI Aayog says in its Transforming Mobility report.

Not enough buses in India

• The bus to urban transport ecology that the executive in-charge of technology and customer satisfaction at Transport for London.
• Indian cities need to add several thousand buses more, and not just spend heavily on Metro rail.
• There are over 1.7 million buses in India, about 10% of them operated by governments. Individual cities don’t have enough of them to provide a good service, and the gap is filled mostly by unregulated intermediates, such as vans.
• The buses operated by governments are not properly designed, are uncomfortable and badly maintained.
• Government corporations do a poor job when it comes to using technology.

Lack of information

• One of the key barriers to taking a bus is not getting information about the service; bus corporations deprive themselves too, of revenue, by failing to act on this.
• Cities such as London and Singapore have systems to tell passengers where the next bus is on a route and predict its arrival at a stop in real time.
• Such a system is not available for even the biggest metro cities in India, something the Smart City mission could have addressed.

Way forward

• Buses need an image makeover and cities need several thousand more buses, of good design and build quality.
• They need to use contact-less fare payments using suitable cards, since buying tickets is also a barrier.
• Buses also need support to move faster through city traffic, using policy tools such as congestion pricing for cars.
• The biggest reform that the U.K. experience teaches is integration. Bringing traffic authorities, road engineers and transport operators under the same umbrella worked wonders in London to eliminate planning and operational problems.
• Indian cities have unified Metropolitan Transport Authorities to do that.
• They must be brought to life and given mandatory targets.
• The goal should be a stipulated higher share of travel by public transport, walking and cycling, and this should be evaluated through periodic surveys of customer satisfaction.

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Great expectations: on Surrogacy Bill (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Polity
Prelims level: Surrogacy Bill
Mains level: Importance of the Surrogacy Bill

Context

• It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that surrogacy needs to be regulated by law.
• There is no argument about whether an issue such as surrogacy fraught with bioethical issues aplenty requires regulation: it does.

Background

• The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019, should have come a long time ago.
• Regulations in the past in the area of child adoption and transplantation of human organs have, historically, borne fruit, effectively putting an end to rampant commercial transactions, and providing a structure by which any excursions outside of the law may be shut down.
• Flagrant violations of human rights have been witnessed repeatedly in the ‘baby-making factory’ in India, the underprivileged woman often in the cross hairs, and at the bottom of the pile.
• The plethora of unregulated assisted reproductive techniques (ART) clinics that mushroomed, coinciding with India becoming a global health-care destination, ensured that there was a good volume of traffic toward the country, besides growing domestic demand for surrogacy services.
• In this context, there is expectation that the Surrogacy Bill will regulate commercial surrogacy, while allowing an altruistic form of it to continue, by putting in place strict supervisory and regulatory frameworks.
• Whether the Bill, recently passed by the Lok Sabha, will serve the wholesome purpose of regulating the vastly complex area of surrogacy, while sensitively balancing the needs of ‘intending parents’ and surrogates.

Key provisions of this bill

• The Bill mandates payment to the surrogate mother, who can only be a ‘close relative’, to the extent of covering medical expenses and providing insurance during the term of the pregnancy.
• It has specified that ‘exploiting the surrogate mother’ would attract punishment of imprisonment of up to 10 years and a fine of up to ₹10 lakh; advertising for surrogacy and selling/importing human embryos or gametes for surrogacy also attract the same punishment.
• It has mandated registration of surrogacy clinics, and put in place regulatory boards to ensure compliance with the law.
• But its critics have panned it for the lack of specifics in definitions (the generalised ‘close relative’ criterion for surrogates).

Way forward

• The exclusion of various groups of people from access to surrogacy (only married couples of a certain age group are eligible); and primarily, of trying to put the ‘cart before the horse’ by seeking to regulate surrogacy before setting the ART house in order.
• The capacity of the state to end commercial surrogacy may itself be compromised if it does not first set up a regulatory framework for ART clinics, which provide the basic technology for surrogacy.
• The government is merely setting itself up to implement a law that may spectacularly fail.
• That would be a tragedy, because this is one law that is pregnant with the possibility of truly revolutionising the surrogacy sector, cleaning it up, and fulfilling the dreams of people who are themselves unable to bear children.

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The making of cyborgs and the challenges ahead (Mint)

Mains Paper 3: Science and Tech
Prelims level : Not much
Mains level : Neuromodulation

Context

• A recent medical trial restored partial sight to six blind people via an implant that transmits video images directly to the brain.
• The device used was called Orion, which feeds images from a camera directly to the brain.
• “Cognitive neuroprosthetics” are devices that directly interface with the brain to improve memory, attention, emotion and much more.

Key problems with existing system

• Current neuromodulation systems need surgical implantation of bulky components with limited battery life.
• Batteries impact an intervention’s cost and lifetime, a device’s size and weight, the need for repeat surgeries and problems of tissue-heating and performance compromises. This is due to the relatively high power consumption of the electronics for a given performance requirement.
• The National Institutes of Health in the US opines that pacemaker batteries last between 5-15 years, but their average lifespan is 6-7 years; a doctor has to operate again after about 7 years to replace either the battery or  the pacemaker itself.

Way ahead

• A flexible chip-type implant that harnesses glucose present in the body and converts it into electrical energy that can power a neurological implant.
• The problem of battery size can be tackled by reducing the power consumption and operating the electronics near fundamental levels of physics.
• Achieving a higher number of channels, better signal-to-noise ratio, and improved flexibility and robustness while working at ultra-low power can significantly lower implant sizes without sacrificing performance.
• Ultra-low-power semiconductors to generate chipsets that have been validated in lab and animal trials.

Spinal cord stimulation and deep brain stimulation are major target applications.

• Neuromodulation is the most lucrative sector in the European neurological device market.

Conclusion

• In India, it is estimated that about 30 million people suffer from various forms of neurological diseases and the average prevalence rate is as high as 2,394 patients per 100,000 of the population.
• Current neuromodulation devices cost between $10,000 and $40,000, putting them out of reach for many Indians.

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The capital adequacy norms for banks could do with revision (Mint)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level : Not much
Mains level : Problems with monetary policy transmission

Context

• The monetary policy committee of RBI will announce its monetary policy decision. RBI is widely expected to cut rates.

Challenges in Monetary policy transmission

• Irrespective of the magnitude of a rate cut, the question of transmission is a big one.
• Interest rate cuts take much longer to be passed on.
• It is not even clear if interest rates matter in the current uncertain environment.
• In the credit boom years up to 2007, RBI had proactively adjusted risk weights to dissuade banks from lending excessively to certain sectors and businesses.

Why reverse now

• According to data published by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), India’s credit-to-GDP gap has been negative since 2013 and is now running well below trend.
• Banks are unwilling to lend and businesses are not keen to borrow either. The caution of banks should not starve creditworthy borrowers.
• In the post-2008 phase, regulators around the world have embraced counter-cyclical capital buffers and macroprudential norms to better regulate credit creation while interest rates hit new lows. RBI could use the mechanism of countercyclical capital buffers to ease credit conditions.
• Act in concert with owners of banks in enforcing lending discipline.
• Central bank prescribing the MCLR-based lending rate as the floor in a liberalized interest rate environment is incongruous.
• The government must use the crisis to legally enshrine non-interference in the operational decisions of banks
• The government must incentivize banks to augment their assessment of creditworthiness and risk assessment of loans on a continuous basis.
• Capitalization support and operational autonomy must be made contingent on skill up-gradation and other quantifiable performance measures.

Conclusion

• As economic conditions normalize, countercyclical capital buffers must and will move in the opposite direction.
• The bigger question is whether the capital adequacy norms prescribed under Basel III should be made uniformly applicable to all banks in India or only to internationally active banks. It will not only reduce the capitalization burden on the government but will also free up lending capacity.

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Code Red for labour (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Social Justice
Prelims level : Not much
Mains level : Codification of labour laws

Context

• The Centre’s proposal to replace 44 labour laws with four codes saw the light of day after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced it in her Budget speech.
• It needs to be stated here that the original labour laws, enacted after decades of struggle, were meant to ensure certain dignity to the working-class people.
• The Ministry of Labour’s proposal to fix the national minimum floor wage at ₹178, without any defined criteria or method of estimation.
• This is rightly being called ‘starvation wage’, especially given that the Ministry’s own committee recommended ₹375 as the minimum.
• Another concerning issue is that the four codes exclude over 95% of the workforce employed in informal units and small enterprises, who in fact are in greater need of legal safeguards.

Ambiguity on wording

• There is a deliberate ambiguity maintained on wording and definitions.
• There is no clarity on who constitutes an ‘employer’, an ‘employee’ or an ‘enterprise’, giving the owner greater discretion to interpret the provisions while making it more difficult for the worker to draw any benefits from them.
• To minimise wage bills and compliance requirements, it is proposed that ‘apprentices’ be no longer considered employees, at a time when evidence indicates that apprentices are made to do jobs of contractual as well as permanent employees.
• The code even has a provision on “employees below fifteen years of age”, which can be construed as legalisation of child labour.
• The code on wages legitimises and promotes further contractualisation of labour, instead of abolishing it, by insulating the principal employer from liabilities and accountability in the case of irregularities on the part of the contractors.

Slavery-like provision

• The wage code also brings back the draconian provision of “recoverable advances”, a system that the Supreme Court clearly linked to coercive and bonded labour, wherein distressed and vulnerable migrant labourers could be bonded to work through advance payments.
• This is akin to modern forms of slavery, also encountered in rural labour markets.
• The eight-hour workday shift has been done away with, and multiple provisions of increased overtime have been inserted.
• The code also gives ample alibis to employers to evade bonus payments.
• The government wants to provide a “facilitative” rather than a regulatory and punitive environment for the owners, with “facilitators-cum-inspectors” replacing the “inspectors” who used to ensure implementation of various labour laws to aid employees.
• The code on industrial relations too is replete with restrictions, on forming or registering unions, calling a strike (which would entail prior permissions and notices) and seeking legal redressal for workers.

Conclusion

• To sum it up, it won’t be a fallacy to assert that the proposed laws, as they stand, resemble ‘employer codes’ rather than ‘labour laws’.

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Introspect on GST: The CAG report flags the impact of an imperfect GST Network (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level : GSTN portal
Mains level : Simplification needed in GSTN portal

Context

• GST was introduced two years back to make it easier for businesses to pay their taxes, but today they are as befuddled as ever by the GSTN portal which forces them to upload form after form, besides micro-level transactional detail. The recently released CAG report on GST implementation spells out some of the trouble spots. It says: “On the whole, the envisaged GST compliance system is non-functional.

Background

• The deficiencies in the GST system also point to a serious lack of coordination between the Executive and the developers.
• The number of GSTN 1 return filers (the form that requires invoice level details) is far less than those filing GSTN 3B (the form that calls for gross details).
• This can be attributed to hassles in uploading the details for GSTN 1, and not as the bureaucrats running the show seem to believe to any general tendency to evade taxes.
• If “all returns being filed showed a declining trend of filing from April 2018 to December 2018” the blame lies clearly with the GST Network that continues to flounder without being held accountable.
• The so-called simplified format of uploading returns, supposed to be introduced in a couple of months, is full of rows and columns, with needless details being sought.
• The online invoice matching, and the assumption of suspicion underlying it, should be reviewed. Rather than merely create a quarterly filing option for small businesses (below ₹5 crore turnover) and offer them a flat rate of tax under the ‘composition scheme’, GST filing rules should be streamlined for all.
• Small businesses still suffer overheads on account of GST compliance (which includes filling forms in English without any other language option), despite efforts to simplify processes for them.

• Key highlights of the CAG report

• The CAG report has highlighted ‘technical’ lapses, the big picture is of GST per se being a complicated affair.
• The rates, well above 10 in number, are higher than such systems elsewhere in the world. The GST Council has not helped by creating dual systems in certain sectors such as real estate, where 5 per cent can be paid without claiming input tax credit and 12 per cent with ITC.
• The unorganised sectors continue to operate below the radar not necessarily because they wish to do so, but because the rates are high, more so if they have to remain under the composition scheme where tax credit is  ruled out, and compliance formalities daunting.
• At the federal level, the CAG points to IGST dues not being paid on time to States, some ₹2.11-lakh crore in 2017-18.
• This could disrupt the existing consensus over GST reforms.

Conclusion

• The Council must focus on lowering rates and simplifying processes, restoring the raison d’etre of this remarkable step forward in easing the conduct of business.

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India should act tough and exit RCEP (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: International Relations
Prelims level : RCEP
Mains level : Major highlights of the RCEP agreement

Context

• India at last seems to have found its lost voice at the on-going Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership negotiations.
• The Indian negotiating team finally went to attend the RCEP Ministerial meet in Beijing last week with a clear mandate.
• An aggressive posture and listed out India’s demands individually to the partner countries of the RCEP in the bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the event.
• The message to each of the partners be it the ten-member ASEAN, China, South Korea, Japan, Australia or New Zealand seemed to be common: if you don’t humour us, we may quit the game.

Can it face the diplomatic pressure from its friends in the ASEAN?

• It doesn’t have very long to decide as the year-end deadline for implementing the pact, that was reinforced at the Beijing meeting, is looming near.
• While from the looks of it, the proposed RCEP with a third of world’s GDP, almost half its population and 40 per cent of exports seems to be too big a market for India to ignore, if one thinks lucidly enough the country may not lose out on much if it decides to keep out of the pact.

Key demands from India

• India has demanded that the 10 countries improve their offers in the services sector so that Indian professionals and workers can have easier entry into their market, it is doubtful whether much would come from it.
• The very reason the ASEAN had not offered anything to India in services in the FTA they have already in place is that most of its members are very sensitive about protecting the sector and have not offered much liberalisation even within the bloc to each-other.
• So, in terms of enhanced market access, India would get relatively much less from its RCEP partners than it would be giving to them.
• In fact, tariff elimination could worsen the trade deficit with RCEP, at $105.2 billion in 2018-19. Since import duties are also a source of revenue for India, it could experience a disproportional loss of customs revenue if it gets into the pact.

Change in stance

• The fact that Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal stayed away from the Ministerial meeting and sent the Commerce Secretary to take his place was the first indication of the change in India’s defensive stance adopted so far.
• While the official reason for the Minister skipping the meeting was the extended Parliament session, many in the Ministry say that it was the industry consultations on RCEP that Goyal held just a few days prior to the Ministerial meet that left him confused and unsure.
• The marathon sessions that Goyal had with the Indian industry pointed towards the total disaster that the pact could end up being for the country.
• Of the over 500 representatives that the Minister met from numerous sectors ranging from steel, engineering goods and plastics to dairy and sea-food, most were completely against dismantling of tariffs for the RCEP countries, especially China.

Outcome of the RCEP agreement

• Almost every sector registered its apprehension that once the RCEP agreement was in place, China would wreak havoc in the domestic market with its cheap exports and would also dump its products.
• The Indian industry also feared that Japan and South Korea, which were already reaping huge benefits for items like steel and electronics from the bilateral free trade agreements signed with India, would penetrate the local markets further.
• A large number of farmer organisations also came together to appeal jointly to the government not to sign the RCEP as they said that it would threaten farm livelihoods, autonomy over seeds and also endanger the country’s self-sufficient dairy sector.
• Thus, when Wadhawan left for Beijing with his team for the RCEP meeting where all countries were expected to move towards final outcomes, the instruction was to be offensive rather than defensive.

Way forward

• It is important to ensure that this offensive posture does not dissipate after the Beijing meeting. India already has had an unhappy experience with many of the RCEP members it had earlier signed FTAs with.
• There are a number of research papers that point out how the Indian industry has suffered after signing FTAs with its regional partners, one done by the NITI Aayog explicitly says that India’s trade deficit with the ASEAN, Korea and Japan has widened post-FTAs.
• True, the lure of being part of the largest free trade bloc in the world can indeed be very strong.
• But when it is difficult to find any support for a pact from the sections it is intended to serve it shouldn’t be very difficult for the government to decide what to do.

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How technology can be harnessed for social good (mint)

Mains Paper 3: Science and Tech
Prelims level : Not much
Mains level : Achievements of the Internet of Things

Context

• Extraordinary opportunities emerge when people and devices connect. Connectivity and innovation in technology are transforming how organizations and governments operate.
• Mobile technology empowers remote workers. Internet of Things (IoT)-based factories achieve new levels of efficiency. Sensors monitor the availability of clean drinking water.

Key challenges

• The challenge now lies in learning to leverage these exponential technologies to develop creative solutions that will address some of our toughest real-world problems.
• Poverty and its associated concerns of hunger and limited access to education, sanitation and housing; a dangerously changing climate; and pressure on natural resources, especially water and food.
• The technological innovations are tackling a wide range of complex social problems.
• Approximately 4.5 million people with cerebral palsy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) cannot speak, and modern speech devices cost too much for the vast majority.
• Tech innovations are extending the reach of education with low-bandwidth videos, measuring the level of pathogens in the environment through a smartphone-based disease detection platform, and monitoring the life of village pumps with sensors.

Initiatives taken by the government

• The Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandhana Yojana, a direct benefit transfer programme announced by the Prime Minister in December 2016 in favour of pregnant and nursing mothers, is offered on a cloud-based platform that automates the entire benefit transfer mechanism and approval processes.
• Onboarding benefit delivery providers, onboarding beneficiaries, integrating with Aadhaar for beneficiary authentication/validation, integrating with the Union government’s public financial management system for transferring funds to the beneficiary’s account, tracking programme milestones, benefit delivery and funds utilisation, are all done on the cloud.

Lack of innovation technology

• Digital transformation requires us to rethink the way we solve complex social problems.
• Universities have a major role to play as they sit at the centre of innovation, technology, entrepreneurship, policy, and society.
• Whether it is in research or learning, universities must adopt a focused problem-solving approach and constantly re-evaluate their allocation of resources.
• The innovative application of simple technology can have a far greater impact than developing new cutting-edge technologies. Universities must balance the two priorities.
• Innovation for the digital era cannot happen in a vacuum.
• Nearly 45% of the world’s population don’t have access to the internet.
• This translates to almost half of all humanity lacking the life-changing benefits that connectivity can bring, from access to better health and education to the enabling of jobs and financial services.
• It is vital to understand that connecting the next 3 billion requires an inclusive approach, as lone innovations and ideas will not be able to scale.

Way forward

• The impact of these problems will require governments, non-profit organizations, enterprises and individuals to act in new ways.
• Startups and governments exploring technology as a way to change social norms and empower millions around the world will need to be backed by technology.
• This will help developers scale their solutions, address new markets and build digital businesses.
• Technology is the key to build a thriving, resilient world, especially in India where high mobile penetration and the government’s digital initiatives can work in tandem to bring a sustainable and affordable transformation for societal needs. Universities are at the centre of this imperative.

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The misplaced faith in an easy money policy (Mint)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level : LTCG tax
Mains level : Key emphasis on RBI’s monetary policy

Context

• The reaction of global markets to the US Federal Reserve’s monetary stance suggests investors are vesting too much faith in easy money to promote investment and growth.

Key emphasis on monetary policy

• The RBI does have more leeway to reduce its repo rate now that the Fed has lowered its own lending rate in the US by a quarter percentage point
• An RBI rate cut may stem the slide in stock prices, but this can be rationalized only by virtue of the signal it sends of RBI’s intent to aid a sluggish economy, not for a quick revival

Major limitations

• There is evidence to suggest that the efficacy of monetary policy is diminishing.
• In the West, this is largely because the cost of capital is already very low by historical standards.
• Much cheap credit goes into chasing higher-paying assets around the world instead of spurring business activity.
• In India, monetary policy is even less potent in spurring investment. Various other factors beyond the cost of capital act as a drag.
• Of the three- quarters of a percentage point reduction in RBI’s repo rate this year, banks have passed on barely half. With consumption on a downtrend, the will of companies to borrow and invest is weak

Way ahead

• What might restore market sentiment are renewed inflows from abroad into Indian shares and securities set off by the Fed’s move.
• Infrastructure spending spree, implementing a set of major reforms that allow market forces to play an effective role in most of the arenas
• Easing land acquisition rules and turning the country’s labour market flexible could have a dramatic effect on India’s appeal as an investment destination
• Reversal of some income tax rules seen as extortionary by rich investors , LTCG tax could be given a rethink.

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Ill-effects of neglecting macroeconomics (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level : Corporate bond market
Mains level : Developing Corporate bond market and its effect

Context

• The most general definition of macroeconomics is of spillovers between sectors and markets and from the system as a whole to its parts.
• A medical specialist focusses on a part of the human body and often does not understand that if a medicine given to heal a part hurts the health of the whole, it can harm the part she wants to cure as well.
• A sector specialist tends to neglect general equilibrium interactions.

Inflation targeting and markets

• Inflation targeting was among the hundred small steps recommended for India in a report on financial sector reforms.
• Low inflation and fiscal consolidation were seen as prerequisites for the development of corporate bond markets.
• The corporate bond market fell to new lows. Leveraged corporates are not in a position to raise money in a high real interest rate regime.
• They did not want to invest as demand was low.

Can the corporate bond market develop if corporates are in trouble?

• As an aggressively independent inflation targeting RBI bought too few government securities (G-Secs) in open market operations (OMOs), durable liquidity shrank and spreads rose. Credit creation in the economy as a whole slowed.
• The development of financial markets suffered.
• Inflation targeting did help to reduce inflation, but through falling inflation expectations and commodity prices.
• The rise in real interest rates only reduced aggregate demand and growth.

Lender of last resort

• An RBI liquidity window for NBFCs, when viewed from the narrow lens of a financial sector specialist, implies exposing the RBI to unknown credit risk and creating moral hazard by rescuing people who have borrowed short and lent long and encouraging such inappropriate arbitrage in future.
• But this neglects the necessity of a lender of last resort function whenever there are spillovers and systemic risk.
• In times of fear, institutions without access to such a lender hoard liquidity because they expect other participants to behave irrationally and not lend although fundamentals maybe strong. X factors in Y’s irrationality.
• There is an externality — a slowdown is triggered. Borrowers are not able to repay and the quality of assets deteriorates further.
• A liquidity window removes the fear of not being able to repay if there is a demand.
• Lending rises, asset quality improves and the RBI is not stuck with large low-quality assets as the liquidity window is not actually used.
• The lending can be costly, based on excess good quality rated collateral.
• NBFCs without good assets would not be able to access it and so would continue to exit or merge. There would be no moral hazard.

Sovereign dollar borrowing

• The suggestion on sovereign dollar borrowing made in the Budget shows a similar lack of appreciation of systemic interlinkages.
• Raghuram Rajan wrote that borrowing $10 billion abroad will not reduce pressure in the G-Secs market because the RBI would reduce its holdings of G-Secs to sterilise reserve accumulation from the $10 billion dollar inflow. As a past central banker he knows,
• Because this is exactly what happened in 2017-18 due to raising caps on foreign inflows into G-Secs.
• In October 2015 bi-annual increases in limits were announced to reach up to 5 per cent of government bonds by March 2108.
• This cap was fully utilised at $19 billion by then. This was more than required to finance the current account deficit (CAD) so did not reduce the cost of government borrowing since the RBI decreased its holdings of Indian G-Secs and bought US treasuries at zero interest from the excess inflows it accumulated as reserves.
• Despite the additional source of demand for them, the interest rate on domestic G-Secs shot up to 8 per cent almost 2 per cent above the Repo rate.
• Since the domestic G-Secs market is large even a low cap on foreign G-Secs holdings as a percentage of the domestic debt market (currently 6 per cent) can lead to excess inflows.

Way forward

• If their share becomes too large in India’s total foreign liabilities that can affect the domestic interest rate cycle. Currently, this share is 11.36 per cent and with additional $10 billion government borrowing it will become 12.17 per cent. It should be kept below 10 per cent.
• Capital flow management should adjust so that inflows are not in excess of the CAD and the share of G-Secs in the RBI balance sheet does not fall below 40 per cent. In 2018 it fell to 20 per cent.
• Deepening and diversifying financial markets is a valid objective but the government would be better off finding ways to revive domestic demand to trigger a virtuous investment cycle than relying on fickle external suitors.
• Public spending must be preponed and implemented vigorously even as the cost of borrowing comes down.

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Bigger and better: On number of Supreme Court judges (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Polity
Prelims level : Judiciary
Mains level : Judiciary appointment and others limitations factor

Context

• The Union Cabinet’s decision to raise the strength of the Supreme Court from 31 to 34, including the Chief Justice of India, will help in dealing with the large pendency 59,331 cases on July 11.
• The law that fixes the number of judges in the highest court was last amended in 2009 to raise the figure from 26 to 31.
• Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had written to the Prime Minister recently, highlighting the problem of paucity of judges, due to which he was unable to constitute enough Constitution Benches to decide important questions of law.

Background

• However, a moot question is whether the highest court should go into the correctness of every decision of every high court.
• Are the judicial resources available being used optimally?
• Is valuable time being taken up by mundane matters that do not impinge on larger questions that involve interpretation of laws and constitutional provisions?
• For instance, routine bail matters land up in the Supreme Court within days of persons being arrested.
• Every major crime or disaster seems to invite a litigant, ostensibly in public interest, who mentions the matter before the Chief Justice for urgent hearing.
• The court is being invited to even oversee flood relief work.

Increases strength is not enough

• A mere increase in the court’s strength may not be enough to liquidate the burgeoning docket.
• Another set of measures that would save the court’s time, including a reasonable restraint on the duration of oral arguments and a disciplined adherence to a schedule of hearings may be needed.
• In this case, one of the principal objectives should be to preserve the apex court’s primary role as the ultimate arbiter of constitutional questions and statutory interpretation.
• All other questions involving a final decision on routine matters, especially civil cases that involve nothing more than the interests of the parties before it, ought to be considered by a mechanism that will not detract from the court’s primary role.
• Some countries have brought in a clear division at the level of the apex judiciary by having separate constitutional courts, which limit themselves to deciding questions of constitutional importance.
• It may be worthwhile considering the 229th Report of the Law Commission, suggesting a new system under which there will be one Constitution Bench in Delhi, and four ‘Cassation Benches’ for different regions of the country.
• These will be final appellate courts for routine litigation.

Conclusion

• This arrangement may also increase access to justice to those living in far-flung areas of the country and who may otherwise have to come to Delhi and spend more time and money in pursuing appeals.
• It may also cut down on the time taken for disposal of cases.

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Freeing Kulbhushan: On consular access (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: International Relations
Prelims level : Kulbhusan Jadhav case
Mains level : Key implications of the Kulbhusan Jadhav case in between two countries

Context

• The International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled in favour of India in the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav, Pakistan has yet to take the first step towards implementing the order: providing him “consular access”.
• In its verdict on July 17, the ICJ had decided near-unanimously that by not informing India immediately of Mr. Jadhav’s arrest in 2017, by not informing him of his rights, and not allowing the Indian High Commission to meet with him and arrange for his legal representation, Pakistan was in violation of the Vienna convention on consular relations.

Conditional offerings from Pakistan

• Although Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry had offered a meeting between Mr. Jadhav and the Indian High Commission in Islamabad on Friday afternoon, the offer came with conditions, including CCTV cameras on proceedings, and a Pakistani official being in the room during the meeting.
• This was a violation of the unimpeded consular access that the ICJ had ordered, and India decided to reject the offer until Pakistan reconsiders its conditions.

Three key areas concern for India

• Pakistan’s delay in granting full consular access displays a non-serious attitude to implementing a clear-cut order from the UN’s highest judicial body.
• This augurs badly for Pakistan’s application of the rest of the ICJ order that calls for a full review of Mr. Jadhav’s trial conviction and death sentence for terrorism and espionage charges.
• The nature of the conditions indicates Pakistan wants to monitor what.

What India government should do?

• Islamabad must stop dragging its feet and creating unnecessary hurdles in providing what is a basic human right for Mr. Jadhav, and New Delhi needs to keep its rhetoric low, while pressing its case for access to the former naval officer, consistently and firmly.
• This will not be easy, as after some relative calm, shelling at the Line of Control has opened up with a new fury in the last few days.
• The allegations by Pakistan that the Indian Army is deploying cluster-munitions on civilian areas (firmly denied by the government), and the Army’s claim that several Pakistani regulars and terrorists were killed in an infiltration attempt by a “Border Action Team” (BAT) have ratcheted up tensions further.

Conclusion

• The government’s ham-handed reaction to the threats, of cancelling the Amarnath Yatra, pulling out tourists and pilgrims and raising security levels in the valley further, have only added to the narrative.
• It would indeed be a tragedy if the situation overshadows the fate of Mr. Jadhav, just when hopes had been raised by the international court verdict to help secure his freedom.

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Borrow abroad and profit (Mint)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level : Foreign Bond
Mains level : Issuing bond in forien currency

Context

The government is planning to issue 10 year bonds denominated in foreign currency.

Background behind this idea

• Such borrowing would be cheaper because dollar or yen interest rates are lower than rupee interest rates.
• Our debt to GDP ratio is not very high, the exchange rate is stable, and foreign exchange reserves are high. So foreign borrowing, if its long term, is not a problem.
• If foreign bond issuance was accompanied by a move towards greater capital account convertibility then it may be worth pursuing.
• A country pays a country premium for borrowing in dollars; currently, the US 10-year bond is trading at 2%. A complex set of factors determine the country’s premium, but the magnitude of reserves and foreign currency debt are important attributes. India has less debt denominated in foreign currency, close to 5%. Thus, we should be able to borrow at a somewhat lower premium than 150 bp, possibly 130bp.
• Indian inflation has moved structurally downward over the last three years.
• It will also help to significantly lower the real repo rate to respectable levels.

Major problems with these bonds

• Usually, the lower dollar interest rate is offset in the long run by higher principal repayments as the rupee depreciates against the dollar.
• Loss of sovereignty and may lead to currency depreciation

Conclusion

• No country has grown at “trend” rates with a real repo rate of around 3.4%, not even 2.4% or 2%. Issuing bonds now is an idea whose time has come.
• Cross-country evidence supports the conclusion that the sooner India engages in foreign currency borrowing, the quicker it can profit from this market imperfection.

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The seriousness of the problem of unemployment in India (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level : Jobless growth
Mains level : Issues relations to growth and unemployment

Context

• Most indicators of the Indian economy in recent months confirm that it is slowing.
• There is also a consensus that the economic slowdown is largely a result of weakening demand, most notably in rural areas.
• While slowing demand has obviously affected the overall growth rate, it has also contributed to declining availability of jobs in an economy already struggling with the spectre of jobless growth.

How serious is the employment problem in India?

• Employment-unemployment surveys of National Sample Survey Office (NSSO): latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) tells us the following total number of workers in the economy was 472.5 million in 2011-12, which fell to 457 million in 2017-18. The absolute number of workers declined by 15.5 million over six years.
• This is the first time in the history of employment measurement by the NSSO that the total number of workers declined in absolute terms.
• 16-million decline in the number of workers reported by the Labour Bureau’s Annual Employment Surveys of the fourth and fifth rounds

Reasons for unemployment

• To fall in the number of workers in agriculture and a sharp fall in the absolute number of female workers, it roughly 37 million workers left agriculture in the last six years.
• At the same time, 25 million women workers were out of the workforce, crisis in agriculture in the last six years has only accelerated the process
• The trend of declining women workers has absolutely no parallel in any developing or developed country of similar per capita income. In most East Asian countries, the period of rapid growth was also accompanied by a rising number of women workers.

Key problems

• Number of people aged 25-64 years increased by around 47 million during the six-year period
• The economy should have created at least 83 million jobs between 2012 and 2018 to accommodate those who have entered the labour force and those forced out of agriculture. But it witnessed a decline in the number of workers by 15.5 million

Conclusion

• Stagnant wages and jobless growth are not just indicators of a weakening economy, but also a recipe for political instability and a crisis in the countryside.
• The government should acknowledge the extent of the problem and then try to address it.

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A case against punishing non-compliance of CSR guidelines (Mint)

Mains Paper 4: Ethics
Prelims level : Not Much
Mains level : CSR and its importance

Context

• To mandate that private firms donate a part of their revenues to charitable causes is to profoundly misunderstand both the social responsibility of corporations and the meaning of the word donation.

Key arguments highlighted against punishing non compliance

• The fundamental social responsibility is to generate wealth for their shareholders in a law-abiding, ethical and sustainable way.
• They generate surpluses for society, provide consumers with goods and services that they need, create employment, purpose and dignity among workers, and strengthen the nation.
• A profitable, well-run corporation does more for India and its people than any charity could possibly do.
• Government through taxation to providing public goods like education, public health, safety and environmental protection etc.
• The government should not to pour more money into loss-making airlines, run soap companies, employ a salt commissioner and subsidise the undeserving in numerous ways.
• Philanthropy is a private matter it is up to the individual to decide whether, how much and who to give to. The government can encourage this—through tax deductions, public acclamation and moral suasion—but has no business intervening in those decisions.
• In other words, shareholders and employees, as individuals, should be giving money to causes that they like. The right role and the right balance between corporate profits, government taxes and individual charity promote social welfare.

Why CSR is mandatory?

• Allocate funds into activities that a government of a low-income democracy cannot.
• Faced with immense developmental challenges, our governments cannot easily justify allocations for world-class art galleries, museums, theatres, sports facilities, research institutions and so on.
• Individual philanthropy and CSR can support causes that democratic politics won’t allow the government to.

Limitations

• The bulk of CSR spending is going into education, health, rural areas, environment and so on. Already the government is spending hundreds of lakhs of crores for the same purposes.
• Corporate executives are unable to decide on the best social use of CSR funds because they are not equipped to do so.

Way ahead

• The right role and the right balance between corporate profits, government taxes, and individual charity promote social welfare.
• Do away with mandatory CSR, lower corporate taxes, and introduce tax deductions for certain activities that the government wishes to promote.

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At a crossroads: On Motor Vehicles Act (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Polity
Prelims level : Motor Vehicles Act
Mains level : Proposed changes made in this Motor Vehicles Act

Context

• India’s Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 has remained in hibernation, unable to meet the needs of a large economy that is witnessing rising travel demand, fast-paced motorisation, major shifts in technology and deteriorating road safety.
• The amendments to the Act voted by Parliament seek to address some of these challenges, notably in forming a National Transportation Policy and a National Road Safety Board, providing for stiffer penalties for violation of rules, and orderly operation of new-generation mobility services that use mobile phone applications.

Suggested amendments made by the government

• Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has countered the charge that the changes are anti-federal in character the proposed amendments were reviewed by 18 State Transport Ministers, and the Bill reflects the modifications they suggested.
• Also, the Rajya Sabha introduced last-minute changes, making concurrence of, rather than consultation with States necessary when issuing fresh schemes for national, multimodal, and inter-State transport.
• This new provision also includes last mile connectivity, accessibility, mobility as a whole and rural transport.
• There is a dire need for reform in these areas, and State governments have tended to ignore these aspects.
• During the previous NDA government, Mr. Gadkari blamed obstruction by a ‘corrupt’ Regional Transport Office system for the delay in amending the MV Act.
• An amendment in the Rajya Sabha allows for RTOs to visit dealerships to register vehicles. This is not much of a change over the practice of dealers taking vehicles to RTO offices.
• The onus is on States to show that the purchaser will not have to pay a bribe.

Way ahead

• The Centre must deliver on its promise that the amended Act will help reduce dependence on personal vehicles, and present its National Transport Policy without delay.
• States must be incentivised to provide clean, comfortable and affordable services for all users, including people with disabilities.
• It is relevant to point out that the National Urban Transport Policy of the UPA failed to achieve this.
• Union minister emphasis is on structural reform and an upgrade to subsidised electric buses for low-cost air-conditioned travel.
• But State Transport Corporations must adopt modern management practices.

Conclusion

• New regulation can certainly shake up the status quo, facilitating transparent investment by any intending operator and removing vested interests, particularly in inter-State and multi-State coach services. But some of the other amendments are less promising.
• A sharp increase in fines has little chance of improving safety.
• Studies show that sustained, zero tolerance enforcement of even small fines reduces violations, while stringent penalties are either not enforced or lead to more bribery.

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The new Consumer Protection Bill is a major step forward in consumer empowerment (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Polity
Prelims level : Consumer Protection Bill
Mains level : Significance of the Consumer Protection Bill

Context

• The passing of the Consumer Protection Bill by the Lok Sabha in the ongoing session of Parliament is a welcome step.

Background

• Originally brought out in 2015, the Bill was referred to a standing committee and later reintroduced in 2018, only to lapse with the end of the term of the earlier government.
• A lot has changed in the way goods and services are bought and sold since 1986, when the first Consumer Protection Act was enacted.
• The Bill recognises this, bringing within its fold online sales, tele-shopping, direct selling and multi-level marketing in addition to the traditional methods.
• The new law will apply to all goods and services, including sale or construction of homes or flats and telecom services.
• While the earlier law did cover unfair trade practices, the current one makes it more comprehensive. It also defines unfair contracts.

Constitutional improvement

• The Bill improves upon the Act of 1986 on a few counts.
• It provides for product liability action on account of harm caused to consumers due to a defective product or by deficiency in services.
• Manufacturers, sellers or service providers are legally bound to compensate consumers for defects or deficiency.
• It envisages a regulatory authority known as the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) with powers of enforcement, unlike the existing Consumer Protection Councils which are only advisory bodies.
• The CCPA will have powers to initiate class action including enforcing recall, refund and return of products.
• Considering that even consumer courts face piling up and backlog of cases, there is now room for an alternative dispute resolution mechanism as the Bill sets up mediation cells attached to district forums, state and national commissions.
• The Bill calls upon the endorsers to exercise due diligence before they plunge into advertisements.
• Failure to do so will attract a penalty of ₹10-50 lakh and/or a ban from further endorsements for a period of 1-3 years.

Way forward

• The Bill is commendable for its efforts to move further towards caveat venditor from the days of caveat emptor.
• Since many sectors have their own regulators, duplication or clashes between CCPA and these bodies may arise.
• By not imposing judicial qualifications like in the Act of 1986 for members of the redressal body, the Bill indirectly allows appointment of non-judicial members to the district/state and national commissions.
• Conflict of interest could arise when government nominees hear cases involving a government entity.
• Finally, easy access, simple process and time-bound resolution must be ensured.

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Urban spaces need better designed homes and an egalitarian housing policy

Mains Paper 1: Society
Prelims level : Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana
Mains level : Urbanisation

Context

• Homelessness is on the rise and has been for the past half a century.
• Eight years ago, after the 2011 Census, the demand for new housing was at 25 lakh units.
• With demand rising exponentially and increasing migration numbers, the current requirement for shelter stands at 30 lakh units.

Key challenges in providing housing

Ineffective programs

• Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana aims to provide cheaper houses quickly to low-income groups, with substantial interest subsidies on housing loans. The previous scheme, Awas Yojna, has been attempting the same since 1985 without much success.
• State housing boards have similar unachievable goals.
• Every year, more houses are constructed; yet, every year the demand increases.

Idea of ownership

• In the early 1950s, new houses in most cities relied on the bungalow model. The home’s ownership, independence, and property rights were paramount.
• 70 years later, despite a 100-fold increase in city population density and land values, little has changed from that ideal.
• The provision of shelter is still wracked by the archaic ideal of ownership and still stuck to the impracticality of old space and design ideas.
• The unwillingness of a homeowner to rent out when the legal rights grossly favour tenants.

Factors need to be evaluated in the search for a new model

• put a halt to the growing privatization of the city – do away with more private ownership of land and buildings. The current situation creates unfortunate divides between private colonies, flats and government housing contributing to insecurity and gated colonies.
• Isolating quality of the Indian city has been reinforced by divisions of profession, ethnicity and economic status
• Cities with officially recognized subdivisions Bengalis in their own enclave (Chittaranjan Park), lawyers in Niti Bagh, Jews in Jewtown and Parsis in Parsi Colony
• By discouraging homeownership, the city becomes more open and accessible to a greater number of new residents
• Stringent urban land reforms would be the first step in that direction
• Making housing part of city infrastructure projects, the government takes away land and construction from private builders and creates diverse pockets of housing in different parts of the city.
• Ensuring citizens have easy access to subsidized rental housing without legal rights of ownership. Rental units would allow residents to live close to the office and employment, keeping the neighborhood changing and dynamic.
• It is imperative that a system of tax incentives and new rental regulations be used to achieve that goal
• The imposition of a high un-occupancy tax on buildings that are vacant will help to inhabit almost a third of private housing that remains empty in most cities.
• Stricter construction restrictions are put in place; the government should see housing as a social service and not a business venture
• Expanding the supply of low-income housing
• Current densities of residential space need more efficient modifications – smaller multifunctional and compact unit makes more sense. Given the high land values, unless there is an increase in floor area ratio (FAR) and a decrease in a home’s occupancy footprint, economies of scale will never be achieved in city residential areas
• Subsidies on efficient space planning, environmental considerations, and design that create shared community spaces should be encouraged and rewarded.
• Civic governance structures need to be separate from politics.
• Brazil’s intervention in its Favelas or slum tenements upgraded individual houses after a rigorous survey of families, providing design improvements, ventilation, storage space and utilities where needed.
• Singapore replaced their poorer tenements altogether with a basic high rise of low-cost low-income housing integrated into the fabric of the city.

Conclusion

• Housing in India is both inefficient, poorly constructed, thoughtlessly designed, and conforms to outmoded ideas that still hark to the bungalow prototype.
• Unless more thoughtfully-designed homes, with newer materials and technologies, and a more egalitarian housing policy become part of future government programs, it is these citadels of waste and decay that will remain the public face of the city.

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