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Newspaper Analysis and Summary – 23rd November 2014 NATIONAL ‘More fresh water needed to save Sunderbans ecosystem’- The Hindu The present flow of fresh water in the Sunderbans is insufficient to maintain its unique ecosystem, with additional supply required to save the archipelago from degradation, a study by Jadavpur University’s School of Oceanographic Studies (SOS) and IIT Roorkee have revealed.

The study is part of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s ‘Ecosystem For Life: a Bangladesh-India Initiative’ in which researchers from both the countries have collaborated. “The pilot study indicates that the present level of flow is insufficient to maintain the ecosystems and ecosystem services in Sunderban even at the present level. We need more water in the lean period,” SOS director Sugata Hazra told The Hindu on Saturday. Sunderbans, he added, needs 507 cubic metres per second (cumec) of fresh water and the Hooghly 1200 cumec.

Sunderbans, a UNESCO world heritage site with over 300 species of plants 600 species of wildlife, is the home of Royal Bengal tigers. It is spread over West Bengal and Bangladesh and has 8 million inhabitants.

The study was carried out in two spots in the archipelago: Swarupganj on the Hooghly and Majdia on the trans-boundary Ichamati river, and studied four indicators: the Gangetic dolphins, Sundari trees, Hilsa migration and navigation. Over the past few years, Sundari trees, from which Sunderbans derives its name, have dwindled in numbers while the number of salinity-tolerant Avicennia sp has gone up; sightings of dolphins too have decreased.

Parrikar clears expanded IACCS for Air Force – The Hindu The first Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) meeting, chaired by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar cleared a proposal for 814 mounted gun systems for the Army.

Request for Information (RFI) will be issued to Indian vendors within the next couple of months kicking off the tendering process. Indian private sector majors Bharat Forge, L&T and Tata have already tied up with global Original Equipment Manufacturers and are likely to participate in the tender.

Addressing the DAC, Mr. Parrikar reiterated that the priority of the government was fast and transparent acquisitions.

The Army’s Field Artillery Rationalisation Plan (FARP) formulated in 1999 envisages inducting around 3,000 guns of various types to equip its 220 artillery regiments. No new gun has been acquired since the 1980s, when 400 Bofors guns were bought from Sweden.

Another major deal cleared is for the Air Force to expand the Integrated Air Command & Control System (IACCS) for Rs.7,160 crore. The IACCS presently has 5 nodes and an additional 4 nodes will be set up to connect the Indian mainland with Island regions for seamless communication and connectivity.

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CURRENT AFFAIRS As part of this, new command & control nodes will be set up and integrated with the existing ground & air sensors and air defence systems.

NSA flags corporate control over cyberspace– The Hindu National Security Adviser Ajit Doval on Saturday pointed out that India was struggling against corporates in the cyber battlefield.

Speaking at the HT Leadership Summit, Mr. Doval said, “One of the problems we have is that technologically we have lost out in certain areas where the root servers are all under the control of countries that are not under our control. A lot of these control systems are with the West, mainly the U.S… They are helpful to us in some areas but not always helpful, particularly in the corporate world. There are corporations which are very powerful and they use it. I don’t want to name them but they are very powerful.”

Commenting on Chinese construction activity in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Mr. Doval said: “We have got to see the consequence, particularly if it is passing through areas which are in PoK which is close to our border and actually is our own territory. I think we have taken it up from time to time with China and Pakistan. And it is a matter on which strategic cognisance needs to be taken, and I think the government should prepare itself for possible consequences.”

He said the most critical factor of national security “is the will of the nation … This depends on our values of fairness, justice and equality.”

INS Vikrant fades into history-The Hindu Despite last ditch attempts by activists and former navy servicemen to save it, INS Vikrant — the county’s first aircraft carrier — has finally faded away into history.

The BJP, whose leaders had promised to keep the vessel alive before elections, shifted the blame on to the previous Congress–NCP government and said had it acted sooner, Vikrant could have been saved.

The dismantling of the majestic vessel began here on Friday opposite the Darukhana ship breaking yard. The Bombay High Court had given the go-ahead for Vikrant to be auctioned in January, after it rejected a public interest litigation petition to save the vessel and convert it into a maritime museum. The Centre said it was difficult to maintain the vessel.

In March, the Indian Navy sold Vikrant to a Mumbai-based ship breaking company for Rs. 63 crore.

However, activists moved the apex court in a bid to save the vessel. The Supreme Court in May ordered maintenance of status quo.

Those who had campaigned to save the vessel expressed their regret saying it was a pity that successive governments could not restore a national treasure.

Kiran Paingankar, who headed the ‘Save Vikrant Committee’, said it was a “black day” in the “glorious maritime history of country”. “I tried my best to save the vessel,” he told The Hindu .

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End culture of impunity: Hamid Ansari– The Hindu Vice-President M. Hamid Ansari pointed out that people have a “profound disenchantment with the state” due to misuse of laws such as the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act.

He was delivering a lecture in memory of eminent jurist and human rights activist V.M. Tarkunde, here on Friday.

Mr. Ansari called for, “a fuller accountability into the system of governance at all levels so that the culture of impunity ends, and the state and its functionaries are held accountable for every act of omission or commission.”

There must be “continual oversight” to ensure that people are “kept sufficiently awake to the principle of not letting liberty be smothered by material prosperity.” The need, he said, was to find a balance between traditional rights of citizens with environmental imperatives and economic objectives or else social tensions would undermine development.

“Innovative legislation pertaining to right to food, education, information and rural employment has been put in place. A critical analysis of the results however show imbalance in implementation and insufficient attention to some other areas.”

The Vice President pointed out that violations of the right to life and liberty by the state was acute in areas of internal conflict such as Jammu and Kashmir, the north-east, and the Naxal belt.

“Much of this is credible, has been carefully documented, and reflects poorly on the state and its agents,” he said. “Despite the constitutional and legal guarantees, religious minorities continue to be the target of violence and discrimination… Patterns of systematic mobilisation of hate and divisive politics are discernible; in many cases these have been pursued with impunity.”

Nehru favoured state control over resources: Irfan Habib– The Hindu Working on the premise that Jawharlal Nehru’s world-view “provides the bedrock upon which alone this nation can sustain itself,” the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust on Saturday launched a lecture series that seeks to reconstruct and recover his “idea of India” while critiquing it.

Delivering the first lecture in the series christened, “The Indian Modern & Nehru,” eminent historian Irfan Habib flagged the key interventions made by the country’s first Prime Minister during the freedom struggle to lay the foundations of independent India.

In particular, Prof. Habib dwelt at length on Nehru’s celebration of reason and advocacy of a welfare state; two interventions that ran contrary to what Gandhi had spelt out in his book Hind Swaraj. “Gandhi spoke of self-help and minimal state but Nehru felt that people wanted a supportive state and advocated public sector control of mineral resources, railways, industry,...’’ Nehru also advocated ‘land to the tiller,’ something which Gandhi was opposed to, Prof. Habib added.

Pointing out that Gandhi chose Nehru as his political heir despite these differences, Prof. Habib said 1947 saw their two streams of thought unite like never before. “Both wanted

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CURRENT AFFAIRS communal slaughter to stop. And, they wanted Muslims to remain in India even after Partition as should Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan. Very few Congress leaders agreed with them.”

Challenging allegations that State control over resources was a personal agenda of Nehru, the historian pointed out that public sector control over mineral resources, key infrastructure and industry were mentioned in the Karachi Resolution and was part of the official Congress policy from the early 1930s

Now, e-cigarettes can harm your computer– The Hindu E-cigarettes may be better for your health than normal ones, but spare a thought for your poor computer — electronic cigarettes have become the latest vector for malicious software, according to online reports.

Many e-cigarettes can be charged over USB, either with a special cable, or by plugging the cigarette itself directly into a USB port.

That might be a USB port plugged into a wall socket or the port on a computer. But, if so, that means that a cheap e-cigarette from an untrustworthy supplier gains physical access to a device.

A report on social news site Reddit suggests that at least one “vaper” has suffered the downside of trusting their cigarette manufacturer.

“One particular executive had a malware infection on his computer from which the source could not be determined,” the user writes.

“After all traditional means of infection were covered, IT started looking into other possibilities. The made in China e-cigarette had malware hardcoded into the charger, and when plugged into a computer’s USB port the malware phoned home and infected the system.”

Rik Ferguson, a security consultant for Trend Micro, says the story is entirely plausible. “Production line malware has been around for a few years, infecting photo frames, MP3 players and more,” he says.

In 2008, for instance, a photo frame produced by Samsung shipped with malware on the product’s install disc.

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ECONOMY Modi to push for SAARC Development Bank in summit – Business Standard Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to push for the creation of a South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (Saarc) development bank to boost trade and investment, as well as funding for several infrastructure and intra-Saarc developmental projects. The government had been quite vociferous in this regard, keeping in mind the importance of India’s neighbourhood in the prime minister’s foreign policy initiatives.

A senior official told Business Standard apparently, Modi was keen to push for the bank at the 18th Saarc Summit in Kathmandu on November 26-27. This will be Modi’s first Saarc Summit since he became prime minister in May.

At the Saarc ministerial meeting in Thimpu in July, the proposal was unanimously endorsed by all member countries — India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Maldives. “The idea has been supported by all countries. Now, the challenge is to make it a reality and that can only happen when there is political will. That political will has to manifest itself during the summit level meeting this time. This will address issues relating to cross border banking,” said the official.

The idea is to secure easier access to capital for funding infrastructure projects by all Saarc member countries. If the plan is approved at the Kathmandu summit, the bank’s basic structure, equity base and headquarters have to be worked upon. Officials say though India will be the “natural choice” for setting up the bank, as it is the largest and most powerful economy in the region, there could be opposition from countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh. A decision on the location of the bank’s headquarters will depend on the equity contributions by each country. This will also ascertain each country’s voting rights.

“It is at a conceptual stage. But if the region has to grow, this is definitely the need of the hour. It should fund infrastructure projects on real time,” said R U Das, professor, Research and Information System for Developing Countries.

Though the idea of a Saarc development bank was mooted during the United Progressive Alliance regime, it has received significant thrust under the new government. The National Democratic Alliance government had constituted a committee under the finance ministry to weigh the modalities of the proposal.

At the ministerial in Thimpu, member countries had also discussed whether instead of creating a new banking institution, existing institutions such as the Export Import Bank of India could be used for infrastructure funding, it had the wherewithal to finance cross- border projects and set up an effective funding channel.

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Jaitley against burdening salaried, middle class – Business Standard Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said he does not favour burdening the salaried and middle class with more taxes but would go after the evaders in widening the net. He would encourage more money being put in the pockets of tax payers that will lead to spending and collection of more indirect taxes.

“This is widening of the tax base. What does it mean? ...I pay the same indirect tax as my attendant. Our volume of consumption may be different. So, everybody is paying indirect taxes,” he said.

During an interaction with PTI journalists, he said, “Literally almost half your taxes are indirect taxes today. He pays excise, he pays customs duty, he pays service tax. Now, as far as income tax is concerned, to bring those who evade tax is widening the tax net, I am all for it."

He was replying to a question on whether his Budget would look at widening the tax base to maximise revenue. Jaitley, who will be presenting his first full fledged Budget in February, said in his last Budget he had increased the tax exemption limit from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh and would even raise it further if he had more money.

“After all what are we talking about Rs 2.5 lakh today means, taking all the deductions which we have given, somebody up to Rs 3.5-4 lakh does not have to pay tax. So we have reached the situation broadly. “One earning Rs 35,000-40,000 a month, if the person puts some money for savings, (he) won't have to pay tax. But people falling in this bracket say that they don't save anything with salary of Rs 35,000-40,000 (with) the present cost of living, the transport cost, the fees of children and so on," Jaitley said.

Therefore, the Minister said, he was against reducing the exemptions to widen the tax net. "Then that's not my approach," he added.

"So I am quite willing, if I had my way and I had more money in my pocket, I would like to expand. But today the revenue position is challenging. Last time I gave several concessions, which were actually beyond my means. But it's all fine to bring those who evade tax under the tax net. But to bring this vulnerable section into the tax net, that can't be the policy today. In fact if you put additional money in their pockets and allow them to spend, then I collect correspondingly more indirect taxes so I will rather encourage more economic activity."

On black money within the country, he said: "It is a huge quantity and more easily traceable. Because you go to real estate, you go to land, you go to mining, you go to jewellery, you go to luxury goods, you will find the domestic (black money). You go to educational institutions, you will find it there. Therefore, to trace out the buyers and the recipients is also easy."

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CURRENT AFFAIRS Retail bond issuance preferred route of fund raising for NBFCs despite costs – Business Standard More non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) are opting for retail issue of non- convertible debentures (NCDs) rather than commercial paper (CPs) to meet working capital requirements. This would help them to broaden the investor base as well, as it is considered a more stable source of funding.

Muthoot Finance is planning to raise Rs 400 crore through public issue of bonds. "Going for retail NCDs over CPs helps us to broaden the investor base. We typically prefer NCDs of tenure 400 days to six-and-a-half years. Even now, we are planning to raise retail NCDs for up to Rs 400 crore of tenure of 400 days to six-and-a-half years at coupon rate of 10 per cent to 11.25 per cent," said George Alexander Muthoot, managing director of Muthoot Finance. Muthoot also said the company might do another retail NCD issue in the last quarter of the financial year.

IFCI is another company in which the public issue of bonds is currently open. The issue shall close on Friday and even it might issue another bond in the next one year. "The back- up lines of funding from banks are not always available due to which retail NCDs are better. Besides, retail NCDs can be raised even for longer tenures," said Malay Mukherjee, CEO and managing director, IFCI.

The cost of retail NCDs turns out to be higher and these NBFCs are willing to pay that for the advantages attached to it. "Rather than dependence on banking channels, which are basically seasonal in nature, companies are getting away from that. These companies are diversifying their borrower base. More companies might go for retail NCDs rather than CPs. Retail NCDs might not be cheaper, but they are a stable source of funding for companies. Retail NCDs of tenure one year turns out to be 50-75 basis points higher than CPs," said Ajay Manglunia, senior vice-president (fixed income), Edelweiss Securities.

However, experts believe most of these retail NCD issuances might pick up next year, as the bias is towards a fall in interest rates. That would make it cheaper for NBFCs to raise funds through this route. With inflation expected to soften, the Reserve Bank of India might start cutting interest rates as a result of which retail NCDs will be cheaper. "The domestic bond market continues to grow and companies are better placed now to tap both retail and the mutual fund investor base. The growing size of the mutual fund industry provides a good opportunity to corporates to diversify their funding source," said Sanjeev Lall, managing director (head institutional banking group and branches) - India at DBS Bank.

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EDITORIALS 'A visionary who decisively altered India's trajectory' – Business Standard Jawaharlal Nehru once remarked that wealth shouts, but knowledge whispers. That whisper about Nehru's life and work has weakened in recent years in our country, drowned out by misrepresentation and distortion. Yet, the ideas that he promoted and the values for which he stood remain relevant. It is in that spirit that this conference has been convened to commemorate his 125th birth anniversary and to reflect on some aspects of his legacy.

Nehru was one of the towering figures of the twentieth century, who left his mark on India and the world. He was a man of many parts, a synthesis of the best of East and West: a man of ideas and a man of action; a man of letters who interpreted India both to itself and to the world, and interpreted the world to India; an ardent nationalist who was also a fervent internationalist, a visionary who decisively altered India's trajectory. He was once compared to a sculptor, called upon to work on a massive block of granite encompassing one sixth of the human race. Out of that block of granite Nehru built a state, a nation and a democracy.

He did so against the most daunting odds. In 1947, India was a new-born state in turmoil after experiencing the bloodbath of partition and the violent passion that had been unleashed, which culminated in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Nehru brought reassurance, stability and hope to a country in crisis and put it firmly on the path of progress and modernity. Nehru viewed politics as a vehicle for transformation. Within him was the burning flame of anger at injustice, as well as the burning flame of hope for a better world. These two flames were the guiding beacons of his life.

His ultimate objective was not merely India's freedom, but human freedom, and the longer term, the end of exploitation by any country or class. He threw India's full weight behind freedom movements throughout the colonised world, hastening the end of empires. He gave eloquent voice to the rise of the Asia in world affairs. He was a firm advocate of the rights of the Palestinians. By his words and deeds, Nehru became the hero to the developing world, as well as lodestar of hope to freedom-seeking people everywhere during the worst years of the Cold war. Long after his death, many leaders like Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi sought inspiration from his example.

Although a socialist by conviction, dedicated to building a nation, a more equal society, Nehru was an individualist by temperament. He valued individual liberty above all else. The struggle for India's independence was not only about freedom for the country, but freedom for the individual. India's democracy, which we take for granted today, was Nehru's greatest achievement.

Long before independence, Nehru had articulated adult suffrage, fundamental rights and a secular state as the bedrock of the democracy he would go on to build in a free India, defying conventional wisdom that democracy would not succeed in conditions of mass poverty and illiteracy. Nehru's inspiring leadership nourished India's democracy in its crucial formative years and helped it to take deep root. Democracy was for him a value to be cherished in itself.

Throughout his 17 years as prime minister, Nehru devoted himself to embedding democracy into India's consciousness. He exhorted parliamentarians to live up to their

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CURRENT AFFAIRS responsibilities, tirelessly educated the masses to value their franchise and to use their judgement before voting. He insisted on fair play in the electoral process. The flavour of the man and his thinking were vividly expressed in his address to the people on the eve of our first general election in 1951. He said: "In a democracy, we have to know how to win and how to lose with grace. Those who win should not allow this to go to their heads; those who lose should not feel dejected. The manner of winning or losing is even more important than the result. It is better to lose in the right way than to win in the wrong way."

India's democracy has evolved over the last 50 years, sometimes in ways that would have surprised Nehru. Nevertheless, in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-linguistic, multi- regional society, Nehru's brief that only parliamentary democracy and a secular state could hold the country together, has been proved right. Nehru was prescient about the consequences of allowing religion into politics. The truth of his conviction can be seen in the conflicts raging in various parts of the world in the name of religion.

Secularism - a state neutral in matters of religion, respecting all faiths equally - was an article of faith with Nehru. He once warned, I quote: "If any person raises his hand to strike down another on the ground of religion, I shall fight him to the last breath of my life as head of the government and from outside". There could be no Indianness, no India, without secularism.

Recognising that independent India needed the rapid creation of infrastructure and industry, he built a strong public sector to lead the country's economic emergence. The major projects launched in the 1950s were the centrepiece of his thinking.

Nehru's achievements are not all in the past. They continue to bear fruit. He moulded a new intellectual outlook, a new social sensibility, a new sense of Indianness, a new belief in India's possibilities. He put the country on the path of modernisation, industrialisation, social reform and planned economic development with a strong emphasis on science and technology.

This is, then, an appropriate moment in time to revisit the life, thought and contribution of one of the greatest Indians that has ever lived. Not only is it a commemoration of his 125th Birth anniversary, it is an opportunity to reassert the relevance, durability and indispensability of his legacy.

Uniform civil code: will it work in India?- The Hindu Article 44 of the Constitution — which talks of a uniform civil code for all Indians — was the subject of a recent debate in Chennai.

The main argument of those who spoke in favour of such a code was that it has the potential to unite India because Hindus and Muslims had followed the “common customary Hindu civil code” smoothly till 1937 when “the Muslim League-British combine” divided them by imposing sharia on Muslims through the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act.

But only a minuscule minority of Muslims followed Hindu customs before 1937. Even this section had the right under laws such as the Cutchi Memons Act, 1920 and the Mahomedan

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CURRENT AFFAIRS Inheritance Act (II of 1897) to opt for “Mahomedan Law”. As for a majority of Muslims, there is enough evidence to show they followed Muslim law, not the Hindu civil code.

In 1790, when Governor-General Cornwallis introduced a three-tier court system in Bengal (which was subsequently extended to other parts of India) he included qazis and muftis as “law officers” to assist British judges. The highest criminal court of this system, Sadr Nizamat Adalat, was assisted by the chief qazi of the district and two muftis. In cases pertaining to Muslims it had to apply Islamic law as per the fatwas of these law officers, which were binding on the court. The British judges had to wait till 1817 to overrule the fatwas when a resolution was introduced to repeal their binding character (Rudolph Peters: Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law ).

Before Cornwallis, Warren Hastings had decreed in 1772 that in matters of inheritance, marriage and other such religious affairs “the laws of the Koran with respect to the Mahomedans and those of the Shastra with respect to the Gentoos [Hindus] shall be invariably adhered to.” (Richard Shweder & Others: Engaging Cultural Differences ). Even when the Indian Penal Code was enacted in 1860, Muslim personal laws were left untouched.

However, these laws were sometimes superseded by antiquated customs that had acquired the force of law. For example, as per prevailing custom, property received by a woman as inheritance or gift was not hers and had to be given back to the heirs of the last male owner [ Muhammad v. Amir (1889) P.R. 31, cited in Mulla, Principles of Mahomedan Law]. As such customs deprived Muslim women of their property rights in Islam, Muslims wanted only Muslim law to be made applicable to them.

Act of 1937 The Shariat Act of 1937 was the result of this demand. It repealed all such provisions in earlier legislation that permitted custom to override ‘Mahomedan law’ in cases where the parties were Muslims. But the British did not impose this Act on all Muslims. It was made applicable (per Section 3) only to those Muslims who declared in writing their intent to come under it. This explodes the myth that it sought to divide Indians on communal lines.

Nevertheless, a comparative study of the personal laws of Hindus, Muslims and other minorities will reveal that the sheer diversity of these laws, coupled with the dogmatic zeal with which they are adhered to, cannot permit uniformity of any sort. In fact, the heterogeneity of Hindu law itself is such that even the possibility of a uniform Hindu code is ruled out.

Talking of marriage alone, under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, marriages may be solemnised in accordance with the rites and ceremonies of a variety of people who come under the definition of a Hindu. For instance, according to the saptapadhi form of marriage that is followed mostly in northern India, the marriage is deemed to be complete and binding when the couple take seven steps around the sacred fire.

On the other hand, in the south suyamariyathai and seerthiruththa forms of marriage are followed. Under these, the marriage is valid if the parties to the marriage declare in the presence of relatives that they are marrying each other, or if they garland each other, or put a ring on each other’s fingers or if the bridegroom ties a thali around the neck on the bride.

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CURRENT AFFAIRS Rites and ceremonies Also, for a marriage to be valid under Hindu law it has to be solemnised in accordance with the customary rites and ceremonies of at least one of the parties. Thus, if a Jain marries a Buddhist by performing the rites of a Sikh, the marriage is invalid ( Sakuntala v Nilakantha 1972 , Mah LR 31, cited in Family Law by Paras Divan). In Muslim law there are no elaborate rites or ceremonies, but Sunni and Shia practices differ.

It, therefore, needs to be asked if it is possible or practicable to reconcile these divergent laws and formulate a uniform or common code that is acceptable to all communities.

India already has an optional civil code in the form of the Special Marriages Act, 1954. This, read with similar Acts such as the Indian Succession Act, 1925, provides a good legal framework for all matters of marriage, divorce, maintenance and succession for those who may wish to avoid the religion-based laws.

Why art should go public, and democratic- The Hindu Art exists in varied forms. If trees, mountains and landforms are nature’s art installations, paintings, sculpture, architecture and landscaping form the essence of humankind’s artistic impulses. All over the world, these works of art acquire different meanings based on their setting.

Banksy, the England-based street artist, is well-known for his art works that make satirical or ironic comments on political, moral and ethical questions. He has created subversive and satirical graffiti on the West Bank barrier in Gaza and graffiti spoofs in England. His subjects include an ironic take on government spying scandals, climate change and the greed of corporations. Isaac Cordal’s installation in Berlin is a comment on politicians discussing global warming, and brings in the current climate change debates. Art can also bring us close to things which we never notice in everyday life. Claes Oldenburg’s life-size installations of everyday objects are displayed in cities in the U.S. and Europe.

The variety of themes in art brings us to an age-old question — what is art, and what purpose does it serve? The answer lies in two schools of thought, namely ‘Art for Art’s Sake’ and ‘Art for Life’s Sake’, and partly what lies in between. The former believes the beauty of art is reason enough to pursue it, and the latter believes art helps us realise universal values. The pop philosopher Alain de Botton conceives of art as therapy for the soul, and envisions a way of perceiving art by downplaying historical readings. Whichever school of thought one follows, the beauty of literature is that you can decipher many meanings from a work. Thus, art is what you make of it.

Putting up Art installations is an established practice in the West, undertaken for beautification and to develop interactive spaces for the public. Governments have commissioned art works by artists, who are awarded such projects after competitions and voting by the public.

Looking at the Indian context, there are a very few installations that have gathered attention. The Delhi government, during a beautification drive, and following the western example, commissioned metallic sprouts outside the All India Institute of Medical Sciences ( see photo ). These sprouts symbolised India’s growth, initiating Delhi into the discourse of a world city.

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CURRENT AFFAIRS Neglected But overall, commissioning art installations is a neglected trend. Modern artistic sculptures are a relatively new phenomenon in India. Apart from creating monuments and putting statues, not much has been done in this area. One does recall the hand mudra installations at the Delhi airport, which is a public space. But overall, if some attention is not paid to developing spaces for art, it defeats the very purpose of public art.

Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji airport terminal houses about 7,000 works by some 1,500 Indian artists. It is described by the airport’s operator as “India’s largest public art programme”, a space to display the country’s rich and diverse culture, of representing India to the world through its ancient and modern art traditions. The curator says art must be taken out of the museums and into the wider public domain.

But these ideas smack of a class bias where only those who can afford an international air ticket will be able to view the works on display. Why could these works not be installed in other public spaces such as railway stations or bus stations?

Art is democratised when it is taken out of its original setting of museums and galleries and put in urban spaces where there is more scope for it to be scrutinised and felt by the masses. This pigeon-holing of art in certain locations such as museums and now airports takes away from its democratic potential. Irwin Goffman, in his book Frame Analysis , posits the idea that a frame is equally important to judge a work of art as our behaviour is cued by expectations determined by the frame. In this case, the frame becomes the context and the placement of an art installation. Thus, the project undermines the democratic potential of art.

These projects are put up only for display to foreigners behind gated areas. One needs to question why, and for whom, they are put up and what purpose they serve. If art has a purpose, then are these displays fulfilling that purpose?

The government needs to identify places where thought-provoking public art can be displayed so that it does not remain in the confines of museums and airports, and everyone has a chance to appreciate them.

Returning without Solutions – EPW This article argues that there is something intrinsically fascist about “solutions”; a word that has turned out to be a dangerous gift from scientific imagination. Drawing on the history of Jews and Palestine as well as the Partition negotiations between Gandhi and Jinnah, it warns of the dangers of a “solution-minded” approach to the return of Pandits to Kashmir.

“This is home. And this the closest I’ll ever be to home. When I return, the colours won’t be so brilliant… – Agha Shahid Ali from “Postcard to Kashmir”, dedicated to Pavan Sehgal.”

It was a Kashmiri friend, Abir Bazaz, who had put the matter to me with poignant empathy, as we walked against the setting sun, “It is unfortunate the Jews had to face the Palestinian problem so immediately after the Holocaust”. An interesting observation, that the Jews did not deserve to suffer the problem they created by immigrating to Palestine.

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CURRENT AFFAIRS The Jews, of course, did not emigrate on their own accord. They were forced to flee the ghastly persecution they faced in Europe. Everyone knows the Final Solution, the euphemism for scientific fascism that sought to “cleanse” Germany of Jews. But, as Hannah Arendt outlined in her brilliant report, before the final solution was put in place two other solutions were proposed. The “First Solution” was the expulsion of Jews to Palestine. Arendt (1963: 54) draws the scenario behind it: “During its first few years, Hitler’s rise to power appeared to the Zionists chiefly as ‘the decisive defeat of assimilationism.’ Hence, the Zionists could, for a time, at least, engage in a certain amount of non-criminal cooperation with the Nazi authorities; the Zionists too believed in ‘dissimilation’, combined with the emigration to Palestine of Jewish youngsters and, they hoped, Jewish capitalists, could be a ‘mutually fair solution’.”

Science and Solutions For our purpose, it is important to note here, how the idea of a “solution”, fair or not, was playing in the minds of both the Zionists and the Nazis. The solution was a possible emigration of Jews to Palestine. Both felt the necessity to dissimilate the Jews from the German populace, so the idea of transporting a people from one geo-cultural space to another appeared a good idea. What is important for us to note here is how the idea of a “solution” gets based on identifying a “problem” and finding a way to escape it in the most logical manner possible. The Zionists and the Nazis, separated by everything humane between them, nevertheless agreed on the same logic of escape for the Jews. It was possible perhaps because the “solution” appeared convincing to both of them, just as a solution of a mathematical problem might be the same for two very dissimilar people.

Scientific thinking (and “solutions”) has the power and legitimacy to bring in universal consensus. But unlike objects and numbers, the problems of the not-so-scientific species of human beings are more complicated than the scientific solutions provided for them, and hence finding ways to tackle human problems are not very conducive to the mode of scientific thinking.

The “First Solution” of transporting Jews to Palestine ironically turned out to be the last solution, after Nazi persecution of Jews took its horrendous toll. However, right from its inception, the solution named Israel came into conflict with the Arabs. The Jews were a persecuted community looking for their promised homeland granted by the Torah in an already inhabited place. Necessity, with ironic severity, had forced them to take shelter in the land where history complicated myth. It proved history is not logical; it does not work on solutions.

From the “First” to the “Final”, all solutions proposed by the Nazis proved to be triggered by a scientific mode of thinking where the most important questions of human dignity and survival were dumped. As if expulsion of people and their rehabilitation in an alien land were a matter of scientific precision and once the task was achieved, everything would fall into place. But human beings do not easily fall into place, and nor does history. There is something intrinsically fascist about solutions. It turned out to be the most dangerous word gifted to us by the scientific imagination with the most disastrous consequences in the 20th century.

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CURRENT AFFAIRS This reminder should perhaps guide the efforts being made for the most desired return of Kashmiri Pandits to their homeland.

A Solution for Fear The case of the Pandits we know is of course vastly different. They were compelled to leave their homeland through phases spanning over a decade due to a complex conglomeration of reasons. These reasons range from the historic to the political. The most widely believed, even though simplified, reason that emerged for the Pandits leaving Kashmir has been the communalisation of relations between them and the Muslims of Kashmir. But taking other complex and controversial reasons into account (not in the least, the Jagmohan “solution”, etc), it would not perhaps be wrong to broaden the reason and conclude that the Pandit’s exit from Kashmir was the result of a violent intensification of differences between them and the Muslims around the political future of Kashmir. Though they had a shared cultural past (that however included economic differences that produce hierarchies as in any other society) the Muslims and the Pandits stopped sharing, at a point of time, the same political aspiration for the future.

It is now being considered time for the Pandits, who cannot be kept waiting indefinitely, to return to their homeland. Any time is a good time to return home. But the reasons behind their forced departure have meanwhile also deepened and worsened. Kashmir is a militarised fortress shadowed by terrorism. Kashmiri Muslims live daily under the army’s trigger and the Kashmiri Pandits fear violence by Muslims on their return. The possible measures being aired by certain sections, including politicians, to allay the fears of the Pandits sound a bit clinical, as much as they are cynical. This return will thus be planned and orchestrated keeping in mind the chain of fear that rules Kashmiri life and psyche. It may be a cause of worry to view their much awaited return through a solution-minded programme. There are proposals of a separate space being carved out for the Pandits with enough security to allay their fears and assumed threat to life.

Keeping historical precedents in mind these ideas floating in the media are cause for concern. The return of a people under the shadow of persecution to their original homeland, even though it may be very unlike the case of Jews settling in the land of Palestine, does carry resonances of the old problem. This is also a case of rehabilitation, and though the surroundings and the neighbours are familiar, there is an air of hostility pervading around the return, at least in the apprehensive minds of the Pandits.

Whether the fears are true or not is not the point of concern here, but rather the concern is what those fears would lead the establishment to furnish as “solutions” for the rehabilitation of the Pandits. Those measures, mentioned above, are the cause of worry, because they suggest a similar, scientific approach to settle issues as happened in the case of Jews in Palestine. There is certain logicality behind the language of a solution and fear works perfectly into putting such logic to operation. The solution of fear in history has often bred further and greater fear, creating a new history of fear. If fear is the prime mover behind finding a solution, it is perhaps better to quell the fear before trying to find a solution for it, thus perhaps, rendering a solution unnecessary.

Paranoia and Proximity The other “scientific” problem with the discourse of fear is equally grave. The Nazis had developed the idea of Jewishnesss as well as Aryanism based on racist, scientific theories,

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CURRENT AFFAIRS and the violent repercussions of that model created equally racist ideas of (the need for) dissimilation. Differences built and theorised on the principle of hate are the same as those built on fear. Therefore any concretisation of (the idea of) differences based on hate and/or fear will end up creating racist-like communal breaches, that will be extremely difficult to dissolve over time.

The parallel between Kashmir’s possible future situation once the Pandits are rehabilitated, and the Israel-Palestine conflict, can be drawn from what finally happened in the West Bank: the paranoid fortification of Israel, the humiliation and resulting radicalisation of the Palestinian struggle, and the constant atmosphere of death and irreconcilable hatred between the people. The French writer, Christian Salmon (2002), observed the problem in the West Bank being one of “exophobia, a fear of the outside world” in the “age of agoraphobia, a fear of open spaces”. This resulted in, as Salmon puts it, “not the division of territory but its abolition”. Salmon calls the phenomenon, “endo-colonialism, an inward- looking variety that seeks more than the appropriation of enemy territory: it breeds dispossession, a withdrawal into itself. Its sign is the military bunker.”

Imagine Kashmir in a similar light, with two communities staying apart, divided by bunkers, and a free-flowing fear that creates a paradox of extreme self-retreat as well as a violent impulse for self-preservation. Kashmiris will end up internally colonising their selves. The traumas suffered by the two communities separately will get deflected by a new form of trauma that would bind as well as separate them further. The violence will take a more complicated shape as mutual fear takes over. This will encourage and legitimise newer forms of state and other repressions. The fortification of one community in justification of the fear against another will create a borderless paranoia intensified by proximity. It will create devious psychological pressure in people already reeling from traumatic experiences. The new situation would weave more intricate webs into the perforated landscape. This return to fear cannot be a “solution” to the event of homecoming. The war machines lording over the region will find a more malicious new business.

Kashmir is already torn by so many different interest groups. At this point it is again pertinent to remember how the Zionists were equally persuaded by the Nazi logic of dissimilation and the necessity to emigrate elsewhere. That eventual emigration created a new history and logic of seemingly irreconcilable dissimilation between the Jews and the Palestinians. So any similar kind of discourse – propagated as much by the state as by all kinds of communalised groups – seeking to create similar logics of dissimilation between Muslims and Pandits of Kashmir should be rejected by both the communities for the sake of fraternal hope.

Selfing the Other The idea of the future divided the present between the Hindus and Muslims of Kashmir. But this idea of the future was never in Kashmiri hands alone. As Agha Shahid Ali put in his famous poem, since the day Habba Khatun’s husband was exiled from the Valley by Akbar, her grief “roused the people in frenzied opposition to Moghul rule. And since then Kashmir has never been free” (Ali 2009: 172-73). It is poet’s concise evocation of his history. Even today, Kashmir cannot imagine itself without being obstructed by the competing machinations of the two countries claiming its future.

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CURRENT AFFAIRS Agha Shahid Ali’s lines from the epigraph – This is home. And this the closest/ I’ll ever be to home… – tells of a man in exile, who carries two homes, one that is inside him and the other which he has irrevocably lost. It alludes to the Pandit’s situation as well, living away from the only land he recognises as home. Shahid, estranged, gay, getting away from violence, knew that his return will not shine with any radiance. And yet, by articulating such a desire, he betrayed the biting desire to return. There is an element of impossibility in all stories of return, because no one returns to the same person or place. The person and the place are always transformed in absence.

To affirm one’s place with confidence in the Other is the best way to grace this return. Or else, fear of violence is always accompanied by the violence of fear. This illogical state cannot be redeemed by logic, but perhaps by a superior and desirable possibility of slowly risking and weaving a new history of trust. A place in the neighbour’s heart is the firmest root upon which to seek reclamation of one’s lost home. This is exactly what Gandhi sought before partition, but unfortunately did not execute in his politics.

Breaking away from the Congress’s language of power and political logic, Gandhi wanted to negotiate with Jinnah not as a representative of the Congress Party but as he said, in his “individual” capacity, for the sake of “Hindu-Muslim unity”, something that was his “life mission” (Rajagopalachari 1944: 5). But in his talks and letters with Jinnah on solving the problem of partition, Gandhi stuck to a blueprint he considered the basis of their negotiation: the Rajaji formula. Ultimately, this “formula”, used as a bargaining tool, failed to convince Jinnah, and it paved the way for eventual partition. It is rather amazing and unfortunate how Gandhi, who claimed to represent himself in his individual capacity, nevertheless used a Congressman’s “formula” to impress Jinnah.

The merits or biases of the formula are not the issue, but the dependence and belief on a draft symbolising a scientific style of laying out directions and representations. The “logic” of formulas was not the language Gandhi proclaimed, but certainly used for his advantage. The failure of that task is historic. Gandhi’s scientific mindset in driving home his point to Jinnah against partition reached such a desperate level during these conversations that he did not resist from forwarding even a racist conception of the nation in one of his letters to Jinnah: “I find no parallel in history for a body of converts and their descendants claiming to be a nation apart from the parent stock” (Rajagopalachari 1944: 12).

It is not our fault if Gandhi here resembles V S Naipaul. The logical relationship between scientifically-driven need for formulas and racist premises get inevitably mixed up. That is why trying to find solutions outside the language of trust demeans the reasons behind looking for peaceful breakthroughs between people as much as they fail to convince anybody involved in finding ways to live together.

First Act of Ethics Nothing can be said beyond this, just as nothing can be said of successful ways to better solutions. This is a modest attempt at suggesting and insisting what perhaps needs to be avoided, what is not to be done, as everything needs to be done to ensure the Pandits return home soon and safe, without trying to find solutions. Since no community – majority or minority – can take the decision on Kashmir’s future on its own, an unfolding of trust alone might pave the way for the two communities, even though they may look at the future differently, to begin to hear each other.

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CURRENT AFFAIRS Perhaps the very definition of the Other, in Kashmir’s case, is not straightforwardly religious. “Muslim” and “Pandit” are names of faiths joined by a singular narrative: that of (Sufi) shrines. Shah Hamdan, Sheikh Noor-ud-Din Noorani and others are the real symbols of shared faith. The Other is also within, if not the same. All these years of suffering will hopefully help the two communities hear each other more attentively than before. The promise of a difficult future will lie in this mutual hearing. Hearing the Other, according to the Jewish thinker Emanuel Levinas, is the first act of ethics. The promise of a difficult future will lie in this mutual hearing.

SUPPLEMENT Community Radio: A key for Empowerment- sSimplyDecoded “Community radio has potential and can be used as a platform to enable participation of communities”

It was in 1995 when SC gave a landmark judgement stating that “airwaves constitute public property and must be utilized in advancing public good”. The community radio guidelines were released in 2003-04, and educational institutions applied for the same. But, many applications are stuck in the processing stages. Over that, till date, the naxal hit areas and the border areas have little or no community radio presence.

Community radios act as a viable and trustworthy alternative to mainstream media (in terms of news and entertainment) and it can be used as a platform to enable participation of communities (of interest defined by geographical boundaries). It can be seen as a channel to document and keep languages and cultures alive on a daily basis, and can be employed as a means to promote values of access to education, economic and social justice, against class, gender, race, caste based violence, and transparency in governance.

In terms of development, it can help the masses with respect to health, literacy, and income. It can provide access to useful, localized, contextual information, could be a source of job opportunities and enhance skill and capacity building.

One of the foremost hurdles to CR programme is that communications (including community radio) is centrally governed as per the Union list of the constitution. Next, due to necessary measures by different ministries, the current licensing mechanism is lengthy and bureaucratic. At any time, at least 3 ministries’ approval is required (Ministry of Information and broadcasting, Ministry of Communications and IT, Home Ministry, Ministry of defense, Ministry of Law, etc). Equally, prohibition of news and current affairs broadcasts limits the value of CR.

Under the rules of channel spacing in India, there should be a space of 800KHz — which means if a radio is allocated a frequency of 90.4MHz, then the next available frequency is 91.2MHz. This limits the FM band (99-108 MHz). Studies have shown that a space of 200KHz is appropriate enough. We also need to work on formal CR guidelines. For instance, a frequency allocated means that the particular frequency is not to be used by any other organization within a particular radius.

In such an allocation, the radius varies for a town, city, and a village and thee variations are not based on a sound logic. Efforts should be made to synchronize this process (among others) so that the FM spectrum could be utilized effectively.

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CURRENT AFFAIRS

Despite the call by government in 2011 to erect telecom towers in naxal hit areas under the pretext that “the single biggest problem in all these districts is connectivity”, many CR applications from such areas are rejected citing security concerns. Such applications should not be rejected by default simply because they come from the naxal hit areas. Their merits should be gauged on a case-by-case basis, and steps should be taken to ensure that quality CR programmes are given opportunities to go live on air. This way, the tribals and the villagers will have access to information, and the stations can be used to make them aware of the schemes and policies of the government.

Many countries reserve part of spectrum for community radio (Columbia, S. Africa, Uruguay, etc.) but in India such reservations are informal in nature. We should provide for a formal reservation in the spectrum for the CR programmes, which will in turn encourage the NGOs and other groups to apply for the stations.

Similarly, it is advisable to constitute a regulator (like TRAI) to look into the entire process of accepting applications, allocating frequencies, etc. Such a regulator can co-ordinate with various ministries effectively and ensure the speedy disposal of the application. Another reform which can be initiated is that the CR system be decentralized. The basic reason is that CR is highly localized and the states will be in a better position to understand the significance of the applications. In Germany, each state/province has the authority to allocate licenses for broadcasting in its jurisdiction. We need to adopt such measures to ensure that CR systems be made available in remotest areas via appropriate funding schemes and support schemes. Above all, it is the political will (which was missing till date) which will help augment the importance of CR in social and economic development.

Some notable community radio systems are: 1. Kunjal Panje Kutch Ji: It relates to the concerns, aspirations of women in areas of Bhuj, Kutch etc. It broadcasts in Kutchi language (a dialect of gujarati).

2. Namma Dhwani: This CR runs in Kolar district of Karnataka, and focus on providing useful information to illiterate women in these areas and has been helping SHGs.

3. Kelu Sakhi: Based in Karnataka, this CR broadcasts information related to the women’s education, health, political institutions, and capacity building in rural areas. It is run by 2 organizations namely “IT for Change” and “Mahila Samkhya Karnataka”.

G20: the Main Outcomes – Simply Decoded * Economic growth: The leaders of the world’s most powerful industrial economies pledged to grow their combined economic output by an extra 2.1% – around $2 trillion – over the next five years. This was above the 2% goal they were initially targeting. The strategy to achieve this goal through domestic policy reforms will be known as the “Brisbane Action Plan”.

* Infrastructure investment: The summit agreed to launch the Global Infrastructure Initiative to unlock private financing for infrastructure investment worldwide, including the creation of a Global Infrastructure Hub based in Sydney to support best practices and coordination.

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CURRENT AFFAIRS * Trade liberalisation: Increased global trade will be a requirement if the G20 is to achieve its growth target. The leaders committed to the implement all elements of the Bali package and swiftly define a WTO work programme on the remaining issues of the Doha Development Agenda.

* Tax and financial regulation: The G20 leaders agreed to complete by 2015-end a plan to combat tax avoidance by multinational companies. They also vowed to strengthen financial institutions, protect taxpayers from having to fund bailouts of “too big to fail” banks and to make derivative markets safer.

* Gender Equality: The summit won a commitment by each country to close the gap between its male and female labour-force participation rates by 25% by 2025. This will bring an estimated 100 million additional women into the labour force.

* Energy: In a first, a session was dedicated to energy issues and the participants agreed that energy will now be at the heart of the G20 agenda, with strong and resilient energy markets critical to economic growth. They asked energy ministers to meet and report back on options to take this work forward.

* Ebola: While not on the official agenda, leaders expressed support for an urgent coordinated international response to the crisis raging in West Africa. They called on international financial institutions to assist affected countries.

* Climate: The G20 leaders committed to addressing the challenge of climate change including communicating post-2020 domestic climate targets as soon as possible and preferably by the first quarter of 2015. They also stressed the importance of climate finance, including contributions to the Green Climate Fund.

* “The thing about the G20 is that it is large enough to be representative of the wider world and it’s small enough to be effective,” said Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott after the summit. “People around the world are going to be better off, and that’s what it’s all about”.

* 2016: Turkey takes over the presidency from Australia and will host the summit in Antalya next year, and China would be home to the G20 in 2016, the group said in a communique.

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