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Newspaper Analysis and Summary – 18th October 2014 NATIONAL Flight trial of Nirbhay successful – The Hindu Boosting India’s plan to enhance strategic deterrence capability, the first long-range sub- sonic cruise missile, Nirbhay (fearless), was test-fired for a range of over 1,000 km from the Integrated Test Range here on Friday.

The success came in the second flight trial as the first had to be terminated midway in March last year after it deviated from the pre-designated trajectory.

The tree-top, low-altitude flying missile, which can evade radars, was fired from a canister- based mobile launcher from Launch Complex-3 here at 10.05 a.m. After it took off vertically like a rocket, the first-stage rocket booster got jettisoned within seconds at an altitude of 100 metres and the wings got deployed as the missile tilted horizontally.

Around the same time, the turboprop engine kicked in and provided thrust to the missile which began cruising like an aircraft at a speed of Mach 0.7. Cruising at an altitude of 4.8 km, Nirbhay then performed a series of manoeuvres and navigated along 15 waypoints using a state-of-the-art inertial navigation system during its flight of one hour and 10 minutes.

As the missile, carrying a dummy payload of 350 kg, dived near the impact point in the Bay of Bengal with a great degree of accuracy after performing three loops, the Block House at the test range reverberated with thunderous applause and elated shouts.

Scientific Adviser to Defence Minister and Defence Research and Development Organisation’s Director-General Avinash Chander and other top scientists congratulated one another. The fire-and-forget missile developed by the DRDO’s Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), Bangalore, can carry both nuclear and conventional warheads to a distance of over 1,000 km. Research Centre Imarat, another key DRDO laboratory, provided the avionics, while the Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) helped with the propulsion.

Nirbhay has the capability to pick out its target from multiple structures. Describing it as an equivalent to the Tomahawk cruise missile of the U.S., DRDO scientists said it would bridge the critical gap for a long-range sub-sonic cruise missile.

Dr. Chander told presspersons that it was a “great moment” and that the missile performed better than expected (although the scientists planned for a range of 900 km, the missile continued its cruise till the fuel was over and covered a distance of more than 1,000 km). .

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Dr. K. Tamilmani, Director-General (Aeronautical Systems), DRDO, said this would be the basis for improved cruise missiles. The technology evolved could be adapted for higher ranges.

Scheme to check blindness under review – The Hindu With 30,000 fresh cases of blindness being reported in the country every year, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Harsh Vardhan has announced a review of the National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB).

A Centrally-funded scheme, the NPCB was launched in 1976 to reduce the prevalence of blindness. “However, the rate has not shown appreciable difference even after 28 years,” the Minister noted in Bangalore on Thursday.

The Rapid Survey on Avoidable Blindness conducted during 2006-07 showed a reduction in the prevalence of avoidable blindness from 1.1 per cent in 2000 to one per cent in 2006. The NPCB has now targeted to bring down the prevalence of blindness to 0.3 per cent by 2020 from the present level of one per cent. While he is pushing for the full utilisation of funds earmarked for the NPCB for the 12th Plan period (2012-17) with the State governments, the Minister is also seeking the help of non-government organisations to promote eye donation. “There are many lapses on the part of both donors’ families and eye banks in implementing the wishes of a donor. Often the bereaved family members forget to call the eye banks. At other times, the collectors fail to turn up on time,” he said at a function.

Appreciating the concept of ‘vision ambassadors’ — volunteers who act as link between donors and eye banks — being followed in Bangalore, the Minister said it should be replicated.

India has the largest burden of global blindness — about 3.5 million with 30,000 new cases being added each year.

Arvind Subramanian seen to be a reformist at heart – The Hindu Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian’s free-market convictions dominate his academic work and do not conform to the nationalist and protectionist streak among the leadership of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mentor of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. But his academic views are unlikely to dictate his policy prescriptions, top government sources told The Hindu .

“Academic studies guide policy formulations, but policies are not dictated by it. The final policy decisions will always be made by the political executive with inputs and advice from the CEA,” one source said.

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CURRENT AFFAIRS The senior government functionary explained that Dr. Subramanian’s appointment indicated a trend of internationally acclaimed experts of Indian origin offering to work in India. “Dr. Subramanian’s track record is extraordinary,” he pointed out. Raghuram Rajan, former CEA and now Reserve Bank Governor, also left his position of Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund to work in the Indian government. Both were colleagues at the IMF.

Dr. Subramanian is a reformist at heart and stands for open, liberal but transparently regulated markets, economist Rajiv Kumar told The Hindu . He will bring to the job emphasis on de-bottlenecking of the supply side and since he favours free trade he will most likely push for increasing India’s exports and for the domestic sector to be less clogged with regulation.

Though few CEAs have traditionally majorly influenced policy-making, Dr. Subramanian has the advantage of being more than a pure academician having worked in the IMF and World Bank systems due to which “he is likely to be a more successful CEA in the midst of the government system and not at the margins of it, marginalised by the bureaucracy,” said Dr. Kumar. Though how much this influence will be will depend on his rapport with the Finance Minister and the Prime Minister. Dr. Subramanian’s approach is thus in sync with the core of the Modi government’s stated intentions of liberalisation and transparent regulation.

CEAs typically define their roles within the government framework which is constrained among other imperatives by political compulsions and Dr. Subramanian is not likely to be different.

He has shown pragmatism in his critiques of the Modi government’s decisions. For instance, he wrote about the delay in implementing the increase in natural gas prices that is likely to benefit private contractors such as Reliance in the KG Basin: “An increase in natural gas prices is essential. But controversy on the pricing formula, as well as the Kejriwal critique of cronyism to which this government is sensitive, probably justifies additional reflection and time before action is implemented.”

Budgetary accounting Certain other decisions he rejected completely. For instance, he wrote that the Modi government’s maiden budget should have come clean on budgetary accounting, even if this meant accepting the higher deficit number rather than retaining the UPA government’s fiscal arithmetic that included artificially reduced or deferred expenditures by up to 0.3 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product. Some of the budget numbers he found ‘implausible.’

“Tax revenues are projected to grow by nearly 20 per cent. That defies credibility given that nominal GDP growth is unlikely to exceed 13 to 14 per cent (9 percent for inflation plus 5 per cent for real GDP growth),” he wrote, cautioning that transparency and credible

www.indiancivils.com An Online IAS Academy Page 3 CURRENT AFFAIRS numbers evoke confidence and unreliable numbers will eventually elicit cynicism and since good governance was supposed to distinguish this government from its predecessor the budget should at least have started reducing the aggregate fiscal deficit by 0.3 to 0.5 percentage points.

Similarly, he differed with the Modi government’s refusal to ratify the World Trade Organization’s proposed Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) unless it makes ‘satisfactory’ progress on the food security proposal crucial to protecting India’s minimum support prices for its farmers.

“… supporting agriculture is valid, but no, the tactic at the WTO negotiations may be less so ... Food subsidies and even income support to poor farmers should gradually be replaced by cash transfers but since this takes ages, India should try to change WTO obligations itself,” he wrote, adding that India should withdraw its opposition to the TFA, reformulate its position on agriculture, proceed to persuade its partners of the merits and fairness of its new position, and revisit this issue at the WTO in the near future.

Dr. Subramanian had also warned that if the Bali deal collapses, the blow to an already weak WTO would be significant and India would bear much of the blame. Since it didn’t pay heed to this advice, the government has landed the WTO deal in the situation he had cautioned against.

He highlighted the problems in hiking sugar subsidies and import duties on sugar. “Aimed at appeasing the sugar lobby in Maharashtra but also in Uttar Pradesh, this measure is problematic… Apart from its many problems, it leads to water-intensive and water-wasting resource allocation, which is bad for the medium term given India’s plunging water tables. If the aim was to help sugar farmers being paid their dues, this was a very inefficient way of doing so.”

India, China agree to defuse tensions – The Hindu Indian and Chinese diplomats agreed to defuse tensions of the past three months at a two- day meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) in Delhi that concluded here on Friday. But a month after Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi committed to restarting the high- level talks of Special Representatives on border issues, India is yet to announce its nominee for the dialogue.

Sources tell The Hindu that officials in New Delhi and Beijing are deadlocked over “issues of bureaucratic rank,” given that Chinese Special Representative Yang Jiechi is a “state councillor,” equal to the Indian rank of Minister of State, while National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, who would have been the obvious choice for the post, has not been designated to that rank.

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CURRENT AFFAIRS Ahead of Mr. Xi’s visit to India, Mr. Doval travelled to Beijing as the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy, and the announcement of his nomination as Special Representative was expected during the President’s visit. However, Chinese officials made it clear informally that Mr. Doval should have the Minister of State rank for the talks to continue. Former NSAs Shivshankar Menon and M.K. Narayanan were both of that rank. Upset with China’s rebuff, New Delhi is learnt to have put off the announcement.

Some reports speculated that the Chairman of the National Security Advisory Board Shyam Saran or India’s Ambassador to the U.S., S. Jaishankar, both of whom have been Ambassadors to China, could be alternative choices and would be given other responsibilities on external security issues.

Experts say the delay has come at the cost of resumption of dialogue at the highest level, making the Line of Actual Control more vulnerable to stand-offs of the kind seen in Chumar since July 25 — first over the construction of a road near Chumar by China and then an irrigation canal and observation post by India.

“Clearly, without having the Special Representatives in place, the government cannot signal any interest in resuming this very important process of clarifying the LAC,” says Srinath Raghavan, a military expert at the Centre for Policy Research.

Be a part of India’s growth story, says Sushma – The Hindu Making an impassioned appeal in Hindi to Britain’s large Indian community to participate in India’s “growth story,” External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said the Narendra Modi government would keep its poll promises, and live up to the hopes of Indians in and outside the country.

Departing from her written speech in English, which opened London’s first regional Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, Ms. Swaraj, highlighted her government’s development goals and initiatives — plans to create 100 smart cities, establish full rail connectivity across the country, and provide clean drinking water and electricity. “We are aware that there is hope as much outside India as there is inside... we are aware of the responsibility,” she said.

“A job for every hand, water for every field, food for every stomach,” was the government’s goal for India, she said to loud applause from the delegates who had come from across the country and Europe.

Those who voted with hope could be easily disillusioned, but “we will deliver and we will deliver fast,” the Minister said.

Ms. Swaraj and British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond inaugurated the two-day Pravasi Bharatia Divas, held at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in central London.

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The event will discuss a number of themes relating to the present and future of the 1.5 million strong diaspora, and the ways in which they could strengthen and leverage their ties and business links with India.

Environment ministry launches national air quality index – Business Standard Concerned about the rising air pollution level in cities, the environment ministry on Friday launched a tool for people to measure air quality in their vicinity. Environment minister Prakash Javadekar launched the national Air Quality Index (AQI), terming it “one number, one colour, one description” measure which will widely classify daily air quality and inform people in a simple manner.

Javadekar referred to it as one of the initiatives under the Swacch Bharat Mission of the government.

The index is classified into six categories — good, satisfactory, moderately polluted, poor, very poor, and severe — with colour coding ranging from green to dark red. This index transforms various air pollution levels into a single number for a simple description of air quality to citizens.

The AQI is aimed at quickly disseminating air quality information real-time that entails the system to account for pollutants which have short-term impacts.

The AQI will prompt the local authorities to take quick action to improve air quality and is aimed at people's participation in the process. Citizens can avoid unnecessary exposure to air pollutants, the union environment ministry said.

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) welcomed this move and said this can help people take precautions on days with poor air quality.

"CSE has been demanding adoption of this programme as this can help people understand the quality of air and the possible health effects. This is needed to demystify complex air quality data, help promote public awareness and build public pressure for effective air pollution control in cities," said Anumita Roychowdhury, CSE's executive director-research and advocacy and head of its air pollution team.

The proposed AQI will map eight pollutants (PM10, PM2.5, NO2, SO2, CO, O3, NH3 and Pb) for which short term (up to 24-hourly averaging period) National Ambient Air Quality Standards are prescribed.

This index was developed by an expert group comprising medical professionals, air quality experts, academia, NGOs, and state pollution control boards.

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INTERNATIONAL Climate simulation doubles Sahara’s age – The Hindu The Sahara Desert may be much older than geologists thought.

The desertification of northern Africa may have started seven million years ago, or more than twice as long ago as earlier estimates of the Sahara’s age, climate simulations suggest. The findings also hint that this shift in climate would have been triggered by the gradual shrinking of the Tethys Sea, the predecessor of today’s Mediterranean.

The sands of the Sahara may seem timeless, but most geological data suggests that the world’s largest non-polar desert formed between two million and three million years ago, about the same time as cycles of ice ages began plaguing the Northern Hemisphere.

Still, scientists have unearthed tantalising clues that the Sahara may be much older than three million years old, says Zhongshi Zhang, a paleoclimatologist at the Bjerknes Center for Climate Research in Bergen, Norway and a co-author of the latest study, published in Nature . Almost a decade ago, he notes, one team reported evidence of widespread dune deposits estimated to be seven million years old in northern Chad.

Other analyses, including of long-term variations in the amounts of dust and pollen in sediments drilled from seafloors off northern Africa, chronicle extended dry spells in the region starting about eight million years ago.

But it has been unclear what might have triggered the aridification, says Mr. Zhang. There were no major episodes of mountain formation that might have influenced climate in the region, he notes. Nor do his team’s climate simulations suggest that long-term changes in Earth’s orbit or atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are to blame.

Instead, the analyses hint that a gradual rearrangement of land masses — and in particular, the shrinking of the ancient Tethys Sea as the African tectonic plate moved north relative to the Eurasian plate — prompted a shift in weather patterns.

The simulations showed that the shrinking of the Tethys Sea — along with the uplift of the Arabian peninsula, which replaced a broad swath of ocean off northeastern Africa between seven million and 11 million years ago — weakened the African summer monsoon.

When those westerly winds waned, the flow of moisture from the tropical Atlantic that previously swept across northern Africa shifted south. Before the rise of the Arabian peninsula, northern Africa had a moister, semi-arid climate, the researchers note.

Stefan Kröpelin, a geologist at the University of Cologne in Germany, says that the model is interesting but that it is mostly “numerical speculation based on almost non-existent geological evidence.” In particular, he adds, little is known about the size and geology of

www.indiancivils.com An Online IAS Academy Page 7 CURRENT AFFAIRS the Tethys Sea. “Nothing you can find in the Sahara is older than 500,000 years, and in terms of Saharan climate even our knowledge of the past 10,000 is full of gaps,” he says.

Northern Africa probably saw a succession of alternating drier and wetter phases in the distant geological past, says Mr. Kröpelin. But all available evidence suggests that the Sahara as we know it did not exist before the glaciation of the Northern Hemisphere began, around three million years ago, he says.

Mathieu Schuster, a sedimentologist at the University of Strasbourg in France and a co- author of the latest work, disagrees.

Although it is true that too little is known about the ancient geology of the region, he says, the 2006 Chad study (which Mr. Schuster also co-authored) as well as the ones that reported increases in dust an pollen from sediment, contained “strong pieces of evidence to support our new findings.”

U.N. support to Satyarthi, Malala – The Hindu Lauding this year’s Nobel Peace laureates Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said the two “remarkable” Asians give hope to people around the world struggling against exploitation and assured the world body’s support to their “vitally important work”.

Mr. Ban congratulated Mr. Satyarthi and Ms. Yousafzai in his remarks to the Asia Society Game Changer Awards here on Thursday, noting that the awards celebrate an array of “remarkable” Asians.

The inaugural award has been instituted by leading educational and cultural organization Asia Society honouring “true leaders making a positive contribution to the future of Asia.”

ECONOMY SAARC calls for regional power grid – Indian Express A SAARC framework agreement for energy cooperation, pending since the past 4 years, was finalised at last after energy ministers of SAARC countries met in New Delhi over the past two days. The agreement, which will facilitate development of a SAARC Market of Electricity (SAME), now awaits ratification by the respective governments. The meetings were chaired by power, coal, new and renewable energy minister Piyush Goyal who said that discussions over development of a SAARC power grid had also been held, the specifics of which still remained to be worked out.

“No financial figures or technical specifications regarding the grid have been arrived at so far but we will begin work towards this soon. We realise the urgent need for it since economic sustainability of SAARC region is pillared on its energy security. 30 per cent of

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CURRENT AFFAIRS the region’s energy demands are met through imports and the household per capita consumption of electricity within SAARC is mere 128 units versus global average of 3,045 units,” Goyal said.

This was the fifth meeting of the energy ministers held after a gap of three years, and will be followed up by a meeting of various energy regulators from the region in Bangladesh later in December this year.

Currently, India is importing around 1,500 MW from Bhutan while exporting around 500 MW to Bangladesh and 150 MW to Nepal, in addition to a slew of projects waiting to be constructed or finalised with these countries.

A plan to construct an ultra high voltage underwater HVDC line all the way to Sri Lanka is also in the pipeline. India has also offered to set up a training programme for power professionals in the region. Pakistan, however, was absent from the conference and had not responded to the invitation from the SAARC secretary general.

Before PM visit, govt begins work on Nepal power pacts – Indian Express A crucial pact that would pave the way for the setting up of a 900 MW hydropower project in Nepal is likely to be inked during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s upcoming visit to Kathmandu in the last week of October.

Power secretary PK Sinha is slated to travel to Nepal early next week to finalise the project development agreement (PDA) for the 900 MW Arun III hydroelectric power project as a precursor to Modi’s visit to Kathmandu for the SAARC summit. The signing of the PDA for the Rs 5,139 crore project (2010 price levels) to be developed by state owned SJVN Ltd, which is being seen as a defining step in the consolidation of the power sector cooperation between the two countries, would set the ball rolling on the next two stages of project development — inking of the power purchase agreement and the financial closure.

Earlier, on September 17, a PDA had been signed between the Nepalese government and the GMR group for the development of the first project off the block — the 900 MW Upper Karnali hydroelectric project. The signing of the PDA for this project followed a landmark Power Trade Agreement signed on September 4 between the governments of Nepal and India, an overarching agreement that allows market access to developers of hydro power projects in Nepal to sell and buy electricity in India. The pact, which also facilitates the use of the Indian transmission system to sell to third country such as Bangladesh, has considerably improved the power trade scenario and has broken the ice on energy sector between India and Nepal.

Alongside these two, the detailed project report for the 5,600 MW Pancheshwar power station — the biggest hydro project in the subcontinent that has been under discussion for

www.indiancivils.com An Online IAS Academy Page 9 CURRENT AFFAIRS decades, is likely to see some definitive progress. A consultant has already been appointed for this and is expected to wrap up the DPR in consultation with the Nepalese authorities.

“Clean energy is the way to future and the focus is to ensure that the slide in the share of hydroelectric power generation in India’s energy mix is arrested, including through international cooperation,” an official privy to the development said. Modi has already done a bilateral visit to Nepal, but the upcoming Saarc visit is being viewed as a crucial as India is expected to push the agenda to revive the regional cooperation in line with Modi’s neighbourhood focus.

EDITORIALS A line without ceasefires – The Hindu Violations and reasons Ceasefire violations occur cyclically and are often premeditated but are invariably linked to keeping the LoC hot and alive in order to internationalise the Kashmir issue. Feuding local commanders, testing the mettle of opposing new battalions on the LoC, tit-for-tat tactical responses, aiding infiltration and maintaining moral ascendency across the Line are the usual reasons for exchanges of fire. This is frequently accompanied from the Pakistan side by Border Action Teams (BAT) laying ambushes, planting improvised explosive devices (IED) and raiding posts. In 2013 for example, the accent was on actions by border action teams; this year it is on laying IEDs. Additional reasons for the firing started by Pakistani Rangers are: derailing the peace process, fouling up the atmosphere before the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir and, last but not the least, testing Mr. Modi.

Nine times out of ten, it is the autonomous Pakistan military that initiates the firing though there is no way to ascertain this in the absence of the United Nations Military Observers Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), derecognised by India after the Simla Agreement which focussed on bilateralism. Article 4(ii) of the Simla Agreement reads: “the LoC resulting from the cease fire of 17 December shall be respected without prejudice to the recognised position of either side. Neither side will alter it unilaterally irrespective of differences … and refrain from threat or use of force in violation of this line.”

Maintaining strategic parity Clearly, IEDs being laid was synchronised with scuppering Pakistan National Security Advisor Sartaj Aziz’s peace overtures to India, starting October 4, when he said that Pakistan wanted peace with India. This cycle of firing was confined to small arms and heavy mortars only — no artillery — reflecting that neither side wanted to escalate the conflict. TV commentators went overboard talking about war when there was not an iota of a chance for it. When the firing had caused considerable damage to life — some killed and many wounded on both sides — and the law of diminishing returns had set in, Pakistan chose to stop/suspend the firing. It had achieved its immediate objectives of internationalising Kashmir and souring the ambience for talks. The unintended

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CURRENT AFFAIRS consequences of the episodic firing are that they will help the Modi government in the Assembly elections.

“Pakistan should stop ceasefire violations now and understand the reality: that times have changed in India,” said Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh. This is reminiscent of the days after India’s nuclear tests in 1998 when leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) asked Pakistan to lay off Kashmir. Even before those threats could register, Islamabad carried out its tit-for-tat nuclear tests. No one should forget that Pakistan will eat grass in order to maintain strategic parity with India. It is this sacred mission for which it will sup with the devil if required. China, the United States and the Islamic world, notably Saudi Arabia, will not let Pakistan go down especially after it acquired nuclear weapons. The common refrain from BJP leaders including Mr. Modi is: “this is a new government ... we have come to power with 282 seats ... the world now recognises India.” Still, India can neither make the Pakistan Army stop violating the ceasefire agreement nor give it a befitting deterrent response.

The ground reality is that even with 404 seats, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had to seek a meeting with President Gen Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s to defuse the India-initiated “Operation Brass Tacks.” India does not possess decisive conventional military superiority to calibrate its military response to ceasefire violations in a manner that will impose unaffordable costs. This is precisely what Union Defence Minister Arun Jaitley threatened to do — and the course is fraught with the danger of escalation. Sixty-seven years after the first Kashmir war, the LoC is more or less where it was then, merely undergoing a change of nomenclature from ceasefire line to line of control and registering millions of ceasefire violations.

The stark reality on the limits on the use of force and the costs of an unsettled Line of Control and the Line of Actual Control (LAC) was illustrated vividly during the historic visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping. Despite Mr. Modi’s event managerial, oratorial skills and personal chemistry with Mr. Xi, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) staged unprecedented border intrusions at Demchok and Chumar, coinciding with its leader’s visit. No high profile visit has ever taken place even as an intrusion is in place. What is more, it was defused only a week after President Xi had departed. Not only did President Xi brush aside Mr. Modi’s call to clarify the LAC, but even had the gall to say that “such incidents will happen as LAC is not demarcated but such incidents can be controlled due to border mechanisms to maintain peace and tranquillity.”

The Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Dalbir Singh, was right in not allowing the tactical responses to firings on the working boundary and LoC to blow up the strategic cover of political engagement. Indian politicians do not understand the games that are played on the LoC and the tit-for-tat score scratching that goes on. No one is entirely innocent but both sides blame the other for starting the firing.

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Deterrence Pakistan has been restrained by the U.S. from unleashing its Punjabi Taliban like the Lashkar-e-Taiba to stage cross-border, Mumbai-like or smaller scale attacks in India. The last two big strikes were in 2001 against Parliament and Mumbai in 2008 — with a seven- year gap. The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan this year end will give the Pakistan-aided Afghan Taliban and the Haqqanis a leg up. This will also be seen as an opportunity for the third major strike in India sometime in 2015. New Delhi should not be distracted by this low-level diversion and instead focus on the next big one and how to deter it. At the same time, it must take abundant precautions to pre-empt any uprising in Kashmir.

The Modi government’s ability to deal with Pakistan and China will be no different from what previous governments have done. There maybe some cosmetic changes but essentially, the military balance with Pakistan does not permit the exercising of the kind of plausible and deniable punitive action that amounts to a deterrent and a befitting response since we have not developed the skills, wherewithal and political will for it. Instead, it is about enacting tough rhetoric: disproportionate response, no flag meetings, no talks by the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMO) and no dialogue till Pakistan stops firing.

India must get used to ceasefire violations, as the Pakistan Army will use the LoC as a punching bag to express its rage and defiance against its government as well as India. The rules of engagement were changed after the attack on Mumbai. The Modi government has only articulated its position more sharply but wants a dialogue process to restart. The National Security Committee of Pakistan met last week and has repeated its desire for peace. Kathmandu, the venue of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) next month is the ideal place to announce a resumption of the dialogue process, invoking the spirit of SAARC that Mr. Modi has infused right from day one of his inaugural.

Make for India, not just in India – The Hindu With a large engineering workforce and links with the English language, India already has some natural advantages in providing knowledge workers to global corporations. In addition, government policies that have made foreign investment increasingly easy, coupled with tax holidays in Special Economic Zones that only large corporations can afford to move into, have provided excellent incentives for setting up export-oriented captives in India.

In the last 10 years, the number of global research and development (R&D) captives in India has been progressively increasing. A recent study by Zinnov Consulting found that nearly half of the top 500 global R&D spenders have set up shop in India. These captives and their service providers together have created a globally exposed and competent workforce in India in addition to a new wealthy class of a few white collared professionals.

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CURRENT AFFAIRS The positive impact that this has made to the country is significant and real, even if it is limited to a small percentage of the population. To replicate this success in manufacturing seems a worthy objective, but with lessons from the past, we can and should aim higher.

Innovation has two beneficiaries — producers and consumers. For example, creating the light bulb was a profitable venture for Thomas Alva Edison but it also benefitted millions of consumers with the innovation.

Sharing value In most cases, the knowledge workers seem to be pursuing problems of their employers in western countries. The output of their work often tends to be irrelevant in India. Thus in this increasingly interconnected world, one can effectively create islands of producers and consumers that are far removed from each other. The value created is shared by a few producers in India and a lot of consumers in western countries. The recent ‘Make in India’ campaign is trying to extend this trend into manufacturing from services.

There is a silver lining to this approach. While the output of what workers create is removed from the needs of their country of residence, the skills and capacity that they develop in the process are transferable. For example, workers from the very same pool, using similar tools and processes, created the first of its kind Unique Identification project in India. Aadhar aims to give a billion unique biometric IDs to Indian residents and has already achieved half of its target within a few years.

However, where government policies in attracting more FDI and in encouraging the Indian outsourcing industry have been a success, the track record in encouraging companies to innovate and make in India and for India has been poor. With a dismal rank in the ease of doing business index, there is a systemic advantage that existing businesses enjoy versus the problems that new innovative companies seeking to disrupt them have to face. However, improving the country’s rank on this well-established score doesn’t seem to be an important priority for the Indian government. Apart from the many sound bites, no concrete action is forthcoming.

The initiative of implementing a uniform Goods and Services Tax will do more to create an integrated domestic market than anything else. Equally important is to be able to move goods across state borders without being subjected to harassment.

However, an export-oriented manufacturing policy sidesteps this issue since the goods produced will mostly go out. Another key issue in India is a broken credit system that makes it difficult for new businesses to raise debt. The ‘Make in India’ initiative will even further tilt the balance in favour of large domestic firms that hog all credit and can also tap international markets or foreign firms that have better access to capital in their home country. These are barely two in a long list of reforms that India awaits.

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Software as a service We can already see examples that frustrate businesses trying to make for India in the software sector. The recent trend of delivering software as a service has proved to be an ideal solution for a capital-scarce country where consumers and small businesses are happier with a pay-as-you-go system rather than investing upfront for using software tools. However, the one thing that such businesses need — an ability to easily collect recurring payments online — is tedious in India. This makes it is easier for an Indian company to serve customers in the U.S. than in India. This is tragic, apart from being strange.

The collateral advantage of learning from exposure to western markets also comes with the inherent bias for creating products and services more relevant for the richer countries. Innovations perfected in India on that scale would also find relevance in emerging economies all over the world.

However, that is an unlikely scenario given the current policies we are pursuing. Right now, we are trying to encourage creation of figurative islands in India with a red carpet for setting up factories and exporting those goods. We have done that successfully in services and seen the limitations. A focus on ‘Make for India’ will spur ‘Make in India’ export- oriented businesses too but the reverse doesn’t happen automatically. We have the opportunity to get it right this time.

Classical music for the common man – The Hindu For B.V. Keskar, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s Information Minister from 1952 to 1962, Hindi film songs were a strict no-no where Akashvani was concerned. In his opinion, the mission of the public broadcaster was to encourage only classical music. Keskar had to face a lot of pressure and ridicule for this rather obdurate stand, but there is no doubt that had it not been for him, Indian classical music — which by nature was meant primarily for the elite — may have never reached and enthralled the common man.

Among other methods, Keskar introduced the Akashvani Sangeet Sammelan to achieve this purpose. The Sammelan started with a three-day concert on October 23, 1954, at Sapru House, New Delhi. This October marks the 60th year of this festival that has helped immensely in popularising Shastriya Sangeet and making it an integral part of India’s composite culture.

The patron state Keskar’s intervention was timely because pandits and ustads had just lost the support of some 600 princes and nawabs of British India. In the 1950s and 1960s, very few cities and institutions had public funding for organising annual music concerts. Though the Presidency towns of Madras, Calcutta and Bombay had their own versions of the All-India Music Conference in the early decades of the previous century, support to classical music was rather sporadic. Keskar’s message was simple: the state would take over the role of princely patrons and ensure fair play through a system of grading artistes to ensure that the

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CURRENT AFFAIRS best received their due. It was not a perfect plan, but it ensured that a transparent system was in place. Keskar started first with the National Music Programme and then branded the Akashvani Sangeet Sammelan as a reliable and steadfast patron of the arts.

Initially, only internationally renowned music experts were invited and concerts were broadcast live, but as the Sammelan spread to other important cities of the country, All India Radio (AIR) decentralised its broadcast to regional networks. Thus Akashvani reached the common man in a way that classical music never had before. Regional classical artistes vied with each other to participate in this grand exercise. Besides this, Akashvani archives served as the repository of the nation’s cultural wealth by preserving these invaluable recordings. Just as Vividh Bharati played a stellar role in democratising popular music among the masses, the Sangeet Sammelan did wonders for classical music. Almost every famous vocalist or musician was honoured to perform at the Sammelan.

India’s musical legends such as M.S. Subbulakshmi, D.V. Paluskar, Ali Akbar Khan, Ravi Shankar, Bismillah Khan, Pannalal Ghosh, Kumar Gandharva, Semmangudi Srinivas Iyer, S. Balachander, Bhimsen Joshi and many others are available to us today through recordings of their performances at the Sammelans. The best renditions of living legends such as Balamuralikrishna, Kishori Amonkar, Rajan and Sajan Mishra, Debu Choudhary, Amjad Ali Khan, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, T.N Krishnan, Hariprasad Chaurasia and Shivkumar Sharma are now part of AIR’s archives.

Those were the golden days of Akashvani before television captured the imagination of the nation. But artistes continued to perform even after colour television was introduced in 1982. Sammelans every year began on the same day in October, though a few were even held in December as sarkari funds were unavailable. However, the number of days of the Sammelan reduced from three to one in the late 1980s, as it was becoming increasingly unmanageable and expensive.

While some events have a mixture of Hindustani and Carnatic music, eight events are meant solely for Hindustani and four concerts are reserved only for Carnatic music. A judicious mix of senior and junior artistes can be found at the Sammelans. The senior artistes of today recall with pride how they had performed on the same platforms as earlier legends. The Sammelan brochure of 1987 for instance shows veterans like Sharan Rani Backliwal, Ali Ahmed Hussain Khan, C.R. Vyas, Bimal Mukherjee and Basavaraj Rajguru rubbing shoulders with the unrecognisable young faces of Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Budhaditya Mukherjee, and Parveen Sultana.

Artistes’ anecdotes There are plenty of anecdotes to be shared about these Sammelans. When Savita Devi, the renowned vocalist, ended her performance at Vadodara in the late hours of the night of one Sammelan, the audience simply refused to get up, even after being repeatedly told that the evening had ended. The artiste had no option but to continue singing for another hour until

www.indiancivils.com An Online IAS Academy Page 15 CURRENT AFFAIRS the crowd was satisfied. Arvind Parikh still remembers how he was signalled desperately by Gajananrao Joshi at the Indore Sammelan to race through the last part of his recital, as he was to make space for Bismillah Khan’s shehnai. Joshi’s watch was running ahead of time and it was only when the audience greeted his announcement with laughter that he looked at his watch and went red in the face.

Shanno Khurana recalls how she was compelled overnight to perform in Lucknow in the mid-1980s because Madhuri Mattoo was unable to do so. After a very satisfying performance, she went home, but she soon received a call from the panic-stricken programme officer who informed her that the recording equipment had failed and that they would lose their jobs if she did not come to the studio once again and redo the entire performance from memory. How official records were fudged and the applause of the audience was brought in at the right intervals remains a mystery.

Today, music has been digitised and commodified but good content still remains the king. One such source of excellent content that renews the cultural vigour of the nation is thankfully alive and kicking — even at sixty.

And peanuts for MGNREGA – Indian Express We want Prime Minister Narendra Modi to succeed in his national campaign to tackle the vast problems of the poor in Bharat. But his one-time contractor turned Union minister for rural development is succeeding in making his own prime minister look contradictory and indecisive to the nation and the world. The prime minister talks about constructing toilets and improving sanitation, opening bank accounts for every poor, excluded family, helping small and marginal farmers increase productivity, providing employment opportunities to the rural youth, women, handicapped and tribals in all the villages of Bharat.

Yet, under his very nose and blatantly without any conscience, the minister for rural development is undercutting the PM’s public statements by decimating, diluting and, indeed, destroying the largest rights-based employment guarantee statute in the world. It is a statute this country should be proud of, the only national programme of any depth that could make Modi’s dream of providing rural jobs a reality: the MGNREGA.

The rumour doing the rounds is that there is a directive from the prime minister’s office to cut it down from 643 districts benefiting 100 million households to 200 districts, on the grounds that the subsidy is being wasted and only the poor districts need to be covered. Rural Development Minister Nitin Gadkari, it would seem, is just a tool and a front. But we would like to give the prime minister the benefit of the doubt.

When the Rs 34,000 crore (non-subsidy) MGNREGA budget for 2014-2015 is compared to the Rs 60,000 crore subsidy for fertilisers, the Rs 97,000 crore subsidy for petroleum and the additional Rs 60,000 crore subsidy allocated to state governments, it is peanuts. It is only 0.07 per cent of the GDP. It is equivalent to the cost of developing one video game

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CURRENT AFFAIRS (Destiny). The amount that the government is cribbing about spending on 300 million households all over the country is only 1 per cent of the amount spent on cat and dog food in America.

Sadly but systematically, this government is taking jobs away from the rural poor. It is now proposed that the original 60:40 labour to material ratio be changed to 51:49, which would benefit village contractors at the expense of real rural wages and livelihoods. If this is not a colossal anti-poor move, how else can it be explained? There is no justification. Only consider the impact.

One out of every three households (40 per cent of SC/ ST families) — in other words, 10 crore or 100 million people — has directly benefited in Bharat. That too when, on an average, a family has worked for only 45 days out of the 100 days of employment they should have got by right.

SUPPLEMENT FDI in India- SimplyDecoded A foreign company planning to set up business operations in India can enter by:

Incorporate a company under the Companies Act, 1956, as a Joint Venture or a Wholly Owned Subsidiary. Set up a Liaison Office / Representative Office or a Project Office or a Branch Office of the foreign company which can undertake activities permitted under the Foreign Exchange Management (Establishment in India of Branch Office or Other Place of Business) Regulations, 2000.

Entry Routes for Investment Procedure under Automatic Route FDI in sectors/activities permitted under automatic route does not require any prior approval either by the Government or RBI. The investors are only required to notify the Regional office concerned of RBI within 30 days of receipt of inward remittances and file the required documents with that office within 30 days of issue of shares to foreign investors.

Procedure under Government Approval FDI in activities not covered under the automatic route require prior Government approval. Such proposals are considered by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), a Government body that offers single window clearance for proposals on foreign investment in the country that are not allowed access through the automatic route.

Government approval is required in the following cases: Where a foreign investor has an existing joint venture/technology transfer / trademark agreement in the same field, prior to January 12, 2005, the proposal for fresh investment /

www.indiancivils.com An Online IAS Academy Page 17 CURRENT AFFAIRS technology transfer / collaboration / trademark agreement in a new joint venture would have to be under the Government approval route through FIPB.

In sectors with caps, including inter-alia defence production, air transport services, ground handling services, asset reconstruction companies, private sector banking, broadcasting, commodity exchanges, credit information companies, insurance, print media, telecommunications and satellites, Government approval / FIPB approval would be required in all cases where:

An Indian company is being established with foreign investment and is owned or controlled by a non-resident entity or

The control or ownership of an existing Indian company, currently owned or controlled by resident Indian citizens and Indian companies, which are owned or controlled by resident Indian citizens, is being transferred to a non-resident entity as a consequence of transfer of shares and/or fresh issue of shares.

These guidelines do not apply for sectors/activities where there are no foreign investment caps, that is, 100% foreign investment is permitted under the automatic route.

Investment by way of Share Acquisition A foreign investing company is entitled to acquire the shares of an Indian company without obtaining any prior permission of the FIPB subject to prescribed parameters/ guidelines.If the acquisition of shares directly or indirectly results in the acquisition of a company listed on the stock exchange, it would require the approval of the Security Exchange Board of India.

New investment by an existing collaborator in India A foreign investor with an existing venture or collaboration (technical and financial) with an Indian partner in particular field proposes to invest in another area, such type of additional investment is subject to a prior approval from the FIPB.

General Permission of RBI under FEMA Indian companies having foreign investment approval through FIPB route do not require any further clearance from RBI for receiving inward remittance and issue of shares to the foreign investors.The companies are required to notify the concerned Regional office of the RBI of receipt of inward remittances within 30 days of such receipt and within 30 days of issue of shares to the foreign investors or NRIs.

Participation by International Financial Institutions Equity participation by international financial institutions such as ADB, IFC, CDC, DEG, etc., in domestic companies is permitted through automatic route, subject to SEBI/RBI regulations and sector specific cap on FDI.

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CURRENT AFFAIRS

Currently FDI is prohibited under the Government Route as well as the Automatic Route in the following sectors:

Atomic Energy Lottery Business Gambling and Betting Business of Chit Fund Nidhi Company

Agricultural (excluding Floriculture, Horticulture, Development of seeds, Animal Husbandry, Pisciculture and cultivation of vegetables, mushrooms, etc. under controlled conditions and services related to agro and allied sectors) and Plantations activities (other than Tea Plantations) Trading in Transferable Development Rights (TDRs).

Manufacture of cigars, cheroots, cigarillos and cigarettes , of tobacco or of tobacco substitutes.

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