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‘ cant adverse impact on India’s underwater nuclear capa- bilities. Responding to the petition filed by Commander S.S. Lu- National thra, the AFT said it was “disturbing and surprising that the Indian Navy does not have an inbuilt system to en- sure such probable occurrence between relatives are Methanol a clean, cheaper fuel’ addressed institutionally, so that such a situation, as oc- Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari curred in this case, does not manifest”. held a high-level stakeholders meeting to deliberate upon Commander Luthra had alleged that Vice-Admiral P.K. a strategy to use methanol as an alternative fuel in auto- Chatterjee, Inspector General, Nuclear Safety, had sys- mobiles. The Minister has asked government think-tank tematically favoured his son-in-law Capt. A.V. Agashe by NITI Aayog to study the automobile standards developed discriminating against Luthra and other competent offic- in China to use methanol as an alternative fuel. ers, most of them pioneers trained in Russia to run the ‘Import substitution’ reactors of nuclear submarines, in the nuclear submarine “Methanol economy will help India use its vast reserves arm of the Navy. of coal while driving import substitution. Research in con- Admiral Chatterjee not only “intervened in the case of the verting carbon dioxide to methanol is promising and can applicant and brought down his quantitative assessment be a game-changer for methanol economy,” Mr. Gadkari convincingly, but he has in the same period steeply up- said after chairing the meeting. Petroleum and Natural graded the quantitative assessment of his son-in-law,” the Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, New and Renew- AFT said. It also pointed out that all officers in the chain of able Energy Minister PiyushGoyal along with former un- reporting of Capt. Agashe were officers who were directly ion minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief or indirectly reporting to his father-in-law. SharadPawar were also present in the meeting. Admiral Chatterjee “at no stage has made known to Navy “Mr. Gadkari stressed on the use of local or indigenous the fact that he was consistently reporting on his son- materials for production of fuel like making ethanol from in-law and when not reporting was fully in the position agriculture produce or waste and from coal,” a Road of influencing” his son-in-law’s command chain, the AFT Transport and Highways Ministry spokesperson said. In order said. its presentation, NitiAayog said methanol is a promising Damage to nuclear arm fuel for waterways as it is clean, cheaper than fossil fuels The AFT order tellingly captures what the nepotism of the and a good substitute for heavy fuels. It suggested that senior Admiral has done to the Navy’s nuclear submarine ethanol could be made out of coal and informed that a arm. pilot project was already underway in Talcher in Odisha. The order points out that the Navy has until now inducted India imports methanol from Saudi Arabia and Iran at pre- two nuclear submarines – INS Chakra and INS Arihant . sent, the think-tank said, adding that it is working on a INS Chakra was the first nuclear submarine and it was roadmap for conversion from coal to methanol. leased from Russia to India. A total of seven officers were The government think-tank also said that methanol can trained as Reactor Operators in Russia. Commander Lu- be produced from municipal waste as well. thra was one of those pioneering seven officers aboard ‘Economic sense’ INS Chakra who were trained in Russia at an exorbitant “All stakeholders agreed that methanol is a promising fuel cost. In contrast, INS Arihant is the submarine which was used in many parts of the world. While in most countries made in India and the crew had been trained domesti- it is being made from natural gas, for India it makes much cally, and Capt. Agashe was aboard Arihant . more economic sense to use locally available coal,” the The order points out that Commander Luthra was sent spokesperson said. to Russia twice for a total duration of approximately 40 months for his training. Commander Luthra presented Vice-Admiral’s actionsaspirantforum.com impacted before the AFT that the nepotism was visible in the pro- motion boards: “In the results of Promotion Board 2B/14, n-capabilities where no Reactor Operator other than his son-in-law The unusual move of the Armed Forces Tribunal to im- Capt. A.V. Agashe, was promoted. In PB 2B/14 and PB pose a fine of Rs. 5 lakh on a retired Vice-Admiral for 2/15, no Reactor Operator from INS Chakra was promot- Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. nepotism maybe telling, but his actions have had signifi-

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ed,” Commander Luthra submitted in the AFT. “Similar participation should be encouraged by other However, the damage done to the nuclear arm and the States for protection and conservation of natural water massive losses incurred in the expensive training is for- bodies and creation of new water conservation struc- ever, admit Navy officers. tures,” stated the declaration. Works under the JSA’s first phase were undertaken all Water conservation scheme a big success over Rajasthan at an expenditure of Rs. 1,300 crore. The Rajasthan government’s flagship water conserva- Another project tion programme – Jal SwavalambanAbhiyan (JSA) – has Rajasthan River Basin Authority chairperson SriramVe- turned out to be a success in Pratapgarh district, where dire said the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests the groundwater table has increased, green agricultural had agreed to fund a JSA pilot project in Banswara from fields have expanded and no tankers with drinking water the National Adaptation Fund for Climate Change. Dis- had to be sent to as many as 94 villages this year. cussions were under way with the Ministry for getting the NGT hails efforts support for the JSA’s future phases from the Green Cli- The National Green Tribunal lauded the efforts made un- mate Fund, he said. der the programme at its regional conference on environ- ment in Bhopal. India’s first private missile production facility In the Bhopal declaration, the JSA was praised as an ini- unveiled tiative which would make every village of the State self- India’s first private sector missile sub-systems- manu reliant in water by using scientific tools for rejuvenating facturing facility, a joint venture between the $2.5 billion traditional water bodies. Kalyani Group and Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defence Pratapgarh Collector Neha Giri said that the JSA had Systems Ltd., was inaugurated near Hyderabad . proved to be a blessing after good rain in the water- To begin with, the Kalyani Rafael Advanced Systems starved Kanthal region of the district, where special ar- (KRAS) plant will make anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) rangements had to be made till last year for the supply of Spike and the production is expected to begin in a few drinking water. weeks, Kalyani Group chairman Baba N. Kalyani said. “Not a single water tanker was sent to any of the 94 vil- Besides supplying to the Indian Army, the plan is to ex- lages in five blocks where water conservation works were port to South East Asian countries, he added. taken up,” said Ms. Giri. In contrast, 1,337 tankers were Advanced equipment sent during the last financial year. Formed in line with the ‘Make in India’ initiative of the The JSA works have also led to an increase by 10% to Centre and the policy to encourage private sector partici- 15% in the soybean crop area and 15% to 20% in the pation in defence production, the 51:49 joint ventures will wheat crop area. develop a wide range of advanced capabilities. Groundwater table These include command control and guidance, electro- The groundwater table in Pratapgarh has registered an optics, remote weapon systems, precision guided muni- increase by 0.30 metres. Besides, only 18% of the hand- tions and system engineering for system integration. The pumps in the district dried up this year against 24% in the plant would employ more than 300 engineers and pro- previous year. vide indirect employment to 1,000 people. Ms. Giri pointed out that the structures such as anicuts, Addressing the media ahead of the inauguration, Mr. staggered trenches and mud walls were put up with peo- Kalyani said Rs. 60-70 crore had been invested in the ple’s participation during the implementation of JSA. For plant. the second phase of the programme, 2,886 works have Going forward, once orders start flowing, “we will invest been sanctioned in 70 villages; most of which have al- more... also looking to [make] other products, he said, ready been completed and the new structures are full to adding that Spice glider bombs used by the Air Force the brim with rainwater.aspirantforum.com would be the next. The NGT’s Bhopal declaration has described the JSA as On the plant’s ATGM capacity, Rafael Advanced Defence a massive climate change adaptation programme which Systems president and CEO Maj. Gen. (retired) YoavHar- had elicited public participation and converged the activi- Even said: “We are speaking in thousands of the air-to- Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. ties of nine government departments. surface missiles.”

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The localisation content is 90% and most of the vendors vokes the spirit that “laying a law before Parliament is are in and around Hyderabad, Mr. Kalyani said. important.” Telangana Industries and IT Minister K.T. Rama Rao, “It is an exercise of parliamentary control over the laws said that more than 30,000 researchers and scientists of the land,” Justice Chandrachud told the government. and 1,000 MSME units in and around the city were work- The information about the alleged lapse on the govern- ing in the areas of defence systems. ment’s part came to light during a hearing on an applica- Cattle trade ban rules were not placed before Parliament tion filed by activist GauriMaulekhi, who was seeking a The rules banning cattle slaughter were never placed clarification of a Supreme Court order on the issue on before Parliament — which the government should have July 11. done before implementing them — the Lok Sabha Sec- That day the court recorded the Centre’s submission that retariat has said in its reply to an RTI request by one of the Madras High Court had already issued a blanket stay the petitioners who has moved the Supreme Court chal- on both Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of lenging the ban. Livestock Market) Rules and The Prevention of Cruelty Having triggered an avalanche of litigation across the to Animals (Maintenance of Case Property Animals) Act, country, the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal (Regulation 2017. of Livestock Market) Rules of 2017, which bans the sale of cattle in livestock markets for the purpose of slaughter States cold to stricter anti-racism law or animal sacrifice, is now back to the drawing board. The Home Ministry’s proposal to amend the law to insert Notified on May 23, the rules mandate that cattle should two stricter anti-racial discrimination provisions in the In- only be sold in animal markets for farming purposes. dian Penal Code has got a lukewarm response from the Section 38A of the Prevention of Cruelty Act of 1960 States. mandates that any rule made by the Centre under it Only four of them — Uttar Pradesh, apart from Manipur, ought to be laid before each House of Parliament “as Meghalaya and Mizoram in the northeast — has given soon as it is made.” their assent to the proposed law. Three Union Territo- The rules are to be placed before Parliament for a total ries — Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra and Nagar of 30 days. Any modification agreed upon by both the Haveli, and Lakshwadeep — have also agreed to the Houses should be incorporated in the rules or else they Centre’s proposal. would have no effect. The July 27 reply of the Lok Sabha On July 26, Minister of State for Home KirenRijiju in- Secretariat to petitioner Sabu Stephen’s RTI plea said formed the Rajya Sabha that the Ministry proposed Parliament had no information about the rules. to amend the IPC “to deal with the racially motivated The reply said in clear terms that the livestock rules were crimes.” “not forwarded by the ministry concerned, ie, the Ministry “The Home Ministry has proposed to amend two provi- of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, for laying sions in the IPC, that is, Section 153A and Section 509A. on the table of the House so far. Hence, not lay till date.” These are proposed to be inserted into the IPC sec- Rules suppressed tions... Since this matter comes under the Concurrent “The government bypassed Parliament, suppressed the List, we have to obtain the opinion of the State govern- rules from the elected representatives of the people of ments,” Mr. Rijiju had said. the country and killed the parent Act... all this when over A senior Home Ministry official said the first letters to the 70% of the country is affected by certain provisions of States were sent out in February this year. the livestock rules,” V.K. Biju, Mr. Stephen’s advocate, submitted. Additional Solicitor-General P.S. Narasimha admitted Mehbooba discusses Article 35A with Modi that he was not aware of the facts and sought an ad- Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti met journment till August 9. Prime Minister NarendraModi to discuss the position of “A simple reading of Sectionaspirantforum.com 38A tells us that you [gov- political parties in the Valley on the legal challenge to Ar- ernment] cannot say ‘I will not place the rules before Par- ticle 35A that prevents “outsiders” from owning property liament’,” Chief Justice J.S. Khehar, who is heading the in the State. Bench hearing the petition, said. Emerging from the 15 minute meeting with the Prime

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud added that Section 38A in- Minister, Ms. Mufti claimed Mr. Modi had assured that

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any discussion on the special provisions for the State ance. Actually, the project currently does not have any would be on the basis of the Agenda of Alliance (AoA) clearance,” she said, pointing out that though handing between the PDP and the BJP. “That is the basis of the over of 138 hectares of forest was cleared in 1999, the agenda and no one can go against it. The response of land had still not been handed over to the KSEB. The the Prime Minister is positive. The Prime Minister gave technical and economic clearance granted for the project 100% assurance to the Agenda of Alliance,” Ms Mufti told had also expired in 2008. reporters outside Parliament. The KSEB was trying to fool the government and the pub- The heated debate in the State around Article 35A was lic because installation of the transformer is usually done triggered by a recent petition in the Supreme Court argu- in the final stage of a project’s construction, she alleged. ing that the provision is discriminatory against women if The 110 KW transformers had been set up in KSEB’s they marry anyone outside the State. own land. The KSEB had spent almost Rs. 35 crore for Men don’t lose their right to own property or the right of maintaining an office for the project, despite it being a inheritance if they marry someone outside. non-starter, she stated. Ms. Mufti is said to have informed the Prime Minister that ‘Status quo unchanged’ after last year’s unrest, the Kashmir Valley was returning According to K.H. AmitaBachan of the Western Ghats to normality and all steps should be taken to avoid a fresh Hornbill Foundation, almost all studies, including that by controversy. the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel, had noted that The issue has brought bitter rivals — the National Con- the project, which would affect 138 hectres of forest land ference (NC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and further dry up the already thin Athirappilly waterfall, — together. was economically and technically unfeasible. “There is no change in status quo of the project to think that it could Political storm hits Athirappilly project be feasible,” he said. Attempts of the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) Limited, the public sector electricity utility in Kerala, to Article 35A comes under scrutiny beat the August 18 deadline set by the Ministry of En- The question whether Article 35A, relating to special vironment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC), for rights and privileges of the citizens of Jammu and Kash- beginning work on the controversy-marred Athirappilly- mir, is ultra vires of the Constitution or not is likely to head hydel project, has sparked a political storm in the State. for a decision before a five-judge Constitution Bench. Former Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan, alliance part- The indication that the constitutionality of Article 35A will ner Communist Party of India (CPI), and environmental be under scrutiny came from a Bench of Justices Dipa- activists who have been campaigning against the 163 MW kMisra and A.M. Khanwilkar while hearing a petition filed project, have all come out strongly against the KSEB’s by CharuWali Khanna, who has challenged the Article as move, accusing the utility of having set up a transformer well as Section 6 of the Jammu and Kashmir Constitu- near the project office at Kannankuzhy two weeks ago to tion, which deal with the permanent residents’ status in mark commencement of work on the project. J&K. The KSEB had done this even as a writ petition is pend- Property rights ing against the project at the Kerala High Court, and with- The petition said Article 35A protects certain provisions out going through the tender process. The hydel power of the J&K Constitution which denies property rights to project, which proposes the construction of the seventh native women who marry from outside the State. The dam along the 145 km course of Chalakudy River, will denial of these rights extends to her children also. “This sound the death knell for what remains of endemic spe- should ideally go before a Constitution Bench,” Justice cies of flora and fauna in the region, the project’s critics Misra said. say. Article 35A also empowers the State’s legislature to frame A. Latha of the Chalakudyaspirantforum.com River Protection Forum told any law without attracting a challenge on grounds of vio- The Hindu that the KSEB’s was clearly attempting to lating the Right to Equality of people from other States or hoodwink both the MoEFCC and the people of Kerala. any other right under the Constitution. “The attempt is to establish that they have already started “Section 6 of the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution re-

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. the project before the expiry of the environmental clear- stricts the basic right of women to marry a man of their

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choice by not giving the heirs any right to property if the Right to Equality of people from other states or any other woman marries a man not holding the Permanent Resi- right under the Indian Constitution. dent Certificate. Her children are denied a permanent “Section 6 of the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution re- resident certificate thereby considering them illegitimate stricts the basic right of women to marry a man of their — not given any right to such a woman’s property even if choice by not giving the heirs any right to property if the she is a permanent resident of Jammu and Kashmir,” the woman marries a man not holding the Permanent Resi- petition, filed through advocate Bimal Roy, said. dent Certificate. The court tagged the petition along with another filed by “Her children are denied a permanent resident certificate NGO We the Citizens challenging Article 35A. thereby considering them illegitimate — not given any The NGO’s petition contended that the State’s special right to such a woman’s property even if she is a perma- autonomous status under Articles 35A and 370 was dis- nent resident of Jammu and Kashmir,” the plea said. criminatory against non-residents as far as government While Jammu and Kashmir’s Non-Permanent Resident jobs and real estate purchases are concerned. Certificate holders can vote in Lok Sabha elections, the same individual is barred to vote in local elections in the Supreme Court to hear pleas against Article state 35A after Diwali The Supreme Court agreed to hear after Diwali pleas Ignoring the science behind encephalitis challenging Article 35A, relating to special rights and priv- deaths ileges of permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir. Sometime last week, dozens of seriously-ill children at A bench headed by Justice J.S. Khehar accepted the Gorakhpur’s Baba Raghav Das Medical College Hospi- plea of the Jammu and Kashmir state government that tal were starved of oxygen from the ventilators that were the pleas challenging Article 35A be heard after Diwali. keeping them alive. News reports say this happened be- Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi and Advocate Shoe- cause the hospital didn’t pay its oxygen vendor. bAlam mentioned the matter before a bench also com- This image of babies being suffocated because someone prising Justices DipakMisra and D.Y. Chandrachud that didn’t get their cash is an obscene one. even the Centre has no objection if the pleas are taken Unusual suspect up after Diwali. “All the pleas will be taken up for hearing But the story of why the babies were in the hospital in after Diwali,” the bench said. the first place is equally worrying — it’s one of medical Earlier the apex court had favoured hearing of the matter researchers not looking beyond the obvious while inves- by a five-judge constitution bench in case the Article is tigating the three-decade old scourge at Gorakhpur. ultra vires of the Constitution or if there is any procedural Even though this recurring epidemic has killed over 5,000 lapse. people since 2010, its primary cause wasn’t identified un- The court had said that a three-judge bench will hear the til early this year. matter and refer it to a five-judge bench if necessary. Now, researchers have learnt that a majority of the chil- The apex court was hearing a plea filed by CharuWali dren being admitted to BRD have scrub typhus — a mite- Khanna challenging Article 35A of the Constitution and borne disease endemic in Uttar Pradesh. Because they Section 6 of the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution which weren’t treated during early stages of the disease, the deal with the “permanent residents” of the state. scrub typhus triggered brain inflammation, which can be The plea has challenged certain provisions of the Con- very hard to cure. stitution which deny property right to a woman who mar- This means that some of the children at the hospital ries a person from outside the state. The provision, which didn’t have much of a chance anyway — a fact the Yogi makes such women from the state lose rights over prop- Adityanath government is citing as a defence of its in- erty, also applies to her son. competence. Article 35A, which wasaspirantforum.com added to the Constitution by a The confused history of research into the Gorakhpur Presidential Order in 1954, accords special rights and pestilence begins in 1978, when the epidemic first broke privileges to the citizens of the Jammu and Kashmir. It out. Within a few years, doctors at the sentinel hospital also empowers the state’s legislature to frame any law confirmed that the outbreak of encephalitis, or brain in-

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. without attracting a challenge on grounds of violating the flammation, was mainly due to the Japanese encephalitis

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(JE) virus. oviruses, a class of viruses to which the poliovirus be- Today, researchers suspect that Japanese encephalitis longs, were the top cause for the epidemic. But research wasn’t the only cause even then. Scrub typhus was hid- didn’t bear out this suspicion either. ing in the encephalitis burden during the seventies as Yet, even today, the Yogi Adityanath government is talk- well. ing of poor sanitation as the reason behind the pestilence at the hospital (enteroviruses spread through contami- nated water). And while pushing Japanese encephalitis vaccination campaigns is crucial, as the government is doing, this won’t make a dent in the hospital’s burden. Timely treatment The government can’t ignore the science for a number of reasons. First, it’s going to take a miraculous effort by the government to weed out scrub typhus in the State. Most patients who develop fever, the first sign of scrub ty- phus, go to private healthcare practitioners and not gov- ernment hospitals. So, these private practitioners, many Wrong approach of whom aren’t medically qualified, must be targeted in Why did it take so long to pinpoint scrub typhus? First, training programmes. Unless they suspect scrub typhus because we were too focused on the usual suspects to in children and treat it before it advances to encephalitis, look beyond them. Over the past few decades, organisa- children will keep coming to BRD. The hospital will be tions such as the National Institute of Virology and the able to do precious little then. National Centre for Disease Control, visited BRD Hospi- The real danger is that if the government ignores scrub tal repeatedly and ran lab tests for dozens of pathogens typhus, children will continue to die, and we’ll never know known to cause encephalitis, such as enteroviruses, the if the science pointing to scrub typhus bears out. Dump- chikungunya, herpes simplex and dengue viruses, and ing the hypothesis without testing it fully is the most crimi- the malaria parasite. nal thing the administration can do. But Yogi Adityanath’s But researchers like GovindakarnavarArunkumar of the statements to the media raise the very real fear that this Manipal Institute of Virus Research, who first found scrub will happen. typhus in BRD’s encephalitis wards, say this was the wrong approach. India moves to revive TAPI gas pipeline The scientists should have studied the symptoms of each India will host the next steering committee meeting of the patient in detail, logging data such as the length of fe- proposed 1,814 kilometre-long Turkmenistan-Afghani- ver before encephalitis, and involvement of organs other stan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline, senior officials than the brain, like the liver and the spleen. on both sides confirmed. Deaf to data The decision was come during the sixth joint Inter-Gov- These symptoms would have revealed that the epidemic ernmental Committee (IGC) meeting on trade, economic, wasn’t due to typical viruses, but the scrub-typhus bacte- scientific and technological cooperation. rium that is not known to trigger encephalitis outbreaks. The meeting was followed by a meeting between visiting Instead, the focus remained on lab testing, allowing the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Turkmeni- disease to continue killing, unseen. stan Rashid Meredov and Minister of State for Petroleum The second lapse was that the Uttar Pradesh administra- and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan. tion wasn’t listening to the scientists, who were finding “I strongly believe in this project, and this is the position that the Gorakhpur outbreak had changed over the years. of Turkmenistan,” Mr. Merodov said at a small interaction. Once Japanese Encephalitis vaccinations began in 2007, “It is not just a commercial project, but one which will be incidence of this diseaseaspirantforum.com at the hospital fell to less than a good foundation for providing peace and security in the 20%, but encephalitis cases kept coming. It was obvious region,” he added. to researchers that something other than Japanese en- In Beijing’s shadow cephalitis was at work. Mr. Pradhan said India’s commitment to TAPI — first pro- Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. For a brief period, doctors at BRD suspected that enter-

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posed in 1995 — “remains strong”, and Prime Minister beginning September 1. NarendraModi had made the proposal to hold the TAPI It also said all toll plaza planes will be RFID [Radio-fre- steering committee meet in Delhi when he met the Turk- quency identification] tags-enabled by October 31. Till menistan President in Ashgkabad last year, which he has Friday, 15,000 people have already downloaded the mo- now accepted. bile application for purchase and recharge of FASTags India’s effort is to tap Turkmenistan’s Galkynyshgasfields, and 5,000 commuters have purchased FASTags online which are the fourth largest in the world. that will be delivered to them within 24-48 hours.

Factories Act: Centre firm on amendment BRO gets more financial powers The Centre will go ahead with its proposal to amend the As part of efforts to improve the functioning of the Border Factories Act of 1948 by giving flexibility to State govern- Roads Organisation (BRO) and speed up works, the De- ments to enhance the threshold limit over which a unit fence Ministry has delegated administrative and financial will be considered a factory despite concerns flagged by powers right up to the level of Chief Engineer and task a Parliamentary Standing Committee. force commander. The proposal was discussed at a tripartite meeting Powers revised chaired by Labour Minister BandaruDattatreya with rep- “In line with the aim to bring in transformational changes resentatives of trade unions, industries and State govern- in the BRO, various powers of delegation have been re- ments. vised … Enhancing the powers at all levels in the BRO, The Standing Committee, examining the proposed the Ministry of Defence has now approved that for both changes, however, observed in 2014 that “if the amend- departmental and contractual mode of execution, a Chief ment is carried out more than 70% of the factory estab- Engineer of BRO can accord administrative approval up lishments in the country will be out of the coverage of the to Rs. 50 crore, Additional Director-General (ADG) up to Factories Act and workers will be at the mercy of employ- Rs. 75 crore and Director-General (DG) up to Rs. 100 ers.” crore,” the Ministry said in a statement. The Ministry of Labour and Employment did not agree Earlier, a Chief Engineer in the BRO could give admin- with the committee’s observations and said that it had istrative approval of works up to Rs. 10 crore and ADG only given flexibility to State governments to fix the up to Rs. 20 crore for departmental works. For contrac- threshold limit and “all the factories, including the one tual works, all administrative approvals were given by the which employs a single worker may also be brought un- DGBR, who had powers only up to Rs. 50 crore. der the purview of the act thus, in fact, increasing the total The BRO, engaged in road construction to provide con- number of workers covered under the Act.” nectivity to difficult and inaccessible regions, was brought under the control of the Defence Ministry in 2015. Com- pletion of strategic border roads has been delayed as India’s roads to be safer, greener was highlighted on various occasions by the Comptrol- The NHAI Chairman discussed the prospects of setting ler and Auditor-General and the Parliamentary Standing up such stations within 100-200 km of each other. On the Committee. face of it, the idea looks feasible, the IGL MD is learnt to have indicated. Better amenities T-90 battle tanks to get an upgrade “The focus in the highways authority all this time has been The Army is looking to upgrade the T-90 main battle tank building highways, we want to assign as much priority to to enhance firepower and mobility. They are going to be spruce up highway operations,” the NHAI chief said. equipped with a new missile system and a new more He added that the authority has proposed the creation of powerful modular engine. a new highways operations division to focus on aspects “As the design of the existing INVAR missile has been related to roadside amenities,aspirantforum.com highway safety and secu- maximised, both in terms of range and Depth of Penetra- rity, and smooth transition of vehicles at toll gates. tion (DoP), it is imperative to upgrade it to next-generation NHAI announced that all toll plazas will have electronic missiles with enhanced capability,” according to PTI. The toll collection facility with at least one lane dedicated to third-generation missile should achieve a DoP of 800-850 mm and be capable of hitting targets up to a range of 8 Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. vehicles with electronic tag device, known as FASTags,

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km against mobile as well as static targets. founder N.R. Narayana Murthy — going to town virtually with their blame games, stakeholders have moved swiftly Triple talaq lost staunchest support to position their strategies. Indications are Infosys may In the past two years of litigation over the legality of in- face a class action suit from U.S. investors. Indian law stant triple talaq, the Supreme Court has seen a climb- also permits similar action. down in the position of Muslim bodies, from declaring that A class action suit allows a number of claimants, who the practice helps estranged couples to “move on” effort- have a common grouse, to pool their resources and file lessly to filing finally an affidavit that Muslim men who a suit against a company. Such option for company law resort to instant talaq will be socially boycotted. cases is a well-established principle in foreign jurisdic- In September 2016, the All India Muslim Personal Law tions, especially in the U.S. The Satyam episode forced Board (AIMPLB) argued that the Shariat permitted in- company law formulators to incorporate a rule providing stant talaq in the interest of both the man and woman as for such action in India. Section 245 of the Companies a means to keep their dignity and privacy intact. Act, 2013 provides for such an option for Indian inves- The intention is to save the family from delayed justice in tors. Such a suit can be filed before the National Compa- conventional courts and to avoid mud-slinging in public. ny Law Tribunal (NCLT). Sec. 245 also gives the option “To presume that each triple talaq is arbitrary and un- to claim damages or compensation or demand any other reasonable is a fallacy of reason ... it is a misconception suitable action against “the company or its directors for that triple talaq is always a result of haste and is a power any fraudulent, unlawful or wrongful act or omission or which is freely misused by a Muslim male,” the Board had conduct or any likely act or omission or conduct on its or told the court. their part.” It had justified that there were “innumerable instances Public notice where a Muslim wife seeks dissolution of marriage and One can sue the firm, its directors, auditors and technical approaches her husband seeking immediate dissolution advisers who are party to alleged fraud. by resorting to triple talaq”. Once the suit is admitted, NCLT will issue a public no- Judicial legislation tice to allow those not having enough qualifying shares The Board had argued that a religion cannot be “re- to join. Similar applications in other jurisdictions will be formed” out of its existence or identity. It had accused the consolidated into a single application. Supreme Court of trying to indulge in judicial legislation in the name of “socially reforming” Islamic practices of United against triple talaq, divided on legal marriage and divorce. Getting rid of the “peculiarities” of Islamic personal law points will be akin to enforcing the Uniform Civil Code by ju- Though he declared instant talaq a fundamental right, dicial process, JamiatUlema-i-Hind, a prominent Islamic Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar employed the Supreme organisation, had told the Supreme Court. Court’s rare and extraordinary jurisdiction under Article However, one of the judges on the Constitution Bench, 142 to injunct Muslim husbands from divorcing their wives Justice Kurian Joseph, towards the end of the hearing, for the next six months through the same instant talaq. had suggested whether Muslim brides can be armed with The issue of Chief Justice Khehar employing Article 142 a right to forbid instant talaq in the nikahnamah . was raised by another judge on the Bench. “I have seri- However, the AIMPLB, on the last day of the hearing, con- ous doubts as to whether, even under Article 142, the veyed its resolution to boycott Muslims who pronounced exercise of a fundamental right can be injuncted,” Justice divorce in one go. “This social will be much helpful in de- Kurian observed. creasing the incidents of divorce,” the AIMPLB had as- Chief Justice Khehar issued the direction under Article sured the court. 142 after observing that even theocratic Islamic States had corrected their Shariat to banish instant talaq. aspirantforum.comIn other countries Will Infosys face class action law suits in “When the British rulers in India provided succour to Mus- India? lims by legislation, and when remedial measures have The Infosys episode seemed to have opened a Pando- been adopted by the Muslim world, we find no reason,

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. ra’s Box. With Mr. Vishal Sikka, who quit as CEO and co- for an independent India, to lag behind. Measures have

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been adopted for other religious denominations even in Tamil or even foreign languages; only thing is do not im- India, but not for Muslims. We would, therefore, implore pose it. the legislature, to bestow its thoughtful consideration, to Would you say there is a systematic effort to this issue of paramount importance,” Chief Justice Khe- impose Hindi by the Central government? har observed. That is what I felt. In the case of Namma Metro, for in- Moreover, the Chief Justice, who wrote the minority judg- stance, they have issued a letter to use Hindi. Tamil Nadu ment for himself and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer, directed is not using it, but Kerala is using it. It is a matter of choice the government to frame a law to address the issue of and they cannot impose it. I have told them that this is Muslim women under the yoke of triple talaq, especially against the sentiments of the Kannada people. instant talaq. The minority verdict said social evils such You have set up a committee to decide on a as sati, infanticide and devadasi system were cast out by State flag. How would you respond to the ar- way of legislation and not by judicial orders. gument that having a State flag or reasserting However, the direction under Article 142 in the minority linguistic, regional identities is against the verdict failed to come alive as the majority of the judges Union of India? on the Bench set aside instant talaq with immediate ef- In my personal opinion, having a State flag is not against fect. the Constitution. For example, in the United States, every Gender equality State has its own flag or anthem. So, If I plead for a State India is committed to gender equality and eradication of flag, it is not above the national flag. The national flag discrimination on the basis of sex, the minority verdict will always fly high and below that, the State flag will fly. said. “We have not the least doubt, that the Indian state Asserting regional language pride or having a flag is not is committed to gender equality. This is the clear mandate against the Union of India or the Constitution. of Article 14 (equality before law) of the Constitution. In- Why are these issues cropping up so close to dia is also committed to eradicate discrimination on the polls in Karnataka? Is this an effort to drum ground of sex. Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution pro- up a regional sentiment to combat BJP’s por- hibit any kind of discrimination on the basis of sex.” trayal of nationalism and patriotism? Is this a “There is, therefore, no reason or necessity while exam- counter to the fact that patriotism seems to ining the issue of ‘talaq-e-biddat’, to fall back upon inter- have been appropriated by the BJP? national conventions.” Regional sentiments are there, but it is not against pat- riotism. Everybody should be a patriot. I am a patriot. It Hindi is not and cannot be the national doesn’t mean that if I oppose Hindi or demand a flag, I am not a patriot. This is an election between secularism language: Siddaramaiah and communalism. The BJP is communal and is destroy- In the backdrop of protests against the use of Hindi in the ing the secular fabric of the country and that is what we State and demand for a separate State flag, Chief Minis- are fighting against. ter Siddaramaiah reiterated that Hindi cannot be imposed These issues have come up in the backdrop of your ac- and is not the national language. Refuting allegations that cusations that the Centre has violated federal principles. these issues were being fuelled by the Congress, he said It seems to have clear political motivations. in an interview that regional assertion cannot be seen as Incidentally, all of it has come up now. But this is not our a threat to the unity of India. Excerpts: intention. I don’t say it’s not retaliation against the Centre In your letter to the Government of India, op- or its imposition of Hindi. Any imposition will be opposed. posing the use of Hindi in Metro signboards Would you then be open to forming a secular and announcements, you had said a “per- front with the JD(S), in the State? suasive” rather than “mandatory” approach Not necessary. Congress will fight on its own and come should be followed in use of Hindi. You reiter- back to power. ated your stand againstaspirantforum.com imposition of Hindi in On the issue of the demand for a separate Lin- your Independence Day speech also... gayat religion, that has been backed by the You see Hindi cannot be imposed; you must leave it to Congress — is this effort to drive a wedge in people to learn. Hindi is not the national language and the BJP vote bank, which has a strong pres- cannot be. It is just one of the languages in this country. Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. ence among the Lingayats, and has projected I am not opposing learning of any language, be it Hindi,

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Mr. Yeddyurappa, also a Lingayat, as its chief likely functions and responsibilities of the panel. ministerial candidate? What will be the remit of the commission? It is not fuelled or initiated by the Congress. Some reli- The Cabinet has approved the setting up of the commis- gious leaders had given me a representation demanding sion to report on the extent of inequalities within castes a separate religion and I have merely said if they all come listed as OBCs on the Central list and find out scientif- together; I will support it and forward it to the Centre. Only ic ways of sub-categorising the most backward among the Government of India can take a decision in this re- them. This will pave the way for the provision of sub-quo- gard. tas for the most backward castes within the OBCs. This It is rare for the Congress to name a leader ahead of an means that the most backward OBC groups will compete election. But they have categorically stated that in Karna- among themselves for government jobs, educational taka they are fighting under your leadership. seats, fellowships and so on rather than with the better- Do you feel the balance of power in Congress off OBC castes. has now shifted towards regional leaders like How are OBC reservations offered at present? yourself? At present, there is a single Central OBC list, with entries No, it has not shifted from the high command to the State. from each State. People belonging to all these castes can Strong regional leadership is necessary in any political seek reservation from within the single 27% OBC reser- party, but that doesn’t mean the high command is weak vation pie for Central government jobs and Central edu- or the regional leader is strong. Since I am Chief Minis- cational institutions. Nine States, however, have already ter, they have said the election will be fought under my sub-categorised OBCs. These are Andhra Pradesh, Tel- leadership. After elections the legislature party, in consul- angana, Puducherry, Karnataka, Haryana, Jharkhand, tations with the high command, will decide on the [next] West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. OBC Chief Minister. reservation became a reality after the implementation of The BJP has raised corruption allegations against your the Mandal Commission report, which categorised many government, demanding the resignation of Minister for castes as constituting the backward classes and deserv- Power D.K. Shivakumar and said the FIRs filed by the ing of quotas. New castes have been added to the list Anti-Corruption Bureau against Mr. Yeddyurappais a over the years. clear case of political vendetta... What are the political and social implications The case against Mr.Yeddyurappa is based on investiga- of the move? tions on a complaint against him. Law will take its own Politically, this can be seen as an attempt by the govern- course. But in D.K. Shivakumar’s case, we are not op- ment to reach out to the most backward castes among posing raids on anybody. the OBCs. At present, many feel that the more advanced What we are opposing and asking is why are OBC castes corner the lion’s share of the benefits and only Congressmen being raided? Why not have become influential. Not only will such a move offer other party leaders, including [those from] more opportunities to the most backward castes among BJP?Would you consider the demand for res- the OBCs but also give the government and the ruling ignation of Mr. Shivakumar? party an opportunity to carve out a new political constitu- Why? You please tell me why we should? The I-T depart- ency. In Uttar Pradesh recently, the BJP had reached out ment has not disclosed anything. He is replying to their to smaller and less significant OBC castes such as Mau- notice. Does it mean he has committed any offence? rya, Lodh and Rajbhar, in what was seen as a successful Is it now clear that we will have elections as per schedule bid to break a possible Yadav-led OBC consolidation. and not ahead of its time? Can it affect any castes or groups adversely? Yes. Election will be as per schedule in the mo Yes, it may adversely affect the more advanced castes nth of April or May and we are confident of a victory. among the OBCs, such as the Yadavs. Since the Su- preme Court had imposed a cap of 50% on reservation, Slicing the OBC quotaaspirantforum.com pie: who gains and OBC quotas at the Centre cannot exceed the present 27%. So, whatever will be carved out as a sub-category who loses can come only from within this 27% quota pie, thus re- The Union Cabinet approved the setting up of a commis- ducing the number of seats available for the better-off sion to examine the issue of sub-categorisation of Other Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. OBCs. The Scheduled Castes already have a 15% quota Backward Classes (OBC). Here is a cheat sheet on the

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and the Scheduled Tribes 7.5%. and three of ASCON. We are technically qualified. Other companies including BEL and RailTel are in the fray.” Order pipeline Post-talaq verdict, Centre issues advisory to The struggling PSU, which currently has an order pipe- States line of Rs. 1,600 crore, is targeting Rs. 10,000 crore The Union Home Ministry has issued an advisory to all worth of deals within the next two years, including the States to “keep a close watch to avoid any untoward inci- ASCON project. dent in the wake of a Supreme Court judgment declaring Army Static Switched Communication Network (ASCON) instant talaq illegal and unconstitutional.” is the army’s telecom network backbone implemented The advisory is part of general instructions issued on the in phases along the borders. The network consists of a occasion of Bakrid, which falls on September 1. large number of voice and data switches interconnected The Ministry issues instructions ahead of every major with various media types like microwave radio, optical fi- festival asking States to be vigilant against any terror at- bre and satellites. tack or a communal flare-up. ASCON network is secured using bulk encryption. The No notification project includes civil works for providing the complete Asked if the Ministry will issue a separate notification to infrastructure required at various stations in addition to ensure implementation of the court order on talaq, Min- supply, installation, commissioning and maintenance of istry spokesperson Ashok Prasad said no additional di- telecom equipment, satcom equipment, optical fibre ca- rection was under consideration as the issue was not bles, and equipment. directly under its purview. Pan-India network The advisory was issued to all State DGPs and chief sec- Phase-IV will be pan-India network spanning different ter- retaries. rains at the northern, north-eastern and western regions Another Home Ministry official clarified, “We are not in the as well as locations in the hinterland. The network will be picture. But if a woman has still been given instant talaq DWDM and IP/MPLS-based backbone network with sup- and she comes to the police station, then any penal ac- porting value-added services, including video conferenc- tion would depend on the circumstances. If she has been ing, broadcast and multicast facilities. threatened or intimidated and physically hurt, there are Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) is an relevant sections under the IPC, which can be invoked. optical multiplexing technology used to increase band- If it is only instant talaq, then it becomes a civil matter.” width over existing fibre networks by combining and Asked if a new law is required, Law Minister Ravi Shankar transmitting multiple signals simultaneously at different Prasad told The Hindu that “the issue will be considered wavelengths on the same fibre. in a structured manner.” A senior Law Ministry official said “Under the Network for Spectrum project ITI has got that despite the court order if a woman still faces triple ta- order worth Rs. 80 crore,” Mr. Gopu said. Network for laq, she can file a police complaint for harassment under Spectrum is a dedicated communications network that Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005. the Telecom Department is setting up for the defence Another official said it was not the job of the police to look forces on the band of airwaves vacated for civilian use “It at divorce cases. consists of various parts, including fibre laying and equip- ment supply. The equipment that you are supplying to this project also needs encryption technology and that ITI targets Rs. 7,000-crore Army project we have qualified.” State-owned ITI is hoping to secure a Rs. 7,000-crore As part of the project, ITI will deploy optical fibre for about contract from the Indian army for providing and maintain- 13,000 km. The firm has already completed 70% of the ing its strategic communications network over a 13-year work and the entire project is expected to be completed period, according to a top official. by this year end. “It is a 13-year-long projectaspirantforum.com in which we will provide the “ITI has the highest number of approvals for encryption equipment and warranty for five years and maintain it products from the defence,” he said. “We intend to take (the network) for eight years,” said S. Gopu, ITI chairman up solutions depending on the industry and customer re- and managing director. quirements for encryption of mobile handsets, HF radio, Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. In an interview, Mr. Gopu said “We did phase one, two software defined radio, and others.”

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sonal liberty were parts of the same “tree of justice”. Privacy a fundamental right: SC “Thus, from the one great tree, there are branches, and When this happens, the government has to prove that the from these branches there are sub-branches and leaves. encroachment into privacy was a reasonable restriction Every one of these leaves are rights, all tracing back to on the fundamental right to privacy. Plus, the court would the tree of justice. They together form part of that ‘great also test whether the law in question stipulates an inva- brooding spirit’. Denial of one of them is the denial of the sion into a person’s privacy through a procedure which is whole, for these rights, in manner of speaking, fertilise fair, just and reasonable. and nurture each other,” said Justice Kaul. “Right to privacy is a part of fundamental right of a citizen Global significance guaranteed under Part III of the Constitution. However, The nine-judge Bench’s judgment gains international it is not an absolute right but subject to certain reason- significance as privacy enjoys a robust legal framework able restrictions,” Justice A.M. Sapre said in his separate internationally, though India has remained circumspect. judgment. The judgment, if it declares privacy as a fundamental The nine-judge Bench was composed of Chief Justice right, would finally reconcile Indian laws with the spirit of J.S. Khehar, Justices J. Chelameswar, S.A. Bobde, R.K. Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Agrawal, Nariman, A. M. Sapre, D.Y. Chandrachud and 1948 and Article 17 of the International Covenant on Sanjay KishanKaul. Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), 1966, which legally Judgment overruled protects persons against the “arbitrary interference” with With this, the court has overruled its own eight-judge one’s privacy, family, home, correspondence, honour and Bench and six-judge Bench judgments of M.P. Sharma reputation. and Kharak Singh delivered in 1954 and 1962, respec- tively, that privacy is not protected under the Constitution. SC overrules Emergency-era habeas corpus The nine-judge Bench was deciding a reference from a verdict five-judge Constitution Bench, which is considering the Over 40 years after the Supreme Court’s darkest hour validity of the Aadhaar scheme as a breach of privacy, when it said citizens had no right to life and liberty during informational self-determination and bodily integrity. The the Emergency period, a nine-judge Bench condemned five-judge Bench wanted to know first whether privacy the decision in the infamous ADM Jabalpur case, better was a fundamental right or not before delving into the known as the habeas corpus case, as “seriously flawed.” question of validity of Aadhaar. The habeas corpus judgment in 1976 upheld the Con- Holding that “privacy is a constitutionally protected right”, gress government’s move to unlawfully detain citizens, Justice Chandrachud observed that this fundamental including political rivals, during the Emergency years. right is multifaceted — it preserves personal intimacies, Cost of dissent sanctity of family life, the home, sexual orientation. It Of the five judges on that Bench, only Justice H.R. Khan- protects heterogenity and recognises the plurality and di- na dissented with the majority opinion of then Chief Jus- versity of our culture. His views were endorsed by Chief tice of India A.N. Ray, Justices M.H. Beg, Y.V. Chandra- Justice of India J.S. Khehar, Justices R.K. Agrawal and chud and P.N. Bhagwati. Justice Khanna’s dissent cost S. Abdul Nazeer in the same judgment. him the chief justiceship. He was superceded by Justice Constitutional firewall Beg, following which he resigned. “Fundamental rights are the only constitutional firewall For the first time in Supreme Court’s history, a nine-judge to prevent state’s interference with those core freedoms Bench, led by Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar, officially constituting liberty of a human being. The right to privacy condemned the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in the is certainly one of the core freedoms, which is to be de- habeas corpus case. fended. It is part of liberty within the meaning of that ex- The judgment authored by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, pression in Article 21,” Justiceaspirantforum.com J. Chelameswar held in his who, incidentally, is the son of Justice Y.V. Chandrachud, concurring judgment. “expressly overruled” the 1976 majority judgment and re- Justice S.A. Bobde said the “first and natural home for moved a long-pending taint on the court’s history as a a right of privacy is in Article 21 at the very heart of per- people’s champion. sonal liberty and life itself”. Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. Justice Chandrachud, writing for himself, Chief Justice Justice Sanjay KishanKaul said privacy, dignity and per-

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Khehar, Justices R.K. Agrawal and S. Abdul Nazeer, ister said, adding this document will be very useful in the held that “the judgments rendered by all the four judges economic planning. constituting the majority in ADM Jabalpur are seriously The government think tank, in its first three-year action flawed. Life and personal liberty are inalienable to human agenda (2017-18 to 2019-20), which talks about reforms existence”. in the judiciary and social sectors, among other things, “No civilized state can contemplate an encroachment has said that “there are good prospects that we will return upon life and personal liberty without the authority of to the 8% plus growth trajectory in another two to three law. Neither life nor liberties are bounties conferred by years if not sooner. the state nor does the Constitution create these rights. Poverty rate The right to life has existed even before the advent of the Therefore, the chances of a massive cut in poverty rate Constitution,” Justice Chandrachud wrote. in the upcoming decade are excellent.” In its expenditure Hailing Justice Khanna for standing up to the government proposals for three years based on revenue forecasts, even at a personal cost, Justice Chandrachud said the NitiAayog recommended a massive increase in outlays majority judgments in the Jabalpur “should never have on healthcare, defence and railways and road sectors. been”. Justice RohintonFaliNariman, in his seprate judgment, Triple talaq verdict has not gone the entire described Justice Khanna’s dissent as one of the “three great dissents” in the Supreme Court’s history. distance He calls the dissenting judgment of Justice Fazl Ali, who The Supreme Court verdict on the practice of talaq-e- he describes as a “great judge”, in the A.K. Gopalan bidat is a curious one. By declaring instant triple talaq case on preventive detention that fundamental rights in invalid, albeit in a split decision, the five-judge Constitu- the Constitution are not watertight compartments as “a tion bench has ensured that Muslim women will no longer cry in the wilderness” and said that it took the Supreme be subject to a regressive practice that ran counter to Court 20 years to correct its view. Justice Nariman said gender justice and equality. This is an unalloyed good. the judgment took “his breath away”. The second great However, the bench has sidestepped the broader issues dissent was by Justice Subba Rao, who upheld the indi- of constitutional rules versus social norms. In doing so, it vidual’s right to privacy. has failed to address the tension between freedom of re- He pointed to the introduction of the National Human ligion and other fundamental rights that is a central issue Rights Commission law, which recognises right to life as in a liberal democracy. a human right and observed that “developments after this Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar and Justice S. Abdul judgment (ADM Jabalpur) have also made it clear that Nazeer’s dissenting opinion has dismissed the appeal to the majority judgments are no longer good law and that invalidate talaq-e-bidat, on multiple grounds. In response Khanna, J.’s dissent is the correct version of the law”. to the petitioners’ argument that the practice was dis- In his separate judgment, Justice Sanjay KishanKaul provedby various hadiths—reports containing the say- termed the ADM Jabalpur case as “an aberration in the ings ofProphet Muhammad—the judges have accepted constitutional jurisprudence of our country.” the All India Muslim Personal Law Board’s (AIMPLB’s) argument, echoed by amicus curiae Salman Khurshid, that it was not the court’s role “to determine the true in- NitiAayog’s action agenda has great tricacies of faith”. This is understandable. It is absurd to potential: Jaitley expect a secular court to examine the hadiths presented NitiAayog’s three-year action agenda has the potential to by both sides, and untangle religious history and inter- trigger much more economic activity and development in pretation. the country than we have today, Finance Minister Arun- In contrast, Justices Khehar and Nazeer’s refusal to sub- Jaitley said. mit talaq-e-bidat to the test of fundamental rights guaran- “This publication (threeaspirantforum.com year action agenda) really has teed in Part III of the Constitution—such as the equality the potential for becoming, for those in governance, a before law set down in Article 14—is disappointing. good textbook. If those in Centre or States keep in on A point of contention here is whether the Muslim Per- their table and every time, they have some doubt as to sonal Law (Shariat) Act of 1937 codified talaq-e-bidat

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. what next step is to be taken, they glance through pages into statutory law or not, since statutory law is subject to of this…they can find some unfinished agenda,” the Min- fundamental rights. They conclude that it did not. They Visit Aspirantforum.com for guidance and study material for IAS Exam. aspirantforum.com Hindu and PIB Crux Vol. 36 News and Events of August 2017

then have the option of examining whether personal laws argued that individual rights spring from group rights, and are subject to fundamental rights even so. They cite the are meaningless without them. This is true to an extent. 1951 case, The State Of Bombay v. NarasuAppaMali, to Article 25, guaranteeing the right to freedom of religion, say that personal laws are not subject to fundamental is indeed theoretically an individual right. But over seven rights—and refuse to re-examine the issue. decades, and in every religion practised in the country, it Justice Kurian Joseph has taken a very different ap- has been apparent that it often operates as a group right proach. He agrees with Justices Khehar and Nazeer that that does not buttress individual rights but suppresses the Shariat Act does not codify instant triple talaq into them. In a contest between the two in a liberal democ- statutory law. But unlike them, he examines the relevant racy, individual rights must always win. surahs in the Quran and cites the precedent of Shami- The most direct way to achieve this is with the UCC. Jus- mAra v. State of UP &Anr to argue that talaq-e-bidat is tice Khehar has argued: “Law is largely the formalized not in fact an integral part of Muslim personal law and and enforceable expression of a community’s cultural thus “lacks legal sanctity” under it. norms.” In contrast, B.R. Ambedkar had famously said: Like Justice Joseph, Justices R.F. Nariman and Uday- “Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has UmeshLalit have invalidated talaq-e-bidat, but they have to be cultivated... Democracy in India is only a top-dress- adopted yet another approach. They raise the crucial ing on an Indian soil which is essentially undemocratic.” question of whether “NarasuAppa... which states that It would be wise to heed Ambedkar. Allowing cultural and personal laws are outside Article 13(1) of the Constitu- religious norms to dictate jurisprudence in India would be tion, is correct in law”. If they had examined that question, a mistake. unlike Justices Khehar and Nazeer, and decided that the NarasuAppa precedent did not hold, it could have been The good and the bad of the privacy ruling a landmark. One of the pleasures of being a lawyer in a vibrant com- But they never get around to it. They disagree with the dis- mon law jurisdiction is that every once in a while the sys- senting judges, and with Justice Joseph, in holding that tem spits out a decision so artfully crafted and filled with the Shariat Act in fact codifies talaq-e-bidat into statutory nuance and meaning that it is a sheer joy to read. Few law. Given that, it can be measured against fundamental decisions in recent memory are better exemplars of this rights—and they find that “it is clear that this form of Talaq than the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Put- is manifestly arbitrary in the sense that the marital tie can tuswamy v. Union of India, affirming the fundamental right be broken capriciously and whimsically by a Muslim man to privacy. without any attempt at reconciliation so as to save it”. Be- The system of common law is based on precedent. Judg- ing arbitrary, they judge it in violation of Article 14. es are bound to consider past judgments and apply them Even as the judgement is welcome, it fails to establish to disputes that come before them in the future. They are broader principles about the relationship between free- only permitted to diverge the chain of historical decisions dom of religion and other fundamental rights. Justice if it is possible to sufficiently distinguish—in fact or princi- Nariman has acknowledged that “the difficult task of ple—from the available precedents. Our law is, therefore, determining the propriety or the validity of adjustments not so much a monolith handed to us by our founding made either legislatively or by executive action between fathers as an edifice constructed brick-by-brick through the fundamental rights and the demands of socio-eco- an incremental series of decisions—each one based on nomic welfare has been ultimately left in charge of the the judgements that preceded it but in aggregate a com- High Courts and the Supreme Court by the Constitution”. posite, well-integrated whole. Common law takes shape But Justices Khehar and Nazeer have instead exercised in this manner, organically evolving to accommodate new judicial restraint at a time when reinterpretation was technologies and social mores while remaining consist- warranted. Nor does Justice Kurian’s justification of the ent with the past from which it arose. bench kicking the can down the road to the legislature, The fundamental right to privacy has been developed by by arguing that reconciliationaspirantforum.com between religion and other the courts in this manner for over 60 years. The reason fundamental rights was solely the legislature’s responsi- the Supreme Court had to take the effort to gather nine bility, hold water. judges together to rule on whether or not we have a fun- The case provides as good an argument for a uniform civil damental right to privacy was because of a minor incon- Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. code (UCC) as any. A number of political theorists have sistency that had crept into the chain of decisions over 50

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years ago and remained, till last Friday, unresolved. ing an Emergency and called into question the judicial It all began when the attorney general of India, while de- reasoning in the Naz Foundation case that implied that fending the Aadhaar project, argued that the Constitution the “minuscule minority” LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, does not include within it a fundamental right to privacy. transgender and queer) community was not entitled to He based his conclusion on two cases decided by the the right to privacy. They connected our privacy jurispru- Supreme Court—one, MP Sharma v. Satish Chandra, dence over the years with our international commitments decided by an eight-judge bench in 1954 and the other, and established our conformity with comparative laws Kharak Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh, by six judges in around the world. 1962. Both cases had held, under different circumstanc- In doing so, they affirmed the precedential basis of every es, that the Constitution of India does not specifically pro- single privacy judgement in our judicial history, making it tect the right to privacy. In the 55 years that have passed clear that even without an express fundamental right to since these cases were decided, there hasn’t been a privacy, we are entitled to enjoy the right as it is inherent larger bench of Supreme Court that has considered this in our right to liberty and dignity. issue, and therefore, by sheer weight of numbers, these Much as I enjoyed reading the judgement, I have some judgements bound us. It would take nine judges to set misgivings about the direction down which it is point- this straight. ing us. I am concerned that the tests they have articu- When you get into the weeds, MP Sharma dealt with a lated and the constraints they have imposed could well completely unrelated issue—the right against self-incrim- have a chilling effect on our ability to get the most out ination. While it did mention the right to privacy in passing, of modern technology. While the opinions of both justice these comments were stray observations at best. Kharak D.Y. Chandrachud and justice Sanjay KishanKaul speak Singh, on the other hand, was a confusing decision that of the need to balance the individual’s right to privacy held, on the one hand, that the intrusion into a person’s with the benefits of data mining and big data, they go on home is a violation of liberty (relying on a US judgement to suggest a framework to protect individual autonomy on the right to privacy), but on the other hand went on to based solely on consent. While they seem to understand say that there was no right to privacy contained in our the benefits that big data can bring us, they appear, at Constitution. the same time, ignorant of the chilling effect that a strict But since these were eight- and six-judge benches of the notice and consent-based framework can have on these Supreme Court, every subsequent court had to deal with business models. this confusion as best they could. In the next case, Gob- Just as the strength of the common law system comes ind v. State of Madhya Pradesh, a three-judge bench, from the solid foundations on which it is based, its weak- mindful of its inability to overturn a judgment of a larger ness is that it is structurally designed to build only on past bench, skirted around the inconsistency by “assuming” decisions. Since they are required to decide solely based that the right to privacy was protected under the Constitu- on historical thought processes, they are incapable of tion—relying on the first part of the Kharak Singh judge- finding solutions for a future untethered to the past. This ment without specifically calling out its inconsistency with is why a common law judiciary is so bad at dealing with the second. Once Gobind hacked a pathway through this disruption. thicket, many smaller benches followed suit, building on We are currently in the midst of a period of unprecedented these principles to articulate a fundamental right to pri- disruptive change. Where it was once sufficient to secure vacy in the context of medical privacy, matrimonial priva- personal privacy by limiting the collection of data, in the cy, reputational privacy, privacy of sexual orientation and face of a rapidly increasing number of devices and sys- many more. But we always knew that this jurisprudence, tems that constantly collect information from us in ways built as it had been on uncertain foundations, was sus- that we cannot completely comprehend, consented col- ceptible to challenge. lection is completely infeasible. We are also beneficiaries The task before the nine-judge bench in Puttuswamy of new technologies that leverage the power of data of- v. Union of India was toaspirantforum.com settle the law once and for all. fering us facilities and services that enhance our quality They did so emphatically—overruling both MP Singh and of life. Most of these new technologies rely on big data Kharak Singh to the extent that they had held that there and machine learning—which in turn depend on access was no fundamental right to privacy. They also overruled to large data sets in order to do their magic. Requiring additional district magistrate (ADM) Jabalpur—a decision data controllers to restrict themselves by proportionality Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. that allowed for fundamental rights to be suspended dur- and purpose could have a chilling effect on these new

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business models. ticle 370, the judgment is silent as to whether the Presi- Regulators around the world have begun to discard the dent can, without the Parliament’s knowledge, introduce principle of notice and consent that guided their actions a new Article. This question remains open. for over three decades. They have, instead, begun to rely A writ petition filed by NGO We the Citizens challenges on models such as accountability to address the chal- the validity of both Article 35A and Article 370. It argues lenges of a disruptive future. If the nine judges who have that four representatives from Kashmir were part of the done such an exemplary job of righting the mistakes of Constituent Assembly involved in the drafting of the Con- the past could have only shifted perspective while legis- stitution and the State of Jammu and Kashmir was never lating for the future, we’d have got a judgement that was accorded any special status in the Constitution. Article truly perfect by every measure. 370 was only a ‘temporary provision’ to help bring nor- mality in Jammu and Kashmir and strengthen democ- The lowdown on Article 35A racy in that State, it contends. The Constitution-makers Article 35A is a provision incorporated in the Constitu- did not intend Article 370 to be a tool to bring permanent tion giving the Jammu and Kashmir Legislature a carte amendments, like Article 35A, in the Constitution. blanche to decide who all are ‘permanent residents’ of The petition said Article 35 A is against the “very spirit the State and confer on them special rights and privileges of oneness of India” as it creates a “class within a class in public sector jobs, acquisition of property in the State, of Indian citizens”. Restricting citizens from other States scholarships and other public aid and welfare. The provi- from getting employment or buying property within Jam- sion mandates that no act of the legislature coming under mu and Kashmir is a violation of fundamental rights un- it can be challenged for violating the Constitution or any der Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution. other law of the land. A second petition filed by Jammu and Kashmir native Article 35A was incorporated into the Constitution in 1954 CharuWali Khanna has challenged Article 35A for pro- by an order of the then President Rajendra Prasad on the tecting certain provisions of the Jammu and Kashmir advice of the Jawaharlal Nehru Cabinet. The controver- Constitution, which restrict the basic right to property if sial Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Or- a native woman marries a man not holding a permanent der of 1954 followed the 1952 Delhi Agreement entered resident certificate. “Her children are denied a perma- into between Nehru and the then Prime Minister of Jam- nent resident certificate, thereby considering them illegiti- mu and Kashmir Sheikh Abdullah, which extended Indian mate,” the petition said. citizenship to the ‘State subjects’ of Jammu and Kashmir. Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal has called for a debate The Presidential Order was issued under Article 370 (1) in the Supreme Court on the sensitive subject. (d) of the Constitution. This provision allows the Presi- Recently, a Supreme Court Bench, led by Justice Di- dent to make certain “exceptions and modifications” to pakMisra, tagged the Khanna petition with the We the the Constitution for the benefit of ‘State subjects’ of Jam- Citizens case, which has been referred to a three-judge mu and Kashmir. Bench. The court has indicated that the validity of Articles So Article 35A was added to the Constitution as a testi- 35A and 370 may ultimately be decided by a Constitution mony of the special consideration the Indian government Bench. accorded to the ‘permanent residents’ of Jammu and Kashmir. Centre to unveil ‘future-ready’ industrial The parliamentary route of lawmaking was bypassed policy in October when the President incorporated Article 35A into the The government said it would announce the new ‘future- Constitution. Article 368 (i) of the Constitution empow- ready’ Industrial Policy in October, by suitably incorporat- ers only Parliament to amend the Constitution. So did ing measures to facilitate the use of smart technologies the President act outside his jurisdiction? Is Article 35A such as the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence void because the Nehru government did not place it be- (AI) and robotics for advanced manufacturing. fore Parliament for discussion?aspirantforum.com A five-judge Bench of the The new policy would aim at making India a manufactur- Supreme Court in its March 1961 judgment in Puranlal- ing hub by promoting ‘Make in India’, an official statement Lakhanpal vs. The President of India discusses the Pres- said, adding that it would subsume the National Manufac- ident’s powers under Article 370 to ‘modify’ the Constitu- turing Policy. Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. tion. Though the court observes that the President may Wide consultations modify an existing provision in the Constitution under Ar- Visit Aspirantforum.com for guidance and study material for IAS Exam. aspirantforum.com Hindu and PIB Crux Vol. 36 News and Events of August 2017

Commerce and Industry Minister NirmalaSitharaman the Central Advisory Board,” said a senior Labour Min- would hold consultations on the framework in Chennai, istry official. If the minimum wages fixed by the states Guwahati and Mumbai with stakeholders, including in- are already higher than the ‘national minimum wage’, the dustry captains, think tanks and State governments. states will not be allowed to lower their wage levels, ac- The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP cording to the provisions of the Bill. The Code on Wages – the nodal body for the new Policy and part of the Com- Bill combines four labour laws — Payment of Wages Act, merce and Industry Ministry) has sought comments, 1936, Minimum Wages Act, 1948, Payment of Bonus Act, feedback and suggestions from the public, by September 1965 and Equal Remuneratiom Act, 1976. 25, on a discussion paper on the policy. Deciding factors The ‘illustrative outcomes’ of the policy outlined in the pa- The Bill states that the state governments will fix their per include increasing the number of global-Indian firms minimum wages keeping in mind “the skill required, ardu- in the Fortune-500 category in the long-term, and in the ousness of the work assigned to the worker, the cost of medium-term helping attract $100 billion inward FDI an- living of the worker, geographical location of the place of nually and supporting outward FDI to assert Indian pres- work,” among other factors. At present, various states are ence in world markets, and addressing the problem of free to fix their own level of minimum wages as per the low job creation in the formal sector. The other ‘illustra- local conditions, cost of living and other factors. tive outcomes’ include developing alternatives to banks and improving access to capital for MSMEs through ‘peer Deposit of black money, evidence of to peer lending’ and ‘crowd funding’, providing a credit rating mechanism for MSMEs, addressing the problem success: FM of inverted-duty structure and also balancing it against Finance Minister ArunJaitley asserted that any attempt to obligations under multilateral or bilateral trade agree- measure the success of the government’s demonetisa- ments, studying the impact of automation on jobs and tion exercise on the basis of the amount of money that employment, ensuring minimal/zero waste from indus- stayed out of the system was flawed since the confisca- trial activities and targeting certain sectors to radically cut tion of money had not been the objective. emissions. Reacting to RBI data showing that Rs. 15.28 lakh crore, Six thematic focus groups: manufacturing and MSME; or almost 99%, of the demonetised Rs. 500 and Rs. technology and innovation; ease of doing business; infra- 1,000 banknotes worth Rs. 15.44 lakh crore had returned structure, investment, trade and fiscal policy; and skills to banks, Mr. Jaitley said the government had met its and employability for the future, would facilitate inputs. principal objectives of reducing the reliance on cash in the economy, expanding the tax base and pushing dig- itisation. Minimum wage to vary across states “That people have been compelled to deposit even black The Code on Wages Bill proposed by the Union govern- money into banks is itself a good evidence of its [suc- ment earlier this month will not fix a single national level cess],” the Finance Minister said, pointing out that the minimum wage for the whole country, but will vary across high growth in income tax returns and the robust GST states and geographies. inflows indicate that more and more people now prefer to “It provides for national minimum wage for different undertake ‘white money’ transactions. geographical areas so as to ensure that no State Gov- “We have more taxpayers both on direct and indirect tax, ernment fixes the minimum wage below the national as reflected in the 27% rise in personal income tax re- minimum wage, notified for that area by the Central Gov- turns filed and the GST collections in its first month — a ernment,” the text of the Code on Wages Bill 2017, intro- larger tax base, more digitisation, lesser cash, integration duced in Lok Sabha by Labour and Employment Minister of the informal economy with the formal economy, which BandaruDattareya on August 10, said. was also the principal objective of demonetisation,” he Labour Ministry officialsaspirantforum.com said the wage levels would vary said. state-wise and in some cases, may differ based on geog- While the volume of cash in the economy that was ‘pre- raphies – coastal, hilly or plains. “India is a vast country dominantly cash-based before demonetisation’ had with cost of living varying across states. We cannot have declined by 17%, Mr. Jaitley said the impact on terror a single national level minimum wage. The Centre will

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“It’s unfortunate that those who never acted against black money, even when they were in power, were perhaps not clear about the objective of demonetisation and tried to confuse it as how much money stayed out,” he said.

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proved owing to unfavourable debt and deficit indicators, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has told the Parliament’s Standing Committee on Com- Economy merce. The committee had asked the government to explain the rationale behind rating agencies flagging ‘low private in- Core sector growth slows to 0.4% in June vestments’ as a constraint towards raising the country’s The year-on-year growth of the core sector has slowed to rating and whether high FDI flows are not sufficient to 0.4% in June from 3.6% in May and 6.92% in June 2016 improve the country’s business outlook. — owing to a decline in output of coal, refinery products, “... FDI has a relatively small weight in the total criteria. fertilizer and cement. The performance in June is the low- India fares well in the case of FDI but because the debt est since the growth of 0.18% in November 2015. and deficit indicators are not favourable, ratings are not The eight core industries comprise 40.27% of the weight improved,” DIPP said in an action taken report tabled in of items included in the Index of Industrial Production Parliament. (IIP). Its cumulative growth during April to June, 2017-18, ‘Improving rating’ was 2.4%, according to data released by the government. The government also informed the committee that it had Coal production declined 6.7% in June, 2017, while the taken several steps to improve India’s sovereign credit output of crude oil increased 0.6%. Natural gas produc- rating, including introduction of a structural interaction tion increased 6.4%, while that of petroleum refinery process with rating agencies, to provide them the infor- declined by 0.2% and fertilizer declined by 3.6%. Mean- mation they need. while, steel production increased by 5.8% in June, but The Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs cement output declined by 5.8%. However, electricity chairs an annual review meeting on India’s sovereign rat- generation increased marginally by 0.7% in June. ing with agencies, which is followed by interactive meet- ings with officials. SAT stays order on Sahara Life “During these meetings, government presents its per- Giving a week’s relief to Sahara India Life Insurance (SIL- spective to rating agencies about the strengths of the IC), the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) stayed the Indian economy and recent initiatives taken… DEA en- IRDAI decision to sell the business of the Sahara group courages agencies to also consider the long-term credit company to ICICI Prudential Life Insurance. strengths of the economy in a holistic manner, and, in The tribunal fixed the next hearing in the matter for Au- view of such strengths, consider upgrading the rating of gust 7 when it will decide on the maintainability of the India’s sovereign debt,” the Parliament was informed. petition filed by SILIC against the IRDAI order. A detailed cross-country presentation about the compar- A two-member bench of the SAT, comprising Justices ative position of India and other similarly rated econo- C.K.G Nair and Jog Singh, without admitting the petition mies on key economic indicators is also made. Separate- by Sahara Life, ordered a status quo in the matter. The ly, the Economic Affairs Secretary meets rating agency regulator had asked ICICI Prudential to take over the as- representatives on the sidelines of IMF and World Bank sets and liabilities of Sahara Life from July 31. meetings usually held in Washington during September or October. Centre pings rating agencies on economy in Retailers can unlock $2.95 trillion: report upgrade push Retailers and consumer goods companies could unlock To convey India’s pitch for a sovereign rating upgrade $2.95 trillion in value for the industry and consumers over better, the finance ministry has begun interacting with the next decade by accelerating digital transformation, global rating agencies through teleconferences and e- says a report by Accenture Strategy. mails on a more regularaspirantforum.com basis to give clarifications and According to the report, the retail and consumer goods updates regarding the economy. industries will change more in the next 10 years than they ‘Unfavourable debt’ have over the past 40. While India has done well on attracting foreign direct Eight technologies investment (FDI), its sovereign credit rating has not im-

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. The report said eight technologies are expected to play

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a key role through 2025, impacting all major areas of the 2016.” value chain: like Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles/ An autopilot reduces the pilot’s workload, enhances safe- drones, artificial intelligence/machine learning, robotics, ty of aircraft and cuts aircraft accidents. Jaguars acquired digital traceability, 3D printing, augmented reality/virtual in the 1980s are of older vintage and lack autopilots. reality and blockchain. In 1997, the IAF had projected a requirement of 108 auto- “Adapting business models to accommodate these new pilots for 108 aircraft but only 35 autopilots were contract- trends could be highly profitable, with Rs. 2.95 trillion of ed in August 1999 due to “resource crunch” at a cost of potential value for the industry and consumers,” the re- Rs. 37.42 crore which were delivered between 2006 and port said. 2008. A repeat contract for 95 autopilots was concluded The study identified current consumer appetite for new only by March 2014. purchasing experiences, the business models that have Sub-optimal function the highest potential to unlock new value, and how or- “Out of 35 autopilots procured earlier, only 18 could be ganisations and policy makers can prepare themselves. integrated on the Jaguar aircraft as of March 2017. The “Globally, as well as in India, technology has disrupted integrated autopilots were also functioning sub-optimally many facets of the customer’s life. due to malfunctioning of their vital component i.e. Auto ‘Continuously innovate’ Pilot Electronic Unit (APEU),” the report said. As consumers crave for their own unique experiences, In addition, 30 autopilots received through the repeat companies will have to re-visit their business models and contract are yet to be integrated. Thus, as on October continuously innovate,” Anurag Gupta, managing director 2016, the IAF had a holding of 117 Jaguars, but only 18 and lead —consumer goods and retail, Accenture Strat- could be upgraded with autopilot capability. Even these egy, India said. autopilots were working sub-optimally due to malfunc- The report said retailers and consumer goods compa- tioning of their APEUs, the report added. nies need to explore the transformative business models In addition to autopilots, the IAF is undertaking a major which are already being welcomed by Indian consumers. modernisation of the Jaguar fleet, which also carry nu- These business models include — sharing economy clear weapons, with new avionics and sensors to keep (renting an item and returning it, instead of purchasing them flying for another two decades. The Jaguars have it outright), personalisation economy (expert curated an underpowered engine. However, efforts to equip them products tailored to the individual and automatically de- with a more powerful engine have been dragging on for livered), replenishment economy (smart sensors detect several years. when a product is running low and automatically re-or- ders and delivers it) and services economy (services are MobiKwik to raise over $100 million outsourced so someone else). Mobile wallet company MobiKwik is looking at raising “In a rapidly evolving environment where customers de- over $100 million from investors this year to fuel its ex- mand for better products and experience is on rise, or- pansion. ganisations would need to be ready to unlearn and con- MobiKwik recently inked an agreement with Bajaj Fi- tinue to innovate,” Mr.Gupta said. nance, under which the latter invested Rs. 225 crore (about $35 million) in the digital payments company for Jaguar jets still flying without autopilot: CAG a 10.83% stake. One of the frontline fighters of the Indian Air Force, the “We had said that we plan to raise about $150 million and Jaguars, are still flying without autopilots, an essential this investment [from Bajaj Finance] is the first tranche. flying aid, the Comptroller and Auditor-General has said. We are in talks with private equity and venture capital- In a report presented in Parliament on July 28, the CAG ists to raise over $100 million,” MobiKwik co-founder said, “The flying aid capability envisaged by the IAF for UpasanaTaku told PTI. She added that more funding is the Jaguar aircraft in 1997aspirantforum.com remains largely unrealised expected to come in during the latter half of the year. even after 20 years … Meanwhile, the IAF had lost three The deal with Bajaj Finance values the company at over Jaguar aircraft and one pilot since April 2008 due to pilot $300 million. MobiKwik has so far raised over $85 million disorientation/human error whereas loss of another four from investors. Jaguar aircraft was under investigation as of October Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol.

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ATM expansion slows due to note ban tion,” said NavrozeDastur, managing director, NCR Cor- A combination of factors, including cash crunch follow- poration India, told The Hindu. ing demonetisation of high value notes announced in No- “That has definitely impacted the market,” Mr. Dastur vember last, have led to commercial banks cutting down said. NCR deploys almost 50% of the ATMs in the coun- on the number of automated teller machines (ATMs) par- try. ticularly those not located in branches (off-site ATMs), lat- “What we are seeing today is that a lot of replacement is est RBI data showed. happening. There are lot of ATMs which are more than According to Reserve Bank of India (RBI), there were seven years old. A lot of banks are replacing those ATMs. 98,092 off-site ATMs in June 2017 against 99,989 in the That is why probably you are not seeing the increase in same month last year. However, on-site (located within a numbers,” Mr. Dastur said. branch) ATMs rose to 110,385 from 101,346 in the same He said it was a normal practice among banks to replace period. ATMs after 5-7 years as software etc gets dated. ‘Cash crunch’ “This is a cycle. We are in the cyclical stage where large According to bankers, demonetisation, which led to cash numbers of ATMs are due for replacement. This cycle will crunch, was one of the factors that impacted ATM expan- be there for another year,” Mr. Dastur said. sion. “Yes, it is true that ATM expansion has slowed,” said a Cess limit on motor vehicles raised to 25% senior official of a large public sector bank on the condi- The Goods and Services Tax Council (GST Council), dur- tion of anonymity. ing its 20th meeting, recommended that the Centre in- “Since there was shortage of cash post-November, we crease the maximum limit for the cess that can be levied decided to go slow on this,” the official said. on most motor vehicles from 15% to 25%, the government The number of ATMs added between June 2016 and announced. The reason for this, according to the GST June 2017 was a little more than 7,000 while in the com- Council’s Fitment Committee, was that the post-GST tax parable period of the previous year, banks had added incidence on motor vehicles across most categories was almost 16,000 ATMs and more than 18,500 in the year significantly lower than the pre-GST tax. before. The total number of ATMs in the country in June “The GST Council...recommended that the Central Gov- 2017 was 2,08,477 as compared with 2,01,335 a year ernment may move legislative amendments required for ago. increase in the maximum ceiling of cess leviable on mo- Large retail-focussed banks like ICICI Bank and HDFC tor vehicles falling under headings 8702 and 8703, in- Bank’s off-site ATM numbers show a declining trend over cluding SUVs, to 25% instead of the present 15%,” the the last one year. government said in a release. “However, the decision on While HDFC Bank’s off-site ATMs decreased to 5,845 when to raise the actual cess leviable on the same will be from 6,391, ICICI Bank saw the number cut to 8,639 from taken by the GST Council in due course.” 9,274. Its overall ATM number at June-end was also low- Category 8702 comprises “motor vehicles for the trans- er than in the same month of the previous year. port of 10 or more persons, including the driver”, while But SBI’s ATM numbers saw a sharp increase as it Category 8703 comprises “motor cars and other motor merged five of its associate banks and BharatiyaMahila vehicles principally designed for the transport of persons Bank on April 1, 2017. (other than those of heading 8702) including station wag- ‘Low footfalls’ ons and racing cars (other than cars for physically handi- The Centre’s push for digital transactions discouraging capped persons)”. the use of cash is also having an impact, with banks go- ‘Highly disappointed’ ing slow on ATM expansion, bankers said. “We are highly disappointed with the decision,” Roland In addition, ATMs with low footfalls are being relocated. Folger, MD & CEO, Mercedes-Benz India, said in a state- Some of these ATMs, which were on-site, were installed ment. “ following directions issued by the Finance Ministry dur- We believe this will be a strong deterrent to the growth of ing the UPA regime (knownaspirantforum.com as MoF ATMs in banking cir- luxury cars in this country. As a leading luxury car maker, cles). Replacement of old ATMs is another reason why this will also affect our future plans of expansion under the headline numbers are not growing at the same pace the ‘Make in India’ initiative.” as earlier years, ATM manufacturers said. “With this hike in cess, we expect the volumes of the lux-

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. “There is some amount of slowdown currently due to the ury industry to decelerate, thus offsetting any growth in availability of cash, which was a outcome of demonetisa- Visit Aspirantforum.com for guidance and study material for IAS Exam. aspirantforum.com Hindu and PIB Crux Vol. 36 News and Events of August 2017

the potential revenue generation that could have come gies will, among other things, deliberate on financial with the estimated volume growth,” Mr. Folger added. technology solutions for “further widening and deepening The GST Council, however, argued that the hike in the of the Indian securities market” through traditional and cess was justified as it only brought the current tax inci- alternative platforms, including peer to peer lending and dence in line with what existed before GST. equity crowd-funding. “The difference in tax incidence calculated earlier and Interestingly, this comes in the wake of notices that the now is primarily on account of the fact that earlier the regulator has sent to many entities that act as platforms value based on which the tax incidence was estimated for funding start-ups or connecting them to the large in- was inclusive of excise duty, while it should have been vestor community. value net of VAT as well as excise duties,” a GST Council While questioning the manner in which these entities document reviewed by The Hindusaid. help start-ups raise funds, the regulator has said that any “Net of 28% GST, to maintain the pre-GST tax incidence, violation would be “construed as organising an unrec- the highest compensation cess rate required will be ognised stock exchange” and that SEBI would be “con- 26.5%, based on tax incidence estimated with reference strained to initiate action.” to assessable value for excise duty and dealer’s mar- There are many entities such as Grex, Venture Catalysts, gin,” the document added. “Further, if the tax incidence Indian Angel Network, LetsVenture, Traxn and TermSheet is estimated on value not including dealer’s margin, the that help start-ups connect with investors. It could not be maximum rate for compensation cess will increase ac- immediately ascertained whether all these entities have cordingly.” received the SEBI notice. States’ compensation Under the current legal framework, issue of shares to “The purpose of the cess is to compensate the States for more than 200 persons constitutes a public issue and any loss,” Pratik Jain, Partner and Leader of Indirect Tax needs SEBI approval. Earlier, the cap was 49 and was at PwC India said. “It might have been better to first see increased to 200 when the Companies Act was revised in how much loss, if any, is being incurred by the States, 2013. Industry participants said that SEBI has a provision before deciding to change the rates of the compensation under Section 28 of Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act cess.” (SCRA) that allowed the regulator to recognise such al- When contacted, the Society of Indian Automobile Manu- ternative investment platforms. facturers declined to comment.

Start-up funding may come under SEBI lens The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is concerned with the manner in which start-ups are being funded through unregulated entities and is examining the manner in which alternative fund-raising platforms and crowd-funding ventures can be regulated to bring in transparency and regulatory oversight in such deals. The regulator has recently formed a panel under T.V. Mo- handas Pai, former CFO of Infosys, to look into this issue and advise on ensuring that market disruption does not ‘Framework critical’ come at the cost of investor protection and market integ- “While a notification under section 28 of SCRA provid- rity. ing legal recognition to alternative investment platforms Incidentally, SEBI chairman Ajay Tyagi had recently would be a welcome step, a lot would depend upon the met an industry delegation to discuss the matter as the framework to ensure clearing and settlement and audit regulator was concerned with the increasing number of trail of transactions,” said Sumit Agrawal, partner, Suvan aspirantforum.comLaw Advisors and a former SEBI law officer. such entities in the market with even recognised stock exchanges raising a red flag over the mushrooming of “A SEBI press release issued last year looks at all such such ventures. innovations with a suspicious eye. Globally there are no Crowd-funding uniform standards for registrations while at most places Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. The Committee on Financial and Regulatory Technolo- such platforms are regulated trading venues, which serve

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as an alternative to trading at a public exchange,” he add- the stock exchanges. These firms formed part of a larger ed. group of 331 ‘shell’ companies whose names the Minsitry The start-up ecosystem has gained significance espe- of Corporate Affairs (MCA) shared with the regulator for cially after the government’s Make in India initiative and initiating action. important departments including the Department of Eco- The order issued by the Securities and Exchange Board nomic Affairs and Department of Industrial Policy and of India (SEBI) last week put at risk investor wealth Promotion are pushing regulatory bodies to create an amounting to almost Rs. 13,000 crore. investor-friendly ecosystem for such ventures. A look at the financials of the companies shows that most Manish Kumar, group CEO of iVentures and Co-founder of them reported at least some income in the last finan- Grex, is of the view that while angel groups are an impor- cial year with a few even reporting a positive bottom line. tant part of the ecosystem, even stock exchanges could There are seven companies that reported a net profit of look at such alternative platforms as a means to “deeper more than Rs. 20 crore in the financial year ended March downstream integration.” 31, 2017. One of them — J Kumar Infraprojects – regis- tered a profit of Rs. 105.51 crore in FY17. Railways gets relief from GST cut on works Further, there are 25 entities that reported a total income of more than Rs. 100 crore in FY17 with Prakash Indus- contract tries, Kkalpana Industries, J Kumar Infraprojects and Pin- The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council’s decision con Spirit reporting incomes of between Rs. 1,400 crore to roll back the increase in tax rate for government works and Rs. 2,500 crore. contracts comes as a relief for the Indian Railways which From purely a stock price perspective, there are at least had received representations from contractors on in- 20 companies with a market capitalisation of more than creased tax liability on various ongoing projects. Rs. 100 crore each with the biggest three — J Kumar “The GST Council’s decision to cut back GST on contract Infraprojects, Prakash Industries and Parsvnath Devel- works to 12% has come as a big relief to us as there was opers — having a market capitalisation of more than Rs. huge uncertainty,” said a senior Railway Ministry official. 1,000 crore each. “The contractors were demanding more money for con- tracts awarded before July 1 due to increased tax liability but the Railways had refused to pay for the higher tax amount,” the official said. The tax on construction activity, including composite works contracts, was increased to 18% from 12% under GST. However, Finance Minister ArunJaitley announced after the GST Council meeting that government works contracts, for both Centre and States, would attract 12% GST with input tax credit. Panel set up Interestingly, eight entities, including the biggest three The Railway Ministry has also constituted a committee to ‘shell companies,’ have already managed to obtain a stay examine the impact of GST on the works contracts after on the trading restrictions by way of interim relief from receiving representations from contractors on increased the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT), that observed in tax liability. clear terms that the capital market watchdog passed the Work related to track, construction of bridges, earthwork diktat without an iota of investigation. in embankment, supply, unloading and spreading of bal- “... it is apparent that SEBI passed the impugned order last, among others were facing increased tax liability after without any investigation... we are prima facie of the opin- the government’s initial move to increase GST on such ion, that the impugned communication issued by SEBI on projects. aspirantforum.comthe basis that the appellants are ‘suspected shell compa- nies’ deserves to be stayed,” said SAT. Investors ‘shell’ shocked over SEBI order However, though many companies may not appear as A recent order from markets regulator SEBI brought to a shell firms purely based on numbers, the list prepared by Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. halt trading in more than 170 actively traded stocks on MCA was based on inputs received from various agen-

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cies, including the Income The amount involved in non-genuine transactions by Tax department and the Serious Fraud Investigation Of- such beneficiaries was more than Rs. 13,300 crore, it fice (SFIO), the details of which are not in the public do- had said. main. According to Mr. Gupta, companies that have got interim “I do not think that SEBI operation on shell companies relief at SAT should be told to submit an affidavit stating is over with the SAT order,” said Sumit Agrawal, partner, that they do not have any connection with a shell com- Suvan Law Advisors and a former SEBI law officer. pany and that they have not violated any rules related to “There may be thorough examination through brokers, disclosures in their balance sheet. investor associations and registrar and transfer agents Meanwhile, there was a clear impact of the regulatory (RTAs). action on the stock market. While there was an overall The challenge would be to delist those really non-opera- negative trend due to disappointing quarterly numbers tional companies or to penalise the brains behind them. and global geopolitical concerns, the mid-cap and small- My hope is that it does not affect overall sentiment for cap universe bore the maximum brunt. investment,” added Mr. Agrawal. Indices decline Entity verification — a day after the diktat — the BSE MidCap and BSE Incidentally, stock exchanges have already asked their SmallCap indices lost more than 1% each even as the member brokers to verify if any of the unlisted entities, benchmark Sensex declined only 0.8%. Well-known that were part of the MCA list, were registered as their stocks that made to the MCA list were locked at the lower clients. circuit level as investors frantically tried to offload their The brokers will have to verify the credentials of such en- positions as trading restrictions were being imposed. tities and submit a report to the exchanges by August 31. The restrictions include allowing the shares to be the A lot of companies, directors and promoters are going to traded only once a month and not allowing any upward go to SAT as this order will create ineligibility for many price movement beyond the last traded price. Further, an other things such as directorships in other companies additional margin of 200% of the trade value is to be col- and fund raising, said Mr. Agrawal. lected from the buyers. While the capital market regulator has begun hearing the SEBI has also advised the exchanges to appoint an in- companies on an individual basis, the proceedings and dependent auditor to audit such listed firms and if neces- an order — even in the form of an interim relief — might sary, even conduct a forensic audit to verify the business take time due to the sheer number of companies and the credentials of such firms. If the exchanges are not able to lengthy verification process. to find appropriate credentials, they can initiate delisting ‘Larger interests at stake’ proceedings against the company, as per the order J.N. Gupta, managing director, Stakeholders Empower- . ment Services, a proxy advisory firm, said he felt that ‘No discrepancy in data on returns filed’ while one may debate as to whether SEBI could have The Income Tax Department clarified that there was managed the whole issue better, the larger interest of no discrepancy between the different numbers of post- shareholders was at stake and an immediate action was demonetisation returns filed as cited by Prime Minister required. NarendraModi, the Economic Survey, Finance Minister “This is a preventive order by SEBI and companies can ArunJaitley, and the Finance Ministry, saying the differ- approach the regulator with proper credentials,” he said ence arose due to different time periods and categories adding that the MCA list was not only about shell com- of tax filers under consideration. panies but also those that might have a link with a shell The Prime Minister, in his Independence Day speech, entity.” had said that an additional 56 lakh people had filed per- ‘Not genuine’ sonal income tax returns from April 1 to August 5, 2017. The order assumes significance as the government, in The Volume 2 of the Economic Survey released on Au- April, had said that duringaspirantforum.com the last three financial years, gust 12 said that 5.4 lakh new taxpayers were added post ie, from 2013-14 to 2015-16, investigations by the In- demonetisation. come Tax department led to the detection of more than Finance Minister ArunJaitley had on May 17 said that 91 1,155 shell companies used as conduits by more than lakh taxpayers had been added to the tax net as a result Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. 22,000 beneficiaries. of actions taken by the Income Tax Department, while

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the Ministry of Finance informed Parliament 33 lakh new ing raised by the manufacturing sector in the country re- taxpayers had been added to the tax net as of August 1. garding the rise in input costs of petroleum products hap- “It is clarified that there is no inconsistency in the data pening on account of transition to Goods and Services provided by the Government in the statements referred Tax regime,” the Finance Ministry said. “In the post-GST to… as these are in different contexts and for different scenario, manufactured goods attract GST while inputs time periods,” the statement said. of petroleum products used in the manufacturing attract “The Prime Minister’s speech referred to the increase in VAT and, therefore, it would lead to cascading of taxes. number of e-filed Personal Income Tax Returns (ITRs) ” filed from April 1, 2017 to August 5, 2017 over the ITRs Shift from non-GAAP bottom lines could be filed in corresponding period of earlier years,” the state- ment said. good for stocks “The data maintained by the I-T Department shows that Investors worried about lofty stock-market valuations during April 1, 2017 to August 5, 2017, 2.79 crore e-re- may take comfort in signs that companies in the bench- turns of individual taxpayers were received as against mark S&P 500 index are padding their bottom lines less 2.23 crore e-returns received during 1st April, 2016 to 5th than they have in previous years. August, 2016. Thus, the additional ITRs received in 2017 Difference to shrink works out to be 56 lakh.” Recent changes to accounting standards and a crack- ‘Not comparable’ down last year by the Securities Exchange Commission The data provided in the Economic Survey was for the are encouraging many companies to be more cautious period between November 9, 2016 to March 31, 2017. about reporting metrics that do not adhere to Generally “Moreover, the growth in the number of taxpayers dis- Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). The difference cussed in the Economic Survey is based on the number between S&P 500 companies’ GAAP net incomes and of new taxpayers assuming the previous year’s growth the adjusted versions of net income that they play up to rate as the reference growth rate. Wall Street is expected to significantly shrink in 2017 for “On the other hand, the growth of individual return-filers a second year, after hitting a high in 2015, according to a referred to in PM’s speech is with respect to new as well Thomson Reuters analysis. as old taxpayers. Thus, the data used in Economic Sur- Such a decline may be good news for investors worried vey is different from data referred to in PM’s speech in that stock prices have risen too far. “The closer report- respect of the period of filing as well as the type of tax- ed earnings are to GAAP, the more confident I’d be that payers and the two are not comparable,” the statement investors are getting a fair characterisation,” said Jack added. Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank. On The Department’s clarification added that the Finance their income statements, companies often exclude “ex- Minister’s number of 91 lakh taxpayers referred to the to- traordinary” items, like charges associated with layoffs tal number of new returns filed during the entire financial that they believe give investors an unclear picture of their year 2016-17 and therefore was neither comparable with performance. Those adjustments tend to make their prof- the data in the Prime Minister’s speech nor with the data its appear stronger. After an 8% rise in 2017, the S&P in Economic Survey. 500 is trading at 17.8 times expected earnings, a level many investors consider expensive and increases the risk of a market sell-off. But the expected earnings in that FM asks states to cut VAT on petro products valuation are adjusted, not GAAP. Finance Minister ArunJaitley has written to all Chief Min- To the extent that companies use non-GAAP account- isters urging them to reduce Value Added Tax (VAT) on ing less this year than in recent years, investors may petroleum products used in the manufacture of goods as feel more comfortable paying higher valuations for their the current system was leading to cascading of taxes on stocks. “You’re getting more conservative in your earn- such goods under the aspirantforum.comGoods and Services Tax (GST) ings approach rather than more aggressive,” said Phil regime. Blancato, head of Ladenburg Thalmann Asset Manage- Currently, crude oil, natural gas, petrol, diesel and avia- ment. “That’s exactly why I don’t think current PEs are tion turbine fuel are out of GST purview. All other petro- very expensive.” leum products fall under the new indirect tax.

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. Following new accounting standards covering the taxa- “The letter by Finance Minister highlights a concern be- tion of stock-based compensation, Alphabet Inc. stopped Visit Aspirantforum.com for guidance and study material for IAS Exam. aspirantforum.com Hindu and PIB Crux Vol. 36 News and Events of August 2017

excluding stock-based compensation from its costs in nancial performance quarter after quarter; and founders the first quarter. Facebook Inc. said it would no longer who have nurtured the company for more than three dec- emphasise non-GAAP expenses, income, tax rate or ades and are passionate about the founding values and earnings per share. Responding to a new standard on ethics that they consider paramount,” said C.J. George, revenue recognition, Microsoft Corp. said it will switch to MD, Geojit Financial Services. “This is a fight between GAAP revenue reporting. modern, free-market capitalism on the one side and the forces of ‘compassionate capitalism’ on the other,” he Corporate governance: focus on SEBI said. The exit of Vishal Sikka as the chief of multinational IT The governing board or a supervisory board, he said, giant Infosys brings forth the issue of corporate govern- would be an important top layer setting the direction for ance yet again. Market participants said the capital mar- such companies. According to Mr. George, “The found- kets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of In- ers, perhaps, look at a quarter of a century while the mar- dia (SEBI), needed to intervene in such matters to protect ket looks at the next quarter.” the interest of investors, especially the retail segment. “Our regulator should install a three-tier governing system Plans afoot to make Bhubaneswar an for companies where a supervisory board is constituted ecotourism hotspot and should lay down the framework for the functioning The Odisha government proposes to connect three ma- of the board of directors,” said Deven R. Choksey, MD, jor forests in and around Bhubaneswar by bus service in KRChoksey Shares & Securities. The board of directors, order to make optimum use of their ecotourism potential. in turn, would oversee the functioning of the executive Tourists are likely to be ferried by tourist buses to Nan- management. dankanan Biological Park and Chudanga and Bharatpur “Multinationals like Google and Microsoft are governed in forests of the Chandaka division as part of the govern- this manner,” he added. “Infosys has a strong pedigree. ment’s larger plan to showcase Bhubaneswar’s ecotour- ... Promoters’ intentions were good but their approach ism assets. was wrong.” According to a Forest and Environment Department of- “The supervisory board, comprising eminent personali- ficer, one can hardly find wilderness in close proximity to ties, will monitor performance as well as the value system a city anywhere in the country, except in Bhubaneswar. for the company and this alone will create wealth for the A fleet of buses would soon be acquired to facilitate visits company and keep it on the tracks,” he added. of tourists to the three forests. SEBI had constituted a committee on corporate govern- Taking a cue from Karnataka, which has been cashing in ance under the chairmanship of UdayKotak in June this on the exquisite natural beauty of the Bannerghatta Bio- year. The committee is expected to submit its report with- logical Park, spread over 731.88 hectares about 22 km in four months. Market participants said that the Infosys from Bengaluru city, the State government is contemplat- issue too should be considered in detail by the commit- ing creation of two more safaris in Chudanga Reserve tee. Forest and Bharatpur Reserve Forest. ‘Subjective views’ While Nandankanan and Bharatpur are almost within “In India, corporate governance continues to see subjec- Bhubaneswar, Chudanga is just two km from the city lim- tive interpretation,” said Dilip Bhat, Joint MD, Prabhuda- its. Sources in the department said they would require sLilladher. “While India is moving towards internationally minimal investment to make packaged ecotourism tours. accepted norms of corporate governance, we are bound Apart from the rich captive zoo population, the Nandan- to see this kind of volatility. Particularly in this instance, kanan Biological Park boasts a botanical garden spread extreme positions have been taken in terms of interpret- over 173 acres. ing what corporate governance is,” he said. Over the years, the forest department had developed “Unfortunately, this hadaspirantforum.com degenerated into an ugly battle several gardens including butterfly, medicinal, rose, Jap- played out with the media and as a result we are seeing anese, bougainvillea and heritage inside the botanical whatever has happened,” said Mr. Bhat. garden. Another view is that differences between stakeholders on The government can connect the botanical garden with the vision for the company caused the turmoil. “This has

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. Chudanga by providing an underpass on Khurda-Baran- turned out to be a fight between a CEO who delivers fi- ga bypass road. Visit Aspirantforum.com for guidance and study material for IAS Exam. aspirantforum.com Hindu and PIB Crux Vol. 36 News and Events of August 2017

The Nandankanan Biological Park spread over 437 hec- made without following proper procedure and obtaining tares, received more than 32 lakh tourists last year, while relevant approvals and that the severance payout given the botanical garden was visited by over 2 lakh tourists. to former CFO Rajiv Bansal was in excess of that stated People’s choice in his contract. As far as the people’s choice is concerned, Nandankanan Lawyers specialising in securities market regulations comes second only to the Mysuru zoo, which is ranked said that the SEBI could investigate a complaint of any first in the country. contravention of the securities laws received from any in- With an area of 1,000 hectares, the Bharatpur Reserve vestor or intermediary or any other person. Forest, which is part of the Chandka-Dompara Sanctu- “There are precedents of relief from SEBI where stake- ary, is also a natural forest which is situated inside Bhu- holders have sought quality in financial reporting, trans- baneswar. parency and corporate governance,” said Sumit Agrawal, Apart from the Asiatic elephants, wild pigs, deer, hyena founder, Suvan Law Advisors, and a former legal officer and pangolin can be sighted in the forest. Several water- at SEBI. bodies also add to its beauty. “SEBI can always direct particular disclosures, seek a specific audit, make due diligence reports public or pro- Infosys compliance: SEBI seeks data vide conditional approvals. SEBI has wide powers to deal The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is with the issue, if circumstances demand it,” he added. examining whether there were any lapses in corporate Street turns bearish governance or disclosure requirements by Infosys. Meanwhile, going by stock recommendations, it appears The SEBI move comes reportedly after a few sharehold- that an increasing number of analysts are turning bearish ers approached the regulator following the resignation of or at least cautious on the stock of Infosys. Vishal Sikka as the chief executive officer amidst allega- According to data from Bloomberg, there are currently tions by co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy. a total of 20 ‘buy’ recommendations along with 18 ‘hold’ According to persons familiar with the development, the and 12 ‘sell’ ratings on Infosys. , there were 34 ‘buy’ re- regulator had asked the stock exchanges to look into this ports on the software major. matter by seeking clarification from the company. Ex- Since Friday, brokerages such as Equirus Securities, changes, being the first-level regulators, often seek clari- Edelweiss Capital, Dolat Capital, Emkay Share & Stock fication from companies based on regulatory directions Brokers, IDBI Capital, Axis Capital, Elara Securities, IC- or media reports. ICI Securities, JP Morgan, IIFL and PrabhudasLilladher Impact on buyback? have all downgraded the Infosys stock. The SEBI move could affect the proposed Rs. 13,000-crore buyback of Infosys shares as well. The regulator could in- Stir ‘shuts’ Darjeeling tea trade sist on getting a complete clarity on investor complaints Estimating a Rs. 400-crore loss to the Darjeeling tea in- before giving a final go-ahead for the buy-back proposal. dustry due to prolonged closure, the Indian Tea Associa- “While it is too early to say that an actual probe in on, the tion (ITA) has sought a revival package for the industry, process of getting data and information is on, which, typi- including moratorium on long-term loans and interest- cally, precedes any formal investigation,” said a person subsidies. familiar with the development, who requested anonym- In an appeal to the Union Minister of State for Commerce ity. The regulator had also asked the exchanges to look NirmalaSitharaman, ITA said that the Darjeeling tea in- into the trading pattern and report any unusual activity, dustry had already incurred an estimated crop loss of he added. about 4.5 million kg due to the more than two-month-long Clearly, the regulatory probe post the feedback received strike called by the GorkhaJanmuktiMorcha. from the stock exchanges could also conclude that the Export revenue company was fully compliant with the disclosure and list- “The indefinite shutdown in tea estates in Darjeeling has ing regulations. Incidentally,aspirantforum.com Infosys did not attract any coincided with the high-quality second flush period which adverse action from SEBI when the regulator examined generates substantial export revenue. This has caused the whistle-blower letter it had received in February. severe financial stress to the industry threatening its vi- Mr. Murthy had said that the corporate governance stand- ability,” according to the letter. Wages had not been paid

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. ards in the company were falling after the anonymous to the workers since the gardens’closure, it added. complaint alleged that the acquisition of Panaya was “Even if the estates were to open in September, the Visit Aspirantforum.com for guidance and study material for IAS Exam. aspirantforum.com Hindu and PIB Crux Vol. 36 News and Events of August 2017

weeds/overgrown green leaf will not be suitable for pro- “Following an in-principle nod from the group, banks will duction and would have to be slashed. The normal ges- take necessary steps under the law and as per SEBI tation period prior to the next harvest would be minimum norms for amalgamation and the final scheme will be no- three weeks,” the association said in the letter. ITA felt tified by the Centre in consultation with the Reserve Bank that about 80% of the year’s crop would have been lost of India,” Mr. Jaitley said, expressing hope that some due to the disruption. consolidation activity would begin in this financial year ITA secretary general ArijitRaha feared a loss in the ex- itself. port market for Darjeeling tea as importers/international The Centre’s nudge towards consolidation among pub- blenders and packeteers may be compelled to replace lic sector banks assumes significance as most of them Darjeeling tea with leaves sourced from other origins. are grappling with huge levels of non-performing assets “This happened in the past, in the 1980s, following a ban or NPAs, slow credit offtake and resultant pressures on on export of CTC teas,” he said. capital adequacy. ITA has sought relief on repayment of loans by a two-year ‘First step’ extension and 6% interest subsidy. Rating agency Crisil termed the Cabinet decision as an The industry’s loan exposure is about Rs. 500 crore and important first step towards kick starting the consolida- the interest subsidy is estimated at about Rs. 30 crore tion process and said such mergers would improve NPA annually. resolution following swifter decision making and an uni- Additionally, ITA also sought expeditious settlement of fied strategy. “This is structurally positive for public sector pending subsidy claims for the development works, en- banks as they will benefit from operational and functional hancement of the 3% export incentive rate, and waiver synergies resulting in better efficiencies,” said Krishnan of fees on certificate of origin (payable to the Tea Board). Sitaraman, senior director, CRISIL Ratings. “Merger However, the Darjeeling Tea Association has not yet fi- amongst similar performing banks can also result in ef- nalised its revival package, saying it would need further fective implementation of NPA resolution strategies discussions with the Tea Board. The loss assessments across PSBs,” he said. were, however, close to the ITA estimates. “Our experience of consolidation has been positive so far,” said Mr. Jaitley. New mechanism to spur PSB mergers “It adds commercial strengths, prevents multiplicity of re- Paving the way for quicker consolidation among public sources being spent in the same areas, and it improves sector banks, the Cabinet approved ‘in-principle’ the con- the capacity of the banking system to absorb shocks that stitution of an alternative mechanism, likely to be a min- the market throws up,” he said. isterial group, that will oversee the proposals for mergers When asked the likely criteria for bank mergers, the Min- among banks. ister said these will have to be driven by the bank boards. “As of today, there are 20 public sector banks plus the “It will be purely commercial… which are the bank, which State Bank of India (SBI),” Finance, Corporate Affairs and is the merging bank, which is the principal bank with Defence Minister ArunJaitley said after the Cabinet meet- which it should merge – these initial proposals have to ing , adding SBI’s five subsidiaries and BharatiyaMahila come from the boards of the banks,” he said. Bank had already been merged with the country’s largest An official statement said that stronger public sector bank. banks will help meet the credit needs of a growing econ- “Now, if the board of any other public sector bank pro- omy, absorb shocks and give them the capacity to raise poses a consolidation, this mechanism will oversee that resources without depending unduly on the state excheq- process,” Mr. Jaitley said. “The Prime Minister will take a uer. call on who will be members of this group and this will be This year’s Budget provided Rs. 10,000 crore for bank intimated later,” he added. recapitalisation, which, most bankers said, was inade- Stressing that the decision to create ‘strong and competi- quate. Mr. Jaitley had, however, held out the possibility of tive banks will be solely aspirantforum.combased on commercial considera- allocating more funds for banks if the requirement arose. tions and such decisions must start from the boards of The Centre said though suggestions to have fewer but the banks,’ the Minister said the proposals received from stronger banks had been around since 1991, it was in banks will be reviewed by the members of the alternative May 2016 that effective action to consolidate them be- gan. The merger of six banks into SBI was completed

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. mechanism, enabling ‘quick decisions.’

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in ‘record time unlike earlier mergers of State Banks of of foreign currency are conducted repeatedly and such Indore and Saurashtra,’ it stressed. total is at least 2% of an economy’s GDP over 12 months. To arrive at persistence intervention, the department will RBI’s forex operations risk India being tagged consider if there has been net foreign exchange purchas- es for eight of the 12 months. currency manipulator: report India fulfils the first and the third conditions, according to The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) persistent interven- the Edelweiss report. tions in the foreign exchange market has put India at the “India has a trade surplus of around $23 billion for the risk of being tagged a currency manipulator, according to year ended June 2017, meeting the first condition,” it a report. said. While the net accretion to forex reserves, including “We note that RBI’s intervention is not without repercus- those in the spot as well as forwards market, is less than sions and apart from direct monetary cost, sustained in- 2% of GDP, it has intervened in nine out of 12 months, terventions has also brought India close to entering US the report added. watch list for currency manipulation,” Edelweiss Securi- Surge in foreign inflows in local debt and equity market ties Ltd’sBhupeshBameta and Parin Shah, wrote in a re- has led to the active intervention of the central bank in the port dated 16 August. market to sterilise dollar flows and arrest sharp appre- The US Department of Treasury releases a semi-annual ciation in the rupee, according to analysts. Accordingly, report to the Congress on International Economic and forex reserves’ kitty of the country has swollen to a record Exchange Rate Policies. The report highlights the cur- high of $393.6 billion. rency practices adopted by major trading partners of the So far this year, the rupee has gained 6.08%, while for- US. eign institutional investors (FIIs) have bought $7.12 bil- lion and $19.50 billion in equity and debt markets, re- spectively. the rupee closed at 64.03 a dollar, up 0.13% from its previous close of 64.12. But given surplus liquidity conditions, a common phe- nomenon since demonetisation, the RBI has also inter- vened in the forward markets. When the RBI purchases dollars in the market, it infuses fresh rupees, thereby adding to surplus liquidity. In or- der to avoid this, RBI has been also entering into forward contracts to negate the impact of its spot interventions on the banking system’s liquidity. Outstanding dollar pur- chases through contracts are over $17 billion, latest data from the central bank showed. The RBI has always maintained that it intervenes in the foreign exchange market only to curb undue volatility.

The next report is expected in October. According to Edelweiss, the report has recently gained ‘Centre ready to provide capital support for importance because of President Donald Trump’s rheto- merger of PSBs’ ric that the US is no longer willing to tolerate unfair trade The Finance Ministry is open to providing capital support practices, like currency manipulation, of its major part- for facilitating consolidation among state-owned banks, ners. which are reeling under mounting bad loans, official In the report, the treasury department comes with a moni- sources said. toring list of trading partnersaspirantforum.com for their currency practice. It The Union Cabinet has approved the setting up of an al- uses three criteria to come up with the list. First, the bilat- ternative mechanism, or a panel of ministers, to decide eral trade surplus with the US is at least $20 billion. Sec- on consolidation proposals for state-run banks. ond, if the current account surplus is at least 3% of the On receiving a proposal from stressed banks, if the Min- gross domestic product (GDP). Third, if there has been isterial panel finds that the merger is going to create a Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. persistent, one-sided intervention where net purchases strong bank, it will not let it go for want of fund shortage,

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the sources said, adding that acquisition would come at The last date for sending comments is September 25, a cost. “First, the merger proposal should come from the and counter comments are to be sent by October 3, 2017. board,” said a source, who did not want to be named. “If the alternative mechanism finds the match viable, the Finance Ministry could provide capital support to the ac- ISRO opens up satellite making to industry quiring bank if there is a shortfall,” he said. The Indian Space Research Organisation has opened Sources said the government is keen that at least one the door to domestic entities that can give it up to 18 merger proposal reaches a logical conclusion by the end spacecraft a year starting mid to late 2018. of the current fiscal. Finance Minister ArunJaitley had said The Bengaluru-based ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC), the government had not set any target for consolidation. which has so far produced about 90 Indian spacecraft, There are now 20 public sector banks (PSBs) other than invited single or combined industries to apply for this op- SBI. These state-owned banks are grappling with Rs. 6 portunity. lakh crore worth of non-performing assets (NPAs) or bad ISAC Director M. Annadurai told The Hindu that the cen- loans, which is about 75% of the total distress. tre expected to select five or six contenders from this ex- Final nod ercise “if they are found technically suitable.” After in-principle approval for consolidation, the banks Three-year contract would take steps in accordance with the law and SEBI ISAC would sign a three-year contract with the finalists, requirements. The final scheme will be approved by the train, and handhold and supervise their teams in making Cabinet. its range of satellites at its facility. An official source said: “It is not necessary that a larger The Indian Space Research Organisation Scurrently PSB should takeover a small or mid-size lender. If there makes four categories of spacecraft — communication, is synergy, two or three banks can merge to create a big- remote sensing, navigation and scientific missions — ger and stronger entity so that the dependence on the and in three sizes of 1,000 kg to 4,000 kg. public exchequer is minimised.” The first lot of spacecraft from this exercise was expect- ed in about six months from the signing of the contracts. This is also roughly the normal time taken to assemble a TRAI starts process for next round of satellite. spectrum auction Dr.Annadurai said: “The outsourcing of assembly, in- The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India kick-started tegration and testing [AIT] in a way covers operational the process for the next round of spectrum auctions by spacecraft, mostly repeat types that ISRO routinely re- issuing a consultation paper on key issues for sale of air- quires. waves, including for offering 5G services. However it will be decided by an in-house committee” The issues on which the regulator has sought comments which he heads. include the quantum of spectrum to be auctioned, optimal About the cost of industry-made spacecraft versus those block size, spectrum cap, roll-out conditions and meth- made in-house, he said: “We don’t envisage any cost in- ods to be used for valuation and estimation of reserve crease.” Currently, about eight satellites are being pro- price of spectrum. duced in a year for national programmes; a 2,000-kg The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had ear- spacecraft costs ISRO about Rs. 200 crore. lier said it planned to auction spectrum in the 700 MHz, The contract mentions milestone payments, assigning of 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz, new spacecraft upon delivery; and a possible renewal of 2500 MHz, 3300- 3400 MHz and 3400-3600 MHz bands contract after three years. in 2017. DoT had proposed the auction of 60% of the to- Benefits for ISRO tal spectrum that remained unsold after the last auctions How would the exercise benefit ISRO or ISAC which has held in October 2016, in addition to two more bands — around 900 engineers versed in different skills related to 3300-3400 MHz and 3400-3600aspirantforum.com MHz, used to offer 5G spacecraft? services. “Right now, the manpower of ISAC/ISRO is not adequate In the last auction, 2,355 megahertz (MHz) of spectrum for meeting both the increased load of making more sat- worth Rs. 5.6 lakh crore across seven bands was put ellites; and also for the R&D that we need for future sat- up for bids and fetched the government revenues of Rs. ellites. The present bid to outsource our AIT will help us Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. 65,789 crore. re-deploy our human resources effectively and focus on

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R&D,” he said. car prices may to go up by 8-10%, according to industry It would also aid self-reliance by way of an independent analysts. While Mercedes cars will be costlier by a mini- Indian satellite industry. mum of Rs. 3 lakh, an Audi Q7 will see a price increase of Important missions Rs. 7 lakh, while an Audi A6 will be costlier by Rs. 5 lakh. Although the goal is to get vendors to realise satellites Revenue Secretary HasmukhAdhia said the categorisa- “end to end”, ISAC would retain important and scientific tion of cars has not changed. “Earlier, those luxury cars missions. where excise duties were levied at 27% or 30%..., the In the $ 339-billion global space industry, satellite manu- same categorisation is being followed. There is no inten- facturing accounts for 8% or $13.9 billion (data as per the tion of raising the tax rate on any car, other than those Satellite Industry Association’s 2017 report). which were put in the luxury category and had high ex- This segment is led by established players from the Unit- cise and VAT rates.” ed States and Europe who supply satellites to their gov- According to industry consultants, luxury cars, SUVs and ernment and commercial users. ambulances will be impacted. ISAC’s EoI is seen as a first step towards the making of Terming it an “unfortunate decision”, the Society of In- an Indian space industry. dian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) said while the or- dinance is an enabling clause, “it is clearly evident that the government’s intention is to increase the overall tax Higher GST cess on luxury cars, SUVs gets burden on many different categories of vehicles.” Cabinet nod This will increase the post-GST price of many vehicle cat- Luxury cars and SUVs may become more expensive with egories from pre-GST levels, it warned. the Union Cabinet approving an ordinance to raise the “This is contradictory position of the Government that maximum compensation cess that can be levied over while on the one hand it has identified the automotive and above the 28% GST on such cars, from 15 % to 25%. industry as a sunrise sector of Indian economy, [while] on However, these changes will not come into effect imme- the other hand it is being treated as a demerit product,” it diately. The final decision of whether the cess should be said, adding that all the vehicles that were attracting 24% raised, and by how much, will be taken by the GST Coun- or 27% excise duty in the pre-GST regime may potential- cil, whose next meeting is on September 9. ly attract higher tax under GST because of this decision. “The Cabinet has approved an amendment to the CGST “The hike in total tax could be as high as 10% in some (Compensation) law in pursuance of the GST Council’s cases,” it added. last meeting. After the implementation of GST, prices of Roland Folger, MD & CEO, Mercedes-Benz India, said vehicles had substantially come down, whereas smaller if at all a review of the tax rate was required, it could vehicles remained untouched,” Finance Minister Arun- have been taken after six months when the outcome of Jaitley said. the GST regime would have been clearer. “…the hurry Mr. Jaitley reasoned, “The object of any taxation policy to implement the hike in cess is frankly quite surprising.” can’t be that its impact is [that] luxury becomes cheaper Mr. Folger added that the luxury industry is already highly and an essential item becomes more expensive. If at all taxed, which constrains its growth. With this proposed relief has to be given, it is to be given to a common man’s measure, the luxury car industry is going to “decelerate.” item rather than a luxury item. A person who can afford “…This decision, contradictory to the requirement of cre- Rs. 1 crore for a car can also afford Rs. 1 crore, 2 lakh.” ating a sustained demand for the luxury car in this mar- The “enabling ordinance” will now be sent to the Presi- ket, would rather affect the growth momentum adversely.” dent for promulgation. Mr. Jaitley was non-committal if ‘Redraw plans’ the issue would be taken up in the next GST Council Echoing similar sentiments, Audi India Head Rahil Ansari meeting. said the increase in cess will force the firm “to hike our ‘8-10% rise’ prices to levels higher than in the pre-GST period,” while Post the introduction of aspirantforum.comthe new indirect tax regime, sev- also make them “redraw our plans for the Indian market eral carmakers, including makers of luxury cars and SUV based on future projections in this scenario.” who were one of the biggest beneficiaries of GST, had He said this was bound to adversely impact sales by slashed rates to pass the benefits to the consumer. possibly a double-digit reduction and “will consequently If the GST Council decides to increase the cess, luxury reduce revenues for the company, dealers and perhaps Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol.

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also tax revenues for the Government.” While small in volume, the luxury car segment contributed about 10% to the Indian automobile market. Mr. Ansari further said if the GST Council decided on a 10% cess increase, it should “postpone the implementation for another 6-12 months to evaluate the real impact of the GST…This will surely prove that the overall effect with a lower cess percentage of 15% is generating higher tax revenues than expected.” Sridhar V, Partner at Grant Thornton India said, “The government is expected to come up with more clarity if it intends to have a couple of more levels of cess within the overall cess of 25%.” RohitSuri, president and MD, Jaguar Land Rover India, said, “We earnestly hope that the Government and the GST Council will give due consideration to this matter and desist from raising the cess and putting a dampener on the posi- tive momentum in demand that the industry had started to witness since July 1.”

aspirantforum.com Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol.

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a “cliff edge” situation put him at loggerheads with oth- ers in the Cabinet, such as International Trade Secretary International Liam Fox who told The Sunday Times this weekend that keeping freedom of movement, including for the transi- Cabinet struggles to convey coherent Brexit tional period, would “not keep faith” with the result of the approach referendum. The battle within the British cabinet over the precise “Businesses urgently need to know what a new system shape and path to Brexit continued to be waged over the will look like — during transition and afterwards,” the main past week, as politicians sought to expound their views industry body, Confederation of British Industry, said last on a range of related issues from the freedom of move- week after the government announced a review of the ment Britain currently enjoys with Europe to taxation and impact of EU immigration on Britain. the transitional arrangements. Brexit negotiations between Britain and the European “Brexit excites huge passions, they’re on different sides Union commenced on June 19, with a second round tak- these passions,” admitted Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt ing in mid-July. Further rounds are set to take place in of his cabinet colleagues, during a BBC radio interview August, September and October. morning. But he denied suggestions that they were The EU is adamant that discussions cannot move on to ‘deeply divided” and risked sending the wrong message the shape of the future relationship until initial issues are to Brussels. settled over the rights of EU citizens in Britain (and vice “There is unity on two things: we are going to deliver versa), and agreement on Britain’s “divorce” bill. Britain is Brexit... and we are going to deliver the type of Brexit set to leave the union on March 29, 2019. people voted for at the referendum... control over law, borders, and money.” However, four months after Britain formally triggered Ar- China building rail tunnel below Great Wall China is constructing train tunnel of 12 km in length ticle 50, the section of the Lisbon Treaty that sets out the through one of the portions of its iconic Great Wall to con- process for exiting the union, Britain has been struggling nect Zhangjiakou city, which is due to co-host the 2022 to convey a coherent vision of its approach to Brexit, with Winter Olympics along with Beijing. two “camps” developing within the Cabinet, with some It took the Chinese engineer’s months to choreograph favouring a gentler easing into Brexit and others in favour the best intersection point. In the end, the tunnel, deep of a swift plan that quickly regained control of Britain’s below the Badaling section of the Great Wall, passed ex- borders. perts’ appraisal, state-run People’s Daily reported. Deepening tensions The line is designed for high-speed trains travelling up to Those tensions deepened over the weekend as Chan- 350 km per hour, which is expected to shorten the jour- cellor Philip Hammond confirmed in an interview with ney time from more than three hours to approximately the French newspaper Le Monde that Britain would not one hour. The line is estimated to be completed in 2019. cut taxes and change its economic model in the wake of The depth of the tunnel will range from four metres to 432 Brexit as some within the Conservative Party had been metres. pushing for and he had hinted at previously. Precise technology Maintaining the possibility of building a “Singapore upon Luo Duhao, chief engineer of the Beijing–Zhangjiakou Thames” had been seen by some as a bargaining chip high-speed railway line, being built by China Railway that Britain could hold over Europe to force concessions Number 5 Engineering Group, said the firm will employ on key issues by European Nations, particularly over Brit- “precision micro-blasting” technology, which has a veloc- ain’s access to the single market. ity of 0.2 cm per second. The technology is capable of Europe has repeatedly insisted that the single market is making the impact weaker than the traditional firepower not divisible and cannot be separated from free move- aspirantforum.comblasts that have a velocity of 5 cm per second. ment across the region — something that the most ardent Mr. Luo told the Global Times that the new technology supporters of Brexit in the cabinet are strongly against. will ensure that the Great Wall will not be affected by the Transitional period blasts, as they will be barely felt. The Chancellor’s insistence that Britain would be push-

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. “The new technology causes little damage to the geologi- ing for a transitional period of up to three years to avoid cal environment,” Dai Longzhen, deputy manager of the

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Beijing–Zhangjiakou line, told the Global Times. “I myself sistance to Somalia which has included mini buses to the once stood on the Great Wall and I could not feel the war-battered country. blast at all,” he added. Zhang Xuehua, a blast expert at Diplomatic contacts between India and Somalia have the construction site, told the People’s Daily that the con- been infrequent, however, Somalia had participated in struction of the tunnel has completed 4,500 blasts since the 2015 India-Africa Forum Summit. early February this year. In the middle of the tunnel, workers will build a spacious WCO to unveil norms for e-commerce trade station right under the Great Wall, with a record-breaking The World Customs Organization (WCO) will soon bring construction space of 36,000 sq.m., Xinhua reported. out guidelines on ‘cross-border e-commerce’, which will The station will be 102 metres below the surface of the focus on preventing illegal trade as well as addressing Badaling Great Wall. the challenges stemming from the ‘digital divide’, accord- Originating from the Beijing Railway Station North, the ing to the WCO Secretary General KunioMikuriya. Beijing–Zhangjiakou line runs through Haidian, Chang- In an interview to The Hindu on his recent India trip, Mr. ping and Yanqing districts of Beijing. Mikuriya said, “We are developing guidelines on e-com- Centre of tourism merce to see how best Customs can facilitate legitimate The line continues northwest through Huailai and Xun- trade through that route.” He added, “We [the WCO] will hua counties in Hebei province before terminating in address issues related to digital divide by looking into the city of Zhangjiakou, making for a total length of 174 what is blocking e-commerce trade, and what kind of km. Built from the third century BC to the Ming Dynasty enabling environment is needed to support developing (1368–1644), the Great Wall stretches over 21,000 km. countries so that they benefit more from e-commerce.” Over a four million tourists visit the Great Wall every year Terming e-commerce as a “game changer” in global trade as it is the centre of China’s tourism campaign. that is benefiting small firms and consumers, he said the new guidelines would, however, include provisions to Somalia signs pact on convicts prevent illegal trade and illicit financial flows. This would Opening a new front for collaboration in anti-piracy op- be ensured through measures that would help strengthen eration in Eastern Africa, India and Somalia signed an information exchange between Customs administrations agreement for transfer of sentenced convicts. A state- of countries as well as collaboration with other govern- ment from the Ministry of External Affairs said the agree- ment agencies. ment was the highlight of the ongoing visit of the Foreign Working groups Minister of Somalia. The WCO has a Working Group on e-Commerce and Transfer of prisoners four sub-groups. To develop guidelines on cross-border “During the visit, the Somalian Minister held meetings e-commerce, the work packages identified are: ‘trade with External Affairs Minister SushmaSwaraj and Min- facilitation and simplification of procedures’, ‘safety and ister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar. The entire security’, ‘revenue collection’, and ‘measurement and gamut of India-Somalia bilateral relations, including the analysis’. According to the UN body ‘UNCTAD’, the value issue of piracy and maritime security, were discussed of online trade jumped from $16 trillion to $22 trillion be- between the two sides during the meetings. Further, dis- tween 2013 and 2015. cussions on regional issues pertaining to developments “The continuous increase in online trading has raised in the Gulf region and India’s neighbourhood were held. questions regarding regulation, consumer protection, An agreement for transfer of sentenced persons between revenue collection and national security,” according to India and Somalia was also signed during the visit,” said the WCO’s ‘Study Report on Cross-Border E-Commerce’ the statement from the MEA after Ms. Swaraj sealed the (March 2017). “These questions cannot be dealt with in- document with her Somalian counterpart Yusuf-Garaad dividually, but require a common, broad approach by the Omar. aspirantforum.cominternational Customs community, together with all rel- The collaboration between two sides will be significant evant stakeholders as a whole.” due to the incidents of piracy that have affected Indian The WCO said more sophisticated equipment was need- interests in the Indian Ocean region near the Horn of Af- ed to combat illicit trading through low-value shipments in

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. rica. India has in recent years extended development as- the postal, express and cargo streams.

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“Pre-arrival information on the consignment and the con- tions and actively monitor the progress of each and every signee could be of great importance in detecting and case, said Mr. Sessions. The National Security Division intercepting illicit trade. In addition, the improvement of has been asked to prioritise cases involving unauthorised non-intrusive inspection equipment and an increase in disclosures and the department will bring criminal charg- the number of trained staff could help to enhance the de- es “against those who abuse the nation’s trust,” he said. tection rate of illicit goods,” it said. “Just yesterday, we saw reports in the media about con- In an article on e-commerce, the WCO’s Director of Com- versations the President had with foreign leaders... No pliance and Facilitation Ana Hinojosa pointed out that in government can be effective when its leaders cannot dis- many countries, there were de minimisthresholds that al- cuss sensitive matters in confidence or to talk freely in low low-value packages to enter a country with little or confidence with foreign leaders,” he said. no duties or taxes, and with much more simplified pro- The classified transcripts of Mr. Trump’s stormy conver- cedures. sations with Mexican President Mexican President En- ‘Clever manipulations’ rique Peña Nieto and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm “This has led to clever manipulations by either the ship- Turnbull show him in poor light. The publication of the per or the consumer to avoid the extra charges by split- complete transcript of conversations a President has had ting invoices, undervaluing the invoices or mis-declaring with world leaders from the Oval office is unprecedent- the items altogether,” wrote Ms. Hinojosa. Another type ed. They show that Mr. Trump hung up on Mr. Turnbull of manipulation used was to classify the item as some- abruptly, after they began talking about a bilateral agree- thing else or claiming a different country of origin for the ment under which America was to accept 1,250 econom- product, to take advantage of better duty or tax rates, ic refugees currently in Australian custody. the WCO official said, adding that these distortions had Late last month, Mr. Trump had publicly chided Mr. Ses- had an impact on many countries’ revenue collection vol- sions for not being “tougher” on leaks. “I want the Attor- umes. Therefore, “some countries... are re-evaluating ney General to be much tougher,” he said in an interview their established thresholds due to the significant impli- on July 25. cations that the changes brought about by these growing The administration is reviewing the subpoena rules that volumes of low-value small packages are having on their apply to media, said Mr. Sessions. He said media free- fiscal revenues,” observed Ms. Hinojosa. doms cannot be the defence for publication of material that put American intelligence officials and operations at Sessions gets tough on leaks to media risk. “We respect the important role that the press plays A day after The Washington Post published transcripts of and will give them respect, but it is not unlimited. They U.S. President Donald Trump’s conversations with lead- cannot place lives at risk with impunity,” he said. ers of Australia and Mexico in January; the administration “This is betrayal of the country,” Director of National Intel- said it will come down heavily on officials leaking classi- ligence Dave Coats said, of the leaks. “We will find you, fied information to the public. Senior administration offi- investigate you and persecute you. You will not be happy cials indicated that journalists could also be held liable for with the results.” Existing guidelines requiring a journal- what they described as “criminal activities”. ist to depose before a court of law give substantial pro- Addressing the press morning, Attorney General Jeff tection to the sources. Such protections were expanded Sessions said unending leaks of intelligence information during the last year of the Barack Obama administration. and classified government documents have been- “in credibly damaging” to the country’s interests. “Simply put, Apple sets course for China policy minefield these leaks hurt our country,” Mr. Sessions said. Apple risks overstaying its welcome in China. The ‘Many criminal referrals’ $800-billion iPhone maker has enjoyed massive suc- “We will not allow rogue anonymous sources with securi- cess in the country compared to foreign peers. But as it ty clearances to sell out our country any longer,” he said. pushes into cloud, payments and services, it confronts Mr. Sessions said the Departmentaspirantforum.com of Justice has received the same unpredictable regulators and local rivals that “nearly as many criminal referrals involving unauthorised drove out the likes of Facebook and Uber. disclosures of classified information as we received in It’s no secret that China favours home-grown champions the last three years combined”. Deputy Attorney General over foreign businesses, for economic and national secu- Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray have rity reasons. Yet it brought in over a fifth of Apple’s total been directed to oversee all classified leaks investiga- Visit Aspirantforum.com for guidance and study material for IAS Exam. aspirantforum.com Hindu and PIB Crux Vol. 36 News and Events of August 2017

revenue in the last fiscal year, and a quarter of its $60 bil- mous vote. It will only come into effect in a year’s time. lion in operating profit, according to analysts at Bernstein. Chhaupadi is linked to Hinduism and considers women To compare, China accounted for just a fraction of total untouchable when they menstruate, as well as after revenue at IBM, Oracle, and EMC. And unlike chipmaker childbirth. They are banished from the home, barred from Qualcomm, which was slapped with a record $975 million touching food, religious icons, cattle and men and forced anti-trust fine two years ago, boss Tim Cook has steered to sleep in basic huts known as chhaugoth . clear of Beijing’s wrath so far. Deaths during ritual These days, Apple’s biggest threat comes from locals. Last month, a teenage girl died after being bitten by a iPhone shipments tumbled 27% year on year in the first snake while sleeping in a chhaugoth . Two other women quarter of 2017, as Huawei and OPPO gain market share, died in late 2016 in separate incidents while also following according to IDC. Weak sales of Apple’s older, cheaper the ritual — one of smoke inhalation after she lit a fire for models, as well as premium buyers waiting longer to up- warmth, while the other death was unexplained. Rights grade to the next phone, have weighed on China revenue activists say many other deaths likely go unreported. for the past few quarters. So Apple wants to bring in more The SC banned chhaupadi more than a decade ago but money from apps and services. The firm said in July it it is still followed in parts of Nepal, particularly in remote was opening up its first local data centre with a partner to western districts. power its iCloud service. Lawmaker Krishna Bhakta Pokhrel, who was part of the App store sales in China, though still small, are up 90% committee that pushed the Bill through, said he hoped year on year in 2016, making the country the fastest- the new law would finally see an end to the custom. “ growing and highest-paying app market for the company. Chhaupadi didn’t end, because there was no law to pun- Beijing is paying attention. ish people even after the Supreme Court outlawed the Censor row practice,” Pokhrel said. Censors forced Apple to shut down its online book and Women’s rights activist Pema Lhaki described the law film stores just six months after launching, the New York as unenforceable as it is related to a deeply entrenched Times reported last year, citing sources. Tough cyber- belief system that is harder to change. “It’s a fallacy that security laws on data surveillance and storage require- it’s men who make the woman do this. Yes, Nepal’s patri- ments add uncertainty to iCloud. archal society plays a part but it’s the women who make Meanwhile, Apple will have to catch up to Alibaba, Ten- themselves follow chhaupadi ,” she said. cent and Baidu, which already dominate in cloud storage, mobile payments, app stores and online content. The company is investing heavily and opening R&D centres It’s government versus judiciary in in China. It has appointed its first managing director for Bangladesh the region. Turbulent times await her. The Bangladesh Supreme Court’s decision to nullify the 16th amendment to the Constitution, which empowered the country’s Parliament to remove top court judges, has Nepal to criminalise isolation of women triggered strong criticism from the government of Prime during menstruation Minister Sheikh Hasina. Nepal’s parliament criminalised an ancient Hindu prac- The verdict, the full text of which was released, also drew tice that banishes women from the home during men- flak from Awami League MPs as well as the country’s struation. Law Commission Chairman. Many communities in Nepal view menstruating women Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister AnisulHaq told re- as impure and in some remote areas they are forced to porters that the government was “aggrieved” by the ver- sleep in a hut away from home during their periods, a dict, and that it was considering whether to appeal the custom known as chhaupadi . ruling. The new law stipulates aspirantforum.coma three-month jail sentence or a ‘Upsetting ruling’ Rs. 2,000 fine, or both, for anyone forcing a woman to In the 799-page verdict, Chief Justice Surendra Kumar follow the custom. “A woman during her menstruation or Sinha focussed on a host of issues such as military rule, post-natal state should not kept in chhaupadi or treated the Election Commission, corruption, governance and with any kind of similar discrimination or untouchable and the independence of the judiciary. “The Chief Justice has Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. inhumane behaviour,” reads the law, passed in an unani- undermined Parliament with offensive comments. I be-

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lieve the court has nothing to do with political issues. His While exiled in isolation, some women face bitter cold statements are upsetting,” Mr. Haq said. or attacks by wild animals. Unclean conditions can also He, however, added: “The office of the Chief Justice is a cause infections. constitutional institution... It is our responsibility to protect “People will be discouraged to follow this discriminatory its dignity.” custom due to fear of punishment” now that the new Bill On an observation in the verdict by the Chief Justice that is passed, said lawmaker Krishna Bhakta Pokhrel from the “credit of for independence does not go to a single the committee that drafted the Bill. person” — an oblique reference to country’s founding fa- But a female parliamentarian from the far-western district ther Sheikh Mujibur Rahman — the Law Minister said: of Doti, where menstrual exile is still practised, said the “It’s indeed painful for us to reiterate the truth 47 years legislation passed alone would not be enough, and the after independence. That’s why we decided for measures government should also invest in educating women on to expunge the offensive and irrelevant statements.” good hygiene. ‘Judges’ republic’ The legislation was part of an ongoing effort to improve Several MPs in Parliament have also raised concerns the country’s laws. over the “motive” behind some observations made by the Chief Justice. A.B.M. KhairulHaque, a former Chief U.S. must promote education to counter rad- Justice, said the Constitution of Bangladesh says this is the People’s Republic, “but after this verdict, it seems icalisation our country is going to be the judges’ republic of Bang- UNESCO at a critical juncture, says the French candi- ladesh”. date for Director-General, stressing need for dialogue At a media briefing, Justice Haque, now the Law Com- among members mission Chairman termed the verdict “misconceived, ir- As the race for the Unesco Director-General heats up, the relevant and immature”. The Supreme Court made its nine candidates from different countries are making their observations overlooking “the main issue of the case,” way to India, seen as one of the most important votes to he said. get. In an interview, Audrey Azoulay, who as French pres- “If the Chief Justice says the current Parliament is im- idential adviser on culture had led many programmes on mature, I have to say the Supreme Court judges are im- preserving culture and history, including rescuing Syrian mature as they unnecessarily used derogatory and un- monuments desecrated by ISIS, says the biggest prob- parliamentary language about the parliament members lem for the U.N. organisation today is the withdrawal of in the verdict,” he said. funding, particularly from the U.S. You hope to lead UNESCO at a time of finan- cial crisis. What has caused this situation, and Nepal tightens laws against dowry, menstrual what solutions you would like to implement? exile This issue cannot be resolved without addressing how Nepal’s Parliament has passed a Bill toward making the organisation operates and assessing its work. Some women safer by strengthening laws against acid attacks member states have raised questions as to Unesco’s reli- along with the ancient Hindu customs of demanding ability and efficiency, and it is in our responsibility to re- dowry payments for marriage and exiling women who are build a true confidence pact with both public and private menstruating. contributors. The new law goes into effect in August 2018, with viola- It is necessary to rebuild dialogue with the U.S. and all tors who force women into exile facing punishments of member states in arrears of their contribution to the or- up to three months in jail or a fine of 3,000 Nepalese ganisation. rupees, or about Rs. 1,875. Many menstruating women How significant will changes in world leader- are still forced to leave their homes and take shelter in ship, especially in the U.S. be to Unesco’s fu- insecure huts or cow shedsaspirantforum.com until their cycle ends, though ture and that of the Sustainable Development the practice called Chhaupadi was actually outlawed a Goals (SDGs)? How do you hope to counter the decade ago. But without any assigned penalties, the cus- Trump administration’s disinterest in funding tom continued in many parts of the majority Hindu Hima- the United Nations and UNESCO in particular? layan country, especially in the western hills. It is in the interest of Americans to promote education all Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. ‘Bill alone not enough’ over the world as the response to terrorism and radicali-

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sation cannot be only taking security measures; it must Kosovo, or over the ownership of Jerusalem naturally be through education. I understand that a new and Hebron. As D-G, how will you work to re- dialogue will have to be established with the current U.S. duce the politicisation? administration. All programmes implemented in the or- The organisation is indeed divided on these issues, but ganisation are of interest to American society and actors. division is not inevitable. UNESCO is the only place I believe strongly in the benefits of multilateralism. But where men and women of goodwill can address sensitive if this conviction is not shared, there is little that can be issues on a level playing field, transcending the balances achieved. of power between states. UNESCO must represent the France is a member of the P-5, but you are up hopes of our new generations. against China, as well as candidates from the Arab world — a region that has not yet had Google voice search in eight more languages a term, including the Egyptian candidate who Google has unveiled its voice search facility in eight ad- is backed by the African Union. Why do you ditional Indian languages. In a statement, the technology propose that India would support your candi- major said that the latest move was part of its efforts to dature over the others? help solve the challenge for India’s next billion users. The The selection procedure for the Director-General’s posi- new languages include Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Ma- tion is based on an open pool of candidacies. As you are layalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. Speakers of aware, there are nine candidates in all: four from the Arab these languages will be able to use their voice to dic- Group and five from other geographical groups, including tate queries — both in Gboard on Android as well as in one from Latin America and three from Asia (Azerbaijan, Search through the Google App. China and Vietnam). “Using voice to dictate a message is not just convenient, The competition is thus, balanced and fair. As Unesco but it is also up to three times faster than typing,” the Director-General, I will always be fair-minded and will- company said. ing to listen to each geographical group, and I will do my Google said users could now use voice input in their local utmost to ensure that no group feels marginalized or un- language to search for what they are looking for without acknowledged. the need to type on a tiny keyboard, making the user ex- As regards India, it is a key player in UNESCO, highly perience that much faster and easier. valued for its commitment in each of the fields of action To perform voice-based search, users will need to set of the organization: education, heritage and culture, sci- their language in the Voice settings menu in the Google ences, freedom of the press. Your country’s involvement app. in Unesco is fully in line with the spirit in which the French Government presented my candidacy for the post of Di- rector General. RERA rules CREDAI’s London meet On the subject of representation, seven of 10 A recent meeting of the Confederation of Real Estate De- previous D-G’s of Unesco have belonged to Eu- velopers’ Associations of India (CREDAI) in London was rope or America. Shouldn’t this election see a dominated by discussions over the Real Estate (Regula- candidate from the “East” succeed instead? tion and Development) Act 2016, better known as RERA, UNESCO is at a critical turning point in its history. The with industry representatives voicing their concerns par- real issue is the future of UNESCO, not the nationality of ticularly over the legislation’s impact on ongoing projects. the candidates. The CREDAI delegates attending the meeting debated All candidacies are relevant. Mine is coherent with my the changing dynamics and opportunities in the Indian personal experience and the values of humanism, cultur- real estate market — as well as the opportunities in Brit- al diversity, multilateralism, and universalism — promot- ain, which is keen to lure investment from India into its ed and implemented by France, and all member states real estate sector. and partners that share aspirantforum.comthese common values. Bolstered Definition of ‘ongoing’ by these values and this tradition, France is in a position RERA, brought in to protect the interests of home buy- to dialogue with everyone and build consensus. ers, and codify the running of the sector (with the aim On the whole, UNESCO has been impacted by of boosting investment in real estate over the long term) came into force on May 1, with individual States required Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. “politicisation” for example on the votes over to declare the rules within a 90 day period. While CRE-

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DAI has welcomed the regulations, on grounds that it will the World Gold Council, he said that in March 2017, when help weed out unscrupulous developers and set higher the price of Bitcoin surpassed the price of an ounce of standards, its members are concerned about the provi- gold for the first time, many thought gold had found a sions regarding ongoing projects, warning that it could digital rival. “It hasn’t — this is merely a nominal coinci- have long term, negative reverberations for the industry, dence,” Mr. Morris wrote. ultimately hitting supply and pricing. Part of the problem lies around the lack of clarity on what constitutes an ongoing project said Prakash Challa, the Chairman of Chennai-based SSPDL Ltd.. He argued that the law, when it comes to ongoing projects, is actually un- implementable in several ways — ranging from the treat- ment of common areas in buildings to the defect liability period, to the legislation’s requirement that 70% of pro- ceeds from the project be placed in a separate account. Under the law, developers have 90 days to register ongo- ing projects, but with many States having pushed close to the deadline to declare the rules (Maharashtra was the only state to declare them from the outset), developers have been struggling to meet the 90-day registration pro- cess, leaving them potentially in breach of the legislation, and unable to market or sell their projects. “Irrespective of what reassurances the States are giving or not giving on this count, the Act prevails, so techni- cally speaking you are in violation,” said Jaxay Shah, the national president of CREDAI, who has called for more clarity on the rules. “We welcome RERA and we are not ‘Tenfold rise’ shying away from laws but this is a serious and most While the Bitcoin market was small and growing, the fragile situation.” gold market was deep and enjoyed unrivalled stability, Need ‘pragmatic’ fix he said. Observing that about $1.5 billion changed hands “Short term there has to be a pragmatic solution for RERA daily over the Bitcoin network, Mr. Morris wrote the val- on ongoing projects,” said CREDAI Chairman Getamber- ue had risen tenfold in the last three years — with all Anand. He argued that in its effort to protect customers, transactions bypassing the banking system. “Whatever the legislation was in danger of going to the other ex- that money is up to, most thinking folks acknowledge the treme, potentially risking the long-term goal of increasing blockchain behind it is a technological masterpiece.” secure and affordable housing. While gold had lost much of its former role, Mr. Morris ar- “In the legislation there is no place where we can go as gued that it had maintained its credibility and status with developers, if we don’t get a completion certification in central banks and other long-term investors. While gold time for a completed project, there is no provision if I offered no annual income, the market remained vibrant, don’t get the electricity connection, the water for my com- signalling it was a true and safe haven. “Gold should pleted project…there is a documented shortage of hous- continue to thrive in the digital age as it remains the ul- ing which is why we have the ambition of housing for all timate store of value.” Blockchain technology is immuta- by 2022, but why are we actually shooting ourselves in ble, meaning past data cannot be changed, making it an the foot?” important point of reference. “Using blockchain, modern communications enable gold to be redistributed around ‘Bitcoin is no rival aspirantforum.comto gold’ the world at the touch of a button, without ever leaving Bitcoin and gold can happily coexist and the crypto- the vaults.” currency would not rival the yellow metal, according to Charles Morris, chief investment officer at Newscape The lowdown on the anti-Confederacy

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. Group, a London-based financial services firm. movement Writing in the latest issue of Gold Investor, published by Visit Aspirantforum.com for guidance and study material for IAS Exam. aspirantforum.com Hindu and PIB Crux Vol. 36 News and Events of August 2017

The United States’ anti-Confederacy movement refers to economy, which was in turn the backbone of the South- the sustained campaign to remove symbols of the Con- ern states. It certainly has not helped bolster the case for federacy, a self-declared nation of 11 states that seceded 21st century Confederate pride that the Confederate flag from the Union around 1861. The Confederacy, all of was used extensively by the Ku Klux Klan. Setting aside whose constituents had legalised slavery, was dissolved overt white supremacy claims, one argument against the in 1865 after Confederate forces surrendered to the Un- removal of Confederate icons is that there is a distinction ion army in the American Civil War. The anti-Confederacy between retaining the statues of men such as George movement considers symbols of the Confederacy, includ- Washington on the one hand – a founding father of the ing the Confederate flag, statues of generals and heroes, U.S. who may be considered flawed if measured on the monuments, city seals, the names of streets, parks and yardstick of modern sensibilities – and those of Robert E. schools, and official state holidays to be endorsements Lee, who may be considered a rebel who tried to break of the country’s troubling history of racist oppression of the Union down. African-Americans. The movement argues that persistent There have been at least 100 attempts at the state and racial disparities in the U.S. today imply that the country local levels to remove or alter symbols of the Confed- is yet to experience reconciliation between these two eth- eracy, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, nicities and move past its violent 19th and 20th century despite which at least 1,503 such symbols still stand, in- history of slavery and segregation respectively. cluding 718 monuments and statues; 109 public schools; The most recent wave of the anti-Confederacy move- 80 counties and cities; nine official holidays in six states; ment is rooted in the June 17, 2015 murder of nine Af- and 10 U.S. military bases. The authority to remove a rican-American churchgoers in Charleston, South Caro- Confederate symbol varies depending on the specific lina, by white supremacist Dylann Roof. In the immediate symbol and the public space it occupies, as well as the aftermath of the murders, photographs of Roof with the state laws applicable. In many cases removal was au- Confederate flag were discovered, leading to enormous thorised by Governors, Mayors, City Councillors, County pressure on political leaders across Southern states to Commissioners, or private persons in the case of private remove Confederate symbols from public offices and property. Many more Confederate symbols slated for re- spaces. On June 22, 2015, South Carolina’s erstwhile moval have become vectors of protest on both sides. The Governor Nikki Haley took down the Confederate flag at debate will continue. the State House. After that episode the anti-Confederacy movement again jumped into fourth gear last weekend Trump links India’s Afghan role to trade sur- when white supremacist protesters descended upon Charlottesville, Virginia, in a rally against the city’s plan plus to take down a statue of Confederate General Robert E. President Donald Trump, who announced his new Af- Lee. Following several days of violent clashes between ghan strategy night, linked a proposal for India playing a white nationalists, anti-Confederates and other protest- bigger role in the war-torn country to its trade surplus with ers, tensions soared when U.S. President Donald Trump the United States. waded into the debate by tweeting that it was “foolish” to “We appreciate India’s important contributions to stability take down Confederate statues. in Afghanistan, but India makes billions of dollars in trade Racial discrimination in the U.S. today, manifested in, for with the United States, and we want them to help us more example, deadly encounters between law enforcement with Afghanistan, especially in the area of economic as- and unarmed African-Americans, raises serious ques- sistance and development,” he said, echoing similar de- tions about the emotional impact of letting Confederate mands that he had made on South Korea, Japan and icons remain. Contrarily, the Confederate flag and stat- Germany, some of the closet allies of the U.S. India is the ues of Confederate generals are viewed by some white ninth biggest trading partner of the U.S. and India had a Southerners as an “emblem of their heritage and regional trade surplus of around $26 billion with the U.S. in goods pride.” The crux of the argumentaspirantforum.com is whether the legacy of trade alone last year. the Confederate movement, in terms of its martial con- By inviting India to be a partner in Afghanistan, Mr. Trump quests and struggle for secession from the Union, can be has entirely overruled Pakistan’s position that India’s in- viewed in isolation from the premise of legalised slavery, volvement to its west is part of the problem.

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. although the latter was the cornerstone of the plantation Nuclear flashpoint The President, who repeatedly took potshots at his pre- Visit Aspirantforum.com for guidance and study material for IAS Exam. aspirantforum.com Hindu and PIB Crux Vol. 36 News and Events of August 2017

decessor, Barack Obama, without naming him, however, and Vietnam. appeared to follow the previous administration’s under- India has suffered a trade deficit in respect of five ASEAN standing of South Asia as a nuclear flash point, where members — Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei and there is also a risk of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling Lao PDR — over 2015-16 and 2016-17, with the biggest into the hands of Islamist terrorists. deficit emerging in trade with Indonesia, the committee “The threat is worse because Pakistan and India are two has noted. nuclear-armed states whose tense relations threaten to Indonesia tariffs spiral into conflict,” he said. “…and we must prevent nu- “Under the existing trade agreement, Indonesia has com- clear weapons and materials from coming into the hands mitted a tariff elimination on 50.1% of its items which is of terrorists and being used against us,” he said. the least in comparison to other ASEAN member States,” Defense Secretary James Mattis had recently said Amer- the committee said in its report on Indo-ASEAN trade is- ica was “not winning” in Afghanistan. The President said sues released. “The least tariff elimination by Indonesia America will fight the war to victory and defined victory in has resulted in biggest trade deficit from India amongst terms similar to his predecessors — to prevent a terrorist all ASEAN member States.” attack originating from the region, and to politically stabi- The committee chaired by BJP MP Bhupender Yadav lise Afghanistan. In an effort to differentiate his policy from has said India must seek better market access for goods his two predecessors, George W. Bush and Mr. Obama, where India has an edge over ASEAN nations, like leath- who oversaw this war earlier, Mr. Trump said: “We are er goods and pharmaceuticals, to improve the trade bal- not nation-building again. We are killing terrorists.” The ance. The committee stressed that its examination of the President called his new policy “Principled Realism.” Indo-ASEAN trade dynamics assumed significance given Reverse Taliban gains that this year marks 25 years of the formal partnership. The new strategy in Afghanistan, which seeks troops in- The Ministry of Commerce apprised the panel that the crease in the country, is an effort to reverse the gains imports of essential commodities — coal, petroleum and made by the Taliban in the last year or so. Once the Af- edible oils — from ASEAN constitute a significant per- ghan government regains the upper hand, the U.S. will centage of India’s imports and that ‘if these essential seek a political settlement, the President said. “Someday, commodities are excluded, India will have a better or after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible positive balance of trade position.’ to have a political settlement that includes elements of Taking a strong exception to this stance, the committee the Taliban in Afghanistan, but nobody knows if or when held that ‘if this approach or argument is subscribed, then that will ever happen,” said Mr. Trump. there was no need for the trade agreement with ASEAN.’ Secretary of State Rex Tillerson explained the new U.S “The import of essential commodities will continue with or policy as an effort to force the Taliban to negotiation. “Our without the trade agreements. The better market access new strategy breaks from previous approaches that set in terms of higher export has not materialised and this artificial calendar-based deadlines. We are making clear is a matter of concern. The Committee would like to im- to the Taliban that they will not win on the battlefield. press on the Department that various trade instruments/ The Taliban has a path to peace and political legitimacy agreements must aim towards better market access,” it through a negotiated political settlement to end the war,” asserted. he said in a statement after the President’s speech. As per official data, among the ‘essential commodities’ cited by the government, imports of coal fell by 2.5% in 2016-17 from a year earlier, while vegetable oil imports MPs fret over trade deficit with ASEAN grew by 3.7% to touch $6.19 billion in 2016-17. Crude The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce petroleum imports rose by almost 50% in 2016-17, but has questioned the government for suggesting that the exports of petroleum products (India’s top export product country’s increasing trade deficit with ASEAN nations is to the ASEAN bloc) surged 58.4%. due to imports of essentialaspirantforum.com commodities and has strongly Among the other top 10 commodities imported from recommended that India seek better market access for ASEAN, consumer electronics grew at the highest its products and services with the 10-nation bloc. pace in 2016-17 (18.33%), followed by ships and boats The Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) (12.82%), electronic components (11.72%) and telecom comprises of Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, Malay- instruments (9.17%). India’s second-largest export com- Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. sia, Brunei, Thailand, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar modity to ASEAN — buffalo meat — saw a 4.92% in-

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crease in 2016-17 to reach $2.78 billion. Fourth-largest partner ASEAN is India’s fourth largest trading partner with total trade in 2016-17 at $71.69 billion, constituting almost 11% of India’s overall global trade of $660.6 billion. Total exports to ASEAN in 2016-17 stood at $31.07 billion, while imports were $40.63 billion, creating an adverse trade balance of $9.56 billion. The committee also found that while exports of agricultural products from India faced high import tariffs and barriers, leading to a sharp drop in trade, India’s food processing sector had raised concerns about the ‘near absence of quality norms’ for import of cheap processed food products from ASEAN countries. Processed food imports “The Committee recommends the Department to look into cheap import of poor quality processed food products. It desires that appropriate quality norms may be fixed for import of such products from ASEAN as well as other regions of the world,” its report said. Similar concerns have been raised by the committee about the imposition of safeguards and non-tariff barriers by ASEAN nations on exports of India’s textiles and pharmaceuticals, while demanding that the government must ensure reciprocity in the reduction of tariffs in products like steel. It has also sought efforts to improve India’s access to services trade in ASEAN, with a focus on increasing the footprint of Indian banks and financial institutions in the region.

Mysuru’s public transport system smart, people-friendly: World Bank The country’s first technology-driven Mysuru public transport system has become “smart, safe, and efficient” and beneficial to lakhs of people across the city, the World Bank has said in its latest newsletter. “Mysuru has become the first Indian city to transform its bus services into a safe, efficient and smart system across its entire territory, benefiting both the people and the city,” it said. The bank-aided project (Rs. 19 crore) launched in 2012 helped the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) to install GPS enabled mini-computers above the driver’s seat in each of the city’s 430 buses. In addition, each bus and bus stop was geo-mapped and tagged, and the details fed into an IT-enabled intelligent system. Earlier, as in most cities, Mysuru’s public buses were seldom on time, stopped wherever they liked, or skipped stops entirely. KSRTC never knew which bus was where, how many buses were running, or whether a bus actually com- pleted its assigned journey or not. What’s more, drivers often drove recklessly, and overtime claims were frequently inflated, the World Bank said in its report. Now, at the central control room in the heart of the city, a giant screen displays the speed and location of each bus – blinking green, yellow or orange depending on whether a bus is on time, late or early. Moreover, lights splash when- ever a driver speeds, accelerates sharply, slams the brakes, or stalls for more than 20 minutes. “The intelligent transport system has not only resulted in a more people-friendly bus service but has also led to smoother operations and considerable savings for the operator,” it said. “Running public buses in mixed and often unpredictable traffic is a very complex operation,” explained K. Ramamur- thy, who executed the project as divisional controller and project manager of KSRTC’s Intelligent Transport System in Mysuru. With drivers being more careful, incidents of rash and dangerous driving have also dropped considerably. Besides, women now feel safer using public transport system, even after dark, the World Bank claimed. KSRTC now saves Rs. 1 crore a year on its city bus operations. Now, the Centre has proposed these projects under the Smart City concept.aspirantforum.com Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol.

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hostile element was a small triangular piece of land with a landmine warning. Nobody is carrying guns; it seemed as though the only thing “strictly prohibited” here is pho- India and tography. A few months ago, local traders claimed, they had en- tered China from Nathu La “with valid trading passes”. The World The pass finds mention often as part of the ancient Silk Route from Lhasa to Kalimpong to “reach the warm water Border peace must for China ties: India port of Kolkata” notes a brochure on Nathu La issued by India said peace and tranquility on the border was the the Indian Army. “prerequisite” for bilateral ties even as military sources “But tension is palpable these days along the border,” denied any withdrawal of forces from Doklam. The official says Sunil Kumar, a havildar with the Dogra Regiment. response from the External Affairs Ministry came after The epicentre of the “tension” is in Doklam, about 25 kilo- China, in a detailed 15-page official statement, reiterated metres south of Nathu La, at the tri-junction of south-west Beijing’s claim on the Doklam region, and indicated India Tibet, East Sikkim’s Chumbi Valley and west of Bhutan’s had scaled down its operation. Doklam Plateau. The confusion is about this tri-junction, “India’s positions on this issue and related facts have says a Brigadier-rank officer with the Army. “While we been articulated in our press statement of June 30, believe that the tri-junction is up to Batang La, a few kilo- 2017. India considers that peace and tranquillity in the metres north of Gyemo Chen [in Bhutan], the Chinese India-China border areas is an important prerequisite for believe that it [tri-junction] is up to Gyemo Chen, a few smooth development of our bilateral relations with Chi- kilometres south of Batang La” he says. na,” the Ministry said. British era Treaty Military sources said there had been no reduction in the The Chinese side is guided by a treaty between China presence of troops in the Doklam. At least 300 soldiers and Britain, signed in 1890 at Kolkata. The treaty says and 30 tents continued to remain in Doklam, the sources China and Britain will “respect the boundary” as per Arti- said. cle I of the treaty which indicated that the boundary “line In its June 30 statement, India said its forces had inter- commences at Mount Gipmochi [Gyemo Chen] on the vened in Doklam in the “tradition of maintaining close Bhutan frontier” at a height of approximately 14,500 feet. consultation on matters of mutual interest” with Bhutan. India is also bound by a 2007 treaty with Bhutan which Indian actions followed after the Foreign Ministry of Bhu- noted that none of the countries “shall allow the use of its tan said laying a motorable road by China in Doklam was territory for activities harmful to the national security and a violation by China. interest of the other.” While Batang La and Gyemo Chen are just few kilometres up or down on the eastern border Despite Doklam standoff, calm prevails on of Sikkim, the claim of China citing the 1890 Treaty is the roof of the world “harmful” to India’s security, the official says. Approaching Nathu La pass, as level as a table top, two giant Chinese flags, erected close to each other, catch Britain seeks investments from India in our attention. Between the flags, a dozen People’s Lib- housing, realty sector ‘beyond London’ eration Army soldiers, wearing camouflage uniforms, en- The British government is pushing for Indian investment joy the sunshine on giant rocks. They have binoculars into the country’s real estate sector, beyond London, to with them. They are in the Yadong area of Tibet while we support its drive to create more affordable housing across — Indian tourists — are at the pass, 14,140 feet above the country, among other things. sea level. The distance between us is approximately 50 “We have a diverse set of opportunities for inward invest- metres. ment from India,” Greg Hands, the Minister of State for The PLA soldiers are relaxed,aspirantforum.com waving to us. All that sepa- Trade and Investment told The Hindu. “We are particu- rates us is a row of rusted concertina wire, which can larly keen on getting investment beyond London as well be easily lifted. On either side of the wire is convention — there are opportunities in real estate, infrastructure, halls for meetings; a few flags on the Chinese side, a particularly energy infrastructure.” Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. giant Ashoka Pillar on the Indian side. Perhaps the only Affordable housing

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“I think that Indian investors could play a big role in our the Indian and Chinese troops in the territory claimed by affordable housing agenda,” he added. Bhutan. While foreign investors including from China and Qatar After the meeting, Mr. Dorji told reporters only that he have made big inroads into the U.K. real estate market, hoped, “the situation in Doklam will be resolved peaceful- the country has seen limited investment (beyond private ly and amicably.” The Foreign Ministers’ meeting was the investments in housing or hotels) from India. The excep- first high-level contact between India and Bhutan since tion is the Lodha group, which has two luxury housing the standoff began on June 16 after Indian troops went projects in London and has expressed its confidence onto the Doklam plateau to hold off a Chinese PLA team about moving to new price categories and beyond the that was building a road Bhutan objected to. residential sector. As the standoff enters the third month, diplomats say the At an event at the House of Lords for delegates of the next two weeks will be crucial to the effort. China’s top Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of communist party leaders are understood to have been India (CREDAI), the Department for International Trade meeting at the party’s “retreat” at the seaside resort of highlighted infrastructure and property development op- Beidaihe, an annual unofficial conclave, where the dé- portunities in northern England and the Midlands, includ- tente with India will no doubt be discussed, and a coordi- ing in and around Birmingham. nated signal on the road ahead will be sent out, ahead of “Real estate trends across the U.K. continue to be strong this year’s Autumn party conclave. from offices in London to logistics in the Midlands to ur- “What needs to be seen is what happens in the next few ban regeneration projects in Edinburgh,” Mr. Hands told days, and to watch the signals that China gives out after the meeting. “Investors from across the U.K. are seeing this crucial meeting closely,” former Foreign Secretary stable and profitable opportunities and we are deter- Shyam Saran said. mined to see businesses seize these opportunities as we In an article, Mr. Saran had recounted that the decision move forward towards Brexit.” by Chinese leader Mao to launch a “major border war” With the next round of the U.K.-Indian joint economic and against India was also taken at the ‘Beidaihe conference’ trade committee (JETCO) talks due to take place in Lon- in August 1962. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Inde- don later this year, Mr. Hands expressed confidence in pendence Day speech next week will also be watched efforts to boost bilateral trade and investment. closely for references to the current standoff with China. “JETCO is a very practical way of reducing obstacles to Last year, amid tensions with Pakistan, Mr. Modi had re- each other’s markets…we go through a series of specific ferred to India’s support to Balochistan at the August 15 sectors and the actual obstacles to doing trade and in- speech. vestment between our two countries,” he said. “We’d like to focus on the services industry and getting India keen to run Sri Lanka airport access. India is an enormous market and getting U.K. India has expressed interest to operate Sri Lanka’s sec- financial services and U.K. legal services better access ond international airport situated in Mattala, about 40 km is hugely important to us,” the minister said. from the southern town of Hambantota, where China has “These issues will be a key part of those talks as well as majority stake in a strategic port it built. the trade working group,” he said referring to the joint The Sri Lankan government earlier this week cleared working group on trade set up to look at opportunities and Civil Aviation Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva’s request obstacles to post-Brexit trade, including an FTA. for a committee to study the Indian government’s propos- al. India proposes to “operate, manage, maintain and de- Sushma discusses ‘range of issues’ with velop” the airport through a joint venture, holding 70% of Bhutan the equity for 40 years. According to the Minister’s Cabi- External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj discussed a net paper, India is to invest $205 million in the venture, “range of issues” with Bhutanese Foreign Minister Dam- while Sri Lanka would pitch in the balance $88 million. aspirantforum.comThe development comes less than a fortnight after Sri cho Dorji on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC conference of India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and Lanka signed a $1.1 billion deal with China, giving the Thailand in Kathmandu, MEA officials said , but made state-run China Merchants Port Holdings a 70% stake in no comment on the ongoing Doklam standoff between a joint venture to run the port. Additionally, Colombo also Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. roped in China to help develop an industrial zone in the

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adjoining land, spanning some 15,000 acres. and the U.K. Chinese loans In addition, Bangladesh is also scheduling an “extraordi- Built in 2010 by the government of former President nary conclave of Chiefs,” a meeting of chiefs of Navy be- Mahinda Rajapaksa with Chinese loans, the port was fore it hands over the Chair to Iran next year, the source deemed commercially unviable by his successor govern- added. ment, which decided to sell a majority stake to service Under the charter of business adopted in 2014, the part of the $8-billion debt Sri Lanka owes China. Beijing grouping has working groups on Humanitarian Assis- sees the port as a useful link in its ambitious One Belt tance and Disaster Relief (HADR), Information Security One Road initiative. and Interoperability (IS&I) and anti-piracy now renamed Amid New Delhi and Washington’s known apprehension as maritime security. over the Hambantota agreement — given the town’s stra- India has considerably expanded its engagement with tegic location on the island’s southern coast — Colombo countries to further its own interests as well as to check tweaked the port deal last month and said no foreign na- the rapid expansion of Chinese naval forays in the Indian val ship could call at the port without prior clearance. With Ocean. Other countries in the region are also engaged in India expressing interest to run the Mattala Rajapaksa In- rapid expansion of their military capabilities. ternational Airport (MRIA) nearby, Hambantota appears The working group’s conferences are held annually and poised to become a hub of rival strategic interests in the India had chaired the one on HADR in May this year and Indian Ocean region. Pakistan had chaired the meeting on IS&I in July. Financial strain As in the case of the port, it was Mr. Rajapaksa who built India out of Russia tank competition the airport with a $190 million loan from the Exim Bank of In a setback to the Indian Army’s tank fleet, the team China. Opened in 2013, the airport has proved a major which was competing in the global tank competition in financial strain, with barely two daily flights. As operation- Russia has crashed out of race after the T-90 tanks broke al losses persisted, Sri Lanka in December 2016 sought down due to a technical snag. expressions of interest to operate the airport through a The Indian team was among the top in an earlier round of public-private partnership. The government received a the competition and was expected to take the lead in the total of eight proposals, but the recent Cabinet commit- later rounds. According to official sources, the two T-90 tee has been asked to evaluate India’s proposal alone. tanks developed mechanical problems and were disqual- ified from the competition. India, China to join Indian Ocean exercise India is competing with 18 other countries, including Chi- Despite growing tensions with China, official sources na, in the ‘Tank Biathlon’ which began on July 29. These said the Indian Navy would join the People’s Liberation tank games have been held annually since 2013 as part Army (PLA) Navy in a maiden maritime search and res- of the International Army Games in the Alabino Ranges in cue exercise to be chaired by Bangladesh at the Indian Russia. The International Army Games involve 28 events Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) in November this year. held across Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan “Bangladesh, the current Chair, is scheduling a maiden and China. International Maritime Search and Rescue Exercise India joined the games three years ago but this has been (IMMSAREX) in November in the Bay of Bengal to be at- the first time it had taken its own tanks for the competi- tended by ships and aircraft of the members and observ- tion. In the past, Russia had provided its tanks for the ers of the IONS,” an official source said. Indian team. The IONS is a regional forum of Indian Ocean littoral India was among the 12 teams that made it to the semi- states, represented by their Navy chiefs, launched by In- final in the three-stage games. Belarus, China, Kazakh- dia in February 2008. It presently has 23 members and stan and Russia will now compete in the final stage. nine observers. “The competition involves firing on tanks on the move by Conclave of chiefs aspirantforum.comconventional machine guns and anti-tank projectiles at a The exercise comes at a time of intensifying competi- range of two kilometres, while negotiating rugged obsta- tion among regional navies for dominance in the Indian cles,” an Army source said. Ocean — navies of China and Japan, presently observ- Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. ers, in addition to member states like India, France, Iran India for mutually acceptable solution

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India said it will continue to engage with China to find a South and Central Asia, Mark Linscott, will lead a U.S. mutually acceptable solution to the Dokalam standoff, but official delegation to New Delhi in September for discus- underlined that incidents like one in Ladakh three days sions on the TPF agenda and on framing the contours ago were not in the “interest of either side”. of the proposed ‘comprehensive review’ of bilateral trade “Today, I can confirm that there was an incident at Pan- relations, official sources told The Hindu . gong Tso on August 15. This was subsequently discussed Prior to that, Mr. Linscott, Tanya Menchi, Deputy Assistant by the local army commanders of the two sides. Such USTR for South and Central Asia, and Brendan Lynch, incidents are not in the interest of either side. We should Director for India at the USTR Office, will participate in a maintain peace and tranquillity,” External Affairs Ministry round-table discussion on August 23 being organised by spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said. the advocacy body U.S.-India Business Council to take However, he did not confirm whether the incident in- inputs for the TPF meeting and the comprehensive re- volved stone pelting or use of rods and asserted that, “I view of bilateral trade ties. just said there was an incident”. He also emphasised that There were doubts about the future of the TPF, especial- the incident should not be linked with what was happen- ly following a U.S. government statement on August 15 ing in any other sector. mentioning that U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Mr. Kumar also did not confirm whether Prime Minister Minister Narendra Modi had decided to ‘establish a new Narendra Modi will travel to China next month to attend 2-by-2 ministerial dialogue that will elevate their strategic the BRICS summit, saying he does not have any informa- consultations.’ However, official sources said this meant tion about it. that the ‘commercial’ track will be taken out of the India- Asked about the current status of the standoff, he said, US ‘Strategic and Commercial Dialogue’ (S&CD), and “It is a sensitive issue... We will continue to engage with from now on take place independently. They said the TPF China to find mutually acceptable solution. Peace and will be held as usual in October, as happens every year. tranquillity in border areas are important pre-requisites for smooth development of bilateral relations.” India welcomes Trump’s new Afghanistan India to raise visa issue in trade policy policy Hitting out at cross-border terrorism from Pakistan, India meets welcomed U.S. President Donald Trump’s new policy on The Centre will, during the India-U.S. Trade Policy Forum Afghanistan and said his move would help target “safe (TPF) meeting likely in October, raise Indian industry’s havens” of terrorism in South Asia. concerns over the U.S. visa ‘curbs’ and the ‘delay’ in ink- Senior diplomats said the American leader’s call for an ing a bilateral social security pact (or totalisation agree- end to Pakistan’s involvement in terrorism in Afghanistan ment). and his support for Afghan-led peace process had ad- In the TPF meeting, the premier forum to resolve bilateral dressed a core Indian concern. trade and investment issues, the U.S. is expected to ta- “We welcome President Trump’s determination to en- ble its worries over India’s ‘restrictions’ on e-commerce hance efforts to overcome the challenges facing Afghan- as well as the ‘challenges’ faced by American innova- istan and confronting issues of safe havens and other tive industries due to India’s ‘weak’ Intellectual Property forms of cross-border support enjoyed by terrorists,” said Rights regime. the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in an official state- In addition, New Delhi would take up the ‘non-tariff barri- ment. Speaking to The Hindu , senior diplomats said Mr. ers’ by the U.S. that are hurting Indian agriculture, phar- Trump had supported long-held Indian foreign policy maceuticals and other industrial exports, while Washing- principles of non-intervention and non-interference and ton is likely to raise its concerns over India’s ‘excessively ended uncertainties regarding the U.S. involvement in high tariffs’ on imports of many manufactured products as Afghanistan. well as the $24.3 billionaspirantforum.com goods trade deficit that the U.S. Mr. Trump urged India to do more to help Afghanistan had with India in 2016. with its developmental needs and urged Pakistan to stop Discussions next month terror attacks that originate from its territory. Ahead of the TPF meeting that will be held in Washing-

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. ton DC, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) for

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China slams India over road-building in The global spot market price for solar panels in the sec- ond quarter fell at the slowest pace since the three months Ladakh ended in December 2015, according to data compiled by China slammed India for apparently building a new road PVinsights. While the decline has picked up slightly this in the Ladakh sector, but lavished praise on Pakistan, month, they’re down 10% since the beginning of the year, which it said was a key partner. compared with a 35% drop in 2016. “It seems that the Indian side is slapping its own face,” The slowdown is complicating plans for solar developers Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying in India, who were anticipating the cost of their panels said in response to reports that India was building a road would fall more quickly and are now facing an unexpect- between Marsimik La and Hot Spring. The area is not ed reduction in their returns. That’s making the industry far from the Pangong Lake in Ladakh, where there was more cautious about future developments, adding a hur- an unarmed clash between Indian and Chinese troops dle to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambition for quick earlier this month. growth in clean-energy. Ms. Hua’s comments come against the backdrop of a “If the current module prices do not go down, the devel- crisis in the Doklam plateau near India-China-Bhutan tri- opers would take a hit on their expected returns as these junction, where Indian and Chinese troops are engaged bids carry razor-thin margins,” said Allen Tom Abraham, in a standoff over road-building by China. a New Delhi-based analyst with Bloomberg New Energy “Now, the current road construction in that area by the Finance. Indian side is not conducive to peace and stability. It will China, which accounts for more than 80% of global solar not help with settlement of the current situation,” Ms. Hua panel production, is also the biggest market for solar pan- said, referring to the Doklam face-off. els. It added 23 gigawatts of new solar capacity in the first “Indian side is closely following China’s road-building re- half of this year, almost double the 13 gigawatts India has cently but India’s action itself has proven that the Indian installed to date. The government in China is seeking to side says something and does another,” she added. double installations by the end of 2020. Countering Trump In India, developers have been bidding aggressively in China also backed Pakistan as its partner in the China auctions for power-purchase contracts, offering regula- Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Ms. Hua cited a tors some of the cheapest power from photovoltaics any- conversation between U.S. Secretary of State Rex Till- where. Those calculations were made in anticipation of erson and China’s State Councillor Yang Jeichei, where further sharp declines in PV prices. Now, developers are he commended Pakistan on its role in Afghanistan. The seeing their returns dwindle. phone call followed U.S. President Donald Trump’s South In May, companies promised to supply solar power for Asia policy statement, where he had cited shortcomings as little as Rs2.44 (or 3.8 cents) a kilowatt-hour, meaning in Pakistan’s counter-terrorism approach. But quoting Mr. India would have some of the cheapest solar power in Yang, the spokesperson said: “We also value Pakistan’s the world. Those offers were based on the assumption role in the Afghanistan issue and respect Pakistan’s sov- that module prices would fall, according to Sujoy Ghosh, ereign and reasonable security concerns.” country head for India at Tempe, Arizona-based First So- Separately, when asked to comment on this week’s visit lar Inc. to China by Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Tehmina Jan- Long-term returns for projects awarded at the May auc- jua, Ms. Hua said China and Pakistan are “all-weather tion prices are in the single digits, meaning free cash flow strategic partners and we have always given each other will be difficult to generate given India’s high cost of capi- support for our core concerns and interests”. tal, Ghosh said. “Against the current backdrop we appreciate Pakistan’s Price concerns efforts in insuring security… in CPEC”. China’s demand and a reduction in the production of polysilicon, a raw material used in most panels, are con- China’s solar appetiteaspirantforum.com eats into India’s clean tributing to the firming of prices, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. energy effort “Suppliers are not willing to supply at rates assumed by Indian solar projects banking on a continuous supply of some of the Indian developers,” Anish De, partner and ever-cheaper panels are now under threat as China’s ap- Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. head for infrastructure strategy and operations at KPMG, petite props up prices.

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said in a phone interview. “Anything under a three-rupee- the ‘Donglang’ [Doklam] area” and that China exercised a-unit tariff is going to be questionable.” “sovereignty” there, implying that Beijing, so far, did not It’s not just India that’s seeing panel prices inch higher. consider the area as a disputed tri-junction. They’ve also risen about 20% in the US since Suniva At least two Indian government sources confirmed that Inc., based in Norcross, Georgia, asked the government India had agreed to withdraw troops first as a “goodwill to impose duties on solar panels imported from China, gesture”, giving the Chinese side a face-saver. “One according to BNEF’s third-quarter market outlook for the side had to move first,” an official said. “While we agreed solar industry published on 18 August. to move first, China agreed to meet us half-way on the India also recently started an anti-dumping investigation agreement.” into China-made cells to protect domestic manufacturers, Parties welcome move which are too small to meet local demand. Chinese so- CPI national secretary D. Raja said: “India and China lar goods have undercut prices in India by almost 40%, have shown great maturity in ending the standoff. We according to the Indian Solar Manufacturers Association, have consistently maintained that the standoff should the industry body which asked for an investigation. end.” The Congress also welcomed the move. Hedging risks While officials denied that “any country” other -than In While China offered to ease trade friction, political ten- dia and China had been involved, and only Bhutan was sions linger between the two nations over a border dis- informed of the progress of talks, Russian diplomatic pute in the Himalayas. Trade disputes aside, Indian de- sources told The Hindu they had expressed “deep con- velopers who bid in auctions based on prices in the low cerns to our partners in both capitals”. 20 cents per watt are concerned, according to BNEF. Officials said while the crisis ahead of the BRICS summit “After hedging all the risks, it was difficult for us to match had been averted, there was a need for bilateral engage- the bids that won at the solar auctions,” said Rajiv Ran- ment to clarify China and India’s position on boundary jan Mishra, managing director at the Indian arm of Hong talks, the Sikkim boundary, and the location of the tri- Kong-based CLP Holdings Ltd CLP sat out previous auc- junction. tion rounds. “We have stemmed the free fall in relations that was Others say projects bid at low tariff levels are ill-equipped feared for now,” said one official, “but can’t comment on to face risks such as cost and time overruns or payment the road ahead.” delays, impacting their economic viability. “The margin of safety would eventually come back as With standoff ending, Modi to visit China companies start experiencing issues during construction The announcement of Mr. Modi’s visit to Xiamen came of projects,” Sanjay Aggarwal, managing director for In- hours after Bhutan issued a press statement welcoming dia at Finnish power utility Fortum OYJ, said by phone. the end of the Doklam-related tension between India and “When I say margin of safety, one assumes on a piece of China and said, “We hope this contributes to the main- paper that everything would go as predicted and it never tenance of peace and tranquillity and status quo along happens.” Bloomberg the borders of Bhutan, China and India in keeping with existing agreements between the respective countries.” Doklam crisis ends as India, China step back According to other sources, the two sides would also see a meeting between National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and state councillor Yang Jiechi. While neither side spoke about the future of the PLA’s road construction towards Jompelri, which had sparked off the standoff on Juneaspirantforum.com 16 after Indian troops moved to assist Bhutanese troops in the area, the fact that troops and construction equipment would be cleared from the “face-off point” indicated that China had put off any plans to further construct the road in the “turning point” area. Myanmar visit Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. Chinese officials said “border troops continue to patrol Mr. Modi will return home after paying a significant visit to

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Myanmar between September 5-7. The MEA noted that the visit would be the first to that country by Mr. Modi and include Myanmar’s capital Nay Pyi Taw, Yangon and the ancient Buddhist city of Bagan. “During the visit, the Prime Minister will hold discussions with State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on matters of mutual interest and also call on President U Htin Kyaw,” said the official announcement. Mr. Modi had hosted Ms. Suu Kyi during an outreach for the BIMSTEC on the sideline of the BRICS summit held in Goa in 2016. The visit to Myanmar comes days after India expressed concern over fights between Rohingya attackers and the Myanmar security forces. In a strong statement issued on August 26, India extended support to the Myanmar security forces and described the attackers as “terrorists.”

Switzerland President on 3-day visit In a boost to bilateral ties, Swiss President Doris Leuthard began a three-day visit to India night. The visit is significant as Switzerland is the chair of the Nuclear Suppliers Group where India has been seeking mem- bership. “Both countries share common views on many major global issues. The visit will provide an opportunity to both sides for holding wide-ranging discussions on bilateral, global and regional issues of mutual interest,” a press release said. The Swiss leader is being accompanied by senior government officials and a large business delegation. Ms. Leuthard will hold talks with President Ramnath Kovind. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Vice- President Venkaiah Naidu will also hold talks. The visit is likely to help closer consultation on NSG membership. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Switzerland in June 2016 when tax evasion and black money menace were discussed.

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like iron and zinc in staple crops, leading to further nutri- tional deficiencies worldwide. Researchers calculated that by 2050, higher CO2 con- Science, centrations will sap the protein contents of barley by 14.6%, rice by 7.6%, wheat by 7.8%, and potatoes by 6.4%. “If CO2 levels continue to rise as projected, the popu- Tech. and lations of 18 countries may lose more than 5% of their dietary protein by 2050 due to a decline in the nutritional value of rice, wheat, and other staple crops,” said the re- Environment port. The hardest hit areas are expected to be Sub-Saharan Africa, where millions already don’t get enough protein Global warming cuts protein in key crops in their diets, and South Asia where rice and wheat are Rising carbon dioxide levels from global warming will common staples. drastically reduce the amount of protein in staple crops India alone may lose 5.3% of protein from a standard like rice and wheat, leaving vulnerable populations at risk diet, putting a predicted 53 million people at new risk of of growth stunting and early death, experts warned . protein deficiency. Researchers say they still don’t understand how or why carbon dioxide emissions sap protein and other nutrients from plants, but the mystery is one that could have dev- Disease gene ‘edited’ in human embryos Scientists in the United States have repaired a disease- astating consequences across the globe. causing mutation in the DNA of early-stage human em- An additional 150 million people globally may be at risk bryos, they said , taking a step closer to engineering ba- of protein deficiency by 2050 because of rising levels of bies free of inherited disorders. carbon dioxide in the atmosphere said the report in the The team’s successful use of the CRISPR “gene editing” journal Environmental Research Letters . tool in viable embryos was hailed as a technical feat by The study, led by Harvard University researchers, is the outside experts, who called at the same time for deeper first to quantify the impacts of global warming on the pro- debate on the ethics of altering human DNA. tein levels of crops. The lab-created, edited embryos were not allowed to de- Field experiments velop beyond a few days, when they comprised a handful It relies on data from open field experiments in which of cells. plants were exposed to high concentrations of CO2. Just over 72% of the embryos — 42 out of 58 — ended Global dietary information from the United Nations was up being free of a heart disease-causing mutation carried used to calculate the impact on people who live danger- in the DNA of the sperm used to create them, a team ously close to the edge when it comes to getting enough reported in the journal Nature . protein. Without it, growth is stunted, diseases are more This was an improvement on the 50% odds for embryos common and early mortality is far more likely. that result naturally from a couple in which one partner Carbon dioxide is a byproduct of fossil-fuel burning that carries the coding error. With further improvement, said helps trap heat around the Earth. Without stark action, a study co-author, the method “can potentially be used to these emissions are expected to climb in the decades to prevent transmission of genetic disease to future genera- come, resulting in rising seas, hotter temperatures and tions.” more extreme weather events. A leading hypothesis was that CO2 might increase the amount of starch in plants, thereby decreasing protein Commercial fish in Chilika face threat of and other nutrients. aspirantforum.comdepletion But lead author and senior research scientist Samuel My- With the migration of a variety of fish from the sea to Chi- ers said experiments did not back up the theory. lika lake adversely affected by the rampant use of small Africa, Asia hardest hit and zero mesh size nets, and overfishing further damag- Protein was not the only nutrient to take a major hit. Other ing fish breeding, at least five commercially important fish Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. research has shown that rising CO2 will cut key minerals species in the lake face the threat of depletion.

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Disappearance of commercially-valued fish species has ers during 2016 was estimated at Rs. 56,035 hampered the livelihood of traditional fishing communi- . ties that live in and around Chilika, which is one of the ‘Arthritis drug can treat blood cancer’ fish-rich lagoons of the country. Blood cancer sufferers could be treated with a simple Adverse ecosystem arthritis drug, according to scientists at a leading British The Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute (CIFRI), university. Barrackpore, has identified five fish species - Khainga Martin Zeidler, from the University of Sheffield’s Depart- (Mugil cephalus), Dangala (Liza macrolepis), Boraga ment of Biomedical Science, and his colleagues have (Dayscaena albida), Sahala (eleutheromema tetradac- found that methotrexate (MTX) — a drug on the WHO list tylum) and Kundala (Etroplus suratenis), which find ad- of essential medicines and commonly used to treat arthri- verse ecosystems to grow. tis — works by directly inhibiting the molecular pathway The CIFRI had carried out biological and ecological sur- responsible for causing the disease. vey for measuring the length, frequency, spawning sea- Initial tests were carried out on fruit fly cells to screen son, spawning ground and fishery resources in the Chi- for small molecules that modulate JAK/STAT signalling lika lagoon. — a pathway whose misregulation is central to the de- There has been a marked fall in the length, size and velopment in humans of Myeloproliferative neoplasms spawning stock biomass (SSB) -- the total group of the (MPNs), the collective term for progressive blood can- fish in a stock that are old enough to spawn. cers like Polycythemia Vera (PV). “The fall in SSB is a matter of concern. The SSB decline Ineffective treatment in the case of Khainga is 82.64%, Sahala (89.73%), Current treatments do not slow the disease progression Dangala (87.1%), Boraga (80.9%) and Kundala (80%),” and provide little relief from symptoms, the University said a senior official of the Chilika Development Authority said in a release. (CDA). The sharp decline means the SSB is assessed The team now hopes to go on to a full clinical trial early below 20% in all five fish varieties. next year. There is rampant use of small and zero mesh size nets in the lake to catch all size groups of fish and shell fish species. This causes serious biodiversity loss besides ISRO set to launch satellite with corrected destruction of larval and juvenile stages of a number of clocks commercial fish species. Fishery of the lake depends to a The move became imperative after all three rubidium large extent on species migrating into the lagoon through atomic clocks on IRNSS-1A failed in mid-2016 the sea mouth. Dense deployment of destructive nets Indian Space Research Organisation will soon launch blocks free movement of larvae, juveniles and adults. a replacement navigation satellite fitted with correct- Biggest obstruction ed atomic clocks to make up for the crippled satellite, “The drop in commercial fish catch will affect local fish- IRNSS-1A. ermen. Destructive fishing practice especially fish enclo- The upcoming IRNSS-1H will be sent up towards the end sure (ghery) for aquaculture is the biggest obstruction for of August and a date is yet to be fixed, ISRO Chairman migration of fish between the sea and the lake. We are A.S. Kiran Kumar said. Its launch became imperative af- carrying out a massive ghery eviction drive ever under- ter all three rubidium atomic clocks on IRNSS-1A failed in taken in Chilika,” said Sushant Nanda, Chief Executive mid-2016, Mr. Kumar told The Hindu. Three more clocks of CDA. Mr. Nanda said satellite imageries found 14,590 failed later across the fleet of seven satellites, which to- hectares of Chilika under man-made gheries for illegal gether had 21 atomic clocks. prawn cultivation. “We had problems with all [three] clocks in 1A and need- As of now, more than 2,000 ha of gheries have been re- ed to bring in the replacement,” Mr. Kumar said, adding moved, he said. that the manufacturer had corrected the problem for the During 2016, the total annualaspirantforum.com fish landing, including fish, clocks in the new spacecraft. An internal committee had prawn and crab from Chilika, was estimated at 14,067.50 identified the cause of 1A’s failure. The new clocks are tonnes valued at Rs. 190.10 crore which worked out to identical to the old ones.” 10.26% increase as compared to the annual catch in The malfunctions [ The Hindu , January 30, 2017] struck Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. 2014. The average per capita income of the active fish- the orbiting satellites even as ISRO completed putting

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the seventh and last regional navigation spacecraft, 1G, of pit vipers. These snakes are named after the infra-red in orbit in April last year. The first one was put in orbit in sensing pit between their nose and eyes which they use July 2013. to identify warm-blooded prey. The Rs. 1,420-crore fleet, now called NAViC or Naviga- tion Indian Constellation, is India’s own GPS-like system IIT Delhi team develops a new antibacterial to give accurate information about location and time of persons or objects — in the same way as the older U.S. drug-delivery system Global Positioning System or Russia’s GLONASS. A new antibiotic drug-delivery system that improves the Positional details are vital for civil and military aviation, efficacy of drugs thereby reducing the dosage used for defence needs, ATMs and individual users, besides treating bacterial infections has been tested in a lab by transport on land, sea or air. researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) European problem Delhi. A peptide, which has not been approved for clinical The clocks for ISRO’s NavIC and the European Space use, bound to gold nanoparticles was able to kill E. coli Agency’s first 18 Galileo satellites came from the same and Salmonella typhi more efficiently at lower dosages. Swiss company and developed similar problems around “Drug delivery becomes better and the bioavailability the same time. The two agencies had compared their improves when the drug is conjugated [bound] to gold navigation troubles. Mr. Kumar said the hardware solu- nanoparticles. So, reduced dosage is sufficient to kill the tion was also similar for the two agencies. bacteria. Reducing the dosage of antibiotics used is one Clarifying that ISRO continues to use all seven satellites, of the strategies to reduce the possibility of drug resist- he said the troubled 1A can still send low-powered mes- ance setting in,” says Dr. Neetu Singh from the Centre sages and weather data that are useful to fishermen. for Biomedical Engineering, IIT Delhi, and one of the cor- “Basically four of these navigation satellites are sufficient responding authors of the paper published in the journal for our functions. Within the 1,500 km range it makes no Scientific Reports. difference” except in the case of satellites put in geosta- Bioavailability tionary orbits, he said. The peptide in a free form may not be bioavailable as it Without the clocks, IRNSS-1A gives a coarse value that gets degraded relatively fast. In a free form, the peptide cannot be used for functions that need precise data. is also not able to effectively kill the bacteria by engaging with the bacterial membrane and disrupting it, while the nanoconjugate fares better on these counts. Nilgiris hosts rare horseshoe pit viper The challenge was to arrive at an optimum number of Wildlife biologists sighted and photographed the rare peptides that are bound to nanoparticles to get the best horseshoe pit viper Trimeresurus strigatus on August 2 at results. When there are too few or too many peptides Udhagamandalam in Tamil Nadu. The snake is thought to bound to the nanoparticles the antibacterial activity gets be endemic to the Nilgiri hill ranges in the Western Ghats compromised. “There is significant antibacterial activity in south India. when about 1000 peptides are bound to a nanoparticle,” “We spotted the pit viper basking on a rock in open grass- says Dr. Singh. land in the afternoon,” says wildlife biologist Shashank The peptide called sushi-peptide bound to nanoparticles Dalvi, who photographed the snake. Snakes being cold- was able to kill 50% of bacteria at much lower concentra- blooded (poikilothermic), need to sun-bask to maintain tion (400 nM) while the free peptide’s antibacterial activ- their body temperatures. “Most records of this species ity was not significant at the same concentration, says are from around Ooty and the Silent Valley-Mukurthi Smita Patil from the Centre for Biomedical Engineering, landscape,” he adds. IIT Delhi and one of the first authors of the paper. The venomous horseshoe pit viper gets its name from Besides normal cells infected with bacteria, the peptide a pale beige horseshoe-shaped mark on its nape. Not bound to nanoparticles will be particularly useful in the many studies have beenaspirantforum.com done on the locally-common case of cancer patients suffering from bacterial infec- snake which is found only in the open grasslands of the tions. “Rapid metabolism at the cancer site sucks al nu- threatened shola grassland ecosystem in the Nilgiris trients and leads to nutritional deficit in the body. When above elevations of 1000 metres above sea level. chemotherapy is given even the bacteria already present

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. The Horseshoe pit viper is one of the three pit vipers en- in the body but kept under check become disease-caus- demic to the Western Ghats. India is home to 21 species ing,” says Dr. Pankaj Chaturvedi, cancer specialist at the Visit Aspirantforum.com for guidance and study material for IAS Exam. aspirantforum.com Hindu and PIB Crux Vol. 36 News and Events of August 2017

Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai. of Current Science(which is available free on the web). After chemotherapy the immunological response gets Some sentences from this article are worth repeating damaged as cells responsible for protecting against bac- here. Dr. Rao, born in 1932, wrote several scientific ar- teria are reduced in number. So the person becomes vul- ticles in 1963 when he was 31 years of age. When he nerable to infection. “Antibiotics by itself cannot kill all the published another paper in 2011 (when he was 79), a bacteria. The inherent immunological response should fellow scientist, Dr. Ron Cram, apparently remarked: “Is be able to challenge the bacteria once antibiotic treat- this same U.R. Rao who was publishing science papers ment is completed. Since this does not happen, the bac- back in 1963? Or is it his grandson?” Such was Dr Rao teria develop drug resistance,” says Dr. Chaturvedi. who, until almost the last day of his life went to work daily Folate receptors at the ISRO headquarters in Bengaluru. Specific receptors called folate receptors are present in Aryabhata to Mangalyaan large numbers on the surface of cancer cells. Folic acid Dr. Rao’s entry into space science began with his Ph.D. added to the nanoconjugates is recognised by these re- degree under the mentorship of Dr Vikram Sarabhai, who ceptors and help in the binding process. “Once the nano- persuaded India to enter the space age and use satellite conjugates enter the cancer cells they interact with the technology. After spending a few years in the US, work- bacteria and kill them by disrupting the cell membrane. ing in areas of astrophysics and satellite studies, Rao re- The nanoconjugates have 40% better antibacterial activ- turned to India in 1966, but right after that, he was asked ity compared with free peptides,” says Rohini Singh from by Sarabhai to prepare a blueprint for developing satellite the Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Delhi, and technology in India. This he did with enthusiasm and built one of the first authors of the paper. the first Indian satellite, called Aryabhata (named after the The nanoconjugate is not toxic to cancer cells and tar- 5th century Indian mathematician), along with its smaller gets only the bacteria. size models, within 36 months and within the stipulated “We would next like to study if our nanoconjugates can be budget. To quote Jayaraman again: “Rao says -Yes, I had used on antibiotic-resistant strains and also understand a young team, though inexperienced, was very commit- the fate of gold nanoparticles used for making the nano- ted. Their unmatched enthusiasm, dedication, hard work, conjugates,” says Dr. Neetu Singh. Instead of gold nano- and the tremendous confidence, and their ‘never say im- particle, biodegradable polymers can be used. The only possible’ altitude were contagious, and became part of condition is that the peptide should be able to interact ISRO culture later”. with the bacterial membrane. A few more studies have With Rao at the helm, several satellites were made — to be carried out before the nanoconjugate can be tested Bhaskara 1, 2, Rohini and the communication satellite on animals. called Ariane Passenger Payload Experiment or APPLE. Carrying the satellite APPLE on a bullock cart (in order to check for electromagnetic compatibility) captured the Learning from space and teaching from space continuity between Old and New India! It is this combi- July 24 has turned out to a Monday of sorrow, since it was nation of mastering high end technology with an eye for on that day that India lost two of its sons — two outstand- economy and efficiency that has catapulted Indian space ing men of science, namely, the space scientist Dr. Udupi efforts to stellar heights. Name another nation that has Ramachandra Rao (U.R. Rao for short), who made India successfully sent a spacecraft to Mars at a cost of Rs a space-faring nation, and the scientist educator Dr. Yash 450 crores! Pal, who brought science to the homes of many across Propagating Science India. While Dr. U.R. Rao, of Karnataka, typified calm and com- The fortnightly science journal, Current Science, pub- posure, his friend and comrade in arms, Dr. Yash Pal lished from Bengaluru, carries a series of articles termed typified Punjabi exuberance. Prof. Ramanath Cowsik has ‘Living Legends in Indian Science’. Drs U.R. Rao and written a beautiful article on this legend, in the 10 July Yash Pal were two suchaspirantforum.com legends who improved India 2015 issue of Current Science. Yash Pal, too, trained as through their scientific contributions. Dr. V. Jayaraman a physicist and worked on cosmic rays at the Tata In- of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has stitute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, from where written a detailed life history of Dr. Rao and his contribu- he was called by Dr. Satish Dhavan (who succeeded Dr.

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. tions to India’s space efforts in the 10 June 2014 issue U.R. Rao at ISRO) to head the Space Application Centre

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(SAC) at Ahmedabad, and to launch the ambitious edu- cational programme called Satellite Instructional Televi- sion Experiment or SITE. He collected a group of eager Low-cost, sensitive CO sensor from IISc youngsters, devised programmes on education, agricul- Indian Institute of Science researchers have developed a ture, health and hygiene and related topics. These were highly sensitive nanometre-scale carbon monoxide sen- uploaded on the satellite ATS-6 and broadcast across sor by employing an innovative fabrication technique. It over 2400 TV sets across urban and rural India. These is known that carbon monoxide (CO) can have adverse were received enthusiastically by the viewers. effects on the health of people exposed to it. Hence, it The SITE experiment was novel, first of its kind- any becomes necessary to have good, low-cost carbon-mon- where, and successful. How did the Yash Pal team man- oxide sensors. The research is published in Sensors and age to do it? Cowsik quotes Yash Pal thus: “A civilization Actuators B: Chemical. that protects its young from the hassles of doing things Right size themselves deprives them of great joy, and ultimately Typically, a sensor would be a thin, current carrying plate leads its society into a state of permanent dependence… whose resistance changes on exposure to carbon mon- Let us just do it ourselves”. Recall that Dr. U.R. Rao said oxide. This in turn changes the value of the current flow- the same thing in different words. ing through it. This change when measured indicates Yash Pal moved on to take on further assignments and the level of carbon monoxide in the air. Most available tasks for the government, including the chairmanship of sensors are in the micrometer range, a nanometer-sized the University Grants Commission (UGC), Secretary of detector would have a higher sensitivity, but the cost of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), and manufacturing it goes up as the size decreases. This is others. Among the many initiatives and innovations he where the work of C.S. Prajapati and coworkers of Indian launched, public understanding of science became an Institute of Science comes in. important one. As the Chairman of UGC, he gave fillip To build this zinc-oxide (ZnO) nanostructure on a sili- to the recently established Educational Media Research con wafer substrate, the researchers first placed tiny Centres (EMRC), and using Doordarshan to broadcast polystyrene beads on the wafer. These beads arrange regular programmes from them, called “Countrywide themselves into what is called a hexagonal close-packed Classrooms,” an initiative that continues to this day. structure on the oxidised silicon wafer. Quite apart from these, Yash Pal captured the hearts of Maintaining a reasonable level of vacuum, a high voltage millions of Indians through the TV series “Turning Point”, is applied which “etches away” the surfaces of the beads where he would frequently come and answer questions until a gap of desired thickness is formed between adja- from schoolchildren and explain science in the simplest cent beads. Then zinc oxide is deposited on the system. of terms, remarkably successfully. For many children, he This occupies the spaces between the beads, forming became known as Yash Pal Uncle (just as his hero Jawa- a honeycomb like nano-mesh that can function as a na- harlal Nehru was called Chacha Nehru). nosenor. On a personal note, my wife Shakti and I have lost a car- “Scaling down from 10 micrometer feature size to 10 ing and encouraging friend. She produced hundreds of nanometer feature (used in this work) can enhance the programmes in science and arts for “Countrywide Class- efficiency 1,000 times. However, the development cost rooms,” from the EMRC at the Central Institute of Eng- of nanostructured gas sensors using existing lithogra- lish and Foreign Languages, Hyderabad (now called the phy tools is really very high, which eventually impacts English and Foreign Languages University), and I used the overall cost of the device,” explains Navakanta Bhat, to appear often in “Turning Point,” along with him. And Chair and Professor, Centre for Nano Science and En- Shakti’s sister’s husband, the late Dr. M.M. Chaudhri, gineering, Indian Institute of Science, an author of the produced “Turning Point” for quite a while. paper, in an email to The Hindu. In Dr. U.R. Rao and Prof. Yash Pal, we have lost two This device is also easy to scale for mass production. great leaders of science.aspirantforum.com One helped us go into space “Nanostructure-based gas sensors are very promising in in order to learn about the universe, while the other used their performance due their high surface-to-volume ratio. space to teach us. Though they are gone, their “can do” The existing techniques to create honeycomb nanostruc- and “never say impossible” spirit lives on. tures using photolithography and e-beam lithography are expensive and time-consuming. The proposed technique Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol.

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can potentially reduce the cost by more than 50%,” says changes affect the internal health of an animal. Measur- Prof. Bhat. ing fGCM will tell us how elephants are affected by either Smart cities intrinsic or extrinsic factors. Our study is the first to exam- “The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology ine this in free-ranging Asian elephants,” says doctoral has a vision of deploying such sensors in large scale for researcher Sanjeeta Sharma Pokharel, lead author of the pollution monitoring in large cities like Delhi and Bengal- study. uru. For instance, if the sensors are installed in all traffic “The sudden change in the profile of fGCM after any man- intersections, we can do real time mapping of pollution agement intervention would definitely indicate the strong hot-spots in a city. This would be an enabler in realizing association between stress response and management smart cities,” says Prof. Bhat. practices,” she says.

Elephant dung shows stress levels New tool to detect cervical cancer Asian elephant stress levels peak during dry seasons, Testing menstrual blood present on menstrual cloth can when resources are low. This is what studying leftover help detect human papilloma virus (HPV), which is one hormones in elephant poop unravel. The method could of the main causes of cervical cancer, researchers from be an important non-invasive tool to study the health of Mumbai’s Tata Memorial Centre and National Institute for wild pachyderm populations in India, finds a new study. Research in Reproductive Health (NIRRH) have found. In the future, it could also help test the efficacy of man- The study was carried out on over 550 women aged 30 agement interventions introduced to conserve the endan- to 50 years at two rural populations in Maharashtra. The gered species. results were published in the journal European Journal of With shrinking habitats, India’s endangered elephants Cancer Prevention. face food shortages and increased disturbances in their Cervical cancer is a major public health problem in India, environments. The resulting physiological stress (a result and although there are cervical cancer screening tests, of secretion of stress hormones such as glucocorticoids) most rural Indian women fear the test and see it as an can be beneficial for elephants, helping them escape unpleasant experience. from threats. However, if prolonged, the stress can af- Samples testing fect their health, reproduction and even survival. Stress Over 190 eligible women were recruited for the study levels are often high in emaciated pachyderms: so can from two villages close to Jamkhed Tahsil of Maharash- hormones – traces of which come through in elephant tra. The women who consented underwent HC2 testing dung – be an indicator of elephant health? to detect HPV. All the women, whether positive or nega- Scientists at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, tive for HPV, were asked to store their cloth pad used on examined changes in visual body condition scores of 261 the first day of period and immediately hand it over to elephants in the Mysuru and Nilgiri elephant reserves the health worker. The collected menstrual cloth samples in south India during wet and dry seasons, scoring their were sent to NIRRH for testing. ‘body condition’ on a scale of one (for very thin pachy- The DNA extracted from the dried menstrual blood was derms) to five based on the visibility of bones. They also amplified and tested for HPV. Over 3% positive HPV analysed faecal glucocorticoid metabolite (fGCM) levels cases were detected from this area (both HC2 and DNA in the fresh dung of the elephants they observed, to see if study showed positive). They underwent further vaginal stress hormones were a good indicator of body condition examination and treatment. Two cases of cervical lesions across seasons. To study annual patterns, they repeated were also diagnosed. this for nine female elephants across seven years. Additional study The findings, published in Conservation Physiology, After satisfactory results from first area, another rural show that the body condition of elephants deteriorated population with significantly better social indicators was during dry seasons, and has a strong relationship with studied. Over 360 women from 16 villages from Mulshi fGCM levels (especiallyaspirantforum.com in females). As body condition area of Pune district were selected for the study. How- deteriorated, stress hormone levels spiked. ever, the women were not tested for HPV but their men- “Many conservation studies focuses on how animals be- strual blood was tested. have when they are disturbed, how their population de- From this population, 4.9% cases were diagnosed as

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. clines or changes. But they forget to address how such HPV positive using DNA tests. The HPV positive women

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and a few HPV negative women underwent vaginal ex- mats to mimic the cartilage portion and bioactive glass to amination, HC2 test and PAP smear test (another cervi- develop a composite material, similar to the natural tis- cal cancer test). sue,” said Mr. Mandal. The sensitivity of the menstrual pad HPV testing in the For the mat, scientists used a kind of silk easily available first and second area was 83% and 67%, respectively, in northeast India. and the specificity was 99% and 88% in the two areas. “Muga [Assam] silk is endowed with properties that en- The reduced sensitivity at second area could be due to hance the healing process,” Mr. Mandal said. electricity failure in the health centre as the samples need The researchers adopted a green fabrication approach to be continuously stored at -20⁰C. for the developing the silk composite mats — electrospin- According to the researchers, the menstrual pad DNA ning. “It is similar to knitting, except that it utilises electric testing could be used instead of PAP smear test as PAP high-voltage force to draw ultrafine fibres,” Mr. Mandal test has several limitations such as very low sensitivity of said. around 50% and the method of sample collection is both A layer by layer approach was followed, where the bone painful and invasive. layer was first formed, on top of which the cartilage layer “Most of the women in these villages are daily wagers was developed. The resulting composite mat resembled and do not want to waste a day for clinical screening. the architecture of the bone-cartilage interface. There is low participation in community screenings as To assist the regenerative process, the mats would be they are shy and also fear the test. By using menstrual grafted in the defected joint with cells harvested from the pad/cloth as a screening tool we can provide comfort and patient. convenience to the participants,” says Dr. Atul Budukh, Assistant Professor at Tata Memorial Centre and the first How birds get their complex plumage author of the paper. The complex plumage colouration of birds is mainly pro- By developing a simple method to mail the pads to the duced by melanins, which create a range of black, grey, lab by participants itself, menstrual pad test can become brown, and orange colours, scientists say. a stress-free cervical cancer screening method, the au- Researchers at University of Chicago explored the role of thors write. melanins in creating complex plumage patterns in 9,000 bird species. Silk mats can help treat arthritis The patterns that we see in birds’ feathers are made up of Scientists from IIT Guwahati have synthesized mats intricate combinations of mottles, scales, bars and spots. made of silk-proteins and bioactive glass fibres that they “For many birds, plumage colouration may make them believe can assist the growth of bone cells and repair less visible to predators by helping them to blend in to worn-out joints in arthritis patients. their surroundings, or more appealing to potential mates The disease most commonly affects joints in the knees, by helping them to stand out from their peers,” said Is- hips, hands, feet, and spine and is marked by the break- mael Galvan from University of Chicago. down of joint cartilage and underlying bones. Left un- Plumage colouration mainly happens due to two types treated, it can cause severe pain, swelling, and eventu- of pigments: melanins, which produce a range of black, ally limited range of movement. grey, brown, and orange colours, and carotenoids, which “Current clinical treatment methods are limited by lack of are used by specialised feather structures to generate viable tissue substitutes to aid the repair process,” Biman brighter hues. B. Mandal from institute said. Birds cannot produce carotenoids on their own. They Joint disease must consume foods that contain these pigments and the To develop a suitable tissue substitute, scientists, includ- carotenoids circulate through the bloodstream and to the ing those from the University College London in the U.K., feather follicles. looked into the natural bone-cartilage interface and tried Melanins, on the other hand, are synthesised in the birds’ to mimic it synthetically aspirantforum.comin lab conditions. bodies in special cells called “melanocytes” that work to- Knee osteoarthritis is the most common bone and joint gether with feather follicles to achieve a fine control of disease in India. However, Mr. Mandal pointed out that pigmentation. the available clinical grafts were expensive.

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. ‘Enhances healing’ Cigarette butts can be reused to build roads, “We used silk, a natural protein to fabricate electrospun Visit Aspirantforum.com for guidance and study material for IAS Exam. aspirantforum.com Hindu and PIB Crux Vol. 36 News and Events of August 2017

show scientists climate changes on land and in the air. “Many lines of Scientists have discovered a novel use for discarded cig- evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially arette butts in building roads, an advance that can tackle emissions of greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases, are pri- the problem of waste accumulation. marily responsible for recent observed climate change,” Trillions of cigarette butts are discarded every year they wrote. worldwide. They take ages to break down while their The report was completed this year and is a special sci- toxic chemical load is released into creeks, rivers and the ence section of the National Climate Assessment, which ocean. is congressionally mandated every four years. The Na- Researchers from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technol- tional Academy of Sciences has signed off on the draft ogy (RMIT University) in Australia have demonstrated report, and the authors are awaiting permission from the that asphalt mixed with cigarette butts can handle heavy Trump administration to release it. traffic and also reduce thermal conductivity, said a study Effects of climate change published in Building Materials . The report concludes that even if humans immediately Chemicals locked in stopped emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, The team encapsulated cigarette butts with bitumen and the world would still feel at least an additional 0.30 de- paraffin wax to lock in the chemicals and prevent any grees Celsius of warming over this century compared with leaching from the asphalt concrete. today. The projected actual rise, scientists say, will be as The encapsulated cigarettes butts were then mixed with much as 2 degrees Celsius. A small difference in global hot asphalt mix for making samples. “These encapsulat- temperatures can make a big difference in the climate: ed cigarette butts developed will be a new construction the difference between a rise in global temperatures of material which can be used in different applications and 1.5 degrees Celsius and one of 2 degrees Celsius, for lightweight composite products,” said Abbas Mohajerani example, could mean longer heat waves, more intense from RMIT University. rainstorms and the faster disintegration of coral reefs. About six trillion cigarettes are produced every year, Among the more significant of the study’s findings is that leading to more than 1.2 million tonnes of cigarette butt it is possible to attribute some extreme weather to climate waste. These figures are expected to increase by more change. than 50% by 2025, mainly due to an increase in world The field known as “attribution science” has advanced population. rapidly in response to increasing risks from climate change. Scientists say they fear the Trump administration could U.S. government report warns of drastic change or suppress the report. But those who challenge impact of climate change scientific data on human-caused climate change say they The average temperature in the United States has risen are equally worried that the draft report, as well as the rapidly and drastically since 1980, and recent decades larger National Climate Assessment, will be publicly re- have been the warmest of the past 1,500 years, accord- leased. ing to a sweeping federal climate change report awaiting approval by the Trump administration. ISRO to develop full-fledged earth The draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies, which has not yet been made public, concludes that observation satellite Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right A new set of future satellites called hyperspectral imaging now. It directly contradicts claims by President Donald satellites is set to add teeth to the way India will be seen Trump and members of his Cabinet who say that the hu- from about 600 km in space. man contribution to climate change is uncertain, and that The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) says the ability to predict the effects is limited. it plans to launch a full-fledged niche earth observation “Evidence for a changing climate abounds, from the top (EO) satellite — called the Hyperspectral Imaging Satel- of the atmosphere to theaspirantforum.com depths of the oceans,” a draft of lite or HySIS — using a critical chip it has developed. the report states. A copy of it was obtained by The New There is no specific time-frame yet for its launch, an York Times. ISRO spokesman said, adding that meanwhile, the new The authors note that thousands of studies, conducted chip, technically called an “optical imaging detector ar- by tens of thousands of scientists, have documented ray,” that they have created for it would be tested and Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol.

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perfected. “ISRO is endeavouring to enter the domain of tion across the lifespan and could represent a new thera- operational hyperspectral imaging from earth orbit with a peutic strategy to boost brain resilience,” said lead author satellite that can see in 55 spectral or colour bands from Dena Dubal. 630 km above ground,” ISRO has said. It said it decided Clinical studies to develop the chip that suited Indian requirements. But researchers said clinical studies would be necessary Hyperspectral or hyspex imaging is said to be an earth to determine the safety and effectiveness of injecting observation trend that is being experimented globally. klotho in humans. Adding a new dimension to plain-vanilla optical imagers, The body naturally produces the complex hormone that it can be used for a range of activities from monitoring the is involved in multiple cellular processes, and is linked environment, crops, looking for oil and minerals all the to prolonging life in worms, mice and humans. In model way up to military surveillance — all of which need im- organisms as well as in humans, klotho levels decrease ages that show a high level of differentiation of the object with age, chronic stress, and cerebral aging and neuro- or scene. degenerative illnesses. About a decade ago, ISRO added another earth obser- Prior studies had found that life-long exposure to elevat- vation niche with microwave or radar imaging satellites ed levels of klotho boost mental functions, but it remained RISAT-1 and 2 that could ‘see’ through clouds and the unclear whether short-term treatment using the hormone dark — an important feature useful for the military and could quickly improve cognition. security agencies. In this study, young mice treated with the hormone for ‘Hyspex’ imaging is said to enable distinct identification of four consecutive days showed markedly improved cogni- objects, materials or processes on earth by reading the tive function, benefits that lasted more than two weeks. spectrum for each pixel of a scene from space. Ageing mice showed improvements in just two days fol- Another official described it as “another important devel- lowing a single shot of the treatment. opment by ISRO in its quest for better and diverse earth observation technologies.” IIT Guwahati develops silk patch to repair ISRO first tried it out in an 83-kg IMS-1 experimental sat- ellite in May 2008. The same year, a hyperspectral cam- damaged heart tissue era was put on Chandrayaan-1 and used to map lunar Scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwa- mineral resources. Very few space agencies have such a hati have fabricated a 3D cardiac tissue patch using silk satellite; a German environmental satellite called EnMAP protein membranes seeded with heart muscle cells. The is due to be launched on an Indian booster in 2018. patch can potentially be used for regenerating damaged The payloads development centre, Space Applications heart tissue. Centre, Ahmedabad, designed the architecture of the “The 3D patch that we fabricated can be implanted at the chip which was made at ISRO’s electronics arm, the site of damage to help the heart regain normal function. Semi-Conductor Laboratory, Chandigarh. The result was It can also be used for sealing holes in the heart,” says a detector array that could read 1000 x 66 pixels. Biman Mandal from the Department of Biosciences and According to an EO expert who called it the ‘CATSCAN’ Bioengineering, IIT Guwahati, who led the research. equivalent of Earth from space, hyspex technology was Cardiac tissue gets permanently damaged when oxygen still an evolving science. supply is reduced or cut off during a heart attack. The damaged portion gets scarred and does not contract and relax which over time leads to a change in the shape of New therapy for brain degeneration the heart and reduced pumping capacity. A single injection of a fragment of a life-extending protein While currently available grafts fail to mimic the struc- hormone could improve cognition in those with neurode- ture and the function of the native heart tissue as well generative illnesses, according to new research. as maintain high cell numbers, the patch developed by The klotho protein wasaspirantforum.com found to enhance cognitive and the IIT Guwahati researcher’s scores over these on many physical performance in ageing or impaired mice, said a counts. The results were published in the Journal of Ma- study carried out by scientists at the University of Cali- terials Chemistry B. fornia, San Francisco and published in the journal Cell The team led by Prof. Mandal tested both mulberry Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. Reports. (Bombyx mori) and non-mulberry (Antheraea assama) “Treatment with a klotho fragment enhances brain func- silk to fabricate the membrane. Silk proteins extracted Visit Aspirantforum.com for guidance and study material for IAS Exam. aspirantforum.com Hindu and PIB Crux Vol. 36 News and Events of August 2017

from raw silk were used for fabricating the membrane by reduced diversity using a mould. The nano-groove structure on the mould What used to be low-intensity, subsistence hunting has was transferred to the silk membrane and this helped now transformed into a commercial, lucrative livelihood guide the heart muscle to grow in a linear fashion and option. A recent study shows that increased hunting of parallel to each other thus mimicking the heart tissue wild waterbirds is decreasing bird numbers as well as structure. “We focused on developing a silk-based tissue drastically altering bird communities in some of the coun- engineered membrane which will allow the cardiac cells try’s wetlands. to grow while maintaining the structural anisotropy,” says India’s wetlands — natural and manmade — account for Prof. Mandal. nearly 4.7% of the country’s total geographic area. They Seeding the silk provide numerous ecosystem services, including serving Heart cell lines and cells taken from the heart tissue as refugia for nearly one-fifth of the country’s biodiversity, were used for seeding the silk membrane. The presence such as migratory birds. However, many of these water- of certain cell-binding protein sequences (RGD motifs) birds are hunted illegally in wetlands. and greater surface roughness of the non-mulberry silk, Scientists documented waterbird communities and their which is endemic to north-east India (locally called muga habitats in 27 wetlands in Tamil Nadu’s Kanchipuram dis- silk), facilitated better anchorage and cell binding. “The trict and interviewed 272 practising hunters to know the cells grew and proliferated, filling the membrane 7-10 species hunted, hunting intensities and motivations for days after it was seeded,” he says. hunting. As heart tissue continuously contracts and relaxes, the Of the 53 bird species recorded in these 27 wetlands, engineered tissue should have good elasticity. “The muga 47 are hunted. Hunters usually preferred to poach larger silk exhibited good elasticity and mechanical strength birds, thus altering bird communities by skewing it to- comparable to native heart tissue as we used only 2% silk wards smaller species, as the results published in the proteins to make the membrane,” says Shreya Mehrotra, journal Ambio show. Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering and first The large waterbirds hunted include black-headed ibis, author of the paper. “When tested on mice, we found the Asian openbill, Eurasian spoonbill, glossy ibis, great muga silk was immunologically compatible and hence egret, painted stork and spot-billed pelican. not rejected by the immune system,” she adds. Birds even in protected wetland sites were not spared — Making a 3D patch hunting was prevalent in one (Karikilli bird sanctuary) of The single membranes with proliferating cells were then the two protected wetland sites. Nearly 1,750 waterbirds stacked one over the other to form a 3D patch. “In 5-6 are hunted per wetland each season every year. The days, the cells present on top of the membrane bound to hunting is primarily between December and April and at the membrane above it leading to the layers sticking to dawn and dusk when birds are more active. each other,” Prof. Mandal says. Wild meat “Stacking the membranes to form a 3D patch overcomes Contrary to belief, hunting was driven by market de- the drawbacks of current scaffolds used for cardiac tis- mand and not subsistence: a hunter made an average sue engineering in terms of creating a high cell dense of Rs.12,500 per month with just a few hours’ effort daily. anisotropic patch, a foremost requirement for this tissue,” More than 70% of hunters said that there was an increase he stresses. in demand for waterbird meat over the past decade from The silk in the patch supports the cells till the newly local eateries — three-quarters of the hunters supplied formed cardiac tissue integrates with the native heart tis- waterbirds to 426 eateries in the region. However, only sue and degrades once the integration takes place. “This eight of the 681 eateries surveyed acknowledged that method is better than the conventional direct delivery of they serve wild waterbird meat. Customers often had cardiac cells to repair the damaged portion of the heart no knowledge that they were eating illegally-caught wild as the cells get washed out from the injected site,” says meat and not the domestic chicken or duck. Ms. Mehrotra. aspirantforum.comThis hunting is causing drastic declines in waterbird di- The team will carry out animal studies in collaboration versity and numbers. The scale of hunting is shocking, with AIIMS. says lead author Ramesh Ramachandran who currently works with the Wildlife Trust of India. “Habitat deteriora- tion and wetland conversion are often cited as important Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. Increased hunting of waterbirds leads to

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pressures for waterbirds. Here, we demonstrate that il- Xenotransplantation legal hunting is an additional and serious threat,” they But the goal of xenotransplantation remains some way write. Incidentally, hunting remains “one of the least stud- off. Researchers still need to edit pig genes to avoid trig- ied aspects of biodiversity conservation”. gering a human immune system reaction and prevent “In seven days, over visits to five open markets alone, toxic interactions in blood. we counted 21,864 birds for sale,” Ramachandran says. These steps “are probably more challenging” than re- “Law enforcement is crucial here. However, it should be moving the dormant infections, said Yang. targeted at buyers and middlemen. Direct enforcement will not be able to curb the over-three-lakh such hunters Internet of Things-enabled ultrasound scans: who operate in the state.” If consumption of wild meat continues, a zoonotic disease outbreak may also not be IIT Hyderabad far away, he adds. A team of researchers from IIT Hyderabad has been working to use the Internet of Things (IoT) to accurately diagnose kidney and liver disorders with the help of ul- Scientists gene-edit piglets, bring transplants trasound scanning devices. What started off as a project to humans closer to develop a system that will validate the data and do a Scientists have successfully edited the genetic code of preliminary scanning of the organ — whether the organ piglets to remove dormant viral infections, a breakthrough is normal or not — has now developed into technology that could eventually pave the way for animal-to-human that can identify kidney stones and cysts and also grade organ transplants. a “fatty liver” classification? The research has been pub- Their work, documented in the journal Science , could lished in Ingénierie et Recherche Biomédicale (IRBM). save lives by reducing organ donor waiting lists that have Usual handicaps risen over the years, partly thanks to better road safety. Diagnosing problems using Internet-enabled scanning There are some 117,000 people on the US transplant systems is fraught with many disadvantages. In the waiting list alone, according to official data. Around 22 traditional way of processing data, after the patient is people die each day waiting for an organ. scanned, a radiologist usually picks out the most relevant Harvard University geneticists George Church and Lu- portions or even captures screenshots and makes these han Yang, together with a team of Danish and Chinese available for diagnosis by the specialist. collaborators, placed edited embryonic cells into a chem- In the IoT-enabled remote scanning, if the scans are up- ical cocktail that encouraged growth and overcame the loaded to the cloud without being first analysed, there is destructive effect inherent in the modification process. a possibility that the doctor sees a huge amount of data, They then used a standard cloning technique to insert which they may find difficult to interpret. Sometimes, as the edited DNA into egg cells that were placed into a sur- Prof. P. Rajalakshmi of the Electrical Engineering Depart- rogate mother. ment at IIT Hyderabad who has led the research com- Retroviruses ments, there is even no organ image within the field of “Before our study, there was huge scientific uncertainty view in the scans uploaded to the web. Therefore, it is about whether the pig [produced after this editing] is vi- crucial that internet-enabled scanning devices must work able,” Yang said. more intelligently and do a preliminary classification of im- Luhan Yang added that the team had now produced ages.This was the starting point of the research in 2014. 37 piglets free of the porcine endogenous retroviruses The team aimed to have software which would view the (PERVs). images and classify the kidney images into “normal” and “If this is correct, it’s a great achievement,” said virologist “needs treatment.” The research however, went beyond Joachim Denner of the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, an this goal and they now have a deep-learning algorithm expert in the retroviruses. which can differentiate between cysts and stones in the It is not clear whether PERVs would infect humans who kidney images. In fact, they also have trained the soft- aspirantforum.comware to look at the liver images and classify fatty livers receive pig organs, but lab studies have shown human cells can be infected by the viruses in a dish. into different grades through an automated recognition Humans can already receive pig heart valves and pan- process. creases, but scientists have long sought to make their “The greatest difficulty was in finding data to train the sys- Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. entire organs, which grow to around human size, avail- tem. People do not like to share their ultrasound images, able for harvest. hence the data set initially available was really small and Visit Aspirantforum.com for guidance and study material for IAS Exam. aspirantforum.com Hindu and PIB Crux Vol. 36 News and Events of August 2017

not sufficient to cover all the possible patterns [which is on industrial parks/clusters, the focus sectors, common necessary for the software to make a good diagnosis],” facilities available for industry, industrial land in use and says Prof. Rajalakshmi. The team was helped in this by available industrial land, approved and pending projects, two healthcare centres in Hyderabad. infrastructure including state/national highways, airport, Platform independent ports and railway stations and electricity, Central/state The algorithm that the researchers have developed can government incentives, investment/employment-targets be integrated into any platform and is flexible from the and what has been achieved, range of land sale price point of view of the hardware being used. They have also and lease/rent rates, waste disposal facilities, and con- included a cloud-based authentication feature that allows tact details of nodal officials. identification of the operator by means of iris and finger- The database also has information on the distance from print scans. airport/port to each industrial area/cluster and a satellite “There’s a need to collaborate with hospitals and with the map view of the area. government and integrate this algorithm with devices. Data is available on agricultural crops such as fibre This will make it possible to extend medical support into crops, food grains, oilseeds, plantation crops, pulses and the rural areas,” she says. spices, and horticultural crops, including most fruits and vegetables. Also available are the details of mineral pro- GIS-enabled portal maps land-related duction including that of agate, apatite, bauxite, chromite, copper, diamond, flint stone, fluorite, garnet, gold, graph- information ite, iron ore, kyanite, lead and zinc ore, lead, limeshell, In a little over six months beginning February, the Cen- limestone, magnesite, manganese ore, moulding sand, tre has brought out an online database of more than half phosphorite, selenite, sillimanite, silver, sulphur, tin, ver- a million hectares of land assisting industry. The Geo- miculite, wollastonite and zinc. graphic Information System-enabled database also has The database is being developed by the Department of details of close to 3,000 industrial parks/clusters, as well Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) and the National as area-wise availability of agricultural/horticultural crops, e-Governance Division in the Ministry of Electronics and and mineral production. Information Technology as well as the BISAG – an insti- The portal will soon incorporate information on ware- tute for space applications and geo-informatics under the houses, power-grid and financial institutions as well as Gujarat Government. the demand for industrial infrastructure captured on the Shiv Gupta, project officer, DIPP, told The Hindu the suc- basis of applications from entrepreneurs for projects. The cess of the project depends on the proactive participa- exercise is to eliminate the information asymmetry that is tion of the state governments. Currently, the states most currently adversely affecting the country’s industrial poli- engaged in the project are Maharashtra and Andhra cy-making and investments in the manufacturing sector. Pradesh, and to a certain extent, Odisha, Karnataka and Boosting employment Tamil Nadu. The Centre will soon hold workshops with The development comes in the backdrop of the Centre other states to make them understand the importance of firming up a new industrial and manufacturing policy to the database in attracting investments into the manufac- push up the contribution of the manufacturing sector in turing sector and boost employment India’s GDP to 25% by 2020 from the current level of . about 16%. The aim is to make India a global manufactur- ing hub and in the process generate employment locally. Largest volcanic region on earth lies in Ant- The details on the database about government-approved arctica technical institutions will indicate the availability of skilled The largest volcanic region on Earth — with nearly 100 and semi-skilled talent. volcanoes — has been discovered two km below the sur- At present, the database has mapped 539,501 hectares of face of the vast ice sheet in west Antarctica. land and 2,978 industrialaspirantforum.com clusters/estates/parks/regions/ Researchers from the University of Edinburgh in Britain areas/corridor/zones including Special Economic Zones found a staggering 91 previously unknown volcanoes, and National Investment and Manufacturing Zones. The adding to the 47 others that had been discovered over information available online is a beta version and will be the previous century of exploring the region. updated and upgraded soon. The height of these newly discovered volcanoes range Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. It currently has specific area-wise details in each state from 100 to 3,850 metres, with the highest almost as tall

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as Switzerland’s 3,970-metre Eiger Mountain. egans , D. kanarensis , D. Modesta , D. thustoni, and D. These active peaks are concentrated in a region known somavarpatana . as the west Antarctic rift system — which stretches 3,500 Drawida earthworms are distributed across Indo-China, km from Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf to the Antarctic Pen- Southeast Asia and northern Japan. Of the 73 species of insula. Geologists say this huge region is likely to dwarf Drawida earthworms found in India, 43 are found in the east Africa’s volcanic ridge — currently rated as the dens- Western Ghats. est concentration of volcanoes in the world. India is home to 505 earthworm species, of which 200 Eruption concerns are found in the Western Ghats. However, the activity of this range could have worrying consequences, glacier expert Robert Bingham was quot- ed as saying to The Guardian. “If one of these volcanoes Horned reptiles predate horned dinosaurs by were to erupt it could further destabilise west Antarctica’s 100 million years ice sheets.” Scientists at the Kolkata-based Indian Statistical Institute “Anything that causes the melting of ice, which an erup- have discovered fossil remains of horned reptiles about tion certainly would, is likely to speed up the flow of ice 245 million years old (early Middle Triassic) from the Sat- into the sea,” Mr. Bingham said, adding: “The big ques- pura Gondwana basin in Madhya Pradesh. The reptile is tion is: how active are these volcanoes? That is some- a new genus and has been named Shringasaurus indi- thing we need to determine as quickly as possible.” cus. The results were published in the journal Scientific The Edinburgh volcano survey, reported in the Geologi- Reports. cal Society’s special publications series, involved study- Shringasaurus belongs to a group of reptiles (Allokoto- ing the underside of the west Antarctica ice sheet for hid- sauria) that appeared in the Early or Middle Triassic and den peaks of basalt rock similar to those produced by the became completely extinct close to the end of the Trias- region’s other volcanoes. sic period (approximately 200 million years ago). The name Shringasaurus indicus is derived from ancient Western Ghats gifts new earthworm species Sanskrit and Greek roots and refers to the horns present Scientists have discovered two new species of earth- on its skull (‘Shringa’ for horn and ‘sauros’ for reptile), worms of the primitive Drawida genus from the southern while indicus refers to India, the country of discovery. Western Ghats. Reconstruction The study, published in the open access international Unlike other Triassic reptiles (archosauromorphs — croc- journal ZooKeys on August 17 by scientists from Kerala’s odiles, dinosaurs and their descendants, the birds, and Mahatma Gandhi University and Shoolini University in their ancestors) that are about 2.5 metres long, the S. in- Himachal Pradesh, reports the discovery of five earth- dicus is 3-4 metres in length, 1.25−1.50 metres tall at the worm species previously not recorded in Kerala. hip, and has a relatively long neck and small head. The One of the new species, Drawida polydiverticulata, has ribs are also bigger than other reptiles of that time. It has more than two lobes in its reproductive organs, distin- leaf-shaped teeth with small cusps, suggesting that the guishing it clearly from other species of earthworms. This reptile was herbivorous. The researchers reconstructed species is widespread in the shola grasslands of Idukki the reptile from the recovered bones, based on which district, including the Eravikulam National Park, Pampad- they were able to assess the reptile’s length and height. um Shola National Park, and Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary. Most strikingly, it has a pair of large horns. The discovery Honour name of horns overthrows the earlier notion that horned spe- The second new species, Drawida thomasi , collected at cies were restricted to dinosaurs of the Cretaceous pe- the Kozhippara waterfalls in Malappuram district, is ap- riod (140 million years ago). proximately 5 cm long and bluish in colour. According to “In the geological deep time, horns were exclusive to the the study, it is named in honour of A.P. Thomas, director dinosaurs in the Cretaceous period. But based on our of Mahatma Gandhi University’saspirantforum.com Advanced Centre of En- discovery, we can say that early reptiles developed horns vironmental Studies and Sustainable Development, “for more than 100 million years before their appearance in initiating taxonomic studies on earthworms of Kerala.” dinosaurs,” says Saradee Sengupta from the Geologi- The survey, conducted across various habitats in Kerala, cal Studies Unit at ISI Kolakata and the corresponding author of the paper. Indeed, the horns of S. indicus are Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. including coasts and hilly tracts, revealed five new re- cords of Drawida earthworms from Kerala: Drawida el- similar, but independently acquired, to those of ceratop- Visit Aspirantforum.com for guidance and study material for IAS Exam. aspirantforum.com Hindu and PIB Crux Vol. 36 News and Events of August 2017

sian dinosaurs. vert it into glucose. “The horns seen in S. indicus are very significant. Archo- Fermentation sauromorphs were not known to have horns either dur- To convert the glucose into ethanol, fermentation using ing the Triassic or Jurassic period,” says Prof. Saswati a novel yeast strain was carried out. “We isolated the Bandyopadhyay from the Geological Studies Unit at ISI yeast- Saccharomycescerevisiae -RRP-03N, from a rot- Kolkata and one of the authors of the paper. ting wild fruit we found in the Silent Valley National Park The researchers have identified more than 300 bones. in Palakkad, Kerala. In spite of several inhibitors of mi- There are nine frontal bones with horns and two without crobial growth produced during chemical treatment, the horns. “We can find at least seven individuals from the yeast performed better than distiller’s yeast strains in fer- collection of bones. There are at least six horned indi- menting the cotton stalk hydrolysate,” says Dr. Rajeev K viduals and one or two without horns,” she says. Sukumaran, Head of the Biofuels and Biorefineries Sec- Horned beast tion, at NIIST and the corresponding author of the paper. Though no fossils were recovered with intact pair of The yeast showed a glucose conversion efficiency of 76% horns, the researchers were able to identify the left and and the entire glucose was utilised by the yeast in just 24 right horns from their anatomical features. Also, the dis- hours and converted into alcohol. This performance was covery of adult reptile bones without horns is indicative of superior to any other organism reported for fermentation females and therefore of sexual dimorphism. Juveniles of cotton stalk. The final alcohol obtained can be made to too have horns, though smaller in size. fuel grade bioethanol (>99% purity), after distillation and Different lines of evidence indicate that the horns of S. dehydration using molecular sieves, which is an existing indicus originated through sexual selection. These horns technology practised in the distilleries. would not have been effective against predators. It would Bioethanol have served more to attract females or to fight with other Bioethanol has a number of advantages over conven- competing males to gain access to receptive females as tional fuels as it comes from a renewable resource. It is occurs in multiple modern animals with behaviours driven mandatory to blend 10% ethanol with petrol. Bioethanol by sexual selection. presently in use is obtained by fermentation of sugar cane molasses which is a byproduct of sugar production, A new score in waste management and has food value. Most of this first generation ethanol Scientists from CSIR’s National Institute for Interdiscipli- finds its way into consumer applications, primarily as liq- nary Science and Technology (CSIR-NIIST), Thiruvanan- uor. Converting the agro-residues to ethanol reduces the thapuram have been able to turn waste into wealth. They food vs fuel competition,” explains Meera. have produced ethanol from discarded cotton-stalks by Further studies should be carried out for commercial vi- using a combination of chemical and biological tech- ability and large-scale production. niques. India has about 9.4 million hectares under cotton cultivation and every hectare generates 2 million tons of The universe linked by cosmic information cotton stalk wastes. The results were published in Bio- Information is a quantity that springs up very naturally in resource Technology. the study of the universe as it is tied up with gravity. For The stalks were first treated with an acid, alkali and dif- example, the information available to an observer looking ferent enzymes to breakdown the complex organic poly- at a black hole from far is limited by the event horizon of mers of the stalk. “The agro-residues are tough in nature the black hole, beyond which even light cannot escape— and we need chemical pre-treatment to break down the so the information inside the black hole is not available complex structure of the stalk,” explains Meera Christo- to them. pher, research scholar at NIIST and first author of the Physicists T. Padmanabhan, distinguished professor paper. at IUCAA, Pune, and Hamsa Padmanabhan who is a The acid helps to removeaspirantforum.com hemicellulose, a polymer of the Tomalla Fellow at Institute for Astronomy, ETH Zurich, cell wall and the alkali extracts lignin, a binding matrix in have used the relation between information and gravity the cell wall, made of complex phenolics. These treat- to build up a new perspective about the cosmos. Their ments expose cellulose, the major component made of approach, moreover, explains two fundamental puzzles glucose to the action of enzymes. in cosmology — one related to the early universe and Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. The cellulose was further treated using enzymes to con- one to its present state — and, in fact, connects the two.

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Their theory is just published online in the journal Physics Microbiome reacts to stress Letters B. The bacterial communities that live inside everyone are From the observation of distant galaxies, it is known that quite similar and stable during happy times, but when the universe is expanding at a faster rate than it is ex- stress enters the equation, those communities can react pected to. This is explained by invoking the presence of differently in every person, finds a recent study published “dark energy”. But for this to work, the cosmological con- in Nature Microbiology. stant, which is a term that appears in the gravitational Researchers from Oregon State University in Corvallis, field equations, has to be very small and have a positive U.S. suggested that this has key implications for a more value. Explaining why this constant is required to have a personalised approach to antibiotic therapy, manage- tiny positive value is an important puzzle in cosmology. ment of chronic diseases and other aspects of medical An apparently unrelated, also very important, question care. in cosmology is regarding the origin of structures such Lead author Jesse Zaneveld of the University of Wash- as galaxies, in the universe. These are believed to have ington, Bothell, collaborated with Vega Thurber and her originated as tiny fluctuations in the universe just after the student, Ryan McMinds, to survey the literature on micro- big bang. Explaining how these fluctuations were gener- bial changes caused by perturbation. ated and getting their size is another big question. “When healthy our microbiomes look alike, but when The theory developed by Prof. Padmanabhan of IUCAA stressed each one of us has our own microbial snow- and Dr. Padmanabhan of ETH Zurich ties together these flake,” she said. This is a very important facet to consid- two concepts, which were thought to be unrelated until er for managing approaches to personalized medicine. now, and provides an explanation based on the flow of Stressors like antibiotics or diabetes can cause different information in the universe. people’s microbiomes to react in very different ways. In their work, the authors show that the maximum amount Humans and animals are filled with symbiotic communi- of cosmic information accessible by an observer in the ties of microorganisms that often fill key roles in normal universe would have a finite value only if the universe physiological function and also influence susceptibility to undergoes an accelerated expansion at late times (as we disease. Predicting how these communities of organisms observe today). respond to perturbations — anything that alters the sys- Prof. Thanu Padmanabhan, explains their model of cos- tems’ functioning — is one essential challenge in micro- mogenesis, or birth of the cosmos, by the following anal- biology. ogy: “Think of a large chunk of ice which contains a point Studies of microbiome dynamics have typically looked source of heat inside it. The heat source melts the ice for patterns that shift microbiomes from a healthy stable around it, creating a region of water, which in turn ex- state to one in which the microbial communities are out pands, reaching local thermodynamic equilibrium… At of their natural balance, interrupting basic biological func- large scales, close to the boundary of the phases, the tions. molecules have not yet reached equilibrium, since the chunk of ice is being heated up from the inside.” Incred- ibly enough, this is similar to how our universe behaves. ‘New solar power bid norms will reduce risk’ Replacing Big Bang The Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE) has “The region with water is analogous to the observed uni- said its guidelines for tariff-based bidding for procuring verse (described by Einstein’s theory) and it is surround- solar power will reduce risk, enhance transparency and ed by a pre-geometric phase (analogous to ice) which is increase affordability. described by - as yet unknown - laws of quantum gravity. The MNRE had issued the new guidelines for tariff based The Big Bang is replaced by a transition from one phase competitive bidding process on August 3. to another at the boundary,” he explains The guidelines have been issued under the provisions of The authors argue that the total cosmic information trans- Section 63 of the Electricity Act, 2003 for long term pro- ferred from the early, quantum gravitational phase to the curement from grid-connected Solar PV Power Projects aspirantforum.comof 5 MW and above, through competitive bidding. late, classical phase must be equal to four times pi. This allows them to relate the size of the seed fluctuations to “New Guidelines for Tariff Based Competitive Bidding the cosmological constant, thereby tying together the Process to reduce risk, enhance transparency and in- early universe with the present. crease affordability of Solar Power,” the ministry said in Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. a statement.

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Besides, it said, the move would help protect consumer ment the grid supply in places where it is erratic. interests through affordable power. Rooftop solar also has the great benefit of being able to It will also provide standardisation and uniformity in pro- provide electricity to those areas that are not yet con- cesses and a risk-sharing framework between various nected to the grid — remote locations and areas where stakeholders involved in the solar PV power procure- the terrain makes it difficult to set up power stations and ment, it said. lay power lines. What is the potential for rooftop solar in India? The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has pegged the market potential for rooftop solar at 124 GW. How- ever, only 1,247 MW of capacity had been installed as of December 31, 2016. That is a little more than 3% of the target for 2022, and 1% of the potential. Why is it not being adopted widely? One of the major problems with rooftop solar — and what affects solar energy generation in general — is the vari- ability in supply. Not only can the efficiency of the solar This will also help reduce off-taker risk and encourage panels vary on any given day depending on how bright investments, enhance bankability of the Projects and im- the sunlight is, but the solar panels also produce no elec- prove profitability for the investors. tricity during the night. Arguably, night is when off-grid lo- Some of the salient features of the the new norms include cations most need alternative sources of electricity. generation compensation for off-take constraints for re- The solution to this is storage. Storage technology for ducing off-take risks. electricity, however, is still underdeveloped and storage The ‘must-run’ status for solar projects has been stressed solutions are expensive. So, while some companies will upon. be able to afford storage solutions for the solar energy Besides, to ensure lower tariffs, minimum PPA (power they produce, most residential customers will find the purchase agreement) tenure has been kept at 25 years. cost of installing both rooftop solar panels and storage Moreover, unilateral termination or amendment of PPA is facilities prohibitive. Residential areas also come with the not allowed. associated issues of use restrictions of the roof — if the roof is being used for solar generation, then it cannot be Why does the 2022 target for rooftop solar used for anything else. Another major reason why rooftop solar is not becoming seem ambitious? popular is that the current electricity tariff structure ren- The government has set itself a target of 100 GW of solar ders it an unviable option. power by 2022, of which 60 GW is to come from utilities Many states have adopted a net metering policy, which al- and 40 GW from rooftop solar installations. While the 60 lows disaggregated power producers to sell excess elec- GW target seems achievable, the country is lagging be- tricity to the grid. However, the subsidised tariffs charged hind on the target set for rooftop solar. to residential customers undermine the economic viabil- What is rooftop solar? ity of installing rooftop solar panels. The potential profit Rooftop solar installations — as opposed to large-scale simply does not outweigh the costs. solar power generation plants — can be installed on the That said, imports of cheap solar panels are continuously roofs of buildings. As such, they fall under two brackets: placing a downward pressure on prices and so this sce- commercial and residential. This simply has to do with nario could change in the future. Commercial applica- whether the solar panels are being installed on top of tions of rooftop solar are already viable in most states. commercial buildings or residential complexes. What are the benefits? Rooftop solar provides companiesaspirantforum.com and residential areas Records show Aarey is on forest land the option of an alternative source of electricity to that The State government’s claim that the Aarey Milk Colony, provided by the grid. While the main benefit of this is to measuring 1,300 hectares, stands on land belonging to the environment, since it reduces the dependence on the Dairy Development Department appears to be inac- Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. fossil-fuel generated electricity, solar power can also aug- curate, as documents dating back to 1980, accessed by

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The Hindu , show that 2076.073 hectare of revenue land mains of a previously unknown species of giant sloth that was transferred to the State Forest Department from lived 10,000 years ago and died at the bottom of a sink- the Bombay Milk Scheme (later renamed as Aarey Milk hole. Scheme) in 1969. After the transfer, the land became part The Pleistocene-era remains were found in 2010, but of the Borivali National Park (later renamed as Sanjay were so deep inside the water-filled sinkhole that- re Gandhi National Park). searchers were only gradually able to piece together Aarey Colony, as it is popularly known to present-day what they were, the National Institute of Anthropology Mumbaikars, is one of the city’s last few green lungs, and and History (INAH) said. is the site for the controversial 30-hectare Metro 3 car Scientists have so far hauled up the skull, jawbone, and a shed. According to the Chief Minister’s Office, a depot mixed bag of vertebrae, ribs, claws and other bones, but will be built on 21 hectare, while four hectare will be used the rest of the skeleton remains some 50 metres under for approach lines and depot station while five hectare of water, the INAH said. green areas will be maintained. Activists and Aarey resi- Researchers are planning to bring up the rest by next dents have been protesting the proposed construction as year to continue studying the find — including estimating it would mean felling thousands of trees to accommodate how big the animal was. the car shed. The skeleton is nearly complete, leading scientists to In 2012, the State government brought out a document believe the sloth “fell into the sinkhole when it was dry titled Management Plan of Sanjay Gandhi National Park, or had only a little water at the bottom,” the researchers which said ‘the revenue lands [were]transferred from said. Aarey Milk Colony for unclassed forests”. Here, an un- They have named the new species Xibalbaonyx oviceps classed forest is land that has been recorded as forests, . An initial analysis suggests the sloth lived between but not been notified as reserved or protected by the gov- 10,647 and 10,305 years ago, an era when giant crea- ernment. In October 1954, The Office of the Milk Com- tures of all kinds roamed the earth. missioner, Government of Bombay published a docu- ment on the Bombay Milk Scheme which stated that it is Mars rover to use X-ray to find signs of life comprised entirely of jungle land. NASA’s Mars 2020 rover mission, which aims look for Environmental NGO Vanashakti has approached National signs of past life on the Red Planet, will use smart X-ray Green Tribunal (NGT) contesting the State government’s techniques originally developed to find the oldest life on claims. Despite the documents mentioned above, Sanjay Earth. Lachake, Assistant Conservator of Forests, Thane said “Previous missions to Mars have used a relatively broad in an affidavit filed with the NGT earlier this year that “this brush — analysing average chemistry over roughly the area is used for such non-forest activities since 1949. size of a postage stamp — to ‘follow the water’ and seek Therefore, the area indicated in the map appended to the ancient habitable environments,” said the mission’s dep- said letter cannot be declared as forest.” uty project scientist Ken Williford. In a joint press conference held last week, Stalin D of “Mars 2020 takes the next natural step in its direct search Vanashakti and Congress city chief Sanjay Nirupam al- for evidence of ancient microbial life, focusing measure- leged a scam of Rs. 18,000 crore in the plan for the Metro ments to the microbial scale and producing high-resolu- car shed at Aarey. “We have been working to dig out all tion maps over similarly postage stamp-sized analytical details for the last two years. Official documents till 2012 areas,” Mr. Williford said. clearly state that the land is unclassed forest. Why is the Capacity boost government in denial mode? Even in their affidavit, the Rather than using “bulk” geochemistry techniques that Forest Department has maintained ambiguity. Whose in- measure the average composition of a rock, Mars 2020 is terests are being served here?” Mr. Stalin, director (Pro- developing new capabilities including X-ray fluorescence jects), Vanashakti, said. and Raman spectroscopy to map the elemental, mineral, In a clarification issuedaspirantforum.com in response, the CMO reiterated and organic composition of rocks at high spatial resolu- that the land belongs to the Dairy Development Depart- tion, with analytical spot sizes about the width of a human ment. hair. Understanding the spatial distribution of chemical fea-

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. Ancient species of giant sloth discovered tures preserved in ancient rocks is key to determining Mexican scientists have discovered the fossilised re- whether or not they were formed by life. Visit Aspirantforum.com for guidance and study material for IAS Exam. aspirantforum.com Hindu and PIB Crux Vol. 36 News and Events of August 2017

The mission will collect samples to bring back to the halve them by 2050. earth, scientists said. To get there, it is seeking to generate half its energy from renewable sources. Mexico’s prickly pear cactus provides Last year, green energy made up 15.4% of its energy mix — though just 0.1% was from biogas. renewable energy Suema is looking to change that with its generator, which The prickly pear cactus is such a powerful symbol in will ultimately produce 175 kilowatt hours — enough elec- Mexico that they put it smack in the middle of the national tricity to keep some 9,600 low-energy light bulbs burning. flag. It was considered sacred by the ancient Aztecs, and modern-day Mexicans eat it, drink it, and even use it in IISER Mohali: Spider silk, a material for the medicines and shampoos. future Now scientists have come up with a new use for the Spider silk is a biomaterial that has come to intrigue bright green plant: producing renewable energy. many in recent times. With five times the strength of steel Instantly recognisable with its jumble of spiny discs — its of comparable weight, it offers immense possibilities for bright red fruit protruding like fat fingers from each one applications, however the difficulty in processing it and — the prickly pear cactus is farmed on a massive scale also welding it with other excellent materials were pos- in Mexico. ing a challenge. Now, researchers at IISER Mohali have Its soft inner flesh plays a starring role in a plethora of demonstrated how to overcome these challenges using favourite national dishes: tacos, soups, salads, jams and a femtosecond laser pulse. They have succeeded in cut- even candies. ting and manipulating spider silk and making tiny objects “Since before the Spanish conquistadors arrived, we of complex geometries such as braids and Mobius bands have eaten prickly pear cactus. It’s our tradition and our out of it. Their research is published in Nature Materials. culture,” said Israel Vazquez, who has farmed the cactus The early use of spider silk material was in microscopes, for the past 20 years on a small plot in Milpa Alta, a neigh- telescopes, guns and bomb-guiding systems as cross bourhood on Mexico City’s south side. hairs in the optical elements. Since then, its extraordinary The cactus’s thick outer layer, with all those spines, has properties have been discovered. During spinning of the always been a waste product — until researchers devel- silk, amino acids arrange themselves as tiny nanocrys- oped a biogas generator to turn it into electricity. tals embedded in a soft amorphous matrix of molecular Pilot project nanosprings. While the amorphous regions provide elas- The pilot project was launched in May at Milpa Alta’s ticity, the nanocrystalline domains are optimized to pro- sprawling cactus market. Farmers in straw sombreros vide great strength, explains Kamal P. Singh, School of trickle into these fields every morning at dawn to work the Physical Sciences, IISER Mohali, who has carried out the long rows of cactus that flow from the lower flanks of the research with Mehra S. Sidhu, a Post-Doctoral Fellow at dormant Teuhtli volcano. the department and first author of the paper. The area produces 2,00,000 tonnes a year of prickly pear Jumping spiders cactus — up to 10 tonnes of which ends up as waste on “We collect spiders from gardens near Mohali and Chan- the floor of the cactus market each day. digarh and grow them in large plastic boxes… to collect A local green energy start-up called Energy and Environ- silk; we make the spider jump from a stick. It immedi- mental Sustainability — Suema, by its Spanish acronym ately suspends its body with a silk known as dragline — got the idea to develop a biogas generator to turn that silk. This is typically a few micrometers in diameter and waste into energy. They decided to build it right at the is the strongest type of silk,” says Prof. Singh. Spiders source: the bustling cactus market, where hundreds of can make seven types of silk from seven different glands. workers start each day by cleaning up the waste left from Each is tuned to perform a special task. For instance, the day before. aspirantforum.comcapture silk is much more elastic with glue drops to trap Oil-producing Mexico has emerged as a green energy the prey. The silk it makes to hold its babies can be softer, leader in recent years. he explains in an email. It won praise in 2015 when it became the first emerging The researchers’ key innovation was that femtosecond country to announce its emissions reduction targets for (fs) laser pulses of duration about 10 fs can effectively Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. the United Nations climate accord, ambitiously vowing to process the silk fibre with minimal damage to its prop-

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erties. They have also shown that these pulses can be es,” said Mr A. Ranjithkumar, first author of the paper. used to weld the silk fibre with metals, glass and poly- Enzyme evaluation mers to produce combinations that come in useful. The effect of the enzyme on goat skin soaked in water “The femtosecond pulses in our study were produced was tested. Crude enzyme was added in different con- with commercial lasers. But we had to design our own centrations to the skin and let to soak. The enzyme was experimental setup to target these pulses on the fine silk able to remove hair completely within four hours. Accord- fibre precisely,” says Prof. Singh. A femto second is a mil- ing to J. Durga, at CLRI and one of the authors of the pa- lionth of a billionth of a second. “The mechanism of inter- per, the enzyme was stable over a wide range of alkaline action of the silk with sub-10 femtosecond pulses was not pH (8 to 11).The tensile strength, tear strength, elonga- known previously,” he adds. tion and shrinkage temperature of the leather were tested Sun-power after further processing. The strength was found to be The high strength and elasticity of the material makes considerably better than leather processed by chemical many applications possible. They can be used, the re- method. The smoothness, fullness and texture were mar- searchers explain, in building radiation pressure meters. ginally better than the chemically processed ones. The Radiation pressure can be felt when the momentum car- enzyme was found to remove hair completely, leaving ried by photons is transferred to objects in its path. This no trace of any keratinous material. Microscopic study is the operating principle of optical tweezers for instance. showed that the protease was able to penetrate much “With NASA trying to build tiny satellites and space ve- efficiently into the skin matrix and remove even the hair hicles that can be propelled in space by the pressure of root. sunlight (without burning fuel), it is important to develop “The main aim was elimination of pollution without alter- sensors that can measure these tiny forces accurately,” ing the product and we found that our enzyme treatment says Prof. Singh. not only reduced pollution but also produced better qual- ity leather,” explains Dr. C. Muralidharan, Chief Scientist CLRI: Chemical-free method for unhairing at the Leather Processing Division, CLRI and one of the corresponding authors of the paper. skin Using enzymes produced by bacteria, scientists at the Chennai-based CSIR-Central Leather Research Insti- Indian American develops breakthrough tute (CSIR-CLRI) have removed hair from goat skin. This therapy for sepsis method was found to be safer and more environmental Each year globally, more than 600,000 infants die of sep- friendly than the conventional method of unhairing using sis, a condition of bacterial infection that spreads fast and lime and sodium sulphide. The results were published in leads to organ failure. But a therapy developed by a team Environmental Science and Pollution Research. led by an American professor of Indian origin, Pinaki Pan- Microbial enzyme igrahi, over the last 20 years and details of which were A novel bacterium (Bacillus crolab ) was isolated and published in Naturethis week could do wonders. The used for the study. This bacterium produces proteases therapy has been found to reduce the risk of infection (enzymes that break down protein) which have been by 40% in trials and it can be inexpensive — less than found useful in unhairing processes. “The bacteria were one dollar for a course — Dr. Panigrahi told The Hindu isolated from the soil near Buckingham canal, close to by phone. Adyar, Chennai, where a meat stall was located earlier. Dr. Panigrahi is a professor of epidemiology and paedi- The soil there was rich in proteinaceous matter mak- atrics at the Child Health Research Institute and Center ing it an ideal spot for isolation of bacteria. Among the for Global Health at the University of Nebraska Medical hundreds of isolated bacteria, the bacterium with high- Centre’s College of Public Health. est ability to breakdown proteins (proteolytic activity) was The therapy is to feed the infant with good bacteria that selected and used,” explainsaspirantforum.com Dr. Chellan Rose, one of will populate his/her gut and block harmful bacteria. The the corresponding authors of the paper. To extract the probiotic bacterial strain is aided with a non-absorbable enzyme, they fermented wheat bran using the bacteria. sugar to enhance its ability to effectively colonise the “The enzyme showed high proteolytic activity, which was gut — researchers call the probiotic-sugar combination

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. 3.5 times greater than any reported for bacterial proteas- a synbiotic. The oral therapy starts during day 2-4 of life,

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as a preventive measure, much like a vaccine. More than a quarter of neonatal deaths in India are due to sepsis, which is one of the two most common causes of neonatal deaths globally, according to a study published in the Lancet Global Health in 2016. In a significant number of cases, the infection probably begins in the gut. Dr. Panigrahi is happy about the outcome of the trials that began in 2008 in Odisha, where he grew up. But he is equally excited about the prospects of some unexpected and surprising collateral benefits that the therapy appears to provide. This includes a reduction in lower respiratory tract and other infections among the infants who were admin- istered the synbiotic, indicating an overall improvement in immunity status. “Apart from saving babies from sepsis and respiratory tract infection, this type of intervention has much bigger and wider ramifications. The most relevant is its impact on stunting,” said Dr. Panigrahi, explaining the wide prevalence of stunting in India, which is due to gut dysfunction that starts early in a child’s life. Tropical enteropathy “Early infections and continued exposure to a large bacterial load during the first two years of life results in tropical enteropathy (an intestinal disorder that affects the ability to absorb nutrients), which did not exist when I went to medi- cal school in India 30 years ago. It was something we read about in our textbooks. Such tropical enteropathy and gut dysfunction is rampant in India now and 40% of children under the age of two are stunted,” he said, adding that stunted children end up with low cognitive development. When coupled with intrauterine stress and fast accumula- tion of fat during early infancy, stunting leads to chronic disease such as hypertension and diabetes in adulthood. Dr. Panigrahi hopes to expand the therapy’s dose and duration to combat the prevalence of childhood stunting, which stunts the country’s economy and development too. The probiotic study in neonates, largest in medical history, covered 4,556 babies, and stopped short of the initial plan to cover 8,000 of them. “The ethics of medical trials require that once it is found to be definitively good or bad, it must stop. In this case, the results were clear and undeniably good according to an independent data safety monitoring board. Dr. Panigrahi’s team screened over 280 strains of probiotic bacteria before hitting upon a specific strain of Lactobacillus plantarum, abundantly found in curd, and fermented fruits and vegetables. These bacteria populate the healthy infant stool rather quickly and the strain used in the experiment was isolated from the diaper of an 11 month- old healthy baby. Averting health crisis The indiscriminate use of wide-spectrum antibiotics is causing resistance to many drugs and a probiotic solution such as this could avert a health crisis in the making, Dr. Panigrahi said. A graduate from MKCG Medical College in Odisha, Professor Panigrahi’s heart remains in India. He travels to Delhi, Mumbai, Puducherry and various sites in Odisha multiple times a year. He says the results of the trial are also an indicator of the unexplored potential of ancient Ayurvedic discoveries made thousands of years ago in India. “The concept of consuming probiotics in the form of curd and the importance of gut health dates back to the origi- nating days of Ayurveda that dates back to 6,000 BC,” he said, adding that the current national interest in Ayurveda should expand to support modern clinical trials of traditional medicines. “This study is a testament to the world-class research done by my colleagues at the Asian Institute of Public Health in Bhubaneswar, as well as U.S. collaborators at the Emerging Pathogens Institute in Florida and the Medical Center at Michigan State University. What’s more, it demonstrates India’s ability to find its own solutions with overseas col- laboration,” he said. aspirantforum.com Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol.

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cific behaviour by analysing vast amounts of data. By looking for common patterns in millions of bicycle pho- Misc. News tos, for instance, a neural network can learn to recognise a bike. This is how Facebook identifies faces in online photos, how Android phones recognise commands spo- ken into phones, and how Microsoft Skype translates one and Events language into another. But these complex systems can How Artificial Intelligence is reshaping art also create art. By analysing a set of songs, for instance, and music they can learn to build similar sounds. In the mid-1990s, Douglas Eck worked as a database As Mr. Eck says, these systems are at least approaching programmer in Albuquerque, New Mexico, while moon- the point — still many, many years away — when a ma- lighting as a musician. After a day spent writing computer chine can instantly build a new Beatles song or perhaps code inside a lab run by the Department of Energy, he trillions of new Beatles songs, each sounding a lot like would take the stage at a local juke joint, playing what the music the Beatles themselves recorded, but also a he calls “punk-influenced bluegrass” — “Johnny Rotten little different. crossed with Johnny Cash.” But what he really wanted to Tools for artists do was combine his days and nights, and build machines But that end game is not what he is after. There are so that could make their own songs. “My only goal in life was many other paths to explore beyond mere mimicry. The to mix AI and music,” Mr. Eck said. ultimate idea is not to replace artists but to give them It was a naive ambition. Enrolling as a graduate student at tools that allow them to create in entirely new ways. Indiana University, in Bloomington, not far from where he In the 1990s, at that juke joint in New Mexico, Mr. Eck grew up, he pitched the idea to Douglas Hofstadter, the combined Johnny Rotten and Johnny Cash. Now, he is cognitive scientist who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning building a software that does much the same thing. Us- book on minds and machines, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An ing neural networks, he and his team are cross-breeding Eternal Golden Braid . Mr. Hofstadter turned him down, sounds from very different instruments — say, a bassoon adamant that even the latest artificial intelligence tech- and a clavichord — creating instruments capable of pro- niques were much too primitive. ducing sounds no one has ever heard. But during the next two decades, working on the fringe of Much as a neural network can learn to identify a cat by academia, Mr. Eck kept chasing the idea, and eventually, analysing hundreds of cat photos, it can learn the musi- the AI caught up with his ambition. cal characteristics of a bassoon by analysing hundreds of Last spring, a few years after taking a research job at notes. It creates a mathematical representation, or vec- Google, Mr. Eck pitched the same idea he pitched to Mr. tor, that identifies a bassoon. So, Mr. Eck and his team Hofstadter all those years ago. The result is Project Ma- have fed notes from hundreds of instruments into a neu- genta, a team of Google researchers who are teaching ral network, building a vector for each one. machines to create not only their own music but also to Now, simply by moving a button across a screen, they make so many other forms of art, including sketches, vid- can combine these vectors to create new instruments. eos and jokes. One may be 47% bassoon and 53% clavichord. Another With its empire of smartphones, apps and internet servic- might switch the percentages. And so on. es, Google is in the business of communication, and Mr. For centuries, orchestral conductors have layered Eck sees Magenta as a natural extension of this work. sounds from instruments atop one other. But this is differ- “It’s about creating new ways for people to communi- ent. Rather than layering sounds, Mr. Eck and his team cate,” he said during a recent interview inside the small combine them to form something that did not exist be- two-story building here that serves as headquarters for fore, creating new ways that artists can work. Google AI research. Growing effort aspirantforum.com The project is part of a growing effort to generate art Aeroplanes may be affecting ozone, monsoon through a set of AI techniques that have only recently Aeroplanes may be ejecting significant amounts of black come of age. Called deep neural networks, these com- carbon (BC) — a pollutant known to aggravate breathing Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. plex mathematical systems allow machines to learn spe- disorders, upset the monsoon and quicken glacier melt

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— and may be depleting the ozone layer, according to a single system owing to government departments opting study by climate researchers from multiple institutions in for different technology platforms. the country. “It may be noted that the partner ministries and depart- Though airborne, BC is known to dissipate and settle ments offering their services through eBiz portal have down in a few months under the influence of rain and migrated their existing applications to new technology wind and is unlikely to travel upward of 4 km. However, a platforms (Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation mi- group of scientists — including from the Indian Institute grated to Oracle and Ministry of Corporate Affairs migrat- of Science and ISRO’s Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre ed to SAP V2). This has impacted the availability of their — say they now have evidence of such particles existing services on the eBiz portal,” the department of industrial up to 18 km into the stratosphere and there are about policy and promotion (DIPP) in the Ministry of Commerce 10,000 of them in every cubic centimetre. and Industry informed Parliament in an action taken re- Given the shape and location of these particles, they port tabled earlier this month. argue, it could only derive from emissions from aviation Such changes, the DIPP has pointed out, require addi- fuel and they pose a problem because these black car- tional efforts to resolve technology migration issues and bon particles can linger long enough to provide a fertile the ‘limited availability of technical resources’ at individu- ground for other chemical reactions that can deplete the al departments causes delays in integration with the Na- ozone layer. tional eGovernance Service Delivery Gateway (NSDG, “This is the first time that any group in the world has shown the middleware to integrate services between depart- that black carbon from aircraft can go to the stratosphere ments and the portal). and affect the ozone layer,” said S.K. Satheesh, chair- Testing the integration of individual services with the eBiz man, Divecha Centre for Climate Change, Indian Institute portal also added to delays, the DIPP told the parliamen- of Science. He was among the authors associated with tary standing committee on commerce, citing ‘depend- the study, published in the peer-reviewed Atmospheric ency on multiple stakeholders’ such as NSDG, banks and Chemistry and Physics. state treasuries. The DIPP said it had ‘taken up the mat- Rising count ter at appropriate levels in partner departments to take The stratosphere is a stable region of the atmosphere and necessary measures in speeding up integration with the because BC particles absorb heat, they warm the sur- portal.’ rounding air, become lighter and rise to greater heights States dither by a process called ‘self-lift’ and persist in the air. More than two years after discussions began with the The sheer volume of air travel means that the black car- States to devise a state-level composite application form bon count only continues to increase. (CAF) for investors that would integrate about 14 state Because BC particles strongly absorb solar and terres- government services and permits, this key component of trial radiation and heats up the atmosphere it can upset the eBiz portal is also stuck with no takers, except Delhi, the monsoon system. If deposited on snow, it could ac- so far. celerate the heating of snow and quicken the melting of After official-level discussions since 2015, Minister of glaciers. State for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman had requested state chief ministers last February to roll out eBiz’ state-level services. Concurrence was received Centre’s eBiz initiative stutters from Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra and The ambitious eBiz portal project unveiled by the Centre Delhi governments to integrate State services with the in 2013 to serve as an online, single-window entry point eBiz portal only but not on the State CAF, the DIPP told for investors looking to set up a business anywhere in the Parliamentary panel. the country, is still struggling to become fully operational. The State CAF was demonstrated to all State govern- Even services that were available on the portal, such as ments last October, but only the Delhi government has registrations with the Corporateaspirantforum.com Affairs Ministry and the accorded concurrence on it. Seven services that are part Employees’ Provident Fund, have been ‘impacted’ due to of the State CAF have been integrated with the eBiz por- technical issues. tal. While State governments have not come on board for The Parliamentary panel had questioned how ‘pilot’

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jasthan and U.P. had not given approvals to the CAF ini- ly in PubMed searches.” tiative. In a blog post “Don’t use PubMed as a journal whitelist” dated October 20th, 2016, Dr, Beall had written: “I rec- More predatory journals get indexed in ommend against using PubMed as a list of quality jour- nals for the purposes of finding a journal to publish in, PubMed evaluating academic performance, awarding grants and Among other things, the next time you see a question- degrees, and assessing job candidates.” able journal proudly announcing that it is indexed in Pub- “A journal’s inclusion in PubMed does not mean the jour- med, chances are that the journal is predatory. nal has a stamp of approval from NIH [National Institutes Contrary to the popular notion that only genuine and of Health]. There is such a low barrier to inclusion that distinguished journals which take peer-reviewing se- researchers are advised to be suspicious of any journal riously and follow all the norms of scientific publishing that boasts about its inclusion in PubMed, especially if are indexed in PubMed, many predatory journals too are the boasting is prominently displayed on the journal’s included in PubMed. The same holds true for PubMed main web page. PubMed inclusion is not an achievement Central too. that merits boasts,” he noted in his post. According to PubMed, more than 27 million citations for Echoing what Dr. Beall had written about a year ago that biomedical literature from MEDLINE and other journals PubMed’s value would decrease as the numbers of pa- and online books are included. And herein lies the prob- pers from predatory journals increases, the researchers lem. Among other journals indexed are thousands of writing in The Lancet have also cautioned PubMed. Pred- predatory journals, and their numbers are increasing at atory journals would stand to gain from PubMed’s reach an alarming rate. and when cited by reputable journals will not only gain “The PubMed database managers have irresponsibly al- legitimacy but also severely impact the scientific records, lowed it to become a repository of citations to predatory they say. journal articles,” Jeffrey Beall, Librarian at the University The Bohannon sting of Colorado Denver and publisher of the famous Schol- Following the John Bohannon sting operation in August arly Open Access blog that was shut down in January this 2013 when a mundane paper with grave errors was sent year says in an email to The Hindu .“PubMed should not out to 304 Open-Access publishers, including 167 from be used as a whitelist.” the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), 121 from The survey results Beall’s list. Now, according to a Correspondence published in The If the 82% publishers who were in Dr. Beall’s list accepted Lancet, two surveys carried by researchers have re- the questionable paper, nearly 45% of DOAJ publishers vealed that predatory journals in the field of neuroscience too did not reject the paper. and neurology “outnumber those regularly indexed in the The DOAJ has subsequently tightened its guidelines for main biomedical databases”. inclusion. Since March 2014, DOAJ has received about In October 2016, the percentage of predatory journals 1,600 applications from Open-Access publishers in India in the field of rehabilitation, neuroscience and neurology as part of this revision process. While only 4% (74) were indexed in PubMed stood at 12%, 11.4% and 20.2% re- from genuine publishers and accepted, 78% were reject- spectively. In April 2017, in a matter of six months, these ed and remaining 18% are still being processed. One of figures shot up sharply — 23•7% for rehabilitation, 16•1% the main reasons for rejection was the predatory or ques- for neuroscience, and 24•7% for neurology. tionable nature of the journals. Raise the bar It is now time for PubMed to clean up the mess. Considering that PubMed handles millions of queries daily and health researchers worldwide regularly turn to it for information, it is “worrisome that PubMed includes Dipak Misra is 45th Chief Justice of India journals with seriously flaspirantforum.comawed peer review processes” the On his first day in office, Chief Justice Misra headed a researchers write in the Correspondence. Dr. Beall had Bench that included Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. warned about this a year ago: “It is misleading that these Chandrachud and heard a roster of over 70 cases. potentially low-quality articles, many of which have not Justice Misra was elevated to the Supreme Court on Oc-

Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. undergone rigorous peer review, are featured prominent- tober 10, 2011. He enrolled himself as an advocate on

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February 14, 1977 and was appointed as an Additional Judge of the Orissa High Court in 1996. After a stint in the Consumer is king if new law gets nod Madhya Pradesh High Court, he became a Permanent The famous 1992 McDonald’s Coffee Case, where the Judge in December 1997 before assuming charge as the fast food chain had to cough up $640,000 as compen- Chief Justice of the Patna High Court in 2009. Later, he sation to 79-year-old Stella Liebeck for “unreasonably served as the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court. dangerous” and “defectively manufactured” coffee, could As the Executive Chairman of the National Legal Services soon repeat itself in India. Authority, Justice Misra launched a number of initiatives The new Consumer Protection Bill 2016 that seeks to re- to turn the offices of the State Legal Services Authorities place a 31-year-old archaic law, has provisions to sue a into hubs providing facilities for litigants to access court manufacturer for not “giving adequate instructions of cor- documents, find out case status and connect to their ad- rect usage to prevent any harm or any warning regarding vocates online and through dedicated phone numbers improper or incorrect usage.” . “So if a fast food chain does not serve coffee with ade- Centre set to roll out new treatment for quate warning, then a lawsuit can be filed against them,” encephalitis a senior official at the Department of Consumer Affairs Weeks after several children died of encephalitis-related said. complications at the Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical Two-year wait College, Gorakhpur, the Centre is looking to introduce The Bill, who has been languishing for the last two years, a new drug, traditionally used for acne, to deal with the will soon come up for Cabinet approval. “We have for- seasonal outbreaks of acute encephalitis. warded it to the Cabinet; hopefully, it will come up in few Last year the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) days. The law will give the consumers respect they de- said the drug did not appear potent enough to merit being serve,” Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan immediately rolled out as a standard treatment for treat- said. ing patients afflicted with the Japanese encephalitis (JE) The Bill replaces the Consumer Protection Act, 1986. virus. The new law has provisions for Product Liability, which In 2008, researchers at the National Brain Research was unheard in India. The Bill was first introduced on Au- Centre (NBRC), Manesar found that minocycline — an gust 10, 2015 and referred to the standing committee on antibiotic typically used to treat severe acne — surpris- August 26. The panel submitted its report in August 2016, ingly seemed to cure rats infected with the JE virus. suggesting 80 amendments. This sent the government Independent teams of doctors and researchers between back to the drawing board, to rewrite the law. 2008 and 2013 have conducted trials on patients and Under the new draft, even the service providers like air- have concluded, that minocycline worked well on pa- lines can face liability action. “A flyer can sue an airline tients with AES symptoms, who survived the first day of seeking not just reimbursement for a missed flight but hospitalisation. According to the studies the drug did not also compensation for any important event or meeting measurably protect patients beyond three months. he or she missed because the flight was cancelled at last The studies included a trial on 50 patients, time at the minute,” the senior official added. BRD Medical College, Gorakhpur itself on the use of mi- The consumer can lodge a complaint from anywhere nocycline, in specific cases of JE. The researchers found unlike the existing law under which a consumer had to that using the medicine reduced hospital stay but didn’t register the complaint at the same place from where she significantly improve overall mortality. purchased the product. Further, unlike the 1986 law, the The ICMR said last year that the trials showed that the complainant need not be accompanied by a lawyer. At number of patients who seemed to benefit wasn’t “sta- any point, if the manufacturer and the complainant arrive tistically significant” and a larger, more systematic trial at at compromise through mediation process, the latter can multiple locations was aspirantforum.com needed to establish the efficacy withdraw the complaint. of the drug. “We’d been planning such a trial for many Trinamool Congress MP Dinesh Trivedi had paid an ad- months…but there wasn’t an ethics committee in place vance for a car. Later, he realised that the car dealer and doctors at the BRD hospital couldn’t get their act to- had shown him the brochure of a vehicle that was to be gether in time,” said Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Director- launched a year later. But he could not take any action Vol. 36 Aug 2017 36 Aug Vol. General, ICMR. under the existing law. However, as per the new law, he

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or she can approach the Consumer Forum for being misled. The Bill proposes an investigative body, the Central Consumer Protection Authority, on the lines of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

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