Weekly 17th Nov. To 23rd Nov. 2014

CHRONICLE
IAS ACADEMY
A CIVIL SERVICES CHRONICLE INITIATIVE
Weekly Current Affairs Bulletin
17TH NOVEMBER 2014 TO 23TH NOVEMBER, 2014
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CONTENTS
TOPICS
Pg. No.
National ........................................................................................................................ 4-7

International.............................................................................................................. 8-11
India and the World ............................................................................................ 12-14
Economy ........................................................................................................................ 15
Science & Technology .............................................................................................. 16
News in Brief ......................................................................................................... 17-20
Data & Statistics .................................................................................................... 21-25
Editorials .................................................................................................................. 45-76
The case for tight monetary policy ..................................................................... 45
India has ignored Tibet for too long ................................................................... 46
Lessons of 1984 ..................................................................................................... 48
Powering through ................................................................................................. 49
State of transition .................................................................................................. 50
A change in weather ............................................................................................. 51
The right medicine ................................................................................................ 52
New peace deal .................................................................................................... 53
Riding the train to reform..................................................................................... 54
Military needs and societal value.......................................................................... 55
Curbs on content in cyber space ....................................................................... 57
Far from sunny optimism .................................................................................... 57
Utopia as skill set ................................................................................................. 59
Who will make the middle easts new map ...................................................... 60
The continuing polio challenge ............................................................................ 62
Time to demonstrate on Act East policy .......................................................... 62
Big breakthrough in Beijing .................................................................................. 64
Needed, a wider debate ...................................................................................... . 65
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69
70
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72
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75
76
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For a public policy road ma ................................................................................

Rivals turn the table on climate ..........................................................................
A reality check on intellectual .............................................................................
Cometary quest .....................................................................................................
Freebies or a sensible tax plicy ...........................................................................
Deferred distress ...................................................................................................
There is G20, and there is B20 ............................................................................
In the mood for data sharing ..............................................................................
Ensuring accountability .........................................................................................
Tracking the malnutrition monster ......................................................................
Much ado about nothing ......................................................................................
Weekly Current Affairs 17th November to 23th November, 2014
[3]
NATIONAL
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NEW NORMS TO ALLOT COAL BLOCK

The government has planned to allot 74 of more
than 200 coal blocks cancelled by the Supreme
Court in September through a mix of auctions and
allocations by 16 March. The ministry has unveiled
the draft rules in this regard. Of these, 42 blocks
with a production capacity of 90 million tonnes
(mt) are operational and 32 with a capacity of 120
mt are ready to be mined.
The government said its aim was not to increase
electricity tariffs for the power generated from coal
mined from these blocks. The government is
considering several options to prevent irrational
bids that could entail high prices for end-users.
On 25 August, the Supreme Court ruled that

allocation of all coal blocks between 1993 and 2010
were illegal. The order has destroyed Rs.20,000
crore of market capitalization of metal and power
companies in a single day. Those that benefited
from the irregular allotment of mines are eligible
to bid for these blocks offered under the auction
route, provided they submit the Rs.295 per tonne
levy ordered by the apex court.
Benefits for New Regulation
The rules are only applicable for the first set of

74 blocks. Government can go for commercial
mining as and when it decides.
It is a time-bound procedure, so that is good as

it will end the uncertainty in the industry
It would rationalizing the geographies in which

the coal blocks would operate in so that there
is proximity to the plants is excellent
The compensation to the prior allottee, in case

they are not winning the bid, is positive for the
financial institutions, who have significant
exposure to the existing mines.
Major Concerns
A significant upfront payment requirement and

tariff caps on power companies are among
factors that could impact the coal block auction
process
It may hit the profitability assumptions of

companies bidding for these mines. This could
mean less interest from potential bidders, putting
the success of the auction at risk.
Reallocation of mines by way of competitive

bidding, as articulated by the Coal Mines
(Special Provisions) Ordinance 2014, could
create an electricity tariff conundrum.
Independent power producers that were

enjoying the benefit of captive coal will now
see their input costs rise because they will now
pay for both the mine licence and production
cost of coal.
State government-owned distribution

companies have been hobbled by low tariffs,
slow progress in paring losses, higher
electricity purchase costs and crippling debt.
Reallotment policy may worsen their
conditions.
At present State electricity boards are burdened

by debt of Rs.3.04 trillion and losses of Rs.2.52
trillion.
Info-in-Crux
The coal blocks will be allotted to central and

state government-owned companies for
meeting their needs
These companies will also be allowed to bid

for blocks that will be offered through the
auction route.
Power plants using imported coal are also

eligible to participate in the auction, and firm
schedules are being put in place to ensure
timely production of the fuel.
The government will also ensure that the blocks

are not monopolized by one entity, with a cap
on the maximum blocks one company can hold
being worked out by the nominated authority.
There will be a graded application fee

depending on geological reserves. It would
range from Rs.5 lakh for reserves less than 10
mt to Rs.1 crore for more than 100 mt.
[4]
domestic output of the mineral.
Coal Production Scenario in India
Production of coal in India has not kept pace

with growing demand for the fuel in a country.
The power sector consumes nearly 78% of the
Indias power generation capacity grew by 60%

over the last five years, coal production only
grew by around 6%.
STRENGTHENING RURAL ELECTRIFICATION

Info-in-Crux
The estimated cost of the scheme is Rs.43,033

crore. This includes the requirement of
budgetary support of Rs.33,453 crore from
Government of India over the entire period of
implementation.
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The launch of the Deendayal Upadhyaya

Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) has been approved
by the Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime
Minister Shri Narendra Modi. The programme
comprises of following components:
Separation of agriculture and non-agriculture

feeders facilitating judicious rostering of supply
to agricultural and non-agricultural consumers
in rural areas and
Strengthening and augmentation of sub

transmission and distribution infrastructure in
rural areas, including metering of distribution
transformers/feeders/consumers.
Benefits of Scheme
The norms of the ongoing scheme of RGGVY

in 12th and 13th Plans will get subsumed in
DDUGJY as a distinct component for rural
electrification.
For this CCEA has already approved the scheme

cost of Rs.39,275 crore including budgetary
support of Rs.35,447 crore.
This outlay will be carried forward to the new

scheme of DDUGJY in addition to the outlay of
Rs.43,033 crore.
The process of sanction of projects shall

commence immediately. After sanction of
projects, contracts for execution of projects will
be awarded by States Discoms / Power
Departments.
The projects shall be completed within 24

months from date of award.
Implementation of scheme would bring

following benefits.
Improvement in hours of power supply in rural

areas,
Reduction in peak load,
Improvement in billed energy based on metered

consumption and
Providing access to electricity to rural

households.
INDIA POOR IN ATTRACTING AND RETAINING TALENT
In a survey conducted by IMD World Talent

Report 2014, Switzerland emerged as the top
country with the ability to develop, attract and
retain talent. The survey took into account 60
countries. The Switzerland-based IMD is a topranked global business school. It released its first
World Talent Report. The report assessed countries
on their ability to invest in and develop home-grown
talent, ability to retain home-grown talent and
attract overseas talent and the ability to fulfil
market demands with its available talent pool. The
survey revealed that the countries that showed a
positive balance between investing in and
developing local talent, and the ability to attract
and retain overseas talent, performed consistently
well.
Moreover, the example of Malaysia shows that
a strategy aimed at improving both the home-grown
and overseas talent has a positive impact on the

countrys performance. The performance of India
and Brazil show that imbalances across all talent
competitiveness criteria are detrimental for the
sustainability of an effective and dynamic talent
pipeline.
Highlights of Survey
The report draws upon the IMD World

Competitiveness Centers historical database to
assess how the ranking has evolved from 2005
to 2014.
India slipped to the 48th position from the 29th

position it held in 2005.
The only Asian country to rank among the top

five was Malaysia, which improved its position
from the 20th place in 2005 to 5th in 2014.
[5]
competent senior managers, ability to attract

highly-skilled foreign people, availability of
finance skills and management education fit to
the needs of the business community, all
witnessed a fall since 2005.
Denmark, Germany and Finland were the other

countries among the top five in 2014.
The best-ranked countries have a balanced

approach between their commitment to
education, investment in developing local talent,
and their ability to attract overseas talent
Countries with smart talent strategies are also

highly agile in developing policies that improve
their talent pipeline.
The sharpest drop was seen in the access to

skilled labour. It fell from 7.58 points in 2005
to 5.75 points in 2014.
The availability of skilled labour in Malaysia

improved from 5.77 points to 6.95 points. Indian
companies struggle to improve female labour
participation was also reflected in the ranking,
as womens participation fell from 31.65% in
2005 to 25.30% in 2014.
Switzerlands female labour force increased

from 44.69% to 46.16%. Malaysias rose from
36.06% to 37.03% in the same period.
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Brazil too witnessed a sharp fall in its ranking

from 28th in 2005 to 52nd in 2014.
For India, only public expenditure on education

showed an increase (from 3.14% in 2005 to
3.80% in 2014).
Other indicators like prioritization of employee

training, female labour force, availability of
UN REPORT MOOTS FOR SKILLING INDIA
The United Nations Population Funds (UNFPA)

State of the Worlds Population Report highlights that
India has a larger proportion of the youth population
than the rest of the world. The report suggests that
the record 1.8 billion young people present an
enormous opportunity to transform the future.
The need for skill development in India is evident

by the statistics of Government of India estimates
which shows that nearly 13 million young people
enter the labour force every year. Simultaneously,
113 million people reported to the Census that they
were seeking work.
Key Points of Report
The emergence of a large youth population of

unprecedented size can have a profound effect
on any country.
Whether that effect is positive or negative

depends largely on how well governments
respond to young peoples needs and enable
them to engage fully and meaningfully in civic
and economic affairs
Young people are the innovators, creators,

builders and leaders of the future.
They can transform the future only if they have

skills, health, decision-making, and real choices
in life.
Challenges Ahead
The major challenges which deter the effective

realization of youth potential of the country can be
summarized as follows:
The young people entering the job market lack

skills.
Less than three per cent of young people in

high school received vocational education.
Indias higher education enrollment rate is just

over 20 per cent. Added to the problem is the
quality of that education.
Over half of employers interviewed by

McKinsey for a report on skill development in
India reported that skills shortage was a leading
reason for entry-level vacancies.
Over half of youth (interviewed) felt that their

secondary schooling had not made them more
employable.
BIRDS HABITAT UNDER THREAT
The findings of Conservation society Bombay

Natural History Society (BNHS) revealed that at
least 10 Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas
(IBAs) are in serious danger of being lost forever.
At least 10 of the countrys famous bird habitats
including Gujarats Flamingo City are facing serious
danger on account of unsustainable developmental

policies and rising insensitivity towards nature.
[6]
The findings highlights that many other IBAs,

although not on this list, are also threatened by
various types of unsustainable human interference.
Added to the plight is the unfortunatesituation in
India. Nearly 50 per cent of the IBAs are not getting

any sort of official recognition from the government
agencies.
Key Findings
The IBAs including Kutchs famous
Flamingo City, Great Indian Bustard
Sanctuary in Solapur-Ahmednagar of
Maharashtra and Sewri-Mahul Creek in
Mumbai are among the most threatened
habitats in the country.
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The other bird habitats which are in grave

danger of losing tree cover include Sailana
Kharmor Sanctuary in Ratlam, Madhya
Pradesh; Tillangchong in Andaman-Nicobar;
Dihaila Jheel and Karera Wildlife Sanctuary in
Shivpuri, Madhya Pradesh; Basai in Gurgaon,
Haryana; Sardarpur Florican Sanctuary in
Dhar, Madhya Pradesh and Ranebennur in
Haveri, Karnataka.
Causes of Loss of Habitat
Flamingo City is possibly the only breeding

ground of the migratory bird in a great
magnitude in Asia.
Destruction or disturbance due to infrastructure

development,
Wrong anti-people conservation policies,
The scattered grassland plots of the Great Indian

Bustard Sanctuary are home to the critically
endangered Great Indian Bustard.
Indiscriminate livestock grazing
Industrial and sewage pollution
Indiscriminate agricultural expansion including

use of pesticides
Rapid urbanization and poaching
Their population at the sanctuary has

plummeted from 27 birds in 2006 to 12 in 2012
and a mere three birds in 2013.
[7]
INTERNATIONAL
NIGERIAN PREZ PLANS TO EXTEND EMERGENCY
National Defence Council, which will be chaired
by Jonathan.
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The Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has

decided to extend a state of emergency in three
northeastern states which are hit by an Islamist
insurgency. The emergency is due to expire and a
proposal in this regard has to be placed before the
national assembly to extend it.
Keeping in view the law and order situation

Mr. Jonathan had ordered troops into Borno, Yobe
and Adamawa states. The five-year-old insurgency
in the region by the Islamist group Boko Haram
has resulted into heavy toll on public life and the
emergency laws were extended twice.
The government has reviewed the issue of the
state of emergency. The government will be
requesting the National Assembly to extend the
state of emergency. The bill would be presented to
parliament immediately after a meeting of the
BOKO HARAM
Boko Haram is a militant Islamist movement

based in northeast Nigeria. The official name
of organization is Jamaatu Ahlis Sunna
LiddaAwati Wal-Jihad. The group was designated
by the United States as a terrorist organization.
Boko Haram was behind the attacks occurring in
northeast, northcentral and central states of Nigeria.
Since 2009 Boko Haram have abducted more than
500 women and children, including the kidnapping
of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in April 2014. For a
long time the Nigerian military has been ineffective
in countering the insurgency. Boko Haram is
headed Abubakar Shekaku.
GLOBAL SLAVERY INDEX
The statistics of Global Slavery Index (GSI) 2014

sugget the rampat spread of slavry even in the era
of globalization and libraisation. The report is
published by the Walk Free Foundation in Perth in
Australia. India has topped the global index of
people under bondage across the world with an
estimated 35.8 million people enslaved. The index
was created in consultation with an panel of
experts from international organizations, thinktanks and academic institutions.
Key Findings
In terms of absolute numbers, India remains top

of the list with an estimated 14.29 million enslaved
people followed by China (3.24m), Pakistan
(2.06m), Uzbekistan (1.2m), and Russia (1.05m)
If taken togather, these countries account for
61% of the worlds modern slavery or nearly
22 million people
Nearly 14.3 million people, including children,

are trapped in modern-day slavery in India.
India and Pakistan account for 45% of the
global total.
Over 23.5 million people in Asia are living in

modern-day slavery. This is equivalent to almost
two-thirds of the global total number of people
enslaved.
Of these, over 14.2 million are in India and

over 2.05 million are in Pakistan
In South Asia, India and Pakistan are followed

in prevalence by Nepal, Bangladesh,
Afghanistan and Sri Lanka
The people are trapped in slavery through

human trafficking, forced labour, debt bondage,
forced or servile marriage or commercial sexual
exploitation.
UN WARNS OF CLIMATE CATASTROPHE

The United Nation has warned that the world
must cut CO2 emissions to zero by 2070 at the
latest to keep global warming below dangerous
levels and prevent a global catastrophe. The report

has also said that by 2100, all greenhouse gas
emissions, including methane, nitrous oxide and
[8]
ozone, as well as CO2, must fall to zero. If the

target is missed, the report quotes, the world will
face what Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) scientists have described as severe,
widespread and irreversible effects from climate
change.
The scenarios in the UNEP report now require

some degree of negative CO2 emissions in the
second half of the century, through technologies
such as carbon capture and storage or, possibly,
controversial, planetary wide engineering of the
climate known as geo-engineering. UNEP is
extremely interested in the subject and is planning
a report in the months ahead. Consideration should
also be given to compensatory schemes for investors
in fossil fuels companies to address the stranded
assets issue.
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The report published by UNEP is based on the

idea that the planet has a finite carbon budget.
Some 1,900 Gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 and 1,000 Gt
of other greenhouse gases have already been
emitted, since emissions surged in the late 19th
century. It leaves less than 1,000 Gt of CO2 left to
emit before locking the planet in to dangerous
temperature rises of more than 2 oC above preindustrial levels.
PAK-RUSSIA SIGNS DEFENCE PACT
Pakistan and Russia signed a military

cooperation agreement to deepen their defence ties.
They also vowed to translate their relationship in
tangible terms. The agreement came during the first
visit of a Russian Defence Minister in 45 years.
Russian Defence Ministers visit to Pakistan

comes at a very critical juncture when U.S.-led
NATO forces are drawing down from Afghanistan.
The signing of the Military Cooperation agreement
between the two significant countries of the region

is a milestone.
The visit by the Russian Defence Minister comes
against the backdrop of reports that Moscow had
given go-ahead for the sale of MI-35 helicopters to
Pakistan, which is interested in purchasing up to
20 helicopters. The last visit took place as far back
as 1969, when USSR Defence Minister Andrey
Grechko made a trip to the country.
US IMMIGRATION POLICY NEEDS MORE CLARITY
The US President Barack Obamas stance on

immigration is a cheering news, especially among
young IT professionals. However, the IT industry
is also waiting to see the details of the Bill.
In his new immigration policy, Obama said

the US will make it easier and quicker for highly
skilled
immigrants,
graduates,
and
entrepreneurs to stay and contribute to its
economy. The proposal wasgiven by many
business leaders.
As argued by Nasscom president R
Chandrashekhar, though the US Presidents
stance on streamlining procedures to retain
skilled foreign tech students and workers is a
positive move but the industry is waiting for
the fineprint. The industry body believes that
more clarity is needed on the L1B visa, a nonimmigration visa issued for intra-company
employee transfers.The caution stems from a
proposed Bill, worked on by a group of US
Senators known as the Gang of Eight, since
2013. The Bill has put in some clauses that were
causing concern to Indian software exporters,
who rely on having their staff onsite to complete
projects.The H1B and L1 Visa Reform Act of
2013 ensures that an H1-B application filed by
an employer hiring 50 or more US workers will
not be accepted unless the employer attests that
less than 50 per cent of the workforce is made
up of H1B and L1 visa holders.
[9]
required number every year.
Significance of Immigration Policy
Indian companies and multinationals such as

IBM and Microsoft have a large Indian
workforce. Theyare watching the developments
closely
If the procedures are not simplified and speeded

up, it will impact the work of both Indian and
multinational companies.
Indian companies have been applying for fewer

visas over the past three years as visa rejection
has been on the rise.
According to them the US needs more highly

skilled workers.It is unable to produce the
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UN RESOLVES TO END CHILD MARRIAGE
In an attempt to end child marriage, the United

Nations has agreed that all members should pass
and enforce laws banning child marriages. It
resolved to end a practice that affects about 15
million girls every year. The resolution was adopted
with consensus by the committee of the 193-nation
General Assembly that deals with human rights.
Itcalls all member states to take steps to end child,
early and forced marriage.The 118 countries that
sponsored the resolution included Mali, Ethiopia
and the Central African Republic, which are among
the 10 countries with the highest rates of child
marriage.
UN Statistics on Child Marriage
There are now more than 700 million women

who were married before their 18th birthday
Many of them agree to it in conditions of

poverty and insecurity
Child marriage among girls is most common in

south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
In Niger in West Africa, which has the highest

overall rate, 77 percent of women between 20
and 49 were married before the age of 18.
Bangladesh has the most girls who married

under 15 and India is home to one third of all
child brides worldwide.
Info-in-Crux
The resolution called on states to ensure that

marriage is entered into only with the full
consent of the intending spouses, was adopted
without a vote.
General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding,

but can increase political pressure on countries.
The document has been supported by the Islamic

Republic of Iran and Sudan. But both the
countries expressed concern over a paragraph
urging governments to protect the right of girls
to have control over their sexuality and
implement laws that protect reproductive rights.
Adverse Impact of Child Marriage
Child marriage impedes poverty reduction,

education, gender equality and womens
empowerment,
It is also a serious threat to the physical and

psychological health of girls who are not
physically mature enough
It increases the risk of unintended pregnancy,

maternal and newborn mortality and sexually
transmitted infections.
UN CALLS FOR PUNISHING HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE
Human rights wing of the U.N. General

Assembly committee has called U.N. Security
Council to consider referring North Korea to the
International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged
crimes against humanity. The vote followed a U.N.
Commission of Inquiry report published in February
detailing wide-ranging abuses in North Korea,
including prison camps, systematic torture,
starvation and killings comparable to Nazi-era
atrocities.
Council to consider targeted sanctions against those

responsible.The vote increases political pressure on
North Korea but it is largely symbolic. It is unlikely
to lead to action in the International Criminal Court
at The Hague. The court looks at serious abuses
like genocide and other crimes against humanity.
The resolution passed by the U.N. Third

Committee linked the alleged abuses to the policies
of North Koreas leadership. It called on the Security
Diplomats said North Korea ally China would

probably use its Security Council veto power to
stop any ICC referral. They said Beijings stance
would likely be supported by Russia.China and
Russia backed an amendment to the resolution by
Cuba, which was voted down, to remove the call
to refer North Korea to the ICC and an
[10]
acknowledgement of the commissions view that

there were reasonable grounds to believe it had
committed crimes against humanity.
General Assembly resolutions condemning
human rights abuses in Iran, North Korea,
Myanmar and Syria have become an annual
occurrence, but this was the first time a North Korea
resolution included a recommendation for an ICC

referral. The resolution pointed the finger squarely
at North Koreas top leadership by acknowledging
the commissions finding that there were reasonable
grounds to believe that crimes against humanity have
been committed pursuant to policies established at
the highest level of the State for decades.
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CHINA AUSTRALIA AGREESANTARCTIC COOPERATION

An Antarctic cooperation deal has been
committed by Chinas President Xi Jinping with
Australia. This has fulfilled a long-held dream of
China to visit the nations smallest state in a trip
which included a close encounter with a
Tasmanian devil.
Xi backed using Australia, particularly
Tasmania, as a gateway to the frozen continent
in an agreement with Prime Minister
Tony Abbott in the states capital Hobart, where
Chinas Antarctic programmes flagship Xue
Long is docked.In the memorandum of
understanding it was also reaffirmed that Chinas
vow to respect the icy region as a natural reserve

will not be exploited and the two countries would
collaborate on scientific projects. The deal came
three decades after Chinas first expedition to
Antarctica, and follows reports last month of
plans to build an airfield there to support its four
research stations.
At present, approximately 30 nations operate
permanent research stations in Antarctica. They
include US, Russia, Australia, Britain, France and
Argentina, with Hobart, which is home to the
Australian Antarctic Division, a key shipping
gateway to the area.
[11]
INDIA & THE WORLD

HAND-IN-HAND
obstacles, special heliborne operations, firing of
weapons, handling and neutralisation of improvised
explosive devices and conducting cordon and
search operations in the environment facing
insurgency and terrorism.
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The armies of India and China had begun

their fourth joint training exercise, Hand-inHand. The exercise is directed towards getting
acquainted with each others operating
procedures in counter-terrorism. The first such
annual exercise was held at Kunming in China
in December 2007 while the second was held at
Belgaum in December 2008.
The objective of the training is to enhance the
confidence and trust between the two armies. These
armies may be called upon to grapple with antiterrorism operations even under the U.N. mandate.
Conducting joint military exercises is also an
important step to uphold the values of peace,
prosperity and stability in the region by jointly
eradicating terrorism. The excersice is scheduled
for 12-days. It is focused on training in crossing
Significance of Army Exercise:
It would explore useful experiences for both

the country
It will advance pragmatic cooperation between

both the nations
It would promote a friendly environment

between the two armies
It would strengthen the United Nations fight

against terrorism by establishing a trust and
confidence between the two armies.
INDIA OFFERS CREDIT SUPPOURT TO FIJIS SUGAR INDUSTRY
With an aim to give boost to Fijis struggling

sugar industry, Indian Prime Minister Narendra
Modi has pledged them a multi-million dollar line
of credit. The industry has been worked by
thousands of indentured labourers from India under
appalling conditions.
Sugar
was
the
mainstay
of
the
island economy under British colonial rule.It fell into
disarray during decades of political upheaval and
racial tension between the descendants of early cane
field workers and indigenous Fijians. India will
provide a $70 million line of credit to build a cogeneration power plant at a sugar mill. Modi is
only the second Indian prime minister to visit Fiji
after Indira Gandhi in 1981. It is despite of the facts
that Indians make up 40 percent of the population.
Importance of Fiji to India
Fiji has one of the most developed economies

in the South Pacific. It has an abundance of
forest, mineral, and fish resources. A good

relation with Fiji would give a strategic edge to
India.
The main sources of foreign exchange to Fiji are

its tourist industry and sugar exports. The
culture and craze for tourism in India is still in
nascent stage. Fiji can become an attractive
tourist destination for Indians, thereby giving a
boost to Indian tourism sector.
In 1975, Fiji was the first Pacific island nation

to establish official ties with China. That gives
it a particular status among tiny states of the
Pacific Ocean.
On account of its strategic location, China is

trying to develop a go relation with Fiji. Experts
argue that it is another pearl in Chinas String
of Pearls. India has to establish a stronghold
over the island nation in order to counter the
Chinese effort to surround India.
UNDERSTANDING US-INDIA DEAL

India and the US have reached an
understanding on working out a permanent solution
to the issue of public stockholding for food security
purposes at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The deal is expected to end the impasse that had
stalled the implementation of a landmark Trade
[12]
Facilitation Agreement (TFA). The proposal of TFA

came out at the WTOs ministerial conference in
Bali in 2013.
US ideally wants India to replace all subsidies
arising from physical procurement, stocking and
distribution of grain with direct benefit transfers to
low-income consumers and resource-poor farmers.
What is the new deal?
According to a fact sheet on the website of the

Office of the US Trade Representative, the
agreement reached between the two countries
sets out elements for an intensified program of
work and negotiations to arrive at such a
permanent solution.
Why India is asking for Permanent Solution?
First, it is due to the way subsidies are

calculated under the AoA. Under the WTO,
the reference price for subsidy calculation is
taken at the levels prevailing during 1986-88.
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It allows countries such as India to continue to

freely procure and stock grains for the public
distribution system even if subsidies resulting
from these breach limits under the WTOs
Agreement on Agriculture (AoA).
The original peace clause proposed at the Bali

ministerial conference provided only a four-year
reprieve, during which no country would be
penalised for any excessive expenditures on
food security programmes.
The India-US agreement which has to be

endorsed by the WTOs general council
replaces this temporary peace clause with an
open-ended one. The deal is valid until a
permanent solution to the issue of farm subsidies
linked to national food security is arrived at.
Global wheat prices averaged below $ 125 a

tonne then, as against $ 240-250 now. This
obviously exaggerates the extent of any subsidy.
India wants the subsidy computation

methodology to reflect current international
prices. It will, then, have more flexibility in
fixing minimum support prices (MSP). At
present, procurement price in India has already
crossed $ 235 per tonne in wheat.
Second, the AoA rules on public stockholding

are vague and general. While direct provision
of food to vulnerable consumers at subsidised
prices is permitted, such programmes are not
to have the effect of providing price support to
producers.
There is specific exemption with regard to

supporting low-income or resource-poor
producers. According to India, over 90 per cent
of its farmers fall under this category and hence
the subsidies incurred its food security
programmes would be exempt from any
reduction commitments under AoA.
Greater clarity on these provisions is what India

is seeking as part of a permanent solution.
Significance of Deal for India
The adoption of TFA has been blocked by the

India. TFA commits WTO member-countries to
simplify and standardise their Customs
procedures for expediting clearance of goods
at ports/border posts.
India clubbed the inking of this pact with

working out a permanent solution to address
its concerns over food security.
This stance came under criticism, especially

from industrialised countries who claimed that
it had left India isolated at the WTO.
With the US now agreeing to an indefinite

peace clause, Indias position has seemingly
been vindicated.
Challenges Ahead
The finer details of the bilateral agreement are

still unclear. The permanent solution is
something to be negotiated and the peace clause
will hold until this has been agreed and
adopted.
The US can extract concessions from India

during this process of negotiations.
The concern of US
Indias total domestic support for agriculture

amounted to $ 56.1 billion in 2010-11, of which
$ 13.8 billion was on public stockholding for
food security purposes.
The US may not mind Indias procuring and

stocking foodgrains, so long as these do not
end up distorting global trade.
During the last two years, India has exported

over 12 million tonnes of wheat worth $ 3.5
billion all of this from its public stocks. During
the upcoming negotiations, US could insist that
India refrain from exporting grain procured
ostensibly for domestic food security purposes.
[13]
INDO-AUSTRALIA AGREES ON SECURITY CO-OPERATION
It also talks about East Asia talks between

External Affairs senior officials, defence policy
planning and coordination.
It calls for regular defence ministers meeting,

annual defence policy talks, service to service
engagement including regular high-level visits,
annual staff talks, joint training and regular
exercises and regular bilateral maritime exercises.
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A framework for bilateral security cooperation

has been established by India and With this they
stepped up their defence collaboration for
advancing regional peace and combating terrorism
among other challenges. The talks in his regard
was held between Prime Minister Narendra
Modi and his Australian counterpart Tony Abbott .
Both the leaders agreed to establish a Framework
for Security Cooperation to reflect the deepening
and expanding security and defence engagement
between the two countries.
They established the framework to intensify
cooperation and consultation between Australia
and India in areas of mutual interest.
It also calls for exploring defence research and

development cooperation, including through visits
by Australian and Indian defence material
delegations and efforts to foster joint industry links.
It proposes for an annual Joint Working Group

on counter-terrorism and other transnational
crimes, cooperation in counter-terrorism
training and exchanges between experts on
countering improvised explosive devices, bomb
incidents and technologies among others.
The Indian PM, Narendra Modi has also called

for collaboration in the field of maritime security. Mr.
Modi and Abbott decided that the framework will be
implemented in accordance with an action plan.
Progress under the action plan will be reviewed
through established institutional arrangements,
including the Foreign Ministers Framework
Dialogue and the Defence Ministers meeting.
Glimpse of Action Plan
There will be an annual summit and foreign

policy exchanges and coordination.
It includes annual meeting of Prime Ministers,

including on the margins of multilateral
meetings, foreign Ministers framework
dialogue, senior officials talks led by Indias
Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External
Affairs and the Secretary of Australias
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
KEY FOCUS OF SECURITY COPPERATION

The ambitious framework of security
cooperation has 32 actionable points organised
under seven heads which include
Annual summit and foreign policy exchanges

and coordination
Defence policy planning and coordination
Counter-terrorism and other transnational crimes
Border protection, coast guard, and customs
Disarmament, non-proliferation, civil nuclear

energy and maritime security
Disaster management and peacekeeping
Cooperation in regional and multilateral fora.
[14]
ECONOMY
CURBING INSIDER TRADING
the company.
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The Securities and Exchange Board of India

(SEBI) has revamped the Prohibition of Insider
Trading regulations. The step is taken to make the
provisions more stringent and aligning its norms
with international practices. The new rules are
based on the Justice Sodhi Committee report. It
would replace the SEBI (Prohibition of Insider
Trading) Regulations 1992.
It also needs to get at least 25 per cent of the

number of public shareholders , holding shares
in de-materialised mode as on the date of the
board meeting which approves the delisting
proposal, tender in the reverse book building
process.
The promoter/promoter group would be

prohibited from making a delisting offer if any
entity belonging to the group has sold shares
of the company during a period of six months
prior to the date of the board meeting which
approves the delisting proposal.
Companies, whose paid-up capital does not

exceed Rs.10 crore and net worth does not
exceed Rs.25 crore as on the last day of the
previous financial year, are exempted from
following the reverse book building process.
Timeline for completing the delisting process

has been reduced from 137 calendar days (about
117 working days) to 76 working days.
If the delisting attempt fails, the acquirer would

be required to complete the mandatory open
offer process under the Takeover Regulations
and pay interest at 10 per cent per annum for
the delayed open offer.
Highlights of New Regulations
The definition of insider has been made wider

by including persons connected on the basis of
being in any contractual, fiduciary or
employment relationship that allows such
person access to unpublished price sensitive
information (UPSI).
Directors, employees and all other persons in

the deeming category covered under 1992
regulations would continue to be covered.
Insider will also include a person who is in

possession or has access to UPSI.
Immediate relatives will be presumed to be

connected persons, with a right to rebut the
presumption. In 1992 regulations, definition of
connected person was largely position based.
In the case of connected persons the onus of

establishing, that they were not in possession
of UPSI, shall be on such connected persons.
A provision of Trading Plans on the lines of

the U.S. has been introduced for insiders with
necessary safeguards. Such a plan has to be for
bonafide transactions and has to be disclosed
on stock exchange platform in advance.
Delisting would be considered successful only
when the shareholding of the acquirer together
with the shares tendered by public shareholders
reaches 90 per cent of the total share capital of
Impatcs of New Regulations
It would strengthen the legal and enforcement

framework against trading malpractices
It would align Indian regime with international

practices
It would provide clarity with respect to the

definitions and concepts
It would facilitate
transactions
legitimate
business
[15]
SCIENCE & TECH

DISCOVERY OF NEW SUBATOMIC PARTICLES
The new particles are more than six times as
massive as the protons. The scientists have been
deliberately crashing the particles into each other to
see what they can discover about the makeup of the
universe and its tiniest particles. The heavier weight
of the two particles is due in part to their spins in
opposite directions. In a previous breakthrough,
teams of thousands of CERN scientists also used the
state-of-the-art particle accelerator to discover the
subatomic particle known as the Higgs Boson. The
discovery helped Peter Higgs win the Nobel Prize
by proving his theories right.
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Scientists of European Organization for Nuclear

Research (CERN) have claimed to discover two new
subatomic particles never seen before. The particles
are likely to widen the understanding of the
universe. The experiment was conducted by using
the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
LHC found the new particles, which were
predicted to exist, and are both baryons made from
three quarks bound together by a strong force. The
findings could shed more light on how things work
beyond the Standard Model physics theory
explaining the basic building blocks of matter.
NASA INSTALLS ZERO-GRAVITY 3D PRINTER
Worlds first zero-gravity 3D printer has been

successfully installed by NASA on the International
Space Station (ISS). It would help astronauts
experiment with additive manufacturing in
microgravity.
to control samples which were made with the same

3D printer while it was at NASAs Marshall Space
Flight Centre in Huntsville, Alabama, prior to launch.
The 3D printer has been installed by NASAs

astronaut Barry Wilmore. It has been designed and
built by Made In Space, inside the Microgravity
Science Glovebox (MSG) on the ISS. The printer
was launched aboard the SpaceX 4 resupply
mission to the ISS.
The experiment has been an advantageous first

stepping stone to the future ability to
manufacture a large portion of materials and
equipment in space that has been traditionally
launched from the Earths surface.
This can completely change the methods of

exploration.
The science collected from this printer will

directly feed into the commercial printer flying
up in 2015.
This will enable a fast and cost-effective way

for people to get hardware to space.
The goal of the 3D Printing in Zero-G technology

demonstration is an experiment to explore the use
of additive manufacturing technology as a reliable
platform for sustained in-space manufacturing. The
first phase of printing will include, among other
things, a series of engineering test coupons which
will be returned to Earth for analysis and compared
Significance of Experiment
[16]
NEWS IN BRIEF
NEWSMAKERS
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cotton producers and is now also mining gold.
Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Zida
Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Zida has been named

as prime minister of the nation by transitional
government of Burkina Faso. The decision comes
after four days of restoration of the countrys
constitution under pressure from the African Union
and the West. Zida declared himself head of state
on after mass protests toppled President Blaise
Compaore. The President had fled the West African
country. The African Union had given a time of
two weeks to Zida for restoring civilian rule or
facing economic sanctions. As prime minister, Zida,
a large, bespectacled man with a trademark red
beret, will help Burkina Fasos newly appointed
interim president, Michel Kafando, appoint a 25member government that will steer the country to
new elections in 2015. Neither Kafando, a former
foreign minister and ambassador to the United
Nations, nor Zida, deputy head of the presidential
guard, will be allowed to stand in next years
presidential election. The former President,
Compaore triggered protests against his rule when
he tried to push changes to the constitution through
parliament in order to extend his 27-year grip on
power. Compaore was a regional power broker
and a key Western ally against Islamist militants.
France has a special forces unit based in Burkina
Faso as part of a regional counter-terrorism
operation. The country has long been one of Africas
Deepak Gupta
Former IAS officer Deepak Gupta has been

appointed as the new chairman of the Union Public
Service Commission (UPSC). For the first time the
Chairman has been appointed amongst those other
than serving members.This breaks away the long
tradition.
Mr. Gupta is a retired IAS officer of Jharkhand
cadre. He is younger brother of former Home
Secretary Madhukar Gupta. He took over as the
chief of UPSC after the tenure of Rajni Razdan
came to an end.As per convention, the UPSC chief
is appointed from among the members of the
Commission. It is for the first time that somebody
from outside has been appointed as the UPSC
chairperson.
The UPSC conducts the prestigious civil services
examination to select IAS, IFS and IPS officers
among others.The Commission has 10 members.
They include Alka Sirohi (Seniormost member),
academician David R Syiemlieh, retired IFS officer
Manbir Singh, former CBI Director Amar Pratap
Singh, former Navy Vice Chief D K Dewan, former
Railway Board Chairman Vinay Mittal,
educationists P Kelimsungla and Hem Chandra
Gupta, and former IAS officer Chhatar Singh.
OBITUARIES
Alexander Grothendieck
Alexander Grothendieck was the leading figure

of Mathematics. He is known for reshaping the
contours of mathematics in the second half of the
20th century. He recently died at the age of 86.He
was born in Germany but brought up in France. He
established his international reputation with a paper
published in Japan in the Tohoku Mathematical
Journal (1957). It came to be known just as the Tohoku
paper. It put forward a radically new application of
algebraic techniques to the investigation of the
broadest categories of mathematical structure.
The core of his work concerned the connection

between space and structure.He set himself
enormous research programmes intended to
reveal the underlying connections between whole
areas of mathematics. His ambition was to unite
algebra and geometry, arithmetic and topology
in the most general terms. The revolution that
Grothendieck began is still continuing.
Fundamental mathematical initiatives, most
famously the solving of Fermats last theorem by
Andrew Wiles, would not have been possible
without his work.
[17]
From his earliest years Alexander experienced the

intense psychological and creative independence of
the autodidact. In 1945, he enrolled at the University
of Montpellier, and three years later went to Paris to
attend the elite mathematical seminar presided over
by Henri Cartan at the cole Normale Suprieure.
There he encountered many of the ideas in areas
such as topology, group theory and algebraic
geometry that were to form the intellectual backbone

of his future work. He has been awarded the Fields
medal in 1966. He refused to attend the ceremony in
Moscow because of his critical attitude towards the
Soviet government. In 1988 he rejected the lucrative
Crafoord prize. His attempt to secure a permanent
position at the prestigious Collge de France ended in
failure due to his political radicalism.
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AWARD
C.K.Naydu Award to Vengsarkar
Childrens Peace Prize for India-American
Dilip Vengsarkar has been chosen for the

BCCIs Col. C.K. Nayudu Lifetime Achievement
Award for 2013-14. He has earned the sobriquet
colonel. The award comprises a citation, trophy
and cheque for Rs. 25 lakh. It will be conferred at
the BCCIs eighth annual awards ceremony. He
was chosen for the award by a panel comprising
journalist Shekhar Gupta, BCCI interim president
Shivlal Yadav and BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel.
Neha Gupta, a student from Indian-American

community, has won the 2014 International
Childrens Peace Prize Award. She has been
conferred with the award for her exceptional work
to raise money for underprivileged children around
the world. The award was presented to her during
a ceremony in The Hague, Netherlands, jointly by
the Netherlands King Willem-Alexander, former
archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond
Tutu and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala
Yousafzai.
Info-in-Crux
Vengsarkar was Indias prominent batsman

from the mid-70s to early 1990s.
He earned fame for scoring three consecutive

centuries at Lords (103 in 1979, 157 in 1982
and 126 not out in 1986).
He scored 6,868 runs in 116 Tests (17 centuries)

and 3,508 runs in 129 One-Day Internationals.
PREVIOUS COL. C.K. NAYUDU AWARDEES
[18]
1994: Lala Amarnath

1995: Syed Mushtaq Ali
1996: Vijay Hazare
1997: K.N. Prabhu
1998: P.R. Umrigar
1999: Hemu Adhikari
2000: Subhash Gupte
2001: M.A.K. Pataudi
2002: Bhausaheb Nimbalkar
2003: Chandrakant Borde
2004: B.S. Bedi, B.S. Chandrasekhar, E.A.S.
Prasanna, S. Venkatraghavan
2007: Nari Contractor
2008: G.R. Viswanath
2009: Mohinder Amarnath
2010: Salim Durrani
2011: Ajit Wadekar
2012: Sunil Gavaskar
2013: Kapil Dev.
A first-year Schreyer Honours College scholar

in the Eberly College of Science at Pennsylvania
State University, Gupta will be entering the premedicine programme. Inspired by what she saw
during a visit to India with her grandparents,
Gupta founded Empower Orphans. It is an
organization designed to support orphaned and
abandoned children in India and the US. Her
work, which she started at age 9, has grown into
a charity that to date has raised over $1 million
and has helped more than 25,000 children. The
list of projects includes opening libraries,
developing paths to health care, and promoting
education. While the focus of her work began with
orphans in India, Gupta has also helped many
families around Philadelphia, where her family
lives.
Neha Gupta has won numerous awards
including the 2011 World of Children Award, the
Presidents Volunteer Service Award, the
Congressional Award, and also the national
Prudential Spirit of Community award. Along with
the prize, a 100,000 Euro grant will be given to
projects closely associated with Guptas area of
dedication.
The International Childrens Peace Prize was

created by the Amsterdam-based childrens rights
organization, KidsRights. It is awarded to a child
whose work and actions have made a significant,
positive impact in improving childrens rights
worldwide.
A jury chaired by Vice-President Hamid Ansari

chose ISRO for the award. The award is being given to
individuals or organisations who promote international
development, a new international economic order or
make scientific discoveries for public good.
Significance of Prize for India
ISRO Wins Indira Gandhi Prize
The prize bagged by an Indian agency has

shown how much Indian scientists and talent
can be harnessed to international levels,
catching up with much more advanced nations
in a highly technical and sophisticated field
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Indian Space Research Organisation has won

the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament
and Development for 2014. This is the result of
forty years of pioneering work culminating in the
successful launch of Indias first Mars orbiter, by
ISRO. The prize was also for ISROs contributions
in strengthening international cooperation in the
peaceful use of outer space and for the
organisations role in addressing the needs of rural
Indians in remote areas.
It has shown what true self-reliance is, often

working in adverse circumstances.
It has demonstrated that in space technology,

Indians stand shoulder to shoulder with the
best in the world.
COMMITTEE/COMMISSION
Nanavati Panel Submits Final Report
Nanavati Commission of Enquiry has submitted

its final report, twelve years after it was
constituted. The commission was probing the 2002
post-Godhra riots. The report has been submitted
to Chief Minister Anandiben Patel. The report will
be forwarded to the Home department. The
department will review it and place the report
before the Assembly.
The Commissions term expired on October 31

after 24 extensions. It submitted the first part of its
report related to the Sabarmati Express in 2008.The
report said that the train burning was a planned
conspiracy. The same year, after the death of Justice
K.G. Shah, retired HC Justice Akshay Mehta was
appointed to the Commission. Initially, the Terms
of Reference (TOR) of the commission were to
inquire into the facts, circumstances and course of
events that led to the burning of the S-6 coach of

Sabarmati Express.
The panel had been constituted by the state

government on March 3, 2002, under the
Commission of Inquiry Act. It comprised of Justice
KG Shah in the wake of the Godhra train carnage
on February 27, 2002, and the subsequent
communal riots across the state. In May 2002, the
state government appointed retired Supreme Court
Justice GT Nanavati as the chairman of the
commission and the TOR were further amended in
June 2002. As per the new TOR the panel was also
asked to inquire the incidents of violence that took
place after the Godhra incident. The commission
investigated roles of then chief minister Narendra
Modi, as per the TOR, his Cabinet colleagues of
that time, senior government and police officers
along with functionaries of some right wing
organisations during the period of 2002 riots.
MISCELLANEOUS
New Guest for Assam Zoo
The Assam State is ready to become only zoo

in the world to have the critically endangered pig.
It is all set to welcome a few pygmy hogs. The
Pygmy Hog Research and Breeding Centre at
Basistha will provide the pigs to the Assam zoo.
A simulated habitat has been created in an

enclosure by growing Barenga grass collected from
Orang National Park. The zoo had some pygmy
hogs for public viewing from around 1970 till
around 1990. Now, after a gap of almost 25 years,

visitors would be able to see the pigs. The zoo will
also serve as a centre for captive breeding.
The pygmy hog (Porcula salvania) is the smallest

and rarest of wild pigs. As per the reports of IUCN,
the pygmy hog is at the brink of extinction. It has
been exterminated from most of its original range
in India and Nepal.In the past, it was found in a
narrow strip of tall and wet grassland plains in the
area south of the Himalayan foothills from Uttar
Pradesh to Assam, through Nepal terai and Bengal
[19]
duars. Currently, it is restricted to a single viable

population in the wild in Manas Tiger Reserve and
a couple of reintroduced populations in Sonai Rupai
Wildlife Sanctuary and Orang National Park, all in
northwestern Assam.
Eruption of Pico do Fogo Volcano
Officials said the signs were that the eruption

was bigger than the last one, 19 years ago.
They have warned that the situation is likely to
deteriorate.The area around the volcano is a
popular hiking destination for tourists and is also
used for agriculture, including wine-making.
The Cape Verde archipelago lies off the coast
of West Africa. It consists of 10 significant volcanic
islands. Nine of them are inhabited.
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Cape Verde islands has witnessed the eruption

of a volcano that has caused hundreds of residents
living in the vicinity to be evacuated and a local
airport to be closed. Following this, a large plume
of smoke was seen rising over the Pico do Fogo
volcano. It is for the first time the volcano on the

island of Fogo has erupted since 1995.
SPORTS
Roger Federer Creates History
Roger Federer defeated Richard Gasquet in the

first reverse singles match. With this Switzerland
won the Davis Cup final against France by taking
an unassailable 3-1 lead.The 17-time Grand Slam
champion gave Switzerland its first title in the team
competition. It has added the only big trophy in
tennis missing from his collection.
The Federer and Stan Wawrinka had put
Switzerland into a 2-1 lead with a straight sets
defeat of Gasquet and Julien Benneteau in the
doubles. It took 15 years for the former top-ranked
Federer to achieve glory in the Davis Cup after
making his debut in the prestigious event in 1999.
Hamilton wins World Championship
In the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton

clinched his second drivers World Championship.
With this, the 2008 champion became only the fourth
Briton to win two world titles.Hamilton, second in
qualifying, took the lead at the start and controlled
the race, as Mercedes team-mate and title rival Nico
Rosberg suffered car trouble and finished 14th.
Hamilton moves level with Britons Jim Clark and
Graham Hill on two titles, and is one behind Sir
Jackie Stewart.The victory also made him join a
number of other drivers on two titles, including his
great contemporary rival Fernando Alonso. Michael
Schumacher is the all-time record holder with seven.
Hamiltons win was his 11th of the season,
compared to Rosbergs five. He finished 67 points
clear at the top of the title standings. It was the
33rd win of Hamiltons career, moving him clear
of his great rival Fernando Alonso into fifth in the
all-time list.
Rosberg entered the race needing to win and

hope Hamilton finished lower than second in order
to win the title. He was never in the position he
needed to overhaul his rival.While Hamilton made
a perfect start to the day-night race under the
setting sun at the impressive Yas Marina circuit,
Rosbergs Mercedes bogged down and the Briton
was into the lead well before braking for the first
corner.
Hamilton completed the first lap 1.2 seconds in
front, and inched clear until he was 2.7 seconds in
front by the time he made his first pit stop on lap
10, always giving the impression of being in
control.The gap stayed at about that margin until
lap 23, about half-distance, when Rosberg suffered
a failure of the energy recovery system on his
Mercedes.
From then on, it was a matter
limitation for Rosberg, who asked his
him what he needed to do to finish in
- the result that would give him the
Hamilton retire.
of damage
team to tell
the top five
title should
Womens World Boxing Championships
Shamjetsabam Sarjubala and Saweety won

silver medals at the Womens World Boxing
Championships Jeju 2014 in the Womens Light
Fly (45-48 kg) weight category and Womens Light
Heavy (81 kg) weight category respectively.
Sarjubala is a 2011 world youth champion.She
defeated Thailands Chuthamat Raksat, while
Saweety got the better of Anastasiia Chernokolenko
in their semi-final bouts.MC Mary Kom missed the
tournament for the first time due to an injury she
picked up during her gold medal-winning
campaign in the Asian Games.
[20]
DATA & STATISTICS

(Collected from different newspaper)
NEARING THE THIRD BILLION

end of 2014, of whom nearly 48.5% users will
be in Asia. An Internet user is defined as one
who has online access at home. This indicator
only records access to Internet, not use or
frequency of use.
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Around 40% of the worlds over-7 billion

population has an Internet connection today.
In 1995, it was less than 1%. The first billion
was reached in 2005 and the second billion in
2010. The third billion will be reached by the
INTERNET USERS
Year
Internet users
Users
growth
World
Population
Population
growth
Internet
penetration
(% of Population)
2014* 2,925,249,355
7.90%
7,243,784,121
1.14%
40.40%
2013
2,712,239,573
8.00%
7,162,119,430
1.16%
37.90%
2012
2,511,615,523
10.50%
7,080,072,420
1.17%
35.50%
2011
2,272,463,038
11.70%
6,997,998,760
1.18%
32.50%
2010
2,034,259,368
16.10%
6,916,183,480
1.19%
29.40%
2009
1,752,333,178
12.20%
6,834,721,930
1.20%
25.60%
* estimate for 1 July 2014
Source: Internet Live Stats (elaboration of data by International Telecommunication Union and UN Population Division)
TOP 10 COUNTRIES BY INTERNET USERS IN 2014
Rank Country
Internet Users One

One year
year
growth
growth (user)
(%)
Total country
Population
One
year
Popula
tion
Internet
penetration
(% of Popu
lation)
Countrys
Share of
World
Popula
tion %
Countrys
share of
World
Internet
Users (%)
1.
China
641,601,070
24,021,070
1,393,783,836
0.59
46.03
19.24
21.97
2.
US
279,834,232
17,754,869
322,583,006
0.79
86.75
4.45
9.58
3.
India
243,198,922
14
29,859,598
1,267,401,849
1.22
19.19
17.50
8.33
4.
Japan
109,252,912
7,668,535
126,999,808
0.11
86.03
1.75
3.74
5.
Brazil
107,822,831
6,884,333
202,033,670
0.83
53.37
2.79
3.69
6.
Russia
84,437,793
10
7,494,536
142,467,651
0.26
59.27
1.97
2.89
7.
Germany
71,727,551
1,525,829
82,652,256
0.09
86.78
1.14
2.46
8.
Nigeria
67,101,452
16
9,365,590
178,516,904
2.82
37.59
2.46
2.30
9.
UK
57,075,826
1,574,653
63,489,234
0.56
89.90
0.88
1.95
10.
France
55,429,382
1,521,369
64,641,279
0.54
85.75
0.89
1.90
Source: Internet Live Stats
[21]
DOUBLE TROUBLE
Rank
Countries
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
China
India
USA
Brazil
Mexico
Indonesia
Egypt
Pakistan
Turkey
Russia
People (in mn)

*142.7
*109.0
29.7
*19.2
15.7
*14.1
13.1
*12.8
11.8
*11.2
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There is a significantly higher rate of diabetes

among tuberculosis (TB) patients than what
appears in the general population, according to a
study by the International Union Against
Tuberculosis and Lung Disease and the World
Diabetes Foundation. If there is no action to head
this off, a co-epidemic of TB - diabetes will impact
millions and sap public health systems of precious
resources, warm health experts.
Numbers of persons (aged

(29-79) projected to be living
with diabetes in the year 2035
* High Burden TB Country
PRINT MEDIA : A SNAPSHOT
[22]
The state with the largest number
2012-13
2013-14
14,336
15,209
12,466
13,375
of registered publications: UP
The state with the second largest
number of registered publication:
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Maharashtra
The total circulation of publication
405,037,930
450,586,212
2012-13
2013-14
1,244,048
1,181,112
1,119,088
1,026,153
Delhi
Mumbai
650,705
723,862
The largest circulated multi-edition
4,640,374
4,742,671
daily: 'The Time of India'
(21 editions)
(29 editions)
The second largest circulated
3,150,478
3,549,796
The Largest circulated daily: 'Anandabazar

Patrika', Bengali, Kolkata
The second largest circulated Daily:

'The Times of India'
The largest circulated Hindi Daily:

Punjab Kesari', Jalandhar
multi-edition daily
The largest circulated periodical
Dainik Jagran
'Dainik Bhaskar'
Hindi (18 editions)
Hindi (35 edition)
1,315,612
1,021,260
'The Hindu Weekly
'The Sunday Times
English, Chennai
of India' English
weekly edition,
Mumbai
The largest circulated periodical Hindi
1,213,094
6,88,330
'Rishi Prasad'
'Sunday Navbharat
Ahmedabad
Times' Hindi/weekly
edition, Mumbai
[23]
FIVE CHARTS THAT EXPLAIN

INDIAS EMPLOYMENT CHALLENGES
education or skills: less than 30% of the workforce
has completed secondary education, and less than
a tenth has had any vocational training. The
educated youth faces high unemployment rates.
Since quality formal employment is rare in India,
access to regular jobs is highly unequal among
social groups, and across regions. The five charts
below explain the key employment challenges the
country faces.
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As is typical of developing nations, most

working - age people in India cannot afford to be
unemployed. Hence Indias official unemployment
rate is quite low at 27%. But the low
unemployment rate masks profound challenges
the country faces in providing regular jobs to a
steadily growing workforce. Roughly nine out of
10 workers are informally employed and lack any
social protection. Most workers lack adequate
A growing Workforce
As the accompanying chart shows, a whopping

60% of Indias population will be of working age
by 2035, a proportion that has been growing
steadily from 48% in 1990. The rise in the working
- age population in India is occurring at a time
when our northern neighbour, China is ageing.
The UN Population Division projects Chinas
working - age population to comprise 59.8% of its
population in 2035, down from the 66% projected
in 2015. This presents both an opportunity and a
threat. The opportunity lies in securing the jobs
China is set to lose in the coming years. The threat
lies in a demographic time bomb that may create
political instability in the country if the Indian
growth engine is unable to generate quality jobs at
the pace at which China has created such jobs
over the past few decades.
Unemployment Levels Rise with the Level of Education in India
Unemployment rates for graduates, postgraduates

and those with technical qualifications are far higher
than others in India. This could be because of three
disparate factors. First the educated belong to more
affluent backgrounds and hence can afford to wait till
they find a suitable job. Second, a sizeable chunk of the

educated workforce may not be well trained for the job
market. Third, regular job opportunities are not
expanding fast enough to absorb the rising proportion
of educated workers as the third chart shows.
[24]
Formal Sector Jobs Fail to keep pace with Rising

Educational Attainments
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The proportion of formal workers (those with

regular contracts and social security benefits) in
India has grown over the past few years but the
pace of growth has been very slow. The share of
formal workers in the overall workforce grew from

6.6% in 2004-05 to 7.5% in 2011-12, according to
National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data. The
proportion of those employed in the organized sector
rose from 12% to 17% between 2004-05 and 201112, but most such jobs were informal in nature.
Apart from Region, Caste is the single Biggest Determinant of Access to Quality Jobs
[25]
Sharp Regional Disparities in Access to Quality Jobs

data from 2004-05 and 2011-12, shows that
Himachal Pradesh has consistently offered the
highest quality of employment. A low share of
casual workers (14%) and high female work
participation rate, which has led to an above
average work participation rate of 64% have made
Himachal Pradesh top the job charts. Bihar
languishes at the bottom because it has the highest
proportion of casual labourers in its workforce at
42% and has very low wages at Rs. 129 per day.
[26]
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To measure the quality employment across

India, the India Labour and Employment Report
2014 prepared by the institute for Human
Development used an employment situation index,
which taxes into account the nature of jobs and
earnings of workers. The index shows that workers
in the southern, western and northern parts of the
country have much brighter job prospects than in
the eastern and central parts of the country. The
employment situation index complied using NSSO
EDITORIAL
THE CLOUD OVER BURDWAN
pushed into India an arrangement designed
to avoid political criticism at a time when the two
countries had not yet signed an extradition treaty
(which came into effect in October 2013).
Nevertheless, the countrys relationship with India
remains a political minefield for Bangladeshi
politicians.
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Prior to the October 2 Burdwan blasts, the

Jamaat ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) was
notorious for the 459 near-simultaneous improvised
explosive devices detonated all across Bangladesh
in the summer of 2005. Bangladeshs security forces
subsequently arrested hundreds of its members and
killed its entire top leadership, including its founder,
Shaikh Abdur Rahman. But despite being seriously
weakened, according to a March 2010 report of
the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG),
the JMB is still active and dangerous.
While its brand of militant Islam may no longer

be a clear and present danger to Bangladesh, we
have not seen the end of the JMB, said the ICG
report. The group could still be planning future
attacks. The report draws particular attention to
the JMBs training camps along the IndiaBangladesh border. It laments that India and
Bangladesh blame each other for their problems,
instead of pursuing their shared interests in taking
on the JMB. Indeed, until recently at least during
the BNP-Jamaat coalition government of 2001-06
Bangladeshi security officials seemed to believe
that the JMB was doing the bidding of Indias
R&AW. However, the situation changed after the
Awami League came to power in 2008.
India and Bangladesh have since signed
agreements to facilitate cooperation between their
law enforcement agencies. They have agreed to
transfer accused persons to face trials and convicted
persons to serve prison sentences in their home
country. There is an agreement to constitute a
coordination committee made up of representatives
of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies
of the two countries to combat terrorism, organised
crime, and cross-border drug trafficking.
The Awami League government reversed the
previous governments policy of tolerating if not
actively hosting Indian rebel groups in
Bangladeshi territory. Indeed, this shift alone had
led to significant changes in the fortunes of the
ULFA and a number of other rebel groups in the
Northeast. In 2009-10, key ULFA leaders were
picked up by Bangladeshi security agencies and
It is unlikely that the Burdwan blasts took a

close observer of Bangladeshi politics by surprise.
But a conspiracy hatched on Indian soil to
destabilise Bangladesh is a potentially embarrassing
and troublesome development for India. The
Narendra Modi government is trying to act as a
responsible neighbour, and has asked the National
Investigation Agency (NIA) to investigate the blasts.
It plans to hand over the results of its investigation
to the Bangladesh government.
But the actions of some of Modis political allies
could jeopardise Indias foreign policy goals. Rather
than treating the JMB operations as the inevitable
result of our porous borders, a number of Sangh
Parivar organisations have been retailing conspiracy
theories on the complicity of some of its domestic
political rivals with so-called jihadi elements a
widely abused term that invokes, in this context, a
Muslim holy war against unbelievers, rather than
the JMBs war against Bangladeshi democrats and
secularists.
In Assam, much has been made of a cable news
channel report purportedly citing intelligence
sources that allegedly link the All India United
Democratic Front (AIUDF) and the Jamiat-Ulemae-Hind with the Bangladesh-based jihadi terror
outfit. These two organisations are said to have
sent a group of youths from Assam for jihadi
training in a bordering district of Bangladesh.
A leader of the state BJP has called for a ban
on these two organisations, and the arrest of
Badruddin Ajmal, MP and president of the AIUDF
and chief of the Assam unit of the Jamiat Ulemae-Hind. The Bajrang Dal called for a 12-hour bandh
in support of these demands.The BJPs state unit
supported the bandh. The AIDUF has described
the cable news channel report as politically
[27]
motivated fabrication and has threatened legal

action. AIDUF leaders have asked the Central
government to thoroughly investigate the matter.
The Union home ministry has denied that any
intelligence report links the AIDUF with the JMB.
The Assam chief minister has also said that the
state government has no evidence linking the Jamiat
Ulama-e-Hind and the AIUDF with that group.
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It is not only in Assam that Sangh Parivar

operatives have jumped into the fray. The West
Bengal BJP chief has demanded that the Trinamool
Congress be declared a terrorist organisation. A
BJP worker was quoted in the press saying the
Bengal governments plea that it wasnt aware of
terrorist activities in the state was not unlike the
Pakistan government pleading ignorance of Osama
bin Ladens presence there.
Intelligence and intelligence services, says

political scientist Robert Jervis, are simultaneously
necessary for democracy and a threat to it. One
reason it could be a threat is that all sorts of
information in the hands of intelligence agencies,
including investigative leads, could be used for
partisan political agendas. It is crucial for
democracies to develop accountability structures to
protect intelligence agencies from abuse by
politicians for narrow political gain. In order to
successfully pursue Indias foreign policy goals,
Modi will have to deal with this issue on a priority
basis. He will have to simultaneously rein in his
political allies so that Indias shared interest with
Bangladesh in combating the JMB is not sacrificed
at the altar of domestic political calculations.
Source: Indian Express
TRADING FAIR
At the Asean summit in Nay Pyi Taw,

Myanmar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi did well
to make an assertive pitch for the mutual
recognition of degrees. An accompanying pact to
the services and investment free trade agreement
that India signed in September, which would
compel the signatories to honour academic and
professional qualifications obtained in other
countries, is non-negotiable if India is to benefit
from free trade. In a bid to protect their domestic
service sectors, some Asean countries Thailand,
for example are insisting that Indian
professionals obtain local qualifications before they
are allowed to practise in their jurisdiction. That
such demands crop up in a countrys domestic
politics is not surprising along with winners,
there are losers from globalisation, too. But it is
neither fair nor tenable to erect artificial barriers to
stem the free flow of services even as merchandise
trade continues unencumbered. There is an obvious
double standard when Asean countries raise the
loss of livelihoods argument to protect their
domestic service sectors while Indian rubber
farmers, for instance, reel under competition from
Thailand, and Indian coconut farmers are going
out of business due to Indonesian and Malaysian
palm oil. It is for individual countries to redistribute

the net benefits of free trade, which are undeniable.
India has a clear comparative advantage in services
wages for skilled workers, who are mostly proficient
in English, are comparatively low. Among Asean
countries specifically, India is a leader in the services
sector it exports $152 billion worth of services
compared to Singapore, a distant second, at $117 bn.
Overall, not only does more than 50 per cent of Indias
GDP come from this sector, but in 2013-14, it had an
invisibles trade surplus of $1,15,212 million against a
merchandise trade deficit of $1,47,609 mn. Simply put,
while China wants to be the factory of the world, and
the US fancies itself as the global proprietary-technology
hub, India could aim to be a services giant.
But India still runs an overall trade deficit with
Asean countries, $8,144 mn in 2013-14, because
they have an edge in manufacturing. The pact for
the mutual recognition of qualifications, one step
towards dismantling artificial barriers to services
trade, would go a long way in plugging this gap
and help India leverage its prowess in IT, financial
services and healthcare. For free trade to be fair, it
has to be truly free.
REVENGE ISNT SWEET

The question of abolishing the death penalty
in India has become imminent due to several
pending executions of convicts. The last execution
was in February 2013, when Afzal Guru, a
conspirator in the Parliament attack case, was
suddenly hanged in callous secrecy after he awaited

his execution for over five years. Presently, 70 per
cent of the worlds states, that is, 150 out of 198,
have abolished the death penalty, including for
terror crimes, as it serves no purpose and its
[28]
execution has been found to be inhuman. India is

one of few countries, including China, Iran, and
Saudi Arabia, that has retained the death penalty.
In the Bachan Singh case, the majority

judgment was of the opinion that the death
penalty was a deterrent to murder. Today, it has
been statistically established that the death penalty
does not act as a deterrent. A survey conducted
by the UN in 1988 failed to provide any evidence
that executions were more of a deterrent than life
imprisonment. In Canada, the homicide rate
declined after the abolishing of the death penalty
in 1976. A survey released in 2000 by The New
York Times found that during the last 20 years,
homicide rates in states with the death penalty
were 48 to 100 per cent higher than in those
without the death penalty.
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Recently, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen,

economist Jagdish Bhagwati, Justice V.R. Krishna
Iyer and a number of other eminent persons from
different walks of life called for the abolishment of
the death penalty in India, as it is cruel and has no
deterrent value. The UN General Assembly by a
resolution in December 2012 has called for a
moratorium on the death penalty, which was
adopted by 111 member states.
the retention of the death penalty. But in August

2014, the Law Commission issued a public
consultation paper calling for a fresh debate on the
retention of the death penalty in India.
In India, those who favour the death penalty

rely on the majority judgment by the Supreme
Court in Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab in 1980.
The SC held the imposition of the death penalty to
be legal, but it comforted opponents of the death
penalty by stating that it should be imposed only
in the rarest of the rare cases. Every imposition
of the death sentence on a convict now states
ritually that it is a rarest of the rare case. This
mantra is not only vague but also highly arbitrary,
subjective and discriminatory. We may ask, how
does one distinguish between an ordinary murder
and a rare murder, and among rare murders,
how does one find the double-distilled essence of
the rarest murder. It does not help to describe a
murder as brutal, grotesque, heinous and so on, as
judges invariably do. An ordinary person could
fairly so characterise every murder. Ultimately,
judges award the death penalty or life depending
on their own sensitivity and values. Each judge
will easily find special reasons for awarding the
death sentence according to his own perception of
the gravity of the murder. Justice P.N. Bhagwati,
who wrote a powerful dissent in the Bachan Singh
case, two years later showed how arbitrary this
formula was when one bench of the SC imposed
the death penalty on one of the murderers and
another bench later did not impose it on another
murderer in the same case.
Thirty-four years after the Bachan Singh case,
it is now clear that the supporting reasons for the
retention of the death penalty are no longer valid.
The majority judgment stated that only 18 states in
the world had (then) abolished the death penalty.
The situation now has changed. A majority of the
states in the world have abolished the death penalty.
Even in the US, which is generally averse to
abolishing the death penalty, 18 out of 50 states
have done away with it. The SC in the Bachan
Singh case heavily relied on the 35th Report of the
Law Commission of India, 1967, which favoured
A common justification for the death penalty is

that it is revenge and retaliation for murder. It is
said that the revulsion felt by society against the
murderer can be satisfied only by his death. It is
not realised that revenge is an elementary passion
that lacks refinement. A civilised society that
believes in the dignity of the human person cannot
have retaliation as a justification for punishment.
A former president of Chile, Eduardo Frei, said, I
cannot believe that to punish the person that kills,
the state should in its turn kill. The death penalty
is as inhuman as the crime which motivates it.
The aspect of retribution being unjustified was not
considered by the majority in the Bachan Singh
case.
One of the most important reasons to abolish
the death penalty is the brutality of hanging the
convict. In India, we have retained this method to
carry out the death penalty. The hanging of a
convict is carried out in secrecy. Hanging seeks to
break the neck by withdrawing the trap on which
the convict stands. Often the neck does not break
by the drop and the prisoner strangles to death. If
the drop is too short, there could be slow and
agonising death by strangulation. There is
considerable evidence to show that hangings are
often cruelly botched. That is why it has been
replaced in US states with lethal injection. But even
with lethal injections, the execution is sometimes
botched and painful, which has led to a demand
in the US for its abolition. The California court
recently held it to be cruel and illegal.
The experience in India almost invariably is that
the death sentence is given to accused from poor
and marginalised sections of society.
[29]
Often, the accused is defended by a novice of a

lawyer. One does not come across any case of death
penalty being inflicted on those who are better off
and can engage skilled lawyers. What Justice
Douglas said in the US has application with greater
force in India. It is the poor, the sick, the ignorant,
the powerless and hated who are executed, he said.
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We cannot depend on Parliament to abolish the

death penalty, as was done in the UK. The Indian
Parliament is not sensitive to such matters. It has
not taken any initiative on abolishing the punishment
for gay relationships or to legalise euthanasia. In a

landmark decision, our SC on January 21 held that
prolonged delay in the disposal of the mercy petition
by the president, causing agony to a death-row
convict, is a good ground to set aside the sentence
and commute it to life imprisonment. The next step
for the humanitarian jurisprudence of our SC is to
reconsider the majority judgment in the Bachan
Singh case and put India in the category of states in
the world that have abolished the death penalty.
TIME FOR AFSPA TO GO
The Indian army needs to be commended for

having meted out exemplary punishment to the
officers and jawans involved in the fake encounter at
Machil. As a former armyman, one can understand
the anguish and soul-searching behind this necessary
and hard decision. The Armed Forces Special Powers
Act (AFSPA), which provides protection to soldiers
in such circumstances, has come under scrutiny once
again and calls for its repeal have reached a crescendo.
There is merit in the argument that AFSPA has
outlived its utility, and must go.
It is worth recalling that while AFSPA was
introduced in 1958, the Assam Disturbed Areas
Act was enacted in 1955 to provide a legal
framework for security forces to deal with the Naga
insurgency. When the army was inducted soon
thereafter, the then army chief in a Special Order
of the Day exhorted his troops, you are not to
fight the people of the area but to protect them
(from disruptive elements) you must therefore
do everything possible to win their confidence and
respect It is a sad commentary that half a
century later, AFSPA still remains in force in the
Northeast and the clamour for its revocation has
come from events in Kashmir, where it was imposed
in 1990. It is sadder still that despite untold
sacrifices, the army seems to have lost the
confidence and respect of the people. If that is
the case, then it is time that AFSPA went.
If the act is revoked, how will it affect the security

of the country? First, the basics. Every Indian will agree
that there can be no compromise on the territorial
integrity of the country. It is the Constitution that provides
that India will be a Union of States (Article 1) and it has
no provision to cede territory (sub-Clause 3). Article 51
enjoins all citizens to uphold and protect the
sovereignty, unity and integrity of India. So any
demand for separation is to be resisted. Look now at the
security aspects. Our executive machinery at the district
level has always had the authority to use force,
requisitioning troops if necessary, to restore law and
order. So, whenever the armed forces operate, they are
acting in aid of the civil authority. It follows that once
the situation is brought under control, the civil
administration re-assumes responsibility. If the
government machinery in Kashmir is prepared to assume
responsibility, the army would only be happy to go
back to their task of protecting the Line of Control (LoC).
Is a via media possible? Yes, use AFSPA in
selected areas and for restricted periods of time.
For example, certain areas along the LoC could
have AFSPA permanently in force. In other areas,
let the police (with army in support) seek and
impose AFSPA for a limited period of time. Agreed
that AFSPA must go, but answer a basic question,
who needs its protection more, the armed forces or
the civil administration? There are no easy answers.
LEFT OVER ON THE TABLE
India seems relieved, having convinced the

United States to advocate on its behalf at the WTO
regarding the issues arising from its food security
programmes, while food-exporting nations are
rejoicing at New Delhi signing on the dotted line
without insisting on a reduction of farm support in
developed countries. As we defend public
procurement and stock holding, they will be looking
at opportunities to export to India high-value produce

like fruit, vegetables, milk, poultry and pulses.
[30]
Food prices have been rising for the past many

years; more so since 2007. As a result, foodimporting countries, usually developing nations, are
not overly interested in subsidy reduction in
developed countries, because this would increase
the cost of their food imports.
cotton. Hypothetically, were this support to be

withdrawn, the price of cotton would appreciate
by approximately 25 per cent before stabilising,
thereby increasing the value of world cotton output
(currently about $55 billion) by $14 billion because
of reduced production. This should also be taken
into account while calculating US cotton subsidies.
In India, seven million farmers produce six million
tonnes of cotton worth $12 billion. Each of them
could earn an extra Rs 26,000 without adding a
single drop of water, fertiliser or sweat to the soil
if the US discontinued its support. We could
cautiously emulate Brazil and threaten to take the
US to court. The US is going to pay Brazil $300
million to settle claims and continue its subsidies
without being hauled to court.
We could also evoke the WTO Agreement on

Agriculture, where due consideration is given to
the influence of excessive rates of inflation on the
ability of any member to abide by its domestic
support commitments. Inflation over the past 25
years (about 600 per cent) warrants our not being
able to abide by domestic support commitments.
Similarly, China directly subsidises cotton farmers

by Rs 2,800 per quintal. This is over and above the
Rs 5,900 per quintal they receive from the market.
Indian farmers sell at a minimum support price
(MSP) that is less than half this total price.
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Now that the trade facilitation agreement is

inevitable, the government must insist on the
removal of the many unresolved anomalies and
ambiguities in the international trade architecture
before a final agreement is inked. Farm support
that increases production and skews the market
price is considered trade distorting. At the WTO,
the market price prevailing in 1986-88 is the
reference price used for calculating subsidies. Had
this reference price been updated say it was the
average price of the preceding three years we
would not be in any danger of breaching the WTO
subsidy limit of 10 per cent. Logically, it shouldnt
bother anyone if our support price is less than the
prevailing international price. Yet, other riceexporting nations complain about our rice subsidies.
India could have weathered the storm at the

WTO better but for the lack of diligence in collecting
data, research, documentation and negotiation
skills. We were also negligent to not notify our
subsidies for 10 years. Ultimately, our protestations
of innocence were not taken seriously and we were
unable to garner support at the negotiations.
The crux of the matter is how support is
quantified. Support can be classified as an amberbox subsidy, considered to be production- and
trade-distorting, or as a green-box subsidy, which
is non-distortionary. Blue-box subsidies (direct
payments under a production-limiting programme),
supposed to be interim measures to move away
from amber-box subsidies, get to escape adverse
quantification and must be discarded.
As a farmer, I strongly believe that the value of

trade price distortions as a result of support must
also be quantified as an amber-box subsidy. The
US gives $3 billion worth of support to its 27,000
cotton farmers, who produce 12 per cent of world
In India, farm subsidies that dont reach over

half the intended beneficiaries need to be redesigned
bottom up. For example, the present system of farm
support through MSPs is available for very few
crops in select areas of the country. Price support
is not available for produce retained for home
consumption or to farmers who dont have a
marketable surplus because of small land operating
sizes. We need income support to be decoupled
from production support. The Aadhaar ecosystem
and Jan Dhan Yojna could be used to implement
a system of income support.
At Bharat Krishak Samaj, we have consistently
been advocating for subsidies that are inversely
proportional to land operating sizes, for targeted
delivery and to achieve equitable growth. But first,
Indias land records would need to reflect true land
ownership and tenancy rights. Updating land
revenue records is up to the states and poses
problems that could derail the solution. Only after
crossing this bridge can we hope to overcome
further hurdles.
SAARC WITHOUT A BACKBONE
Despite his commitment to greater regional

cooperation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will
have his work cut out for him at the Saarc
summit in Kathmandu. Saarc declarations have
made considerable progress on a range of issues,
from trade and connectivity to ecology. But these
declarations only serve to highlight that Saarc

has near zero credibility. Can Modi convert a
traditionally bureaucratic exercise, at the
margins of our political imagination, into an
ambitious political gambit with more meaningful
outcomes?
[31]
invite more scepticism than admiration. And Saarc

institutions are pathetic both in capacity and in
prestige.
India has to shoulder some of the blame. It is a
tall order to expect India to do well in the region
what it does only in fits and starts at home: build
top-class infrastructure. But whether we like it or
not, infrastructure is the most potent tool of security,
connectivity and diplomacy. India is not even off
the starting block on this. We have rejected many
infrastructure projects offered to us. Our execution
does not command respect. It is also an open
question whether the scale of financially viable
projects is enough to add up to an infrastructure
revolution in the region that has real political bite.
But infrastructure is the backbone of regional
cooperation. Right now, Saarc is a project without
a backbone. The truth is that unless India shows
exemplary execution capabilities in this area, the
esteem it commands will be limited. And much of
our neighbours interest in us will depend on how
well our economy does in the next decade.
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There is some hope. The normative discourse

on greater connectivity in the region has shifted.
There are many projects already on the ground,
ranging from grid connectivity with Bangladesh to
power agreements with Nepal. These are very
modest beginnings. Only in a culture that sets the
bar as low as South Asia can these be regarded as
progress. They are a far cry from the need to think
of South Asia as shared ecological space, a
connected energy market, a free-trade area, a zone
of freer movement of people, a unified transport
area, and more ambitiously, a zone of free, selfconfident democracies. Contrary to our traditional
fears, greater regional cooperation strengthens
individual nations in Saarc rather than weakening
them.
Saarc was always hostage to the India-Pakistan

relationship: India always feared it being used as a
forum for bilateral one-upmanship by our
neighbours. This fear has diminished considerably.
That is because some of Indias bilaterals have
improved, making it harder for all countries to gang
up, as it were. There is also the view that regional
cooperation can proceed at a different pace with
different countries. And finally, at this point, the
momentum of India-Pakistan relations has very little
to do with Indias actions. Pakistan needs to sort
out what kind of national and regional player it
wants to become: Indian conduct is, both for the
Pakistani military and its Western supporters,
largely an alibi for not facing up to its internal
problems. Its human costs are high. But the only
thing India can do is signal powerfully that there
is a new regional imagination taking shape. This
imagination has a lot of potential, and Pakistan
can join the party if it wants to. The Pakistan factor
is more reason to strengthen Saarc, not weaken it.
But there are serious obstacles. Regional
institutions seldom overcome the pathologies of the
bureaucracies of individual states. The importance
of the credibility gap cannot be overestimated.
Saarc would initiate a healthy precedent if, instead
of making a lot of new pronouncements for the
future, it began with an honest report card on how
much delivery has fallen short of declarations. You
can judge how serious an organisation is not by
the scale of its promises, but whether it has an
effective monitoring mechanism for implementation.
The already agreed to Saarc roadmap for a
transition from the Safta to a customs union would
warm anyones heart; the pace of implementation
would drive anyone to despair. Even projects that
have got off the ground, like the Saarc University,
[32]
Politicians in the region tend to be risk averse.

In private, their normative and intellectual
commitments are all for greater cooperation. In
public, they face three obstacles. In some of the
smaller countries, they fear being outflanked by
their rivals, who are all too ready to use an antiIndia card. Our neighbours are not alarmed by
trade deficits with China, but the slightest spectre
of a trade deficit with India is a political issue.
These fears are exaggerated. But they have palpable
effects.
Much of the discourse of regional cooperation
is couched in very abstract terms and speaks of
aggregate benefits to the countries involved. But
aggregate benefits are seldom strong enough to
override the opposition of entrenched interest
groups which fear immediate distributive
consequences. Moreover, the local communities
where projects are going to be sited are often given
little stake in them. Quite the contrary: they often
fear that they will be used merely as way stations
to seemingly lofty goals, without benefits flowing
to them. None of these are insurmountable
obstacles. But the form of local political advocacy
needed to get projects off the ground still does not
exist to a sufficient degree.
Finally, the domestic political cycles for many
of our neighbours have to be taken into account.
Nepal still has a political stalemate of sorts.
Bangladesh is doing well, but the window of
Modi has a political opportunity. He can put

an unprecedented political imprimatur on a usually
moribund summit. It is a chance to boldly sketch
what a new regional imagination, one that is
vibrant and meaningful yet reassuring to all our
neighbours, would look like. In many ways, this
project is far more consequential, even for the future
of secularism in the region, than we usually
recognise. But he will also have to work hard to
overcome the scepticism that big dreams usually
incite in South Asia.
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opportunity before the legitimacy crisis for the

current government enlarges is small. Sri Lanka
now has a cussedness about regional cooperation,
largely buttressed by the view that China can
sustain it. And it is unclear what compromises the
new government in Afghanistan will make and
what this entails for India. But the lesson is this:
whenever there is a small window of opportunity,
it is important to make maximum use of it, to deliver
and execute projects that can endure the surface
movements of politics. For example, coming good
on all our commitments to Bangladesh is of such
vital importance because if this moment is not used,
the consequences will be serious.
DISTRESS IN TELANGANA
Ground-level reports from Telangana in this

newspaper have documented a resurgence of
farmer suicides. The difference this time, though,
is that the victims are largely landless farmers:
people who took land on lease to grow cotton or
maize. With no owned land to show as collateral,
they couldnt access crop loans from banks and
had to, then, borrow from informal moneylenders
to pay the lease rent up front as well as to finance
purchase of seed, fertiliser and other inputs. These
farmers may well have been tempted by the high
crop prices of last year to borrow at 24 per cent
or more annual interest. Their bets, however,
went horribly wrong because of poor monsoon
rains.
The latest suicides highlight a serious problem
of cultivators being excluded from the formal
financial sector simply by virtue of not having land
titles in their names. This makes no sense because
the lessee-farmer is putting to productive use land
that the original owner wouldnt ordinarily farm.
By doing so, he is doing both himself and the owner
apart from the consumers of his produce a
favour.
According to the Agriculture Census for 201011, over 1.5 million hectares of land in India is
being cultivated under different leasing
arrangements. Even that figure might be an

underestimate, given that in many states, leasing
out agricultural land is illegal. The apparent reason
is it undermines the principle of land-to-the-tiller,
whereas the reality is that todays so-called
landlords are hardly the zamindars of the old feudal
era. In most cases, their holdings are small and
uneconomic, while the ones leasing in do it mainly
with a view to farm intensively or augment their
operational area.
We need a regime that allows landowners to
legally lease out their holdings, with assured
resumption of possession at the end of the agreed
tenancy contract period. Such recorded lease
agreements, along with pledging of the crop to be
produced, can serve as collateral for bank loans,
while simultaneously securing the interests of
landowners. In this context, the new governments
Bhoomi Heen Kisan scheme that seeks to provide
institutional credit to landless farmers through the
formation of joint liability groups is welcome.
Lending to such groups, comprising farmermembers who would stand as guarantors for each
others repayment, could help minimise risks for
banks. But government schemes cannot substitute
for an active land lease market.
LAME DUCK?
After the drubbing meted out to the Democrats

in this months US midterm elections, President
Barack Obama promised that he would work to
get the job done. He made a beginning on
Thursday night when, after years of pressure from
immigration activists and stalled legislation in
Congress, where the Republicans have blocked
every attempt at reform, Obama announced vast
executive measures to prevent the deportation of

four million of an estimated 11 million
undocumented migrants, including hundreds of
thousands of Indians.
[33]
These are mostly parents of American citizens

and teenagers who were brought into the country
illegally as children.
coherent policy on. A hardline position on

immigration could undermine the electability of the
partys 2016 presidential candidate, while
intemperate reactions like those calling for
impeachment or another round of budget
brinkmanship leave the party vulnerable to old
allegations of it being incapable of governing.
This is a new, muscular Obama, wielding the
power of his office and his pen not to conciliate,
as he vowed to do when first elected president, but
as a weapon. Immigration reform is likely only the
first of many brawls in his final years in office.
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The new programme does not offer permanent

legal status or create a path to citizenship, which,
experts agree, would represent an overreach of
presidential authority. As it is, the Republicans
claim that Obama has violated both the constitution
and democratic norms by issuing an executive order
of this scope Speaker John Boehner even called
him Emperor Obama and are threatening to
force a government shutdown over the 2015 budget
in order to defund the programme. But two years
before the next presidential election, the Republicans
find themselves in a terrible political bind not
least because Obama is forcing them to take a
position on an issue they do not seem to have a
FOR A LAW THAT LIBERATES SEX WORKERS
The proposal to legalise sex work by the

Chairperson of the National Commission of Women,
Lalitha Kumarmangalam, before a panel appointed
by the Supreme Court to recommend changes in
law, has sparked off a debate around the polarising
subject of prostitution.
Sex work, the term being increasingly used by

organisations of women in prostitution, itself
provokes outrage across a broad spectrum from
the conservative to the progressive and feminist.
From being looked upon as an outcome of
capitalism by Marxists or as an ultimate degradation
of women by radical and socialist feminists to being
asserted as a right to work is a long journey.
In fact, existential feminism deriving from the
thoughts of Simone de Beauvoir takes the view that
prostitution allows women an avenue of escape
from dependency on men that does not leave them
victims but rather empowers them. The entry of
male, hijra and transgender sex workers into the
arena has made the situation even more complex,
of which the law in India has taken limited
cognisance.
Different legal positions
The debate with regard to law and sex work

centres around the three options of prohibition,
legalising and de-criminalisation. Total legal
prohibition is a demand enjoying considerable
support in society. International womens
organisations/coalitions as well as a number of
NGOs work in this area with the perspective of the
total outlawing of sex work.
the Government, inspections, the issuance of licences

and mandatory testing for HIV, amongst other
requirements. The system is prevalent in Germany
and the Netherlands. However, in India the
compendium referred to as licence raj has been
ineffective, particularly in implementing social
welfare legislations like labour laws, safety and
child labour.
Experience has also shown that licensing leads
invariably to a large section of unlicensed sex
workers even more vulnerable to coercion, extortion
and violence. Similarly, coercive practices like
mandatory testing fail to meaningfully address the
HIV epidemic, perpetuate stigma and alienate and
drive vulnerable populations away from the
resources they need to safeguard their health.
Decriminalisation
Decriminalisation refers to the repeal of laws

that prohibit sale of sexual services and is a strategy
advocated by sex worker rights organisations and
unions.
The model of decriminalisation has been
followed in New Zealand and studies indicate that
working conditions, access to health services and
justice has improved for sex workers. There is no
evidence to support the fear that decriminalisation
would lead to an increase in trafficking into
prostitution.
Trafficking is the transporting a person by the
means of the use of threats, force, coercion,
abduction, fraud or deception.
Legalising prostitution translates into regulation

and involves state control of sex workers through
licensing. The option would involve registering with
However, the conflation of trafficking with

prostitution has dogged the debate since the
inception of the law. Inadvertently or perhaps
intentionally, as the result of a quirky mind, the
[34]
law pertaining to prostitution/sex work enacted in

1956 was called the Suppression of Immoral Traffic
Act (SITA), in effect wearing its moral bias on its
sleeve.
In the context of consent, trafficking and entry

of minors, self-regulation would involve some sort
of self-regulatory boards of sex workers and their
associations rather than the coercive arm of the
law.
The debate on prohibition, regulation and decriminalisation apart, the law with regard to sex
work in India needs to emphasise the distinction
between adults and minors, especially with regard
to consent.
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SITA reigned for three decades till in 1986 the

name itself was changed to Immoral Traffic
(Prevention) Act or ITPA. The legislation was
enacted in pursuance of the ratification by the
Government of India of the International
Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in Persons
and of the exploitation of the prostitution of others.
The origins as well as the title of the legislation
reflect the conception of sex work as being
synonymous with trafficking and its consequent
treatment of adult women as victims.
Anyay Mukabla Parishad (VAMP) in Maharashtra

with moderate success.
The position of defining prostitution itself as

inherently exploitative and a form of violence
against women does not allow people in prostitution
to access their right to earn a livelihood through
sex work.
Important distinction
The need is to actively involve sex workers in

the move to change the law and separate consensual
sex work by adults from the entry of minors and
the abominable practice of human trafficking.
Regardless of the view prohibition, legalising

or decriminalisation followed, there is a
consensus with regard to ending trafficking and
on the entry of minors in the profession.
The difference perhaps lies in the way to go

about prevention of trafficking and entry of minors.
Raid and rescue or trying to work from within the
profession through gharwalis or madams, are
being tried out by organisations like Durbar Mahila
Samanvay Samiti (DMSC) in Kolkata and Veshay
The raid and rescue approach has to be

examined from the point of view of human rights,
dignity and privacy of the individual. Invariably,
the girls/women rescued feel they have been
arrested, and have been in fact kept in
confinement and imprisoned.
Regardless of the initial mode of entry, the
wishes of an adult individual must be ascertained
before any prosecution or rescue goes forward
an adult could well choose to remain in sex work,
even accounting for the fact that the person might
initially have been trafficked, illegally and
unwillingly.
Meanwhile, discriminatory provisions giving
powers to order the removal of a sex worker from
a particular area need to be weeded out. The
legislation must be brought in line with the
fundamental rights of people in sex work to live
and work in liberty and dignity, the right to move
unhindered, the right to reside in a place of their
choice and the right to migrate in short, the
right to live freely as a full-fledged adult citizen of
the country.
Source: Business Line
WHY INDIA NEEDED TO STAND UP TO WTO
Indias tough stance at the World Trade

Organisation over public stockpiling of food grain
and its dispute resolution with the US is being
portrayed as another instance of the trade
brinkmanship. With the signing of the indefinite
peace clause, India can continue with its food
subsidy programme pending a permanent
settlement of the issue. But is it right to look upon
this as brinkmanship?
While India seems to have won this round,

South Asia security affairs expert Teresita Schaffer
suggests that the incident may strengthen and
vindicate Indias stance to use brinkmanship
tactics in trade negotiations, in turn souring

relations with Washington.
Earlier too, Western commentators had
criticised the Governments refusal to play ball with
regard to the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA).
Indias stance was seen as compromising the
consensus-based approach of the WTO, threatening
the credibility and the very future of the WTO. But
the reality is more complex.
Not in agreement
It is true that the earlier UPA government had
agreed upon the TFA and a reversal of stance by
[35]
the new government in July may have raised

questions on the credibility of Indias political
system.
Equally, Indias refusal to approve the TFA in
July had only a handful of supporters among the
160 WTO members. That India had a point
however, was amply demonstrated in the few voices
that spoke out in support.
These numbers are not significant enough to

suggest that the Government influenced
international food grain availability and prices,
through official stocks.
Perusal of export data presents a different
picture. Indian exports of rice are mainly of two
types the aromatic Basmati and the non-Basmati
rice varieties.
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Thus, South Africa in a strong statement to the

General Council on the issue, said: Repeated failure
to deliver meaningful outcomes on issues of interest
to the poorest members can equally be characterised
as harming the credibility of our organisation.
The Governments additions to stocks of rice

over the period were of the order of 31 per cent. In
the case of wheat, paradoxically, stocks fell by 17
per cent over the period.
Developed countries oppose developing country

food security programmes based on the contention
that they represent implicit subsidies under the
WTOs Agreement on Agriculture (AoA).
Indias national food security programme

which involves government procurement of food
grain at administered prices and their distribution
to the target sections either free or at subsidised
rates was seen as one such subsidy.
The difference between the (higher)

administered prices and current market prices
represented a subsidy under AoA, which, it was
alleged, could be used to build food surpluses that
could be dumped into international markets.
These allegations of implicit subsidies were

problematic. One, the subsidies appeared larger
on account of the AoAs selection of international
prices in 1986-88 as the reference point. The food
price changes since then render this base outdated.
A more recent base year is called for to accurately
assess the real value of the subsidy.
More importantly, a deeper analysis of the
economics of the food security row reveals the
hypocrisy of developed countries especially the
US and the European Union with their larger
food support programmes.
US domestic support in 2010 under the AoA,

for instance, amounted to $120.5 billion, as opposed
to Indias $12 billion in food subsidy.
Food exports
The two major food grain distributed under

Indias food security programme are wheat and
rice. A perusal of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data
indicates that for the period 2000-01 to 2013-14,
the governments procurement of rice and wheat
went up by 47 per cent and 53 per cent,
respectively.
[36]
While the quantity of basmati rice exports

increased by 316 per cent, that of non-Basmati exports
rose by 862 per cent over 2000-01 to 2012-13; the
quantum of wheat exports rose by 279 per cent.
More staggering is the increase in the value of
rice and wheat exports in US dollar terms.
Thus, while the value of rice exports over the
period increased by 670 per cent, that of wheat
exports increased by a whopping 2029 per cent.
Which means the food security row seems to
have little to do with increased government
procurement and release in the form of export
surpluses.
At the heart of the row are the growing Indian
exports of food grains, and their potential effects
on global food grain prices.
Brinkmanship?
The TFA sought easier market access for

developed countries through improvements of ports
and other trade infrastructure such as customs
regulations of developing countries.
This involved additional capital costs for
developing countries together with opportunity
costs in terms of developmental expenditure
foregone.
Moreover, the TFA was only one element of
the Bali package; food security and policies to
support least developed countries constituted the
remaining two elements.
The latter two, however, had vague
commitments and distant deadlines and
compromised the single undertaking principle
governing the package.
By reneging on its commitment to implement
the TFA, India seemed to have used trade
brinkmanship to threaten, the first global trade
reform since WTO was set up in 19 years.
However, even a suggestion of such a

nature represents a failure to understand the
true economics of the food security row, as
also a genuine concern of developing country

needs.
KISAN VIKAS PATRA 2.0

undertaken to improve the performance of the
national small savings fund, which generated subpar returns. If the Centre is keen on resurrecting
the concept of a fixed return, it must address the
funding issue on a war footing. Two, given that
the KVP is likely to entail high costs for the Centre,
it is essential that the money be put to productive
use. Presently, collections from small savings
schemes (whatever their nomenclature) are mainly
lent out to fund unproductive revenue expenditure
of the States and the Centre; they dont fulfil a
specific developmental objective.
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Desperate times call for desperate measures and

the Centres decision to relaunch Kisan Vikas Patra,
a popular small savings instrument that was
discontinued three years ago, may be seen in this
light. Lakhs of investors have fallen victim to illegal
money-pooling and Ponzi schemes, including the
Sahara and Saradha scams, in the last three years.
These instances show that the current suite of
financial products offered by the Government and
private players have become too complex to attract
small savers. The recent dip in household financial
savings to a decadal low is mainly a result of the
difficulty in understanding financial instruments
and in keeping up with their ever-changing KnowYour-Customer (KYC) rules, apart from the
uneasiness that most savers have with marketlinked returns. The Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP), in its
new avatar, directly addresses these pain points. It
offers a fixed return (the investors money will
double in 100 months), ease of transaction (it is a
bearer instrument with no PAN requirement) and
good liquidity to boot (exit is available freely after
a 2.5 year lock-in). Therefore, it may well succeed
in its objective of wooing the un-banked population
into financial savings.
Having said this, the new KVP raises some
concerns from a policymaking perspective. For one,
its offer of a fixed return is a step back in the
process of restructuring all small savings schemes
and aligning their returns to market rates. This
overhaul, initiated three years ago at the behest of
the Shyamala Gopinath Committee, was
Most important of all, the Centre must take note

of warnings that the reworked KVP may turn out
to be a backdoor amnesty scheme for those who
evade taxes. With its PAN waiver, facility for
unlimited investments and bearer status, the
instrument can be easily used to launder and park
black money. It was precisely this concern, in fact,
which had prompted the Gopinath committee to
suggest its closure in 2011. To prevent rampant
misuse of the KVP in its new avatar, the Centre
must expedite the computerisation of India Post and
use technology to track down large investments and
redemptions from this scheme. It should also put in
place an annual investment ceiling on individual
purchases of KVP, similar to those for the public
provident fund and other post office schemes. Given
its other attractions, this will not materially dent the
instruments appeal to small savers.
FLIPPING GAINS? DONT BET ON IT
The flurry of initial public offers in August and

September this year and the spectacular listing gains
they delivered had evoked fear of another
speculative binge in primary markets. But the
relatively dull listing of the Shemaroo Entertainment
stock has allayed these apprehensions.
It is unlikely that the Indian primary markets

will witness speculative excesses similar to what
was witnessed in the mid-nineties or in 2010 and
2011, when listing gains were assured in almost all
issues. Various measures initiated by the market
regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of
India (SEBI), in 2012 have closed almost all avenues
for fly-by-night operators to make a quick buck by

duping investors in public offers.
Yet, the movement of Snowman Logistics and
Sharda Cropchem stocks on listing day raises
doubts about whether all the loopholes have been
plugged.
Resurgent speculation
It all began with the Wonderla Holidays public
offer. The amusement park company sought to raise
Rs181 crore from the market. But it received bids
worth 38 times that amount. Blame it on the pent
up demand for public offers since there had been
[37]
just two good offers in 2013 Just Dial and Repco

Home Finance.
Another important measure initiated by SEBI

in 2012 was the introduction of call auctions on
the listing day. These are one hour-sessions before
regular trading starts, on the listing day. Here the
orders are matched and the listing price is
discovered based on the volume in the call-auction
session.
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The stock performed brilliantly on its debut;

gaining 25 per cent on the listing day. It then went
on to gain 170 per cent in the next four months.
Since the listing was in May, the post-result
euphoria in the stock market could have contributed
to this rally. For the stocks fundamentals did not
justify this performance.
The regulator had also punished three

investment bankers managing these issues and
issued guidelines for investment bankers, including
asking them to publish their track record on their
websites. These orders against the companies and
investment bankers brought the dubious public
offers to a complete halt by 2013.
The movement of the Wonderla stock

rekindled investor interest in IPOs. Three IPOs
followed thereafter Snowman Logistics,
Sharda Cropchem and Shemaroo Entertainment.
The first two offers received a thumping
response, getting oversubscribed over 60 times.
The performance of these stocks after listing was
also very good; Snowman gained 65 per cent
on the listing day while Sharda Cropchem
gained 48 per cent.
But the enthusiasm for the new listings fizzled
out soon after. The Shemaroo offer was
oversubscribed only 7 times and it made zilch
returns on the listing day. It is more than a month
since the stock listed, and it is currently ruling below
its offer price.
Clamping down
How was the frenzy checked? Well, SEBI had

already done the ground work for cleaning up the
primary market in late-2011 and early 2012. It may
be recalled that similar speculative excesses were
apparent in the primary markets in 2010 and 2011
when many dubious companies made offers and
the stock prices zoomed after listing, giving flipping
gains to everyone who invested in them. An
investigation launched by SEBI in the post-listing
price movement resulted in a series of measures.
SEBI barred seven companies, including PG

Electroplast, Brooks Laboratories, RDB Rasayans
and Taksheel Solutions, from transacting in equity
markets and raising funds from markets for a
certain period in December 2011. These firms were
allegedly guilty of offences such as using the IPO
proceeds for purposes other than what was stated
in the prospectus and making inadequate or even
false disclosures.
Once the stock is listed at the discovered price,

a circuit filter is applied on the stock, depending
on the size of the issue (5 per cent for issue up to
Rs250 crore and 20 per cent for issues bigger than
Rs250 crore). This filter is applied for 10 sessions
after listing too. These filters are aimed at checking
runaway price movement of stocks immediately
after listing.
SEBIs push towards improving its vigilance
through the Integrated Market Surveillance System
(IMSS) is another deterrent to stock price
manipulators.
Recent orders such as the one against Factorial
Master Fund show that the regulator now has the
means to track suspicious transactions and identify
those behind such orders, with ease.
What is missing?
These measures did have the desired effect of

clamping down on speculation. But the regulator
almost threw the baby out with the bathwater.
The number of public offers has dwindled
significantly in recent years. The primary market is
picking up now, but so is speculation.
So what is lacking in the changes made by the
regulator? One area where the rules were a little
lax is in the pre-listing call auction. The new rules
stipulate that there shall be no price-bands in these
sessions. In both Snowman Logistics and Sharda
Cropchem, the price discovered in the call-auction
was substantially higher than the listing price.
It was also found that in some companies, the

IPO proceeds flowed through many layered
transactions into accounts of stock market
intermediaries. These intermediaries, in turn, used
the funds to manipulate the stock price in the period
after listing.
The price is discovered in this session based on

the volume of the buy and sell orders punched in
by investors. It is therefore apparent that it is
possible to jack up the listing price by punching in
both buy and sell order from different accounts.
SEBI can perhaps consider putting a price limit for
this session too, maybe 20 per cent, to halt irregular
practices.
[38]
A close scrutiny of the orders put in the pre-listing

session in these stocks might also reveal some interesting
insights on what went wrong with SEBIs checks.

IMMIGRATION REFORM IS OBAMAS GIFT TO INDIA

Barack Obamas announcement on immigration
was sweeping not only for the depth of change but
also for how it will be accomplished: by executive
order without congressional approval.
The diaspora Indians family income, already

the highest in the US, is about to go even higher.
Spouses of Indian tech workers who are currently
on H-1B visas will be granted automatic work
authorisation if the visa-holder has an approved
application for a green card.
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The last time change of this magnitude was

enacted was in 1986 when President Ronald Reagan
signed a massive immigration overhaul Bill into law.
For India Inc, the status quo largely remains as

the comprehensive immigration reform legislation
that the Senate passed in 2013 is now dead.
Technically, Obamas new actions can be

slowed down or even overturned. The Republicans
could choose to not fund immigration agencies. But
many rely on user fees for their operating budget
and dont rely on congressional appropriation,
neutralising the Houses power to control the purse.
Or the Republicans could go to court. But this
too will fail because courts generally do not interfere
in disputes between the other two co-equal
branches of government. In most cases, the courts
would simply defer to presidential executive
authority which Obama repeatedly asserted he has.
Or the Republicans could work with the
Democrats to pass a Bill that Obama could sign
something highly unlikely given how poisonous the
political well has now become. Or, another
Republican president can as easily overturn
Obamas actions again with another stroke of a
pen. This too is improbable because it is politically
hard to bring the benefits genie back into the bottle.
It is safe, therefore, to say that these changes are
here to stay forever.
Welcome relief
While the American media has mostly focused

on administrative relief granted to nearly 5 million
illegal immigrants who will be protected from the
threat of deportation, there are plenty of moves
that will bring cheer to Indians globally. The most
important change is that it will make it easier for
the US to import new high tech talent from abroad
and keep existing talent within American shores.
This is welcome relief for millions of Indian techies
and students already in the US, or those who wish
to go there.
Remittances to India could rise as young

workers send additional discretionary dollars to
support families back home.
The OPT Programme Extension is a significant
benefit available only to STEM students. An Indian
graduate student generally enters the US on an F1 visa and can work for 12 months on it even
before graduating, as an intern at a company, for
example. After graduating, the student can work
for an additional 17 months for a total of 29 work
months all on the F-1 visa. This extra period
provides STEM students more time to seek an
employer who is willing to sponsor them for scarce
H-1B work visas.
The number of OPT STEM visas granted rose
from about 29,000 a year in 2008 to nearly 1,23,000
in 2013, a 400 per cent increase. (The H-1B visa
cap meanwhile has stayed constant at 85,000). The
White House announced that it would further
strengthen and extend this hugely popular
programme. While details are awaited, this should
come as a boon to the hundreds of thousands of
Indian students who go to the US for graduate
study each year as they now have a special
temporary work visa system of their own.
Other changes
New rules are expected in the temporary L-1

visa space as well. This has been abused by many
Indian companies in the US to import high tech
labour on an intra-company transfer basis and so,
some of these loopholes are likely to be tightened.
Obamas announcement favours Indian

students who earn US Masters and PhD degrees in
the science, technology, engineering and math
(STEM) fields and expressly does not hand out
goodies to the Indian IT majors.
And to bolster family immigration, the White

House announced new rules that will benefit
thousands of Indians who may have overstayed
their 180-day tourist visas in the hopes of securing
a family-based green card. These individuals have
to obtain a special waiver for unlawfully staying in
[39]
the US before departing the US to attend visa

interviews. This programme is to be expanded.
Obamas announcements on immigration
are just as game-changing as his historic 2008
win and will likely bring diaspora Indians

back to the Democratic fold for generations to
come.
GULF STABILITY AND THE OIL SUPPLY SCENARIO

experiencing domestic turmoil Libya and Iraq
which have had record exports. But, the biggest
market changer is shale oil production in the United
States: with additional production of 3.9 million
barrels a day (mbd), the U.S. now produces more
than all OPEC members except Saudi Arabia. The
International Energy Agency (IEA) thinks low prices
will continue next year due to low demand and
high shale oil production and believes we now have
a new chapter in the history of oil markets.
Goldman Sachs has forecast prices of $85 for early
next year, while J.P. Morgan predicts prices at
between $80-95 over the next two years.
The plunge in oil prices has been so swift and

unexpected that most observers have been caught
by surprise. In mid-June, oil prices were about $115
per barrel, having been over $110 for the previous
year and over $100 for the last three years. They
fell to $102 in August and to $98 in September. In
October, prices plunged to below $85 per barrel,
while in early November they were at $80, the
lowest level in four years, having fallen 30 per cent
since June.
Grand strategy scenarios
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West Asia has dominated world headlines over

the last few years due to the eruptions related to
the Arab Spring, conflicts in Iraq and Syria, and,
more recently, by the challenges posed by the
Islamic State to regional state order. Now, over
the last few weeks, a new source of uncertainty
has emerged: the dramatic fall in oil prices. Given
that oil has been central to West Asian affairs as
the bedrock of domestic politics and the source of
regional competitions and external interventions, it
is not surprising that these oil-related developments
should be scrutinised in terms of their economic
and political implications in the fraught environment
that prevails in the region.
Demand-supply mismatch
With every decline, there were expectations that

Saudi Arabia would play its traditional role as
swing producer and cut production; but this
failed to happen. This was surprising since almost
all major oil producers have become dependent on
high prices, with break-even levels usually over $90
per barrel to meet their ever-increasing fiscal
obligations. The main explanation for this situation
is that world markets are flush with supplies for
which there are not enough consumers. The global
economic slowdown is the principal culprit: with
Chinas national growth projected at around seven
per cent per year, increase in oil demand is
negligible. Europe is also not expected to contribute
to increased demand due to its sluggish growth.
The unexpected fall in prices has triggered two

competing grand strategy scenarios. One scenario
emerges from the impact of the price falls on the
economies of U.S. adversaries, Russia and Iran. The
columnist Thomas Friedman sounded triumphalist
when, in mid-October, he said he was seeing a
global oil war which had the U.S. and Saudi
Arabia arrayed against Russia and Iran. The latter
are crucially dependent on oil revenues and will be
seriously affected by low prices. It is the fond hope
of the proponents of this scenario that the economic
pressures generated by low prices would make them
more accommodative in their engagements with
western interlocutors.
However, whatever the neo-cold warriors in
Washington may hope for, both Russia and Iran
are known to be resilient and unlikely to
compromise their established foreign policy positions
only on account of falling oil prices. In fact, the
adverse circumstances are likely to encourage
domestic tenacity and greater camaraderie between
the two beleaguered nations.
The supply scenario is quite different. Not only

have the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) members not effected cuts in
their production, additional production has also
come into the market from member-states
The other scenario sees a deliberate Saudi

attempt to retard the further development of the
shale oil industry in the U.S., which is crucially
dependent on high oil prices of $80-90 per barrel
to sustain production. Oil analyst Edward
McAllister has asserted that Saudi Arabia has
started a global price war aimed at quickly denting
U.S. oil output. Analysts have pointed out that oil
firms have committed investments of over a trillion
[40]
dollars in projects based on oil prices at $95 for

them to be viable.
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However, while low prices may put mediumterm U.S. production in jeopardy, this is hardly a
deliberate Saudi ploy. The Kingdom is well aware
that shale oil has in fact stabilised world markets
at a time of acute turmoil in oil-producing countries.
For this reason it has repeatedly welcomed new
production
sources,
particularly
since
unconventional production boosts the demand for
fossil fuels and reduces investments in renewables.
There are longer term concerns as well. Analysts

project a global oil requirement of 104 mbd in 2040,
as against the present demand of 90 mbd. This
additional demand will be met by unconventional
production, i.e., shale oil from U.S. and other
sources, oil sands from Canada, deep water oil from
Brazil, and from the environmentally sensitive
Arctic region, where cost of production will be over
$90 per barrel. At the same time, with declines in
U.S. shale oil production from the 2020s, global
dependence on conventional supplies will become
crucial. Thus, the Gulf, with 25 per cent global
production and 30 per cent of global reserves, will
remain at the heart of the worlds energy security
interests.
Beyond the grand strategies put forward to

explain the present scenario, the simplest
explanation is perhaps the most plausible: like most
observers, Saudi Arabia was surprised by the
dramatic fall in prices. It realised that the fall was
not a short-term seasonal blip but one that emerged
from changing market fundamentals. What it was
not willing to do was to assume full responsibility
for corrective action, believing that this should be
the collective responsibility of OPEC as a whole. It
feels the best way of bringing other members on
board is to let prices fall until the meeting of OPEC
oil ministers in Vienna on November 27, by which
time the member countries would be more amenable
to participate in collective action. In the meantime,
the Kingdom has focussed on retaining its market
share in spite of the prevailing low prices.
Economic and political challenges
The decline in prices has serious economic and

political implications for producer countries
experiencing domestic turmoil, such as Iraq, Libya and
Yemen. They are today entirely dependent on oil
revenues to maintain security and meet the welfare
requirements of their restive populations. The Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) producers may not at
present feel any need to intervene in the market since
they have a current account surplus of $2.4 trillion
and substantial reserves to handle fiscal shortfalls in
the short term. However, even they will not be able to
accommodate a sustained decline in prices as they
need to fund infrastructure development, diversify their
economies and, above all, meet their ever-increasing
social obligations promised to their communities to keep
the Arab Spring at bay. They also need to urgently
address long-standing energy issues such as burgeoning
and wasteful domestic consumption and massive
subsidies, estimated at $160 billion annually.
Gulf supplies could be jeopardised by various

factors, such as: political turbulence in Iraq;
constraints on supplies from Iran, and the failure
of the region to make the required investments in
new exploration and development due to low
prices. Analysts estimate that investments of $900
billion are required annually to meet the worlds
long-term demand. The situation could be further
aggravated by political uncertainty in the GCC
countries due to their continued confrontation with
Iran, the sectarian divide, and the threat from
extremist elements, all of which have found
expression in the fratricidal conflicts in Syria and
Iraq.
This has serious implications for Asia. Today,
60 per cent of Gulf production is consumed in
Asia; by 2035, the Gulf will export 90 per cent
of its oil to Asia, while meeting about 90 per
cent of Asias needs. Gulf stability is thus a
matter of abiding interest to Asian consumers.
In this scenario of contention and conflict, the
challenge before the principal Asian consumers,
led by India, China, Japan and Korea, is to work
together to shape a new regional security
paradigm that is inclusive and provides a
dialogue and confidence-building platform that
the contending Gulf countries desperately need.
This is obviously an unprecedented and
daunting task, but the gauntlet will have to be
picked up; otherwise there will be no Asian
growth, no Asian Silk Road, and no Asian
Century.
Source: The Hindu
TRADE FACILITATION ON TRACK

The deal between India and the U.S. on the
contentious issue of public stockholdings of
foodgrains for security should put the global trade

negotiations back on track. The bilateral
[41]
stocking and supply for the poor. These fears were

behind the blocking of the TFA by the Modi
government. Had the impasse continued, the
beneficial provisions on trade facilitation would
have been delayed too.
The deal with the U.S. now provides for an
indefinite peace clause until a permanent solution is
found to the farm subsidy issue. The deal is a
reflection of the Modi governments assertion of
national interest while being flexible on modalities.
Once Indias stand and its concern over the
implications for food security were explained clearly
to the U.S., it came up with a reasonable response.
If at one stage India risked global isolation, New
Delhi did not insist on an immediate solution to the
food subsidy issue but agreed to an indefinite peace
clause. In all, it is a pact that enables the multilateral
trade negotiations to move forward. With this deal
in place, the TFA could become a reality. Of course,
the bilateral pact will have to be ratified by the WTO
but with the U.S. showing the way, other members
would find it acceptable. It underscores once again
the dominance of the U.S. in a multilateral global
forum even while it is a recognition of Indias place
in the global economic environment.
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compromise provides the much-needed window to

save the multilateral Trade Facilitation Agreement
(TFA), a significant step in the history of the World
Trade Organization (WTO). The TFA, cleared at a
WTO ministerial meeting in Bali last year, is
intended to simplify customs rules, speed up the
release of goods from ports, and pare transaction
costs. The Narendra Modi-led BJP government
refused to sign the TFA, insisting on a permanent
solution to the food subsidy issue before signing it.
The bone of contention is over a WTO rule that
caps subsidies to farmers at 10 per cent of the total
historical value of farm production. This stipulation
as is articulated at the WTO is seen to
undermine the responsibility of developing countries
to feed the poor. Not surprisingly, India and some
others have questioned the methodology of arriving
at such a subsidy cap. A peace clause in the WTO
rules does indeed provide a limited-year protection
to India and the like from legal challenges by
member-nations should they exceed the farm
subsidy cap. What if the farm subsidy concerns
remained unaddressed once the peace clause
expires and member-nations are allowed to legally
challenge violations of the subsidy cap? Complaints
based on rules limiting farm subsidy could seriously
hamper the governments ability to ensure food
Source: The Hindu
RESOLUTE POLICIES ON CHILDREN
On the 25th anniversary this week of the

adoption of the United Nations Convention on the
Rights of the Child (CRC), is the world a better
place for children? It would be ill-advised to seek
shelter behind a simplistic yes or no manner of
response to the question, says a commemorative
publication of UNICEF to mark this milestone. The
reduction in mortality rates in the under-five agegroup, by nearly 50 per cent, between 1990 and
2013 shows how much more can be achieved
through resolute policies and concerted action.
Greater recognition of the importance of investment
in early childhood development over the lifespan
and improvements in the general standard of living
have been critical to this transformation. Yet, the
proportion of children under five years who live in
low-income regions has increased from 13 per cent
in 1990 to 19 per cent in 2014. Clearly, countries
have to aggressively expand the public provision
of primary health-care services to promote maternal
care and free more children from malnutrition and
disease. Enrolment in early childhood education
nearly doubled between 1990 and 2012. Even so,
fewer than 50 per cent of those in the age group
of 3-4 years in many low and middle-income states

are said to have access to preschool programmes.
Universal secondary education is still a far cry in
many parts of the world.
[42]
Recent studies have shown that children and

other vulnerable sections are hardest hit by
macroeconomic imbalances. UNICEF points out that
progress to realise the objectives of the CRC has
stalled due to diminishing aid flows in the wake of
the financial crisis. Governments must therefore
constantly strive to counter persistent disparities
by expanding the resource base for childrens
welfare. Negotiations on the historic treaty, back
in the 1980s, were animated by concerns over child
abuse, adoption and the involvement of children
in armed conflict. These are no less troubling
questions today as nearly half the number of
children in the primary school age group who are
out of school reside in countries torn by civil strife.
Moreover, says the United Nations, child trafficking
represents 27 per cent of trafficking in humans and
where two out of every three victims are girls. In
countries such as India, recourse to the selective
abortion of female foetuses represents the most
brutal violation of basic human dignity. Indeed,

human rights are inalienable and inviolable.
However, the respect due to persons depends
equally on their capacity to exercise and affirm
their rights. The precarious situation of children is
that they are not in a position to exert such a

capacity and depend on the protection from
positive laws and healthy parenting. Thus, the onus
is on the state and society.
Source: The Hindu
TANZANIAS MAASAI LAND SALE CONTROVERSY

company set up by a UAE official close to the royal
family. The OBC has operated in Loliondo for more
than 20 years with clients reportedly including
Prince Andrew.
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Tanzania has been accused of reneging on its

promise to 40,000 Maasai pastoralists by going
ahead with plans to evict them and turn their
ancestral land into a reserve for the royal family of
Dubai to hunt big game.
Activists celebrated last year when the
government said it had backed down over a
proposed 1,500 sq km wildlife corridor bordering
the Serengeti national park that would serve a
commercial hunting and safari company based in
the United Arab Emirates.
But now the deal appears to be back on and

the Maasai have been ordered to quit their
traditional lands by the end of the year. Maasai
representatives will meet the Prime Minister,
Mizengo Pinda, in Dodoma on Tuesday to express
their anger. They insist that the sale of the land
would rob them of their heritage and directly or
indirectly affect the livelihoods of 80,000 people.
The area is crucial for the grazing of livestock on
which the nomadic Maasai depend.
Government compensation
Unlike last year, the government is offering

compensation of 1 billion shillings (3,69,350), not
to be paid directly but to be channelled into socioeconomic development projects. The Maasai have
dismissed the offer.
I feel betrayed, said Samwel Nangiria,

coordinator of the local Ngonett civil society group.
One billion is very little and you cannot compare
that with land. Its inherited. Their mothers and
grandmothers are buried in that land. Theres
nothing you can compare with it. Mr. Nangiria
said he believes the government never truly
intended to abandon the scheme in the Loliondo
district but was wary of global attention. They
had to pretend they were dropping the agenda to
fool the international press.
He said it had proved difficult to contact the
Ortelo Business Corporation (OBC), a luxury safari
Activists opposing the hunting reserve have been

killed by police in the past two years, says Mr.
Nangiria. For me it is dangerous on a personal
level. They said: We discovered you are the
mastermind, you want to stop the government using
the land. Another said: You have decided to
shorten your life. The hands of the government are
too long. Put your family ahead of the Maasai.
He is undeterred, however.
I will fight for my community. Im more energetic

than I was. The Maasai would like to ask the Prime
Minister about the promise. What happened to the
promise? Was it a one-year promise or forever?
Perhaps he should put the promise in writing.
This will be the last time the Maasai settle for
talks, he added, before pursuing other methods
including a court injunction. They could also be an
influential voting bloc in next years elections.
An international campaign against the hunting
reserve was led last year by Avaaz.org, whose Stop
the Serengeti Sell-off petition attracted more than
1.7 million signatures and led to coordinated email
and Twitter protests. Alex Wilks, campaign director
for Avaaz, said: The Maasai stare out from every
tourism poster, but Tanzanias government wants
to kick them off their land so foreign royalty can
hunt elephants there. Two million people around
the world have backed the Maasais call for President
Jakaya Kikwete to fulfil his promise to let them stay
where theyve always lived. Treating the Maasai
as the great unwanted would be a disaster for
Tanzanias reputation. A spokesperson for
Tanzanias natural resources and tourism ministry
said : Its the first Ive heard of it. Im currently out
of the office and cant comment properly.
Source: The Hindu
FALSE PROMISE OF NUCLEAR POWER

New developments highlight the growing
travails of the global nuclear-power industry.
France the poster child of atomic power

plans to cut its nuclear-generating capacity by a
[43]
Yet, the worldwide aggregate installed capacity

of just three renewables wind power, solar power
and biomass has surpassed installed nucleargenerating capacity. In India and China, wind power
output alone exceeds nuclear-generated electricity.
Fukushimas impact
Before the 2011 Fukushima disaster, the global
nuclear power industry a powerful cartel of less
than a dozen major state-owned or state-guided firms
had been trumpeting a global nuclear renaissance.
This spiel was largely anchored in hope. However, the
triple meltdown at Fukushima has not only reopened
old safety concerns but also set in motion the
renaissance of nuclear power in reverse. The dual
imperative for costly upgrades post-Fukushima and
for making the industry competitive, including by
cutting back on the munificent government subsidies,
underscores nuclear powers dimming future. It is
against this background that Indias itch to import
high-priced reactors must be examined. To be sure,
India should ramp up electricity production from all
energy sources. There is definitely a place for safe
nuclear power in Indias energy mix. Indeed, the
countrys domestic nuclear-power industry has done
a fairly good job both in delivering electricity at a price
that is the envy of western firms and, as the newest
indigenous reactors show, in beating the mean global
plant construction time frame.
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third by 2025 and focus instead on renewable

sources, like its neighbours, Germany and Spain.
As nuclear power becomes increasingly
uneconomical at home because of skyrocketing
costs, the U.S. and France are aggressively pushing
exports, not just to India and China, but also to
nuclear newcomers, such as the cash-laden oil
sheikhdoms. Still, the bulk of the reactors under
construction or planned worldwide are located in
just four countries China, Russia, South Korea
and India.
Six decades after Lewis Strauss, chairman of

the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, claimed that
nuclear energy would become too cheap to
meter, nuclear power confronts an increasingly
uncertain future, largely because of unfavourable
economics. The International Energy Agencys
World Energy Outlook 2014, released last week,
states: Uncertainties continue to cloud the future
for nuclear government policy, public confidence,
financing in liberalized markets, competitiveness
versus other sources of generation, and the looming
retirement of a large fleet of older plants.
Heavily subsidy reliant
Nuclear power has the energy sectors highest

capital and water intensity and longest plantconstruction time frame, making it hardly attractive
for private investors. Plant construction time frame,
with licensing approval, still averages almost a
decade, as underscored by the new reactors
commissioned in the past decade. The key fact about
nuclear power is that it is the worlds most subsidyfattened energy industry, even as it generates the
most dangerous wastes whose safe disposal saddles
future generations. Commercial reactors have been
in operation for more than half-a-century, yet the
industry still cannot stand on its own feet without
major state support. Instead of the cost of nuclear
power declining with the technologys maturation
as is the case with other sources of energy the
costs have escalated multiple times.
India should actually be encouraging its

industry to export its tested and reliable midsize
reactor model, which is better suited for the
developing countries, considering their grid
limitations. Instead, Prime Minister Manmohan
Singhs government, after making India the worlds
largest importer of conventional arms since 2006,
set out to make the country the worlds single
largest importer of nuclear power reactors a
double whammy for Indian taxpayers, already
heavily burdened by the fact that India is the only
major economy in Asia that is import-dependent
rather than export driven.
In this light, nuclear power has inexorably been

on a downward trajectory. The nuclear share of
the worlds total electricity production reached its
peak of 17 per cent in the late 1980s. Since then,
it has been falling, and is currently estimated at
about 13 per cent, even as new uranium discoveries
have swelled global reserves. With proven reserves
having grown by 12.5 per cent since just 2008,
there is enough uranium to meet current demand
for more than 100 years.
Critiquing Indias programme
[44]
To compound matters, the Singh government

opted for major reactor imports without a
competitive bidding process. It reserved a nuclear
park each for four foreign firms (Areva of France,
Westinghouse and GE of the U.S., and
Atomstroyexport of Russia) to build multiple
reactors at a single site. It then set out to acquire
land from farmers and other residents, employing
coercion in some cases.
Having undercut its leverage by dedicating a

park to each foreign vendor, it entered into price
negotiations. Because the imported reactors are to
be operated by the Indian state, the foreign vendors
have been freed from producing electricity at
marketable rates. In other words, Indian taxpayers
are to subsidise the high-priced electricity generated.
Nevertheless, the nuclear accord has turned

out to be a dud deal for India on energy but a
roaring success for the U.S. in opening the door
to major weapon sales a development that
has quietly made America the largest arms
supplier to India. For the U.S., the deal from the
beginning was more geostrategic in nature
(designed to co-opt India as a quasi-ally) than
centred on just energy.
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Westinghouse, GE and Areva also wish to shift

the primary liability for any accident to the Indian
taxpayer so that they have no downside risk but
only profits to reap. If a Fukushima-type
catastrophe were to strike India, it would seriously
damage the Indian economy. A recent Osaka City
University study has put Japans Fukushimadisaster bill at a whopping $105 billion.
CIRUS had been refurbished at a cost of millions of

dollars and reopened for barely two years when
Dr. Singh succumbed to U.S. pressure and agreed
to close it down.
To Dr. Singhs discomfiture, three factors put

a break on his reactor-import plans the
exorbitant price of French- and U.S.-origin
reactors, the accident-liability issue, and grassroots opposition to the planned multi-reactor
complexes. After Fukushima, the grass-roots
attitude in India is that nuclear power is okay as
long as the plant is located in someone elses
backyard, not ones own. This attitude took a
peculiar form at Kudankulam, in Tamil Nadu,
where a protest movement suddenly flared just
when the Russian-origin, twin-unit nuclear power
plant was virtually complete.
Indias new nuclear plants, like in most other

countries, are located in coastal regions so that these
water-guzzling facilities can largely draw on
seawater for their operations and not bring
freshwater resources under strain. But coastal areas
are often not only heavily populated but also
constitute prime real estate. The risks that seaside
reactors face from global warming-induced natural
disasters became evident more than six years before
Fukushima, when the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
inundated parts of the Madras Atomic Power
Station. But the reactor core could be kept in a safe
shutdown mode because the electrical systems had
been installed on higher ground than the plant level.
One-sided
Dr. Singh invested so such political capital in

the Indo-U.S. civil nuclear agreement that much of
his first term was spent in negotiating and
consummating the deal. He never explained why
he overruled the nuclear establishment and shut
down the CIRUS research reactor the source of
much of Indias cumulative historic production of
weapons-grade plutonium since the 1960s. In fact,
Even if no differences had arisen over the

accident-liability issue, the deal would still not
have delivered a single operational nuclear
power plant for a more than a decade for two
reasons the inflated price of western-origin
commercial reactors and grass-roots opposition.
Areva, Westinghouse and GE signed
Memorandums of Understanding with the staterun Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited
(NPCIL) in 2009, but construction has yet to
begin at any site.
India has offered Areva, with which
negotiations are at an advanced stage, a power
price of Rs.6.50 per kilowatt hour twice the
average electricity price from indigenous
reactors. But the state-owned French firm is still
holding out for a higher price. If Kudankulam
is a clue, work at the massive nuclear complexes
at Jaitapur in Maharashtra (earmarked for
Areva), Mithi Virdi in Gujarat (Westinghouse)
and Kovvada in Andhra Pradesh (GE) is likely
to run into grass-roots resistance. Indeed, if India
wishes to boost nuclear-generating capacity
without paying through its nose, the better
choice given its new access to the world
uranium market would be an accelerated
indigenous programme.
Globally, nuclear power is set to face increasing
challenges due to its inability to compete with
other energy sources in pricing. Another factor is
how to manage the rising volumes of spent nuclear
fuel in the absence of permanent disposal facilities.
More fundamentally, without a breakthrough in
fusion energy or greater commercial advances in
the area that the U.S. has strived to block
breeder (and thorium) reactors nuclear power
is in no position to lead the world out of the fossil
fuel age.
Source: The Hindu
[45]
GETTING THEM BACK TO SCHOOL

Castes, ST and Muslim children as constituting a
major chunk of the out-of-school children, and
record a very disproportionate progress in terms of
bridging regional, gender and rural/urban divides.
The report simplistically records poverty and
academic disinterest as major reasons for dropping
out of school. Such analysis is where such studies
fall short. As the MHRD report Education for All
of August 2014 shows, too much emphasis is given
to infrastructural reform, providing transportation,
books, uniforms, etc. Although this is significant,
the overarching insights from such a study require
policymakers to officially acknowledge the
prevalence of exclusionary practices in schools, so
as to address them directly. In such complex
conditions, deploying an intersectional analysis can
be a useful methodological tool of study, such as
noting the discrimination faced by a lower casterural-girl child in school as against an upper casteurban-boy child. The school cannot be perceived
as an instrumental sphere for the potential labour
force of a growing economy. Rather, it is a space
for community development, a learning process that
can potentially undermine caste and gender
prejudices by the mere fact of children sitting
together and sharing a common meal, increasing
their self-worth.
CH
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A survey commissioned by the Ministry of

Human Resource Development, in September
shows that out of the estimated 20.41 crore children
in the age group of 6-13 in India, an estimated
60.41 lakh (2.97 per cent) are out of school. This
proportion of out-of-school children is lower than
the figure of 4.28 per cent in 2009 and 6.94 per
cent in 2006, a fact worthy of cheer. This study is
indicative of the fact that government-sponsored
retention schemes and policies have had some
positive impact. Methodologically, the report
conducts household surveys and broadly defines
out-of-school as including all children who do not
attend school for more than 45 days in an academic
year. Had the report conducted a survey based on
administrative records and defined out-of-school
children more narrowly, the results may have been
significantly different, perhaps far less optimistic.
But the picture is gloomy if we look more closely at
the status of marginal groups in this study. The
survey reveals that a higher percentage of female
children (3.23 per cent) are out of school than males
(2.77 per cent); more children from rural areas (3.13
per cent) are out of school than from urban (2.54
per cent) areas. A staggering 4.43 per cent of Muslim
children, 4.7 per cent of Scheduled Tribes and 28.07
per cent of children with special needs are estimated
to be out of school. Other surveys in the recent past
also concur with this data of identifying Scheduled
Source: The Hindu
MISSING LINKS IN UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE
A number of announcements have been made

by the Central and State governments on their
intent to offer Universal Health Care (UHC). These
welcome developments are timely as India is now
rapidly becoming one of the few countries that do
not seem to have a concrete plan for UHC in place.
Even poorer countries such as Ghana, Kyrgyzstan,
Rwanda, and Vietnam have now started to make
significant progress in this area.
A fact often overlooked in these discussions,

however, is that UHC is a complex idea and
contains several prerequisites that need to be
carefully incorporated into its conceptualisation,
design and implementation. This article attempts
to outline four of these essential elements.
Providing integrated care
The first, and perhaps the most important,
element is the need to distinguish UHC from
universally available health insurance. UHC seeks
[46]
to ensure financial protection with the provision of

appropriately priced, high quality, and integrated
health care (combining primary, secondary, and
tertiary care into a single, patient-centred healthcare system). Ideally, financial protection and
comprehensive health care are bundled together
into an integrated managed care proposition
where the financial-protector (or the risk-manager)
and the provider are a single entity. One of the key
benefits of this model is the significant shift in
incentives for the health provider from the
current focus on promoting hospitalisation and
needless care-procedures, to incentives for
promoting health and prevention of illness. Since
the provider receives only a fixed amount per year,
irrespective of the actual treatment provided,
managed care places rational treatment and costeffectiveness at the centre of the model. Because of
their very nature, health-care systems owned and
financed by ministries of health are ideally suited
for offering this type of managed care. And, if,
Should they inadvertently end up at hospitals for

seeking such care, they must be directed back. Only
this combination of improved-availability and
mandatory-gatekeeping will start to reduce the
excess demand for hospital beds even as we
gradually seek to address the unmet needs for
hospital beds in deficient regions. Otherwise, we
run the serious risk of this turning into a vicious
cycle of ever increasing demand for hospital beds,
further fuelled by an in-patient, insurance-led
financial protection strategy, leading eventually to
continual and rapid increases in health insurance
premiums with no resultant improvements in health
outcomes.
CH
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but only if, there is very strong confidence in the

ability of the system to regulate and monitor both
patient and provider behaviours as well as
population level outcomes, it is possible as
Thailand has done successfully to invite large
non-government players to also bid to provide such
managed care services. And, while the regulatory
challenge in outsourcing managed care to the
private sector is quite considerable, it is very clear
that fragmented health systems with different
providers taking care of different parts of the health
system, such as the private sector providing
hospital-based care and the government focussing
on primary care, with patients free to bypass it, is
the worst of all possible choices. This fragmentation
is the principal reason why a country like the
United States finds itself in a situation where
insurance premiums and costs of health care are
both rising rapidly but population level health
indicators are well below those of other comparable
countries.
Covering everybody
The second element is the need to shift the focus

of attention from hospital-based care, to primary
care in terms of financing, development of
infrastructure and usage. In order for India to
achieve UHC, both in terms of financial feasibility
as well as its well-being goals, it is clear that fewer
than 2.50 per cent of patients in any given year
should need hospital-based care. This implies that
97.5 per cent of all conditions would need to be
dealt with at the primary-care level. UHC would
therefore need substantial investments at the
primary level combined with a strong gatekeeping
framework that does not allow patients to seek
hospital-based care unless they have been referred
by a primary-care provider. It is believed that over
95 per cent of patients who visit tertiary care
facilities such as JIPMER in Puducherry and AIIMS
in Delhi are at the wrong place and have incurred
all the hardship and costs that they did needlessly
when they could easily have been cared for locally
if good primary care was available. Evidence from
Andhra Pradesh also shows that under Arogyasri,
people are overwhelmingly seeking care at hospitals
even for conditions which are patently treatable at
primary-care facilities. While India undoubtedly
needs additional hospital beds to provide adequate
coverage even at the 2.50 per cent level mentioned
earlier, it is imperative that the focus of immediate
attention should not be hospitals or more AIIMSlike centres but well-designed and capable primarycare facilities so that patients can go there directly.
The third key element relates to coverage

any universal health programme would need to
include the entire population and not just be
targeted at the poor. This is because India has a
very steep poverty gradient and single health
shocks have the potential to draw entire
households back into poverty for all but the very
top sliver of the population. For this very reason,
globally, citizens of the most developed and
several developing nations, who have
significantly higher per capita incomes than do
even the top percentiles of our population, have
also been provided with full access to health care
and financial protection. Engagement of the
middle class also allows additional resources to
be pooled along with tax resources since the
amounts that they are currently expending on
health care could be included as well. It is clear
that development of integrated risk pools and
their investment into an integrated UHC
framework of the type discussed earlier (as would
be implied by grouping the rich and poor
together) would allow a significantly higher level
of expenditure-volatility compression and the
delivery of rational care. This would benefit both
segments, with only the resultant net savings to
the middle class being used to cross-subsidise the
poor. Another benefit of including the middle
class is in ensuring accountability of the health
system. Being more conscious of its rights and
with more resources to participate in the political
process, the middle class is better placed to hold
the public system accountable to higher quality
of care, and perhaps, place health care centrally
on political agendas a feat that the Below
Poverty Line (BPL)-targeted Indian health system
has not been able to accomplish.
[47]
Primary care with gatekeeping
Separating out social determinants
CH
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The fourth key element is the urgent need for

separation of core health care from extended health
care, in a focussed discussion on UHC. While
broader social determinants of health (or extended
health care) such as provision of clean drinking
water, improved sanitation and improved education
of girls, have the potential to produce a very big
impact on health outcomes, UHC is much more
narrowly focussed on what the health-care system
itself can provide directly in terms of primary,
secondary, and tertiary care (or core health care).
The reasons for the desirability of this separation
are many and have to do principally with the
appropriate allocation of responsibilities and
resources. First, these broader determinants, for the
most part, fall outside the domain of the ministries
of health. Second, in India, the resources currently
allocated for health care by the government have
to go up three times, from 1 per cent to 3 per cent
of GDP even to provide the essential elements of
core health care at a reasonable level of quality

and availability. Provision of extended health care
would need a much larger level of resource
allocation and would perforce have to be included
in the domain of other ministries. And, finally, the
benefits that accrue from extended health care go
well beyond health (for example, time savings
account for over 70 per cent of the benefits of homedelivered, clean drinking water and are not
necessarily the most cost-effective interventions if
viewed only from the narrow lens of health care.
There are a number of very important challenges

that we face as a country. It is important to ensure
that we are focussed on solving those using strong
evidence-based strategies and with a very sharp sense
of focus. Offering UHC to all our citizens is one such
challenge. Here we need to be careful that we use the
limited resources we have at our disposal in the most
effective way, even if it means that some very important
ideas need to be revisited or deferred for the time being.
Source: The Hindu
DIPLOMACY WINS THE DAY
The unconditional release by Sri Lanka of five

fishermen sentenced to death by a court in that
country on charges of drug smuggling is a welcome
development. Sri Lanka must be commended for
taking this large-hearted step. It is not often that
nations set aside their own laws and procedures,
as well as domestic political considerations, to make
exceptions for nationals of another country; three
Sri Lankans convicted in the same case remain on
death row. It speaks volumes about the importance
that Colombo attaches to its relations with New
Delhi that all five men are back in India. Further,
they will not need to undergo any more
imprisonment in an Indian jail as would have been
required in a normal case of commutation of death
sentence and repatriation under the transfer of
prisoners agreement between the two countries.
Years of appeals to Islamabad from two Prime
Ministers, family members and civil society could
not secure the release of Sarabjit Singh from the
Kot Lakhpat jail in Pakistan. Several times Pakistan
did come close to letting him go, but in reality he
was a hostage of the bad relations between the
two countries. He met a cruel end in the jail at the
hands of fellow-inmates who brutally attacked him,
inflicting injuries that killed him. India spared no
diplomatic effort to secure the release of the five
men from the Sri Lankan prison. The telephone
conversation between Prime Minister Narendra
Modi and President Mahinda Rajapaksa capped

days of back channel persuasion by a number of
emissaries.
[48]
While it is not clear what, if any, incentives

New Delhi offered in return, the resolution of the
matter to Indias satisfaction is a significant point
in bilateral relations. With the episode linked
fundamentally to the issue of encroachment by
Indian fishermen in Sri Lankan waters, it should
prompt both sides to redouble efforts for a solution
that will end the dispute between the two fishing
communities over sharing the Palk Bay regions
scarce marine resources. Beyond Sri Lanka, it
should not be a surprise if the happy ending to
the issue brings under scrutiny New Delhis own
conduct in the case of the Italian marines, which
has been in limbo as the government debates under
what law they should be charged. Further, with
the release of the fishermen setting the bar high
for diplomatic interventions, demands are bound
to grow for similar action in other cases in which
Indians abroad fall foul of the law. New Delhi
has a duty to safeguard the well-being of all its
citizens, wherever they might be, but it would
also do well to lay down the circumstance and
the red lines beyond which it would be unwise to
interfere in the legal systems of other countries.
Source: The Hindu
OF SECRET HOARDS IN TAX HAVENS

By contrast, the target of a 2 per cent increase
in overall output growth for the bloc within the
next four years with a promise to further liberalise
trade, is perhaps more of an expression of pious
intent. The risk of another global recession, even if
not of a magnitude similar to the earlier one, is a
refrain that is not infrequently heard these days.
Underlying the United States Treasury Secretarys
comment of Europes lost decade are probably
differences over strategy. But the European
countries and the U.S. seem to have found common
cause to prevail upon major carbon-emitting
countries to come up with credible commitments
to lower their CO emissions ahead of the global
summit in Paris late next year. For his part,
President Barack Obama pledged $3 billion to the
United Nations-backed Green Climate Fund to help
poor countries cope with the challenges of global
warming. Large carbon emissions represent also a
feature common to the U.S. and Australia, Mr.
Obama reportedly said, reflecting the mood in the
White House. The U.S. pledge was followed by
one from Japan. Leaders who would have preferred
to persist with a business-as-usual approach to the
matter may have found themselves isolated. Trite
statements of politicians do not often inspire
confidence in their will to take matching actions.
The G20 leaders may be rewriting that old script.
CH
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The gathering of the Group of 20 countries in

Brisbane over the past weekend was not without
its share of lofty goal-setting on the big questions
of the day that usually marks such summits. There
are indications, however, of a realistic chance that
the world leaders would be able to match their
commitments with actions sooner than later. This
optimism stems from the increasing synergy
between Washington and Beijing, demonstrated in
the climate change deal they announced days before
the Brisbane summit. A case in point is the set of
principles that the G20 leaders agreed that would
enable governments to identify anonymous owners
of shell companies and trusts and facilitate crossborder exchange of information. Billions of dollars
of illicit finances, mostly from developing countries,
are said to be parked in such entities; sums that
could be utilised to lift millions out of poverty.
Although these transparency principles have been
in the making from the G20 summit last year, a
final consensus emerged once Chinas concerns
were addressed to its satisfaction. While allowing
public access to information on beneficial ownership
is still not part of the agenda, a readiness to track
such data is a modest beginning. The G20 leaders
gave their assent to the proposal put forth by the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development to limit the use of tax havens, as
cleared by OECD Finance Ministers earlier.
Source: The Hindu
FAMILIES DESIGNED IN FROZEN FRAMES
While policy makers have deliberated a draft

surrogacy law in Parliament in which surrogacy
in India will be restricted to infertile Indian married
couples only and not include foreigners (unless the
foreigner is married to an Indian citizen), child
bearing has obtained a new international
dimension. Oocyte cryopreservation or freezing of
a womans eggs is stated to be an option to extend
fertility and delay motherhood. Silicon Valley
technology giants have offered $20,000 to both fulltime and part-time women employees to freeze their
eggs and $480 annually to store them in order to
enable these women to focus on their careers and
delay child bearing.
National Gamete Donation Trust in U.K. is now

the newly formed national organisation for sperm,
egg and embryo donation. It encourages ethnic
minority backgrounds to choose from a variety of
culturally matched donors and proposes to
change the face of sperm donation in Britain.
While the Ministry of Finance allows human

embryos frozen in liquid nitrogen in cryogenic jars
to be imported subject to a No Objection Certificate
from the Indian Council of Medical Research, the
What started as a technique for freezing female

eggs to enable women with cancer to store eggs prior
to chemotherapy has now become a service perquisite.
A woman can freeze her eggs to promote her career
and climb the corporate ladder by deferring
motherhood. In another dimension, posthumous
impregnation and creation of babies by assisted and
collaborative modern techniques such as in-vitrio
fertilisation or cryopreservation of gametes and eggs
may evoke strong notions about life, parenthood and
immortality. Such posthumous artificial reproduction
has given rise to legal issues that current outdated
laws cannot address. Banking is no longer associated
with just money but with sperms and eggs as well.
[49]
New age innovation
Egg, sperm and embryo banking which were

alien concepts will now enter the home, the
bedroom and the family and will have to give rise
to a new set of laws and rights. The Kerala High
Court is already examining a case where the foster
mother of a surrogate child has moved court for
maternity leave after she became a mother 20 years
after marriage. She claims all the rights of a
biological mother. Issues may also arise if, after
freezing the eggs, the child is not conceived because
of medical complications or unsuccessful retrieval
of eggs. There is no law which assures and
guarantees a woman who has frozen her eggs a
healthy child. By offering money for freezing and
preserving eggs and bargaining away the joys of a
natural process for fast-tracking careers, these
corporate organisations are sending out exploitative
signals. In the interest of nature, joyful parenting,
and the psychological welfare of an unborn child,
it may be necessary to enact a law that provides
incentives and benefits for surrogates or parents
who conceive naturally. Providing leave for fertility
treatments, maternity leave for foster mothers, time
for child care and adoption benefits may be feasible.
CH
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A volley of arguments has followed the offers

of freezing embryos to postpone motherhood. These
range from the risks of tampering with the order
of nature, unwarranted interference between a
woman and motherhood, subjecting the woman to
health risks, expensive time-consuming medical
procedures and promising fertility insurance, and
deferring child birth plans with assured career
progression. Now the reality is that overworked
professionals who have no time for natural
procreation and are temporarily residing in different
international locations are conveniently using such
techniques since they are physically apart at the
time of conception. Families are thus sought to be
designed in frozen frames for couples who are
career-minded. Invention has overtaken human
relationships in this race. Babies are designed and
planned like careers, not for joy but for necessity.
The rights of the unborn child
While everybody talks of the rights of the father

and mother-to-be, nobody has looked at the rights of
the unborn child. Postponing conception for career
advancement takes away the rights of an unborn
child. Be it a frozen embryo in a cryogenic jar or a
frozen sperm or egg in a bank, a human life may be
at stake. Besides issues of morality and ethics, there
is no focus on the right to life of an unborn child.
From the perspective of this child, his right to be born
cannot be frozen once he is meant to be procreated.
For a child to be born and for him to enjoy the
company of his young parents needs determination.
A child born to parents after 20 years of his frozen
conception deprives him of the young companionship
of his healthy parents which he would have enjoyed,
had he not been consigned to posterity. This angle
seems to have been totally ignored so far.
Work places could provide special rooms or play

rooms in crches for children of working mothers.
Providing yearly sabbaticals or periods such as dies
non, which do not affect career prospects of
working women, can further promote timely
parenthood without compromising professional
rights.
Unless and until a clear legislative policy is
enacted, utilisation of female manpower may
become a tool in the hands of career launchers
who will keep in deep freeze parental joys.
Source: The Hindu
[50]

Weekly 17th Nov. To 23rd Nov. 2014

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CHRONICLE

A CIVIL SERVICES CHRONICLE INITIATIVE

Weekly Current Affairs Bulletin

17TH NOVEMBER 2014 TO 23TH NOVEMBER, 2014

Noida Campus : D-108, Sector-2, Noida (U.P.) - 201 301.

Call: 8800495544, 9582263947

National ........................................................................................................................ 4-7

For a public policy road ma ................................................................................

Weekly Current Affairs 17th November to 23th November, 2014

NEW NORMS TO ALLOT COAL BLOCK

On 25 August, the Supreme Court ruled that

Benefits for New Regulation

The rules are only applicable for the first set of

It is a time-bound procedure, so that is good as

It would rationalizing the geographies in which

The compensation to the prior allottee, in case

A significant upfront payment requirement and

It may hit the profitability assumptions of

Reallocation of mines by way of competitive

Independent power producers that were

State government-owned distribution

At present State electricity boards are burdened

The coal blocks will be allotted to central and

These companies will also be allowed to bid

Power plants using imported coal are also

The government will also ensure that the blocks

There will be a graded application fee

Weekly Current Affairs 17th November to 23th November, 2014

domestic output of the mineral.

Coal Production Scenario in India

Production of coal in India has not kept pace

The power sector consumes nearly 78% of the

Indias power generation capacity grew by 60%

STRENGTHENING RURAL ELECTRIFICATION

The estimated cost of the scheme is Rs.43,033

The launch of the Deendayal Upadhyaya

Separation of agriculture and non-agriculture

Strengthening and augmentation of sub

The norms of the ongoing scheme of RGGVY

For this CCEA has already approved the scheme

This outlay will be carried forward to the new

The process of sanction of projects shall

The projects shall be completed within 24

Implementation of scheme would bring

Improvement in hours of power supply in rural

Reduction in peak load,

Improvement in billed energy based on metered

Providing access to electricity to rural

INDIA POOR IN ATTRACTING AND RETAINING TALENT

In a survey conducted by IMD World Talent

Weekly Current Affairs 17th November to 23th November, 2014

and overseas talent has a positive impact on the

The report draws upon the IMD World

India slipped to the 48th position from the 29th

The only Asian country to rank among the top

competent senior managers, ability to attract

Denmark, Germany and Finland were the other

The best-ranked countries have a balanced

Countries with smart talent strategies are also

The sharpest drop was seen in the access to

The availability of skilled labour in Malaysia

Switzerlands female labour force increased