The Indian Panorama

Tag: Guest Comment

  • A fraught timeline: on Ayodhya title suit

    A fraught timeline: on Ayodhya title suit

    The Supreme Court’s refusal to refer some questions of law in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute to a seven-judge Bench has one immediate consequence: it could expedite the final hearing in the appeals against the Allahabad High Court’s compromise judgment of 2010 in the main title suit. The two-judge majority opinion has fixed the date for the hearing as October 29, a development that may mean that a final verdict is not far off and it could have a bearing on political events in the run-up to the general election due next summer. The final hearing ought to have begun a year ago but was delayed because some parties wanted the reference to a larger Bench so that certain observations in a Constitution Bench decision in Ismail Faruqui (1994) could be reconsidered. The apprehension was that remarks to the effect that “a mosque is not an essential part of the practice of Islam” and that namaz can be offered anywhere, even in the open, would influence the outcome of the appeal. Justice Ashok Bhushan’s main opinion has sought to give a quietus to the controversy by declaring that “the questionable observations” were to be treated only as observations made in the context of whether land on which a mosque stood can be acquired by the government. It should not be taken into account while deciding suits and appeals. It is difficult to fault this approach, as it is a fact that the respective claims of the U.P. Sunni Central Wakf Board, Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla, the deity, can only be tested against evidence adduced during trial and not by pronouncements on the significance of places of worship or practices in a particular religion.

    At the same time, can one brush aside the possibility that observations on a sensitive religious issue would be exploited by one side to gain legal advantage? In his dissenting opinion favoring a reconsideration of Ismail Faruqui, Justice Abdul Nazeer notes that its observations have permeated the High Court judgment. Ismail Faruqui was a ruling on petitions challenging the validity of a Central law that acquired the land on which the Babri Masjid stood before it was razed by a frenzied and fanatical mob on December 6, 1992. The judgment was notable for upholding the rule of law by restoring the title suits that had been declared as having “abated” in the Act. It also declined to answer a Presidential reference on whether a Hindu temple stood on the disputed site before the mosque was built. Any observation made in the course of such a decision is bound to have a profound impact on the courts below. It is easy to contend that courts should work to their own timelines and not be influenced by such things as election season. But in the life of this nation, the Ayodhya dispute has gone through dark political phases and been more than a mere legal issue. The onus is on the apex court to dispose of the appeals at its convenience without giving any scope for the exploitation of religious sentiments.

    (The Hindu)

  • On a positive note:Modi-Khan talk of peace and progress

    On a positive note:Modi-Khan talk of peace and progress

    With Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf emerging as the single largest party in the General Assembly, his becoming the Prime Minister of Pakistan is a foregone conclusion. Even as Khan extended an olive branch to the Indian establishment in his speeches, Prime Minister Modi too has responded in kind by calling him up and expressing hope for better relations between the two neighbors. This is a good beginning, although too much cannot be read in it.

    The lure of quick emotional appeal by blaming the other side for failures is de rigueur for political players. India and Pakistan have long been on a destructive streak of avoidable escalation of issues and mutual condemnation. Imran Khan’s appeal lies much in him being perceived as an outsider in the power structure of Pakistan, even though he enjoys the support of the most powerful political force in the country, the army. He has shown a willingness to change the narrative that had long confined itself to narrow partisanship. India must respond to it in kind.

    Indeed, Prime Minister Modi, with his penchant for out-of-the-box thinking, could be a willing partner in striving towards greater mutual understanding and peace, even though he has burnt his hands once with his impromptu birthday greetings to Khan’s predecessor. More than grand gestures, incremental gains, made by focusing on details and diplomatic processes, that are likely to yield long-lasting results. But then, the beginning is always in setting the tone, which the two leaders have done. Squandering away yet another chance to bring peace to the subcontinent would be a folly that both India and Pakistan can ill afford. Realistically, the two leaders have begun well, and that is all. They both will need to avoid the temptation of heeding to the hawks and the politician’s urge to seize the spotlight even as they allow diplomats to interact and to work out solutions that become building blocks which would enable the two countries to negotiate the burdens of history by focusing on the present and the future.

    (Tribune, India)

  • Trump – Putin Rocky Summit

    Trump – Putin Rocky Summit

    Donald Trump did enough, and more, to mess up his meeting with Vladimir Putin

    A summit between the leaders of the world’s strongest nuclear powers, which fought the Cold War for decades, is an opportunity to discuss areas of shared interest, find ways to dial down mutual tensions and work together to address global issues. But well before Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin sat down for their first formal summit meeting, in Helsinki, there were concerns that it would be overshadowed by allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The uproar in Washington over Mr. Trump’s remarks on the Russian meddling scandal — with even accusations of treason — and his subsequent U-turn suggest that such concerns were valid. Mr. Trump could have certainly managed the summit better by addressing genuine concerns in the U.S. over allegations of Russia’s election meddling. Days earlier, the U.S. Justice Department indicted 12 Russian intelligence officials for hacking and leaking emails of top Democrats. It therefore seemed surreal when the President accepted the Russian version over that of his own intelligence agencies and the Justice Department. Away from the controversy, the closed-door meeting between the leaders can be evaluated only on the progress made on a number of contentious issues before both.

    The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) is set to expire in 2021 and Russia has shown interest in extending it. For a consensus, high-level talks between the U.S. and Russia are needed. From the crisis in Ukraine to the civil war in Syria, Russia-U.S. cooperation is vital to finding lasting solutions. The Iran nuclear deal, for which Mr. Putin and Barack Obama worked together despite differences, is in a shambles. Most of these issues, including the threat posed by nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles, were discussed at the summit. But it’s not clear whether the talks will lead to any significant change in policies. Since the Ukraine crisis, the West has tried different methods, including sanctions and pressure tactics, to isolate Russia and change its behavior. But those methods have proved largely unsuccessful as Russia is now a far more ambitious foreign policy power with an enhanced presence in Eastern Europe and West Asia — even if its sanctions-hit economy is struggling. Instead of continuing a policy that has failed and ratcheted up global tensions, the Western alliance should junk its Cold War mentality and engage with Russia; Russia, in turn, will have to shed its rogue attitude and be more open and stable in its dealings. The stakes are high, and the bitterness of the past should not hinder U.S.-Russia relations. That should have been the message from Helsinki.

    (The Hindu)

  • Punjab’s war on drugs

    Punjab’s war on drugs

    Giving a societal push to the Punjab Government’s war on the hydra-headed drug menace, are the villagers — the common people suffering the effects of the consumption blowback. There is hardly any home in the countryside that does not have a family shattered by an addict whose only interest is how to get his next fix, even going to desperate and often deadly extremes. His treatment leaves them penniless, and the children crying and uncared for, and at times, even orphaned. Shattered by the ruin and misery unleashed by drugs over the years, some villages have taken upon themselves the task of eradicating this deadly menace through vigilantism. They are nabbing alleged drug peddlers and handing them over to the police. A political leader has also spearheaded one such campaign.

    However well-meaning this practice may be, it is not without pitfalls. While being vigilant against a potential supplier of drugs, the people need to guard against going over the top. In mob fury lies the inherent danger of individuals tipping over to the side of vigilantism in the heat of the moment and taking law into their hands. The examples of recent lynchings in Maharashtra over rumors of child-lifting as well as some innocent people becoming victims of cow vigilantes are fresh. Rather than even one innocent person being victimized, law enforcement is best left to the government. After all, only the law enforcement agencies are equipped to tackle the drug mafia. Bringing the small fry in the net will not end the menace.

    The Amarinder Singh government has in the past couple of days unveiled a heady mix of strategies that promise to take on the problem of intoxication. Regular dope tests for all 3.25 lakh Punjab Government employees have been made mandatory as cases of drug-tainted officers, especially in the police, are coming to the fore with shocking regularity. Death penalty has been sought for the peddlers of illicit substances as an alarming number of people are becoming addicted to drugs as well as dying from them. Treatment and rehabilitation of addicts with a renewed goal figure high on its mission. Instead of the death penalty, a strict implementation of the existing NDPS laws is sufficient to take the problem head on.

    (Tribune, India)

  • Trauma at the border

    Trauma at the border

    As part of its “zero-tolerance” approach to dealing with undocumented migrants, the Donald Trump administration in the U.S. has been separating parents and children within migrating families, leading to outrage over the burgeoning number of minors lodged in foster care. Reports suggest that between October 2017 and May 2018 at least 1,995 children were separated from their parents, with a significant majority of the instances between April 18 and May 31. In recent weeks, disturbing images and videos have emerged of screaming toddlers in the custody of Customs and Border Protection personnel, or in what appear to be chain-link cages in facilities holding older children, as well as one disturbing audio allegedly of wailing children at one such unit. Democrats and Republicans alike have expressed deep concern about the ethics of using children, facing trauma from separation from their parents, to discourage further undocumented border crossings. Mr. Trump, however, has refused to accept sole responsibility for the family separations. Instead, he took to Twitter to blame his Democratic opponents for not working with Republicans to pass new immigration legislation to mitigate the border crisis.

    His response begs two questions. First, why, when both Houses of the U.S. Congress are under Republican control, is Mr. Trump unable to garner the numbers to pass legislation to end family separations? The answer is that poignantly tragic though the fate of these broken families may be, the issue as such has failed to garner even as much bipartisan momentum on Capitol Hill as Mr. Trump’s rescinding of the Obama-era immigration order on Deferred Actions for Childhood Arrivals. The second question is whether the policy of separating migrant families is new, or if there was indeed “bad legislation passed by the Democrats” that supports this action, as Mr. Trump claims. The answer is that both are true. Mr. Trump’s critics are correct in that there is no single U.S. law requiring families to be separated. Rather, what the White House referred to as “loopholes” in legislation are two legal provisions: a law against “improper entry by aliens” at the border, and a decree known as the Flores settlement. The first is a federal law that makes it impossible to summarily deport certain vulnerable categories of migrants, such as families, asylum-seekers and unaccompanied minors. To get around this the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama adopted the policy of “catch and release” — whereby these migrants would be released from custody pending their deportation case adjudication. Family separation was unnecessary at that time, but under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance approach, all undocumented migrants are charged in criminal courts. Here the Flores settlement applies, because it limits to 20 days the length of time migrant children may be held in immigration detention. While their parents face charges, the children are transferred to a different location, often with devastating consequences for their families. This is unspeakable cruelty.

    (The Hindu)

  • The Karnataka effect: Mending fences with Advani & allies

    The Karnataka effect: Mending fences with Advani & allies

    BJP president Amit Shah is busy making pilgrimages to places he had rarely bothered to visit while his party logged a steady record of victories in state elections. His first port of call was Matoshree, home to Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray to be followed by a closed-door meeting with the Badals in Chandigarh. His boss, PM Modi is on a pacifying and reconciliation mission too: an olive branch to party veteran LK Advani after studiously ignoring him all these years and there is talk of rapprochement with other estranged party elders as well.

    A walk-back in politics, as in war, is an accepted tactic to cut the losses and recoup energy. The message from the high-value losses in UP and Karnataka seems to be that the BJP’s brand of ethno-religious political activism and the Modi charisma may not be adequate in a bipolar competition in 2019. It is also a realization that the NDA needs to again summon the spirit of 2014 but with a slight twist in the arrangement: it is no longer the rising tide of Modi’s populism and antipathy to the Congress that unconditionally brought allies to the BJP’s fold.

    The Congress’ readiness to take the backseat in Karnataka and play the understudy to the BSP and SP in UP have also brought a matching pressure on the BJP to be accommodative to its allies as well. However, power brings in its own complications. The BJP has a much harder task on hand in trying to separately renegotiate the terms of alliance with its partners. For its allies of UP and Bihar, the BJP needs to allay their fears of abandonment and emasculation; with Akali Dal and Shiv Sena, conciliation is easier on the back of decades of association but the ball game in the South is different: the BJP may have invested in the wrong AIADMK faction in Tamil Nadu, is without a partner in Karnataka and divorced but not separated with the TDP in Andhra.  J&K also requires a greater flexibility of alignment. A helping hand from the sidelined elders could make this arduous task easier.

    (Tribune, Chandigarh)

  • Byelection results: BJP needs another wave in 2019

    Byelection results: BJP needs another wave in 2019

    The loss in the Kairana Lok Sabha byelection has confirmed the erosion of voter enthusiasm towards the BJP in UP. As was the case in the election to the two Lok Sabha seats vacated by the UP CM and Deputy CM, respectively, well over 10 per cent of the 2014 voter in Kairana did not bother to vote. This dip in the BJP’s poll percentage in all the three UP parliamentary constituencies leads to the logical conclusion about a loss in ardor among the saffron party’s adherents after voting with their feet in the UP 2017 Assembly polls. This trend is confirmed by the 10 Assembly byelection results, exemplified by the Congress’ comprehensive sweep in Punjab’s Shahkot, Trinamool handsomely retaining the Maheshtala Assembly seat and the BJP’s severe loss of vote share in two Jharkhand seats, Kerala’s Chengannur and Karnataka’s Rajarajeshwari Nagar.

    The Lok Sabha election of 2019 may well tell a different tale because PM Narendra Modi, the BJP’s sole vote-catcher, can be counted upon to invest all his might instead of leaving the battle to the local satraps, who have obviously been unable to deliver. Yet the fact that a candidate who wasn’t fielded in 2014 because of poor performance in her previous term as Kairana MP handsomely won the seat suggests that it wasn’t about the choice of the candidate. Rather, Gorakhpur, Phoolpur and Kairana show that opposition unity and a lower polling percentage have swung the caste and religion arithmetic away from the BJP in the crucial state of UP.

    Another Lok Sabha polls which the BJP lost — Gondia-Bhandara in Maharashtra — has exposed the limits of poaching. The surprise resignation of the 2014 giant killer who had humbled Praful Patel and his joining the Congress had already put the BJP in a disadvantageous position. But the bottom-line in BJP’s tepid performance could be because the party was unable to move much beyond policy formulation on livelihood issues. It needs a wave again in the Hindi heartland, but the strategy may involve a Faustian bargain: focus more on bread and butter issues at the cost of its accent on religion.

    (Tribune, Chandigarh)

  • Beware the IRS Impersonator

    Beware the IRS Impersonator

    By Prof I.S.Saluja

    It is tax season. It is time to pay taxes. And I hope all are serious about the tax paying business. There are some who are more active than a conscientious tax payer. It is the IRS impersonators. Come tax season, and they become active. Their modus operandi is to call and create an impression that the callers are genuine IRS officials. They introduce themselves as any professional IRS official will, giving their ID, which, of course, is not a real one. They will tell the person called that he has committed a fraud on IRS and that there are warrants of arrest. Many are filled with fear and visions of their being arrested and thrown behind bars. Something which they never ever dreamed of.  Also, the impersonator will instill greater fear by saying that because of the offence committed, the called person will face deportation. Again, many will shudder at the thought of losing career and being banished from the country to face an uncertain future back in the country he had come from. The impersonating IRS officials are experts at their job. It requires nerves of steel not to be filled with fear over their threats, which believe me, sound quite real.

    However, once they know they have succeeded in frightening   a guy they will ask for amount due to be paid straightaway. And they have elaborate schemes to get the money from frightened guys. They do not give any time to the called person to think or consult somebody. Every year during the tax period we hear stories of people having been cheated.

    IRS has been at pains to warn people of these impersonators and cheats. They keep telling that IRS will send notice if at all there is something amiss with an income tax return or if the department wants a tax payer to make a payment. Yet, many fall a prey to the wiles of these impersonators.

    I will advice readers of The Indian Panorama not to panic when such a call is received. A little caution and you will save your hard-earned dollars.

    Good Luck!

  • New American Moment

    New American Moment

    American State of the Union address to the Congress has conventionally been designed to enable the President to spell out his grand agenda for audience at home and abroad. Donald Trump’s State of the Union performance on Wednesday turned out, mostly, to be a sum total of all the tweets and other verbal fusillades he had fired. He declared, in a self-satisfying manner, that there was a “new American moment” and that he had restored American “greatness” and “strength.” In particular, he was uncompromising in what he calls “America first” stance, which turns out to be a call to return to protectionist policies as well as a litany of complaints about unfair and unequal global trade practices and deals. Like an accomplished demagogue, he invokes the American farmer, the American taxpayer and the American consumer. His implicit message was that the world must reorient itself to his understanding of fairness and reciprocity.

    On the domestic front, President Trump largely stood his ground on immigration, hinting broadly at tweaking some rules, without diluting his rant against the “illegal” immigrant. He reiterated his solution of building a wall to keep the undesirable and the unwanted immigrant out.  He chanted the mantra of homeland security, declared that Guantanamo Bay base would not be closed down, and that the United States would “annihilate” terrorism and was more than ready to deal with pinpricks from North Korea or the ISIS.

    In this longish State of the Union, President Donald Trump failed in his endeavor to sound presidential; he remains miles away from gravitas. And, given the fact that he is an addictive Twitter-junkie, the quasi-sobriety of the Union address will evaporate next week. And, though Donald Trump tried to suggest that as the President of the United States he was committed to the “citizens of every background, color and creed”, his first year in the White House has left America a deeply fault-lined country. There is lesson for demagogues all over the world: it is easy to divide but very difficult to heal; it is easier to be partisan than to elicit cooperation and bi-partisanship.

  • On Privatization of Air India: Ready for sale

    On Privatization of Air India: Ready for sale

    The decision to allow 49% foreign stake in Air India sets the stage for its privatization

    The Union Cabinet has approved a series of changes in foreign direct investment norms as the government prepares to enter the last lap of its economic policy-setting phase ahead of the 2019 election. Key among these was the decision to allow up to 49% overseas ownership, including by a foreign airline, in Air India. This comes just a little more than six months after the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs gave its nod for a strategic disinvestment of the airline. The relaxation in ownership norms clears the decks for possible bidders such as the Singapore Airlines-Tata combine and Jet Airways — with its overseas equity and route partners — to make a more detailed commercial assessment of the investment opportunity the state-owned flag carrier presents. For the fiscally constrained government, the decision couldn’t have come sooner. With the Union Budget due soon and the government woefully short of its budgeted strategic disinvestment goal for the current financial year — as of end-November, only 28% of the targeted ₹15,000 crore had been realized — the hope must be for an accelerated timetable for the stake sale. Still, the fulfilment of a necessary condition for a strategic sale doesn’t automatically become sufficient grounds for a successful privatization. Given the carrier’s accumulated debt of about ₹50,000 crore and the fact that the interest of potential investors is likely to be focused on Air India’s lucrative long-haul international routes and its fleet of more than 40 wide-bodied aircraft, disinvestment will be neither easy nor guaranteed. At the very least, the government needs to set a clear, unambiguous road map for the sale process.

    The other reform cleared by the Cabinet was the crucial decision to put 100% FDI in Single Brand Retail Trading under the ‘automatic’ route, accompanied by the long-sought relaxation of mandatory local sourcing norms. This had been a major issue with potential investors including Apple, which had repeatedly urged the government to take a more benign view given the level of technological advancement incorporated in its products and the difficulty in finding local sources of supply at the requisite scale. The five-year holiday on the 30% local-sourcing requirement is expected to give companies setting up shop here adequate time to identify, train and even technologically assist in the creation of local supply chains. If this decision was going to be made, it is surprising it was not done in November 2015, when the Centre changed tack and opened up single brand retail to 100% FDI. An early decision would have helped, given the sector’s potential for job-creation and technology upgradation. Still, better late than never.

    (The Hindu)