A test of dignity and democracy

Today, as the Supreme Court hears the curative petition on Section 377, it has an opportunity to remember its promise to be the last resort of the oppressed, to let dignity be the domain of all.

"To be queer in India requires a great amount of economic, gender, and caste privilege. When dignity requires privilege, democracy has lost its way.”

n 2015, a student at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru was blackmailed and threatened with being publicly outed for being gay. When he refused to pay extortion money, the private letters turned into notices pinned on noticeboards on campus. The words were sharp, relentless and inhumane: “I think it’s completely shameful, bad, immoral and disgusting. You should go kill yourself. Why do you think it’s illegal to be gay in India?”

Evading prejudice

For many queer people, this moment is familiar. It is one that many of us have faced or live in a constant fear of facing. In some ways, it is the latter that is worse. We live our lives anticipating prejudice. Even before it comes, we are constantly censoring, moving, and shaping our lives to evade it or, if we can’t, to survive it. Those of us who have the privilege of privacy scan rooms to find allies, weigh what to tell our doctors, measure out information in our offices, and seek safe spaces. Those without this privilege face a much more direct battle to be who they are: an unrelenting and legitimised public violence that falls on working class bodies in our streets, police stations and public spaces. The law is not the only force behind this violence, but it is an important one. “Why do you think,” the blackmailer asks, “it’s illegal to be gay in India?” When petitioners in the Naz Foundation case argued that Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code played an important part in shrouding our lives in criminality and of legitimising violence, this letter was one of many that we wrote against in our heads.

Yet, what happened next is also a story of what has changed since 2001 when the case was filed. The student, at some point, answered his blackmailer. He pinned a reply on the same noticeboard and spoke about not being ashamed of his sexuality. Even before the Delhi High Court judgment of 2009, the language of how we talked about homosexuality and gender identity had begun to — slowly, but surely — shift. When we spoke about our lives, we spoke of dignity, not obscenity; of persons, not acts; of friendship, love and sex; of genders in the plural, not the fixed and dichotomous; of a full human life. We fought our demons, we marched on streets, we made support groups, we sheltered people who ran away. We lost many along the way. Too many. We will lose more still. Yet slowly, even if still incompletely, queer people have begun to win the greatest battle of our lives: we have begun to believe that we have the right to have rights. We have begun to believe that we have the right to dignity, the right to our bodies, the right to be happy. Whether these rights come through law or through struggle, they will come. In a moment where there are so many that are made to believe that they are redundant and negligible, the value of this cannot be underestimated. The Delhi High Court judgment made us believe it that much more — perhaps another generation has inherited only some of our fears. You cannot blackmail someone, said the student who isn’t ashamed.

Why a curative petition?

So then why does the curative hearing against Section 377 matter? The answer is the most basic principle of the quality and humanity of a democracy: dignity should not be a test. It should not take acts of courage, of defiance. For every queer person like the IISc student who wrote back to his blackmailer, there are dozens who didn’t, who won’t, who can’t. Professor Ramchandra Siras is not with us today. The law may not change our lives overnight, but neither can we undermine its oppressive force and what it takes to survive it. To be queer in India today requires an astonishing amount of economic, gender, and caste privilege. When dignity requires privilege, democracy has lost its way.

To make queer lives ordinary will take a number of different fights. The law is one such fight, and it is a critical one. In our lives, we feel the law not just as prosecution but as a moral register and ethical compass. It tells us how to think about ourselves and tells others how to think about us. It stands behind the gang rape in a police station, the forced conversion therapy in the psychiatrist’s office, in the drawing room of the family which disowns a gay child or forces a queer woman to marry.

It speaks not just to queer people but to the worlds we inhabit. From one of the most powerful paragraphs of the 2009 Delhi High Court judgment: “For every individual, whether homosexual or not, the sense of gender and sexual orientation of the person are so embedded in the individual that the individual carries this aspect of his or her identity wherever he or she goes. While recognising the unique worth of each person, the Constitution does not presuppose that the holder of rights is an isolated, lonely, and abstract figure possessing a disembodied and socially disconnected self. It acknowledges that people live in their bodies, their communities, their cultures, their places and their times.”

The judges in Naz Foundation sought to use the law to build a space around our lives that would embrace, protect, nurture and even love queer people. They never spoke of tolerance. They imagined law at its best, its highest form, as a space that would not just protect difference but value it. When they asked us to embrace our constitutional morality, they gave us a way to be democratic — to separate our personal beliefs, our personal moralities, our faith, from our duties as citizens in a plural, open world. They urged us to breathe life into the spirit of our Constitution. They argued that the Supreme Court must, of all institutions, stand first and foremost to defend this spirit, to infuse the frozen letters of law with meaning and hope, to lead in a society scarred by layers of inequality and injustice. They argued that it should not need violence for us to want to ensure the dignity of our fellow citizens. They reminded us and themselves that they stand behind the rights inherent in us, and seek only to expand and protect them.

If we lose Naz, it is not gay rights we lose. We lose this imagination of our Constitution, of our court, of law and of the possibility of justice. We lose our ability to make dignity ordinary and injustice rare. We lose law at its most powerful and return it to its most penal.

Today, as the court hears the curative petition, it has an opportunity. An opportunity to defend not a “minuscule minority” but a democracy we all share. An opportunity to remember its promise to be the last resort of the bewildered and the oppressed, to remember that rights expand and grow and that they cannot be, must not be, taken back and shrunk. An opportunity, more than anything, to write back to the blackmailer’s letter and tell its author that they will not let dignity be the domain of the few and injustice the everyday of the many.

(Gautam Bhan is a writer and sexuality rights activist.)

Section 377, gay rights, homosexuality, LGBT issues, trans rights, NALSA judgment

Source: The Hindu

Dalit student suicide: HRD Ministry denies putting pressure on Hyderabad University

Dattatreya had written a letter to HRD Minister Smriti Irani after a clash between two student groups in the campus in which an ABVP leader Susheel Kumar was attacked. 

Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani.

The HRD Ministry on Tuesday rejected allegations that it had put any pressure on the University of Hyderabad in the matter relating to the suspension of a Dalit student, who committed suicide on Sunday.

After it emerged that the Ministry had sent five letters including four reminders to the University regarding the August 17, 2015 letter written by Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, it said it was only following procedures.

“It would be wrong to say that the Ministry has put any pressure on the Hyderbad University. The Ministry had only followed the procedure as per the Central Secretariat Manual of Office Procedure.

“According to the procedure, if there is a VIP reference, it has to be acknowledged in 15 days and another 15 days may be taken to reply to it. Since no response was coming from the University, the Ministry had to send reminders,” HRD Ministry spokesperson Ghanshyam Goel said.

Seeking to justify the Ministry’s action, officials said that even in Cabinet meetings the Ministry is supposed to provide all details about pending assurances, VIP references, grievances etc.

According to sources, the Ministry had sent its first letter on September 3, 2015 to the University, and reminders were later sent on September 24, October 6, October 20 and November 19.

Officials said that the University finally replied on the matter on January 7.

Dattatreya had written a letter to HRD Minister Smriti Irani after a clash between two student groups in the campus in which an ABVP leader Susheel Kumar was attacked.

Rohith Vemula, a Dalit PhD scholar, who committed suicide on Sunday night, was among the five research scholars who were suspended by the University in August last year over the alleged assault case. They were also kept out of the hostel.

The issue took a political turn with allegations that the extreme step taken by Rohith was a result of discrimination against dalit students at the behest of Dattatreya, following his letter to Irani, seeking action against their “anti-national acts”.

Rohith was found hanging at the Central University’s hostel room in the campus on Sunday, triggering protests from fellow students this morning.

Source: Indian Express

The way forward in Nepal

While media attention has been focussed on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surprise Christmas rendezvous in Lahore with Nawaz Sharif and the terrorist attack at the Pathankot airbase, significant developments on the Nepal front have been taking place. Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Oli telephoned Mr. Modi on New Year’s Eve to convey his greetings for 2016 and informed him about his government’s plans to move forward with the three-point package while undertaking negotiations with the agitating Madhesi leaders of the Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha (SLMM). In response, Mr. Modi reiterated the need to find durable solutions to Nepal’s political problems on the basis of “consensus” and conveyed his greetings to the Nepali people for 2016.

Shift or drift?

However, there are subtle changes of position underway. The first sign came on December 21 following the decisions taken by the Nepali cabinet to address the demands of the SLMM. The three-point package consists of constitutional amendments on participation in the state organs on the basis of “proportionate inclusiveness” and delineation of electoral constituencies on the basis of population. Demarcation of provinces was to be undertaken in a three-month period through a political mechanism on the basis of consensus, and other demands — including those pertaining to “citizenship” — are to be resolved through negotiation and appropriate notification. Nepal’s Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Kamal Thapa had already briefed External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj about this road map during his visit to Delhi last month.

In an official statement, India’s Ministry of External Affairs welcomed these developments as “positive steps that help create the basis for a resolution of the current impasse in Nepal”. The statement further urged “all Nepali political forces to now demonstrate the necessary maturity and flexibility” so that a resolution to the current crisis could be found. The formal Indian statement has been followed by an informal easing of supplies, particularly fuel and LPG, by using border-crossing points other than the Raxaul-Birgunj crossing which remains blocked.

According to the Nepal Oil Corporation, the sole petroleum importing agency, its monthly imports were usually in the order of NPR 7 billion; these went down to NPR 1.5 billion during October-November but have picked up again and could reach NPR 4.5 billion during December-January. This would imply that more than 50 per cent of the fuel supplies are now going through legally, in addition to the cross-border smuggling activity which has also picked up.

Growing list of demands

However, the SLMM rejected the Oli government’s three-point package as “inadequate” and declared that it fell far short of their 11-point charter of demands. Originally, there were four principal demands — demarcation of provinces which related to five districts, Sunsari, Jhapa and Morang in the east and Kanchanpur and Kailali in the west; restoring population as the primary criteria for electoral constituency delimitation; proportional representation in government jobs; and issues relating to citizenship. With rising political polarisation over recent months and the inflexible approach adopted by the three principal parties — Nepali Congress, Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) or UML and the Maoists — the list of demands has grown. It now includes democratisation of the army and other security agencies; restructuring of the judiciary; declaring Nepal a multi-national state; equal status to other languages like Hindi and Bhojpuri; a reference to the principle of “proportional representation” in the section on Fundamental Rights and the establishment of a constitutionally empowered Inclusion Commission to monitor implementation of the proportional representation principle.

In December, the four SLMM leaders — Mahant Thakur, Rajendra Mahato, Upendra Yadav and Mahendra Rai Yadav — visited Delhi and cautioned that the agitation was taking the shape of a movement. Unless their demands were addressed in a timely manner, the movement could take a violent turn and the demand for separatism would grow. Their feeling was that the Oli government was not serious about reaching out and was keen to push through the amendments and postpone resolution of other issues. The import of this message was not lost on Delhi. The SLMM thought that this would make Delhi tighten the screws and push the Nepali government towards a comprehensive settlement; instead, worried about greater violence in the Terai with an 1,800-km-long open border, Delhi reacted differently, and as a result, differences have now emerged within the SLMM. Mr. Mahato would like to continue with the agitation while others are uncertain.

Division in the ranks

On December 26, Mr. Mahato decided to do a dharna at the Jogbani-Biratnagar crossing where truck movement had picked up and was badly beaten up by the Nepal police. He is currently convalescing at Medanta Hospital in Gurgaon. The other three did not join the dharna and Mr. Mahato’s supporters are miffed that a condemnation of the attack on their leader took so long coming.

Sensing an opportunity, the Oli government reached out to the SLMM leadership for a meeting in Kathmandu on January 3. Mr. Thakur, accompanied by relatively junior leaders, attended. On his side, Mr. Oli was accompanied by Nepali Congress president and former PM Sushil Koirala, Maoist leader and former PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ and others. Upendra Yadav and Mahendra Rai Yadav happened to be out of town. A week earlier, the Oli government had set the wheels in motion for the constitutional amendment process by formally tabling it in the Assembly. At this stage, no dialogue was underway with the SLMM to get them on board and in the debates that followed, Madhesi parties boycotted the proceedings. On January 4, the Assembly concluded its deliberations and after the mandated period of 72 hours for amendments to be tabled, will begin voting on the amendments. PM Oli has proposed the setting up of a task force to arrive at an agreed language for the amendments. Defence Minister Bhim Rawal (UML), K.B. Mahara of the Maoists and Mahesh Acharya (Nepali Congress) have been nominated by the three main parties; with the clock ticking, the SLMM may fracture if individual leaders try to go it alone in the task force.

Mending fences

PM Oli has been adept at flaunting the China card. In October last year, there was much fanfare about China supplying 1,000 metric tonnes of petroleum products to alleviate the shortage. Considering that the annual requirement is closer to a million tonnes, this is a tiny amount. Also the infrastructure in terms of roads and bridges to the Tibet border does not permit movement of heavy tankers and LPG bullets. Nepal’s attempts at negotiating long-term agreements with China have not gone very far. However, Nepali media had carried stories that Mr. Oli, in a departure from past practice, would undertake his first foreign trip to China instead of India. The only Nepali prime minister to have done so was Mr. Prachanda in 2008. He, however, insisted that it was not a bilateral visit as he was going to attend the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics and his first official bilateral visit would be to India. Apparently, in the telephone conversation on December 31, Mr. Modi reiterated his invitation to Mr. Oli to visit India and the missions have been directed to work out mutually convenient dates at the earliest. However, Mr. Oli will find it difficult to visit Delhi unless the border situation has returned to normal and movement of goods and supplies has been restored. If the SLMM agitation is called off, he can then claim with some justification that his nationalistic posture, together with the anti-India rhetoric, has paid off. Given the strain Mr. Modi’s “neighbourhood first” policy is under on the Pakistan front, it is understandable that he would like Mr. Oli to stick to tradition.

How did things reach such an impasse? The fact is that nobody thought that the Madhesi agitation and the consequent restrictions on cross-border movement of goods would last this long. As a result, nobody had a Plan B and rhetoric replaced communication. With the key players losing control, the situation went into a tailspin. The Oli government found it convenient to stoke Nepali nationalism and deflect attention away from its own incompetence by blaming India. The SLMM’s demands continued to grow with no negotiations in sight and rising anti-Indianism hardly sat well with Mr. Modi’s “neighbourhood first” diplomacy.

The supply situation has now eased but the Oli government needs to offer a healing hand to the Madhesis to get them on board. If he fails, he may find it difficult to deal with the ensuing instability. The Madhesis need to reach out to the Tharus and Janajatis, the other marginalised groups. For India, the challenge is to give greater political content to its engagement, rebuild trust with the Oli government, and revive the positive sentiments generated by Prime Minister Modi’s visits in 2014.

Source:-The Hindu, 07-Jan-2016

Time for questions on Pathankot

There is much relief as quiet finally returns to Pathankot. However, the immediate questions that need to be asked are about the way the security operation was carried out from the moment a specific intelligence alert came to the Centre about the possible targeting of the Pathankot airbase. This newspaper has already reported that by Christmas, a foreign intelligence agency had passed on a tip-off about terrorists planning to attack the base. Was that not treated with seriousness because most intelligence alerts do not mean anything? Is the response a reflection of the poor quality of general intelligence alerts? On January 1, early morning, the abducted Superintendent of Police, Salwinder Singh, reported to the local police that his vehicle had been snatched. By afternoon, the government at the Centre had confirmation about the presence of terrorists in Pathankot. What the security establishment did from that moment raises several questions. A meeting chaired by the National Security Adviser and attended by, among others, the chiefs of the Army and the Air Force, decided to rush NSG commandos from Delhi. How did they take that decision, when it was clear that an airbase had to be protected and terrorists could be anywhere in the district? Does this reflect the poor thinking of senior members of the security establishment? Or does it hint at autocratic decision-making in New Delhi without professional participation?

Over the last few days, the government has been making a desperate effort to defend the course of action that was followed in fighting terrorists. From informal briefings in New Delhi to the formal briefing on Wednesday evening by Lt. Gen. K.J. Singh, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command, the government has been putting up a spirited defence of the operations. Gen. Singh admitted that the first to react to the terrorists were the DSC (Defence Security Corps) and Garuds, but added that the second contact was the Army columns. As Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar did on Tuesday, Gen. Singh claimed that there was total operational synergy, and he justified the time taken by saying that forces had to be applied sequentially, and not simultaneously, and they were also careful to avoid a hostage situation and other eventualities. However, all this does not answer the basic criticism by military veterans and security experts: despite the Pathankot airbase being at shouting distance from thousands of Army soldiers trained to deal with terrorists, why were they not even called in to provide perimeter security to the base? What was the need to send the NSG into a military installation where the Army’s para commandos and quick reaction teams would have been more familiar with the terrain? Why was the operational command not handed over to the senior-most Army commander on the ground? The answers should not only inform decisions to hold those responsible accountable for the mis-step in operations, but also lead to an upgrade of existing protocols.

Source:- The Hindu, 07-Jan-2016

Stay the course after Pathankot

Within the short space of a month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government have gone through the entire cycle of India-Pakistan ties, as they have played for the past two decades ever since the two countries agreed to a composite, structured dialogue between them. There has been talks about talks, talks about terror, a brief moment of euphoria with gestures of renewing ties from the leaders, followed by an attack. While Mr. Modi’s Lahore landing was certainly bold, it has not yet proven to be the game-changer that perhaps he too hoped it would be. Instead, the same kind of terrorist attack that has always accompanied India-Pakistan engagement hit Pathankot in the early hours of Saturday. As with similar attacks in the past, it should not surprise anyone if the terrorists came from Pakistan, and belonged to an anti-India group the Pakistani army has neatly sidestepped in its otherwise fairly successful crackdown on terrorists in the past year. Frustrated by their inability to hurt India, the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and others have tried to retain their relevance by instead targeting the India-Pakistan dialogue process time and again. By not calling off talks immediately after the attack, the Modi government seems to have indicated it will not allow these groups the satisfaction of achieving those aims. A sustained dialogue is the only fitting answer to terrorist groups and to their handlers inside the Pakistan establishment who wish to destabilise the peace process. In fact, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj told Parliament last month that India would not “be provoked by saboteurs who want to stop the dialogue process in one way or another”.

Going forward, the talks process must be further insulated from the ‘veto’ of these forces. First, the foreign secretaries must move quickly to set up a timetable of meetings of all the secretaries in the two countries involved in the comprehensive dialogue. The process will receive momentum if India and Pakistan agree to a resolution on what are often called the “low-hanging fruit” of issues such as visas, confidence building measures on the Line of Control, water issues and the Sir Creek dispute. The more issues they are able to agree on, the greater their chances of addressing the single largest issue that holds back ties today, that of terrorism. On this, it is for Pakistan to show its good intentions, by acting against the JeM and LeT, both in court and on the ground in Punjab where they run extensive militias. India must stay the course it has set in the past month, including during the National Security Adviser talks, where it has delivered its message firmly, but quietly, with no hint of the one-upmanship that can hamper engagement. These actions will pave the road that was opened by the two Prime Ministers on Christmas day, allowing them to slice through the proverbial Gordian knot on India-Pakistan ties, rather than having to disentangle the ends that constantly threaten to strangle peace in the subcontinent.

Source:- The Hindu, 04-Jan-2016

In Paris, taking stock of the big challenges

A new year gives us an opportunity to learn from past lessons. Last year, two events made Paris appear on front-page headlines: the terror attacks and the climate deal. Could the Paris agreement be an answer to terrorism as we know it today? Aren’t climate change and terrorism manifestations of the same world process, even though their interconnections might be complicated?

A 2014 U.S. Department of Defense report pointed to climate change being one of the major threats to the country’s national security. In November, when Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders referred to the occurrence of drought in Syria as a push factor for terrorism in that country, most people had rubbished it as an overstretched argument, but retired U.S. Rear Admiral and meteorologist David W. Titley made the same point. The U.S. government reports note how climate change has the potential to create instability and poverty in countries it affects the most, leading to discontent that pushes people to take up arms.

But what voices in the U.S. fail to acknowledge is how both climate change and terror are consequences of the plundering of fossil fuels. The complicity of powerful nations such as the U.S. in creating a situation in which both terrorism and climate change have managed to thrive has not been emphasised by the mainstream discourse.

Gathering evidence

The Nigerian energy activist, Ken Henshaw, while deposing against the U.S.-based international oil and gas company, ExxonMobil, at the People’s Climate Summit on the sidelines of the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, drew linkages between oil extraction activities around the Niger delta and the rise of extremist groups such as Boko Haram. “Nigeria is now called a terrorist country due to Boko Haram insurgency,” he said. “Much of the insurgency exists in the region bordering Lake Chad. In the last ten years, the lake has shrunk 20 times its original size. Livestock cannot breed anymore in the lands around the lake... People have become destitute, [have] joined criminal gangs... insurgency and fundamentalism thrive, as it has become easier to recruit people.” He said that linking climate change to terror is often viewed as an exaggeration, but failing to see the connections between the two would leave us blind to one of the most obvious existential crises in the world.

The “resource curse” phenomenon is very much at work in countries such as Nigeria, where the wealth of natural resources has not empowered the local communities, but has fuelled social conflict instead. Conflict brews among agents of world powers that buy oil, the ruling elites who profit from selling it, and the local population that struggles to maintain control over these resources. This has created an ideal condition for terrorism to thrive. Let’s look at Afghanistan or Iraq. Though terrorist organisations such as the al-Qaeda trace their origins back to the Cold War days, what has exacerbated tensions in the country of its origin today is the struggle over controlling natural resources. The Iraq invasion too was primarily motivated by the U.S.’s own greed for oil. The works of leading intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky and Mahmood Mamdani have exposed how the U.S. “war on terror” is essentially a war for controlling oil resources. While Professor Chomsky’s work has focussed on the U.S.’s actions in Arab nations, Prof. Mamdani has written about the conflict in Darfur, Africa. In his 2003 essay ‘Wars of Terror’, Prof. Chomsky recalls how former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and his staff discussed the “campaign of hatred against us [the U.S.]” in the Arab world, “not by the governments but by the people”. The basic reason is the recognition that the U.S. supports corrupt and brutal governments and is “opposing political or economic progress” in order “to protect its interest in Near East oil”, Prof. Chomsky writes. Today, China too has joined this race to plunder, taking major initiatives to develop the Amu Darya basin in Afghanistan, to be able to drill oil from the region. But such exploitation, without addressing the problems of corruption and the lack of government accountability, has directly aided the cause of terror.

Another concern is how revenues from oil are helping to fund terror, as is the case of the Syrian oil fields helping fund the IS. And though the U.S. recently surpassed Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest producer of oil, it continues to depend on oil-rich countries for augmenting its fuel supplies. Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Iraq figure in the top five countries from where the U.S. imports most of its oil. The oil dependency of the world powers is, thus, not only brewing trouble in countries from where the fuel is being extracted, but also making them vulnerable to attack from militant groups. It is this dependency that is also keeping the U.S. from acting decisively against the Saudi government, despite suspicion since the 9/11 days that the country is funding terrorist groups. Realising this, world powers are now switching to alternative sources of fuel such as shale gas, though environmental groups are resisting it, as it involves fracking.

Pact and context

The Paris Agreement has to be, therefore, situated in this broader geopolitical context. It was hardly surprising that in the lead-up to the final day of the UN climate summit, Saudi Arabia, the largest oil supplier in the world until recently, was the one country that opposed the climate deal, as its economic interests were at stake. But it finally budged, as it found itself increasingly sidelined at the negotiating table. Clauses on human rights were dropped from the operative portions of the agreement text, in keeping with Saudi Arabia’s demands, in order to achieve consensus over the agreement. The Paris Agreement is thus nothing but a diplomatic victory for world powers, as they can now mobilise the deal to work towards alternative pathways to energy production. This will help reduce oil dependency in their economies, and also help devise methods to drive down the profitability of oil, which could dry up funding for terror as well. There remain fears that much like the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the Paris agreement too could suffer from a lack of implementation from powerful nations. However, with world powers now compelled to act out of self-interest to keep terror at bay, one hopes things would be different this time. The lesson from Paris 2015 is this: until world powers stop digging black gold from Iraq, Africa and Saudi Arabia, the webs of violence, terror and climate change will continue.



Source:- The Hindu, 04-Jan-2016

ISIS says two of its followers behind California attacks- wissendsily

Washington, Dec 5: Two followers of the Islamic State (IS) group carried out the California attacks that killed at least 14 people and injured 20, the group's radio broadcast said on Saturday. US citizen Syed Farook, 28, and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 27, were involved in the attack in Californian city San Bernardino, the terror outfit said in its daily broadcast al-Bayan, Xinhua news agency reported. 

According to police, "some degree of planning" was involved in the shooting spree. Earlier, US' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) chief James Comey said on Friday that the shooting was being investigated as potential terrorism, but there was "no indication" suggesting a terror angle. "The investigation so far has delivered indications of radicalization by the killers and of potential inspiration by foreign terrorist organisations," Xinhua quoted Comey as saying. However, Comey said so far there was no indication that pointed to the husband-and-wife shooters' affiliation to any group. "We have no indication that these killers are part of an organised larger group or form part of a cell. There is no indication that they are part of a network," said Comey. The couple shot down 14 people Wednesday at a Southern California social services centre and injured several. According to local police, "some degree of planning" was involved in the shooting spree. It was revealed on Friday that the wife had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) on social media. IANS



Source- One India

Indian rupee hits more than 2-year low; RBI intervenes

The Indian rupee hit a more than two-year low against the dollar on Friday as domestic equity markets fell after an underwhelming stimulus package from the European Central Bank, forcing the Reserve Bank of India to sell dollars via state-run banks.

The rupee tumbled to 67.01 to the dollar, the lowest since Sept 4, 2013, from its previous close of 66.6525/66.6625.

Traders said the RBI likely stepped in to support the rupee at around 66.98 per dollar, sparking a rebound. The Indian rupee was at 66.8600/8650 per dollar as of 0641 GMT(around 12.10 pm).

The disappointment over the ECB comes amid growing worries of the impact on India and other emerging markets as the US Federal Reserve gears up to raise interest rates for the first time in around a decade this month.

Foreign investors sold a net $1.7 billion in Indian shares and debt in November, the highest sales since August.

“Unless RBI intervenes in a big way, rupee will remain under pressure,” said Ashtosh Raina, head of FX trading at HDFC Bank in Mumbai.

Some traders anticipate the rupee to fall to 67.50 to the dollar closer to the Fed policy meeting on Dec 15.

The rupee fell 2.1 per cent against the dollar last month, its biggest drop since August, and is down 0.3 per cent so far in December.

The fall in the local currency on Friday tracked a retreat in domestic shares after the ECB disappointed markets with a smaller-than-expected stimulus measure. India’s broader NSE index fell 0.9 per cent.

The limited easing measures come as Fed Chair Janet Yellen, speaking before Congress’ Joint Economic Committee on Thursday, said the United States may be “close to the point at which we should be raising” rates.

Markets will eye the US jobs data due later in the day for further cues on Fed rate move, although a rate hike is broadly being priced into the currency, traders said.

Source- Financial Express 

Chennai rains ops! IT companies invoke alternate plans as rain hits

Chennai, Dec 2: Heavy downpour have hit operations of IT companies in Chennai -- one of the leading IT destination in the country, but the firms say that they have invoked alternative measures to ensure there is no impact on critical services. Most of the offices in the city, including that of IT companies, remained closed today due to heavy rains with leading Indian firm Infosys deciding to remain closed tomorrow as well due to flooding at its premise.

www.wissendaily.blogspot.in

"In light of the rains and flooding in Chennai, Infosys campuses in the city were closed on December 2 and we have also declared a holiday on December 3. Our teams in Chennai have been working with local authorities to get employees stranded across the city to return home safely," Infosys spokesperson said. Infosys said that flooding at its both campuses is under control and the water levels have started receding. "Our business continuity plans have been activated and we have taken necessary actions to ensure client commitments are met, which includes managing work from other locations," the spokesperson said. Cognizant which has its largest office in Chennai with 60,000 people across 11 facilities in the city said that some of its employees have stayed back in office to support critical services while some have travelled to other cities to support operations. "In view of the situation resulting from incessant rains in Chennai and the meteorological department's forecast of heavy rains, Cognizant offices in Chennai are closed today, December 2. However, there is no disruption to work on critical projects and 24x7 operations support," Cognizant spokesperson said in response to an email query. The company said that it has invoked business continuity plan and employees have stayed back at its facilities for aiding projects that require round the clock support. It added, all arrangements have been made for the staff including food and accommodation, both in its campuses as well as nearby hotels. "We are providing all possible transportation support to our employees in Chennai and have advised them to take utmost safety precautions. Some of our employees have already travelled to Cognizant centres in other cities to provide support to our clients," it said.IT major Tata Consultancy Services said that its offices in Chennai are also shut today and "the strong business continuity plans ensure that there is no impact on business." The company said that all its employee are safe and there is no water logging in any of its offices. Airtel said that its services have also been partially disrupted due to power failure and the company is working with local authorities to restore them.


Source: One India

The United Kingdom Visit - Highlights of Prime Minister's Visit to United Kingdom

Opening the Door to a Special Relationship"

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's tour to the United Kingdom from November 12-14 was the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister in almost a decade. Prime Minister Modi's visit to UK aimed at consolidating ties and outlining a roadmap towards advancing partnership and deepening cooperation between the two countries.
The Royal Air Force marked the moment of Prime Minister Modi's arrival with a flypast in the Indian tri-colours, making India the first foreign country to have its flag colours flown in a British flypast. During the three day visit, Prime Minister Modi held talks with British Prime Minister, David Cameron, paid homage to the statue of Mahatma Gandhi at Parliament Square, addressed a distinguished group of parliamentarians and eminent persons at the iconic Royal Gallery in the British Parliament, becoming the first head of Indian government to do so; addressed the City of London at the symbolic Guidhall, interacted with the CEOs at the India-UK CEOs Forum, called on Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II unveiled the statue of Lord Basaveshwara, inaugurated the Ambedkar Memorial at the house where Dr B R Ambedkar lived while studying at LSE (London School of Economics) and visited Tata Jaguar Land Rover vehicle manufacturing unit in Solihull. In another first, the UK government offered to reinstate the law degree of the Indian freedom fighter Shyamji Krishna Verma who was debarred from practicing law at the Inner Temple for actively campaigning for India's independence from UK.

With a focus on the 3 Ds - Democracy, Demography and Demand and its movement towards E-entrepreneurship, the visit also saw commercial deals worth £9.3 bn being sealed and the two sides releasing a vision document that captured the essence of shared history and a natural partnership, poised to take giant strides forward.

The United Kingdom reaffirmed its continued support for India's permanent membership of an expanded UNSC and India's enhanced role in other international bodies and membership of International Export Control Regimes.

Joint Statement - India-UK Summit 2015A Sustaining Partnership

Celebrating the growing strength, breadth and depth of the relations between the two countries, Prime Minister Modi and Prime Minister Cameron emphasised that the enduring connect between the UK and India plays a vital role in safeguarding and promoting the security and prosperity of both the nations.

The two leaders endorsed a Vision Statement that outlined their ambitious and transformative vision for upgrading the unique India-UK relationship to a leading global partnership for sustainable progress, prosperity and security. The leaders resolved to agree on a new Defence and International Security Partnership which will intensify cooperation on defence and security, including cyber-security, counter-terrorism and maritime security.

The two sides agreed that climate change and promoting secure, affordable and sustainable supplies of energy were shared strategic priorities for India and the UK, and endorsed a Joint Statement on Energy and Climate Change.

They also agreed to scale up bilateral cooperation to a global partnership for development through a "Statement of Intent on Partnership for Cooperation in Third Countries". which will facilitate working together to benefit third country partners by assisting them in addressing their development challenges in a wholly demand driven manner.  

Vision Statement - India-UK Summit 2015

The two Prime Ministers noted that in an increasingly complex and interconnected world, deepening the already close partnership on global issues would be vital for safeguarding and promoting prosperity and security.

The substantive outcomes of the visit reflected in the five documents issued by the two leaders, are as follows :

Vision Statement

Towards consolidating the already robust ties between the world's oldest and largest democracies a vision of a special partnership was endorsed which would be further cemented by contribution of 1.5 million strong Indian Diaspora in Britain and Britain's participation in India's economic progress. The vision document released by the two sides encompassed the aspirations of two economies. It highlighted the uniqueness of ties that would continue to guide all the future engagements. While India seeks to take its 1.25 billion on the path of progress, the UK can sustain its economic rebalance and global leadership by contributing in the process. 

Defence and International Security Partnership

The two sides agreed on forward-looking steps with the corresponding dialogue mechanisms to deepen collaboration in combating global threats and strengthening the rules-based international systems by enhancing defence collaboration, transfer of strategic capabilities, joint R & D in new areas and indigenous defence projects under Make in India, UK's strong advocacy of UN reforms and continued support for India's permanent membership of UNSC, joint effort to finalise CCIT(Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism),disrupt financial and tactical support for terrorist networks, strengthen cooperation in cyber and maritime security.

 

Partnership for Cooperation in Third Countries

It was announced to leverage the competencies of India and UK in a trilateral framework to assist developing countries in addressing their development challenges by capacity building in a range of sectors.

India-UK Joint Statement on Energy and Climate Change

This joint statement outlined collaborative initiatives to address the shared strategic challenges of climate change and access to sustainable energy for economic growth.

India-UK Joint Statement 2015

This comprehensive document outlines specific initiatives being taken to further deepen the partnership in a range of sectors such as Finance, Infrastructure, Science and Technology and Health, Education and Training as well as Culture. 

Source :- http://www.mea.gov.in/

Global warming to progress faster than expected: Study

London, Nov 27: Global warming will progress faster than previously believed because greenhouse gas emissions that arise naturally are also affected by increased temperatures, researchers, including one of Indian-origin, have warned. Researchers examined the emissions of the greenhouse gas methane from three lakes. The effects were clear and the methane emissions increased exponentially with temperature.

Their measurements show that a temperature increase from 15 to 20 degrees Celsius almost doubled the methane level. "Everything indicates that global warming caused by humans leads to increased natural greenhouse gas emissions. Our detailed measurements reveal a clear pattern of greater methane emissions from lakes at higher temperatures," said Sivakiruthika Natchimuthu, doctoral student at Linkoping University in Sweden and lead author of the study. Greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels lead to higher temperatures, which in turn lead to increased natural emissions and further warming. "We are not talking about hypotheses anymore. The evidence is growing and the results of the detailed studies are surprisingly clear," said David Bastviken, professor at Tema Environmental Change, Linkoping University. "The question is no longer if the natural emissions will increase but rather how much they will increase with warming," said Bastviken. This means that warming will be faster than expected from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions alone, researchers said. Any reductions in anthropogenic greenhouse emissions is a double victory, by both reducing the direct effect on warming, but also by preventing the feedback with increased natural emissions, they said. The study was published in the journal Limnology and Oceanography.


PTI

Source : One India

India reclaims its spice route to counter China's silk route

The battle for geopolitical influence has been joined on the high seas in right earnest. India's old spice route is now jostling with China's ancient silk route for the same strategic space in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) in modern times.

The eye-catching Indian naval sail ship, Tarangini, set sail with a similar Omani ship, Shabab Oman, for Kochi from Muscat on Tuesday , which will see them traverse a distance of 1,500 nautical miles (2,800-km) during the 10-day voyage.

The two ships sailing together, in celebration of 60 years of diplomatic relations being established between India and Oman, will retrace historical voyages of yore undertaken by dhows and trading vessels between the ports of the two countries.

“The ships then took advantage of favorable seasonal winds, which are called `mausam' in Arabic. The flourishing trade of spices and garments from India, and dates and gold from Oman, nourished the two civilizations, developing cultural and trade linkages over many centuries,“ said an officer.

Tarangini, which reached Muscat on Sunday after a long trip to Europe, and Shabab will arrive at Kochi to “a grand welcome“ on December 3-4. The “togetherness voy age“ neatly dovetails into India's Project Mausam, which seeks to revive its ancient economic and cultural links with countries in the IOR with a new strategic focus.

Project Mausam, of course, also intends to counter China's expanding strategic footprint with its Maritime Silk Road and other initiatives to garner economic and political influence from Southeast Asia to the Middle East. “The aim now is to pro-actively engage with all IOR countries, stepping up maritime and strategic ties,“ said another officer.

But India has been quite slow to play catch-up with China, which has systematically forged maritime links from East Africa, Seychelles, Mauritius and Maldives to Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Cambodia. “Another problem is our lack of followthrough in the promises made to IOR countries,“ admitted another officer.

Source : Times Of India, 25-Nov-2015

Every election is presidential

Actor Shatrughan Sinha summed it up correctly when he said that it was a victory of the Bihari over the bahari (outsider) in the elections to the Bihar legislature. But, then, most State Assembly elections over the past two decades and more have been contests between local alternatives. The days of national leaders overpowering regional ones in State elections are long gone. Some recent exceptions prove the rule.

It is surprising, therefore, that Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose to ignore this fact — that elections in parliamentary India have become presidential. After all, Mr. Modi’s own victory in Gujarat and New Delhi symbolised this reality.

Belated recognition

It appeared that there was a belated recognition of this shift in political sentiment when the BJP national leadership named Kiran Bedi the candidate for Delhi Chief Minister against Arvind Kejriwal. Her defeat only underscored the importance of credible local candidates. Mr. Kejriwal’s victory was his, not that of his party. Even a political scientist and psephologist like Yogendra Yadav did not want to concede this reality when he challenged the bossism of Mr. Kejriwal. But Mr. Kejriwal ran a presidential campaign to win an essentially mayoral election.

More than development or the caste and communal loyalties of voters, or the simple arithmetic of pre-election alliances, the Bihar verdict was shaped by the fact that the voters had to make a choice between local leaders and no one else in particular. Regional and caste-based parties may have initially been voted to power on the strength of their ideology and manifesto, but their fortunes have become increasingly linked to the popularity of their leaders.

True, the core support of any political party is composed of its loyalists, of those who share the party’s ideology and programme. But elections are not won and lost on the basis of the size of the core. It is the swing vote — the accretion to the core — that makes all the difference.

In 2009, while loyalists of the BJP and the Sonia Congress might have voted for their party of choice, the floating voter took a call on who he or she wished to see as the Prime Minister of India — Manmohan Singh or Lal Krishna Advani. Both the BJP and the Congress went into that election having named their prime ministerial candidates. The votes that made a difference were cast in favour of Dr. Singh.

In 2014, the voter opted for Narendra Modi over Rahul Gandhi. Both national parties ran presidential campaigns, seeking votes for their chosen or perceived candidate for the top job. What has been happening at the national level over the past decade and more has been happening at the State level for some time now, cutting across parties and States. Consider the record.

In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, the victory of the Congress was defined by the impressive gains it made in Andhra Pradesh under the leadership of the late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy. It was Dr. Reddy’s sustained grassroots campaign that unseated the Telugu Desam supremo, Nara Chandrababu Naidu, and gave the Congress a decisive edge over the BJP. The National Democratic Alliance led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee lost also because in Tamil Nadu the Congress ally, M. Karunanidhi, ousted J. Jayalalithaa. Dr. Reddy repeated his performance in 2009 with his highly personalised campaign and helped Dr. Singh return to power.

In most other States where the Congress won the elections, the vote was as much for its chief ministerial candidate as it was for the party — Oommen Chandy in Kerala, Tarun Gogoi in Assam, Shiela Dikshit in Delhi and Siddaramaiah in Karnataka. The Karnataka voter punished the BJP because of B.S. Yeddyurappa’s tenure and rewarded Mr. Siddaramaiah.

All regional or caste-based parties have long approached the voter in the name of the leader. Which is at least one reason all of them have become family controlled parties. The phenomenon of ‘dynasty’ in Indian politics began with Indira Gandhi’s personalised campaign of 1980, managed by her younger son Sanjay. The natural consequence was the feudal succession that was staged after her death when Rajiv Gandhi was made party leader and Prime Minister. The leader’s family slowly took possession of the party.

In his recently published memoir, The Chinar Leaves , Indira loyalist Makhan Lal Fotedar reminds us that even as late as in the early 1980s, party leaders such as R. Venkataraman, P.V. Narasimha Rao, Pranab Mukherjee and even Madhavrao Scindia were viewed as potential prime ministerial candidates. Once the family domination of the Indian National Congress was complete, regional parties followed suit.

Thus, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam transformed itself from being a normal, ideology-based party to a party dominated by the leader’s family. The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Telugu Desam Party, as indeed the many Congress breakaway groups, began as ‘leader-oriented’ parties rather than cadre-based parties. The Lohia Socialists of the north imitated these examples. Coming to power on the strength of an ideology and in pursuit of a cause, they all became ‘leader’ oriented.

Even in ideology-based parties like the BJP and the CPI(M), elections have been fought in the name of the leader with a mass appeal. In 1998 and 1999, the BJP’s Lok Sabha campaign revolved around the personality of Mr. Vajpayee. The turning point came, as BJP observers pointed out at the time, when the crowds came to hear only Mr. Vajpayee speak and thinned out when Mr. Advani rose to speak.

In Gujarat, Mr. Modi became the BJP’s face, as did Vasundhara Raje Scindia in Rajasthan, Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh and Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh. Mr. Modi’s attempt to secure control of his party in these States has been refuted by the assertion of State leaders. Mr. Modi’s success in Maharashtra and Haryana in ‘nominating’ State Chief Ministers after the elections were fought in the name of the party, a la Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, may have encouraged him to overreach in Delhi. He failed to learn the lesson in time for Bihar.

The experience of the Left only underscores the point. In West Bengal, the CPI(M) was made invincible by the personality of the late Jyoti Basu. It was only when a dynamo like Mamata Banerjee arrived on the scene, and Basu was followed by a less charismatic figure, that the CPI(M) lost power. In Kerala, the victory of the Left Front in 2006 was defined by the personality of ‘Comrade VS.’ It remains to be seen what alternative the Left will present in West Bengal and Kerala to the popular incumbents — Mamata Banerjee and Oommen Chandy — in next year’s elections.

Many political analysts made the point in the 2012 State elections in Uttar Pradesh that the Congress would have repeated, or even improved upon, its 2009 Lok Sabha performance had the voters been given the choice of electing Rahul Gandhi their Chief Minister. In many ways, Mr. Modi repeated in Bihar the mistake Rahul made in U.P. — seeking votes for a party rather than an individual.

‘Winners’ preferred

Bihar shows that the era of centrally nominated Chief Ministers is over. Even national parties have to pick ‘winners’ now as CMs. Going forward, therefore, the Congress ought to know that victory in Assam would depend on whether the voters in Assam want more of Mr. Gogoi or would like to see him go.

All this is not to suggest that party loyalties and ideology do not matter. Of course, they do for a large majority of voters who remain loyal to their party. That forms a party’s core support base. But elections are not won and lost due to major shifts in the core. It is the ‘non-core’ voter and the first generation voter, with no firm loyalty to a party, who defines the final outcome.

The ‘floating’ voter opted for Manmohan Singh in 2009 and for Narendra Modi in 2014. The challenge for the prime ministerial candidates of 2019 will be to retain the loyalty of the core constituency while gaining new voters — both from rivals and from first generation voters. It is a race in which Mr. Modi still remains leagues ahead of all potential rivals, and there are so many of them among the self-made CMs around the country!

Source :-The Hindu, 25-Nov-2015

Good that I left Arvind Kejriwal's company: Anna Hazare on Kejriwal-Lalu hug

MUMBAI: Social activist Anna Hazare today expressed his disappointment on the warm embrace his former protege Arvind Kejriwal and Lalu Prasad shared on stage on the sidelines of the Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's oath ceremony in Patna on Friday. 

"It's good that I left Arvind's company, or else I would also be facing a similar predicament,"

Social activist Anna Hazare

 today expressed hisdisappointment 

on the warm embrace his former protege

 Arvind Kejriwal and Lalu Prasad shared on stage.

Hazare said. 

"Shaking hands with Lalu and hugging him is not okay," Hazare told reporters at his native village Ralegan Siddhi in  .. 

Hazare's comments came even as Kejriwal sought to clear the air on the Lalu hug that has become a much discussed topic in the country. 

Yadav, Kejriwal claimed yesterday, was the sole author of the warm embrace the two leaders shared. 

"He shook my hand and pulled me into a  hug and then he held my hand and raised it," said the Delhi chief minister, adding, "It was projected and questions were asked." 

Photographs of the two leaders went viral on social media and a Kejriwal tweet from two years ago was dug up to remind the former anti-corruption activist of his stand on Lalu Yadav when the latter was convicted in a corruption case. 

The hug earned Kejriwal criticism not only on social media but also from political rivals, including former AAP colleague Yogendra Yadav who said, "Political capital of the movement sold to symbols of political corruption. Ashamed!" 

Source: Economictimes

You can also read : 

It was Lalu who pulled me and hugged, says Kejriwal

For more

The coming trade storm

On 5 October, the nature of global trade was radically transformed.Twelve countries around the Pacific Rim signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) ­ a free trade agreement covering 870 million people, 40% of global GDP , and accounting for $2 trillion in merchandise trade.

TPP is not just another tariff eliminating mega regional trade pact. It is about developing a `new normal' for conducting international trade ­ encompassing lower benchmarks for non-tariff barriers, more stringent labour and environment regulations, stronger intellectual property rights (IPR) protection, and greater transparency in government procurement limiting advantages to state owned enterprises.

Therefore, TPP when ratified by all 12 countries would, for the first time, take multilateral regulatory oversight over measures by sovereign governments beyond their borders. It may be, however, a year before ratification is completed.TPP is likely to face serious opposition in US Congress.

Another mega deal is currently being negotiated, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the US and European Union. This could become operational in the next couple of years. TTIP has a similarly ambitious agenda as TPP, going much beyond WTO.

Thus, India faces the grim prospect of being frozen out of major global markets and trade flows in case TPP and TTIP become operational. The two mega pacts together will cover more than 70% of global GDP and about 60% of world trade. It is pertinent to ask if India can take steps to mitigate the likely negative impact on its exports, investment inflows and technology imports of this new generation of mega regional pacts.

Delhi could respond in several ways to prevent isolation. It could try and secure an invitation to join TPP. It could also try and accelerate on-going negotiations under the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and raise its ambition levels in these negotiations.

RCEP negotiations cover 16 countries including the 10 Asean economies and six partner countries: Australia, China, India, Korea, Japan and New Zealand.These 16 members together cover more than 3 billion people, a GDP of about $17 trillion and more than 50% of world trade.However, unlike TPP and TTIP , RCEP doesn't aim to cover `behind the border' measures because both India and China, Asia's two giants, don't support that.

RCEP , if concluded, would give India more leg room for negotiating its entry into mega regional pacts at some later date. It is worth recalling that of the 16 RCEP countries, seven are also members of the far more ambitious TPP . In addition to concluding RCEP negotiations India could also accelerate its on-going negotiations with EU, which if concluded would give it some comfort when TTIP comes into force.

Unfortunately , none of these responses are likely to materialise. Recent pronouncements from Udyog Bhawan are estimony to this. India-EU negotiations have effectively been put on hold. India s planning a three-tier offer under RCEP, which will surely complicate our already complex import regime, thereby encouraging rent-seeking by customs officials. Moreover, the Department of Commerce reportedly commissioned a study by a JNU professor, which has concluded that free trade agreements FTAs) signed by India have an overall negative impact on India and should therefore be carefully reviewed! This is a defensive response to evolving institutional changes in world trade.However, large swathes of Indian industry remain globally uncompetitive, as revealed by continuous decline in our exports for the last 11 months. Thus, the defensive response is understandable as Indian policy makers, with constant lobbying from industry interests, fear over-exposing our domestic industry to global competition.

But a protectionist policy stance is not an optimal solution, especially when India wants to maximise employment generation for its 12 million new entrants to the workforce every year. India has to expand its exports of both goods and services as these are relatively employment intensive. It would be far more practical for Udyog Bhawan to focus on measures to make Indian industry globally competitive, rather than reviewing FTAs already in place or continuing to rely on temporary interest rate subventions or fiscal handouts that do nothing to improve competitiveness.

Measures to make Indian industry more competitive requires focussed attention on improving physical infrastructure, especially for medium and small industries that contribute nearly 60% of our exports. It would also require further simplification of processes and procedures and a revamping of the export promotion regime that has become dysfunctional.

India should seriously push for finalising new bilateral FTAs with some TPP members to dilute the impact of trade and investment diversion due to TPP.Lastly , there is an overlap of members of RCEP and TPP which raises concerns that standards of RCEP will eventually converge to that of TPP.

This calls for urgent reforms in India's domestic policies to close the gap with the `new normal' global standards.Otherwise India will be cut off from global supply chains and lose precious job generating opportunities. There is an urgent need to improve and revitalise Indian manufacturing and services like tourism to ensure that India can exploit the opportunities offered by global trade.

The writer is Senior Fellow Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi 

Data that may be helpful:
Important Points:-

• TPP :- The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement ("TPP") is a free trade agreement currently being negotiated by nine countries: The United States, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.
• Intellectual property (IP) :- Is a term referring to creations of the intellect for which a monopoly is assigned to designated owners by law. Some common types of intellectual property rights (IPR) are copyright, patents, and industrial design rights; and the rights that protect trademarks, trade dress, and in some jurisdictions trade secrets: all these cover music, literature, and other artistic works; discoveries and inventions; and words, phrases, symbols, and designs.
• TTIP :- The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a proposed free trade agreement between the European Union and the United States, with the aim of promoting multilateral economic growth.
• RCEP :- Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between the ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) (Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam) and the six states with which ASEAN has existing FTAs (Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand)

 Source : Times Of India, 20-Nov-2015