Apart from addressing the status of Hyderabad, there is another major issue - Article 371(D) - that needs to be resolved if the Centre is determined to proceed with the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.
Article 371 (D) is a special provision for the State of AP, and its primary purpose was to promote speedy development of backward areas, balanced development and to provide equitable opportunities and facilities to people of all regions in the fields of education and public employment.
Subsequently, the Union government had issued the Andhra Pradesh Public Employment (Organisation of local cadres and regulation of direct recruitment) Order, 1975, popularly known as the Presidential Order. It divided the State into six zones, ensuring that the residents of each zone got certain benefits, privileges and safeguards.
The report forwarded by the State government to the GoM on Telangana on various issues that the bifurcation will throw up, suggested that if any de-merger is contemplated, serious deliberations should take place on the special provisions required to keep harmony in the residuary State and in the new State.
“Post-bifurcation, residents cannot be deprived of benefits without suitably amending Article 371 (D), and consequently, the Presidential Order. But, as things stand, Article 371 (D) will not empower the President to make any special provision or to extend any special provision to any new State that may be carved out of AP,” the report said.
One cannot assume that any region in AP does not require the continuance of similar provisions like Article 371 (D), which was given constitutional protection following serious deliberations.
Deliberations should again be held until there is consensus on the nature of the special provisions, and on that basis suitable amendments should be made to the Constitution and an article similar to Article 371 (D) should be introduced in the Constitution for the new State. But, all these have to be made before the new State is formed, the report averred.
Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions V. Narayanasamy on Wednesday said that a policy decision taken in good faith did not constitute a crime and should not be questioned by investigating agencies.
At the valedictory session of a three-day conference organised by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Mr. Narayanasamy seconded the issues highlighted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram during the past couple of days, stating that if there was no criminal intent behind a decision, it should not be taken to constitute a criminal misconduct.
“I would go a step further and say that a decision taken by the executive in good faith will not constitute a crime,” he said, adding that a decision was taken by the government under a prevailing situation and that when there was no mens rea (guilty mind), there was no criminal intent and therefore, could not be considered a crime.
Mr. Narayanasamy said although the Comptroller and Auditor General recommended auction of natural resources, one could not simply auction off water and air, which were natural resources. As regards allocation of coal blocks, he said had the government taken the auction route, power tariffs for the common man would have increased manifold.
“As far as coal is concerned, a policy was there to allot coal blocks on a priority basis to those fulfilling eligibility criteria. We put a condition that you should give electricity at minimum rates,” he said.
Stating that the media formed public opinion even before the probe could be completed in any case, Mr. Narayanasamy said, “People go by the print and electronic media. They do not see the process of law…they do not see the process of investigation. Therefore, when an honest and upright officer is prosecuted, the reputation is lost which can never be recovered.”
Taking note of the assertions by the Prime Minister and then the Finance Minister for a cautious approach towards probes into policy decisions, CBI Director Ranjit Sinha earlier on Wednesday said the agency would positively contribute to finding an equilibrium that was in consonance with the requirements of justice.
Total autonomy for CBI will hurt criminal justice system: Centre
Functional efficacy can be achieved without disturbing statutory scheme, says affidavit
The Centre on Wednesday rejected in the Supreme Court the CBI’s demand for complete functional autonomy and vesting its Director with the powers of a government Secretary.
The CBI had said its Director should report directly to the Minister concerned as the agency faced hurdles at every stage of its administrative functioning. The Director also wanted powers to appoint special counsel/retainer for the agency.
In its affidavit in the coal scam case, the Centre said the non-statutory changes in the administrative arrangement sought by the CBI would have a deleterious effect on the criminal justice system.
On the CBI’s argument that the changes would ensure functional efficacy and insulate investigation from outside interference, the Centre said these objectives could be achieved without disturbing the present statutory scheme of government, with necessary checks and balances established at several levels.
The Centre said: “If the CBI Director reports directly to the Minister, the superintendence of the Minister would stand compromised and an independent layer of scrutiny would no longer be available. This would go against not only the legislative intent of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act but also the democratic constitutional principle that the police or investigating agencies function under the administrative supervision of the executive.”
While considering the demands of a subordinate office like the CBI, the issue of parity with similarly placed organisations had to be kept in mind. It was not desirable to set a precedent which would create heartburns in similarly placed organisations, the Centre said.
On the contention that three police officers — the Secretary, RAW; the Secretary, Intelligence Services, and the Secretary, Security — were vested with the powers of a government Secretary, the affidavit said the functional requirements of these agencies could not be compared with those the CBI.
However, the files of these Secretaries were routed only through the Cabinet Secretary and not directly to the Minister concerned. One of the consequences of vesting the CBI Director with the ex-officio powers of a Secretary would be that he would be in a position to put up candidates for public prosecutors/assistant public prosecutors, and this would mean dilution of the principle of separation between the prosecuting and investigating agencies. This would seriously jeopardise the scheme of checks and balances envisaged in governance and have a deleterious effect on the criminal justice system, the Centre said.
India scores a win in Warsaw on emission cuts affecting farmers
Finds wide-ranging support from the entire G77+China bloc and the United States
India has scored an early victory at the negotiations here, ensuring that the talks remain focused on adapting agricultural practices to climate change and not on costly emission reduction measures that would impact farmers directly.
India found wide-ranging support from other countries, including the entire G77+China bloc and, surprisingly, the United States.
The developed countries, especially the European Union, have for several years been keen on ensuring that climate negotiations focus on reducing emissions in the agricultural sector.
India, China and a large number of African countries have countered this by pointing out that emission reduction efforts in the agricultural sector would affect farmers — who constitute a large percentage of the population, and are often the poorest, in the developing world. They also argue that the effort to reduce emissions should be focused on fossil-fuel-based activities that spew out carbon dioxide — the greatest contributor to global warming by far. As paddyfields and livestock are some of the biggest causes of emissions, emission reduction in the sector has major implications for India and China.
The Indian delegation and other developing countries were taken by surprise on the first day of the Warsaw meet when the elected chairs of the talks announced that there was a plan to have a formal decision adopted on the agriculture sector by the end of the two weeks of negotiations.
Many objected, noting that such a plan had not been approved by the countries earlier and should not even be on the agenda of the talks. They pointed out that the countries had agreed only to an exchange of views in a workshop, a format in which only reports are generated and no formal decisions are adopted.
Fast-forwarding the talks to bring out a decision at Warsaw on the agricultural sector, including on the emission reduction front (very often referred to simply as mitigation), would have opened a Pandora’s box, leading to emission reduction targets being set particularly for the agriculture sector in 2015, when the new global agreement is to be signed.
Significant Indian intervention supported by many other countries ensured that the talks remained focused on adaptation and only a report on this specific matter is produced for the countries to discuss in future.
“It’s the emphatic realisation and thrust on adaptation in agriculture, given the diversity of needs and concern of poor countries, that was realised by one and all,” said Ravi S. Prasad, one of the lead negotiators for India, explaining how many countries came together on the issue.
While the door has not completely been shut on mitigation in agriculture, the window that was surreptitiously opened this year has been firmly bolted down.
The Indian government had mandated its delegation to ensure that mitigation in the agricultural sector does not find space at the negotiations. In the three days here, the delegation has secured the one redline it came here with. The decision on this took two days of closed-door talks and is likely to be announced officially at the end of the week.
India was taken by surprise when emission cuts in agricultural sector was made part of agenda
Now, only a report on this matter will be produced for the countries to discuss in future
International integrated medicine institute in the offing
Bangalore has the largest number of systems of medicine being studied and used simultaneously, which is why there are ongoing talks to establish an International Institute of Integrated Medicine here, Issac Mathai, managing trustee of Soukya Foundation, has said.
Addressing a press conference after the inauguration of a three-day international conference here on Wednesday, Dr. Mathai said India should be a role model in promoting integrated medicine.
“We have proposed this institute in a public-private partnership model and the State government has also shown interest,” he said. Ruing that no integration was happening now in treatment in India and that Indians were reluctant to do “lifestyle management”, he said incorporating the integrated model was the only way of countering cancer, diabetes and other diseases which were on the rise in India.
Cameron to push for greater economic ties
Prime Minister of Britain David Cameron and the Foreign Minister of Australia Julie Bishop will utilise their visit to Colombo for attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to visit New Delhi as well and push for greater economic ties.
While Mr. Cameron arrived here on Wednesday night on his way to Colombo, Ms. Bishop will arrive here immediately after visiting the Sri Lankan capital and also travel to Mumbai to open a consulate.
With London aiming to consolidate its claim to be a major global financial hub, talks with Mr. Cameron are expected to revolve around greater business opportunities in investment especially insurance and banking. During the visit the British Prime Minister could also touch on over Rs. 10,000 crore in unresolved tax dues of telecom major Vodafone.
This will be Mr. Cameron’s third visit in two years but in more conducive circumstances after the U.K. announced the scrapping of a proposal that slotted India among six “high risk” countries whose citizens would have had to pay £3,000 in a bond to visit Britain on visitor visas.
Visit to Kolkata
Mr. Cameron will leave for Kolkata after meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In West Bengal, he will meet Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and visit the Indian Institute of Management, Joka.
The Australian Foreign Minister, the first dignitary to visit India from Canberra after the new Conservative government took office, will seek to build on discussions with her counterpart Salman Khurshid in Perth last month where they discussed energy supplies and security issues to keep the sea lanes of communication (SLOC) sanitised. A long standing supplier of coal, Australia has inked a multi-billion contract to supply gas and might supply uranium of talks on a civil nuclear agreement succeed.
“I am pleased to be the first Minister of this government to visit India, an important strategic partner for Australia,” said Ms. Bishop in a pre-departure statement. “I will be following up my recent discussions with Foreign Minister where we explored options for deepening trade and investment links,” she said.
India is Australia’s fifth-largest export market and a major source of foreign investment. It is Australia’s largest source of skilled migrants and second largest source of international students.
In Mumbai, Ms Bishop will formally open the offices of the Australian Consulate General, the statement added.
‘Exempt populated zones in Western Ghats from ESA’
Expert panel convenes meet to formulate State’s response to Kasturirangan report
Legislators representing constituencies falling within the Western Ghats region in Kerala have reiterated their demand to exempt populated zones from the Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESAs) demarcated by the Kasturirangan committee on conservation of the Western Ghats.
MLAs from Idukki, Kottayam, Pathanamthitta, Kollam, Palakkad, and Kannur raised the demand at a meeting convened by the expert panel constituted by the government to formulate the State’s response to the Kasturirangan committee report.
They opposed the zonation of the Western Ghats region by the committee on the basis of villages, calling it unscientific. The legislators said the high population density in the demarcated areas would make the imposition of development curbs impractical and make life miserable.
They feared that the committee’s proposal for a total ban on quarrying and mining in ESAs would make housing unaffordable for large sections and force builders to rely on costly imports, benefiting powerful business lobbies. The MLAs called for wide-ranging discussions involving political leaders, farmers and local self-government functionaries on the implications of the report.
Government Chief Whip P.C. George, who represents Poonjar in Kottayam district, said the Kasturirangan committee had no right to impose curbs on Kerala, a State with 29 per cent of the land area under forests, compared to the national average of 19 per cent.
Pointing out that 48 of the 123 villages earmarked as ESA were in Idukki, Udumbanchola MLA K.K. Jayachandran said it would cry halt to the development of the entire region and affect tourism potential. He said citizens were rising up in protest after village offices in some of the demarcated areas had stopped accepting land tax remittances.
Devikulam MLA S. Rajendran said residents in many areas were living in fear of being evicted from their land. He wondered why the highlands were being singled out for “draconian curbs” when development controls in coastal areas and wetland regions were “flouted with impunity.” Highlighting the snowballing resistance to the Kasturirangan committee report, Thiruvambady MLA C. Moyinkutty said the report would take Kerala back to the bullock cart era.
Ranni MLA Raju Abraham said the demarcation of ESAs would scuttle the development of Sabarimala and Nilackal and hamper the construction of mini hydel projects. He questioned the committee’s reliance on satellite imagery to demarcate the ESAs.
Mannarkadu MLA N. Samsudheen said the proposal to close down quarries would affect mass housing projects for tribal people in Attappady.
A different note
Striking a different note, Kalpetta MLA M.V. Sreyams Kumar stressed the need to protect the Western Ghats for the generations to come. He said the declining crop productivity in Kerala had made it imperative to restore soil fertility.
Restrictions on development were inevitable to protect forests, maintain biodiversity and tackle the impact of climate change, he said. Peerumade MLA E.S. Bijimol said residents in the areas earmarked as ESA were concerned over the curbs on ownership of land and the possibility of being evicted.
George says Kasturirangan panel has no right to impose curbs on Kerala
Sreyams Kumar says curbs on development necessary to protect nature
US won’t commit process for ‘loss and damage’ at Warsaw
In an internal briefing paper, accessed by “The Hindu”, U.S. tells negotiators to delay emission cut commitments and not to agree on any time line for funds
In an internal briefing paper prepared for its diplomats across the world ahead of the Warsaw climate negotiations, which The Hindu has accessed, the U.S. has opposed the setting up of a separate process on ‘loss and damage’, pushed primarily for the role of private investments and finance in providing the promised money to the poor countries to adapt to climate change and have a 2015 climate agreement where no country is forced to take higher emission reduction pledges than the ones they initially volunteer. It also informed its diplomats to keep pushing the line with other countries that the U.S. was doing enough domestically on the climate change front and these were priorities for President Barack Obama and John Kerry.
The cabled message drafted by senior State Department of officials sets not only the content for what is to be done internally by the U.S. delegation at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change but also how the diplomats should posture publicly to help the delegation that would negotiate at Warsaw.
On setting the emission targets under the new agreement to be signed in 2015, the note informs, “In Warsaw we seek to establish an expectation that parties will submit their commitments by early 2015 so as to finalise an agreement in Paris (in 2015 itself)”.
Under the 2015 agreement which is to become operational in 2020 the U.S. government has been pushing that all countries volunteer to pledge their commitments. The note says, “Specifically we’re advocating an approach under which countries — both developed and developing — will put forth nationally determined mitigation commitments, followed by a transparent consultative process that will give other countries and civil society the opportunity to analyse and comment upon such commitments.”
In a revealing line it adds, “The idea is that sunshine will provide an incentive for countries to put forth ambitious commitments in the first instance and, even if not, there will be an opportunity for countries to decide to enhance their commitments before they are finalised.”
The U.S. stance differs radically from the demand of groups such as those of the small island states, the E.U. and others which require that the volunteered targets be increased after a review to see if they add up to the effort required to keep global temperatures under control.
The Hindu contacted senior U.S. negotiators and their spokesperson at Warsaw personally and through email with specific questions about the briefing paper and its content. The delegation responded with the statement, “The U.S. is dedicated to achieving an ambitious, effective and workable outcome in the UNFCCC and in Warsaw, and our positions are designed to further this goal. We are engaging with all countries to find solutions that will give momentum to the effort to tackle climate change.”
INVESTMENTS NOT FUNDS FOR CLIMATE
That the U.S. sees climate change as an opportunity to also leverage and open economies of developing countries to clean-tech investments is also revealed in the paper. “The work we have undertaken in 2013 has begun to lay the groundwork for an ambitious and wide ranging efforts aimed at catalysing low-emission, climate resilient investment in developing countries, though of course we recognise that much work remains to develop the tools necessary to shift the global economy in this direction.”
The poor countries have consistently warned that public investments can neither be adequate nor predictable and can work merely as complementary source of finance. They also warn that private investment does not move towards the priority of adaptation activities where the returns are negligible but the monies important to save lives. The U.N. climate convention imposes the obligation on the developed world to provide funds and technologies to the poor countries to “enable” the latter to undertake climate action but the U.S. position in the briefing paper talks of pushing in investments instead.
The U.S. has in public domain too said that it sees public funding in the climate change arena more as a tool to leverage private investments. The entire set of developing countries have demanded that the U.S. and other developed countries put forth a clear timeline for when and how they shall conjure up the $100 billion annual fund by 2020 they had earlier promised. But the briefing paper remains silent on the U.S. committing to any such time line in Warsaw. It instead says, “The U.S. is doing all we can to make climate finance work on the ground.” The talk of any scaling up funds between now and 2020, as the developing countries have collectively demanded is ignored.
It instead says, “We’re also working to intensify our coordination in the context of the Green Climate Fund board to shape an institution that could leverage private investment more effectively than any other multilateral climate fund.”
The U.S. acknowledges in the cabled briefing to its diplomats that “finance is another contentious issue, with many developing countries feeling that there is lack of clarity on climate finance between now and 2020”. But the U.S. strategy is to work outside the UNFCCC to leverage private funds and it plans to talk of this through the Warsaw talks too.
LOSS AND DAMAGE
On the controversial issue of loss and damage, which has united the developing countries since last two years in demanding that developed countries pay compensation for the damage to life and property that cannot be avoided despite the best of adaptation and emission reduction efforts, the U.S. plans to not let the idea become a full fledged separate mechanism at Warsaw. The U.S. has previously very strongly opposed any separate mechanism on loss and damage that sets up a process of charging “compensation or reparation” on the developed world for their historic emissions. But it had to give in last year at the talks to permit the talks on such a mechanism start off. At Warsaw, the briefing paper shows, it plans to ensure that while the issue is called “Loss and Damage” it does not get a life of its own but is swallowed by the existing track which would ensure the issues of ‘liability’ and ‘compensation’ are thrown out.
The document says, “It’s our sense that the longer countries look at issues like compensation and liability, the more they will realise this isn’t productive avenue for the UNFCCC to go down.”
“We are strongly in favour of creating an institutional arrangement on loss and damage that is under the Convention’s adaptation track, rather than creating a third stream of action that’s separate from mitigation and adaptation,” it adds.
“The U.S. supports pragmatic approaches to address the substantive issues raised in loss and damage discussions and supports the establishment in Warsaw of a loss and damage ‘task force’ under the Adaptation committee of the UNFCCC. A central issue will be whether loss and damage continues to fall within adaptation or whether it becomes a separate, third pillar (alongside adaption and mitigation), which we believe would lead the UNFCCC to focus increasingly on blame and liability, which in turn would be counterproductive from the standpoint of public support for the convention,” it further reads.
It adds, “We want to be responsive to the very legitimate concerns of vulnerable people countries about impacts of climate change, without creating approaches that could make it harder for the UNFCCC to focus on the very challenging mitigation and adaptation efforts we will have over time.”
The garb of policy-making(opinion-ed)
Facing a series of corruption charges, some of them borne out by audit reports and police probes, the last thing that the United Progressive Alliance regime would want is to reinforce in the public mind the image of being a government that seeks to restrain independent agencies from going behind its policies and decisions to look for evidence of wrong-doing. Remarks by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram at a conference organised by the Central Bureau of Investigation are likely to create such an impression. When Dr. Singh said it would not be appropriate for a police agency to sit in judgment over policy formulation without any evidence of mala fides, he may have been voicing serious concern that treating an administrative decision that goes wrong as criminal misconduct may lead to policy paralysis. However, with Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram taking the cue from him and cautioning the CBI and other authorities like the Comptroller and Auditor-General against “overstepping their limits,” it is difficult not to see a pattern. The government is clearly uneasy with recent developments: the CBI wishes to be seen as being independent and wants to scrutinise decisions such as those relating to allocation of coal blocks, and there is greater public and judicial support for granting it functional autonomy.
The UPA government is perhaps not wrong in highlighting the complexities involved in decision-making in the era of economic liberalisation. Also, it has sought to place in perspective the issue of granting autonomy to the CBI: its operational freedom should be distinguished from the need for accountability and executive oversight. If all it wants is that errors of judgment during decision-making should not be misconstrued by an investigating officer as crimes, there should be no quarrel. However, the government itself administers the safeguards available in law and the judicial system that can protect honest policy decisions and honest officials against vexatious enquiries. The requirement that prior sanction is needed before prosecution is launched is intended to filter out misconceived charges. Experience shows that corrupt deals do take place in the garb of overtly proper administrative decisions, while policies and norms ostensibly serving the public interest are on many occasions framed in such a way as to suit vested interests. Great caution is required while seeking amendments to provisions that currently criminalise actions that procure pecuniary advantage to any person without any public interest. Protecting the honest civil servant who makes risky judgment calls is one thing; sweeping dishonest decisions under the carpet of policy-making is quite another.
Appropriate support (opinion-ed)
The government announced recently minimum support prices (MSP) for wheat and a few other rabi (winter) crops. What distinguishes the latest announcement from previous ones are, first, it has come well in time, and secondly, the government, on this occasion, has not followed the usual course of bowing to populist pressure and raising the support prices beyond what was warranted by any economic logic. Because of delayed announcements in earlier years, farmers had been unable to derive the benefits of the signals that the MSP mechanism sends out. This year, however, the announcement was made right at the start of the sowing season for the winter crops — usually end-October. Therefore farmers can look at the MSP to decide on matters such as crop selection, whether diversification is feasible, and so on. The government too stands to benefit. The MSP mechanism can be calibrated to encourage farmers to diversify away from water-intensive crops to pulses and oilseeds. It is a moot point whether those objectives will be achieved this time, but the government cannot be accused of not trying.
The striking feature of the latest MSP announcement relates to wheat, the most important winter crop. In a sharp departure from the past, the MSP of wheat has been raised by just Rs.50 a quintal to Rs.1,400. The increase is the second lowest over the entire two terms of the UPA-I and UPA-II governments and is particularly noteworthy because it comes on the eve of elections in important States and general elections next year. Election-eve compulsions would normally have influenced the government to substantially increase the minimum support prices. Hikes in the MSPs of other winter crops such as barley and rapeseed-mustard are on the low side. The fact that high food prices are behind the persistently high headline as well as retail inflation has weighed with the government. The time has come to look at the MSP mechanism in its entirety. Over the years it has become the procurement price, thereby setting high floor prices for private trade which will continue to have a prominent role alongside the public distribution system even when the National Food Security Act becomes fully operational. The “bonus” awarded by some State governments over and above the MSPs, however, complicates the picture as it will drive the procurement prices even higher and leave very little for private trade. The fact that government godowns are overflowing with food stocks when cereal inflation is high is proof that all is not well with the government’s farm sector intervention, of which the MSP is an important component.
