Daily Hindu Editorials

💥What the Congress needs above all is a clear and granular action plan As president of the Congress, Rahul Gandhi seems to be taking on a more aggressive avatar, attacking the BJP for its divisive ideology and its failings on the governance front. But at the Congress plenary in Delhi, he had little to say by way of presenting an alternative vision, other than claiming for his party the space given up by the BJP. Most of his speech was a tirade against the party and its two main leaders, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah. Mr. Modi was linked to corruption with a reference to the bank scam, and Mr. Shah to murder with a reference to the Sohrabuddin encounter killing. To the BJP’s quest for absolute power, Mr. Gandhi posited the Congress’s fight for truth. He contrasted the BJP’s commitment to an organisation (the RSS) with the Congress’s voice for the entire nation. But mere aggression is not enough and such words will ring inevitably hollow in the absence o...

💥The Neutrino Observatory is important, but it must get all environmental clearances A year after the National Green Tribunal suspended the environmental clearance granted to the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO), the Expert Appraisal Committee (Infra 2) of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has overturned the NGT verdict and granted environmental clearance for the project. The observatory, which is to come up in Bodi West Hills in Theni district, Tamil Nadu, is regarded as a symbol not just of India’s push for research in particle physics; it also signals the intent to nurture centres of excellence. Neutrinos are subatomic particles that are extremely difficult to detect. The laboratory cavern will be located 1,300 metres underground, with an access tunnel. The rock cover is necessary to minimise the naturally occurring cosmic ray backdrop. The project has become controversial on environmental grounds, given the proposed site’s proximity to the Mathike...

💥The government must order a comprehensive strategic review of the future threats to India “Army critical of defence budget,” was a headline in this newspaper on March 14, with other newspapers also focussing on the “dashed hopes” of the Army while reporting on Vice-Chief of Army Staff Lt. Gen. Sarath Chand’s interaction with the parliamentary standing committee on defence. Television debates which followed had the all too familiar trend. The ruling party’s spokespersons talked about how the government had worked to strengthen the military while the Opposition accused them of paying inadequate attention to the forces. 👉Reality check What is the reality? As usual, it lies somewhere between the two extremes. According to a recent report by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, India was the largest arms importer in the last five years, accounting for 12% of global imports. The Indian defence budget has now overtaken that of the U.K. to become the fifth largest...

💥The National Medical Commission Bill seeks to make structural changes in an exploitative health-care system Even as the spotlight shifts to a “maha-panchayat” of doctors under the Indian Medical Association getting ready later this month to challenge the National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill, 2017 (now before a parliamentary standing committee), it is pertinent to look at the Bill’s highlights. Article 47 of the Constitution makes it clear that the state is duty-bound to improve public health, but India continues to face a health crisis, with an absolute shortage of and an inequitable presence of doctors and over-burdened hospitals. Although India has 10 lakh medical doctors, it needs 3,00,000 more in order to meet the World Health Organisation standard of the ideal doctor-population ratio. There is an 81% shortage of specialists in community health centres (CHC), the first point of contact for a patient with a specialist doctor. Those most affected by this are poor and ru...

💥The U.S. complaint to the WTO against India’s export promotion schemes is a wake-up call India’s export promotion schemes face an uncertain future after the United States Trade Representative (USTR) decided to challenge their legality in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The complaint of the USTR is that India is violating its commitments under the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM Agreement) using five of the most used export promotion schemes, namely, the export-oriented units scheme and sector-specific schemes, including electronics hardware technology parks scheme, merchandise exports from India scheme, export promotion capital goods scheme, special economic zones and duty-free import authorisation scheme. 👉Terms and conditions The main argument of the USTR is that India’s five export promotion schemes violate Articles 3.1(a) and 3.2 of the SCM Agreement, since the two provisions prohibit granting of export subsidies. Until 2015, India had ...

💥After the agreement with France, India must hold bilateral talks for degree recognition with other countries Several Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) and agreements were signed between France and India recently on French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit. The most important of these was the landmark agreement signed at the ‘Knowledge Summit’ between the two countries on mutual recognition of educational qualifications, the first of its kind. This provides an opportunity for India to refine its policy on higher education by inking such pacts with other countries, thereby seamlessly integrating the Indian student community across the world. 👉Current policy framework According to government data, there were an estimated 5 lakh Indian students pursuing degrees in higher education abroad in 2017, mostly in the U.S., the U.K., and the European Union. However, it is ironical that many who are trained at the best universities abroad are unable to share their expertise in In...

💥Biased legal rules can have a harmful consequence Many tend to believe that the best way to help a group of people may be to offer them special legal privileges that others do not enjoy. In India, for instance, governments looking to capture power often allow distressed borrowers to stop paying their loans. The lenders in such cases do not possess sufficient legal protection to uphold their contractual rights. Economic history suggests that such legal bias, however, may not be the best way to do good to people. This is because, according to “The financial power of the powerless: Socio-economic status and interest rates under partial rule of law”, a paper by Timur Kuran and Jared Rubin published in The Economic Journal, there are long-term costs associated with such bias. Kuran and Rubin studied data on private loans issued between 1602 and 1799 in Istanbul under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and found that privileged groups like Muslims (who were given rights that were den...