Daily Hindu Editorials

👉The story of Monica Felton, Rajaji, Mandela — and history’s call to today’s democratic forces to rally together👈 This is about two June the 4ths, both of which bear a message for Indian politics today. The first is sited in Madras, 1959. The second, again, in Madras, 1964. An Englishwoman, Marxist by conviction, an authority on urban planning and a passionate advocate of the World Peace Council, Monica Felton, had settled in India’s ‘southern capital’. Why, or for what combination of reasons this long-time London County Councillor representing St Pancras South West for the Labour Party should have chosen, of all places, Madras to settle in is not very clear. But a person from a very different, in fact, totally contrastive politics had made a powerful impression on her. She had little in common with Chakravarti Rajagopalachari’s political views. And yet there was a certain intellectual chemistry between them, love of English literature being certainly high on that shared list...

👉Both the Centre and States must bite the bullet to cut taxes on petrol and diesel👈 Last Wednesday, the public sector oil marketing companies cut the prices of petrol and diesel by one paisa a litre — the first reduction for a while in motor fuel prices that had been frozen for 19 days in the run-up to the Karnataka elections, only to creep up thereafter. Not surprisingly, the Centre, already under fire for persisting with high fuel taxes despite the rise in the global prices of crude in recent months, faced fresh flak over this cursory cut. The same day, the Kerala government approved a reduction in the sales tax on motor fuel products to effect a ₹1 cut in prices per litre in the State starting June 1. For the BJP-led government at the Centre, gearing up for several Assembly elections this year followed by the general election in 2019, the pressure to check pump-level fuel prices is intensifying. Several formulations are said to be under consideration to soften the blow to the ...

👉India is on track to curb cigarette use, but chewable tobacco is a health emergency👈 A report from the World Health Organisation on the occasion of World No Tobacco Day (May 31) suggests that India’s efforts to cut the prevalence of cigarette smoking are paying off. Between 2000 and 2015, this fell from 19.4% to 11.5%. By 2025, the report projected, it could drop to 8.5%, putting India well in line to meeting its 2025 target under a WHO global plan to tackle non-communicable diseases. While this is excellent news, it needs to be highlighted that smokeless tobacco is the bigger scourge in the country. The WHO report doesn’t model usage trends in this segment because of the paucity of global data. Other data, however, suggest that India is lagging on this front. Even though there is a 2011 government ban on the sale of food items with tobacco or nicotine in them, the consumption of gutkha, khaini and zarda continues to be rampant. The Global Adult Tobacco Survey in 2016, for examp...

👉Why is India abandoning its commitment to secure the Indian Ocean as a zone of peace?👈 Three hundred people live on the small Mauritian archipelago of Agaléga. They watch as their home is turned slowly into an Indian naval base. There is little that they can do. The government of Mauritius knows that there is far more to be gained from India than from the people of Agaléga. Mauritius is one of the main routes for foreign direct investment (FDI) into India. It earns Mauritius a considerable fortune in fees — money that is enough for Mauritius to renege on its pledge to its own citizens. In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Mauritian counterpart Anerood Jugnauth watched as Navtej Sarna (Ministry of External Affairs) and Sateeaved Seebaluck (Cabinet Secretary, Mauritius) signed an agreement that allows India to “develop infrastructure” on the islands. The phrase is a euphemism for the building of military bases, which India is doing not only on Agaléga but also on Assu...

👉Indian public finance needs to be restructured to focus on local governance👈 A reliable system of intergovernmental fiscal transfers is the key to a viable and stable federal polity. In India, the design of a sound intergovernmental transfer system that will balance the mismatches in resources and expenditure responsibilities of the various levels of government has been statutorily left to the Union Finance Commission (UFC). After the abolition in 2014 of the Planning Commission, which played a critical role in the Indian transfer system, the UFC has emerged as the principal agency to handle this delicate task. Article 280(3) and its first three clauses clearly spell out the core duties of the UFC: tax devolution, grants-in-aid, and augmenting the resources of panchayats and municipalities. Over the years, the open-ended subclause, 280(3)(d), that provides for “any other matter... in the interests of sound finance”, has been exemplified in the Terms of References of recent UFCs....