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A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court ordered that the wild elephant Arikompan roaming at Santhanpara and Chinnakkanal in Idukki district be captured, radio-collared, and relocated to the Parambikulam Tiger Reserve.
The Bench comprising Justice A.K. Jayasankaran Nambiar and Justice Gopinath P. observed that the Committee of Experts constituted by the court considered all the relevant aspects and came to the conclusion that the best possible way to deal with the present situation was only to capture, radio-collar, and relocate the animal to the Parambikulam Tiger Reserve.
The court said this was the best option despite the submission of the Additional Advocate General that it was for the Chief Wildlife Warden to take the final decision as to whether the elephant had to be relocated or kept in captivity.
The court also directed the District Collectors of Idukki, Thrissur, and Ernakulam to personally supervise the relocation of the animal.
The court also made it clear that during the capture, radio-collaring, and transport of the elephant, members of the public shall not be permitted to videograph or transmit any images of the elephant or its release at Parambikulam.
Nor any celebration or beating of drums or bursting of crackers shall be permitted anywhere near the animal after its capture or during its transport.
The panel suggested translocation to the Parambikulam Tiger Reserve taking into account the larger landscape with plentiful food and water and natural resources required for its survival.
Editorial
A long view of the South Asian Drama (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
Uncertainty, a defining characteristic of South Asian politics, looks set to increase. Beset by a multitude of political, economic and security crises, Pakistan seems to be undergoing an implosion.
With successive elections throwing up a hung parliament, prospects of political stability in Nepal remain bleak. Ahead of elections in Bangladesh, an enfeebled Opposition is attempting to revert to agitation.
In the tiny Maldives, a presidential contest that could tilt the balance between democracy and authoritarianism is in the offing while Sri Lanka slowly recovers from an unprecedented economic meltdown.
The run-up to the 18th Lok Sabha election in India next summer will, of course, be keenly watched. Immediate preoccupations apart, can a long view offer any lessons?
A paper written by that clear-eyed doyen of India’s strategic affairs community, K. Subrahmanyam, is instructive. Titled “India’s Relations with her Neighbours”, it was presented at a seminar and published by Strategic Analysis, the flagship journal of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), in March 1987.
Situating India’s relations with its neighbours squarely within the framework of the country’s foundational values, Subrahmanyam began by observing that the South Asian region constituted an integrated civilisational area bound together by shared religions, languages, cultural traditions and blood ties and, in respect of the three largest countries — India, Pakistan and Bangladesh — shared historical memories as well. Yet, the values underlying the Indian state stood out in contrast to those espoused by several of its neighbours.
These values — secularism, democracy, federalism and linguistic autonomy — were not matters of choice for India. They were compulsions, if Indian unity and integrity were to be preserved.
India pursued these values because they were not just imported western values but because they were absorbed and internalised during India’s century-long freedom struggle.
Democracy was no more an import than Islam or Christianity in India which had a long tradition of keeping its doors and windows open and absorbing influences from outside.
India had endured because of its enormous capacity to absorb, internalise, modify and transform, and yet retain its personality. In the 19th century, as democratic values emerged in western Europe, they were accepted on an eclectic basis in India.
The takeaways from the UN World Water Conference (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Conservation)
The World Water Conference that was convened by the United Nations (March 22-24 2023) was the first UN conference on freshwater in almost 50 years.
It was held in the context of serious environmental issues — flooding, drought, a severity of climate change and a looming food crisis.
The conference also marked a mid-term review of the Water Action Decade 2018-2028 (to advance the water agenda by energising existing programmes and projects, and inspiring water action to achieve the 2030 Agenda, in particular Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6), which envisages the sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
The central outcome of the conference was the international Water Action Agenda, to which governments, multilateral institutions, businesses, and non-governmental organisations submitted over 670 commitments to address water security issues. Nearly 164 governments and 75 multilateral organisations have made commitments. While the commitments embodied in the Water Action Agenda are voluntary and, therefore, legally non-binding, the voluntary commitments are expected to inspire the collective political will, which is needed to address the many water challenges.
The commitments made at the conference must be scrutinised to see whether they will yield universal, safe, affordable and equitable access to water that is consistent with SDG 6. Meeting this target by 2030 (as envisioned by the SDG) will incur capital expenditures of $114 billion per year.
The World Bank estimates recurring operations and maintenance for basic water and sanitation service (WASH) costs to rise from about $4 billion to over $30 billion per year by 2030, which is far more than the capital costs for basic WASH services.
The World Resources Institute (WRI) is of the view that the commitments made by the states reflected rigour, scope, and ambition but they lacked proper finance and targets that are quantifiable in nature. Investment of this range would require valuing water, which in turn requires robust water measurement and accounting.
There are ‘serious limitations in our knowledge about the volume, flux and quality of water in lakes, rivers, soils and aquifers. There are huge gaps in water usage data.
The metering of water has triggered resistance from India to Ireland because of concerns about equitable access and affordability of water services.
Opinion
The obstacles against humane policing (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)
The serious complaint of human rights violation recently against an IPS officer in Ambasamudram in south Tamil Nadu should greatly embarrass the State government and the police hierarchy.
The officer has been suspended from service and his alleged misconduct is being probed. The Chief Minister must be complimented for his swift action against the offending official.
This should send a strong message to the police force in the State that no illegal physical treatment of crime suspects will be tolerated and that such behaviour will be subjected to a clinical and credible enquiry by an independent authority.
The case revives memories from June 2020 when a father and son from Sathankulam in Thoothukudi district in Tamil Nadu were tortured for keeping their establishment open beyond permitted hours. The two subsequently died and the policemen concerned are on trial.
The history of policing in many countries is pockmarked by episodes of excesses. The U.S. is one country which has had far too many instances of police torture.
The Rodney King incident of 1991 in Los Angeles is a watershed in policing. In this incident, the police stopped an African-American motorist to check his credentials. Upon resisting, he was severely beaten up by a group of uniformed patrolmen.
The assault was caught on camera and circulated, leading to widespread outrage and disturbance of public peace. The incident acquired racist overtones and added credibility to the long-standing, strident charge that the American police — dominated by the White male — was always looking for African-American targets.
The more recent death (May 25, 2020) of 46-year-old George Floyd, again an African-American, in Minneapolis following gory physical torture in public view is another instance that has shocked the average American.
In this case, the victim, accused of having failed to pay for what he bought at a convenience store, was pushed to the ground and held by his neck until he suffocated to death.
This led to vandalism by the African-American community not only in Minnesota but in the northeast of the country as well. In contrast, police handling of the public is more civilised in most of Europe, including the U.K.
Against the known instances of police brutality across the globe, we can safely assume that a large number of cases of torture have also gone unreported.
This largely constitutes assaults on women. Only about 10% of complaints are believed to have been registered. Also, only a small percentage of the offenders have been convicted.
Explainer
The NPCI’s new circular on levy charges (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Earlier last week, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which governs UPI, in a circular issued directly to banks, intimated that they can now levy charges on merchant transactions made through Prepaid Instrument wallets using UPI.
After the information was leaked to the media, the NPCI issued a clarification stating that normal bank-to-bank UPI transactions will not be charged and that customers will not have to pay for transactions made via PPI on UPI.
It said that the new interchange charges are only applicable for Prepaid Payment Instruments’ (PPI) merchant transactions. The interchange fee, generally associated with card payments to cover the transaction cost, has now brought PPI wallets also under its fold.
Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPIs) are payment methods that can be used to purchase goods and services and send/receive money by using the stored value in the wallet.
Users have to pre-load the wallet with a desired amount. The amount can be loaded/reloaded against cash or through debit to bank account, or by using credit/debit cards, UPI, or any other approved payment method in India.
PPIs can only be used in Indian rupees. PPIs can be in the form of mobile wallets, physical smart cards, secure tokens, vouchers, or any other method that allows access to prepaid funds.
Previously, to use PPI at any merchant, it was necessary that the concerned merchant was engaged directly by the specific PPI issuer (specific network).
All PPIs with which the merchant did not have a direct tie-up would get rejected. The most prevalent form of PPI used in the country is the mobile wallet, and this restriction meant that customers of one specific mobile wallet could spend the money in the wallet only at specific merchant locations which were directly tied up with the same PPI wallet provider.
For example, if you had a Paytm or Mobikwik wallet, you could only use it at merchants that accepted Paytm or Mobikwik QR codes. To overcome this limitation of PPIs, the RBI has mandated interoperability among different PPI issuers.
Subsequently, PPI issuers tied-up with NPCI for issuing (a) interoperable RuPay PPI cards or (b) creating interoperable wallets on UPI rails. Prepaid instruments in the form of wallets can now be linked to UPI, thus creating interoperable wallets on UPI rails.
What is the open-source seeds movement? (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Agriculture)
Farmers have innovated and shared seeds without any intellectual property rights (IPR) for centuries. They also haven’t sought exclusive rights over seeds and germplasm to prevent others from innovating on the seeds.
However, with the emergence of the global IPR regime over plant varieties, there was a dire need to ‘open-source’ seeds.
The advent of hybrid seeds, scientific plant-breeding, and some other factors conferred developers of new varieties with the so-called plant breeders’ rights (PBR) and patents, particularly in the U.S. In this regime, rights-holders could demand royalty on seeds and legally enforce IPR.
In some national IPR regimes, rights-holders can also restrict the unauthorised use of seeds to develop new varieties. In 1994, the establishment of the World Trade Organization cast a global IPR regime over plant varieties.
The Trade-Related IPR Agreement (TRIPS) required countries to provide at least one form of intellectual property (IP) protection.
This consolidation of rights in the seeds sector raised concerns about the freedom to innovate. Unlike the Green Revolution, which was spearheaded by public-sector institutions, the genetic revolution in agriculture was led by the private sector, with seeds mostly availed as hybrids or protected by strong IPRs.
There are two major modes of IPR protection in agriculture — plant-breeders’ rights and patents. Together, they restrict farmers’ rights and the freedom to develop new varieties using germplasm from IP-protected varieties, and have thus increased the number of IP-protected plant varieties.
The high prices of genetically modified seeds and IP claims triggered many problems and issues, including the State’s intervention in Bt cotton seeds in India.
As public sector breeding declined and the private sector began to dominate the seed sector, the need for alternatives became keenly felt. This is when the success of open-source software inspired a solution.
In 1999, plant-breeder named T.E. Michaels suggested an approach to seeds innovation based on the principles of open-source software.
News
Govt. introduces Aquaculture Bill amid din in Lok Sabha (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Members of the Opposition disrupted the Lok Sabha yet again over demands for a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the Adani issue. Amid the din, the government introduced the Coastal Aquaculture Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2023.
The Bill, which was introduced by Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Minister Parshottam Rupala, seeks to decriminalise certain offences listed under the earlier 2005 Act for promoting ease of doing business.
It is also aimed at fine-tuning the operational procedures of the Coastal Aquaculture Authority and promoting newer forms of environment-friendly coastal aquaculture, which have the potential for creating additional employment opportunities.
It also has a provision to prevent the use of antibiotics and pharmacologically active substances which are harmful to human health in coastal aquaculture.
BJP MP Rama Devi, who was officiating as the Speaker had to adjourn the House as the members kept up with their protests.