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Tenders floated for implementation of the controversial Kalasa Banduri scheme by the previous BJP government minutes before Karnataka Assembly elections were announced may run into rough weather as they were put out without obtaining forest and environment clearance.
The then BJP government opened the tenders for bidding around11 a.m. on March 29, barely20 minutes before polls were announced by the Election Commission of India.
Sources in the Karnataka Neeravari Nigam Limited (KNNL) said the tenders were floatedin anticipation of securing forest and environment clearance from the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFC).
The tenders are open for bidding till August 21. The value of the tender for Banduri Nala is ₹542 crore and for Kalasa is ₹412 crore.
The Kalasa-Banduri project aims to divert water from Mahadayi to satisfy the drinking water needs of Belagavi, Dharwad, Bagalkot and Gadag districts in Karnataka.
As per the plans, barrages are to be built on Kalasa and Banduri streams — tributaries of Mahadayi — and water diverted towards Karnataka’s parched districts.
Mahadayi originates in the Bhimgad Wildlife Sanctuary in Belagavi district of Karnataka, and flows into the Arabian Sea in Goa.
A few days ago, Goa and Maharashtra governments sat together and issued a joint statement saying that they will put up a united fight against Karnataka in connection with the water diversion project.
In November 2010, the UPA government at the Centre had set up a tribunal to settle disputes between Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra.
In 2018, the tribunal awarded 13.42 TMC water from Mahadayi river basin to Karnataka, 1.33 TMC to Maharashtra and 24 TMC to Goa. The same was notified by the Union Government in February 2020.
Editorial
More HIT than miss in India-Nepal ties (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
On his return to Kathmandu after concluding his four-day official visit to India, Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ described it as “successful”.
This is Prachanda’s third stint as Prime Minister and compared to his earlier official visits in 2008 and 2016, the visit in 2023 has delivered many more concrete outcomes. But what is more important is that many controversial issues were successfully skirted.
Under Prachanda’s leadership, the Maoist Centre had fought the elections last year in coalition with the Nepali Congress (NC).
There was a falling out over claims to the post of Prime Minister, and Prachanda switched sides to team up with the K.P. Sharma Oli-led UML.
Prachanda was sworn in as Prime Minister on December 26. However, the NC decided to support Prachanda in a vote of confidence, suggesting that since he had emerged as a consensus Prime Minister supported by 268 members in a 275-member House, he should also go for a national consensus apolitical President.
Though Prachanda had earlier agreed to support UML candidates for the post of President (due for election in March) and Speaker (in return for making him Prime Minister), he began to backtrack.
Relations between Mr. Oli and Prachanda soured with Mr. Oli accusing Prachanda of ‘betrayal’ and Prachanda claiming that he wanted to ensure political stability by taking all parties along.
The opportunistic Oli-Prachanda alliance collapsed and by end-February, the UML withdrew support. In order to stay in power, Prachanda went back to the NC, ready to support its candidate for President.
On March 20, NC returned the favour by helping Prachanda win a fresh vote of confidence, with the UML sulking in the opposition.
A complex power-sharing arrangement has been worked out with Prachanda continuing as Prime Minister for two years, followed by the Madhav Nepal (CPN-Unified Socialist) for a year, and then the NC leader, Sher Bahadur Deuba, for the remaining two years.
Nepal’s transition to a federal republic (it began in 2008 with the abolition of the monarchy and the election of a new Constituent Assembly) has been politically tumultuous, but largely peaceful.
Spare a thought for psychiatric caregivers too (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
According to National Health Mission estimates, 6%-7% of India’s population suffers from mental disorders — i.e., one in four families is likely to have at least one member with a behavioural or mental health disorder.
The situation worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic as long periods of isolation, the fear of losing loved ones, financial difficulty, and uncertainty about the future increased stress levels across social segments.
Most of these cases remain untreated due to ignorance and social stigma. In the absence of visible proof of illness, deviations in behaviour are generally attributed to attitudinal issues, marital troubles, financial problems or job stress, while love affairs and examination stress are cited as the usual culprits in the case of teenage behavioural issues.
Without proper diagnosis, the patient and their families keep suffering as mental health responses remain mired in myths, stigmas, and taboos.
Over 90% of psychiatric patients in India live with their families. The caregiver is under considerable stress because of the physical and emotional caregiving along with the social isolation, financial difficulties and troublesome behaviour of the patient.
A patient’s non-adherence to treatment, prevalent in such cases, further exacerbates caregiver stress. In larger families, the primary caregiver burden is shared among family members, but with reducing family sizes, the role falls on the spouse.
Chronic mental illness in a nuclear household disrupts daily life and drains family resources. Moreover, women caregivers face challenges in balancing caregiving, career, child rearing, and household chores, and are less likely to receive informal support for psychiatric treatment.
Prolonged caregiving negatively impacts the psychological well-being of caregivers. Caregivers use various strategies to cope which include sharing, spirituality, hobbies, and self-gas lighting; but unhealthy coping mechanisms can negatively impact both caregivers and patients.
Hence, the importance of caring for the family caregivers. Counselling services are currently provided to caregivers on request.
This is not sufficient as the situation of the caregiver is similar to that of the ‘boiling frog’ where the individual might not be aware of the emotional strain, and hence will not request for support.
Opinion
Rethink the retention of sedition (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The Law Commission of India in its 279th report, released in April 2023, has recommended to retain one of the most controversial sections of recent times i.e., Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on ‘sedition’.
The Supreme Court of India, in S.G. Vombatkere v. Union of India on May 11, 2022, had directed all State governments and the central government to keep in abeyance all pending trials, appeals, and proceedings with regard to Section 124A IPC, as prima facie it felt that this Section was not in tune with the current social milieu.
The Law Commission, however, concluded that it was necessary to retain it as it was useful in countering the threat to India’s internal security.
The Commission also felt that the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967, does not cover all elements of the offence envisaged under Section 124A IPC. The Commission also recommended certain procedural guidelines to prevent the misuse of Section 124A IPC.
The Law Commission elaborated on the violence perpetrated by the Maoists under Chapter 6 of the report pertaining to ‘Threats to India’s Internal Security’.
The Ministry of Home Affairs data, quoted in the report, show that the number of Maoist incidents ranged from 1,533 in 2004 to 509 in 2021 and the fatality varied from 566 to 147 in the same period.
It is also undisputed that the central agenda of the Maoists is to capture political power by overthrowing the democratically elected government through a protracted armed struggle and they need to be tackled stringently.
Explainer
Will U.S. Fed resume the rate hike cycle? (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) last week paused its rate hike cycle by deciding to hold interest rates after ten rate hikes since March 2022.
The central bank kept its target for the benchmark federal funds rate between 5% and 5.25% until its next policy meeting. Many analysts, however, expect the Fed to resume its rate hikes and some even expect the federal funds rate to hit 6% soon.
Central banks around the world try to steer their economies primarily by targeting interest rates at which lending/borrowing happens in the short-term credit markets.
For instance, if a central bank wants to lower short-term interest rates, it can enter the market where banks borrow funds for their short-term needs with fresh funds, bid up the price of these loans and thus lower interest rates.
The fresh money injected into the banking system, in turn, would tend to percolate into the economy and cause prices to rise in the wider economy.
A central bank can thus use monetary policy to influence prices in the wider economy. And keeping inflation within a certain target range is a major goal of central banks.
Another policy goal that central banks try to meet along with the inflation target is to keep the economy operating at its full capacity wherein all resources are fully employed.
Many economists believe that there is a trade-off between inflation and unemployment. According to this framework, if inflation falls too low, this can cause a rise in unemployment and hence unused capacity.
So, the agenda of most central banks is to keep inflation up at a certain level at which the economy functions at full capacity. Inflation above a certain level, however, is seen as having no positive effect on economic activity.
What is the New Collective Quantified Goal? (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The recently-concluded Bonn climate conference in Germany, expected to outline the political agenda for the crucial end-of-year Conference Of Parties-28 (COP28) in Dubai, was critical for reviewing and reforming the climate finance architecture.
The conference has, according to Teresa Anderson, ActionAid International’s Global Lead on Climate Justice, “exposed a gaping hole in the funding needed to pay for climate action”.
This comes from a long standing impasse between developed and developing countries, over where money for climate change policies should come from and in what form.
A commitment of ‘$100 billion per year till 2020’ to developing nations from developed countries was a target set at the Conference of Parties (COP) in 2009.
But estimates since then show addressing climate change may cost billions, and even, trillions of dollars. Therefore, the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement agreed on setting a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCGQ) for climate financing prior to 2025 — a reference point which accounts for the needs and priorities of developing nations.
The NCGQ is thus, termed the “most important climate goal”. It pulls up the ceiling on commitment from developed countries, is supposed to anchor the evolving needs and priorities of developing countries based on scientific evidence and should respond “to the ever-increasing sums of funding necessary for Loss and Damage in response to failed and/or delayed financial support”, climate groups note.
Out of the promised $100 billion per year, developed countries provided $83.3 billion in 2020, as per a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
These figures may be misleading and inflated by as much as 225%, an Oxfam analysis found, as “there is too much dishonest and shady reporting”.
Moreover, the $100 billion target set in 2009 was seen more as a political goal, since there was no effort to clarify the definition or source of ‘climate finance’.
News
Senate Caucus to push for ‘NATO plus five’ status for India (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Timed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s arrival in Washington, the U.S. Senate’s India Caucus Co-Chairs, Mark Warner (Democrat, Virginia) and John Cornyn (Republican, Texas), will introduce legislation to give India ‘NATO plus five’ defence status.
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, however, had already rejected the framework for India. The arrangement currently exists between the U.S, its NATO partners and five countries: Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan and Israel. The Warner announcement follows a recommendation from a U.S. House of Representatives committee on China that India be included in the club.
What we propose is adding India to the so-called ‘NATO plus five’ arrangement, where the United States is able to transfer with as little bureaucratic interference as possible defence equipment in a very strong way.
Mr. Jaishankar had said on June 9 that while he appreciated the Congressional panel’s sentiment of wanting “to do more with India”, the template it was proposing did not apply to the country.
This is something the Biden administration (the Executive, which is separate from the U.S. Congress) understood “very, very well.
A lot of Americans still have that NATO treaty construct in their heads,” Mr. Jaishankar had said, suggesting that it was the only template with which Americans looked at the world.
India climbs eight places to 127 in global gender index: WEF report (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 1, Social Issues)
India was ranked 127 among 146 countries in gender parity — up eight places from last year’s place — in the Gender Gap Report, 2023 of the World Economic Forum (WEF).
India was ranked 135 in 2022. The country had improved by 1.4 percentage points from then, marking a partial recovery towards its 2020 parity level, the report said.
India had closed 64.3% of the overall gender gap, the report said. However, it underlined that India had reached only 36.7% parity in economic participation and opportunity. The country had attained parity in enrolment across all levels of education, it said.
The index ranked Pakistan at 142, Bangladesh at 59, China at 107, Nepal at 116, Sri Lanka at 115 and Bhutan at 103. Iceland is the most gender-equal country for the 14th consecutive year and the only one to have closed more than 90% of its gender gap, the report said.
In India, while there had been an uptick in parity in wages and income, the share of women in senior positions and technical roles had dropped slightly since the last edition.
On political empowerment, India has registered 25.3% parity, with women making up 15.1% of MPs. Of the 117 countries with available data since 2017, 18 — including Bolivia (50.4%), India (44.4%) and France (42.3%) — have achieved women’s representation of over 40% in local governance.
The report comes after Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani earlier this year said the WEF recognised the need to enumerate women’s participation in local government bodies after the government raised the issue with it in Geneva.
World
At SPIEF, Putin seeks alternative partnerships (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
As the war in Ukraine drags on, taking a heavy toll on both sides of the frontline, Russia, faced with the biggest standoff with the West in its modern history, keeps looking for alternative economic and geopolitical partnerships to navigate the “challenging times”.
At the 26th edition of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), held last week in Russia’s second-largest city, the Kremlin made its message clear to the entire world: the economy is holding up despite unprecedented Western sanctions.
This year’s “wartime” SPIEF turned out less international and lavish than its past editions, for obvious reasons, even though organisers claimed the participation of over 17,000 people from 130 countries, including high-ranking officials from the UAE, Algeria, Armenia, Cuba and delegations from China, India and Brazil.
The SPIEF used to be called “Russian Davos” as it was probably the only such elite gathering of global business community leaders in this part of the world.
Except Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, who made his appearance at the forum and addressed one of the key sessions on energy security, high-ranking delegates and CEOs from the West were missing at SPIEF. So were the international media.
This year, the only international leader addressing the plenary session on the stage was Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
Sitting in the audience was the President of the UAE, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who had a personal meeting with the Russian leader on the sidelines of the SPIEF.
In his opening speech, Mr. Putin did not mention Ukraine even once, instead focused on Russia’s economic growth despite all odds — the economy contracted 2.1% in 2022, which was way less than the 7-10% decline projected by the Bank of Russia, and is forecast to grow by 0.8-1.2% this year.
Business
Industry eyes access to Gati Shakti portal to boost capex in connectivity (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Industry is hopeful that the government may soon agree to open up access to the PM Gati Shakti portal developed for planning multi-modal infrastructure projects, thus helping facilitate greater private capital investments especially in connectivity projects that are seen as critical to sustain the economy’s momentum.
Unveiled in October 2021, the PM Gati Shakti diplatform brings together 16 ministries, including Railways and Roadways, so as to spur an integrated and coordinated approach to planning and implementing infrastructure connectivity projects.
So far, access to the portal’s data, which include detailed maps with existing economic and social infrastructure as well as upcoming projects, is restricted to Central and State government agencies.
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) president R. Dinesh, who is also the executive vice chairman of TVS Supply Chain Solutions, told that some access to the portal’s information trove would help not just logistics firms plan operations, but also enable fresh capital spending across allied sectors.
That can be a big benefit for all of the planning of the private sector as well. And that will actually help attract more capex and outside funding. I think that has been received and I hope it will happen soon... I don’t think there’s any major push back to the idea.