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The Supreme Court raised the question whether the President’s power to declare inoperative Article 370 of the Constitution, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir, will not continue to hold the field after the dissolution of the erstwhile State’s Constituent Assembly on January 26, 1957.
Clause (3) of Article 370 gave the President power to notify the Article “inoperative” or modify it. But a proviso had made it “necessary” that such a move would have to be recommended by the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Constituent Assembly.
A Constituent Assembly is not a permanent body like the Parliament and the Supreme Court. No Constituent Assembly can have an indefinite life.
The J&K Constituent Assembly was constituted for a specific purpose — to draft the Constitution of J&K. It became functus officio once the J&K Constitution was framed.
This proviso making the Constituent Assembly’s ‘recommendation’ necessary before abrogation has no application. If the proviso ceased to operate, surely the substantive part of Clause 3 in Article 370 will remain.
CJI Chandrachud was responding to an argument by senior advocate Kapil Sibal that following the dissolution of the J&K Constituent Assembly, Article 370 cannot be revoked, as its concurrence was necessary to do so.
GST Council sticks to its plan to collect 28% tax on online gaming (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The GST Council blinked a little on technicalities and kept the door open for a review down the road, but stuck to its earlier decision to impose a 28% levy on the full face value of bets placed on online gaming, casinos and horse racing, with an eye on implementing it from October 1.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who chaired the Council’s meeting, said the Centre would now strive to amend the Goods and Services Tax (GST) law in Parliament’s current session itself to enable the implementation of the levy, despite dissent from Sikkim and Goa over the modalities of the tax for casino users.
Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu raised concerns about the levy’s impact on the State-wide ban on online gaming, which Ms. Sitharaman said would be addressed in the language of the new norms to explicitly state that the tax cannot be levied where a ban is in place.
The Delhi government’s representative sought a fresh review for the online gaming sector, but most other States leaned towards sticking to the Council’s decision last month, which had been taken after three years of deliberations, Ms. Sitharaman said after the virtual meeting.
Editorial
The trajectory of progress must change (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
The G-20 has provided Prime Minister Narendra Modi an opportune stage before the next general election in 2024. Promotions of the G-20, with Mr. Modi’s picture a part of them, are everywhere.
Of greater significance to the world is that the G-20 is being led by India, the world’s most populous country. Global financial crises in the last 30 years compelled the G-7, the United States-led cabal of western countries (and Japan) that controls global financial institutions, to expand the G-20 by adding China, India, Russia, Brazil, and a few other countries for solutions to global problems.
The G-20 is at an impasse because the U.S. wants its members to shut out Russia and China who it sees as threats to its global hegemony.
India is not easily swayed by pressure from the G-7. It wants the G-20 to concentrate on the agenda of 90% of humanity outside the G-7.
Global governance is in bad shape. The trajectory of progress must change. The world is being divided by wars amongst nations, and strife within them — wars with military weapons and with financial and trade weapons.
Desperate millions are being pushed back to their deaths while trying to cross borders and oceans in search of better lives and safety, while three multi-billionaires are competing to create commercial space ventures to take a handful of wealthy people (paying hundreds of thousands of dollars each), for a brief joyride in borderless space.
Humanity cannot carry on the way it is. The trajectory of progress must be changed to make economic growth more equitable and sustainable.
Economists try to prove with numbers that poverty is reducing, and incomes are increasing for everyone. They should look around and listen to real people struggling in precarious livelihoods.
People experience realities which statisticians’ numbers cannot reveal. The planet is heating up inexorably. It cannot take the pressure of the present consumptive model of economic growth any longer. More economic growth will not solve the world’s problems. It must be sustainable and equitable too.
India, as chair of the G-20, has offered a vision of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (One Earth, One Family, One Future) to bring all citizens of the world together and make the world better for everyone.
From state visit to a more robust trade relationship (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s State visit to Washington on June 22, 2023, was historic — the first for an Indian head of state in 14 years, and only the third for an Indian leader in 75 years since Indian Independence.
It unambiguously demonstrated the Biden administration’s intense desire to cultivate India as a durable, long-term partner in a variety of realms, including in the United States’ strategic competition with China for the foreseeable future.
It also conveyed to citizens of both countries and a wider global audience the full range of areas of cooperation and collaboration between them — from defence trade to emerging technologies, such as in Artificial Intelligence and space exploration.
In comparison with the substantial progress in many areas, the economic, and more specifically, trade relationship between the two countries, is growing — surpassing U.S.$120 billion — but it continues to underperform relative to the sheer potential.
If this strategic partnership lives up to its billing as one of the most consequential in this century, then trade must be pushed to a more central role as the U.S.-India story continues to unfold.
India is exhibiting a remarkable openness to negotiating new trade relationships with important partners around the world and is demonstrating genuine commitment to revisiting long-standing positions, even as it pursues policies to attract and grow domestic manufacturing value chains and reduce over-dependencies on other countries.
In the last two years, the Narendra Modi government has inked new free trade agreements (FTAs) with the United Arab Emirates and Australia and launched or reinvigorated negotiations for parallel deals with the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
In contrast, the Biden administration maintains that it has evolved away from FTAs and discovered a better approach to trade, emphasising resilient supply chains, reshoring or friend-shoring, and prioritising labour rights and climate-friendlier production over craven and mistaken globalisation.
This policy has many sceptics at home and abroad, particularly since it ignores that all these objectives could be robustly addressed in a revamped FTA agenda.
Opinion
Deep tech startups taking brave risks (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Great Indian Startup Boom of the last decade, led by young entrepreneurs and catalysed by the government’s Startup India movement, created an environment of entrepreneurship in India.
The Startup movement is not limited to metro cities, but has successfully captured the imagination of suburban and rural entrepreneurs.
Today, there are more than one lakh startups recognised by the government, with about half of them coming from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
It has created a sense of agency among India’s youth, and a sense of freedom of being able to determine their own destiny.
The Startup movement is moving beyond the consumer Internet and e-commerce to genuine deep technology areas, such as space and remote sensing, artificial intelligence and robotics, biotech and pharma, electric vehicles, drones, defence, telecommunications, semiconductors, and many more.
These real sectors go beyond digital marketplaces, seller discovery, and exchange of information, and impact many more sectors of the economy, which will bring deeper industrialisation in newer areas and more jobs.
Deep tech entrepreneurship is also creating new avenues for science and technology (S&T) discoveries in the public sector labs to reach the market.
News
Centre forms expert panel to revise anti-discrimination guidelines on campuses (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The Union Education Ministry has now constituted an expert committee to revisit its regulations and norms on anti-discrimination with respect to the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, Other Backward Classes, Persons with Disabilities, and other minorities in higher educational institutions.
Responding to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Education Subhas Sarkar said the University Grants Commission had taken this step in pursuance of a Supreme Court direction on July 6, where it had asked the government to clarify the affirmative steps it had taken to make campuses free of caste discrimination.
The Centre said that the expert committee had been formed on July 21 and that it would revisit and suggest changes to the existing anti-discrimination guidelines already in force.
The Education Ministry said, “The committee will revisit the UGC regulations/schemes concerning the SC/ST/OBC/PwD and minority communities in Higher Educational Institutions and suggest further remedial measures if required to make non-discriminatory environment for SC/ST students in HEIs.
In the last six months, at least half a dozen students from marginalised backgrounds have died of suicide on campuses of IIT-Madras, IIT-Bombay, and IIT-Delhi — the latest one on July 9 on the Delhi campus. While official inquiries are yet to establish discrimination as a cause of death in either of these cases, the incidents led to a deluge of students choosing to go public with their experience of caste discrimination.
World
China plans to limit children’s smartphone time to 2 hours (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
China’s cyberspace watchdog has put forward plans to limit the usage of smartphones by children to no more than two hours a day, and to require all tech companies to introduce a “minor mode” to enable restrictions.
A draft “Guidelines for the Construction of Minor Mode of the Mobile Internet” is open for public comments until September 2.
If the guidelines are adopted as is expected, China will be introducing some of the world’s most strict regulations for children in usage of smartphones.
The proposed guidelines suggest restrictions for five different age groups: under 3, 3-8, 8-12, 12-16 and 16-18. For children under 8, the “minor mode” will only permit 40 minutes per day, and for those under 3, “online internet providers should recommend children’s songs, enlightenment education and other parent-child companionship programs, and they are recommended to play via audio.”
The 16-18 age group will be given two hours’ usage, and the minor mode “is prohibited from providing services to minors from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.”
Some questions about how this will be enforced remain unclear, but the guidelines are the latest effort by the authorities to curb what they have seen as uncontrolled digital addiction among the youth, which has been reflected in numerous government surveys.
The draft said parents will have to sign on and sign off the minor mode and will be asked to back the campaign once the guidelines are rolled out across the country. The minor mode is being seen as offering parents a tool to manage how their children use devices.
The onus is also likely to fall on tech companies who will be required to provide regular data to the authorities and will be subject to regular checks.
Business
Govt. kicks off contractual dispute settlement scheme (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Centre on Wednesday launched a settlement scheme for contractual disputes with vendors or suppliers to the government and its undertakings, setting an October 31 deadline for firms to submit their claims for consideration.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced the scheme, termed ‘Vivad se Vishwas II — (Contractual Disputes)’ in this year’s Union Budget and the Department of Expenditure had indicated the guidelines for its operation in an earlier order.
For disputes to be considered for settlement, an arbitral award should have been secured by the aggrieved party by January 31, 2023, with the cut-off date set at April 30 in case of Court orders.
The scheme will apply to all domestic contractual disputes where one of the parties is either the Government of India or an organisation working under its control.
For cases involving Court awards, the settlement amount offered to the contractor will be up to 85% of the net amount awarded or upheld by the court, while the same threshold will be “up to” 65% of the net amount in case of arbitral awards.