India signs six pacts with Maldives (GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Why in news?
- Recently, Maldivian President Ibrahim Solih visited India.
- India and Maldives inked six agreements to expand cooperation in several key areas with Indian Prime Minister asserting that India has been and will continue to be the ‘first responder’ to any need or crisis facing the island nation.
Key Highlights:
- The two sides signed six agreements, including one on cybersecurity and another on creating a network of police facilities in the archipelago.
- The Indian side unveiled additional financial assistance of more than $250 million for the Maldives, one of the main beneficiaries of India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy.
Infrastructure projects:
- The two leaders reviewed infrastructure projects being implemented in the Maldives to develop roads, ports, airports and housing under India’s development cooperation portfolio of more than $2 billion.
- They also virtually launched the first pouring of concrete for the Greater Male Connectivity Project, being built with an Indian grant of $100 million and a soft loan of $400 million.
- The Indian side extended a new line of credit of $100 million to fund revised costs of existing projects under a previous $800-million line of credit provided in 2018.
- Indian companies are currently engaged in two projects to build 4,000 social housing units in Greater Male.
Defence & Security:
- India announced announced it will provide a landing craft assault (LCA) to the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF), and another warship to replace CGS Huravee, which itself is a naval patrol vessel gifted by India in 2006.
- India will also provide 24 utility vehicles to MNDF.
- This equipment will boost the maritime surveillance and security capacity of MNDF.
- India has provided other defence hardware in the past and helped build a coastal radar network in the Maldives that became operational in March.
Cyber-security:
- The agreements signed included memorandums of understanding on cooperation in cyber-security, training of Maldivian local government officials, collaboration in data sharing and marine research for forecasting of potential fishing zones, and cooperation in disaster management.
Police infrastructure:
- India’s Exim Bank and the Maldives finance ministry signed an agreement for buyer’s credit financing worth $41 million to create police infrastructure on 61 islands, while a letter of intent was finalised for buyer’s credit funding worth $119 million for building 2,000 social housing units in Hulhumale.
‘India Out’ campaign:
- Maldivian President is visiting India at a time when the Maldives is witnessing an ‘India Out’ campaign backed by hardliners and the opposition party of former president Abdulla Yameen.
- He lauded India for its support when his country’s borders were close due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hellfire missiles
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
Why in news?
- Recently, the United States has killed the world’s most-wanted terrorist , the leader of Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a drone strike in Afghanistan.
- He was taken out in a counter-terrorism operation carried out by the Central Investigation Agency (CIA) in the Afghan capital of Kabul.
How the plan was executed?
- He was on the balcony of a safe house when the drone fired two missiles at him, but pictures showed no sign of an explosion, and no one else was harmed.
- That points to the use of the macabre Hellfire R9X by the US.
What is the Hellfire R9X missile?
- Better known in military circles as the AGM-114 R9X, the Hellfire R9X is a US-origin missile known to cause minimum collateral damage while engaging individual targets.
- Also known as the ‘Ninja Missile’, this weapon does not carry a warhead and instead deploys razor-sharp blades at the terminal stage of its attack trajectory. This helps it to break through even thick steel sheets and cut down the target using the kinetic energy of its propulsion without causing any damage to the persons in the general vicinity or to the structure of the building.
- The blades pop out of the missile and cut down the intended target without causing the massive damage to the surroundings which would be the case with a missile carrying an explosive warhead.
When did this missile enter active service?
- The Hellfire 9RX missile is known to have been in active service since 2017. However, its existence became public knowledge two years later in 2019.
- It is a variant of the original Hellfire missile family which is used in conventional form with warheads and is traditionally used from helicopters, ground-based vehicles, and sometimes small ships and fast moving vessels.
- For several years now, the Hellfire family of missiles, including the ‘Ninja Missile’, are armed on Combat Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or drones that the US Military uses in offensive military operations around the world.
Where has this missile been used on previous occasions?
- In 2017, the ‘Ninja Missile’ was reportedly used to kill the then No. 2 leader of Al Qaeda, Abu Khayr Al Masri, in Syria. It was also used against other targets in Syria at around the same time.
- The damage caused to the vehicles which carried the targets, particularly the shredded roofs of cars, gave the first clues that a normal warhead was not used on the missile and that it had sharp blades.
- It has also been used against Taliban targets in Afghanistan in 2020 and again in 2022.
What is known about the other Hellfire missile variants?
- Hellfire is actually an acronym for Heliborne, Laser, Fire and Forget Missile and it was developed in the US initially to target tanks from the Apache AH-64 attack helicopters.
- Later, the usage of these missiles spread to several other variants of helicopters and also ground and sea-based systems and drones.
- Developed by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, the Hellfire missile has other variants such as ‘Longbow’ and ‘Romeo’ apart from the ‘Ninja’.
Operation Geronimo:
- The killing of Zawahiri brings to mind Operation Geronimo, which killed his predecessor Osama bin Laden in Pakistan’s Abbottabad on 2 May 2011.
- Like Zawahiri, Bin Laden had been living in seclusion for at least five years in Abbottabad before he was killed in a firefight and shot in the head by US Navy SEALs. However, this time the strike was carried out without any ground support.
Bail under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
Why in news?
- Recently, the Supreme Court in the case of Vijay Madanlal Chaudhary vs Union of India gave the judicial stamp of approval to the twin conditions of bail under Section 45(1) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA).
- The conditions were contested as being arbitrary and draconian in as much as they reverse the presumption of innocence at the stage of bail.
- The judgment is of immense importance given that delay or denial in grant of bail was recently identified by the Supreme Court in the case of Satender Kumar Antil vs CBI as being a leading factor in the perpetration of injustice in our criminal justice system.
What are the conditions under Section 45(1) of the PMLA?
- The PMLA was enacted with the objective to prevent money laundering. The Act provides for a higher threshold for the grant of bail as compared to the standard procedure under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
- Section 45(1) of the PMLA requires that before a person is released on bail or bond, the public prosecutor must initially be given an opportunity to oppose the application and secondly, when the application is opposed, the court must be satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accused is not guilty of the offence and is not likely to commit any crime while out on bail.
Are there other Acts which impose such conditions?
- A similar provision is provided for in Section 43D(5) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 which requires the court to provide an opportunity to the public prosecutor to oppose the bail application and to not release the accused on bail if there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accusation is prima facie true.
- Section 37(1) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 too is in pari materia with Section 45(1) of the PMLA.
- Previously, Section 20(8) of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act, 1987 (TADA) also carried similar conditions for grant of bail.
What was the earlier position of the court on Section 45(1)?
- The validity of the twin requirements under Section 20(8) of the TADA Act had been upheld by the Supreme Court in the case of Kartar Singh vs State of Punjab (1994) on the grounds that the courts have to balance the interest of the victims and the community as well as the safety of the nation with the liberty of the accused.
- In the case of Nikesh Tarachand Shah vs Union of India (2018), however, the Court differentiated between the wordings of Section 20(8) of the TADA Act and Section 45(1) in two important regards that Section 20(8) of the TADA Act applied to a ‘most heinous’ offence and that the previously un-amended Section 45(1) under challenge in the Nikesh Shah case did not pertain to an offence under the PMLA Act but only to a predicatory offence listed in Schedule A.
- The Supreme Court, in that case, held Section 45(1) to be unconstitutional and violative of Articles 14 and 21 of the Indian Constitution and struck it down.
Why has the Supreme Court reversed its position now?
- Post the Supreme Court’s judgment in the Nikesh Shah case, Section 45(1) was amended vide Act 13 of 2018 and the revised section made the twin conditions for grant of bail applicable to all offences under the PMLA.
- This amended section was again challenged before the Supreme Court in the recent Vijay Madanlal case. The Supreme Court has held that as Section 45 was not obliterated from the statute book but was merely held to be unconstitutional, the Parliament was free to revive the provision by curing the defect.
- With respect to the first differentiation made between Section 20(8) of TADA and Section 45(1) of the PMLA, the three-judge bench of the Supreme Court in Vijay Madanlal case held that money laundering could not be considered as any lesser an offence than the offence of terrorism sought to be tackled under TADA.
- It stated that the offence of money laundering had a “direct impact on the financial systems and sovereignty and integrity of the countries,” and held it to be a heinous crime.
What are the implications of the Supreme Court’s judgment?
- The twin conditions, when examined independently require the Court to take a judicial call on the potential guilt of the offender based on the material supplied by the accused in the bail application and the opposition made to the same by the prosecution.
- In doing so, the provision overturns the settled principle of presumption of innocence which dictates that an undertrial remains innocent until he is proven guilty.
- These safeguards have been built into the procedure under the CrPC so as to ensure that the due process values enshrined in our Constitution find practical application.
- The Vijay Madanlal case decision comes from a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court and therefore conclusively overrules the judgment by the division bench of the Supreme Court in the Nikesh Shah case.
- In upholding Section 45(1) of the PMLA, the Court has made the twin conditions for the grant of bail constitutionally valid in the name of national security related expediency. It is trite to say that under such stringent conditions, jail becomes the rule while bail is the exception.
World's food supply faces new threat after India's rice crop falters
(GS Paper 3, Agriculture)
Why in news?
- Rice could emerge as the next challenge for global food supply as a shortage of rain in parts of India, by far the world’s biggest exporter, has caused planting area to shrink to the smallest in about three years.
The threat to India’s rice production comes at a time when countries are grappling with soaring food costs and rampant inflation.
How decline in rice production will impact India?
- Total rice planted area has declined 13% so far this season due to a lack of rainfall in some areas, including West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, which account for a quarter of India’s output.
- Traders are worried that a drop in rice production will complicate India’s inflation fight and trigger restrictions on exports. Such a move will have far-reaching implications for the billions of people that depend on the staple.
- India accounts for 40% of global rice trade, and the government has already curbed wheat and sugar exports to safeguard food security and control local prices.
Economic aspect:
- The jump in India’s rice prices reflect concern about output. Prices of some varieties have soared more than 10% in major growing states such as West Bengal, Odisha and Chhattisgarh due to deficient rain and increased demand from Bangladesh.
- Export prices may climb to $400 a ton by September from as much as $365 now on a free-on-board basis.
- Most of the world’s rice is grown and consumed in Asia, making it vital for political and economic stability in the region. In contrast to the surge in wheat and corn prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, rice has been subdued due to ample production and stockpiles, helping to ward off a bigger food crisis.
Inflation:
- Rice could present a fresh challenge to India’s inflation fight. Consumer prices have maintained above the Reserve Bank of India’s tolerance limit of 6% this year, prompting a sharp rise in interest rates.
- The central bank may increase borrowing costs further this week as a weakening rupee offsets the impact of falling commodity prices such as fuel and vegetable oils.
- If geographic disparities in rainfall persist, it could have a detrimental impact on crop production, negatively impacting economic growth and inflation.
Bright spot:
- India supplies rice to more than 100 countries, with Bangladesh, China, Nepal and some Middle Eastern nations among its largest customers.
- For the world at large, there are some bright spots when it comes to food security. The US is poised to deliver a bumper wheat crop in the coming weeks, while Ukraine made its first grain shipment since Russia’s invasion.
Way Forward:
- With India’s paddy output poised to decline in several states, the government should consider reviewing its policy of allocating rice for ethanol production.
- India seeks to boost ethanol production using surplus sugar and rice as part of efforts to cut its fuel costs. Surging food prices following the war in Ukraine have increased the risk of hunger and sparked a “food versus fuel” debate.
