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A parliamentary committee, set up to examine the controversial proposed amendments to the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, has endorsed the amendment Bill in its entirety.
A draft copy of the report prepared by the 31-member joint committee on the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023, which is expected to be tabled in Parliament during the Monsoon Session starting on July 20.
The Bill seeks to amend the pivotal 1980 law which was enacted to ensure that India’s forest land is not wantonly usurped for non-forestry purposes.
The Act empowers the Centre to require that any forest land diverted for non-forestry purposes be duly compensated. It also extends its remit to land which is not officially classified as “forest” in State or Union government records.
The report states that the joint committee, chaired by BJP MP Rajendra Agrawal, analysed the Bill “clause by clause” and invited representations from 10 Union Ministries and views from Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Telangana governments and from experts, individuals and representatives of public sector units.
It notes that objections were raised to various aspects of the Bill, including complaints that the proposed amendments “diluted” the Supreme Court’s 1996 judgment in the Godavarman case that extended protection to wide tracts of forests, even if they were not recorded as forests.
States
In Varanasi, turtles help clean the Ganga (Page no. 4)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Under the Namami Gange Programme, large-scale human efforts have been undertaken since 2014 to clean the Ganga and rejuvenate the nearly 2,600-km river network. In this, marine life, especially turtles, has been playing a key role as well.
In 2014, the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and the Ministry of Forest joined hands with the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), the agency implementing the Namami Gange Programme. Since 2017, they have been running the turtle breeding and rehabilitation centre in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi.
About a dozen of the 29 turtle species in India, both herbivorous and carnivorous, help by clearing rotten or half-burnt human bodies as well as flowers dumped into the river here.
“We have released roughly 5,000 turtles since 2017. This year, 1,000 more will be released to strengthen the programme,” said Aashish Panda, a biologist with the WII who works at the turtle rehabilitation centre.
Set up in the late 1980s under the Ganga Action Plan (GAP), the centre has so far released over 40,000 turtles into the river. In 2014, the centre got renewed attention after the Central government enlisted it in the Namami Gange Programme.
At the centre, roughly a dozen species are nurtured. The Forest and Wildlife Department’s team brings turtle eggs from the coastal areas of the Chambal region.
The turtle eggs, which are monitored for 70 days, are kept in a room that is fully adapted for hatching. After filling the ground with water and placing bricks atop, the eggs are buried inside sand in wooden boxes.
Only 30 eggs are kept in a box. Hatching is completed at temperatures ranging from 27 to 30 degrees Celsius between June and July, and after which the turtles are monitored in an artificial pond for two years before they are released in the river.
Editorial
The ‘Anna Bhagya’ fiasco and thinking beyond rice (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The ‘Anna Bhagya’ scheme is one of the five main election promises made by the Congress party in the run-up to the Karnataka Assembly elections, in May 2023, with the pledge to provide an additional five kilograms of free rice to every member of a Below Poverty Line household. The Congress party’s (lack of) vision is as disappointing as the central government’s policy.
Even the fiercest critics of the PDS were compelled to recognise its key role in protecting people from hunger during the COVID-19 -related lockdowns. Many believe that the coverage of 80 crore people (during the pandemic) is not only laudable (it is) but also adequate (it is not).
Besides inadequate coverage, in most States, the PDS does not provide nutritious food items such as pulses and oil. These are the two lacunae that should be rectified.
In late March 2020, the central government announced that it would double rations for those who have ration cards. For the situation then, this was a good move. But even then it did nothing for those who did not have ration cards — and there were plenty of them.
The National Food Security Act (NFSA) 2013 expanded the coverage of the PDS substantially. The law mandates that 50% of the urban and 75% of the rural populations must be covered by the PDS.
The central government combined these coverage ratios (adjusted to account for State-wise poverty levels) with the 2011 population numbers to determine each State’s ‘quota’ of ration cards. As the NFSA rolled out (staggered across States between 2013-2017), PDS coverage climbed from under 500 million to reach 800 million — its current level.
The problem is that even in 2023, India continues to use the 2011 Census population because the central government is blissfully evading its obligation to conduct the 2021 Census.
The NFSA requires that the latest completed Census be used to calculate the total PDS coverage. The government, thus, has a convenient excuse to ignore demands to expand PDS coverage to account for population growth.
At the all-India level, the under-coverage results in the exclusion of an estimated 113 million people, of whom 1.1 million are in Karnataka.
Restoring the World Trade Organization’s crown jewel (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
In June 2022, the member-countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) managed to hammer out a face-saving deal — India played a vital role — at the Geneva ministerial conference, thereby keeping faith in trade multilateralism alive. An important part was resurrecting the WTO’s dispute settlement system (DSS), also called WTO’s ‘crown jewel’, by 2024.
Since 2019, the WTO’s two-tiered DSS remains paralysed. The appellate body, which is the second tier of the WTO’s DSS that hears appeals from WTO panels, is non-functional because the United States, single-handedly, has blocked the appointment of its members.
The appellate body, from 1995-2019, has upheld the international rule of law by holding powerful countries such as the U.S. and the European Union accountable for international law breaches.
However, the appellate body has become a victim of its success. Its one-time supporter, the U.S., has become its most acerbic critic. Now, the clock is ticking, and from the information publicly available, it looks unlikely that the DSS will be in the pink by 2024.
The U.S. reproaches the appellate body for judicial overreach and exceeding its assigned institutional mandate. Thus it argues that till the time the appellate body’s role is defined precisely, it cannot be resurrected.
One major problem that the U.S. identifies is that the appellate body, contrary to the text of the WTO’s dispute settlement understanding (DSU), has been creating binding precedents through its decisions.
It is well-established that there is no rule of stare decisis — i.e., no rule of precedent in international law. The WTO’s DSU also makes this clear in Article 3.2 by stating that the appellate body rulings can neither add nor diminish the rights and obligations of WTO member-countries.
Thus, it is incumbent on the appellate body to ensure that there is consistency in the interpretation and application of the WTO agreements without creating a binding precedent.
This requires striking a fine balance — precisely what the appellate body has tried to do. It has encouraged the WTO panels to rely on previous interpretations especially where the issues are the same.
Simultaneously, the appellate body has clarified that a departure can be made from the previous rulings and reasoning if there are “cogent reasons”.
The argument that this means that the appellate body is following a system of precedent in the sense it is followed in the common law system is tantamount to vastly overstating the case, as James Bacchus and Simon Lester argue.
Opinion
Modi’s ‘rouble wise rupee foolish’ policy (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Newsan is one of Argentina’s biggest home appliance retailers. For decades, it settled its payments in U.S. dollars for the goods it bought from China, such as fridges and TV sets.
In April, Newsan suddenly switched to Chinese yuan for its payments. Meanwhile, Brazil’s new government under President Lula da Silva recently announced that Brazilian companies can settle their foreign trade using Chinese yuan.
Consequently, Brazilian companies have started to pay French companies in yuan for purchase of LNG, a first in their history. The yuan is now the most actively traded currency in Russia.
And Bangladesh has been coerced into paying for Russian nuclear power using the yuan. These developments are not independent and unrelated.
A significant global outcome of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is the U.S. dollar-Chinese yuan conflict. The U.S. dollar has long enjoyed what a French Finance Minister called an “exorbitant privilege”.
Nearly all nations trade with each other using the U.S. dollar, establishing its pre-eminence as the world’s reserve currency. The global trust in the dollar plays a vital role in establishing the U.S.’s status as a superpower.
Evidently, the Chinese are no longer willing to accept American hegemony. Destabilising and dethroning the U.S. dollar is a key strategy for China to challenge the U.S.
Its overtures and coercions to invoke other nations to switch to the yuan for trade settlements is a part of its grand ambitions to reshape the world order. In this context, India, a trillion dollar trading nation, has a huge role to play in determining the new global currency order.
China is squatting on India’s territory in the Northeast and has threatened its sovereign integrity. It came close to waging a war against India during the pandemic.
It is not in India’s interests to help China’s ascendancy, so one would expect India to not aid and abet China’s desire to move global trade settlements from the dollar to the yuan. But shockingly, this is precisely what it is doing — paying for its own foreign trade in yuan.
News
Report highlights impact of pandemic on education (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Education)
The pandemic led to a decline in educational performance of many districts in the country, reveals a report from the Education Ministry.
The Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D) released by the Ministry on Sunday as a combined report for 2020-21 and 2021-22 assesses the performance of school education system at the district level.
Much like the PGI for States released earlier, this report too has 10 grades under which districts are categorised, with Daksh being the highest grade (above 90%), followed by Utkarsh (81%-90%); Ati-Uttam (71%-80%); Uttam (61%-70%); Prachesta-1 (51%-60%); Prachesta-2 (41%-50%); Prachesta-3 (31%-40%); Akanshi-1 (21% to 30%); and Akanshi-2 (11% to 20%). The lowest grade is Akanshi-3, for districts that score less than 10%.
While none of the districts were able to earn Daksh and Utkarsh, in the latest report, 121 districts were graded as Ati-Uttam for 2020-21, though this number fell by more than half in 2021-22, with just 51 districts making the grade.
Further attesting to the pandemic effect, while 2020-21 had 86 districts under Prachesta-2 (sixth-highest grade), this number rose to 117 in 2021-22.
In 2021-22, Chandigarh retained its Ati-Uttam status, as well as some districts of Delhi and Gujarat. In Maharashtra, Satara, Kolhapur, Nashik and Mumbai achieved this status as did Kolkata.
Tamil Nadu has several districts in the fourth-best grade (Uttam) and three — Ramanathapuram, Pudukkottai and Theni — in Prachesta-1. Uttar Pradesh has several districts under Uttam and Prachesta-1, and four under Prachesta-2.
Most of the districts of Jammu and Kashmir fall under the Prachesta 1 and 2 grades. South Salmara-Mankachar district was the only district in Assam under Akanshi-1 for 2021-22, grade) while the two grades at the bottom had no districts.
The PGI-D report is expected to help State education departments identify gaps at the district level and improve their performance in a decentralised manner. There are indicator-wise PGI scores that show the areas where a district needs to improve.
The PGI-D structure has a total weightage of 600 points comprising 83 indicators under six categories: outcomes; effective classroom transaction; infrastructure and student entitlements; school safety and child protection; digital learning; and governance process.
World
Yellen says her Beijing visit helps put U.S.-China relations on ‘surer footing’ (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Sunday that her talks with top Chinese officials have helped put ties on “surer footing”, as she wrapped up a trip aimed at stabilising fraught relations between the two biggest economies.
During her four-day trip — which came on the heels of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit — Ms. Yellen stressed the need for healthy economic competition and improved communication, and urged cooperation on the grave threat posed by climate change.
And on both sides, the sentiment that was expressed is that the world is big enough for both of our countries to thrive, to cooperate on shared global challenges, to have a meaningful economic relationship and that we needed to stabilise our relationship to make sure that we were able to accomplish that.
While it did not produce specific breakthroughs, Ms. Yellen’s trip furthers a push by President Joe Biden’s administration to steady ties with China.
Beijing’s official Xinhua news agency said on Saturday that Ms. Yellen’s meeting with Vice Premier He Lifeng yielded an agreement to “strengthen communication and cooperation on addressing global challenges”.
Ms. Yellen said on Sunday in Beijing that while there are “significant disagreements” between the countries, her talks had been “direct, substantive and productive”.
Topping the laundry list of disagreements are Washington’s trade curbs, which it says are crucial to safeguard national security.
Ms. Yellen said she had stressed that Washington’s measures “are not used by us to gain economic advantage”. These actions are motivated by straightforward national security considerations.
And with the U.S. mulling fresh curbs that could more strictly regulate American outbound investment to China, Ms. Yellen said any new moves would be implemented in a transparent way.