What to read in The Hindu

SC upholds powers of arrest, raid under PMLA (Page no. 1) (GS Paper 3, Internal Security)

The Supreme Court upheld the core amendments made to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), which gives the government and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) virtually unbridled powers of summons, arrest, and raids, and makes bail nearly impossible while shifting the burden of proof of innocence on to the accused rather than the prosecution.

The apex court called the PMLA a law against the “scourge of money laundering” and not a hatchet wielded against rival politicians and dissenters.

 This is a sui generis (unique) legislation. The Parliament enacted the Act as a result of international commitment to sternly deal with the menace of money laundering of proceeds of crime having transnational consequences and on the financial systems of the countries.

The verdict came on an extensive challenge raised against the amendments introduced to the 2002 Act by way of Finance Acts.

The three-judge Bench said the method of introduction of the amendments through Money Bills would be separately examined by a larger Bench of the apex court.

Over 240 petitions were filed against the amendments which the challengers claimed to violate personal liberty, procedures of law and the constitutional mandate.

Some of the petitioners included former Ministers Mehbooba Mufti, Anil Deshmukh and Karti Chidambaram, who all claimed that the “process itself was the punishment”.

The court’s stamp of approval comes at a crucial time when Congress leaders like Sonia Gandhi are being summoned by the ED and faced with several rounds of questioning spanning hours together.

Money laundering is an offence against the sovereignty and integrity of the country. It gave an expansive meaning to the offence of “money laundering” to include “every process and activity”, direct or indirect, dealing with the proceeds of the crime.

The street, in 360-degree panoramic view (Page no. 1)

(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)

Google announced the launch of its popular ‘Street View’ feature in India – after failing to bring the experience to India at least twice in the past decade following security concerns raised by government agencies over collection of data.

For the launch this time, Google has partnered with two Indian firms – mapping solutions provider Genesys International and Tech Mahindra.

As per the National Geospatial Policy, 2021, local companies can collect such data and foreign firms can license the data from Indian entities to serve their customers in the country.

The India launch marks the first time in the world that Street View, which allows users to view panoramic and street-level 360 degree views of a particular place, is being brought to life completely by local partners.

Street View will be available on Google Maps with fresh imagery licensed from local partners covering over 1,50,000 km across ten cities in India, including Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Nashik, Vadodara, Ahmednagar, and Amritsar.

Google, Genesys International, and Tech Mahindra plan to expand this to more than 50 cities by the end of 2022, and cover a little under one million unique kms over the 18-24 months.

The new geospatial policy allows local entities to do the data collection at a certain level of fidelity. So our partners here, they configure the cameras, they go and do the data collection.

They own the data that they collect, but then they license it to entities like Google, so we can actually integrate it and offer services like Google Maps.

To launch Street View, users need to open Google Maps, zoom into a road in any of the target cities, and tap the area they want to view.

Street View will help people navigate and explore new corners of the country and the world in a more visual and accurate way, enabling them to fully experience what it’s like to be in these places, right from their phone or computer.

City

Comply with new GNCTD Act: L-G to Speaker (Page no. 2)

(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)

In a move that could possibly trigger yet another row between the Delhi government and Raj Niwas, Lieutenant-Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena has, in a message to the Delhi Legislative Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel, asked for “constitutional compliance” with the GNCTD (Amendment) Act, 2021.

Responding to the L-G’s message, the Speaker’s office stated that the amendment to the GNCTD Act had been challenged by the Delhi government in the Supreme Court on the grounds that it violates Article 239AA, which deals with the lawmaking power of the Delhi Legislative Assembly.

Mr. Saxena’s communique to the Speaker comes in the wake of a statement made by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal earlier this month — about the BJP planning to “do away” with the Delhi Legislative Assembly and convert the city into a full-fledged Union Territory.

Sources said the L-G asked Mr. Goel why the Assembly had not amended its functioning after 14 months of the implementation of the Act in April 2021. They said that the L-G had conveyed to Mr. Goel that not doing so amounted to “contemptuous disregard” of the Constitution.

The GNCTD (Amendment) Act, 2021, came into effect in April 2021 after four sections of the GNCTD Act, 1991, were amended.

The most prominent among these amendments was the clarification of the expression “Government” referred to in any law to be made by the Legislative Assembly to mean “the Lieutenant-Governor”, thus establishing the primacy of the L-G over the elected government.

Another amendment made to the earlier Act ensures that the L-G is “necessarily granted an opportunity” to exercise powers entrusted with him under proviso to Clause (4) of Article 239AA of the Constitution.

This particular clause provides for a Council of Ministers headed by a Chief Minister to “aid and advise the Lieutenant-Governor” in the exercise of his functions for matters in which the Legislative Assembly has the power to make laws.

States          

Forest Rights Act: well begun, ready for the home run (Page no. 4)

(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)

Tucked away in a forested region of Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, Juguni Ho had long nursed a dream of owning a piece of land. The resident of Budhabalanga village can now not only boast of possessing 5.15 acres in the forests of the Similipal Biosphere Reserve but also log on to a website and show the land records.

Jasai Soren and his forefathers have lived in the Khuribhanga forest village in Dhenkanal district from times immemorial, but the village did not exist in government records for years.

Khuribhanga is now recognised as a revenue village and government welfare programmes have started to flow seamlessly.

Pramilla Pradhan of Sinduria village in Nayagarh district always believed the residents had first right to forest resources in the adjoining areas. The village has secured community forest rights on 760 acres of Sulia forest; the villagers’ annual income from cashew harvesting alone now touches ₹4 lakh.

Juguni Ho, Jasai Soren and Pramilla Pradhan are among the 2.59 lakh beneficiaries of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, which has entered its 16th year of implementation in Odisha.

The implementation, which involves raising awareness among the largely uninformed population, rummaging through voluminous government records, ground truthing and further vetting by government departments, has been a knotty affair. But while many States are nowhere near completing implementation of the historic Act, Odisha is aiming for a full rollout by 2024.

It is the first State in the country to make budgetary provision for implementation of the Central Act – ₹8 crore for 168 FRA cells in 2021-22.

Till last year, forest rights committees were functioning in Tribal Sub Plan areas. Now, they have been extended to the entire State. The State is not only ensuring tenurial security and entitlement over land but also addressing livelihood and food security under the Act.

Editorial

The poor state of India’s fiscal federalism (Page no. 6)

(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)

In his last speech, in 1949, to the Constituent Assembly, B.R. Ambedkar sounded a note of caution about the Indian republic entering a life of contradictions. “In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality.

These conflicts demanded attention: fail to do so, and those denied will blow up the structure of political democracy”, he warned, though Jawaharlal Nehru truly believed that inequities could be addressed through his tryst with the planning process.

A degree of centralisation in fiscal power was required to address the concerns of socio-economic and regional disparities, he felt. This asymmetric federalism, inherent to the Constitution, was only accelerated and mutually reinforced with political centralisation since 2014, making the Union Government extractive rather than enabling.

While States lost their capacity to generate revenue by surrendering their rights in the wake of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, their expenditure pattern too was distorted by the Union’s intrusion, particularly through its centrally sponsored schemes .

Historically, India’s fiscal transfer worked through two pillars, i.e., the Planning Commission and the Finance Commission. But the waning of planning since the 1990s, and its abolition in 2014, led to the Finance Commission becoming a major means of fiscal transfer as the commission itself broadened its scope of sharing all taxes since 2000 from its original design of just two taxes — income tax and Union excise duties.

Today, the Finance Commission became a politicised institution with arbitrariness and inherent bias towards the Union government. The original intention of addressing inequities, a lofty idea, indeed, was turned on its head as it metamorphosed into one of the world’s most regressive taxation systems due to a centralised fiscal policy.

So, let us see what has changed since 2014. The concerns of the founding fathers — addressing socio-economic inequities — were forgotten in the process of ushering in an era of political centralisation and cultural nationalism that drive today’s fiscal policy.

To be sure, India was never truly federal — it was a ‘holding together federalism’ in contrast to the ‘coming together federalism,’ in which smaller independent entities come together to form a federation (as in the United States of America).

In fact, the Government of India Act 1935 was more federal in nature than the Constitution adopted on January 26, 1950 as the first offered more power to its provincial governments.

OPED

A future free of hepatitis (Page no. 7)

(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)

On this World Hepatitis Day, the World Health Organization (WHO) is highlighting the need to bring hepatitis care closer to the people in need. This means making hepatitis care available, affordable and accessible to all without discrimination.

This is crucial in the quest to eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030, a global target. Elimination would translate to 90% reduction in incidence and 65% reduction in mortality by 2030, compared to the corresponding figures of 2015.

The action against hepatitis cannot wait any longer. Why is that? First, hepatitis is the only communicable disease where mortality is showing an increasing trend. Globally, approximately 354 million people are suffering from hepatitis B and C.

Southeast Asia has 20% of the global morbidity burden of hepatitis. About 95% of all hepatitis-related deaths are due to cirrhosis and liver cancers caused by the hepatitis B and C virus.

Second, viral hepatis is preventable. Clean food and good personal hygiene, along with access to safe water and sanitation, can protect us from hepatitis A and E.

Measures to prevent hepatitis B and C need to focus on full coverage with hepatitis B immunisation including a birth dose, as well as access to safe blood, safe sex and safe needle usage.

Third, a world free of hepatitis is practical and feasible. We have the tools to diagnose, treat, prevent and therefore eliminate chronic viral hepatitis. Safe and effective vaccines exist to prevent hepatitis B, alongside new and powerful antiviral drugs that can manage chronic hepatitis B and cure most cases of hepatitis C.

These interventions together with early diagnosis and awareness campaigns have the potential to prevent 4.5 million premature deaths in low- and middle-income countries by 2030 globally.

However, access to these services are often out of reach for communities as they are usually available at centralised/specialised hospitals at a cost which cannot be afforded by all.

People continue to die because of late diagnosis or lack of appropriate treatment. Early diagnosis is the gateway for both prevention and successful treatment.

News

Centre to amend Warehousing Act (Page no. 12)

(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)

The Union Food and Public Distribution Ministry has suggested major amendments to the Warehousing (Development and Regulation) Act of 2007.

While the Ministry says that the aim is to help farmers get access to the service of quality warehouses, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) fears that the amendments are for bringing back certain provisions of the repealed the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act through the backdoor.

An official in the Ministry said the amendment was to make registration of godowns compulsory and to raise the penalty for various offences and to do away with the jail term as a punishment for the offences.

At present, the registration with the Warehousing Development and Regulation Authority (WDRA) is optional. After the proposed amendment, which is yet to be cleared by the Cabinet, registration of all third party warehouses throughout the country will be undertaken in a phased manner.

The Central government will have powers to exempt any class of warehouses from registration with the Authority. This will ensure a gradual and non-disruptive change to a regulated warehousing system.

The WDRA was established in 2010 to ensure scientific storage by prescribing infrastructural and procedural standards. Captive warehouses such as those of the Food Corporation of India are excluded from the ambit of the Act.

The Act wants to establish a system of negotiable and non-negotiable warehouse receipt (NWR) which is now in electronic form. The official said the Centre wanted to make NWR a tool of trade to improve fiduciary trust of depositors and banks in Negotiable Warehouse Receipt System.

The SKM said the repealed Act had also talked about similar provisions such as electronic trading in transaction platform and freedom for trading at farmgate, cold storage, warehouse and processing units.

This time too, The purpose should be to help some big corporate houses so that they gain even more control over the warehousing and cold storage sector.

The direction of every policy of this government is towards that. Even before the three farm laws passed, Adani had started building silos in several States. Through amending this Act, the Centre is trying to bring the repealed law through the backdoor.