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The Centre is all set to ease the citizenship process for minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who entered India on valid documents, but whose passports and visas have since expired.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is expected to rejig the citizenship portal to accept expired passports and visas as supporting documents to process the citizenship application for members of six minority communities — Hindu, Sikh, Parsi, Christian, Buddhist and Jain — from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, according to a government source.
The citizenship portal run by the MHA currently accepts expired passports as supporting documents only for those Hindu and Sikh applicants from Pakistan and Afghanistan who entered India before December 31, 2009. In 2018, after reports of corruption emerged during manual screening, all citizenship processes were moved online.
According to Hindu Singh Sodha, president of the Seemant Lok Sanghathan (SLS), an organisation that works for the rights of Pakistani minorities in India, the portal does not accept expired Pakistani passports for people who came on or after January 1, 2010.
“For a Pakistani Hindu who entered India in 2010, the online system does not accept the expired passport, leading to the application not being accepted.
The person or family has to then rush to the Pakistani High Commission in Delhi who charge a hefty sum to renew the passports and sometimes reject it on flimsy grounds.
Even though the person is eligible to get Indian citizenship under the 1955 Act, as he or she has spent around 12 years in India, they face hurdles.
In 2015, MHA amended the Citizenship Rules and legalised the stay of foreign migrants belonging to these six communities who entered India on or before December 31, 2014 due to religious persecution, by exempting them from the provisions of the Passport Act and the Foreigners Act even as their passports expired.
Editorial
India’s crushing court backlogs, out-of-the-box reform (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
Two important voices have weighed in recently on delays in the justice delivery system. The Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud stated that increasing the number of judges will not demolish the perennial problem of pendency, and that it is difficult enough now to find good High Court judge material.
Sushil Kumar Modi, Chairman of Parliament’s Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice has called for out-of-the-box thinking to solve the problem.
Joining the dots, it seems clear that reforms inspired by convention will be pretty much like rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking Titanic.
We have difficulty in finding good talent to be appointed as judges of the High Court, but year after year we see the spectacle of large numbers of experienced and fine judges retiring from the High Courts because they have reached the age of 62.
Many have several good years of work left in them which goes waste, much like the richest sediment on river banks getting washed out to sea.
All that needs to be done is to continue them with pay and perquisites, and we would have kept the best for their last run of service.
Extend the out-of-box thinking and bring back retired Supreme Court judges to hear admission of Special Leave Petitions. These are appeals filed in hundreds every week against all kinds of orders of lower courts and tribunals across the length and the breadth of the country.
They are the biggest clog to justice in the Supreme Court (SC) because they take away half the time of the country’s senior most judges in just reading these mountainous files to decide which minute fraction to hear and dismiss the rest.
It is stretching an analogy, but imagine the board of governors of the central bank sitting to examine doubtful currency notes. Many SC judges are in fine fettle at 65 when they retire, and this is better work for them than arbitrations where they become subject to scrutiny by District Judges. And working hours and schedules can be flexibly designed for retired judges to operate.
Good governance beyond motherhood and apple pie (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
So, they [the government] go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful for impotency,” said Sir Winston Churchill on governance.
Churchill’s definition of (bad) governance is applicable even 100 years after he spoke so sagaciously. One of the big achievements of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is that while administrative reforms are, usually, all about motherhood and apple pie proclamations such as “wash your hand before you eat”, he has turned at least some of it into action. Usually, good governance has meant cliches and platitudes such as “corruption is bad for good governance”, “we should cut red-tape in the country”, and “We should use more e-governance in India”, but that is now a thing of the past.
First, the Modi government (thanks to the stellar work of economist Bibek Debroy) has repealed an estimated 2,000 Acts, statuettes and subordinate legislation which include dozens of Appropriation acts, the Excise Act 1863, Foreign Recruiting Act 1874, Elephants Preservation Act 1879, and Bengal Districts Act, 1836 to name just a few. There is a long way to go, especially for State governments, where such obsolete laws are often tools for rent seeking.
Karnataka is one of India’s fastest growing States, with a GSDP of ₹20.50 lakh crore, 38.34 lakh enterprises, 9.2 lakh provident fund payers, and 70.84 lakh workers.
It has 1.1 crore students in schools and 21.8 lakh students pursuing higher education. The State is also the highest exporter of IT services. However, Karnataka ranked 17th in the 2019 Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP) national rankings, and this presents a significant opportunity for driving institutional reforms with respect to compliance.
AvantisRegTech has studied industries and compliance across Indian States and concludes that Karnataka features in the top five States in India in terms of compliance burden.
This report highlights 26,134 criminal clauses across India and almost 40% of compliances can send an entrepreneur to jail. Karnataka’s employers confront a total of 1,175 State-specific jail clauses and ranks among the top five in the country.
A micro, small and medium enterprise operating in Karnataka currently deals with an average of 778 compliances annually across labour, finance, and taxation, secretarial, environment, health and safety, industry-specific and commercial categories. Imagine the scope for similar good governance across sectors and across 30 States.
Explainer
Decriminalisation of offences under GST (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The 48th GST Council meeting was held on December 17. The GST Council chaired by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recommended to decriminalise certain offences under Section 132 of the Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) Act, 2017. Some other recommendations, for the facilitation of trade, include an increased threshold of the amount of tax for prosecution, reducing the compounding amount in GST etc.
Since the implementation of GST, there has been a significant increase in tax evasion, with numerous cases of taxpayers using multiple strategies to avoid indirect tax coming to light.
Tax authorities are actively using technology and data from e-way bills and GST returns to check evasion. The GST law establishes stringent penalties and guidelines that taxpayers must abide by in order to ensure smooth intrastate or interstate trade of goods and to combat corruption and maintain an effective tax collection system.
The GST Law provides for two different types of penalties. They may be both concurrent and simultaneous. The department authorities have the authority to impose monetary fines and the seizure of goods as penalties for violating statutory provisions. Criminal penalties include imprisonment and fines, which are also provided by GST Law but which can only be awarded in a criminal court following a prosecution.
Sections 122 to 131 of the CGST Act of 2017 contain provisions relating to penalties, while Sections 132 to 138 contains provisions relating to prosecution and compounding.
The amount of tax evaded, the amount of Input Tax Credit (ITC) improperly claimed or used, or the amount of refund improperly claimed determines the length of the prison sentence.
The aforementioned section further divides offences into those that are cognisable and bailable and those that are not cognisable and bailable. Additionally, it is observed that many non-compliances fall under both categories of penalties, prosecution, and compounding.
Text & context
Deepfake technology: how and why China is planning to regulate it (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s cyberspace watchdog, is rolling out new regulations, to be effective from January 10, to restrict the use of deep synthesis technology and curb disinformation.
Deep synthesis is defined as the use of technologies, including deep learning and augmented reality, to generate text, images, audio and video to create virtual scenes.
One of the most notorious applications of the technology is deepfakes, where synthetic media is used to swap the face or voice of one person for another.
Deepfakes are getting harder to detect with the advancement of technology. It is used to generate celebrity porn videos, produce fake news, and commit financial fraud among other wrongdoings.
Under the guidelines of China’s new rules, companies and platforms using the technology must first receive consent from individuals before they edit their voice or image.
Deepfakes are a compilation of artificial images and audio put together with machine-learning algorithms to spread misinformation and replace a real person’s appearance, voice, or both with similar artificial likenesses or voices. It can create people who do not exist and it can fake real people saying and doing things they did not say or do.
The term deepfake originated in 2017, when an anonymous Reddit user called himself “Deepfakes.” This user manipulated Google’s open-source, deep-learning technology to create and post pornographic videos.
The videos were doctored with a technique known as face-swapping. The user “Deepfakes” replaced real faces with celebrity faces.
Deepfake technology is now being used for nefarious purposes like scams and hoaxes, celebrity pornography, election manipulation, social engineering, automated disinformation attacks, identity theft and financial fraud, cybersecurity company Norton said in a blog.
Deepfake technology has been used to impersonate former U.S. Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg and Hollywood celebrity Tom Cruise. China’s new rule aims to combat the use of deepfake for spreading disinformation.
News
Missile destroyer INS Mormugao commissioned into Indian Navy (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
Remarking that the state-of-the-art warship INS Mormugao was a major example of the country’s indigenous defense production capability, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on December 18 expressed confidence about India being able to cater to not just local but global ship-building needs as well.
Mr. Singh was speaking at Mumbai’s Mazagaon docks during the Commissioning Ceremony of the INS Mormugao, the second of four ‘Visakhapatnam’-class destroyers (also classed as P-15B stealth, guided-missile destroyers) indigenously designed by the Indian Navy’s Warship Design Bureau.
The warship, christened after the historic port city in the coastal State of Goa, was built by the Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDSL).
Also present on the occasion were General Anil Chauhan, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) of the Indian Armed Forces; Navy Chief Admiral R. Hari Kumar; Goa CM Pramod Sawant along with Goa Governor Sreedharan Pillai among others.
“The commissioning of this warship is proof of excellence in India’s warship design and development. The INS Mormugao is one of India’s strongest warships and I have full confidence that it will facilitate remarkable growth in country’s maritime capability.
The ship will be among one of the world’s most technologically-advanced missile carrier and is a major example of our indigenous defence production capability.
There is no doubt that in the near future, we will cater to India’s ship-building needs but that of the world’s as well,” said Mr. Singh, adding that the country was en-route to attaining the objective of not only ‘Make in India’ but ‘Make for World’.
The INS Mormugao is said to be equipped state-of-the-art weapons and sensors, surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles besides modern surveillance radar which provides target data to weapon systems.
Capable of achieving speeds of over 30 knots, the warship is said to be able to fight under nuclear, biological and chemical warfare conditions.
Northeast is not last part of country but gateway for trade and ties: Modi (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 18, 2022 said the Centre has been investing heavily in the north-east with his government’s motto being ‘Act fast for northeast’ and ‘Act first for northeast”.
Addressing the golden jubilee celebration of the North Eastern Council (NEC) in Meghalaya’s capital Shillong, he said the Centre’s is spending ₹7 lakh crore in the region compared to ₹2 lakh crore after India’s independence.
Established in 1971 and formally inaugurated in 1972, the NEC is the nodal agency for the economic and social development of the north-eastern region comprising eight States.
Mr. Modi attributed the focus on the northeast to the change in the way the Centre has been looking at the region since 2014. For us, the north-east in not the last part of the country, but the peace and development gateway for trade and other ties with Southeast Asian countries.
Slamming the previous governments for ignoring areas along the international borders in the region, he said the government’s vibrant border village programme would help develop these areas on a par with urban centres and prevent outmigration.
The Prime Minister noted that the number of airports in the region increased from nine to 16 and the number of flights increased from 900 to 1,900 in the last eight years. “Work is now under way to connect all the State capitals of the region by railway,” he said.
He also underscored the 50% increase in the length of national highways in the region since 2014, insisting that the infrastructure projects in the north-east gained momentum after the launch of the PM-DevINE scheme.
Our government has gone beyond the conversion of the Look East policy to Act East and now to Act fast for northeast and Act first for northeast,” he said, highlighting several peace initiatives in the north-east to help “push development like never before”.
These initiatives include peace agreements with extremist groups and resolving decades old interstate boundary disputes. The reign of peace, he added, has made the Centre lift the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) from many parts of the northeast.
India pushes for new biodiversity fund (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
There is an urgent need to create a new and dedicated fund to help developing countries successfully implement a post-2020 global framework to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, India has said at the U.N. biodiversity conference in Canada's Montreal.
It has also said that conservation of biodiversity must also be based on 'Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities' (CBDR) as climate change also impacts nature.
As the 196 parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) finalise negotiations for a post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF)—a new set of goals and targets to halt and reverse biodiversity loss—there have been repeated calls for the inclusion of the CBDR principle in finance-related targets.
Addressing the stocktaking plenary at CBD COP15, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav said the successful implementation of a post-2020 GBF will depend on the "ways and means we put in place for an equally ambitious 'Resource Mobilisation Mechanism'".
There is a need to create a new and dedicated mechanism for the provision of financial resources to developing-country parties. Such a fund should be operationalised at the earliest to ensure effective implementation of the post-2020 GBF by all countries.
So far, the Global Environment Facility which caters to multiple conventions, including the UNFCCC and UN Convention to Combat Desertification, remains the only source of funding for biodiversity conservation.
At CBD COP15, developing countries have been demanding a new and dedicated biodiversity fund, saying the existing multilateral sources are not up to the task of meeting the requirements of the GBF.
Differences with rich countries on the matter had prompted representatives from developing nations to walk out of crucial financing talks last week. India said the developing countries bear most of the burden of implementing the targets for conservation of biodiversity and, therefore, require adequate funds and technology transfer for this purpose.
The most important challenge is the resources needed for implementation of the GBF. Greater ambition means greater cost and the burden of this cost falls disproportionately on the countries that can least afford them.
The Minister underlined India's stand that the goals and targets set in the GBF should not only be ambitious, but also realistic and practical.
Concern over Chinese contractors holds up India¬ Nepal power trade (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
India-Nepal hydro-power trade is set to become a regional game-changer say officials in Delhi and Kathmandu, pointing to the possibilities of buying power from Nepal and making it available over an electric grid system to consumers in India, Bangladesh and even Sri Lanka.
However, India’s opposition to the use of Chinese contractors in the projects is delaying the process, said Nepal Electricity Authority Managing Director Kul Man Ghising, calling on New Delhi to reconsider its stand on buying electricity from Nepal’s largest 456 MW Upper Tamakoshi Hydroelectric Project (UTKHEP).
With India refusing to purchase power from the UTKHEP for its grid, Nepal’s government has now asked New Delhi to allow a bilateral transmission from the power plant to Bangladesh, that has been willing to buy the power.
We have noted India’s concerns with Chinese investment or ownership in our power projects, but how can we control contractors on projects that are done by global bidding?” asked Kul Man Ghising, speaking at a World Bank conference on South Asia last week.
In hydro-power civil construction, there are very few Indian or European contractors that can compete on cost,” he explained, adding that a single contractor should not be the reason to hold back regional trade.
The Upper Tamakoshi plant, which has been operational since 2021, was constructed by a number of contractors chosen through an international tender, including the civil construction by China’s Sinohydro and Austria’s Andritz Hydro, for the supply of electro-mechanical equipment, and India’s KEC International for the 220kV transmission line and sub-station.
Situated close to the Nepal border with Tibet, the project on the Tamakoshi river was called “Nepal’s Three Gorges dam” given its size and its contribution to making Nepal a power surplus country in the “wet” or rainy season. After four years of negotiations, India and Nepal had signed a path-breaking Power Trading Agreement (PTA) in 2014, agreeing to the exchange of electricity and cooperation in the hydro-power sector, and Indian companies are involved in developing several Nepali projects.
Moneywise
The ‘Lollapalooza Effect’ on Meta stock (Page no. 13)
(Miscellaneous)
The term ‘Lollapalooza Effect’ means a confluence of factors acting together that can lead to either large positive or negative results.
The key is that when forces combine, they don’t just add up; each force builds off and strengthens the other, creating an explosive effect with huge results, according to Charlie Munger, an American investor.
We should always learn as much as possible from a market or stock correction to build robust defence mechanisms. It will help in constructing a portfolio keeping in mind the various business possibilities. Currently, we are seeing a big carnage in one of the popular FAANG stock during this year — META.
Meta is a tech company which has a proven business model in digital advertising. It has brands like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, which are used by about 3.7 billion people on a monthly basis.
Meta has built a reputation over the last decade as one of the safest investment choices by scaling revenues from $5 billion to more than $100 billion, and delivering 40% and above PAT growth.
It also joined the $1-trillion club and the coveted FAANG club — a set of 5 dominant stocks, forming part of core holding for investors across the globe.
When such a well-discovered stock with stable core fundamentals falls 70-75% (close to $700-billion decline) in a matter of 15 months, it is worth understanding the forces behind it so that we can reduce the impact of such wealth destruction on our investments. Post this fall, the stock’s 10-year CAGR return was lower than the broader market return.
In 2021, digital advertisements hit 65-70% of the total advertising market. Value migration from existing segments to the new segment (digital) started hitting saturation levels.
Now, online market growth is expected to resemble aggregate advertisement growth across the world, which is growing in low, single digit.