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Governance models should build trust between the government and people, take into account local conditions and situations, and not be imported from outside, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said before handing over awards for innovative and good governance to 18 District Magistrates.
The model should be such that it reaches the last person in the queue. It should be inclusive, corruption-free, transparent, accountable, sensitive, innovative and stable. It should strike at the root of problems and build trust between the government and the people.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi believes that the key to good governance is a people-centric development policy. A policy for good governance cannot be imported.
We will have to make our own models according to our situation and after evaluating the condition of the people. If we try to impose an imported model from a country with a population of 2-10 crore onto a nation as diverse as ours, we are bound to fail.
And for this, the thought process must start at the grassroots level and reach the top. And the top must be so open that it must take the smallest of suggestions seriously.
While congratulating the District Magistrates who won the awards, Shah cautioned that the recognition must not make them complacent. “Consider it a motivation to surge ahead.
A dream that does not make you lose your sleep is not a dream. So dream about things that don’t let you sleep for years. Dreams that do not have you, but others.
The satisfaction that you will get by dreaming for others and for the nation is not something you will get even after becoming Cabinet Secretary.
Speaking on the occasion, Viveck Goenka, Chairman and Managing Director of The Indian Express Group, said the awards are “a powerful reminder that in a democracy, the best of public service does not need to be contested”.
In his speech, Shah said good governance is the “key to development and progress”. “In a democracy, it is impossible to take the essence of the Constitution to the grassroots level.
The Indian Constitution, which imagines equal opportunity and equal progress for all, can become successful only when good governance is adopted at the district magistrate level.
China lifts block, UNSC lists LeT’s Makki as a terrorist (Page no. 3)
(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)
Seven months after it blocked India’s bid to list Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba’s deputy chief Abdul Rehman Makki as a “global terrorist”, China lifted the block and allowed the United Nations Security Council to designate him as a global terrorist for “raising funds, recruiting and radicalising youth to violence and planning attacks in India”.
Bahawalpur-born Makki, already a US-designated terrorist, is also the head of the political affairs wing of the Jama’at-ud-Dawah, a member of JuD’s markazi (central) team and daawati (proselytisation) team.
Brother-in-law of JuD and LeT chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Makki has been the head of LeT’s foreign relations department and a member of its shura (governing body).
His listing by the UNSC is significant and is similar to the listing of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist in June 2019 when Beijing lifted its block.
New Delhi welcomed the UNSC decision and said “listings and sanctions by the UNSC are an effective tool to curb such threats and dismantle terror infrastructure in the region”.
Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs said, “We welcome the decision of the UN Security Council’s ISIL and Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee to list Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) terrorist Abdul Rehman Makki, who is also the brother-in-law of LeT leader Hafiz Saeed. Makki has occupied various leadership roles in LeT, including raising funds for the organisation.”
Threats from terrorist organisations in the region remain high and listings and sanctions by the UNSC are an effective tool to curb such threats and dismantle terror infrastructure in the region.
India remains committed to pursuing a zero-tolerance approach to terrorism and will continue to press the international community to take credible, verifiable and irreversible action against terrorism.
The UNSC’s 1267 ISIL (Da’esh) and Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee added 68-year-old Makki to its list of designated terrorists, subjecting him to an assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo.
The sanctions committee provided a narrative summary of reasons for Makki’s listing in which it said he and other LeT/JuD operatives “have been involved in raising funds, recruiting and radicalising youth to violence and planning attacks in India, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).
Express network
First batch of AK-203 assault rifles made in Amethi, deliveries to Army soon (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
Indo-Russian Rifles Private Limited, a joint venture of Russia and India, has started producing AK-203 Kalashnikov assault rifles at Korwa ordnance factory in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi.
“Korwa ordnance factory in Amethi has produced the first batch of 7.62 mm Kalashnikov AK-203 assault rifles,” Alexander Mikheev, Director General of Rosoboronexport, said in a statement issued on Tuesday, adding that the deliveries to the Indian Army are expected to begin soon.
The factory’s capacity makes it possible to fully equip the personnel of other law enforcement agencies in India with AK-203 assault rifles. In addition, the joint venture will enable export of its products to other countries.
Sergey Chemezov, General Director of Rostec, said Russia and India are linked by strong partnership relations. Rostec State Corporation is Russia’s largest defence manufacturing company. Rosoboronexport is part of Rostec.
With the launch of production of Kalashnikov AK-203 assault rifles, high-quality, convenient and modern small arms will begin to enter service with India’s defence and law enforcement agencies, adding that the model combines excellent ergonomics, adaptability and high-performance characteristics and it is one of the best assault rifles in the world.
The joint venture targets 100 per cent production of AK-203 rifles in India. The Rosoboronexport statement said that in future, the company may also increase the output and upgrade its production facilities to manufacture advanced rifles based on the Kalashnikov assault rifle platform.
Last week, Army Chief General Manoj Pande said the first batch of 5,000 AK-203 rifles will be delivered to the force by March. He said 70,000 rifles will be delivered to the Army in 32 months where the indigenous content will be in the range of five to 70 percent. After that, the completely indigenous AK 203 will be made available to the Army, he had said.
Over 6.1 lakh AK-203 assault rifles will be made in India with technology transfer from Russia under a deal worth over Rs 5,000 crore signed between both the countries in December 2021.
As per the statement, the AK-200 assault rifles have retained all advantages of the traditional AK scheme: reliability, durability and ease of maintenance.
Rosoboronexport said that Russia and India continue to implement military-technical cooperation projects and their current and future programmes are focused on technological cooperation, including joint ventures in the form of licensed production and joint R&D projects.
Editorial page
India and New Eurasia (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
Japan, which invented the contemporary geopolitical idea of the Indo-Pacific, is now well on its way to changing the way we think about the relationship between Asia and Europe.
In his swing through Europe last week, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s message was simple: The security of Europe and the Indo-Pacific is indivisible.
Building on the ideas of his predecessor, the late Shinzo Abe, Kishida is determined to build strong military partnerships with Europe. Japan is not alone in this endeavour.
South Korea, which does not always see eye to eye with Japan, is also joining the party by raising its profile in Europe. Seoul, for example, is selling major weapons platforms in Poland.
Australia, which has joined the US and UK in the AUKUS arrangement, is equally eager to bring Europe into the Indo-Pacific. Together Japan, South Korea and Australia are bridging the divide between Asia and Europe long seen as separate geopolitical theatres.
This process has been accelerated by Russia’s war in Ukraine and the alliance between Moscow and Beijing. This new dynamic presents challenges as well as opportunities for India. But first to the emergence of a new Eurasia.
Well before Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol turned to Europe, it was Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin who altered the geopolitical dynamic in Eurasia.
Days before he ordered his armies into Ukraine, Putin travelled to Beijing last February to sign an agreement declaring an alliance “without limits” and no “forbidden areas”.
China, which had made a largely successful effort to cultivate Europe since the 1990s, deliberately avoided taking sides in Europe’s conflicts with Russia. But on the eve of the Ukraine war, Xi chose to tilt towards Moscow by blaming NATO for the crisis in Ukraine.
Xi perhaps went along with Putin’s calculation that the West is not only deeply divided but also in terminal decline. He might also have bet that Putin’s success in Europe will enormously improve China’s chances for its long-sought dominance over Asia.
Together, Putin and Xi unveiled a Eurasian alliance that they might have hoped would deliver the long-awaited coup de grace to the global hegemony of the West.
What it did instead was to not only strengthen the Western alliance in Europe but also provide the basis for a new kind of Eurasia — an alliance between China’s East Asian neighbours and Russia’s West European neighbours.
Ideas page
Fox in the hen house (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju has reportedly written to Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud asserting the need for representation on a search-cum-evaluation committee (SEC) for appointments of judges to the Supreme Court and the appointments of chief justices of high courts.
To begin with, it must be noted that no search-cum-evaluation committee exists. As the law stands today, the Supreme Court Collegium comprising the CJI and two senior-most judges of the Supreme Court appoints the chief justices of high courts. In so far as appointment of judges to the Supreme Court is concerned, the Collegium comprising the CJI and the four senior-most puisne judges recommends the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court.
Convention has it that the senior-most judge of the high court is appointed as chief justice of the high court, though not in his or her parent high court.
Convention also has it that ordinarily it is only chief justices of high courts who are appointed to the Supreme Court, regard being had to geographical representation of states in the Supreme Court.
Hence, the criteria for appointment of chief justices of the high court and judges to the Supreme Court are already clear. Thus, it would seem that there is no need for a search-cum-evaluation committee. What we need, instead, is the criteria for such appointments when the rule of seniority is being departed from.
The zone of consideration is already limited as mentioned above, hence a search-cum-evaluation committee can add nothing to this convention. Evaluation of judicial performance is again the function of the judges of the Supreme Court who are best placed to evaluate the judgments of the judges proposed to be appointed to the Supreme Court.
That apart, judicial decisions are very often subject to rigorous academic critique in reputed legal journals — a known method of evaluation of judgments. In these circumstances, the suggestion by the Law Minister that the search committee should include representatives of the government is outrageous.
It is a cleverly disguised proposal intended to be the first step by the government to enter the Collegium, which comprises of judges exclusively.
Explained
Row over COP 28 president (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The United Arab Emirates, the host of COP28, has announced its Industry Minister Sultan Al Jaber will be the president of the two-week-long climate change conference.
The choice of the minister has invited sharp criticism from climate activists because Al Jaber, besides being the minister for Industry and Advanced Technology in the UAE government, also happens to be the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, the world’s 12th largest oil company by production.
The fact that an oil company executive has been named to preside over a conference whose main objective is to get the world to move away from oil and other fossil fuels is being seen as a clear case of conflict of interest, and has annoyed a lot of stakeholders who are invested in the climate negotiation process.
This is the first time that anyone having a direct connection to the fossil fuel industry has been appointed as president of the climate change conference.
It is imperative for the world to be reassured that he will step down from his role as the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Corporation,” executive director of Climate Action Network (CAN) International, a group of nearly 2,000 NGOs working in climate change and related areas.
The government of the host country holds the presidency of the COP for one year, till the conference is concluded. It usually names one of its ministers as the president.
The role of the COP president is to facilitate and guide the negotiations. The president does not have any special powers, but does play a key role in prioritising the agenda of discussions and helping forge a consensus on important issues.
They are usually extremely active behind the scenes, brokering deals and compromises, mediating conflicts, and acting as crisis managers.
For the past few years, COP presidents have also engaged in pre-conference diplomacy, travelling all over the world to hold discussions with governments in order to understand their priorities and to get a sense of the kind of agreement that could be realistically achieved at the conference.
While the COP president does have an influential role, the final decisions are always taken by consensus. The COP president, or any other individual or country, is unable to force through or impose any decision on others.
There have been several instances when a single country — and not one from among the most powerful — has stood up and disagreed with the rest of the world, and the conference has had to accommodate its concerns.
China population declines: How India situation is different (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 1, Population and Associated Issues)
China’s population, according to its National Bureau of Statistics, fell to 1,411.8 million in 2022, from 1,412.6 million in the previous year. An absolute decline in population is a landmark event, for a country that is soon set to be surpassed — if it has not already — by India as home to the most number of people.
India has not conducted an official headcount Census after 2011. But going by the United Nations’ projections, its population stood at 1,417.2 million in 2022 (more than China’s) and is expected to reach 1,428.6 million in 2023.
A country’s population increases with reduction in mortality or relative number of deaths. The population growth slows — and may even go into reverse, like it has now for China — with declining fertility rates.
Mortality falls with increased education levels, public health and vaccination programmes, access to food and medical care, and provision of safe drinking water and sanitation facilities.
The crude death rate (CDR) — the number of persons dying per year per 1,000 population — was 23.2 for China and 22.2 for India in 1950. It fell to single digits for China first in 1974 (to 9.5) and for India in 1994 (9.8), and further to 7.3-7.4 for both in 2020.
Another mortality indicator is life expectancy at birth. Between 1950 and 2020, it went up from 43.7 to 78.1 years for China and from 41.7 to 70.1 years for India.
The total fertility rate (TFR) — the number of babies an average woman bears over her lifetime — was as high as 5.8 for China and 5.7 for India in 1950.
The TFR has fallen sharply for India in the past three decades. Between 1992-93 and 2019-21, it came down from 3.4 to 2; the fall was especially significant in the rural areas.
A TFR of 2.1 is considered as “replacement-level fertility”. Simply understood, a woman having two children replaces herself and her partner with two new lives. Since all infants may not survive, the replacement TFR is taken at slightly above two.
The TFR is the average number of births by women aged 15-49 based on surveys for a particular period/year. Populations can keep growing even with TFRs falling.
De-growth requires TFRs to remain below replacement levels for extended periods. The effects of that — fewer children today becoming parents tomorrow and procreating just as much or less — may reflect only after a couple of generations.
Economy
Why has RBI warned states against old pension scheme? (Page no. 19)
(GS Paper 2/3, Governance/Economy)
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has cautioned states against reverting to the old pension scheme (OPS), which was in vogue till 2004, stating that it will add to the fiscal burden of States in the coming years.
The central bank says OPS – instead of the National Pension Scheme (NPS) — will lead to the accumulation of liabilities which can become a major risk in the future.
According to the RBI, a significant risk looming large on the subnational fiscal horizon is the likely reversion to the old pension scheme by some states.
The annual saving in fiscal resources that this move entails is short-lived. By postponing the current expenses, states risk the accumulation of unfunded pension liabilities in the coming years.
As per the Budget estimates for 2022-23, states are expected to incur a 16 per cent rise in pension expenditure at Rs 463,436 crore in 2022-23 as against Rs 399,813 crore in the previous year.
The compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) in pension liabilities for the 12 years ended FY22 was 34 per cent for all the state governments, according to an SBI Research report.
The RBI warning has come after more states joined the queue to bring back OPS instead of the National Pension Scheme (NPS). After Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Punjab, Himachal Pradesh has announced its intention to opt for OPS.States have found it convenient to pay old pensioners with the money collected from the serving employees.
Under the OPS, retired employees received 50 per cent of their last drawn salary as monthly pensions. OPS is considered fiscally unsustainable, and state governments do not have the money to fund it. OPS had no accumulated funds or stock of savings for pension obligations and hence was a clear fiscal burden.
Interestingly, the scheme is always an attractive dispensation for political parties as the current aged people can benefit from it even though they may not have contributed to the pension kitty, according to the SBI Research report.