October-2010-National

NATIONAL AFFAIRS

India trails in Global Hunger Index
The IFPRI’s Global Hunger index ranks India in the “alarming” group (the categories: moderate, serious, alarming and extremely alarming), below many failed States ruled by tyrants and despots. The ranking considers the number of children under five who are underweight, malnourished or wind up dead, particularly girls.

In Asia, everyone, except Bangladesh, which is just one rank below India, is doing better. China is at number nine, Pakistan at 59, Nepal at 56. India is bested by a host of tottering States, including Guinea-Bissau, Togo, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.

India’s approach to hunger has been to throw a programme at every failing. There is the world’s largest programme for nutritional, health and school needs of children under six, the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), which runs 1.4 million centres nationwide with a budget of Rs 7,806 crore for 2020-11. Then, there is the world’s biggest cooked-meal programme, covering 119 million children in government schools up to class VIII with a budget of Rs 9,440 crore. India also has the world’s largest public distribution system (PDS) for subsidised food, with a budget of Rs 55,578 crore, and the world’s biggest cash-for-work programme, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), with a budget of Rs 40,100 crore.

Hunger in India is definitely not a problem of resources. However, hunger persists despite spectacular economic expansion, and it is disproportionate to rising incomes.

Behind every story of hunger and malnutrition is a collective national apathy towards the poor, an unreformed, struggling agriculture sector, the low status of women and collapsing administration. In addressing hunger, the biggest question remains: who’s in charge? Evidence abounds in leaky multi-billion dollar, anti-hunger programmes: a quarter of the money spent on mid-day meals never reaches the poor, a third in the NREGA and more than half on the PDS. The failures of the PDS are especially acute. Only 36 per cent of its poor have below-poverty-line (BPL) cards to access cheap food. Nearly 60 per cent of these cards are with people who are not officially poor.

National Green Tribunal Notified
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) was officially notified on October 19, 2010 with its Chairperson, Justice Lokeshwar Singh Panta taking charge of his office. The tribunal is exclusively dedicated to environmental issues.

Established by an Act of Parliament (the National Green Tribunal Act of 2010), it will have circuit benches across the country to try all matters related to and arising out of environmental issues. The tribunal, which shall also consist of other members, who are experts in the field of environmental and related sciences, has been empowered to issue directions for the compensation and restitution of damage caused from actions of environmental negligence.

This is the first body of its kind that is required by its parent statute to apply the “polluter pays” principle and the principle of sustainable development.

The erstwhile National Environment Appellate Authority had ceased to exist with the launch of the NGT.

Tobacco India Report
Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) for India, 2009-10, conducted on 99.9 per cent of India’s population in 29 States, UTs of Chandigarh and Puducherry has submitted its report. According to it, India’s obsession with tobacco continues despite laws to tell the users of its lethal consequences. Though 64 per cent of all adults believe tobacco leads to heart attacks, 35 per cent (one-third) continue to consume tobacco in some form or the other.

Highlights of the report are:
—52 percent adults exposed to second hand smoke at home, highest in J&K (68%), lowest in Chandigarh (15%); 29 percent exposed in public places.
—Cigarette smokers’ monthly expense is Rs 400, as against Rs 94 for bidi smokers.
—Monthly cigarette expenditure is highest in Arunachal (Rs 1,265), lowest in Jharkhand (Rs 181.70).
—Mizoram has highest tobacco use (67%), while Goa (9%), Punjab (12%), and Chandigarh (14%) have lowest.
—Mizo women are most addicted (62% use tobacco) as against least addicted in Punjab (under 1%), Chandigarh, Himachal and Goa (under 5%).
—Most tobacco use is in East (45%), Northeast (44%), and lowest use is in North (19%).

India signs Convention on Supplementary Compensation at IAEA
On October 27, 2010, India signed the Convention on Supplementary Compensation (CSC) at the IAEA in Vienna that will enable the country to undertake nuclear commerce.
The convention sets parameters on a nuclear operator’s financial liability in the event of a nuclear accident.

The convention was adopted in September 1997 and opened for signature at Vienna a few days later at the 41st General Conference of the IAEA. The convention provides for compensation in case of transnational implications of a nuclear accident and has been signed by 14 countries. However, only four countries—USA, Argentina, Morocco and Romania—have ratified it so far.

Upon entry into force, the convention would establish a uniform global regime for compensation to victims in the event of a nuclear accident. The CSC provides for the establishment of an international fund to increase the amount available to compensate victims and allows for compensating civil damage occurring within a State’s exclusive economic zone, including the loss of tourism and fisheries-related income.

It also sets parameters on a nuclear operator’s financial liability, time limits governing possible legal action, requires that nuclear operators maintain insurance or other financial security measures and provides for a single competent court to hear claims.

All States are free to participate in the convention regardless of their involvement in existing nuclear liability conventions or the presence of nuclear installations on their territories. Notably, India is the only country to have such a provision, which was added after wide political pressure.

ASEAN-India Summit
The 8th ASEAN-India Summit was held at Hanoi, Vietnam on October 30, 2010.  Addressing the heads of the state of ASEAN countries, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the conclusion of a “services and investment agreement” between India and ASEAN would be an important step in “our goal of comprehensive economic cooperation”.

With an aim to play a more significant role in the growing economies of the region, India has been pushing its case for having a bilateral pact in services and investment at the earliest. Through this pact, India wants to get a foothold in all ASEAN countries for its growing pharmaceutical industry, besides allowing ease in visa regimes for its IT professionals, healthcare workers and teachers in Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand (ASEAN nations).

With an agreement in place for free trade in services and investment, India can offer a bigger share of the pie to these countries in its infrastructure sector that is poised for a major growth.

Addressing the other leaders at the summit, which came out with a five-year ‘Plan of Action’ outlining a roadmap for enhanced multi-faceted cooperation, Manmohan Singh said: “India’s economy is expected to witness a sustained growth rate of 9-10 per cent in the coming years, which would offer many opportunities for trade and investment. Our experience of implementation shows that we need to work very hard at all levels if we have to accelerate the pace of engagement as outlined in the plan of action”.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Japan visit
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Japan on October 25, 2010. The visit ended with the successful conclusion of negotiations for the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). As a first step in realising CEPA, both countries agreed to a “sweeping” liberalisation of their bilateral visa regime.

The successful conclusion of CEPA is expected to elevate trade and economic relations between the two countries to the next level. Though the trade between the two nations remained almost stagnant for decades, it has been growing rapidly since past three years. The agreement will foster new business opportunities, enhance competitiveness of private sectors, and encourage closer partnership between the private sectors in India’s teeming SMEs and Japan’s infrastructure and hi-technology enterprises.

India is hoping that the CEPA coming into place will also balance out the trade imbalance between the two countries. As of now, trade between the two countries is strongly in favour of Japan.

India is also hoping that its generic pharmaceutical and IT sectors will benefit largely as this agreement opens up the Japanese market for India. While Japan exports marine products, iron ore and petroleum products to India, electrical and electronic goods, iron and steel products, chemicals and auto components are exported by India.

Since India-Japan CEPA is truly comprehensive for trade in goods, investment and services, besides allowing movement of natural persons, it will improve the India-Japan partnership and enhance their global partnership. This will also mean that goods being traded will become cheaper, with the lifting of trade barriers.

Visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Malaysia
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Kaula Lumpur on October 27, 2010. The highlight of the visit was agreement between India and Malaysia to forge new ties on two of the most important issues for their economies—sealing the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) and contain the threat of terrorism through establishment of a Joint Working Group on Counter Terrorism, besides collaboration in defence.

The two leaders said that the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) will be signed by January 31, 2011 and this will be implemented by July 1, 2011.

Taking into account the India-ASEAN trade in goods agreement, that came into effect from January 1, 2010, both sides have offered ASEAN plus market access in goods. India and Malaysia have also agreed to provide access of each others’ services market across all modes and various sectors. The two countries will now finalize areas of economic cooperation in infrastructure development, creative industries, tourism, SMEs, business facilitation, science and technology and human resource development.

Malaysia is the second largest trading partner for India within ASEAN, and India is the largest trading partner for Malaysia in South Asia, excluding China. Bilateral trade between the two countries is now estimated at $ 10.5 billion, and this has doubled in the past five years.

The two leaders, while condemning terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, agreed to enhance cooperation in counter terrorism, through information sharing and setting up a Joint Working Group on counter-terrorism. This is of great importance for India as Malaysia is understood to be emerging as a logistics, regrouping and fund raising hub for three militant groups—militants from Punjab, Tamil Tigers and Al-Qaeda. Jamia Islamia, based in Indonesia, is an Al Qaeda affiliate, and is helping the latter in logistics and fund raising there. India and Malaysia have also agreed to enhance defence exchanges and cooperation through regular exchanges between the defence ministers and senior defence officials, chiefs of armed forces and regular service to service staff talks and regular ship visits.

The two sides also signed as many as five agreements. These include MoU on cooperation in field of traditional systems of medicine; MoU on Cooperation in Terrorism; MoU for Cooperation in IT sector; Agreement between CSIR and UNIK of Malaysia on Research and Development Collaboration; and, Cultural Exchange Programme.

India-Russia to jointly develop advance stealth jet
India and its old military partner Russia will soon ink a deal to jointly develop an advance stealth fighter. Defence Minister A.K. Antony said during the visit of his Russian counter-part A.E. Serdyukov on October 7, 2010, that he has sorted out all issues regarding the joint development of the fifth generation of fighter aircraft (FGFA).

Apart from this, the joint development of the multi-role transport aircraft (MTA) will be the other major military programme between the two nations over the next ten years.

Notably, the announcement balances out the “perceived” tilt in India’s decision to buy a series of aircrafts from the US. This includes medium haul transporters, the C-130-J, long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft, the P8-I, and some VVIP jets from Boeing.
The FGFA will be the IAF’s frontline fighter from 2016-2017 onwards and will cost the nation $25 billion, dwarfing the much-hyped $11-billion deal for the purchase of another 126 fighters. With stealth technology, super manoeuvrability and supersonic speed, it will match the F-22 raptor produced by the US.

In case of the MTA, the two nations formed a $600 million joint enterprise in September 2010, for designing and producing it. The planes will be designed at carrying load of around 20 tonne, with speeds in the region of 900 km, and will be an asset on shorter runways in Ladakh and the North East. Design specialists from Ilyushin, maker of best-selling transport plane, IL-76, will be on board.

N-deal with South Korea
India and South Korea have struck a deal to finalise an agreement on civil uses of nuclear energy. This was a major success for India during the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Asia tour.

The issue came up for discussion during the bilateral meeting of the Prime Minister with the President of the Republic of Korea, Lee Myung-bak, at Hanoi, on the sidelines of the 17th ASEAN Summit. The Korean President has invited the Prime Minister to Korea in 2011 and the deal is likely to be signed then.

With this, Korea becomes the ninth country with which India will be signing the nuclear agreement. Ever since the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) ended India’s isolation from global nuclear commerce mainstream in 2008, India has signed civil nuclear pacts with U.S.A, France, Russia, Canada, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Argentina and Namibia.

India strengthens ties with Vietnam
India has enlarged its scope of cooperation and relations with Vietnam—another “not-so-happy” neighbour of China. Defence Minister A.K. Antony, during his visit to Vietnam, announced a slew of measures to expand cooperation as part of the nation’s “look east policy” aimed at engaging key countries situated east of India.

Under an arrangement, New Delhi will provide support to Vietnam to enhance and upgrade the capabilities of its services in general and Navy in particular. Apart from capacity building for repair and maintenance of its equipment, most of which are of Russian origin, the armies of the two countries will also cooperate in areas like IT and English training of Vietnamese Army personnel.

In return, Hanoi has offered maintenance and repair facilities at Vietnamese ports and called for more ships of the Indian Navy to visit them. The navies of the two nations often exercise together.

To take their ties to the next level, both the armies will also have joint training in mountain and jungle warfare in India in 2011 and will also work towards developing cooperation among defence institutes.

CWG Corruption probe
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has appointed a high-level committee headed by a former Comptroller and Auditor General, V.K. Shunglu, to go into allegations of corruption related to the Commonwealth Games held in New Delhi in October 2010.

The developments came as opposition parties, which had held their fire during the 12-day event, stepped up their demand for thorough probe into corruption charges so that those guilty can be brought to book.