Analysis of The Hindu, 5th April 2017

“The will to win is Worthless

if you do not have the will to prepare”.

Editorials

Editorial: Sting in the Tale

• Ethical Concerns in Sting Operation:

1. Violation of the interviewee‘s trust and privacy, must

serve a larger public interest that far outweighs such

violation.

2. It also must be used as a last resort, when there is no

other means of acquiring the information sought, and

must be the outcome of considerable editorial

deliberation.

3. Article 19 versus Article 21. [RTI vs. Right to Privacy]

Ethics Committee

Lok Sabha Permanent Standing Committee on Ethics which came into force on 12th August, 2015.

Before that, the ethics committee in Lok Sabha has been an ad hoc one.

Rajya Sabha was the first among the two Houses to form an ethics committee, with a full standing committee status in 1997.

Lok Sabha, in contrast, formed an ad hoc ethics panel in 2000 and has been operating as one until August 2015 when it was given a permanent standing committee status.

Ethics committees function to uphold the standards of the Parliament.

Comment: Right To Recall

What is it, actually?

A recall election is typically a process by which voters seek to remove elected officials through a direct vote before their term is completed.

For Essay: The concept of “Rajdharma”, wherein the lack of effective governance was a cause for removal of a king, has been spoken about since the Vedic times.

M.N. Roy, proposed, in 1944, a shift to a decentralised and devolved form of governance, allowing for representatives to be elected and recalled.

Jayaprakash Narayan, in 1974, spoke extensively on the subject.

Right To Recall Slide 2

Presently, Section 47 of the Chhattisgarh Nagar Palika Act, 1961, provides for holding of elections to recall elected officials due to non-performance. The Right to Recall also exists at local level bodies in Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Chhattisgarh.

First-past-the-post system in a democracy, unfortunately, not every elected representative truly enjoys the mandate of the people.

Logic and Justice

Electorate: Power to Elect Power to Remove

Good Governance [Article 21]

There exists no recourse for the electorate if they are unhappy with their elected representative.

Right to Recall Slide 3

The Representation of the People Act, 1951, only provides

for ―vacation of office upon the commission of certain

offences and does not account for general incompetence of

the representatives or dissatisfaction of the electorate as a

ground for vacation

Safeguards:

1. A representative should be recalled by a large margin

of voters;

2. EVMs, Supervision of Election Commission.

Benefits of Right to Recall

1. Having such a right offers a mechanism to ensure

vertical accountability.

2. It could also limit campaign spending, as morally

skewed candidates weigh the risk of being recalled.

What are the other ways Periodic State Elections!

But there is a proposal- “One Nation, One Election”

Then, Referendum, Plebicite? Sweden, Norway?

Judicial Overreach or Just Judicial Activism? Liquor Ban

Polycentric problem- Social issues- Structure of Judiciary is

not suited to take holistic view.

Indian Constitution- Separation of Powers between

Executive, Legislature & Judiciary.

Micromanaging the distance from the highways — is a

classic example of policymaking, and hence the “judicial

overreach”.

It contains two different questions:

-what should be done about a problem, and

-who should do it?

Judicial Overreach

In this case, the question of whether the government should grant liquor licences in the proximity of highways — should not be answered by a court, whatever the answer may be.

SC judged on this foundation-Article 21 is not merely a right against state action that deprives an individual of her life, but also against state inaction that results in loss of life.

If this is the legal foundation of the judgment, however, then it misses two crucial building blocks.

First, the court ought to have provided a test for the degree of proximity between state (in)action and loss of life, for a finding that Article 21 had been breached.

Second, the court’s conclusion ought to have rested on firmer evidentiary foundations than it did.

Article 142

Article 142 empowers the Supreme Court to do “complete

justice” in any case before it.

However, this power is bounded by the further requirement

that the court act ―within its jurisdiction‖.

In this case, S.C. has failed to make out a compelling case

for why its orders do not encroach upon the executive’s

domain of policymaking.

Bangladesh PM visit Interview : Battle of Begums

• Bangladesh-India share 54 Rivers

• Principle of ‗cooperative federalism‘ comes in.

• Why not the principle of collaborative sub-regionalism trump

cooperative federalism?

• Bangladesh wants two things:

(i)water security and (ii) energy security Ganges Barrage.

• At present, 60% of our flows just goes right into the sea.

• BBIN (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal) subgrouping on

connectivity.

Bangladesh 2

Belt and Road Initiative: Infrastructure in

Bangladesh, then India can use those same roads to

travel east too. China too needs Indian roads [through

the Northeast] to come into Bangladesh.

Defence Ties

Right now, India-Bangladesh Defence cooperation is not

institutionalised Defence MoU.

Why 25th March is important?

Page1

Confusion reigns on CAG

audit of GST Data.

- GSTN can be counted as government-

controlled company. - Accessing the data at various points- — point of manufacture, point of sale etc.

- Auditors getting access to the entire

GST data in a centralised location.

CAG- Articles? Why C&AG?

Page 10

Page 11

Expected MoUs - Border haat establishment,

- Information and telecast,

- Atomic energy cooperation,

- Science and technology, ICT,

- satellite and aeronautical research,

- geological science,

- defence cooperation,

- LoC,

- Energy and power cooperation etc

Page 11

Regional conference of German Ambassadors in Colombo

- All Indian Ocean Rim (IOR) nations as well as to the U.S.

and China.

-First established as Indian Ocean Rim Initiative in Mauritius on March 1995 and formally launched on 6–7 March 1997 by the conclusion of a multilateral treaty known as the Charter of the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Co-operation.

India-Germany are conducting it. But why?

UNCLOS?

Member countries of IOC

• Australia

• Bangladesh

• Comoros

• India

• Indonesia

• Iran

• Kenya

• Madagascar

• Malaysia

• Mauritius

• Somalia

• Mozambique

• Oman

• Seychelles

• Singapore

• South Africa

• Sri Lanka

• Tanzania

• Thailand

• United Arab Emirates

• Yemen[10]

Map

South West Asia Map

Page 13 Business

BREXIT Shadow:

(i) G20/ OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project

outputs and called on other nations to meet their

commitments

(ii) Masala bond: to shield corporate balance sheets from

exchange rate risks as they are Rupee- denominated

TERMS:- Laffer Curve, Philips Curve, Lorenz Curve

and Gini Coefficient