✌✌✌✌ THE HINDU ✌✌✌✌
✌✌ Grappling with water dispute ✌✌
permanent tribunal to adjudicate river water disputes between States will undoubtedly be a vast improvement over the present system of setting up ad hoc tribunals. The Union Cabinet’s proposal to have a permanent tribunal that will subsume existing tribunals is expected to provide for speedier adjudication. But whether this will resolve the problem of protracted proceedings is doubtful. Given the number of ongoing inter-State disputes and those likely to arise in future, it may be difficult for a single institution with a former Supreme Court judge as its chairperson to give its ruling within three years. Secondly, its interlocutory orders as well as final award are likely to be challenged in the Supreme Court. This month, in a landmark verdict, the Supreme Court said it had unfettered power to hear an appeal arising from a river water dispute tribunal under Article 136 of the Constitution. It has interpreted the ouster clause in the Inter-State Water Disputes Act as one that merely bars the court from entertaining an original complaint or suit on its own, but not its power to hear appeals against a tribunal’s decisions. Thus, finality and enforcement of a tribunal’s award may remain elusive. The idea of a Dispute Resolution Committee, an expert body that will seek to resolve inter-State differences before a tribunal is approached, will prove to be another disincentive for needless litigation.
A positive feature of the proposed changes is that there will be an expert agency to collect data on rainfall, irrigation and surface water flows. This acquires importance because party-States have a tendency to fiercely question data provided by the other side. A permanent forum having reliable data in its hands sounds like an ideal mechanism to apportion water. However, a confusing aspect is that benches of the permanent tribunal are going to be created to look into disputes as and when they arise. It is not clear in what way these temporary benches would be different from the present tribunals. A larger and more significant downside to any adjudicatory framework is the refusal or reluctance of parties to abide by judicial orders. Having an institutional mechanism is one thing, but infusing a sense of responsibility in those helming State governments is quite another. What is at stake is not merely a set of competing claims over riparian rights. Water disputes have humanitarian dimensions, including agrarian problems worsened by drought and monsoon failures. Adjudication, by whatever mechanism, should not be at the mercy of partisan leaders who turn claims into dangerously emotive issues. Institutional mechanisms should be backed by the political will to make them work.
✌✌ Risks of Trump’s China policy ✌✌
The seizure of an American underwater drone in the international waters of the South China Sea by the Chinese Navy marks the latest flashpoint in bilateral relations that have entered uncharted territory with the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President. Though it is not clear if the capture of the drone, which China agreed to return later, was a junior-level act by sailors or a strategic move directed by Beijing, Mr. Trump has seized the moment to step up his anti-China rhetoric. Interestingly, the incident comes days after he broke diplomatic protocol and accepted a congratulatory call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, a move that invited an angry response from China, which sees Taiwan as a breakaway province. Despite repeated assurances from the White House that the basic building blocks of U.S.-China ties have not been altered, Mr. Trump escalated matters by questioning the One- China policy. Throughout the election campaign he had maintained that he would renegotiate the terms of America’s engagement with China. He had also accused Beijing of currency manipulation. So the issue is, are his attacks on China and questions over the One-China policy just a continuation of his campaign rhetoric, or part of a well-thought-out policy to establish a new normal in ties? One theory, which the President-elect himself indicated in an interview, is that he wants concessions from China over key issues such as trade, South China Sea disputes and the North Korea nuclear crisis, and that by raising the sensitive Taiwan issue, he is trying to gain some bargaining leverage over China.
Beijing certainly won’t take this lightly. It has reiterated that the One-China policy is non-negotiable, besides installing anti-aircraft weapons and other arms on all seven artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea, as reported by a U.S. think tank with satellite imagery. China will find it politically difficult to ignore Mr. Trump’s apparent effort to change the rules of the game. The geopolitical context is possibly even more important. China is a caged naval power. It has access to both South and East China Seas, but its force projection capability is limited by the existence of several islands on these seas, such as Taiwan, Japan’s Ryukyu Islands, and the Babuyan Islands of the Philippines. One reason China is so sensitive about Taiwan is its geopolitical vulnerability. It doesn’t want other powers to dictate or change the rules of engagement on its seafront. And if Mr. Trump tries to do that in the manner he handles foreign policy now, he could risk the progress the U.S. and China have painstakingly made in bilateral ties over four decades.
✌✌✌✌ THE ECONOMIC TIMES ✌✌✌✌
✌✌ The primary task of Election Commission is to monitor political expenditure ✌✌
The Election Commission’s (EC) reported proposal to ban all anonymous political donations in excess of Rs 2,000 is, no doubt, well-intended but is totally naïve and inadequate. Parties routinely report a tiny fraction of their actual income and expenditure. If the EC sets up a tussle over how transparently, say, 5% of the actual expenditure is financed, it would only serve to blot out that undeclared, anonymous 95% of political expenditure from the public discourse. This would be a disservice to Indian democracy. Cleaning up political funding has to begin with political parties’ expenditure, rather than their income.
Every party should declare every month how much money it spent at the level of the polling booth, the panchayat, the municipal ward, the district, the state and the nation. This amount should include money spent by activists and well-wishers as well. Rival parties, the media, watchdog bodies and all sorts of non-government organisations should be free to challenge this expenditure claim, citing rallies help, posters printed, leaders ferried, etc. An expanded monitoring unit of the Election Commission should moderate this contest and finalise the expenditure figure at every level. The party should then identify the source of every rupee it has spent. With hand-held devices that can record and store every small contribution in the cloud, the needed technology is simple enough. Expenditure calls for transparency in financing, not artificial limits that get routinely breached.
Improved corporate governance and a culture of companies funding their new investments using the bond market rather than through bank loans will help. A handful of bankers alone need to be persuaded to sanction a loan and defend that decision. A bond market has very many analysts, brokers and rating agencies pronouncing on the merits of the project undertaken and how much it should actually cost. This would reduce the scope for project overinvoicing, a routine method of generating unaccounted funds with which to finance parties. The EC must think through its options.
✌✌ Grappling with water dispute ✌✌
permanent tribunal to adjudicate river water disputes between States will undoubtedly be a vast improvement over the present system of setting up ad hoc tribunals. The Union Cabinet’s proposal to have a permanent tribunal that will subsume existing tribunals is expected to provide for speedier adjudication. But whether this will resolve the problem of protracted proceedings is doubtful. Given the number of ongoing inter-State disputes and those likely to arise in future, it may be difficult for a single institution with a former Supreme Court judge as its chairperson to give its ruling within three years. Secondly, its interlocutory orders as well as final award are likely to be challenged in the Supreme Court. This month, in a landmark verdict, the Supreme Court said it had unfettered power to hear an appeal arising from a river water dispute tribunal under Article 136 of the Constitution. It has interpreted the ouster clause in the Inter-State Water Disputes Act as one that merely bars the court from entertaining an original complaint or suit on its own, but not its power to hear appeals against a tribunal’s decisions. Thus, finality and enforcement of a tribunal’s award may remain elusive. The idea of a Dispute Resolution Committee, an expert body that will seek to resolve inter-State differences before a tribunal is approached, will prove to be another disincentive for needless litigation.
A positive feature of the proposed changes is that there will be an expert agency to collect data on rainfall, irrigation and surface water flows. This acquires importance because party-States have a tendency to fiercely question data provided by the other side. A permanent forum having reliable data in its hands sounds like an ideal mechanism to apportion water. However, a confusing aspect is that benches of the permanent tribunal are going to be created to look into disputes as and when they arise. It is not clear in what way these temporary benches would be different from the present tribunals. A larger and more significant downside to any adjudicatory framework is the refusal or reluctance of parties to abide by judicial orders. Having an institutional mechanism is one thing, but infusing a sense of responsibility in those helming State governments is quite another. What is at stake is not merely a set of competing claims over riparian rights. Water disputes have humanitarian dimensions, including agrarian problems worsened by drought and monsoon failures. Adjudication, by whatever mechanism, should not be at the mercy of partisan leaders who turn claims into dangerously emotive issues. Institutional mechanisms should be backed by the political will to make them work.
✌✌ Risks of Trump’s China policy ✌✌
The seizure of an American underwater drone in the international waters of the South China Sea by the Chinese Navy marks the latest flashpoint in bilateral relations that have entered uncharted territory with the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President. Though it is not clear if the capture of the drone, which China agreed to return later, was a junior-level act by sailors or a strategic move directed by Beijing, Mr. Trump has seized the moment to step up his anti-China rhetoric. Interestingly, the incident comes days after he broke diplomatic protocol and accepted a congratulatory call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, a move that invited an angry response from China, which sees Taiwan as a breakaway province. Despite repeated assurances from the White House that the basic building blocks of U.S.-China ties have not been altered, Mr. Trump escalated matters by questioning the One- China policy. Throughout the election campaign he had maintained that he would renegotiate the terms of America’s engagement with China. He had also accused Beijing of currency manipulation. So the issue is, are his attacks on China and questions over the One-China policy just a continuation of his campaign rhetoric, or part of a well-thought-out policy to establish a new normal in ties? One theory, which the President-elect himself indicated in an interview, is that he wants concessions from China over key issues such as trade, South China Sea disputes and the North Korea nuclear crisis, and that by raising the sensitive Taiwan issue, he is trying to gain some bargaining leverage over China.
Beijing certainly won’t take this lightly. It has reiterated that the One-China policy is non-negotiable, besides installing anti-aircraft weapons and other arms on all seven artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea, as reported by a U.S. think tank with satellite imagery. China will find it politically difficult to ignore Mr. Trump’s apparent effort to change the rules of the game. The geopolitical context is possibly even more important. China is a caged naval power. It has access to both South and East China Seas, but its force projection capability is limited by the existence of several islands on these seas, such as Taiwan, Japan’s Ryukyu Islands, and the Babuyan Islands of the Philippines. One reason China is so sensitive about Taiwan is its geopolitical vulnerability. It doesn’t want other powers to dictate or change the rules of engagement on its seafront. And if Mr. Trump tries to do that in the manner he handles foreign policy now, he could risk the progress the U.S. and China have painstakingly made in bilateral ties over four decades.
✌✌✌✌ THE ECONOMIC TIMES ✌✌✌✌
✌✌ The primary task of Election Commission is to monitor political expenditure ✌✌
The Election Commission’s (EC) reported proposal to ban all anonymous political donations in excess of Rs 2,000 is, no doubt, well-intended but is totally naïve and inadequate. Parties routinely report a tiny fraction of their actual income and expenditure. If the EC sets up a tussle over how transparently, say, 5% of the actual expenditure is financed, it would only serve to blot out that undeclared, anonymous 95% of political expenditure from the public discourse. This would be a disservice to Indian democracy. Cleaning up political funding has to begin with political parties’ expenditure, rather than their income.
Every party should declare every month how much money it spent at the level of the polling booth, the panchayat, the municipal ward, the district, the state and the nation. This amount should include money spent by activists and well-wishers as well. Rival parties, the media, watchdog bodies and all sorts of non-government organisations should be free to challenge this expenditure claim, citing rallies help, posters printed, leaders ferried, etc. An expanded monitoring unit of the Election Commission should moderate this contest and finalise the expenditure figure at every level. The party should then identify the source of every rupee it has spent. With hand-held devices that can record and store every small contribution in the cloud, the needed technology is simple enough. Expenditure calls for transparency in financing, not artificial limits that get routinely breached.
Improved corporate governance and a culture of companies funding their new investments using the bond market rather than through bank loans will help. A handful of bankers alone need to be persuaded to sanction a loan and defend that decision. A bond market has very many analysts, brokers and rating agencies pronouncing on the merits of the project undertaken and how much it should actually cost. This would reduce the scope for project overinvoicing, a routine method of generating unaccounted funds with which to finance parties. The EC must think through its options.
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