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Indian Express July 06, 2020 By Ashok Gulati With global supply chains being disrupted because of the  COVID-19  crisis and the country embroiled in a border standoff with  China , Prime Minister  Narendra Modi  has given a clarion call for “ Aatma Nirbhar Bharat ”. The Modi government has banned 59 Chinese apps, it has stepped up effort to check imports and investments from China, even raised import duties, and asked Indians to “be vocal for local”. Many economists have described all this as “back to protectionism”. One may ask: What does Aatma Nirbhar Bharat mean? Is it self-reliance or self-sufficiency in all essential items? Can India be  aatma nirbhar  in crude oil, which is so essential and where import dependence is roughly 80-85 per cent? One gets fuzzy answers from the government. Let me focus here on “ aatma nirbharta ” in the agriculture sector. It is presumed that for a large country like India, with a population of 1.37 billi...

Indian Express Dated : July 06, 2020 By  N irupama Subramanian  ,  Bashaarat Masood Two years ago, few would have imagined that questions raised within the All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) about an alleged racket in medical seats in Pakistan would come to such a pass. The bombshell resignation of hardline Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani last week as “chairperson for life” of the APHC has caused a near implosion in the Hurriyat. In his resignation letter, he accused Hurriyat representatives of corruption and cosying up to power structures in Pakistan which, ironically, is the shadow patron of the Hurriyat and whose voice he was in the Valley. He also nominated Abdullah Geelani, no favourite of Islamabad, as his successor. The unravelling of this umbrella group of separatists is a high-stakes political thriller still awaiting a denouement. How it ends could have far-reaching consequences given the political vacuum in the Valley. Its r...

Financial Express Dated : July 04, 2020 By Sunil Jain The never-ending debate over whether India has the ability to spend more money to revive the plummeting economy is an important one, but it misses the point. The government doesn’t have a shortage of money, if there is a shortage, it is of intent, or the ability to execute. Unfortunately, this inability to think outside the box for solutions then gets camouflaged and served up as a severe shortage of funds. A good example of this is provided by Icrier professor Ashok Gulati who, in his last column (bit.ly/31CcjtU), argued that the government could raise at least Rs 150,000 crore if only it sold off the extra 50 million tonnes of foodgrains that it has beyond the buffer stock requirements. In addition, if the issue prices of rice and wheat are raised to at least 50% of the cost—right now, the subsidy is around 90%—and cash transfers are made instead of physical rations, another Rs 50,000 crore can be saved every year. P...

Hindustan Times Dated: July 04, 2020 Canada on Friday suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong to protest the tough new national security law China has enacted in the financial hub. Canada is also halting exports of sensitive military gear to Hong Kong and updating its travel advisory for the city so Canadians will know how the law might affect them, the foreign ministry said. “Canada is a firm believer in the ‘one country, two systems’ framework,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, referring to the semi-autonomous model adopted after Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997. “We’re extremely concerned about the situation in Hong Kong,” he told a press briefing. Trudeau said the “one country, two systems” principle was important not just for the city’s 7.5 million people, but for the 300,000 Canadians who live there. “That is why we are going to continue to look at steps we can take to ensure the safety of its citizens,” he said, mentioning possible new “im...

Hindustan Times  Dated: July 04, 2020 By Murali Krishnan The Centre has asked the Supreme Court to dispose of the proceedings related to the 2012 killing of two Indian fishermen by Italian marines off the Kerala coast, saying it has agreed to accept a UN tribunal’s ruling in this regard. The five-member arbitral tribunal under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea has ruled India is entitled to compensation in the case but said the marines are entitled to immunity and that India is “precluded from exercising its jurisdiction”. The marines, Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, moved the Supreme Court against a May 2012 judgment of the Kerala high court, which held the state government had the jurisdiction to try them. The high court ruled the marines enjoyed no state immunity since their act of shooting at the fishermen, Ajesh Binki and Valentine Jalastine, was neither in the defence of the vessel nor the state. The matter is pending before the Supreme Cour...

Hindustan Times Dated : July 04, 2020 Japan on Friday joined a list of countries that have backed  India in its border stand-off with China  in the wake of behind-the-scenes efforts by New Delhi to drum up support for its position opposing unilateral changes to the Line of Actual control (LAC). Here’s the position adopted by key players in the world community: The US: The White House on Wednesday unequivocally blamed Chinese “aggression” for the confrontation. Quoting President Donald Trump at a briefing, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said, “China’s aggressive stance along the India-China border fits with a larger a pattern of Chinese aggression in other parts of the world and these actions only confirm the true nature of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).” The US also welcomed India’s ban on Chinese apps, with secretary of state Mike Pompeo saying these apps “serve as appendages of the CCP’s surveillance state”. France : French defence m...

Indian Express Dated : July 04, 2020 By Shishir Gupta The Centre moved this week to designate  nine men accused of promoting terrorism  in Punjab as terrorists under India’s anti-terror law amended last year letting the Union home ministry ban individuals and not just organisations. The nine, the ‘nasty nine’ as one Punjab Police officer described them, have been trying to revive militancy in Punjab from their homes in five countries including Pakistan. The provision was first invoked last September to designate Jaish-e-Mohammed founder Maulana Masood Azhar, Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafeez Saeed, its operational commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Dawood Ibrahim, as terrorists under Indian law. That order was more symbolic. The four have already been designated as terrorists by the United Nations Security Council; Hafiz Saeed as far back as in 2008. “Monday’s notification is important because this is the first time that this provision of the anti-terror law has be...

I ndian Express Dated: July 05, 2020 There is a growing clamour in India for boycotting trade with  China  amidst recent political tensions between the two countries. Such a possible move, however, is a major cause of concern for India’s pharmaceutical industry as well as for people in India, and globally, who rely on the country’s world-renowned supply of medicines,  writes Rory Horner , senior lecturer at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester. “Trade boycotts or bans are especially costly when production is organised through global supply chains, as is the case with the pharmaceutical industry. Although India is the third-largest producer of finished drugs in the world, it relies significantly on China for supplies of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), the key components in making medicines. An estimated 70 per cent of API requirements of India’s pharmaceutical industry are sourced from China. For some drugs, such as paracetamol and i...

Indian Express Dated: July 04, 2020 Amid the stand-off along the border with  China , Power Minister R K Singh Friday said India would not import power equipment from its northern neighbour. Addressing his counterparts from other states over a video conference, Singh said, “This is something we cannot tolerate that a country will transgress into our territory… we will not take anything from China and Pakistan. We will not give permission for import from ‘prior reference’ countries. We are affected. There could be malware or Trojan horse in those (imports from China) which they can activate remotely (to cripple our power systems).” Prior reference countries are those from where imports require advance permission from the government. Such permission would not be available to either China or Pakistan, he said. The decision has been taken to protect the security, integrity and reliability of the strategically important and critical power supply system and network in the countr...