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Mine over
money The dirty
picture |
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A Raj
Bhavan is no place for an ex-CJI
When
‘honour’ of the family was at stake
Why
Australia selling India uranium is a big deal
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The dirty picture
Once
again the Centre has expressed helplessness in banning pornographic sites and the apex court has voiced its concern over what it calls the mushrooming of porn sites. The response of the Centre is a classic case of a stalemate with no solutions in sight. Ever since Kamlesh Vaswani, an Indore-based advocate, filed a petition demanding a complete ban on porn sites, the Supreme Court has been trying to prevail over the Centre to find ways to block such sites. Yet nothing substantial, except for the formation of an advisory body, has been done. Neither the internet service providers nor the government are willing to own up responsibility. Instead both seek refuge in the limitless boundaries of the Internet and almost insurmountable technical difficulties to regulate it. While a complete crackdown on pornography may be unwarranted, overlooking its damaging ramifications, especially on impressionable minds, is equally pernicious. Indeed, there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that pornography by itself fuels criminal behaviour. Yet children’s unrestricted access to graphic images of sex is as much a matter of concern as child pornography, which is illegal. The fact that there has been a quantum jump in cases of publication or transmission of obscene material, including child pornography, proves that laws have failed to check the rampant proliferation of repugnant sites. No doubt, if obscenity can’t be seen in isolation, pornography too can't be viewed through the eyes of puritans alone. Nor can it be judged from a time-warp perspective. Yet the Internet can't become a free-for-all space where all kinds of bestial acts have a free run and, worse still, are only a click away. There can be no two issues that porn sites need to be regulated. The government must ensure that the relevant sections of the IT Act are put to effective use. The Internet service providers too must realise that purging virtual space of what is universally abhorrent, in the eyes of the law and society, can only expand cyber development, not curtail it. A healthy cyber space is in the interest of all stakeholders.
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Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
— Thomas A. Edison
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Concessions to soldiers at the front
Self taxation in the Punjab
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A Raj Bhavan is no place for an ex-CJI
During
a short period of just over 100 days there have been many unseemly fights between the triumphant Modi government and the badly battered Congress party. Of these arguably the ugliest was that over the removal and appointment of Governors. The Congress, which on returning to power in 2004 after eight years in the wilderness, had immediately sacked four members of the Sangh Parivar happily ensconced in palatial Raj Bhavans, raised hell when the BJP government started to repay the compliment in kind by telling the Congress-appointed political Governors to pack up and leave. There was, however, a difference in the two situations which the Congress tried to exploit but to no avail. At the time of the Congress' high-handedness there was no judicial pronouncement on the subject of gubernatorial appointments and removals. So a BJP activist filed a public interest litigation (PIL) petition in the Supreme Court, which ruled that no Governor could be dismissed merely because he had lost the confidence of the Union government or was "out of sync with its policies". There had to be solid reasons for a Governor's removal. Only then the President should "withdraw his pleasure". No amount of harping on this theme helped the Congress, however. For, the BJP government, enjoying a comfortable majority in the House, used the weapon of transfer against those unwanted Governors who were not yielding to behind-the-scenes pressure. There isn't, and cannot be, a legal ban on transfers. It is all the more depressing and deplorable, therefore, that after having won the battle, the Modi government has muddied the water by appointing a former Chief Justice of India, P Sathasivam, who retired only four months ago, as Governor of Kerala in place of Sheila Dikshit, who resigned only the other day. Her earlier stand was that she would not quit. Why she changed her mind is not known. Although there was a debate about this controversial move, the government went ahead and announced the appointment on Wednesday evening. Kerala's Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has protested that the Central government that seems determined to send the former CJI to the Raj Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram has not bothered to consult him. Others, including the president of the All-India Bar Council, Adish C. Aggarwala, have pointed out that the appointment contravenes the government's duty to preserve the judiciary's independence, and sets a bad precedent. Former Chief Justices have surely held chairmanship of the National Human Rights Commission or the Law Commission which are judicial in nature. Governorship is a political office which retired Chief Justices and even justices should stay away from. It has also been argued that the CJI administers the oath of office to the President. He should not, therefore, have accepted an office that is subordinate to the President, and for which the oath is administered by the Chief Justice of a state high court. The principle behind the demand that not only the CJIs but also the holders of some other constitutional offices such as the Comptroller and Auditor-General or the Chief Election Commissioner must not be given any job after retirement is very sound, and must be upheld. However, such is the hatred between the Congress and the BJP that the former has converted the principle into a personal attack on Sathasivam. A former Congress minister, Anand Sharma, went so far as to insinuate that the Modi government was showing a favour to the ex-CJI because he had once headed a Bench of the apex court that had quashed an FIR against Amit Shah, Modi's Man Friday and now BJP president, and given him bail. This is ridiculous and mean. Sathasivam's reputation for integrity is shining. If he headed the Bench that gave bail to Shah, the same Bench had granted bail to the Congress' convicted ally, Lalu Prasad Yadav. In another remarkable judgment a Bench headed by Sathasivam had acquitted a Pakistani charged with murder and allowed him to go back to his country. Remarkably, Justice Sathasivam has himself spoken up and declared that any judge would have given the same verdict in Shah's case. This surely confirms that he would accept the office of Governor if offered to him. Most significantly, Aggarwala of the AIBC had publicly stated that the ex-CJI under discussion must not be made a Governor but should be appointed Lokpal, an office that is "judicial in function and is befitting his stature". It would be useful to look back to earlier times to realise how things have changed. As far back as the early 1950s, even Jawaharlal Nehru appointed a retired Supreme Court judge, not CJI, Syed Fazal Ali, as Governor of Assam. Given the tall stature of Panditji and high reputation of Justice Ali, nobody minded although some did suggest to the Prime Minister that this should have been avoided. The BJP-led government, headed by Atal Behari Vajpayee, appointed a former CAG, T. N. Chaturvedi, Governor of Karnataka, presumably because he had looked closely at the Bofors scandal during Rajiv Gandhi's time. The Congress party, therefore, protested vigorously. But it could find no fault with Chaturvedi's functioning. When in power itself the Congress appointed a former Chief Election Commissioner, M. S. Gill, as a member of the Rajya Sabha first and then as a minister. This is not all. Way back in 1967, the then CJI, K. Subbarao, took the extraordinary step to resign and become the presidential candidate on behalf of non-Congress parties against Zakir Husain, only to lose. Many years later, the rather flamboyant CEC, T. N. Seshan, became the Shiv Sena's presidential candidate only to bite the dust. It is time to lay down some high principles by consensus from which there should be no departure at all.
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When ‘honour’ of the family was at stake However, the unexpected coincident put an irresistible temptation in me to cash upon it and emerge as a hero like Shahrukh Khan in DDLJ (I know this film had not been made till then, but believe me I had similar thoughts) by following all the traditional “naach, gaana” and keeping everybody, Chacha, Chachi, Tau, Tai, Mama, Mami, happy by making them part of the grand Indian marriage. Things were going pretty well for all. But I was fed up with never-ending and sapping ceremonies, which had turned me into a clown, till just about seven days before the marriage when my uncle made a hurricane visit and decreed that the gotra of my great grandmother and the grandmother of the bride-to-be was the same, making this a forbidden marriage. My mother was worried and said that it would be very tricky to unsettle the entire thing at this stage. But my uncle insisted that the “honour” of the family was at stake. Fortunately, I was around and got an opportunity to vent my frustration over this self-inflicted injury. The belated discovery blew the lid off my head. Castes and gotras were the last things on my mind. Both being of the first generation which grew up away from the village with excellent education, we somehow felt obliged to be connected with our relatives and our traditions, but that should not make us to be taken for granted. No way this stupid discovery was to make any difference to me and I let my uncle have it known in no uncertain terms. To his tantrum that he would boycott the marriage, I was curt enough to tell him that he could do as he liked. The time for departure of the “baraat” came and my uncle was missing. He sent a message that he was waiting in our neighbour's house and needed to be cajoled and persuaded, (another abominable ritual where the relatives “rooth jaate hain and unko manana padata hai”) that too by none other than the groom. An Indian marriage puts a lot of stress on a groom and I had had enough of it and told the messenger that I had better things to do. The bus started and we saw the uncle running desperately to catch the bus. Well, he boarded the bus finally and things went on well. And just last week when I met him he was all praise for my wife, who has been looking after my parents staying with us in an exceptional manner. He was sad that his own “bahu” was so indifferent towards him.
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Why Australia selling India uranium is a big deal The Australian PM is expected to sign a deal to sell uranium to India. The impetus for this change in policy came from the increased importance of bilateral ties and not commercial calculations
During
his visit to India this week, Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott is expected to sign a deal to sell Australian uranium that will be the single-most significant advance in bilateral relations with India in decades. The journey to get to this point has been tortuous and the controversy is unlikely to fade anytime soon. The main impetus for the change in Australia’s policy came from geopolitical changes and the increased importance of the bilateral relationship with India, rather than commercial calculations. Nuclear energy is used by about 30 countries to generate 11 per cent of the world’s electricity, with almost zero greenhouse gas emissions. Currently there are 437 operating reactors and around 70 under construction. Nuclear energy is tipped to grow between 23-100 per cent by 2030 (the long-term impact of the 2011 Fukushima disaster remains impossible to predict with certainty, hence the wide range in the estimates). Most of the growth in nuclear energy will be in Asia (China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand and Vietnam). Uranium needs The world’s current total requirement for uranium is 66,000 tonnes. The biggest users are the US (18,800 tonnes) and France (9,900 tonnes). India’s uranium requirement is 900 tonnes, compared to 6,300tU for China and 5,500 tU for Russia. In Asia, the other big uranium consumers are South Korea (5,000 tonnes) where nuclear energy accounts for 28 per cent of electricity generation, and Japan (2,100 tonnes in 2014) where nuclear energy produced 29 per cent of electricity before the Fukushima accident in March 2011 but has fallen to below 2 per cent. Australia holds 31 per cent of the world’s uranium reserves but its share of the global uranium market is only 12 per cent. The policy framework for the export of Australian uranium was set in the 1970s. The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligates Australia to facilitate the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, but uranium sales would be restricted to countries that could satisfy Canberra it would not be diverted to non-civilian purposes. For this, recipients had to be in good nonproliferation standing and conclude a bilateral safeguards agreement to account for the use of Australian uranium and any nuclear material produced from it.
Enrichment process Uranium processed at Australian mines must go through three more processes (conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication) before it can be used in a nuclear reactor. The high-energy density of uranium fuel means that a 1,000 MWe nuclear reactor requires 27 tonnes of fresh fuel each year, compared to a coal power station that requires more than 2.5 million tonnes of coal to produce equivalent electricity. There are, thus, clear environmental benefits of adding nuclear fuel to the portfolio of energy grids. Uranium enriched to between 3-4 per cent for civilian uses cannot be used in a nuclear weapon, which requires enrichment to 80-90 per cent. Thus, it is not too difficult to put in place safeguards measures against diversion for non-civilian uses. The Howard Government (1996–2007) announced in-principle willingness to sell uranium to China, Russia and India. The Labor Government (2007–13) insisted that ‘good nonproliferation standing’ meant being party to the NPT. Accordingly, negotiations were successfully concluded with China in 2008 and Russia in 2010 as both were NPT States Parties, but not with India, which from the start has rejected the NPT as fostering a world of “nuclear apartheid”: those that have nuclear weapons and can keep them, and others that must be stopped from getting them by any means necessary. Following the 2008 India–US civil nuclear cooperation deal,the Labor Government joined Washington in the India-specific waiver by the Nuclear Suppliers Group. But this left it with an illogical and untenable policy of supporting open access to global nuclear trade for India but not selling it Australian uranium. The Bush administration’s position, ultimately accepted by Australia and many other supplier countries, was that there were significant non-proliferation benefits of bringing India inside the tent of safeguarded nuclear commerce and export controls, that putting most of its nuclear reactors under international safeguards was better than having none under such controls, and that all evidence pointed to the conclusion that its nuclear weapons programme would continue regardless of international civil cooperation. These international advances were complemented by an Indian statement in 2008 reaffirming its “impeccable non-proliferation record” and credentials, highlighting its strengthened domestic and export controls, its posture of restraint on nuclear weapons doctrine and deployment (including no first use), the ‘voluntary, unilateral moratorium’ on nuclear testing, openness to a fissile materials cut-off treaty, and continued support for total nuclear abolition through a universal nuclear weapons convention. Australia’s uranium recalcitrance became a major hindrance to the broader bilateral relationship. The oddity of selling uranium to China and Russia was also questioned. As a responsible uranium exporter, Australia has to satisfy itself about the safety record and risks of reactors in the recipient countries; the security of materials and facilities against theft, leakage and raids; the adequacy of safeguards against diversion to non-civilian uses, such as making nuclear weapons; and proliferation risks. There are also not insignificant issues of safe nuclear waste disposal, as shown by the controversy over Muckaty in Australia’s Northern Territory that was touted as a possible repository but the indigenous community living there vigorously resisted. Like China and Russia, India operates nuclear reactors for both peaceful purposes and military uses. Those designated as civilian are subject to international safeguards under IAEA oversight, while those classified as military are not. In the past, the world has had greater worries about the security of nuclear materials and facilities in Russia — the problem of the so-called loose nukes — than in India. And India’s record of proliferation to third-world countries is superior than China’s past complicity in the proliferation of materials and designs to North Korea and Pakistan (remember A.Q. Khan’s global nuclear bazaar?).
Getting it wrong Bilateral problems in the recent past between India and Australia have included on and off-field controversies in cricket, attacks on Indian students, and the occasional assaults on Australian tourists and missionaries in India. The noisy media in both countries can inflame popular passions and prejudices and complicate government–to–government relations. The most consequential mutual misperceptions arose from the failure to understand each other’s nuclear policy underpinnings and imperatives. Each side was firmly convinced of its own intellectual and moral rectitude and smugly contemptuous of the other. Australia held India to have been deceitful in conducting a nuclear test in 1974 and a stubborn recalcitrant on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), in the passage of which Canberra played a key role in 1996. India considered countries like Australia and Canada to be grossly hypocritical in having permitted British atomic tests on their territory, sheltering under the US nuclear umbrella, hosting US military installations that are tightly integrated in the global US nuclear infrastructure and deeply implicated in global US nuclear doctrines and deployments, yet moralising self-righteously to India about the virtue of nuclear weapons abstinence. Three drivers of the shifting global order are the re-emergence of China and India as major nodes of global activity and the relative US decline from dominance. All three trends were reflected in the India–US nuclear deal that left Australia trapped between legacy national policy and a shifting global geopolitical-cum-normative order. When Canberra cancelled the quadrilateral security dialogue among the four great democracies of Australia, India, Japan and the US in 2008, the quixotic nature of Australian policy was confirmed for many Indians amid suspicion that Mandarin-speaking Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was merely betraying his China leanings. Yet, the public debate over the rise of China, its rapid military modernisation and what this means for Australia’s defence planning, reveals considerable differences of opinion. Against these larger considerations of bilateral relations with a democratic India across the Indian Ocean at a time when assertive Chinese visibility and activity is growing in the East and South China Seas, the anticipated economic gains from uranium sales are modest. Compared to the A$63bn iron ore export industry, for example, uranium exports are worth only $1bn and the most optimistic projections would see the rise restricted to under $2bn. Asia will provide most of the market growth opportunity for uranium in the foreseeable future. Australia has the advantages of proximity to this growing market. The bilateral agreements with China and India means that Australia is already covering one-third of the world’s population and has been given access to the two big growth-potential markets. The world price of uranium has been depressed for some time and the finalisation of the India deal could give it a boost to incentivise uranium exploration and production. While the fear of losing market share in the long run to competitors might be a relevant commercial consideration, the changed Australian policy is more persuasively attributable to adjustments to changed geopolitical circumstances and efforts to consolidate and deepen bilateral relations with one of the key emerging powers of this century that will matter greatly to Australia both economically and geopolitically.
Strategic interests In an extraordinary fact considering their reciprocal importance and cross-ocean proximity, the last Indian PM to visit was Rajiv Gandhi in 1986. Prime Minister Modi will not only attend the G-20 summit in Brisbane in November; he will add an official bilateral visit to Australia to the itinerary. India and Australia have a shared strategic interest in a stable Indo–Pacific Asia that links them also to Indonesia and South Africa around the Indian Ocean rim: Perth is closer to Chennai than Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane are to Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing. They can be policy and operational partners in combating piracy, ameliorating climate change, and providing disaster relief; and fighting the scourge of international terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism. There are deepening trade, security, cultural, and educational ties. Bilateral trade could grow substantially with more policy clarity in India, deeper liberalisation, deregulation and privatisation, and less regulatory ambiguity and corruption. Indian investors in Australia are impressed by the transparency of doing business here and the absence of official and public suspicions that add hurdles to Chinese investment proposals in Australia. There is considerable scope for a tighter defence and strategic partnership without a formal alliance. There is equally great scope for market efficiencies in consolidation of mining exploration, extraction and processing; engineering and construction services; and skills training and educational exchanges:Australia is a global education powerhouse and the world’s third most popular international student destination after the US and UK. India is also the current largest source of
immigrants. In sum, the uranium deal could potentially provide considerable ballast to the bilateral relationship.
The writer is Director, Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, the Australian National University
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