The Opinion Makers
Harsh Mander| Human rights worker, writer and teacher
The Hindu
Mander explains that India needs an acceptable refugee law, which will lead to a movement for an inclusive state, seeing its dismal treatment of Rohingyas from Myanmar.
“India’s treatment of the Rohingya, and the discriminatory CAA must compel Indians committed to India as a humane inclusive country to fight not just for the abrogation of the CAA-NRIC-NPR trinity…but also for India to bring in a refugee law which conforms to international conventions,” he argues.
Victim justice is two steps forward, one step back
G.S. Bajpai | Professor and Chairperson of the Centre for Criminology and Victimology at the National Law University
Ankit Kaushik | Research Associate at the NLUD
The Hindu
Bajpai and Kaushik argue that victim participation in trials must be strengthened by giving private counsels a greater say. Currently, under our criminal justice system, victims are fairly removed from courtroom proceedings.
They write, “The success of prosecution is dependent largely upon the victim’s participation in the trial. The primary role and responsibility of the victim’s advocate, therefore, is to represent the personal interests of the victim by cooperating with the prosecution.”
Shailaja Chandra | Former secretary, Department of AYUSH, Government of India, and former chief secretary, government of Delhi
The Indian Express
Chandra argues that amendments to the abortion law are welcome, however, for the law to be effective, women need to be aware of their rights and medical facilities must expand.
“Once the law permits abortion on demand, the service must be provided free in government-run facilities. Currently, there is a shortage of trained staff and inadequate supplies of both medical kits and suction apparatus in most PHCs. This must improve for the law to be effective. A directory of practitioners authorised to give prescriptions and undertake abortions at specified locations must also be freely available.”
Shayoni Mitra | Assistant professor, Dept. of theatre, Barnard College, Columbia University
The Indian Express
Mitra explains that in the age of Internet shutdowns, protest poetry is defying all conventional barriers to leave a lasting impression. With its animate ideas, gestures fused with words and ability to find new meaning with each repetition, protest poetry is designed to go viral.
“Today’s protests also strike directly at hyper masculinist, brahminical ethno-nationalism: Women are at the frontlines, after all, facing police action, mob violence. In this context, veering away from any paternalism or sentimentalism, poet Amir Aziz composed, Yeh Hai Jamia Ki Ladkiyan (These are the Girls of Jamia) where the women: ‘They unmask tyrants/with gestures bring revolution/the girls of Jamia/shredding the cloaks of patriarchy”.
The SC’s order on Internet shutdown is wrong
Arghya Sengupta | Research director, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy
Hindustan Times
Sengupta critiques the 130-page judgment by the Supreme Court that laid down the principles for Internet shutdown. He writes that the principles are “flawed and fail the test of proportionality”.
He adds, “The entire foundation for the judgment is that a complete prohibition on the Internet is permissible as long as it can be demonstrated that the measure is proportionate to the interest sought to be achieved, and there are no other means less intrusive on fundamental rights that could have been used. But this is a logical fallacy”.
E-commerce: The threat of counterfeits and piracy
Narendra Sabharwal | Former deputy director general, World Intellectual Property Organisation & Chairman, FICCI – IP Committee
Hindustan Times
Sabharwal argues that a robust e-commerce policy is required because the fear of piracy and counterfeits undermine consumer safety, distort the marketplace and lead to revenue loss.
“Though the guidelines list steps for online counterfeiting and anti-piracy, it is evident that there is a need for greater collaboration between the stakeholders as well as better regulation from the government…technological tools and training of enforcement agencies needs to be done, the judiciary needs to be strengthened and more commercial courts opened to deal with the intricacies of IPRs, and to ascertain the extent of counterfeiting and piracy,” he states.
Fudging food and fertiliser subsidy
Uttam Gupta | Policy analyst
The Financial Express
Gupta criticises the government for the lack of food subsidy reforms announced in the Union Budget and also highlights the large “off-budget liabilities” carried out by the Food Corporation of India (FCI), responsible for reimbursing “the shortfall in realisation from sale vis-à-vis the cost as subsidy to the former”.
Vivian Fernandes | Blogs at smartindianagriculture.com
Financial Express
Fernandes discusses Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) declining to provide a 2017 report by invoking a clause in RTI “that provides exemption from disclosure on grounds of national interest and security”. He mentions a 2017 Peer Review Committee that found ICAR’s research focus had diluted to 11.2 per cent of its budget. Fernandes suggests ICAR “disclose the report, invite informed feedback, and reinvent itself as an agile research organisation.”
C. Gopinath | Professor at Suffolk University, Boston
The Hindu Business Line
Gopinath begins by describing Tolaram Group’s “ultra modern factory” in Lagos to illustrate that Africa is “the next growth region” that is able to extract opportunities from daily-life challenges and makes use of digital connectivity. “Many early African leaders post-independence had learned all the wrong lessons on resource extraction from their colonial masters” but “the more recent leaders are looking to collaborate”, he notes.
How the Indian street agitator suddenly got serious
Manu Joseph | Journalist, and a novelist, most recently of ‘Miss Laila, Armed And Dangerous’
Mint
Joseph compares the “first heroes of free India” with street protesters today. The latter are part of a generation that views agitation as a “moral force”, he writes. Also, “until very recently, India’s elite did not agitate”, he adds. Today, the “Indian urban agitator is more complex”, agitations are spread across classes and “middle class youth are deeply interested in politics as illusions of an easy rich life in the West have receded”, explains Joseph.
Will our dividend tax rules promote treaty shopping?
Smarak Swain | Works in foreign tax and tax research division of government of India and is the author of ‘Loophole Games’.
Mint
Swain discusses Budget 2020 reform with regard to the way dividend income gets taxed which although “virtuous”, can encourage “foreign investments to come into India through conduit countries that have bilateral tax treaties with New Delhi, and, in turn, lets investors minimize their tax liability.” He also covers the implications of this move given that India is a signatory of the Multilateral Instrument (MLI) along with countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Mauritius and Hong Kong.
Ajay Shah | Professor, NIPFP
Business Standard
Shah examines the “market failure in [India’s] public health” in lieu of the fast-spreading coronavirus, especially the “apparatus for controlling communicable diseases”. He calls for a “shift in resourcing and prioritisation, away from health care, towards public health” that would provide a significant leg-up in preventing such diseases.
Sunita Narain | Writer at the Centre for Science and Environment
Business Standard
Narain views the coronavirus outbreak as human’s “dystopian relationship with the natural world” by pushing toxins and chemicals into our food and making it “a source of disease”. She argues that the swine flu originated from contaminated water in Mexico factories, which broke boundaries between animal habitats and us. Minimising risk to crops and livestock begins with “localisation”, observes Narain.
Today’s Editorials
Hindustan Times: In ‘Delhi-Colombo ties on a right path’, HT writes that the Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa sent out a message by choosing India as the first abroad destination after assuming office. Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has also struck the right chord by describing Kashmir as the country’s internal matter. However, the PM still shies away from giving more power to Tamil-inhabited areas in Sri Lanka. HT suggests that it must commit to meeting the demands of the Tamil minority.
The Times of India:The dissatisfaction over onion prices and overflowing of cereal stock indicates a larger failing of the agricultural policies, writes TOIin ‘Food for thought’. It suggests that the government must reform its procurement system by reviewing open-ended procurement and end the habit of some states declaring a bonus over MSP. Digitisation of land records and smarter land leasing laws are also the need of the hour.