Self-flagellation in Pakistan
Khaled Ahmed |Consulting editor Newsweek Pakistan
The Indian Express
Ahmed writes that India’s decision to scrap articles 370 and 35A in Jammu and Kashmir has left many worried over the possibility of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan showed passion on the issue, which was considered mostly “political”, and the opposition party was quick to criticise him, taunting him for coming late to the Parliament and for the absence of his foreign minister. When Parliament proceedings continued to be tense, Khan, in a bout of frustration, said: “What would you have me do, attack India?” Broadcast across TV channels, this was “national self-flagellation”, as the mood on the street was already in support of a war in which “Hindus were to be taught a lesson”. Such nationalist mantra of hatred is similar to that of BJP supporters in India, he writes.
The Pakistani opposition went after the government for not going to the UN Security Council, International Court of Justice and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation; there was anger at the UAE ambassador’s statement that they felt this was an internal matter. When reality hits, PM Khan should do what he said he would a long time ago, call up Prime Minister Narendra Modi and make a settlement, urges the writer.
The fragility of India’s federalism
Louise Tillin | Reader in Politics at King’s College, London. Author of ‘Indian Federalism’ (2019)
The Hindu
The government’s decision to abrogate Article 370 has “exposed ambiguities” that have always existed in India’s federal system, highlighting its asymmetric constitutional provisions.
The strong regionalisation of Indian politics between 1989 and 2014 gave a sense that there was strong federalism and growing regional autonomy in relation to the Centre. But ever since the BJP has come to dominate political landscape, this has changed. In contrast to other federal systems, India’s system places lesser checks on power by the Centre or the national majority. Granting it this kind of flexibility was a deliberate attempt to enable “decisive Central action to protect national integration” after Partition in order to enable “unitary as well as federal” functioning, argues Tillin.
But in abrogating Article 370, bifurcating the state and downgrading its status to union territory, the government has misused this flexibility. The Centre has bifurcated states without local consensus before, like in the creation of Telangana in 2014. But its decision with Kashmir is different because of the “profound and yet unknown consequences in Kashmir and wider implications for Indian federalism”.
By making Ladakh a UT, the NDA government has finally restored its dignity
P Stobdan | Former diplomat from Ladakh
Hindustan Times
Stobdan writes that the NDA government has liberated Jammu and Kashmir from “185 years of slavery and coercion”, and finally given it the status of a union territory. He enumerates ways in which Nehru’s Kashmir policy was detrimental to both Ladakh and India.
One, in October 1947 Nehru paid no heed to Ladakh’s resistance to being part of Jammu and Kashmir. Second, giving Ladakh less weight in electoral politics became an excuse to neglect it. Third, almost 82 per cent of the state of J&K actually belongs to Ladakh and Gilgit-Baltistan, meaning the fact that “15% rule the rest of 85%” was a wrongful arrangement.
Fourth, ignoring Ladakh was “self-harming” as it was critical for India’s national security as without it China would have invaded the southern foothills of the Himalayas.
Fifth, the mismanagement of state affairs led to China and Pakistan eating into almost 55 per cent of the state’s territory. Stobdan feels that India should now think of its own “Belt and Road” and PM Modi should offer Chinese President Xi Jinping an “alternative energy corridor originating from an Indian port running across Ladakh to China”.
How fast is India growing?
Shankar Acharya | Honorary Professor at ICRIER and former chief economic adviser to the Indian government
Business Standard
Acharya discusses Arvind Subramanian’s second paper on India’s GDP estimates to highlight the probable overestimation in GDP data. He writes that Subramanian divides India’s growth into two periods: “Pre-2011, meaning 2002/3-2010/11, and post-2011, meaning 2012/13-2016/17”. 2011 was chosen as the cut-off because that’s when the new base-year started.
Subramanian had compared the trend in GDP growth to the trend in aggregate demand variables like investment, exports and credit. Acharya writes Subramanian shows that in the pre-2011 period, when the GDP was growing at nearly 8 per cent, these variables were also growing at a high rate. After 2011, however, while the growth rate of these variables collapsed, the “GDP growth only dipped 0.8 percentage point, from 7.7 per cent to 6.9 per cent”.
Acharya writes that while Subramanian estimates that India’s growth rate might be overestimated by 2.5 percentage points, his own “more conservative guess… [is] in the range of 1-2 percentage points”.
Reduce corporate tax to achieve $5 trn economy
TV Mohandas Pai and S Krishnan | Pai is Chairman, Aarin Capital, and Krishnan is a tax consultant
Financial Express
Pai and Krishnan discuss the problems associated with India’s Corporate Tax (CT) structure and the changes that need to be made in it. They write that in 2015, then finance minister Arun Jaitley had announced that India will reduce its CT from 30 to 25 per cent. They mention that Jaitley took only some steps in that direction and there was expectation that new finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman would fulfil the promise.
However, she also continued her predecessor’s incremental approach and did not extend the benefit of 25 per cent CT to all companies in the Budget.
They argue that while reduction in CT will benefit MSMEs, others have been forced to pay more taxes due to withdrawal of tax incentives and imposition of additional surcharges.
They write that in India, the service sector, which creates more employment, pays a higher tax while manufacturing industries, which adopt capital intensive automation, enjoy tax incentives.
They recommend that India should reduce the CT to 25 per cent for all companies if it wants to become a USD 5-trillion economy.
A protege’s tribute
S.Y. Quraishi | Former chief election commissioner of India
Financial Express
Quraishi recalls his association with former external affairs minister and BJP leader Sushma Swaraj. He says the association began in 1977 when she was made the minister for cultural affairs in the Haryana government. He was a director in the ministry then. They developed a good relationship and Sushma also gave an interview to his wife, a journalist, writes Quraishi.
He writes that in a “lacklustre” department, they reached many landmarks. “A Haryana swang (a folk theatre form) workshop with Habib Tanvir (playwright) and another with Balwant Gargi (playwright) resulted in legendary productions which were sent to border areas to entertain our jawans for years thereafter,” Quraishi writes.
In 2001, when Swaraj was the Information & Broadcasting minister, she brought Quraishi to her ministry as director-general of Doordarshan. Quraishi mentions that she faced considerable opposition from BJP leaders for appointing a Muslim to such a sensitive post and that too with an anti-BJP wife. He also writes that at DD, she gave him a free hand and fully supported all his initiatives.