Living the Constitution
Aruna Roy | Founder, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan
Bezwada Wilson | National convenor of the Safai Karmachari Andolan
T.M. Krishna | Carnatic musician and author
The Indian Express
Roy, Wilson and Krishna write that the country-wide demonstrations against the Citizenship Amendment Act, the National Register of Citizens and National Population Register led by young people are a call for the reinstatement of democratic processes and a “red alert on the deliberate destruction and compromise of democratic structures by the ruling elite”.
“It is poetic irony that the government’s autocratic steps to quell dissent has produced the biggest awakening of the Constitution and the protection of values of pluralism and secularism, that we have seen in recent history,” they write.
The price of dissent, however, has been costly, resulting in physical harm and death of innocents. “But even loss of life has not been able to stem the uprisings,” they write before elaborating on the destruction of spaces for dissent, what universities signify and how non-cooperation movements in the past have fought for constitutional values.
“The protests since December 14 have put on display to the world one very important fact; that ‘we the people of India’ need no numbers, or declaration of religion, or citizenship status to prove our commitment to the idea of India, that we gave ourselves on January 26, 1950,” they conclude.
What the 2019 and 2020 skirmishes tell us about de-escalating conflicts
Kunal Singh | PhD candidate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Hindustan Times
Kunal Singh writes about de-escalating conflicts using the example of the Balakot strike by the Indian Air Force in 2019 and US strike on Iran’s Qassem Soleimani in 2020. He writes that in both cases, the stronger powers showed tremendous appetite for risk-taking, these being India and the US. And when the weaker power responded it was with the aim of restoring deterrence.
Singh then goes on to list four main reasons for the restraint in both cases. First, India and Pakistan are both vulnerable to each others’ nuclear weapons. Even in the case of US-Iran, mutual vulnerability was the key to de-escalation. Second, the manner in which citizens (audiences) are communicated to is another factor. Be it India’s claim that it shot down a Pakistani F16 jet or Iran’s claim of 80 Americans dying in the attack on the Iraqi military bases. Then the audience’s ability to restrain the leaders. Singh finally lends some credit to luck. “If the Indian pilot had been killed in the crash or, worse, lynched by a mob in Pakistan, the eventual outcome might have been very different. If the Iranians had, even accidentally, killed a number of American personnel in Iraq, the US response could easily have been very aggressive,” he writes.
CDS and the path to jointmanship
Harsh V. Pant | Director of Research at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi
Kartik Bommakanti | Associate Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi
The Hindu
Pant and Bommakanti debate the appointment of Gen. Bipin Rawat as the first Chief of Defence Staff and what his responsibilities comprise. “The CDS will be the single-point military advisor to Defence Minister on matters involving all three services and the service chiefs will be obliged to confine their counsel to issues pertaining to their respective services,” they write.
They add that the CDS will also lead Department of Military Affairs (DoMA) and also perform an advisory role in the Nuclear Command Authority (NCA). The challenges of the CDS comprise service parochialism, dividing the defence budget of which a mammoth share goes to the Indian Army due to its sheer manpower and finally to encourage the services to support indigenisation.
Automated growth
Rekha Sethi | Director-general, AIMA
Hindu Business Line
Sethi describes industry 4.0 as an automated age where business management keeps pace with emerging digital technologies and “instant data”.
She first discusses the autonomy of machines. “Advances in sensors, communication, computation, robotics, GPS etc have created possibilities of infusing machines with intelligence to automate both work and management,” she writes. Trusting the judgment of machines will be a challenge, however, she adds.
Sethi also mentions the development of “digital twins” in support and maintenance management. This allows the producer to “monitor the use of product or installation, fix bugs and upgrade its features through software downloads”, she explains. Additionally, “usage and performance data allows the producer or seller to pre-empt breakdowns and service machines when needed”, she adds.
Industry 4.0 technologies are “revolutionising the supply-chain management” and making certain processes “redundant”, like inventory maintenance and economy of scale, she explains.
“The more autonomous machines get, the more valuable intelligent people who can supervise become” which means HR will have to “reimagine the organisation and create new roles and responsibilities”, she adds.
Don’t Undermine the Mining Sector
Chandrajit Banerjee | Director-general, Confederation of Indian Industry
Economic Times
Banerjee predicts recent policy announcements in the mining sector could provide a “paradigm shift” but “more needs to be done”.
The Union Cabinet’s approval of the Mineral Laws (Amendment) Ordinance 2020 will “permit commercial coal mining for local and global firms without imposing any end-use restrictions”, he writes. It could result in “forex savings, employment generation and enhanced investment”, he adds. However, boosting exploration among private players and obtaining environmental and forest clearances continue to be obstacles.
Banerjee suggests “streamlining the auction process” will help the former, while reducing royalty rates to “international benchmarks” will help the latter. Since 72 per cent of India’s current power is generated through coal, the mining industry is “key to ensuring the country’s energy and raw material security”, he writes. However, its contribution to GDP, foreign investment and employment has only been declining.
The government must quickly “implement a reform agenda in the sector to realise the industry’s full potential” and ensure all policy interventions take “cognisance of emerging global trends in mining, such as smart mines, deep sea mining and the changing composition of the mining workforce”, he explains.
Assault on public universities: don’t mortgage India’s future
Deepak Nayyar | Emeritus professor of economics, JNU
Mint
Nayyar discusses the JNU mob attack Sunday night as being part of an assault on public universities over the past five years. JNU, which has been “targeted for its intellectual tradition, critical thinking and questioning spirit, ever since 2014”, joins the list with Hyderabad, Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Delhi University, Jadavpur University, Tata Institute of Social Sciences and many more, he writes.
Political intrusion has also been in the form of who are invited to speak at universities, what comprises reading lists, what courses should be taught or discontinued and the appointment of faculty members. “Ideology-driven or pliant vice-chancellors push for appointments of those who seem to conform to the ideology of the ruling party,” he adds.
Universities are not meant to be “straitjacketed homogenised teaching shops” focused on making students employable, he adds. They’re meant to nurture “good citizens of society” who can provide an “independent, credible voice in evaluating governments, legislatures, or the judiciary” in a political democracy, he explains. The recent assault on universities will impose an “unimaginable cost on our society in the long term”, he adds.