Modi’s giant leap on defence reform
C Uday Bhaskar is director, Society for Policy Studies, New Delhi
Hindustan Times
Bhaskar writes that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to create a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) is a welcome policy decision that demonstrates “political confidence???? a degree of audacity” that was missing from previous prime ministers. The armed forces have been ineffective as the three services operate in “insular silos” with a lot of “inter-service rivalry”.
To ensure reforms in the defence sector, there needs to be a reorganisation of the military that has “integrated theatre commands” with the CDS on the top. The Indian Air Force has always been against the concept of the CDS, but now is more accepting of an “integrated approach to enhancing military effectiveness”.
Considering the armed forces’s conservative fiscal allocations, the CDS will have to advise whether India needs to invest more in “cyber-space-spectrum capabilities or acquire more tanks, fighter aircraft or submarines”.
Syncing intelligence systems to national security needs, fostering research and development, manufacturing, acquiring and modernising military inventory will also be part of the CDS’s role. The CDS will further be tasked with restoring respect of the Indian military and also oversee the welfare of veterans.
Unifying The Command
Alok Bansal, former naval officer and is currently director, India Foundation
The Indian Express
Bansal writes that one of the most important announcements made by PM Modi in his Independence Day speech was about the creation of a new post of CDS.
The author writes the position will facilitate better coordination within the three defence services and fill an old demand of the defence forces as recommended by the Kargil Review Committee in 1999 and the Committee of Experts, Ministry of Defence (MoD).
Acting as a “single point adviser” to the government on all military issues, the CDS should be a “cerebral warrior” with knowledge of the “global security environment”. The Indian Armed Forces today is a colonial legacy, which needs to be restructured as modern wars will be “short intense affairs”.
The creation of the CDS post was delayed until now because of “political insecurities and bureaucratic stranglehold over the Ministry of Defence”. The MoD should now be directly responsible to the CDS for all combat related matters. Thus, creating the CDS post needs to be followed up with reforms to reconfigure the army and “meet India’s aspirates to be a global power”.
Rajapaksa redux and a democracy in peril
Ahilan Kadirgamar, political economist and senior lecturer, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka
The Hindu
Kadirgamar writes that Sri Lanka could witness the rise of the Rajapaksa-led Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party again as either Gotabaya Rajapaksa or Mahinda Rajapaksa might be named as the presidential candidate. Their regime had previously dismantled the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), but lost all the power they had gained in 2015.
The ruling United National Party (UNP) is delaying naming its presidential candidate and indulging in “infighting”. But despite its economic and political failures, it opened up “democratic space” and helped eliminate “the climate of fear” and intense militarisation in the country. The Rajapaksa presidency is a risk to this democratic space, considering its authoritarian past.
Rajapaksa’s government has forged a huge nationalist base consisting of “retired military officers, the business lobby, the bureaucracy” by mobilising against the “new enemy” — Muslims.
Citizens have “internalised democratic freedoms” after decades of war and authoritarianism, but “geopolitical instability” and the rise of authoritarian rule across the globe make conditions favourable for Rajapaksa. Its nationalist base combined with state power could spell a “fascist takeover”, the author writes. The oligarchic rule can only be stopped by “a united stand of the fractured democratic forces”.
Ajay Srivastava, Indian Trade Service officer
The Times of India
Srivastava writes India is falling behind its neighbours — China, Bangladesh and Vietnam — in terms of exports because of its “near absence” in the synthetic apparel industry, which accounts for 70 per cent of world trade. India’s apparel industry has “low exports, low wages, and low investments” due to its weak synthetics.
Srivastava gives three reasons for India’s weakness in synthetics. First, because of the expensive raw material, secondly, weak weaving and processing, and third, the inability of Indian exporters to meet the intense demands of fast fashion industry (FFI) with low-cost retailers Zara, H&M, Gap etc.
A three-step plan could boost the sector’s growth, writes the author. First, low import duties need to be levied on synthetic raw materials. Second, weaving and processing units must be strengthened, setting up ten big-scale units annually. Third, factories must be made FFI-compliant.
The 1,200 factories already supplying cotton products to FFI need investment in synthetic products. Change in the textile industry, which has skilled craftsmen, will benefit everyone in it.
Enough of Fiddling, Folks
Ajay Chhibber | Former director-general, Independent Evaluation Office, GoI
Economic Times
Chhibber provides a long list of suggestions to the Union government to revive India’s economy. He says RBI has already done its part by reducing the repo rate by a total of 110 basis points. And monetary policy alone can’t help beyond a certain point. He says the government should revoke the recent surcharge in taxes for high income. He also suggests that corporate tax rates should be reduced to 25 per cent for all firms.
Among other suggestions, he writes, the statutory liquidity ratio (SLR) should be reduced and state banks should be directed to lend. Removing e-commerce restrictions, quality review of NBFCs and reform of Food Corporation of India (FCI) are some other measures, he recommends.
Chhibber also mentions that the government should bring some predictability in policy environment to make investments easier.
What happened to poverty during the first term of Modi?
Himanshu | Associate professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University and visiting fellow at Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi
Mint
Himanshu attempts to explore the trend in India’s poverty under the first Modi government. He writes that “like many other official statistics, this government has remained silent on poverty”.
He, therefore, relies on consumer expenditure data to develop an understanding of the trend in India’s poverty rate. He notes that consumer expenditure mostly reduced under the first Modi government in both rural and urban areas. Between 2014 and 2017-18, it dropped from Rs 1,587 per person per month (ppm) to Rs 1,524 ppm in rural areas. The urban decline was from Rs 2,926 ppm to Rs 2,909 ppm during the same period.
He notes the evidence on wages, income from other sources and rising joblessness are also in sync with the declining expenditure trend. He, thus, concludes that it is possible that “poverty may have risen during the first term of the Modi government”.
Trump’s deficit economy
Joseph E Stiglitz | The writer, a Nobel laureate in economics, is professor at Columbia University and Chief Economist at Roosevelt Institute
Business Standard
Stiglitz discusses the problems with US President Donald Trump’s economic policies. He writes that “Trump believes what he wants to believe, leaving those who can least afford it to pay the price”.
He writes the recent 25-bps lowering of interest rates by the Federal Reserve is of little importance. For this, he cites economist John Maynard Keynes, who had argued that “the effects of loosening policy when the economy is weak can be minimal”. He writes that lower interest rates do reduce exchange rates, but then this amounts to “competitive devaluation”, something on which Trump regularly criticises China.
He further writes that Trump had claimed that he would reduce US trade deficit, but it has actually increased given Trump’s “profound lack of understanding of economics”.
He writes that the US economy “has not been working for most Americans, whose incomes have been stagnating — or worse — for decades”.