The value of diplomatic engagement
Vivek Katju | Former diplomat
Hindustan Times
The discussions during the India-US 2+2 dialogue were “substantive and testify to the comprehensive and positive advance in bilateral ties”, says Katju.
He suggests External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar should be aware that India-US ties are not viewed from the lens of the US politics and thus, it is important for India to actively engage with the leadership of both the Republicans and the Democrats. Katju argues that the “test of diplomacy does not lie in preaching to the converted, but in the opening of closed minds”.
On Jaishankar refusing to meet Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal — who had earlier introduced a resolution urging India to lift bans in Kashmir — Katju writes that India’s diplomacy has been based on engaging with all, including critics. “Are the times now changing, which are being reflected in India’s diplomacy too,” he asks.
Katju says Indian diplomacy cannot rely on exclusion. Jaishankar could have considered putting India’s version of Kashmir out, instead of ducking the meeting, he adds.
How to lose friends and influence
Charu Sudan Kasturi | Asia Editor, Ozy
The Telegraph
Bulldozing the controversial citizenship bill through the Parliament, which seeks to offer Indian citizenship to non-Muslim religious minorities from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, belies PM Modi’s claim of ‘neighbourhood first policy’, says Kasturi.
He identifies the grounds on which the bill has sparked protests across the country. First, it discriminates against Muslims in a targeted manner and imposes a religious test on naturalised citizenship. Second, people from the Northeast believe that it would encourage future migrants to flood their territory.
The new bill effectively accuses Bangladesh of victimising religious minorities and it has also been questioned by Afghanistan on similar grounds. It is not the “only foreign policy fire India will need to douse”, Kasturi says, pointing out that the annual India-Japan summit that was supposed to be held in Guwahati was postponed for the first time.
Even the Democrats would not justify the Modi government’s move given that they strictly oppose US President Donald Trump’s travel bans, he writes.
The author concludes by saying that the passing of the bill has undermined some of India’s most critical international relationships.
Look who’s fighting
Harsh Mander | Human rights activist
The Indian Express
Harsh Mander talks about the widespread protests largely led by the young population of the country against the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). He says these protests will be remembered as “an iridescent, significant moment in the journey of the republic”, which also mark the collective rejection of the “toxic politics and policies” that have dominated public life in recent years.
Mander argues that the attempts of the BJP to communalise and discredit the protesters, and confuse people with falsehood are not working this time.
Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remark of ‘identification by clothes’, Mander says young people of every visible identity joined the protests “waging a non-violent battle for a country founded on love and hope”.
According to Mander, India’s young have picked up an older battle for a country that is equal, just and kind. He argues that the protests have already won as they have succeeded in rendering a national NRC highly improbable.
He, however, adds it is still too early to know whether the protests will endure, but it has demonstrated that “the agenda of the ruling formation to transform India into its majoritarian imagination is not invincible”.
How RBI has sent payments banks on a road to extinction
R. Jagannathan | Editorial director, ‘Swarajya’ magazine
Mint
In his piece, Jagannathan criticises the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for failing to set up differentiated banks due to its “phobia of private bank ownership”.
In the last few years, the RBI has tried setting up four types of differentiated banks — small finance banks, payments banks, wholesale banks and custodial banks. The first two “are on the road to extinction” and the rest “have not even taken off”, he writes.
India Post Payments Bank and Paytm Payments Bank are looking to convert themselves into small finance banks but given the RBI’s “mindless regulations” and “ineffective supervision”, this may not be the best idea, he writes.
Such banks also have to compete with big retail companies like Amazon and Google that have their own wallets, Jagannathan adds. Through excessive regulations, the RBI has “legislated its own innovation out of existence”, the author explains.
As for the RBI’s concern over high private shareholdings, it need not look any further than the frauds at Punjab National Bank to understand that “if crooks want to game the banking system, they do not have to own large chunks of equity in banks directly”.
Air India shouldn’t fly past North East
Satyendra Pandey | Former adviser, Centre for Aviation
Financial Express
Pandey discusses how in the rush to privatise Air India, the connectivity to the Northeast may have been “overlooked”.
The airline incurred a loss of Rs 8,556 crore in 2019, despite the government providing Rs 17,320 crore of the tax-payers’ money over the last five years, he writes.
Pandey says that if Air India is put up for sale, any buyer will “revisit the airline network” and the Northeast routes will certainly be “pruned”. This is because Northeast flights are usually operating at a cash-loss “due to cyclical demand, irrational cost structure and low passenger volumes”.
Pandey predicts airports like Lakhimpur and Tezpur in Assam and Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh “will lose connectivity completely” while in Shillong and Mizoram, private players like Indigo and GoAir will “gain a monopoly status, which will impact pricing”.
Nevertheless, “Northeast needs to be integrated with the rest of the country”, writes Pandey, especially since airlinks to the region are critical “from a strategic and development perspective”.
India needs to shift its economic model
Jean-Joseph Boillot | Economist, French Institute of International Relations
Business Standard
In his piece, Boillot suggests natural farming can be a systematic response to the ailing economy that is facing “structural challenge[s] of its economic model”.
First, he lists evidence of the current slowdown from everyday life in “real India”. Urban slums, mass unemployment, underemployment and deterioration of the average health of people, “either through excessive sugar and fat consumption or malnutrition of the working classes”, can be seen, Boillot writes.
Farmer suicides are also evidence of rural stress “related to the Green Revolution model”, he adds.
A “business-as-usual scenario has no chance of meeting these challenges”, writes Boillot, especially when the political class is short-viewed, “fixed on the rolling electoral tests and seems to enjoy purely ideological confrontations”.
The “mass movement around natural farming…is today the real breakthrough innovation” that could address “employment, gender equality…quality food, better health, a response to climate change and environmental degradation”, he explains.
This kind of paradigm shift could also help relocate “the Indian economy around dynamic rural areas, second and third-level cities to overcome the structural urban crisis in India”, Boillot adds.