08-11-2016 (Important News Clippings)
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Date: 08-11-16
TV news ban
Taking news channels off the air sets a dangerous precedent for a democracy
Why the matter should be referred to an IMC is baffling when an independent self-regulatory body – News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA) – already exists to deal with such matters. The News Broadcasters Association (NBA), the collective voice of news and current affairs broadcasters in India, has rightly expressed deep concern over the ban. They believe the Hindi news channel has been “singled out when the rest of the media also did cover the (Pathankot) terror attack, and all such reports were available in the public domain”.
I&B minister Venkaiah Naidu claims the decision has been taken in larger interest of the country and criticising the government has become a fashion. But media is permitted to criticise the government in any democratic country. Rather than playing a dual role of complainant and adjudicator in its own case, the government must refer such cases to NBSA, or if not so inclined, set up an independent regulator where all stakeholders are represented.
Date: 08-11-16
Right to breathe
Beyond emergency measures, unprecedented smog in NCR and environs calls for systematic hoovering
Chemists across Delhi-NCR have been running short of protective masks because of a steep rise in demand since Diwali. Demand for air purifiers has jumped 50%. In many places PM2.5 and PM10 levels are running at 17 times safe levels. But data only underscore what’s obvious to the naked eye. The dirty grey smog engulfing the Indian capital and its environs feels eerily like the Great Smog of London 1952 – the worst air pollution disaster in British history that killed an estimated 4,000 Londoners. Such a serious public health crisis cries out for emergency measures. But these will serve only for the short term. A longer term fix demands serious investment and political resolve.
Emergency measures announced on Sunday include a temporary shutting down of schools, construction activities and the Badarpur power plant. But emergency measures alone will not suffice if the smog keeps returning. Imagine the economic costs of keeping construction work suspended through winter, tourists and business visitors dropping a smoggy north India from their itinerary, poor visibility throwing flight and rail schedules endlessly out of gear. Reducing the school year will also take a toll.
The Great Smog of London pushed a laggard government to undertake systemic hoovering, like switching to cleaner fuels, setting up smokeless zones and relocating power stations. With air pollution growing exponentially worse year after year, it is now time for Delhi to make similarly substantial investments in cleaning the environment. If politicians overlook it or prescribe placebos like the odd even car policy, the problem will not go away on its own. Not only do our children deserve better but NCR’s economy will wither away.
Many of the solutions are well known. Polluters should be punished and roads should be vacuum cleaned. Instead of burning waste in open fires, modern waste management must be introduced. Public transport must be beefed up. Eminent agriculturist MS Swaminathan is suggesting ways in which farmers can be helped to make money from paddy straw instead of simply burning it; these and other ideas must be taken up. The Centre must knock heads together to bring about the inter-state and inter-ministerial coordination needed. If netas and babus are clueless then international experts and best practices must be consulted. Swachh Bharat is meaningless if urban air quality is so poor.
Date: 08-11-16
False dichotomy, Minister Naidu
This, dear minister, is like saying that you can make your favourite Hyderabadi biryani before the rice or the meat arrives. There can be no national interest without press freedom and the freedom of expression, in general.No one can cavil at his advice that exercise of the freedom of speech and expression should not incite violence or compromise security of the state. But what compromises security of the state should be judged with extreme care. That cannot be left to the arbitrary interpretation of the government of the day, if we value democracy.
If it had been left entirely to the UPA government, it would have deemed all those scam stories to be against the national interest. It cannot be left to just the government of the day, however self-righteous its leaders or whatever its majority in Parliament, to decide if media reportage is in or against the national interest.
India ranks 133rd in the Reporters Without Borders’ 2016 edition of the World Press Freedom Index, not very different from India’s rank in the World Bank’s ease of doing business survey.If you let the governments of North Korea identify stories that hurt the national interest, you can imagine what stories would pass muster. India’s aim should be to move up the index of press freedom and avoid our leaders’ pictures from being mounted amongst a select list of media predators, not to let partisan dislikes find their way into penal action against sections of the media.Freedom of the organised press today has become ever more critical, given the proliferation of social media and propagation of ‘news’ that neither goes through any process of editorial validation nor holds out accountability.Of course, there is plenty of room for the media to improve but which sections of the media need to change in what manner is best determined through dialogue, not through knee-jerk penalties or rants.
Date: 08-11-16
फिर वही गलती
हमारे देश में विशेष आर्थिक क्षेत्र (एसईजेड) को लेकर खास लगाव देखने को मिलता रहा है। एक बार फिर वही कहानी दोहराई जाने वाली है। इस समाचार पत्र में सोमवार को प्रकाशित एक रिपोर्ट के मुताबिक दो तटवर्ती आर्थिक क्षेत्र (सीईजेड) तैयार करने की योजना है। इनमें से एक गुजरात और दूसरा आंध्र प्रदेश में होगा। रिपोर्ट में कहा गया है कि इन सीईजेड में लगने वाले उद्यमों को पूरे एक दशक तक कर रियायत मिलेगी। यानी उनको 10 वर्ष तक निगमित कर नहीं देना होगा। बदले में उनको न्यूनतम रोजगार लक्ष्य पूरे करने होंगे। जाहिर है इसके पीछे विचार यह है कि कंपनियां सीईजेड में बने बंदरगाहों का लाभ ले और वहां अपनी विनिर्माण इकाइयां लगाकर रोजगार मुहैया कराएं। यह बात ध्यान देने लायक है कि सीईजेड के प्रस्ताव कई मायनों में एसईजेड, निर्यात संवद्र्घन क्षेत्र आदि से अलग हैं। उदाहरण के लिए सीईजेड को करीब 450 किलोमीटर लंबा होना है और उनकी गहरे पानी वाले बंदरगाहों तक सीधी पहुंच होगी। इससे पहले कई योजनाएं सफल नहीं हो सकीं क्योंकि उनके अधीन बनने वाले जोन बहुत अलग-थलग थे या उनसे व्यापक आर्थिक लाभ नहीं लिया जा सका। उम्मीद की जानी चाहिए कि इस मामले में इन दिक्कतों से बचा जा सकेगा।
Over the barrel: A swadeshi index
World Bank rankings on ease of doing business ignore the complexity of the Indian landscape. An indigenous framework is needed.
I am of the view that the PM should not peg his objective of improving business conditions on the world bank index. My reasons are three-fold. First, the World Bank index is based on limited data. Second, there is a disjunct between the complexity of our polity and the simplicity of the Bank’s methodological approach. And third, numbers are easy to misrepresent. They seldom tell the full story.The PM should direct his officials to prepare an indigenous “ease of doing business index” based on the government’s prioritisation of sectors and businesses and the key factors required to attract investment into these priority sectors.
The World Bank report is based on data gathered from just Mumbai and Delhi. Yet the language in which it is reported suggests it is reflective of conditions across the country. Further, the index is derived by looking at 10 sub indices. The final score is an average of the scores for each of these sub indices. Several of these, like registration of property, ease of getting a construction permit, payment of taxes, securing an electricity connection and acquisition of land, are matters over which the Centre has only partial control. It cannot “ease” the business conditions in these areas without the support of the state governments. Given the number of states that are not under the control of the BJP, it could be argued the PM was setting himself up for disappointment. Finally, it is always easy to misrepresent a number. The fine print of the World Bank report does spell out the assumptions and conditions that underpin the derivation of its rank ordering, but in the subsequent commentary these caveats are given short shrift. In fact, they are almost always fully distilled out. The discussion is invariably focused around the number, which is the rank.
Doing business in India is unquestionably difficult. The PM is right to exhort his colleagues to replace the red tape with the red carpet. This said, the government should not strap its policy objectives onto the coattails of generic and broad-based parameters developed by international institutions. It should contemplate instead the creation of its own indigenous index focused on improving business conditions for identified companies in priority sectors.
What should be the government’s priority for private sector investment? One could offer several answers but for the purpose of elaborating the above point, let me suggest the emphasis should be on labour intensive manufacturing industries and clean energy. I am not suggesting physical (housing, roads, ports, pipelines, etc) and social (education, water, health, etc) infrastructure or distribution and delivery systems (cash transfers) because whilst these are of crucial importance and in desperate need for investment, I do not believe the private sector will invest in these sectors. This is because the return on investment will be low and the banks will not extend credit — at least not until they have recovered the loans made for such infrastructural projects during the period 2003-2011.
Next, what are the major obstacles impeding the flow of capital into manufacturing and clean technology? Three major blockers stand out. One, land acquisition. This is because land records are imprecisely recorded and this embroils prospective investors in a tangle of agents, petty bureaucrats, lawyers and politicians. Two, the inadequacy and poor quality of essential infrastructure (water, housing, electricity, roads etc). This adds to the costs of production and erodes competitiveness. Three, the lacunae regarding intellectual property rights, fiscal stability and contract sanctity. This deters investors from investing in R&D and setting up technology centres.
The answer to the above two questions offers guidance on the derivation of an indigenously relevant “ease of doing business” index. To increase the inflow of capital into labour intensive manufacturing and/ or energy related technologies, the government should track an index that is influenced by progress on matters related to the digitisation of land records, availability of water, travel time from point of production to port of export, availability of skilled labour, rules relating to taxation, IPR and so forth.
This index should be developed by third party, non-partisan, non-government technocrats and its details should be in the public domain. The data should be published periodically and the government should be monitored and evaluated against the progress made along the scale of this index. I am not suggesting that the World Bank index be completely ignored. For in the absence of anything else, they are a check against complacency. But I am suggesting that indices like those prepared by the Bank should not be the pivot around which policy is framed; nor should they be the cause of distraction from the more important task of identifying and removing the obstacles in the way of significant and disproportionately impactful private sector investment.
Vikram S Mehta The writer is chairman of Brookings India and senior fellow, Brookings Institution.
पाबंदी पर प्रश्न
केंद्र सरकार ने यह कार्रवाई सूचना एवं प्रसारण मंत्रालय के अंतर-मंत्रालयी पैनल की सिफारिश पर की है।
केंद्र सरकार ने यह कार्रवाई सूचना एवं प्रसारण मंत्रालय के अंतर-मंत्रालयी पैनल की सिफारिश पर की है। पैनल ने संबंधित चैनल को पठानकोट पर हुए आतंकी हमले की रिपोर्टिंग के दौरान ‘रणनीतिक रूप से संवेदनशील सूचनाएं’ प्रसारित करने का दोषी ठहराया है। यह सही है कि आतंकवाद और राष्ट्रीय सुरक्षा से जुड़े मामले जहां सरकार के सामने कई चुनौतियां पेश करते हैं, वहीं ऐसे अवसरों पर मीडिया का काम भी आसान नहीं होता। ऐसे मौकों पर रिपोर्टिंग बहुत सतर्कता और संयम की मांग करती है। सरकार ने एनडीटीवी इंडिया को केबल टीवी नेटवर्क नियमावली-1994 की एक खास धारा के उल्लंघन का दोषी ठहराया है और नौ नवंबर को प्रसारण से विरत रहने को कहा है। लेकिन सरकार यह नहीं साफ कर पाई है कि कौन-सी रणनीतिक रूप से संवेदनशील सूचना चैनल ने उजागर कर दी, जो पहले से सार्वजनिक जानकारी में न रही हो।
दरअसल, अगर पठानकोट हमले को लेकर एनडीटीवी इंडिया की रिपोर्टिंग सरकार को नागवार गुजरी, तो उसे अपने अफसरों को हिदायत देनी चाहिए थी कि वे क्या बताएं और क्या नहीं। फिर, इस पाबंदी से यह भी सवाल उठता है कि क्या किसी आतंकी हमले के बारे में सिर्फ उतना और सिर्फ वही जानना तथा बताया जाना चाहिए जितना और जैसा सरकार बताना चाहती है? इसमें दो राय नहीं कि सरकार का यह कदम अभिव्यक्ति की स्वतंत्रता के खिलाफ है, जिसकी गारंटी हमारा संविधान देता है। मीडिया की आजादी हमारे संविधान में दी गई नागरिक आजादी का ही हिस्सा है। इसलिए एनडीटीवी इंडिया को नौ नवंबर को अपना प्रसारण बंद रखने का केंद्र का आदेश जनतंत्र में आस्था रखने वाले हरेक व्यक्ति के लिए चिंता की बात होनी चाहिए।
एनडीटीवी से हर मुददे पर हर कोई सहमत हो, यह जरूरी नहीं। लेकिन जैसे किसी को एनडीटीवी से असहमत होने का हक है, वैसे ही सरकार से एनडीटीवी को भी। अगर असहमति और आलोचना के लिए जगह नहीं होगी, तो फिर लोकतंत्र का मतलब ही क्या रह जाएगा? लोकतंत्र का मतलब सिर्फ चुनाव नहीं होता, यह भी होता है कि नागरिक अधिकारों के साथ कैसा सलूक किया जाता है। क्या विडंबना है कि पिछले ही हफ्ते प्रधानमंत्री ने एक मीडिया संस्थान के समारोह को संबोधित करते हुए आपातकाल की याद दिलाई और यह दोहराया कि उनकी सरकार अभिव्यक्ति की आजादी का सम्मान करती है। लेकिन इस आश्वासन के एक ही दिन बाद एनडीटीवी को नौ नवंबर को अपना प्रसारण बंद रखने का आदेश सुना दिया गया। इससे इस आरोप को बल मिला है कि यह सरकार असहमति और आलोचना को सहन नहीं कर पा रही है और किसी न किसी बहाने उसे कुचलने पर आमादा है। ऐसी धारणा बनने देना हमारे लोकतंत्र के लिए तो अशुभ संकेत है ही, सरकार की अपनी साख के लिए भी ठीक नहीं है।