Drone Sale to India Unblocked After Key Senator Extracts Pledge on Pannun Plot Probe; Poaching Alert in Jharkhand
Uttarakhand's 'uniform civil code' won't be uniform after all; Ignore the spin budget, incomes, consumption and private investment have stagnated; India's YouTube Censors hit new low
A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by MK Venu, Seema Chishti, Siddharth Varadarajan, Sushant Singh, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal and Tanweer Alam | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK
Snapshot of the day
February 2, 2024
Siddharth Varadarajan
An assurance by the Biden administration that it would “fully investigate an Indian assassination plot on US soil” led Senator Ben Cardin, chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, to end the “hold” he had placed on the sale of 31 armed MQ-9B US drones to India, thus clearing the way for the State Department to formally notify the US Congress about the impending sale, Reuters reports. On January 31, Ajai Shukla had first reported that the sale was on hold over concerns that India was not doing enough to investigate the alleged plot to murder Gurpatwant Pannun on US soil. On Friday, Cardin told reporters:
"The (Biden) administration has demanded that there be investigation and accountability in regards to the plot here in the United States, and that there is accountability within India against these types of activities."Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Champai Soren finally took oath as the Chief Minister of Jharkhand in Ranchi this afternoon after an inexplicably long – and unhealthy – delay on the part of the Governor. The BJP could only be that brazen and the over 47 MLAs who stood firm, forced its hand. The Supreme Court has refused to hear Hemant Soren’s petition challenging his arrest and lobbed the ball to the High Court. Meanwhile, Hemant Soren has been sent to five days of ED custody in the so-called land ‘scam’ case. Despite the new CM being sworn in, there is talk of attempted poaching of coalition MLAs and as of Friday evening, news reports indicate that as many as 44 of them from the Congress, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Rashtriya janata Dal have been taken to Hyderabad where they will be sequestered till the danger passes.
The residence and office of Harsh Mander, ex-IAS officer, rights activist and commentator, was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) this morning at 8 am. Four men from the CBI went inside his house. Mander’s Centre for Equity Studies office too found it had ‘visitors’. In September 2021, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had carried out raids at Mander’s home in Vasant Kunj, his office in Adhchini, and a children’s home in Mehrauli which his organisation, the Centre for Equity Studies (CES), helped establish. Rights groups have spoken out strongly against these raids, terming them “harassment”.
There are of course, those who sway and join the BJP. So who, by the way, is PC George who has merged his party with the BJP in Kerala? Former Poonjar MLA PC George has a long history of switching loyalties and attempting character assassinations of rivals. Southfirst details his other skills here.
YouTube has been ordered by the government of India to take down videos of protests in Bihar of Railway recruitment examination students, angry about the government opening jobs as Assistant Loco Pilots after six years and that too, just for 5696 jobs.
Four people including Moradabad district president of Bajrang Dal Monu Bishnoi have been arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police for slaughtering a cow and trying to implicate a Muslim man in a false case. They have also been accused of conspiring against the police. UP Police has alleged that one of the accused, Shahabuddin, took the help of the Bajrang Dal workers to put a man named Mehmood in jail by making it look like he had killed cows. A shady moo [In Hindi].
The Indian Express has exclusive details on the BJP government in Uttarakhand’s Uniform Civil Code and the headline is that it is not universal. Tribals have been excluded. “Sources said among the key aspects of the report was making halala, iddat, and triple talaq — which are practices governing marriage and divorce as per the Muslim personal law — punishable offences. Polygamy has also been recommended for a ban.”
With a Rs 86,000 crore allocation to the MGNREGS, the latest budget has ‘hiked’ the amount set aside for the scheme by 43% from last year’s. But the allocation this time around is the same as the scheme’s revised budget estimate for the ongoing financial year, meaning its net gain “could be zero or even negative”, reports The Hindu. LibTech India’s Chakradhar Buddha told the paper that given the Union government’s pending dues to the West Bengal government and the tendency to spend 15-20% of the budget on clearing past dues, the current allocation for the scheme “seems increasingly inadequate”. He pegged the required allocation for the right-to-work programme at Rs 3 lakh crore.
Kashmiris jailed under the Public Safety Act, 1978 often remain incarcerated even after courts quash their detention, sometimes for months after, reports Newslaundry. The courts order their release provided they aren’t required in other cases, and jail authorities wait for the Jammu and Kashmir administration to certify this. But it isn’t clear whether these ‘clearances’ from administrators are compulsory – one senior advocate said no law requires this and that there “is only one law … if the court says the prisoner has to be released, then he has to be released.”
The Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan in the United States will shut down this year, “after two decades of championing its prized collection of art from Himalayan Asia.”
BBC Hindi has a detailed account of how puja was systematically started in the basement of Gyanvapi masjid despite the administration having been given seven days to get it organised. A few hours is all it took for the administration.This is a ‘history clinic’ on the background, well worth your time.
Shoaib Bashir is here, playing in the second test match between India and England. The Indian government’s Hindutva visa rules gave him a hard time, as they make Pakistani origin an issue. But who is he? In cricketing terms?
A pigeon, a suspected Chinese spy, yes you heard that right, was released by the Indian police after eight months of detention and released into the wild earlier in the week. The pigeon’s ordeal began in May when it was captured near a port in Mumbai with two rings tied to its legs, carrying words that looked like Chinese. Police suspected it was involved in espionage and took it in, later sending it to Mumbai's Bai Sakarbai Dinshaw Petit Hospital for Animals. Eventually, it turned out the pigeon was an open-water racing bird from Taiwan that had escaped and made its way to India. With police permission, the bird was transferred to the Bombay Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, whose doctors set it free. One does become curious to see the interrogation footage! But then, too much for freedom, isn’t it?
On a Gujarat terrace: Shrinking spaces for dissent
Last week in Ahmedabad, a three-day conference was held on human and labour rights, civil liberties and the environmental impact of development projects (among other topics) and was attended by prominent names such as Prashant Bhushan and Medha Patkar. But the event was held at a private terrace, not a public space, serving as yet another reminder of how the space for free expression is shrinking in Gujarat, writes Rajiv Shah in Counterview. At the end of the conference, participants agreed to hold more such events but had no idea how or where else; questions on how to adopt online tools to discuss human rights, especially at a time when civil society feels the traditional media is ‘unresponsive’ to its needs, were also unresolved, Shah says.
Shaheed Diwas, in London
In an inspiring demonstration of Hindus and Muslims coming together, and interfaith solidarity, Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR) UK and the Indian Muslim Council UK (UK-IMC) led a Peace Walk in London on January 30, 2024. It commemorated the legacies of Dr BR Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi and was attended by a diverse group. The Peace Walk, said the organisers, “represented a symbolic journey, linking the distinct yet complementary legacies of Dr. Ambedkar, the architect of India's constitution and a champion against caste and class oppression, and Mahatma Gandhi, globally revered for his nonviolent resistance philosophy. Participants honoured the martyrs who fought for India's freedom, resonating with the observances of Martyrs' Day or Shaheed Diwas in India”.
Here is a picture of hope.
To not be diverse, is unhealthy
A study on who makes Health policy in India is revelatory. The composition of 23 national health committees from 1943 to 2020 was analysed by Pune’s Association for Socially Applicable Research (ASAR). The study found that India's national committees responsible for its health policies lack diversity in representation from multiple perspectives. The Quint has crunched the findings. All except three committee chairpersons were men. Only 11 percent of the total members of each of these committees were women. While over 50 percent of the members had work experience in the health sector, most of them were medical doctors with very few people from other cadres. 55 % of the members and chairpersons of the committees were Government administrators. Most of the members, i.e. 44 %, are concentrated in the national capital of Delhi.
The Long Cable
Ignore the Spin, Incomes, Consumption and Private Investment Have Stagnated
MK Venu
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s shortest budget speech (56 minutes) was largely about reiterating the Modi government’s achievements over the past decade. It is another matter that many of the key achievements cited did not have the backing of data or facts. But facts have never come in the way of PM Modi's penchant for weaving self-congratulatory narratives.
The most astounding claim the finance minister made was that average real incomes have gone up by 50% during Modi's tenure. This flies in the face of the government’s own data sets formally released some time ago stating that regular average monthly wages in India have stagnated at around Rs. 20,000 for five years. It was Rs 19,450 in 2017-18 and Rs 20,039 in 2022-23, as per the recently released periodic labour force survey (PLFS). Real wages have actually declined by over 25% in five years. Given this data released by the Modi government, it is astonishing that the FM should make a claim of 50% growth in real incomes.
There is near consensus among economists, including among those well disposed towards the Modi regime, that real rural wages have stagnated for years. This income stagnation has reflected in the stagnation in private consumption over the past several years. Private consumption, the main driver of GDP growth in India, has grown at about 3% on average annually in the past 5 years. This data too is corroborated by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation.
So broadly there is evidence of stagnation in income and consumption. There is also consensus within industry that private investment has seen stagnation through Modi’s 10 year tenure. The finance minister herself has been exhorting domestic industry to start investing in fresh capacity.
So incomes, consumption and private investment have broadly stagnated. There has also been a sharp fall in household savings in recent years as real incomes have declined. These facts cannot be controverted even by whatever limited data is coming out of the department of statistics. It is possible that in future even these data sets may cease to exist! The average GDP growth under the Modi government's tenure so far is 5.8% and many economists, including Arvind Subramanian, the Chief Economic Advisor in NDA I, have suggested the number could be up to 2% points less.
Recently, Dr Pronab Sen, Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Statistics, told me that the K-shaped growth recovery after Covid has possibly resulted in a big statistical anomaly. In normal times, organised sector growth has a positive correlation with the vast unorganised/informal sector. Both grow together. But for the first time after Covid, the organised sector has shown a rebound but the unorganised sector continued to suffer. The positive correlation broke down. This leads Dr. Sen to conclude that the GDP growth number could be overestimated because in the Indian system the organised sector data available with the corporate affairs ministry is used to extrapolate for growth in the vast unorganised segment.
So the GDP number has also been suspect for a long time. Most budget numbers are predicated on the nominal GDP stock. If the GDP number is flawed, many other related figures and ratios will also be faulty.
Of course, all this does not come in the way of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman making hyperbolic claims of India being the biggest growth story in the world with rising incomes, consumption, investment and employment. The PLFS survey also shows a huge growth in the number of self-employed – from 52% of the total employed in 2017-18 to 58% in 2022-23.
Labour economist Santosh Mehrotra reckons the growing army of self-employed constitutes very low quality employment and among them the number of unpaid workers has increased from 40 million in 2017-18 to 95 million in 2022-23. Unpaid workers are not treated as formally employed by the International Labour Organisation. No wonder the Finance Minister’s speech hardly devoted even a paragraph on employment strategy.
This is the nature of the political economy that PM Modi has created before seeking his third term as a “development messiah”. Privately he probably recognises the distress among the bottom 60% of the population and has therefore chosen to provide free food to them for the next 5 years.
When Modi took power in 2014 his slogan was to move India's poor from dole and entitlement to a framework of empowerment and partnership in growth. That objective clearly lies in tatters, notwithstanding a booming stock market in which some 1000 companies’ shares are watched with bated breath by less than 7% of the population.
Reportedly
Days after an Indian delegation participated in the Regional Cooperation Initiative meeting in Kabul under the leadership of the Taliban, the Ministry of External Affairs yesterday acknowledged that Indian diplomats have been engaging the Taliban in “various formats”. The Modi government’s isolation in the region has made it take an almost Nitish-grade flip on the Taliban, often used in memes, speeches and slogans of the BJP as a metaphor to demonise the minority and stand in as shorthand for terror. “We have been attending several meetings on Afghanistan in various formats both at the digital and international levels. You would have seen that recently we also participated in a regional meeting in Kabul where the head of our technical team attended. He apprised the meeting of India’s long-standing friendship with the Afghan people and the humanitarian assistance that we are carrying out in the country,” the MEA’s official spokesperson said. It is believed that in meetings with the Taliban, photographs are discouraged by the Indian side. Doesn’t play too well with anti-Taliban WhatsApps that are put out.
Deep dive
“Rather than dismissing them under the Places of Worship Act, 1991, courts often allow petitions against mosques to fester, thus helping Hindutva politics”. From Babri to Gyanvapi, worth rereading this piece by Umang Poddar on how India’s courts have helped escalate Hindutva claims on mosques.
Prime number: Rs 12 lakhs out of Rs 30 crores = Finance Minister Logic
Yesterday, Finance Minister Niramala Sitharaman delivered the Union budget for 2024-25. However, according to an analysis, a stark disparity between the dire financial struggles of transgender individuals and the apparent lack of priority from the Ministry of Social Justice and Welfare continues. Despite last year’s allocation of Rs 30 crore, a mere 12 lakhs were disbursed, raising concerns about the government's commitment to supporting the transgender community.
But then.
Opeds you don’t want to miss
In a must-read piece, Fahad Zuberi passionately argues why he should be allowed to distance himself from the Ram Temple, and not mandatorily in its consecration while “the rights of both need equal protection”. He also shows how making national of the temple has made this impossible.
CP Chandrashekhar points out how figures revealed thorugh the vote on account “clearly do not match the government’s pro-poor rhetoric.”
Jayati Ghosh discusses how the vote on account reflects the abject indifference to real economic problems of India.
Why is Hemant Soren under attack? As he is an assertive, tough Adivasi leader, writes Aditya Menon.
What the Finance Minister’s budget speech tells us – and what it doesn’t. Vivek Kaul explores and finds that what the FM said about the economy, and it was a lot, is far from the truth. Never mind the whole truth.
Dinesh Abrol writes that as Corporates “hijack the Union budget, agriculture is no longer a priority.”
Piya Srinivasan writes on the Sunderbans.“On islands swallowed by water, there is nowhere else to go”.
Read an excerpt from Being Hindu, Being Indian, by Vanya Vaedehi Bhargav.
Listen up
Rukmini Banerji talks about the focus on education by States and families, why some 14 to 18 years olds are still struggling with literacy and numeracy, and “if their smartphone skills can be used to help them get on track with their education”.
Watch out
In conversation with MK Venu, renowned economist Jayati Ghosh (who has won an IEA Fellow award yesterday, by the way) analyses the interim budget, with special attention to how older promises like that of income to farmers and “achchhe din” or better days have now been ignored in favour of a “Viksit Bharat” or developed India – without adequate attention to the collection of real data which could reflect the ground realities of India today.
Over and out
A walk down memory lane for those of you old enough to be moved by Nazir Husain’s tears. He was always dressed in police uniform, sherwani or silk dressing gown and being addressed as ‘Oh Deddy!’ by spoilt daughters on their way to being seduced — either by a hero like Shammi Kapoor or a villain like Prem Chopra.
BBC profiles how TV star and Bigg Boss winner Munawar Faruqui reinvented his image from shunned comedian to “darling of the masses”. But do note how there is a bid to file cases against him in Madhya Pradesh again. The police are waiting.
Suranya Aiyar responds to the uncles of the Jangpura Extension Welfare Association who targeted her for her refusal to celebrate the January 22 Ram temple event.
That’s it for today. We’ll be back with you on Monday, on a device near you. If The India Cable was forwarded to you by a friend (perhaps a common friend!) book your own copy by SUBSCRIBING HERE.