CMYK

ND-ND

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2015

8 THE HINDU MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2015NOIDA/DELHI

EDITORIAL

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has

clearly indicated that he is a man in a hurry.

Even before assuming office on Saturday, he

had placed before Prime Minister Narendra

Modi his governments priorities. His tenor was concil-

iatory, his arguments seemingly reasonable while he

took care not to include in his Ministry controversial

Ministers from his first tenure. In his inaugural speech

as Chief Minister, Mr. Kejriwal said he impressed on

Mr. Modi the point that Delhi would not prosper with-

out constructive cooperation between the Centre and

the State. The unstated part of Mr. Kejriwals message

was that he intended to set the agenda for Delhi. Yet the

AAPs demand for full statehood that, if accepted,

would give the Delhi government control over two crit-

ical areas of governance, land and the police will be

contentious, not least because the Centre would be

loath to give more powers and greater independence

of action to the new AAP regime. Mr. Kejriwal has

already broached the subject with Mr. Modi, who has

been non-committal. This is an issue that has larger

dimensions, and it remains to be seen how it unfolds in

the dynamics of relations between the AAP and the

Modi government.

Having come to power primarily on an anti-corrup-

tion plank, Mr. Kejriwals first goal will be to enact the

controversial Lokpal Bill. The failure to clear it in his

first stint in office had made him take the ill-judged step

to quit. Now, with 67 MLAs in a 70-seat Assembly, Mr.

Kejriwal should have no problem pushing it through

but, after that, it will require ratification by the Centre.

How that turns out depends on the BJPs disposition.

The last time, the 32 BJP MLAs in the Delhi Assembly

had opposed the Bill. While senior AAP leaders have

indicated that the party has learnt from its first innings

in power that a path of confrontation has its limits, the

likelihood of flashpoints in the coming months cannot

be ruled out as the tussle for the control of Delhi

continues. In governance terms, what can Mr. Kejriwal

do without getting full statehood? He may be able to

reduce electricity and water tariffs, but will remain

dependent on neighbouring States and the Centre for

supply. He may also be able to fulfil his promises on

education if funds are forthcoming, and certainly he can

make a difference in reducing everyday corruption.

Going forward, with the heightened public expectations

of the AAP as the party of the common person, Mr.

Kejriwal must demonstrate that his is a government

with a difference. He should take transparent steps to

unveil a governance structure emphasising account-

ability and accessibility. That is the real hope that the

AAP embodies to thousands of its well-wishers.

AAPs day in the sun

Purchasing Power Parity or PPP hasvalidated a long held surmise thatthe poorer countries are not as badlyoff as they are made out to be nor the

richer ones as well off as they seem. A nomi-nal GDP ranking puts India at tenth placewhile a PPP one pushes it up to third, behindthe United States and China. The Big MacIndex of The Economist loosely corrobo-rates. Travelling to expensive parts of theworld from our country brings this home tous tellingly.

A 2011 issue of The Economist published acontroversial piece Comparing Indianstates and territories with countries: An In-dian Summary which purported to showthat for all its size and population, the econo-my of Uttar Pradesh was roughly just that ofQatar, and Maharashtras no bigger than Sin-gapores, while that of Tamil Nadu was nolarger than Angolas all very confusing andprobably wrong when in PPP terms, India asa whole is placed third in the world. So, wheredo we stand and what standard should onepitch for to measure ourselves against therest of the world?

A land of opportunities

We would be wise to guardedly settle forPPP. The world too has done likewise. India,like those of several other similarly placedcountries, does have an economy worth sev-eral times larger than its nominal GDP in-dicates. This fact has not gone unnoticedwhere it matters, especially in the boar-drooms of multinationals or corporate Indiawhich indefatigably seek to add an inch toevery Indiamans shirt tail. Some strong en-dorsement for this comes from the manage-ment guru, the late C.K. Prahalad.Unsurprisingly, for companies like Suzukiand Honda, India has emerged as their large-st market for cars and two-wheelers and Vo-dafone, despite an unresolved retrospectivetax issue, is very much here to stay. India ofcourse enjoys the sheer strength of numbers.Everything that happens here, as in China,has to necessarily be on a gargantuan scale invariably in several millions. It takes an out-sider to marvel at our scale and make usconscious of it. But the scale exists!

After China, India has more mobile ownersthan any other country. The smartphone rev-olution has just hit us big and India is morelikely than not to emerge as the second large-st market for that too. India is also one of twolargest motorcycle manufacturers. The

country continues its run as one of two large-st producers of rice and a third of wheat aswell as fruits and milk. Of course we knowthat in per capita in agro and dairy products,we are still way behind much smaller pro-ducers but are likely to get there thanks todevelopments in science technology. In allthese segments India is sitting on the cusp ofan opportunity. If the green revolution sur-prised us, managed right, the future growthin agriculture will astound the world.

E-commerce is another area we mistak-enly thought we had lost out on. Just as wewere despairing at the success of Alibaba inChina, we now see serious investment com-ing into e-retailing. It is not for nothing thatJapans SoftBank is investing heavily inSnapdeal; Ratan Tata, ever ready to spot anemerging opportunity, had bet on it muchearlier. The best known of Indias e-retailers,Flipkart, has attracted significant investorstoo. Meanwhile, Amazon, even as it threatens

to leave, is expanding its footprint here. In-dia, it turns out, is a glass half full and fillingrather than half-empty and emptying.

Social indicators and evidence

But before we start rejoicing we need toreconcile flattering national economic indi-cators with some very odious social ones.Indias ranking in the UNDPs Human Devel-opment Report (2011) is 134. In gender in-equality, it comes out marginally better butstill a rotten 129th out of 187 countries. Thenon the ease of doing business, India is a mi-serable 134th, pretty much at the bottom ofthe heap. So things are that horrible. Or arethey only being made out to be terrible?

Given the scale of poverty in India, it is

very difficult not to make these rankingsstick and lot of visual evidence exists. Mu-kesh Ambanis massive residence in Mumbaicoexists with a sea of slums nearby. Get out ofmany of Indias airports, and most especiallyMumbai, and one is confronted with everykind of misery one can think of. Stop at thetraffic lights and the poor of India comeknocking on your car window. The better offin our country live in sanitised islands ofrelative calm defended by the very kinddrawn from the ranks of those it seeks tokeep out. But as we all know, visuals, evenpowerful ones, do not so much reflect realityas point out the shocking that we tend toignore or deliberately disregard.

Statewide indices for the world

The country as a whole is nowhere as badas these indices show but together they dobring out that India is a poor bet only becausewe have been inept at better stating our

strengths while unfailingly adept at invitingattention to our weaknesses. The question toask is should India be taken as a country atall for such indicators to stick? India is morepopulous than the whole of Africa and rough-ly equal to Europe and the Americas com-bined on that count. We need a better way ofbeing compared clearly, it is absurd to rankthe country alongside say Lesotho or GuineaBissau the first has a population of lessthan three million and the other two. Singa-pore, for all its achievements, is about thesize of Bengaluru and its suburbs.

Apart from the absurdity of comparing ap-ples with ladoos, such indices, as The Economist notes, blacken a countrysname. It can, as it states, also spread like

wildfire on the web. India needs to proofitself against this by coming up with someconvincing measures of its own that attractrather than turn away potential investorsusing available data without tweaking. A startcan be made by leaving the countrys PPPranking alone while more effectively high-lighting and deploying region-wise as well asState-wise indices for everything, from gen-der inequality to ease of doing business aswell as infrastructure and migration.

Internal rankings of States, as what a lead-ing Indian magazine brings out annually, isso much like water off a ducks back, that thegame changer will be when the country confi-gures the rankings for global consumption.This will become particularly important nowwhen States are competing with each otherfor investments. This should also make Stategovernments sit up and take note that gov-ernance matters. Chhattisgarh is an earlymover here. It is carpet bombing the printand television media with advertisementsthat project it as an investment destinationof choice, with a visionary Chief Minister asits efficient CEO. States with poor social in-dices will strive to match and possibly over-take the better off ones, creating a virtuouscircle. Then, there is something called sham-ing that every State would like to avoid.

Migrant labour

The debt the richer parts of the countryowe to its poorer places is one of the dirtysecrets we hardly talk about, but look at thevacant eyes of an emaciated young securityguard in Kochi or the young woman at aconstruction site carrying material up pre-carious ladders in Bengaluru, and you imme-diately connect to their homes far away.

Millions are spilling out of Indias poorerStates to run services in the better off ones.Mumbai would not run for a day withoutmigrant workers and Kerala the entireState would come to a grinding halt if thenear three million from Assam and Bengal aswell as U.P., Odisha and Bihar were to en-masse go elsewhere. The Government of In-dia would therefore do well to bring out anannual State-wise status report on migrantlabour detailing where they come from andthe jobs they do and how much they contrib-ute to State economies rather than ungrate-fully treat them as parasites. This should coolrampant xenophobia of the kind the ShivaSena promotes and make us grateful for aborderless India.

We now learn that the government isabout to release the religious mix of thecountry as brought out by the 2011 census.Leaks indicate that the number of Muslimshas gone up marginally, but where? In itsmost miserable parts, where along with amajority of Hindus, most lead ultra squalidlives and are crying to get better. The mostimportant message, that the Muslims even invery backward parts constitute the under-class, cannot be overemphasised though ofcourse some migration from Bangladesh intoAssam and West Bengal cannot bediscounted.

We need statistics we can trust and beinformed. Unfortunately, with a plethora ofagencies, government departments and in-ternational organisations putting out somuch statistical data in the public space, of-ten contradicting each another, we have verylittle chance of being properly informed. It isthe governments duty to clear the air withup-to-date and coherent statistical data link-ing social and economic indicators. Only thiscan lead to more mature public understand-ing and reaction than one which suggeststhat Hinduism is in danger or Muslims areconsciously having more children. In thenoise, one can ignore that fertility rates havefallen among the Muslims too and if they toocould derive the benefits of economic devel-opment through education, their numberswill fall just as fast. The last especially de-serves to be widely known. In context, statis-tics can lead to better understandings;deployed out of context, they can kill.

(Dr. Uday Balakrishnan is at the Centre forContemporary Studies, Indian Institute ofScience, Bangalore.)

Not measure for measure With a plethora of government departments andinternational organisations putting out so muchstatistical data in the public space, oftencontradicting one another, it is the governmentsduty to clear the air with up-to-date and coherentstatistical data linking social and economicindicators

Uday Balakrishnan

The game changer will be when India configures the internal

rankings of its States for global consumption.

Talks with Pakistan

PDP chief Mufti MohammadSayeeds endorsement of PrimeMinister Narendra Modis offer oftalks with his counterpart inPakistan, at the same time alsocounselling him to engage withdissenters within Jammu andKashmir, is not without politicalsignificance (Feb.15). Coming as itdoes from the probable ally of theBJP, Mr. Modi would do well to payheed to this suggestion.

In this context, I would also liketo comment on the calling off ofSecretary-level talks last year inprotest against the Pakistan HighCommissioners meeting withHurriyat leaders: that was anoverreaction. What happens if thePakistan High Commissioner thistime round decides to repeat whathe did? Even though it is unlikely,will India call off the scheduledmeeting again? If such a thing doeshappen, it will be a diplomatic lossof face for us. Though one mightpresume that there might have beensome high-level diplomaticinitiatives on our part to persuadethe Pakistani establishment torefrain from any such provocativestep, one has to wait and watch.

S.K. Choudhury,Bengaluru

It is odd that India has to take theinitiative to resume the talks. Thedialogue of 2014 was stalled becauseof Pakistans confabulations withseparatist elements. There is nopoint in India expressing itswillingness for any resumption ofdialogue without Pakistan firstcreating a conducive atmosphere

for any sort of dialogue. It must benoted that Pakistan has not missedany chance to complain about India;one of the issues relates to Indiasquest for a permanent membershipof the Security Council. Pakistanhas remained a bte noire of Indiaand appears incapable of balancedthinking.

K.V. Seetharamaiah,Hassan

Rail accidentIt is unfortunate that precious liveshave been lost in the train accidentnear Anekal (Feb.14). The incidentonce again raises issues of safetyand supervision, such as the qualityof tracks and signalling systems,lack of modern technology andvirtually non-existent disastermanagement preparedness. Nowthat the budget is not far away, theRailway Ministry must allocatefunds for manpower training andsafety management. The railwaysshould have a independent disastermanagement cell in each zone, withperiodic reviews being done.

Manickam Ravindran,Dubai

Irrespective of whether the causefor the derailment/accident was adifference in track gauge or a railfracture or even a boulder rolling onto the tracks, the fact is that theaccident yet another one pointsto the railways inability tomaintain the tracks and to itsfailure to keep vigil over routes thatneed constant attention. It is sadthat there is very little attentionpaid to having adequate first aidfacilities on trains (Doctors savePolish womans leg, Feb.15), which

again points to the railways beingunable to get the basics right. Allissues of bullet trains and high-speed trains can come up fordiscussion at a later stage. The firsttask before the railways is to ensurethat the common person has a safejourney.

Ganapathi Bhat,Akola

There are too many accidentsinvolving derailments, perhapsbecause of poor maintenance, agingrails and rolling stock. It is a factthat outdated signalling methodsand traction methods are still beingemployed. One wonders how safeeven our railway bridges are. TheIndian Railways requires astupendous amount of capital tomodernise railway carriagetechnology, rolling stock, signallingsystems and the augmentation oftechnical manpower.

V. Balasubramanian,Bengaluru

Drug researchNeglected tropical diseasescontinue to cause significantmorbidity and mortality in thedeveloping world (Medicines inIndia, for India, Feb.14). Accordingto a study, of the 1,556 new drugsapproved between 1975 and 2004,only 21 were for tropical diseaseseven though these diseasesconstitute over 11 per cent of theglobal disease burden. Research-based pharmaceutical companiesfocus on the most lucrativeproducts, rather than on what ismost needed, a move thatpredominantly hurts the globalpoor whose diseases will never be

profitable enough to attract theindustry. The oft-quoted figure thatit costs over $1 billion to develop anew drug is eye-catching butdifficult to verify. The real challengeis to fund drug discoveries fordiseases that affect millions incountries like India that struggle toprovide basic health care. A morepractical approach may be topersuade big pharma, along withour numerous national institutesand research bodies, to becomeengaged with diseases that are ofprimary concern to our nation. Ouracademia and national institutesmay not be able to do this on theirown.

H.N. Ramakrishna,Bengaluru

Budget wishlistLow oil prices and a favourable baseeffect may well have been thereasons for inflation movingsouthward (A budget totransform, Feb.14). However, theFinance Minister should know thatitems like education and health carethat constitute a significantpercentage of peoples income havenot been included in the inflationindex. Thus, the governmentsinflation numbers have longremained an artificial construct,and not reflective of groundrealities. The situation now couldbe similar to the one in June-July2009, when inflation was negative,but shot up to 7 per cent inDecember 2009. The sharp declinein inflation between then and now isprimarily due to the decline in oilprices. Unlike in the U.S. or China,food prices in India have been veryhigh, forming a substantial part of

an ordinary persons income. It isalso intriguing why the recentreductions in the prices of petroland diesel have not been adequatelyreflected in food prices. While thereis no guarantee that oil prices wouldremain low for long, ArvindMayaram feels that IndiasConsumer Price Index data areimperfect, and therefore notentirely reliable as an indicator ofthe inflation model. The budgetshould take these realities intoconsideration while formulatingtax-cuts and benefits.

Kangayam R. Narasimhan,Chennai

Much of the demographic dividendthat we are proud of is to come fromrural India. Therefore it makessense to promote and encouragecapital formation in this sector. Notonly does infrastructure-building inagriculture boost productivity andreduce the cost of production, butalso higher income generation as aproduct of greater market accesswill result in higher disposableincomes. This in turn will enablerural poor and lower middle classfamilies to encourage children topursue education rather than dropout of schools and colleges. Eventhe U.S. has been successful ingreater job creation concentratingon middle class economics whichseeks to encourage the creation ofsmall and medium jobs. Indiasgeographical conditions are suitedfor multiple crop patterns in a year,and this should encourage ustowards greater public investmentsin this sector.

Harsha Vardhan K.S.,Hyderabad

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters emailed to letters@thehindu.co.in must carry the fullpostal address and the full name or the name with initials.

Doubts over the durability of peace in Ukraine

despite the ceasefire that formally came into

effect on Sunday, represent a dangerous au-

gury in the months-long, bloody and bitter

conflict between government and separatist rebel

forces. Prospects of any swift cessation of hostilities

were thrown into jeopardy after differences surfaced

even as the deal was being drawn up, with some players

advocating an immediate suspension of violence and

others insisting upon some preparatory delay. During

the run-up to Sunday, the objective of the opposing

forces seems to have been to consolidate their respective

positions. The sea coast near Mariupol and the city of

Debaltseve, which are in Ukrainian control, are said to

be critical for the breakaway republics of Donetsk and

Luhansk. Thus, uncertainty seems to have been written

into the accord brokered last week by the leaders of

France and Germany with their Russian and Ukrainian

counterparts. The current developments remind you of

how the September 2014 ceasefire fell apart almost as

soon as it was agreed upon, leading to a further escala-

tion in the crisis that has now claimed more than 5,000

lives and led to the displacement of a million people.

The fluid situation on the ground is bound to streng-

then the Congressional hawks, who have been urging

Washington to rethink the current provision of non-

lethal aid in favour of backing Kiev with arms. Converse-

ly, the conservative and social democratic partners in

Germanys ruling grand coalition, with French Presi-

dent Francois Hollande, have been almost categorical in

their opposition to any military solution to the crisis in

Europes eastern flanks. The German Chancellor, in fact,

made an analogous reference to the erection of the

Berlin Wall as she elaborated on Europes position on

Ukraine at the annual Munich security conference the

previous weekend. Angela Merkel pointed out that the

western powers did not resort to force to counter the

action. Republican Senator John McCains allusion, in

his speech at the same conference, to the response of the

western powers to the Berlin blockade provided shades

of the American stance. An unequivocal commitment to

finding a peaceful resolution to the conflict is imper-

ative, given the interdependence between Europe and

Russia in the areas of economic and energy cooperation.

The conflagration in Ukraine also demonstrates that the

prospects for peace over the long term depend in no

small measure on containing nationalist tendencies in

the states of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Repub-

lics (USSR). In this context, the continued expansion of

the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) into

Russias neighbourhood about 25 years after the end of

the Cold War, could prove counterproductive.

Prospects for peace

CARTOONSCAPE

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CMYK

ND-ND

9THE HINDU MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2015NOIDA/DELHI

COMMENT

From the outside, it looks like anyother automatic bank machine onthe streets of Istanbul. But rather thannotes, this one distributes small piec-es of gold.

Gold is hugely prized in Turkey notjust for ornamentation or investmentby banks but as a secure way for pri-vate individuals to hold their savings.

Many people in Turkey which hasone of the lowest private savings ratesamong major economies keep goldas security for a rainy day ratherthan products offered by banks.

According to estimates, Turks holdsome 3,500 tonnes of gold. Banks havesought to capitalise on the tradition byoffering accounts denominated ingold.

We were thinking about putting allthat gold back into the financial sys-tem somehow, so we decided to creategold accounts for our clients, said Se-da Yilmaz, marketing manager of theKuveyt Turk Bank, the first to do so, in2007.

So we bought one kilo of gold, andthe demand on the first day was threekilos. It was a very good decision, sowe decided to move ahead.

Eight years on, Kuveyt Turk manag-es 200,000 gold accounts with differ-ent products allowing sales by cheque,bank transfer or mobile phone.

Now with the introduction of thefirst ATMs that issue gold as well asthe usual banknotes, consumers canwithdraw pieces of gold weighing 1.0or 1.5 grammes.

The success of the ATMs started atrend, with many other Turkish bankslatching on. The volume of gold intheir reserves has gone from twotonnes in 2007 to 250 tonnes.

The government has also tried to

join the bandwagon with the centralbank allowing commercial businessesto hold some of their reserves in goldand opening this up to privateinvestors.

Thanks to this measure, our salesjumped 85 per cent last year, saidAysen Esen, head of a leading goldrefinery in the country.

Over the last two years, banks havetaken in some 40 tonnes of gold thatpeople had stashed under their beds.And its just a small proportion of thereserves.

Large reserves

Turkey, where the mythical Phry-gian King Midas turned everything togold and Trojan King Priam was saidto amass his gold hoard, has historical-ly been a centre for gold mining.

The first gold was mined in Anatoliaseveral millennia before the birth ofChrist but until recent years there hadbeen a long break in extraction.

This changed in the 1980s with newlegislation facilitating foreign invest-ments, resulting in the discovery ofnew gold deposits at home. The ex-traction of gold has since risen expo-nentially, from two tonnes mined in2002 to 33.5 tonnes in 2013. A brightfuture is assured, with undergroundreserves estimated at 6,500 tonnes.

The main reason for this boom isthat we still dont have any tax ongross gold transactions, we only payVAT (value added tax) on finishedproducts, said Ali Bulut chief exec-utive of Turkeys number one gold re-tailer Altinbas. Even if exchange ratevariations have an effect on activityand profits, Turks rank fourth as glob-al consumers of gold and second asexporters. AFP

Golds lustre lures Turkish savers

In its efforts to promote nuclearcommerce with the United States,the Narendra Modi governmenthas run into a dichotomy that lies at

the heart of this industry. While multina-tional nuclear suppliers, such as G.E. andWestinghouse publicly insist that theirproducts are extraordinarily safe, theyare adamant that they will not accept anyliability should an accident occur at oneof their reactors. The joint announce-ment by Mr. Modi and U.S. PresidentBarack Obama last month raised con-cerns that the government would moveto effectively indemnify suppliers, con-trary to the interests of potential victims.The list of frequently asked questions(FAQs) on nuclear liability released bythe Ministry of External Affairs on Feb-ruary 8 confirms the suspicion that theModi government is trying to reinterpretIndias liability law by executive fiat inorder to protect nuclear vendors.

The government has disingenuouslysuggested that it achieved the recentbreakthrough by establishing an insur-ance pool to support suppliers. However,to focus on this arrangement is to missthe wood for the trees as even a cursoryanalysis of the economics of nuclearplants shows.

A section in the Indian law called theright of recourse allows the NuclearPower Corporation of India Ltd.(NPCIL) to claim compensation fromsuppliers up to a maximum of Rs.1,500crore ($240 million). This pales in com-parison with the total cost of the sixplanned Westinghouse reactors at MithiVirdi in Gujarat; estimates from similarplants under construction in the U.S.suggest that this may be as high as Rs.2.5lakh crore. In the U.S., all nuclear plantoperators must have third-party insur-ance for at least $375 million, and suppli-ers could easily set aside a small portionof their profits to do the same for reactorssold in India.

Problematic principle

What suppliers are worried about isnot the amount, but the principle. Moreconcretely, if the law places some respon-sibility on suppliers, then a future Indiangovernment could use this to gain lev-erage by forcing them to pay substantial-ly more for a serious disaster. Moreover,their executives could be held account-able under other civil and criminal statu-

tes in India. The FAQs released by thegovernment are meant to reassure nucle-ar vendors on these counts.

The FAQs claim that the provision al-lowing the NPCIL a right of recourse isto be read in the context of the con-tract between the operator and supplier.This goes beyond the law, where the rightof recourse exists independently of acontract.

In 2010, when a parliamentary stand-ing committee suggested such a linkage,its recommendation was rejected by theCabinet after a public outcry. Althoughthe FAQs later state that a provisionthat was expressly excluded from thestatute cannot be read into the statute byinterpretation, this is precisely what thegovernment is doing here.

The FAQs suggest that the government

is also committed to the interests of thepublic sector NPCIL which would insistthat ... contracts contain provisions thatprovide for a right of recourse consistentwith Rule 24 of CLND Rules of 2011.However, this is a cunning sleight ofhand. A central element of these rules isthat the provision for right of recourse shall be for the duration of initial li-cense, which is usually granted only forfive years. In contrast, the promised life-time of modern reactors is 60 years, andfailure rates tend to increase in lateryears. Therefore, linking the right of re-course to a contract is an attempt to wa-ter down supplier liability to ameaningless level.

The FAQs also declare that supplierscannot be asked to pay more compensa-tion in the future than currently pro-vided under the law. However, thisignores the fact that the law itself has aprovision for revising liability, whichstates that the Central Government may from time to time specify, by noti-fication, a higher amount.

A revision of the cap with time is onlynatural. Several decades from now, Rs.1,500 crore may be worth much less thanit is currently. Therefore, the govern-ments move to perpetually limit suppli-er liability to this nominal amount defiesbasic economic principles, and implies

that victims will receive a lower compen-sation, in real terms, for future accidents.

Finally, the FAQs assert that the liabil-ity act, ipso facto, takes away the rights ofvictims to sue suppliers even under otherlaws. If this interpretation of the law iscorrect, then it implies that supplierscannot be prosecuted even for criminalnegligence.

Double standards

This provides a striking example ofdouble standards. Under U.S. law, suppli-ers can be held legally responsible foraccidents. Consequently, for decades, theU.S. refused to join any internationalconvention that would require it to legal-ly indemnify suppliers. When it engi-neered the Convention onSupplementary Compensation for Nu-clear Damage, it inserted a grandfatherclause to ensure that it would not haveto alter its own law. In contrast, the Indi-an government seems willing to meeklysurrender the rights of its citizens.

It is sometimes argued that India mustmake these concessions to repay theU.S. for its help in facilitating Indias ac-cess to international nuclear commerce.U.S. policymakers pushed for such accessin a calculated attempt to induce India tosupport its geostrategic objectives and toensure that U.S. companies would haveaccess to the emerging Indian nuclearmarket. However, just because the Man-mohan Singh government accepted thisFaustian pact and even cast an un-conscionable vote against Iran at the In-ternational Atomic Energy Agency does not mean that the country needs torepay this self-serving favour endlesslyby bending its laws and spending billionsof dollars on U.S. reactors.

Although the question of liability issomewhat abstruse, it deserves greaterpublic attention because it serves as aclear lens to understand the central con-flict involved in Indias nuclear expan-sion: the desire of nuclear vendors tohave profitability without accountabilityand the interests of ordinary people whocould be potential victims. The govern-ments attempt to resolve this conflict infavour of the industry is a revealing in-dicator of its priorities.

(M.V. Ramana and Suvrat Raju arephysicists with the Coalition for NuclearDisarmament and Peace. Ramana is theauthor of The Power of Promise: Examining Nuclear Energy in India,2012.)

Profitability without accountability

SELL OUT? The move to perpetually limit supplier liability to anominal amount defies basic economic principles, and implies thatvictims will receive a lower compensation, in real terms, for futureaccidents. Picture shows the Kudankulam nuclear power plant inTirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu. PHOTO: N. RAJESH

With the Indian government acting in favour of the nuclear industry, contrary to the interestsof potential victims of a disaster, the question of liability deserves greater attention M.V. Ramana and Suvrat Raju

Just because theManmohan Singhgovernment accepted theFaustian Indo-U.S. nuclearpact does not mean thatIndia needs to bend itslaws and spend billions ofdollars on U.S. reactors

A law teacher has joined the league ofself-appointed censors after watchingthe controversial AIB Knockout roast vid-eo. She has petitioned the Bombay HighCourt asking that YouTube videos bemonitored for offensive content beforethey are uploaded. Her demand for a cen-sored public sphere echoes Kamlesh Vas-wanis plea to the Supreme Court thatintermediaries should be made to filterout all online pornography. These well-meaning citizens may wrench the onlineintermediary liability debate back by adecade.

The online intermediary liability de-bate in India began in 2004 when a sexual-ly explicit video of two minors was sold onBaazee.com. This led to the arrest of Av-nish Bajaj, CEO of the company that own-ed the website, triggering a conversationabout the implications of holding onlineplatforms intermediaries that enablecirculation of other peoples information responsible for user-generated contentthat they host.

Pre-screening and scanning

After the Baazee.com case, the Infor-mation Technology Act was amended toadd what is known as a safe harbor clausefor platforms like YouTube and Baazee-.com. The safe harbor in the amended ITAct ensures that law criminalising con-tent like obscenity cannot be used to puni-sh a platform like YouTube if it is unawarethat it is hosting illegal content. Withoutthis protection, YouTube would have tomonitor all its videos before hosting themonline. This is because criminal law inIndia penalises circulation of obscenecontent, even when the person circulatingit does so unknowingly.

Dr. Ghuges demand for pre-screeningall YouTube videos asks to undo the safeharbor clause that was painstakinglycrafted by an expert committee, and ap-proved by a parliamentary standing com-mittee, before Parliament chose to enactit. The reason that the safe harbor clauseis necessary is that social networks, onlineauction platforms and video hosting ser-vices handle a very large volume of con-tent. Requiring them to monitor all of itwould reduce the vibrant, generative In-ternet to less than a shadow of itself. IfYouTube had to screen the hundred hoursof video content uploaded per minute byusers on its platform, it would become aslimited as television. The volume of onlinecontent makes monitoring impossible.

Some argue that keyword filtering maybe used as a way to automate the screen-ing of online content. This means thatcontent would automatically be scannedfor particular terms like pornographyand filtered out accordingly.

However, automated scanning meansthat legitimate content is often misidenti-fied as illegal and this leads to over fil-

tering. The U.K. government learned thisin a very public and embarrassing waywhen what is known as David Cameronsporn filter resulted in blocking legitimatecontent, including information on rapecrises, sex education and breastfeeding.

Well-meaning paternalists

The AIB Knockout video begins with awarning that it will beoffensive. People with apredisposition towardsbeing offended, like thelaw teacher Dr. Sharmi-la Ghuge, could easilyhave avoided it. But Dr.Ghuge said her primaryconcern is that otherpeople are watchingthis video.

Both Dr. Ghuge and Mr. Vaswani fretabout the effects of speech on the youth ofthis country. Dr. Ghuge finds the languagein the AIB video unbearable for any cul-tured and reputed person of civilisedbackground. She worries about the ef-fects of the roast on women and gays(term used in her petition), and wants thevideo banned so that the morality of socie-ty is not affected adversely. Mr. Vaswani isconcerned about the effects of pornog-raphy on youth and advocates the imme-diate blocking of all obscene contentbased on a connection that he draws be-tween obscene content and sexualviolence.

Both need to ask themselves whetherthey can reasonably expect everyone inthis diverse country to have consistentviews about what is offensive or obscene.The universal human right to freedom of

expression is not about the protection on-ly of speech that is palatable to everyone.

In fairness to Mr. Vaswani and Dr.Ghuge, it is not always clear whether cer-tain kinds of controversial speech haveconstitutional protection or not. It can bedifficult to decide whether a particularportrayal of religion in a film is a deliber-ate and malicious act intended to outrage

religious feelings,or whether abook meets thefairly ambiguouslegal standard forobscenity underthe IPC.

Forms of ex-pression rangingfrom the filmThe Da Vinci

Code to D.H. Lawrences Lady Chatter-leys Lover and Shekhar Kapurs filmBandit Queen have been difficult toclassify it has taken judicial interven-tion to determine whether they may beregulated or whether they be shielded bythe freedom of expression right in Article19 of the Constitution of India.

It is for the judiciary to make the finaldetermination about whether speech isconstitutionally protected or not. In Ran-jit Udeshi v. State of Maharashtra, whichdealt with questions of constitutional pro-tection of allegedly obscene speech, theSupreme Court suggested that the courtmust apply itself to consider each work ata time. The necessity of judicial reviewwas stated more baldly in ChandrakantKalyandas Kakodar v. State of Maharas-thra in which the Supreme Court said,whether the book or article or story con-

sidered as a whole panders to the prurientand is obscene must be judged by thecourts and ultimately by this Court.

Mr. Vaswani and Dr. Ghuges demandswould involve either the government orprivate parties making these critical deci-sions about speech. This would under-mine the right to freedom of expression.

An opaque system

The Indian government already has aquestionable track record in the contextof blocking online content. The systemfollowed to block content under the IT Actis opaque it neither notifies speakersand readers that content has beenblocked, nor permits intermediaries todisclose what content the government hasasked them to block. If speakers and read-ers have no way of finding out that thegovernment has ordered the blocking ofparticular speech, they will not be able tochallenge the governments decision tocensor before the judiciary. This meansthat the judiciary will not be able to checkwhether the government is using its pow-er to block online content consistentlywith the Constitution. This lack of ac-countability leaves the system open togovernment misuse to block politicallythreatening speech.

The controversy surrounding the AIBroast video makes it clear that Indian lawis still very prone to abuse by those whowish to exercise the hecklers veto. Enter-tainers who gave viewers every opportu-nity to avoid potentially offensive speechare being bullied using the law. Every-thing ranging from the infamous 66A ofthe IT Act to Section 294 of the IPC(which criminalises obscene acts andsongs) is being thrown at them. Worse stillis that the law is being used to intimidatethose who helped them, so that outra-geous speakers will find it difficult to findvenues and audiences. Dr. Ghuge has tak-en the bullying one step further and hasasked for a highly regressive alteration ofintermediary liability policy. Dr. Ghugeand Mr. Vaswani may destroy the freeflow of information that is the soul of ourdemocracy through their well-inten-tioned efforts to decide what other citi-zens should not see. Instead of looking forways to leverage the freedom and endlesspossibilities of communication offered bythe Internet, these two petitioners threat-en to unravel the safe harbor protectionthat keeps the Internet free andaccessible.

Whether the AIB video is offensive ornot has become irrelevant. The real ques-tion we should be asking is whether oursensibilities are so delicate that we wouldsacrifice our rich public discourse and thenew media that carry our chatter, becausewe cannot handle being offended now andthen.

(Chinmayi Arun is research director,Centre for Communications Governance,National Law University, New Delhi.)

Using law to bully comedians The controversy surrounding the AIB roast video makes it clear that Indian law is stillvery prone to abuse by those who wish to exercise the hecklers vetoChinmayi Arun

Requiring networks,platforms and hostingservices to monitorcontent would reduce theInternet to less than ashadow of itself

ILLUSTRATION: SATWIK GADE

One of the biggest challenges in this digital era is how to harness theparticipatory agency of readers without falling prey to the aggressionof trolls. I have touched upon this topic in a couple of my earlier columns:Saving public sphere from trolls (August 25, 2014) and Yes to criticism,no to vitriol (November 25, 2013). The WAN-IFRA (World Associationof Newspapers and News Publishers) published a detailed report on thebest practices for online moderation.

The authors of the report observed: It is impossible to limitcommenting to those who do have something constructive to say, anddiscussions frequently descend into torrents of insults that are utterlyirrelevant to the original article. Maybe its the fact that anonymity anddistance often allow consequence-free behaviour and a chance to defysocial norms, or may be its a factor of the structure of online

conversations, but comment threadson websites can frequently shock dueto abusive, uninformed, not tomention badly writtencontributions.

While most media outlets haveopted for moderation, some do notimpose any editorial control andpermit all sorts of comments on theirwebpage. There are two forms ofmoderations. The Hindu has optedfor prepublication moderation,where moderators clear comments.There are also media houses thatpractise post-publicationmoderation, where comments areremoved if found offensive orinsensitive.

However, with the increasedpresence of organised trolls, some

major media organisations have decided to close their commentssections. Popular Science, Bloomberg and Chicago Sun-Times have killedtheir comments section. Reuters has shut down its comments section fornews stories. This, some media scholars feel, is an extreme step.

Making content, not comments, free

The Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University recentlydocumented an interesting development that turned the governing ruleson its head. On February 10, 2015, it reported about an unusual step takenby the Jewish site, Tablet, to deal with unruly commenters: chargingreaders who want to submit or even view comments on their site.This is different from the conventional paywall mechanism, wherereaders are charged for content. In Tablets case, content is free butposting comment is not.

Tablets editor, Alana Newhouse, said that the new talk-back chargewas aimed at heightening the discourse on the website: We take pride inour community of readers, and are thrilled that you choose to engage withus in a way that is both thoughtful and thought-provoking. But theInternet, for all of its wonders, poses challenges to civilised andconstructive discussion, sometimes allowing destructive and, often,anonymous individuals to drag it down with invective (and worse).Instead of shutting off comments altogether (as some outlets are startingto do), we are going to try something else: Ask those of you whod like tocomment on the site to pay a nominal fee less a paywall than a gestureof your own commitment to the cause of great conversation.

Caroline ODonovan of Nieman Journalism Lab also cites otherexamples aimed at taming the trolls. She talks about putting up anotherbarrier one that necessitates a credit card, or at least a PayPal account with the aim to disincentivise individuals, whose only motivation is totroll, from joining the conversation. She refers to the group blog,Metafilter, as one of the few to try a version of this model. Its membersmake a single payment of $5 for the ability to share links and comment onthe site; reading remains free. The website says this system helps ensuretrust in the community and that the quality of contributions is high. Thecomedy website Something Awful has a similar system, charging aone-time $10 fee for posting and reading access to its forums.

Ms. ODonovan observes that publishers who kill the comments like topoint out that with news brands and journalists available on a myriadof social platforms readers arent exactly at a loss for ways to get intouch. According to her, the response to Tablets move on Twitter wassplit between those excited about a new approach to comments and thoseworried about decreased quality, loss of equal access, and the price ofcommenting privileges.

Revenue model for digital platforms?

Tablets move may have been aimed at controlling trolls and improvingthe quality of debate in virtual space. But, it may, willy-nilly, pave the wayfor a meaningful revenue model for digital platforms. So far, no legacymedia organisation has managed to secure substantial revenue to justifytheir spending on technology, though their digital presence has helpedmany to reach audiences outside their conventional geographicalmarkets. The technological disruption, that infamous term from theSilicon Valley, has played havoc with media economics, and underminedthe sustainability of many a media house. In the current scenario, onlyInternet service providers and digital behemoths such as Google,Facebook and Twitter are making money. But, this disruption has alsostoked peoples imagination to be a part of a conversation that forms oursociopolitical narrative. They may be hesitant to pay for news andcontent but may be prepared to fund their own articulation. A wellthought-out multi-tier paywall mechanism for a public talk-back systemmay be the elusive revenue model the media was looking for in this digitalera.

readerseditor@thehindu.co.in

Will troll toll work?

FROM THE READERS' EDITOR

Facebook Group: Indian Administrative Service (Raz Kr)

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