THE HINDU I HYDERABAD, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2013

OP-ED 9

FROM THE READERS' EDITOR

State of the economy impacts the state of the media uch has been written about the watchdog role of the media. But, M there is hardly any rigorous study about the relationship between the state of the economy and the state of the media. India is slowly
moving into the election mode, and this means the media needs to offer extensive and exhaustive coverage of various issues concerning the largest democracy of the world. However, the largest democracy is also facing an economic crunch that is hurting the nances of the media industry. In a sense, we are in a catch-22 situation. We need more informed media to make our choices before the 2014 general election. But, the economic downturn has cast its shadow on the very functioning of the media. In the beginning of the last decade, unlike the western media that faced a downward trend, the Indian media was on a growth mode. While many felt that India had bucked the global trend, some cautious observers felt that the Indian media was in a state of denial, unwilling to accept the fact that the global trend is bound to catch up, if A.S. Panneerselvan not sooner, than certainly later. Most projections for the medias growth were based on an average GDP growth of around eight per cent, year upon year. But the Indian economy snapped its growth path four years ago, and the slowdown is real and its impact is stark. According to the latest government gures, economic growth decelerated to 4.4 per cent in the April-June quarter of 2013, its slowest rate since the rst three months of 2009.

No better judge of this government

Passing a constitutional amendment to overhaul the judicial appointments process without proper deliberation in Parliament reects the UPAs eagerness to see a pliant Supreme Court
Arun Mohan Sukumar ne late evening, on March 9, 1937, thousands of Americans turned their radios on to hear an unusual request from their President: help me pack the Supreme Court with judges who will rule in my favour. The United States had been ravaged by the Great Depression, and Franklin D. Roosevelt had a plan to save its economy. But the New Deal, as he called it, comprised a series of welfare legislation designed to raise the minimum wage, enhance social security, and provide subsidies to American farmers and President Roosevelt needed a pliant Court that would not strike it down. So he mooted the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill that would retire many of the sitting Supreme Court judges and replace them with appointees inclined to see the Presidents actions in a kinder light. While Roosevelts intentions were noble, the public and the U.S. Congress saw right through his appeal whatever the objective, the independence of the judiciary could not be compromised. Closer home, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has embarked on a similar, dangerous mission to clean up the mess it has left behind and protect its legacy at the cost of the Supreme Courts credibility. Only this time, it may succeed. On Thursday, the Rajya Sabha passed the Constitution (99th Amendment) Bill, 2013, which scraps the collegium system of appointments to the higher judiciary and replaces it with a Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC). The collegium is a small, powerful and unaccountable clique of Supreme Court judges led by the Chief Justice. This system was the creation of the Supreme Court itself, made possible through a liberal interpretation of Article 124 of the Constitution, which will now be amended.

Imports
The decline of the rupee against major currencies leading to a huge rise, by about 25 to 30 per cent, in the prices of imports is hurting the media industry as much as others. There are substantial imported components that go into the making of a newspaper, which include its newsprint, printing plates and printing ancillaries. Here, the cost has gone up by 25 per cent compared to last year. The logistics cost of moving the paper from the printing press to subscribers homes has gone up by 30 per cent due to the hike in diesel prices. These are some of the indicators of the increased expenditure.

Fall in revenue
The revenue side has also taken a beating. The fall in advertisement revenue has become a global phenomenon. For instance, in the United States, newspapers received $49.435 billion advertisement revenue in 2005. But now, total newspaper revenue from advertisement has plummeted to $22.314 billion, a drop of 55 per cent as advertising collapsed in the print editions of newspapers and was not replaced by revenue from online advertising. In India, the drop is steep in specic sectors. The telecom sector has come down by 51 per cent, petroleum companies 35 per cent, nance seven per cent, and corporate advertisements by 19 per cent. And the overall drop is about 15 per cent.

Uncertainty over balance

The JAC, its proposed alternative, will consist of three Supreme Court judges, the Union Law Minister, the Law Secretary as its Convenor, and two eminent persons appointed by a body comprising the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Justice of India. Even assuming this set-up is an improvement from the collegium system, there is no certainty the commissions

Impact
How do these impact good journalistic practices? Can the media remain immune to the general economic crisis that has hit the country? The biggest casualty is the job security for journalists. We witnessed the largest downsizing in recent media history when TV-18 Broadcast Limited terminated the services of about 350 employees, which is a nearly 30 per cent staff reduction. Bloomberg TV in India is planning a similar reduction of its staff strength. There was a bloodbath in the Outlook group of magazines earlier this year when it stopped producing the local editions of international magazine titles People, Geo and Marie Claire. The second impact will be on news-gathering expenditure, which includes travelling, researching, hiring specialists and investment in new technologies. The travel and technology investments are generally put on hold when there is a squeeze on the budget. This means there will be less reporting from the far-ung rural areas. The essential hubs of newsgathering will crowd the urban centres where most newsrooms are located affecting reportage from the hinterland. This will also have an impact on sustained investigations that might require resource deployment. Third, there may be a reduction in terms of volume of content. In televisions, channels may opt for repeating some programmes rather than producing original content. In print, there may be a reduction in the number of pages. The scarcity of the space will bring in its wake a process of elimination of news that is not ideal in an election year. In this context, what should be done to protect the uninterrupted ow of credible, trustworthy information and the vibrant media culture from being overwhelmed by the economic woes? Scaling down seems to be an easy option. But it is suicidal. The approach lies in prioritising of the expenditure and not in imposing blanket austerity measures across the board that might actually eat into the vitals of a credible media environment. A judicious balance is the need of the hour. readerseditor@thehindu.co.in

membership will always strike a ne balance between the executive and the judiciary. The government can subsequently change the JACs structure, and decide who gets to appoint Supreme Court or High Court judges. All it needs is a simple majority in Parliament, because the JAC Bill, unlike the Constitution Amendment Bill, would be ordinary law. The new, improved system for judicial appointments will be put in place through a constitutional amendment, but the critical components of that system will be eshed out by normal legislation, subject to the whims and fancies of the executive. Hardly had the Union Cabinet decided the composition of the JAC on August 23 than it rushed to clear the constitutional amendment in Parliament. The government knows that if the Amendment is in place, there is no option for Parliament but to pass the JAC Bill at the earliest. Otherwise, as the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley, acknowledged during last weeks debate, there will be a constitutional hiatus, with no mechanism in place to appoint Supreme Court/ High Court judges. Union Minister of Law and Justice Kapil Sibal cleverly refused to withdraw the Amendment Bill and refer it to the Standing Committee, knowing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had no option but to walk out in protest. The BJP had painted itself into a corner, given its in-principle support to the JAC, and its own initiative to pass similar legislation during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) governments term. In walking out, the Opposi-

claims that this process will take over six to eight months, it is fairly reasonable to presume it will be completed in a short time frame. Meanwhile, the JAC Bill will likely be passed in the early days of the winter session. We could even see a new system for appointing Supreme Court judges in place by the end of this year.

2014 and scam investigation

Why the UPA is in such a hurry to pass laws that effectively compromise the independence of the judiciary, at such a critical juncture, is anyones guess. Ahead of the general election, the Supreme Court will play a crucial role in moulding public perception of the governing class, as it adjudicates cases relating to the 2G and Coalgate scams. Nearly 10 judges of the Supreme Court will retire in 2014 including Chief Justice P. Sathasivam and senior Justices G.S. Singhvi and K.S. Radhakrishnan, who currently preside over the 2G scam adjudication creating perhaps one of its biggest annual vacancies ever. The new Justices, who will determine the Courts makeup, could also rule on the constitutionality of several agship laws of the UPA, most importantly on food security and land acquisition. Is the government trying to pack the Court with exible judges? The proposed JAC certainly offers this opportunity as long as its eminent members toe the line of the government, the UPA can ensure favourable appointments even before it remits office in May 2014. Any such attempt to protect the governments reputation in the short term will prove damaging to our long-cherished principle of separation of powers. The government must allow for debate on the Constitutional Amendment in the Lok Sabha, rather than rushing it through the House. That the process of judicial appointments is currently nontransparent is no excuse to twist it in favour of the executive. arun.sukumar@thehindu.co.in

ILLUSTRATION: SATWIK GADE

tion played into the hands of the government, leaving it with the simple task of obtaining a two-third majority from Members of Parliament present and voting in the House.

Advantage UPA
The Constitutional Amendment will be passed easily in the Lok Sabha, what with the UPAs numbers in the lower House. What remains is its ratication by one-half of all States not a tall order considering the Congress is the ruling party in 14 of them. For all of Mr. Sibals

Curtains for a tragedy in ve acts

If negative attacks on Tony Abbott did little to mask the Labor Partys listless performance in power, inghting ensured its defeat in the Australian general election
Ramesh Thakur or the Australian Labor Party, a crushing defeat on Saturday night was the nale of a tragedy in ve acts. Because the result is more a repudiation of Labor inghting than endorsement of Coalition philosophy, it does not mark a shift to the right. For new Prime Minister-elect Tony Abbott, the results were just rewards for leading a disciplined, stable and united team through three years of national political turmoil and global economic turbulence. In foreign policy, the results may portend subtle shifts in nuance and emphasis but not a fundamental reorientation. For India, an Abbott government is likely to provide greater ballast. Kevin Rudds convincing victory in 2007 produced high initial popularity, but a shambolic management style and an autocratic-narcissistic personality were the backdrop to Act One. In 2010, with plummeting polls and an alienated cabinet, the party caucus replaced him with Julia Gillard.

Experts for web security revamp

by Snowden and published on Thursday show that the agency worked to insert vulnerabilities in commercial encryption gear, covertly inuence other designs to allow for future entry, and weaken industry-wide standards to the agencys benet. In combination with other techniques, those efforts led the NSA to claim internally that it had the ability to access many forms of internet trafc that had been widely believed to be secure, including at least some virtual private networks, which set up secure tunnels on the Internet, and the broad security level of the secure sockets layer Web, used for online banking and the like. Green and others said a great number of security protocols needed to be written from scratch without government help. Author Bruce Schneier, one of the most admired gures in modern cryptography, wrote in a Guardian column that the NSA has undermined a fundamental social contract and that engineers elsewhere had a moral duty to take back the Internet. But all those interviewed warned that rewriting Web security would be extremely difficult. Adding encryption Another problem is the relatively The head of the volunteer group in small number of mathematical excharge of the Internets fundamental perts working outside the NSA. technology rules told Reuters on SatA lot of our foundational technolurday that the panel will intensify its ogies for securing the Net have come work to add encryption to basic Web through the government, said retraffic and to strengthen the so-called searcher Dan Kaminsky, famed for secure sockets layer, which guards nding a critical aw in the way users banking, email and other pages begin- are steered to the website they seek. ning with Https. They have the best minds in the This is one instance of the dangers country, but their advice is now that we face in the networked age, suspect. said Jari Arkko, an Ericsson scientist Finally, governments around the who chairs the Internet Engineering world, including democracies, are asTask Force. We have to respond to serting more authority over the Inthe new threats. ternet, in some cases forbidding the Documents provided to The Guard- use of virtual private networks. ian, The New York Times and others Reuters nternet security experts are calling for a campaign to rewrite Web security in the wake of disclosures that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has developed the capability to break encryption protecting millions of sites. But they acknowledged the task wont be easy, in part because internet security has relied heavily on brilliant government scientists who now appear suspect to many. Leading technologists said they felt betrayed that the NSA, which has contributed to some important security standards, was trying to ensure they stayed weak enough so that the agency could break them. Some said they were stunned that the government would value its monitoring ability so much that it was willing to reduce everyones security. We had the assumption that they could use their capacity to make weak standards, but that would make everyone in the U.S. insecure, said Johns Hopkins cryptography professor Matthew Green. We thought they would never be crazy enough to shoot out the ground they were standing on, and now were not so sure.
CM YK

Between Gillard and Rudd

Act Two was consumed by the fallout. Australias rst woman Prime Minister never recovered legitimacy from the back-stabbing that catapulted her into the post. Mr. Rudd undermined her during the 2010 campaign and stalked and destabilised her non-stop until June 2013. She also had a tin ear, rejecting responsibility for policy errors and mismanagement. Instead of responding to voter concerns, she retreated into a gendered bunker mentality from where all criticisms were blamed on misogyny. This alienated voters even more. Act Three opened in June when a long, unbroken sequence of disastrous polling led Labor to dump Ms Gillard and return to Mr. Rudd to limit the electoral damage. On being replaced by Mr. Rudd, she showed the grace and the dignity that he had lacked three years earlier and she notably refrained from undermining his 2013 campaign by word or deed, a contrast noted by most commentators. He was reconsidered only to be found wanting once again. The early bounce in polls soon dissipated as the old undisciplined Rudd returned and the campaign was soon in a shambles. He led Labor to its lowest vote in over a hundred years, claimed vindication nonetheless for having stopped the haemorrhaging under Ms Gillard, but will relinquish party leadership. Act Four was an abandonment of values and principles that entrenched public perceptions that Labor has been captured by unionists and careerists who hold no principles they will not junk to cling to power. Nothing symbolised this more than the effort to outank Mr. Abbott in

TURFED OUT: Labor rule was largely about the conict between Kevin Rudd (below, foreground) and Julia Gillard, failing to give voters any reason to vote for it instead of against Abbotts (above right) Coalition. PHOTOS: AFP, REUTERS

bor as at war with itself, he pointedly asked how a party that could not govern itself could be trusted to run the country. His sharpest product differentiation was on promises to repeal a carbon tax that was a potent symbol of a broken election promise by Ms Gillard, to stop the tide of asylum seeker boats and to jettison a mining tax. He also intends to return the budget to surplus, reduce the national debt and in general shrink government and strengthen efficient governance. heartlessness on the desperate asylum seekers coming to Australia on dangerously unseaworthy boats. Act Five of the tragedy was cementing a reputation for policy chaos and incompetent management of the ship of state. Labors dominant campaign theme was a relentlessly negative attack on Mr. Abbott that preyed on peoples fears. Labor failed to give voters any reason to vote for them instead of against the Coalition. The more the people saw Mr. Abbott, however, the more they were reassured by the calm and steady performance of a committed family man. Highlighting La-

His rst official visits as prime minister will be to Asian not western capitals. Julie Bishop, the incoming foreign ministerto-be, has promised a new Colombo Plan of two-way educational exchanges with Asia as a signature new policy.

Looking to India
Australias own pivot to India had begun under the Howard government but was interrupted by Labor Party restrictions on selling uranium to non-NPT countries. It took Labor ve years to change policy. The new foreign secretary is of ethnic Indian background, took up the post in December after a successful stint as High Commissioner to India, and has previously served as head of Howards international policy unit. But if Indias economic future is mortgaged to bad governance rooted in populist politics, Australia, like others, will return India to the basket of benign neglect. (Ramesh Thakur is director, Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation & Disarmament, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University, Canberra.)
HY-GBRSTG

On Syria
One of the few foreign policy issues to intrude in the election campaign was Syria. Mr. Rudd signed on early and strongly to U.S. President Barack Obamas policy of military strikes on Syria as punishment for its alleged use of chemical weapons on August 21. Counter-intuitively, Mr. Abbott proved to be the more circumspect and cautious in recognising the complexities and risks and promised to keep Australia out of any military action. The Abbott government will likely invest more in defence and key bilateral relations and downplay multilateralism.