GD-WAT Bible

GD-WAT Bible

IMS Learning Resources Pvt. Ltd.

Regd. Office: 6 th Floor, NCL Building, ‘E’ Block, Near Bandra Family Court,
Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), Bandra (E), Mumbai - 400051
Tel.: +91 22 6668 0005 Fax: +91 22 6668 0006.
Toll Free: 1800-1234-467
E-mail : ims@imsindia.com Website: www.imsindia.com
CIN : U80220MH1999PTC121823
 GD WAT Bible

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Sr. No. Topic Pg No.

1 US- China Trade War 4

2 Impact of AI on jobs 11
3 How artificial intelligence plays an important role in our daily life 13
4 Farm Loan Waivers 17
5 India on a renaming spree - Does it serve any purpose 21
6 Brexit 23
7 IBC (Insolvency _ bankruptcy code) is the solution to India_s NPA problem 27
8 Sabarimala Issue _ A clash between tradition _ women rights 33
9 SC verdict on Section 377 - A game changer 37
10 IL _ FS Saga _ Implications for the economy _ lessons to be learned 40
11 Decoding SC verdict on Aadhar 44
12 Impact of Rising Oil Prices _ Falling Rupee on the Indian Economy 51
13 Does India need a benevolent dictator or a strong democracy 57
14 The Classroom of 2030 59
15 Protectionism signals the end of globalization 61
16 Does India need a bullet train 64
17 Government spending on statues (Sardar patel, 69
Shivaji, Lord Ram): Is it justified?
18 Will TV broadcast/Cable TV survive the onslaught of Netflix, 71
Hotstar & Prime?
19 #MeToo campaign: A much needed movement 74
20 Agrarian Crisis - Is Agriculture no longer a viable occupation in India? 78
21 Topic: Fake News 83
22 Can electric cars succeed in India? 89
23 Online harassment: Should trolls be outlawed? 93
24 Can Bitcoin be the currency of the future? 97
25 Demonetization _ exercise in futility or a success 102
26 WAT-Topics 106

3
GD WAT Bible

US- China Trade War

What is a Trade war

It’s what it sounds like - a trade war is when countries try to attack each other’s trade with
tariffs and quotas on imports.One country will raise tariffs, a type of tax, causing the other
to respond, in a tit-for-tat escalation.This can hurt other nations’ economies and lead to
rising political tensions between them.As it escalates, a trade war reduces international
trade.

Learning from History

The Smoot-Hawley Act is the Tariff Act of 1930. Smoot-Hawley raised already high U.S.
tariffs on foreign agricultural imports. The purpose was to support U.S. farmers who had
been ravaged by severe droughts. It increased 900 import tariffs by an average of 40 to 48
percent.
Rather than helping, it raised food prices for Americans who were already suffering from
the Depression. It also compelled other countries to retaliate with their own tariffs. That
forced global trade down by 65 percent.
Most economists blame it for worsening the Great Depression. It also contributed to the start
of World War II.Smoot-Hawley showed how dangerous trade protectionism is for the global
economy.

Broadly, a country wages a trade war for two reasons

a. Protect Domestic Industry : When a tariff is levied on imports, it makes the
imported product expensive and hence gives the domestic country a competitive
edge. If imported goods are more expensive than domestic ones, consumers may buy
more local goods. In the short term, protectionism gives a boost to domestic industry
and to employment. The long term effects may not be so positive as domestic
industries may not remain competitive in the absence of competition.
b. To get a country mend its ways : When a country ( as powerful as the US) wants a
particular country to stop acting in certain ways- it can resort to trade wars. Trade
wars inflict a economic pain on the trading partner and the message sent out is ‘
Please mend your evil ways if you want my dollars coming your way’
There may be some political / strategic reasons for a country to start a trade war - it is
important to note that trade wars also hurt the country that initiates the war - the hope is
that it will be able to withstand the loss better / inflict greater pain to the trading partner.

4
 GD WAT Bible

The Start of the Current World Trade War

On March 8, 2018, President Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a
10 percent tariff on aluminum. Trump said, “Trade wars are good and easy to win.” But
the markets disagreed. Global stock markets tumbled in fear of a trade war between the
world’s three largest economies (US,China, & EU)
The U.S. Congress is the only body authorized to impose tariffs. But Trump used a special
power granted by Congress in 1962. It allows a president to curb imports that threaten
national security. The Commerce Department reported that dependence on imported
metals threatens the U.S. ability to make weapons.
Eight countries filed formal complaints with the World Trade Organization. Five of them -
Canada, India, and Mexico, the European Union, Norway, and Switzerland - point out
they are allies. Trump can’t use national security as a defense against them. The other two
complainants are China and Russia.
Causes of U.S. Trade War with China
Mr Trump made a big point on the campaign trail about cutting the country’s trade
deficits.He’s convinced it hurts US manufacturing, and has said time and time again that
the US must do more to tackle them. A trade deficit occurs when exports are less than
imports.And the US has a massive trade deficit with China.Last year, it stood at about
$375bn. Mr Trump’s not happy about that

5
GD WAT Bible

In 2017, the United States exported $130 billion to China. The three largest export
categories are aircraft at $16 billion; soybeans, $12 billion; and automobiles, $11 billion.
U.S. imports from China were $506 billion. Most of it is electronics, clothing, and
machinery.
( a lot of the imports are from U.S. manufacturers that send raw materials to China for
low-cost assembly. Once shipped back to the United States, they are considered imports. As
a result, tariffs hurt U.S. corporations as well as foreign ones.)
Things USA wants from China
On May 4, 2018, the Trump administration presented China with five demands. It asked
China to:
End subsidies to tech companies.
Stop stealing U.S. intellectual property.
Cut tariffs on U.S. goods by 2020.
Open China to more U.S. investment.
Reduce the trade deficit by $200 billion by 2020.
China is unlikely to comply with the first two demands. They are at odds with China’s goal
of becoming a tech leader. On the other hand, China does want to reduce its trade deficit.
China’s economic reform plan is to become less reliant on exports. But it cautions there isn’t
much it can do, since the deficit is fueled by high U.S. demand for low-cost Chinese goods.
On May 10, China agreed to import more U.S. products ( which will reduce the trade
deficit)
The Hidden Agenda ?
Trump is trying to deal with two serious concerns facing the American economy: Counter
the threats to the dollar’s status as the reserve currency, and retain the near monopoly in
Digital and Hi-Tech space. These issues, central to the US power and eminence, are now
under serious challenge
It’s about the Reserve Currency: The dollar has become the reserve currency because over
70 per cent of world trade happens in dollars. This may look strange as the US share in
world trade is less than 15 per cent. The US manages this by ensuring that large trade
contracts for commodities like crude oil are always denominated in dollars.
The dollar’s position as the reserve currency is under strain . Many countries including
China are taking steps to denominate their trade contracts in local currency and reduce
dependence on the dollar. China plans to denominate all Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)
contracts in local currencies. No wonder China is the primary target in the trade war.
Threat to hi-tech
Trump’s second concern is to retain the US lead in digital and high tech space. It is under
threat from China which is going all-out to become a leader in Artificial Intelligence and
high technology by 2025. Loss of US monopoly in digital space is a worry too.

6
 GD WAT Bible

Many of China’s home-grown firms are large unicorns ready for global operations in direct
competition to the US firms. Worse, the China model of not allowing entry to Google and
Facebook is being copied by Russia, Brazil, and many others. The EU is also thinking of
creating an EU wide internet. All this would mean an end of the dominance of the US firms
in digital space.
The US tariffs on imports from China will impact not only its exports to the US but to all
countries. Most of China’s exports are produced in the tariff-free global supply chains
(GVC) where collaborative manufacturing happens among a group of countries. Tariffs by
partner countries will delay numerous Customs clearances and significantly reduce the
effectiveness of GVCs. The US would love to think that this will rock the Chinese boat and
force them to a compromise.
A tit-for tat of tariff announcements
Round 1(March 2018)The Trump administration it would levy tariffs on $60 billion of
imports from China. The administration also said it would limit U.S. technology transfers to
Chinese companies. China responded by announcing tariffs on $3 billion on US products
Round 2 (April 2018) :the Trump administration announced it might impose tariffs on $50
billion in Chinese imported electronics, aerospace, and machinery.
China retaliated hours later. It announced 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion of U.S. exports to
China. These also won’t go into effect immediately. China’s tariffs strategically targeted 106
products. China also penalized two other U.S. exports: sorghum and Boeing airplanes. It
targeted industries located in states that supported Trump in the 2016 election.
Round 3 : (April 2018) :Trump said he might impose tariffs on $100 billion more of Chinese
imports. It would cover just one-third of U.S. imports from China. If China retaliates, that
would impose tariffs on all U.S. exports to China.
As things stand in DEC 2018,

While the US-China war dominates the headlines (due to the sheer trade volume and given
the political tensions playing out), US has been embroiled in a trade war with many
countries

7
GD WAT Bible

US vs the rest of the world

Trade War With the EU: On May 31, 2018, Trump announced the tariff would be imposed
on Canada, Mexico, and the EU.
On June 21, Germany proposed an end to the EU’s 10 percent tax on U.S. auto imports. In
return, Trump must forget about imposing a 25 percent tax on European auto imports.
On June 22, the EU imposed tariffs on $3.2 billion of American products. It targeted imports
that will impact Trump’s political base.
Both moves follow the April 21, 2018, EU upgrade of its trade agreement with Mexico.
Once signed, it will remove tariffs from almost all trade between the two areas.
On July 17, the EU signed a trade agreement with Japan. It reduces or ends tariffs on almost
all goods. It’s the largest bilateral trade agreement, covering $152 billion in goods. It will
come into force in 2019 after ratification.
On July 25, 2018, the EU and the United States agreed to hold off on any new tariffs,
reassess the steel and aluminum tariffs, and work toward zero tariffs on non-auto industrial
goods.
Canada : Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada would retaliate with tariffs
( Mau 2018 tariffs on steel )
Mexico announced tariffs on U.S. industries in areas that supported Trump.
Turkey : Trump announced he would double the tariffs on aluminum and steel imports
from Turkey. He was trying to obtain the release of jailed American pastor Andrew
Brunson. Turkey claims he was involved in the 2016 coup to overthrow the government.
The U.S. move lowered the value of the Turkish lira to a record low against the U.S. dollar.
This renewed fears that the poor health of the Turkish economy could trigger another crisis
in the eurozone.
India :India’s trade surplus of $21 billion with the US has often attracted the ire of US
President Trump, who claims India follows discriminatory trade practices against US
exports.
India had deferred tit-for-tat tariffs for the third time against 29 American products worth
$235 million by 45 days. The move was considered to counter the US’s move to unilaterally
raise import duties on Indian steel and aluminium products. India and the US are now
engaged in finalizing a trade package to ease tensions
Implications for American consumers
The trade war has raised the prices of consumer goods that use steel and aluminum. Half
of all Chinese imports are goods used by U.S. manufacturers to make other products. The
most immediate effects were felt by companies like Walmart, which import billions of
dollars of cheap goods that are bought mostly by the people who voted Trump into office.

8
 GD WAT Bible

The prices on almost all of these items would quickly skyrocket beyond the reach of the
lower economic brackets—not because of manufacturing costs, but because of the tariffs.
Foreign tariffs on U.S. exports will make them more expensive. U.S. exporters may have to
cut costs and lay off workers to remain competitively priced. If they fail, they may cuts
costs further or even go out of business. The 12 million U.S. workers who owe their jobs to
exports could get laid off.
Implications for China
The trade war with the U.S. could cut China’s export growth by almost half next year,
putting around 4.4 million jobs at risk.Economists expect the trade war will cut China’s
export growth by almost half to 5.1 percent in 2019 ,denting GDP growth by 1.04
percentage points.
Implications for India
India has spotted an opportunity to boost its exports in sectors such as chemicals,
pharmaceuticals and electrical parts, where India could have a comparative advantage.
Global Implications
Mr Trump’s decision to take on China could lead to adverse effects for consumers in the US
and in China, but also worldwide.
An economic showdown between the world’s biggest economies doesn’t look good for
anyone.
Consultant Oxford Economics predicted the trade war could cost the global economy $800
billion in reduced trade.
That could slow growth by 0.4 percent. It’s occurring at the same time that oil prices and
interest rates are rising.
The Settlement or Temporary Truce

In December 2018, it was announced that the US tariffs on Chinese goods will remain
unchanged for 90 days, but warns: “If at the end of this period of time, the parties are
unable to reach an agreement, the 10 percent tariffs will be raised to 25 percent.”

9
GD WAT Bible

The US says China agreed to “purchase a not yet agreed upon, but very substantial,
amount of agricultural, energy, industrial, and other products from the United States to
reduce the trade imbalance between our two countries”.
China has pretty much given up nothing in this deal because the future tariffs threatened
from the Beijing side were retaliatory in nature and only to be applied if the United State
escalated.

This is not a suspension of the trade war but a suspension of the escalation of the trade
war.

Conclusion
While many believe that the US is winning the trade war (given how it has got other
countries to open their markets/ revisit tariffs on US goods), economists warn that it is too
early to predict the long-term impact. While a few individual countries may gain, the global
economy is most likely to be hit hard.
Here’s a statement by legendary economist Gary Shilling “When you’ve got plenty of supply
in the world,plenty of industrial capability, plenty of raw materials a - it’s the buyer that
has the upper hand not the seller. The buyer has the ultimate power and who’s the
buyer? US is the buyer, China is the seller.
China isn’t going to collapse obviously, but I think in this trade war, that the US has the
upper hand.I think US-China probably will settle and China will begrudgingly give
ground. They’ll import more US goods, they’ll ease up on required tech transfers, steal less
of it.
In the long term, trade wars slow global economic growth. They create more layoffs, not
fewer, as foreign countries retaliate. Whatever form this conflict takes, and however long it
lasts, there will be no winner.
Recommended Further Reading
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2018/06/21/a-full-blown-trade-
war-between-america-and-china-looks-likely

https://www.thebalance.com/trade-wars-definition-how-it-affects-you-4159973

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-43512098

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/columns/ajay-srivastav/the-real-
reason-behind-trumps-trade-war/article24856757.ece

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwa3vLoeNmQ

10
 GD WAT Bible

Impact of AI on jobs
With the advent of any new technology whether it was the steam engine during the
Industrial Revolution or the Artificial Intelligence in the present times, it brings forth
questions pertaining to its impact on the job market. If we really dig deep into some of the
major historical events we will realize that AI is just another chapter in humankind’s
continuous drive to greater innovation. Having said that, in the previous technological
revolutions, machines took over many physical tasks that humans were doing, but humans
still had the cognitive tasks. This time, as AI takes up the cognitive tasks too, what would be
left for humans is something to ponder upon. The author of The Second Machine Age and The
Race Against Machine, Erik Brynjolfsson states that what makes the present scenario
different from the Industrial Revolution of the past is the pace at which digital technologies
are growing in power, together with signs that computers are already diminishing the role
of human labour.
Industrial Revolution and its impact
To better understand how technological innovations should not be looked at solely as a
cause of unemployment and mass mayhem; let’s take a look at a scenario from 1947.
According to data from Berkshire Hathaway 2015 Annual Letter, in 1947, shortly after the
end of World War II, the American workforce totaled 44 million. About 1.35 million
workers were employed in the railroad industry. The revenue ton-miles of freight moved by
Class I railroads that year totaled 655 billion. By 2014, Class I railroads carried 1.85 trillion
ton-miles, an increase of 182%, while employing only 187,000 workers, a reduction of 86%
since 1947… As a result of this staggering improvement in productivity, the inflation-
adjusted price for moving a ton-mile of freight has fallen by 55% since 1947, a drop saving
shippers about $90 billion annually in current dollars. Another startling statistic: If it took as
many people now to move freight as it did in 1947, we would need well over three million
railroad workers to handle present volumes. (Of course, that level of employment would
raise freight charges by a lot; consequently, nothing close to today’s volume would actually
move.)
So, in short seventy years ago a little over 3% of the U.S. workforce was employed by the
railroad industry moving freight and passengers around the country compared to only 0.1%
of the workforce in present time and yet it moves nearly three times the amount of freight
around the country. So, with the changing scenarios humans have been upgrading their
skills and not necessarily become unemployed.
Alan Manning, professor of economics at the London School of Economics said, “If I take a
historical perspective then technical change has always destroyed some jobs and created
others, and this would in some sense be no different from that. There will be some people
who have spent 20 or 30 years specialised in a job and suddenly there is no demand for
that. They suffer big losses but in the long run that washes out, no young people go into
those jobs and they go into something else and there is always something else to go into.”
Fear of job loss
In 2016, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim stated that the World Bank data has predicted
that the proportion of jobs threatened by automation in India is 69 percent, 77 percent in
China and as high as 85 percent in Ethiopia. But this is still data and it is indeed very
difficult to work on assumptions here. No one can predict exactly all of the jobs that AI will
take over from humans over the next few decades. We just don’t know where the
technology will take us. During the early 1980s, the age of computer had arrived and along
with it came “computerphobia”. There were people who felt they can be replaced by a

11
GD WAT Bible

machine or even worse become a slave to it. Just because 50 % jobs have become automated
does not mean that there will be 50 % unemployment. With the AI Revolution in upswing
we will become more productive and a task that usually used to take a week could be done
in 3 days. That was the case in the Industrial Revolution. Before the Industrial Revolution,
many worked 60 hours per week. After the Industrial Revolution, work reduced to around
40 hours per week. So, it might be a possibility that there will be more free time for humans
to pursue their hobbies or volunteer.
So, while it is a natural human tendency to look at any massive technological shifts with
anxiety and paranoia, history has shown us that we humans are extremely flexible and we
continue to upgrade ourselves and find ourselves relevant in the job market.
AI revolution and human skills
With AI taking up the chunk of jobs that are time consuming and repetitive, human skills
will be far more appreciated. Thus, all those professions that involve a lot of sensorimotor
skills, the jobs that require the skills of ideation, large-frame pattern recognition, and
complex communication can rejoice as these are the roles that humans would be preferred
over machines. Professions wherein, human interactions are key such as job roles that
involves motivating, nurturing, caring and comforting people will remain with humans.
Machines with their stunted social skills will not replace health care and wellness
professionals, salespeople, managers and entrepreneurs, nurses, kindergarten teachers and
so on and thus these professionals have a reasonably bright future. According to
Brynjolfsson, this is the best time to be a creative professional as in his book he mentions,
“Digital technologies in many ways complements, not substitutes for, creativity… If
somebody comes up with a new song, a video, or piece of software there’s no better time in
history to be a creative person who wants to reach not just hundreds or thousands, but
millions and billions of potential customers.” Also, jobs that did not exist a few decades ago
such as state-of-the-art programming, data science, web security and so on will find high
relevance in the job market as humans will still be needed to create and manage new
technology.
Also, the low-paying menial jobs such as plumbing, repair work, gardening and cooking are
some of the jobs where humans would be preferred, as studies show that machines are not
as agile when it comes to handling certain activities that humans can do far more skillfully
and easily.
The way forward
Thus, looking at the gamut of jobs that will be impacted with AI revolution, we can either
lament at the job roles that will be eliminated or world leaders should be looking at it as an
opportunity to replace job roles that are boring and non-creative by having AI and machine
learning to handle those jobs and provide new job roles comprising of higher level tasks that
requires more human ingenuity and problem solving skills. After all, human skills
combined with AI technologies does allow humans to achieve more and with the AI
Revolution we are getting a chance to rediscover the reasons that make us human and
appreciate human experience. However, we cannot expect people to just jump on the
technology bandwagon right away. Education and university curriculum at large need to
be reconfigured to prepare the future generations to work alongside AI and remain relevant
in the second machine age.

12
 GD WAT Bible

How artificial intelligence plays an important role in our daily

life

“Wouldn’t it be nice if you can just tell your phone - ‘Uber ride Crowne Plaza San
Francisco’ - and then the Uber app just gives you the car?” - said Dekang Lin, Naturali’s
co-founder and chief technology officer.
This is possible through bots which either classifies or predicts what’s going to happen.
It has been popularly termed as Artificial Intelligence.

There has been a significant development in the technology sector, which is a consequence
of the substantial improvement in the lifestyle of humans. The concept of artificial
intelligence, termed earlier as fiction, has now become a reality in our lives.
Artificial intelligence is a broad branch of computer science which are designed and
programmed in such a manner that they can think and act like a human. The goal of
artificial intelligence is to create systems that can function intelligently and independently.
It has reduced human effort in many ways, and its role can be observed significantly in
our daily life.

In our day-to-day life, we come across different sets of data in different types of
organisations. For example, if you have lots of data for sales vs advertising spend, you
can plot the data to see some pattern.
If the machine can learn this pattern, then it can make predictions based on what it has
learnt. Machines can learn in many more dimensions – like hundreds or even thousands.
That is why machines can look of high dimensional data and can determine the patterns.
Once it learns these patterns it can make predictions, that human cannot even come close
to. You can use all these machine learning techniques to do one of two things –
classification or prediction.

Machine learning accompanied with neural networks mimics the actual processes of the
real neurons, which allows machines to process complex data and provide accurate
information through artificial intelligence.
Understanding the scope of artificial intelligence, you can observe that artificial
intelligence has penetrated into our daily life. Nowadays in many organisations, humans
are using this technology to speed up the process of completing the work with a greater
level of accuracy. The technique of artificial intelligence has brought out the idea of
error-free world, with reduced human effort and faster results.

13
GD WAT Bible

Following are some of the domains where artificial intelligence is having the greatest of
impacts:
• Automated Transport System
Technological advancement termed artificial intelligence has helped the transport
system to automate the running of vehicles, popularly known as ‘self-driving cars’.
The technology enables the car to navigate cross-roads and avoid colliding with
other vehicles. It has significantly helped in reducing the number of accidents. In
most cases, accidents are attributed to several factors which include the influence
of alcohol and drugs, over-speeding, and ignorance of road signs, which can be
reduced through self-driving cars. According to the Atlantic, researchers estimate
that self-driving cars could save 29,447 lives a year (taking number of fatalities in
2013 as the baseline).
For further reading on automated transport system, follow the following links:
• https://interestingengineering.com/the-25-ways-ai-can-revolutionize-
transportation-from-driverless-trains-to-smart-tracks
• https://www.lanner-america.com/blog/examples-artificial-intelligence-
applications-transportation/

• Bank and Financial System

Banks are using artificial intelligence in the field of financial operations, investment
in stocks, manage and organise statistical data, and finally help customers with
quick solutions.
AI will help in detection of fraud, risk management, digitization and wealth
management. Follow the links for further reading and expanding knowledge of
how AI is helping the banking industry (and the leading AI companies):
• https://www.analyticsvidhya.com/blog/2017/04/5-ai-applications-in-
banking-to-look-out-for-in-next-5-years/
• https://www.livemint.com/AI/v0Nd6Xkv0nINDG4wQ2JOvK/Artificial-
Intelligence-in-Indian-banking-Challenges-and-op.html
• https://www.proschoolonline.com/blog/artificial-intelligence-changing-
banking-sector/

• Medical Science or Healthcare

Artificial intelligence has changed the face of medical science by providing
solutions to the diagnosis of complex neurological disorders. From being a virtual
healthcare assistant to schedule appointment in hospitals, artificial intelligence
has made sure that there is twenty-four or seven assistance to both the doctors
and patients.
For further reading, follow the links:
• https://novatiosolutions.com/10-common-applications-artificial-intelligence-
healthcare/

14
 GD WAT Bible

• https://www.cabotsolutions.com/how-artificial-intelligence-is-changing-the-
healthcare-industry

• Product Industries and Organisations

The manufacturing companies are using artificial intelligence in the development
of machines that perform human activities. It has been in the production units, to
have a consistent rate of production with maximum efficiency and effectiveness.
Artificial intelligence has brought about increased production, since they can work
consistently without tiring and also due to the different roles they can be employed
in. Additionally, it has also been used to keep employees’ records, extract data
which helps in decision making, and thus has become part of the management
system of the industries.
Hence, artificial intelligence has not only helped in enabling the processes of
production industries to complete their tasks in good time, but also has helped in
enhancing business development.
Follow the links for further reading:
• https://www.themanufacturer.com/articles/power-artificial-intelligence-
manufacturing/
• https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/
AIManufacturingandServices_Report_02.pdf

• Professionals in hazardous environment

15
GD WAT Bible

Artificial intelligence has developed an ecosystem where it has taken over some
of the dangerous jobs currently in the world such as defusing of bombs. In coming
years, it will also provide benefit to the labourers or professionals working under
intense heat and noise. Thus, implementation of artificial intelligence has helped
considerably to provide protection and offer safety measures to humans.
Thus, we see that artificial intelligence impacts our day-to-day life ranging from healthcare
system to banks, from transport system to applications in jobs. It also has a wide area of
applications in gaming, air-transport systems, and computerised methods.
Application of Global positioning system (GPS) during travel; prediction of what we are
going to type and correcting it when wrongly-typed; identify and tag a person on social
media; execution of tasks through digital assistants like Cortana, Siri, Alexa; all form
essential components of application of artificial intelligence.

The development and invention of artificial intelligence have made a considerable impact
on the humans. Consequently, the advent of the next era of artificial intelligence also
plays a part in war prediction and hence eradication, proper means of fighting diseases
and thus developing appropriate preventive measures against it. It is predicted to help
in fighting against poverty, which would be one of the significant roles of artificial
intelligence to be played in the coming days.

In conclusion, artificial intelligence has substantially improved and impacted people’s

lives in different ways, and the world is not the same as before. It has played an essential
role in time-saving and done wonders in the automation process. Evidently, artificial
intelligence has dramatically influenced and contributed to the people’s lives and
industries.

For more reading, please follow the links:

• https://emerj.com/ai-sector-overviews/artificial-intelligence-industry-an-
overview-by-segment/
• http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161110-the-real-risks-of-artificial-
intelligence

16
 GD WAT Bible

Farm Loan Waivers

Doubling farmer incomes was a key promise made by the Narendra Modi led government
after it assumed power. As its tenure comes to an end, farm distress has emerged the biggest
headache for the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) 2019 campaign.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi raised the ante recently when he said he won’t allow Modi
to sleep until the centre announced a nationwide farm loan waiver, even as Gandhi promised
to waive all farm loans if his party came to power in 2019.

17
GD WAT Bible

Economists & agriculture policy experts on farm loan waivers

“Loan waivers are a band-aid solution, but necessary at times to provide some immediate
relief,” said R. Ramakumar, a professor at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and an
expert on agriculture credit. “They help little to solve the fundamental problem of rising costs
and falling profitability in agriculture. But it is an easy solution for politicians.”
“Farm loan waiver is not a solution to farm sector distress. It is not a solution but is palliative,”
says Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said . Mr Kumar, however, added that in states
where there is genuine farm distress, some short-term measures have to be taken.

4 Reasons why economists are not in favour of farm loan waivers

1. Benefits only a few: The biggest problem with loan waiver is that it will benefit only a
small fraction of farmers.”In poorer states, only 10-15 per cent of farmers are benefited
from loan waiver as farmers get institutional loans in such states.Nearly 90% of the
farmers had taken loans from private money lenders and, therefore, the impact of this
largesse was limited, according to P Sainath, a veteran journalist covering rural India.
That’s because loan waivers apply only to formal credit.
2. Moral Hazard : The economist Paul Krugman has described moral hazard as “any
situation in which one person makes the decision about how much risk to take, while
someone else bears the cost if things go badly”.
The farmer repaying his loan on time is short-changed and an incentive is created
to stop repaying loans. Already there are reports of farmers willfully defaulting on
loans in the hope of waivers. Recently, former RBI Governor Urijit Patel also spoke
against farm loan waivers saying, “Waivers undermine an honest credit culture. Loan
waivers affect credit discipline where borrowers hope/expect waivers (especially in
election years) and borrow excessively and wilfully stop making payments.
3. Affects Availability of credit & support to agriculture: Evidence from the 2008 farm
loan waiver—implemented by the United Progressive Alliance government—shows
that it can have unintended consequences: bank lending moved away from districts
with greater exposure to the loan waiver. Such outcomes can affect agricultural output
in the medium to long run as banks may get more selective in extending credit. Thus,
farm loan waivers suck out much-needed public investments in agriculture (say, in
irrigation and research)
4. Waivers are almost always conditional. In Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, for instance,
the waivers were allowed only for small and marginal farmers, who own less than 5
acres. Secondly, governments usually set a cut-off date when they implement a waiver.
Madhya Pradesh, for example, has set a cut-off date of 31 March 2018, when it approved
a farm loan waiver earlier this week. Like all political parties, Congress, too, never said
the waiver would be conditional. So, there is a degree of ambiguity built into all
promises of debt relief.
While farmers’ distress is acute and help is warranted, remedial measures must go
beyond debt waivers

18
 GD WAT Bible

Alternatives to farm loam waivers :

The burden on farmers on account of just three items
1. lack of compensation during drought and disasters,
2. the failures of the crop insurance scheme, and
3. the deficit due to prices falling below the announced Minimum Support Prices) runs to
tens of thousands of crores every season.

A few specific models/schemes implemented that can address the root issues are :
1. Widening of weather-based crop insurance schemes could be a quicker method of
alleviating farmer distress. Use of weather data for providing immediate interim relief
should be made mandatory under the crop insurance scheme.
2. Telangana model of farmer income support: All farmers to get Rs 8,000 per acre(in two
tranches) — irrespective of crop grown, price or quantity sold.The amount is expected
to meet a major part of their seed, fertiliser, pesticide and field preparation expenses.
3. Shivraj Singh Chauhan-led BJP government in Madhya Pradesh (MP) has, from the
2017-18 kharif season, been implementing a Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana. This, too, is an
income support scheme for farmers, wherein they are paid the difference between the
official minimum support price and the average mandi rate for crops during the
marketing season.
4. Along with these schemes plans, a lot of work needs to be done at the systemic/
institutional level - these include
a. Making institutional credit available to all farmers ( including tenant farmers)
b. Strengthening of the MSP ( Minimum Support Price) program
c. Infrastructural facilities ( irrigation, cold storage, warehousing facilities)

Update on 31st Dec :

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is studying three options as his administration seeks to ease
agrarian distress and shore up popular support ahead of next year’s general election.
The government is weighing options including a monthly income support program (telengana
model ) for farmers, a cash handout plan for the shortfall between the actual sale price and
state-set procurement rate ( Chattisgarh model) and a revamped crop insurance program.
The final program could be one of these or a combination of all three.
Conclusion
Ground realities of the ongoing farm loan waivers show many fault lines.farm-loan waivers
do little to resolve the agriculture crisis, albeit a small section of farmers getting a temporary
escape, the concomitant after-effects of loan waivers affect the sector and the economy. Given
the upcoming 2019 general elections it can trigger competitive populism to waive farm loans
The promise of debt relief is an atonement of political parties for ignoring the agriculture
sector for long. The first kick in this direction was made by none other than the Prime Minister
himself before the Uttar Pradesh elections (in 2017). Learning the electoral benefits, Congress
is trying to score the final goal now.
Assistance to farmers need to go beyond the gimmicks of farm loan waivers - the promising
experiments in some corners of the country are a step in the right direction.

19
GD WAT Bible

Further Reading
https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.livemint.com/Politics/
zL8mErALC6vw96u5wcKlaP/8-states-19-trillion-Its-raining-farm-loan-
waivers.html&source=gmail&ust=1546319120982000&usg=AFQjCNEe_zOwT0_uJjnAoK_rU-
mMqK1HRQ

https://www.thehindu.com/business/agri-business/why-do-farmers-need-more-
than-loan-waivers/article25860374.ece

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/agriculture-income-support-telangana-
breaks-new-ground-in-farm-subsidy-5064469/

20
 GD WAT Bible

India on a renaming spree - Does it serve any purpose

“…What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” –
William Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet.
The point that Shakespeare wanted to make was that there is nothing special in a name; what
makes something special is its inherent values and quality. Since the time of independence,
several cities across the country got rechristened. Madras to Chennai, Trivandrum to
Thiruvananthapuram, Bangalore to Bengaluru, Bombay to Mumbai etc. are some of those
places which have already got renamed from their old-colonial legacy names into that of more
‘Indian’ names.
What good did these city name changes accomplish? Do residents of these regions feel any
prouder of their localities now than before? Have they been able to shed their colonial past
and reclaim their native glory? Have the changes resulted in better investment opportunities,
infrastructure or living standards?
While some of these changes are meant for administrative convenience, a majority of them
were done to favour the vote bank politics and ignite the rigour of regionalism and cultural
pride. While there is no harm in taking pride in one’s own culture and ethnicity, a mere
change in the name of the cities or towns will add no value to the heritage.
In some worst cases, such changes in the names can be used by certain segments of the polity
to ignite divide and friction between various cultural and religious groups, which in turn can
lead to a situation where people end up fighting each other in name of cultural diversity.
What good can a mere change in the name bring to the society?
But name-change enthusiasts are not willing to lie low. They are truly pushing the envelope at
such complete transformations as Pataliputra for Patna; Prayag for Allahabad and Karnavati
for Ahmedabad. They are not doing this for the good of the people or the progress of the
country. They are merely doing it to make themselves look powerful.
The politicians want to use roads to honour their personal heroes. So we get complex road
names, with both first name and surname, plus, at times, even a title. What a mouthful!
Unnecessary renaming is particularly bad because the original names are imprinted in the
minds of people. It is, therefore, a major job to unlearn the old names. In fact, it takes decades,
so the politicians succeed in confusing people for decades. That is hardly a service to the
community.
Or what development and growth can such a change bring to the people residing in those
places? Maybe the ego might get satisfied, but ego cannot feed poor or resolve the socio-
economic problems that these societies face.
• The process of renaming places is inextricably linked to political changes in different
parts of the world.
• Some people might be under the impression that some government officials apparently
had nothing better to do ... than sit around and make up strange new difficult to
pronounce names for places. What many do not realise though, is that those “new”
names are mostly not new at all, but are merely the names that people had been using
for those places for decades, and in some cases, centuries.
• It helps to understand how sensitive the subject is in a country where the place names
are symbols of ethnical (and or religious) identity, and are contested along race and
ethnicity.

21
GD WAT Bible

• Place names, or toponyms, are directly related to the place of the people: place in
which inhabitants are included, or from where they are excluded, as well as to
“ideological and nation-building constructions.
• Controversies around changes of place names need to be positioned within the context
of divisions between nationalism and internationalism.
• Linking Place and Identity. Place name plays a major role in the creation of a positive
or negative ‘sense of place’. Names change because society changes. However, place
names are often transformed to propose or bring about evolution in society. The very
symbolic nature of a name, its whole historical, cultural, social, topographical and
linguistic backing, has its bearing on the degree of acceptance of a particular change.
• In a society characterized by a multiplicity of diverse political and cultural values,
changes in place names can be a unifying or dividing catalyst. In this regard, place
names may be used as symbols to mobilise and develop a political and historical
consciousness of common identity.
• One of the ways in the renaming process is to use pre-colonial historical references.
However, pre-colonial historical facts are sometimes difficult to establish and verify.
Changing the name of the locality/town/state can be sometimes justified, as was the case
with several roads and junctions in Delhi, which were renamed after several foreign dignitaries
to show the gratitude and respect of the country towards them. This token of gratitude often
helped India to create a positive impression in front of fellow nations and held the nation’s
interest in international unity and cooperation at several forums. Tolstoy Marg (Delhi),
Richmond Town (Bangalore), Coles Road (Bangalore), and Santa Cruz (Mumbai) etc. are
some of such areas and localities in India which carries a legacy, from an individual who
contributed for the welfare of the society or the eminent personalities or leaders. There is even
a village called ‘Moscow City’ named after the USSR capital to commemorate the revolution
of 1917.
West Bengal (Bengal, now) wanted to have a second name change; the State plans to change
its name from Bengal to Bangla. Several memes have popped up regarding this recent decision,
and evidently, the entire idea of replacing and modifying names is gaining traction, negatively
and positively both, among the public.
The underlying reason behind a majority of such renaming processes is emerging out of a
meaningless sense of egoism and regionalism. It is a well-known fact that West Bengal got
renamed to Bengal because the state administration felt that they were always positioned last
in the rolls of several national events and important meetings.
Rather than a mere change in names or alphabets, what political leadership must aim for
should be a change in terms of living standards; a change in terms of health care; a change in
terms of literacy; a change in terms of liberty, harmony and peace. The change must be in the
in the form of the quality of human life. After all, what is there in a name?
Further Reading:
https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/renaming-spree-been-there-done-that/cid/
1239170
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/six-facts-on-the-city-renaming-spree/
articleshow/66584042.cms
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/in-whose-name/article25457701.ece
https://www.siasat.com/news/renaming-spree-erasing-muslim-heritage-1434292/

22
 GD WAT Bible

Brexit
Brexit: (an abbreviation for the term “British exit”), explained simply as Great Britain leaving
the European Union (EU) as it was earlier part of the EU.
What is the European Union (EU)
The European Union is a club of 28 European Countries. Each of these countries pays to be a
member and in return, they get access to special ways of working together. This includes
being part of a “single market”, which means that countries can trade with one another
and people can move around freely – as if we were all living together in one big country.
The EU has its own parliament, laws and currency (the euro – although the UK doesn’t use
this and retained its currency). The EU was set up after World War 2 with the idea that if
countries work together, they are unlikely to go to war again.
Note: Britain had always maintained some distance from the EU. It joined the European
Economic Community (EEC) in 1973 and hence the EU in the 1990s. But Britain never fully
accepted the legitimacy of European control over British institutions in a way that other
EU members did. It refused to join the Schengen Area, which eliminates internal border
controls and opted out of the common currency Euro.
The referendum
A referendum was held in the UK on June 23rd 2016. Contrary to what the economists were
predicting (and hoping), the United Kingdom (UK) voted to leave the European Union
(EU) by 52% to 48%. ‘Leave’ won the majority of votes in England and Wales, while every
council in Scotland voted to remain in the EU
Technically speaking, the referendum was not legally binding. Theoretically speaking, British
Prime Minister Cameron could have ignored the will of what is after all only a slight majority
of voters, and not made any moves to exit the Union. But that is not how the British do their
politics.
Possible reasons for Britons deciding to leave EU :
• Financial: Each member nation of the EU pays an amount to the EU annually to continue
their membership. As regards the UK, the amount is around $12 billion dollars (£9
billion). This big annual commitment was one possible reason for a ‘leave’ vote where
the money can be spent for domestic purposes
• Immigration: One of the many principles laid out while forming the EU was that of
being free members where people can freely move and live in another EU nation without
the hurdles of getting a visa. It is believed that almost 1 million people have moved to
the UK due to the free labour laws. Britain also gives child benefits and it is believed that
many of these migrants are transferring that money to their children who aren’t living in
the UK.
• Control & Autonomy: the European Parliament decides on many rules and standards
that EU countries have to follow and critics felt that UK was losing control of our own
affairs and laws.

23
GD WAT Bible

In essence, it was about autonomy, monetary benefits, & immigration that got 52% of the
Britons voting to leave the EU
Immediate impact
The referendum results did not mean Britain’s exit by default. This marked the beginning of
the end of Britain’s membership of the EU. In the coming months, British and European
leaders negotiated the terms of Britain’s departure. The EU got itself one more crisis to deal
with. As if the Greek crisis, the mass migration and the slow economic growth were not enough.
The then Prime MinisterDavid Cameron had vociferously campaigned for ‘Remain’.The British
Prime Minister shocked everyone by resigning from the post. His chair has become the first
casualty of Brexit. Teresa May was then elected as the next leader of the Conservative Party
& the Prime Minister.
Spooked financial markets
The FTSE (Britain’s stock market ) plunged 11% on news of Brexit verdict
In India, the Sensex was down 1000 points on fears that Britain without the EU may not be
good for India’s business interests.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 was down some 8 %
Sterling has fallen 10 % against the dollar and 3.83 % against the euro. This is the lowest
level of the British currency in three decades.
The two kinds of Brexits
Two options were floated since the Brexit referendum result of 2016 is whether the UK should
embark on a ‘hard Brexit’ or ‘soft Brexit’.
The two different terms essentially refer to the kind of relationship and level of participation
the country will have with the EU’s Single Market – the free movement of people, goods
and services – and the Customs Union – the bloc’s trade and tax agreement.
A soft Brexit is generally more favoured by Remain supporters – second to no Brexit, of course
– and a hard Brexit is typically more likely to be supported by those who voted Leave.
Key elements of a soft Brexit:
It would keep the UK closely aligned with the EU. The UK could gain special access to the
single market but might have to, in return, compromise on immigration agreements. It aims to
minimise the impact on trade and businesses by essentially staying in the customs union. The
result would be that the UK would still be bound by some of the rules of the bloc, but it would
have less of a say in how the rules are made. And it would be harder for the UK to sign its own
new trade deals.
Key elements of a hard Brexit:
It essentially means taking the UK completely out of the EU – including both the single
market and the customs union, so it is free from its regulations and tariffs. It would give
the UK more control over its borders and immigration. It would mean leaving both the single
market and the customs union and accepting the (possibly) short-term disruption that would
cause in order to have the freedom to operate independently. It could cause more economic
damage to both the UK and the EU but supporters think this would be worth it for the country
to be able to then draw up its independent trade agreements.
When is the UK due to leave the EU?
For the UK to leave the EU it had to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty which gives the
two sides two years to agree on the terms of the split. Theresa May triggered this process on 29
March 2017, meaning the UK is scheduled to leave EU on Friday, 29 March 2019* and Theresa
May has put it into British law.

24
 GD WAT Bible

*(A European court has ruled that the UK can decide to stop the process. Alternatively, it can
be extended if all 28 EU members agree, but at the moment all sides are focusing on that date
as being the key one),
Ground Already Covered: The vote was just the start. The UK and the EU have spent more
than a year trying to agree on how the divorce - as it’s often called - will work in practice. This
has now been agreed with the EU and backed by the cabinet. The discussions have been
mainly over the “divorce” deal, which sets out exactly how the UK leaves - not what will
happen afterwards.
This deal is known as the withdrawal agreement which covers some of these key points:
• How much money the UK will have to pay the EU in order to break the partnership
- that’s about £39bn
• What will happen to UK citizens living elsewhere in the EU, and equally, what will
happen to EU citizens living in the UK
• How to avoid the return of a physical border between Northern Ireland and
the Republic of Ireland when it becomes the frontier between the UK and the
EU ( note: this has turned out to be a very contentious issue - read more about the
issue here (optional read)
• A length of time, called the transition period, has been agreed to allow the UK
and EU to make a trade deal and to give businesses the time to adjust.That means
that if the withdrawal agreement gets the green light, there will be no huge
changes between 29 March 2019 and 31 December 2020.
Another, much shorter, document has also been drawn up that gives an overview of what the
UK and EU’s future relationship will be in the longer term.This is the political declaration.
However, neither side has to stick exactly to what it says - it is a set of ambitions for the future
talks.
Note: The Withdrawal agreement & Political declaration has been approved by EU & UK
Cabinet but has not been approved by the UK Parliament ( as on 26th Dec)
So is Brexit definitely happening?
The UK is due to leave the European Union on 29 March, 2019 - it’s the law, regardless of
whether there is a deal with the EU or not. Stopping Brexit would require a change in the
law in the UK.
But things are far from certain..
MPs were due to vote on the deal on 11 December but Mrs May was heading for a major
defeat. In a dramatic U-turn, she postponed the meaningful vote on the proposal until January
2019. Many Tory MPs were opposed to the deal and launched a vote of no confidence against
Mrs May. She survived the vote, winning 200-117, but still faces an issue getting Parliament
to accept the deal.
The Prime Minister outlined the three choices facing her country:
1. Keep the deal. The U.K. doesn’t have the economic clout to negotiate a better one.
2. Leave with no deal. That would be worse than the hard Brexit option that the opponents
favor. Without a trade agreement, ports would be blocked and airlines grounded. In no
time, imported food and drugs would run short. ( explained later as ‘No deal Brexit)
3. No Brexit. As the negotiations have dragged on, many people are campaigning to remain
in the EU by having another referendum. They argue that voters did not understand the
economic hardships that Brexit would impose. On December 10, the European Court of
Justice ruled that the U.K. could revoke its Brexit application unilaterally. No other EU
body is needed to approve the withdrawal.

25
GD WAT Bible

More on ‘No Deal Brexit’ : It means the UK and the EU would be unable to reach a withdrawal
agreement. If no agreement can be made, it means there would be no 21-month transition
period. If that was the case, consumers, businesses and public bodies would have to respond
immediately to changes as result of leaving the EU.
So what would actually happen with no deal? These are just some of the consequences:
Trade: The UK would revert to World Trade Organisation rules on trade. While Britain would
no longer be bound by EU rules, it would have to face the EU’s external tariffs. The price of
goods in shops for Britons could go up as businesses would have to place tariffs on goods
imported from the EU.But Britain would be able to broker trade agreements with other countries
The fate of expats – there are 1.3 million Britons in EU countries and 3.7 million Europeans in
Britain – in terms of their rights to live and work would be unclear.
Money The Government would not have to pay the annual £13 billion contribution to the
EU budget. However Britain would lose out on some EU subsidies
The Irish border: The issue of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic would
remain unresolved.
The Deadlock
It seems that the current deal is likely to be approved by the House of Commons. It would
stunt Britain’s economy, burden its companies, and infringe its sovereignty, offering essentially
no benefits and solving no problems. Everyone hated it.
The European Union’s negotiators have made it clear that they won’t make significant changes
to the deal — let alone substantial revisions on the most divisive issue of all. What May is
seeking, and the best she can hope for, is a cosmetic tweak, and that will change few if any
minds in Parliament.
The Uncertain Future
A second referendum?: A deep cabinet split has opened up over whether Theresa May should
back a second referendum in a final attempt to end the political deadlock over Brexit. The PM
has publicly denied a possibility of a second referendum but it seems most MPs are backing
a second referendum ( the unstated reason is that during the first referendum the complex
effects & consequences of a Brexit vote was not clear and the current deal does not do justice
to the original intent of the Brexit vote)
As of 26th Dec, a soft Brexit, no deal and a referendum ( in favour of Remain) look to be
the possible outcomes but it is a very complex issue and events during the first quarter of
2019 may well be the most important event in Britain’s Post-world War history
Further Reading
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-european-union-how-to-explain-to-your-
child-theresa-may-article-50-a7968411.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-46192884
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-46318565
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-46551986
https://www.wallstreetmojo.com/brexit-explained-simply/
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32810887
https://inews.co.uk/news/brexit/no-deal-brexit-what-meaning-uk-leave-uk-
consequences/

26
 GD WAT Bible

IBC (Insolvency_bankruptcy code) is the solution to India’s NPA

problem
What is the IBC ?
The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC) is the bankruptcy law of India which
seeks to consolidate the existing framework by creating a single law for insolvency and
bankruptcy.Certain provisions of the Act have come into force from 5th August and 19th
August 2016. The bankruptcy code is intended to be a one stop solution for resolving
insolvencies which previously was a long process and did not offer an economically viable
arrangement. A strong insolvency framework where the cost and the time incurred is
minimised in attaining liquidation has been long overdue in India. The code is intended to
be able to protect the interests of small investors and make the process of doing
business less cumbersome.
Why the need for the IBC ?
India did not have a single bankruptcy code. What we had were age-old laws that were in
conflict with each other. Lack of an insolvency and bankruptcy code had proved costly for
the creditors (mainly banks) in many cases like the recent Kingfisher Airlines and the Nirav
Modi case. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code seeks to create a unified framework to
resolve insolvency and bankruptcy in India.
1. Such a unified code was essential because the issue of insolvency was being
handled under at least 13 different laws. This code was designed to replace the
Presidency Towns Insolvency Act, 1909 and Provincial Insolvency Act, 1920. In
addition, it seeked to amend 11 laws, including the Companies Act, 2013, Recovery of
Debts Due to Banks and Financial Institutions Act, 1993 and Sick Industrial
Companies (Special Provisions) Repeal Act, 2003, among others.
2. Earlier, if a company defaulted, there were at least four different legal routes available
to the debtors and creditors. This could lead to multiple negotiations, multiple
penalties etc. for the debtor, compounding his plight.
3. Such parallel proceedings had also given rise to numerous instances of conflict
between the laws. Four different agencies, the high courts, the Company Law Board,
the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR), and the Debt Recovery
Tribunals (DRTs) had overlapping jurisdiction, which gave rise to the potential of
systemic delays and complexities in the process. This new bill has tried to addresses
these issues, by bringing in a new uniform Code.
4. Prior to the implementation of the IBC, insolvency proceedings used to take months,
if not years . This delay would acutely devalue the assets involved, thus making the
insolvency negotiations redundant.
5. The previous disposition involved the institution of official liquidator, which was
prone to red-tapeism, chronic corruption, and nepotism. The IBC seeks to keep the
role of the adjudicator to the minimum.

27
GD WAT Bible

6. Prior to the implementation of the IBC, only an average 25% of the asset value was
recovered by the creditors even after the liquidation process.
7. All these compounded to the pitiable position our Public Sector Banks find themselves
in. Rising NPAs and mounting Stressed Assets have also eroded their profits. The
easing of liquidation process can help the banks recover a lot of bad debts.
8. India still fares quite poorly in the Ease of Doing Business index of World Bank.
Easiness of Exit is an important parameter in this index. The previous morass of laws
did not help in easing the exit of trouble-prone entities.
9. According to World Bank data, it takes more than four years to wind up an ailing
company in India, almost twice as long as it does in China.
10. Just like the US Bankruptcy Code that provides for fairly quick liquidation or
reorganisation of business, India too needed a new code that would prevent the
economy from tumbling southwards
Key Players & Processes of the IBC
The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) : The Code establishes
the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India, to oversee the insolvency proceedings in the
country and regulate the entities registered under it. The Board will have 10 members,
including representatives from the Ministries of Finance and Law, and the Reserve Bank of
India. The IBBI was established on 1st October, 2016 under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy
Code, 2016 (Code)..
Bankruptcy and Insolvency Adjudicator: The Code proposes separate tribunals to oversee
the process of insolvency resolution, for individuals and companies: (i) the National
Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) for Companies and Limited Liability Partnership firms; (ii)
the Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) for individuals and partnerships and (iii) National
Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) which acts as the Appellate Authority
Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) : The Code outlines separate insolvency
resolution processes for individuals, companies and partnership firms.The process may be
initiated by either the debtor or the creditors. A maximum time limit, for completion of the
insolvency resolution process,has been set for corporates and individuals. For companies,
the process will have to be completed in 180 days, which may be extended by 90 days, if a
majority of the creditors agrees .The minimum default amount to initiate the CIRP is Rs 1
lakh
Committee of Creditors - “Committee of Creditors” is a committee consisting of the
financial creditors of the Corporate Debtor. This Committee eventually forms the decision
making body of the various routine tasks involved in Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process
(CIRP), responsible for giving approval to the IRP to carry out actions that might affect the
CIRP.

28
 GD WAT Bible

Corporate Debtor
An individual or corporate (proprietory, partnership or limited firm ) that has borrowed
money is referred to as a Corporate Debtor under the IBC. For the purpose of IBC , a
corporate debtor is a an entity (individual or corporate) that defaults on the debt
repayment in whole or any part of the instalment of the amount of the debt that has
become due.

Progress of Cases under IBC

Of the 1198 corporates admitted into the resolution process as on 30 September, 2018, 118
were closed on appeal or review, 52 yielded resolution, while 212 resulted in liquidation
Resolution of twelve large accounts were initiated by the banks as directed by the RBI.
Together they had an outstanding claim of Rs 3.45 lakh crores as against a liquidation
value of Rs 73,220.23 crores..

29
GD WAT Bible

Is IBC the solution to India’s NPA problem ?

Arguments against- Resolution under IBC has not been significant so far
The numbers put out by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) paint a not-
so-rosy picture on the progress of cases under IBC. Of the 1198 corporates admitted into the
resolution process as on 30 September, 2018, 118 were closed on appeal or review, 52
yielded resolution, while 212 resulted in liquidation.Since the IBC is still evolving and testing
waters, there have been challenges at various stages — right from admission of the case,
expression of interest from parties, to submission of plans and final approval by the NCLT.
It has certainly delivered, but it could have delivered much more . A similar set of issues,
have been experienced in the past as we do right now, when the Debt Recovery Tribunals
were set up: lack of infrastructure, lack of presiding officers, lack of sensitization of
other stakeholders, undue delays in litigations etc.Some of the issues faced in the
implementation of the IBC are :
Significant delays in the resolution process
IBC has been widely acknowledged as a beacon of hope for creditors who have, for years,
been waiting for justice. However, in most of the cases the threshold of 270 days has been
breached because of procedural inefficiencies, lack of infrastructure and other frivolous
matters. When the first attempt was made to dilute the 180/270 day timeline, it should
have been nipped in the bud. The slow pace of resolution under the IBC, even two years
after its implementation, is a growing cause for concern. After all it was the inefficacy of the
Debt Recovery Tribunals (DRTs) that had prevented lenders from expediting recoveries
under the earlier regimes. One of the crucial aspects of the IBC was time-bound resolution
Not only does this jeopardise the basic premise of resolution within 270 days but also results
in notional loss of interest income for lenders with every day of delay. While there is no
denying that steady modifications in the Code have been made, undue delays in litigations
is impacting the efficacy of the IBC process.
Lack of Infrastructure & Resources
Bankruptcy experts say that the IBC target of resolution in 270 days (180 plus possible
extension by 90 days) is more ambitious than similar processes in Singapore or London. It
has, therefore, attracted international attention. An expansion of infrastructure is a must to
keep the process running smoothly. One of the concerns for the IBC law is that there
are too many cases and lack of sufficient number of resources in terms of IRPs, benches,
judicial members, technical members at NCLT . Expanding judicial capacity in the NCLT
and NCLAT is critical for the success of the IBC. There are over 1,000 cases admitted by the
NCLT under IBC and over 2,000 registered insolvency resolution professionals
(IRPs).However ,it is not known as to how many of these individuals are equipped to
manage affairs of the business, cash flows, labour disputes etc . Some of the IRPs work for
the large audit and accountancy firms, while others are at smaller firms or work as
independent professionals. They are certified by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of
India. However ,there is a wide variation in quality and experience, and legal experts
demand more consistency .
Lack of Sensitization & Education
Implementation of IBC has continued with the same old mindset, that ‘things will get taken
care of with a new law’. Laws don’t solve problems, it is how those laws get implemented –

30
 GD WAT Bible

which includes education and sensitization – that has been lacking. One critical mistake in the
implementation of the IBC was of choosing the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) as
the forum. The NCLT was anyway burdened with other matters, and then IBC just added to
it. Dedicated benches should have been set up for the same . Also, not many people in the
NCLT actually have an understanding in economics or finance? The IBC is a law which is
hugely driven by finance and economics, so you can’t do justice to the implementation of this
law if people who are responsible for its implementation don’t have a connect with finance
and economics
Lack of momentum from the investor community
The M&A activity in the stressed assets space has not been complemented by the much
spoken enthusiasm of investors and a conducive investment landscape. Many investors are
waiting on the side-lines to gauge the outcome of the settlement of big cases and evolution
of IBC before investing. There are concerns on too little time being allowed to bidders to do
their due diligence. Absence of virtual datarooms, is keeping foreign funds away from the
process as is the relatively small window to conduct due diligence on the
numbers .Furthermore, modifications to IBC have not put to rest certain looming issues,
which are of concern to investors relating to operations of plants in India following transfer
of assets under the IBC, period of commitment towards the units and expected timelines to
close the allocation process. Certain sector-specific concerns with companies under the IBC
may require intervention from the Government.
Arguments for : IBC –Definitely a Game Changer
In the period of time that the insolvency code has been in force, both the NCLT and the
NCLAT have attempted to adapt to new legal concepts and strict procedural timelines.
This must continue, of course, as an efficient judicial process is also critical in protecting the
going concern value of distressed companies. Creditors have recovered Rs 49,783 crore, or
almost 56% of their admitted claims, from 32 stressed companies where insolvency
resolution plans were approved by the NCLT by the end of June 2018, showed data
compiled by the insolvency regulator. Despite the average 44% haircut that the creditors in
general had to take in these cases, analysts said the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC)
has performed much better than the earlier system where the recovery process was
strenuous and yielded too little.Some of the steps taken by the government in the
implementation of the IBC are:
Development of Infrastructure to support the implementation of IBC
In less than a year of its enactment, new networks of the National Company Law Tribunal
(NCLT), the new regulator ‘Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India’ (IBBI), new stream
of professionals ‘Insolvency Professionals’ (IPs), new stream of Information ‘Information
Utilities’ (IUs) and Insolvency Professional Agencies (IPAs) were established to control and
monitor the IPs’ registrations and proceedings. The IBBI charted the course of it’s
implementation under the guidance of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA),
Government of India.
Fine tuning the IBC
Constant improvements and updates to IBC have followed in response to the feedback
received and practical experience of processes under execution. To its credit, the
Government has been willing to hear out suggestions. An expert committee was constituted
to suggest modifications required by the IBC to fine tune it and plug-in loopholes. The

31
GD WAT Bible

recommendations of the committee that were accepted were brought in as amendments to

the Code. For instance, some of the recommendations are:
1. Homebuyers to be treated at par with financial creditors which means they can also
take builders to bankruptcy court
2. Lenders to decide turnaround or liquidation by 66% vote, down from 75% which
makes decision making easy
Conclusion : IBC – A Step in the right direction
The Code has started an interesting journey and is a step in right direction Earlier, bankers
had little ability to threaten promoters. Debarring wilful defaulters from the IBC process has
also led to a sea-change in the credit behaviour of borrowers. It further appears that the
intention of the legislature has been to not burden a stressed company with tax levies, while
it is undergoing reorganisation for survival.
There are various issues/ questions being faced by corporates/ investors who embark on
acquisition of these assets. These could go a long way in providing certainty to the acquirer
and support the overall intention of timely, faster and efficient resolution of NPAs in India.
While the Finance Act 2018 has provided some relaxation, there exist various areas where
more clarifications/ relaxations could be provided.
It also true that there will still be some promoters that try to game the system, and hence
steady streamlining of the process is imperative (which if not done can otherwise lead to
delay in the resolution process).
Even so, the following steps can be taken to avoid excessive delays.
1. It is hence essential that the resolution period of 180/270 days is strictly adhered to,
allowing only a month or so spillover.In the recent Essar Steel ruling the Supreme
Court has urged the authorities to follow the model timeline provided in the
regulations
2. Courts must avoid intervening routinely, unless key points of law need clarification.
3. Lack of sufficient and qualified resources in terms of IPs, benches, judicial members,
technical members at NCLT — needs to be addressed. Currently, there are over
1,000 cases admitted by the NCLT under IBC and over 2,000 registered insolvency
professionals (IPs). But how many of these individuals are equipped to manage
affairs of the business, cash flows, labour disputes etc, is critical.
All in all, avoiding undue delays in the process, and limiting judicial overreach is
imperative, if IBC is to serve its intended purpose.

32
 GD WAT Bible

Sabarimala Issue _ A clash between tradition _ women rights

By allowing women of all ages to enter the Sabarimala Temple, the Supreme Court has set a
positive precedent regarding questions of religious equality. It is a significant milestone in,
• Unconditional respect for the equality of women and men
• Respect for the Constitution and the institutions the constitution has created
• Respect for the rights of religious adherents to follow their beliefs and practices, so long
as they do no harm to others; and the rule of law.
What is unusual about Sabarimala is that it offers the first example of these invaluable and
seemingly unchallengeable principles clashing with each other. Constitutionalistsand
liberalsand democrats can easily uphold the above principles.
The problem is that the some of these admirable values are diametrically opposed to each
other on Sabarimala.
The Temple:
Sabarimala is a prominent Hindu temple in Kerala. The temple is dedicated to Ayyappa or the
God of growth. The temple attracts pilgrims from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra
Pradesh and from various parts of the country and the world. The temple is open for worship
only in the first five days of each Malayalam month; during specials occasions during
November-December, then on January 14 and again on April 14. It is an ancient temple mostly
unreachable till it was rediscovered in 12th century. The pilgrims of Sabarimala have to reach
the temple through difficult treks in the forest as the vehicles cannot reach there. The pilgrims
have to observe celibacy for 41 days before going to Sabarimala. They are also required to
strictly follow a lacto-vegetarian diet, refrain from alcohol, not use any profanity and allow
the hair and nails to grow without cutting. They are expected to bath twice in a day and visit
the local temples regularly. They wear black or blue clothes, do not shave until the completion
of the pilgrimage, and smear sandal paste on their forehead.
Controversy over women entry:
The ban on women entering the temple premises is being practised for centuries, as devotees
consider Lord Ayappa, the presiding deity of the temple, to be celibate.
History: 1991 Photograph
A plea was filed in Kerala High Court in 1991 after a photograph showing a rice-feeding
ceremony at the Sabarimala temple was published in a newspaper. The photograph was from
the first rice-feeding ceremony of the grand-daughter of an ex- commissioner of the temple
board. The photo showed women relatives present at the function in the temple.In 1991, the
Kerala High Court restricted entry of women above the age of 10 and below the age of 50 from
Sabarimala temple as they were of the menstruating age.
27 years later on September 28, 2018, the Supreme Court lifted the ban, saying that
discrimination against women on any grounds, even religious is unconstitutional, which kick
started the current controversy.
The protests took a political turn after BJP ally Shiv Sena warned of “mass suicides” if women
set foot inside the Sabarimala temple. The protests intensified as the date of opening neared.
On October 17, when the doors to Sabarimala opened, the protesters camped at the base of
the trek and at the last stretch of the trek (at Pamba) to stop women from entering the temple.

33
GD WAT Bible

In favor of Women’s Rights:

4:1 Verdict – SC ruled that not allowing women was in violation of the Constitution. (Justice
InduMalhotra dissented)
• Patriarchy of religion cannot be permitted to triumph over faith
• Dualistic approach against women degrades the status of women.
• The right guaranteed under article 25 has nothing to do with gender or physiological
factors.
• Devotees of Ayyappa do not constitute a separate religious denomination.
Articles 25 to 28 of Indian Constitution guarantee the right to freedom of religion to all citizens
within the territorial boundaries of the country.
1. Freedom of conscience and free profession of religion (Article 25)
2. Freedom to manage religious affairs. (Article 26)
3. Freedom from payment of taxes for promotion of any particular religion. (Article
27)
4. Freedom to attend religious instructions. (Article 28)
• Rules disallowing women in Sabarimala are unconstitutional and violative of Article 21
(Article 21 of the Indian Constitution guarantees life and personal liberty. No person
shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedures established
by law.)
• The fact that women have physiological feature to menstruate has nothing to do with
her right to pray.
• To treat women as children of lesser god is to blink at the constitution.
For centuries, women were not allowed to enter the Sabarimala shrine based on the biological
ground of menstruation. The Rule of the Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship states that
“Women at such time during which they are not by custom and usage allowed to enter a
place of worship” was the basis of the practice of excluding women of the age group of 10
through to 50 years to enter the temple. The KHC had further held that only the chief priest
was empowered to decide on traditions.
There is a practice of exclusion of menstruating women from social and religious functions. At
times, it takes the form of untouchability. In rural Nepal, religious Hindus believe that
menstruating women are unclean and should be banished from the family home – many
women have died. This is despite the Nepalese government passing a law and making it illegal.
Such notions of purity and pollution, which stigmatise women in what is essentially a biological
process, are anathema to human rights.
Such a practice has certainly no place in our constitutional order. When we, the people of
India, gave ourselves the Constitution of India, we sought to break the onerous shackles of
inequities, injustice, and social hierarchies and entrenched structures that perpetuate
discrimination and prejudice. It is indeed shocking that we had to wait 70 years after
independence to provide equity to half the population of the country.
In favor of tradition:
• Issues of deep religious sentiment should not be interfered in by the court.
• Notion of rationality should not be seen in matters of religion.
• Worshippers of Sabarimala have attributes of religious denomination.

34
 GD WAT Bible

Judges should not impose their personal views, morality or rationality with respect to the form
of worship of a deity. A pluralistic society and secular polity would reflect that the followers
of various sects have the freedom to practise their faith in accordance with the tenets of their
religion. It is irrelevant whether the practice is rational or logical. Notions of rationality cannot
be invoked in matters of religion by courts. Ayyappa is in the form of a NaishtikBrahmachari.
The belief in a deity, and the form in which he has manifested himself is a fundamental right
protected by Article 25(1) of the Constitution. The prohibition in vogue for time immemorial
qualified to be an “essential practice”. A religion can lay down a code of ethics, and also
prescribe rituals, observances, ceremonies and modes of worship.Imposing the court’s morality
on a religion would negate the freedom to practise one’s religion according to one’s faith and
beliefs. It would amount to rationalising religion, faith and beliefs, which is outside the ken of
courts.India is a country comprising diverse religions, creeds, sects each of which have their
faiths, beliefs and distinctive practices. Constitutional morality in a secular polity would
comprehend the freedom of every individual, group, sect, or denomination to practise their
religion in accordance with their beliefs and practices.
Equality is not the problem in Sabarimala. Instead, it is an issue concerning the holiness and
the rituals of the temple. In Kanyakumari, there is a temple where men are not allowed to
enter. Nobody has gone to court saying that they want to enter the temple. There are other
Ayyappa temples for women, for those who want to pray to him. Eeveryone should respect
the speciality of Sabarimala. Democracy, one must respect religious beliefs, the Constitution,
the law and so on. Balancing all of this is what democracy is all about.Sabarimala has now
become a police camp. How can anyone pray peacefully there.
The notifications issued by the Travancore Devaswom Board in 1955 and 1956, which refer to
the devotees as “Ayyappans”. The worshippers of Lord Ayyappa together constitute a religious
denomination, or sect thereof, as the case maybe, follow a common faith, and have common
beliefs and practices. They are designated by a distinctive name wherein all male devotees are
called “Ayyappans”; all female devotees below the age of 10 and above the age of 50 are
called “Malikapurams”. A pilgrim on his maiden trip is called a “KanniAyyappan”. The
devotees are referred to as “Ayyappa Swamis”. A devotee has to observe the “vratham” and
follow a code of conduct, before embarking upon the “PathinettuPadikal” to enter the temple.
Thus, Ayyappa devotees are a separate religious denomination and their rights need to be
protected and not interfered with.
Popular sentiment and political conflict
The state government’s decision to implement the Supreme Court verdict has given opportunist
politicians the chance to fish in troubled waters.
The BJP seeks to reassert anew its role as the self-appointed custodian of Hindu sensitivities,
creating outrage and violence by leading an agitation to prevent women from accessing the
temple. Congress is playing the soft hindutva. Meanwhile, the ruling party CPI-M blows hot
and cold, saying one day that it will implement the Court order by escorting women to the
shrine, then ordering its police not to do so and indeed to escort them back if they attempt it.
They have converted a sacred spot into an unseemly stage of political theatre.
The reactions in Kerala have demonstrated that abstract notions of constitutional principle
also have to pass the test of societal acceptance — all the more so when they are applied to
matters of faith. Judges are, of course, rational beings applying legal principles and precedents.
Worshippers have no such constraints. The overwhelming majority of Kerala Hindus, including

35
GD WAT Bible

a significant majority of women, have now demonstrated that their faith is offended by the
Supreme Court verdict. Informal surveys suggest that opposition to the court judgment among
Kerala Hindus is above 75 per cent and perhaps as high as 90 per cent. The intensity of emotions
on display have surprised many liberals, not least because so many women seem outraged
that other women might be allowed to go into the Sabarimala temple and disturb its sanctity.
It is all very well to say that religions must adhere to the normal rules of liberal democracy, but
the truth is they don’t. Gender equality is a vital principle in civic society and in political
democracy, but it is by no means universally observed in the religious world. Muslim mosques
don’t allow men and women to pray together in the same space. The Catholic Church does
not permit female priests. Some Shinto monasteries are off-limits to women altogether. There
are Hindu temples which do not allow men to enter during specified periods, and the Kumari
Amman temple situated in Kanyakumari does not permit them at all. The law does not interfere
in such matters.
In implementing the Supreme Court verdict, politicians should have sought to reconcile the
principles upheld by the Court with the believers’ sense of the sanctity of their faith. There is a
need for mutual engagement between the liberals and the traditionalists on what their
convictions and doctrines mean in a changing world.
Conclusion:
With its Sabarimala verdict, the SC underlines the Constitution’s transformative power. The
Constitution protects religious freedom. The legal challenge to the exclusion of women in
the 10-50 age group from the Sabarimala temple in Kerala represented a conflict between
the group rights of the temple authorities in enforcing the presiding deity’s strict celibate
status and the individual rights of women to offer worship there. The decision reaffirms the
Constitution’s transformative character and derives strength from the centrality it accords
to fundamental rights. Liberals are thus torn between their basic respect for gender equality
and their democratic duty to respect the beliefs and wishes of the people. In religious
matters, beliefs must prevail; in a pluralistic democracy, legal principles and cultural
autonomy must both be respected.
Further Reading:
https://thewire.in/law/watch-sabarimala-verdict-what-the-judges-said
https://thewire.in/women/sabarimala-women-entry-supreme-court-judgement-kerala
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/ban-on-entry-of-women-facts-
controversies-about-kerala-s-sabarimala-temple/story-K4Xi6GKMacPDmQO2jAmjNO.html
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/what-is-sabarimala-case/articleshow/
66054724.cms
https://www.firstpost.com/india/why-women-are-barred-from-sabarimala-its-not-
because-they-are-unclean-2583694.html
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/keep-the-peace/article25265690.ece
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/why-the-sabarimala-verdict-allowing-
women-s-entry-is-not-against-mass-opinion/story-TbhvfuhI8myB0SW3qoAxeM.html
https://www.financialexpress.com/india-news/the-constitutional-and-legal-bases-of-the -
sabarimala-verdict-october-17-2018/1352605/

36
 GD WAT Bible

SC verdict on Section 377 - A game changer

“Section 377 is irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary.” – Former Chief Justice of India
Deepak Mishra
Supreme court has now given a mandate on Section 377 and has created a new wave of
discussions. This judgement of the Supreme Court has thrust diversity and plurality in the
public discourse.
What is Section 377?
Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code was introduced in 1860 during the British rule and it
refers to the ‘unnatural offences’. According to section 377, whoever voluntarily indulges in
carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be
punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term
which may extend to 10 years, and shall also be liable to pay a fine.
How is section 377 linked with individual identity or gender identity?
Gender identity is an individual’s choice of self-identification as a man, woman, transgender
or any other identified category. As per article 15 and 16, the discrimination on the grounds of
‘sex’ also includes discrimination on the ground of gender identity. ‘Sex’ included in article 15
and 16 also considers people who are gender agnostic or who don’t believe in categorising
themselves to be either male or female. Sex here according to article 15 and 16 is not just
restricted to biological sex.
Is ‘Section 377’ legitimate?
The issue of Section 377 was first raised by NGO Naaz Foundation, which had in 2001
approached the Delhi High Court which had decriminalised sex between consenting adults of
the same gender by holding the penal provision as “illegal”. This 2009 judgement of the high
court was overturned in 2013 by the apex court which had also dismissed the review plea.
The rights of every individual is an integral and innate facet of every identity and the lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community which comprises of 7- 8% of the total Indian
population, need to be recognized and protected, for sexual orientation. A person belonging
to the said community does not become an alien to the concept of individual and his
individualism cannot be viewed with a stigma. There is a stigma associated with one’s sexual
orientation and preference and section 377 was to an extent legitimising the stigma linked
with sexual expression.
Implications for heterosexuals
The consensual oral and anal sexual acts between two adults were treated as unnatural and
punishable earlier because of section 377 but now the rule has given a right to such
consenting acts done in private.
What was the need to lift the ban?
What is natural to one may not be natural to other but the said natural orientation and personal
choices can’t be allowed to cross the boundaries of law hence there was a need to give it a
constitutional legality. According to DY Chandrachud, “It is difficult to right a wrong by

37
GD WAT Bible

history. But we can set the course for the future. This case involves much more than
decriminalising homosexuality. It is about people wanting to live with dignity.”
A game changer verdict:
With the decriminalising of section 377, the apex court has once again established the right of
every Indian human being to be free irrespective of sexual preference and orientation. With
this encoding of right to freedom, the age-old punitive section 377 of the Indian Penal Code
(IPC) will no longer apply to consensual sexual relations among adults in private.
With Supreme Court scrapping Section 377 of the IPC and decriminalising the 158-year-old
colonial law, the law will no longer be available for use or abuse, to foster, facilitate, or
perpetuate, an atmosphere conducive to human rights violations of a certain kind, and will
put an end to the discrimination that many millions have faced because of their sexual
orientation or gender identity for so many years now. India now joins a proud league of
nations that recognises true freedom of gender identity and sexual expression. This ruling of
the Supreme Court will not only impact India, but will also undoubtedly have immense
transnational value. The effect of this judgement is especially likely to be felt in other common
law countries, and it will, hopefully, provide an impetus to those countries that still have
equivalent provisions in their statute books, to critically consider the lawfulness and legality of
provisions that similarly criminalise consensual sexual relations. We have come a long way
from the journey that started with Naz Foundation.
Social inclusion, identity seclusion and isolation from the social mainstream are still the stark
realities of society and it is when the human being is liberated from the shackles of such bondages
and is able to work towards the full development of his/her personality that we can call a
truly free society. In 2017, in ‘Justice Puttaswamy vs Union of India’, a Constitution bench of
the Supreme Court held that privacy is a fundamental right. Justice Chandrachud, in particular,
called out the Section 377 decision as being “unsustainable”, noting that the “right to privacy
and the protection of sexual orientation lie at the core of the fundamental rights guaranteed
by Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution”.
No kind of prejudice and discrimination can continue in perpetuity. Section 377 was introduced
in Indian criminal law in furtherance of western notions of morality, based on Abrahamic
ideologies. At the time of its introduction, limited consideration was given to a contradictory
morality that existed in the subcontinent, which acknowledged and recognised homosexuality,
and did not criminalise it. Even as the UK and other jurisdictions abandoned it for a more
reasoned position of homosexuality being nothing but a variation in human nature, Indian
governments and other public institutions, over the decades, have tried to perpetuate
antiquarian ideas. There was no explicable justification for this law to remain. This decision
has thankfully undone the artificial construct that was Section 377, and in doing so, it also
recognises the triumph of constitutional morality over public morality.
Throughout this process, and indeed, through deliberations around law making generally, we
should not lose sight of the fact that laws like the IPC are neither Indian nor god-given. Laws
like these are not immutable. And in fact, they lose value if they are not abandoned, rewritten,
or amended, to suit changing social, cultural, and economic needs.
Even as our immediate reaction is one of relief, and joy, this decision is only the beginning of
the long walk to ultimate freedom for all. International law strictly prohibits any discrimination
on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity. The Office of the UN High
Commissioner of the Human Rights oblige states to protect individuals from homophobic

38
 GD WAT Bible

violence; prevent such violence; decriminalise homosexuality; prohibit discrimination; and

respect fundamental freedoms of all persons. The removal of Section 377, which decriminalises
homosexuality, is but one step towards meeting these obligations.
The impact of sexual orientation on an individual‘s life is not limited to their intimate lives but
also impacts their family, professional, social and educational life. The present decision, as
much as it was expected, leads one to believe that the Indian judiciary is indeed the last bastion
of fundamental rights in the country. The legislature and the executive each had their chances
to undo what our colonisers had left behind, but chose to do nothing. The judiciary, after
swinging this way and that, eventually found reason, and brought order to chaos. In this
background, Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion in the US Supreme Court gay marriage ruling
in ‘Obergefell vs Hodges’ bears reiteration: “The nation’s courts are open to injured individuals
who come to them to vindicate their own direct, personal stake in our basic charter. An
individual can invoke a right to constitutional protection when he or she is harmed, even if the
broader public disagrees and even if the legislature refuses to act.”

Read more at:

https://www.sci.gov.in/supremecourt/2016/14961/14961_2016_Judgement_06-Sep-
2018.pdf
//economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/
65698429.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
https://www.livemint.com/Politics/bRkgeh7EdUK5aeBHUb7YAM/Section-377-verdict-
Supreme-Court-decriminalises-homosexual.html
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/section-377-impact-will-be-felt-beyond-india/
articleshow/65712471.cms
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC11gHCxRac
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcqidZYifuU

39
GD WAT Bible

IL _ FS Saga _ Implications for the economy _ lessons to be

learned
What happened?
Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS), an unlisted infrastructure lending giant,
has been making headlines of late for all the wrong reasons. The company’s debt was
downgraded starting September 2018 for default of interest to its bondholders. The first
signs of trouble emerged in June 2018 when IL&FS defaulted on inter-corporate deposits
and commercial papers (borrowings) worth about Rs 450 crore. Over the next two to three
months, at least two rating agencies downgraded its long-term ratings. As a result, the
infrastructure giant, which is credited for building the longest tunnel in the country (the
Chenani-Nashri tunnel), no longer carries an investment grade rating. This makes it near to
impossible for the company to raise money in the future.
IL&FS was a trusted name in the financial sector and infrastructure sector. However, when a
company with a debt of over Rs 90,000 crore defaults, news about it travels fast and wide.
IL&FS is now a household name for all the wrong reasons. To give a perspective of the size of
money at risk, the amount of debt that IL&FS owes is 10 times that of Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher.
We take a look at the five W’s (who, what, where, when, why) and the H (how) of the entire
IL&FS saga:
Who is Responsible?
The management of IL&FS is mainly responsible for the default. Poor management decisions
resulted in IL&FS financing and getting itself involved in projects that were either unviable
or had a long gestation period.
The company, which started out as a financing arm for infrastructure projects, started building
them. However, the long gestation period of the projects was not matching with the short-
term, high-cost fund that the company was able to raise, thus causing an asset-liability
mismatch.
Stress on IL&FS books was visible much before the institution defaulted on its loans, yet the
management did not take the issue seriously. Reports say the Risk Management Committee
of IL&FS did not even meet for two years.
What caused the default?
The management and the board of directors of IL&FS have to take the blame
The other factors which contributed where
A slowing economy and rising default resulted in few financiers willing to participate in
infrastructure projects. Add to that bureaucratic red-tape and we have the perfect mix for
disaster.
While IL&FS stretched itself on generating funds and raising money from the market to feed
its numerous subsidiaries, it was let down by the government when it came to releasing funds
as part of the concessions.
Under the concession contract, a private partner gets exclusive rights from the government to
operate, maintain and sometimes even carry out investment in a public utility for a given
period of time. Revenue to the private party comes from the user fee charged to users of the
facility while the government gets a fixed sum or a percentage of revenue.
As per the 2018 annual report Receivable against Service Concession Arrangements stood
at over Rs 8,500 crore on a consolidated basis. However, company management has been

40
 GD WAT Bible

quoted as saying the figure is now as high as Rs 16,000 crore. Under ideal conditions, either
of these figures could have helped IL&FS stall the crisis.
Where is the money that IL&FS owes?
That is an Rs 90,000-crore question. (Let’s spell it out: Rs 90,000,00,00,000)The complex structure
of the company makes the task more difficult. Market analysts confess that IL&FS is a difficult
company to track as it does not have the most transparent annual reports.
The money is lying in various projects that are either completed or are unfinished or have
not yet taken off. The government also feels that the money has been siphoned off from
the company and has launched an inquiry to look into the failure of the company.
The complex structure of the company with 24 direct subsidiaries, 135 in-direct subsidiaries,
six joint ventures, and four associate companies are under the umbrella of the parent IL&FS.
Maze of subsidiaries created to spirit away funds to tax havens, protect parent firm?
Subsidiaries are standalone companies, and thus can be bought and sold without much ado
where in case of a multi-division company, the division on sale has first to be hived off in a
demerger exercise which takes time and cost.
The unfolding saga of Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) has turned out to
be the same old script—float mind-boggling maze of subsidiaries in a manner of wheels within
wheels in a clutter of confusion so that it takes a herculean effort to figure out where exactly
the amount flowing out of the parent went.
As per Uday Kotak, Chairman of the temporary board of directors of IL&FS, appointed by the
central government in place of the one that presided over the crisis, there are as many as 347
subsidiaries of IL&FS, with 100 of them incorporated abroad.
Yes, one can say without the fear of contradiction that these 100 foreign subsidiaries would
presumably be in tax havens such as Camay Island, British Channel Islands, Panama etc, the
usual suspects that always figure in the roll-call of financial rogues and renegades. And these
are the companies through which the IL&FS promoters would have ultimately reached their
objective—spiriting away funds, rubbing off all possible audit trails unless the Indian
government is lucky in persuading the government of these renegade states harboring the ill-
gotten wealth to spill the beans. The record hitherto, sadly, is none too inspiring.
When was the first sign of trouble visible in IL&FS
IL&FS defaulted on inter-corporate deposits and commercial papers in October 2018. On
September 4, it came to light that IL&FS had defaulted on a short-term loan of Rs 1,000 crore
from SIDBI, while a subsidiary has also defaulted on Rs 500 crore dues to the development
financial institution.
But the stress on IL&FS books was visible much before the institution defaulted on its loans.
Many experts now say that the Ravi Parthasarathy’s founder and Chairman of IL&FS untimely
exit on health grounds in July 2018 was the first tell-tale sign of trouble.By the way Chairman
Ravi Parthasarathy, last year gave himself a 144% increase, taking his salary to Rs 26.3 crore.
The unreality of it all is staggering. The government stepped in on October 1. But just two days
earlier, the company’s shareholders approved a Rs 4,500-crore rights issue. And a mere month
before that, the company gave out a final dividend of 10%. (In the previous year, the dividend
was 42.5%). And you thought only profit-making companies gave out dividends? In the same
vein, have you heard of companies facing virtual insolvency, awarding massive pay raises?
IL&FS gave a 66% increase to its management staff.

41
GD WAT Bible

The entire issue has raised doubts about the working of watchdogs like auditors and rating
agency who could not locate the stress in the company and jumped into action only after the
default.
Consolidated debt of the company increased from Rs 49000 crore in 2014 to Rs 91,000 crore in
2018, as a result, its interest outgo rose from Rs 3,900 crore to Rs 7,900 crore during the same
period. However, operating profit increased at nearly half the pace increasing from Rs 5,100
crore to Rs 7,300 crore. By 2018 the company was not even making enough to take care of its
interest expense, hence the default.
Ironically a company which in the business of Financial Advisory in infrastructure space
did not heed its own advice.
Why has the board of IL&FS been sacked?
The IL&FS saga took many by surprise after the government decided to move the National
Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to take over IL&FS by replacing all board members as defaults
by the infrastructure group and its subsidiaries triggered concerns about contagion in the
financial markets.
Government and other agencies feel that a surgical strike is needed to clear the mess in IL&FS
and in order to implement changes need going forward a completely new team is needed. The
government superseded the existing board of IL&FS with six new board members.
Kotak Mahindra Bank MD Uday Kotak has been appointed as the Chairman of the board.
In a press conference post the first board meeting of the new team, Kotak said that the board
will do what is in the right interests of the different categories of stakeholders by bringing in
clarity, rebuild trust and do it in an open, fair, objective manner.
How will the IL&FS mess be cleared?
While the investigating agencies will do its job of finding the culprits the new board has a task
in hand of keeping the company running and stopping further defaults. The only way to do it
is by finding money wither from within the company or outside to keep the company floating.
Thankfully IL&FS has enough assets in its books, including its posh office, to reduce debt
levels and continue with its business. Reports say that the company may sell rights to operate
toll roads to National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and raise immediate money.
There are talks of equity infusion in the company from its shareholders including LIC, SBI,
HDFC, Abu Dhabi sovereign fund and Orix of Japan. Raising money through debt option is
also one of the ways the company is evaluating to raise money.
A stake sale or a complete selloff is another option that is being discussed in media.
Names to remember
Chairman Parthasarathy,
VC and MD Hari Sankaran
Jt MD and CEO ArunSaha.
List of Companies of the IL&FS group in different domains.
Infrastructure Services
• IL&FS Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited: advisory and project
development
• IL&FS Transportation Networks Limited: involved in the development and
implementation of projects related to surface transport (highways, flyovers, bridges
and roads)
• IL&FS Environmental Infrastructure & Services Limited

42
 GD WAT Bible

• IL&FS Education and Technology Services Limited (education infrastructure

development)
• New Tirupur Area Development Corporation Limited (an SPV to implement
the Tirupur Area Development Programme)
• Noida Toll Bridge Company Limited (an SPV to develop, construct, operate and
maintain the DND Flyway connecting Delhi with Noida)
Financial Services
• IL&FS Financial Services Limited (Investment Banking Arm of IL&FS)
• IL&FS Investment Managers Limited (domestic private equity fund management)
• ORIX Auto Infrastructure Services Limited (services related to transport finance and
transport infrastructure)
• IL&FS Trust Company Limited - ITCL (Services: * Debenture and Bond Trusteeship *
Trusteeship and Investor Representative for Securitised Paper * Services as Security
Trustee and Facility Agent * secure document management, scanning, processing,
Records management solution * Para Legal Services)
Technology Services
• IL&FS Technologies Ltd. (IT Arm of IL&FS group)

43
GD WAT Bible

Decoding SC verdict on Aadhar

On September 26, 2018, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice of
India DipakMisraupheld the validity of Aadhar but with riders.
Decoding this verdict cannot be done without going into Aadhar’s genesis and the controversies
surrounding it.
Genesis of Aadhar:
A crucial factor that determines an individual’s well-being in a country is whether their identity
is recognized in the eyes of the government. Weak identity limits the power of the country’s
residents when it comes to claiming basic political and economic rights. The lack of identity is
especially detrimental for the poor and the underprivileged, the people who live in India’s
“social, political and economic periphery”. Agencies in both the public and private sector in
India usually require a clear proof of identity to provide services. Since the poor often lack
such documentation, they face enormous barriers in accessing benefits and subsidies.
The Unique identification project was initially conceived by the Planning Commission as an
initiative that would provide a clear and unique identity number for each resident across
the country and would be used primarily as the basis for efficient delivery of welfare
services. It wouldalso act as a tool for effective monitoring of various programs and schemes
of the Government.
The concept of unique identification was first discussed and worked upon since 2006 when
administrative approval for the project –”Unique ID for BPL families” was given on March
3rd, 2006 by the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and
Information Technology. This project was to be implemented by the NIC over a period of 12
months. Subsequently, a Processes Committee to suggest processes for updation, modification,
addition and deletion of data fields from the core data base to be created under the Unique ID
for BPL families Project was set up on July 3rd, 2006.
Later, it was decided, with the approval of the Prime Minister, to constitute an Empowered
Group of Ministers (EGoM) to collate the two schemes – the National Population Register and
the Unique Identification Number project of the Department of Information Technology. The
EGoM was constituted on December 4th, 2006.
Subsequently, the Government constituted a Unique Identification Authority of Indiaon
22nd October, 2009. The functions of this Committee, as per this notification are: All issues
relating to the Unique identification Authority of India including its organisation, plans, policies,
programmes, schemes, funding and methodology to be adopted for achieving the objectives of
that Authority.
On July 2nd, 2009 ShriNandanNilekani was appointed as the Chairman of the UIDAI.
In July 2010 UIDAI started the enrolment process by issuing a 12 digit Aadhar number
after collecting fingerprints and iris scan of users.On 7 February 2012 the UIDAI launched
an online verification system for Aadhar numbers. Using the system, banks, telecom companies
and government departments could enter an Aadhar number and verify if the person was a
resident of India.
On 26 November 2012 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh launched an Aadhar-linked direct
benefit transfer scheme. The project aimed to eliminate leakages in the system by directly
transferring the money to the bank account of the recipient.
In 2012 a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed against the government in the Supreme
Court of India. The PIL contended that the government was implementing the project
without any legislative backing.

44
 GD WAT Bible

On 23 September 2013 the Supreme Court issued an interim order saying that the government
could not deny a service to anyone who did not possess Aadhar, as the identity number was
voluntary.
2014 to present
On 5 July 2014, Modi announced that his government would retain theAadhar project, and
asked an official to look into the possibility of linking the project with passports. In March
2015 the Aadhar-linked DigiLocker service was launched, using which Aadhar-holders can
scan and save their documents on the cloud, and can share them with the government officials
whenever required without any need to carry them.
During the budget presentation on 29 February 2016, Jaitley announced that a bill would be
introduced within a week to provide legislative support to the Aadhar project. On 3 March
2016 the Aadhar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services)
Bill, 2016, was introduced in the Parliament as a money bill by Jaitley. The decision to introduce
it as a money bill was criticised by the opposition parties. GhulamNabi Azad, an INC leader,
wrote in a letter to the Jaitley that the ruling party, the BJP, was attempting to bypass the
RajyaSabha, as they did not have the majority in the upper house. A money bill is only required
to pass in the lower house LokSabha.TathagataSatpathy of BijuJanata Dal (BJD) raised concerns
that the project could be used for mass surveillance or ethnic cleansing in the future.
On 11 March 2016 the Aadhar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, benefits
and services) Act, 2016, was passed in the LokSabha. During the RajyaSabha debate on 16
March, SitaramYechury of the CPI-M said that bill should not have been passed when the
issue of the right to privacy was still in the Supreme Court. On 16 March 2016 the bill was
returned to the LokSabha by the RajyaSabha with some suggested amendments, which the
LokSabha promptly rejected.
BJP’s opposition to Aadhar (while in opposition)
In 2012, BJP’s national spokesperson MeenakshiLekhi had slammed Aadhar as a “fraud”
programme and demanded a probe. “This is a dangerous programme to regularise the illegal
stay of migrants in the country. Is Bharat Mata so open to illegal migrants? The Aadhar is also
in contravention of Supreme Court directives. The entire biometric data of people enrolled has
been stored outside the country,” Lekhi had said.
Ananth Kumar, the parliamentary affairs minister of the NDA government, had said that
Aadhar’s contribution was to provide citizenship to illegal immigrants. “If you illegally enter
other countries, you are shot at or put in jail. But if anyone illegally enters India, he is given
citizenship. This is the contribution of Aadhar. Half of Assam is occupied by Bangladeshis.
Aadhar is the biggest fraud in the country,” Ananth Kumar said.
In 2010, at a function in New Delhi, SmritiIrani, who is the Union textile minister, had said,
“The reality is that the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010, which gives sanction
to this particular card was rejected by the standing committee on finance.”
Thus, the alleged U-turn on the part of BJP on Aadhar gave ample ammunition to the opposition
parties to make the issue a political slugfest.
Chronology of Aadhar case
• Jan 2009: Planning Commission notification on UIDAI.
• 2010-2011: National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010 introduced.
• Nov 2012: Retired Justice K S Puttaswamy and others file PILs in SC challenging
validity of Aadhar.
• Nov 2013: SC orders all states and Union Territories be impleaded as respondents.
• Mar 3, 2016: Aadhar Bill - 2016 introduced in LokSabha; later passed as Money Bill.

45
GD WAT Bible

• May 2017: Former Union minister and Congress leader Jairam Ramesh moves SC
Challenging the Centre’s decision to treat Aadhar bill as a money bill.
• Aug 24, 2017: SC nine-judge bench rules that right to privacy is a fundamental
right.
• Dec 15: SC extends deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhar with various services
and welfare schemes till March 31, 2018.
• Jan 17, 2018: SC five-judge bench begins hearing Aadhar case.
• Jan 25: SC asks Chhattisgarh HC to modify in 10 days its order directing all trial courts
in the state to mandatorily accept copies of Aadhar card for releasing an accused on
bail.
• Feb 19: Delhi BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay seeks direction to EC to take
appropriate steps to implement an Aadhar based election voting system.
• Feb 21: SC says the alleged defect that citizens’ biometric details under the Aadhar
scheme were being collected without any law, could be cured by subsequently bringing
a statute.
• Mar 7: SC says Aadhar number not mandatory for enrolment of students in all India
exams.
• Mar 13: SC extends March 31 deadline of Aadhar linking till it gives its order.
• Mar 22: UIDAI CEO says breaking the Aadhar encryption may take “more than the
age of the universe for the fastest computer on earth”.
• Mar 28: Social activist Reshma Prasad seeks direction to the Centre to create a separate
third gender category option on PAN cards for transgenders.
• Apr 3: Centre tells SC Aadhar law is just, fair & reasonable.
• Apr 17: SC raises concerns that there is a threat of Aadhar data misuse.
• Apr 25: SC questions Centre on mandatory seeding of Aadhar with mobile.
• Sep 26: SC upholds constitutional validity of Aadhar but strikes down certain
provisions including its linking with bank accounts, mobile phones and school
admissions.
Decoding the Judgment:
The following summary from the judgment gives clear idea about which all provisions got
erased from the statute and which all will remain in a changed form.
Section 2(d) struck down:
Section 2(d) which pertains to authentication records, such records would not include metadata
as mentioned in Regulation 26(c) of the Aadhar (Authentication) Regulations, 2016. Therefore,
this provision in the present form is struck down. Liberty, however, is given to reframe the
regulation, keeping in view the parameters stated by the Court.
Section 2 (b)
Insofar as Section 2(b) is concerned, which defines ‘resident’, the apprehension expressed by
the petitioners was that it should not lead to giving Aadhar card to illegal immigrants. The
court directed the government to take suitable measures to ensure that illegal immigrants are
not able to take such benefits.
Regulation 27
Retention of data beyond the period of six months is impermissible. Therefore, Regulation 27
of Aadhar (Authentication) Regulations, 2016 which provides archiving a data for a period of
five years is struck down.

46
 GD WAT Bible

Section 29
Section 29 imposes a restriction on sharing information and is, therefore, valid as it protects
the interests of Aadhar number holders. However, apprehension of the petitioners was that
this provision entitles Government to share the information ‘for the purposes of as may be
specified by regulations’. The Aadhar (Sharing of Information) Regulations, 2016, as of now,
do not contain any such provision. If a provision is made in the regulations which impinges
upon the privacy rights of the Aadhar card holders that can always be challenged.
Section 33(1)
Section 33(1) of the Act prohibits disclosure of information, including identity information or
authentication records, except when it is by an order of a court. The SC held that this provision
is to be read down with the clarification that an individual, whose information is sought to be
released, shall be afforded an opportunity of hearing. If such an order is passed, the individual
will also have right to challenge such an order passed by approaching the higher court. During
the hearing before the concerned court, the said individual can always object to the disclosure
of information on accepted grounds in law, including Article 20(3) of the Constitution or the
privacy rights etc.
Section 33(2) National Security.
In so far as Section 33(2) of the Act is concerned, the SC held that held that as far as disclosure
of information in the interest of national security cannot be faulted with. However, for
determination of such an eventuality, an officer higher than the rank of a Joint Secretary
should be given such a power. Further, in order to avoid any possible misuse, a Judicial Officer
(preferably a sitting High Court Judge) should also be associated with. We may point out that
such provisions of application of judicial mind for arriving at the conclusion that disclosure of
information is in the interest of national security, are prevalent in some jurisdictions.
In view thereof, Section 33(2) of the Act in the present form is struck down with liberty to
enact a suitable provision on the lines suggested above.
Section 47 – Criminal complaints of data breach.
Under Section 47 of the Aadhar Act, criminal complaints with regards to data breach could
only be filed by UIDAI; individuals were not allowed. However, this clause has now been
revoked, allowing individuals to report any incident of a data breach. Insofar as Section 47 of
the Act which provides for the cognizance of offence only on a complaint made by the
Authority or any officer or person authorised by it is concerned, it needs a suitable amendment
to include the provision for filing of such a complaint by an individual/victim as well
whose right is violated.
Section 57
Last but not the least, the top court also struck down Section 57 of the Aadhar Act, which
basically means that users will not have to share their Aadhar data with any other third-
party for availing services. In a nutshell, you will not have to share any of your authentication
details or biometric data to sign up or use a service.
Insofar as Section 57 in the present form is concerned, it is susceptible to misuse inasmuch as:
(a) It can be used for establishing the identity of an individual ‘for any purpose’. We read
down this provision to mean that such a purpose has to be backed by law. Further, whenever
any such “law” is made, it would be subject to judicial scrutiny. (b) Such purpose is not
limited pursuant to any law alone but can be done pursuant to ‘any contract to this effect’ as
well. This is clearly impermissible as a contractual provision is not backed by a law and,
therefore, first requirement of proportionality test is not met. (c) Apart from authorizing the

47
GD WAT Bible

State, even ‘anybody corporate or person’ is authorized to avail authentication services which
can be on the basis of purported agreement between an individual and such body corporate
or person. Even if we presume that legislature did not intend so, the impact of the aforesaid
features would be to enable commercial exploitation of individual biometric and demographic
information by the private entities. Thus, this part of the provision which enables body corporate
and individuals also to seek authentication, that too on the basis of a contract between the
individual and such body corporate or person, would impinge upon the right to privacy of
such individuals.
This part of the section, thus, is declared unconstitutional.
Aadhar Do Not Tend To Create A Surveillance State.
The majority judgment holds that the architecture of Aadhar, as well as the provisions of the
Aadhar Act, do not tend to create a surveillance state. It was observed that this aspect is
ensured by the manner in which the Aadhar project operates. The judges also found that it is
very difficult to create profile of a person simply on the basis of biometric and demographic
information stored in CIDR and -Insofar as authentication is concerned, there are sufficient
safeguard mechanisms. In this regard, the majority judgment held as follows:
• Authentication records are not to be kept beyond a period of six months, as stipulated
in Regulation 27(1) of the Authentication Regulations. This provision which permits
records to be archived for a period of five years is held to be bad in law.
• Metabase relating to transaction, as provided in Regulation 26 of the aforesaid
Regulations in the present form, is held to be impermissible, which needs suitable
amendment.
• Section 33(1) of the Aadhar Act is read down by clarifying that an individual, whose
information is sought to be released, shall be afforded an opportunity of hearing.
• Insofar as Section 33(2) of the Act in the present form is concerned, the same is struck
down.
• That portion of Section 57 of the Aadhar Act which enables body corporate and
individual to seek authentication is held to be unconstitutional.
• Bring out a robust data protection regime in the form of an enactment on the basis of
Justice B.N. Srikrishna (Retd.) Committee Report with necessary modifications.
‘Reasonable Expectation Of Privacy’
The Court held that all matters pertaining to an individual do not qualify as being an inherent
part of right to privacy. Only those matters over which there would be a reasonable expectation
of privacy are protected by Article 21. It also held that the Aadhar scheme, which is backed by
the statute, i.e. the Aadhar Act also serves legitimate State aim. However, the court clarified-
‘Benefits’ and ‘services’ as mentioned in Section 7 should be those which have the colour of
some kind of subsidies etc., namely, welfare schemes of the Government whereby Government
is doling out such benefits which are targeted at a particular deprived class
It would cover only those ‘benefits’ etc. the expenditure thereof has to be drawn from the
Consolidated Fund of India
On that basis, CBSE, NEET, JEE, UGC etc. cannot make the requirement of Aadhar mandatory
as they are outside the purview of Section 7 and are not backed by any law.
Aadhar and Children
With regard to enrolment of children, the court held as follows:
For the enrolment of children under the Aadhar Act, it would be essential to have the consent
of their parents/guardian.

48
 GD WAT Bible

On attaining the age of majority, such children who are enrolled under Aadhar with the
consent of their parents, shall be given the option to exit from the Aadhar project if they so
choose in case they do not intend to avail the benefits of the scheme.
Insofar as the school admission of children is concerned, the requirement of Aadhar would
not be compulsory as it is neither a service nor subsidy. Further, having regard to the fact that
a child between the age of 6 to 14 years has the fundamental right to education under Article
21A of the Constitution, school admission cannot be treated as ‘benefit’ as well.
Benefits to children between 6 to 14 years under SarvShikshaAbhiyan, likewise, shall not
require mandatory Aadhar enrolment.
For availing the benefits of other welfare schemes which are covered by Section 7 of the Aadhar
Act, though enrolment number can be insisted, it would be subject to the consent of the parents,
as mentioned in (a) above.
The court also clarified that that no child shall be denied benefit of any of these schemes if, for
some reasons, she is not able to produce the Aadhar number and the benefit shall be given by
verifying the identity on the basis of any other documents.
Upholds Passing of Aadhar Act as Money Bill
The bench which also observed that Aadhar Act meets the concept of Limited Government,
Good Governance and Constitutional Trust, upheld the passing of the Act as a ‘Money Bill’.
It said that Section 7 is the core provision of the Aadhar Act and this provision satisfies the
conditions of Article 110 of the Constitution.
PAN Linking Upheld, Bank-Mobile Linking Unconstitutional
The court further held that Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act, 1961 is not violative of
right to privacy as it satisfies the triple test (I) existence of a law; (ii) a ‘legitimate State
interest’; and (iii) such law should pass the ‘test of proportionality’, However, the bench
held that the move of mandatory linking of Aadhar with bank account does not satisfy the
test of proportionality. It has been also held that Mandatory linking of mobile number with
Aadhar is held to be illegal and unconstitutional as it is not backed by any law.
Conclusion
The 5-judge bench of the Supreme Court in a crucial verdict watered down several sections
of the Aadhar Act. While the constitutional validity of Aadhar was upheld, the top court
has eliminated some clauses, which required information sharing with third parties in
various scenarios. Linking of mobile and bank account is no more mandatory under the
Aadhar Act, said the five-judge SC bench which was hearing the judgement. However,
linking of PAN with Aadhar remains mandatory under 139AA of Income Tax Act.
The Supreme Court finds a pragmatic middle path between the Aadhar scheme’s excesses
and its benefits to the marginalized. The Aadhar project has survived a fierce legal
challenge. Ever since a nine-judge Bench ruled unanimously last year that privacy is a
fundamental right, opinion began to gain ground that the unique identification programme
was vulnerable in the face of judicial scrutiny. It was projected by sceptics, detractors and
activists as an intrusion on citizens’ privacy, a byword for a purported surveillance system,
a grand project to harvest personal data for commercial exploitation by private parties and
profiling by the state. But the government has staved off the challenge by successfully
arguing that it is essentially a transformative scheme primarily aimed at reaching benefits
and subsidies to the poor and the marginalised. Four of the five judges on a Constitution
Bench ruled that the law enabling the implementation of the programme does not violate
the right to privacy of citizens; instead, the project empowers marginalised sections and

49
GD WAT Bible

procures dignity for them along with services, benefits and subsidies by leveraging the
power of technology.
In upholding the constitutional validity of Aadhar and clarifying areas in which it cannot
be made mandatory, the Supreme Court has restored the original intent of the programme:
to plug leakages in subsidy schemes and to have better targeting of welfare benefits. Over
the years, Aadhar came to mean much more than this in the lives of ordinary people,
acquiring the shape of a basic identity document that was required to access more and more
services, such as birth and death certificates, SIM cards, school admissions, property
registrations and vehicle purchases. A unique identity number, that could be availed on a
voluntary basis and was conceived to eliminate the rampant fraud in the distribution of
benefits, had threatened to morph — with the Centre’s tacit acceptance — into something
that was mandatory for various aspects of life. The judgment narrows the scope of Aadhar
but provides a framework within which it can work. The majority opinion has sought to
limit the import of the scheme to aspects directly related to welfare benefits, subsidies and
money spent from the Consolidated Fund of India. Thus, controversial circulars and rules
making it mandatory to link mobile phone numbers and bank accounts to Aadhar numbers
have been declared unconstitutional. Section 57 of the Aadhar (Targeted Delivery Of
Financial And Other Subsidies, Benefits And Services) Act, 2016, has been struck down to
the extent that it authorised body corporates and individuals to use the Aadhar number to
establish someone’s identity. Schools have been barred from making the submission of the
Aadhar number mandatory to enrol children.

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/Aadhar-survives/article25051397.ece
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aadhar#Critical_views
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/Aadhar-flip-flop-when-the-bjp-called-it-a -
fraud-scheme-aimed-at-legalising-illegal-immigrants/story-
tRxUVr8qTDbPHwInD7m3tN.html
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/10-things-to-know-about-Aadhar-card-287673-
2015-08-11
https://www.livelaw.in/Aadhar-read-the-summary-of-majority-41-judgment/
https://www.timesnownews.com/business-economy/economy/article/sc-strikes-down-
section-332-57-47-of-Aadhar-act-what-it-means-for-you/290275
https://www.livemint.com/Companies/cpSHu1fjQ1WvOP8vMi27aL/What-Supreme-
Courts-Aadhar-verdict-means-for-you-10-point.html
https://www.livemint.com/Companies/egjWCYZXFLH6OTVAnSGw6N/How-Supreme-
Courts-Aadhar-order-affects-you.html
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/Aadhar-verdict-key-takeaways-from-todays-
supreme-court-verdict-on-Aadhar-1922742

50
 GD WAT Bible

Impact of Rising Oil Prices _ Falling Rupee on the Indian

Economy
Exchange rate of a dollar (or any other foreign currency) is the number of rupees we have to
pay in order to buy one dollar (or any other foreign currency). Now the question that
inevitably arises is how these rates are decided. The underlying economic principle that
determines this exchange rate is the same principle that determines the rates of any other
thing such as say wheat or rice. We all know that the price of wheat falls when there is a
bumper harvest and rises when there is a scarcity of wheat in the market. This is the result
of basic laws of demand and supply in economics.
Now coming to the world of exchange rates, the price of dollar will fall if there is an
oversupply of dollar and it will rise if there is a scarcity of dollars.
When do we expect to see abundant supply of dollars in the Indian market?
1. If there is higher export from India than import into India. As a result, exporters will
earn more dollars from abroad than importers will have to pay. (Called ‘Current
Account’).
2. If there is an influx of dollars in India by investors abroad.
If dollars accumulate in India under either of these heads, it has the same effect on the
price of dollar as a bumper harvest of wheat has on wheat price i.e. the price of dollar
falls.
Similarly, there is reduced supply of dollars in India when either of the following happens:
1. If there is higher import into India than export from India. As a result, exporters will
earn fewer dollars from abroad than importers will have to pay.
2. Suppose for whatever reason, Foreign Investors pull out dollars from India.
If dollars leave India under either of these heads, it has the same effect on the price of
dollar as scarcity of wheat has on the price of wheat i.e. the price of dollar rises.
Thus in this case, the price of dollar is decided purely by the forces of demand (from
importers and the foreign investors who want to pull the dollars out of India) and supply of
dollars (from exporters and the foreign investors who want to invest in India). This is called
‘Floating Exchange Rate’ regime.
Effects of Floating Exchange Rate regime
Under floating exchange rate regime, the price of dollar can be very volatile. As you know,
significant part of India’s oil requirements are fulfilled from import of oil. In international
trade, American dollar is the currency predominantly used. Now consider a situation
wherein outflow of dollars makes dollar more expensive and the price of dollar shoots up by
50%. In that case, our oil import bill in rupees will also shoot up by 50%. This can lead to
significant imbalances in the economy of India.

51
GD WAT Bible

Also, if inflow of dollars results in making dollar cheaper. If dollar becomes cheaper, exports
from India will appear more expensive. (For example, if current dollar rate is $1 = Rs.60, the
dollar price of a thing worth Rs.300 in the international market will be $5. However, if
dollar becomes cheaper and new dollar rate is $1 = Rs. 50, the dollar price of the same thing
will be $6. This will harm the exports).
Can there be any alternative to the Floating Exchange Rate regime? The alternative is called
‘Fixed Exchange Rate’ regime.
Fixed Exchange Rate regime
Under the ‘Fixed Exchange Rate’ regime, the central bank of the country (RBI in India)
intervenes in the foreign exchange market. If there is an inflow of dollars in the country, the
central bank purchases excess dollars and keeps them in its reserves so as to maintain the
dollar rate at a fixed value. Similarly, if there is an outflow of dollars (and hence greater
demand of dollars), the central bank supplies dollars from its reserves and maintains the
dollar exchange rate at a fixed value.
As you can see, the biggest factor limiting effective implementation of Fixed Exchange Rate
regime is the amount of dollars in the reserves with the central bank. If the central bank
starts running out of dollars, either dollars have to be borrowed from abroad and/or the
domestic currency has to be ‘devalued’. (For example, suppose the current dollar exchange
rate is $1 = Rs. 50 and there is a huge demand of dollars from importers which RBI cannot
satisfy. In that case, RBI can choose to devalue the rupee from $1 = Rs. 50 to say $1 = Rs. 60.
This devaluation will force the importers to shell out more rupees for buying the dollar,
which will reduce the demand of dollars. Similarly, devaluation makes domestic exports
more competitive because the price of the exported goods, denominated in dollars becomes
cheaper. Greater export from India will lead to inflow of dollars, which will correct the
imbalance in dollar reserves.)
Managed Floating Exchange Rate Regime
In the Managed Floating Exchange Rate regime, normally the central bank of the country
(RBI in India) does not intervene in the Foreign Exchange Market and lets the forces of
demand and supply determine the exchange rates. However, the central bank intervenes
only when there is extreme volatility in the exchange rate. If the dollar is becoming
expensive too fast, the central bank intervenes and supplies dollars in the market from its
reserves and stabilizes the dollar price. Similarly if the dollar is becoming cheaper too fast,
the central bank buys dollars in the foreign exchange market and does not let the dollar
price fall too fast.
India was on Fixed Exchange Rate regime up-to early 1990s. Since early 1990s, India is on
‘Managed Floating Exchange Rate’ regime.
Balance of Payments crisis of 1991
First Gulf war of 1991 resulted in increase in oil prices. This caused significant strain on
India’s dollar reserves. By January 1991, India’s dollar reserves were around $1.2 billion,

52
 GD WAT Bible

which were reduced to about $500 million by June 1991. By June 1991, India had enough
forex reserves to suffice for only 3 weeks of exports. At that crucial juncture, Government of
India had to pledge 67 tonnes of gold with Bank of England and Union Bank of
Switzerland and raise about $2.2 billion emergency loan. In July 1991, Government of India
devalued Indian rupee from $1 = Rs. 17 to $1 = Rs. 23. In the union budget presented by the
Finance Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh in February 1992, India officially adopted ‘Managed
Floating Exchange Rate’ regime.
After the managed floating rate regime was adopted, by 1996, the dollar exchange rate was
$1 = Rs. 35.
Dollar price movement in recent years
Dollar rate saw some movements in the decade 1996-2006. Dollar became cheaper from
Rs.48 in the aftermath of parliament attack and possibility of India-Pakistan war in 2001-
2002 to Rs. 39 in 2007 due to the influx of dollars from international investors to take
advantage of rapid progress of the Indian economy in the intervening period.
In 2008, US economy faced the biggest crisis in almost 8 decades. Whenever any big crisis
hits, international investors substantially pull out their investment in the international
market as well as American companies and buy US government bonds, which are supposed
to be the safest investment vehicle available. As a result, international investors pulled out
their dollars from India in 2008-09, which resulted in dollar becoming substantially more
expensive at about $1 = Rs. 52 by March 2009.
After Barack Obama became President of the US in January 2009, his administration took
some steps to tide over the crisis of 2008. The US Fed (central bank of the US- equivalent of
RBI) initiated a programme called ‘Quantitative Easing’. As a result of this programme,
financial institutions had excess dollars, which were again brought to India for investment.
Due to this additional dollar inflow, Indian rupee appreciated from Rs. 52 in March 2009 to
Rs. 45 in August 2011. However, as the US economy showed improvement, QE programme
was wound up, which reduced the dollars inflow in India. As a result, by 2013, dollar
exchange rate was about $1 = Rs. 60.
The dollar exchange rate continued in the range 58-66 in during 2013 to 2017.
In January 2017, after Donald Trump became the president of the US, there was increased
concern of trade war between the US and China. Trump imposed tariff on several goods
imported from China. As a result, China also retaliated with tariff on goods imported from
the US. In July 2018, the US imposed sanctions on the steel industry of Turkey. The
currency of Turkey, called Lira was devalued in August 2018. Donald Trump’s
administration in the US also imposed sanctions on Iran.
The result of these developments was short-term uncertainty about the flow of foreign
capital in Indian markets till more clarity emerged on the unfolding situation. Remember in
the times of uncertainty, international institutional investors prefer to park their funds in
the US and that too in the safest instrument i.e. US government bonds.

53
GD WAT Bible

One other factor adding to complexity was good performance of the US economy. In 2018,
the unemployment rate in the US dropped to multi-year low and in general, economy was
doing well. As a result, international institutional investors expected to get good returns by
investing in the US and cut the dollar inflow in Indian markets.
On the one hand, India needs to import about $6 to 6.5 billion worth of goods every month
more than the exports. In simple terms, that drains out dollar reserves of India to that extent
every month. Even if there is short term uncertainty about the inflow of dollars into India
from abroad, that can have significant adverse impact on rupee. The result of all these
factors resulted in depreciation of Indian rupee from about 65 to a dollar in January 2018 to
about 74 to a dollar in October.

(Reference: https://markets.businessinsider.com/currencies/usd-inr)

54
 GD WAT Bible

India’s FX reserves depleted from 426 billion dollars in May 2018 to about 390 billion dollars
by October 2018 because RBI had to supply dollars in the market, in the absence of which,
rupee would have depreciated even further.

(Reference: https://tradingeconomics.com/india/foreign-exchange-reserves )

Impact of Oil prices on Indian rupee

In 2017-18, India imported approximately $132 billion worth of oil out of total imports of
$465 billion, which makes oil the single biggest contributor to India’s total imports (https://
tradingeconomics.com/india/foreign-exchange-reserves). We can get an idea about how
large oil import of India is from the fact that India’s foreign exchange reserve is about $400
billion. Moreover, oil is an essential commodity and therefore, India does not have an option
of reducing the import in case price of oil shoots up. As a result, any drastic increase in oil
prices would eat into the foreign exchange reserves of the country, which naturally puts
limitations on the ability of RBI to intervene in the foreign exchange market in case dollar
becomes more expensive. As a result, dollar rate in India is closely linked to the oil prices in
the international market.
Now the question is how the are prices of crude oil in the international market decided. It is
important to realize that crude oil market is not a competitive market, unlike say wheat
market. Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which comprises total 15
countries (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Qatar, Venezuela etc) has significant influence over the
crude oil prices in the international market. These countries together account for about 45%
of total oil production and 75% of total oil reserves in the world. These countries together
decide the price at which oil is sold in the international market. This cartel has bargaining
power by virtue of its size. (Contrast this situation to a roadside grocery store. No grocery
store has more than a tiny fraction of the overall wheat market. As a result, no single
grocery store or even the group of stores can affect the price of wheat). Periodically OPEC
countries meet and decide to either increase or cut the oil production, which affects the
prices of oil. These countries consider the interests of their own economy, outlook for the
future, political relations, overall demand situation in the world etc while increasing or
cutting the oil production so as to maintain their bargaining power.

55
GD WAT Bible

In the following graph, we can see the variations in crude oil prices in the international
market over the years.

(Reference: https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart)
Steps taken by Government of India to stop rapid depreciation of Indian rupee
In September-October 2018, due to the concerns over the trade war between US and China,
imposition of tariff on Turkey, imposition of sanctions by Trump administration on Iran etc
led to temporary slowdown in dollar inflow into India, which resulted in sharp
depreciation of Indian rupee. Government of India took the following steps to tackle the
same:
1. During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Japan in October 2018, India and
Japan signed a currency swap agreement of $75 billion. As a part of this agreement,
India could avail loan up-to $75 billion from Japan at concessional rates. If RBI feels
that there is a downward pressure on Rupee in the future, this loan can be availed of
to support rupee. Why did Japan agree to extend this deal to India? Because
Japanese companies have been given contracts in Indian infrastructure projects such
as bullet train.
India first obtained exemption from the US sanctions for importing oil from Iran
(https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/oil-gas/us-agrees-to-
grant-india-waiver-from-iran-sanctions/articleshow/66454042.cms). Later India
and Iran signed an agreement for using Indian rupee for oil imported from Iran.
(https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/430390/In-a-rebuff-to-U-S-India-Iran-agree-
on-rupee-payment-mechanism) India signed similar agreements with UAE and
Russia. As a result, Indian rupee (and not US dollars) will be used for India’s
bilateral trade with these countries. This will reduce the likely pressure on India’s
foreign exchange reserves in the future.

56
 GD WAT Bible

Does India need a benevolent dictator or a strong democracy

Post World War II, quite a few countries including India gained independence from the British
rule. Over past 70 years, India has evolved as a strong democracy, with deep-rooted respect &
belief for democratic notions and tenets established by our constitution. However, the post-
independence era of many of these countries was marked by pseudo-democracy, i.e. active
army rule or army rule under the aegis of democracy (e.g. Pakistan and Indonesia) or strong
militant outfits over a reasonable period of time (e.g. Sri Lanka)
The post-independence India also had a share of struggle in facing issues like poverty, lack of
education, health & employment services, not to forget challenges of its kind posed by culturally
& economically diverse population speaking different languages following contradictory social
customs, at times. India sailed through testing times & the belief in a democratic system could
not be shaken in spite of facing three big wars within the first 25 years of independence
In such a diverse country, the only binding thread was a strong belief in the core intent of
democracy ‘Of the people, by the people, for the people’. However, such a scale of diversity
also poses its share of challenges & complexity, which leads to a certain faction of people to
ponder whether India needs a benevolent dictatorship instead of a democracy
Points in favour of benevolent dictatorship
1. Huge geographic & cultural spread poses considerable challenges to Indian policymakers
to build a national consensus on the design of welfare programs serving majority interests
of beneficiary groups having conflicting interests. We saw the kind of effort the
Government had to put in to build general agreement on GST implementation or an
ongoing debate on implementing the common civil code. India can’t afford such delays
which have a huge adverse impact on economic growth. Being ‘too democractic’, thus,
has its share of challenges
2. Planning is just a halfway done. Implementation of large-scale programs is mostly
characterized by red-tapism & unwarranted delays caused by ulterior motives of the
bureaucracy. If one wants to quicken decision-making process by bypassing the red
tapism, it comes at a heavy cost & corruption gets social acceptance as perhaps the best
way to get things done on time. A dictator will use his veto to push through certain
agenda without encouraging red-tapism or hidden agendas
3. In the past, countries have seen charismatic authoritarianism marked by “indefinite
political tenure” by rulers like Fidel Castro (Cuba) or Sukarno (Indonesia). By and large,
they were seen by their countrymen as strong advocates of nationalism, who dared to
take on the West in spite of challenging times such as externally imposed economic
sanctions. They were seen as proponents of social justice & anti-imperialism, who also
pushed through ideologically driven infrastructure projects and several initiatives around
health & education. Hence, there are proven examples of benevolent dictators
Points in favour of a strong democracy
1. A political system based on strong principles of democracy gives many powers to its
citizen, freedom of expression being one. Article 21 of the Indian constitution offers
the right to life & personal liberty to all citizens. In the recent past, a widespread
movement like India against corruption (2011) was marked by a series of
demonstrations and protests across the country. It intended to establish strong
legislation and enforcement against perceived endemic political corruption. The

57
GD WAT Bible

movement was primarily one of non-violent civil resistance, featuring demonstrations,

marches, acts of civil disobedience, hunger strikes, and rallies, as well as the use of
social media to organise, communicate, and raise awareness. The spontaneous
outburst of public sentiment is largely considered to be one of the key factors that
toppled the incumbent central government in the next general elections. A dictator,
however benevolent in nature, would have tended to smother such expressions of
public dismay & as a result, would have violated the spirit of personal liberty, a key
feature of a strong democracy
2. The legislature, the government, the judiciary and the press are considered as four
pillars of democracy. Time & again, these pillars have reflected public opinion at large
& helped genuine victims who sought justice. Criminal Law (Amendment) Act-2013
was brought against the backdrop of the country-wide outrage over Delhi gang-rape
case in 2012 to provide a strong deterrent against crimes like rape. Only a model of
strong democracy can entertain & appreciate public demands towards a strong cause
3. In the initial years of NDA governance, it did not hold a majority in the Rajya Sabha,
hence quite a few bills that were important to the government could not be passed &
converted into a law. The government, at times, tried to circumvent the Rajya Sabha
route by proposing ordinances & pushed for the President’s consent to pass them. The
President, however, turned them down on quite a few occasions narrating that
ordinances should be passed as one-off instances, only when the parliamentary
session is not on & should not become a precedent to take a deviation from the
standard parliamentary norm to fulfil vested interests of a ruling party. In case of a
dictatorship, it will be much easier to fulfil such vested interests. A similar instance in
2016 when democratically elected Uttarakhand state government was ousted by the
central government but re-installed later by the Supreme court, which is another
crucial pillar of democracy. Such controls only make the democracy strong
4. Finally, the Indian armed forces have never tried to over-power the democratically
elected government in spite of differences, at times. This is due to the deep-rooted
respect for democracy. As a result, India never faced an anarchy unlike a few
neighbouring countries & law and order situation, by and large, remained intact in
most parts of the country. In fact, act like Armed Forces (Special Powers) Acts
(AFSPA), 1958 that empowers the Indian Armed Forces to conduct search, arrest or
shoot to kill people without warrant also came under a heavy scrutiny & was revoked
from a few states due to alleged instances of misuse. A dictatorship, however
‘benevolent’ it claims to be is less likely to give such freedom to judiciary & people
against its own armed forces

58
 GD WAT Bible

Classrooms of 2030
What is your envision of a classroom in the year 2030? With technology playing a pivotal
role in every aspect of human life it won’t be a surprise to see its impact on the changing
architecture of a classroom in about a decade from now. While we already know that the
learning process has already changed in the past few years, for instance we do have online
posting of grades and assignments, students are already using cloud storage to store their
notes, students from different countries are attending classroom lectures conducted
virtually. Also, we can see the steady rise in E-learning apps and how they are gaining
popularity with students of all age groups. So, yes there is metamorphosis of education in a
big way. Thus, coming back to the question of how the classroom in 2030 would look like?
Let’s imagine some of the broad facts.
Layout of the classroom
The traditional classroom setup with rows of desks and chairs with students staring at a
black/ white board with the teacher delivering a lecture will become a thing of the past as
the method to disseminate knowledge will change. The class room design will not be one
template for all. It will be flexible. Class room will be designed to understand student’s
comfort and how to make the environment conducive for a student to absorb more
knowledge. Classrooms will be there to optimize the knowledge absorption of the students,
thus, perhaps the seating arrangements will be flexible so as to cater to the aptitude of the
students for instance some absorb knowledge better while standing and so on. Private
workstations and collaborative work spaces will be provided. Interactive projectors will
replace will replace blackboards/ whiteboards.
MOOCs: A potential game changer
As classrooms go beyond the walls of traditional schools and break all geographical
boundaries, it will make education accessible to all through the rise of Massive Open Online
Courses (MOOCs). With MOOCs, students will be able to master multiple subjects. So, by
the time they finish high school they have already mastered multiple subjects according to
their aptitude. Also, MOOC is free to users and cheaper to deliver for providers and offers
opportunities for flexible learning, and open up education to a vast audience. Although
MOOCs have been slow on their take off at least for schools but by 2030, it will become one
of the preferred mediums to disseminate knowledge. Why? Simply because it increases
accessibility to knowledge as it is independent of geographic locations, and as the walls of
the traditional schools disappear or become more flexible, MOOC will become a popular
choice.
Flexibility in learning style
One size fits all learning style will be a thing of the past. In the present scenario students
irrespective of their aptitude has to work on assignments in the same way, whereas in the
future because of technological help students will have flexibility of assignments and the
teacher’s primary role will be to analyse the competency of the student. For instance,
instead of one way of presenting an assignment, students will be given an overview of the
subject or the concept that they need to demonstrate through the assignments, but they will

59
GD WAT Bible

have the freedom to use different mediums according to their aptitude to demonstrate their
understanding of the subject.
Virtual and augmented reality
Now, coming to the most crucial aspect of classroom of 2030 is that classes will become 3D
instead of 2D. Classrooms will have interactive projectors. For instance, if it is a class
showing how a volcano erupts, students will be looking at 3D and thus will be able to
understand the different landforms and see the spectacular phenomenon almost as if they
are seeing it in real time. With Augmented Reality becoming a part of classroom learning,
when students will open a book, instead of seeing a flat image of a planet the students will
on a pair of special glasses and a 3D image will pop out at them. Augmented Reality (AR) is
the way forward. Apps and other educational devices act upon trigger images to create an
augmented reality. So, what does AR do? AR gives humans a computer-generated
environment from “real world” surroundings. AR merges one’s perception of the real
world into a digital format. Thus with Holographic technology, once the image is
processed, it looks like a 3-Dimensional object. Lasers create various kinds of holograms
and video projections. There are Universities that are using AR in the classroom. At present,
Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio, uses holographic technology to teach physics
and anatomical instruction at its Medical school.
Thus, looking at the following aspects, the question is what does this mean for the
classroom of 2030? It definitely means that Geography and Finance will cease being a
barrier for students to access knowledge and teachers to disseminate knowledge. It also
means that learning styles will become flexible catering to individual aptitude. Also, with
Holographic technology studying several subjects will become more effective, such as
Medicine, Physics, Geography and so on.
Another major change that one could assume is that the teachers won’t be the authoritarian
figures as they are today, rather their role will be more of a mentor. And, schools will
become more student-centric, in terms of flexibility and making it conducive for their
learning. The aim would be not to just get degrees, but to acquire knowledge and
competency in their field of interests. Thus, industry experience certificates will become very
important to get a job in that particular industry and not just a University degree, as that
would test a student’s applied knowledge in that subject.
Now, the question is, will the traditional classroom still exist? Yes, at least in 2030, we can
say that they will still be standing and operating, alongside the new age classrooms, but will
they be as popular as they are now, is something that we have to wait and see. Definitely,
with interactive learning facilities, it will provide a greater impetus to effective learning. Just
the thought that a student who is struggling with math can use technology that would help
to make equations come alive – with physical representations of what the numbers mean,
gives us a fair idea of the exciting future of knowledge dissemination that awaits us.

60
 GD WAT Bible

Protectionism signals the end of globalization

Globalizationis defined as the increasing interaction of people, states, or countries. This
interaction is often enabled through the growth of the international flow of money, ideas,
and culture. Globalization is primarily a process of integration that has social and cultural
aspects. On the other hand, Isolationism is defined as a policy or doctrine of trying to isolate
one’s country from the affairs of other nations. This is achieved by not enteringmultilateral
alliances, foreign economic commitments or international agreements, and generally
attempting to make one’s economy self-reliant. At various points in history, countries such
as Bhutan, Japan and China have adopted a stance that would be called as isolationist. For
the past many years, North Korea, with its policy of Juche, has tried to achieve
sustainability through agricultural independence and a lack of dependency on other
countries. However, recent global events as Donald Trump’s election, the UK’s exit from the
EU, and the increased strength of the European Right in countries like France, the
Netherlands and Germany has given thrust to the idea that Globalization has had its day.
In the light of these developments, is it fair to assume that globalization is causing more
problems than it is solving? If there appears to be a widespread discontentment with
globalization, is isolationism the answer to that?
No, Isolationism is Not the Answer:
• Countries have always traded with one another, because natural resources are not
equally distributed round the world. As Adam Smith has pointed out in his book “The
Wealth Of Nations”, “Would it be a reasonable law, to prohibit the importation of all
foreign wines, merely to encourage the making of claret and burgundy in Scotland?”
Historically, absolute advantage – a country importing what it cannot produce itself,
or can only produce at inordinate cost – has always been the main motive for trade.
• Opening up to international tradehas helped many countries grow far more quickly
than they wouldotherwise have done. International trade helps economic
developmentwhen a country’s exports drive its economic growth. Export-ledgrowth
has been the centrepiece of the industrial policy that has enriched parts of Asia and
Africa.
• The world is undergoing profound changes brought about by globalization. The rapid
advancement of science and technology, continued expansion of international trade
and investment,and economic restructuring have brought new opportunities to the
development of all countries and regions. However, these changes likewise bring in
some amount of uncertainty. Rejecting globalization, rather than resolving those
uncertainties, would be akin to burningone’s agricultural field to resolve the problems
of weed growth or unwanted grazing animals!
• Before India embarked on a policy of economic reform andglobalization, there was a
massive socioeconomic problem. Globalization’s dramatic success in India consisted of
lifting hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty. However, with it and
automation, many workers were no longer required. This made some of proponents of
Isolationism to argue that Globalization was nothing but a type of colonization.
However, it is now widely believed that it is was the inability of developing countries

61
GD WAT Bible

like India to skill and protect their workers - and not Globalization - that caused this
distress.
• Globalization’s benefits have brought many countries food security, fiscal stability and
energy independence. However, this has also brought aboutimmense social changes
such as immigration. Add to that the global financial slowdown, and many people
across countries believe that globalization is detrimental to their own and the
country’s economic well-being.There is a belief that Isolationism will help in curbing
any social ills. However, proponents of isolationism do not state how withdrawing
from the global arena will solve these problems. At best, an isolationist stance is a
chimera that has not delivered any solutions as yet.
• Also, governments are motivated to limit and alter market outcomes for political or
social ends. While governments can limit the rise in prices of some products, they
cannot control how much people want to buy or how much firms are willing to
sell.The laws of demand and supply still hold.
• Furthermore, Isolationism may temporarily create jobs for domestic workers. The
protection of tariffs, quotas or subsidies allows domestic companies to hire locally, but
again, if a company in a protectionist state wants to expand, they won’t be able to.In
the long term, trade protectionism weakens the industry. Without competition,
companies within the industry have no need to innovate. Eventually, the domestic
product will decline in quality. It will be lower quality and more expensive than what
foreign competitors produce.
• One example that is often propagated is that China has gained from an Isolationist
policy.It is said that modern day China originated from one of the oldest civilizations
in mankind and has kept its power and solitude by isolating themselves. However, it is
often forgotten that the huge growth in economy was prompted by restructurings
initiated in the 90s by Zhu Rongji, fifth Premier of China, who advocated market
reforms, open economy and increased intermingling with the global community. This
lead to double-digit growth of the Chinese economy and its increased assertiveness in
international affairs. Thus, advocates of Isolationism often ignore the benefits of
Globalization and clamor for chopping off the branch that bore the fruits of financial
stability in the first place.
Yes, Isolationism is the Answer:
• The backlash against globalization draws its force not onlyfrom the perceived damage
done todeveloping countries by global market forces but also from the inequities in the
global tradingsystem. Many developing countries, including Venezuela, Zimbabwe
and Greece, have been assisted by multilateral organizations to helpthem adjust to
crises and imbalances. Unfortunately, this has had a cascading effect which led to
more hunger, discontent and riots in many countries. Even when results were not so
dire and there was some growth for a while - such as in the cases of Haiti, African
countries, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, all of whom benefited with Chinese and American
help - often the benefits went disproportionatelyto the elite, with those at the bottom
sometimes facingeven greater poverty.
• In his book ‘Globalization and its Discontents’, noted author Joseph E Stiglitz observes
that, “riots and protests against the policies of and actions by institutions of
globalization are hardly new. For decades, people in the developing world have rioted

62
 GD WAT Bible

when the austerity programs imposed on their countries proved to be too harsh, but
their protests were largely unheard in the West. What is new is the wave of protests in
the developed countries”. From this, it is clear that even people in developed countries
- the very same which were the torch-bearers of globalization - are agitating against
globalization and pinning for an isolationist stance. In that case, what moral authority
do the developed countries have to carry on with globalization with a zealous
approach? “ Let us view the example of the erstwhile Soviet Union. Globalization and
the introduction of a market economy have notproduced the promised results in
Russia and most of the other economies that were making the transition from
communism to the market.These countries were told that the new economic
systemwould bring them unprecedented prosperity. Instead, it broughtunprecedented
poverty. For most of the people, themarket economy proved even worse than their
Communist leaders. Today, many of thesecountries are wary on getting entangled in
multilateral treaties and like to pursue a balanced approach that does not encroach on
their financial sovereignty.
• Offshoring is a deliberate policy of multinational corporations to weaken domestic
labor and boost profits.The ability of companies to allocate jobs globally changes the
nature of the discussion about the “gains from trade.” In fact, there are no longer
guaranteed “gains,” even in the long run, to those countries that export technology
and jobs. If countries like China combine Western technology with lower labor costs,
trade with them will depress Western wages. Citizens of the West will have cheaper
goods, but being able to purchase groceries 20% cheaper does not necessarily make up
for wage losses.
• Between 1991 and 2013, China’s share of global manufacturing exports increased
from 2.3% to 18.8%. Some categories of US manufacturing production were wiped
out. The United States might gain “eventually.” But the gains might take “decades” to
be realized, and would not be equally shared.
Globalization and Isolationism hold many different characteristics. Although both of them
are very different, both have greatly affected many aspects of society such as trade,
employment rate, and diversification within the economy. Each nation and its people must
evaluate the pros and cons to arrive at the right mix of policies that is suitable for their
growth and development.

63
GD WAT Bible

Does India need a bullet train

In India, the history of High Speed Rail (HSR) started with an announcement made in the
Rail Budget of 2000-2001 about high speed railways, which resulted in a general feasibility
study done by Rail India Technical and Economic Service (RITES). The signing of a pact for
the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-speed rail corridor - a massive project involving a cost of
98000 crore rupees - created news in the mainstream media. Both India and Japan have
invested time, energy and diplomatic resources in this showpiece project for which the
Japanese are committed to advancing a loan of 8 billion dollars. India has inched closer to
getting a bullet train after Prime Minister NarendraModi and Shinzo Abe laid the
foundation for the high-speed train network. It will cost Rs. 1.1 lakh crore to see this
ambitious project through. Indian Railways, with help from Japan government, is now set
to begin work to set up a 500-km route for high-speed trains between Ahmedabad and
Mumbai. Railways Minister PiyushGoyal has indicated that the bullet train project will be
completed by August 15, 2022, one year before the official deadline of December 2023.
Japan has offered to lend India a soft loan of Rs. 88,000 crore at an interest of 0.1 per cent.
The loan will have to be paid in the course of 50 years, with a moratorium of 15 years.
Although, the bullet train project brings with it several promising prospects, there also exist
hurdles which might hinder them.
Points in favour of bullet trains:
• High-speed connectivity - The bullet train running between Ahmedabad and Mumbai
will cover the distance of 508 km within two to three hours. The project is supposed to
connect bustling economic corridors in the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra. This
will facilitate economic growth.
• Convenience and Comfort –TheShinkansen high-speed trains(colloquially called as
bullet trains for their appearance and speed) would provide comfortable journey
within just a few hours. The conventional Indian Railways lag considerably on the
comfort level of train journeys and the introduction of bullet trains would be a great
development in this factor.The train will have wheelchair-friendly toilets, feeding
rooms for new-borns, and other features for comfort and safety.Also, the bullet train
has several advantages over air transport, including scheduling frequency and
flexibility, punctual operation, comfortable seats, and convenient city-centre terminals.
• Safety - Safety has been one of the major concerns of Indian Railways.The record of
bullet trains in the field of safety has been impeccable.The Shinkansentrains of Japan,
started in 1964, have reportedzero fatalities till date.
• Employment - The bullet train project will create employment. The project is expected
to create 4,000 direct job opportunities, along with 20,000 indirect jobs. 20,000
construction workers will also be employed during the set up period.
• Urban expansion - New bullet train stations set to come up along the route will attract
urban growth and lessen the burden of settlement and migration in major cities.

64
 GD WAT Bible

• Open new avenues - When completed, the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train project
will present as a favourable destination for high-speed train technologies.
• The purpose of creating an HSR Corridor is not to simply showcase speedy travel. The
main takeaway is stringing in 10 other cities and ushering in development along the
way.
• Once operational in 2023, the high-speed service will cut travel time between the cities
to two hours from the current eight hours. The other advantages included safety,
comfort and reduction in commuting time, addressing issues of regional imbalance
and reducing pressure on growing urban areas.
• Proponents of high speed rail argue that the lines will reduce traffic burdens, provide
an environmental benefit, and create jobs. If people come to favour the high speed rail
lines over transit by car, especially over longer distances, there will be a positive effect
for the environment, as far less pollution will be created overall. In addition, this will
reduce traffic congestion, leaving far less people on the roads.
• The act of the creation of the rail line will in itself provide a benefit - many workers
will be needed to work on the project, providing economic stimulus. In addition, if the
high speed rail does indeed make travel easier and cheaper, many who would have
previously been unable to may be able to get jobs further away from their homes.
Supporters of high speed rail say that the benefit to the community, the environment,
and the economy far outweighs any costs.
Points against bullet trains:
• Land acquisition - Acquiring new land pieces for laying down the tracks for bullet
trains and constructing new stations might face legal hindrances, delaying the
process.
• Stoppages - With limited stoppages (only two in Vadodra and Surat), the
Ahmedabad- Mumbai bullet train will complete its journey in 2 hours, where
increasing the stoppages will increase the journey time up to three hours.
• Profitability - The origin stations - Ahmedabad and Mumbai - have airports and
passengers from these cities could consider taking a flight instead of boarding the
bullet train..
• A total of 80 per cent of the funds for the project will come from Japan, and will have
to be returned after a period of 15 years. The profits this project make will decide how
easy or difficult it will be for India to pay this loan back.
• India is seeking loans to build the HSR but is ambivalent in the approach to acquiring
technology and indigenous manufacture of high-end components in the traction
chain. Essentially, India’s Ministry of Railways projects the image of a buyer of rolling
stock rather than that of a technology seeker.
• The infrastructure projects required for HSR are meant for the elite and not the
middle- class passengers.
• The cost of laying a bullet-train corridor is estimated to cost up to Rs 100 crore a
kilometre. After summing up the costs of signals, rolling stock, etc, the cost can rise up

65
GD WAT Bible

to Rs 115 crore a km. thus, one of the major disadvantages includes high capital cost,
operation and maintenance cost, and need to change alignment. Another important
dissuading factor is that planning and implementation could take a long time, while
change of government could upset the project.
• The high speed rail program will just eat the budget and reap no real rewards. Critics
argue that very few people will take the trains, opting instead for the freedom offered
by personal automobiles and/or airlines. Some also claim the prices for high speed rail
tickets might be too expensive for many people to take the trains regularly.
• This lack of riders will render the supposed benefits of the high speed rail network
moot. Given the amount of government funding that is being used on the project and
the doubter’s lack of belief in its success, they argue that the funding should be instead
used for improving the current transportation infrastructure.
• Proposed systems and technologies like Maglev &Hyperloop might make investing a
humongous capital on bullet train seemobsolete.
• Noise pollution - Noise pollution concerns make it difficult to increase the speed of
these trains. In Mumbai & Ahmedabad, the population density is high leading to
limits on noise levels in residential areas.Thus, it would be necessary to reduce
operational noise, particularly the tunnel boom phenomenon caused when trains
transit tunnels at high speed.
Conclusion: The future of high speed rail is rapidly approaching, with many lines planned
and some already constructed, but whether this future will be a good one is in question.
There’s no way of telling at this juncture whether the project is a boon to the country or an
albatross that will weigh the country down.

66
 GD WAT Bible

Government spending on statues (Sardar patel, Shivaji, Lord

Ram): Is it justified?

Even as statue-politics reaches monumental heights, we take a closer look at this

controversial topic that revolves around the ruling Government of India, BJP’s decision to
build mammoth statues of Sardar Patel, Shivaji and Lord Ram, and look at all the facts and
numbers to understand both sides of the argument.

Fact sheet
The Statue of Unity, Sardar Patel’s mammoth replica was unveiled recently making it the
world’s tallest statue at a height of 182m. The project incurred a cost of Rs 2,989 crore; the
statue of Shivaji will be 210m high (as tall as a 12-storey building) and will cost over Rs
3600 crore; the state of Lord Ram will be 221m and the actual cost estimation has been kept
under wraps.
So, now that we have the costs and the grandiosity of the projects in place, lets dwell
deeper into the ground realities and the impact that these structures are going to have on
the environment, people and economy. We will take each project and look at the pros and
cons of the same.

The Statue of Unity, Sardar Patel

On October 31, 2018, the statue, dedicated to the ‘Iron Man of India’, Sardar Vallabhbhai
Patel, was inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi. The Statue of Unity is located between the
Satpura and the Vindhya mountain ranges, on the Sadhu Bet island, near Rajpipla on the
Narmada river. The statue is visible from a 7 km radius. Along with the Statue of Unity,
Gujarat Tourism has added other attractions too for the tourists that includes two tent cities
that has been created along the backwater lakes of the Narmada dam reservoir for tourists
to stay and experience the place. Inside the statue located at the height of 135 m, a viewer’s
gallery has been designed with a capacity to accommodate 200 visitors at a time. High-
speed lifts installed there are capable of taking 5,000 people per day to the viewing gallery,
which offers a panoramic glimpse of the surrounding areas. Although lying in a remote
corner, the Gujarat government is making every provision to promote the site as a major
tourism destination. On an average, 15,000 visitors are expected daily to the site. On its first
weekend after the inauguration, it had over 50,000 visitors. Now let’s look at the
controversies surrounding the statue. Firstly, many feels this is a complete waste of the tax
payer’s money, especially in a country where so many people are living below the poverty
line and spending so much money on a statue seems a bit callous on the part of the ruling
government. However, Sardar Patel was a deputy prime minister in India’s first post-
independence government. He became known as “the Iron Man” and it was because of his
diplomatic effort and convincing power that the feuding states finally joined the new united
India. But, until now his contributions and name had been largely overshadowed by the
Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has dominated Indian politics since 1947. But Modi-led BJP
decided to give Patel his dues and put him back on the forefront. While both the arguments

67
GD WAT Bible

stand strong, one can also argue why no one has talked about all the Nehru and Gandhi
statues/ memorials that has been erected all over the country post independence. That
money too could have gone to build schools instead.
However, the argument against the statue and its chosen site has some more issues. More
than 80 per cent of the local population is from tribal groups with special protected status.
The Gujarat government said that the 185 families moved to make way for the statue had
been compensated and given 475ha of land. Nana Pipaliya, a village close to the project
falls under the area of the Sardar Sarovar Dam and these are lands that were supposed to
get water from irrigation projects. Farmers, in the region, have not received anything yet.
This is a region where 85 percent of the population is involved in agriculture, according to
the 2011 census. Tribal leaders had planned a protest on the day of the Statue’s
inauguration, but they were detained and held by the police ahead of the event. The
centre’s argument is that the Statue of Unity will attract enough tourists both national and
international and will help in bringing in revenue.
Another issue that surfaced after the successful completion of the Statue of Unity was the
controversy ignited by Congress party Chief, Rahul Gandhi who alleged that the statue is
“Made in China”. However, the allegations holds no water as back in 2015, Larsen and
Toubro made a statement as reported by the Financial Express, that only the bronze
cladding in the form of plates was sourced from China, amounting to about nine percent of
the total value of the project. The L&T had recommended that Chinese foundry Jiangxi
Tongqing Metal Handicrafts Co. Ltd (or the TQ Art foundry) be chosen to mould the
cladding, which essentially makes up the bronze statue, as per the report.
So, taking stock of this project, it is still a success story as it was built within a strict
timeframe of 3 and a half years and prior to that geo-technical and hydrological surveys
were completed along with wind tunnel tests, detailed light, shadow study were conducted
with an aim to determine the orientation. The wind factor, the location and the possibility
of earthquakes posed major challenges for the engineers and designers. Looking at the
massive construction it is indeed a structural marvel that everyone can visit and experience.
Taking into account the case of the farmers, India has far too many farmers working far too
little land. Thus, a more valid question here would be, is it possible to improve their
standard of living without a significant increase in productivity due to a significant drop in
the number of farmers? Thus, any project that brings alternative sources of employment to
the rural population should be welcomed unless it is massively detrimental to the
environment and climate.
Shivaji’s Statue
While talking about this mega project it is clearly a disaster from day one of its inception.
You might ask, why? Let’s look at the salient points of the issues that this mega project is
struggling with. Firstly, the movement of boats from Nariman Point to the project site will
lead to marine pollution and damage the coast. Moreover, the project area is more than 15
hectares; it will affect fish and other marine biodiversity. On top of all that, there is no
disaster management in place. Environmentalists said that the state does not have a disaster
management plan for the project. While there are plans for auditoriums and libraries in the
middle of the Arabian Sea, during high tide and rise in moisture levels at sea, there is no

68
 GD WAT Bible

plan to evacuate people in case of a disaster. The blueprint of the project does not reveal
how the state would manage sewage, which if released without treatment, could be
detrimental to marine life. The project has been opposed by the local fishing community.
The Koli fishing community is extremely agitated and have been continuously protesting
against this project. Many have been detained by the police in the process. But, why
wouldn’t the Koli’s protest? After all because of this construction they might lose their
livelihood. Thousands have signed a petition suggesting the government should spend the
money on development and much needed infrastructure instead. Environmentalists have
been warning about the immense harm that this project is going to bring to the ecosystem of
the Arabian Sea. Apart from an absolute waste of money, it is also going to be a major
security nightmare. So, the local communities, people of Mumbai and environmentalists are
all against it. Despite the valid concerns the Maharashtra government has decided to go
ahead with the mega project. Some are even arguing that why is Shivaji statue and the
museum is being built in Mumbai as historically he is barely associated with Bombay, there
are places in Maharashtra that are closely linked with his life, why not develop one of those
spots as Shivaji’s memorial and that would perhaps help in bringing in tourists and also
generate employment and build infrastructure in a place that actually could become a new
tourist destination. This is a project that displaced a vital road link.
Apart from these external issues the project has some tithing problems even with the
construction of the statue itself, even though it has got clearance a decade ago. Shivaji is
always shown seated on a horse and the demand for an equestrian sculpture is where the
challenge lies. There is a reason why none of the world’s tallest statues features a man
riding a horse as it involves the ratio of surface area to volume. So, if you take a life-sized
equestrian sculpture and make it bigger, the load per square centimetre on its base will
progressively increase. Beyond a certain size, the legs of a horse can no longer carry the
weight of its body. And even if the sculpture is hollowed out, even then the statue will be
fragile and could reach its breaking point sooner than later.
Lord Ram’s sculpture
The next statue in question is perhaps on the top of the list of controversies and it is none
other than Lord Ram’s statue in Ayodhya. Initially it was intended to be 100m tall, but now
it is aiming to be taller than even the Statue of Unity at 221m. The Lord Ram statue would
consist of a 151m statue, a 20m umbrella overhead, and a 50m pedestal; the total being
221m. The pedestal would hold a “grand and ultra-modern museum” showcasing history
of Ayodhya, legendary Ishvaku dynasty and Raja Manu, and the Ram Janmabhooomi.
Next to the Lord Ram statue, there will be a statue of Nishadraj, the caste icon and boatman
who helped Lord Ram along with his wife and brother cross the Ganga during exile. Yogi
Adityanath is planning to turn Ayodhya into a tourist site that in turn would create
employment and also develop the infrastructure of Ayodhya. While here the argument
would be that Yogi Adityanath could spend that entire money on development, so was it
really important to spend the money on a gigantic Lord Ram statue? Earlier, the New
Ayodhya and Lord Ram statue projects were estimated to cost Rs 10 billion, however, with
the increase in the size of statue, the project cost could get inflated. Since, the project has
not started yet it will be difficult to argue the timeline and other issues that will come up in

69
GD WAT Bible

the future. But, if the CM of Uttar Pradesh can pull it off with the completion of the entire
project within the time frame that the budget is allocated for, then it might have some hope
of attracting tourists to Ayodhya and make it a tourist destination and create employment
for the locals. Taking into account the environmental impact of building something like this
on the banks of the Saryu River is in itself alarming. Will it pollute the river further? Can
Ayodhya handle the tourist pressure without turning into just another polluted holy city?
These are the questions pertaining to the project that only time will answer.

So, is the Government of India justified in building any of these statues? We have already
discussed the pros and cons pertaining to each project. Looking at it holistically, Sardar
Patel deserves to be commemorated and if Mayawati can spend crores on her own statues
and on Ambedkar Parks, then why can’t Patel get one statue as well. However, the
Ambedkar Parks and Mayawati’s statues are not garnering interest from tourists, whereas
there might still be hope for Patel’s statue to get tourists, although we don’t know if it
would ever break even the cost incurred in building it in the first place. Coming to both
Shivaji’s and Lord Ram’s statue, there are already environmental challenges that are clearly
highlighted.
However, one might wonder if building statues make these personalities more memorable?
Aren’t they already ruling the heart of millions of people across the country? Also, an even
greater question is, did any of these three personalities whose statues are being built
supported the philosophy of grandiosity? Weren’t they all vouching for simple living,
having a strong moral compass, unite people, work for their betterment and look after the
people of the land?

After shortlisting five statues, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath approved one, made of
bronze.
Let us look at the facts first unveiling of the decision by BJP on building the three statues, we
must look at the facts and numbers before dwelling deeper into understanding the pros and
cons of the same. statues let’s see the numbers and facts of the amount that is being used in
building these three statues in question. The statue, which will be over a 100 metres tall;
Work is also going full steam ahead on the ‘Statue of Unity’ (SOU), a 182-metre tall salute to
the Iron Man of India. Aptly called
The Dalit prerna sthal in Noida, built at a whopping cost of Rs 685 crore, has 30 elephant
statues made of stone and 22 elephant statues made of bronze. It also houses two life-size
statues of Mayawati. Rs 4,500 crore. With 6 Crore a piece.

70
 GD WAT Bible

Will TV broadcast/ Cable TV survive the onslaught of Netflix,

Hotstar & Prime?

In the 1980s, TV was the centerpiece of almost every living room around the world. In
India, owning a TV also had the tag of affluence attached to it during the 70s and 80s,
and there were ad campaigns, such as the Onida ad with a tagline that said,
“Neighbour’s envy, Owner’s pride”. The square box back then was the biggest source of
entertainment and information. With the launch of Star TV and Zee TV in India in the
1990s India witnessed a sharp rise in demand for cable TV. However, in the 90s and in
2000s no one could imagine that there will be a time not too far off in the future when
cable TV is going to become redundant and will be in the verge of being replaced by
something even better. And, that is what happened with the advent of Netflix, Hotstar
and Amazon Prime. In India, we are seeing a major boom in the number of streaming
subscribers, and among these include three big and popular players—Netflix, Hotstar
and Amazon Prime. Video streaming services have made us realise that we don’t need a
dish or a cable connection to enjoy great TV content. They deliver content on multiple
platforms. So we can enjoy watching our TV shows whenever we want and wherever
we want. Primarily the reason for a surge in streaming services was connected with the
sharp fall in mobile data price in India with Reliance Jio spearheading this price war in
2016 as it began to offer bulk of data at no charge to customers for a certain period of
time.

Popularity of Streaming Services

The streaming services allow the consumer to watch a full season of their favourite
show and that has given rise to binge watching or marathon watching. Releasing all
the shows at once grants freedom to its viewers to watch their favourite as per their
convenience. Consumers are free to press pause and take a break from their show
whenever they want. They can also refer to previous plot-points if they’re lost. Another
very important point is that the streaming services is subscription-based, thus it removes
the annoyance of ad-breaks and does not ruin the viewing experience by preventing any
form of disturbances and manipulative ad-breaks to break the narrative.
To understand the popularity of these three streaming services we need to dig deeper
into the facts and services that they are providing. Hotstar owns the streaming rights to
the vast majority of cricket tournaments played in India and by the Indian cricket team
in different parts of the world, and this is a great lead for Hotstar considering the
popularity of cricket amongst Indians. Apart from this, Hotstar also distributes popular
TV shows like Game of Thrones and How I Met Your Mother. It has regional movie
collection of around 600 Hindi, 200 Bengali, 400 Telegu, 850 Malayalam, 100 Tamil, and
400 Kannada movies. Now coming to Netflix and Amazon, both have a wide range of
series to offer and have interesting exclusive series to offer such as The Office is Amazon
exclusive and Gossip Girl an exclusive to Netflix. Apart from that Netflix has partnered
with some Indian production houses to get popular titles and has started looking at

71
GD WAT Bible

regional content. Whereas, Amazon Prime Video is rolling out not just Hindi movies
and few Hindi TV shows, but is also catering to Tamil, Telegu, Marathi and Bengali
audience. At the moment the movie titles are limited across the dialects but Amazon
plans to invest heavily on its service for the Indian market, thus one can expect a lot
more premium content from Amazon in the recent future.

Price Points
Let’s talk about the price points, although both Amazon Prime and Netflix has hit
shows like The Man in the High Castle and Goliath on Amazon, and House of Cards
and Sacred Games on Netflix, if you compare the pricing of the two services, Prime
scores a point here because it is cheaper than Netflix. At present (as per 2018 record)
the annual Prime subscription in India costs Rs 999 and Rs 129 per month. In
comparison, the cheapest monthly plan offered by Netflix starts at Rs 500 and goes up
all the way to Rs 800. The yearly cost of Netflix is higher than that of Prime. In India for
many consumers, Amazon Prime comes free for a year because of bundled offer they get
with their post-paid mobile plan. But Netflix has its pluses as it has more quality
international contents and more originals; also it is a more user friendly app and has a
separate button on the set top box. Of course, compared to these two, Hotstar comes
cheap at Rs199 per month.

End of the road for TV?

With video streaming services consumers all over the world have realized that they
don’t need a dish or cable connection to enjoy good quality entertainment. Netflix and
Amazon have changed the way a person watches TV. With the success of these
streaming services, we can easily deduce that the consumer is ready to experience
something different and is a clear indication that these services can put the cable
companies out of business. The successful and award winning television shows and
movies created and produced by the streaming companies are most watched on the
planet. The cable companies are trying hard to create the same magic as the streaming
companies but are not successful yet. Streaming companies are transforming the
entertainment industry and there is no doubt that both Netflix and Amazon Prime
Video will lead the way to the next development in entertainment. The subscribers of
the Netflix and Amazon Prime Video enjoy shows and movies that would never make it
to the standard cable networks or the traditional commercial broadcast networks. While
large broadcast companies restricted to conventional plotlines and characters for most
of their shows, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video created content based on different
themes and plotlines to cater to the large masses, so now there is something for
everyone.
The TV business is basically based on two factors: advertising and subscription.
Premium channels, such as, HBO is able to thrive on subscription models alone.
However, most of the other channels work on a hybrid model, so they sell advertising
and receive fees from cable providers in return for allowing them to carry
programming. Till the recent past, cable companies held a lot of leverage because, unlike

72
 GD WAT Bible

broadcasters, they had a direct financial relationship with the consumer. With
streaming television, this business model needs a major overhaul. Viewers are
increasingly moving away from cable and satellite TV. So, what is the future of
Broadcast TV and Cable? It still reaches vast numbers of consumers but the question is
how will the advertisers that are paying for the cost of producing content reach the
young and the affluent viewers? Advertisers are therefore trying to find ways of
reaching consumers digitally. TV as we knew has morphed into something else entirely
and if cable providers want to survive they need to innovate their business models.
Cable box is now something of a redundant item from the past as smart TVs, tablets,
mobile phones and a host of other streaming devices can act as your source of
entertainment. The consumer has indeed become King with the streaming services. HBO
has recently launched HBO Now. It is a service that allows consumers to access the pay
channel directly on any device without a cable subscription. Although the future of
entertainment looks extremely exciting, it looks like the future of cable business is not so
bright. So, in a nutshell yes, TV and Cable TV as we know it might be a thing of the
past.

73
GD WAT Bible

#MeToo campaign: A much needed movement

There has always been imbalance in society. The mark of a truly great society (or one
that has the potential for greatness) is when such imbalancesare addressed effectively,
and the members of society strive towards a balance or equilibrium. And while the
#MeToo movement is specifically to do with calling out sexual assaulters against whom
there has been little or no reckoning, it is part of the broader trend:An attempt to bring
balance to a world that is deeply, irrationally, and worst of all, unconsciously, skewed
with respect to gender.

The Beginnings
The #MeToo movement is not a recent one. The first recorded instance was back in 2006
by African-American social activist Tarana Burke on the Myspace social platform.But
for her, it was primarily to help women and girls (specifically black women and girls)
who been subjected to sexual violence, and ensure that they knew that they were not
alone in their experience.

Since then, Burke has been working in her communities, but the movement was still
restricted to her work, which was called “Empowerment through Empathy”. Today,
however, the movement is to encourage all victims of sexual assault – irrespective of
gender, race or orientation – to break their silence, come forward and name their
assaulters.

Mainstream attention
The #MeToo movement blew up in the media inOctober 2017, with The New York
Times reporting decades of sexual misconduct claims against Hollywood film producer
Harvey Weinstein. Thirteen women, including actresses Mira Sorvino, Asia Argento,
and former actress Lucia Evans, accused Weinstein of sexual assault. This was followed
closely by actress Alyssa Milano urging people to spread the hashtag #MeToo and come
forward with their own stories of sexual assault that they had experienced. Within 24
hours of Milano’s tweet, the hashtag was used more 5 lakh times on Twitter, and more
than 47 lakh people in 1.2 crore posts on Facebook, clearly indicating that incidents of
sexual assault and harassment were not isolated. In addition, several men also came
forward with their own experiences of being sexually abused, including actors Terry
Crews and James Van Der Beek.

Emboldened by the Weinstein revelations, others in Hollywood, the biggest film

entertainment industry in the world, too came out with their allegations of sexual
harassment and assault; among actresses who tweeted with #MeToo are Debra
Messing, Gillian Anderson and Anna Paquin. Celebrities such as Ben Affleck, Louis
C.K., and Kevin Spacey were accused of sexual harassment, withSpacey in particular
accused of harassing several male actors and crew.As a result he has been temporarily

74
 GD WAT Bible

ostracized by the entertainment fraternity, including being dumped by Netflix from a

critically successful show.

The movement also birthed others such as the TimesUp movement, started by
Hollywood celebrities. As of December 2018, it has raised more than $22 million for its
legal defense fund, and gathered nearly 800 volunteer lawyers.Moreover, a bill has been
tabled in the US Congress called the #MeToo Bill and is up for legislative debate.

#MeToo allegations are not restricted to the film industry alone – allegations have been
made by US politicians and police officers, in the financial industry against brokers such
as Morgan Stanley’s Douglas Greenberg, in the military where it was reported that 1
out of 3 victims of sexual assault actually come forward. Other known personalities
such as Monica Lewinsky and music artistes Lady Gaga and Sheryl Crow have also
spoken out on social media with the #MeToo tag.

#MeToo in India
#MeToo has not been restricted by geography either. In India, a Weinstein-like incident
had played out in 2017, before the actual Weinstein allegations had come out.A
Malayali actress was assaulted by a group of men, of whom the prime accused was later
arrested in July 2017. This led to a court case, but unlike the US, the case did not grab
national attention.It did, however, inspire several individuals to speak out against
sexual abuse and stand up for women’s freedom in the Malayalam film industry.

Another instance of women speaking out against sexual harassment was when a list of
academicians was published on social media by activist Inji Pennu and a student named
Raya Sarkar. The academicians were alleged to have harassed women students in their
institutions, and the list was purportedly to warn other students about these
individuals. The revelation sparked national outrage, with many claiming the
allegations against the academicians were unverified, but the original publishers of the
list confirming that they had spoken to each student.

Both these instances had the underlying #MeToo philosophy, but didn’t carry the
#MeToo tag. That particular name gained widespread attention in the Indian media in
September 2018 when Tanushree Dutta accused actor Nana Patekar of sexual
harassment in a shoot for a film over a decade earlier. She also alleged sexual
harassment by filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri, adding that actors Irrfan Khan and Sunil
Shetty had stood up for her during that particular episode. Just as with Alyssa Milano,
Dutta’s actionsproved to be the catalyst for the #MeToo movement in India.

75
GD WAT Bible

Dutta’s revelations encouraged others to come forward with their own tales as well.In
October 2018, the #MeToo campaign took off strongly, including the following:
• Actress Kangana Ranaut accused director Vikas Bahl of sexual misconduct.
• Director Sajid Khan was accused of abusive and perverse sexual behaviour by
several women.
• The comedic group All India Bakchod saw several allegations of sexual
harassment by its members Utsav Chakraborty and Gursimran Khamba.
• TV producer Vinta Nanda accused veteran actor Alok Nath of rape, with
actresses such as Renuka Shahane, Sandhya Mridul and others also admitting
that they had either known of Nath’s behaviour or had been assaulted
themselves.
• Several women accused music director and Indian Idol judge Anu Malik of
sexual harassment.

In the media industry, Resident Editor of The Times of India KR Sreenivas was accused
of sexual harassment and psychological torture and resigned. Others such as Hindustan
Times Bureau Chief and Political Editor Prashant Jha too resigned after allegations of
sexual harassment.

But by far the most notable was the sexual assault and trauma inflicted by renowned
journalist and the then Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar upon several
women journalists including Priya Ramani, Tushita Patel (wife of Aakar Patel, director
of Amnesty International India) and others.Following Ramani’s allegations, more than
20 women came forward with their own tales of horror about Akbar. Akbar filed a
defamation suit against Ramani, but in the face of national criticism and outrage, finally
had to step down.

#MeToo in other countries

The #MeToo movement has picked up in countries across the world, but with varying
degrees of success and impact. For example, in Afghanistan, even though estimates say
that 90% of women experience sexual harassment in public, women are afraid to come
forward due to fear of retaliation, and even of death. In China as well, the movement
(also under #WoYeShi) has lost momentum due to the censorship of the Chinese
government, and in Italy (#QuellaVoltaChe)due to lack of discussion in the media and
online. However, in countries like Canada, Australia, France, South Korea, Japan,
Norway, etc, the movement has been going strong.

Effects of #MeToo
The most obvious benefit of the #MeToo movement is to encourage all victims of sexual
abuse to come forward and name their assaulter without fear of reprisal and with
assurance of solidarity. The movement itself has gone deeper, however, and is to a large
extent addressing the gender imbalance in societies across the world, even if indirectly.

76
 GD WAT Bible

In fact, since men too face a lot of sexual harassment, hashtags such as #HimToo have
gained in prominence, proving that sexual assault is not limited only to women.

However, there are a few prickly matters of controversy that have become the inevitable
fallout of such a movement. The first is the accusation that any sexual assault and
harassment allegation is made purely for notoriety, to get fame, to be noticed. A lot of
men who have been accused claim that the allegations are false, including the likes of
Nana Patekar and TERI’s former top honcho RK Pachauri.

A lot of discussion has also taken place on whether the #MeToo movement is meant to
inspire a change in all men, or only a specific percentage of them. Moreover, another
criticism levelled at #MeToo is that it can be used as tool to trapthe male gender,
wherein any action by a man can be interpreted as sexual harassment,either for
material gain or to seek revenge. Several women have also come forward to state that
only the worst types of abuse should be examined in order to prevent casting all men as
perpetrators, or causing people to become numb to the problem.

Finally, movements such as #MeToo throw up several other dilemmas as well.Take the
likes of musician R Kelly and actor Kevin Spacey. Both men have been charged with
sexual assault allegations by multiple victims. This has resulted in audiences
condemning them and their work, and boycotting Kelly’s music and both audience and
industry boycotting Spacey’s films. When the allegations had still not been made, both
artistes enthralled and captivated audiences, who loved their work.So the question is
this: Should the assaulter be judged separately from his work, so that his actions are
condemned by his work isn’t? Or should both his actions and his work be denounced,
even when one is hateful and the other is delightful?

There are no easy answers to such quandaries. However, we can say without a shred of
doubt that the #MeToo movement is a much needed movement that highlights the
depraved actions of a few, and reminds everyone that no wrongdoings should go
unpunished. Whether the #MeToo campaign manages to uplift our society as a whole is
a question that only time will answer.

77
GD WAT Bible

Agrarian Crisis - Is Agriculture no longer a viable occupation

in India?
A study by a premier social sciences research institute reinforces what policymakers and
media have been talking about the past few years-that India is going through a deep
agrarian crisis. The Centre for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), based in Delhi,
found that given an option majority of farmers in the country would prefer to take up
some other work. Poor income, bleak future and stress are the main reasons why they
want to give up farming. Around 18 per cent of respondents surveyed said it was
because of family pressure that they are continuing with farming. Why they want to
give up farming. The survey of 5,000 farm households across 18 states says that 76 per
cent farmers would prefer to do some work other than farming. Sixty-one per cent of
these farmers would prefer to be employed in cities because of better education, health
and employment avenues there. A high percentage of farmers complained of repeated
losses; 70 per cent of respondents said their crops were destroyed because of unseasonal
rains, drought, floods and pest attack.
• Extreme distress in Rural India in the farm sector has resulted in an average 10,000
to 12,000 farmer suicides every year. In the recent months, the rural distress has also
led to widespread protests in certain states. Farmers across India also mobilized in
New Delhi to protest against the policies (or the lack of) of the government.
• A large number of farmers are living below the poverty line and incidents of
suicides are frequent.
• In May 2017, the Center informed the Supreme Court that despite a multi-pronged
approach to improve income and social security of farmers, over 12,000 suicides
have been reported in agricultural sector since 2013.
• 20 lakh hectares of cultivable land is understood to have been acquired for non-
agricultural purposes. Further, 42% of farmers are ready to quit agriculture as
occupation, even as almost 70 crore of our population is dependent on
agriculture.Agriculture sector absorbs too many people. It is oversaturated with
workers and farmers whoare depending on ever smaller returns from it. What is
Agrarian Crisis? Starting in the 1990s, agriculture in India - particularly in rural
India - has declined at a devastating rate. This has had a calamitous impact on the
livelihoods associated with agriculture. A symptom of this agrarian distress,
unprecedented in post-Independent India, is a high rate of suicides amongst
farmers. The crisis is characterized by low institutionalized credit to small farmers.
Between 1995 and 2014 -: 296,438 farmers have committed suicide in India. On
Starting in the 1990s, agriculture in India - particularly in rural India - has
declined at a devastating rate. This has had a calamitous impact on the livelihoods
associated with agriculture. According to P. Sainath, a leading Indian journalist
who reports on the rural India and its unprecedented economic crisis, for the first
time as per 2011 Census of India urban India added more to its population than
rural India. This implies that millions of people earlier engaged in agriculture are

78
 GD WAT Bible

roaming around the India in “footloose migration” search for daily wages. This
points to the destruction of livelihoods in the predominantly agrarian rural India.
Another evidence for a major agrarian crisis in India is the very high rate in which
people are leaving occupations associated with farming.

Why?
1. Poor Growth and falling farm incomes - The verge annual growth rate of
agriculture has remained very low at 1.5% or even below that. This is abysmally
low as compared to the growth rate of GDP. So, farm incomes have grown slower
than the rate of inflation. This has resulted in an overallfall in standard of living
for smallas well as marginalfarmersand they have been pushed below the poverty
line.
2. Climate change impacting the monsoon - In the new millennium, Indian economy
has been experiencing tremendous fluctuations in monsoon. The frequency of
drought years and excess rainfall years has increased. For example, 2002 was the
year of drought. 2003 had normal rainfall. 2005 and 2006 were years of excess
rainfall. 2009 was characterized by drought followed by 2010, which had excess
rainfall. 2014 and 2015 were the years of drought and 2016 and 2017 were the
years of excess rainfall. Also, there are seasonal variations. Areas such as Assam
and coastal areas receive excess rainfall whereas the plains receive less rainfall.
3. Flawed targets - The governments have insisted on 4% s the growth target for
agriculture sector to ensure food security, inclusive growth and also to reduce the
income inequality that exists between ruralandurbanareas. However, with the
growth in Indi’s population and rapid urbanization, this target is highly
unrealistic and underestimated.
4. No policy innovation - Governments after governments have been carrying out old
policies to revive agriculture without taking into consideration the challenges
posed by changing environmental, strategic and technological considerations.
Rather than ensuring the steady growth in farm income, governments have been
resorting to populist measures such as loan waivers.
5. Farm Size - Over the years, the per capitaagricultural land holding is on a decline
in India. In 2010-11, the farm size per capita was 1.6 hectares as compared to 2.26
hectares in 1970-71. Number of farm holdings has gone up but average size has
drastically reduced. This has resulted in decline in per farm output as like any
other industry, agriculture also gets benefitted by scale. In case of small farmers,
their output is reduced but number of dependents on farm has gone up, resulting
in reduction in marketable surplus (output that can be sold in the market) and
they have become subsistence agriculturists (producing sufficient only for their
own survival).
6. Lack of institutionalized credit - One of the major reasons of nationalization of
banks in 1969 was the reluctance of banks to set up branches in ruralareas. After
that, rural branches have gone up but still the credit availability is not as it should

79
GD WAT Bible

be. Also, banks are reluctant to extend credit to farmers because of the low
probability of loan repayment. Due to political influences and credit norms by the
RBI, agricultural credit creation gets hampered. Due to all these factors, farmers
have to borrow from moneylenders and other non-institutional players who take
advantage of their predicament and chargeusurious rates of interest, resulting in
farmers getting into debt traps.
7. Rapid and mindless urbanization - India, owing to the growth since liberalization
of economy since 1991, is one of the fast urbanizing countries in the World.
However, this urbanization process is often unplanned and mindless, resulting in
indiscriminate setting up of industrial clusters, factories, workshops and so on.
This has resulted in water resources such as rivers and ponds getting polluted and
thereby affectingwateravailability for agriculture. It has also resulted in
rapidtransformation of land for agricultural to non-agricultural.
8. Middlemen - Supply chain of agriculture in India has given a lot of power in the
hands of the middlemen such as arhatiys, brokers and agents. The ends of the
supply chain - producers i.e. farmers and consumers - both get exploited by the
middlemen. They purchase the output of farmers at less price and sell it to
consumers after adding a hefty margin. So, neither the farmers get compensated
for their efforts, nor the consumers can buy food at a reasonable price.

Where?
Major States in Indiaare suffering from agrarian crisis:
1. Maharashtra - The state of Maharashtra is also one of the most industrialized and
urbanized states of Indiaand as such, the speed of transformation of land from
agricultural to non-agricultural is also very fast. Vidrbhaand Marathwada regions
of Maharashtra have seen rise in farmer suicides over the years.
2. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana -The chief reasons for agrarian crisis here are -
lack of access to institutional credit, and high input costs and rapid urbanization.
Telangana, which wasa region in the state at that time suffered from it the most,
owing to its proximity to Hyderabad, the IT hub. It was further fuelled by
unscrupulous methods used by microfinance organizations which had extended
credit to farmers.
3. Uttar Pradesh - The consecutive droughts of 2015 and 2016 created
unprecedented problems for farmers in Uttar Pradesh. Over the period of times, a
lot of farmers have switched from traditional crops like wheat, rice, millets and
pulses to cash crops such as sugarcane. These farmers were the worst affected by
the droughts. Besides, indiscriminate urbanization has resulted in widespread
contamination of water re- sources, including large rivers such as Gangaand
Yamuna.
4. Punjab and Haryana - Punjab was at the forefront of the famous Green Revolution
in 1960s. However, over the period of time, due to excess use of pesticides,
fertilizers, high-yield seeds and ground water, agricultural productivity in Punjab
is on a steady decline.

80
 GD WAT Bible

Farm loan waivers - Do they solve the problem? In November 2017, thousands of
farmers gathered at the RamlilaMaidan in New Delhi. Banners and flags of different
organisations were waved, but what brought them together was a common demand - a
one-time complete waiver of farmer loans and fair prices for their produce. Under a
common umbrella of All India KisanSangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC)
around 184 farmer groups from across states such as Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra,
Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Telangana participated in the protest
walk. YogendraYadav, the national president of Swaraj India political party and a
member of the SwarajAbhiyan, spearheaded the march from the RamlilaMaidan till
Parliament Street for the ‘KisanMuktiSansad’. Waivers from farm loans have become a
politically contentious issue. For gaining political mileage, practically every political
party promises these waivers in its manifesto. There are 2 very important questions that
should be asked regarding farm loan waivers -

1. Are they really going to be helpful to farmers and

2. How long are the governments going to give them? Since agriculture is a state
topic and therefore decisions regarding agriculture are to be taken by the states.
Union Finance Minister has categorically stated that if the states are willing to give
farm loan waivers to the farmers, then the resources have to be generated by the
states themselves and they cannot expect the central government to provide them
with resources. However, experts across Indiaas well as the World have cautioned
the state governments that farm loan waivers cannot be a permanent solution and
therefore, should be used sparingly. They are definitely going to put strains on the
finances of the states as the states will have repay the loans to lending institutions.

Problems associated with Farm Loan Waivers:

1. These waivers are typically helpful to only those farmers who have borrowed from
lending institutions like banks. However, a large class of farmers remain beyond
the measures as they have not borrowed from these banks, and majority of these
farmers are small and marginal farmers, who are the most vulnerable to the crisis
and need waivers the most. In other words, those who need the waivers re the
ones deprived of them.
2. Using farm loan waivers is similar to using bandages when the patient is suffering
from a terminal disease. The major problem afflicting Indian agriculture is that it’s
extremely crowded. More than 50% of the population is directly dependent on it
for its livelihood whereas its contribution to the country’s GDP is barely 15%. This
situation is not sustainable and farm loan waivers do not address this malaise at
all.
3. Farm loan waivers put considerable strains on the states’ resources. Due to them,
fiscal deficit rises and the states cannot undertake capital expenditure as there is a
resource crunch.
4. Repeated waivers create an incentive for default and encourage reckless behavior
from the borrowers.

81
GD WAT Bible

5. Waivers affect the flow of credit to agricultural sector in the long run as lending
institutions will be naturally apprehensive to extend credit. It also affects
innovations and research and development in this sector.

Swaminathan Committee recommendations - The government of India constituted the

National Commission on Farmers (NCF) on November 18, 2004. The NCF was chaired
by Professor M.S. Swaminathan. It submitted five reports to the government. The first
was submitted in December 2004 and the fifth and final report was submitted on
October 4, 2006. NCF’s Swaminathan Commission Report aimed at working out a
system for food and nutrition security, sustainability in the farming system, enhancing
quality and cost competitiveness of farm commodities and also to recommend measures
for credit and other marketing related steps. Dr.Swaminathan had requested the
government to implement the recommendations given in the report so that it could
provide minimum support price for grains, safeguard the interest of small farmers and
addressing the issue of increasing risk overtaking agriculture as a profession. What were
the Commission’s observations? The Commission observed that farmers needed to have
an assured access to and control over rightful basic resources. -land, water, bio
resources, credit and insurance, technology and knowledge management, and markets.
It observed that agriculture must be implemented in the concurrent list from the state
list. What are the Commission’s key recommendations? One of the key reforms was, of
course, land reforms. It was aimed to address the issue of access to and for both crops
and livestock. The commission said that the inequality in landholdings in shown starkly
in land ownership. It said that in 1991-92, the share of the bottom 50 per cent of the
rural households in the country’s total land ownership was only three per cent. The top
10 per cent owned as much as 54 per cent. Land Reforms: Distribution of ceiling-
surplus and waste lands; prevention of diversion of prime agricultural land and forest
to corporate sector for non-agricultural use; to ensure grazing rights are provided and
seasonal access is allowed in forests to tribals and pastoralists. It recommended access to
common property resources. One main case was establishing a National Land Use
Advisory Service. The purpose of this service would be to connect land usage decisions
with ecological meteorological and marketing factors.

Irrigation Reforms: It recommended framing a set of reforms to provide farmers with

“sustained and equitable” access to water for irrigation. Ensuring boost in water supply
by rainwater harvesting, water level recharging by mandatory aquifers; Million Wells
Recharge programme to be initiated targeted at private wells. To target increase in
investment in irrigation sector under 11th five year plan.

Productivity Growth: NCF said that with the objective of achieving higher productivity
growth, it recommended “Substantial increase in public investment in agriculture-
related infrastructure particularly in irrigation, drainage, land development, water
conservation, research development and road connectivity etc.” It also recommended a
national network of advanced soil testing labs with an aim to test areas for apt
micronutrient levels.

82
 GD WAT Bible

Credit and Insurance: Expand outreach of formal credit system; reduce crop loan
interest rates to 4%; provide moratorium on debt recovery; agricultural risk fund; kisan
credit cards for women farmers; integrated credit-cum-crop-livestock human health
insurance package; crop insurance across country for all crops with reduced premiums;
sustainable livelihoods for the poor, investment in human development; institutional
development services etc

Food Security: The commission recommended Implementation of a universal public

distribution system; reorganising delivery of nutrition support programmes on a life-
cycle basis with panchayat participation and that of local bodies; elimination of
micronutrient deficiency induced hunger and food cum fortification; community food
and water banks to be operated by women self-help groups; help small and marginal
farmers; formulate national food guarantee act with features as food for work and
employment guarantee programmes.

Prevention of Farmer Suicides: Providing affordable health insurance at primary

healthcare centers in villages; national rural health mission to be extended to suicide
hotspots on priority basis; state level farmers’ commissions with representatives of
farmers, restructuring of microfinance policies that may serve as a sort of livelihood
finance; covering all crops by crop insurance; village to be the assessor and not the
block, social security net that gives old age support with health insurance and aquifer
recharge and rain water conservation; plans for decentralized water usage etc.

Conclusion:
The tens of thousands of farmers who protested in Delhi said that the Swaminathan
Committee had recommended some measures that the central government needs to take
to avert the agrarian crisis in India. However, after 12 years since the recommendations
were tabled, nothing has been done.

83
GD WAT Bible

Topic: Fake News

Fake news refers to false information published under the guise of being authentic
news. Fake news websites and channels push their fake news content in an attempt to
mislead consumers of the content and spread misinformation via social networks and
word-of-mouth.
Origin and History of Fake News:
The Sun, founded in 1833, was the first modern newspaper, funded primarily by
advertisers rather than subscriptions, so it initially pursued readership at all costs. At
first it prospered from the Moon hoax, even collecting its reports in a bestselling
pamphlet. But it was soon exposed by rival papers.
Giant man-bats that spent their days collecting fruit and holding animated
conversations; goat-like creatures with blue skin; a temple made of polished sapphire.
These were the astonishing sights witnessed by John Herschel, an eminent British
astronomer, when, in 1835, he pointed a powerful telescope “of vast dimensions”
towards the Moon from an observatory in South Africa. Or that, at least, was what
readers of the New York Sun were told in a series of newspaper reports.
This caused a sensation. People flocked to buy each day’s edition of the Sun. The paper’s
circulation shot up from 8,000 to over 19,000 copies, overtaking the Times of London to
become the world’s bestselling daily newspaper. There was just one small hitch. The
fantastical reports had in fact been concocted by Richard Adams Locke, the Sun’s
editor. Herschel was conducting genuine astronomical observations in South Africa. But
Locke knew it would take months for his deception to be revealed, because the only
means of communication with the Cape was by letter. The whole thing was a giant
hoax – or, as we would say today, “fake news”. This classic of the genre illuminates the
pros and cons of fake news as a commercial strategy – and helps explain why it has re-
emerged in the internet era.
That fake news shifted copies had been known since the earliest days of printing. In the
16th and 17th centuries, printers would crank out pamphlets, or newsbooks, offering
detailed accounts of monstrous beasts or unusual occurrences. A newsbook published in
Catalonia in 1654 reports the discovery of a monster with “goat’s legs, a human body,
seven arms and seven heads”; an English pamphlet from 1611 tells of a Dutch woman
who lived for 14 years without eating or drinking. So what if they weren’t true? Printers
argued, as internet giants do today, that they were merely providing a means of
distribution, and were not responsible for ensuring accuracy.
Definition:
One of the more colorful definitions of fake news - “Fake news is made-up stuff,
masterfully manipulated to look like credible journalistic reports that are easily spread
online to large audiences willing to believe the fictions and spread the word.”
Fake news (junk news) is a type of yellow journalism or propaganda that consists of
deliberate disinformation or hoaxes spread via traditional print and broadcast news
media or online social media. The term is also at times used to cast doubt upon

84
 GD WAT Bible

legitimate news from an opposing political standpoint, a tactic known as the lying
press. The false information is often caused by reporters paying sources for stories, an
unethical practice called checkbook journalism. The news is then often reverberated
as misinformation in social media, but occasionally finds its way to the mainstream
media as well.
Intention:
Fake news is written and published usually with the intent to mislead in order to
damage an agency, entity, or person, and gain financially or politically, often
using sensationalist, dishonest, or outright fabricated headlines to increase readership.
Similarly, click bait stories and headlines earn advertising revenue from this activity.
The relevance of fake news has increased in post-truth politics. For media outlets, the
ability to attract viewers to their websites is necessary to generate online advertising
revenue. If publishing a story with false content attracts users, this benefits advertisers
and improves ratings.
Easy access to online advertisement revenue, increased political polarization, and the
popularity of social media, primarily the Face book News Feed, have all been implicated
in the spread of fake news, which competes with legitimate news stories. Hostile
government actors have also been implicated in generating and propagating fake news,
particularly during elections.
Disadvantages:
Fake news undermines serious media coverage and makes it more difficult for
journalists to cover significant news stories. An analysis by Buzz Feed found that the
top 20 fake news stories about the 2016 U.S. presidential election received more
engagement on Face book than the top 20 election stories from 19 major media outlets
During and after his presidential campaign and election, Donald Trump popularized
the term “fake news” when he used it to describe the negative press coverage of
himself. In part as a result of Trump’s use of the term, the term has come under
increasing criticism, and in October 2018 the British government decided that it will no
longer use the term because it is “a poorly-defined and misleading term that conflates a
variety of false information, from genuine error through to foreign interference in
democratic processes.”
The future of fake:
In the future, the term “fake news” might come to be seen as a relic of a febrile. But the
fight against misinformation won’t go away. Companies and governments are now
starting to take concrete action, the consequences of which will be felt for some time.
The opaqueness of the platforms such as Face book and Twitter and their power and
the fact that so much speech has moved on to them is something that we need to pay
attention to and make sure that we don’t turn them from places where misinformation
is running rampant to places that are so locked down that they are inhibiting speech.
Alongside worries about the power of the social media companies, the experts also have
concerns about the power of governments. Sometimes well-intentioned but ill-informed
legislators will overreach and do more harm that the problem they are trying to fix,
with legislation on fake news.

85
GD WAT Bible

FEW INSIGHTS ON HOW SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS ARE TRYING TO

FIGHT FAKE NEWS:
The two worst things one has to bear with on Indian Whats App are fake news and
good morning messages. Although I am not a frequent user, I was not spared. I have,
for instance, once received a ridiculous message from Indian users claiming that Japan
is the only country in the world where there are no mosques, no Muslims and no Arabic
is taught. The underlying idea was that one of the most developed and organized
countries keeps its status partially thanks to the fact that it has no Muslim minority and
does not promote Islam. That’s not simply somebody’s mistake or an innocent good
morning message. There was a vicious agenda behind creating such a message, an
agenda unknowingly spread later both by those who believe it ideologically as well as
those who likely meant no harm but did not bother to check the authenticity of the
message.
It can get much worse than this. In recent years, the peddling fake news via Whats App
was said to be a factor in inciting violence in India at least a few times. In 2013, before
the 2014 elections, Hindu-Muslim riots hit the Muzaffarnagar region after a video of a
lynching was spread through Whats App and other means. The lynching video was
apparently old and taken from another country, but was being presented as an event
from the area of Muzaffarnagar. In July 2018, fake news about foreigners abducting
children led to the beating and lynching of innocent people in the state of Assam in
northeastern India. Later in July, a similar incident took place in Karnataka in southern
India, where WhatsApp messages wrongly blamed a Muslim for being a child
kidnapper (as he seen was feeding children chocolate having stopped during his travel),
and he was eventually murdered.
WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook were temporarily blocked in Sri Lanka in early
2018 for their misuses which played a role in fanning the sparks of anti-Muslim
violence. This time, however, it seems no fake news was spread – it was rather that Face
book and Whats App were being used to spread videos inciting people to attack the
followers of Islam. Fake news has become such a huge issue in India that there both
media and private people have taken to the task of verifying and countering them, as
reported in one of pieces for The Diplomat.
WhatsApp realizes the gravity of the problem. In June this year, the application added a
feature that informs the recipient that the message has been forwarded (and, thus, has
not been created by the immediate sender). In July, the company promised generous
research grants for experts who would study the field of misinformation. The same
month, it announced that it limits the number of shares – the maximum number of
simultaneous chats, through which one can share news and other items – to 20, and to
five in India. WhatsApp also withdrew the quick share option for Indian users. While
the announcement, made through a blog post, called the changes a “test,” and did not
make any reference to fake news or incited violence, a remark worth noting is that the
company expressed hope to “keep WhatsApp the way it was designed to be: a private
messaging app.” It was also clear that India stood out in the message. The
announcement called India a country “where people forward more messages, photos,
and videos than any other country in the world” and the limits WhatsApp has

86
 GD WAT Bible

introduced specifically for Indian users are obviously stricter than the ones imposed
everywhere else.
But is WhatsApp to blame for the fake news and the violence they incite and should be
it singled out from other means of modern communication?
First, it is not just WhatsApp. As mentioned above, fake news, doctored images and
videos representing unrelated events were also shared on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
and via other methods. Politicians, their spin doctors, and radical hate mongers use all
the tools they can. The traditional media may have more mechanisms to separate fake
news from fact, but some newspapers and TV channels play their own role in spreading
misinformation or sheer propaganda, and on a much larger scale than Whats App’s
shared messages. As just one of the many instances in the Indian context, one could
remember how prior to the Babri masjid’s demolition in 1992 – the mosque’s destruction
led to widespread Hindu-Muslim violence – certain Hindi-language newspapers spread
“fake news” that incited radical Hindus against Muslims. The problem is also not
limited to India. WhatsApp has been misused in Sri Lanka, as mentioned above, and in
Myanmar, Brazil and Mexico, too.
Second, what separates WhatsApp from other means is the technology. As a simple
messaging app, it was designed as much less intrusive on people’s privacy as the deeply
penetrating Facebook. WhatsApp’s administrators reportedly have no access to the
content of messages – they are encrypted unless specifically reported. Because Facebook
(WhatsApp’s owner), knows much more about its users, it has greater capability to
combat fake news and more means to handle the issue. It seems this is one of the
dilemmas of the modern, electronic world: The more a social medium or a messaging
application knows about its users, the more it can do to limit malicious behavior, but the
more it knows, the more it can be used to spy on people’s lives (and thus be misused in
equally evil ways).
In a very simplified sense, it is a choice between using tools like WhatsApp and being
exposed to fake news or using tools like Facebook and also being exposed to fake news,
having a bit bigger chance to report it and combat it, but risking that our personal data
can be mined, for example, to manipulate an election campaign. There is a third choice
– not to use any of it at all. The middle way is to be both very careful about one’s
privacy and about trusting news (any news: coming from friends, traditional media or
social media). Once again, it boils down to people, not their tools.
Third, it is all about a chain of trust. I may not trust the media – especially in the light of
what was written above – but I trust my friends. The person that had sent me the
information about “no Islam in Japan” is a person I trust and know to be very honest. It
is possible that this person received the message from another friend, whom that person
trusts. Someplace in that chain somebody misused the trust of other people to peddle his
agenda. Still, I would not expect anybody to trust media more than his friends. Perhaps
it is more about relying on friends for information on what they should know more
about than us, such as their personal lives or professional expertise, but not necessarily
on general news.

87
GD WAT Bible

There are concrete people to blame for such violence-inciting fake news, and WhatsApp
is just one of their many instruments. People have been peddling false accusations
against others for ages, long before not only the Internet, but even before print media.
When reading about recent cases of fake news inciting violence in the Indian state of
Assam, it came to my mind that they bear resemblance to how Jews were perceived and
treated in medieval Europe. In Assam, some foreign (i.e. non-Assamese Indians)
individuals were beaten or lynched on false accusation that they wanted to kidnap
children. On a very general level, it bears resemblance to an old European myth about
Jews kidnapping Christian children. In both cases, a vague notion of the little-known
“Other” as conducting the most horrendous act of abducting children is used to
temporarily unify the community in an act of violence.
Thus, the human race has a long history of blaming others for fictional misdeeds.
Modern tools such as social media and messaging applications can reinforce the old
stereotypes that some groups harbor about others. But WhatsApp or the entire Internet
should hardly be blamed. Why this may be a risky theory, I do not think the Internet
has elevated the problem to new levels (and, as a neutral tool, it can be used as much to
tackle it). Violence against others was much worse and widespread during the pre-
Internet era. Given a chance, the Nazis would have surely used the Internet to peddle
their hate, but, fortunately, the web appeared in our life when education and civic
responsibility became much stronger, at least in some societies.
The scale of information with which we bomb our minds is beyond our capacity to
equally analyze all of it. What is needed is a realization of which education tools and
awareness campaigns have been most successful in changing the mindsets of people.
The more stereotypes are countered, the lesser the chance that fake news will fall on
fertile ground and lead to tragedy.
How can readers discern between real & fake news?
Fake news refers to deliberate untruths or stories that contain some truth, but which
aren’t completely accurate. Some people also claim that truthful stories are “fake news,”
just because they don’t agree with them.
Fake news can have a negative impact on workplace behavior. So, it’s vital to know
how to separate the real from the fake. You can do this by following these six steps:
1. Develop a critical mindset.
2. Check the source.
3. See who else is reporting the story.
4. Examine the evidence.
5. Look for fake images.
How does Government respond to the Fake News?
What should a government do when fake online messages and rumors incite mobs to
lynch people? On 4 July, the government responded by conveying its “deep
disapproval” to WhatsApp and urged it to “take accountability and responsibility” for
the spread of “fake and provocative messages” through its platform.

88
 GD WAT Bible

While WhatsApp issued a response, saying “we don’t want our services used to spread
harmful misinformation...” it added that, “WhatsApp cares deeply about people’s safety
and their ability to freely communicate”. It’s this part that makes the government’s
resolve to pressure WhatsApp, which has 200 million monthly active users in the
country, into submission. It’s a double-edged sword, and is easier said than
implemented.
The dilemma is similar to the ban Blackberry faced in 2010 over its BBM messaging
service. It was forced to dilute its encryption to allow the government to read BBM
messages, ostensibly in a bid to counter terrorist propaganda and other rumors.
WhatsApp, on its part, uses the Signal Protocol, designed by Open Whisper Systems, as
the basis for its encryption that is designed to prevent third parties and WhatsApp itself
from accessing messages and calls.
To counter this, say experts, the government can strengthen the Information Technology
(IT) Act, 2008, to ensure intermediaries comply with the law and remove “offensive”
content. However, if the government does so, there could be a backlash over monitoring
of private messages and uproar over social media networks sharing private data with
governments.
From a legal angle, too, WhatsApp does not have a data server in India, so it is not
bound by the laws of the country. “WhatsApp is choosing not to comply with Indian
laws because it is governed by US laws. The government, on its part, can without
approaching Parliament, come up with a rule under Section 87 of the IT Act, 2008, to
regulate intermediaries,” says Pavan Duggal, Supreme Court advocate and president,
Cyberlaws.net.
According to Duggal, WhatsApp needs to remove offensive content the moment it’s
notified. “Besides enforcing Section 79 read with Section 85 (both deal with offensive
posts and regulating intermediaries), India needs a Fake News Law too,” he suggests.
Duggal adds that India needs to “determine punishments” for non-enforcement of such
laws and also “make cyber law part of a school’s curriculum” to create more awareness.
THE GRIM CONCLUSIONS OF THE LARGEST-EVER STUDY OF FAKE NEWS
Robinson Meyer:
And blame for this problem cannot be laid with our robotic brethren. From 2006 to
2016, Twitter bots amplified true stories as much as they amplified false ones, the study
found. Fake news prospers, the authors write, “Because humans, not robots, are more
likely to spread it.”
The conclusion is essentially that social networks cater to, amplify, and rapidly spread
disinformation and there’s no obvious way to solve it because it’s really a human
problem made worse by these networks.
Unless, of course, we agree social networks are terrible and get rid of them. That seems
rather obvious.

89
GD WAT Bible

Can electric cars succeed in India?

• An electric car is an automobile that is propelled by one or more electric motors,

using electrical energy stored in rechargeable batteries.
• Electric cars were popular in the late 19thcentury and early 20thcentury, until advances
in internal combustion engines, electric starters in particular, and mass production
of cheaper gasoline vehicles led to a decline in the use of electric drive vehicles. In
1897, electric cars found their first commercial use in the USA. New York City taxis
were electric, and they were manufactured by the Philadelphian Electric Carriage
and Wagon Company.
• Today, the global electric vehicle market is witnessing a rapid expansion. The total
number of electric cars has reached three million units globally. Around one million
new electric cars were sold in 2017 alone, representing growth of 54% as compared
with 2016. The total number of electric buses increased to 370,000 units and electric
two-wheelers reached 250 million by 2017.
• Today, the top countries/regions in cumulative sale of Electric cars in 2016 December
are: China, Europe, USA, Japan, Norway, Netherlands, France, UK,and Germany

Leading companies in the field of electric cars -

- Tesla
- BMW
- Nissan
- Chevrolet
- Ford
- Volkswagen
- Kia In India

Electric vehicle manufacturers in India/ manufacturers of electric vehicles launched in

India are:
- Mahindra e2oPlus
- Mahindra e-Verito.
- Tata Tigor Electric

Below are some of the hybrid cars available in India:

- Toyota Prius
- Toyota Camry Hybrid
- BMW i8
- Mahindra Scorpio MicroHybrid

90
 GD WAT Bible

- Maruti Suzuki Ciaz Diesel SHVS

- Maruti Suzuki Ertiga Diesel SHVS

Why?
• Air Quality Indices related to India indicate that the air in many cities of India is no
longer healthy. Automobile related pollution has been one of the causes for
this.Transportation accounts for about 11 per cent of India’s carbon emissions and is
a major source of air pollution in several cities nationwide. According to a 2018
World Health Organization (WHO) report as many as 14 of the world’s top 20 most-
polluted cities are in India.
• There is a need to reduce dependency on a fossil-fuel based economy. India’s crude
oil imports for 2014-15 was 112 billion dollars (approximately 7,00,000crore rupees).
For comparison, the allocation for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee Scheme, in budget 2017-18, is 48,000 crore rupees.
• People living in some of the Indian cities are being affected by noise pollution. Some
of the Indian cities have the worst noise pollution levels in the world. Electric vehicles
may also contribute to a reduction in noise pollution levels in the cities.
• Energy efficiency and emission reduction has improved in automobiles. Yet, the
growth in total number of vehicles on road, and the resulting total pollution and
total energy consumption removed all gains made by betterment in energy efficiency
and emission reduction by automobiles. Energy efficiency measures and pollution
control measures did not keep pace with the sales growth in vehicles. The total number
of vehicles registered in India has been 5.4 million, 11 million, 33 million, 40 millionand
210 million in the years 1981, 1986, 1996, 2000 and 2015. This indicates a 3500+
percentage growth in the total number of vehicles between 1981 and 2015. The total
number of vehicles sold in India increased between 1,54,81,381 in 2010-11 and
2,04,69,385 in 2015-16 indicating a 30+ percentage growth in this five year period.

Electric vehicle industry in India:

• Aspects related to global warming needs a shift to automobile solutions that reduce,
or do not produce greenhouse gas emissions.
• The electric vehicle market is gaining momentum in India due to the ambitious plans
and initiatives of the government. Public authorities in India have made a number of
electric vehicle-related policy announcements over the past few years showing strong
commitment, concrete action, and significant ambition for the deployment of electric
vehicles in the country.
• India unveiled ‘National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) 2020’ in 2013 by
then Prime Minister Manmohan Singhto address the issues of National energy security,
vehicular pollution and growth of domestic manufacturing capabilities.Its target was
to achieve sales of 5-6 million electric and hybrid vehicles by 2020 which is much
higher than the current number of these vehicles.

91
GD WAT Bible

• Under the NEMMP 2020, an incentive scheme, Faster Adoption and Manufacturing
of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (FAME), was launched in 2015 to reduce the upfront
purchase price of hybrid and electric vehicles and to stimulate their early adoption.
• May 2017, the National Institution for Transforming India outlined a vision for the
transformation of mobility in the country, proposing a set of actionable and specific
solutions to accelerate India’s leadership in advanced mobility.
• In early 2018, the Ministry of Power launched the new National Electric Mobility
Programme to focus on creating the charging infrastructure and a policy framework
to set a target of more than 30% electric vehicles by 2030. The program is being
implemented by Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), which facilitates demand
creation for electric vehicles in India by promoting public procurement.
• In 2017, India sold about 900,000 EVs, 4 per cent of the volume of diesel and petrol
vehicles sold.
• Currently, the government’s electric vehicle fleet consists of the Mahindra e-Verito
and the Tata Tigor EV. Various other automobile manufacturers have started working
extensively toward electrifying or introducing electric vehicles in their portfolio.
Hyundai has confirmed that its electric vehicle will debut in India by 2019. Maruti
Suzuki has also announced that it will launch its first electric vehicle in India by
2020.
• Setting up charging stations for electric vehicles does not need a separate licence
under the Electricity Act of 2003, the government has said, giving a big boost to
ambitious EV plans. Though, a distribution licence is required to distribute power
from respective state electricity regulatory commissions (SERCs).
• Consequently, many companies have started setting up charging stations in their
captive facilities or in public places. Tata Power has set up three fast charging electric
vehicle stations at the Hyderabad campus of the information technology firm
Cognizant. This was followed by the launch of Mumbai’s first electric vehicle charging
infrastructure, with nine charging stations across significant locations. Finnish state-
owned company Fortum has set up two electric vehicle charging stations at Indian
Oil outlets for the general public in Hyderabad.
• In 2017, Nagpur became the first Indian city to get an electric vehicle charging station.
The charging station was opened at one of Indian Oil’s stations in collaboration with
cab aggregator Ola for the first stage of its pilot project in Nagpur launching 200
electric vehicles including buses, auto and cars. The solar power developer ACME
Group provided Ola with EcoCharge battery swapping and charging stations.
• India is also a member of the Electric Vehicles Initiative (EVI) multi-governmental
policy forum. The EVI forum was established in 2009 to accelerate the deployment
of electric vehicles worldwide and facilitate exchanges between policymakers and
various stakeholders. Countries currently active in the EVI include Canada, China,
Finland, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden,
the UK and the US.

92
 GD WAT Bible

Challenges –
• They are far less polluting, but pose a challenge to Indian driving practices
• Noiseless operation and instant torque and quick acceleration of electric vehicles
will demand change in driving habits.
• India does not have enough lithium reserves for manufacturing lithium-ion batteries.
This could lead to a substantial change in the country’s energy security priorities,
with securing lithium supplies, a key raw material for EV batteries, becoming as
important as buying oil and gas fields overseas.
• India also needs to have a solution ready for these vehicles after their battery life is
depleted.
• The country should work on establishing an effective charging infrastructure as well
as necessary regulations around creating the ecosystem for electrical vehicles to
operate smoothly.
• Another issue is whether to go for AC (alternating current) or DC (direct current)
chargers. While an AC charger takes around six hours to charge an EV, DC chargers
are faster and take around 40 minutes to one hour to fully charge a vehicle.

Conclusion
Electric cars present a unique opportunity for Indian drivers. Instead of tamping down
the technology, we can instead change our habits - be mindful of lanes, wait our turn, be
polite and respectful of others and their needs, and make our driving smoother, as well as
make best use of regenerative braking.Perhaps there will be a spin-off to this. Driving the
electric car may make us more orderly while standing in queues, and even consider inviting
others to go ahead of us.
Despite the ambitious plans and initiatives of the government, the lack of consistency
among visions and achievements at different times and by different sectors suggest that
India needs to ensure greater coordination in the deployment of electric vehicles as it
moves forward.There is no plan for the government to develop a nationwide charging
infrastructure. Instead, it hopes that by promoting the uptake of electric vehicles, it will
create the ecosystem by which charging networks will become a necessity, and thereby
presenting opportunities for commercial operators to open charging stations. Keeping
India’s Electric vehicle fleet moving will require a significant growth in the country’s electric
vehicle charging infrastructure. Currently, India has nearly 56,000 traditional fuel stations
compared with 222 community EV charging stations.

93
GD WAT Bible

Online harassment: Should trolls be outlawed?

A social media troll, by definition, is someone who creates conflict on sites like Twitter,
Facebook and Reddit by posting messages that are particularly controversial or
inflammatory with the sole intent of provoking an emotional response from other users.
Arguments against –
• Trolling does not abuse freedom of speech and therefore should not involve legal
action. With the growth of social media, trolling has become a common phenomenon
online. It refers to hostile and /or abusive views presented on any person’s viewpoint.
• Social media is a space for presenting one’s views and no one opinion can be said to
be right or wrong. An opinion stated, should be up for debate and opposition.
• The person whose views are trolled is free to report and block the concerned person.
They need not feel victimised by the opposing opinion. In the words of Ralph Waldo
Emerson, “Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted,
whenever I am contradicted.”
• A society will always have people holding opposing views and on any subject, there will
be a spectrum of opinion. To deny someone the freedom of expressing dissent is
undemocratic.
• Society evolves only after debating the validity of existing laws or social traditions. Trolls
can be useful as dissenting opinions who point to the existence of harmful practices that
come from strongly held beliefs. All ideas should be scrutinised and open to criticism.
Criticism of an idea does not amount to insult of the person holding those ideas. It will
be a stagnant and possibly cruel society that does not allow the expression of dissent. In
fact social reformers in this sense can be seen as trolls who went against prevailing
opinions.
• Personal abuse should be reported. It does not lead to communication. But communication
on any idea, especially one that is viewed as unquestionable is healthy. Unstated
resentment leads to more problems of suppression, and later, violence.
• Reported abuse is already handled by social media platforms that block and sometimes
suspend the user - further legal action like the one envisaged by section 66 A is entangling
and unnecessarily sensationalising.
• Thanks to social media, people whose actions are embarrassing, face public ridicule
when their behaviour is recorded and shared. Such behaviour would go unreportedif
there were strict laws against social media content. The onus of proof in any case lies
with the person who is reporting an event on social media. Often, social issues that
find no voice in mainstream media, like sexual harassment in public transport, get
discussed and help to prevent further situations from fear of embarrassment.
• With sensational incidents being reported every other day and outraged emotions finding
a voice on social media, the users of social media themselves become cautious of reading
too much into an incident. This cynicism is in the long run, an organic and healthy
reaction to rumours. Banning news items would only strengthen curiosity. An excess of

94
 GD WAT Bible

news can lead to disinterest and cynicism which is a sensible reaction to unending news
items. It could also lead to a situation where we are only responsive to meaningful news
and not to the merely sensational or emotional.
• The argument that political propaganda that are often lies or deliberately misleading
half-truths, are shared as news among social media users, is pointless as all sorts of
communications are in a sense, propaganda. Advertisements exaggerate and bend the
truth at will. Secondly, the more such lies are spread, the more is the chance that the
same media can be used to counter them and prove the unreliability of the original
messages. Without such a debate, and blanket bans on political content, lies can be
mistaken for truths.
• Thanks to social media and its incessant provocations, it is the thin-skinned person, who
overreacts to any news with outraged feelings, who now needs to watch his own
exaggerated reaction. The likelihood that no matter what your opinion is on a subject, it
will get trolled is high.
• Furthermore, the laws to make trolling illegal maybe subjective and open to interpretation;
it is still possible to imagine an authoritarian and humourless prosecutor going too far.
• People who make a living as artists often face harassment over the way they choose to
depict a story or a painting. In a sense they are seen as trolls to a number of people
who are convinced that only their own opinion is right. It is simply not possible to
keep everyone happy and to not offend anyone. Such artists need to assert their right
to physical safety but they can choose social media to counter accusations. A ban on
trolls on social media will not help them.
• In conclusion, it is helpful to have deterrents like a law against threat of violence,invasion
of privacy,libel andabuse. But, trolling itself should not be viewed with concern. We
should not make it illegal to just say mean orunpleasant things online, because what
people find mean varies greatly and sometimes being mean serves important purposes
in public discourse.
• Social media as a platform is evolving and the participants concerned will settle down
to mutually accepted ways of interacting. In real life there are no ‘safe spaces’ and
individuals have to negotiate their own way. It is the same with social media.
Arguments for–
• Monitoring social media exchanges so that they stay within defined limits: Trolling
has real and dangerous consequences for those who do face it. They live with the fear
of actually having to face the violence suggested online. They feel incapable of
expressing themselves freely. Hence, the government should have laws in place that
are specific about what kinds of trolling can face legal action. The threat of legal
action will stop or at least instil fear as a deterrent.
• Trolls are often people who cannot tolerate dissent from their own opinions. Their abuse
and threats to those they troll should be taken seriously as they may act on their threats.
Even their verbal abuse causes fear in someone expressing an honest opinion.
• Non-abusive and politely expressed disagreements are not something most people are
capable of - they will have to be coerced to learn it by strict and punitive laws that

95
GD WAT Bible

restrain their loosely directed anger.

• Trolling took on international proportions with the story of how Russian operatives
secretly manipulated Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other social-media platforms during
the 2016 US election. Recently executives from Twitter; Alphabet, Inc., which runs Google,
and Facebook- were grilled about alarming new reports-including a series of revelations
from inside Russia itself-about Moscow’s covert purchase of politicalads, use of countless
Internet bots and trolls, and creation of fake American users, all as part of an effort to
instigate racial and religious conflict and spread conspiracy theories during election
campaign and beyond. It compelled the biggest social-media platforms to archive and
maintain a public file of all political ads for buyers who spend more than $500 and
require them to “make all reasonable efforts to ensure that foreign individuals and entities
are not purchasing political advertisements in order to influence the American electorate.
• “It’s only going to expand. We have to muster a self-defense, just as we would from a
military or a cyberattack.” – Senator Richard Blumenthal.
It seems clear now that, at the very least, one consequence of Russiagate will be a whole
new set of rules and regulations for the corporate giants of the online world, who until
now have coasted along in a mostly regulation-free Wild, Wild West.
• Union Minister for Women & Child Development, Maneka Gandhi has decided to take
action against troll-abuse on social media, particularly against women. She has requested
the Union Home Ministry as well as the I&B ministry to take possible steps to control the
abusive trolling community. She has also asked social networking platforms like Twitter,
Facebook and other social media platforms for their assistance in tackling this troll menace.
Maneka Gandhi became proactive following complaints by troll victims.
• Many people are of the view that the repeal of section 66A has made the trolling
community careless and they are misusing online platforms to abuse people. Whether
section 66A was helpful in curbing the trolling menace or not, we definitely need a law
that is effective in curbing online verbal violence. The Supreme Court repealed section
66A after free speech advocators complained against it. These advocators claim that
freedom is always absolute. Now, the same advocators are complaining against trolling
on social media. If freedom of speech and expression is absolute, how can you demand
action against trolling?
• In the process of trolling a television personality, a Twitter user wrote that he had already
purchased toilet paper because of delay in availability of her book. Now, there is nothing
vulgar in this post, yet it is an abusive tweet. There are complaints that people with fake
accounts indulge in such disgraceful trolls. But the fact is, many other genuine accounts,
including those belonging to established persons like senior journalists, writers, politicians
and socialists also indulge in indecent and abusive trolls.
• In any society freedom is never absolute. Freedom always comes with a rider. You
have freedom to speak/express. But, at the same time, you must take care of the fact
that your exercising of the right to freedom must not abuse anybody, must not hurt
anybody’s sentiments, must not be provocative and finally it must not be indecent.
The SC rightly scrapped the law relating to 66A as it was difficult to implement. But

96
 GD WAT Bible

then, the Supreme Court never said that acts shouldn’t be there to control such
violations. The SC, on numerous occasions has said that the right to freedom is not
absolute . We should consider the introduction of a “report abuse” tab on social
networking sites like many newspaper websites provide. If the abuse tab is hit beyond
the threshold number (set as per assessment), the account could be blocked by the
social media administrator and an inquiry by the police initiated. One may not be
booked at that moment, but an inquiry can name and shame the trolling person and
that would be enough for many to control their language on social media. For repeat
offenders, a 24-hour detention in a police station would be sufficient because all such
trollers probably do not understand what spending a night at a police station means.
They troll from their comfort zones, at their private places through smart devices,
considering themselves to absolute kings.
• Meanwhile, for many people – particularly women and members of minorities – a life
online continues to be subjected to all kinds of brutal and anonymised abuse. If, in this
context, a mature set of guidelines seems too much to you, ask yourself this: If
someone persistently marched up to strangers in the public places and screamed the
kinds of abusive or discriminatory things at them that you are arguing should be
protected online, do you really think they’d get away with it?Or is there a bit of you
that likes the idea of the internet as an unregulated wild west, where anything goes,
where the normal accumulation of rules that make up civilised society no longer
applies? And if it’s the latter, why should the rest of us have to go along with it?

97
GD WAT Bible

Can Bitcoin be the currency of the future?

Bitcoin is a virtual currency, or cryptocurrency, that’s controlled by a decentralized

network of users and isn’t directly subject to the whims of central banking authorities or
national governments.
Although there are hundreds of cryptocurrencies in active use today, Bitcoin is by far
the most popular and widely used - the closest cryptocurrency equivalent to traditional,
state-minted currencies. Like traditional currencies, such as the U.S. dollar, Bitcoin has
value relative to other currencies and physical goods.
Whole Bitcoin units can be subdivided into decimals representing smaller units of value.
Currently, the smallest Bitcoin unit is the satoshi, or 0.00000001 Bitcoin. The satoshi can’t
be broken into smaller units. However, Bitcoin’s source code is structured to allow for
future subdivisions beyond this level.
The first public record of Bitcoin dates to October 2008, when a pseudonymous person or
organization dubbed Satoshi Nakamoto published a white paper with the technical outlines
for a new, decentralized cryptocurrency (Nakamoto’s identity remains unknown) and
released Bitcoin’s open-source code in January 2009, marking the beginning of public mining
and trading. Bitcoin’s open source code has since been modified to make systemic flaws
less likely in the future.
Many crypto-evangelists insist that Bitcoin is “digital gold”. Like gold, Bitcoin must be
mined via digital means. This epithet also owes to the fact that bitcoin’s long-term supply
is algorithmically capped at 21 million, i.e. there are only 21 million Bitcoins that can be
mined in total. Once miners have unlocked this many Bitcoins, the supply will essentially
be tapped out, unless Bitcoin’s source code is changed to allow for a larger supply. The
last Bitcoin is projected to spring into being sometime around 2140 - that is, if the currency
still exists and people still care enough to mine it.
Bitcoin mining is the process of adding transaction records to Bitcoin’s public,
distributed ledger of all past transactions or blockchain. This ledger of past transactions
is called the block chain as the information is stored in groups known as blocks. The
block chain serves to confirm transactions to the rest of the network as having taken
place.
Miners are individuals or cooperative organizations with access to powerful computers,
often stored at remote, privately owned “farms”. Each time a new block is created a
predetermined number of fresh Bitcoin are minted.Bitcoin block reward refers to these
new bitcoins that are awarded by the blockchain network to eligible cryptocurrency
miners for each block they mine successfully. They often also receive transaction fees
paid by buyers.
Bitcoin’s block chain is vital to its function. Every node of Bitcoin’s software network -
the server farms and terminals, run by individuals or groups known as miners, whose
efforts to produce new Bitcoin units result in the recording and authentication of
Bitcoin transactions, and the periodic creation of new blocks— contains an identical
record of Bitcoin’s block chain.

98
 GD WAT Bible

Because new Bitcoin transactions constantly occur, the Bitcoin block chain, though
finite, grows over time. Bitcoin’s block chain is the sole arbiter of Bitcoin ownership - no
complete record exists anywhere else.
A Bitcoin wallet is a software program where bitcoins are stored—they are secure cloud
storage locations with special information confirming their owners (Bitcoin users) as the
guardians of the Bitcoin units contained within. Wallets facilitate sending and receiving
Bitcoins and gives ownership of the Bitcoin balance to the user. Every Bitcoin user has at
least one private key (basically, a password), which is a whole number between 1 and
78 digits in length. When a key is lost for good, the corresponding holdings move into a
sort of permanent limbo and can’t be recovered.
Like e-mail addresses, you can send bitcoins to a person by sending bitcoins to one of
their addresses. However, unlike e-mail addresses, people have many different Bitcoin
addresses and a unique address should be used for each transaction. Most Bitcoin
software and websites will help with this by generating a brand new address each time
you create an invoice or payment request.

Developments during 2018:

• Bitcoin traded near the $20,000 mark in December 2017, but the fall began in January
2018 and continued through to December. Currently, Bitcoin sits at about $3,800,
which is about an 80% drop from its all-time high. Most altcoins have suffered more
severe losses. Ethereum, for example, has suffered a more than 90% drop in price
through the course of the year.
• The Bitcoin whitepaper turned 10 years old in October 2018. It described the
framework for a decentralized peer-to-peer electronic cash system. It laid out the
foundation for Bitcoin and described the way in which Bitcoin’s protocol would
work.
• Bitcoin has resolved its scalability issues through the Lightening Network.
Scalability is a very serious for Bitcoin as well as other veteran cryptocurrency systems.
It concerns the limits on the amount of transactions the bitcoin network can process.
It is related to the fact that records (known as blocks) in the bitcoin blockchain are
limited in size and frequency.
In its current state, Bitcoin’s transaction processing speed maxes out at just over 10
transactions per second. However, the historical average is even lower, at about 3
transactions per second. Meanwhile, transaction fees have increased by over 1000%
since 2015. With fees at their current levels, small transactions can often cost more
than the actual value being sent, making them infeasible.
Many solutions were put forward— Bitcoin Cash (BCH) hard fork and the cancelled
SegWit2x hard fork
The Lightning Network uses built-in smart contract functionality of the blockchain
to enable off-chain transactions across a secure network of participants. It adds
another layer to Bitcoin’s blockchain and enables users to create payment channels
between any two parties on that extra layer. The transactions between two people

99
GD WAT Bible

are recorded off the chain in these channels. They can exist for as long as required,
and because they’re set up between two people, transactions will be almost instant
and the fees will be extremely low or even non-existent.
• M obile paym ent com pany Square is expanding its bitcoin trading support to all 50
states through its Cash App. This means that residents in all corners of the U.S. can
utilize the platform to purchase and sell the digital currency.
• As of Monday, November 26, 2018, the state of Ohio became the first U.S. state to
accept Bitcoin (BTC) as payment for taxes. This initiative is of great importance for
Bitcoin enthusiasts as it marks one of the first governments in the world to accept
cryptocurrency. As of now, this facility only applies to business. As for individual
taxpayers, the state has plans to extend this offering to them in the future.

Arguments in support: Following years of consistent performance and clear demonstration

of its superiority over fiat money, bitcoin is now being widely adopted by both commoners
and financial institutions alike.
• Governments worldwide manipulate the economy with their monetary and fiscal
policies - an external agency determines the value of the money you hold and
mismanagement can lead to grave crises as a recession. Bitcoin is an answer to
centralisation and takes away the power to regulate money from a centralised
authority. Thus, it’s a pure market currency.
• Thanks to bitcoin’s nature as an anonymous, peer to peer currency, any transaction
with bitcoins won’t risk incurring the wrath of the government as the encryption
effectively subverts government surveillance efforts. While some like Russia, United
Kingdom, and the European Union recognisebitcoin as a virtual currency out of the
ambit of capital gain taxes, the United States of America and Israel treat bitcoin as a
commodity for taxation purposes. India and China still haven’t recognisedbitcoin as
a currency/commodity and its legal status are unclear in these jurisdictions though
governments of both countries have declared that citizens are free to deal with bitcoins
as they deem fit. Japan has passed a bill recognisingbitcoin as legal tender.
• There are doubts with regard to the enforceability of tax laws. To resolve this, bitcoin
holding disclosures can be made mandatory and identity of tax evaders can be
unmasked with identifying personal details filed with bitcoin exchanges and other
sites whenever transactions with bitcoins are made on the portal.
• Greater Liquidity Relative to Other Cryptocurrencies: As the most popular
cryptocurrency by a significant margin, Bitcoin has far greater liquidity than its peers.
This allows users to retain most of its inherent value when converting to fiat
currencies, such as the U.S. dollar and euro.
• Increasingly Wide Acceptance as a Payment Method: Hundreds of merchants accept
Bitcoin payments. Thanks to heavyweights like Overstock.com jumping on board,
it’s possible to buy virtually any physical item using Bitcoin units.
• International Transactions Easier Than Regular Currencies: there aren’t any inter-
national transaction fees or red tape to navigate, as is often the case with credit card

100
 GD WAT Bible

payments, ATM cash withdrawals, and international money transfers. While most
other cryptocurrencies lack international red tape, cross-border Bitcoin transactions
are easier simply because Bitcoin is more popular around the world.
• Generally Lower Transaction Fees: Compared to other digital payment methods, such
as credit cards and PayPal, Bitcoin comes with lower transaction fees. Though such
fees are variable, it’s rare for a Bitcoin transaction to cost more than 1% of its value.
Compare that to 2% to 3% for most other digital payments.
• Anonymity and Privacy Relative to Traditional Currencies: Holding U.S. dollars or
other fiat currencies in an online bank account, or executing online credit card and
PayPal transactions, doesn’t protect your privacy any more than physically handing
cash or a credit card across the shop counter. By contrast, Bitcoin’s built-in privacy
protections allow users to completely separate their Bitcoin accounts from their public
personas, if they so choose. While it’s possible to track Bitcoin flows between users,
it’s very difficult to figure out who those users really are.
• Independence From Political Agents and Creators: Since Bitcoin isn’t created or
controlled by any state entity, such as a central bank, it’s not beholden to political
influence. Due to its completely decentralized nature, popularity, and liquidity,
Bitcoin is also unbeholden to its creators. Many less popular cryptocurrencies are
characterized by concentrated holdings - the majority of existing units are held in a
handful of accounts. This allows the currencies’ creators to manipulate supply and,
to an extent, value relative to other cryptocurrencies, negatively impacting other
holders.
• Built-In Scarcity: Bitcoin’s built-in scarcity feature - only 21 million will ever exist - is
likely to support its long-term value against traditional currencies, as well as non-
scarce cryptocurrencies, such as Dogecoin, a popular Bitcoin alternative. In a way,
Bitcoin’s scarcity imbues the currency with intrinsic value - similar to gold and other
precious metals.
• Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, meaning it’s supported by a source code that uses highly
complex algorithms to prevent unauthorized duplication or creation of Bitcoin units.
• During the window between the transaction itself and the moment it’s added to the
block chain, the relevant Bitcoin units are essentially held in escrow - they can’t be
used by either party to the transaction. This prevents duplicate transactions, known
as double-spending, and protects the system’s integrity.
• We can’t know what the market will choose as a currency in the future, because it is
entirely dependent on peoples’ values. We don’t even know if people will continue
valuing U.S. dollars, much less bitcoins. But we do know that bitcoin possesses some
of the fundamental properties that have made gold and silver successful currencies,
and it even outperforms its competition in some categories.

Arguments against: Morgan Stanley doesn’t believe that cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin
(BTC) will be a viable currency in the future, still seeing them more like investment vehicles
than anything else. The firm argues that Bitcoin is a “more inconvenient way to pay” for
goods and services than using a debit or credit card. “Most regulators and investors view

101
GD WAT Bible

cryptocurrencies more as assets than actual currencies. Their values are too volatile and
too hard to actually use for payment for most to consider them currencies.
• Black Market Activity May Damage Reputation and Usefulness: Despite high-visibility
prosecutions of the most egregious offenders, Bitcoin remains attractive to criminals
and gray market participants. Obviously, dark web marketplaces like Silk Road and
Sheep expose rank-and-file users to fraud and the threat of criminal prosecution.
More disturbingly, the pursuit of nefarious activity by seemingly upstanding Bitcoin
users - such as Charlie Shrem - threaten to corrode Bitcoin’s reputation. And it’s
unclear that the international legal system is properly equipped to tackle the problem.
If shady uses for Bitcoin outweigh legitimate ones over time, and the authorities
can’t effectively put a stop to the shenanigans, the entire system faces marginalization.
• Susceptible to High Price Volatility: Although Bitcoin is the most liquid and easily
exchanged cryptocurrency, it remains susceptible to wild price swings over short
periods of time - it renders the currency unsuitable for longer-term investors. And
since Bitcoin’s purchasing power varies so widely from week to week, it’s difficult
for consumers to use as a legitimate means of exchange.
• No Chargebacks or Refunds: One of Bitcoin’s biggest drawbacks is a lack of
standardized policy for chargebacks or refunds, as all credit card companies and
traditional online payment processors have. Some newer cryptocurrencies, such as
Ripple, have rudimentary chargeback and refund functions, but this feature has yet
to be built into Bitcoin.
• Potential to Be Replaced by Superior Cryptocurrency: Further, some other countries
like India plan to release their own closed cryptocurrency, albeit one that is centralised
and not anonymous.
• Though bitcoin wallets theoretically protect against the theft of Bitcoin units that
aren’t currently being used, they’re vulnerable to hacking.
The question is: Will bitcoins continue to be valued in the future? Bitcoins certainly won’t
rot, nor will the supply suffer from hyperinflation, but will these properties continue to be
valued?
It is no longer a question of whether or not people will accept bitcoins as a currency: They
already do, and the community is growing. Though, it is folly to think that Bitcoin will
ever be allowed to supplant central-bank-issued money. It is one thing for governments to
allow small anonymous transactions with virtual currencies; indeed, this would be
desirable. But it is an entirely different matter for governments to allow large-scale
anonymous payments, which would make it extremely difficult to collect taxes or counter
criminal activity. Governments that issue large-denomination bills also risk aiding tax
evasion and crime.

102
 GD WAT Bible

Demonetization: exercise in futility or a success?

• Demonetization is the act of stripping a currency unit of its status as legal tender.
It occurs whenever there is a change of national currency: the current form or
forms of money is pulled from circulation and retired, often to be replaced with
new notes or coins.
• On 8thNovember 2016, the Government of India announced the demonetisation of
all ¹ 500 and ¹ 1000 banknotes of the Mahatma Gandhi Series. These notes
accounted for 86 per cent of the total value of the currency with the public. It also
announced the issuance of new ¹ 500 and ¹ 2000 banknotes in exchange for the
demonetised banknotes.
• The objectives behind demonetization are:
- to destroy fake currency and fight tax evasion
- to do away with black money and thus reduce corruption
- to reduce the excess cash circulation outside the formal economic system
- to reduce Inflation and to promote a cashless economy

Yes, demonetisation impactedthe Indian Economy adversely.

• Has growth been impacted by de-monetisation? Yes. By any measure, the PM’s
decision was incomprehensible and, in view of its adverse effects revealed
subsequently by the Economic Survey 2016-17, the annual report of the Reserve
Bank and other reliable sources, demonetisation turned out to be a monumental
failure. The PM had three objectives in mind: flushing out fake currency, attacking
terrorism and, most importantly, flooding out black money. None of these was
fulfilled. For instance, as the RBI revealed, fake currency worth only Rs 41 crore
was found out. This was contradictory to the estimates of about Rs 4- 5 lakh crore
given by MukulRohatgi, the then Attorney General, in the Supreme Court on
November 23, 2016.Terrorist activities are far from controlled, let alone eliminated.
• Demonetisation did not hit illicit wealth held as real estate, shares, gold, silver and
foreign currency. In addition to this, there have been allegations that the
information had been leaked to BJP units and ‘friends of BJP’ prior to its public
announcement.
• The hardships caused by a shortage of new legal tender, and the rush to deposit
old 500 and 1,000 rupee (Rs 15.28 lakh crore)notes in bank accounts before the
Dec. 31 deadline, took a heavy toll. More than 100 people died in bank and ATM
queues, although it’s impossible to confirm if the deaths from heart failure or
exhaustion were directly a result of demonetization.This chaos continued for six to
seven months. But soon the people were to be disillusioned.
• When 86 per cent of the total value of cash was withdrawn from circulation, the
economy was bound to suffer. Of the three main functions of money, the
“transaction” function (others being “precautionary” and “speculative”) keeps the

103
GD WAT Bible

economy moving and growing, mainly through the exchange of goods and
services. The government issued Rs 2,000 currency notes. As per RBI data, on
March 17, of the total 10,029.3 crore currency notes, Rs 2,000 currency notes
constituted only 3.3 per cent but they accounted for 52.2 per cent of the total
value. These high denomination notes lacked transaction value, which paralysed
the mainly cash-dependent informal economy. Demonetisation brought economic
transaction and exchange to a standstill. This affected growth.
• The RBI spent close to Rs 13,000 crore over the next two years to remonetise
Indian money market in post-demonetisation phase. New notes of Rs 500 and Rs
2,000 were introduced. The designs were markedly different from the recalled
ones. This escalated the cost of printing as it had several new features.
• About 80% of the informal economy - mainly comprising micro, small and a large
part of medium enterprises, small and medium traders, and through that, low-
paid, contract workers - was badly hit. This significantly affected employment.
During January-April 2017, about 15 lakh jobs were lost mainly due to
demonetisation. The latest Economic Survey shows that in North India demand for
MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005)
increased by 30%. The government’s promise of creating two crore jobs annually
has withered away.
• There is a clear impact on the services sector from the latest numbers. The services
sector grew by 6.8%, the slowest rate in 11 quarters. In terms of specific sub-
segments within services, ‘Finance, insurance, real estate and professional services’
grew by a particularly low rate of 3.1%, the lowest growth rate seen in this sub-
segment since the start of the new series growth rates in 2012-13.
• Is de-monetisation the only factor playing on growth? It is the counterbalancing
factors that have kept the growth relatively buoyed. These are: (i) A strong
agriculture season and (ii) Festive season demand. Further, the growth in the
government spending has also been quite substantial, in fact, the highest ever at
19.9% in the new series, which explains the support to overall growth. So,
demonetisation would have had a worse impact were it not for these factors.
• In March 2017, the RBI revealed that currency notes worth Rs 15.28 lakh crore or
99% of the total 15.44 lakh crore was deposited in banks. Thus, the objective of
attacking black money fell on its face. In fact, as experts argue, black money
constitutes about 25% of India’s national income (GDP). If this ratio is applied to
the cash deposited in the banks (Rs 15.28 lakh crore), then, it turns out to be about
Rs 3.82 lakh crore. Thus, far from attacking black money, one may argue that
demonetisation allowed the culprits to convert Rs 3.82 lakh crore into “white”
money.
• Realising that demonetisation was failing, Finance Minister ArunJaitley
immediately shifted its goal to creating a “cashless economy”. When about 80 per
cent of the country’s economy is “informal”, this is ridiculous. Even the most
advanced economies use a considerable amount of cash.

104
 GD WAT Bible

• The government shifted, once again, to the unintended goal of “digitisation”, that
is, transactions through electronic devices such as mobile, BHIM-UPI, debit cards,
M-wallets, e-payments etc. But the number of digital transactions increased from
102 crore in October 2016 to 156 crore in March 2017 and thereafter, continued to
steadily decline, so much so that they fell to 138 crore in August.”The only long-
term gain (of demonetisation) is probably the less use of cash. However, this push
towards digitisation could have been done in a less dramatic and painful
way,” JayatiGhosh, professor at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University
• Then the government claimed an increase in IT returns as an achievement of
demonetisation. The FM would have known that in 2011-12, IT returns had
increased by 80 per cent and in the next year by 30 per cent. Again, this time, of
the increased returns, about 70 per cent are filed by those having an income less
than Rs 5 lakh per annum. Taking into account the exemption limits and other
provisions, the addition to tax collection would be negligible. The shift in proposed
goal from curbing black money to countering terrorism to digitalisation to nothing
indicates that the government does not have a remote idea of what they are doing.

No, demonetisation did not affect growth

• There cannot be two opinions that the monster of black money has, over a period
of time, grown in strength, eaten into the socio-economic and political fabric of the
country, and, therefore, needs to be attacked lock, stock and barrel. This has not
even been attempted in India for one reason: An absolute lack of political will
from the ruling establishment. So demonetisation should be viewed as a well-
intentioned and decisive step that will strengthen India’s fundamentals and keep
delivering results in increased growth for a long time to come.
• Before Demonetization there were 17,165 million pieces of Rs 500 notes and 6,858
million pieces of Rs 1000 notes in circulation on November 8, the day Prime
MinisterModi made the announcement of demonetizing the two high
denomination notes. The total amount of high denomination currency circulating
in the system on that day was, thus, Rs 15.44 lakh crore (Rs 8.58 lakh crore in Rs
500 notes and Rs 6.86 lakh crore in Rs 1,000). As per the latest reports nearly 12.5
lakh crorehas been deposited into the banking system. Out of this only 20% was
circulating by banking systems.
• Demonetization can be considered a big success if for the next three financial
years, the government is able to retain 60% of this money with banks and rotate
the same through banking system only. The same money can be used to provide
loans to industries. This will, in turn, lead to a lowering of interest rates owing to
the compulsion of banks to utilize the surplus low cost cash they are holding.
Businesses that are not viable because of high interest rates will advance and
others who are just surviving will become profitable. It will give a big boost to our
economy.

105
GD WAT Bible

• Union Finance Minister ArunJaitley listed out an increase in the volume of digital
transactions, widening of tax base and squeezed circulation of high denomination
currency as the real measures of the success of demonetisation.
• With the cancellation of Rs.500 and Rs.1000 currency notes, e-wallet companies
such as Paytm, PayU India, Mobikwik, etc. are witnessing a sudden rise in their
daily transactions. Demonetisation will also have an impact on the hiring needs
and other business functions of these companies. Even app-based cab companies
are launching their promotional materials to encourage cashless transactions.
• Finance Minister ArunJaitley said that India has standardised itself for a 7-8%
growth rate on the back of improving macroeconomic fundamentals.
“Determining how a particular policy - from the web of policies - affects growth is
a complex task,” he said.
• Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian exuded confidence saying “we will
soon come out from these two policy experiments” of demonetisation and GST
rollout and regain growth. He added, “GDP would bounce back with better credit
growth, investment growth and growth in exports, as Indian economy has the
potential to grow at 8 to 10 per cent. As GST is also stabilizing, it will also help in
that.”
• “I have three red lines to measure the success of demonetisation. First, how much
volume of cash that RBI prints are we able to squeeze over time. High
denomination currency has already squeezed in terms of volume. The second test
is that as its (demonetisation’s) consequence, how many assessees are we able to
add and expand the tax base,” said Mr.Jaitley recently, adding that the third
measure would be the increase in digital transaction volumes.
• “110 crore transactions, valued at around Rs.3.3 lakh crore and another 240 crore
transactions, valued at Rs.3.3 lakh crore were carried out through credit cards and
debit cards, respectively. The value of transaction for debit and credit card was
Rs.1.6 lakh crore and Rs.2.4 lakh crore respectively during 2015-16.”- ArunJaitley
• Demonetisation achieved its objectives quite substantially. The currency in the
system now is 87-88 per cent, that is, about Rs 3-4 lakh crore less currency than it
would have been if the system would have continued in the old manner.
• RBI report says that detection of fake Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 decreased by 59.7 and
59.6 per cent in after demonetisation. It also claims that over Rs 2 lakh crore of
black money has reached banks post-demonetisation.

Conclusion :
The assessment of the effects of demonetisation draws sharp reactions from its
supporters as well as the opponents. Expert opinion (of economists) appears to be
largely unfavourable while a large section of the ordinary populace seems to swear by
its positive effects.

106
 GD WAT Bible

WAT-Topics

Current Affairs

1 Is it the beginning of the end of Facebook ?

2 Has India arrived on the global sporting arena?
3 Importance of Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development
4 Should the national & state elections be conductedsimultaneiously
5 Role of NITI Ayog
6 India's Foreign Policy and 'Modi Doctrine'
7 Constitutional validity of aadhar and Right to Privacy
8 Water disputes between states
9 Future of Cryptocurrencies
10 Bank Recapitalisation: Will it restore faith in the banking industry
11 India leaps to surpass China
12 RBI Autonomy: Is the Government out to Impound its Autonomous Status?
13 Walmart and Flipkart Deal: Impact and Learning
14 TRUMP-KIM SUMMIT: Will De-Nuclearization Instill World Peace?
15 Rafale Deal
16 Universal Basic Income
17 One Belt, One Road Summit
18 Reliance Jio has disrupted the Telecom Industry
19 IPCC's 1.5 C report : A wake-up call ( Paris COP 21 Conference)
20 Kartarpur Corridor
21 How to counter jobless growth in India
22 data breach - fb : concerns , privacy compromise etc
23 GST : Modi's Masteract or Gabbar Singh Act ?
24 Refugee Crisis in EU & other developed countries
25 World War 3 will be fought over water
26 Ayushman Bharat scheme

107
GD WAT Bible

Abstract

1 Your advice on your last day to human kind

2 Red
3 Smart Work vs Hard Work
4 Every cloud has a silver lining
5 To be or not to be
6 Be patient with friends and enemies
7 Utopia
8 It's the time for the underdogs
9 A rolling stone gathers no moss
10 Man vs Nature
11 Poverty is just a state of mind
12 Data is the new oil
13 We earn a living by money, we live by giving
14 Knowledge is knowing tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting tomato in a fruit salad
15 Nothing Dries sooner than tears
16 The darkest hour is just before the dawn
17 My life is Instagram perfect
18 A child is not a vase to be filled but a fire to be lit
19 Ethics over profit ?
20 In the long run, we are all dead

108
 GD WAT Bible

Argumentative

1 Social Media - Waste of time?

2 Leaders are born and not made
3 Potrayal of women in Bollywood
4 MBA helps in being a good manager
5 In God we trust, others must bring data
6 India - A Superpower in 2040 ?
7 Should we have CCTVs at workplaces
8 Do we really need smart cities
9 Brands rules our lives
10 Do we need gender based reservations in B-Schools ?
11 MOOCS - just a passing fad or a serious challenge to universities across the globe
12 Swachh Bharat Mission is a success
13 India needs a uniform civil code
14 Slow and steady wins the race ?
15 Sensex: Sensitivity has nothing to do with economy and society
16 Should national anthem be played in cinema halls?
17 Commercialisation of education: good or bad
18 CSR is nothing but glorified PR
19 Should e-gaming be a Olmpic sport ?
20 Is GDP a good indicator of growth
21 Majoritarianism and its perils
22 Should smartphones be banned in educational institutes
23 Can Globalization & Jingoism co-exist ?
24 Global bodies like UN & WTO are losing their relevance
25 Celebrity endorsements : Are they effective ?
26 Should Air India be privatised?

109