The News Editorial Analysis 7th Jan 2022

Govt. says ₹8 lakh EWS cap derived after study

SC probes Centre on the reasoning behind income limit.

The Supreme Court on Thursday wondered how the Union government came up with the ₹8 lakh annual income limit within just three days of introducing 10% reservation for the economically weaker sections (EWS) of society.

The Constitution (One Hundred and Third) Amendment Act introducing EWS quota came into force on January 14, 2019. On January 17 the same year, the government released an official memorandum (OM) informing that families earning a gross annual income below ₹8 lakh would be identified as EWS for benefit of reservation.

“The amendment came on January 14. On January 17, the OM comes… So the whole process of consultation, discussion, etc, with Social Justice Ministry was completed and everything was done by January 17?” Justice D.Y. Chandrachud asked Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta. Mr. Mehta said the ₹8 lakh limit was derived after study. “It was not an unstudied position,” the top law officer maintained.

The Bench, including Justice A.S. Bopanna, then pointed to an affidavit filed by the government last October, which revealed that the ₹8 lakh threshold was “largely based” on the criterion to identify the creamy layer in OBC quota.

The court said this earlier position in October was quite contrary to the later conclusions of the government’s own expert committee, headed by former Finance Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey, in December.

The committee, formed by the government to review the ₹8 lakh limit, in its report on December 31, maintained that the ₹8 lakh threshold fixed to identify EWS was not a “mechanical adoption” of the OBC creamy layer cut-off.JusticeChandrachud remarked, “The review committee seems to be just trying to justify the ₹8 lakh limit post facto… They have done their best to justify the ₹8 lakh limit.”JusticeChandrachud, however, moments before rising for the day, said it was in national interest that NEET counselling should continue. “In national interest, counselling has to begin,” he stated.The court shared the concern raised by lawyers that the country needed specialist doctors to combat the prolonged public health crisis posed by the pandemic. The court has listed the case for pronouncement of orders at 10.30 a.m. on January 7.In his arguments for the Centre, Mr. Mehta asked whether anybody with “common sense” would think ₹8 lakh was an “irrational” income limit for determining EWS.He said EWS had “stricter criterion” and considered the gross annual income of the family and not just that of the individual seeking reservation benefits. He referred to the Pandey committee report, which said the ₹8 lakh criterion struck a “fine balance” between over-inclusion and inclusion errors.The report has said, “The figure ensures that most low-income people who are not required to pay income tax are not excluded and are covered in EWS and at the same time it should not be so high that it becomes over-inclusive by including many incomes tax-paying middle- and high-income families into EWS”.Mr. Mehta said the constitutional term “economically weaker” did not mean those below the poverty line, but people in the low-income groups, who may have small savings, but not enough to reap the benefits of a good higher education in the best universities like others.

TD, Ramakrishna Mission lose FCRA nod

They are among the 6,000 NGOs whose registration was not renewed by Centre

The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), the Ramakrishna Mission, and the Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust (SSST) in Shirdi are among the 6,000 NGOs that did not have their FCRA registration renewed by the Union Home Ministry recently.

The Tirupati Venkateswara temple in Andhra Pradesh and the Ramakrishna Mission are registered as Hindu religious organisations, while the SSST falls under the “religious (others)” category of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA).

Registered associations can receive foreign contributions for social, educational, religious, economic and cultural purposes.

The FCRA registration is mandatory for receiving foreign funds.

The Ministry did not comment on why the FCRA registration of the three religious associations had not been renewed.

A few days ago, after reports emerged that the FCRA registration of Missionaries of Charity, set up by Nobel laureate Mother Teresa, had not been renewed, the Ministry issued a statement on December 27, saying that it had refused to renew the organisation’s registration as “some adverse inputs were noticed”. The Ministry asserted in an order on December 31 that NGOs that had had their request for renewal turned down would not be eligible to either receive or utilise the foreign contributions to their designated bank accounts.

According to annual returns filed by the TTD on December 22, 2021, for the financial year 2020-21, it had ₹13.4 crore in its designated foreign contribution bank account, of which ₹13.3 crore had been donated by foreign pilgrims who visited the temple.

The SSST filed its annual returns on December 31, stating that it had more than ₹5 crore in its foreign contribution account.

The Ramakrishna Mission registered in Maharashtra filed its returns in July, declaring that it had ₹1.3 crore in its designated foreign contribution bank account. The FCRA registration of other Ramakrishna Mission ashrams registered in West Bengal, Bihar and other parts of the country has also not been renewed.

A senior government official said the NGOs that have not had their FCRA registration renewed may re-apply.The registration of thousands of NGOs was up for renewal in 2020-21, and the earlier deadline of December 31, 2021 has been extended to March 31, 2022 as many applications are pending. An official said last week that the Ministry had declined to renew the FCRA registration of 179 NGOs, while 5,789 associations did not apply for a renewal before the December 31 deadline. The extended deadline will only apply to the NGOs that had applied before December 31 and their application had not been declined so far.

The politics of a Minimum Support Price

Facilitating a bargain between wealth accumulators and welfare seekers seems to have become the key function of politics

A new election season is around. Five States (Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa and Punjab) will elect new Assemblies and Chief Ministers in the coming weeks. Parties are wooing voters with dazzling new promises. The Aam Aadmi Party leader, Arvind Kejriwal, is offering ₹1,000 a month to all adult women (above age 18); the Shiromani Akali Dal’s offer is ₹2,000 for poor women, which is matched by the Congress, in Punjab. The Samajwadi Party is promising 300 units of free electricity in Uttar Pradesh, and the Centre has extended its free foodgrain programme (the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, or PMGKAY), across the country, until March 2022.

More such measures and promises can be expected as campaigning picks up. Campaigns are made of pageantry around big projects and enumeration of welfare schemes. This emphasis on redistribution corresponds with a de-emphasis on job creation in political rhetoric, the promises of which still exist but only as feeble addendums. There is a synchronous celebration of ‘job creators,’ often juxtaposed with ‘job seekers,’ by governments that subtly absolve themselves. If you cannot find a job, why not create a few?

A new constituency

In fact, the current wave of competitive welfarism disconnects Indian politics from the middle class that believed in, and cheerfully ushered in, a majoritarianism-market compact. A section of them may be frustrated over stunted material progress as they were during the last years of the United Progressive Alliance government. But politics is now being litigated lower down in the social and economic ladder by those who are desperate to get by. The slew of welfare schemes, which often includes a few hundred rupees in cash doles, creates a massive political constituency. Politics seems less about aspiration and more about desperation.

It is easy to blame individual leaders or natural disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic for this knot. The mismanagement and the incompetence of individual leaders may aggravate it, but the fundamental puzzle is the friction between the dictates of democratic politics and market-driven development. The divergence between the principles of market economy and imperatives of a democratic society is the core dilemma of liberalism. The entrenched liberal notion that market and democracy are integral to each other is being questioned by leaders of both.

For instance, in the United States, popular leader Bernie Sanders calls himself a ‘democratic socialist’, while Peter Thiel, one of its reigning capitalist moguls, fears that democracy will stall human progress and derail order. The trajectory of technological and economic progress is making this divergence increasingly stark.

A conflict arises

More than the question of inequality, the conflict between the political and economic orders arises out of the shrinking ability of the latter to fulfil the basic aspirations of the masses through market mechanisms. The interests of the consumer and the investor conflicts with those of the citizen and the labour, Robert Reich points out in Supercapitalism. A politician facing the electorate has to create and protect jobs and build public amenities; incentives for job creation, if at all, are indirect and distant for the investor, who is ever looking for reducing the workforce or moving work to cheaper places and workers. Politicians are trying to restrict the mobility of capital through measures such as global minimum tax, etc. Capitalism, meanwhile, is trying to escape the planet itself, and in the interim, to free itself from state authority through technological routes such as cryptocurrencies.

‘Jobless growth’ is accepted

As the composition of the economy shifts in favour of activities that require little labour, the same amount of growth creates fewer jobs. More than a decade ago, ‘jobless growth’ had become a talking point in Indian political debates. Nobody talks about it today — not because the problem has been resolved but because everyone has accepted it as the normal. The downward trickle has become feeble. Politicians respond to this reality. For instance, Mr. Kejriwal told a gathering in Uttarakhand on Monday that he would create lakhs of jobs once in power, but it could take time. “…in the interim, we will pay ₹5,000 to every unemployed person.” A universal basic income is an idea that is now being discussed globally. Barons such as Elon Musk and Bill Gates support a universal basic income for the entire population in the days to come.

Welfarism, redistribution

This is turning the ‘there is no free lunch’ bombast (which politicians and business leaders mouthed in unison in the early 1990s) on its head. Subsidies were then rolled back, and people were asked to compete for sustenance and success. Pushed to the wall, they revolted and voted out government after government. Welfarism returned, and how. Not only that, the Mahatma Gandhi Employment Guarantee Act — a rural employment scheme that provides 100 days of employment/jobs a year at a minimum wage to anyone who asks for it — survived, and grew by four times between 2014 and now. It was ridiculed as a monument to the failure of the predecessor regime but today, it is the lifeline of the current regime, alongside add-ons such as free cooking gas and cash incentives to farmers. Welfarism is secular — all parties, from the Bharatiya Janata Party to the CPI(M); and all leaders, from Pinarayi Vijayan (Kerala) to Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal) to Prime Minister Narendra Modi are looking for new opportunities for compassion signalling. In Kerala, the free ration kit, last Onam, came with a sweet and vermicelli among its items. In other places, free laptops, bicycles and smartphones seem to be a part of the welfare mix.

Redistribution has become critical for the survival of democratic politics everywhere — the United States or India. Smarter politicians know that men do not live by bread alone. So, several State governments in India now offer free pilgrimages! Far from outraging over the Haj subsidy, voters now have a catalogue of free pilgrimages to choose from, suitable for a range of beliefs and superstitions. A politician’s success is figuring out the minimum price to be paid to garner sufficient voter support to hold on to power, and the fundamentals of the social and the economic order intact. The threshold is not very high. Two-thirds of voters voted in India and the U.S. in their latest elections; 37% voted for the current regime in India; in the U.S., the regime has the support of more than half, which is more due to the country’s two-party system than its popularity. Political stability in democratic societies is contingent on the continuing confidence of the threshold population in the system.

More generosity now

Welfare schemes have created significant development outcomes in the long and short term, as experience from many Indian States over the decades shows. They were seen as the deepening of democracy. When welfare is weaponised to mute substantive political questions, its impact on democracy is less reassuring. The current generation of welfare schemes do not come as a right of citizens but as the generosity of the individual leader. Similarly, while promotion of entrepreneurship by the government is laudable, turning it into a call to the people to create jobs rather than seek them, redefines aspiration as an individual burden and responsibility.

Facilitating a bargain between wealth accumulators and welfare seekers appears to have become the primary function of politics. But it is unclear whether this will remain an infinitely sustainable lubricant that mitigates the fundamental friction, and whether the state might fall back on coercion. For now, there will be free lunches, and suppers for a song. Or a vote.

Is it right to increase the age of marriage of women to 21?

Empowerment of women through education should be a priority irrespective of the law

In the recent session of Parliament, the government introduced the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021, to raise the age of marriage for women from 18 years to 21 years. After Opposition MPs demanded greater scrutiny of the Bill, it was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports. The government says the proposed law will ensure equal chance for women in higher education and access to jobs and help improve maternal mortality rate and nutrition levels. In a conversation moderated by Jagriti Chandra, Mary E. John and NoorjehanSafia Niaz discuss whether the Bill is welcome. Edited excerpts:

Do you welcome the move to raise the age of marriage for women to 21 years in order to make it equal to the age of marriage for men?

Mary E. John: The minimum age of marriage could well be the same as the age of majority, which is 18 years. If the question of equality is so critical, the age of marriage for boys should also be 18 years. But we really need to put focus on what should be the minimum age, not the right age. When I look at the government’s pronouncements, the talk is about the right age for marriage. There has almost never been a reference to a minimum age. The law should prescribe a minimum age and I think 18 years is as good as any. It should continue to be a legal presumption, and there is no reason, therefore, to raise it to 21 years.

NoorjehanSafia Niaz: The main concern of this law is not so much about equality but to raise the age of marriage for women to 21 years. The law shows the way to society, right? When [the] 18 years [rule] also came in, there was some resentment to that. Whenever a law which is a little ahead of its time comes in, there will be some people who won’t like it. But the job of the law is also to show where we are moving as a society. If you look at urban metro cities, where girls are getting educated, that is one section of society that has moved ahead. And that section of society also needs certain protection by the law. But the issue here is of effective implementation of the law. Unless that improves, we are going to have problems of whether the age of marriage for girls is 18 years or 21 years.

Some Muslim MPs in Parliament have called the Bill an attack on personal laws because it proposes that it will override the personal laws of Muslims, Parsis, Hindus and Christians. It also says that some personal laws will be amended, though the Muslim Personal Law is not one of them. Do you then not see this as an attempt to encroach on religious laws?

NSN: If you have to really use the word ‘encroachment’ for personal laws, I would say that has been happening for the Muslim community for a long time, even before Independence. The British government brought the Shariat Application Act way back in 1937, and two years later, we had the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, which codified the divorce law and gave the right to Muslim women for divorce. Then came the 1986 Act [Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act]. Because we don’t have fully codified laws, we have had piecemeal legislation. In the 1986 Act, which came after the Shah Bano case, Parliament intervened on the demand of these very religious groups who don’t want parliamentary intervention now. The groups asked Parliament to override the Supreme Court judgment, which was in favour of Shah Bano. And then we have the triple talaq legislation where again Muslim women demanded an intervention by the state to end this practice. Look at the Hindu Marriage Act, which was codified in 1955. It includes the Sikhs and the Buddhists, who are religious minorities. So, the state recognises that each community is to be governed by their personal laws and if there are problems with the personal laws, then it steps in. The state has to be there to listen to grievances. The state has to play its role whether you are a majority or a minority. So, I don’t think this is encroachment. And if there’s a progressive law in the country, why should I be deprived of it just because I am a Muslim woman? There are laws for the Hindu community, which includes Sikhs, Buddhists and the Jains who are otherwise a religious minority. All aspects of the personal law such as marriage, divorce and custody are already codified, i.e. passed by Parliament. Christians are governed by their own personal law, and so are the Parsis. But because of the kind of politics that played out at the time of Partition, and the communalisation and the violence that Muslims faced as a minority, the issue of family law reform always took a back seat. The process of codification of laws began in 1937 [for Muslims], and had Partition not happened, I’m sure Muslims would have had a codified law probably earlier than the Hindu community. But after India gained Independence, there was absolutely no movement towards codifying the Muslim family law till Shah Bano went to court demanding maintenance. Then, too, the legislation went against the Supreme Court judgment. So, Muslim women were again deprived of the provisions of Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Of course, later on, with the Danial Latifi judgment, the damage that that law caused was subverted. But the fact remains that this law [1986 Act] was an attempt to get Muslim women out of the ambit of all legislative protections and constitutional safeguards. And till date, we don’t have a codified family law.

We are in the 75th year of Independence and Muslims [constitute] 15% of the population of this country. But Muslims are deprived of the legal security which everybody else has. Our tragedy is that even 18 years as the year of marriage for girls is not fully implemented in the Muslim community. There have been contradictory High Court judgments: while some have held that the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act applies to the Muslim community, others have held that it does not. The Shariat law, which is again not codified, says the age of marriage is puberty or age 15. So, where is the protection even for the 18 years of marriage that everybody else has had for so many years? And that is why we are insisting that within this current Bill, a special mention has to be made that the Muslim community will also come under its ambit. Even if tomorrow 21 years is not implemented and even if the law is as it exists today, it should be made applicable to Muslims. To that extent, an amendment is necessary.

MEJ: Noorjehan has raised very important points about the sharp differences post-Partition which have been the subject of considerable debate in the women’s movement. Let us, therefore, take on board that it is not the same kind of question [for Muslim women]. But I just want to point out that if you look at the data on underage marriage, there is no difference between Hindus and Muslims. There are similar proportions of 26.6% in the National Family Health Survey-4 (2015-2016) data. If anything, there’s a slightly better picture on the part of the Muslims compared to the Hindus. So, the popular conception that Muslims are always backward compared to Hindus is not true here. As far as our underage marriage data goes, the pattern is much the same.

NSN: The Muslim community may be better on some of the parameters that we are discussing but the question is here of legal parity. Why are Muslims not on par with the rest of the citizens? If 18 is the age of marriage for the entire country, why should Muslim women be left behind? If polygamy is not allowed and if Section 494 of the Indian Penal Code governs Christians and Parsis, why should it be not applicable to Muslims as well? How long are Muslim women going to be suffering this, because we have been told time and again that our minority status is in danger. We have the provision of codifying our personal law to bring it on par with the society we are living in, and bring the best of provisions of the Quran. But if we don’t reform, the state will step in. The part of the community [that resists reform] will allow the state to step in.

The Bill says that it aims to reduce maternal mortality rates, improve nutrition indicators and ensure access to education and jobs for women. Will a law help achieve these goals?

MEJ: The claims that are being made that the nutritional status of the mother and child and maternal mortality rates will improve with the increase in the age of marriage simply do not hold up. If you look at higher ages at marriage, you will look at better data sets because higher ages at marriage correspond with better-off people with better health indicators. People who are wealthier marry at later ages. However, if you control for all these factors, and only concentrate on the factor of age, then you find that age plays the least significant role in any of these indicators. Anaemia is not affected by age at marriage and it is the cause for our terrible maternal mortality rates. Similarly, a poorly nourished woman does not become better nourished because she’s being married off three years later. And sex ratio is particularly off because States with the worst sex ratio, such as Punjab and Haryana, have higher-than-average ages at marriage. So, there is a lot of confusion here and the so-called scientific basis that is being put out by the government does not hold up.

NSN: The law is necessary, but it’s not sufficient. If the commercialisation of education continues, how are the poor, especially women and girls, going to access education? If our districts, villages and smaller towns don’t have health facilities, how are women going to access various schemes and programmes? So, these need to simultaneously get addressed.

Many have concerns over the manner in which the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, is implemented and used mostly to criminalise young adults who elope to marry against the wishes of their parents, and have inter-faith or inter-caste marriages.

NSN: I understand there are issues. There are going to be problems. Any law when it comes into being does not play out equally for different sections of society. We are a huge country. We have different economic strata, different religions and caste compositions. And maybe that is where the courts come in and judges decide.

MEJ: Existing studies show that the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act is not being used to stop communities from holding underage marriages. It is being used by parents of a girl who is in a so-called elopement or love marriage that they are opposed to. So, please imagine what will happen tomorrow if the age is raised to 21. These women are not children. By the laws of the land, they are young adults who will find themselves at cross purposes with this new law whereby other adults will be able to render their relationships null and void and leave them in a complete legal limbo if not in a criminalised situation. In Nepal where the age of marriage was recently raised to 20 for both men and women, there are large numbers of young women in shelter homes simply because they’re in this legal limbo. Is this the kind of future we want the law to create for us?

India records over 1 lakh cases again

495 more Omicron infections; T.N., Punjab, Uttar Pradesh among nine States told to ramp up testing

India reported 1,16,836 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, the highest in over 200 days, taking India’s cumulative tally to 3,52,25,699, according to data released by the health bulletins of States and Union Territories. This is the first time in seven months that daily cases have crossed the one lakh mark in the country. Previously, 1,01,209 new cases were registered on June 6, 2021.

On Thursday, Maharashtra reported 36,265 new infections, followed by West Bengal (15,421) and Delhi (15,097). The figures do not include cases from Tripura, Lakshadweep and Ladakh.

Until Thursday morning, the total number of infections detected of the Omicron variant stood at 2,630, with the biggest single-day jump of 495 Omicron cases, according to Union Health Ministry data.

Meanwhile, the Centre has urged nine States and Union Territories to ramp up COVID-19 testing to ensure that infected people do not spread the virus to others.

In a letter to Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Jammu and Kashmir and Bihar, Additional Secretary of Union Health Ministry Arti Ahuja pointed out a considerable decline in COVID-19 testing amid rising cases and positivity rate and termed it a “cause of concern”.

In the absence of sufficient testing, the true level of infection spread in the community would not be revealed, Ms. Ahuja said in her letter dated January 5. States have been asked to review and ensure availability of sufficient stock of testing reagents and kits.

On Thursday, Gujarat recorded 4,213 cases, taking the tally of active cases to 14,346. There are 28 patients on ventilator support. So far, a total of 204 Omicron cases have been reported from the State.

Odisha recorded its first Omicron virus variant-related death on Thursday in Balangir district, where a 45-year-old woman died while under COVID-19 treatment.

Andhra Pradesh reported 547 new infections, the highest single-day tally in the past 71 days. Karnataka reported 5,031 new cases with Bengaluru Urban alone accounting for 4,324 cases.

Kerala reported 4,649 new cases. Fifty more Omicron cases have also been confirmed, taking the total number of Omicron cases detected so far in the State to 280.

In Assam, 844 new cases were detected when 35,562 people were tested for COVID-19. Two new deaths have also been added to the State’s COVID toll. The current test positivity rate is 2.37%.

Arunachal Pradesh reported 32 new COVID-19 cases, nine more than the previous day, with the tally rising to 55,407, a health department official said. Arunachal Pradesh now has 75 active cases.

WHO yet to authorise use of Covaxin among adolescents

Global health agency had approved it for adults on Nov. 3

On December 25, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that adolescents aged 15-17 will be eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine beginning January 3. Two days after the announcement, the Health Ministry issued guidelines for the vaccination programme for teenagers.

While clearly stating that teenagers aged 15 or older will be able to register on Co-WIN, the Ministry emphasised that only Covaxin will be administered to this age group. Indian authorities granted Covaxin an emergency use authorisation (EUA) for use in children aged 12 and above on the same day the Prime Minister made the announcement.

However, the Ministry guidelines wrongly state that Covaxin is the “only vaccine with WHO’s emergency use listing (EUL) for the age-group 15-18”.

On November 3, 2021, the WHO issued an emergency use listing (EUL) for Covaxin for use in adults. The press release of November 3 says that WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE), which formulates vaccine specific policies and recommendations, had on October 5 reviewed Covaxin and “recommended” the vaccine in “all age groups 18 and above”.

On November 3, WHO also took to Twitter to broadcast its decision to include Covaxin in the emergency use listing of COVID-19 vaccines.

In a series of tweets, the WHO reiterated that the expert group had reviewed and recommended the “use of Covaxin in two doses, with a dose interval of four weeks, in all age groups 18 and above”.

A WHO statement issued on November 24 last year once again stressed that Covaxin had not received emergency use listing for use in children. It stated that though Covaxin developed by Bharat Biotech had been approved in India for children of 12-17 years, the vaccine had “not yet received WHO EUL for this age indication”.

Age-specific data

For Covaxin to be approved for children above 12 years to be granted an emergency use listing, Bharat Biotech has to submit manufacturing quality data, clinical and non-clinical data of the vaccine in children above 12 years and labelling details.

Bharat Biotech began the process of seeking WHO’s EUL for Covaxin for use in adults when it submitted its application on July 9, 2021.

Bharat Biotech was repeatedly asked by the WHO to clarify and submit additional data. The vaccine was approved for EUL four months after the application was submitted. Bharat Biotech Chairman and MD Krishna Ella had said “negative publicity” — particularly by the media — led to delay in getting the EUL.

But Bruce Aylward, senior adviser to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was categorical on the reasons for the delay. “Let’s be very clear, the timeline for Emergency Use Listing a vaccine depends 99% on manufacturers — the speed, the completeness with which they can get data to the independent groups that assesses for WHO. We just want to be very, very clear on that point,” he had said.

The WHO’s emergency use listing is a prerequisite for vaccine supply through the COVAX facility; the EUL also allows countries to expedite their own regulatory approval to import and administer COVID-19 vaccines.

The WHO’s emergency use listing procedure is a risk-based procedure for assessing and listing unlicensed vaccines and drugs to expedite the availability of these products to people affected by a public health emergency.

India inks deal to develop oil tank in Lanka

Marking a major milestone in a strategic project in Sri Lanka whose fate has remained uncertain for decades, Indian Oil Corporation subsidiary Lanka IOC, Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and the Government of Sri Lanka on Thursday signed three lease agreements on jointly developing the Trincomalee oil tank farm in eastern Sri Lanka.

The move, which finally firms up India’s role in the project discussed since the time of the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987, follows Cabinet clearance this week.

China’s tensions with Indonesia in North Natuna Sea

By the end of December 2021, the stand-off between Indonesia and China over their respective claims to the waters around the Natuna region became more strident. This is an area of contested claims from the Chinese side that violates the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS); Beijing claims roughly 80% of the maritime spaces in the South China Sea. For Jakarta, the regions extending north of the Natuna island fall under its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which is rightfully recognised by the UNCLOS as Indonesian waters, where the country can carry out exploration of resources. Over the past few months, tensions between Indonesia and China in the territorial waters of this region were clear, as Jakarta has been liaising with international companies to explore its EEZ for resources. Indonesia’s responses have been complex as it has tried to balance its sovereign rights and its economic relations with its bigger neighbour.

The tensions over the region of the Natuna sea became visible nearly a decade ago, after China began to assert its claims to the nine-dash line. As China began to officially state its claims over the South China Sea, the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in November 2015 asked for a clarification on the waters of the Natuna Sea. The Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson’s response stated that Beijing did not have any claims to the Natuna island, leaving the region of Indonesia’s EEZ extending from the island in a state of diplomatic uncertainty and ambiguity. However, Indonesia has repeatedly focused on the importance of UNCLOS and the relevance of adherence to international law as a means of resolving the maritime disputes in the region. In 2015, as part of its response, Indonesia also clearly reiterated that it did not recognise the nine-dash line and that it did not even consider itself a claimant in the South China Sea dispute as it had no claims over the Spratly and Paracel group of islands, which was the core area of contestation. In a defiant stand, Indonesia in 2017 began to identify the region around the Natuna island as the north Natuna Sea.

The more recent tensions exacerbated when the proposal for a joint consortium between two international oil companies went through after findings of a moderate amount of natural gas to the tune of 600 billion cubic feet, of which 45% is in the condensate form that can be marketed, as stated by an article in the Asia Times. The two companies, Harbour Energy and the Russian state-owned enterprise Zarubezhneft have announced this after a successful completion of the evaluation of the regional resources. The two companies have been clear that the appraisals for the exploration have been successfully concluded in the Tuna block, a region within the Indonesian EEZ that is very close to its maritime border with Vietnam. The discovery of nearly 100 million barrels of oil in the region, as reported in Energy Voice, indicates the reasons for the growing presence of Chinese vessels in the region and automatically heightens geopolitical tensions.

Around late August, a Chinese survey vessel and two coast guard boats entered into the Indonesian EEZ, ratcheting up geopolitical tensions between the two countries. This was the first such stand-off in the region around the Tuna block, where the Chinese vessel was mapping the seabed for resources and began to object to the exploration activities by Indonesia. In September, the AUKUS deal went through between the US, UK and Australia, which saw some minor diplomatic stresses between China and Indonesia. This was because the Chinese foreign ministry summoned the Indonesian ambassador and expressed its concerns over the AUKUS deal, pushing Jakarta firmly into a tight corner on the US-China rivalry issue. Given that the nation is neither a member of the AUKUS, nor a party to the South China Sea dispute, this diplomatic pressure by China was clearly misdirected as Jakarta had no leverage on how regional states of ASEAN would respond to the AUKUS. Recently, Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto responded that while AUKUS raised regional concerns of an arms race, it was understandable and needs to be respected.

Indonesia’s response to the incursions have been somewhat muted, which several analysts say is due to the deepening of economic ties between the nation and China. Beijing has become one of the largest investors in infrastructure development in Indonesia, particularly funding the Jakarta-Bandung High Speed Railway Link. This was initially being funded by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), but the project went through several ups and downs, including a cancellation of the proposed railway, finally tipping the balance in favour of China. Beijing has funded $4.5 billion for the railway link, the total cost of which is valued at $8 billion. Indonesia has had to actually resort to using its state budget to address the increase in costs for the project, which has led to concerns. Moreover, China plays a crucial role in the areas of nickel smelting and the production of lithium batteries in Indonesia, leading to an increased economic role. This has led to a more complex diplomatic manoeuvrability for Jakarta, where its bebas dan aktif or free and active foreign policy is tethered on increasing close ties to China, putting Indonesia in a difficult place vis-a-vis its regional leadership role.

The News Editorial Analysis 6th Jan 2022