CURRENT AFFAIRS (04.06.

2013)
1. Political parties come under ambit of RTI Act In a landmark judgment, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has ruled that political parties come under the ambit of the Right to Information Act. The CIC order said, We have no hesitation in concluding that INC/AICC, BJP, CPI(M), CPI, NCP and BSP have been substantially financed by the Central government and, therefore, they are held to be public authorities under Section 2(h) of the RTI Act. The full bench of the commission, comprising Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra and Information Commissioners M.L. Sharma and Annapurna Dixit, argued: It would be odd to argue that transparency is good for all State organs but not so good for political parties, which, in reality, control all the vital organs of the State. The criticality of the role being played by these political parties in our democratic set-up and the nature of duties performed by them also point towards their public character, bringing them in the ambit of section 2(h). The constitutional and legal provisions discussed herein above also point towards their character as public authorities, the commission held. The order came after activists Subhash Chandra Aggarwal and Anil Bairwal of the Association of Democratic Reforms approached the CIC, requesting that political parties be declared as public authorities. They had asked the six political parties to make available details of voluntary financial contributions received by them and the donors names and addresses. The political parties, with the exception of the CPI, however, refused to give away information, claiming that they do not come under the RTI Act. The commission then directed the presidents and general secretaries of the six political parties to designate CPIOs and the Appellate Authorities at their headquarters in six weeks time. The CPIOs so appointed will respond to the RTI applications extracted in this order in four weeks time. 2. One big step towards peace Secretary John Kerry has demonstrated courage and wisdom in abandoning his predecessors insistence on President Bashar al-Assads departure as a precondition to talks for a political solution to the Syrian crisis, thereby bringing the American position closer to that of Russia and many others, including India. He has to go a step further and drop objection to Irans participation in the Geneva II conference. Iran has more than convincingly established its potential to prolong the conflict; it should be given an opportunity to play a constructive role. When the Arab Spring sprouted some shoots in Syria in the spring of 2011, it was
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immediately seized upon by Israel, the United States and Syrias Sunni neighbours to get rid of the Assad regime the first set of countries to break the TehranDamascus axis and the neighbours to replace a Shia dispensation in Damascus by a Sunni one, however fundamentalist. There was thus congruence a term much in use these days of interests among regional and extra-regional players. Israel & Iran For Israel, the ouster of the regime in Damascus would be of immense benefit. It would greatly weaken Irans clout in the region. Anything that debilitates Iran is of enormous importance to Israel, given the portrayal of Iran as posing an existential threat to the Jewish state. Hizbullah, with its massive arsenal of missiles and rockets which can reach Tel Aviv, will have its lifeline disrupted, if not irreparably breached; one of the main reasons for Israels restraint in dealing with Irans nuclear threat is the capability of Hizbullah to inflict considerable damage to Israel in the event of an Israeli attack on Iran. For Syrias neighbours, it was an opportunity, not to be missed, to tilt the regional sectarian balance decisively against the Shias. The loss of the Alawite regime would be a huge psychological blow to Shias and an equal boost to Sunnis everywhere. For that very reason, the two Shia regimes in the region, Iran and Iraq, were always expected to do their utmost to send succour to the Assad regime. The Hizbullah, which has everything to lose in the event of Mr. Assads fall has, unsurprisingly, decided to jump into the fray. The Shia-Sunni sectarian divide, ever present but significantly reignited since the American invasion of Iraq in March 2003, has attained a level of intensity which will be extremely difficult to contain in the years ahead. All of Syrias neighbours, including Israel, have become involved, and not necessarily against their wishes. These developments, including the very real possibility of hard line Islamist groups gaining power in Damascus in the post-Assad scenario, were easily anticipatable, and were anticipated by this writer and many others. But the temptation to get rid of Mr. Assad was so great that any price was worth it, including the contingency of having to live with an Islamist government in Damascus. No doubt, the West likewise knew how events would unfold, though now it would like us to believe that things have not turned out as per its calculations. The most inexcusable mistake the western countries made was to assume that the Assad regime would fall within weeks of the beginning of the protests. Was this wishful thinking? Or, were they victims of their own propaganda? The Russian decision to send missiles and other military equipment to Syria should not have surprised anyone. Several Sunni states have been openly arming the rebels since almost the beginning, with
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the approval of the international community; why should the Russian action to help the other side in the civil war be treated differently? Civil wars have always attracted external players to back opposing sides; why should Syria be an exception? It did not call for great analytical skill to recognise that making diplomatic initiatives conditional on the prior departure of Mr. Assad was never going to work. The rebels could be excused for sticking to this line, since their strategy was to get the West more actively engaged on their side, such as by enforcing a no-fly zone, sending material and even men to the war zones, etc. (This was exactly the strategy of the Bosnian Muslims during the Bosnian civil war.) Syrias Sunni neighbours also were not prepared to countenance the idea of talks with the Damascus regime for sectarian reasons. But if the concern of other external players with the huge loss of lives in Syria was genuine, they had every reason not to insist on the precondition for Mr. Assads departure, as well as to persuade the rebels and their regional supporters not to insist on it. Use of nerve gas Carla del Ponte, member of the U.N. commission of inquiry on Syria, said a few weeks ago that there was strong, concrete suspicion that the rebels had used nerve gas sarin. The western countries were understandably disappointed by the statement of Ms del Ponte and largely ignored it; had she said the same about the Assad regime, the uproar, and clamour for strong action against the regime by the U.S., whose President had repeatedly said that the use of this weapon would be a game changer, can easily be imagined. This is merely to point out the obvious and not to criticise anyone of practising double standards, since every country is guilty of it sometime or the other. There is a civil war within civil war in Syria. The Grand Coalition, cobbled together at the command of the former Secretary of State, was never going to present a unified and effective leadership. Various militia groups are fighting among themselves. Mr. Assad, who is enjoying relative military advantage at present, is making belligerent statements. He should know that great powers do not blink for a moment before deciding to reverse their positions; they really do not have permanent friends. The Lavrov-Kerry call for Geneva II offers the only realistic chance to work for a political settlement, since it leaves open the possibility for both principal Syrian parties to participate. The difficulty is more on the rebel side, since there are nearly 150 rebel groups involved in the civil war, the most effective and disciplined of which are diehard islamists and al Qaeda-affiliated. The Syrian national coalition is a house divided, with different factions unable to reach a consensus on whether and who should participate in Geneva. The hardliners are insisting on prior departure of Mr. Assad, which even the U.S. has wisely decided not to insist on. Secretary Kerry is making
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strenuous effort to persuade the coalition to attend Geneva. The Damascus regime has already indicated its willingness to do so. Refusal by the rebels will give an enormous political advantage to the regime as well as to Russia and Iran. The bitter pill The rebels are hesitating because as of present, the regime has gained an upper hand in the fighting; no one wants to negotiate from a position of weakness. On balance, the coalition can be expected to swallow the bitter pill and decide to go to Geneva for one simple reason. If it does not, it will forfeit the possibility of getting enhanced military assistance. If it can demonstrate in Geneva the skill to put the blame for the likely failure of the talks on the regime, it will have a far better prospect of benefiting from the European decision to lift the arms embargo and Americans willing to supply lethal equipment. Zvi Barel, an Israeli expert on such matters, wrote recently: the Syrian civil war is likely to continue for years and lead to violent spillovers to neighbouring countries the initiative to determine when and if to set off the regional powder keg has fallen into Assads hands. This is the reason, Barel suggests, the U.S. has agreed to leave Mr. Assad in power as long as negotiations will be conducted with the rebels. If Geneva II happens, India should ask to be invited. Our participation would be in line with our official line that the solution should be political and Syrian owned. We will be in good company and we would be seen to be active in a region where we have vital interests.Geneva II, in which both principal parties to the Syrian conflict can participate, offers the only realistic opportunity to work for a political settlement 3. A race towards climate catastrophe When Brian Lara scored a scintillating 400 not out in Antigua in April 2004, it seemed his score would remain unchallenged for the foreseeable future. But we now have another player on the scene who has scored 400, and threatens to go past that number effortlessly carbon dioxide (CO{-2}); CO{-2}levels in the atmosphere touched 400 parts per million (ppm) on May 9. Its symbolic significance is huge, its actual import is even bigger, for three reasons. Impact on life cycles One, the recent pace at which CO{-2}levels have been rising to reach 400 ppm. When Charles Keeling [the worlds leading authority on atmospheric greenhouse gas accumulation and climate science pioneer] began measuring atmospheric CO{2}in March 1958, and through the 1960s, CO{-2}emissions were found to be rising at a little over half a ppm a year. The world economy was at a much lower
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level than today notwithstanding post-War growth, and carbon emissions were commensurately lower. By the late 1990s this had changed, spurred primarily, but not exclusively, by the shifting of manufacturing to China, and capitalisms desire to cut costs of energy inputs and labour. CO{-2}rise in the first decade of this century made the collective jaw of climate scientists drop. Despite the world economic crisis since 2007, annual carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have been rising in recent years, to 32 billion tonnes (plus another four billion tonnes from deforestation and even more of other gases). Eight billion tonnes of CO{-2}in the atmosphere equals 1 ppm. So even though the Earth absorbs is being forced to absorb twice as much CO{-2}(roughly 17-18 billion tonnes a year currently) as it used to 50 years ago, atmospheric CO{-2}levels have been galloping three times as fast, at a little over two ppm a year for the last decade. This is 20,000 times the long-term natural rate at which carbon dioxide has gone into and out of the atmosphere as part of the carbon cycle. A consequence, usually rendered invisible as we tend to be so anthropocentric, is the oceans getting more acidic, with harmful effects on corals and some marine species. This pace of emissions and consequent warming is also making it increasingly difficult for ecosystems and species to adapt. A metasurvey by Prof. Camille Parmesan [University of Texas, Austin] of 866 published studies reported species across the world struggling to cope with disruptions in the life cycles of predators and prey, of insect pollinators and flowering plants. Birds are laying their first eggs earlier. As their habitat gets warmer, other species are trying to move away from the Equator or climb higher. Consequently, mountaintop and polar species have suffered contractions in their range or been the first groups in which whole species have gone extinct due to recent climate change. Two, as we reach 400 ppm and beyond, we are going farther away from safe levels of CO{-2}. Albeit a minority view, but a growing one, safe has been deemed as 350 ppm or lower. In its first articulation in 2008, [leading climate scientist] James Hansen and others wrote that if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, CO{ -2}will need to be reduced to at most 350 ppm, but likely less than that (Target Atmospheric CO{-2}: Where Should Humanity Aim?, The Open Atmospheric Science Journal , 2008, 2, pp. 217-31). This paper provides the intellectual basis for the worldwide campaign to reduce CO{-2}, headed by the organisation, 350.org. Temperature regulator Three, the influence of CO{-2}levels on the Earths temperatures and hence climate over the past 50 million years should give us pause. In The Long Thaw
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(Princeton 2009), Professor David Archer, who works on the global carbon cycle at the University of Chicago, writes: The similarity between CO{-2}and temperature in [the] Antarctica is jaw-dropping, a causal link he says thats even stronger than that between smoking and lung cancer, kind of a gold standard in the medical world. Falling CO{-2}levels contributed to the formation of ice caps on the Antarctic 34 million years ago. As CO{-2}levels fell further, to roughly 240 ppm three million years ago, temperatures fell in their wake sufficiently for ice to form in the Arctic. Thats why Arctic ice is now the first to go. I have not come across any work on the potential impact of ice-free Arctic summers on Indias climate, but you can bet your last rupee they will be considerable. CO{-2}was also one of two big factors in the Earth moving in and out of Ice Age glacials over the past 2.5 million years. It is this regulator of the Earths temperature that we have been shortsightedly fiddling with, and pushed beyond the realms of human experience. We dont want to go much beyond 400 ppm. CO{-2}has one quality of the other great batsman of the last 25 years longevity. A significant portion of CO{-2}emitted remains in the atmosphere for several millennia. Climate change is also largely irreversible for a thousand years after emissions stop. The Earth is now in uncharted territory as atmospheric carbon dioxide has shot past the 400 ppm mark. There is no more room for manoeuvre 4. He put India on the open software map Atul Chitnis, technology expert and founder of one of Indias earliest Linux technology conferences, FOSS.in, insisted that Open Source was not philosophy, ideology or politics, but simply about technology and hacking. His passing in Bangalore, at 51, on Monday of intestinal cancer brought tributes for his role in making Linux popular for a range of users: from the military to the small entrepreneur. The Berlin-born technologist, who grew up in Belgaum, Karnataka, was a passionate advocate of open source software, and inspired scores of Linux enthusiasts. His lasting achievement was to convince PC Quest magazine to carry the first ever Linux distribution in India on its cover CD in 1996. This, for most Indians, was their first introduction to Linux. Its easy to underestimate the value of this, said Kiran Jonalagadda, founder of HasGeek in Bangalore. The Linux distribution was put out there, for people to use, and the cover story offered a detailed guide on installing it. This was the first time users got to know about Linux, as something that wasnt just being worked on by geeks in the U.S. He also wrote passionately about it from operating systems to setting up mail servers. As a columnist and consulting editor with PC Quest through the 1990s, Chitnis witnessed a time when India was still finding its way in the digital space, and home users were slowly logging on. Prasanto K. Roy, who worked with him at PC Quest
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,calls him a super-guru. The entire project, where the magazine gave away Linux distribution package CDs once a year, was driven by him. His biggest contribution was that he was keen on presenting technology and technology literature in as simple and user-friendly a manner as possible. FOSS.in What he wrote on Linux, on modems and BBS (bulletin board system) was very popular. A lot of it became the biggest source of information and reference material for those who were trying to set up anything in that era. Chitnis was a key member of the Bangalore Linux Users Group, which organised offline meets in early 1999. These passionately organised events laid the foundation for Linux Bangalore in 2001 later renamed FOSS.in a well-attended technology conference which turned 10 in 2010. Talk is cheap. Show me the code, was Chitnis refrain to friends and adversaries. He was quoting Linus Torvalds. In a 2009 interview, he told The Hindu that the biggest achievement of FOSS.in (for Free and Open Source Software) was that it was able to change Indias image from being a mere consumer of software to a producer. In his last Tweet, posted two days ago, he randomly mentions Pink Floyds Shine on you crazy diamond, a tribute song written by the band members to their former mate Syd Barret. Music lover, amateur musician and a part of a Bangalore-based internet radio station, Chitnis leaves behind a young legacy of software activism. FOSS.in founder ensured that Linux reached a wide audience, enthusing professional and amateur users 5. Bank aspirants get more time to set up holding company Will provide sufficient time for promoters to comply with various stipulations The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), on Monday, said that it had decided to extend the validity period of the in-principle approval for setting up of the Non-Operative Financial Holding Company (NOFHC) from one year to 18 months. It is expected that this would provide sufficient time for the promoters/promoter group to comply with the various stipulations in the guidelines and the terms and conditions that would be set out while granting the in-principle approvals to successful applicants, said RBI while issuing clarifications to queries on new banking licenses. The RBI had released guidelines for licensing of new banks in the private sector last February . The queries received from applicants brought out several complex issues pertaining to the re-organisation of the existing corporate structure, restructuring of businesses and meeting the regulatory requirements.
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The RBI further said that NOFHC is to be wholly-owned by the promoters or promoter group and it cannot be a listed company. If the promoter group, which has the financial services company listed or otherwise, wishes to set up a bank, it must transfer all its regulated financial services business to a separate company and transfer the shareholding in such companies to the NOFHC. After it was transferred, the regulated financial services business will cease to be a financial services company and it can set up a NOFHC provided the public shareholding in it is not less than 51 per cent, said RBI. RBI also said that if a housing finance company plans to have an NOFHC, the lending activities must be conducted from inside the bank. Therefore, RBI said the housing finance activity of the HFC should be transferred to the bank under the NOFHC. The financial sector regulated entity which holds the HFC substantially will have to come under the NOFHC. On rural branches PTI reports: The RBI sought to allay apprehensions over the lack of level playing field on issues such as rural branch presence and foreign holdings between the existing lenders and the new ones who are to be granted licences. Replying to a specific query on the lack of level playing due to the insistence on having 25 per cent presence in rural areas, the RBI said all the incremental branches by the existing players are opened in the same proportion. With a view to enhancing financial inclusion, the conditions relating to the branch network are specifically prescribed at 25 per cent for unbanked rural centres... this norm has been extended to the existing banks also and they are required to comply with this stipulation while opening new branches, the regulator said. To a query on ceiling of 49 per cent equity for the first five years on foreign holding, the RBI said it has been done to encourage more domestic investors getting in. After expiry of five years, the aggregate foreign shareholding in the bank would be allowed as per the extant FDI policy, the RBI said in the over 160-pages clarifications it issued on Monday. The central bank also clarified that the new banks will have to abide by the existing requirements on the cash reserve ratio or the ratio deposits to be parked with the RBI, the government bond holding or statutory liquidity ratio and the priority sector lending requirements, which have been kept at par with an existing lender. There will no regulatory forbearance in any of the matters, it said. It said non-bank lenders (NBFCs) can convert their presence in tier-II to tier-VI cities into bank branches once they are selected to enter the fray.

However, for lucrative Tier-I cities, the Reserve Bank said, the conversion can be done, but would be deducted from the particular applicant NBFCs (non bank finance company) quota of Tier-I branches. All NBFC branches in Tier-1 centres which would carry out banking business may be permitted to be converted into bank branches and the excess over the entitled number of Tier-1 branches would be adjusted against the future entitlements of the new bank within a maximum three years from the date of commencement of business by the bank, it said. The RBI added that the branches of NBFCs and the bank should be distinct and separate. Additionally, once a NBFC branch is converted into a bank branch, it cannot conduct business of the NBFC, it added. The Reserve Bank explained that the new entrants have been disallowed getting into newer areas for three years because it wants them to get on sound footing before diversification.