12 hindustantimes
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The WTO era
is unravelling
India needs to consider a
more strategic trade policy
T
he trade war that would never happen officially
began last week. The US imposed a 25% tariff on $
34 billion worth of Chinese imports. Beijing retali-
ated in a similar manner. Going by the language
of US President Donald Trump and his Chinese
counterpart Xi Jinping,
a few more escalatory rounds seem
more likely than not. Neither side is
wholly in the right. The US rightly argues that China has taken
the international trading system for a ride through hidden subsi-
dies, currency manipulation and, more recently, technology
theft. India’s own experiences with the Great Wall of Chinese
non-tariff trade barriers bear testimony to this fact. China, how-
ever, is right to say that the US trade deficit is fundamentally a
consequence of the chronic savings-investment gap of the Amer-
ican economy. Mr Trump has chosen to wage a trade war with-
out fully understanding the nature of global trade. By choosing
to fire his tariff cannons against almost every other major econ-
omy including India, he has ensured China’s many trading mis-
deeds will be obscured by the fog of economic war.
At one level, India should welcome China’s being called out
for its predatory trade and investment policies. At another, it has
reason to be worried at the economic fallout if the US-China
trade war escalates. Already this is causing a flight to safety by
capital, reducing investment flows into India. A trade war would
slowdown global growth overall, worsening India’s already dis-
mal export numbers. It could also result in other countries rais-
ing protectionist barriers. India, with its weak network of trade
arrangements, would suffer more than most.
India is hardly in a position to give lectures to either the United
States or China. A World Trade Organisation report this month
declared India had imposed more trade restrictive actions than
any other G-20 country in recent months. New Delhi needs to
consider a more strategic trade policy in the backdrop of the slow
unravelling of the WTO-based trading regime. This means being
more aggressive on free trade agreements to guarantee future
market access.
§
Legalising gambling can
help generate revenue
Anymovetoderegulate,however,must
protectthevulnerablesectionsofsociety
S
ince the enforcement agencies have been unable to curb
the spread of illegal gambling in the country, the Law Com-
mission of India has recommended that the government
should consider legalising gambling and betting as a regulated
activity. The commission’s report, submitted to the government
last week, suggests changes in law to regulate gambling and bet-
ting. One of the recommendations says that in keeping with the
changing times, the State should re-examine the ban on gam-
bling . In the State of Bombay vs RMD Chamarbaugwalla case in
1957, the Supreme Court had observed that even Kautilya, cele-
brated for his strategical acumen, wasn’t averse to the State
earning revenue from gambling. For the record, gambling is ille-
gal in India. But large-scale illegal betting continues regardless,
in the process, depriving the State of revenue-earning opportuni-
ties. A good option could be to legalise, regulate and tax the
resultant income. This might help curb illegal syndicates. Regu-
lation of the sector also makes sense if one considers the extent
of illegal gambling in the country. In a 2013 report, the Federation
of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry had said there
was an informal ~300,000 annual betting industry in India.
Recommending linking the betting amount with the player’s
PAN card and Aadhaar card, the law panel has also asked the
government to modify the foreign direct investment policy to
allow FDI in the casino and online gaming industry. Even as
India continues to follow an antiquated British-era statute, the
UK itself has legalised gambling and betting decades ago. Apart
from revenue, legalising and regulating the sector could also
help generate valuable employment.
Still, despite the potential for revenue, any such move must
to be carried out while ensuring that the poor are protected. A
robust regulatory framework governing the sector will ensure
that people do not fall prey to the excesses of gambling.
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§
straightforward
SHASHI SHEKHAR
Behave responsibly on social media
Citizens should not react to anything they
see, hear or read before verifying the facts
T
he government can’t make peo-
ple love me, but it can keep them
from lynching me.’ While vaca-
tioning in Europe’s verdant val-
leys, one of my friends was
reminded of these words by Mar-
tin Luther King Junior. The reason? Time
and again, he was asked in a veiled manner
whether Indians were a nation of rapists and
blood-thirsty people. In response, he nar-
ourtake rated glorious stories right from our ancient
civilization to modern-day economic
progress, to no avail. The reason behind this
humiliation was the report by Thomson Reu-
ters Foundation in which India was ranked
as the most dangerous country in the world
for women. Needless to say, he returned
home to India with a heavy heart.
Now consider the news developments last
week. A man who flaunts his devotion to
Lord Rama on his Twitter bio, threatened a
lady spokesperson of the Congress and
tweeted: “I want to rape your daughter. Send
your daughter to me.” I was shocked when I
read this. How can somebody who calls him-
self a devotee of Ram, write or even harbour
such shameful thoughts? Ram is a symbol of
dignity in Indian culture. Anybody who car-
ries out such a threat on Twitter hasn’t just
betrayed Ram but is also a coward. As soon as
the Mumbai police registered a case against
TIMEOUT
n Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Anil Baijal and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal at Raj
Niwas, New Delhi
SC’s judgment on Delhi:
Defer the grandstanding
It is only when the court gets down to testing cases of
‘difference of opinion’ will we know the lay of the land
MADHAVI
GORADIA DIVAN
T
he Supreme Court’s judgment in the
Government of National Capital Ter-
ritory of Delhi (GNCTD) vs Union of
India must beexamined inthelightof
the constitutional provisions under interpre-
tation, shorn of the politics that surrounds
the case. Governments come and go but the
Constitution and the capital city are here to
stay. Any interpretation of the Constitution
must transcend the trials of time.
The Court was called upon to interpret
Article 239AA of the Constitution, which con-
fers a special status on the National Capital
Territory of Delhi (NCTD). The territory of
India is divided into States and Union Terri-
tories (UTs), and UTs are, quite literally, ‘ter-
ritories of the Union’. The Constitution
devotes a special chapter to UTs, and the 69th
Amendment to the Constitution, which
introduced Article 239AA, places the NCTD
in the most special class among them.
The reasons are obvious: Delhi is the capi-
tal city and the seat of the central govern-
ment. All Indians have a stake in the capital
and residents of the NCTD can claim no
monopoly over it. In fact, to equate Delhi with
any other state in the country and confer on
it ‘statehood’ would diminish its status. The
Supreme Court ruled out statehood for Delhi,
holding that it was “clear as noon day” that
the constitutional scheme did not contem-
plate the status of a state for the NCTD.
The power of the LG stems from a provi-
sion applicable to all UTs. Article 239(1) pro-
vides that “every Union Territory shall be
administered by the President acting…
through an administrator”. This provision is
incorporated into Article 239AA, special to
NCTD, where the ‘administrator’ is the LG.
It is obvious that in the capital city, the tilt
towards the Centre can be only more, not
less, than in other UTs.
The court concluded that the Lieutenant
Governor (LG) is not a titular head, but
rather, an ‘administrator’ as distinct from
the Governor of a State. But in the hybrid
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MANAGING EDITOR: SOUMYA BHATTACHARYA
comment
him, he closed his account and disappeared.
The man has since been arrested. But the
question is, do these irresponsible individu-
als realise the extent of disservice they are
doing to the country’s image?
It isn’t that the targets of these miscreants
are limited to politicians in the Opposition.
External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj
was also in their cross-hairs. In the case relat-
ing to Lucknow’s Tanvi and Anas, while
replying to a tweet, the kind of humiliation
that trolls heaped on her is something even
her enemies won’t agree with. Swaraj has
always acted with dignity in her political
journey. Such vicious attacks on her can
evoke feelings of dismay and shock. The
unfettered flow of such impure thoughts is
like a rainwater drain that cannot discern the
difference between good and bad.
The consequences of such actions can be
enormously destructive. One example of this
is the violence that is being unleashed in dif-
ferent corners of the country. Twenty two
people have lost their lives owing to rumours
in the last two months. Consider this fright-
ening example. Two nature lovers were
roaming in the forests of Assam trying to
record the birdsongs. Suddenly a mob encir-
cled them and began assaulting the two. The
group of people kept addressing them as
child-lifters. They clarified and pleaded
PTI
constitutional scheme for the NCTD, involv-
ing two executives, the Court held that the
LG must act in accordance with the aid and
advice of the Council of Ministers.
Having said that, the ‘aid and advice’ con-
templated in this scheme is different from the
’aid and advice’ that binds the Governor of a
state. This is because the LG is conferred
with the special power to refer matters to the
President when he has a ‘difference of opin-
ion’ with the Council of Ministers.
In an urgent situation, the LG may take
immediate action, pending the President’s
decision. The Court held that this power
should be used sparingly, narrowing it to
matters involving national interest. But the
recognition of this power in matters that
transcend the select subjects over which Par-
liament has the exclusive legislative prerog-
ative, (public order, police, and land) neces-
sarily means that the LG must independently
apply his mind to all decisions of the Council
of Ministers.
Had he been required to act as a rubber
stamp, in no case could there be a ‘difference
of opinion’, as expressly contemplated under
the Constitution. Doubtless, such differences
cannot be a routine affair and must be over
matters worthy of the President’s interven-
tion.
A clue as to where executive power even-
tually vests is a comparison between Article
356 and Article 239AB. When there is a break-
down of constitutional machinery in a state,
the President ‘assumes’ power, while in the
NCTD, the President merely suspends Arti-
cle 239AA. He does not ‘assume’ power,
because it vests in him.
There is some haze over what sort of mat-
ters warrant a reference to the President. It
is only when the court gets down to the prac-
tical task of testing individual cases of ‘differ-
ence of opinion’ will we really know the lay of
the land.
In practice, that might be more complex
than anticipated because in a capital city
even matters that appear routine may
acquire a ‘national’ dimension only because
the situs is the capital city.
The grandstanding over the outcome of
the case ought to be deferred until that exer-
cise is concluded.
Madhavi Goradia Divan is an advocate and was part
of the team that represented the central government
The views expressed are personal
HINDUSTAN TIMES, NEW D ELHI
n S Bhosale mourns the death of her family in
a mob attack, Dhule, July 2 SATISH BATE/HT
showing them their addresses. But the mob
kept assaulting the two till they died. One of
the victims to meet an untimely death was an
engineer with great promise. Incidentally,
hundreds of kilometres away, a similar
dance of death was being enacted in Auran-
gabad, Maharashtra. At both the places, the
reason for the bloodshed was the same:
rumours of child-lifting. In the name of the
safety and well-being of one’s own children,
how can one kill the childrenofothersorturn
their loved ones into orphans? The cycle of
Beyond the borders:
separated by history,
joined by horoscopes
The triumph and tragedies of the families of several
Indian and Pakistani politicians are strangely similar
VINOD
SHARMA
I’
ve often believed the destinies of
Indian and Pakistani politicians
are similarly written. You’d know
what I mean if you study the tri-
umphs and tragedies of the families of
Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
(ZAB).
If that’s distant history, take a look at
fates that befell former Pakistan Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif and former Bihar
chief minister Lalu Yadav. Convicted of
graft, the patriarchs who once ruled the
universe they surveyed, have been elimi-
nated from electoral politics; flames that
gutted their careers leaping closer to their
political heirs and successors.
Almost everyone in Sharif’s immediate
family, including his sons Hassan and
Hussain, are under a cloud. His daughter
Mariam and her husband are co-convicts,
in fact, in the case relating to certain prop-
erties in London for which they have been
sentenced to varying jail terms. The
matching example in Lalu’s larger family
could be the money laundering cases
against Misa Bharti and her spouse.
The Yadav strongman’s popularity
hasn’t waned despite convictions and
incarcerations. It remains to be seen
whether Sharif — who’s to the Pakistani
Punjab what Lalu is to Bihar— will return
home to face that test.
The upcoming polls in Pakistan on July
25 might not be an honest indicator of his
mass base. The process, many believe, has
been rigged to marginalise his faction of
the Pakistan Muslim League.
Quite telling in that context was the
tweet of a Lahore-based newsperson after
the court verdict: What’s the point of hold-
ing elections now? Announce the PM and
get done with it. The allusion in the tweet
was to Imran Khan. His and Arvind Kejri-
wal’s early political scripts were photo-
copied or plagiarised. One can’t say who
stole from whom. Like the Delhi chief min-
ister, the cricketer-turned-politico’s Paki-
stan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) captured popu-
lar imagination and political power in one
state, Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa on the plank
of corruption-free, good governance.
That isn’t all. They were celebrities
before debuting in politics: one an
acclaimed sportsman, the other a Magsay-
ALMOST EVERYONE IN
NAWAZ SHARIF’S FAMILY,
INCLUDING HIS SONS, HASSAN
AND HUSSAIN, ARE UNDER A
CLOUD. THE MATCHING EXAMPLE
IN LALU’S LARGER FAMILY COULD
BE THE MONEY LAUNDERING
CASES AGAINST MISA BHARTI
AND HER SPOUSE
rumours and murders didn’t stop here. Just
the names of the victims, the locations and
the nature of rumours kept changing. This is
the scourge of social media.
Looking at the grim situation, the
Supreme Court was compelled to make
strong remarks against state governments.
The ministry of home affairs also tightened
the screws on the states. Law and justice min-
ister Ravi Shankar Prasad turned the heat on
social media corporations as well. The man-
agers at Twitter said they would adopt a zero-
tolerance policy against trolling, abuse, fake
news and spam on the social media platform.
To begin with, one crore such accounts have
been shut down as on May, 2018. This is an
increase of 214% over last year. The company
spokesperson claims 30 significant changes
have been carried out. As a result, close to
50,000 fake accounts are being detected every
day. The findings are shocking, but they also
tell us how we are becoming victims of the
peddlers of deceptive ideas. The time has
come for citizens who use social media not to
react to anything they see, hear or read
before verifying the facts. Your common
sense can save someone’s life, prevent a
woman’s dignity and play a role in protecting
a nation’s reputation.
So, don’t delay this any longer. There is no
point in keeping quiet and leaving this battle
to the government. You and I will have to take
the initiative, since the victims of these per-
petrators are people like us.
Shashi Shekhar is editor­in­chief, Hindustan
n letters@hindustantimes.com
say award winner.
Imran now appears within striking
range of the PM’s office; Sharif, his arch
rival, felled by his profligate family and
the collective wrath of the civil-military
establishment. The deposed prime minis-
ter’s detractors are aided in full measure
by an overzealous head of the judiciary
who brooks no constitutionally-drawn
jurisdictional boundaries.
Imran doesn’t like being called a Kejri-
wal clone as his anti-graft movement pre-
dates the Aam Aadmi Party. Yet, their
whims, work styles and penchant for the-
atrics show them as separated at birth!
However, there’s a distinction. The once
rebellious PTI chief looks a conformist, a
veritable child of the establishment, while
taking guard for polls slated in the second
half of July. For his part, Kejriwal
remains, in his disregard of hierarchy, the
anarchist that he always was.
ZAB and Indira’s great grandsons too
have experiences to share. Benazir’s son
Bilawal is struggling to revive the Paki-
stan People’s Party (PPP) in the face of an
acute leadership deficit and the party’s
shrinking support base. In India, Rahul’s
task is cut out as much. He also has to
restore the Indian National Congress’s
diminishing expanse.
On either side of the border, detractors
of these fourth-generation politicians are
using innuendoes and insinuations to dent
their charisma. They paint them as
dynasts devoid of political acumen.
In the free-for-all that drives sub-conti-
nental politics, there’s little or no empathy
for their traumatised childhoods, the tra-
gedies they suffered in their growing
years. Their rivals deride and deconstruct
them on a daily basis, knowing well that
they’re the sheet-anchors without whom
their parties would splinter and sink.
The Bhutto name’s identification with
the party ZAB founded is as undeniable as
that of the Congress with the Gandhis. A
testimony to that is the stock war cry of
PPP supporters locally referred to as
jiyalas: “Ye baazi khoon ki baazi hai, ye
baazi tum hi haro ge, har ghar se Bhutto
niklega, tum kitne Bhutto maroge.” (The
slogan is addressed to and taunts the Paki-
stani deep state that ‘stage managed’
ZAB’s hanging. It tells them that they will
lose the bloody battle they have
unleashed: “There will be a Bhutto coming
out of every home. How many Bhuttos will
you kill?”)
The inspiration, as already explained, is
ZAB’s hanging described as ‘judicial mur-
der’ by his daughter, Benazir, who herself
fell to an assassin in 2007. Her brothers —
Shahnawaz and Murtaza — also had died
in mysterious circumstances in the south
of France and in Karachi respectively. The
latter’s wife, Ghinwa, of Lebanese-Syrian
origin, is estranged from other members of
the extended Bhutto family, as is the case
with Sanjay Gandhi’s wife Maneka. Flash-
back the Indian story and you’d remember
that Indira and her elder son, Rajiv, were
assassinated. That was after Sanjay, her
original political heir, died in a mysterious
plane crash.
Fate obviously duplicates horoscopes.
Or is it the other way round?
n vinodsharma@hindustantimes.com
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