- Amendments should not downgrade the status of information panels:
Relevance: mains: G.S paper II: policies
Any amendment to a law is bound to be viewed with suspicion if no fundamental need is seen for the changes it proposes. Amendments passed by the Lok Sabha to the Right to Information Act are so obviously unnecessary that naturally many see an ulterior motive. It is difficult not to concur with activists who contend that the amendments pose a threat to the freedom and autonomy of Information Commissions at the Central and State levels. The Central Information Commissioner, the corresponding authorities in the States (State Information Commissioners) and other Information Commissioners at both levels are statutory functionaries vested with the power to review the decisions of public information officers in government departments, institutions and bodies. The amendments propose to modify the status, tenure and conditions of appointment of these Commissioners and empower the Union government to set their tenure and remuneration. While the original law assured incumbents of a fixed five-year term, with 65 as the retirement age, the amendments say the Centre would decide their tenure. In one stroke, the security of tenure of an adjudicating authority, whose mandate is to intervene in favour of information-seekers against powerful regimes and bureaucrats, has been undermined. The original legislation says the salary and terms and conditions of service of the CIC are the same as those of the Chief Election Commissioner, equal in status to a Supreme Court judge. Similarly, the other Information Commissioners at the Central level have the same conditions of service as Election Commissioners. At the State level, the SIC has the same terms and conditions of service as Election Commissioners, while other Information Commissioners are equated with the Chief Secretary of a State.
The government claims its aim is to ‘rationalise’ the status of the authorities. It argues that while the Chief Election Commissioner is a constitutional functionary, the CIC is only a statutory authority. And while the CEC is equal in status to a Supreme Court judge, it would be incongruous for the CIC to enjoy the same status as the CIC’s orders are subject to judicial review by the high courts. This is a fallacious argument as even the Election Commission’s decisions can be reviewed by high courts. Protecting citizens’ right to information is a cause important enough for adjudicating authorities to be vested with high status and security of tenure. Given the extent to which the RTI Act has empowered citizens and helped break the hold of vested interests over the administration, the law has always faced a threat from many in power. The RTI Act was a consensus law and a product of public consultation. The present amendments have not been put to any debate. The government would do well to drop the Bill or at least send it to a parliamentary select committee for deeper scrutiny.
(Source: The Hindu)
- A formula for exclusion:
Relevance: mains: G.S Paper II: Indian Polity
The process of updating the National Register for Citizens in Assam is a momentous exercise with huge implications for India’s constitutional scheme, especially on issues pertaining to the question of citizenship. Citizenship in India is governed by the Constitution and the Citizenship Act, 1955. While both prescribe the means of acquiring citizenship, they do not define it. A person may be a citizen by birth, by descent or by naturalisation. However, citizenship goes beyond just the act of being a citizen — it conflates complex ideas of nationality and ethnicity. Thus, it would be remiss to talk of citizenship without understanding that it is rooted in exclusion.
The Partition was India’s first test of citizenship, leading to large-scale movement of people across the newly-drawn borders, primarily for reasons of religion. India’s geographical location, however, ensures that the movement of people are not isolated incidents. There has been a near constant influx of people into India from neighbouring countries.
The recent Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016 seeks to make drastic changes to the existing immigration norms in India by making it easier for certain immigrants to seek citizenship. After the 2004 amendment, an undocumented migrant in India is defined as anyone entering the country without a valid passport, with forged documents, or one who overstays their visa term. The proposed amendment exempts “persons belonging to minority communities” — Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists and Christians — from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh from being treated as undocumented immigrants. In addition, anyone who fulfills these requirements will now only need six years of ordinary residency — as opposed to 11 presently — to claim citizenship by naturalisation.
Interestingly, the Bill refers to persons belonging to minority communities as “illegal immigrants”, as they would technically be refugees if they are fleeing from persecution. These definitions are important, as conflating these terms would only hamper India’s refugee policy.
While the idea behind this amendment might be noble, the Bill is noteworthy in its exclusions — rather than inclusions. The religious undertone of this exercise is problematic. By explicitly naming the religions getting exemptions, the Bill flouts the fundamental right to equality enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution.
All this is further complicated by the fact that India currently does not have a refugee law in place, it is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol. However, India’s stance on refugees has been, largely, consistent — it has been one of hospitality. It has also been steady since Jawaharlal Nehru said of the Tibetan refugees that they must return to their homeland, once the conflict has been resolved. The proposed law, however, goes against this long-practiced tenet by making the process of availing citizenship much easier.
The exclusion of persecuted Tamils from Sri Lanka is also perplexing. Refugees fleeing the civil war in Sri Lanka did so under the most trying circumstances, where going back was not an option for many. A significant portion of the refugees are Indian Tamils, or Hill Country Tamils. They are descendants of labourers taken from India to work on Sri Lankan plantations. In spite of assurances, these labourers got neither Indian nor Sri Lankan citizenship after the departure of the British. Thus, an Indian origin worker born in colonial Sri Lanka would have lived through the Independence and the birth of two nations but remained stateless at the end of it.
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs justified this exclusion by claiming that Sri Lankan refugees in Tamil Nadu can avail long-term visas (LTVs). However, refugees do not often have the documents required to acquire a long-term visa. A long-term visa would enable an immigrant in the country to open a bank account, get an Aadhaar card, purchase property and move freely within the country. Sri Lankan refugees, however, lack the documentation required for them to be eligible to acquire an LTV.
Nowhere in India was this Bill more vehemently protested than in the Northeast. Assam, in particular, opposed the amendments introduced through this Bill. The Northeast is often seen as an easy point of entry for those wishing to settle in India. For Assam, the bill seems to be in direct contravention to the Assam Accord of 1985. The Accord specified that the names of foreigners who have entered Assam after January 1, 1966, and up to March 24, 1971, shall be struck off the electoral rolls and they would be required to register themselves under the Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939. Any foreigner who has entered the country after March 24, 1971 shall be expelled.
The Bill also brings into question the process of updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC). It will legitimise the citizenship of all those who would have been considered foreigners under the Assam Accord and the NRC.
Other Northeastern states have also registered their protest with respect to the Bill. Mizoram is apprehensive of the influx of Chakma refugees from Bangladesh. Most regional parties, including those from Tripura and Nagaland, have opposed the Bill. The general fear amongst these states is that regional identity will be diluted if this bill becomes an Act. The threat that they may end up being a minority in their own state combined with the anger that they will have to bear the brunt of an influx of refugees has led to protests all over the Northeast.
What is disregarded in this argument, however, is the exclusionary nature of citizenship determination processes like the NRC. Even if there are four million illegal immigrants presently residing in Assam, the State should ideally have formulated a framework for the inclusion of all those already in the country, while simultaneously preventing more refugee influx. The State’s lack of transparency on its future plan of action is troubling. To even consider rendering this substantial populace stateless would go against every humanitarian principle India adheres to.
Though India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, the country is bound by the international principles of humanitarianism. India’s commitment to core international human rights instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, combined with its own constitutional ethics, means that the country cannot be exempt of her duty in protecting asylum seekers. This protection must be extended to all those seeking refuge.
The Citizenship Amendment Bill carries the danger of making discrimination a formal part of India’s refugee policy — that would be a dangerous precedent indeed.
(Source: Indian Express)
- Carpooling is an Idea that needs regulatory intervention in India:
Relevance: mains: G.S paper: II: policies and interventions.
India is moving forward and the people of the country are moving more than ever before. In January 2019 alone, a mind-boggling 1.6 million-plus new vehicles were registered with various regional transport departments across India, averaging close to 51,000 per day. The national daily average in 2018 was close to 55,000. Congestion happens when everyone takes out their vehicles around the same time towards the same destination. Carpooling can contribute to get multitudes of private vehicles off the road during peak hours by simply reducing duplication. It is neither a new idea, nor a path-breaking transport reform, but a concept that every citizen and government would enthusiastically support.
Carpooling can be defined as “a group of people who travel together, especially to work or school, usually in a different or same member’s private car each day”. It is environmentally conscious, socially relevant and economically sustainable. Its benefits are evident, but how come we as urban dwellers have not embraced it in adequate numbers? We do not hear of mass adoptions in any city or success stories and continue to complain about congestion, traffic and pollution in the same breath. Simple as carpooling may sound as an urban solution, it is yet to become a necessary feature of urban life.
In December 2016, a report of a committee on Taxi Policy Guidelines To Promote Urban Mobility, constituted by the ministry of road transport and highways, took recognition of the need for a national level policy intervention to promote shared mobility via private vehicle ownership to reduce congestion and pollution in urban agglomerations. A NITI Aayog report, Transforming India’s Mobility (September 2018), supported carpooling as a concept to be encouraged. Privately-owned vehicles display inherently low asset utilization, often as low as 5%, including the lower utilization of seats in the two-five-seat category of cars. While India innovates on policies encouraging multimodal transport, better last-mile access, enhanced affordability and the democratization of how people move, something needs to be done about making the best use of private cars.
All developed jurisdictions in the world keep tabs on rising congestion, travel time and pollution, wastage of fuel and other factors. Peer-to-peer carpooling is permitted in the US, Singapore, Brazil, Mexico, the UK, South Africa, Australia, France and Germany, among other countries. In the US, the 2012 Highway Act sets standards for “carpools, and real-time ride-sharing projects”. In India, while the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, does not specifically restrict carpooling, it remains in the grey zone when enabled by a third party and when money is involved. Cost-sharing may be perceived as legitimate, but the authorities on ground may possibly interpret the law otherwise.
In our view, carpooling can succeed in India if it is backed by an enabling regulatory environment. The need of the hour is a national level framework that is adopted by all states, or at least by the most congested cities, such as Gurugram, Bengaluru, Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, etc. A carpooling policy framed with necessary checks and balances that address concerns about safety, security, background checks, tracking, etc. and, one that has provisions to prevent misuse and ensure that taxi operators do not suffer, would be the right approach to look at this. Such a policy could offer a fabulous opportunity for technology-based startups to not only compete for users in a new market, but also trigger mass adoption of the concept.
While the “what” of the idea seems clear, when it comes to the “how” of it, regulatory challenges kick in. Regulators would examine it from a safety, security and transport rules standpoint. For a technology-aided model to work, it would not only have to offer a platform for those interested in a car pool to connect with one another, but also get regulatory support.
Regulatory interventions could possibly stipulate a set of conditions for the operation of a car pool. For example, the person offering a car pool service should not offer more than four rides per day; the ride being offered should be incidental to the person’s use of the car, and should be on a fixed route with clarity on the pick-up time, date and location. The charge levied should ideally not exceed the cost incurred for a given ride, and no passenger should be solicited on a road, etc. It is also recommended that if it is not a free service, then such services be offered only through accredited app-based technology providers operating through a digital platform registered with the ministry of road transport and highways, or a state transport department. Such a provider should offer services digitally that connect providers with seekers, and maintain the spirit of carpooling activity by preventing any form of misuse and ensuring transparency and privacy. Such a service may collect a small transaction fee for enabling and maintaining such services, which would be governed by a national policy framework for carpooling.
This is an opportune time to design sustainable and inclusive transport systems in urban India. The use of technology and big data could assist greatly in mapping travel patterns and needs, engaging citizens, and improving the quality and efficiency of transport solutions. Carpooling offers a simple solution to congestion for which a national policy would move us towards the ease of mobility as a core component of the ease of living that a New India aspires for.
(Source: LiveMint)