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VOL14

GIST OF THE HINDU

THE HINDU
FIXED TENURE FOR, BUREAUCRATS, SC
DIRECTED CENTRE & STATES
To insulate the bureaucracy from political
interference and to put an end to frequent transfers
of civil servants by political bosses, the Supreme
Court on Thursday directed the Centre and the
States to set up a Civil Services Board (CSB) for the
management of transfers, postings, inquiries, process
of promotion, reward, punishment and disciplinary
matters.
A Bench of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and
Pinaki Chandra Ghose, giving a series of directions
while disposing of a public interest writ petition
filed by former Union Cabinet Secretar y T.S.R.
Subramanian; former CECs T.S. Krishnamurthy and
N. Gopalaswami; former Indian Ambassador to the
U.S. Abid Hussain; former CBI Director Joginder
Singh; former Manipur Governor Ved Prakash
Marwah and 77 others also said bureaucrats
should not act on verbal orders given by politicians
and suggested a fixed tenure for them.
Writing the judgment, Mr. Justice
Radhakrishnan said the CSB, consisting of high
ranking service officers, who are experts in their
respective fields, with the Cabinet Secretary at the
Centre and Chief Secretary at the State level, could
be a better alternative (till the Parliament enacts a
law), to guide and advise the State government on
all service matters, especially on transfers, postings
and disciplinary action, etc., though their views also
could be overruled, by the political executive, but by
recording reasons, which would ensure good
governance, transparency and accountability in
governmental functions.
The Bench asked Parliament to enact a Civil

Services Act under Article 309 of the Constitution

setting up a CSB, which can guide and advise the
political executive transfer and postings, disciplinary
action, etc. The Bench directed the Centre, State
governments and the Union Territories to constitute
such Boards within three months, if not already
constituted, till the Parliament brings in a proper
Legislation in setting up CSB.
The Bench said We notice, at present the civil
servants are not having stability of tenure,
particularly in the State governments where
transfers and postings are made frequently, at the
whims and fancies of the executive head for political
and other considerations and not in public interest.
The necessity of minimum tenure has been endorsed
and implemented by the Union Government. In fact,
we notice, almost 13 States have accepted the
necessity of a minimum tenure for civil servants.
Fixed minimum tenure would not only enable the
civil servants to achieve their professional targets, but
also help them to function as effective instruments
of public policy.
Deprecating repeated transfers, the Bench said
minimum assured tenure ensures efficient service
delivery and also increased efficiency. The Bench
directed the Centre, States and Union Territories to
issue appropriate directions to secure providing of
minimum tenure of service to various civil servants,
within three months.
IRAN, PAKISTAN GAS PIPELINE PROJECT
While Islamabad maintains that there is no
official word on this yet from Tehran, the project is
already in limbo since it does not have the $2 billion
to complete its share.

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Earlier, in October, the government had

sought financial assistance from Iran as not many
were interested in backing the project given the
threat of U.S. sanctions.
However, official sources said the main issues
were financing and the agreement . The government
at that time had not done its homework and why
such a deal with high prices for gas and huge penalty
clauses was negotiated was not clear, the sources
pointed out. Iran had already offered $500 million
but Islamabad says it would need $2 billion to
complete its share of the project.
Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said
the project was going ahead and construction
contracts were to be signed. He had also dismissed
speculation that U.S. sanctions would affect the
project. The pipeline was discussed with U.S.
President Barack Obama during Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif s visit last week. Iran has already
constructed more than 900 km (out of 1,100 km) of
the pipeline on its territory at a cost of $700 million.
The agreement was slammed by a report by
Sustainable Policy Development Institute (SDPI),
Rethinking Pakistans Energ y Equation: IranPakistan Gas Pipeline.
CURRENCY SWAP PACTS
BETWEEN SIZE MAJOR CENTRAL BANKS
Six major central banks, said they would make
their web of currency swap arrangements
permanent as a prudent liquidity backstop in case
of future global financial strains.
The Bank of Japan, the U.S. Federal Reserve,
the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and
the central banks of Canada and Switzerland will
convert their temporary bilateral liquidity swap
arrangements into standing arrangements that will
remain in place until further notice.
The existing temporary swap arrangements
have helped to ease strains in financial markets and
mitigate their effects on economic conditions, a coordinated statement from the central banks said.
The standing arrangements will continue to serve as
a prudent liquidity backstop.

Global Credit Crunch

Currency swap lines were first introduced

3
nearly six years ago in response to a global
credit crunch that starved banks of liquidity
and threatened to gum up the entire financial
system.
They were an important part of the policy
response to the 2007-09 financial crisis,
keeping a lid on funding costs, which had
spiralled due to fear over counter-party risk.
The arrangements were next due for review
in February.

CIVIL NUCLEAR
AGREEMENTBETWEEN INDIA,AUSTRALIA
India moved a step closer to sourcing uranium
from Australia, the worlds biggest exporter of the
radioactive mineral, with the Foreign Ministers of
both countries agreeing to hold the third round of
talks on a bilateral civil nuclear agreement towards
the end of this month.
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid and
his Australian counterpart Julie Bishop reaffirmed
the commitment of both countries to finalise a Civil
Nuclear Cooperation Agreement to enable the sale
of Australian uranium to India, and announced that
the third round of negotiations would be held here
in the last week of November. They met in Perth on
the margins of a multilateral conference.
The two Ministers also discussed energy
security and the possibility of a Comprehensive
Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) to
strengthen ties. Both sides have laid stress on the
security of sea lanes as India and Australia have
supplemented their coal-based energy ties with a
multibillion dollar contract for sourcing Australian
gas.
Having held one round of dialogue, the two
countries will be finalising dates for the second
interaction on the subject, which will form the
fulcrum of a strategic partnership with the imminent
addition of uranium to ties in coal and hydrocarbons.
Energy security was also discussed during Defence
Minister A.K. Antonys visit to Australia in June this
year when it was decided to hold a bilateral maritime
exercise in 2015.
The two Foreign Ministers confirmed that the
inaugural cybersecurity dialogue would be held in
the first half of 2014 and reiterated the two

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VOL14

countries commitment to work together to address

threats such as terrorism and transnational crime.
Australia also welcomed plans to hold a major
conference of persons of Indian origin, the Pravasi
Bharatiya Divas, in the country in November. India is
now Australias largest source of skilled migrants and
the second largest source of international students.
Australia is pleased with that, Ms. Bishop noted.
KOSOVOS FIRST POST-SECESSION CIVIC
POLLS A TEST FOR ETHNIC SERBS
People in Kosovo choose Mayors and local
Councillors in an election that will test the
countrys fragile relations with Serbia as both
countries seek to move closer to the
European Union.
Serbia has called on Kosovos Serb minority
to participate in the vote organised by
Pristinas ethnic Albanian-dominated
authorities.
Serb participation in Kosovos political life,
including elections, is one of the key elements
of an EU-brokered deal that seeks to settle
the dispute over Kosovo and unlock EU
funds.
It is the first time that voters in all of Kosovo
will choose local Councillors and Mayors since
the country seceded from Serbia in 2008.
Serbia rejects Kosovos independence, as do
many Kosovo Serbs. The United States and
majority of the EU countries have recognised
the new state.
Kosovos Prime Minister said the vote was
crucial for the new country.
In the areas in northern Kosovo, where Serbs
constitute a majority, tensions were high
between Serbs boycotting the vote and those
responding to Belgrades call to participate.
Milic was one of few Serb voters to vote early
on Sunday despite warnings from hard-line
Serbs who fear that the vote will validate
Kosovos secession.
Posters describing participation in elections
as treason have sprung up in the Serbmajority areas, and a number of bomb
attacks have targeted Serb politicians
running for office.

GIST OF THE HINDU

Some 1.8 million voters are entitled to vote
in 39 municipalities and elect mayors and
local councillors. AP

INDIAS HISTORIC MISSION TO MARS

The nations prestigious interplanetary mission
to Mars, 40 crore km away, got off to a flying start
on Tuesday when the Indian Space Research
Organisations trusty Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle
(PSLV-C25) roared off the first launch pad of the
spaceport at Sriharikota at 2.38 p.m. and put the
Mars orbiter precisely into its earth-orbit about 44
minutes later.
This was the first crucial and difficult step in the
ISROs Mars Orbiter Mission. However, the XL
version of the PSLV achieved it with aplomb. The
elliptical orbit achieved was so accurate that against
the predicted perigee of 250 km and an apogee of
23,500 km, it went into an orbit of 246.9 km x
23,566 km.
The spacecraft first going into orbit around the
earth signalled the start of its 300-day voyage to the
Red Planet. If everything goes well during this
complex and challenging journey through deep space,
it will be put into the Mars orbit on September 24,
2014.

Mission Highlights
Two mission highlights are: it was the longest
PSLV mission at 44 minutes the previous missions
lasted about 18 minutes, and this was the silver
jubilee lift-off of the PSLV. Out of the 25 launches,
24 had been successful in a row.
Suspense filled the newly-built Mission Control
Centre (MCC) when there was a long coasting phase
of 25 minutes between the PSLVs third stage
burnout and the fourth stage ignition.
Tension gripped the MCC again for about halfa-minute for it was only 37 seconds after the fourth
stage burnout that the spacecraft was put into orbit.
But all this was as planned.
CAIRN INDIA TO
RAMP UP INVESTMENTS IN KG BASIN
Cairn India is set to step up investment and
activities in Krishna-Godavari basin in a bid to
reposition itself on the east coast.

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VOL14

While the private oil and gas producer is to

pump in about Rs.500 crore in its offshore block,
about $30 million has been planned for drilling deep
exploration wells in Ravva JV field. Also, the
company is expected to submit the commerciality of
an onshore well in KG basin this fiscal.
Though Cairn is looking for both oil and gas
potential in the KG basin, it primarily sees prospects
for gas discovery.
In the KG offshore block, work on which was
held up pending clearance from the Defence Ministry,
the company has been given nod to carry out
exploration in 65 per cent of the block area while the
remaining 35 per cent has been declared as no go
area. Planning and tendering for the acquisition of
3D seismic data is underway.

High Risk, High Value

Cairn India, along with its JV partners in
Ravva, is also working on a project to drill deeper
wells for gas. Cairn has planned to drill two wells. The
drilling for the first well is expected to begin in the
next few weeks. This drilling of high risk, high value
exploration wells will entail an investment of about
$80 million. In the JV, Cairn India holds 22.5 per
cent. The rest is held by Videocon and ONGC.
INDIAS STAND ON CLIMATE CHANGE
What are your thoughts on the view that
historical emissions should not play a role in deciding
responsibilities under the 2015 agreement?
India has consistently held the view that
historical emissions are a very important pillar of
issues of equity under the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC). Even today, those countries, which are
responsible for historical emissions, have not made
any attempt or are not even inclined to make any
attempt to cap their emissions. They only talk about
the world at large working towards the goal of
capping the global temperature rise at two degree
Celsius. So yes, historical emissions and the principle
of Common But Differentiated Responsibility
(CBDR) are non-negotiable pillars of Indian strategy.
What outcome do you foresee from the
Warsaw COP?
The most important milestone would be

climate finance and capitalisation of the Green

Climate Fund (GCF), which has not happened at all.
Importantly, the linkage of the new agreement with
the 1992 UNFCCC is absolutely crucial. Along with
G77+China and Like-Minded Developing Countries
(LMDC), we have also been insisting that current
efforts, which are now underway, should not be an
attempt to rewrite the framework convention but to
forge an agreement under it.
Tell us about the role and fluid nature of
the LMDC group
The flexibility of the group is the strength of
the group. The fact that we are like-minded in terms
of the needs of developing countries is important
and binds us together. I think the best group that will
survive is a group that comes together on issues such
as CBDR, capitalisation of the GCF, no unilateral
trade measures or trade measures disguised as
climate change action, such as the aviation emissions
issue.
What are the complimentary and
supplementary actions outside the UNFCCC?
In the context of pre-2020 complimentary and
supplementary initiatives and actions, we are of the
strong view that any so-called complimentary
initiative should be voluntary, based on country
specific priorities and not prescriptive in any way.
Which brings us to HFCs. What is your
position after the recently concluded Montreal
Protocol meeting?
The UNFCCC is the forum where
HydroFlouroCarbons (HFCs) should be discussed.
The attempt to take it to the Montreal Protocol is
something that has a long way to go because HFCs
are not ozone depleting substances. Therefore even
to talk about bringing it anywhere near the Montreal
Protocol would involve amending the Vienna
Convention at a Conference of Parties, which would
only happen next year. Secondly, once its taken up at
the Montreal Protocol, it can no longer be discussed
at the UNFCCC, which would be very wrong as the
issue of CBDR and equity would then immediately
come into play because they are confined to the
UNFCCC.
In the spirit of carrying forward the climate
change dialogue, we have agreed at the G20 to
discuss this in the task force with the U.S. and this also

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VOL14

figured in the Prime Ministers talks with President

Obama. We have every intention of talking seriously
about this in a way that does not impact our
economy and country. Nineteen countries, including
some G20 countries, have opposed the U.S. and
Micronesia proposal at the recent Montreal Protocol
meeting. These included China, Argentina Brazil,
South Korea and Saudi Arabia. The BASIC too took
the same view at its recent meeting in China.
There are countries that say national
circumstances and capabilities of countries have
changed since the UNFCCC was agreed upon and the
2015 agreement should reflect this when it comes to
apportioning responsibilities. What is your view on
this?
CENTRE TO CHALLENGE
HIGH COURT VERDICT ON CBI FORMATION
A day after the Gauhati High Court quashed
the Union Home Ministrys resolution by
which the Central Bureau of Investigation
was constituted in 1963, Union Law Minister
Kapil Sibal said that the Central government
would file an appeal.
Mr. Sibal told reporters here that the
Department of Personnel and Training
(DoPT) would move the Supreme Court. The
Department discussed the issue with him;
thereafter the decision to appeal was made.
The High Court held that the CBI was neither
an organ nor part of the Delhi Special Police
Establishment (DSPE), therefore it could not
be treated as a police force constituted
under the DSPE Act.
Several legal experts termed the ruling
hyper-technical.
ASEMS
TRADITIONAL FOCUS & INDIAN STAND
India is trying a new approach to reorient the
Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM), whose Foreign
Ministers will hold a two-day meeting at Gurgaon
from Monday.
ASEM has traditionally focussed on political
dialogue rather than on the other two pillars of
economic collaboration and socio-economic
cooperation.

GIST OF THE HINDU

This resulted in mere reiteration of national

positions on many occasions. Indias attempt is to
focus on areas where real progress and actual
deliverables can be achieved. The areas of
cooperation identified by India and other members
are not generic but are relevant to specific needs and
look to build capacity in member-countries,
according to official sources.
Next weeks meeting will be the big gest
international gathering hosted by India this year with
36 Foreign Ministers and 12 Deputy Foreign
Ministers having confirmed their participation.

Bilateral Talks
As is the case with all multilateral conferences,
ASEM will also see several bilaterals on its margins.
The first three major interactions from Indias point
of view will take place on Sunday.
These are a meeting of Foreign Ministers from
Russia, India and China (RIC) followed by separate
meetings between External Affairs Minister Salman
Khurshid and his Russian and Chinese counterparts,
Sergei Lavrov and Wang Yi.
While the RIC interaction will see the Ministers
exchanging notes on regional and international
developments, Mr. Khurshids separate interactions
will touch on the actionable areas identified during
Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs visit to Beijing last
month. The meeting with Mr. Lavrov had to be
cancelled due to a change in his flight timing.
U.S. TO OPPOSE
MECHANISM TO FUND CLIMATE
CHANGE ADAPTATION IN POOR NATIONS
The U.S., according to the paper, wants a 2015
climate agreement where no country is forced to take
higher emission reduction pledges than the ones they
initially volunteer. It has informed its diplomats to
keep pushing the line with other countries that the
U.S. was doing enough domestically on the climate
change front and these were priorities for President
Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry.
The cabled message, drafted by senior state
department officials, sets not only the content for
what is to be done internally by the U.S. delegation
at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) but also how the diplomats

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GIST OF THE HINDU

VOL14

should posture publicly to help the delegation that

would negotiate at Warsaw.
On setting the emission targets under the new
agreement to be signed in 2015, the note informs,
In Warsaw we seek to establish an expectation that
parties will submit their commitments by early 2015
so as to finalise an agreement in Paris [in 2015
itself].

Pushing Pledges
Under the 2015 agreement, to become
operational in 2020, the U.S. government has been
pushing that all countries volunteer to pledge their
commitments. The note says, Specifically we are
advocating an approach under which countries
both developed and developing will put forth
nationally determined mitigation commitments,
followed by a transparent consultative process that
will give other countries and civil society the
opportunity to analyse and comment upon such
commitments.
In a revealing line it adds, The idea is that
sunshine will provide an incentive for countries to
put forth ambitious commitments in the first
instance and, even if not, there will be an
opportunity for countries to decide to enhance their
commitments before they are finalised.
The U.S. stance differs radically from the
demand of groups such as those of the small islandstates, EU and others which require that the
volunteered targets be increased after a review to see
if they add up to the effort required to keep global
temperatures under control.
That the U.S. sees climate change as an
opportunity to also leverage and open economies of
developing countries to clean-tech investments is
also revealed, The work we have undertaken in 2013
has begun to lay the groundwork for an ambitious
and wide-ranging efforts aimed at catalysing lowemission, climate resilient investment in developing
countries, though of course we recognise that much
work remains to develop the tools necessary to shift
the global economy in this direction.
The poor countries have consistently warned
that public investments can neither be adequate nor
predictable and can work merely as a complementary
source of finance. They also warn that private

investment does not move towards the priority of

adaptation activities where the returns are negligible
but the monies important to save lives. The U.N.
climate convention imposes the obligation on the
developed world to provide funds and technologies
to the poor countries to enable the latter to
undertake climate action but the U.S. position in the
briefing paper talks of pushing in investments
instead.
The U.S. has said in public earlier that it sees
public funding in the climate change arena more as
a tool to leverage private investments. Developing
countries have demanded that the U.S. and other
developed countries put forth a clear timeline for
when and how they shall provide for the $100-billion
annual fund by 2020 they had earlier promised. But
the briefing paper remains silent on the U.S.
committing to any such time line in Warsaw. The talk
of any scaling up funds between now and 2020 is
ignored.

Loss and Damage

The U.S. acknowledges in the cabled briefing to
its diplomats that Finance is another contentious
issue, with many developing countries feeling that
there is lack of clarity on climate finance between
now and 2020. But, in effect, the U.S .strategy is to
work outside the UNFCCC to leverage private funds
and it plans to talk of this through the Warsaw talks
too.
On the controversial issue of loss and damage,
demand by developing nations that developed
countries pay compensation for damage to life and
property that cannot be avoided despite the best of
adaptation and emission reduction efforts, the U.S.
plans to not let the idea become a full-fledged
separate mechanism at Warsaw. After very strongly
opposing any such mechanism. the U.S. had to give
in last year and allow talks.
At Warsaw, the briefing paper shows, it plans
to ensure that while the issue is called loss and
damage it does not get a life of its own but is
swallowed by the existing track which would ensure
the issues of liability and compensation are thrown
out. The document says: Its our sense that the
longer countries look at issues like compensation and
liability, the more they will realise this isnt productive

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VOL14

avenue for the UNFCCC to go down. It adds, We

are strongly in favour of creating an institutional
arrangement on loss and damage that is under the
Conventions adaptation track, rather than creating
a third stream of action thats separate from
mitigation and adaptation.
SAUDIS ARE WORLDS BIGGEST
TWEETERS, INDIAAT 21ST POSITION
In an unexpected finding, Saudis have
emerged as the worlds largest active Twitter
users, while Indians ranked among the lowest
tweeters on the microblogging site,
according to a new research.
According to PeerReach, one-third or 32 per
cent of the Saudis online population are
active monthly Twitter users.
However, countries such as India, Nigeria
and Germany seem to have very little to
tweet with only one per cent active Twitter
users in each nation.
Interestingly, U.S ., the home of
microblogging platform, ranks eighth on the
list.
The top five countries are non-English
speaking nations, with Saudi Arabia having
over 32 per cent active twitter users, Peer
Reach said on its website.
Saudi and Indonesia are two countries
known for the fact that most internet users
dont have a PC, but access the net through
mobile.
China is not listed because Twitter is banned
from China and therefore the Chinese
microblogging platform Weibo has no
competition.
Twitter users are young, on an average 24
years. The average male is 26-years-old, the
average female 22-years-old.
Teenagers dominate Twitter. Only 20 per
cent of the tweeps are older than 30,
according to the study.
The top 10 countries with highest active
monthly users of Twitter are Saudi Arabia,
Indonesia, Spain, Venezuela, Argentina, U.K.,
Netherlands, U.S., Japan and Colombia,
respectively. PTI

GIST OF THE HINDU

INDIAAND CLIMATE TALKS IMPERATIVES

By all accounts, no dramatic developments are
to be expected from the 19th edition of the
Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) that started in Warsaw last week. But it
is generally acknowledged that the key issue at
Warsaw, even if there are many other significant
subjects on the agenda, centres around moving
forward the negotiations on the Durban Platform for
Enhanced Action (DPA) initiated at COP 17 two years
ago.
It is widely understood that the Durban
Platform was a game-changer, setting the stage for
decisive climate action based on clear commitments
to emissions reduction from all nations.
Subsequently, the discussions in the Ad-Hoc Working
Group on the Durban Platform (ADP) have resulted
in demanding timeline for achieving its aims,
including a draft text to be produced by the COP in
2014, a global meeting of heads of states of all
nations to be convened by the United Nations
Secretary General to push forward such an
agreement, and a final agreement to be reached by
COP 21 in 2015.
While it is not a foregone conclusion that the
DPA will achieve its stated goals by 2015, there are
now additional factors conducive to reaching a global
agreement. Even if no individual extreme climate
event can be attributed exclusively to increased
global warming, increasing awareness of the impact
of climate-driven disasters, such as Typhoon Haiyan
and the Uttarakhand flash floods, is contributing to
a global recognition of the urgency of a climate deal,
among governments as well as civil society.
Significantly, the release of the Fifth Assessment
Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) over the next several months,
culminating in the release of the final synthesis
report of all its findings next year, will add to the
sense of urgency.
At the UNFCCC, the European Union has been
the most active in pushing forward the agenda of the
Durban Platform, laying out in increasing detail the
framework and broad outlines of its content and a
methodology for securing commitments that would

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GIST OF THE HINDU

VOL14

ensure an effective treaty. It has been joined in this

effort by many African nations, especially South
Africa, and have the strong support of the islandstates of the world support that was vociferously
expressed at Durban in 2011. The United States has
pursued a two-track policy with respect to the DPA.
On the one hand, the U.S. insists that it would
undertake only such emissions reductions as it
deems feasible, a strategy that is referred to as the
bottom up approach in the global climate
discourse. On the other hand, it has not hesitated to
support the European Union, the Africa Group and
the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in their
efforts to have a binding climate agreement with
assigned commitments to all nations, especially
when such commitments are to be imposed on
China and India.

Indias Interests
Where do Indias interests lie in the matter of
a global climate agreement? There can be no doubt
that India needs an early climate agreement, for two
reasons. On the one hand, there is increasing
evidence that unchecked global warming would lead
to increasingly severe effects in several sectors,
especially agriculture and water, apart from the
increased frequency of extreme climate events. The
enhanced climate variability that accompanies global
warming will have serious impacts on Indian farmers,
the bulk of whom are small-holders who even today
suffer the consequences of weather and climate
shocks, before the effects of global warming have
risen to more alarming levels. An early climate
agreement with the potential to restrict global
average temperature rise to at least 2 degrees
Centigrade, if not lower, is certainly a necessity. An
early and effective limit on greenhouse gas emissions
will also contribute to lowering the need, and
associated costs, for climate change adaptation,
which otherwise could be considerable.
At the same time, India needs adequate
atmospheric space in terms of allowed carbon
emissions to pursue its development. Even in a
highly optimistic scenario in which renewable energy
rapidly takes up the bulk of the requirements for
sectors such as domestic lighting and heating,
agriculture, and all energy needs of small-scale

establishments, India will still need fossil fuels for a

considerable time until reliable sources of clean
energy become available for large-scale use in the
expansion of industry, transportation and the like, all
of which are needed for development. Even
infrastructure needs for adaptation will require such
emissions.
The IPCCs AR5 report has brought to the
centre-stage of discussion the notion of a global
carbon budget, referring to the cumulative carbon
dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, from the
beginning of the industrial era till the end of the 21st
centur y, that are permissible, if the global
temperature rise is to be kept below 2 degrees C.
For a 66 per cent probability of keeping the rise in
global average temperature below this limit, the
world is allowed approximately 1000 billion tonnes
of carbon emissions (taking account solely of carbon
dioxide). But the nub of the issue is the equitable
distribution of this space. In per capita terms, or
indeed by several other measures of equitable
distribution as well, the developed countries have
already substantially exceeded their fair share of this
global budget. As a consequence, a large number of
developing countries, including China but especially
India, will have to make do with less than their fair
share of the global carbon space as their national
carbon budgets for the future, if indeed global
warming has to be kept in check.

Top-down Agreement
To maximise the developing countries access
to the global carbon budget, an early top-down
agreement to impose constraints on the developed
nations consumption of carbon space in the
atmosphere is an obvious necessity. Even more
obviously, an approach based on voluntar y
commitments to emissions reduction by developed
and developing countries would not address Indias
needs.
In view of these considerations, it is surprising
that New Delhis guidelines for its Warsaw delegation
should set aside Indias long-standing commitment
to treating the atmosphere as a global commons, to
be shared equitably by all nations, and instead back
the voluntary commitments approach. Predictably,
even before this approach has been articulated, it has

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10

VOL14

run into rough weather. The EU is of course fully

aware of the global carbon budget and hence
demands that the gap between the sum of all
voluntary commitments and the allowed global
budget has to made up by further emissions
reductions that all nations have to agree to. This
demand, as well as Indias response that the gap must
be made up by the developed nations based on
historical responsibility for emissions, brings us back
to what is indeed a top-down approach.
At the heart of the Government of Indias
current confusion lies its unwillingness to
acknowledge that in an eventual global agreement,
all countries have to shoulder some part of the
burden, even while any such burden-sharing must be
based on equity and climate justice in accordance
with the principle of common but differentiated
responsibilities.
New Delhis view currently is that developing
countries will have no binding commitments
whatsoever even into the future, a view that will
increasingly isolate India from even others in the
ranks of the G-77.
The inadequacy of official Indias unhappy
approach is brought out by the fact that it has
allowed the term equity reference framework in
the context of the ADP negotiations to be hijacked
by other nations, including nations of the African
Group as well as the EU. India and its like-minded
friends are left in the unenviable position of
opposing this term, claiming that developing nations
will never undertake any binding commitment.
For too long, Indias official climate policy has
portrayed the absence of a proactive stance on a
climate agreement as a strategy to protect the
countrys interests.
Climate science as well as good climate politics
demand that India shift to making clear to the world
its commitment, in concrete terms, both to securing
its developmental future as well as preserving the
global environment.
PANCHAYAT RAJ RULE
4(2) NOT IN CONFORMITY WITH ACT
The Karnataka High Court on Monday
quashed a rule that empowered regional
commissioners to send a report to the State Election

GIST OF THE HINDU

Commission for disqualifying zilla panchayat

members for their failure to declare details of assets
and liabilities within the stipulated period. Justice
H.G. Ramesh quashed Rule 4(2) of the Karnataka
Panchayat Raj (Declaration of Assets by Elected
Members of Taluk and Zilla Panchayats) Rules 2010
holding that it is not in conformity with the
provisions of the Karnataka Panchayat Raj Act.
The court passed the order while allowing
petitions filed by members of some zilla panchayats,
led by Bangalore Urban Zilla Panchayat member
Ashok K. and others, questioning the communication
of the Bangalore Division Regional Commissioner to
the State Election Commission declaring that 174
members of the eight zilla panchayats in his
jurisdiction ceased to be members for not declaring
their assets and liabilities within the prescribed
period.
Mr. Ramesh upheld the petitioners contention
that Rule 4(2) was contrary to the provisions of the
Act as the Act recognises only the respective zilla
panchayat as the competent authority to refer the
matter of cessation of membership to the State
Election Commission on the failure of its members
to declare assets and the jurisdictional regional
commissioners were only competent to receive
declaration of assets.
The court also agreed with their argument
that though the Act does not empower regional
commissioners to either pass an order regarding
cessation of membership or refer it to the State
Election Commission, Rule 4(2) empowered the
regional commissioners to furnish the details to the
State Election Commission.
Meanwhile, appearing for the State
government, Advocate-General Ravivarma Kumar
orally submitted to the court that the Rule 4(2) is
not in conformity with the provision of the Act. The
Rule mandates every member of a taluk or a zilla
panchayat to declare assets held by him and also his
family members within three months of assuming
office/membership and also within a month of every
calendar year during his term of office.
Disqualification comes into effect when the State
Election Commission issues notification based on
recommendation from a competent authority.

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VOL14

GIST OF THE HINDU

MONTREAL PROTOCOL HAS

JURISDICTION OVER HFC GASES: U.S.

AT WARSAW, G77+CHINA SERVE

ULTIMATUM ON DEVELOPED COUNTRIES

Hydro fluorocarbons (HFCs) a family of

greenhouse gases used as refrigerants can be and
should be handled right away under the Montreal
Protocol, said the U.S. Special Envoy on Climate
Change, Todd Stern.
He suggested that countries were merely
delaying by talking of legal and other issues in moving
the refr igerant gas from the U.N. Framework
Convention on Climate Change to the Montreal
Protocol, which deals with ozone depleting
substances. He said the protocol also dealt with any
substitutes that were used in place of the ozone
depleting substances, such as HFCs.
The institution that is born to do this [phase
down of refrigerant gases HFCs] and has jurisdiction
over HFCs is the Montreal Protocol. Our view is: Let
us not stand on ceremony. There are some countries
that are to some extent standing on ceremony when
they say no, it should be done under UNFCCC which
deals with greenhouse gases.

The G77+China group has threatened to walk

out of climate talks if developed countries did not
stop blocking the issue of Loss and Damage. The
ultimatum was delivered by G77+China negotiator
Juan Hoffmeister, who is leading the talks on the
issue for the developing country block, at a closed
door meeting on Saturday evening, raising the stakes
higher for all just before the ministerial round of
negotiations begin this week in the Polish capital.
Australia and Canada, which form part of the
umbrella group with the U.S. and Japan, have
demanded that the climate negotiations even discuss
the issue while the U.S. has demanded that the
subject, which has the G77+China united in a rare
show of solidarity, be subjugated as just another
stream of conversation under the existing
adaptation track of the talks.
Loss and Damage refers to the demand of the
developing countries, especially the small and most
vulnerable ones, to be provided compensation for
the losses they suffer due to existing emission levels
and that any future emission reduction effort or
adaptation to global warming cannot help.
The G77+China group has put forth a
collective proposal on the negotiating table to set up
a new mechanism under the U.N. climate talks that
would carry out this task but the U.S. has blocked it
demanding that at best it be an extremely weak
arrangement that continues to just study the issue
under the adaptation track where compensation is
not used as an operative term.
The talks on the issue floundered all week,
leading Mr. Hoffmeister to up the stakes for the
developed countries by warning that the developing
countries would not agree to the Warsaw meeting
delivering on other fronts in return for stepping
down on this demand.
Mr. Hoffmeister, when contacted by The
Hindu , refused to comment on his statement in the
contact group on Saturday.
Another G77+China negotiator who deals
closely with the Loss and Damage issue, wishing to
remain anonymous, said, This has to be a
deliverable at Warsaw. There are no two ways about
it. We had to convey that.

Legal Issues
He was referring to India and China along with
several other G20 countries and other developing
countries which have pointed out at the Warsaw
talks to legal issues about transporting the subject to
another convention and noted that the principles of
differentiation and equity apply here unlike in the
Montreal Protocol. These principles ensure that
developing countries can claim full costs for the phase
out of the refrigerant gases and not just incremental
costs that the Montreal Protocol offers. The
refrigeration industry is growing at the highest rates
in India and China and promises to be a lucrative
market for any alternative green technology which is
in the hands of U.S.-based companies. But Mr. Stern
negated the Indian and Chinese position on the
matter saying, Montreal Protocol has built in
differentiation. It is not the same kind of
differentiation like its built in the UNFCCC but it has
got differentiation built in.
The decisions proposed as end results of the
Warsaw meeting on paper have a paragraph on HFCs
too and is likely to be argued out over the next week
before a call is taken by consensus.

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GIST OF THE HINDU

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BAN PIRATES, U.N. TELLS SOMALIA

The U.N. Secur ity Council on Monday
unanimously called on Somalia to pass laws banning
seafaring pirates off its coasts and urged the east
African nation to more aggressively combat them
and the crime lords on land who finance and
organise their raids.
The council passed a resolution 15-0
reauthorising foreign ships, including the European
Union Naval Force and African Union, Chinese and
Pakistani forces, to continue patrolling sea lanes off
Somalia and protecting shipping in the Indian Ocean.
The resolution also told Somalia to step up its
efforts to arrest pirates and bring them to trial.
Somali pirate cases are tried in other countries
whose nationals have been held hostage or killed, or
which own ships and cargos and claim jurisdiction,
including the United States.

Attacks at their Lowest

The council welcomed the news that pirate
attacks off Somalia have fallen to their lowest level
since 2006.
Armed guards aboard cargo ships and an
international naval armada complete with aircraft
that carry out onshore raids have put a huge dent in
Somali piracy. Somali pirates hijacked 46 ships in
2009 and 47 in 2010, according to the EU Naval
Force. In 2011, pirates launched a record number of
attacks 176. A report by Secretary-General BanKi-moon says that there were only 17 pirate attacks
in the first nine months of 2013, compared with 99
attacks in the first nine months of 2012. The last
seizure of a major vessel was the MT Smyrni , taken
for ransom in May 2012.
The resolution encourages countries operating
in the high-risk sea lanes to allow privately
contracted armed security personnel aboard
commercial ships to protect them. That issue was
debated at the council last year, after Russian and
Italian military crews assigned to merchant ships
fired on and killed fishermen off Somalia, mistaking
them for pirates.
The lingering threat to shipping, the council
resolution said, complicates U.N. and international
efforts to ship food for famine relief to Somalia.

13

Somalias fragile central government doesnt

control large sections of the country, much of which
is ruled by al-Shabab militants allied with al-Qaeda.
An African Union military force is trying to help the
Somali government extend control over more
ter ritor y, and the Security Council last week
approved a surge in resources from troopcontributing countries to try to break the stalemate
with al-Shabab.
The new resolution calls upon the Somali
authorities to make all efforts to bring to justice
those who are using Somali territory to plan,
facilitate, or undertake criminal acts of piracy and
armed robbery at sea.
G77+CHINA GROUP
WALKS OUT OF LOSS AND DAMAGE TALKS
The G77+China group of 134 countries
walked out of negotiations on Loss and Damage in
the wee hours of Wednesday after the rich countries
refused to budge from their position that the subject
should be discussed only after 2015. The U.S.,
Australia and Canada have been the most vocal
against setting up a separate mechanism on Loss and
Damage while the European Union (EU) has not only
been belligerent but also tried to make sure it did not
materialise at the Warsaw meeting.
At a closed-door meeting of representatives of
various country blocks, called a contact group on loss
and damage, the developed countries continued to
demand that the issue be discussed only after 2015.
The Hindu earlier reported that the G77+China
group had warned the others that if the rich countries did
not relent, it would be forced to walk out of the talks
a rare event in climate talks, which happens only when
there is absolute lack of trust between countries.
While several parallel streams of negotiations are
on at the moment, including on finance for poor
countries and the basic elements of the 2015 agreement,
a walkout from even one stream of talks in the U.N.
Framework Convention on Climate Change threatens to
bring all negotiations to a halt. Everything clears
together or nothing moves at all, is how one G77
delegate put it to The Hindu.
In a secret briefing paper prepared by U.S.
secretary of State John Kerry, that The Hindu accessed,
it had been advised that loss and damage should remain

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VOL14

at worst another stream under the adaptation

mechanisms and not be allowed to be a separate
independent system to pay compensation or reparation
to poor countries. While poor countries look upon Loss
and Damage reparation for the damage caused by
inevitable climate change which any amount of
adaptation cannot avoid, the developed countries desire
that the issue be defanged from any kind of legal liability
it may impose upon the key countries with highest
historic emissions. At the time of writing this report, the
G77+China group was holding its coordination meeting
in which the walkout from Loss and Damage was likely
to be the key discussion. U.S.A, EU, Australia and
Norway remain blind to the climate reality thats hitting
us all and poor people and countries much harder. They
continue to derail negotiations in Warsaw that can create
a new system to deal with new types of loss and damage
such as sea level rise, loss of territory, biodiversity and
other non-economic losses more systematically, said
Harjeet Singh, International Coordinator Disaster
Risk Reduction & Climate Adaptation,ActionAid
International.
CRIMINALITY IN THE
INDIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM
Criminality in politics, or more pointedly,
criminals sitting in our Parliament and legislatures, is
an issue that has for long been debated in many
forums and has also been at the forefront of reform
proposals sent by the Election Commission of India
(ECI) to the government. With elections to five
States under way, and the 16th General Election due
to be completed before May 31, 2014, India is now
gripped by that special fever that besets us every five
years. Unexpectedly, part of the backdrop already
stands influenced by a few recent decisions of the
Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has importantly passed
three orders that relate directly to the conduct of
elections. The first relates to the distribution of
freebies, wherein the ECI has been asked to frame
guidelines in consultation with political parties. The
second is directing the installation of the None-ofThe-Above (NOTA) button in the Electronic Voting
Machines, which has already been implemented in
the current round of Assembly elections. The third is
the courts order of July 10, 2013 in the Lily Thomas

GIST OF THE HINDU

vs Union of India matter, wherein the Supreme Court

has declared unconstitutional Section 8 (4) of the
Representation of the People Act, 1951. The
importance of this order cannot be overemphasised.
The position that prevailed before this order was
enacted was that all convicted MPs and MLAs
enjoyed a three-month period in which to appeal
against their conviction, and during this period they
crucially retained their memberships in Parliament or
legislatures respectively.

Criminals among MPs, MLAs

Close on the heels of this order, the nation
witnessed the jailing of Lalu Prasad, the president of
a once nationally recognised political party, the RJD,
as well as Rasheed Masood, a former Minister and
sitting MP of the Rajya Sabha. While both stand
debarred from contesting elections for six years after
their jail terms are completed, in effect such a long
banishment might well put an end to their political
careers. For, as is well known, politics abhors a
vacuum. Is it any surprise then that student
audiences inevitably ask what is the point of clean
election processes if the end result is to elect tainted
men and women? When the government decided to
rush headlong into enacting an Ordinance to counter
the July 10, 2013 Order of the Supreme Court, this
resulted in a surge of public sentiment bordering on
revulsion, against what would arguably have been a
very regressive step in the development of our
democratic institutions. The dramatic demise of the
proposed Ordinance ironically became a critically
important milestone in the strengthening of our
democratic edifice, which I think many of us realise
is still a work in progress.

Three Issues
In the rash of commentaries that followed the
Supreme Court Order of July 10, followed in turn by
the legislative proposals sought to be placed before
the winter session of Parliament and finally by the
Ordinance that the Cabinet cleared, I would like to
comment on three issues. First, it is no secret that
many politicians have their own criminal elements to
protect and whom they need to use in elections to
round up voters. They spend clandestinely and
sometimes devise mafia-like strategies to reinforce
the winnability concept that has now come to be

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GIST OF THE HINDU

VOL14

the mantra which has displaced any truly

democratic relationship between candidates and the
public whom they seek to represent. Hence the
political establishment quickly closed ranks in favour
of the Ordinance. The second issue to my mind was
whether the President (who called in senior
Ministers for consultation to raise questions and
seek clarifications), would have signed this Ordinance,
or whether he would have just let it asphyxiate itself.
The third issue is that it took Rahul Gandhi to
speak out and publicly criticise the Ordinance. In the
aftermath of his intervention, the cacophony of
opinions on our news channels reached a crescendo.
One of the few voices that I managed to hear over
the din of panellists and anchors, was that of The
Hindu s N. Ram, who cut aside all rhetoric on the
non-use of parliamentary language by saying, Rahul
Gandhi single-handedly killed the wretched
Ordinance. Instead of acknowledging that, do we
need to make a fuss about the words he used?
For what we must also recognise is that if this
Ordinance had been passed, it would have officially
endorsed that criminality in parliamentary ranks was
perfectly acceptable. It would also have rendered our
elected representatives even more distant from our
people. Not only that, it would almost certainly have
put the Executive and the Supreme Court on a
collision course, leading to unnecessarily troubled
relations between vital institutions. We have only to
look in our own neighbourhood to understand how
such conflicts have in varying measure stunted the
growth of democratic structures.
I read in the press with increasing
disappointment that many political leaders and
parties including the Congress and the BJP have since
given the ticket in these elections to either criminals
or to their family members as proxies. This, sadly,
concedes the winnability factor over clean
politics.
Surely the time is finally here for all political
parties to jointly agree to step away from sponsoring
criminal candidates. It would be in their long-term
interest to do so, because now some ground realities
have changed, for upon conviction such candidates
would have to resign anyway and make way for byelections. In the short-term, they may win an
election, but in the longer term they will, once again,

15

strike a blow to the development of a healthy,

wholesome and robust democracy that our freedom
fighters fought for, and our constitutional framers
had envisaged.
OIL EXPLORATION TO TAKE PLACE IN
UNDISPUTED AREAS IN SOUTH CHINA SEA
Vietnams offer to India for exploring gas
and oil blocks in the South China Sea is in
areas where there is no dispute over
sovereignty.
Vietnams offer for third country exploration
pertains to a block in Uzbekistan a country
with which both New Delhi and Hanoi enjoy
excellent political ties, said official sources.
PetroVietnam and PetroVietnam
Exploration Corporation have offered three
blocks each, while the seventh is the Kossor
block in Uzbekistan.
ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) signed an MoU
to this effect with the two Vietnamese
companies, after delegation-level talks
between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
and the countrys top leader Nguyen Phu
Trong.

Free to Pick and Choose

OVL plans to study the data on the blocks
and has the option to pick and choose. It can
even take all or none of the blocks, said the
sources.
OVL will evaluate blocks 17, 41 and 43 on an
exclusive basis in the next three months and
in case commercial viability is found, it will
provide PetroVietnam with its proposal for
entering into a production sharing contract
(PSC). It will do the same with blocks 10&111 and 102&106/10 as well as the Kossor
block in Uzbekistan.
INDIA, FRANCE TO
LEAD STUDY ON MONSOON
India and France will spearhead an
international, 10-member country project to study
the impact of melting polar ice caps and glaciers on
the monsoon.
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of an

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VOL14

international workshop here on Thursday, Dr. S.S.C.

Shenoi, director of the Indian National Centre for
Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), said the
changes in the polar region would affect circulation
and temperature structure in the oceans, which in
turn, impacts the Indian monsoon.
He said that a project had been formulated
and India and France would be leading the study. The
other countries in the project include the United
States of America, the United Kingdom, Japan,
South Africa, Brazil and Germany.
Secretary of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Dr.

GIST OF THE HINDU

Shailesh Nayak, said that climate change was playing

a critical role in day-to-day life and weather advisories
were being sent twice a week to 3.5 million farmers
in the country. The aim was to provide them to 10
crore farmers in the coming years.
Replying to a question on India joining Arctic
Council as an observer, he said what happens in
Arctic directly affects weather and climate and India
was keen to take up studies in Iceland, Greenland,
Canada and other areas in the region. He said that
discussions were on with those countries in this
regard.

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