10 AUGUST 2023

Editorial 1: The inter-services organisation bill

Context: The Rajya Sabha recently passed a bill that empowers the commander-in-chief and the officer-in-command of inter-services organisations with disciplinary and administrative powers over personnel from the other services serving in them.

Key details:

• The Inter-Services Organisation (Command, Control & Discipline) Bill – 2023 was introduced in the Upper House.
• The bill seeks to empower Commander-in-Chief and Officer-in Command of Inter-Services Organisations with all disciplinary and administrative powers so that they take decisions related to personnel serving in or attached to such organisations.
• At present, all Army, Navy and IAF personnel are governed by their service-specific acts.
• Service personnel serving in or attached to an Inter-Services Organisation will continue to be governed by their respective Service Acts.
• The enabling bill when enacted will empower heads of Inter-Services Organisations to exercise all the disciplinary and administrative powers as per the existing service acts, and related rules and regulations, irrespective of the service they belong to.
• It also empowers the central government to constitute an Inter-Services Organisation, thus paving the way for the creation of integrated theatre commands — a major military reform on cards.
  • Theaterisation or establishment of theatre commands is a major military reform that seeks to roll the existing individual commands of the three services into tri-services organisations with a common military aim.
  • Currently, the plans are to establish three theatre commands:
    • one facing Pakistan,
    • one facing China, and
    • a maritime theatre command, largely taking care of the peninsular India.
  • This is because every integrated theatre command will have components of the three services and will be headed by a theatre commander of one of the services.

What will change with the enactment of the bill?

• The heads of the existing inter-services organisations presently do not have these powers and thus any disciplinary or administrative action against personnel attached to these organisations have to be referred to their respective services.
• The inter-services organisations include the Strategic Forces Command, the Andaman and Nicobar Command and joint training establishments such as the National Defence College, among others.
• The enactment of the Bill will ensure:
  • maintenance of effective discipline in inter-services establishments by their heads,
  • no requirement of referring personnel undergoing disciplinary proceedings to their parent services, and
  • faster disposal of cases of misdemeanour or indiscipline.

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Editorial 2: The Assam Rifles

Context: Police in Manipur have registered an FIR accusing the Assam Rifles (AR) of preventing police from doing their duty.

About Assam Rifles:

• The Assam Rifles are a central armed police force.
• The AR is one of the six central armed police forces (CAPFs) under the administrative control of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
• The other five forces are:
  • Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF),
  • Border Security Force (BSF),
  • Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP),
  • Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and
  • Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB).
• Role:
  • The AR is tasked with maintaining law and order in the Northeast along with the Indian Army.
  • It also guards the Indo-Myanmar border.
• It is the only paramilitary force with a dual control structure.
  • While the administrative control of the force is with the MHA, its operational control is with the Indian Army, which is under the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
  • This means that salaries and infrastructure for the force is provided by the MHA, but the deployment, posting, transfers, and deputation of AR personnel is decided by the Army.

History and origin:

• The AR is India’s oldest paramilitary force — it was raised in 1835.
• It has since fought in the two World Wars and the Sino-Indian war of 1962, and has been used as an anti-insurgency force against militant groups in the Northeast.
• The AR was raised as the Cachar Levy, a militia that would protect tea estates and British settlements against raids by the tribal peoples of the Northeast.
• The force was subsequently reorganised as the Assam Frontier Force, and its role was expanded to conduct punitive operations beyond the borders of Assam.
• The AR took on a conventional combat role during the 1962 war, and travelled to Sri Lanka as part of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in 1987.
• It remains the most awarded paramilitary force in both pre- and post-Independence India, having won a very large number of Shaurya Chakras, Kirti Chakras, Vir Chakras, Ashok Chakras, and Sena Medals.

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Topic 3: Kerala to be renamed as Keralam

Context: The Kerala Assembly passed a resolution urging the Centre to rename the state as “Keralam” in the Constitution and all office records.

Key details:

• Origin of Kerala:
  • There are several theories about the origin of the name ‘Kerala’.
  • The earliest epigraphic record that mentions Kerala is emperor Asoka’s Rock Edict II of 257 BC.
  • The inscription refers to the local ruler as Keralaputra (Sanskrit for “son of Kerala”), and also “son of Chera” referring to the Chera dynasty.
• Origin of Keralam:
  • About ‘Keralam’, it is believed it could have originated from ‘Cheram’.
  • The word ‘keram’ is the Canarese (Kannada) form of cheram, and Keralam is described as Cheram — the region between Gokarnam and Kanyakumari.
  • The origin of the term could possibly be from the root ‘cher’, which means to join.
  • This meaning is clear in the compound word ‘Cheralam’, in which alam means region or land.

Demands for the modern state and its formation:

• It was in the 1920s that the Aikya (unified) Kerala movement gathered momentum and a demand for a separate state for Malayalam-speaking people came up.
• It aimed at the integration of Malabar, Kochi and Travancore into one territory.
• On 1 July, 1949, the two states of Travancore and Kochi were integrated, heralding the birth of the Travancore-Cochin State.
• The State Reorganisation Commission of the Union Government recommended creation of the state of Kerala.
• The Commission under Syed Fazl Ali recommended the inclusion of the district of Malabar and the taluk of Kasargod to the Malayalam-speaking people’s state.
  • It also recommended the exclusion of the four Southern taluks of :
    • Travancore viz Tovala,
    • Agastheeswaram,
    • Kalkulam and
    • Vilayankode together with some parts of Shenkottai (all these taluks now part of Tamil Nadu).
• The state of Kerala came into being on November 1, 1956.
• In Malayalam, the state was referred to as Keralam, while in English it was Kerala.

What is the process to rename a state?

• To change the name of a state, approval from the Centre’s Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is required.
• This means that a Constitutional amendment becomes necessary to affect this change.
• The proposal has to first come from the state government.
• The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) then takes over and gives its consent after it receives No Objection Certificates (NOCs) from several agencies such as:
  • the Ministry of Railways,
  • Intelligence Bureau,
  • Department of Posts,
  • Survey of India and
  • Registrar General of India.
• If the proposal is accepted, the resolution, introduced as a Bill in the Parliament, becomes a law and the name of the state is changed thereafter.

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Topic 4: Small nuclear modular reactors

Context: Small modular reactors, a type of nuclear reactor can be helpful to India for achieving net zero targets.

Key details:

• The world’s quest to decarbonise itself is guided, among other things, by the UN Sustainable Development Goal 7 – to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.
• Since the world still depends on fossil fuels for 82% of its energy supply, decarbonising the power sector is critical.
• The share of electricity in final energy consumption will also increase by 80%-150% by 2050.
• Reliable, 24/7 low-carbon electricity resources are critical to ensure the deep decarbonisation of power generation, along with grid stability and energy security.
• Small modular reactors can be helpful to India in this regard.

What is decarbonisation?

• Decarbonisation is the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions through the use of low carbon power sources, achieving a lower output of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.
• ‘Decarbonisation’ tends to refer to the process of reducing ‘carbon intensity’, lowering the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced by the burning of fossil fuels.
• This involves decreasing CO2 output per unit of electricity generated.

Challenges of decarbonisation

• Renewable energy will be insufficient:
  • Solar and wind energy alone will not suffice to provide affordable energy for everyone.
  • In decarbonised electricity systems with a significant share of renewable energy, the addition of at least one firm power-generating technology can improve grid reliability and reduce costs.
• Increased demand for critical minerals:
  • The demand for critical minerals like lithium, nickel, cobalt, and rare earth elements, required for clean-energy production technologies, is likely to increase by up to 3.5 times by 2030.
  • This jump poses several global challenges, including the large capital investments to develop new mines and processing facilities.
• Environmental and social impacts:
  • The environmental and social impacts of developing several new mines and plants in China, Indonesia, Africa, and South America within a short time span, coupled with the fact that the top three mineral-producing and mineral-processing nations control 50-100% of the current global extraction and processing capacities, pose geopolitical and other risks.

Advantages of Nuclear power:

• It leads to reduction in pollution:
  • Nuclear power plants (NPPs) generate 10% of the world’s electricity and help it avoid 180 billion cubic metres of natural gas demand and 1.5 billion tonnes of CO₂ emissions every year.
  • Any less nuclear power could make the world’s journey towards net-zero more challenging and more expensive.
• Efficiency:
  • NPPs are efficient users of land and their grid integration costs are lower than those associated with variable renewable energy (VRE) sources.
  • It is because NPPs generate power 24×7 in all kinds of weather.
• Co-Benefits:
  • Nuclear power also provides valuable co-benefits like high-skill jobs in technology, manufacturing, and operations.

Advantages of SMRs

• Lower damage frequency:
  • SMRs are designed with a smaller core damage frequency (the likelihood that an accident will damage the nuclear fuel) and source term (a measure of radioactive contamination) compared to conventional NPPs.
  • They also include enhanced seismic isolation for more safety.
• Simpler designs:
  • SMR designs are also simpler than those of conventional NPPs and include several passive safety features, resulting in a lower potential for the uncontrolled release of radioactive materials into the environment.
• Less amount of spent nuclear fuel:
  • The amount of spent nuclear fuel stored in an SMR project will also be lower than that in a conventional NPP.
• Can be installed at brownfield sites:
  • SMRs can be safely installed and operated at several brownfield sites that may not meet the more stringent zoning requirements for conventional NPPs.
  • The power-plant organisation can also undertake community work, as the Nuclear Power Corporation did in Kudankulam, Tamil Nadu, before the first unit was built.
• Targeting Net-Zero:
  • Accelerating the deployment of SMRs under international safeguards, by implementing a coal-to-nuclear transition at existing thermal power-plant sites, will take India closer to net-zero and improve energy security because uranium resources are not as concentrated as reserves of critical minerals.
  • Most land-based SMR designs require low-enriched uranium, which can be supplied by all countries that possess uranium mines and facilities for such enrichment if the recipient facility is operating according to international standards.
• Low time and cost overruns:
  • Since SMRs are mostly manufactured in a factory and assembled on site, the potential for time and cost overruns is also lower.
  • Further, serial manufacture of SMRs can reduce costs by simplifying plant design to facilitate more efficient regulatory approvals and experiential learning with serial manufacturing.
  • Since SMRs are designed to operate for more than 40 years, the levelised cost of electricity is $60-90 per MWh.
  • The costs will decline steepest for India when reputed companies manufacture SMRs.

Need for an efficient regulatory regime

• An efficient regulatory regime comparable to that in the civil aviation sector is important if SMRs are to play a meaningful role in decarbonising the power sector.
• This can be achieved if all countries that accept nuclear energy:
  • direct their respective regulators to cooperate amongst themselves and with the International Atomic Energy Agency
  • harmonise their regulatory requirements and
  • expedite statutory approvals for SMRs based on standard, universal designs.

How can SMRs be integrated with the national grid?

• The generation capacity of coal-based thermal power plants (TPPs) in India must be increased while enhancing the generation capacity of VRE sources.
• Integrating this power from VRE sources with the national grid will require additional energy storage from batteries and hydroelectric facilities.
• TPPs will provide more than half of the electricity generated in India by 2031-2032 while VRE sources and NPPs will contribute 35% and 4.4%, respectively.
• Since India has committed to become net-zero by 2070, the country’s nuclear power output needs a quantum jump.
• Since the large investments required for NPP expansion can’t come from the government alone, attracting investments from the private sector (in PPP mode) is important to decarbonise India’s energy sector.

Way forward:

• Need for amendments:
  • The Atomic Energy Act will need to be amended to allow the private sector to set up SMRs.
• Regulation under government:
  • To ensure safety, security, and safeguards, control of nuclear fuel and radioactive waste must continue to lie with the Government of India.
  • The security around SMRs must remain under government control, while the Nuclear Power Corporation can operate privately-owned SMRs during the hand-holding process.
• A new regulatory body:
  • The government will also have to enact a law to create an independent, empowered regulatory board with the expertise and capacity to oversee every stage of the nuclear power generation cycle.
• Improving public perception:
  • The Department of Atomic Energy must improve the public perception of nuclear power in India by better disseminating comprehensive environmental and public health data of the civilian reactors, which are operating under international safeguards, in India.

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Topic 5: Indian Web Browser Development Challenge

Context: Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) launched the Indian Web Browser Development Challenge (IWBDC) recently.

Key details:

• The IWBDC is an Open Challenge Competition.
• Aim:
  • To inspire and empower technology enthusiasts, innovators, and developers from all corners of the country to create an indigenous web browser with its own trust store with enhanced security & data privacy protection features.
• Key features:
  • accessibility and user friendliness,
  • built-in support for individuals with diverse abilities
  • ability to digitally sign documents using a crypto token,
  • bolstering secure transactions and digital interactions.
• Significance:
  • India has been dependent for certificates issued by Roots of Foreign entities.
  • Initialising to develop its Own Browser with inbuilt India Root Certificate would help overcoming this challenge.
  • India has moved a step ahead for making the country Internet Resilient which refers to a country’s ability to withstand and recover from various disruptions and threats that may impact its internet infrastructure and connectivity.

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Topic 6: Sponge cities

Context: China has been hit by devastating floods recently, inundating cities and causing deaths and infrastructural damage, as well as raising questions about the effectiveness of its 2015 “sponge city” initiative aimed at reducing urban flood risks.

Key details:

• The initiative was launched to boost flood resilience in major cities and make better use of rainwater through architectural, engineering and infrastructural tweaks.
• The “sponge city” initiative was designed to make greater use of lower-impact “nature-based solutions” to better distribute water and improve drainage and storage.
• Solutions included:
  • the use of permeable asphalt,
  • the construction of new canals and ponds and
  • the restoration of wetlands, which would not only ease waterlogging, but also improve the urban environment.

About sponge cities:

• The term “sponge cities” is used to describe urban areas with abundant natural areas such as trees, lakes and parks or other good design intended to absorb rain and prevent flooding.
• Need:
  • A growing number of urban areas are experiencing devastating floods as climate change brings heavier rainfall and growing flood risk.
  • A recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report said 700 million people already live in areas where rainfall extremes have increased, a number expected to grow as global temperatures rise.
• Benefits:
  • Sponge cities can hold more water in rivers, greenery and soil instead of losing it to evaporation, meaning they are more resilient to drought.
  • Natural ways to absorb urban water are about 50% more affordable than man-made solutions, and are 28% more effective.

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Topic 7: Position of states vis-a-vis Uniform Civil Code

Context: The Kerala Legislative Assembly recently unanimously adopted a resolution expressing its concern and anxiety over the Union Government move to impose a uniform civil code (UCC).’

Key details:

• The Kerala Assembly resolution essentially strikes a cautious note that a proposed UCC could harm the secular nature of the country.
• The resolution also talks about federalism – that the Centre could make a unilateral move on the contentious issue without consulting states.

Can the Centre make a law unilaterally on UCC?

• The issue of personal laws falls in List III —the Concurrent List of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution.
• While subjects in the Union lists fall within the purview of the Parliament, states can legislate on subjects in the State List.
• For entries in the Concurrent List, Article 162 of the Constitution gives state governments the power to legislate on subjects where a central law does not occupy the field.
  • If there is a central law, it automatically gains precedence over the state law on the subject.
  • This allows states the power to legislate on the subject but only in the absence of a central law.

Can states bring their own personal laws?

• State laws on the issues mentioned in Entry 5 of the Concurrent List will not have precedence over central legislation.
• On specific areas not covered by central legislation, states can legislate.
• But central legislation already covers all aspects of marriage, divorce, inheritance and succession.
• However, it does not prevent states from exploring the feasibility of such a law.
  • For eg., recently a bench headed by Chief Justice of India refused to hear a batch of petitions challenging the move by certain states to set up committees to explore the feasibility of implementing a uniform civil code in their respective administrative jurisdictions.

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Topic 8: Centre’s new Bill on Election Commission members’ appointments

Context: With the view of overturning the effect of the Supreme Court verdict on the appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and Election Commissioners (ECs), a Bill was listed to be introduced in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday (August 10).

Key details:

• The Centre’s Bill seeks to establish a committee of the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and a Cabinet Minister nominated by the PM for selecting members of the Election Commission of India (ECI).
• The Bill seeks to address the vacuum in Election Commission’s vacancies and set up a legislative process to make appointments to the EC.

New process under the Bill

• Currently the President makes the appointment on the advice of the Prime Minister.
• As per the Bill, a Search Committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary and comprising two other members, not below the rank of Secretary to the government, having knowledge and experience in matters relating to elections, shall prepare a panel of five persons who can be considered for appointment.
• Then a Selection Committee consisting of the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and a Union Cabinet Minister to be nominated by the Prime Minister will appoint the CEC and other ECs.

Can the Parliament undo a decision of the Supreme Court?

• Parliament has the power to nullify the effect of a Court ruling by addressing the concerns flagged in the judgement.
• The law cannot simply be contradictory to the ruling.
• In this case, the arrangement prescribed by the Supreme Court was specifically because the Court noted that there was a “legislative vacuum.”
  • Filling that vacuum is well within the purview of the Parliament.