Author: cprindia

Since 2010, the Accountability Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research has been tracking social sector spending in India in key programmes. Last month, it released four papers that tracked budget and fund flows in elementary education, public health and Panchayats. These included:

• How much does India spend per student on elementary education?  Analysing the relationship between per student public expenditure and learning levels, as well as the inefficiency of government expenditure.
• Rules vs responsiveness: Towards building an outcome-focused approach to governing elementary education finances in India.
• Value Subtraction in Public Sector Production: Accounting Versus Economic Cost of Primary Schooling in India: Through comparing both the “accounting cost” difference of public and private schools, and the “economic cost”, analysing what it would take public schools, at their existing efficacy in producing learning, to achieve the learning results of the private sector.
• A contemporary analysis of fiscal transfers to rural local government in India: Covering three broad aspects of rural local bodies (RLB) in India – i) ‘core functions’ of Panchayats, ii) cost incurred for these core services, iii) incomes and expenditures of RLBs.
• Review of intergovernmental fiscal transfers for health: lessons learned and looking ahead: Empirical evidence about the effectiveness and efficiency of fiscal transfers from central to state governments, especially with regard to improving health outcomes.

A detailed discussion on the implications of the 14th Finance Commission’s recommendations on social sector spending, and what should be the key research questions, going forward, followed. CPR president Pratap Bhanu Mehta moderated the discussion. The full video of the panel discussion can be viewed above.

Watch the full video (above) of the inaugural panel of CPR’s new series, Talking Rights Seriously, on ‘Informational Privacy in India: Aadhaar and Beyond’, featuring Meenakshi Arora, Dr Arghya Sengupta, Zoheb Hossain, Vrinda Bhandari and Ananth Padmanabhan.

The panel discussed the recent Supreme Court verdict on the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act and the scheme in general, and its implications for the right to informational privacy. The Aadhaar scheme, formally rolled out from 2011 to enrol citizens for the world’s largest digital identities project yet, has attracted considerable public debate and attention. The scheme’s journey through the past seven years places spotlight on various challenges faced when attempting to overcome governance chokepoints through technological means. Of these, the biggest challenge by far has been the rights challenge as no State initiative can bypass constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights to achieve any social goal howsoever desirable. While upholding the fundamental character of the right to privacy in this regard and acknowledging the inherent tension between a datafied society and this all-important facet of human dignity, the Supreme Court in Puttaswamy (2017) also articulated a broad framework to think through and arrive at constitutionally permissible and impermissible tradeoffs. The Aadhaar verdict (2018) is the first real application of this framework and hence critical to India’s rights jurisprudence.

The panel brought together senior lawyers and experts who have contested and defended the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act before the Supreme Court, to share their insights on various aspects of this verdict pertaining to informational privacy.

Meenakshi Arora is a Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India.

Dr Arghya Sengupta is Research Director at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

Zoheb Hossain is an Advocate, Supreme Court of India.

Vrinda Bhandari is an Advocate, Supreme Court of India.

The session was moderated by Ananth Padmanabhan, Fellow, Technology & Society Initiative, CPR.

The question and answer session that followed can be accessed here.

About the Series

The Indian Supreme Court has been actively engaged of late with recognising the right to privacy including informational privacy as part of fundamental rights, laying down the contours of free speech and expression in the internet era while revisiting the law of sedition, adjudicating the constitutional validity of criminal laws that are vestiges of a long-gone Victorian era, sensitising personal laws and religious customs to the idea of gender equality and personal freedoms, and framing the scope and meaning of the right to life and personal dignity within the broader context of socio-economic rights that make life meaningful. Similarly, Parliament has begun playing a more active role in this rights discourse by cementing the position of socio-economic rights, hitherto considered part of the non-justiciable directive principles of state policy, within the firmament of statutorily enforceable rights.

With this background, the Centre for Policy Research is starting a new series, Talking Rights Seriously, conceptualised as a discussion platform to critically examine important judicial verdicts and legislative interventions addressing the theme of rights in India.

Watch the video (above) of an in-depth panel discussion on the concepts integral to the realisation of the Right to Education (RTE), drawing on international experience as well. The discussion focused on the socio-political context; the framing of the ‘rights’ debate; the role of non-state actors; the historical evolution of the RTE Act, and the legal issues surrounding its implementation in India. Experts from the Unites States and Colombia also shared their experiences, providing for cross-learning.

For a summary of the discussion, access the report here.

The dedicated event page can be visited here.

The CPR-Namati Environmental Justice Program has extensively worked on the Coastal Zone Regulation (CRZ) notification in India and was keen to understand the changes proposed by the Shailesh Nayak Committee, which reviewed the CRZ notification 2011. Despite the submission of the report, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) did not make it public, and Kanchi Kohli from the CPR-Namati team filed a Right to Information (RTI) application in February 2015 but the Ministry refused to share it on the grounds that the government had not approved it.

Finally, after 16 months of filing the RTI application, the MoEFCC has disclosed a copy of the ‘Report of the Committee to Review the Issues relating to the Coastal Regulation Zone, 2011‘ (from now on referred to as ‘the report’) to Kohli and the CPR-Namati team and file notings concerning the Committee.

• The report can be accessed here.
• The file notings can be accessed here.

This disclosure came after an order of the Information Commissioner Prof M Sridhar Acharyulu on 13.5.2016, which stated that the ministry “cannot invent a new defence or exemption such as ‘the report is under submission’, ‘file is pending consideration’ and ‘unless approved it cannot be given’, etc, which are not available under RTI Act, 2005, such an illegal refusal will amount to denial of information which would invite penal proceedings under Section 20 of RTI Act, 2005.”

The report has important recommendations on the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification 2011. It has the framework for conservation of coastal and local livelihoods through clauses of land use change, proactive conservation initiatives, and mapping of the coastal zone. Key recommendations from the 110 page report are highlighted below:

• Proposes a ‘Conservation, Protection and Management Framework for CRZ 1 areas’ that are considered to be ecologically fragile area and with dense mangroves, coral reefs, nesting grounds etc. An important tool recommended is the declaration of Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESAs) across coastal areas.
• Proposes the devolution of powers to state and union territory governments along with local authorities for CRZ II (built up cities and towns), CRZ III (rural areas) and CRZ IV (12 nautical miles into the sea) areas. These are for activities not covered under the Environment Impact Assessment Notification, 2006.
• Recommends that buildings can be constructed behind existing structures and roads in CRZ II areas as per existing Town and Country Planning norms.
• Divides CRZ III areas as ‘Densely Populated Rural Areas’ and ‘Rural Areas’ with lesser regulation for the former through the reduction of the ‘no development zone’ to 50 metres.
• Promotes housing infrastructure and slum redevelopment activities in CRZ II and tourism in CRZ III areas based on town and country planning norms and other state regulations.
• Recommends temporary tourism facilities in the No Development Zone (NDZ). Further if the NDZ falls on the landward side of a national or state highway, it recommends permitting construction of permanent tourism facilities.
• Recommends the reclamation of the sea bed in CRZ IV area for ‘ports and harbour, fisheries-related activities and other infrastructure required in the larger public interest such as bridges, sealinks on stilts, roads, important national installations related to coastal security, tourism’.

The report is the outcome of a six-member committee set up in June 2014, under the Chairmanship of Dr Shailesh Nayak, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences. The purpose of the committee was to examine issues of coastal states related and also ‘the errors or inconsistencies and procedural simplification in the said Notification’.

The committee members had extensive meetings with the governments of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala and also invited representatives of state and union territory governments for a meeting in New Delhi. While the meeting details are provided in the report, the individual representations made by the states before the committee can be found here. No consultations were carried with coastal communities, fishing unions or private parties as per the information disclosed in the report. The report is yet to be made available to the public by the ministry through its website.

The Information Commissioner observed that this report is the roadmap for the amendments proposed by the Ministry. Since January 2015 when the report was submitted, the Ministry has made several amendments to the notification and five of these are related to allowing more constructions in environmentally sensitive coastal zones, laying of new coastal roads and monuments in CRZ areas. While the piecemeal amendments have sought public comment, this roadmap itself has been strictly kept out of public view. 

The timeline for the Shailesh Nayak report and RTI disclosure is provided below:

• 17.6.2014: Constitution of six member Shailesh Nayak Committee
• January 2015: Report submitted to MoEFCC as per disclosure by MoEFCC representative during CIC hearing
• 22.2.2015: RTI application by Kanchi Kohli seeking copy of report and file notings
• 18.3.2015: Refusal of information by Ministry
• 1.4.2015 and 20.4.2015: First Appeals Filed before Ministry (9.5.2015 response from MoEFCC regarding change of first appellate officer, no action on first appeal)
• 8.11.2015: Second Appeal before CIC
• 3.5.2016: Hearing of the Central Information Commission
• 13.5.2016: Order of Central Information Commission
• 16.6.2016: Information dispatched from MoEFCC

To know more about the CPR-Namati program, its dedicated page can be accessed here. In 2015, the CPR-Namati team released the findings of a three-year-long study titled CZMAs and Coastal Environments: Two Decades of Regulating Land Use Change on India’s Coastline. The study analysed the functioning of Coastal Zone Management Authorities (CZMA) and twenty years of implementation of CRZ Notification in the country.

A new draft Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification, 2018 has been put out for public comments by the Ministry. The last date for sending comments is 17 June 2018. The Ministry states that the draft is based on the CRZ review conducted by the Shailesh Nayak Committee in 2014. The recommendations and full report of the Shailesh Nayak Committee can be accessed here. The CPR-Namati Environmental Justice Program has prepared a detailed comparative analysis between the CRZ Notification 2011, recommendations of the Shailesh Nayak Committee and the Draft CRZ Notification, 2018 and its implications. This can be accessed here.

CPR-Namati Environmental Justice Program sent its comments to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change on the Draft CRZ Notification, 2018, which can be accessed here.

Find below links to all ten blogs under CPR’s blog series on CRZ:

• Coastal commons for private tourism and entertainment?
• Is it the end of participatory coastal planning?
• States ask Review Committee to loosen up the Coastal Regulation
• Crucial aspects of proposed Marine Coastal Regulatory Zone Notification revealed
• In conversation with Dr Shailesh Nayak – the man who led the review of coastal regulation
• The proposed Marine Coastal Regulation Zone (MCRZ) Notification
• A tale of two reviews: How two governments amended a coastal land use law
• The Supreme Court’s guiding principles for coastal regulation
• Coastal Regulation Zone Disputes before the National Green Tribunal
• CRZ drives a wedge between communities in Mumbai

A new draft forest policy, 2018 has been put out for public comments by the Ministry. The last date for sending comments is 14 April 2018. In an op-ed on the draft policy published on DNA India, the authors mentioned an earlier draft prepared by IIFM. The draft was uploaded on the Ministry’s website and then removed following a clarification by the Ministry. Since the authors have received the 2016 document on email for comments, they have been uploaded here and here.

Manju Menon, Shibani Ghosh and Kanchi Kohli sent their comments to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change on the Draft National Forest Policy 2018, which can be accessed here.

At the 10^th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGs) CPR brings together its past work and analyses on the subject.

The Accountability Initiative (AI) at CPR, in particular, has produced a series of reports and articles on the Scheme, detailed below:

• In its 2015 Budget Brief, AI tracked the allocation of funds and expenditure under MNREGS through analysing government data.
• AI studied the implementation of social audits of the MNREGS scheme by the government in Andhra Pradesh (AP), and the impact of these audits on citizens and state in these papers: Spectators or Participants and Transparency and Accountability in NREGA.
• AI’s study of the implementation of social audits in AP was featured in these articles in Livemint: MNREGS social audit lessons from AP and MNREGS: getting implementation right.
• Yamini Aiyar of AI has written analytical pieces on MNREGS, including how MNREGS faces critical questions in Livemint, and Re-framing the MNREGA debate in The Hindu.​

In 2013, Shylashri Shankar at CPR published a book titled Batting Corruption: Has NREGA Reached India’s Rural Poor? She has also written a piece on Killing MNREGA slowly in The Indian Express.

The Groundwater (Sustainable Management) Bill, 2017 drafted by the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation provides a new template that states can use to adopt legislation capable of addressing the fast-increasing groundwater crisis faced by many states. This Bill follows on an earlier model bill drafted in 1970 and updated several times until 2005 on which the dozen of existing groundwater acts are based. This 1970 template is unsuited to the present needs of a country where groundwater is now the primary source of drinking water and irrigation. In particular, it fails to provide for local-level regulation of what is often known as the most local source of water and fails to provide for conservation measures at aquifer level. The 2017 Bill integrates legal developments having taking place since the 1970s, such as the decentralization reforms kick-started in the 1990s, the recognition of water as a fundamental right and its recognition as a public trust. In doing so, it provides new bases for regulating groundwater as a public resource and to take measures at aquifer level, something that is crucial to address ongoing overexploitation and falling water tables.

Access the article here.

CPR faculty share a rounded analysis of Modi’s visit to China in the media, presented below.

• Shyam Saran shares his expertise on China, commenting on the ‘border issue’ on Headlines Today with Karan Thapar, and on the ‘trust deficit’ between the two countries on NDTV.
• Brahma Chellaney writes in Project Syndicate that Modi’s tour to China highlights that ‘the issues that divide the demographic titans remain formidable’.
• Srinath Raghavan, on the other hand, writes for NDTV that the visit laid a ‘solid foundation on which the two sides can now build’.

Narendra Modi’s visit to China is under close scrutiny. CPR faculty provide insightful analysis on different aspects:

• Srinath Raghavan in the Economic and Political Weekly deconstructs Modi’s opportunity in China—on how the prime minister has the political capital to push for a settlement of the border dispute, thus strengthening bilateral ties and expanding India’s political space on multilateral stages.
• Shyam Saran in this piece in The Wire explores the “out of the box” solution to the long-standing border dispute between India and China.
• In The New Indian Express, Bharat Karnad writes that Modi’s visit to China will be marred by bad geostrategics and even worse policy.
• Embedding Indo-Chinese relations historically Sanjaya Baru in The Hindu talks about how relations between the two countries will be shaped by whether China wishes to be a global hegemon or “truly believes in the creation of a multipolar world”