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India-Pakistan trade: status, outlook

• In 2007, the Indian Council of Research on International Economic Relations (Icrier) had projected – a bilateral trade potential of $11.7 billion (Rs 46,098 crore), if both neighbours took proactive measures to exploit untapped areas of economic cooperation. Ground reality – FY17 – $2.29 billion (0.35% of India’s overall)

• General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), 1994, requires every WTO member country to accord Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to all other member countries. India accorded Pakistan MFN status in 1996 Pakistan – ??!!

• PAK not permitting all importable items through the WagahAttari land route (only 137 items are allowed currently)

• Obstacles in the way of normalising India-Pakistan trade relations –

✓ Weak logistics and customs processing ✓ Technical barriers – sanitary or phytosanitary (SPS) restrictions

✓ Visa and travel restrictions

✓ Lack of financial intermediation

✓ Lack of telecommunication connectivity Pressure on IK – Pakistan’s annual trade deficit has been rising steadily Reason –

✓ Rising import bill of capital good

Naga agreement: three years in the making

Demand for ‘Greater Nagalim’ In the NSCN’s conception, “Greater Nagalim” , included several districts of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur, and a part of Myanmar The area of Nagaland in 16,527 sq km, Greater Nagalim sprawled over 1,20,000 sq km Peace efforts NNC declared Nagaland an independent state on August 14, 1947 August 1997 – first ceasefire agreement to be signed between the government and the NSCN-IM. The security situation in Nagaland and neighbouring states, however, remained grim, and the ceasefire was violated by both the NSCN-IM and NSCN-K

• The NSCN-K unilaterally broke the agreement in March 2015, and was subsequently declared an unlawful association under The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.

• Role of NSCN-IM On November 11, 1975, the Shillong Accord was signed between the government and a section of the Naga National Council (NNC) Thuingaleng Muivah refused to accept the Accord and, in 1980, formed the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN). In 1988, the NSCN split into two groups, led by Isak and Muivah, and Khaplang.

• 2015 – Prime Minister announced the signing of a historic framework agreement to end the decades-old Naga insurgency.

• RN Ravi –interlocutor for talks

• The agreement was signed nearly 18 years after the government’s ceasefire 1997 deal with Naga armed groups.

• The NSCN-IM dropped its demand of a separate nation

• 2015 agreement – ‘’Special status for the Nagas’’ *Article 371A of the Constitution – Already ‘Special’ ?! • Negotiations were proceeding towards a situation, where boundaries of any State will neither be changed nor altered.

• The NSCN-IM + 6 groups

• NSCN-K – not part of the peace process. Delay in finalising accord

✓Elections

✓Small groups

✓Demand for a separate flag and passport

✓question of the armed Naga battallions

Elite sand in the machine

▪ In a formal society- welfare of people is determined by the job profiles .

▪ Value Creation – job metrics

▪ In India a great demand for many development services.

▪ Lack of public provisioning, absence of good public transport, rural sanitation , drinking water, etc .

▪ In These sectors – the demand for services is huge. Why, then, is this unmet demand not translating into jobs? three key reasons :-

1. Bad job descriptions

2. Shortage of facts and lack of analysis

3. Rentier positions of elite bureaucracy

• The chief rentiers – elite central bureaucracies, such as the IITs, and the central services, the IAS. There are no professional avenues for a smart solution.

• Politics in local administration/ service delivery These have kept our economy backward Elite institutions.

• Only 2 per cent of our society – global citizens

• Books – physics curricula with 50 pages on the structure of the atom but no pages on water, or 700-page chemistry curricula where “Chemistry in Everyday Life” are the last 16 pages.

• In social sciences, the UGC curricula have no room for regional topics or electives and no texts from the vernacular languages

Conclusion

• Demographic nightmare is soon coming – The youth have already hit the streets. After graduation – System has no plan about their future

• The elite sand in the machine must be removed or else the central machine will break.

People police

• Robert Peel, the father of modern policing

• Founded the – London Metropolitan Police in 1829. Approach – “citizens in uniform” Close collaboration with the community and focus on crime prevention. But the British established a militaristic and repressive police in India in 1861 to defend their predatory rule (British rule). US Police in early 20th century – opted for the “professional crimefighting model” which focused on 3 Rs :- 1. Random preventive patrols 2. Rapid response to calls for service 3. Reactive criminal investigation. The police interacted with citizens primarily at crime scenes, making the relationship between the two increasingly hostile. In the 1960, both India and the US :- faced escalating crime and street violence. Different response USA – started reforms:- Crime-fighting activities like arrests constituted less than one-fifth of patrol activities. Preventive patrols by automobile did not effectively reduce crime, increase public satisfaction with police or decrease citizens’ fear of crime. In 1980 US courts restricted searches and interrogations in deference to people’s rights .

• Thus it led to the gradual displacement of the professional crimefighting model by a set of strategies and programmes collectively called community policing

• In the 1990s, community policing became part of a federal strategy.

• Now, about two-thirds of local police departments have a community-policing plan of some type . In India – a militaristic and repressive police force inherited from the British.

• 1970 – government did initiate the modernisation of the police force scheme

• Instead of switching to problem-solving and community policing strategies as the US did, it kept investing in the crime-fighting strategy — motorised patrolling, quick reactions to calls for help and reactive investigation.

• The ever-increasing fear of crime is reflected in gated communities and the booming private security industry.

Conclusion

• India’s need – to embrace a hybrid of the community-oriented and crime-fighting policing strategies and to reinforce it with crimemapping and trend analysis.

• Change the role of constables, who constitute 86 per cent of the police, and transform them to problem-solvers.