The Hindu Editorial Analysis | 28th July ’21

Table of Contents

NEWS

Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Bill to be taken up for consideration and passing in Lok Sabha
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to hold talks with EAM Dr. S. Jaishankar in New Delhi today
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to participate in Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s Defence Ministers meet in Tajikistan
PM Modi asks BJP MPs to become part of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav
Harrapan City in Gujarat ‘Dholavira’ inscribed on UNESCO World Heritage List
Cumulative COVID Vaccination in country surpasses 44.58 crore
National COVID-19 recovery rate improves to 97.4 per cent
Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha SLCs urged to grant extension of time up to 9th Jan 2021 to frame rules under CAA: MoS Home
NIA registers 22 cases related to fake currency in last two years: MoS Home
No plans to open agricultural export centers in country: Centre
Second Oxygen express leaves India for Bangladesh amid record single day COVID deaths
US not to lift travel restrictions amid concerns over rising number of coronavirus cases
Myanmar junta cancels results of 2020 polls won by Suu Kyi’s party
UN climate science talks on preventing climate catastrophe
Tokyo Olympics: India registers victories in Hockey, Badminton, Boxing
West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee calls on PM Modi
Assam: Complete curfew in Golaghat & Lakhimpur district due to high COVID-19 positivity rate
Meghalaya reports 710 new COVID 19 cases
Only COVID-19 vaccines approved for emergency use in India will be issued Vaccination certificates: Govt

It’s been nearly half a century since John Berger observed, “Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.”

Clothes of a woman | Ind Exp

Women athletes everywhere are protesting rules and conventions that expect them to wear outfits which have less to do with function and more to do with glamour and “sex appeal”.
We women all want to feel good in our skin,” said German gymnast Sarah Voss, as she explained her decision to wear a full body suit at the European Artistic Gymnastics Championship in April this year.
On Sunday, she was joined by her teammates who wore unitards that covered their arms and legs for the Tokyo Olympics’ qualifying round, making a statement against what they described as the “sexualisation” of women in sports.
“We wanted to show that every woman, everybody, should decide what to wear,” said German gymnast Elisabeth Seitz.
Most sporting bodies remain conformist and sexist in their approach to athletic outfits.
The tyranny of the “male gaze” is strongest in fields like cinema and sports.
Take what happened with the Norwegian women’s beach handball team in the recent European Beach Handball Championship: After their repeated complaints against the mandated bikini bottoms were ignored, they played wearing shorts.
Finally, athletes themselves are starting to be heard: The Norwegian Handball Federation supported its players and offered to pay the fine on their behalf. Others need to follow its example.

Dangerous conflagration | TH

Following a dangerous and avoidable escalation of an otherwise dormant border dispute, five policemen and a civilian from Assam were killed in the Mizo border town of Vairengte in clashes between police from the State and their counterparts in Mizoram, on Monday.
The sequence of events, beginning October 2020, suggests that what began as skirmishes between residents close to the disputed border between Assam’s Cachar and Mizoram’s Kolasib districts has snowballed into a violent confrontation between police and residents.

The events point to a failure of the constitutional machinery, empowered to de-escalate tensions at the border.
The presence of central paramilitary forces should have helped maintain the peace, but it is curiously not the case.
Besides, Assam and Mizoram are governed by the BJP and its ally, the Mizo National Front, respectively, and are part of North-East Democratic Alliance, of which the Assam Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, is a founder-convenor.
The political bonhomie should have allowed the respective Chief Ministers to tamp down border tensions and to return to the status quo through joint fact-finding teams, involving the administrative officials in maintaining the peace over the border issue.
Instead, both Chief Ministers have been exchanging allegations on Twitter, seeking the intervention of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and using videos to tell a story that suited their version of the events — a farcical means of communication.
This also occurred just days after both Chief Ministers (along with others) met with Mr. Shah to discuss the resolution of inter-State border disputes.
The unfortunate loss of lives has led to hardened stances, with Mr. Sarma announcing that Assam would deploy “4,000 commandos to guard its border”, even as Mizoram’s Chief Minister Zoramthanga has maintained that the casualties followed from the Assam police’s actions.
Sectarian tribalism has been the bane of the North-eastern States, with underdevelopment acting as a catalyst in complicating knotty issues over land and other issues in the region.
There is no sure-shot and quick solution possible to the border disputes between various States without a spirit of give and take and a civic engagement brokered by the Union government.
A resort to one-upmanship will only prolong the disputes and harden stances.

Strengthen the Code | Ind Exp

Five years ago, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) was passed by the Parliament, bringing about a structural change in the framework that governs the corporate insolvency resolution process in India.
The IBC provides for a time-bound resolution of firms, addressing the vexed problem of firm exit in India.
It has strengthened the hands of creditors in enforcing their rightful claims against corporate debtors.
The threat of losing control over their company has emerged as a powerful deterrent for errant promoters not wanting to meet their financial obligations.
It has also provided operational creditors — typically micro, small and medium enterprises — a powerful tool to negotiate the payment of dues with the larger firms.
In fact, about half of the cases have been initiated by operational creditors.
However, despite a considerable improvement over the erstwhile architecture, on various parameters, outcomes under the IBC have not been as favourable as envisaged.
Of the 4,376 cases that have been admitted into insolvency proceedings till March 2021, resolution plans have been approved in only 348 cases (7.9 per cent), while 1,277 (29 per cent) cases have ended in liquidation.
In cases where a resolution plan has been accepted, the average time taken stands at 459 days, higher than the 330 limit.
In these cases financial creditors have realised only 39.2 per cent of their admitted claims.
Amid a slowing economy, uncertain future prospects may have reduced the number of interested buyers or depressed the bids for companies.
It is also possible that in some cases assets may have been siphoned off, leaving very little value in the company.
In cases that were carrying on under earlier regimes, the value of assets would have been significantly eroded.
Further, delays in either beginning the insolvency proceedings or the resolution process itself — in many cases, promoters have repeatedly tried to mount legal hurdles causing considerable delay — would have led to significant value destruction.
The functioning of the Code needs to be streamlined and strengthened.
Errant promoters should not be allowed to manipulate the system to their advantage.
The timelines for resolution need to be strictly adhered to as speedy resolution was one of the most appealing aspects of IBC.
The capacity of the system to handle cases also needs to be augmented as delays in the process destroy enterprise value.

Weighing down the private unaided college teacher |TH

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every sector in the economy in India and across the globe as well.
Under the pretext of providing online education, most private institutions have managed to collect fees in full.
Though the revenue of private educational institutions has not taken a huge hit, the same cannot be said about the livelihoods of teachers in private unaided colleges.
During the novel coronavirus pandemic, layoffs and pay cuts have forced several private-unaided college teachers to take up odd jobs to provide for their families.
The example of an assistant professor in Tamil Nadu who suffered a pay cut in a private-unaided college following the pandemic and who died while climbing a palm tree — he had taken to cutting the leaves of palm trees to make a living — pushed us to survey private-unaided college teachers and to understand the impact of the pandemic on their working and living conditions.
We surveyed 194 teachers working in private-unaided colleges that are affiliated with the University of Madras, Chennai.
The survey was conducted between June 13 and June 26, 2021.
The findings show that even before the pandemic, private-unaided college teachers received below-par salaries and many did not enjoy any social security benefits.
Among 194 respondents, 137 fulfilled the University Grants Commission (UGC) qualifying criteria (has PhD or National Eligibility Test or State Eligibility Test) to be an assistant professor;
- 72% of these qualified teachers received less than ₹25,000 per month
- 1% received less than ₹10,000 per month,
- While according to the 7th Pay Commission entry-level consolidated monthly salary for an assistant professor is ₹76,809.
In our survey, we found that only 38% and 42% had Employee State Insurance and paid leave, respectively.
This deplorable condition of private-unaided college teachers can be attributed to the absence of any State regulation of private higher educational institutions, including on matters relating to the working conditions of teachers and other employees.
Following neoliberal policies, the Indian state has withdrawn from providing higher education.
This has resulted in the enormous growth of private higher educational institutions.
According to the All-India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE), 2020 report, at all India level, 65% of the total colleges are private unaided colleges.
Tamil Nadu, which is one of the few States that privatised higher education in the early 1980s, has 77% private unaided colleges.
This shows the dominance of profit-maximising private-unaided colleges in higher education.
In online teaching — lack of Internet, lack of room/space, and lack of quality equipment.
Of the 194 teachers surveyed, 132 had to incur an expenditure to purchase one or more of the following items: a phone, computer, headphones.
107 respondents reported experiencing high emotional distress during this period linked to online teaching work.
All these show that these teachers had to physically, emotionally, and monetarily exert themselves to provide online education during this pandemic.
Sadly, 10% of our respondents did not receive any salary during April to June 2020.
Further, it is a well-known fact that private colleges have collected fees from students.
Private-unaided colleges have used the pandemic as an excuse to rob teachers who have worked hard to teach under very difficult conditions, incurring considerable monetary expenses and experiencing much stress during this period.
In 2018, Kerala fixed ₹1,750 per day and ₹43,750 per month as a standard salary for guest lecturers with UGC qualification and ₹1,600 per day and ₹40,000 per month for those without UGC qualification in aided private colleges.
The Tamil Nadu government may consider implementing something along these lines.
Further, the Tamil Nadu Private Colleges (Regulation) Act 1976 needs to be reviewed and amended to equip monitoring agencies such as the Directorate of Collegiate Education and the Regional Joint Directorate of Collegiate Education to safeguard the welfare of teachers and non-teaching staff in unaided private colleges.

Needed, a more unified Asian voice for Afghanistan | TH

As the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) end their presence in Afghanistan and set off a churn in the neighbourhood, Central Asia is emerging as a key player that the global Troika of the United States, Russia and China are turning to.
Three meetings this month, of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) contact group on Afghanistan and SCO Defence Ministers in Tajikistan, and the Central and South Asia conference on regional connectivity in Uzbekistan, are turning the spotlight on the region’s role in dealing with the situation in Afghanistan, and how India could build on that.
Put plainly, events of the past few years, and the decisions of the Troika have kept India out of a leading role in Afghanistan.
Since 2019, the Troika has met with Pakistan (Troika plus) in order to discuss Afghanistan’s future, one in which the Taliban — with which New Delhi has had no ties — gains an important if not controlling role in Kabul.
The same powers that invaded Afghanistan post 9/11, and declared the Taliban leadership as United Nations Security Council-designated terrorists, are now not only advocating talks with the Taliban, entreating their Pakistani hosts of the past two decades to help, but actively paving the way for the Taliban’s return to power.
India’s efforts to build on trade with Afghanistan, shore up development projects and increase educational and training opportunities for Afghan youth have been appreciated, but these cannot grow bigger due to a number of factors.
New Delhi’s original hesitation in opening talks with the Taliban, which even Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani had suggested, has cut India out of the current reconciliation process.
The end of any formal dialogue between India and Pakistan since 2016 and trade since 2019, have resulted in Pakistan blocking India’s over-land access to Afghanistan.
India’s over-land access to Afghanistan. India’s alternative route through Chabahar, though operational, cannot be viable or cost-effective also long as U.S. sanctions on Iran are in place.
India’s boycott of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2017, and now tensions at the Line of Actual Control after the Chinese aggression in 2020, make another route to Afghanistan off-limits.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has announced a new, surprise formation of a “Quad” on regional connectivity — U.S.-Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan that does not include India, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is conducting trial runs of truck convoys from Tashkent to Karachi and back.
With so many doors slamming shut, the hope is that the Central Asian window, with the “Stans” (as the five Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are sometimes referred to) will open new possibilities, but here too, there are some caveats.
To begin with, it is clear that Tashkent (Uzbekistan) sees the rise of the Taliban in a different light from New Delhi.

After a whirlwind round of negotiations in his own region since coming to power in 2016, where he mended relations and ended border disputes with each of the other Central Asian States, and outreaches to the U.S. and China to shift the traditional tilt towards Moscow, Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has made purposeful moves on Afghanistan.
In 2018, his government became one of the first countries to publicly invite a Taliban delegation from Doha, Qatar to visit, while at the same time he has promoted a number of ambitious trade and connectivity initiatives with the Ashraf Ghani government.
Speaking at the Central and South Asia conference in July, Mr. Mirziyoyev spelt out his plans for a modern version of the “the ancient northern trade route known as the Uttara Patha, connecting the Indo-Ganges Plain with the southern territories of the Eurasian continent through the historical cities of Takshila, Gandhara and Termez.”
He spoke of the old Silk Routes that once bound Central and South Asia together, and called Afghanistan the key link in “practical connectivity” for them.
Significantly, while he mentioned the salience of the Termez-Mazar-i-Sharif-Kabul-Peshawar railroad, the Trans-Afghan railroad to connect to China’s BRI, and the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) via the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas as key elements of the “architecture of connectivity”, he did not mention the Chabahar route that India has espoused.
The Uzbekistan-Pakistan memorandum of understanding on Transit Trade — or the Agreement between Uzbekistan and Pakistan on Transit Trade (AUPTT) — was also signed the same day, which would give Uzbekistan access to the Pakistani seaports of Gwadar and Karachi, rather than Iranian ports.
Uzbekistan’s calculations, and by extension, those of its other Central Asian neighbours, are three-fold:
The first is that prosperity for these land-locked countries can only flow from access through Afghanistan to the closest ocean, i.e. the Indian Ocean.
Second, that all transit through Afghanistan depends on guarantees of safe passage from the Taliban, backed by the group’s mentors in Pakistan.
Third, each of the “Stans” are now a part of China’s BRI, and tying their connectivity initiatives with Beijing’s will bring the double promise of investment and some modicum of control over Pakistan.
Given the odds, New Delhi’s room for manoeuvre with these five countries on Afghanistan appears limited but not without hope.
To begin with, India and the Central Asian States share common concerns about an Afghanistan overrun by the Taliban and under Pakistan’s thumb: the worries of battles at their borders, safe havens for jihadist terror groups inside Afghanistan and the spill-over of radicalism into their own countries.
It is necessary for India to work with them, and other neighbours to shore up finances for the government in Kabul, particularly to ensure that the government structure does not collapse.
It is only a matter of time before the COVID-19-weary international economies tire of funding Afghanistan, as the last donors conference in Geneva (November 2020) showed.
As part of the SCO’s Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), India must also step up its engagement with the Central Asian countries on fighting terror.
While the Narendra Modi government has made it clear it will not send Indian boots to the ground in Afghanistan, it can support the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) where it needs it most: in terms of air power
Finally, South Asia must learn from Central Asia’s recent example in knitting together this region more tightly, a task that can only be completed with better ties between India and Pakistan.
Afghanistan’s future will affect both regions much more than it will the distant global powers that currently dominate the debate.
“The end of the Silk Road did not just come about from the rise of sea-based trade of the new European powers,” he said, “It also happened because Central Asia was no longer a bridge between regions, but the new fault line between great empires to the east, west and south.”

ANS

Q.) Name the 82 year old who trained to be an astronaut in the 1960s but never got a chance to fly to space until now and accompanied Jeff Bezos on Blue Origin’s maiden travel to space.