B. GS 2 Related

Category: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. China holds third edition of South Asia multilateral meet

India, Bhutan and the Maldives gave the virtual event a skip

Context:

• China held its third multilateral dialogue with countries from South Asia to take forward closer cooperation on fighting COVID-19 and coordinating their economic agendas, reflecting a new approach in Beijing’s outreach to the region.

Details:

• The third dialogue was held virtually; most countries in the region participated with the exception of India, Bhutan and the Maldives.
• The virtual meet focused on anti-epidemic cooperation and poverty reduction cooperation.

Participants

• This was the third dialogue, with Pakistan and Nepal participating in all the three summits.
• The participation of these countries showcases the emerging alignment of China’s ambitions in the region towards Nepal and Pakistan.
• The first such meeting was convened by China in July and was participated by Pakistan, Nepal and Afghanistan.
• The second meeting saw China, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh attend.

The dialogue

• The meeting saw the representatives share their experience on anti-epidemic and poverty relief.
• They discussed dealing with the impact of the pandemic, resuming economic and trade cooperation, dealing with non-traditional security challenges and advancing sustainable development.
• The previous summits saw discussions on utilizing China’s Belt and Road Initiative to boost their post-COVID-19 economic recovery.
• There was consensus with regards to creating a joint response mechanism for countries linked by land ports, this will also see greater information sharing and international cooperation.

CPEC extension

• In the quadrilateral dialogue with Afghanistan, Nepal and Pakistan, China expressed its intentions of extending the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to Afghanistan and also talked about grand plans of taking forward an economic corridor with Nepal, called the Trans-Himalayan Multi-dimensional Connectivity Network.
• The Chinese official expressed intentions of using the geographical proximity of the four countries which were connected by mountains and rivers, and also offered to share China’s expertise and capacities on COVID-19 vaccines.

Conclusion:

• China has been trying to use this platform to create a consensus on a wide range of issues and problems faced in the pandemic era.
• Regional cooperation will help in coordinating efforts but should not be used to push narrow nationalistic goals.

E. Editorials

Category: POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

1. Beyond the Central Vista verdict, key questions

Context

• The Supreme Court cleared the Central Vista Redevelopment Project that included the construction of a new Parliament Building and a common Central Secretariat.
• A three-judge bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar, by 2:1 majority, held that the grant of environmental clearance and the notification for change in land use for the project were valid.
  • It allowed the project to go on but with several riders like clearances from the Heritage Conservation Committee.

What is the Central Vista redevelopment project?

• The Central Vista redevelopment project aims to renovate and redevelop 86 acres of land in Lutyens’s Delhi.
• It envisages a common central secretariat, a new triangular Parliament building (with a seating capacity for 900 to 1,200 MPs, that is to be constructed by August 2022 when the country will be celebrating its 75th Independence Day), revamping of the 3-km Rajpath, from Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate, new Vice President Enclave, a new residence of PM as well as PMO.
• The Prime Minister’s Office, defence ministry, external affairs ministry and finance ministry, among others, will be shifted to a new “symmetrical, interconnected” complex of towers that will be built in the stead of the offices.

Need for the Project

• The existing building lacks several safety features such as earthquake-proofing, a standard fireproofing system and also has inadequate office space. This necessitated the demand for a modern building.
• Article 81 of the Indian Constitution provides for the delimitation of parliamentary constituencies. Since the last delimitation exercise was based on the 1971 census, the ongoing freeze on increasing the state-wise distribution of seats will end in 2026. Subsequently, the number of MPs will undoubtedly increase, which poses an urgent demand for appropriate arrangements.
  • In the new building, the Lok Sabha chamber will have a seating capacity for 888 members, while Rajya Sabha will have 384 seats for the upper house members.
  • This has been done keeping in mind the future increase in the number of members for the two houses.
• According to the Central Government, the project saves a lot of money – up to Rs 1,000 crore worth annual rent expenditure.

What happens to the existing Parliament House?

• The existing Parliament building will be conserved as it is an archaeological asset of the country.
• It will be suitably retro-fitted to provide more functional spaces for parliamentary events, to ensure its usage along with the new building.

Litigation over the project

• A petition was filed in the Supreme Court in April 2020, challenging the Centre’s change-of-land-use notification of March 2020 with regard to the 86 acres of land.
• The petitioner submitted that the order violated the citizen’s Right to Life guaranteed under Article 21 by depriving people of open and green spaces.
• The petition also argued that the notification violated the Master Plan of Delhi 2021 and that the Centre’s notification sought to override an earlier (December 2019) notice issued by the Delhi Development Authority inviting objections against the proposed changes in land use, which was itself under challenge in the top court at the time.

Subsequently, the court heard the challenge on three main grounds:

• change of land use;
• violations of municipal law; and
• violations of environmental law.

Supreme Court gives green light

• Limiting itself strictly to ‘the procedures sanctioned by law’, the majority judgment concluded that the government had followed all processes as stipulated by the regulations and could go ahead with the construction.

Concerns

1. Unanswered Questions

• With this judgment, the litigation might have come to an end but similar disputes and situations are bound to reoccur.
• The critical questions on ensuring public commitment in civic projects, improving participatory processes in city-building, and effective procurement of professional services remain unanswered.

2. Similar examples elsewhere

• The imprudent planning and reckless abandonment of Amaravati, the proposed capital for Andhra Pradesh, is but an example. In this project, plans were erratically changed, the chosen architect was dropped when the project moved towards construction and a new one appointed.
• The project was abandoned after acquiring vast areas of land through a controversial method, leaving farmers and others agitated and in difficulty.
• Failure to effectively address such instances has cumulatively eroded the possibilities of course correction.

Way forward

1. Governments have to be Accountable

• Accountability means ensuring that officials in public, private and voluntary sector organisations are answerable for their actions and that there is redress when duties and commitments are not met.

Types of Accountability

• Horizontal accountability consists of formal relationships within the state itself, whereby one state actor has the formal authority to demand explanations or impose penalties on another.
  • Its focus is on internal checks and oversight processes.
  • For example, executive agencies must explain their decisions to legislatures, and can in some cases be overruled or sanctioned for procedural violations.
• Vertical accountability is that in which citizens and their associations play direct roles in holding the powerful to account.
  • Elections are the formal institutional channel of vertical accountability.
  • But there are also informal processes through which citizens organize themselves into associations capable of lobbying governments and private service providers, demanding explanations and threatening less formal sanctions like negative publicity.

Issues

• The provisions for consultation though present, its processes are vague.
• The government often argues that horizontal accountability is in place and works well but citizens are unconvinced given the poor track record.

Future Course

• Vertical accountability should be expanded as it will enable improved participatory process.
• Clear benchmarks such as the number of meetings, diversity of participants and response time have to determine whether a consultation is inclusive and effective.
• Regulations have to unambiguously state what prior disclosures are needed when meetings have to be held and insist on publicly listing reasons for accepting and declining suggestions.

2. Choosing the designer

• Design is a complex service that requires a high level of creativity to meet functional, performative and aesthetic needs.
• It has a significant bearing on creating public assets and judicious use of taxpayer’s money.
• Poor choices disastrously impact downstream construction activities, building use, city functioning, and value for money.

The processes of procuring designs services could be improved.

• Barring a few instances of open competition, which is an ideal way to choose from a larger pool of solutions, the state can also follow an alternative method.
• Quality- and Cost-Based Selection (QCBS)
  • The method allows for stipulating prerequisites for consultants, placing higher weightage on their technical competency and relatively lower weightage on financial proposals.
  • This is meant to prioritise quality and not low price.

3. Reducing the entry barrier

• Many public projects insist on steep turnover conditions for architecture firms to qualify.
  • The assumption is that the more considerable the turnover, the better it is in terms of expertise.
• Steep entry requirements eliminate medium and small size firms and enable only a handful of large firms to qualify.
• This detrimentally reduces the pool of choice.

Going forward, where open competitions are not possible, the next best alternative is to mandate a method that reduces the entry barrier. In this regard, one could take cues from the suggestions made by the Architects’ Council of Europe.

• It advocated dropping turnover requirements and laid an emphasis on qualitative selection criteria.
• Second, professional services could be disaggregated into design services and project development and management, thereby enabling better design focus.
• Third, weightage placed on design value has to be unambiguously clear and fixed.
• Given that more than 65% of the registered architects in India are below 35 years and many firms are medium-sized, such procurement changes are all the more necessary.

G. Tidbits

1. SEBI eases norms for follow-on public offers

• SEBI, which is the capital markets watchdog, has chosen to relax the framework for follow-on public offers (FPOs).
• This move is anticipated to help the promoters of companies to raise funds more conveniently through this route.
• The SEBI notification has also done away with the applicability of minimum promoters’ contribution norm and the subsequent lock-in requirements for the issuers making the FPO.
• Previously the promoters were mandated to contribute 20% towards an FPO.
• Besides, in case of any issue of capital to the public, the minimum promoters’ contribution was mandated to be locked-in for a period of three years.
• The relaxation would be available for those companies which are frequently traded on a stock exchange for at least three years. Also, such firms should have redressed 95% of investor complaints.