IASbaba’s Daily Current Affairs – 18th December, 2015

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IASbaba’s Daily Current Affairs – 18th December, 2015

NATIONAL

TOPIC:  General Studies 3

• Various Security forces and agencies and their mandate.
• Challenges to internal security through communication networks, role of media and social networking sites in internal security challenges, basics of cyber security; money-laundering and its prevention. 
• Security challenges and their management in border areas; linkages of organized crime with terrorism.

Roadmap: India’s policing & Intelligence Agencies

With the ever increasing national security threats that India confronts today; which are much more diverse and complex— we need to enquire if strategic measure of these challenges and the willingness and ability to confront them and, if required, pre-empt them exists

Intelligence agencies

Major Requirements: Integrated mission + Enterprise management + Innovation

Limited Success of reform and restructuring in the Indian Scenario:

Internal Intelligence

• Beyond the capacity of a single agency
• Requires a multi-pronged approach to tackle— cross-border terrorism, Maoist rebellions, insurgencies in North-east India, violent Islamic extremism, communal and sectarian violence, illegal migration, human trafficking, narcotics smuggling, money laundering
• Carries the burden of an intellectual infrastructure of pre-independence that has failed to inculcate post-independence competencies to deal with a gamut of issues

RAW

• Limited ability in generating human intelligence
• Recruitment dependent on deputations from other central agencies
• Intake of scientists, cyber analysts and linguists- Below required levels
• Lack of lateral entry options
• Intelligence requirements framed in an ad-hoc manner

Coordination between the Centre and the states

• Deficiency prevails, even after setting up new mechanisms like Multi Agency Centres (MAC) and Subsidiary Multi Agency Centres (SMAC), to enable intelligence sharing and coordination
• Need for higher level coordination which involves the Home and Police departments working together with their Central counterparts

Shortage of personnel and recruitment

Skills:

• Lack of intellectual capacity and investment in education system
• Inability to recruit qualified specialists
• Lack of technical skills: Requires more focused effort inTECHINT (Technical Intelligence) and HUMINT (Human Intelligence)
• Chronic shortage of military expertise
• Lack of customization of Big data analytics capabilities + Poor analysis of data in hand

Management:

• Poor cadre management
• Lack of co-ordination amongst the intelligence community
• Lack of engagement of private players for specialist tasks
• Culture of ‘No Accountability’– Need to counter this systemic flaw which exists due to excessive secrecy making authority and accountability not letting work together
• Lack of political attention and effective guidance (inexperience and ignorance)

Way Ahead:

Need for strict guidance and supervision

Intelligence collection:

• Conducted in an ad-hoc manner
• Absence of clear-cut requirements from the consumers of intelligence

Counter-terrorism Issues

Inadequate capacity of the various states to deal with terrorism, both in terms of:

• Intelligence
• Terror strike

Problem of secrecy prevents assessing the real-time effectiveness

Way Ahead

Intelligence agencies need to be governed by laws framed by the Parliament

To strengthen their accountability:

• Indian agencies function outside the purview of any legislation, making it difficult to implement administrative, operational or financial accountability
• Due to the enormous power in the hands of these agencies, it is important to legislate their functions and provide for means to guarantee the citizens against their misuse.

Need for clarity in the functioning:

Powers provided to the agencies should be carefully spelt out to ensure that they are not misinterpreted and spells out duties, responsibilities and authority effectively

Special forces capabilities need to be ramped up and their needs to take place a coordinated mechanism housing the private sector in intelligence work to make up for the shortfall that the agencies face

Duplication of resources and capabilities needs to be weeded out of the system (ineffective coordination) and be rationalised to meet the economic costs

Also, one agency needs to focus on open source information and internet-based communications covering all mediums (newspapers, radio, the internet and social media sites)

Policing—Criminal Investigation:

1996 petition moved in the Supreme Court: Emphasised that “the present distortions and aberrations in the functioning of the police have their roots in the colonial past and the complete subordination of the police to the executive—an arrangement which was designed originally to protect the interests of the British Raj, but which unfortunately continues to this day”

PM Modi’s SMART Police-

• Strict and sensitive,
• Modern and mobile,
• Alert and accountable,
• Reliable and responsive,
• Trained and techno-savvy

Critical Issues:

Poor police-to-people ratio

• India’s average police to people ratio is 1:761—one of the lowest is in the world
• UN recommends: 1 policeman for every 450 people
• Bureau of Police Research and Development’s standard: 1 for every 568 people
• VIP: At least three policemen

Criminal Investigation

• Investigations and conclusions of trials taking an abnormally long time
• Falling investigative standards

Long pending police reforms

None of the states have implemented Supreme Court’s directives—

Constitute a State Security Commission (SSC) to:

• Ensure that the state government does not exercise unwarranted influence or pressure on the police
• Lay down broad policy guideline
• Evaluate the performance of the state police via pre-determined planning, provisioning and rationalised performance parameters
• Reasons:
  • No convention to measure the amount of political ‘supervision’ and ‘control’
  • No rationale system for evaluating police performance against a set of pre-determined criteria

Ensure that the DGP:

• Appointed through merit based transparent process (Arbitrary; personal preferences dependant)
• Secure a minimum tenure of two years (uncertainty of office & tenure otherwise)
• Solution:
  • DGP must be selected from amongst the three senior-most officers empanelled by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) for the post
  • On the basis of the candidate’s: Length of service + Service record + Range of experience

Ensure that other police officers on operational duties (including Superintendents of Police in-charge of a district and Station House Officers in-charge of a police station) are also provided a minimum tenure of two years

Separate the investigation and law and order functions of the police

Set up a Police Establishment Board (PEB) to decide:

• Transfers, postings, promotions and other service related matters of police officers of and below the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police
• Make recommendations on postings and transfers above the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police
• Be a forum of appeal for disposing of representations from officers of the rank of Superintendent of Police and above
• Review the functioning of the police in the state

Set up a Police Complaints Authority (PCA) at state level to inquire into public complaints against police officers-

• State level Authority will inquire into cases of serious misconduct including incidents involving
  • Death + Grievous hurt + Rape in police custody by police officers of and above the rank of Superintendent of Police
• District level Authority will inquire into cases of serious misconduct including incidents involving
  • Death, Grievous hurt and Rape in police custody
  • Extortion + Land/house grabbing
  • Any incident involving serious abuse of authority by police officers of and up to the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police

Set up a National Security Commission (NSC) at the union level to prepare a panel for selection and placement of Chiefs of the Central Police Organisations (CPO) with a minimum tenure of two years.

Way Ahead

Training:

• Need for advanced personnel planning and training facilities
• Institutions need to be upgraded in terms of facilities + equipment + technology
• Best officers must be encouraged to join as trainers
• Must be made mandatory for personnel, including officers, to undergo in-service training before promotion

Intelligent Tools- Identify & Transfer

Tools to be developed for:

• Real-time situational awareness,
• Integrated information management,
• Simple communication enablers
• Gain insights into the behaviour of threat groups, individuals, analysts

CCTNS (Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System)

• Impart proper training in computer skills
• Skills upgradation keeping in view the dynamic nature of technology

Crime-sharing Apps: Hyderabad

• Shows crimes like snatchings and burglaries in 24 hours within 100-metre radiusto empower police personnel to get access to all data on a single click
• Synchronised with the Global Positioning System making the information dissemination easier
• Hawk Eye: An Android app for the citizens to reach police on different issues

Organise Mass contact programme

• Reach out and learn problems and issues faced
• Break the net of exploiters (people with no formal education are exploited as they are scared to go to a police station)
• Explain about various concepts of policing and work/initiatives being taken
• Breaking the shackles of fear (Anti-social)- History sheeters, land grabbers and eve-teasers can be called and counselled in front of the people

Strengthen external and internal communication:

• Communication with people has to be maintained and strengthened
• Communication within the organisation must be improved

TOPIC: 

General Studies 2:

• Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation; Issues relating to poverty and hunger. 

General Studies 3:

• Indian Economy, mobilization of resources, growth, development and employment. 
• Major crops cropping patterns in various parts of the country, different types of irrigation and irrigation systems storage, transport and marketing of agricultural produce and issues and related constraints; e-technology in the aid of farmers.
• Issues related to direct and indirect farm subsidies and minimum support prices; Public Distribution System

Agriculture: What about ease of doing farming?

• The Ministry of Agriculture was renamed recently as the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare.
• A welcome step and, perhaps, the Centre will devote better attention to farmers’ welfare and not just agriculture.

Bringing success of Make in India into farming:

• With the launch of Make in India mission, India performed well in manufacturing with the recent (2015) ease of doing business released by World Bank ranked India at 130 compared to 134 in 2014.
• Without making doing farming attractive, ease of doing business will be futile.
• The Make in India programme has made commendable progress and provides useful lessons for improving farm sector.

Five objectives which would make farming easy:

1. Facilitate investment:

• Like any other business, investments could be attracted in agriculture if it offers reasonable and predictable returns.
• It also has small, medium and large investors, with each category looking for a different kind of support, like other businesses.

Burden of subsidy:

• Subsidies have been provided to farmers for availing credit, procurement of inputs and output price support, etc.
• Economic survey 2014-15 points out that subsidies have either zero effect or negative effect, until and unless they are targeted and rationalised only to the deserving farming community.

Effective implementation of agricultural schemes:

• Both Centre and State governments have developed several schemes for crop insurance, measuring soil quality, their coverage and implementation remain poor.
• Large scale coverage and time-bound implementation is the key to inspire confidence amongst the farming community.

2. Foster innovation

• Research and innovation is as important in agriculture as in any other industry.
• The Indian Council of Agriculture Research conducts research on climate resilient agriculture, expert systems on crop management, State specific technological interventions for higher agricultural growth, productive seed varieties, and nutrient management.
• Perhaps, it has not been able to reach to the masses and enable commercialisation.

Focus on sustainable agriculture:

Sustainable agriculture should include use of non-renewable energy resources, and balanced use of organic crops and high yield varieties of seeds, which needs to be promoted through an effective communication strategy.

3. Enhance skill development

• The Make in India programme lays emphasis on skilling for industrial use.
• Equal emphasis, with the same vigour, is required to promote skill development in agriculture and allied services such as dairy management.
• A spill-over effect will be reduced migration to cities.
• The government has already launched mKisan SMS portal to provide information, advice and services relating to agriculture practices.
• Periodic evaluation and monitoring is necessary to ensure its effectiveness.

4. Protect intellectual property

• It is absolutely essential to protect and preserve traditional knowledge and practices to ensure sustainable development of agriculture.
• Protection of plant breeders’ rights and new plant varieties is important.
• Intellectual property rights (IPR) and technology are mutually reinforcing and promotion of one results in development of other.
• We will not be in a position to launch another Green Revolution without a strong and effective IPR regime.

5. Build infrastructure

• Like any other business, infrastructure is essential for the development of agriculture as well.
• At a time when adequate infrastructure is essential to attract industry, why can we not envisage similar facilities for agriculture promotion?
• Agriculture parks with requisite electricity connection, irrigation, road networks and warehousing facilities, could be built to attract investments.
• While the government has initiated steps to set up an online national agriculture market, the initiative should be completed in a time bound manner.

Way ahead:

• There is thus an urgent need for ‘ease of doing farming’ initiative to bring agriculture back into policy discourse at the Centre and States.
• Competition among States to promote agriculture will not only do long-term good for the economy, but will also ensure real success of Make in India.

Connecting the dots:

• Critically examine the importance of agriculture to India.
• Analyse the various factors which determine agricultural productivity in India.
• Contribution of agricultural sector to GDP has remained stagnant at 14% over the last decade. Critically examine the measures taken by government to promote agriculture and increase its contribution to GDP.

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