The Wire
Maya Mirchandani in conversation with former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti on the ongoing political turmoil in the state and future alliances of the Peoples Democratic Party.
Maya Mirchandani in conversation with former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti on the ongoing political turmoil in the state and future alliances of the Peoples Democratic Party.
“You give food to the nation, you wake up at 4 am to give your blood and sweat to the nation. Nation is not run by one person or one party, it’s run by its women, youth and farmers,” Rahul Gandhi said as he addressed the protesting farmers.
New Delhi: As the 2019 Lok Sabha elections approach, opposition leaders on Friday united to lend their support to the farmer agitation in Delhi. Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, Nationalist Congress party chief Sharad Pawar, Loktantrik Janata Dal’s Sharad Yadav, CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah posed a united front against the ‘anti-farmer policies of the Narendra Modi government’.
On Friday, up to 50,000 farmers marched from Ramlila Maidan, where they spent the night, to Parliament Street. The farmers are protesting non-remunerative prices for their crops, which pushes them into cyclical debt. They are demanding a constitutional guarantee for remunerative prices and a one-time complete loan waiver. The farmers also demand that a special session of parliament be convened to discuss the agrarian distress.
Also read: For Farmers Protesting in Delhi, Climate-Related Crop Damage Has Become the Focus“You give food to the nation, you wake up at 4 am to give your blood and sweat to the nation. Nation is not run by one person or one party, it’s run by its women, youth and farmers,” Rahul Gandhi said as he addressed farmers at Parliament Street.
Gandhi also insisted that farmers are rightfully demanding loan-waivers. “When Modiji can waive off Rs 3.5 lakh crores of 15 rich people of the country why can’t he do it for farmers. They (farmers) are not seeking free gifts but only their rights.”
CPI leaders D. Raja, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah and Congress president Rahul Gandhi during the Kisan Mukti March in New Delhi on November 30, 2018. Credit: PTI
In its election manifestos for the ongoing assembly elections in five states, the Congress party has said that it will waive all farm loans if voted to power. Its campaign has focussed heavily on rural distress, a chronic problem that has affected many parts of the country for a long time.
At the protest in Delhi, Gandhi was also joined by Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, who called the government’s flagship Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) ‘Kisan daka yojana’.
“The farm insurance scheme of the Centre is essentially a scheme to rob farmers,” Kejriwal said. “A country where farmers are hungry cannot succeed. BJP in the last election promised to implement Swaminathan report but it didn’t do that. Now in Supreme Court, the government has said that it cannot implement Swaminathan report.”
Also read: Disciplined, Determined and Hopeful: Documenting Delhi’s Kisan MarchOne of the core demands of all farmer movements across the country for the last year and a half has been the implementation of the recommendations of the 2006 Swaminathan Commission. The key recommendation of the commission was the minimum support prices (MSP) be set at 1.5 times the cost.
The government has claimed that it has fulfilled that demand. But, as The Wire has reported, that claim is false.
Sitaram Yechury of the CPI(M) accused the ruling BJP of diverting attention away from the real issues of the people of the country. “The BJP’s brahmastra is the Ram mandir. They rake it up every five years, but we will have to tell them that today the marginalised, the workers, the farmers are all united,” he said.
The Kisan Mukti March in New Delhi on November 30, 2018. Credit: PTI/Ravi Choudhary
“The growth rate of agriculture has come down under the Modi government as against the growth seen during the UPA era. We will unseat the BJP and bring an alternative, and raise your issues in the Parliament,” Yechury added.
The pitch raised by opposition leaders got a mixed response from the farmers who were listening. Some were hopeful, others were more cynical.
Exclusive: Under Modi’s Crop Insurance Scheme, Premiums up 350% But Farmers’ Coverage Stagnant“When they were in power, they did nothing for the farmers. All political parties are the same. The government is only for the rich. The poor will always be crushed,” said Parminder Singh, a farmer from Punjab.
Sujeet Singh, also from Barnala in Punjab, disagreed. “No, the Modi government is the most anti-farmer government in India’s history. It has raised the prices of inputs like urea, fertiliser and diesel. The prices that farmers get for their produce have not been raised,” he said.
Twelve-year-old Rohit, who travelled from Kasganj in Uttar Pradesh, said he does not want to follow in his parents footsteps and become a farmer.
“There is no hope,” he says. “Kheti sirf barbaadi hai (Agriculture will only destroy us).”
The new back-series GDP data, released four months before the 2019 general elections, fails several common sense tests.
India’s back-series GDP (gross domestic product) data, released by the NITI Aayog just four months before the 2019 general elections, turns the basic laws of macroeconomics on their head.
Here’s one that is most intriguing. The data shows lower GDP growth during the UPA years, which is when the gross investment to GDP ratio was peaking at 38%. And conversely, it shows higher GDP figures during the four years of Modi-led NDA-II government, which is when the gross investment to GDP ratio was at its lowest, at 30.3%.
Economic theory has always held that higher investments lead to higher GDP. So how can GDP grow faster when the investment-to-GDP ratio has fallen?
Technically, the only circumstance in which this can happen is when the economy’s productivity or the ‘Incremental Capital Output Ratio’ (ICOR) improves equally dramatically. Simply put, it means the economy generates a lot more output for the same amount of capital employed. There is no sign of that happening during the Modi government’s four years in which productivity was in fact negatively impacted by the twin shocks of demonetisation and messy GST implementation. Besides this, much of the NDA-II period has also seen the largest quantum ever of unproductive assets locked up in the form of non-performing assets (NPAs). Banks are not lending because of unresolved bad loans. How can productivity surge in such circumstances?
Says Mahesh Vyas, CEO of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, a reputed private data research firm, “The new GDP back series numbers show India to be a magical economy where when the investment ratio drops sharply, the economy accelerates sharply. During the period (2007-08 to 2010-11) when the investment to GDP ratio was peaking at average 37.4% the average GDP growth was 6.7%. And in the recent four years (2014-15 to 2017-18) when the investment ratio was down to 30.3% the economy was sailing at 7.2%. Is this productivity magic?” There is really no answer to this fundamental questIon.
Former head of the Central Statistics Office (CSO) and chairman of the National Statistical Commission, Pronab Sen, is known to have a great feel for data and has been one of India’s foremost economists and chief statisticians. Sen has been critical of the manner in which the back-series data was essentially released by NITI Aayog and not by the CSO alone, as has been the practice in the past. This is tantamount to politicising institutions which deal with national statistics.
That apart, Sen also agrees that the back-series data does not pass the basic smell test linked to ground realities. While better productivity can theoretically produce higher output with the same quantum of capital or labour, he argues that the period of 2005-2012 also saw a big communication revolution in India due to mobile penetration. Consequently, it would be difficult to argue lower productivity in the UPA era. The service sector overall – whether communications, banking, real estate or hotels – clearly boomed during the UPA period.
Significantly, average GDP growth has been lowered to 6.7% during the UPA period in the new series, from over 8% in the earlier series, largely based on adjusting the service sector output (which was the biggest contributor to GDP) to lower levels.
There are other basic common sense tests which the new series fails. For instance, UPA-era growth is supposed to be lower even though the country’s exports were booming at 20%-plus, bank credit to industry grew at over 20% and the corporate earnings of the top 1,100 companies grew at at over 20%.
In contrast, GDP growth in the NDA-II’s four years – according to the new series – was higher even though export growth was zero, bank credit to industry grew in the low single digits, private investment growth was next to nothing and corporate earnings of the top 1100 companies grew at about 2% a year. Most economic indicators have been down in the last four years.
Even if you adjust for inflation – some economists argue we should compare real not nominal growth indicators – how does 20% plus export growth in the UPA years compare with 0% growth in the first four years of the NDA-II?
Whichever way you look at this elephant, there is only one conclusion. The back series data lacks credibility.
The lower growth compared to the first quarter comes from a slight downtick in the agriculture sector and certain industry segments.
New Delhi: India’s economy grew a lower-than-expected 7.1% in the July-September quarter, down from a more than two-year high of 8.2% in the previous quarter, according to data released by the Central Statistics Office on Friday.
The lower growth in the second quarter comes from less activity in the agriculture sector and certain industry segments. Also, as The Wire has reported earlier, growth in the first-quarter was also helped by a positive base effect.
Multiple estimates, including a Reuters poll forecast, had expected the pace of growth in Q2 to be at 7.4%.
For the July-September quarter, gross value added (GVA) growth, which some economists believe to be a better metric, clocked in at 6.9%, slipping below 7% for the first time in three quarters.
Also read: Where Is the Indian Economy Headed?
“Second-quarter growth data has surprised us on the downside and pose downward risk to overall 7 percent+ GVA growth in FY19. The second half of FY19 will likely see further slower growth on the back of unfavourable base effect and slower non-banking credit offtake and tighter financial conditions amid NBFC (non-banking financial company) stress,” said Adhavi Arora, Economist at Edelweiss Securities in a statement.
“Besides, ahead of national elections, the investment cycle will continue to be fragile as policy uncertainty lingers. However, higher election-related spending could counter some of this growth moderation,” Arora added.
Table -1 India’s Economic Growth Trends
| Financial Quarter | GDP Growth | GVA Growth |
| Q2 FY’18 | 6.3% | 6.1% |
| Q3 FY’18 | 7.0% | 6.6% |
| Q4 FY;18 | 7.7% | 7.6% |
| Q1 FY’19 | 8.2% | 8% |
| Q2 FY’19 | 7.1% | 6.9% |
What changed between Q1 and Q2 of FY’19? While manufacturing grew at 7.4% in the second quarter, it had clocked 13.5% in the first quarter. Similarly, agriculture grew at 3.8% this quarter compared to 5.3% last quarter.
For both these sectors, growth in Q1 had been pushed up not only by an increase inactivity but also a positive base effect since growth in the comparable quarter a year ago (Q1 FY’18) was quite low.
Fiscal deficit hits 104% of target (Reuters reports)
India’s April-October fiscal deficit stood at 6.49 trillion rupees ($93.23 billion), or 103.9 percent of the budgeted target for current fiscal year, government data showed on Friday.
Net tax receipts in the first seven months of the fiscal year that ends in March 2019 were 6.61 trillion rupees, government data showed.
The government has said it was confident of meeting its fiscal deficit target of 3.3 percent of GDP in the 2018/19 fiscal year.
The commission took suo motu cognisance of media reports that Rajendra alias Manu (28) was pulled out of a police van and beaten to death by a mob in the presence of constables in Shamli district on November 26.
Lucknow: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued a notice to the Uttar Pradesh government over the reported mob lynching of a man after pulling him out of a police van in Shamli district, noting that it appeared that the victim was not protected by policemen from the clutches of hooligans.
The notice was issued to the state chief secretary and director general of police (DGP), calling for a detailed report in the matter within four weeks, a press release from the NHRC said Friday.
“There cannot be any denial that it was the solemn duty of the police personnel to keep the arrested man in safe custody so that he could not be denied his infallible right to get justice in accordance with law,” the Commission said.
In the instant reported incident, it appeared that not protecting the victim from the clutches of hooligans or an inciting mob resulted in his death, it noted.
Also Read: India’s Legal System Should Recognise Lynching as a Hate Crime
The commission took suo motu cognisance of media reports that Rajendra alias Manu (28) was pulled out of a police van and beaten to death by a mob in the presence of constables in Hathchoya Village of Shamli district on November 26.
It observed that the contents of the media reports, if true, amounted to a violation of the human rights of the victim.
The NHRC release mentioned a video clip of the purported incident circulated on the social media showing the victim sitting in a police vehicle. A man in a blue shirt opened the door of the van and slapped the victim repeatedly. A policeman seated next to the victim held him by the arm. The man was then seen pulling Rajendra out of the vehicle.
The victim’s family has alleged that six villagers, with whom he had quarrelled the previous day, beat him to death with lathis.
The Shamli superintendent of police (SP) was reported as saying that the victim did not die in police custody as he had escaped from the police van and was beaten up by the crowd later. The SP had also reportedly said that after about two hours, the victim suffered a fall from the roof of his house and died due to head injuries, the release noted.
However, on the basis of a complaint filed by the victim’s brother, an FIR under various Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections, including 302 (murder) and 148 (rioting with armed weapons), was lodged at the Jhinjhana police station against six persons and one of them, identified as the “main accused”, was arrested, the NHRC said.
Meanwhile, the opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress took potshots at the Yogi Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state, accusing it of “carrying out fake encounters”.
Also Read: ‘Blame It on the Mob’ – How Governments Shun the Responsibility of Judicial Redress
“This government is carrying out fake encounters and we have been highlighting this. There is no law and order in the state and the police are using encounters to pat their own back. All encounters in the present regime should be thoroughly probed,” SP MLC Rajpal Kashyap said.
Similar was the refrain of the Congress.
“The state government has failed on all fronts. Police encounters are done with a political agenda and these tantamount to violation of human rights, which need in-depth probes,” Congress spokesperson Mukesh Singh Chauhan said.
India had signed the UN Convention against Torture in 1997 but could not ratify it in absence of an enabling law.
New Delhi: On January 8, the Supreme Court will take up for discussion an interlocutory application filed by former Union law minister and senior advocate Ashwani Kumar seeking directions to the Centre for bringing a standalone legislation against custodial torture.
Taking up the plea filed in September, a division bench of the court comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Ajay Rastogi had on November 26 heard the submissions of Kumar in the matter. It also heard Attorney General K.K. Venugopal and then decided that another bench headed by the Chief Justice will take up this matter for discussion.
Kumar said it was a crucial development. The original writ petition was filed in public interest to ensure that India has a comprehensive law for the prevention of torture, cruelty, inhuman or degrading treatment and death in police custody. Also, he said, “Such a law was necessary to ensure that the rights of individuals in custody were protected and consistent with the UN Convention against Torture, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and dignatarion goals of the constitution.”
The petition stated that India signed the UN Convention against Torture in 1997. The same year, the Supreme Court dealt with the malaise of custodial violence and torture in D.K. Basu vs State of West Bengal. In the judgment, the apex court recognised the importance and inviolability of the affirmed human rights of every human being and that custodial violence including torture and death in lock-ups strikes at the root of rule of law.
But despite the court’s observation, India did not bring in the enabling law. Also, while it signed the convention, it could not ratify it in the absence of a domestic enabling and enforceable legislation.
‘Absence of torture law endangers constitutional rights of people’
The original petition submitted that “by virtue of Article 51 of the Constitution of India, an international obligation is cast upon India to prevent custodial violence and torture” since India was a signatory to the 1997 convention. However, despite the commitment, it charged, “the entire constitutional framework, the legislature and executive in India have abjectly failed to discharge their constitutional obligations.”
The absence of a standalone, comprehensive and purposeful municipal legislation for the prevention of custodial violence, it said, “has resulted in a disturbing void in law endangering the constitutional right of persons”.
Also read: NHRC Says Prisoners Were Tortured in MP Jail. So Why is No Action Being Taken?
The petition demanded that there was a need to align the Prevention of Torture Bill, 2010, which was passed in the Lok Sabha in 2010, to align with the UN Convention on Torture. Therefore, a demand was made to introduce it.
‘Torture a naked violation of human dignity’
Stating that custodial torture is a naked violation of human dignity and degradation that destroys the self-esteem of the victim, the petition noted that “since there is no scientific method of investigation, torture remains integral to the investigation to obtain confessions from suspects.”
As despite the guarantee under Article 21 and directions from the apex court, there has been “no checks and balances against the personnel who commit custodial torture”, the petition stated that “an intervention from this Hon’ble Court has become imperative”.
It was thus prayed by Kumar that appropriate writs, orders or directions be issued “to ensure an effective and purposeful legislative framework/ laws and its enforcement to fulfill the constitutional promise of human dignity and prevention of custodial torture at all levels”.
He had also called for direction to ensure that India meets its constitutional and international commitments with regard to the prevention of torture, custodial violence and the preservation of human dignity. Further, he demanded that the Centre be directed to invest and empower agencies such as NHRC for implementation of the court’s orders and directions.
Parliament panel had unanimously proposed standalone legislation
On the need for moving the apex court, Kumar told The Wire that after the Torture Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha, it was referred to a Select Committee of Parliament, chaired by him, and comprising 13 members of Rajya Sabha in August 2010.
“After long and comprehensive deliberations, we unanimously proposed a standalone legislation against torture as to comply with the requirements of UN Convention on Torture,” he said.
But while that report was submitted in December 2010, Kumar lamented that “for eight long years nothing happened”. So, he said, in 2014 he wrote to then Union home minister Rajnath Singh to bring in this legislation. “But there was dilly-dallying and nothing happened.”
In 2016, the Ministry of Home Affairs in reply to a parliament question stated that “the Prevention of Torture Bill, 2010 had lapsed on the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha. However, a proposal to suitably amend Section 330 and 331 of the Indian Penal Code was currently under examination.”
However, Kumar said, the government did not state when India would ratify the UN Convention against Torture or whether the said amendments in IPC would be sufficient to ratify the convention.
Then in 2017, he said, both the Centre and the National Human Rights Commission submitted that a legislation was needed.
‘No action despite assurances, five custodial deaths taking place every day’
“The Attorney General made a statement last year when this matter was raised that the government would seriously consider the recommendations of the Law Commission. But till now despite the assurance of the A-G, nothing has happened and an average of five custodial deaths are taking place every day,’ Kumar said, indicating why urgent intervention of the court was necessitated.
He also insisted that “this is a matter of fundamental importance for the way our dignitarian constitution unfolds itself.”
Kumar said when the Centre did not do anything for a year, he filed the interlocutory application, urging the court to take action in the matter.
“Since 2008, India has been represented every year by its Attorney General in the Universal Periodic Review done by the UN Committee against Torture in Geneva. And every year, the international community singles India through the UN Human Rights Council and asks why have you not enacted this law against torture,” pointed out Kumar.
Also read: NHRC to Probe Allegations of Custodial Torture of Undertrials Accused in Terror Cases
“Every time,” he added, “the A-G makes a weak plea that we are committed to this. This makes us a subject of ridicule because on the one side we say we have a constitution that upholds human rights and on the other, we do not enact this legislation.”
India facing problem in securing extradition due to absence of torture law
The legal luminary said India has also been facing problems because of this stance.
This is what prevented the international extradition of people like Kim Davy in the Purulia arms drop case and Abu Salem in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case. “Even now Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya say that we cannot be extradited because the conditions in Indian prisons are inhuman and prisoners are tortured. This is a standard defence taken against India in all extradition proceedings. So the idea was that India should assure the international community that it is committed to human rights.”
A question of India’s standing in international community
Kumar said it is also not only a matter of domestic constitutional imperative, but it is also a question of India’s standing in the international community on the human rights issue.
“Custodial torture mocks our constitutional conscience and interrogates India’s commitment to human rights. It is time therefore that rising above partisan considerations, Indian parliament and the Supreme Court ensures that the dignitarian mandate of the constitution is strengthened through the enactment of a standalone comprehensive legislation against torture. This would enable India to ratify the UN Convention against Torture which we had signed as early as 1997.”
With assembly elections right around the corner, the TRS and the Congress have locked horns on the housing issue in the state.
Hyderabad: Government housing is one of the central themes dominating campaigning in poll-bound Telangana. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government has promised, free of cost, two-bedroom houses to all poor people in the state and has said that it will build one lakh houses in Hyderabad and 1.62 lakh in rural areas of the state.
While chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao claims that his government has fulfilled all the promises that were made in the party’s previous election manifesto, not much progress has been made in the housing scheme. According to reports, just 572 houses are completed in Hyderabad, while work is progressing in another 10,000.
Also read: KCR’s Empty Promises on Jobs May Cost Him in Telangana
The TRS and the opposition, led by the Congress, have traded charges and counter-charges over the housing issue.
A massive project in Bandlaguda in Hyderabad envisioned the construction of 2,746 flats. The project was initiated in 2007 by the then Congress regime. Credit: Akash Gandikota and Janak Vootkuru
The failure of the TRS to make good on its housing promise is also the perfect opportunity to take a look back at the Rajiv Swagruha Scheme initiated by the Congress in 2007 in then undivided Andhra Pradesh. While the two-bedroom scheme aims to build over two-and-half lakh houses across the state, thousands of flats constructed under the Rajiv Swagruha project, though complete, lie unoccupied.
At this conjecture, it would be apt to ask if, like the construction of toilets in rural areas, the construction of houses is just a numbers game. Are government-constructed houses being sold and used? Or is the massive infrastructure expenditure a futile exercise?
There are over 33 towers in the project and 2,716 flats. Credit: Akash Gandikota and Janak Vootkuru
Unlike the TRS government’s free housing scheme, the Rajiv Swagruha Scheme was meant to provide affordable housing options for urban residents.
A massive project in Bandlaguda in Hyderabad envisioned the construction of 2,746 flats. It has 1BHK, 2BHK, 2 ½BHK and 3BHK flats. However, the scheme was not met with the kind of popular enthusiasm as expected.
Though the project was initiated in 2007 under the Congress regime, only 502 flats have been sold, according to the latest available information.
Some towers have yet to be constructed. Credit: Akash Gandikota and Janak Vootkuru
In fact, some of the 33 towers under the project are yet to be fully constructed. The government has put up over 2,200 flats for sale, of which 1,931 are “semi-finished”.
Several factors have contributed to the lacklustre response. When the project was initiated, it was located far from the city, a region which lacked infrastructure necessary for the project to take off the ground.
While the Hyderabad Metro Rail since has improved the region’s connectivity, many of the housing towers now wear a dilapidated look.
The project includes 1BHK, 2BHK, 2 1/2 BHK and 3BHK flats. Credit: Akash Gandikota and Janak Vootkuru
The real estate market slump since the early 2010s is also said to be one of the the reasons for the poor response. In 2016, the government auctioned 3,718 flats in two Rajiv Swagruha projects in Hyderabad. It received only 43 applications. Even among these, only one applicant quoted a price higher than the upset price of Rs 2,050 per square feet.
After all the efforts to attract public attention appeared to have failed, the government decided to sell the flats at a concessional rate to its employees.
An unfinished flat. Credit: Akash Gandikota and Janak Vootkuru
In July 2017, the government said the flats should first be offered to government employees. Those not sold could then be freed up for general public, it proposed. The concessional rates were fixed at R 1,900 for fully finished flats and Rs 1,700 for semi-finished ones.
However, government employees were not happy with the state of the project. “It’s nearly 10 years since the construction of these flats began. While some flats are ready, the others are semi-complete. Even in completed flats, buyers have to take up some renovation works as they are 10 years old. That is why we are seeking a price cut. The CM has promised flats to employees in recognition of their active participation in the statehood movement,” said Karem Ravinder Reddy, president, Telangana NGOs Association.
An occupied tower on the left and a “semi-finished” tower on the right. Credit: Akash Gandikota and Janak Vootkuru
While the exact cost of the project has not been revealed, it is estimated that the government spent Rs 500 crore on it. The Rajiv Swagruha Corporation owed nearly Rs 1,000 crore to banks and has managed to pay off Rs 820 crore. The sale of the flats in two projects was expected to raise around Rs 545 crore, generating a loss of Rs 531 crore.
The government has not said how many flats have been sold to government employees since the July 2017 decision.
The government is expected to incur a loss of Rs 530 crore from the project. Credit: Akash Gandikota and Janak Vootkuru
All photos by Akash Gandikota and Janak Vootkuru. Text by Amrit B.L.S.
The South Asian island has been locked in political gridlock for over a month since President Maithripala Sirisena replaced former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe with Rajapaksa, who was then twice sacked by parliament but has refused to resign.
Colombo: Sri Lanka‘s parliament on Friday voted to halt payment of ministers’ salaries and travel expenses, but it remained unclear how the move would impact the disputed government of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa whose ministers boycotted the vote.
The South Asian island has been locked in political gridlock for over a month since President Maithripala Sirisena replaced former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe with Rajapaksa, who was then twice sacked by parliament but has refused to resign.
Foreign countries have yet to recognise the new government.
Friday’s motion, which passed 122 to none in the 225-member parliament, followed a similar vote on Thursday to cut the budget to the Prime Minister’s office. Rajapaksa loyalists also skipped that vote, arguing the motion was illegal.
“The motion to cut down the expenditures of ministers, deputy ministers, and state ministers is passed,” parliament‘s speaker Karu Jayasuriya said. He earlier said he would officially inform ministry secretaries of the decision.
The motion specifically was to prohibit top civil servants from paying out salaries and travel expenses.
Also Read: The Second Coming of Sri Lanka’s Mahinda Rajapaksa
However, one senior civil servant from a government ministry, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said it was unclear how such a vote would be applied in practice because there were questions over whether due process had been followed.
In a repeat of Thursday’s actions, Rajapaksa loyalists denounced the vote and called into question the impartiality of the speaker.
“The motion presented today is illegal and we have mentioned it to the speaker too. We will not attend such illegal motions,” Anura Priyadharshana Yapa, a minister in Rajapaksa’s disputed government, told reporters before the proceedings started.
Later, Rajapaksa and Wickremesinghe met in the parliament, sources close to the two men told Reuters.
“They spoke about the way forward,” one source said, adding that the impasse was unlikely to break before a court ruling on whether President Sirisena’s November 9 decision to dissolve parliament was constitutional.
That verdict is expected on December 7.
Separately on Friday, the Appeal Court began a hearing on a petition signed by 122 legislators that challenged Rajapaksa’s authority to hold office after he lost two no confidence votes earlier this month.
Rajapaksa’s party argues that its government should remain in power because the president never accepted the no confidence votes.
The motions presented on Thursday and Friday are based on the assumption Rajapaksa has been sacked, thus he deems them illegal.
Rajapaksa presided over a government victory over Tamil rebels in 2009, ending a bloody 26-year civil war.
Born in the poor neighbourhoods of Kingston in the 1960s, reggae gave voice to the Rastafari movement and the struggles of the oppressed but was also a joyous dance music with a distinctive off-beat.
New Delhi: UNESCO has declared reggae – Jamaican music that spread across the world with its calls for social justice, peace and love – to be a global treasure that must be safeguarded.
Born in the poor neighbourhoods of Kingston in the 1960s, reggae gave voice to the Rastafari movement and the struggles of the oppressed but was also a joyous dance music with a distinctive off-beat. Reggae also went on to influence hip=hop in the US. Postwar immigration from Jamaica led to the genre flourishing in the UK.
Its most famous songwriter and performer, the late Bob Marley, became a global superstar with hits like No Woman, No Cry and Get Up, Stand Up. Other notables include Jimmy Cliff and Toots, Trojan and the Maytalls.
Artists such as the Clash incorporated its chunky beat and its politics into their own music, bringing it to a wider audience. It caught on from Britain to Brazil and Africa.
Jamaica had applied for reggae’s inclusion on the list this year at a meeting of the UN agency on the island of Mauritius.
Also Read: Reggae’s Sacred Roots and Call to Protest Injustice
According to UNESCO, “the music is now played and embraced by a wide cross-section of society, including various genders, ethnic and religious groups.” It also stated that Reggae’s contribution to “international discourse on issues of injustice, resistance, love and humanity underscores the dynamics of the element as being at once cerebral, socio-political, sensual and spiritual.”
? BREAKING#Reggae music of #Jamaica?? has just been inscribed on the #IntangibleHeritage List! Congratulations! ?
ℹ️ https://t.co/1SDzLr4U5F #LivingHeritage pic.twitter.com/7t1jkD2Z8n
— UNESCO (@UNESCO) November 29, 2018
UNESCO’s protected list began in 2008 and after a UN’s convention to safeguard ensure respect and raise awareness for intangible cultural heritage. Also on the list is an ancient form of Egyptian theatre that uses traditional hand puppetry, called Al-Aragoz, the art of dry stone walling in several European countries, Ramlila and the Chhau dance from Eastern India.
The Paris-based UNESCO, the cultural agency of the UN, made its ruling at a meeting this week.
(With inputs from Reuters)
The gravity assist is a versatile instrument in the mission designer’s toolbox.
Traveling the vast distances of space isn’t cheap. It costs spacecraft time, fuel and money. Fortunately, nature offers free help along the way and mission designers always take it.
They’re called gravity assists.
In these manoeuvres, a spacecraft exchanges its momentum in a close encounter with a planet to gain velocity. Gravity assists have been used in numerous interplanetary missions to propel spacecraft towards their destinations.
Gravity assists are also useful because it’s not practical to simply add more fuel to power a spacecraft. Adding more fuel makes it weigh more. This means more fuel needs to be added to the rocket to launch the now-heavier spacecraft. Since including extra fuel also increases the rocket’s mass, more fuel is needed to carry that fuel, and so on.
As a thumb rule, the fuel requirements increase exponentially with more mass added to the spacecraft. Heavier spacecraft may require a more complex rocket to be built to meet the demands. Such increases in cost and technological complexity can be saved by using gravity assists.
They also allow us to do things that are beyond our current abilities. In the 1970s, some of the most ambitious spacecraft in history were launched: Voyager 1 and 2, both by NASA. They would go on to escape the Sun’s gravity and exit the Solar system. Voyager 1 entered interstellar space in 2013 and Voyager 2 is expected to soon. And it wouldn’t have been possible without gravity assists.
After launch, the twin Voyagers didn’t have enough velocity to escape the Sun’s gravity straightaway. It was and remains impossible for us to build a rocket powerful enough to achieve that. The Titan III rockets that launched the Voyagers (10 days apart) left them with enough energy just to get to Jupiter.
To overcome this problem, the Voyagers were made to swing around the gas-giant to acquire the velocity boost needed to escape the Sun. As each spacecraft approached Jupiter, the planet’s gravity sped it up. Such a close gravitational encounter with a planet is called a flyby.
The trajectories of Voyagers 1 and 2, showing gravity-assist manoeuvres at Jupiter and Saturn to escape the Solar System. Credit: NASA
The extra velocity comes from the planet itself. It’s worth remembering that the spacecraft also has some mass, even if insignificant compared to Jupiter. Gravity works both ways: the spacecraft pulls on Jupiter – even as Jupiter pulls on the spacecraft – slowing it ever so slightly in its orbit around the Sun.
Because total momentum, a product of mass and velocity, is always conserved in an interaction, the momentum lost by Jupiter is gained by the spacecraft. The velocity loss for Jupiter in this scheme is so negligible as to be unimportant. But the velocity gained by the spacecraft in just one such interaction is quite significant, as in the case of Voyagers.
Voyager 2 had a velocity of ~10 km/s when it approached Jupiter. After the gravity assist, the velocity increased to ~25 km/s.
Voyager 2 spacecraft velocity as a function of distance from the Sun, compared to the Solar-System escape velocity. Credit: NASA
Since the Voyager missions, gravity assists have been used to get everywhere in the Solar System. The NASA Cassini probe to the Saturn system weighed over 5,000 kg at launch – on the heavier side for interplanetary missions. The two Voyagers weighed less than 900 kg each. The rocket that launched Cassini, Titan IV, was not significantly more powerful than the Titan III.
Because the probe was heavy, a single gravity assist from Jupiter wouldn’t cut it. So Cassini flew towards the Sun first before flying away: it took two gravity assists from Venus, one from Earth and one from Jupiter to reach Saturn.
The ESA Rosetta spacecraft studied the comet 67P after an arduous journey. To rendezvous with the comet, Rosetta had to match the comet’s high velocity, with three flybys around Earth and one around Mars.
ESA Rosetta’s 10-year journey through the Solar System involved multiple flybys, including three around Earth. Credit: ESA
Gravity assists can also be used to slow down a spacecraft. This works when the spacecraft approaches the planet in a direction opposite to the planet’s orbit around the Sun. In this scenario, the spacecraft would lose momentum to the planet.
But why slow down at all?
Missions to the inner Solar system face different challenges from those to the outer Solar System. Consider the most recent mission to Mercury – the ESA BepiColombo – that launched on October 20, 2018.
Mercury lies deep in the Sun’s gravitational well. This means a spacecraft going towards Mercury will be constantly accelerated due to the Sun’s gravity. On such a trajectory, BepiColombo would reach Mercury with a velocity too high to allow itself to be captured into orbit.
One way out is to fire the engines through thrusters pointing in the direction of flight as a form of braking. However, this would consume a lot of fuel and that’s not practical. Mercury also lacks a significant atmosphere like Venus, Earth or even Mars, so aerobraking isn’t an option either.
The BepiColombo mission designers approached the problem with a gravity-assist solution. The probe will use one gravity assist from Earth, two from Venus and six from Mercury itself to slow down. With each flyby, the probe will shed a part of its orbital velocity. After multiple flybys, it will be slow enough to have Mercury capture it. BepiColombo is currently scheduled to orbit Mercury in December 2025 if everything goes according to plan.
Animation showing BepiColombo’s trajectory from launch to Mercury orbit. Note the multiple flybys around Mercury. Credit: Phoenix7777/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The NASA Parker Solar Probe was launched this year to study the Sun by being in its atmosphere. As with BepiColombo, Parker will be constantly accelerated when approaching the Sun. So over six years, Parker will use seven gravity assists from Venus to achieve its final orbit in 2024. This orbit will take it to its target destination: just 6 million km from the Sun’s surface.
The Parker Solar Probe will use seven gravity-assists from Venus to achieve its closest pass to the Sun. Credit: NASA
The physics of gravity assists can also be used to change an orbit’s inclination.
In 1990, the NASA-ESA Ulysses mission, first to study the Sun’s poles, was launched. To do so, it had to leave the orbital plane of the Solar System – the plane in which the eight planets move – and achieve a strong tilt.
In 1992, Ulysses used a gravity assist from Jupiter, near its north pole. The planet’s gravity bent the spacecraft’s trajectory southward, putting Ulysses in an orbit that took it past the Sun’s north and south poles at an inclination of 80°.
The gravity assist is a versatile instrument in the mission designer’s toolbox. Future space missions could utilise it to accomplish even more – like having an orbiter use Charon to explore the entire Plutonian system.
Jatan Mehta is a science writer with a background in physics and research experience in astrophysics. He is passionate about space, technology and science communication.
