Indian politics witnessed a new farce engineered by the Congress party and its allies – the move to impeach the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Dipak Misra. The constitutional procedure requires that the Rajya Sabha (Upper House) approve the measure before it can go further. Rajya Sabha Speaker and Vice President of India Venkaiah Naidu quashed the resolution, ending, thereby, the ill advised caper. Curiously, the Congress-led resolution against Chief Justice Misra was bereft of the signatures of its two foremost senior leaders, former prime minister Manmohan Singh and former finance minister and home minister P. Chidambaram.
Addressing a group of lawyers, Mr Venkaiah Naidu said his decision was ‘timely and not a hasty one,’ and followed a month of due diligence. ‘I have done the just thing in the best possible manner expected of me, he was quoted as saying. Mr Naidu defended his stand, it being in ‘strict conformity with the provisions of the Constitution and the Judges (inquiry) Act of 1968.’
Judges seek harmony
Differences between the four most senior Justices of the Supreme Court, Justices Jasti Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi,, MadanLokur and Kurien Joseph, who had differences with the Chief Justice’s ways of functioning, decided to come together and resolve these issues in the larger interest of the court they have the privilege and honour to represent. The Justices proposed an informal meeting be held for a free and frank exchange of ideas to improve the court’s ‘institutional strength.’ The contending parties, it would appear, have been shaken by recent developments leading to the demand for Chief Justice Misra’s impeachment. One must hope that their forthcoming deliberation yield the desired results (Hindu April 26).
Villain brought to justice
A Rasputin-life figure, accessory to murder and extortion, a rapist of young girls in his ashram, wielder of extraordinary power and authority through his access to senior politicians and racketeers from the major parties, the self-styled godman, Asaram Bapu was sentenced last week by a Special Court in Rajasthan to life imprisonment with no remission until his death. Two of his close associates were sentenced to 20 years in jail. The evidence against Asaram Bapu was damning, and it is unlikely that appeals to the higher courts will save him from the sentence pronounced upon him by the Special Court. There is much to ponder on this case, not least the vast network of irregular power wielded by politicians of every stripe (Hindu, Times of India April 26).
IAF exercise elicits Chinese praise
The Indian Air Force’s recent exercise, Gagan Shakti, the most ambitious in its scope and territorial range in IAF history appears to have attracted the attention of China’s state media, the only show in town. A report in Zhaizao stated that the scale of the operation matched that of the United States of America and was thus no mean feat. The bald facts that 1,100 aircraft, surveillance planes, air refuellers, helicopters, AWACS etc required a serious Chinese reassessment of India’s military capabilities, developed over the past ten years. A broad translation of the Zhaizao reads: ‘We cannot but affirm India’s progress during these years . In 2008, India had said that the operation availability of its frontline Sukhoi-30MKI in 2008 was 50 per cent of the fleet, now it had reached 90 per cent, which demonstrates the improvement of its maintenance and logistics systems.
LCA R&D fructifying
India’s Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), Tejas, which had taken decades to conceptualize and develop and attracted widespread domestic criticism on cost and timeline has developed a formidable platform of engineers and technicians. The Gagan Shakti exercise, the Chinese report explained, was to test the IAF’s capability to sustain a ‘short, intense and swift’ war of the future. ‘In terms of scale, magnitude, timeframe, geography, and activation of component of the IAF’s fighting machine, Gagan Shakti 2018 was a monumental one, where the entire range of IAF assets including light, medium and heavy variants of various aircraft were used. It is clearly the simulation of a swift, intense and short two-front conflict. It is not just an exercise but an actual real- time simulation of a war, ‘ said retired Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak (Asian Age April 18).
TCS entry into $100bn club confirmed
Speculation and rumour became established fact with the official announcement that the crown jewel of the Tata Group, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s foremost IT giant had joined the $100 billion market capitalization club, becoming the first Indian company to do so. Media acclaim was both warm and broad-based. TCS reached its pinnacle 14 years after it had listed its shares on August 25, 2004 to reach its present position. During the past several years, TCS has opened a substantial gap between its nearest Indian rival, Infosys , having added $10,9 billion in revenue today, compared to $1.46 billion it enjoyed in 2008.
Digital key
TCS CEO Rajesh Gopinathan said: ‘Digital is at the core and we see increasing traction in it. Enterprises are moving from experimenting with digital on the periphery to adopting it at the core. And that is a different ball game compared to early adoption of digital. The full spectrum of services has positioned us beautifully in this space.’ (Business Line, Economic Times, Times of India, Mint, Hindu April 24).
Infosys charts turnaround
Infosys new CEO Salil Parekh has charted a three-year timeline to restore the company’s previous pre-eminence in software. ‘The first year in fiscal 2019 will be to stabilize. The second year, we will start to build momentum. And in the third year, we will start to accelerate.’ These include looking at new markets in Europe’s Nordic north, Canada and Latin America, and building a team of leaders to help the company bag mega IT orders, that is larger than $500 million. The benchmark has been laid out by the man at the helm. Watching the result promises to be fascinating. Two mega IT companies waving the flag for India is assuredly better than one, with others hopefully joining the queue into the future (Mint, Business Line April 24).
Nokia to focus on North-East
Mobile phone maker Nokia of Finland, which re-entered the Indian market in June 2017, is looking for faster growth by focusing on the small towns of the North-East, which includes Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Sikkim. The company has been ramping up its distribution network, particularly in smaller towns, said Amit Goyal, the regional Business Head (Business Line April 25).
Start-ups the future
US-based NVIDIA’s inception programme, a virtual accelerator that supports 2,800 deep learning and and Artificial Intelligence (AI)start-ups globally, has built up a base of 200 start-ups in India, in less than two years, Arjun Dutt, Director, Inception, N VIDIA spoke to reporters on how these start-ups were selected and supported, and his long-term vision for the programme.
Arjun Dutt said: ‘Our belief is that the next giant corporations are going to come out of this pool of start-ups today…. AI is the future and some of these entrepreneurs … will become incredibly successful and scale up at an unprecedented level.’ (Business Line April 21).
2.2 million jobs in Sept-Feb
India’s economy added 2.2 million jobs between September 2017 to February 2018, according to payroll data released by the Employees Provident Fund Organization and National Pension System for the first time, bolstering the government’s credentials on job creation (Economic Times April 26).
Hyderabad Metro stations parking complexes
Hyderabad Metro stations are to get multi-level parking complexes in public-private partnership mode. The municipal administration is coordinating work on the project by bringing together the different departments to avoid bottlenecks (Business Line April 27).
IIT Kanpur to build cyber security system
Government has awarded a Rs33.4-crore contract to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Kanpur to conceptualize and build a robust blockchain-based digital platform and software that can be used by the central and state government departments for transparent e-Government initiatives. The is to be executed by a team led by Manindra Agrarwal, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT-Kanpur (Business Line April 27).
Russia offers India MiG-35
With reports coming in of possible US economic sanctions against India on account of its defence ties with Russia and Indian concerns, leading to a strong protest to the Trump administration, Russia’s offer of its latest model MiG-35 with advanced avionics and weapon systems. Ilya Tarasenko, Director General, ISC, Russian Aircraft Corporation, was in New Delhi hoping to tender for the Indian Air Force’s requirement for 110 state-of –the-art warplanes to make up for its depleting squadrons. Apart from supplying the aircraft, the company was willing to transfer the plane’s entire technology on a local platform to conform to the government’s ‘Make in India’ programme. This is best served by making up the mind expeditiously, as time is of the essence (Business Line April 27) See Comment Page 3.
Modi-Xi Summit encouraging
The Wuhan Summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese P:resident Xi Jinping was an encouraging exercise, with Mr Modi inviting President Xi to visit India next year to continue the informal dialogue. (See Comment page 3).
