It is Time for Action, not Restraint

There is a time for restraint and there is a time for action. This is a time for action, not restraint.

A troop-carrying vehicle in a CRPF convoy was attacked by a car-borne suicide bomber belonging to the Pakistan army and ISI-sponsored Jaish-e-Mohammad near Letipura, Pulwama, in the Kashmir valley on February 14, 2019. Approximately 40 CRPF personnel were killed and many others were seriously injured.

The attack near Pulwama is a point on a continuum: A low-intensity limited war on the Line of Control since 1947-1948 and a three-decade-old proxy war to bleed India through a thousand cuts through State-sponsored terrorists and support for disaffected elements in the Kashmir valley.

How should India respond to this grave provocation that is unquestionably beyond India's threshold of tolerance?

The response will be guided by an assessment of the situation, the aim to be achieved, options available and the likely reaction of the Pakistani Deep State, its allies and the rest of the international community.

It is clear as daylight that Pakistan's quest to destabilise India and keep the pot boiling in Kashmir will not change. India's response should be swift, but with long-term objectives, multi-disciplinary in approach, comprising military and non-military, overt and covert actions and carefully calculated to avoid untoward military escalation.

The Cabinet Security on Security met on the morning of February 15th and took stock of the situation. The armed forces have been given a free hand to formulate appropriate retaliation strategies.

The government has decided to isolate Pakistan internationally as a State sponsor of terrorism and, as a first step, announced the withdrawal of 'most favoured nation' status accorded to Pakistan.

It is necessary to formulate a comprehensive long-term national-level strategy to counter Pakistan's proxy war. The political aim should be to raise the cost for Pakistan's Deep State to wage its proxy war with a view to eventually making the cost prohibitive.

The aim of Indian diplomacy should be to isolate Pakistan in the international community and work towards having the country branded as a terrorist State by the UN security council. India should take the first step in this regard and make a declaration to this effect.

If necessary, India should withdraw its high commissioner from Islamabad and scale down the size of its mission. Other measures, including those pertaining to a review of the Indus Waters Treaty, must also be considered.

The aim of measures in the economic field should be to choke Pakistan's economy, which is the nearly bankrupt Pakistani State's weakest element. The imposition of unilateral economic sanctions is a measure that India could consider especially if the UN security council fails to impose such sanctions at India's request.

India could also use its buyer's clout with defence MNCs to ensure that companies that sell weapons and defence equipment to India refrain from doing business with Pakistan.

The military aim should be to inflict punishment on the Pakistan army deployed on the LoC for every act of terrorism on Indian soil for which there is credible evidence of its involvement or the involvement of its organs such as the ISI.

For each subsequent act of terrorism, the scale and the intensity of the dose should be increased by an order of magnitude.

Military operations designed to inflict punishment should include artillery strikes with guns firing in the 'pistol gun' mode to destroy bunkers on forward posts with minimum collateral damage; stand-off PGM strikes on brigade and battalion HQ, communications centres, logistics infrastructure, ammunition dumps and key bridges; and, raids by Special Forces and border action teams.

Every Pakistani post through which infiltration takes place should be reduced to rubble by artillery fire.

The use of air strikes, particularly those with precision-guided missiles launched from stand-off range on the Indian side of the LoC, on terrorist training camps and infrastructure in POK, is also a viable military option.

Counter-proxy war operations should be supplemented by covert operations. Since the remaining roots of militancy are now in Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir and Pakistan is not inclined to bring to justice the leaders of terrorist organisations like the Lashkar e Tayiba and the Jaish e Mohammed, terrorists whom they call 'strategic assets', they must be neutralised through covert operations.

When the Pakistan army begins to hurt and bleed, gradually the Deep State will realise the futility of its nefarious designs on India.

While Pakistan may not give up its claims on Jammu and Kashmir, it will be forced to come to the negotiating table to discuss a long-term solution to the dispute through peaceful means.

In the wake of the Pulwama suicide bombing, India stands united as a nation; its political parties stand together. India has the support of almost the entire international community as the world is tired of the crippling impact of fundamentalist terrorism.

As envisaged by Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd) is a former Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), New Delhi.

A Case For Legal Innovations

"Mixing one's wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably." ~ Bertolt Brecht

I recently heard a very interesting anecdote. Imagine a person from the 19th century descending on the world on this very day. Imagine how she will feel about the state of our society! She might be shell shocked at the number of changes the society has gone through since the 1900s and how technology has created a humongous revolution in human lives! After a long day of going from one cultural shock to another, she will then enter a courtroom. Oh what a relief - finally, somewhere in the world, the things will be exactly as she saw them in the era of the 1900s!

This may sound funny but unfortunately, this is the sad reality of the world today. The last few decades have brought momentous transformations in the human civilization: the way we communicate, the way we live and how we conduct our business - in fact, even our thinking patterns - everything has undergone massive shifts. However, very little has changed in the way we conduct our legal affairs. The legal language still has the Latin phrases which most people hardly understand, the legal community still observes age-old customs and formalities (for example, to get the license to practice in England, one of the requirements is to eat a certain number of formal dinners) and in some parts of the world, the judges still wear the wigs!!

In India, for instance, the courts observe long summer vacations as per the norms of the British colonial rule, the lawyers wear the gowns, the purpose of which appeals little to the rationality and even some of our laws are still the ones that applied to the society of the 1800s!

"There is a strong requirement for simplifying laws that affect us and how we make use of them."The laws are supposed to be for the people and their essential purpose is to set norms and bring order to make our lives better. The laws have to constantly evolve and adjust to the changing structure of the society and its people. Sadly, we have created a situation where no one other than that judges and a handful of lawyers are able to understand and derive any meaning from these laws. The legal language is far removed from the language, we use in our daily lives. And ironically, in the age where people prefer to communicate in 140 characters or less, our laws are so verbose that they can be accommodated only in extremely thick books which have intimidated law students for generations. People throughout geographies increasingly have access to technology - to the internet and mobile phones - but ironically they do not have easy access to justice.

We live in a fast-changing world that is largely online and getting online - a world where everything starting from our banking to our travel itinerary to our shopping happens online. 

"People throughout geographies increasingly have access to technology - to internet and mobile phones - but ironically they do not have easy access to justice. "

  

The legal systems today are ripe for disruption - for fundamental alterations in the way we understand laws and their impact on our lives. New innovations in the legal arena are taking place only in a handful of countries but there is a need for innovations in the legal processes across geographies.

This will have to be done with care. While we need to preserve the centuries-old legal heritage and the nuances acquired over ages, the system, and our laws will still have to be made relevant and effective for our lives today. This will have to be done in such a way that when our a friend from the 19th century might find the legal systems fascinatingly different next time she decides to visit us; even in the 2100s, our next generation would be able to sense the creatively cultivated sense of legal legacy - just like the inherent essence of human nature.

Is the Indian Constitution for “We, the people” ?

Many people point out the  main drawback in the country’s governance as centralization of power in Delhi. True, this country’s problems, from day one, post-independence, can be sourced to centralization of power and resources. It does not start or end with government or governance.

Power and money are consciously centralised in India, right from the central government to the smallest political party fighting elections. Perhaps Mahatma Gandhi knew this when he pleaded for the dismantling of the Congress, as he was sadly becoming aware that his dream of ‘Gramaswaraj’ was not being shared by majority of the Congressmen. Success of any India-specific solution for improving major human development indicators—literacy, hunger management, healthcare, and housing—will depend on a decentralised approach.

Our Constitution gives enough flexibility in governance and the clarity of guidance for handling almost everything coming under the broad responsibilities of legislature, executive and judiciary is perhaps unique to the Indian Constitution. If only our political leadership in whose hands the responsibility of administering the Constitution and introducing further legislation for ensuring such rule of law without let or hindrance, gave the respect due to the written words of the Constitution, we would not be going through the present phase of quarrels among the rich and the powerful for one-upmanship on who is less corrupt.

Keeping the above thoughts in the backdrop, this article attempts to look at some of the rights, responsibilities and duties of a citizen, based on the text of our Constitution.

Rights

Most of us are aware of our rights. Still, it will be interesting to look at them in the context of what the authors of our Constitution had to say about them. The Indian Constitution specifically protects rights—such as right to life, right to education, right to work, right to property and right against exploitation. A perusal of the following Articles of the Constitution will throw more light on the kind of rights protected under the Constitution:

Protection of life and personal liberty |Article 21- No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.

Right to education |Article 21A- The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years in such manner as the State may, by law, determine.

Right against exploitation | Article 23- Prohibition of traffic in human beings and forced labour-

i)   Traffic in human beings and beggar and other forms of forced labour are prohibited and any contravention of this provision shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law.

ii)    Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from imposing compulsory service for public purposes, and in imposing such services the State shall not make any discrimination on grounds only of religion, race, caste or class or any of them.

Right to work, to education and to public assistance in certain cases |Article 41- The State shall, within the limits of its economic capacity and development, make effective provision for securing the right to work, to education and to public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement and in other cases of undeserved want.

Provision for early childhood care and education to children below the age of six years | Article 45- The State shall endeavor to provide early childhood care and education for all children until they complete the age of six years.

Right to property | Article 300A- No person shall be deprived of his property, save by authority of law.

Responsibility

A perusal of these rights enshrined in the Constitution naturally takes us to the inevitable question as to whether these rights are really exercisable by the citizens. Now the question arises: Who is responsible to ensure that these rights come alive and serve the one billion plus lives in India?

For an answer, we have to go back to the Preamble of the Constitution, which reads:

WE THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic and to secure to all its citizens:

JUSTICE, social, economic and political;

LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;

EQUALITY of status and of opportunity;

And to promote among them all

FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the nation;

Thus, the Constitution is given to the people of India and it is the solemn responsibility of the Indian people to protect it. Of course, the agent of the people carrying out this task is the government. This has been made abundantly clear in the Constitution through a bunch of directive principles of state policy forming part of the Constitution and explicitly stated to be not enforceable by any court, but with a clear direction to government to apply them in making laws.

Directive principles of state policy

Several areas of social justice such as gender equality, right to an adequate means of livelihood, distributive justice, healthcare, avoidance of child labour, protection for vulnerable sections of society against exploitation and abandonment, equal justice, free legal aid for the needy, organization of village panchayats, right to work, right to education, public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement, just and humane conditions of work and maternity relief, living wage and decent standard of life for workers, promotion of cottage industries, workers’ participation in management, uniform civil code for the citizens, provision for childhood care and education to children below six years, support to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and weaker sections of society, raising the level of nutrition and the standard of living of the people, improvement in public health, modernizing agriculture and animal husbandry, protecting environment, protection for monuments and places and objects of national importance, separation of judiciary and executive and promotion of international peace and security are all covered under directive principles of state policy. (Articles-39 to 51)

Thus, by implication, the state is made responsible for ensuring enforcement of citizen’s rights.

Duties

By an amendment of the Constitution in 1976, the following fundamental duties of the citizens were incorporated in the Constitution. It shall be the duty of every citizen of India

• To abide by the Constitution and respect its ideals and institutions, the National Flag and the National Anthem.
• To cherish and follow the noble ideals which inspired our national struggle for freedom.
• To uphold and protect the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India;
• To defend the country and render national service when called upon to do so;
• To promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood amongst all the people of India transcending religious, linguistic and regional or sectional diversities; to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women;
• To value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture;
• To protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wildlife and to have compassion for living creatures;
• To develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform;
• To safeguard public property and abjure violence;
• To strive towards excellence in all spheres of individual and collective activity so that the nation constantly rises to higher levels of endeavour and achievement;
• who is a parent or guardian to provide opportunities for education to his child or, as the case may be, ward between the age of six and fourteen years(Article-51A).

If the less than 10% of fortunate Indians who are willing to make a difference in the lives of the remaining 1.1 billion people who are less fortunate, resolve to follow the Constitution in letter and spirit, everything else will fall in line.

Behind Robert Vadra’s fortune, a maze of questions

Property empire was built on soft loans handed out in unusual circumstances, documents show

In February, as rumours of the ambitions of Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law swirled amidst the heat and dust of the election campaign in Uttar Pradesh, her daughter Priyanka moved to scotch speculation about Robert Vadra’s possible political future.

“He’s a successful businessman,” the younger Ms. Gandhi said of her husband, “who is not interested in changing his occupation.”

Even though Mr. Vadra has increasingly emerged in the public eye, there has been little information on just how successful a businessman he is — and how his empire was built.

Last year, The Economic Times first wrote about his “low-key entry into the real estate business” with the help of DLF Ltd, India’s largest commercial property developer. And on Friday, Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan of India Against Corruption (IAC) released documents which showed how Mr. Vadra has acquired land assets in and around the National Capital Region worth hundreds of crores of rupees, sometimes at prices below market value — funded by interest-free loans disbursed to him by DLF and other companies for no apparent reason.

Though the documents reveal no illegality or impropriety on the part of Mr. Vadra, they do raise the question of why DLF — which is a publicly traded company — would enter into multiple business transactions with him on terms that appear highly preferential. The company on Saturday issued a lengthy press release setting out its side of the story but questions of corporate governance remain and minority shareholders are likely to ask the company for the rationale behind its arrangement with Ms. Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law and whether similar soft loans (or “advances” as DLF prefers to call them) and deals have been transacted with companies owned by other prominent individuals. The answer to the second question may help explain why a normally feisty Opposition has been remarkably silent on the DLF-Vadra connection since the story first broke in 2011.

In 1997, the year Mr. Vadra married Priyanka Gandhi, he incorporated his first, modest business — Artex, which dealt with brass handicrafts and fashion accessories. From 2007, there was a surge in his activities. Inside of a year, he founded five other ventures, spanning the real estate, hospitality and trading sectors.

Ms. Gandhi maintained a distance from these companies: in 2008, she dissociated herself from the sole business in which she was involved, aircraft charter firm Blue Breeze Trading.

From balance sheets and directors’ reports released by IAC and additional papers obtained by The Hindu, which relate to six group companies, it is clear that Mr. Vadra’s rise was meteoric. In 2007-2008, his companies started out with promoter funds of just Rs. 50 lakh.

However, the companies succeeded in acquiring 29 high-value properties by 2010, armed with loans and advances of Rs. 80 crore from DLF,… as well as Bedarwals Infra Projects, Nikhil International and VRS Infrastructure. These included a Rs. 31.7 crore acquisition of a 50 per cent share of Saket Courtyard by 2010, armed with loans and advances of Rs. 80 crore from DLF, as well as Bedarwals Infra Projects, Nikhil International and VRS Infrastructure.

These included a Rs. 31.7 crore acquisition of a 50 per cent share of Saket Courtyard Hospitality, which owns the 114-bed Hilton Garden Hotel in New Delhi; a 10,000 square foot penthouse, number B1115, at the DLF Aralias complex for Rs 89.41 lakh; 7 apartments in DLF Magnolia for Rs. 5.2 crore; apartments for Rs. 5.06 crore at DLF Capital Greens; and a DLF-owned plot in Delhi’s ultra-posh Greater Kailash II area for Rs. 1.21 crore. Though DLF’s press release said some of these prices were “completely incorrect,” the investment numbers are all stated in the balance sheets filed by Mr. Vadra’s companies with the Registrar of Companies.

Then, at the end of 2010, Mr. Vadra’s companies also picked up a bouquet of rural properties: 160.62 acres of agricultural land in Bikaner for Rs. 1.02 crore, and Rs. 2.43 crore for an additional 5 parcels of land of unknown acreage; land at Manesar, on Delhi’s fringes, for Rs. 15.38 crore; land at Palwal for Rs. 42 lakh, land at Hayyatpur, in Gurgaon, for roughly Rs. 4 crore; land at Hasanpur for Rs. 76.07 lakh; land at Mewat for Rs. 95.42 lakh; unidentified agricultural land for Rs. 69.09 lakh; and two ‘other real estate bookings’ worth Rs. 9 lakh.

From just Rs. 7.95 crore in fiscal 2008, Vadra’s fixed assets and investments grew to Rs 17.18 crore in fiscal 2009, jumping a staggering 350 per cent in a single year to Rs 60.53 crore in fiscal 2010, the year in which most of these properties were acquired with promoter funds of just Rs. 50 lakh along with interest of Rs. 255.46 lakh earned on advances and loans and zero group activity or profitability.

Despite the high market value of these listed assets (properties), though, the declared investment portfolio in Mr. Vadra’s balance sheets remained a meagre Rs. 71 crore at the end of fiscal 2010 with accumulated group losses of Rs. 3 crore.

Mr. Vadra’s companies did not respond to e-mails sent by The Hindu seeking clarifications on the details of these transactions. In particular, it remains unclear why DLF and other major corporations would have made him large loans, since this is not in the nature of their business. Nor did Mr. Vadra’s companies have any apparent prior specialisation in real estate business.

Financial wizardry

The financial information available from the balance sheets and directors’ reports of Mr. Vadra’s companies — Sky Light Hospitality, Sky Light Realty, Blue Breeze Trading, Artex, Real Earth Estates and North India IT Parks — raise hard questions about what business it is they actually do, and how this business is conducted.

Each of the companies has 268, Sukhdev Vihar, New Delhi, as its common address, and Mr. Vadra and his mother Maureen Vadra as directors. Mr. Vadra, the documents show, receives remuneration of Rs. 60 lakh per annum from just one company, Sky Light Realty. The payment, the company’s auditor states is “remuneration in excess of the limit prescribed under section 217 (2A) of the Companies Act, 1956 read with the Companies (Particulars of Employees) Rules 1975.”

There are no other employee costs in the books, either to his mother or to others. However, in the documents, both directors “place on record their deep sense of appreciation for the committed services of executives, staff and workers of the company.”

Strangely, while assets balloon in each subsequent balance sheet, there is no account of the corresponding enhancement of visible business activity. For example, the balance sheets raise a current liability of Rs. 50 crore against the Manesar land, though it was registered for just Rs.15.38 crore in the same financial year, defying all commercial and financial prudence and raising doubts about whether this was an income rather than a current liability.

A senior chartered accountant told The Hindu on condition of anonymity, given the individuals involved, that masking incomes as loans/current liabilities in this manner is an unorthodox accounting device. “Using short term funding of this kind to create long-term assets defies financial prudence as it constitutes a high business risk, unless they are not really ‘current liabilities’ and are not payable in the short term, which means they are nothing but incomes which have been disguised,” he said. Vadra’s auditors consistently overlook this in all six firms, while accounting firm Khurana & Khurana in its Auditors Report for Real Earth Estates Pvt. Ltd. for the year 2010, actually opts to gloss over this by stating: “Based on the information and explanation given to and on an overall examination of the balance sheet of the company, in our opinion, there are no funds raised on short term basis which have been used for long term investment.”

The auditor’s accounting rigor comes into further question with its statement that according to the information and explanations given to us, the company has, during the year, not granted any loans, secured or unsecured to companies, firm or other parties covered in the register maintained under section 31 of the Companies Act 1956, excepting the advances under business obligation accordingly paragraphs 4 (iii) (a) (b) (c) and (d) of the order are not applicable. However, the balance sheet shows loans and advances of Rs 2.89 crore for the company in 2010.

Many such loans, which reflect as total current liability of Rs. 72 crore in the accounts, are invested in long-term assets like land. Curiously, no one appears to be pressing for the return of these loans — which are, according to the documents, interest-free.

Additionally, all of Mr. Vadra’s companies show interest income from fixed deposits, claiming tax deducted at source for this interest without accounting for the fixed deposits themselves in the balance sheets. The six companies’ profitability, which grew from zero in 2007-8 to Rs. 20.94 lakh in 2008-9 to Rs. 255.46 lakh in 2009-10, was not from any business activity in these companies but purely from interest on 23 elusive fixed deposits amounting to roughly Rs. 5 crore.

There are other unexplained gaps in the financial information. As of March 31, 2010, the group profit and loss account shows that only Sky Light Realty made a profit, and that too in one single year. Yet, while the others show losses, they continue to make investments. This profit of Rs. 244.98 lakh was despite a complete absence of business activity or liquidation/reduction of fixed assets, investments or other bookings. However, the accumulated losses of Rs. 3 crore from the other 5 firms in the RV Group’s 2010 balance sheet wipe out Vadra’s capital and reserves, raising questions about his ability to buy so many high value properties with zero capital.

DLF’s fortunes

Perhaps the key to the relationship could lie in DLF’s troubled fortunes since 2008 — the very time its dealings with Mr. Vadra acquired significant scale. According to a March 1, 2012 report by the respected Veritas Investment Research Corporation, DLF Ltd is an organisation under duress, with its management scrambling to consummate assets sales, rationalize its land bank and divest non-core operations.

Since a May, 2007 Initial Public Offering, which sold at Rs. 525 per share, the stock price declined by 46 per cent in March 2012 compared to a roughly 30 per cent gain in the Sensex over the same period with the stock presently trading at Rs. 241.80, a steep 54.13 per cent dip.

Veritas points to questionable related-party transactions, aggressive and conflicting accounting policies, self-enrichment and inability to deliver on promises, and a balance sheet stretched to the limit, with no free cash flow and no credible plan to de-lever its balance sheet. “If your investment decision incorporates management integrity, then bypassing DLF will be an easy choice,” the Veritas report states.

In addition, Veritas does “not believe the disclosed book equity and asset base of the company,” stating that via its dealings (merger) with DLF Assets Ltd (DAL), from FY 2007 to FY 2011, the company inflated sales by at least Rs. 11,236 crore and its profit before tax by Rs. 7,233 crore.

A slowing real estate market in a high inflation environment and over-exposure to Gurgaon — among India’s most speculative real estate markets — is further expected to create tremendous pressure on the company’s balance sheet. “In the end, we believe DLF will seek assistance from financial institutions to restructure its loans,” the report affirms, urging investors not to buy DLF stock. DLF dismissed the report as “mischievous and presumptive.”

Mr. Vadra himself has attributed his brass-to-gold success story to hard work—and a little help from “family” friends like K.P. Singh, the chairman of the DLF Group. However, Mr. Vadra has strongly denied taking any favours from DLF in the past. “I have a good understanding with DLF. Our children are friends, we are friends. They are seasoned businessmen. They are not daft… They don't need me to enhance them. They’ve existed for years,” he told The Economic Times in March 2011.

Indeed, in January 2002, he made his distaste for favour-seeking capitalism public, dissociating himself from his brother and father, alleging that they were promising jobs and favours using his name and association with the Gandhi family. His father responded by suing him for defamation.

Hard work Mr. Vadra may well have put into building his property empire. But the help he received from friends like DLF suggests at least a part of his success flowed from the willingness of others to bet on the outcome of his enterprise.

Courtesy : SHALINI SINGH-THE HINDU