My journey with podcasts!

Indicast and Bizination

I had my first brush with podcasts in 2007 and 2008. I had just moved to Singapore and this podcast called  'Indicast - Indians on India' caught my eye. It was a podcast with two guys  - Abhishek Kumar and Aditya Mhatre - just talking to each other about news and happenings in India at the time. I found their style really relatable and for most part I thought it could have been me talking to my own friends. I remember listening to episodes about India's 2007 world cup performance and Pratibha Patil becoming India's first woman president, so I suppose it must have been in late 2007 and throughout 2008. 

Through Indicast itself I was introduced to their sister podcast - Bizination which was a discussion about business news in India with one of the hosts of Indicast and another lady whose name I now do not remember.

As a 15-16 year old, I did not particularly enjoy Bizination much but I do distinctly remember that it was on Bizination that I had first heard a discussion on the WTO and the Doha round of negotiations. It is testament what a disaster the Doha round has been, that more than eight years later when I was 80% through with my law degree and attending a summer school on WTO law organised by the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade and the World Trade Institute, Doha round negotiations and compromises on agricultural subsidies were still current and relevant topics of trade law and policy.

In any event, I do not know why but I seem to have stopped listening to Indicast, Bizination or indeed any podcasts sometime in 2008 because I started attending Meridian Junior College in 2009 and I do not recall listening to any podcast when I was there. I hear that Indicast went off the air for four years but has now relaunched in 2020. I haven't tried the new episodes 

 Extremities

In 2019, I began spending a lot of time watching stuff on Youtube. Mostly on weekends, but also often during the commute to and from work. So much time infact that I even subscribed to Youtube Premium. Yes, really, I pay to watch the same videos which are available to everyone for free, I just get them ad-free and with the ability to play Youtube in the background if I do not want watch the video and just listen to it instead. 

No idea why (probably because the recommendation engine just keeps recommending stuff similar to what you have watched before) but I watched a lot of short informative / documentary style videos on Youtube. Many of these videos were from the channels - Half As Interesting and Wendover Productions. It was here that I saw them promoting their new podcast called - Extremities. 

It was around this time I had decided to make most of living in Bandra and made up my mind to go on morning walks at Bandstand or Carter Road everyday and I realised that listening to a podcast might be better than listening to Youtube videos play in the background without actually watching the video. 

Honestly, the decision to try Extremities was a fantastic decision. Extremities has three seasons of 5-6 episodes each which take you on a journey to three extremely remote places - Pictarin Islands, Svalbard and St. Helena. The episodes elaborate on just how remote these places are, their fascinating histories (shipwrecks, revolts, imprisoned emperors, international shipping routes, international treaties  and what not), the present challenges these places face and their unique economies. 

I absolutely loved every episode of Extremities and I would highly recommend everybody to try it. Just make sure you read the episode notes and listen to each season in the correct order.  My favourite episode was the second one in the series about Pictarin Islands titled 'Pitcairn's Beginning, Boat, and Bureaucracy'. 

2 THE PiNT!

I just heard episodes two through four of this podcast yesterday. This is really a podcast that I should have listened to much sooner because the host is none other than my close friend Gaurav Palkar. If you are that lone person who has been reading this blog for more than seven years, he is the person who appeared as Mr. GP in this post when we ate Emu Kheema. It has been a long time since then and today he and his cousin are the men behind 2downbeerco which has been turning heads by winning two jury awards at Tapped, one of India's biggest craft beer festivals.

 

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2 THE PiNT is the podcast where these Beer Bros educate us about beers. I used the word educate here only because I learned a lot from the podcast, the podcast itself is nothing like a lecture. It is an engaging conversation about a different style of beer in each episode where they cover its history, variations and interesting anecdotes. My favourite episode is Episode 3: "I like Wheat Beers" which explores the style that is extremely popular in India's growing craft beer scene. I particularly enjoyed the story of origin of Hoegarden as well as the etymology of the word dunkelweizen. It is also the only episode on the podcast (so far) where the Beer Bros are joined by a guest.

If you are more interested in drinking their beer rather than hearing them talk about it, you can order it here. I highly recommend the Basil Blonde and Dark Matter.

Personal Finance - Paisa Vaisa and the Capitalmind podcast

You probably know about Paisa Vaisa if you live in India and are even remotely interested in podcasts. Anupam Gupta, more popularly known as @b50 (which is his handle on twitter) is the best podcast host in the country and the podcast has been crowned  'best business podcast' at the Asia Podcast Awards. Every episode is Anupam talking to experts about personal finance issues. Over more than 250 episodes so far, he has covered practically every aspect of personal finance ranging from pensions, insurance, mutual fund investing, stocks, real estate and more recently crypto. His conversational tone and style of questioning makes each episode very engaging. The episodes which I have enjoyed are - the series on Fixed Income, episodes with Nithin Kamath, the one on behavioural aspects of investing and many others which I cant recall right now. One note of caution though - there are many episodes which are essentially founders talking to Anupam about their companies and products. If you are listening to one of those, it is advisable to verify and research further yourself. For instance, Minance which is now accused of some unsavoury and possibly illegal dealings was featured on the podcast. Separately, on an episode released on 29 Apr 2019 (as per Google Podcasts), the founder of Finzy touted how their platform had no NPAs (defaults of more than ninety days) when some borrowers were clearly on the verge of being NPAs by then, as is clear from finzy's public disclosures which disclosed 2 NPA accounts just 12-13 days later on 10 May 2019.  

 

The other personal  finance podcast that I really enjoy is the Capitalmind Podcast where Deepak Shenoy, the founder of Capitalmind, discusses a host of personal finance and macroeconomics issues. He also occasionally does episodes on topics making headlines such as the PMC Bank debacle and the launch of Bharat Bond ETF. While he also has guests from time to time, my favourite episodes have been the ones in which he is talking himself. I think Cpaitalmind's episodes titled How to buy a Mutual Fund? and Should you buy a house?

are great guides for beginners but the one on Stubborn Cost of Capital in India would be my favourite. It was quite eye opening for me.

Wondery Podcasts - Business Wars, Scandal and Sports Wars

During the initial days of the Covid-19 induced lockdown in India, the only time I got out of my house was to walk around the building for exercise. Walking several rounds of the same less-than-200m path was rather infuriating and drove me to find some podcasts that I could listen to while walking.

I was hoping to find something similar to Extremities but I finally stumbled across American Business Wars from Wondery where over every 5-6 episodes we hear a story of an epic business rivalry. The episodes super well researched and very well produced in a manner that the story is not only narrated but some parts are actually acted out as dialogues between the narrators. I loved the Starbucks v Dunkin series and the Nintendo v Sony series and there are also many others that I intend to try. Listening to this also took me down the rabbit hole to many other Wondery shows. Particularly interesting are Sports War which is on similar lines as Business Wars (I liked Serena v Venus and Brady v Manning) and American Scandal which tells the stories of outrageous scandals. I particularly liked their recounting of the Exonn Valdez oil spill and the fraud at Enron.

One warning though - all of Wondery's shows on any podcast streaming site are full of ads for their other shows and these ads can get really annoying after a while. It is all a part of their plan to get you to subscribe to Wondery Plus, their ad free subscription service. So far I have been able to resist.  

Ex Machina

With his columns in the Mint and the book on privacy, Rahul Matthan has always been at the forefront of the public discourse on the intersection of law and technology / privacy in India but what sets the podcast apart and what I particularly love is the various stories that Ex Machina has told about the adoption / development of technology in India. The episode 'Platforms for Society' had Pramod Varma, the Chief Architect of Aadhaar narrating the tale of early decision making regarding Aadhar. The most recent episode 'A Delicious Irony' has some fabulous stories about how Indian government once had a 'science plan', how India had an unimaginable lead in the field of statistics and finally about the circumstances which unwittingly gave birth to India's massive IT services industry, none of which I knew before. However, the most fascinating of all was the story of  the 'Simputer', a personal computing device developed in India and intended to be a shared device which featured in the episode 'The Sharing Solution'. 

Listening to podcasts

During my first brush with podcasts in 2007-08, the way to listen was by downloading episodes in iTunes on my laptop. It was only sometime in 2008 that I got a third generation iPod nano and could finally listen to podcasts on the go. And by on the go I mean having transferred the downloaded files from iTunes in the laptop to the iPod using a cable. 

Things have changed so much now that I literally cannot even remember when was the last time I transferred any audio files from computer to any device using cables. This is ofcourse the age of streaming and I listen using Google podcasts. Spotify seems to be the app of choice for several other folks that I know. Given that I do not subscribe to Spotify for music or even use its ad supported version, I do not see the point of downloading and using it just for podcasts. So far, choosing Google podcasts over the more popular Spotify and Apple podcasts apps has not been a problem because till very recently, all podcasts have been platform neutral and available on all podcast players. However, the recently launched "Michelle Obama Podcast" is a Spotify Exclusive. Techdirt makes a good case that 'We Shouldn't Call Michelle Obama's (And Joe Rogan's) Proprietary Exclusive Audio From Spotify A 'Podcast' Any More' if it is not platform neutral. Spotify's exclusive shows are likely a consequence of its new Streaming Ad Insertion technology which may allow it to play personalised ads rather than hardcoded ads which are a part of the audio files across platforms. Whatever the reason, there seems to be a real risk that podcasts / audio shows going exclusive to a platform like Spotify may down the line lead to a situation corresponding to the Netflix - Prime - Disney situation in streaming video and we may have to get two or three subscriptions to be sure that our favourite show is at our fingertips. I am not  looking forward to that.

Book Review: The Undeserving Boss by Hasina Saiyeda

 

The Undeserving Boss by Hasina Saiyeda
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I had such high hopes from this novel. The blurb speaks of a "a scam so profoundly integrated into the company’s system that if neglected, could bring her father’s reputed business down to its knees" and promises "riveting corporate drama". The cover is interesting too!

I was expecting a scam of epic proportions. Something more outrageous than accounting frauds at Enron, Satyam (and Wirecard more recently).

I was outraged but not at the purported scamsters. I was outraged that the novel has no 'riveting corporate drama' whatsoever. Forget about a boardroom showdown, the novel does not even mention the words board of directors or shareholders because the so called 'company' in the novel is some sort of proprietary concern with not more than 5-6 employees. Also the scam, is just a case of theft. I seriously wonder if the person writing the blurb has actually read this novel or indeed any corporate thriller at all.

While this was bad enough. I wish I could report that atleast the plot and writing is interesting. It is a story of Ella, the narrator who takes over her dad's business, uncovers rampant theft and resolves the mystery of who the thief is while also falling in love in the process. It has been written as if the author wanted to write an amateurish detective novel. The narrator's sidekick does indeed refer to himself as Watson a number of times as they try to solve the mystery of the scam / theft. There is also some family drama in the narrator's life which the book could have done without.

The writing does not involve any sort of detailing and is almost comically vague, imprecise or just wrong at times, like when the narrator guessing a password and opening a hidden excel file is described as 'hacking'! Similarly all descriptions of how business is conducted at the company seem like they were written by a school going kid who has the most rudimentary understanding of how businesses are run. It wasn't even remotely comparable to how any other business thriller (or any other book for that matter) which I have read.

Did I mention that the resolution of the mystery only happens largely by chance and only in the last 10-15 pages of the novel? While the plot continued to disappoint, I hoped that a book set in Calcutta would atleast take me on a ride through the city describing its sights, smells and unique approach to life which is unlike any other Indian city. However, no such luck either. The characters drink cutting chai, have naan and chicken, and there is simply no reason why the book is specifically set in Calcutta. Lastly, the book has been poorly edited and has sentences like - The tea arrived. It was smocking hot. I felt the smoke coming out of hot terracotta mugs. - I really hope that the author gets a good editor for her future novels.

The only saving grace is that some (not all) of the interactions between the narrator and her best friend seem relatable and I guess cliché enjoying romantics may find cute, the dialogues between her and her love interest.

All in all, please avoid this book at all costs.

Click here to view my other reviews on Goodreads.

Book Review: India's War by Srinath Raghavan

India's War: The Making of Modern South Asia 1939-1945 by Srinath Raghavan

AN AMAZING READ! I have always been fascinated with the second world war history but always felt that many documentaries and books, the Indian Army, the largest volunteer force did not get its due. So I was really looking forward to this book and it did not disappoint at all.

Of the military aspects, it was very interesting to read about the East African campaign and how the experiences in Eritrea affected the troops and the commanders who later went on to fight in other theatres. Another interesting aspect I did not know about previously was how much back and forth happened in terms of the planning for the operations in Burma and the American-Chinese angle to those preparations.

To my mind however, what makes this book a must read is not the account of the campaigns but the detailed account of the political context and happenings in the political sphere including attitudes of various leaders and their reaction. It was interesting to read about the 'empire of the raj' i.e. the British Indian government's views of its strategic interests around the world as well as the tussule between New Delhi and London on issues of financing the war including the sterling balances. The book also opened my eyes to the outsized influence which American public opinion and Roosevelt had on Churchill and the India office during the war years. Lastly, ofcourse the chapters about the war economy and those which elaborate on the thinking of the Indian nationalist leaders at each of the stages i.e. declaration of the war, Cripps mission and the post war cabinet mission as well as Indian representation at Bretton Woods and UN, are also interesting.

All in all, make sure that you read it if you have slightest interest in the history of the Indian Army and the political developments during the war years in South Asia. 

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

View all my reviews on good reads.

Transactions in India - truly SIMPLE!

Earlier this year, this tweet from 'Simple' the new age bank, popular amongst millenials in the United States caught my eye.

How many checks would a checkbook check if a checkbook could check checks? Well, 25 checks to be exact. What does this mean? It means paper checks are officially here!! Get yours for $5 right in the app or online. pic.twitter.com/EsdPkyU4Gc

— Simple (@simple) May 7, 2019

I had a good laugh. US$5 sounded like a ridiculously excessive charge for 25 cheques. Every single bank account I have ever had in India, yes even the one I had as a student with miniscule minimum balance requirement, gave me 25 cheques every quarter for no extra charge at all. Though I must admit that I have only ever used cheques to cancel them and hand them over to financial institutions, schools or employers as a means to share my bank account details. I have not yet exhausted the initial set of 25 cheques I got from my bank for my newest bank account that I opened in 2016.

This made me wonder whether anyone still uses cheques in India and if so for what purpose. My very unscientific Instagram based survey yielded the following results.

Just as I suspected, more than 65% of the respondents reported not using cheques at all in the last six months while of those who do use cheques, more than half use it for rent payments and to share bank account details using cancelled cheques. 

This prompted the question why was a new age bank in the United States offering cheques to its customers? Surely no one in the land of the silicon valley would have any use for cheques - or as they would spell it - checks, right?

Turns out that Simple's move to offer paper cheques was coupled with it discontinuing a service called 'bill pay'. A startup bank not allowing you to pay bills? Something does not appear to be quite right. Ability to pay bills online is a service which even the public sector banks in India offer despite being (in)famous for not-so-great online banking portals. The mystery was unravelled when I found out what innocuous sounding "bill pay" actually was -

We know it may seem like we are taking a step back in time, but when you use online bill pay, you are technically sending a check to the recipient. Paper Checks will put you in control - we will make sure your funds are safely tucked away, and ready to use via Expenses. ^RC

— Simple (@simple) May 19, 2019

I kid you not. When a customer selects "bill pay" online on a bank website or application, the bank (including until recently this new online only bank) writes a physical cheque and sends it by snail mail to billers who then presumably take that physical cheque to their own bank to deposit it.

I could not in a million years have imagined that the utilities and banks in the United States would be using a system so primitive and inefficient. However, it so appears that the entire payment ecosystem in the United States is no match for what we have in India. On Instagram, 104 of my followers reported paying bills by truly online modes (such as UPI, wallets, net banking) as opposed to just 1 who reported paying by bills by cheque.

Be it for payments to merchants or to friends, today I have atleast three digital options in India - UPI, wallets and NEFT - all of which are free to use. Further with UPI (Unified Payments Interface) the transfer is instantaneous and can be initiated quickly not only online but also at any local shop due to the now ubiquitous payment QR codes.

If I am paying a friend, I just input his/her UPI ID on my UPI app (I use GPay but my friend could be using any other), I initiate a transfer, I enter the authorisation password and that is it. Within less than five seconds I get an SMS saying that the money is deducted from my bank account and my friend gets an SMS saying it is deposited into his/her. Though I feel silly typing this out, I just want to emphasise that instant in India really does mean instant.

Compare this with Venmo, which arguably is the most popular payment tool in the United States. While Venmo to Venmo payments are instantaneous, sending money from Venmo back to a bank account takes 1-3 DAYS! You would think that it is a great development then that this August, Venmo has started offering an 'Instant Transfer' option ...

...but "instant" for Venmo means thirty minutes and for that privilege you need to pay Venmo a massive 1% fee which seems absolutely ridiculous to my Indian brain used to truly instantaneous and free transfers.

Infact, with the tremendous competition between UPI service providers like GPay, and PhonePe, the Indian consumer is spoilt for choice with not just free transfers but expectations of cashbacks. While there are many fair criticisms of venture capital funded cashbacks, the basic premise that the user should be rewarded for using a digital payment method rather than an administratively cumbersome cheque or MDR heavy debit card or credit card, is a sound one.

I also hear from my friends living in the United States that merchants or outlets accepting digital payments such as Venmo are nowhere as ubiquitous as in India (or atleast Mumbai) where nearly every shop and restaurant has a QR code allowing UPI users to scan and pay directly from their own bank account to the merchant's bank account.

So it is time now to add 'great payment systems' to the list of awesome things in India that are unheard of in the United States (other items on the list are water in the toilet and requiring a permit to buy a handgun).

---

Parting thoughts 
1. While UPI will never kill the credit card because it does not offer credit, it is entirely likely that UPI may make debit cards obsolete. If this State Bank of India initiative succeeds I think other banks could follow soon.

2. I hope NPCI takes Rahul Matthan's advice and makes UPI international. Not only will it be able to provide truly instant transfers to the Americans, it would have the added advantage of stopping Facebook's Libra in its tracks.

3. The simplest justification for the United States not having sophisticated digital payments systems is that nobody there wants to pay using anything other than physical plastic credit cards / debit cards. But even for cards, the systems used in the United States are incredibly primitive. See this video for a simple explanation.

House of Cards Season 5 Episode 1 No-spoilers Review

Anticipation

Since its debut in 2013, each successive season of House of Cards, has always been very eagerly anticipated by millions of fans. The show has been the most talked about political drama series over the last four years.

One of the key elements of the last season's finale was an investigative article on possible crimes committed by the president being written by Tom Hammerschmidt and published by ‘The Washington Herald’, the  leading daily newspaper of the House of Cards world. Upto the last season, Frank Underwood had the unparalleled ability to shock us with his unethical ways, thirst for power and seemingly unconventional or unstatesmanlike behaviour. This year however we are in the Trump era. Just five months into the Trump presidency we already have Washington Post articles about his unethical behaviour while his statements and tweets are often far from usual standards expected of world leaders and always very dramatic.

How to be more dramatic than what is being shown on the daily news cycle and whether to draw parallels to the Trump presidency was always going to be a challenge for the House of Cards Season 5. 

The season 5 trailer, released earlier this year did manage to add to the excitement in the run up to the season premiere.

Action

The episode picks off from the previous season finale, making it very clear that ICO (House of Card world's equivalent of ISIS) is going to remain a focus in this one as well. A significant part of the episode is about the search for the ICO terrorist. One of the iconic lines of season 4 finale was Frank saying  “War. Fear. Brutal. Total.”  and in season 5 we have Underwoods implementing their strategy of fear by ruthless manipulation of the events around them to fit their own objectives. 

The other theme which carries over immediately into the second episode is the fall out of Tom Hammerschmidt’s article on Frank’s alleged crimes and Frank’s attempt to keep the story from expanding any further. We are treated to scene of Frank tossing away the copy of the Herald with that article which was featured prominently in the season 5 trailer as well.

Analysis

Much of the fourth season was about an embattled Frank trying to cope with the crises facing his presidency and the election campaign. The manipulative Russian president, his extremely good looking opponent with a picture perfect family, and Claire’s increasingly ambitious demands were all situations Frank was forced into. What feels fresh about the opening episode of season five is that once again we have Frank setting the agenda and doing things his way. This also seems to be the way in which the writers are distinguishing themselves from the Trump administration which is lurching from crisis to crisis. However, the episode does include a sort of a travel ban which seems really familiar.

Having become the vice presidential candidate already, Claire also seems to be aligned with Frank’s objectives in season five and playing a key role in his plans. In that way the episode brings back the memories of the initial seasons especially when Claire and Frank go on to the White House balcony for the final scene of this epsiode.

There is also much to reflect about after watching the episode. Art afterall so often mimics reality. It made me think of the extent to which political leaders closer to home are using fear and nationalism to further their own agenda. Frank Underwood encourages the sort of sentiment which is on the lines of ‘’Either you agree with me or you are an anti-national”, throughout the episode.  Eerily familiar, isn’t it?

Watch the House of Cards Season 5 premiere on Zee Café and let me know what you think about it! #HOConZCafe

Frank Underwood is coming to India with the television premiere of House Of Cards Season 5 on Saturday, 3rd June, 5 PM onwards, only on Zee Café!

This post is a part of Indiblogger.in's Homecoming of Terror activity.

Has the ICJ really stayed Kulbhushan Jadhav's death sentence?

2345 hours 9th May. I had just enjoyed watching Kolkatta Knightriders fail to chase a total of 167 against Kings XI Punjab and keeping Punjab's qualification hopes alive. Pleased that the form of the second placed Knightriders was faltering, I was about to go to bed as a happy Mumbai Indians fan secure in the knowledge that our top spot was not under threat. 

Just as I went through with my bed time ritual of scrolling through my twitter timeline for the last time in the day, I was startled by this tweet of Sushma Swaraj, India's Cabinet Minister for External Affairs, posted just after mid-night:

I have spoken to the mother of #KulbhushanJadhav and told her about the order of President, ICJ under Art 74 Paragraph 4 of Rules of Court.

— Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) May 9, 2017

Minutes later, online news websites in India had reported the news -

#KulbhushanJadhav row: International Court of Justice #stays former naval officer's #hanging by #Pakistan https://t.co/Ed6SC7zHxz pic.twitter.com/NU6rCo4dMw

— Firstpost (@firstpost) May 9, 2017

International Court of Justice stays execution of Kulbhushan Jadhav in Pakistan: Report https://t.co/YlFggXIu4p

— scroll.in (@scroll_in) May 9, 2017

While the newspapers and TV newschannels followed up the next morning -

• DNA -  Diplomatic win for India, International Court of Justice stays hanging of Kulbhushan Jadhav
• Indian Express -  International Court of Justice stays Kulbhushan Jadhav hanging
• Zee News - International Court of Justice stays Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav's death sentence awarded by Pakistan

One thing that was consistent in the coverage across the Indian media was that it gave the readers / viewers the impression that the ICJ had issued a 'stay order'.

In contrast, Pakistani media reports mentioned the filing of the petition but no mention was made of any stay order. Dawn went with the headline "India moves International Court of Justice against Jadhav's conviction" while The Express Tribune said "India petitions ICJ for stay in Kulbhushan Jadhav’s death sentence". Daily Pakistan Global even asserted that the Indian claim was false:

Indian media, govt incorrectly claim stay granted by ICJ - No official statement from ICJ yethttps://t.co/QRxKVNrjUS

— DailyPakistan Global (@dailypakistangl) May 9, 2017

In turn ScoopWhoop in India published an article claiming that the Pakistani media was 'in denial of the stay on Jadhav's execution'. 

While there are assertions aplenty from both sides, nobody has really tried to answer the question of whether or not a 'stay order' of the ICJ really exists.

The request for provisional measures 

India has approached the International Court of Justice alleging a violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) to which both India and Pakistan are parties. Whenever a national of another State is arrested in the territory of a party to the VCCR, Article 36 of the VCCR requires the State to inform the consulate of the country of that arrested national, allow the consulate to meet and assist the arrested person in the criminal proceedings if he so desires. India is alleging that these provisions were not adhered to in Jadhav's case and that India was denied consular access to Jadhav.

Since Jadhav has already been convicted and sentenced to death, India also requested that the ICJ pass 'provisional measures'. Provisional measures are similar to the concept of 'interim orders' in the Indian legal regime. Previously while deciding the LaGrand case which incidentally was also about VCCR violations, the ICJ has clearly held that the 'provisional measures' are binding.

ICJ's press release summarises India's request for the provisional measures as follows:

"India therefore requests that, “pending final judgment in this case, the Court indicate:

(a) [t]hat the Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan take all measures necessary to ensure that Mr. Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav is not executed;

(b) [t]hat the Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan report to the Court the action it has taken in pursuance of sub-paragraph (a); and

(c) [t]hat the Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ensure that no action is taken that might prejudice the rights of the Republic of India or Mr. Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav with respect of any decision the Court may render on the merits of the case”.

Urgent communication  

Fearing that Jadhav maybe executed before the ICJ even has an opportunity to pass provisional measures, India requested that the ICJ pass an order on provisional measures without waiting for an oral hearing. However, India making a request does not automatically mean that ICJ would make such an order without hearing Pakistan. The ICJ has instead scheduled a hearing on the request for provisional measures in front of all the judges at 10am (Hague time) on Monday 15 May 2017. ICJ is scheduled to hear from both the countries that day. If after this hearing the provisional measures were passed in India's favour, it may be accurate to say that Pakistan has been ordered to 'stay' Jadhav's hearing.

Pending the hearing, the president of the ICJ (akin to a Chief Justice of an Indian High Court or Supreme Court) has merely sent an 'urgent communication' to the Prime Minister of Pakistan. The ICJ press release regarding this urgent communication does not reproduce the contents of the the urgent communication.

This urgent communication is what Susham Swaraj mentioned in her tweet as the 'order of the President, ICJ under Article 74 Paragraph 4 of the Rules of Court' (sic). Here is how Article 74 of the Rules of the Court reads:

Article 74

1. A request for the indication of provisional measures shall have priority over all other cases.

2. The Court, if it is not sitting when the request is made, shall be convened forthwith for the purpose of proceeding to a decision on the request as a matter of urgency.

3. The Court, or the President if the Court is not sitting, shall fix a date for a hearing which will afford the parties an opportunity of being represented at it.  The Court shall receive and take into account any observations that may be presented to it before the closure of the oral proceedings.

4. Pending the meeting of the Court, the President may call upon the parties to act in such a way as will enable any order the Court may make on the request for provisional measures to have its appropriate effects.

While the words "act in such a way as will enable any order the Court may make on the request for provisional measures to have its appropriate effects" suggest that the President of the ICJ in his communication must have asked the Pakistan government to maintain status quo, the fact that these are preceded by the words "may call upon the parties" suggests that the 'urgent communication' is not in the nature of an order but merely a suggestion or a request as there is no language stating that the communication is binding.

European Journal of International Law blog has pointed out that while  such a communication could be seen to be similar to provisional 'holding requests' of ICSID tribunals which have been held to be binding, the crucial difference is that the ICSID holding requests are passed by the entire tribunal while the ICJ urgent communication is by the President acting alone. 

Thus it seems that the Pakistani media has been accurate about there being no 'stay order' per se in this case while Indian media has gotten carried away.

Precedents

Many congratulatory posts on Twitter by Indians show that the ordinary Indians have high hopes of a favourable outcome for Jadhav from this proceedings. However, if the previous three cases of Paraguay v. United States, LaGrand case (Germany v. United States) and Avena case (Mexico v. United States) are anything to go by, there exists a possibility that Jadhav may be executed regardless of the decision of the ICJ.

Read more about these precedents in my scroll.in piece here - A short history of India vs Pakistan cases at the International Court of Justice  - Despite the headline, that piece does cover other non India-Pakistan VCCR cases as well.

I have also in the past written for scroll.in about all the India-Pakistan international adjudication cases in greater detail here - Five previous India-Pakistan disputes that have been taken to international forums

What an Irony!

The Guardian's theatre critic, Mark Lawson has written about historical inaccuracies of modern television shows in his article "Not in this day and age: when will TV stop horrendously airbrushing history?" published on the Guardian website on Friday.

Lawson argues that the modern day television shows 'characters with laughably liberal values for their day'. He points out that protagonists in Sky1's eight part drama 'Jamestown' are portrayed as surprisingly liberal feminists which women from colonial Virginia in 1619 were most unlikely to be.

Screenshot from the Guardian website

 He goes on to compare it with a movie set in 1914 in which a character declares “The first world war has just broken out!” While showing someone in 1914 saying 'first' world war is clearly a mistake, I don't think it is quite the same as comparing it with fictional characters' values. The purpose of fiction is to be entertaining and stories of exceptional persons are likely to be much more entertaining that the average folks of the time. Why would any person be interested in a show about the daily drudgery of life in 1619? To be fair to him, later on in the article Lawson does consider the justifications for giving women in the series some modern values but also goes on to discard the those justifications.

However what I found the most ironic was how Lawson also trains his guns on the hit show 'Downton Abbey'. He says (emphasis added),

"Jamestown is produced by Carnival, the company that made Downton Abbey, a show that shocked many students of English class history with its presentation of an early 20th-century Earl who agonised about the working conditions and personal lives of his servants and would obviously have voted Liberal Democrat if the option had existed."

While complaining about the television writers/producers lack of understanding of the historical context, Lawson commits the same mistake himself! In the early 20th century (1900-1925) voters in Britain did have an option to vote for the Liberal Party.

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, of the Liberal Party served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1905 to 1908 while another Liberal, Herbert Henry Asquith, who was later made the 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith served as the Prime Minister from 1908 to 1916. Downton Abbey is set in 1912. It is thus set in a time when the Liberal Party had managed to secure the largest number of seats in the preceding General Election in December 1910. It is this same Liberal Party that later merged with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form today's Liberal Democrats.

So Mr. Mark Lawson, an earlier version of Liberal Democrats did exist in early 20th-century and the Downton Abbey protagonist may well have voted Liberal!

 ---
Sources:

• Gov.uk - Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman 
• Gov.uk - Herbert Henry Asquith
• Wikipedia - United Kingdom general election, December 1910

I told you so!

Though I do not blog very often, this blog is now more than six years old and it is time for some reflection on the couple of things that I got right.

In 2013 when the then central government came up with a bank which was supposedly exclusively for women, I wrote this blogpost titled - ‘Bhartiya Mahila Bank - A Misguided and Pointless Endeavour’.

Bhartiya Mahila Bank was inaugurated with much fanfare in 2013 with Sonia Gandhi handing account opening documents to the first customers and the then Prime Minister in attendance. Media reports of the time indicated bank’s ambitious plans of 25 branches in the first year and 75 more every following year..

In 2017 my words have come true and the Bhartiya Mahila Bank has was merged with State Bank of India on 1 April 2017 along with the SBI Associate Banks. The merger has finally ended the central government's first and thankfully the only experiment with a government promoted bank (all other PSUs were nationalised rather set up afresh). Bhartiya Mahila Bank never really promoted itself like other new private banks did and reports indicate that it had significant trouble getting new business. It also also remained headless from August 2015 onward when Usha Ananthasubramnian, the bank's former CMD was appointed as the CMD of Punjab National Bank. At the time of merger, it only had 103 branches which is a far cry from the stated expansion plans at the time of its innaugural.

Outlook has mentioned SBI clearly stating that the business of BMB was insiginificant:

On the merger, the SBI said that although the addition of 103 branches of the BMB and business of approximately Rs 2,000 crore will not have a significant bearing on the SBI, it will be ensured the merger strengthens and reinforces the focus on financing of women entrepreneurs.

Approximately 2,000 crore is also State Bank of India being generous and other reports have pointed out that the special bank for women had total business of only 1,600 crore rupees. While SBI opened its first all women employees branch in 2013, the same year that Bhartiya Mahila Bank was set up, by 2017, SBI already had 126 all women employee branches whereas the Bhartiya Mahila Bank had managed only 7. It couldn’t be clear that women can be served better by State Bank of India.

I had ended the my blogpost with the following words:

“The Mahila Bank is hence a solution that no one was asking for and also one that is likely to worsen the problem which it set out solve. When the question is asked a few years from now “What did the Mahila Bank achieve?”, the government is not going to have any answer.”

Let’s hope that the government has learnt its lesson and does something actually meaningful to improve women’s lives rather than going ahead with half baked segregationist policies.

Time to reform Rajya Sabha election process

This article was first published on GNLU's only student run online magazine - Jury's Out.

In May 2014, the BJP won a historic victory in the general elections and managed to secure a single party majority in the Lok Sabha, a feat which hadn’t taken place for atleast the two preceding decades. However, despite the overwhelming majority of BJP’s National Democratic Alliance in the Lok Sabha, the government has not been able to achieve some of its major legislative objectives such as passing the Goods and Services Tax Act, because India’s bicameral legislative system requires any bill to pass not just the Lok Sabha but Rajya Sabha (the House of States), as well. Despite its poor showing in the 2014 general election Congress remained the single largest party in the Rajya Sabha and along with the other parties could muster enough votes to block government bills.

Thus, when elections were held for 57 Rajya Sabha seats earlier in June this year, one would have expected keenly contested polls with each side hoping to maximise their numbers.

However, this could not be further from the truth. Of the 57 MPs chosen, 30 i.e. more than half were elected unopposed from eight states. Even in the states where elections were conducted, most states had just one more candidate than the number of seats up for grabs. In Uttar Pradesh for example, there were 12 candidates vying for 11 seats which is in stark contrast to the 2012 legislative assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. In those elections there were 6839 candidates contesting for just 403 constituencies and not a single constituency had less than 6 candidates in the fray.

The reason for the apparent apathy with regard to the Rajya Sabha elections is because the Rajya Sabha MPs are elected by the Members of the Legislative Assembly of each state using the single transferable vote system. Since the parties know how many MLAs they have in each assembly they are content to divide up the Rajya Sabha seats in the same proportion rather than putting up candidates and vying to get other party MLAs’ support as well.

This has led to a situation where any party leader can get elected to the Rajya Sabha regardless of his relationship with the state he is contesting from. In the present round of elections, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu whose entire political career has been from Maharashtra, has been elected unopposed from Andhra Pradesh. Another minister, Venkaiha Naidu is from Andhra Pradesh but previously represented Karnataka in the Rajya Sabha and has just been elected from Rajasthan in 2016. Similarly, veteran lawyer Ram Jethmalani who has spent his entire career in Mumbai or Delhi has been elected unopposed from Bihar on an RJD ticket, a party he just joined.

The use of Rajya Sabha by political parties in this manner completely defeats the original intention of the framers of the Constitution. They intended that MLAs would send local leaders to the Upper House to represent the view of the state while debating central legislation.

The obvious question that arises is that; why don’t local MLAs refuse to vote for outsiders parachuted in by the party high command. With the possibility of a local rebellion the party big wigs would have hesitated from putting up candidates with no local background. In 2003, the Parliament amended the Representation of People’s Act to base the Rajya Sabha elections on an open ballot system rather than closed or secret ballot. This means that the way each MLA votes is now public knowledge and any MLA voting in defiance of the party whip can face action from the party as the Janta Dal (Secular) MLAs are finding out in this election cycle.

Furthermore, the same amendment also removed the requirement that a candidate for Rajya Sabha elections be an elector in the State which he seeks to represent. Though prior to 2003, some MPs did anyway represent states they did not have any relation to, the most prominent example being former PM Manmohan Singh as a Rajya Sabha MP from Assam, yet this requirement at least tried to ensure that the Rajya Sabha representatives be from the State they represent. Following the removal of this provision, the abuse has only grown. The interests of the people of the states they are supposed to represent have been sacrificed to make Rajya Sabha an avenue for political parties to get their senior and/or unelectable leaders into the Parliament, real quick.

If we truly desire that Rajya Sabha serve the purpose of giving states a voice in the affairs of the Centre it would be prudent to overhaul the system of Rajya Sabha elections. Step one should be the roll back of the 2003 amendments. Following that, India would be wise to consider a complete overhaul in the days to come. Strict residence requirements for candidates, direct elections with the state divided up into larger constituencies or even whole state as one constituency (similar to Senate elections in the US) are all ideas which may give results more in line with the intended purpose of the Rajya Sabha.

No film should require clearances from three courts for release...

This article was first published on GNLU's only student run online magazine - Jury's Out.

‘Udta Punjab’ which released in theatres on 17 June, fought a rather uphill battle to get there. After the much publicised showdown with the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) in the Bombay High Court, the film got an A certificate with only one cut but the filmmakers’ legal troubles were far from over. Advocate Wattan Sharma had filed a petition before the Punjab and Haryana High Court calling for a ban on the exhibition of the film in Punjab alleging that the film reflects negative branding of Punjab and Punjabis, while Human Rights Awareness Association, an NGO approached the Supreme Court as well. Udta Punjab is far from the first movie to have to defend itself before courts in the face of petitions calling for bans. It is very common for groups to file Public Interest Litigation calling for a film to be banned on a variety of grounds including the most common ones of being against Indian culture or hurting religious sentiments. In recent years, ‘Finding Fanny’, ‘PK’, ‘Delhi Belly’, ‘Ram-Leela’, ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’ and many others have been in this position.

No say for objectors within the certification process

The Cinematograph lays down the certification process that each film must go through before it can be exhibited at any cinema hall in India. First, a film is viewed by an “Examining Committee” formed by the regional officer of the CBFC office where it is submitted for certification. The Examining Committee decides which certificate is to be granted and decides the cuts to be made before it can be granted. If the Applicant is unsatisfied with the decision of the Examining Committee, the applicant may also request the Chairperson of the CBFC to refer any film to Revising Committee. The CBFC Chairperson can also refer the film to the Revising Committee on his own motion. The Revising Committee views the same film print shown to the Examining Committee without any changes and makes its own recommendations with regard to certificate and cuts. Both the Examining Committee and the Revising Committee can also refuse to grant any certification at all which in effect works as a ban on the film in India entirely since under the law, no film can be shown without a certificate. In 1981, the Act was amended and the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT) was created, adding a further step to the process. Now, an applicant can approach the FCAT against an order of the CBFC refusing to grant a certificate, granting only an S or A or U/A certificate or ordering for cuts in the film.

However the crucial part here is that only the original applicant for the certificate can lodge such an appeal before the FCAT. Thus, other groups or individuals who are offended by the film and wish that the film not be given any certificate at all (and thereby be banned) cannot approach the FCAT with their grievances. Thus, they resort to filing writ petitions before the High Courts or the Supreme Court and attempt to get films banned.

Amendment required

The present situation creates a situation where groups offended by a film approach the High Courts or the Supreme Court and in some cases like ‘Udta Punjab’ even both or several High Courts. This not only places an additional burden on these constitutional courts which are already burdened with more serious civil and criminal appeals but also creates multiplicity of proceedings where the filmmakers have to get clearance from the CBFC as well as various courts before releasing a film. As happened with Ram Leela and Udta Pubnjab, prolonged delays in litigation can cast doubts about the planned release dates of the movies as well.

One amendment that could easily resolve these issues would be to allow any person or organization which has an objection to the release of any film in any state to approach the FCAT against the decision of the CBFC granting a certificate to that film. In such a scenario, the FCAT which is a specialized film tribunal will be able to address the appeals of the filmmakers as well as the other interested parties in a single proceeding and its decision shall be final. The FCAT is adequately equipped to handle other petitioners’ legal and constitutional arguments as well since the Cinematograph Act already requires that the chairperson of the FCAT be a retired High Court Judge or a person qualified to be appointed as a High Court Judge.

Adopting such a procedure shall reduce the uncertainty that the filmmakers face and shall also help them to reduce legal costs as they would have to defend themselves before a single forum rather than many. Finally the courts shall be rid of the burden of the film related petitions and shall be able to apply their time towards more pressing legal and constitutional matters. It is high time that the Parliament realises that the time of three of its constitutional courts need not be spent on the matter of release of a single film.

This article was first published on GNLU's only student run online magazine - Jury's Out.