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N- DEAL: WITH RUSSIA NOW?

On  the eve of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s talks with President Vladimir Putin, India let it be known that it did not expect "old friend" Russia to defy the international order to supply it with the four nuclear reactors for which a memorandum of intent is already in place.

Recalling the supply of fuel by Moscow for Tarapore and the two nuclear reactors under construction at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said the 8th Summit under the bilateral strategic partnership would afford an opportunity for talks on elevating the MoI, signed during Putin’s January visit, to an inter-governmental agreement on the reactors on offer. The PM’s delegation significantly includes Dr Anil Kakodkar, secretary, Department of Atomic Energy, and Dr G. Madhavan Nair, secretary, Department of Space.

However, Menon avoided taking head-on the question of whether the Putin regime would bypass Nuclear Suppliers Group guidelines to help India out. "We are sure Russia will help us secure a clean exemption from the NSG," he said. Menon, interacting with media-persons on board the PM’s Special Aircraft en route to Moscow along with National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan, took questions on a range of issues - civil nuclear cooperation with Russia, the situation in Pakistan and its implications for India’s security. He said the 1988-89 Soviet era "grandfather" agreement the Russians invoked to set up two reactors at Kudankulam did not provide for the additional four for which there was an expression of intent in January. The burden of his argument was that India had to go through the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards agreement and NSG waiver to obtain the additional reactors.

It was obvious the government is not contemplating such avenues of nuclear cooperation with Russia that could jeopardize the India-US deal for reasons other than the domestic logjam with the Left. Briefly though, Narayanan spoke about the UPA’s latest offer to the communists for their support for opening talks with the IAEA - that New Delhi will not sign the agreement with the nuclear watchdog without their approval of the agreed text.
The two officials were also at pains to dispel reports of a chill in Indo-Russian ties.
"Moscow is one of our most strategic partners… There is no chill. The ties are so warm, almost hot," said Narayanan. Menon recalled being present at a recent meeting in China between External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, and said: "I know the quality of talks. The reports of a chill do not reflect the reality we know." On Pakistan, Narayanan expressed concern over the situation there and its implications for Indian security.

"We have tightened vigil on our borders but the possibility of increased infiltration looms large in our perception." He hinted that troop withdrawal, routine in winters in Jammu and Kashmir, might be put on hold on account of an increase in militancy there in recent weeks. Hoping the transition to democracy in Pakistan would be peaceful; Menon said it was for the people of Pakistan to decide the way their country is run.

THE question has become most relevant after the recent nuclear deal between the Government of India and the US since the government and its spokesman are taking the stand that the executive has the power to enter into deals, treaties and agreements with foreign governments and organisations, without the approval of and without even reference to the legislature and the people. The government’s contention, in other words, is that it has inherent powers to administer the country’s affairs with foreign governments and bodies which are independent of the legislature, the people and the Constitution. While the government may, therefore, be responsible to the people and the legislature for internal administration, the external administration is beyond its reach and the government is not responsible to them for the same.

In other words, the Constitution, the rule of law and democracy are all confined to the internal affairs and do not extend to foreign dealings. We have, therefore, only a partial democracy in this country confined to internal governance, and external dealings, even if they are concerned with internal governance (and all of them are, directly or indirectly),are beyond the rule of law, and fall within the realm of the extra-constitutional autocratic powers of the executive.The country has to be administered both in respect of its internal and external affairs. Both are concerned with the well-being of the people and affect them in a big or small way, depending on the subject matter. In a democratic country, therefore, the people must have control over both, and should have a say in how both are administered. Democracy is indivisible, and though democratic power may be decentralised and distributed among different institutions of society, no part it can be alienated in favour of any institution so as to be impervious and unaccountable to the people. Democracy by its very nature is antithetical to the autocratic exercise of power by any of its institutions, and more so by any of its governing arms, be it the legislature, the executive or the judiciary.The rule of law is the foundation of democracy. It is the enacted law and not the arbitrary, discretionary, exigent or ad hoc exercise of power by an individual or a group of individuals which governs the affairs of the democratic country, and even where emergency or exigency impels an urgent action, it has to be later sanctioned by a legislative measure as soon as possible. Every executive act has to be sanctioned by law and hence, in a democracy, there is no scope for any action by an institution, whether executive or other, which is not supported by law. The moment any institution makes a claim to act without the authority of law, on any subject whatsoever, it transgresses its democratic limit. It seeks the exercise of autocratic powers.The powers of the three wings of our state - the executive, the legislature and the judiciary - are defined by the Constitution. They cannot exceed them. The executive powers are co-extensive with the legislative powers. In other words, the executive can exercise powers only on those subjects on which the legislature can make laws, and the executive cannot act unless there is a law made by the legislature and except within the framework of such law. That is why when the legislature is not in session, and there is an urgent need for the executive to act, an ordinance has to be issued which is to be placed before the legislature within six weeks of its reassembly. The issuance of the ordinance is itself a legislative act of the President or the Governor, as the case may be.

Some argue that notwithstanding democracy and the Constitution, the executive has a reservoir of autocratic extra-constitutional power which it can use whenever necessary and on its own without pre-or-post-reference to the legislature. This quaint reasoning has obviously its origin in the old mindset tuned to the prodemocratic authoritative regime. It is only an absolutist ruler who can invoke such “divine” powers, not supported by law. The democratic regime is a rule of law, and not a rule of an individual will or I arbitrariness. Every act has to be supported by law either pre-enacted or, in urgent cases, post-enacted.  To argue that notwithstanding the  transition from authoritarianism to It democracy and the adoption of the a Constitution, the remnants of the historic powers of the ruler still govern  the polity, is to plead for extra-constitutional and undemocratic powers favour of the executive. It is this misconception about the basis of democracy which has led some also to put forward a perverse contention that since there is no provision in the Constitution to prevent the executive from exercising the extra-constitutional powers, neither the legislature nor the citizens can question its exercise.The proper question to be asked in a constitutional democracy is whether the action of the executive is supported by any law. The mere fact that the executive has been using such extra-constitutional power all along is no argument to support its validity. It need not be emphasised that an illegal practice, however long, does not make it legal.It was embarrassing to read a news report that when on this very ground a lawyer has challenged in the Supreme Court the nuclear deal the highest tribunal of the land dismissed the plea, refusing to give any reasons. The report also pointed out that the court, in the course of the proceedings, observed that in the past such treaties and agreements were entered into. The court further observed that it was the discretion of the court whether to admit the plea or not.If the news report is correct, the court order is not only unfortunate but also amounts to abdicating its duty.What was challenged before the court was the autocratic exercise of the power by the executive. If the highest court refuse to discharge its duty and finds a short-cut to deal with constitutional matters, the citizens will be left with the only alternative - extralegal action. What form it will take is a matter of guess.

Cellular operators, the government and regulators in India are euphoric about the seven million monthly net additions in subscribers and the lowest call rates in the world, while the consumer is facing poor quality of service.

Conversations on mobile phones are usually interrupted by call drops or disturbance in the line. This means additional cost to the consumer, but to the operator it means additional revenue since consumers are charged even if the call is disconnected.

Operators blame spectrumWhen asked telecom operators whether their customers in Delhi experience call drops, poor connectivity and bad quality of voice. The answers were evasive. Almost all the operators took refuge in lack of spectrum as the cause for call drops and bad connectivity.Bharti AirTel Ltd, the leading operator in Delhi, promptly supplied statistics on the number of existing and proposed towers but refused to give any assurance that more towers would resolve the problem of call drops. While the telecom operators are taking adequate steps to meet the huge growth, certain constraints, which are beyond the operator’s control, such as availability of spectrum and approvals to set up cell sites in critical locations, sometimes affect quality of service.

Hutch and Idea claimed that they are well within the specified standards of call drops set for all service providers by the telecom regulator. They too blamed lack of spectrum for bringing down service quality. The Hutch spokesperson claimed call drops were a loss of revenue to operators and said they would improve infrastructure to avoid it.

Tata Teleservice Ltd claimed it have a congestion-free network.  “Delhi has a large concentration of users… problems like call drops, signal not reachable and bad voice quality are possible but not for Tata Indicom,” said Debashis Sur, COO, Tata Teleservice, Delhi and NCR. He said spectrum was not a problem at present but definitely more would be required for future services.  Reliance Communications and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd are yet to respond. They did not reply to the above question  till the time of writing this story.

Experts disagree: Claims of operators about inadequate spectrum notwithstanding, industry experts and analysts believe spectrum is just a fraction of the real problem. The true reasons for poor network quality, they say, are inefficient use of the spectrum by operators and the allocation policy of the government.
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Lack of investment in infrastructure and technology, such as base stations, antennas outside and inside buildings and poor interconnection, are other reasons. Spectrum may be part of the problem for some operators but there is no data to show that the allocated network is used optimally. The Department of Telecommunication (DoT) and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) have failed to monitor the efficient use of the network. TRAI has also not been able to ensure that a dropped call is not charged.

Regulators’ take:  A senior official in DoT, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “TRAI is on record that network congestion is not merely because of spectrum, but it is a question of proper network design and configuration. DoT is making all efforts to make additional spectrum available to operators. ”  Nripendra Mishra, chairman, TRAI, refuted that TRAI was unconcerned about congestion in mobile networks and pointed out that “it is not TRAI’s job to monitor calls and see if they are completed or not.” “Operators use internationally accepted systems for call transmission. There is no· manual method by which one can check whether a call has been completed or not. Once a call is made, the subscriber is using the network,” Mishra added.
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<!–[endif]–>What can be done? 

Network optimisation, improved interconnection, in-building antennas can, to a certain extent, alleviate the problems related to call quality, but have cost implications for operators. At the existing mobile tariffs, which are the lowest in the world, they may hesitate to invest in these solutions. If the user continues to face call-drop problems, in the long run he/she will certainly refrain from using the operator’s services. This is a loss for the operator.  TRAI data shows that 89 per cent of all calls within a circle, which is equivalent to a state, are made from mobile to mobile. After low rates, the cell-phone user will certainly ask for quality of service.

 Barely days before it launches the world’s cheapest car, Tatas were today named the preferred bidder for Ford’s British luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover - to begin the negotiation process.

The Indian conglomerate, in the meantime, said that it was hopeful of reaching an agreement over the sale in the coming weeks. “Ford is committed to focused negotiations at a more detailed level with Tata Motors concerning the potential sale of the combined Jaguar Land Rover business,” said Ford Motor Company executive vice president Lewis Booth, who is responsible for the company’s Premier Automotive Group and Europe business. Booth, however, added that no final decision on the sale has been taken yet, as there were issues to be addressed. “There is still a considerable amount of work to do, and while no final decision has been made, we will proceed with further substantive discussions with Tata Motors over the coming weeks with a view to securing an agreement that is in the best interests of all parties concerned,” Booth added.

Meanwhile, Tata Motors also said it was entering into a detailed discussion with Ford and was hopeful of inking a final deal soon. “…we have had positive discussions so far with Ford concerning the possible purchase of Jaguar, Land Rover and we are now entering a period of more focused and detailed negotiations with Ford,” a company spokesperson said in India. 

While both the companies did not comment on the possible valuation of the sales, sources in the know of the development had said Tatas offered over $2 billion 10 acquire the two brands. 

Tata Motor’s bid for Jaguar and Land Rover, once through, would bring in a treasure trove of technology to its stable, The two luxury car Marques - Land Rover and Jaguar currently hold a number of technology patents, including one for a new engine that complies with Euro IV emission norms, However, the gambit for the two Marques has vast amounts of complications regarding intellectual property.

Since both the luxury Marques have for decades been frontrunners in technology; they have a massive amount in their kitty. The successful bidder will have to sign an estimated 40 contracts as part of the takeover, ranging from engine production to the operation of information technology systems.  

Other than that, the two brands have tie-ups with a large number of suppliers and vendors who supply them with often sophisticated technology, not just for the cars, but also in manufacturing, such as former Xerox owned Chrystal software, which supplies product design and application solutions to Jaguar.  The foremost among the tie-ups is a year 2000 agreement with BMW AG that came with the buyout of the two brands, now part of Ford’s UK based premier Automotive Group (PAG) along with Volvo cars. 

BMW AG is the former parent of the two companies. According to this merger agreement of 2000, BMW will continue to provide certain stamping services to the two brands till 2008. 

 The deal will take a care of several potential problems, such as the cost of complying with stricter emissions regulations in Europe and whether the successful bidder will be permitted to use intellectual property belonging to Jaguar and Land Rover in other parts of the group.

The new engine, the TDV8, which was first fitted into the 2007 Range Rover, is a vastly improved version of earlier engines, and this will now be available to the TATAS.