Editorial March 12, 2024

Names And Bonds: On Electoral Bonds Scheme, The Supreme Court, And The State Bank Of India

The Supreme Court’s refusal to grant any further time to the State Bank of India (SBI) to furnish details of those who purchased and parties that encashed electoral bonds since April 2019 has foiled an ill-advised attempt to seek postponement of the disclosure until after the general election.

The SBI has now been asked to disclose to the Election Commission of India (ECI), by the end of March 12, the names of details of the purchasers of the bonds, the dates on which these were bought, and denominations.

The bank should also disclose the names of parties that redeemed the bonds, along with dates and denominations. The ECI has to host the information on its website by March 15. The upshot of the bank’s application for time until June 30 is that it is now quite clear that it must disclose the data available to it, and need not try and match the names of the donors with the parties.

It appears that the initial directions of the Constitution Bench, as part of its February 15 judgment invalidating the electoral bonds scheme, had been construed to mean that the SBI was required to match with exactitude all the purchasers with the recipients. The bank deemed this a “time-consuming” exercise, as the details were in separate silos and not stored in digital format.

In rejecting the bank’s application for time and keeping the threat of contempt action alive, the Court has sent a message that it will not brook any further delay. The Bench has also rightly questioned the bank’s silence on what had been done to comply with the order until the filing of an application for extension of time, just two days before the March 6 deadline.

It is now quite apparent that even manually matching the two datasets could not have taken as long as the four months the SBI wanted. A question may arise as to whether the voters’ right to information, the very basis for the Court finding the anonymous donation scheme unconstitutional, will be fulfilled by mere disclosure of the names of bond purchasers and the parties that received the funds, without authentic data on who donated what amount to which party.

Given that the bonds have to be redeemed within a 15-day window, it may still be possible for a diligent civil society to use the disclosures to match donors and parties based on the proximity between dates of purchase and redemption.

The data may also help unravel whether corporate houses or individuals benefited from their donations to ruling parties at the Centre and in the States, or if the contributions were made in response to any threat of investigation and prosecution.

Meaning of the important words:

Encashed – to exchange (a cheque) for cash.

Disclosure – the action of making new or secret information known

Redeemed – compensate for the faults or bad aspects of.

Contempt – a strong feeling of disliking and having no respect for someone or something

Anonymous – not named or identified

Diligent – constant in effort to accomplish something; attentive and persistent in doing anything

Disclosures – having or showing care and conscientiousness in one’s work or duties.

Proximity – nearness or closeness

Redemption – an act of redeeming or atoning for a fault or mistake, or the state of being redeemed

Prosecution – the institution and conducting of legal proceedings against someone in respect of a criminal charge.

Editorial March 11, 2024

Crisis of time: On parched Karnataka and its water woes

Rapid growth, such as Bengaluru’s this century, and short-termism cannot coexist.

The Karnataka water crisis has affected more than 7,000 villages, 1,100 wards, and 220 talukas thus far. The problem encompasses Mandya and Mysuru districts, where a major Cauvery river watershed and the Krishnaraja Sagar dam are located, and both important sources of water to Bengaluru. While the capital has hogged the headlines, the effects of the crisis are wider.

Reports have suggested that the distal cause is the ‘insufficient’ rainfall last year, following the surplus in 2022, and the resulting under-‘replenishment’ of the Cauvery. Erratic rainfall is not new to Karnataka.

A Coffee Agro-forestry Network (CAFNET) project, a decade ago, assessed 60 years of data and found the rainy season over Kodagu had shrunk by two weeks in three decades while annual rainfall seemed to undulate in a 12-14-year cycle.

Yet, the crisis now has come as a surprise thanks to Bengaluru’s lack of preparation, a travesty for being one of India’s wealthiest urban municipalities and home to many research institutions. Bengaluru consumes roughly 1,400 million litres a day each from the Cauvery and groundwater reserves.

The groundwater recharge rate is much lower while the Cauvery’s was compromised by last year’s ‘deficient’ rain. These are deficits only relative to Bengaluru’s demand. The situation is worse further away from the city’s centre. This is ironic because these areas do not receive piped water from the Cauvery and depend on groundwater and water tankers, whereas the city was engineered for centuries until the 19th to move away from water from distant sources and towards its surfeit of lakes.

Seasonal lakes have since dwindled, while perennial lakes have been strangled by concretisation and sewage.

Climate change is a crisis of time. It precipitates non-linear changes that lead to disproportionate, and sometimes irreversible, outcomes, forcing underprepared governments to mount rapid responses to forces that have been festering for decades. Even if the erratic rainfall is unrelated to climate change, the phenomenon only promises more unpredictability. In this regard, Bengaluru, and most Indian cities, will achieve little when they mount stopgap measures in the event of a crisis and drop the long-term view once the crisis has ended. Rapid growth, such as Bengaluru has had this century, and short-termism cannot coexist.

There is a need for bipartisan solutions that transcend the change in government every five years; a circular water economy that maximises the utility of every litre, reducing the city’s dependence on external sources; and, not to forget, a clean and healthy Cauvery.

Meanings:

Parched – Extremely dry due to lack of water or moisture.

Woes – Great unhappiness or distress.

Hogged – To take or keep too much or all of something for yourself.

Distal – Distal refers sites located away from a specific area, most often the center of the body.

Replenishment – The action of making something full again by replacing what has been used.

Undulate – Move or go with a smooth up-and-down motion.

Travesty – something that does not have the qualities or values that it should have, and as a result is often shocking or offensive.

Surfeit – Too much of something.

Dwindle – To become smaller or weaker.

Perennial – That happens often or that lasts for a long time.