14 Feb 2023 : The Indian Express

Editorial 1: A force for all theateres

Context:

• Indian Air Force’s revised doctrine adopts a holistic approach to the country’s security imperatives. As the history of India’s use of air power in all its wars has been one of restraint, except during the 1971 war.
• The chequered leveraging of this potent military instrument has been due to two aspects.
  • The first is the worldwide inadequacy in the comprehension of the inherently complex and rapid technology-driven changes in air power’s characteristics and capabilities.
  • The other is India’s traditional surface-dominant security outlook that stems from dealing with a primarily continental threat.

• Both these factors have led to the continued viewing of air power from the isolated lens of a support service to the continental and maritime domains, despite the long, consistent, and demonstrated commitment of the Indian Air Force to national security.

With the changing Dynamics of external security , there is need to increase the active role of Indian Air force

•  Asia as the crucible of the geopolitical churn in the world order and the harsh reality of two adversaries with capable air forces on India’s unresolved borders, addressing the security challenges to the country require multi-domain expertise.
• A continued two-dimensional approach seriously impacts national security along with narrowing India’s strategic outlook, it limits its response options.
•  The IAF’s revised doctrine, therefore, underscores the necessity of a more holistic approach towards India’s security and lays out what aerospace can do to bolster it.
  •  It provides for a clearer understanding of the redefined characteristics of aerospace power and its expanded capabilities, not just with respect to contemporary and future warfare and conflicts, but also its place in fostering nation-building, strengthening regional security and contributing to India’s larger national interests.

Revised Airforce Doctrine which aims to address modern challenges:

• With the pithy articulation of the Service objectives ; it  evolved out of combat experience, invaluable assessments of international conflicts and its experience gained in international exercises  underpins the doctrine.
•  A novel air strategy covers the entire spectrum of future aerospace applications: Apart from peace and war, this also includes the unique no-war-no-peace condition confronting the country.
  • As state-sponsored terrorism, increasing border stand-offs and internal security challenges make peace in India uneasy. Aerospace power helps shape security operations and external and internal security. Sovereignty protection, deterrence, air diplomacy and nation-building remain peace-time imperatives.
• The doctrine has the potential to accommodate major changes in wartime strategy that allow for the use of future precepts in the employment of aerospace power in the Indian security context.
•  The doctrine’s focus on the criticality of controlling the skies ; its absence in the Russia-Ukraine war has been conspicuous  is a justified imperative for India’s future joint military strategies as adversarial air powers will make all battle spaces highly contested.
•  The IAF’s robust joint credentials, demonstrated in every conflict, remain a dominant flavour in its wartime air strategy, which flows out of the joint military strategy, and is laterally connected with the land and maritime strategies.
•  Offensive air operations and air defence, the two indispensable pillars of air power, create the conditions for the holistic application of combat power, comprising the IAF’s coordinated operations along with army and naval operations.
• This vital aspect of IAF’s offensive capability, which seeks to strike the enemy’s strategic and high-value counter-force and counter-value target systems deep inside the adversarial heartland.
  • The impacts on the enemy’s politico-military will and ability to wage war have been given significant doctrinal salience.
  • With the expansion of battlespaces beyond the traditional air, land, and sea domains, and the necessity of a multi-domain approach in India’s future joint military strategy, battle space transparency, combat networks, cyber and electronic warfare, information warfare and the vital techno-logistics constitute the foundation of IAF’s future air strategy.
  • Since doctrinal reviews are undertaken regularly to keep pace with the rapid technology-driven changes in air power tactics and concepts of operations, human resources, training, and operational testing and evaluation remain priority doctrinal precepts.

 

Conclusion:

• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Shangri La speech of 2018,  talked of working “with others to keep our seas, space, and airways free and open” and “equal access under international law to the use of common spaces on the sea and in the air,” doctrinally underpins IAF’s commitment to the larger political objectives of the nation.
• By exploiting its rapid force projection capability, enormous soft power, and international outreach in assisting statecraft and diplomacy, the document underscores the IAF’s inevitable and increasing role in the strategy for security and growth for all in the region (SAGAR), as well as in the larger Indo-Pacific construct.
• Since national security is every citizen’s concern and given the efforts underway to evolve national defence and security strategies, the doctrine credibly conveys what aerospace power has, can and will do for the nation, and the need for greater awareness of it

 

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Editorial 2. Governor inaction in Jharkhand

 

Recent Context:

• Recently, Ramesh Bais who was transferred as Governor of Maharashtra on Sunday, has left the Raj Bhavan in Ranchi without making public the Election Commission’s opinion on whether Chief Minister Hemant Soren should be disqualified for allegedly allocating a mining lease to himself when he was the mining and forest minister of Jharkhand
• It is widely believed that the EC had recommended Soren’s disqualification which, if acted upon by the Governor would have led to immediate political instability in Jharkhand. The EC’s communication to the Governor is confidential.
• It is now up to the new Governor of Jharkhand, C P Radhakrishnan, to act on the EC’s opinion.

What are the allegations against the Chief Minister?

• At a press conference held in February 2022, Soren’s predecessor, Raghubar Das of the BJP, released documents based on which he accused the Chief Minister of “misusing his post” to get “in-principal approval” for a stone quarrying lease in his name.
• Das alleged that Mining Department records showed that Soren, who held the mining portfolio at the time, approved the lease to himself in 2021 in violation of the provisions of The Representation of the People Act, 1951 and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
• As the opposition BJP mounted pressure on the Chief Minister, a PIL was filed in the Jharkhand High Court seeking his prosecution. After the court described the allegations as serious and asked for a response, the government admitted on April 8 that it had committed “a mistake”, and that the Chief Minister had “disassociated himself from it subsequently on 11.02.2022 by surrendering the lease”.

Under what law was the matter referred to the EC?

• Articles 191 and 192 of the Constitution deal with “Disqualifications for membership” of a state Legislative Assembly or Council, and “Decision on questions as to disqualifications of members” respectively.
• Article 191(1) says that “a person shall be disqualified for being chosen as, and for being, a member” of a state House “if he holds any office of profit under the Government of India or the Government of any State…, other than an office declared by the Legislature…not to disqualify its holder”.
  • Article 192(1) states that if “any question arises as to whether a member…has become subject to…disqualification…, the question shall be referred for the decision of the Governor and his decision shall be final”.
  • Under Article 192(2), “Before giving any decision on any such question, the Governor shall obtain the opinion of the Election Commission and shall act according to such opinion.”
• Also, Section 9A (“Disqualification for Government contracts, etc.”) of The Representation of the People Act, 1951, states: “A person shall be disqualified if, and for so long as, there subsists a contract entered into by him in the course of his trade or business with the appropriate Government for the supply of goods to, or for the execution of any works undertaken by, that Government.”
• Acting on petitions by BJP leaders, the Governor referred the matter to the EC on April 8. On May 2, the EC issued notice to Soren seeking his response to the complaint that he had prima facie violated Section 9A of the RP Act.

What did the EC say in its opinion?

• The EC sent its opinion to the Governor in a sealed envelope on August 25. Its opinion is not in the public domain; the EC has said its communication with the Governor is “privileged”.
• Sources have claimed that the EC “disqualified” Soren from membership of the Jharkhand House. However, despite repeated demands by the CM and his party, as well as by other parties in the state, the Governor declined to make the EC’s opinion public or to act on it.
• Meanwhile, the Jharkhand High Court had ruled that the PIL seeking a probe against Soren for alleged money laundering through shell companies and obtaining the mining lease, was maintainable.

Is the Governor bound to act in accordance with the EC’s opinion?

• Article 192(2) says that the Governor “shall act” according to the EC’s opinion. However, it does not lay down a time frame for the Governor to act.
• Governor Bais had told a news channel in Raipur in late October that he had sought a “second opinion” in the matter. Thereafter, Soren had written to the EC asking if this was true and, if so, to make the Governor’s request public. In response, the EC had clarified that it had received no such request.
• Former CEC O P Rawat told The Indian Express on Sunday that “This (the delay in action by the Governor) does not have any precedent… The Governors have to sign off on the EC’s opinion, they cannot disagree.”
• After the EC’s opinion reached Raj Bhavan, various delegations met with the Governor and urged him to “clear the air” and disclose the EC’s view on the CM’s eligibility to continue as MLA.
• One of the memorandums accused the Governor’s office of selectively leaking information to the media, which it said had created “a state of chaos, confusion and uncertainty, which vitiates the administration and the governance of the State”.

About the Disqualification of Legislature:

Disqualification:  Disqualifications under the Constitution, a person shall be disqualified for being chosen as and for being a member of the legislative assembly or legislative council of a state:

(a) if he holds any office of profit under the Union or state government (except that of a minister or any other office exempted by state legislature),

          (b) if he is of unsound mind and stands so declared by a court,

(c) if he is an undischarged insolvent,

 (d) if he is not a citizen of India or has voluntarily acquired the citizenship of a foreign state or is under any acknowledgement of allegiance to a foreign state, and

(e) if he is so disqualified under any law made by Parliament.

Accordingly, the Parliament has prescribed a number of additional disqualifications in the Representation of People Act (1951). These are similar to those for Parliament. These are mentioned here:

 1. He must not have been found guilty of certain election offences or corrupt practices in the elections.

2. He must not have been convicted for any offence resulting in imprisonment for two or more years. But, the detention of a person under a preventive detention law is not a disqualification.

 3. He must not have failed to lodge an account of his election expenses within the time.

4. He must not have any interest in government contracts, works or services.

5.  He must not have been dismissed from government service for corruption or disloyalty to the state.

• In such case of Disqualification, it is decided by the President/ governor for MP and MLA respectively and his decision is final.
• However, he should obtain the opinion of the Election Commission and act accordingly

Disqualification on Ground of Defection

Tenth Schedule: This schedule was added by the 52^nd Amendment Act of 1985, also known as Anti-defection Law.

However the decision of the Presiding Officer is subject to judicial review  (Kihoto Hollohan case, 1993 )