World Food Programme
For Prelims and Mains: Key facts on WFP and its programmes.
Context:
Coffee Table Book commemorating 50 years of partnership with UNWFP towards food and nutrition security in India has been launched.
The book showcases key milestones achieved by the Government of India in its efforts to make the nation free from hunger and malnutrition and WFP’s role in this endeavour.
About WFP:
- The World Food Programme (WFP) is the food assistance branch of the United Nations and the world’s largest humanitarian organization addressing hunger and promoting food security.
- The WFP strives to eradicate hunger and malnutrition, with the ultimate goal in mind of eliminating the need for food aid itself.
- It is a member of the United Nations Development Group and part of its Executive Committee.
- Born in 1961, WFP pursues a vision of the world in which every man, woman and child has access at all times to the food needed for an active and healthy life.
- The WFP is governed by an Executive Board which consists of representatives from member states.
- The WFP operations are funded by voluntary donations from world governments, corporations and private donors.
- WFP food aid is also directed to fight micronutrient deficiencies, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, and combat disease, including HIV and AIDS.
The objectives of the World Food Programme are:
Save lives and protect livelihoods in emergencies.
Support food security and nutrition and (re)build livelihoods in fragile settings and following emergencies.
Reduce risk and enable people, communities and countries to meet their own food and nutrition needs.
Reduce under-nutrition and break the inter-generational cycle of hunger.
Zero Hunger in 2030.
Bharatmala Pariyojana
For Prelims: Bharatmala, NHAI.
For Mains: Infrastructure development- need, challenges and solutions.
Context: The Government of India has approved Phase-I of Bharatmala Pariyojana with financial outlay of Rs 5,35,000 crore to develop 24,800 km Highways along with 10,000 km residual NHDP stretches over a period of five years.
What is Bharatmala project?
Bharatmala Project is the second largest highways construction project in the country since NHDP, under which almost 50,000 km of highway roads were targeted across the country. Bharatmala will look to improve connectivity particularly on economic corridors, border areas and far flung areas with an aim of quicker movement of cargo and boosting exports.
About NHAI:
The National Highways Authority of India was constituted by an act of Parliament, the National Highways Authority of India Act,1988. It is responsible for the development, maintenance and management of National Highways entrusted to it and for matters connected or incidental thereto. The Authority was operationalised in Feb, 1995.
Crimes that India’s statute books have failed to define
Introduction
While pronouncing the judgment in State v. Sajjan Kumar (2018), Delhi high court expressed with grief that neither ‘crimes against humanity’ nor ‘genocide’ has been made part of India’s criminal law. It is a lacuna that needs to be addressed urgently.
Crimes left out
- Crimes against humanity like genocide or mass killing of people which are usually engineered by political actors with the assistance of the law enforcement agencies. Eg 1984 Sikh genocide.
- Internationally such crimes are dealt with under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). They are defined as offences such as murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, torture, imprisonment and rape committed as a part of “widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack”.
- Since India is not a part of the Rome statute it is under no obligation at present to enact a separate legislation dealing with CAH.
- India has ratified the Genocide Convention (1948), yet has not enacted it in domestic legislation.
Reasons for reluctance
- India did not become a party in the negotiation process on a separate Convention on CAH, which started in 2014, because the convention adopted the same definition of CAH as provided in the Rome Statute.
- The Indian representatives at the International Law Commission (ILC) have stated that the draft articles should not conflict with or duplicate the existing treaty regimes.
- India had objected to the definition of CAH during negotiations of the Rome Statute on three grounds.
Three grounds for rejecting Rome statue
- First, India was not in favour of using ‘widespread or systematic’ as one of the conditions. It wanted it should be ‘widespread and systematic’, because it would require a higher threshold of proof.
- Second, India wanted a distinction to be made between international and internal armed conflicts. This was probably because its internal conflicts with naxals and other non-state actors in places like Kashmir and the Northeast could fall under the scope of CAH.
- Thirdly, India did not want the inclusion of enforced disappearance of persons under CAH. Though India is a signatory to the UN International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances , it has not yet ratified it. Hence including it in convention would as it would put the country under an obligation to criminalise it through domestic legislation.
Conclusion
- India’s missing voice at the ILC does not go well with its claim of respect for an international rules-based order.
- Turning a blind eye to the mass crimes taking place in its territory and shielding the perpetrators reflect poorly on India’s status as a democracy.
- It would be advisable for India to show political will and constructively engage with the ILC, which would also, in the process, address the shortcomings in the domestic criminal justice system.
NIIF
For Prelims: Particulars of NIIF and funds under NIIF.
For Mains: Significance of NIIF and the need for Infrastructure funding.
Context: National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) Signs MoU with National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) for funding highway projects.
About NIIF:
The government had set up the ₹40,000 crore NIIF in 2015 as an investment vehicle for funding commercially viable greenfield, brownfield and stalled infrastructure projects.
The Indian government is investing 49% and the rest of the corpus is to be raised from third-party investors such as sovereign wealth funds, insurance and pension funds, endowments, etc.
NIIF’s mandate includes investing in areas such as energy, transportation, housing, water, waste management and other infrastructure-related sectors in India.
NIIF currently manages three funds each with its distinctive investment mandate. The funds are registered as Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
The three funds are:
- Master Fund: The Master Fund is an infrastructure fund with the objective of primarily investing in operating assets in the core infrastructure sectors such as roads, ports, airports, power etc.
- Fund of Funds: Fund of Funds anchor and/or invest in funds managed by fund managers who have good track records in infrastructure and associated sectors in India. Some of the sectors of focus include Green Infrastructure, Mid-Income & Affordable Housing, Infrastructure services and allied sectors.
- Strategic Investment Fund: Strategic Investment Fund is registered as an Alternative Investment Fund II under SEBI in India. The objective of “Strategic Fund” is to invest largely in equity and equity-linked instruments. The Strategic Fund will focus on green field and brown field investments in the core infrastructure sectors.