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India has expressed regret that the Kashmir issue is being raised at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) after mentions of it by Michelle Bachelet, the new UN Human Rights High Commissioner, and by Pakistan at its current session.

“Terrorism is the biggest scourge and greatest violator of human rights and we hope that you will address it more emphatically in the coming years,” Rajiv K. Chander, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, told Bachelet on Tuesday at the HRC meeting in Geneva.

He told the HRC, “We regret that reference has been made to the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Our views on the matter have been made abundantly clear in the Council.”

It is important that “human rights issues are handled constructively” and with regard to national sovereignty and territorial integrity in a transparent and credible manner, he added.

In an apparent reference to the Supreme Court striking down the British colonial law criminalising same-sex relations as an example of the capability of Indian legal bodies to deal with human rights issues, Chander said, “From recent developments it is evident our institutions are responsive and capable of meeting the aspirations and needs of the vast and thriving milieu of people.”

On Monday, in her first address to the HRC, Bachelet had said the recent human rights report on Kashmir had not been followed up and emphasised that her office would continue monitoring and reporting on the situation there.

The strongly-worded report released by her predecessor, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein in June, outlined what it said were human rights abuses on both sides of the line of control and called for an international commission to investigate the human rights situation.

He had also repeatedly asked India to allow human rights monitors to visit Kashmir, which New Delhi has refused asserting that happenings in Kashmir were its internal affairs and there could be no external intervention.

Bachelet said that there has not been “even open and serious discussions on how the grave issues raised (in the report) could be addressed” and added that her office would continue to request permission to visit both sides of the line of control.

“The people of Kashmir have exactly the same rights to justice and dignity as people all over the world, and we urge the authorities to respect them,” she said.

She balanced the criticism of India by hailing last week’s Supreme Court decision to decriminalise same-sex relations and declared, “I very much hope other countries around the world will look to India’s example in this respect.”

On Tuesday, Farukh Amil, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, told the HRC in his national capacity that Pakistan shares Bachelet’s “anguish” over Kashmir and endorsed her call for implementing the report’s recommendations.

Since the report was released, “the plight of Kashmiris has only worsened with 60 civilians killed,” he asserted.

Islamabad was willing to allow a Human Rights Commissioner’s team to visit the area of Kashmir under its control only if New Delhi would also give a similar access, Amil said.

He also brought up the 70-year-old resolutions of the Security Council and said that a plebiscite should be held under them, even though Islamabad had not kept its agreement to withdraw from the occupied areas to facilitate it.

He had another opportunity to speak to the HRC on behalf of the 53-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation when he made a passing reference to Kashmir, lumping it with the Palestine and the Rohingya issues.

When the floor was opened to NGOs, the Karachi-based World Muslim Congress representative Sardar Amjad Yousf chimed in, expressing support for Bachelet’s references to Kashmir and calling for human rights defenders in Kashmir and those who worked with the human rights report to be declared internationally protected persons.

(IANS)

A list of high profile cases related to banking frauds was sent to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) for a coordinated action, said former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan in a note to Parliamentary panel.

In the note to Chairman of Estimates Committee Murli Manohar Joshi, Rajan said that the size of frauds in the public sector banking system has been increasing, though still small relative to the overall volume of NPAs.

“The RBI set up a fraud monitoring cell when I was Governor to coordinate the early reporting of fraud cases to the investigative agencies. I also sent a list of high profile cases to the PMO urging that we coordinate action to bring at least one or two to book. I am not aware of progress on this front. This is a matter that should be addressed with urgency,” he said.

Rajan, who was RBI governor for three years till September 2016, is currently teaching at the Chicago Booth School of Business. Noting that system has been singularly ineffective in bringing even a single high profile fraudster to book, he said, frauds are different from normal non-performing assets (NPAs).

“The investigative agencies blame the banks for labelling frauds much after the fraud has actually taken place, the bankers are slow because they know that once they call a transaction a fraud, they will be subject to harassment by the investigative agencies, without substantial progress in catching the crooks,” he said.

The statement assumes significance in the light of Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi, in connivance with certain bank officials, allegedly cheated PNB of about Rs 14,000 crore through issuance of fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoUs).

A Mumbai branch of PNB had fraudulently issued LoUs for the group of companies belonging to Nirav Modi since March 2011. The total number of LoUs issued to the companies of Nirav Modi, his relatives and the Nirav Modi Group are 1,213, and to Mehul Choksi, his relatives and the Gitanjali Group are 377.

On whether the regulator could have done better, Rajan said it is hard to offer an objective self-assessment but the RBI should probably have raised more flags about the quality of lending in the early days of banking exuberance.

“With the benefit of hindsight, we should probably not have agreed to forbearance, though without the tools to clean up, it is not clear what the banks would have done. Forbearance was a bet that growth would revive, and projects would come back on track.

“That it did not work out does not mean that it was not the right decision at the time it was initiated. Also, we should have initiated the new tools earlier, and pushed for a more rapid enactment of the Bankruptcy Code. If so, we could have started the AQR (asset quality review) process earlier,” he said.

Finally, he said, the RBI could have been more decisive in enforcing penalties on non-compliant banks. “Fortunately, this culture of leniency has been changing in recent years. Hindsight, of course, is 20/20,” he said.

(PTI)

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati on Tuesday slammed the Modi government for rising fuel prices and accused it of being on the same page as the earlier Congress-led UPA government.

In a statement, the Dalit leader said that the Modi government was also pursuing the “anti-people policies” that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)-II pursued.

The Dalit leader alleged that while people were suffering due to the price rise, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders were diffident in answering questions on the economic front.

She termed the government’s oil policy irrational and impractical.

“The fuel prices have spun out of control and the Modi government does not want to upset its industrialist friends,” the four-time Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister said, adding that the Union government was doing virtually nothing to control rising prices of petrol and diesel.

She said the Congress and the BJP had both failed in tackling price rise and that the Modi government had no sympathy for the middle class and the poor.

If the central government desired, the fuel prices could be controlled, the BSP leader said.

(IANS)

Inflationary risks along with broadly negative global cues depressed the Indian rupee to a new low of 72.74 to the US dollar during late afternoon session on Tuesday.

At 3.35 p.m. the rupee traded around 72.64 per dollar, against the previous close of 72.45 per dollar at the Inter-Bank Foreign Exchange Market.

According to analysts, expectations of higher overall inflation rate, growing protectionism in global trade and an increasing outflow of foreign funds from the country’s equity market have subdued the Indian currency.

(IANS)