The Piracy Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha on April 24, 2012. According to the Statement of Objects and Reasons, there has been a significant increase in attacks by pirates, particularly in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia. This has affected security of maritime traffic and personnel plying between Asia, Europe and Africa. Moreover, enhanced naval presence in the Gulf of Aden is now causing pirates to shift operations close to India’s Exclusive Economic Zone. As a result, a number of Somali pirates are presently in the custody of Indian police authorities. However, since piracy as a crime is not included in the Indian Penal Code (IPC), this has led to problems in prosecution. The Piracy Bill intends to fill this gap and provide clarity in the law. The Bill, if passed by Parliament, would extend to the entire Exclusive Economic Zone of India (EEZ). Under international law, EEZ is a seazone over which a country has special rights for exploration and use of marine resources. It stretches outward from the coast, up to 200 nautical miles into the sea. The Bill defines 'piracy' as any illegal act of violence or detention for private ends by the crew or passengers of a private ship or aircraft on high seas or at a place outside the jurisdiction of any State. This definition is akin to the definition of piracy laid down under the 'United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea'. The Bill seeks to punish piracy with imprisonment for life. In cases where piracy leads to death, it may be punished with death. It also provides that if arms, ammunition are recovered from the possession of the accused, or if there is evidence of threat of violence, the burden of proof for proving innocence would shift to the accused. The Bill empowers the government to set up designated courts for speedy trial of offences and authorizes the court to prosecute the accused regardless of his/ her nationality. It also provides for extradition. You can access the Bill text here.
The empowered group of ministers (EGoM) met recently to review the draft food security bill. Two issues have been reported to have gained prominence in their discussions – the exact number of poor families that are likely to be beneficiaries under the Food Security Act and reforming of the targeted public distribution system. On the issue of estimating poverty, it is reported that the Planning Commission has been asked to submit a report in three weeks on the number of (BPL) families that are likely to be legally entitled to food under the said Act. The Minister of Agriculture is reported to have said “It is up to them [Planning Commission] whether they base it [BPL list] on the Tendulkar Committee report or the earlier N.C. Saxena panel or the Wadhwa committee.” The estimation of poor persons in India involves two broad steps: (i) fixing a threshold or poverty line that establishes poverty, and (ii) counting the number of people below this line. Estimating these numbers is a contentious issue – ridden by debates around norms and parameters for defining poverty, methodology to estimate poverty, etc. The Planning Commission estimates the percentage and number of BPL persons separately in rural and urban areas from a large sample survey conducted by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) which operates under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. In addition various government social sector schemes are targeted specifically at the poor and require the government to identify BPL beneficiaries. For this purpose the Ministry of Rural Development designs a BPL census and that is conducted by the States/UTs. The BPL census website gives data on BPL households for 2002 based on the poverty estimates for 1999-2000, by state, district and block. The targeted public distribution system was recently subjected to scrutiny by a Supreme Court appointed vigilance committee headed by Justice D P Wadhwa. Amongst many issues, the committee reported that “the PDS is inefficient and corrupt. There is diversion and black-marketing of PDS food grain in large scale. Subsidized PDS food grain does not reach the poor who desperately need the same. These poor people never get the PDS food grain in proper quantity and quality.” The two issues highlighted here are important to ensure that the proposed legislation on food security is not a leaky bucket in the making. As the draft food security bill is not in the public domain it is difficult to comment on how the government is thinking on length and breadth of issues that govern giving access to food security.
