ICYMI#TheTribuneOpinion: From Trump-Xi thaw to latest political churning in Bihar

The first in-person meeting since 2019 between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping on the margins of the APEC leaders’ summit in Busan was under the media spotlight. Trump cut tariffs on China while Beijing allowed export of rare earth elements and import of American soybeans. However, China secured the more durable advantage — retaining policy space even as the US claimed a short-term victory, writes ex-Ambassador to China Ashok Kantha in his Op-Ed Trump and Xi pause trade war, not rivalry. China secured meaningful concessions that ease domestic pressures without compromising core policies, he writes. Taiwan remained unaddressed, one of the issues Harvard Kennedy School professor Rana Mitter had raised in his Op-Ed article When Trump meets Xi, who will be most powerful earlier in the week before the Xi-Trump meeting. How has the needle moved on three issues — trade, Taiwan and China-Russia relations — since the last meeting between Trump and Xi, this was his concern. The meeting on October 30 made it clear how stronger China has become since 2019, Kantha writes.

On trade with India, the US had always wanted to get a foothold into the vast Indian agricultural market, writes food & agriculture specialist Devinder Sharma in his Op-Ed piece Protecting India’s farms from cheap imports. By removing import tariffs on cotton to zero, India has willingly thrown its farmers to face the wolves. Justifying the import of GM soy in the name of attaining self-sufficiency in edible oils is again a misdirected attempt. When it comes to pulses, the supply-demand equation fails to work, he writes.

Not to forget Bihar. PM Modi has raked up Charanjit Singh Channi’s “bhaiye” comment as part of the BJP’s extraordinary outreach in Bihar, writes Editor-in-Chief Jyoti Malhotra in her weekly column The Great Game Every Bihari counts in Punjab too. When he plays up the “UP/Bihar ke bhaiye” remark, and follows it up with criticism of “a member of the Gandhi family”, he is exhorting the Bihari labourer who has made the sardine-packed train journey home for Chhath to vote for the BJP — look what the Congress actually thinks about you? The result of the upcoming Bihar election is bound to be felt most directly in Punjab a year later, she avers. Like in Haryana, the BJP will do everything to prevent the Opposition from coming to power. The BJP knows that a victory for the Mahagathbandhan will break the perception that the BJP is invincible, she writes.

The Election Commission seems to have learnt some lessons from the recent SIR exercise in Bihar, writes former Election Commissioner of India Ashok Lavasa in his Edit article Pan-India SIR aims to avoid Bihar pangs. The ECI has incorporated the SC’s directions of displaying booth-wise lists of electors whose names are not included in the draft roll, among many other steps. The ECI looks determined to assert its constitutional authority in carrying the process forward, he writes.

As we commemorated the assassination of former PM Indira Gandhi on October 31 and the mayhem thereafter, 41 years after the 1984 Sikh genocide, in which 2,733 Sikhs were brutally killed in Delhi, justice continues to elude the victims with just 39 convictions in 650 cases. Bringing powerful political leaders like the former Union minister Jagdish Tytler and former MP Sajjan Kumar to trial was a long, uphill struggle. The pursuit of justice for the 1984 genocide victims has been a decades-long struggle marked by political interference, threats and institutional apathy, writes SC senior advocate HS Phoolka in his Edit Long road to justice in ’84 riots cases.

In the two views segment on drug menace in Punjab, GNDU professor of eminence Ranjit Singh Ghuman writes in his Op-Ed article Addiction a systemic crisis, not moral failure that the system must address the fundamental reasons of the drug ‘business’ in a missionary mode. Not doing so would incapacitate our youth in their most productive years. Supporting the argument, Associate Professor Madhur M Mahajan writes in his article Drugs are sapping Punjab’s economy that Punjab’s drug crisis today is not merely a question of socio-cultural morality or crime; it poses a serious economic and developmental challenge. The sustainable way forward lies in consistent investment in public health, livelihoods and prevention, he suggests.

The Punjab Government periodically constitutes district planning boards to formulate district development plans. However, most have hardly prepared any plan, writes former Punjabi University VC BS Ghuman in his Op-Ed piece Bridge Punjab’s district divide through local development. Addressing the slow and uneven development in Punjab, he says that Ludhiana emerged as the largest district economy during 2020-21 contributing 15.47 per cent to the state income. The bottom five districts — SBS Nagar (2.29 per cent), Mansa (2.25 per cent), Barnala (2.10 per cent), Faridkot (2.03 per cent) and Pathankot (1.83 per cent) together contribute only 10 per cent to the state income, much below the share of Ludhiana alone. There are many such discrepancies, he writes.

AI-generated deepfakes are often used to spread misinformation, damage someone’s reputation or commit financial fraud. Bollywood stars, politicians, world leaders have been at the receiving end of cheating through deepfakes. India needs a comprehensive regulatory framework to deal with all aspects of AI, says science commentator Dinesh C Sharma in his Edit piece Go beyond quick fix to fight deepfakes. Regulating AI is proving to be a nightmare for governments around the world — Denmark, the US, the UK, France, to name a few. However, the most comprehensive attempt at stonewalling the adverse effects of AI is the European Artificial Intelligence Act where regulatory steps are being taken after due public discourse, involvement of civil society and parliamentary debates. On the contrary, in India, the Central government has given the public barely a fortnight to comment on the draft rules. Such an important piece of regulation needs wider, multi-stakeholder discussion for it to be effective, he argues.

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