1 Sluggish growth for Indonesia (Chia Yan Min in
Straits Times) Indonesia's economy logged disappointing growth in the first
three months of the year amid weak commodity prices. Other Asian economies have
also announced anaemic numbers, including Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea,
due to lacklustre export growth across the region.
Analysts saw the latest data, which came in below
expectations, as a setback to President Joko Widodo's efforts to implement
reforms and rejuvenate the economy of South-east Asia's largest nation. Indonesia's
economy grew 4.92 per cent in the first quarter compared with the same period
last year, down from 5.04 per cent in the fourth quarter.
Economists said the weak showing was largely due to
a slowdown in government spending and investment, and a decline in exports. The
Indonesian economy grew 4.79 per cent last year, its slowest pace since 2009. Despite
the disappointing data, some observers are optimistic that growth in the nation
of 255 million people will pick up later in the year.
2 Tesla two years ahead of production schedule (BBC)
Tesla Motors says it is on track to produce 500,000 vehicles in 2018, two years
earlier than expected. On Wednesday, the electric carmaker reported a first
quarter loss of $282m up from $154m last year.
The loss was in line with investors' expectations,
and the announcement that it was increasing production sent its shares up 4% in
after-hours trading. Tesla had been struggling to ramp up production of its
cars including its newest Model X SUV. Production of the Model X rose from 507
in the fourth quarter of 2015 to 2,659 in the first quarter of 2016.
The company confirmed it was on track to deliver
80,000 to 90,000 electric vehicles this year. Tesla said it had seen demand
rise across all its models, especially its Model 3 - the carmaker's first
mass-market product. Deliveries of the Model 3 are due to hit the market in
2017 and the company received 325,000 orders for the car within a week of
announcing it. This could result in $14bn in future sales.
3 India’s 27-million court case logjam (Vidhi Joshi
in The Guardian) More than 22 million cases are currently pending in India’s
district courts. Six million of those have lasted longer than five years.
Another 4.5 million are waiting to be heard in the high courts and more than
60,000 in the supreme court, according to the most recently available
government data. These figures are increasing according to decennial reports.
Last week, Chief Justice of India’s supreme court,
Tirath Singh Thakur broke down while addressing the Prime Minister Narendra
Modi, blaming the government for inaction over judicial delays, particularly
for failing to appoint enough judges to deal with the huge backlog of pending
cases.
In the government’s budget for 2016, only 0.2% of
the total budget was given to the Law Ministry, one of the lowest in the world.
The number of cases, however, is only a part of the problem. Take a walk
through any court building in India and you’ll see long queues of people
waiting outside courtrooms without any guarantee of getting a complete hearing.
India has one of the world’s lowest judges to population
ratios in the world, with only 13 judges per million people, compared to 50 in
developed nations. As a result, judges hear scores of cases every day, which
leads to a large number of adjournments, multiple judges passing cases between
them, and increasingly long queues of people waiting outside courtrooms on the
off chance that their case is heard.
Judges are paid little compared to lawyers, which
has led to a steady decline in the quality of judges. To add to the burden,
lawyers frequently use delaying tactics such as appealing verdicts endlessly,
or saying they’re sick or failing to show up to court. The legal logjam has led
to overcrowded prisons, with more than 68% of the prison population still under
trial. Some prisons are over two or three times over capacity.
Attempts to improve the system have seen little
success. After the horrific gang rape of a medical student in Delhi, a series
of fast-track courts were set up to speed up cases concerning violence against
women. It hasn’t made much of a difference. Over 93% of rape cases are still
pending trial. Trivial matters hold up the case’s progress.
In the absence of speedy justice, vigilantism
thrives. Groups defending women’s rights such as the Gulabi Gang or the Love
Commandos are infamous for taking their revenge in cases of domestic violence
and honour killings. Corruption too, is endemic. People would rather bribe a
police officer or a judge than go through the lengthy hassle of a trial.
Meanwhile, the impunity that criminals may enjoy
because of how slowly the legal system operates, is exemplified by India’s
elected politicians. One of every three politicians currently sitting in the
Indian parliament have criminal records, with the vast majority of those involved
in serious cases such as rape, murder, or kidnapping.
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