An overlapping roadmap
SDG (sustainable development goals) are adopted by the UNGA (UN General Assembly) to transform the world by 2030. It has in total 17 goals and 169 targets. This major criticism of these sustainable development goals are
- they are too vague and general. Many overlapping a exist between the goals and targets.
- Funds are not delineated for the purpose of the achievement of these goals.
- Lack of data and scientific evidence is a major hurdle in building the climate change resilience.
Coherence in Neighbourhood
India has hosted recently the visits of Prime Minister of Nepal Pushpa Kumar canal also known as Prachanda. India showed the maturity of interaction with Prime minister Prachanda and understood his sensitivities. So, amendment of the constitution of Nepal is not mentioned in the joint statement. The focus is on reconstruction and infrastructure development.
President AshrafGhani of Afghanistan also has visited India and there is a clear shift in his attitude in dealing with India. After the failure of Murree talks, Afghanistan moved close to India and India also supplied lethal helicopters. Here the major shift is in the stand of the USA which welcomed the India’s military support to Afghanistan and recommended to improve the same. India is also providing an alternative access to Afghanistan through Iran’s chabahar port. The joint statement also spoke about the resolve to counter terrorism and strengthen security and Defence cooperation as envisaged in the India – Afghanistan strategic partnership.
India’s above gestures are in line with its Neighbourhood first policy.
Pieces of untruth truce.
In UP, feud Akilesh Yadav and his uncle, father represent a generation gap and a resistance to the change. If issues are carefully observed the following conclusions can be drawn.
- Political affairs of a party become the family affair. It shows the centralization and lack of internal democracy in the political party.
- Though India is going through demographic transition, politics in India are dominated by the veterans and aged. If panchayats are excluded, India has the highest average age in politics.
- Populistic socialism is still the vote garnering mantra for the political parties.
Political malady and legal malady
Context – Anti defection law and Arunachal crisis.
Anti defection law came with an objective to control the defections and horse trading in Indian politics. Later 91st amendment act has introduced the merger of 2/3rd members of a political party as an exception to the disqualification under anti defection law.
In Arunachal Pradesh congress MLAs used this very route is used to join the people’s party of Arunachal.
Conclusions – defections engineered through these unscrupulous means will undermine democratic institutions and confidence of the people on these institutions. So. Ideally the matters related to defection shall be left to the hands of the voters. Legal remedies to what is essentially a political issue will have difficulties in their implementation.
A blow for the right to knowledge
Copyrights in India are governed by the copyright act. The section 52(1)(i) allows for the reproduction of any work i) by a teacher or a pupil in the course of instruction; or ii) as part of the questions to be answered in an examination; or iii) in answers to such questions.
Copyrights and Patents can be seen as a limitation on access to Knowledge. In this context, in the recent judgement by the Delhi high court in The Chancellor Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford v. Rameshwari Photocopy Services), held that word “in the course of” Under 52(1)(I) involves pedagogy to entire instruction outside and inside the classroom.
With inputs from CivilsPrep