GS Paper: Governance, Transparency & Accountability, Citizens Charters

Context

• The Make in India and Ease of Doing Business policies were framed because Prime Minister Narendra Modi correctly believed that the problems of poverty and unemployment could only be solved by the rapid growth of the manufacturing sector. Despite these efforts, manufacturing has till now not shown any significant increase in its growth. Investments in the sector remain inadequate.

Click and get your FREE Copy of CURRENT AFFAIRS Micro Notes

Background: Manufacturing sector in India

• Development strategies and failures: The development of strategies and plans for implementation and their execution is done by individuals. Repeated failures in this area point to the necessity of identifying the root causes for why existing personnel charged with policy execution have been failing.
• Reasons could be: The reasons could be inadequate knowledge and skills, lack of motivation, environmental constraints or weak supervision and monitoring.
• Vision by political leaderships, implementation by IAS officers: While the political leadership lays down the vision, the responsibilities for translating these into ground realities are that of IAS officers.

IAS officers in manufacturing

• IAS officers ensures adequate skills and training: Most of the senior posts in the secretariats and districts are held by officers from the IAS. They are responsible for ensuring that subordinate civil servants are adequately trained and skilled, motivated and guided to deliver good outcomes.
• Frame rules for implementation: They create the framework of rules that constitute the environment for implementation. Therefore, if policies are to be more effectively implemented, IAS officers need to be better equipped.

How should be the role of IAS officers in manufacturing?

• Officers should have adequate knowledge: Achieving global levels of cost and quality competitiveness in the sector requires that officers working in areas relevant to policy-making in the central and state governments understand how laws, regulations and procedures impact the competitiveness of industry.
• They must know the ways of cost-efficient manufacturing: They should specifically be aware of the various ways in which these add to or reduce the costs of manufacturing.
• They should ensure the demand and investment strategy: They need to appreciate the importance of demand creation for enabling industry to achieve economies of scale and how the stability of policies is required for companies to make long-term investments.

What needs to be done?

• Need to understand the resources, demand and growth: The importance of profits and the generation of internal resources for growth has to be understood.
• Joint efforts and trust are required: This is only possible if the concerned civil servants in the ministries have good domain knowledge of the manufacturing sector and appreciate that government and entrepreneurs have to work jointly and trust each other.

Can IAS officers do this work? What are the challenges?

• Gap in policies and implementation: While policies are largely made in Delhi, much of the implementation is done in states.
• More trust on public sector while a distrust on private sector: Effective implementation has become complex because of our past history of only trusting the public sector and distrusting the private sector.
• Even laws and procedures are based on suspicion: Many of the laws and procedures were based on the suspicion of private-sector industrialists.
• Legacy of distrust on civil servants: Equally, the system of checks and balances, inherited from the British, is based on a distrust of civil servants and leads to implementers preferring procedures and correct paperwork over producing results.
• Civil servants are not private sector friendly in general: Civil servants are generally not private sector friendly when dealing with issues that have financial implications. This results in long delays, higher costs and loss of competitiveness.

How to equip IAS officers to become more effective in dealing with the manufacturing sector?

• Bringing in the best global practices: We need to reform our system of human resource development and bring it in line with the best global practices.
• Dedicated wing to be created: A wing be created in the Department of Personnel & Training, and its counterparts in the states. This should be manned by professionals in human resource development whose function would be to select officers on the basis of aptitude from the IAS and other services, and train them to frame and implement policies relating to manufacturing and industrial development.
• Experience must be considered: The selection of officers could be made after they have completed around 10 years of service. Thereafter, selected officers would need to be trained and given postings that would enable them to gain more knowledge and experience. This could include secondment to selected private companies so that the officers could get actual working experience. They would then be better able to understand the finer points of competing in the marketplace.
• Periodic Capability evaluation should be made: Officers so trained should not be moved to other unrelated areas of work. Periodic evaluations could be made, again by professionals, to identify those capable of moving to the highest levels for making policies and strategies.

The Maruti case study

• A system that exists in Japan, and was implemented in Maruti, was to de-link salary scales from job responsibilities.
• The most suitable person for a job is selected and his pay did not change upon assuming higher responsibilities, though his designation changed.

Conclusion

• IAS officers can deliver results if they are motivated, trained and allowed to work in the area of their expertise. The recruitment system for the higher civil services ensures high-quality entrants. However, that does not automatically mean good results when posted in jobs that require specialized knowledge and experience. They need to be properly equipped to work in the manufacturing sector.

Mains Question

Q. Despite of the efforts to boost manufacturing sector, it has till now not shown any significant increase in its growth. In this context discuss the role of  IAS officers and suggest what can be done to improve their role in manufacturing sector.

(Click) FREE 1-to-1 on-call Mentorship by IAS-IPS officers | Discuss doubts, strategy, sources, and more

Context

• Following a report in this newspaper, the Maharashtra government has decided to limit the mandate of the recently constituted Intercaste/Interfaith Marriage-Family Coordination Committee (state level) to gathering information on interfaith marriages.

Click and get your FREE Copy of CURRENT AFFAIRS Micro Notes

Intercaste/Interfaith Marriage-Family Coordination Committee

• Work under Women and child development: The renamed Interfaith Marriage-Family Coordination Committee will be under the state Women and Child Development Ministry.
• Will Track frauds: The committee besides providing support and rehabilitation, when necessary, ostensibly track fraud committed in the name of love jihad.
• Development come after walker case: The development came after the Shraddha Walkar case came to light in November. Walkar, 26, was murdered by her live-in partner Aaftab Poonawalla in May, 2022
• Other states with anti-conversion legislation: With states such as Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand already having brought in anti-conversion legislation.

What is love jihad?

• “Love jihad” is a term often used by activists to allege a ploy by Muslim men to lure Hindu women into religious conversion through marriage.

How the initiative will work?

• Will collect and keep details of interfaith marriages and ensure communication: This initiative will provide a platform for the women in intercaste/interfaith marriages and their families to access counselling, and communicate or resolve issues.
• Committee will hold regular meetings: The committee has been assigned to hold meetings with district officials, and review work on seven parameters, including, gathering information about interfaith or inter-caste marriages from stamp duty and registrar offices, and collect information on such registered or unregistered marriages, among others.

What are the concerns raised?

• Control over the lives of individual citizens: Such vigilance remains yet another indication of the State’s disproportionately burgeoning and utterly unacceptable interest in, and demand for, control over the lives of individual citizens.
• Denial of women’s own choice: It is not just violative of one’s rights of freedom and equality, it also reeks of misogyny in its steadfast denial of a woman’s choice of partner as her own free will and not an act of coercion.
• Committee can be armed: There is the IPC for all genuine complaints so the committee could be weaponised.
• It will limit the freedoms of men and women: In every aspect, monitoring of a citizen’s life for her own supposed benefit is a cautionary tale, a limitation of the freedoms of men and women, designed to deter them from leading fuller, freer lives.

Basics: Right to Marriage

• Comes under Right to life: The right to marry is a part of the right to life under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.
• As an integral part of Right to Life: Various courts across the country have also interpreted the right to marry as an integral part of the right to life under Article 21.
• Stated under Human rights Charter: The right to marriage is also stated under Human Rights Charter within the meaning of the right to start a family.
• Universal right: The right to marry is a universal right and it is available to everyone irrespective of their gender.
• Forced marriage is illegal: A forced marriage is illegal in different personal laws on marriage in India, with the right to marry recognized under the Hindu laws as well as Muslim laws.

How is religious freedom protected under the Constitution?

• Article 25(1) of the Constitution guarantees the “freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion”.
• It is a right that guarantees a negative liberty which means that the state shall ensure that there is no interference or obstacle to exercise this freedom.
• However, like all fundamental rights, the state can restrict the right for grounds of public order, decency, morality, health and other state interests.

Conclusion

• The marriage between politics and communalism is not a new phenomenon but to try to inhibit that idea of openness and possibility by casting communal aspersions on personal choice might be a travesty. There needs an innovative and inclusive approach to address the issues arise out of interfaith marriages.

Mains question

Q. Recently the Maharashtra government has set up a panel named “Intercaste/Interfaith marriage-family coordination committee (state level)” to gather information about couples in such marriages. Discuss the utility and concerns of such initiative?

(Click) FREE 1-to-1 on-call Mentorship by IAS-IPS officers | Discuss doubts, strategy, sources, and more

Click and get your FREE Copy of CURRENT AFFAIRS Micro Notes

Context

• The Supreme Court (SC) made an observation in its judgment of November 16 in the infamous Kathua rape-murder case that the rising rate of juvenile delinquency in India is a matter of concern and requires immediate attention.

Present approach and implications towards Juvenile delinquency

• The goal of reformation: There is a school of thought, that firmly believes that howsoever heinous the crime may be, be it single rape, gangrape, drug peddling or murder but if the accused is a juvenile, he should be dealt with keeping in mind only one thing i.e., the goal of reformation.
• Continuance of crime: The school of thought, we are talking about, believes that the goal of reformation is ideal. The manner in which brutal and heinous crimes have been committed over a period of time by the juveniles and still continue to be committed, makes us wonder whether the [Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children)] Act, 2015 has subserved its object.
• No reformation but more crime: We have started gathering an impression that the leniency with which the juveniles are dealt with in the name of goal of reformation is making them more and more emboldened in indulging in such heinous crimes.

Provisions of Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children)] Act, 2015

• Criminal trials are not allowed: The law, contained in successive Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Acts (JJ Acts), places a blanket ban on the power of the criminal court to try and punish a person below the specified age for committing any offence.
• Lack of clarity on maturity of person: Should a person, who has sufficient maturity of understanding to judge the nature and consequences of his/her action, get blanket immunity from the criminal process without the fear of being prosecuted, tried and punished, merely because that person is below the specified age?
• Child friendly inquiry: Under the existing law, such a person, at best, could be subjected to a child-friendly enquiry by a Juvenile Justice Board (JJ Board) and reformation for a maximum period of three years in a correctional home.

The issue of maturity of Juvenile offender

• Help of experts to assess maturity: It is well settled that the assessment of whether or not an offender has attained sufficient maturity of understanding to judge the nature and consequences of his/her conduct is to be done by the court with the help of experts, and is a judicial function as exemplified by Section 83 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.
• Judicial discretion was not allowed in JJ Act 2000: The JJ Act 2000 to the extent it deprived the criminal court of the power to try and to punish a person below the age of 18 years for committing an offence, when such a person could be assessed to have attained sufficient maturity to judge the nature and consequences of his/her conduct ,encroached upon the judicial domain and was, therefore, unconstitutional.
• No changes on maturity in JJ act 2015: The current JJ Act, 2015, suffers from the same defect, except that the age of criminal responsibility for heinous offences has been reduced to 16 years.
• Immature send to correctional homes: It has been overlooked that the fundamental premise of juvenile justice law is that a juvenile offender who lacks such maturity should not be sent to a criminal court to be tried for the commission of an offence, and instead, should be sent to a correctional home for reform and rehabilitation.
• Mature juvenile must be punished: Conversely, therefore, should the offender have such maturity, he/she must be prosecuted before the criminal court, tried and, if found guilty, punished. The age of the juvenile offender alone cannot, therefore, justify a blanket immunity from the criminal process rather, the question of such immunity must be assessed on a case-by-case basis depending on the maturity of such offender.

Trying the mature juvenile as adult

• Mature juvenile and adults are not same: Indeed, Section 23 of the JJ Act, 2015 mandates that notwithstanding anything contained in Section 223 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1973 or in any other law for the time being in force, “there shall be no joint proceedings of a child alleged to be in conflict with the law, with a person who is not a child”.
• Separate provision for mature juveniles: Provisions already exist in the JJ Act, 2015, as to how a child who has attained the age of 16 years could be tried and punished for a heinous offence.
• Assessing the maturity of all juvenile irrespective of age: The same provisions could be extended to all juvenile offenders, regardless of age or nature of the crime, once it is found by the competent court that any such offender had sufficient maturity of understanding to judge the nature and consequences of his/her actions.

Conclusion

• Government should amend JJ Act 2015. Such an amendment would go a long way in providing the requisite balance between the rationales underlying the juvenile justice system and the criminal justice system and realizing the objectives professed by both.

Mains Question

Q. What are the flaws with existing Juvenile Justice Act 2015 vis-e-vis maturity of juveniles? How to address the issue mature juvenile and punishment to them?

(Click) FREE1-to-1 on-call Mentorship by IAS-IPS officers | Discuss doubts, strategy, sources, and more

Context

• Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology released the Digital Personal data Protection Bill, 2022, on November 18.

Click and get your FREE Copy of CURRENT AFFAIRS Micro Notes

Background: Demand for the data surveillance reforms

• The journey towards a data protection legislation began in 2011 when the department of Personnel and Training initiated discussions on the Right to Privacy Bill, 2011.
• As per an Office Memorandum dated September 29, 2011, the then attorney General, Goolam Vahanvati, opined that conditions under which the government can carry out “interception of communication” should be spelt out in the Bill.
• The report of the group emphasized the need to examine the impact of the increased collection of citizen information by the government on the right to privacy. Since then, civil society organizations, lawyers and politicians have consistently demanded surveillance reform, highlighting how personal data can only be protected when the government’s power to conduct surveillance of citizens is meaningfully regulated.

Revoked version of Digital Personal data Protection Bill, 2022

• Eases cross-border data flows but wide-ranging powers to state agencies: The reworked version of the data protection Bill, released three months after the Govt withdrew an earlier draft, eases cross-border data flows and increases penalties for breaches. But it gives the Centre wide-ranging powers and prescribes very few safeguards.
• Delicate balance on privacy and restrictions: Officials at the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) have said the new draft strikes a delicate balance and factors in learning from global approaches, while staying aligned to the Supreme Court’s ruling on privacy as a fundamental right, but within reasonable restrictions.
• Seven principles of the Bill: The explanatory note accompanying the Bill elaborates on the seven principles it seeks to promote, including transparency, purpose limitation, data minimization, and preventing the unauthorized collection of personal data.

The surveillance architecture In India

• Main components: The surveillance architecture in India comprises mainly of Section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885; Section 69 of the Information Technology Act, 2000; and the procedural rules promulgated under them.
• No clearly defined ground: No But this architecture does not meaningfully define the grounds under which, or the manner in which, surveillance may be conducted.
• No safeguards: It also does not contain safeguards such as ex-ante or ex-post facto independent review of interception directions.
• Lack of accountability: The concentration of power with the executive thus creates a lack of accountability and enables abuse. Evidence for this emerges not only from instances of political surveillance, but also from the slivers of transparency that accidentally emerge from telecom companies.
• Excessive surveillance: For instance, submissions by Airtel to the Telecommunications Department, as part of the public consultation process for the Indian Telecommunication Bill, reveal that excessive data collection requests are already a reality. Airtel has asked the government to share the costs it incurs to comply with the increasing demands from law enforcement agencies to carry out surveillance.
• Concerns over citizen data processing: Apart from outright surveillance, unfettered collection and processing of citizen data for other purposes, such as digital governance, raise concerns.

What are the concerns over the revoked version of the bill?

• No proposals for surveillance reform: All iterations of the data protection legislation since the draft Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, the draft Data Protection Bill, 2021 and the 2022 Bill have no proposals for surveillance reform.
• Data processing without consent: Personal data can be processed even without the person’s consent. Blanket exemptions Like previous iterations, Clause 18(2) of the 2022 Bill allows the Union government to provide blanket exemptions for selected government agencies.
• Permits exemption to private entities: However, this Bill is more egregious than previous iterations as it permits exemption to private sector entities that may include individual companies or a class of them, by assessing the volume and nature of personal data under Clause 18(3).
• Exemptions without the purview of data protection: Under the new Bill in India, exempted state agencies and private entities will not be within the purview of the Data Protection Board, the body responsible for imposing penalties in case fiduciaries infringe privacy.

Data processing in other countries

• Exemptions on case by case and the rationale behind it: While the existing or proposed legislations in the European Union and in the U.S. permit security agencies to claim exemptions on a case-by-case basis, depending on why they are collecting personal data, they do not contain blanket exemption powers to an entire government entity.
• Meaningful state surveillance: Other jurisdictions exercise meaningful oversight over state surveillance. For instance, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal in the U.K. is authorized to hear complaints against misuse of surveillance powers and can impose monetary penalties in case of a breach.

Conclusion

• The preamble to the 2022 Bill states that the purpose is to protect the personal data of individuals and to ensure that personal data is processed only for lawful purposes. However, blanket exemptions for state agencies alongside private entities raise untold concerns, which need to be addressed on a war footing.

Mains question

Q. What do you understand by data surveillance? It is said the Data surveillance architecture in India lacks accountability and transparency. Analyze.

(Click) FREE1-to-1 on-call Mentorship by IAS-IPS officers | Discuss doubts, strategy, sources, and more