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GS Paper: GS2

  • Geneva Conventions and the Russia-Ukraine War

    As the evidence of casualties in the civilian population continues to mount, the world will increasingly look to the Geneva Conventions in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

    Geneva Conventions Guidelines for Wartime

    • These are a set of four treaties, formalized in 1949, and three additional protocols, which codify widely accepted ethical and legal international standards for humanitarian treatment of those impacted by war.
    • The focus of the Conventions is the:
    1. Treatment of non-combatants and prisoners of war, and
    2. Not the use of conventional or biological and chemical weapons

    What are the four Geneva Conventions?

    (1) First Geneva Convention: Health and Medical Issues

    • It protects wounded and sick soldiers on land during war.
    • This convention extends to medical and religious personnel, medical units, and medical transport.
    • It has two annexes containing a draft agreement relating to hospital zones and a model identity card for medical and religious personnel.

    (2) Second Geneva Convention:  Offshore Protection

    • It protects wounded, sick and shipwrecked military personnel at sea during war.
    • This convention also extends to hospital ships and medical transports by sea, with specific commentary on the treatment and protections for their personnel.

    (3) Third Geneva Convention: Treatment of Prisoners of War (PoW)

    It applies to prisoners of war, including a wide range of general protections such as humane treatment, maintenance and equality across prisoners, conditions of captivity, questioning and evacuation of prisoners, transit camps, food, clothing, medicines, hygiene and right to religious, intellectual, and physical activities of prisoners.

    (4) Fourth Geneva Convention: Civilian protection of occupied territory ***

    • It particularly applies to the invasion of Ukraine by Russian military forces.
    • It protects civilians, including those in occupied territory.
    • Comprising 159 articles, it outlines the norms for this critical dimension of conflict.

    Extent of the Fourth Geneva Convention amid the Ukraine-Russia War

    • Along with the Additional Protocols of 1977, the Fourth Convention expounds upon the:
    1. General protection of populations against certain consequences of war
    2. Conduct of hostilities and the status and
    3. Treatment of protected persons
    4. Distinguishing between the situation of foreigners on the territory of one of the parties to the conflict and that of civilians in occupied territory
    • This convention also spells out the obligations of the occupying power vis-Ă -vis the civilian population and outlines detailed provisions on humanitarian relief for populations in occupied territory.

    Which countries are signatories?

    • The Geneva Conventions have been ratified by 196 states, including all UN member states.
    • The three Protocols have been ratified by 174, 169 and 79 states respectively.

    Russia and these conventions

    • In 2019, perhaps anticipating the possibility of its invading Ukraine in the near future, Russia withdrew its declaration under Article 90 of Protocol 1.
    • By withdrawing this declaration, Russia has pre-emptively left itself with the option to refuse access by any international fact-finding missions to Russian entities.
    • Not withdrawing could have find Russia responsible for violations of the Geneva Conventions standards.
    • Further, the four conventions and first two protocols of the Geneva Conventions were ratified by the Soviet Union, not Russia.
    • Hence there is a risk of the Russian government of the day disavowing any responsibility under the Conventions.

    What would be the steps for potential prosecution under the Conventions?

    • Under Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the ICC, it is the ICC that has jurisdiction in respect of war crimes, in particular “when committed as part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes.”

    To what extent have Geneva Conventions been upheld worldwide in recent years?

    • Amnesty International notes that there has been a blatant disregard for civilian protection and international humanitarian law in armed conflicts where four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council are parties.
    • Specifically, Amnesty cited:
    1. US-led coalition’s bombing of Raqqa in Syria, which left more than 1,600 civilians dead
    2. Destruction of civilian infrastructure and lives in Aleppo and Idlib by Russian forces
    3. Leading to mass displacement of millions
    4. War in Yemen where the Saudi Arabia and the UAE-led coalition, backed by the West, killed and injured thousands of civilians, fuelling a full-blown humanitarian crisis

     

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  • What is ‘Most Favoured Nation’ Status?

    The United States, the European Union, Britain, Canada and Japan are to move jointly to revoke Russia’s “most favoured nation” (MFN) status over its invasion of Ukraine.

    What is MFN status?

    • The World Trade Organization’s 164 members commit to treating other members equally so they can all benefit from each other’s lowest tariffs, highest import quotas and fewest trade barriers.
    • This principle of non-discrimination is known as most favoured nation (MFN) treatment.
    • There are some exceptions, such as when members strike bilateral trade agreements or when members offer developing countries special access to their markets.
    • For countries outside the WTO, such as Iran, North Korea, Syria or Russian ally Belarus, WTO members can impose whatever trade measures they wish without flouting global trading rules.

    Removal of MFN status

    • There is no formal procedure for suspending MFN treatment and it is not clear whether members are obliged to inform the WTO if they do so.
    • India suspended Pakistan’s MFN status in 2019 after a suicide attack by a Pakistan-sponsored group.
    • Pakistan never applied MFN status to India.

    What does losing MFN status mean?

    • Revoking Russia’s MFN status sends a strong signal that the US and its Western allies do not consider Russia a economic partner in any way, but it does not in itself change conditions for trade.
    • It does formally allow the Western allies to increase import tariffs or impose quotas on Russian goods, or even ban them, and to restrict services out of the country.
    • They could also overlook Russian intellectual property rights.
    • Ahead of MFN status removal, the United States had already announced a ban on imports of Russian oil and gas.

     

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  • Electoral democracy vs constitutional democracy: Post-poll lessons

    Context

    The recently concluded assembly elections have some larger implications that we need to take note of. The consequences are not confined to the five states where the electoral battle was fought.

    Undermining of non-electoral dimensions of democracy

    • In much of the world, the electoral aspects of democracy are now being used to undermine the non-electoral dimensions of democracy.
    • Today, such contradictions exist in Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Russia, to name just a few countries.
    • A freely conducted vote can thus be used to cripple the other freedoms that modern democracies also value.

    How electoral democracy can be a vehicle of assault on constitutional democracy

    • The triumph of such politics can now be used in three ways — in executive decrees, in legislative chambers to formulate laws, and on the street via vigilante forces.
    • Though minority rights are enshrined in India’s Constitution, election victories can now be used to create laws, or government policies that begin to attack precisely those rights.
    • Role of judiciary: The courts are the final custodian of constitutional proprieties in a democracy and can frustrate a legislative or executive attack on the Constitution.
    • But that depends on whether the judiciary is willing to play its constitutionally assigned role.
    • Judicial interpretation can go either way – in favour of the government or against it.

    Contradictory aspects of democracy from other parts of the world

    • These contradictory aspects of democracy do have older roots.
    • We can go all the way back to some tendencies that emerged in the democracy of America’s southern states in the 1880s, which lasted till the 1960s.
    • America’s Blacks lost their equality as well as franchise, and the courts did not invalidate a majoritarian attack on their rights.
    • The history of 1930s Germany is also viewed as an example of how democracy undermined democracy.
    • As early as the 1950s, Sri Lanka imposed a “Sinhala only” policy on the Tamil minority of the country.
    •  In the 1980s, a civil war was born as a consequence.
    • In Malaysia, following roughly similar policies, the Malay majority sidelined the Chinese minority.
    • Internal tensions and aggravations rose but, unlike Sri Lanka, a civil war did not.
    • The minorities pursued their interests by entering into coalitions with political parties within the larger parameters of the polity.

    Consider the question “How the electoral aspect of the democracy can affect the non-electoral aspect of the democracy. What are the implications of such phenomenon for the democracy?”

    Conclusion

    This process can be called the battle between electoral democracy and constitutional democracy. Processes internal to the democratic system can severely weaken democracy itself, even causing its collapse.

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  • Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC)

    India has emphasized on following the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) at the UNSC meeting on Ukraine.

    Why in news?

    • The meeting came after a request from Russia, who claimed that the US is involved in bioweapon manufacture in war-torn Ukraine.
    • However, Washington has strongly dismissed this claim.

    What is BTWC?

    • The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) was the first multilateral treaty categorically banning a class of weapon.
    • It is a treaty that came into force in 1975 and prohibits the development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use of biological weapons.
    • A total of 183 countries are party to the treaty that outlaws bioweapons, including US, Russia and Ukraine.

    Obligations of the treaty

    • The treaty prohibits the development, stockpile, production, or transfer of biological agents and toxins of “types and quantities” that have no justification for protective or peaceful use.
    • Furthermore, the treaty bans the development of weapons, equipment, or delivery systems to disseminate such agents or toxins.
    • Should a state possess any agent, toxin, or delivery system for them, they have nine months from entry into force of the treaty to destroy their stockpiles, or divert them for peaceful use.
    • The convention stipulates that states shall cooperate bilaterally or multilaterally to solve compliance issues.
    • States may also submit complaints to the UNSCR should they believe another state is violating the treaty.

    Issues with the treaty

    • There is no implementation body of the BTWC, allowing for blatant violations as seen in the past.
    • There is only a review conference that too every five years to review the convention’s implementation, and establish confidence-building measures.

    Signatories to the BTWC

    • The Convention currently has 183 states-parties, including Palestine, and four signatories (Egypt, Haiti, Somalia, and Syria).
    • Ten states have neither signed nor ratified the BWC: Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Israel, Kiribati, Micronesia, Namibia, South Sudan, and Tuvalu.

     

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  • Water management needs a hydro-social approach

    Context

    The Global Water System Project, which was launched in 2003 as a joint initiative of the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) and Global Environmental Change (GEC) programme, epitomises global concern about the human-induced transformation of fresh water and its impact on the earth system and society.

    Valuation of water

    • It is globally estimated that the gap between demand for and supply of fresh water may reach up to 40% by 2030 if present practices continue.
    • SDG 6: The formation of the 2030 Water Resource Group in 2008, at the instance of the World Economic Forum, and the World Bank’s promotion of the group’s activity since 2018, is in recognition of this problem and to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on water availability and sanitation for all by 2030 (SDG 6).
    • The latest UN World Water Development Report, 2021, titled ‘Valuing Water’, has laid stress on the proper valuation of water by considering five interrelated perspectives: water sources; water infrastructure; water services; water as an input to production and socio-economic development, and socio-cultural values of water.

    Need for hydro-social cycle approach

    • Designing a comprehensive mix of divergent views about water along with ecological and environmental issues held by stakeholder groups is necessary.
    • In this context, a hydro-social cycle approach provides an appropriate framework.
    • It repositions the natural hydrological cycle in a human-nature interactive structure and considers water and society as part of a historical and relational-dialectical process.
    • The anthropogenic factors directly influencing a freshwater system are the engineering of river channels, irrigation and other consumptive use of water, widespread land use/land cover change, change in an aquatic habitat, and point and non-point source pollution affecting water quality.

    The intra- and inter-basin transfer (IBT) of water

    • IBT is a major hydrological intervention to rectify the imbalance in water availability due to naturally prevailing unequal distribution of water resources within a given territory.
    • There are several IBT initiatives across the world.
    • The National River Linking Project of India is one of those under construction.
    • Based on a multi-country case study analysis, the World Wildlife Fund/World Wide Fund for Nature (2009) has suggested a cautious approach and the necessity to adhere to sustainability principles set out by the World Commission on Dams while taking up IBT projects.

    Issues with assumptions, use and management of freshwater resources in India

    1] Contestation on concept of the surplus and deficit basin

    • The basic premise of IBT is to export water from the surplus basin to a deficit basin.
    • However, there is contestation on the concept of the surplus and deficit basin itself as the exercise is substantially hydrological.
    • Besides this, rainfall in many surplus basins has been reported as declining.
    • The status of the surplus basin may alter if these issues are considered.

    2] Low capacity utilisation

    • There is concern about the present capacity utilisation of water resources created in the country.
    • By 2016, India created an irrigation potential for 112 million hectares, but the gross irrigated area was 93 million hectares.
    • There is a 19% gap, which is more in the case of canal irrigation.
    • In 1950-51, canal irrigation used to contribute 40% of net irrigated area, but by 2014-15, the net irrigated area under canal irrigation came down to less than 24%.
    • Groundwater irrigation now covers 62.8% of net irrigated area.
    • Low efficiency of irrigation projects: The average water use efficiency of irrigation projects in India is only 38% against 50%-60% in the case of developed countries.
    • More water consumption for crops: Even at the crop level we consume more water than the global average.
    • Rice and wheat, the two principal crops accounting for more than 75% of agricultural production use 2,850 m 3/tonnes and 1,654 m 3/tonnes of water, respectively, against the global average of 2,291m 3/tonnes and 1,334m 3/ tonnes in the same order.
    • The agriculture sector uses a little over 90% of total water use in India.
    • And in industrial plants, consumption is 2 times to 3.5 times higher per unit of production of similar plants in other countries.
    • Similarly, the domestic sector experiences a 30% to 40% loss of water due to leakage.

    3] Low use of greywater

    • Grey water is hardly used in our country.
    • It is estimated that 55% to 75% of domestic water use turns into greywater depending on its nature of use, people’s habits, climatic conditions, etc.
    • At present, the average water consumption in the domestic sector in urban areas is 135 litres to 196 litres a head a day.
    • If grey water production in the rural areas is considered it will be a huge amount.
    • The discharge of untreated grey water and industrial effluents into freshwater bodies is cause for concern.
    • The situation will be further complicated if groundwater is affected.

    4] Other issues

    • Apart from the inefficient use of water in all sectors, there is also a reduction in natural storage capacity and deterioration in catchment efficiency.

    Way forward

    • The issues are source sustainability, renovation and maintenance of traditional water harvesting structures, grey water management infrastructure, groundwater recharge, increasing water use efficiency, and reuse of water.
    • The axiom that today’s water system is co-evolving and the challenges are mainly management and governance has been globally well accepted.
    • It is important to include less predictable variables, revise binary ways of thinking of ‘either or’, and involve non-state actors in decision-making processes.

    Conclusion

    A hybrid water management system is necessary, where along with professionals and policy makers the individual, a community and society have definite roles in the value chain. The challenge is not to be techno-centric but anthropogenic.

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  • Sealed cover’ jurisprudence is appalling

    Context

    A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court has dismissed the appeal filed by a television channel. The trouble emanating from the judgment is that the state need not even show that its security is threatened. It can conveniently choose the ‘sealed cover’ route.

    Background of the case

    • The Ministry had said that the licence could not be renewed for reasons related to national security.
    • The stand of the Government was endorsed by both the Single and Division Benches of the High Court.
    •  In the judgment of March 2, the Division Bench said: “It is true that the nature, impact, gravity and depth of the issue is not discernible from the files.
    • Still, the Bench chose to dismiss the appeals by bluntly saying that “there are clear and significant indications impacting the public order and security of the state”.
    • All that is necessary to ban a news broadcaster are these ‘indications’ — which are never revealed to the broadcaster.

    Issues with the judgement

    1] Violation of the fundamental rights

    • A whole set of rights are directly hit by the ban. The first is the  right to freedom of speech and expression of the television channel.
    • The rights to association, occupation and business are also impacted.
    • Moreover, the viewers also have a right to receive ideas and information.
    • All these rights are altogether suspended by the executive. The only contingency in which these rights under Article 19(1) can be interfered with are reasonable restrictions under Article 19(2).
    • The judgment creates a situation that endorses the breach of fundamental rights on the one hand, and blocks remedy for the victim through a court of law and a process known to law on the other hand.

    2] Takes away the power of judicial review

    • India’s Constitution does not give a free hand to the executive to pass arbitrary orders violating such rights.
    • Basic feature of the Constitution: The Supreme Court of India has repeatedly held that judicial review of executive action is the basic feature of the Constitution.
    • The decisions in Minerva Mills vs Union of India (1980) and L. Chandra Kumar vs Union of India (1997) reiterated this fundamental principle.
    • Test of reasonable restriction: If the executive wishes to limit rights — in this case, censor or restrict speech — it must show that the test of reasonable restrictions is satisfied.
    • The ‘sealed cover’ practice inverses this position.

    3] Lack of examination of national security ground

    • There was no examination of the national security plea based on the proportionality analysis, well established in our recent jurisprudence.
    • Also, when a three-judge Bench in the Pegasus case ( Manohar Lal Sharma vs Union of India, 2021) has categorically held that the state does not get a “free pass every time the spectre of ‘national security’ is raised”.

    Proportionality analysis

    • In Modern Dental College vs State of Madhya Pradesh (2016), the top court adopted the proportionality test “a limitation of a constitutional right will be constitutionally permissible if:
    • (i) it is designated for a proper purpose
    • (ii) the measures undertaken to effectuate such a limitation are rationally connected to the fulfillment of that purpose;
    • (iii) the measures undertaken are necessary in that there are no alternative measures that may similarly achieve that same purpose with a lesser degree of limitation; and finally
    • (iv) there needs to be a proper relation (‘proportionality stricto sensu’ or ‘balancing’) between the importance of achieving the proper purpose and the social importance of preventing the limitation on the constitutional right”.
    • This was reiterated in K.S. Puttaswamy vs Union of India (2017).

    Conclusion

    The MediaOne case might create a real problem area that needs resolution by the Supreme Court.

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  • Tobacco and related issues in India

    Context

    Tobacco is a silent killer in our midst that kills an estimated 1.35 million Indians every year.

    The harm caused by tobacco

    • It is the use of tobacco as a result of which more than 3,500 Indians die every single day, as estimated by scientific studies.
    • It also comes at a heavy cost: an annual economic burden of â‚č1,77,340 crore to the country or more than 1% of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

    How price and taxation of tobacco matters

    •  Research from many countries around the world including India shows that a price increase induces people to quit or reduce tobacco use as well as discourages non-users from getting into the habit of tobacco use.
    • There is overwhelming consensus within the research community that taxation is one of the most cost-effective measures to reduce demand for tobacco products.
    • There has been no significant tax increase on any tobacco product for four years in a row.
    • This is quite unlike the pre-GST years where the Union government and many State governments used to effect regular tax increases on tobacco products.
    • As peer-reviewed studies show, the lack of tax increase over these years has made all tobacco products increasingly more affordable.
    •  The absence of a tax increase on tobacco has the potential to reverse the reduction in tobacco use prevalence that India saw during the last decade and now push more people into harm’s way.
    •  It would also mean foregone tax revenues for the Government.

    Way forward

    • The Union Budget exercise is not the only opportunity to initiate a tax increase on tobacco products.
    • The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council could well raise either the GST rate or the compensation cess levied on tobacco products especially when the Government is looking to rationalise GST rates and increase them for certain items.
    • For example, there is absolutely no public health rationale why a very harmful product such as the bidi does not have a cess levied on it under the GST while all other tobacco products attract a cess.
    • GST Council meetings must strive to keep public health ahead of the interests of the tobacco industry and significantly increase either the GST rates or the GST compensation cess rates applied on all tobacco products.

    Conclusion

    The aim should be to arrest the increasing affordability of tobacco products in India and also rationalise tobacco taxation under the GST.

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  • Motor Vehicles Agreement (MVA) of the BBIN

    With Bhutan continuing to sit out the Motor Vehicles Agreement (MVA) of the sub-regional Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal (BBIN) grouping, a meeting of the other three countries was held to discuss the next steps in operationalizing the agreement for the free flow of goods and people between them.

    What is Motor Vehicles Agreement (MVA)?

    • India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh signed a Motor Vehicles Agreement (MVA) for the Regulation of Passenger, Personal and Cargo Vehicular Traffic among the four South Asian neighbours.
    • It was signed on 15 June 2015 at the BBIN transport ministers meeting in Thimpu, Bhutan.
    • The act will facilitate a way for a seamless movement of people and goods across their borders for the benefit and integration of the region and its economic development.

    Key terms of the Agreement

    • Trans-shipment of goods: Cargo vehicles will be able to enter any of the four nations without the need for trans-shipment of goods from one country’s truck to another’s at the border.
    • Free transport: The agreement would permit the member states to ply their vehicles in each other’s territory for transportation of cargo and passengers, including third-country transport and personal vehicles.
    • Electronic permit: As per the agreement each vehicle would require an electronic permit to enter another country’s territory, and border security arrangements between nations’ borders will also remain.
    • Ultra-security: Vehicles are fitted with an electronic seal that alerts regulators every time the container door is opened.

    Implementation status of the agreement

    • The agreement will enter into force after it is ratified by all four member nations.
    • The agreement has been ratified by Bangladesh, India and Nepal.
    • The lower house of the Bhutanese parliament approved the agreement in early 2016, but it was rejected by the upper house in November 2016.
    • Bhutan has requested for a cap to be fixed on the number of vehicles entering its territory

    What next?

    • India remains “hopeful” that Bhutan could change its position on the project, it was decided at a meeting in November 2021 to go ahead for now, given that there are no new signals from Thimphu on the project.
    • Progress on the seven-year-old project has been slow, despite several trial runs being held along the Bangladesh-India-Nepal road route for passenger buses and cargo trucks.
    • There are still some agreements holding up the final protocols.

    Back2Basics: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal (BBIN)

    • BBIN Initiative is a sub-regional architecture of countries in Eastern South Asia, a sub-region of South Asia.
    • The group meets through the official representation of member states to formulate, implement and review quadrilateral agreements across areas such as water resources management, connectivity of power, transport, and infrastructure.

     

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  • What is the Temporary Protection Directive of the EU?

    Responding to the crisis, EU Member States made the unprecedented decision to activate a major European Union’s Council Directive, known as the Temporary Protection Directive (TPD).

    What is Temporary Protection?

    • The EU Commission describes “temporary protection” under the TPD as an “exceptional measure to provide immediate and temporary protection to displaced persons from non-EU countries and those unable to return to their country of origin”.
    • The directive applies when there is a risk that the standard asylum system is struggling to cope with demand stemming from a mass influx risking a negative impact on the processing of claims.

    Objectives of this protection

    1. To both establish minimum standards for giving temporary protection to displaced persons
    2. To promote a balance of effort between Member States in receiving and bearing the consequences of receiving such persons

    Why establish standards?

    The Commission gives two reasons for doing so:

    • It reduces disparities between the policies of EU States on the reception and treatment of displaced persons in a situation of mass influx.
    • It promotes solidarity and burden-sharing among EU States with respect to receiving large numbers of potential refugees at one time.”

    What obligations does the TPD place upon EU states?

    According to the European Commission, the TPD “foresees harmonised rights for the beneficiaries of temporary protection”, which include:

    • Residence permit for the duration of the protection (which can last from 1-3 years),
    • Appropriate information on temporary protection,
    • Access to employment,
    • Access to accommodation or housing,
    • Access to social welfare or means of subsistence,
    • Access to medical treatment,
    • Access to education for minors,
    • Opportunities for families to reunite in certain circumstances, and
    • Guarantees for access to the normal asylum procedure

    The TPD also contains provisions for the return of displaced persons to their country of origin, unless they have committed serious crimes or they “pose a threat to security from the benefit of temporary protection”.

     

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  • Women and Politics

    Context

    For a proper appraisal of the relations between gender and democracy, we ought to examine the links between violence, representation, and the political participation of women.

    Role of women in South Asian democracy

    • Historically, one of the peculiar paradoxes of South Asian democracy has been the continued presence of strong women leaders at the executive centre coupled with a generally appalling condition of women in society at large.
    • South Asia has had the largest number of women heads of state — including Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Chandrika Kumaratunga, Indira Gandhi, Khaleda Zia, Sheikh Hasina, and Benazir Bhutto — of any region in the world till recently.
    • Under-represented: While women have played very visible and important roles at the higher echelons of power and at the grassroots level in social movements, they have been under-represented in political parties as officials and as members of key decision-making bodies.

    Electoral representation of women in India

    • In India, women currently make up 14.6 per cent of MPs (78 MPs) in the Lok Sabha, which is a historic high.
    • Although the percentage is modest, it is remarkable because women barely made up 9 per cent of the overall candidates in 2019.
    • In electoral representation, has fallen several places in the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s global ranking of women’s parliamentary presence, from 117 after the 2014 election to 143 as of January 2020. 
    • In terms of electoral quotas, there were two outstanding exceptions in the 2019 general elections.
    • Voluntary parliamentary quota: West Bengal under Mamata Banerjee and Odisha under Naveen Patnaik opted for voluntary parliamentary quotas, fielding 40 per cent and 33 per cent women candidates, respectively.

    Growing turnout of women voters and its implications

    • Assertion of citizenship rights: In 1962, the male voter turnout in India was 16 percentage points higher than for women. Six decades later, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, women’s participation exceeded that of men for the first time.
    • This suggests an increasing assertion of citizenship rights among women.
    • The growing turnout of women voters could influence political parties’ programmatic priorities and improve their responsiveness to women voters’ interests, preferences, and concerns, including sexual harassment and gender-based violence.
    • Women-centric schemes: The state government in Bengal ran and highlighted many women-centric schemes that potentially played a central role in their victory.
    • The central government must be commended for its achievements in two areas in particular: Its DBT schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Vaya Vandana Yojana and the Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan.
    • As a result, maternal mortality rate has reduced from 167 (2011-13) to 113 (2016-18).
    • The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill, 2017 is another landmark achievement that extended the paid maternal leave to 26 weeks from the existing 12 weeks.

    Way forward

    • Government must use its parliamentary majority to finally pass the Women’s Reservation Bill, as was promised in their 2014 election manifesto.
    • Until that happens, the initiative taken by the governments of Banerjee and Patnaik to increase women’s parliamentary presence must serve as an inspiration to other Indian states.

    Conclusion

    The extent to which parties represent women and take up their interests is closely tied to the health and vitality of democratic processes.

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