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GS Paper: GS2

  • Article 311 of the Indian Constitution

    A suspended Maharashtra police officer was dismissed from service by Mumbai Police Commissioner under Article 311 (2) (b) of the Indian Constitution without a departmental enquiry.

    What is Article 311?

    • Article 311 says that no government employee either of an all India service or a state government shall be dismissed or removed by an authority subordinate to the owner that appointed him/her.
    • Section 2 of the article says that no civil servant shall be dismissed or removed or reduced in rank except after an inquiry in which s/he has been informed of the charges and given a reasonable opportunity of being heard in respect of those charges.

    Various safeguards under Art. 311

    • Article 311 is meant to act as a safeguard for civil servants that give them a chance to respond to the charges in an enquiry so that he/she is not arbitrarily dismissed from service.
    • The article also provides exceptions to these safeguards under subclause 2 provision b.
    • It states “when an authority empowered to dismiss or remove a person or to reduce him in rank is satisfied that for some reason, to be recorded by that authority in writing, it is not reasonably practicable to hold such enquiry”.

    What is the process of a departmental enquiry?

    • In a departmental enquiry, after an enquiry officer is appointed, the civil servant is given a formal chargesheet of the charges.
    • The civil servant can represent himself/herself or choose to have a lawyer.
    • Witnesses can be called during the departmental enquiry following which the enquiry officer can prepare a report and submit it to the government for further action.

    Are there other exceptions where a person can be dismissed without departmental enquiry?

    • As per Article 311 subclause 2 provision a, if a government employee is convicted in a criminal case, he can be dismissed without DE.
    • Apart from this, under 311 (2) (c), a government employee can be dismissed when the President or the Governor, as the case may be, is satisfied in the interest of the security of the state.

    Can the dismissal under section 311 (2) be challenged by the government employee?

    • Yes, the government employee dismissed under these provisions can approach either tribunal like the state administrative tribunal or the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) or the Courts.

  • Socio-Economic Impact of Pandemic on Women

    The article highlights the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on women and suggests measures to soften the impact.

    Widening gender employment gap

    • Even prior to 2020, the gender employment gap was large.
    • Only 18% of working-age women were employed as compared to 75% of men.
    • Reasons include a lack of good jobs, restrictive social norms, and the burden of household work.
    • The nationwide lockdown hit women much harder than men.
    • Data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy Pvt. Ltd. show that 61% of male workers were unaffected during the lockdown while only 19% of women experienced this kind of security.
    • Men who did lose work were able to regain it, even if it was at the cost of increased precarity or lower earnings, because they had the option of moving into fallback employment arrangements.
    • Even as new entrants to the workforce, women workers had poorer options compared to men.
    • Women were more likely to enter as daily wage workers while men found avenues for self-employment.
    •  So, not only did women enter into more precarious work, it was also likely to be at very low earnings compared to men.

    Growing domestic work

    • With schools closed and almost everyone limited to the confines of their homes, household responsibilities increased for women.
    • The India Working Survey 2020 found that among employed men, the number of hours spent on paid work remained more or less unchanged after the pandemic.
    • But for women, the number of hours spent in domestic work increased manifold.
    • This increase in hours came without any accompanying relief in the hours spent on paid work.

    Way forward

    • The following measures are needed now:
    • The National Employment Policy, currently in the works, should systematically address the constraints around the participation of the women’s workforce.
    • Expansion of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and the introduction of an urban employment guarantee targeted to women as soon as the most severe forms of mobility restrictions are lifted.
    • There is a need for coordinated efforts by States to facilitate the employment of women while also addressing immediate needs through the setting up of community kitchens, the opening of schools and anganwadi centres, and engagement with self-help groups for the production of personal protective equipment kits.
    • Further, a COVID-19 hardship allowance of at least ₹5,000 per month for six months should be announced for 2.5 million accredited social health activists and Anganwadi workers, most of whom are women.
    • The pandemic has shown the necessity of adequate public investment in social infrastructure.
    • The time is right to imagine a bold universal basic services programme that not only fills existing vacancies in the social sector but also expands public investments in health, education, child and elderly care, and so on, to be prepared for future shocks.

    Consider the question “Examine the impact of the pandemic on women. Suggest the measures to mitigate the impact.”

    Conclusion

    As the country meets the challenge of the second wave of the pandemic, it is crucial to learn lessons from the first wave to chart the policy path ahead.

  • It is time to set up a National Tribunals Commission

    Context

    • The Centre has abolished several appellate tribunals and authorities and transferred their jurisdiction to other existing judicial bodies through the Tribunals Reforms (Rationalisation and Conditions of Service) Ordinance 2021.

    Issues with the abolitions of tribunals

    • The Ordinance has met with sharp criticism for not bypassing the usual legislative process.
    • Several tribunals such as the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal were abolished without any stakeholder consultation. 
    • Despite the Supreme Court’s direction in Rojer Mathew v. South Indian Bank (2019), no judicial impact assessment was conducted prior to abolishing the tribunals through this Ordinance.
    • While the Ordinance has incorporated the suggestions made in Madras Bar Association v. Union of India (2020) on the composition of a search-cum-selection committee.
    • But it has disregarded the court’s direction in Madras Bar Association v. Union of India (2020) for fixing a five-year term.

    No NCT constituted

    • Further, the Centre is yet to constitute a National Tribunals Commission (NTC), an independent umbrella body to supervise the functioning of tribunals, appointment of and disciplinary proceedings against members, and to take care of administrative and infrastructural needs of the tribunals.
    • The idea of an NTC was first mooted in L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India (1997).
    • Developing an independent oversight body for accountable governance requires a legal framework that protects its independence and impartiality.
    • Therefore, the NTC must be established vide a constitutional amendment or be backed by a statute that guarantees it functional, operational and financial independence.
    • As the Finance Ministry has been vested with the responsibility for tribunals until the NTC is constituted, it should come up with a transition plan. 

    Advantages of NTC

    • The NTC would ideally take on some duties relating to administration and oversight.
    • It could set performance standards for the efficiency of tribunals and their own administrative processes.
    • It could function as an independent recruitment body to develop and operationalise the procedure for disciplinary proceedings and appointment of tribunal members.
    • Giving the NTC the authority to set members’ salaries, allowances, and other service conditions, subject to regulations, would help maintain tribunals’ independence.

    Consider the question “What are the issues with Tribunals Reforms (Rationalisation and Conditions of Service) Ordinance 2021? How the constitution of the National Tribunals Commission would help to improve the role played by tribunals?” 

    Conclusion

    The way to reform the tribunal system is to look at solutions from a systemic perspective supported by evidence. Establishing the NTC will definitely entail a radical restructuring of the present tribunals system.

  • Lend a helping hand to children the right way

    The article highlights the need to be aware of the legal provisions while helping a orphan child.

    Helping orphaned children

    • Social media is flooded with requests to adopt children who have lost their parents in the pandemic.
    • However, before handing over an orphan child to any agency, family or person, it is important to be aware of the laws.
    • If an orphan child is kept by someone without lawful authority, he or she may land themselves in trouble.
    • According to the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956, the father, and in his absence the mother, is the natural guardian.
    • Not even a close relative can look after the child without authorisation.

    What are the options to help

    • First option is any individual who finds an orphan child or even any child who needs care and protection under the circumstances, should immediately call the toll free Childline number 1098.
    • It is an emergency phone outreach service managed by the Women and Child Development department’s nodal agency, the Childline India Foundation.
    • The second option is to intimate the district protection officer concerned whose contact details can be found on the National Tracking System for Missing and Vulnerable Children portal.
    • The third alternative is to approach the nearest police station or its child welfare police officer who is specially trained to exclusively deal with children.
    •  jOne can always dial the Emergency Response Support System (ERSS) which is a pan-India single number (112) based emergency response system for citizens in emergencies and seek the necessary help.
    • The non-reporting of such children is also a punishable offence under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (JJA).

    Procedure after a child reaches outreach agency

    • Once an orphan child is recovered by the outreach agency, it is the duty of the said agency to produce the child within 24 hours before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) of the district.
    • The CWC, after an inquiry, decides whether to send the child to a children’s home or a fit facility or fit person.
    • If the child is below six years, he or she shall be placed in a specialised adoption agency.
    • The State thus takes care of all such children who are in need of care and protection, till they turn 18 years.
    • In Sampurna Behrua vs Union of India (2018), the Supreme Court of India directed States and Union Territories to ensure that all child care institutions are registered.

    Procedure for adoption

    • Once a child is declared legally free for adoption by the CWC, adoption can be done either by Indian prospective adoptive parents or non-resident Indians or foreigners, in that order.
    • Another important feature of the JJA is that it is secular in nature and simple in procedure.
    • While the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956 is religion specific but also relatively cumbersome in procedure.
    • Second, the procedure of adoption is totally transparent and its progress can be monitored from the portal of the statutory body, the Central Adoption Resource Authority.

    Directives to the police

    • The Supreme Court in Bachpan Bachao Andolan vs Union of India directed all Directors General of Police, in May 2013, to register a first information report as a case of trafficking or abduction in every case of a missing child.
    • At least one police officer not below the rank of assistant sub-inspector in each police station is mandatorily required to undergo training to deal with children in conflict with the law and in need of care and protection.
    • They are not required to wear a uniform and need to be child-friendly.
    • Similarly, each district is supposed to have its special juvenile police unit, headed by an officer not below the rank of a Deputy Superintendent of Police.
    • The Supreme Court in Re: Exploitation of children in Orphanages in the State of Tamil Nadu (2017) inter alia, specifically asked the National Police Academy, Hyderabad and police training academies in every State to prepare training courses on the JJA and provide regular training to police officers in terms of sensitisation.
    • The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) recently wrote to the Chief Secretaries of all States and Union Territories on the issue of children orphaned due to COVID-19.

    Conclusion

    Following the Covid surge and subsequent increase in request for adoption of children, the laws and procedure for the protection of children must be noted.

  • No virtual meets of standing committees

    Confidential nature of meeting not possible in virtual meetings

    • Days after the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha wrote to Chairman to allow virtual meetings of parliamentary standing committees, the Rajya Sabha Secretariat has turned down his plea.
    • Requests to allow virtual meetings of the standing committees were turned down last year as well by Rajya Sabha Chairman and Lok Sabha Speaker.
    • The request was turned down on grounds that virtual meetings would violate the confidential nature of such meetings and that any change to the norms require approval by Parliament.

    Matter referred to Committee on Rules

    • The letter by the Rajya Sabha Secretariat points out that the Chairman and Speaker had decided last year, during the first wave of the pandemic, to refer the issue of allowing virtual meetings of parliamentary panels to the Committee on Rules in both Houses.
    • The Committee on Rules, however, did not take up the matter for discussion since Committees started physical meetings as the lockdown restrictions gradually eased in the second half of last year.

  • NITI Aayog’s proposal of allowing private entities to take over district hospitals

    The article highlights the issue of shortage of doctors in India and issues with the involvement of private sector in it.

    Government approach

    • Market-oriented approach towards medical education: NITI Aayog’s proposal of allowing private entities to take over district hospitals for converting them into teaching hospitals with at least 150 MBBS seats.

  • The world cannot ignore the Palestinian question

    The article discusses the types of response the recent violence in the Israel-Palestine conflict would invoke across the world and also explains the perils of ignoring the conflict.

    Three types of responses

    • The deadly riots in Israel and the war in Gaza, is likely to evoke three kinds of responses: The indifferent, the imperial, the humanitarian.

    1) Moral indifference

    •  Instead of becoming the symbol of the unfinished tasks of decolonisation, and a human rights catastrophe, the Palestinian question is now mostly an occasion to vent cynicism.
    • The moral questions the oppression of Palestinians poses is avoided by claiming that in this conflict we can assigning rights and wrongs equally to both sides.
    • There is the spectacle of civilians on both sides living in terror.
    • There is the fanaticism of the right-wing in Israel and there is the fanaticism of Hamas and Fatah.
    • Blaming both sides also whitewashes the fact that there is a monumental injustice to the Palestinians at the heart of the problem.

    2) The imperial response

    • The events leading up to the recent clashes at the Al-Aqsa Mosque can be seen as part of a long pattern of pushing out Palestinians from territory Israel wants to claim.
    • American administration has not been able to significantly roll back this project of pushing the Palestinians out.
    • Palestine will once again be the site where the Biden administration’s liberal internationalism will face challenge.

    3) Humanitarian response

    • This third response is to dig beneath the politics and find bridges in shared humanity and suffering.
    • This is also the tack of the peace movements that use culture and a history of shared suffering to build bridges.
    •  They emphasise that dispossession and exile is something both communities share; they, of all the people, should be able to understand each other.
    •  Humanity and culture, even when deeply internalised, collapse quickly when subject to fear.
    • And they always fall short of acknowledging the core issue at stake: Political equality between two peoples.

    Geopolitical implications of conflict

    • The violence of Israel will beget more terrorist violence of Hamas and Fatah, with every world power from Russia to Iran influencing the chaos.
    • Israel needs to be reminded of the blowback of imperial politics: The ultimate consequence of trying to dominate a people is that you end up destroying the moral legitimacy of your own claims.
    • No amount of military capacity can compensate for the images of lynching, rioting, and provocations that we have seen this week.

    Conclusion

    We continually risk conflict if the Palestinian question is simply treated as an object of geo-political opportunism, not as a question of basic dignity and justice.

  • App to view live proceedings of SC launched for media persons

    App to view virtual proceedings

    • Chief Justice of India launched a mobile app that would allow media persons to view the Supreme Court’s virtual proceedings live on their mobile phones.
    • The role of the media assumes importance in the process of disseminating information.
    • Justice A.M. Khanwilkar said the facility, which is now temporary, could be made permanent in the future depending on the operational issues.

    ‘Indicative Notes’ on the SC website

    • The CJI also launched a new feature in the Supreme Court’s official website called ‘Indicative Notes’.
    • This feature is aimed at providing concise summaries of landmark judgments in an easy-to-understand format.
    • This will serve as a useful resource for media persons and the general public who wish to be better informed about the rulings of the court.

  • Issues with MHA notification for OCI

    About notification

    • The Home Ministry’s March 4 order that required professional Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs), such as journalists, engineers and researchers, to notify the Ministry about their activities in India.
    • The notification said that OCIs shall be required to obtain a “special permission or a special permit” from the competent authority or the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) or the Indian mission “to undertake research, missionary or Tabligh or mountaineering or journalistic activities or internship in any foreign diplomatic missions
    • The Ministry issued a gazette notification that OCI cardholders could claim “only NRI (Non-Resident Indian) quota seats” in educational institutions.

    Issues with the notification

    • This will place undue burden on scientific, pharmaceutical, medical, biotechnology and other research fields.
    • Even if an OCI student has secured a high rank in an exam like NEET, several institutions of repute do not have NRI seats.
    • The exorbitantly high fees under the NRI quota cannot be afforded by many OCIs as they live and work in India.
    • India-domiciled OCI students are deprived of domicile status both in India [country of residence] as well as the country of their citizenship.
    • The notification equates India-domiciled OCIs with a foreigner.

    About OCIs

    • OCIs are of Indian origin but hold foreign passports.
    • India does not allow dual citizenship but provides certain benefits under Section 7B(I) of the Citizenship Act, 1955 to the OCIs.
    • So far, 37.72 lakh OCI Cards are said to have been issued.

  • India resists Community Transmission tag despite soaring cases

    How other countries are classifying themselves

    • Inspite of adding the highest number of cases in the world every day, India continues to label itself as a country with no community transmission (CT) according to the latest weekly report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on May 11.
    • India opts for the lower, less serious classification called ‘cluster of cases’.
    • Countries such as the United States, Brazil, United Kingdom, France have all labelled themselves as being in ‘community transmission.
    • Among the 10 countries with the most number of confirmed cases, only Italy and Russia do not label themselves as being in community transmission.
    • Both countries have been on a declining trajectory for at least a month and together contribute less than 20,000 cases a day — about 5% of India’s daily numbers.
    • India, since the beginning of the pandemic has never marked itself as being in community transition.

    Understanding the classification

    • Broadly, CT is when new cases in the last 14 days can’t be traced to those who have an international travel history, when cases can’t be linked to specific cluster.
    • Instead, the classification, ‘cluster of cases’ says “Cases detected in the past 14 days are predominantly limited to well-defined clusters that are not directly linked to imported cases”.
    • The WHO guidelines further suggest four subcategories within the broader definition of CT.
    • CT-1 implying “Low incidence of locally acquired, widely dispersed cases…and low risk of infection for the general population.
    • The highest, a CT-4 suggests very high incidence of locally acquired, widely dispersed cases in the past 14 days.
    • Very high risk of infection for the general population.

    Why right classification matters

    • If cases were still a cluster, it would mean that the government ought to be prioritising testing, contact tracing and isolating to prevent further infection spread.
    • CT, on the other hand meant prioritising treatment and observing advisories to stay protected.
    • CT — far from being stigmatic or an indicator of failure — has a bearing on how authorities addressed a pandemic.