💥Join UPSC 2027,2028 Mentorship (August Batch) + XFactor Notes & Microthemes PDF
Talk to Mentor

Civilsdaily

Login

GS Paper: GS2

  • India & NATO

    India has jettisoned many of its foreing policy shibboleths of late, however, avoiding NATO is not one of them. The article suggests engaging NATO to be in sync with the changing geopolitics.

    Why India avoided engagement with NATO in the past

    • India’s real problem is not with NATO, but with Delhi’s difficulty in thinking strategically about Europe.
    • Through the colonial era, Calcutta and Delhi viewed Europe through British eyes.
    • After Independence, Delhi tended to see Europe through the Russian lens.
    • The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union demanded a fresh approach to Europe.
    • But Delhi could not devote the kind of strategic attention that Europe demanded.
    • The bureaucratisation of the engagement between Delhi and Brussels and the lack of high-level political interest prevented India from taking full advantage of a re-emerging Europe.
    • In the last few years, Delhi has begun to develop an independent European framework, but has some distance to go in consolidating it.

    Ending political neglect of Europe

    • India has certainly sought to end prolonged political neglect of Europe.
    • The deepening maritime partnership with France since 2018 is an example.
    • Joining the Franco-German Alliance for Multilateralism in 2019 is another.
    • India’s first summit with Nordic nations in 2018 was a recognition that Europe is not a monolith but a continent of sub-regions.
    • India’s engagement with Central Europe’s Visegrad Four also highlighted the fact that Europe is not monolith.

    Why India should engage NATO

    • During the Cold War, India’s refusal was premised on its non-alignment.
    • That argument had little justification once the Cold War ended during 1989-91.
    • An India-NATO dialogue would simply mean having regular contact with a military alliance, most of whose members are well-established partners of India.
    • If Delhi is eager to draw a reluctant Russia into discussions on the Indo-Pacific, it makes little sense in avoiding engagement with NATO.
    • If Delhi does military exercises with China and Pakistan — under the rubric of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), why should talking to NATO be anathema?
    • To play any role in the Indo-Pacific, Europe and NATO need partners like India, Australia and Japan.
    • Delhi, in turn, knows that no single power can produce stability and security in the Indo-Pacific.
    • India’s enthusiasm for the Quad is a recognition of the need to build coalitions.
    • A sustained dialogue between India and NATO could facilitate productive exchanges in a range of areas, including terrorism, changing geopolitics; the evolving nature of military conflict, the role of emerging military technologies, and new military doctrines.
    • More broadly, an institutionalised engagement with NATO should make it easier for Delhi to deal with the military establishments of its 30 member states.
    • On a bilateral front, each of the members has much to offer in strengthening India’s national capabilities.

    What about Russia

    • Russia has not made a secret of its allergy to the Quad and Delhi’s growing closeness with Washington.
    • Putting NATO into that mix is unlikely to make much difference.
    • Delhi, in turn, can’t be happy with the deepening ties between Moscow and Beijing.
    • As mature states, India and Russia know they have to insulate their bilateral relationship from the larger structural trends buffeting the world today.
    • Meanwhile, both Russia and China have intensive bilateral engagement with Europe.

    Consider the question “India has to end its prolonged political neglect of Europe and engage a major European institution like NATO. In light of this, examine the factors restraining India’s engagement with the Europe.“

    Conclusion

    India’s continued reluctance to engage a major European institution like NATO will be a stunning case of strategic self-denial and we should avoid it.

  • [pib] Justice Ramana appointed as Chief Justice of India

    The President of India, in the exercise of the powers conferred by clause (2) of Article 124 of the Constitution of India, appointed Shri Justice NV Ramana, a Judge of the Supreme Court, to be the CJI.

    Chief Justice of India

    • The CJI is the chief judge of the Supreme Court of India as well as the highest-ranking officer of the Indian federal judiciary.

    Appointment

    • The Constitution of India grants power to the President to nominate, and with the advice and consent of the Parliament, appoint a chief justice, who serves until they reach the age of 65 or until removed by impeachment.
    • Earlier, it was a convention to appoint seniormost judges.
    • However, this has been broken twice. In 1973, Justice A. N. Ray was appointed superseding 3 senior judges.
    • Also, in 1977 Justice Mirza Hameedullah Beg was appointed as the chief justice superseding Justice Hans Raj Khanna.

    Qualifications

    The Indian Constitution says in Article 124 (3) that in order to be appointed as a judge in the Supreme Court of India, the person has to fit in the following criteria:

    • He/She is a citizen of India and
    • has been for at least five years a Judge of a High Court or of two or more such Courts in succession; or
    • has been for at least ten years an advocate of a High Court or of two or more such Courts in succession; or
    • is, in the opinion of the President, a distinguished jurist

    Functions

    • As head of the Supreme Court, the CJI is responsible for the allocation of cases and appointment of constitutional benches which deal with important matters of law.
    • In accordance with Article 145 of the Constitution and the Supreme Court Rules of Procedure of 1966, the chief justice allocates all work to the other judges.

    On the administrative side, the CJI carries out the following functions:

    • maintenance of the roster; appointment of court officials and general and miscellaneous matters relating to the supervision and functioning of the Supreme Court

    Try this PYQ:

    Q. Who/Which of the following is the custodian of the Constitution of India?

    (a) The President of India

    (b) The Prime Minister of India

    (c) The Lok Sabha Secretariat

    (d) The Supreme Court of India

    Removal

    • Article 124(4) of the Constitution lays down the procedure for removal of a judge of the Supreme Court which is applicable to chief justices as well.
    • Once appointed, the chief justice remains in the office until the age of 65 years. He can be removed only through a process of removal by Parliament as follows:
    • He/She can be removed by an order of the President passed after an address by each House of Parliament supported by a majority of the total membership of that House and by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members of that House present.
    • The voting has been presented to the President in the same session for such removal on the ground of proved misbehavior or incapacity.

    About Justice Ramana

    • Justice Ramana will take over as 48th Chief Justice of India.
    • He is a first-generation lawyer, having an agricultural background, and hails from Ponnavaram Village, Krishna District in Andhra Pradesh.
    • He is an avid reader and literature enthusiast. He is passionate about Carnatic music.

    His legal career

    • He was called on to the Bar on 10.02.1983.
    • Initially, he was appointed as a Permanent Judge of Andhra Pradesh High Court on 27.06.2000. He also functioned as Acting Chief Justice of his parent High Court from 10.3.2013 to 20.5.2013.
    • He practiced in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh, Central and Andhra Pradesh Administrative Tribunals, and the Supreme Court of India.
    • He specialized in Constitutional, Civil, Labour, Service, and Election matters. He has also practiced before Inter-State River Tribunals.
    • He served as Judge of the Supreme Court of India from 17.02.2014.
    • He has also served as the Executive Chairman of the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) since 27.11.2019.

  • Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP)

    The Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare has launched the Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP).

    About IHIP

    • The new version of IHIP will house the data entry and management for India’s disease surveillance program.
    • In addition to tracking 33 diseases now as compared to the earlier 18 diseases, it shall ensure near-real-time data in digital mode, having done away with the paper mode of working.

    Various functions

    • IHIP will provide a health information system developed for real-time, case-based information, integrated analytics, advanced visualization capability.
    • It will provide analyzed reports on mobile or other electronic devices. In addition, outbreak investigation activities can be initiated and monitored electronically.
    • It can easily be integrated with another ongoing surveillance program while having the feature of the addition of special surveillance modules.

    Unique features

    • This is the world’s biggest online disease surveillance platform.
    • It is in sync with the National Digital Health Mission and fully compatible with the other digital information systems presently being used in India.
    • The refined IHIP with automated -data will help in a big way in real-time data collection, aggregation & further analysis of data that will aid and enable evidence-based policymaking.
    • With IHIP, the collection of authentic data will become easy as it comes directly from the village/block level; the last mile from the country.
    • With its implementation, we are fast marching towards AtmaNirbhar Bharat in healthcare through the use of technology.

    Also read:

    [Burning Issue] Rolling-out of National Digital Health Mission

  • Global Gender Gap Report, 2021

    India has slipped 28 places to rank 140th among 156 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021, becoming the third-worst performer in South Asia.

    For the 12th time, Iceland is the most gender-equal country in the world. The top 10 most gender-equal countries include Finland, Norway, New Zealand, Rwanda, Sweden, Ireland and Switzerland.

    Global Gender Gap Index

    • The report is annually published by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
    • It benchmarks countries on their progress towards gender parity in four dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival and Political Empowerment.
    • The report aims to serve “as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men on health, education, economy and politics”.

    Highlights of the 2021 report

    Indian prospects

    According to the report, India has closed 62.5% of its gender gap to date.

    • Economic participation: India’s gender gap on this dimension widened by 3% this year, leading to a 32.6% gap closed to date.
    • Political empowerment: India regressed 13.5 percentage points, with a significant decline in the number of women ministers.
    • Income: Further, the estimated earned income of women in India is only one-fifth of men’s, which puts the country among the bottom 10 globally on this indicator.
    • Health: Discrimination against women is also reflected in the health and survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex.
    • Violence: Wide gaps in sex ratio at birth are due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. In addition, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime, the report said.

    India’s neighbourhood

    • In South Asia, only Pakistan and Afghanistan ranked below India.
    • Among India’s neighbours, Bangladesh ranked 65, Nepal 106, Pakistan 153, Afghanistan 156, Bhutan 130 and Sri Lanka 116.
    • Among regions, South Asia is the second-lowest performer on the index, with 62.3% of its overall gender gap closed.
    • Within the region, a wide gulf separates the best-performing country, Bangladesh, which has closed 71.9% of its gender gap so far, from Afghanistan, which has only closed 44.4% of its gap.
    • Because of its large population, India’s performance has a substantial impact on the region’s overall performance.

  • Time to undo the RTE bias against private non-minority institutions

    The article highlights the issues with the exemption of aided and non-aided minority institutions from the Right to Education Act.

    Is RTE enforceable against individuals?

    • Most fundamental rights are enforceable against the state, not against private individuals.
    • Certain rights, however, are horizontally enforceable too, that is, they can be enforced against individuals.
    • The Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act or RTE falls in the latter category.
    • The right to education was initially mentioned in Article 45 as a part of the Directive Principles.

    Evolution of Article 21A

    • The Supreme Court in 1992 held in Mohini Jain v. State of Karnataka that the right to education was a part of the right to life recognised in Article 21.
    • The next year, the court in Unnikrishnan JP v. State of Andhra Pradesh held that the state was duty-bound to provide education to children up to the age of 14 within its economic capacity.
    • The court also acknowledged that private educational institutions, including minority institutions, would have to play a role alongside government schools.
    • The right to education was finally given the status of a fundamental right by the 86th constitutional amendment in the year 2002 by the addition of Article 21A in the Constitution.
    • The Supreme Court held in P. A. Inamdar case that there shall be no reservation in private institutions and that minority and non-minority institutions would not be treated differently.

    Impact of 93rd amendment

    • In 2005, the Constitution was amended by the 93rd amendment to include Clause(5) to Article 15 which dealt with the fundamental right against discrimination.
    • The clause permitted the state to provide for advancement of “backward” classes by ensuring their admission in institutions, including private institutions.
    • The clause, however, excluded both aided and unaided minority educational institutions thus overruling the Supreme Court’s judgment in P.A. Inamdar case.

    Discrimination in RTE

    • When the RTE Act was subsequently enacted in 2009, it did not directly discriminate between students studying in minority and non-minority institutions.
    • Subsequently, the provision of 25 per cent reservation in private institutions was however challenged in Society for Unaided Private Schools of Rajasthan v. Union of India where the court upheld the validity of the legislation exempting only unaided minority schools from its purview.
    • In response to the judgment, the RTE Act was amended in 2012 to mention that its provisions were subject to Articles 29 and 30 which protect the administrative rights of minority educational institutions.
    • So, the onus on private unaided schools was much higher than that on government schools, while even aided minority schools were exempt.
    • But the constitutional provision enabling the RTE Act, that is, Article 21, does not make any discrimination between minority and non-minority institutions.

    Issues

    • The above provisions of RTE made it violative of Article 14 and also economically unviable for many private schools.
    •  Not only has RTE unreasonably differentiated between minority and non-minority schools without any explicable basis, there is also no rational nexus between the object of universal education sought to be achieved by this act and the step of excluding minority schools from its purview.
    • Given the doctrine of harmonious construction of fundamental rights, it is unclear why the court granted complete immunity to minority institutions when several provisions of RTE would not interfere with their administrative rights.
    • RTE has provisions such as prevention of physical/mental cruelty towards students as well as quality checks on pedagogical and teacher standards which children studying in minority institutions should not be deprived of and to that extent be discriminated against.

    Way forward

    • The Kerala High Court held in Sobha George v. State of Kerala that Section 16 of RTE, which forbids non-promotion till the completion of elementary education, will be applicable to minority schools as well. 
    • The bench said that the courts must examine whether provisions such as Section 16 of RTE are statutory rights or fundamental rights expressed in a statutory form.
    • If the latter, then the Pramati case judgement will not be fully available to minority institutions.
    • The Supreme Court should take inspiration from the prudent decision delivered by the Kerala High Court and overrule its own judgment delivered in the Pramati Educational Society.

    Consider the question “What are the issues with the exemption of aided and non-aided minority institution from the RTE Act.”

    Conclusion

    RTE as legislation may be well-intentioned, but the time has come to relook at the discriminatory nature of RTE against private non-minority institutions, and to that extent, undo the damage done by 93rd Amendment and the subsequent SC judgments.

  • Prakash Singh Judgment on Police Reforms, 2006

    Political interference in police postings continues despite the landmark Prakash Singh judgment nearly a decade-and-a-half ago that addressed the issue and was pegged to be a watershed moment in police reforms.

    Politics is a perplexing, but fascinating game. It takes ages to unravel the intricate secrets that shroud the kernel of closed room politics. But contrary has happened with the Maharashtra Police.

    What is the SC’s Prakash Singh judgment on police reforms?

    • Prakash Singh, who served as DGP of UP Police and Assam Police besides other postings, filed a PIL in the Supreme Court post-retirement, in 1996, seeking police reforms.
    • In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court in September 2006 had directed all states and Union Territories to bring in police reforms.
    • The ruling issued a series of measures that were to be undertaken by the governments to ensure the police could do their work without worrying about any political interference.

    What measures were suggested by the Supreme Court?

    • The seven main directives from the Supreme Court in the verdict were fixing the tenure and selection of the DGP to avoid situations where officers about to retire in a few months are given the post.
    • In order to ensure no political interference, a minimum tenure was sought for the Inspector General of Police so that they are not transferred mid-term by politicians.
    • The SC further directed postings of officers being done by Police Establishment Boards (PEB) comprising police officers and senior bureaucrats to insulate powers of postings and transfers from political leaders.
    • Further, there was a recommendation of setting up the State Police Complaints Authority (SPCA) to give a platform where common people aggrieved by police action could approach.
    • Apart from this, the SC directed the separation of investigation and law and order functions to better improve policing, setting up State Security Commissions (SSC) that would have members from civil society and forming a National Security Commission.

    How did states respond to these directives?

    • The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), in its report of 2020 has some useful data.
    • It tracked changes made in the police force following the 2006 judgment.
    • It has found that not even one state was fully compliant with the apex court directives and that while 18 states passed or amended their Police Acts in this time, not one fully matches legislative models.

    What has been the response of the Supreme Court to these issues?

    • Prakash Singh said that he has followed up on these issues and has had nearly five contempt petitions issued in the past decades to states found to be non-compliant.
    • Singh said that bigger states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and UP have been the worst when it comes to bringing about systemic changes in line with the judgment and that it is only the North-Eastern states that have followed the suggested changes in spirit.
    • Singh said states like Maharashtra make their own laws that are not effective.
    • The need of the hour is an all-India Act that all states have to follow and small changes can be made in exceptional cases relating to the situation in a particular state.

  • [pib] Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) 3.0

    The Government has extended the scope of Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) through introduction of ECLGS 3.0 to cover business enterprises in Hospitality, Travel & Tourism, Leisure & Sporting sectors.

    ECGL Scheme

    • Under the Scheme, 100% guarantee coverage to be provided by National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company Limited (NCGTC) for additional funding of up to Rs. 3 lakh crore to eligible MSMEs and interested MUDRA borrowers.
    • The credit will be provided in the form of a Guaranteed Emergency Credit Line (GECL) facility.
    • The Scheme would be applicable to all loans sanctioned under GECL Facility during the period from the date of announcement of the Scheme to 31.10.2020.

    Aims and objectives

    • The Scheme aims at mitigating the economic distress faced by MSMEs by providing them additional funding in the form of a fully guaranteed emergency credit line.
    • The main objective is to provide an incentive to Member Lending Institutions (MLIs), i.e., Banks, Financial Institutions (FIs) and NBFCs to increase access to, and enable the availability of additional funding facility to MSME borrowers.
    • It aims to provide a 100 per cent guarantee for any losses suffered by them due to non-repayment of the GECL funding by borrowers.

    Salient features

    • The entire funding provided under GECL shall be provided with a 100% credit guarantee by NCGTC to MLIs under ECLGS.
    • Tenor of the loan under Scheme shall be four years with a moratorium period of one year on the principal amount.
    • No Guarantee Fee shall be charged by NCGTC from the Member Lending Institutions (MLIs) under the Scheme.
    • Interest rates under the Scheme shall be capped at 9.25% for banks and FIs, and at 14% for NBFCs.

    ECLGS 3.0

    • It would involve extension of credit of upto 40% of total credit outstanding across all lending institutions.
    • The tenor of loans granted under ECLGS 3.0 shall be 6 years including moratorium period of 2 years.
    • Further, the validity of ECLGS i.e. ECLGS 1.0, ECLGS 2.0 & ECLGS 3.0 have been extended upto 30.06.2021 or till guarantees for an amount of Rs. 3 lakh crore are issued.
    • The revised operational guidelines in this regard shall be issued by National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company Ltd (NCGTC).

     

  • Still no recognition of the third tier

    The article highlights the issues with the Fifteenth Finance Commission recommendations with regard to the third tier of the local governments.

    Significance of Finance Commission recommendations for local government

    • The primary task of the Union Finance Commission is to rectify the vertical and horizontal imbalances in resources and expenditure responsibilities between Union and States including the third tier of local governments.
    • Part IX and Part IX-A were incorporated into the Constitution by the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment.
    • Part IX and Part IX-A mandate the Union Finance Commission to supplement the resources of panchayats and municipalities on the basis of the recommendations of the State Finance Commission.
    • Now, nearly 2.5 lakh local governments and over 3.4 million elected representatives form the real democratic base of the Indian federal polity.

    Increase in vertical devolution

    • The Fifteenth Finance Commission has raised the vertical devolution recommended to local governments to 4.23% with a reasonably estimated amount of ₹4,36,361 crore.
    • Compared with the Fourteenth Finance Commission there is a 52% increase in the vertical share.
    • Even if we deduct the grant of ₹70,051 crore earmarked for improving primary health centres, the share is still an all-time high of 4.19%.
    • All the Commissions since the Eleventh Commission have tied specific items of expenditure to local grants and the Fifteenth Finance Commission has raised this share to 60% and linked them to drinking water, rainwater harvesting, sanitation and other national priorities in the spirit of cooperative federalism.

    Reduction in performance-based  grants

    • The Fifteenth Finance Commission has reduced the performance-based grant to just ₹8,000 crore — and that too for building new cities, leaving out the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) altogether.
    • The performance-linked grants were introduced by the Thirteenth Finance Commission and covered a wide range of reforms.
    • The transformative potential in designing performance-linked conditionalities for improving the quality of decentralised governance in the context of indifferent states is missed.

    Encouraging standardisation of accounting system

    • An important recommendation of the Fifteenth Finance Commission is the entry-level criterion to avail the union local grant (except health grant) by local governments.
    • For panchayats, the condition is the online submission of annual accounts for the previous year and audited accounts for the year before.
    • For urban local governments, two more conditions are specified: fixation of the minimum floor for property tax and improvement in its collection.
    •  It is not clear why gram panchayats are left out from this.
    • Although Finance Commissions, from the Eleventh to the Fourteenth, have recommended measures to standardise the accounting system and update the auditing of accounts, the progress made has been halting.
    • Therefore, the entry-level criteria of the Fifteenth Finance Commission are timely.

    Missed opportunity to ensure minimum public services

    • The Fifteenth Finance Commission failed to carry policy choices forward systematically.
    • Articles 243G, 243W and 243ZD read along with the functional decentralisation of basic services like drinking water, public health care, etc., mandated in the Eleventh and Twelfth schedules demand better public services and delivery of ‘economic development and social justice’ at the local level.
    • A good opportunity to ensure comparable minimum public services to every citizen irrespective of her choice of residential location has not been taken forward in an integrated manner.

    Missing equalisation principle for the local government

    • The Fifteenth Finance Commission claims that it seeks to achieve the “desirable objective of evenly balancing the union and the states”.
    • It is not clear why there is no recognition of the third tier in this balancing act.
    • It may be relevant to recall that the Alma-Ata declaration of the World Health Organization (1978) which outlined an integrated, local government-centric approach with a simultaneous focus on access to water, sanitation, shelter and the like.
    • There is no integrated approach in the recommendations of the Fifteenth Finance Commission about the local governments (in contrast to the recommendations of the Thirteenth Finance Commission).
    • Although the Fifteenth Finance Commission stresses the need to implement the equalisation principle, it is virtually silent when it comes to the local governments.

    Equity and efficiency sidelined

    • The Fifteenth Finance Commission employed population (2011 Census) with 90% and area 10% weightage for determining the distribution of grant to States for local governments.
    • The same criteria were followed by the Fourteenth Finance Commission.
    • While this ensures continuity, equity and efficiency criteria are sidelined.
    • Abandoning tax effort criterion incentivises dependency, inefficiency and non-accountability.

    Consider the question “Discuss the various aspects of the Fifteenth Finance Commission’s recommendations with regard to local governments.”

    Conclusion

    In sum, if decentralisation is meant to empower local people, the primary task is to fiscally empower local governments to deliver territorial equity. We are far from this goal.

  • US foreign policy has changed, India can’t bank on being its ‘ally’ anymore

    The article highlights the paradigm shift in the U.S. foreign policy in which the U.S. engages with a country on several parallel lines with little or no scope for a trade-off between them.

    Changes in the U.S. foreign policy

    •  US foreign policy is no longer based on old friend-or-foe classification under which transgressions by a “friend” or an “ally” were overlooked if the country was helpful to US self-interests.
    • Instead, the US foreign policy paradigm has shifted to one where a country’s position on an issue — trade, climate change, security, or human rights — is the categorising principle and not the country.
    • Put differently, engagement with countries will be done on issues with little or no trade-off among them.
    • Competition, cooperation, and confrontation can all characterise the US’s bilateral engagement depending on the specific issue.
    • For example, trade will involve competition while climate change and pandemics will necessitate cooperation.
    • Human rights and national security issues could be confrontational.

    Smart sanctions

    • A key instrument of foreign policy will be the now well-honed system of “smart” sanctions.
    • Sanctions in the past were directed at a country as a whole but such sanctions were counterproductive and created anti-US sentiment.
    • In its latest version, smart sanctions do not target countries, but specific individuals, firms, and institutions for a variety of alleged transgressions.
    • US businesses and individuals cannot transact with sanctioned entities.
    • The Magnitsky Accountability Act of 2012, for example, targeted those involved in the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and others responsible for human rights abuses in Russia.
    • When this was found to be successful, an executive order, passed in 2017, extended the provisions in the Magnitsky Act, to all who are corrupt or violate human rights in the world.

    What does this mean for India

    • Unlike in the antiquated rational-actor paradigm where there are imagined trade-offs across issues, in the new framework the US engages with countries on parallel lines.
    • The engagement is multifaceted across trade, intellectual property rights, climate change, security, terrorism, and, importantly, human rights, with limited trade-off across them.
    • Whether cooperation, competition, or confrontation dominate the nature of the engagement will depend on the specifics not whether India is a friend or a foe.

    Conclusion

    This marks the shift in the U.S. foreign policy, if others, including India, do not adapt to this paradigm shift, then they will find engagement with the US starkly different and surprisingly difficult.

  • Article 244 (A) of the Constitution

    A national party leader has promised to implement Article 244 (A) of the Constitution to safeguard the interests of the people in Assam’s tribal-majority districts.

    What is Article 244(A)?

    • Article 244(A) allows for the creation of an ‘autonomous state’ within Assam in certain tribal areas.
    • Inserted into the Constitution in 1969 by the then government, it also has a provision for a Legislature and a Council of Ministers.

    Try this PYQ from CSP 2018:

    Q.The Government enacted the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act in 1996. Which one of the following is not identified as its objective?

    (a) To provide self-governance

    (b) To recognize traditional rights

    (c) To create autonomous regions in tribal areas

    (d) To free tribal people from exploitation

    How is it different from the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution?

    • The Sixth Schedule of the Constitution — Articles 244(2) and 275(1) — is a special provision that allows for greater political autonomy and decentralized governance.
    • It is applicable to certain tribal areas of the Northeast through autonomous councils that are administered by elected representatives.
    • Article 244(A) accounts for more autonomous powers to tribal areas.
    • In Autonomous Councils under the Sixth Schedule, they do not have jurisdiction of law and order.

    How did the demand arise?

    • In the 1950s, a demand for a separate hill state arose around certain sections of the tribal population of undivided Assam.
    • In 1960, various political parties of the hill areas merged to form the All Party Hill Leaders Conference, demanding a separate state.
    • After prolonged agitations, Meghalaya gained statehood in 1972.
    • The leaders of the Karbi Anglong and North Cachar Hills were also part of this movement. They were given the option to stay in Assam or join Meghalaya.
    • They stayed back as the then government promised more powers, including Article 244 (A). Since then, there has been a demand for its implementation.
    • In the 1980s, this demand took the form of a movement with a number of Karbi groups resorting to violence. It soon became an armed separatist insurgency demanding full statehood.