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GS Paper: GS2

  • A just verdict

    Context

    SC ruling in favour of women officers in the Army is pathbreaking, extends arc of equality.

    What is said in the significance of the judgement?

    • The judgement took many constitutional steps further
    • First, the judgement said “engagement of women officers in the Army” has been an “evolutionary process”.
      • It acknowledges that the “physiological features of a woman have no significance to her equal entitlements under the Constitution”.
    • Second, it indicates “a need for change in attitudes and mindsets to recognise the commitment to the values of the Constitution”.
      • The judgement said that reliance on the “inherent physiological differences between men and women” rests on a deeply entrenched stereotypical and constitutionally flawed notion.
      • The above-flawed notion fails to ignore “the solemn constitutional values which every institution in the nation is bound to uphold and facilitate”.
    • Third, this change has to be based on “the right of women officers to equality of opportunity”, which has two “facets”:
      • Non-discrimination on the grounds of sex and-
      • Equality of opportunity for all citizens in employment.
      • State and civil society have to firmly internalise these rights to achieve even the minima of gender justice.
      • Fundamental fallacy: Removal of the “fundamental fallacy” demands non-discrimination and affirmation of the equality of opportunity in public employment. To rule otherwise will constitute “a travesty of justice”.
      • What does this mean for women? This means women now have the same terms of employment as men.
      • No longer will women be forced to retire after 14 years in service, irrespective of their record.
      • They will also have a full pension and other financial benefits.
    • Fourth, Article 14 of the Constitution has been pressed into service as prescribing “a right to rationality” that forbids any “blanket” and “absolute”
      • The burden to justify differentiation on Army: The burden to justify the differentiation between women and men falls “squarely on the Army”, which has to “justify such differentiation with reason”

    Judicial consciousness of policy consciousness

    • Achilles’ heel of the judgement: In fact, the brief remark outlining the judicial consciousness of policy limitations may well prove to be the proverbial Achilles’ heel in future courts.
    • One hopes that the stoic and heroic endeavours of the petitioner army officers and their counsel, will not be visited with the constitutional fates in which the judgement is reversed.
      • And this path-breaking judgment will forever vindicate gender equality and justice.

    Conclusion

    Making gender justice less contingent on the executive’s mood swings is the primary task of the judiciary. Making it immune from judicial re-visitations remains the paramount constitutional duty of all citizens, but more particularly of feminist citizens’ crusade for judicial consistency as a badge for constitutional rights and justice.

  • Powering the health-care engine with innovation

    Context

    India needs to tap the potential of the health-care start-ups in India and make the necessary provision to deal with the problems in the adoption of innovations in health-care.

    Expanding the supply side

    • Need to increase the hospital empanelled: As the scale of this scheme grows, a key area of focus is-
      • To expand the secondary and tertiary hospitals empanelled under PM-JAY and
      • To ensure their quality and capacity while keeping the costs down.
    • The ratio of doctors and beds: At present, there is one government bed for every 1,844 patients and one doctor for every 11,082 patients.
    • 3% hospitalisation under the scheme: In the coming years, considering 3% hospitalisation of PM-JAY-covered beneficiaries, the scheme is likely to provide treatment to 1.5 crore patients annually.
      • This means physical and human infrastructure capacity would need to be augmented vastly.
    • Need for more beds: Conservative estimates suggest that we would need more than 150,000 additional beds, especially in Tier-2 and -3 cities.
    • Long-term strategy: While a comprehensive long-term strategy will focus on expanding hospital and human resources infrastructure, an effective near-term approach is needed to improve efficiencies and bridge gaps within the existing supply and likely demand.
    • Mainstreaming innovation: A strong, yet under-tapped lever for accelerating health system efficiency and bridging these gaps is mainstreaming innovation in the Indian health system.

    Transformative solutions

    • India’s burgeoning entrepreneurial spirit combined with a systematic push for the development of a start-up ecosystem has led to a plethora of innovations in health care.
    • It is estimated that there are more than 4,000 health-care technology start-ups in India.
    • How do start-ups help? Today, start-ups are working to bring-
      • Innovative technologies and business models that leapfrog infrastructure.
      • Human resources.
      • Cost-effectiveness and efficiency challenges in Tier-2 and -3 cities.
    • How other innovations could help?
      • Artificial Intelligence platforms that aid in rapid radiology diagnoses in low resource settings.
      • Tele-ICU platforms to bridge the gap in high-skilled critical care personnel.
      • Centralised drone delivery of blood, medicines and vaccines to reach remote locations cost-effectively and reliably are all no longer just theoretical ideas.
    • Time to implement transformative solutions: It is high time for transformative solutions to make their way into our hospitals, especially in Tier-2 and -3 cities, to turbocharge the way health care is delivered at scale.

    Challenges in mainstreaming healthcare innovations

    • Lack of uniform regulatory standards: One challenge is non-uniform regulatory and validation standards.
      • Regulations evolving in India: Regulatory requirements, specifically for biomedical start-ups, are still evolving in India.
      • As a result, hospitals often rely on foreign regulatory certifications such as FDA and CE, especially for riskier devices and instruments.
      • Government to overhaul standards: The government is now pushing ahead to overhaul Indian med-tech regulatory standards and product standards which will help bridge this trust-deficit.
    • Difficulty in the promotion of start-ups: Another problem in promoting start-ups is the operational liquidity crunch due to a long gestation period.
      • Health-care start-ups spend long periods of time in the early development of their product, especially where potential clinical risks are concerned.
      • Long gestation period: The process of testing the idea and working prototype, receiving certifications, performing clinical and commercial validations, and raising funds, in a low-trust and unstructured environment makes the gestational period unusually long thereby limiting the operational liquidity of the start-up.
    • Lack of framework to adopt innovation: Another hurdle is the lack of incentives and adequate frameworks to grade and adopt innovations.
      • Health-care providers and clinicians, given limited bandwidth, often lack the incentives, operational capacity, and frameworks necessary to consider and adopt innovations.
      • This leads to limited traction for start-ups promoting innovative solutions.
    • Procurement challenges: Start-ups also face procurement challenges in both public and private procurement.
      • They lack the financial capacity to deal with lengthy tenders and the roundabout process of price discovery.
      • Private procurement is complicated by the presence of a fragmented customer base and limited systematic channels for distribution.

    Way forward

    • Identify promising market-ready products: To accelerate the process of mainstreaming innovations within the hospital system in India-
      • We need to focus on identifying promising market-ready health-care innovations that are ready to be tested and deployed at scale.
    • Facilitate standard operational validation studies: There is a need to-
      • Facilitate standardised operational validation studies that are required for market adoption.
      • To help ease out the start-up procurement process such that these solutions can be adopted with confidence.
      • This, in effect, will serve the entire ecosystem of health-care innovators by opening up health-care markets for all.
    • Need to develop an interface between hospital and start-ups: A strong theme in mature health-care systems in other parts of the world is a vibrant and seamless interface between hospitals and health-care start-ups.
      • Through Ayushman Bharat, India has the unique opportunity to develop a robust ecosystem where-
      • Hospitals actively engage with health-care start-ups by providing access to testbeds, communicating their needs effectively and adopting promising innovations.
      • Start-ups as collaborators: Start-ups can be effective collaborators for the most pressing health-care delivery challenges faced by hospitals.

    Conclusion

    The dream of an accessible, affordable and high-quality health-care system for all, will be achieved when we work in alignment to complement each other and jointly undertake the mission of creating an Ayushman Bharat.

  • When Yankee goes home

    Context

    Delhi needs to unlearn some of the assumptions about US policy as it prepares to host Trump next week. While the diaspora is important and could be of some value in dealing with Trump, it can’t override the deeper forces animating American politics.

    Changing America under Trump

    • Restriction on immigration: Trump’s America wants the Americans to come home but is shutting the door on unrestricted immigration from the rest of the world.
      • Domestic critics say America has been a nation of immigrants and Trump is wrong to keep them out.
      • Why the restriction on immigrants? But Trump has much support among the working people who know-
      • Immigration keeps wages low.
      • Helps the capitalist class and-
      • Disrupts the familiar cultural and social landscape.
    • Some want America out
      • Some chancelleries in the world demand that America must go home.
      • The president of the Philippines wants to end Manila’s century-old relationship with the US military.
      • Iran wants America out of the Gulf.
      • Russia and China would like to see the US forces out of Europe and Asia respectively.
      • The world is paying serious attention to the possibility of Yankee going home.

    Downsizing of the US role and how the world is responding?

    • Downsizing
      • In the Gulf, Trump wants the Asian powers to police the vital sea lines of communication.
    • In Europe and Asia, he wants the allies to do more for their own security.
    • How the world is responding?
      • Europe’s response In Europe, France and Germany are now talking about creating new defence capabilities for the European Union amidst the prospect for American security retrenchment.
      • How the Asian countries are responding? In Asia, Japan is debating a larger security role.
      • In the Gulf, America’s Arab allies are scrambling to diversify their security dependence.

    America First policy

    • What is America First policy? The idea of downsizing America’s role, along with the rejection of free trade and open borders, is at the very heart of Trump’s America First policy.
    • Resistance to the policy: To be sure there is deep resistance in the US to these ideas that run counter to America’s post-war internationalism.
      • Wall Street on the East Coast and Silicon Valley on the West Coast along with the old foreign and security policy establishment in Washington all oppose Trump’s America First focus.
    • Widespread support to the policy: Trump’s message, however, resonates across the political divide in the US.
      • Many candidates for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party agree with Trump’s goal of ending America’s “endless wars” in the Middle East.
      • Many in the working classes, who traditionally supported the Democrats, believe Trump is right in arguing that free trade has hollowed out American industry and eliminated manufacturing jobs.

    How the changes matter for India?

    • Prepare for the changes: America is at an inflection point; India needs to come to terms with the profound changes unfolding in the US.
    • No intervention policy: The Indian political classes castigated the US for excessive interventions in the affairs of other nations.
      • Trump now says such interventions are counterproductive and all nations must strengthen their sovereignty.
    • Critical of globalisation: Indians criticised the US for imposing globalisation on others; the US President is now one of the biggest critics of globalisation.
      • Trump’s America is not the one we have known.
    • India’s sensitivity to the US domestic politics: As India broadened its engagement with America in the last two decades, Delhi has become more sensitive to the US domestic political dynamics.
      • In getting the US to ease off on Kashmir and nuclear issues, Delhi had to look beyond the foreign policy establishment to generate better US appreciation of India’s concerns and interests.
    • Indian diaspora: One of the instruments that came in handy was the mobilisation of the Indian diaspora, it emerged as a key factor in elevating the bilateral relationship in the 21st century.
      • While the diaspora is important and could be of some value in dealing with Trump, it can’t override the deeper forces animating American politics.

    Conclusion

    Delhi’s success with the US will depend on the kind of strategic imagination it can display on trade cooperation, securing Afghanistan after America’s withdrawal, stabilising the Gulf and developing a new global compact on migration that is sensitive to domestic political considerations and yet contributes to the collective economic development.

     

     

     

     

  • Hype Trumps Hope

    Context

    US president’s visit comes when a mutually beneficial framework of bilateral relationship stands disrupted.

    Significance previous U.S. President’s visits

    • The Clinton visit:  The Clinton visit occurred against the backdrop of a new assessment within the American strategic community of India’s potential role in the post-Cold War era and against the backdrop of the rise of China.
      • Recognition of India’s nuclear power: He implicitly recognising India’s nuclear power status.
      • Kashmir issue: He suggested that the line of control (LoC) between India and Pakistan should be viewed as the international border so as to bury the “Kashmir issue” forever and-
      • Visas for Indians: increasing entry visas for Indians that has since contributed to the emergence of a sizeable community of Indian Americans.
      • As a counter to China: It was suggested that the rise of democratic India would be in the interests of the US and so the latter ought to be supportive of the former.
    • The Bush visit:
      • Political context: The rise of China and of radical Islam and jihadi terrorism provided the geopolitical context.
      • Economic context: The growth of an increasingly open Indian economy provided the economic context.
      • Cooperation in civil nuclear energy: Influenced by this new thinking, President George Bush took the next steps in strategic partnership and led the initiative to promote cooperation in the field of civil nuclear energy that also explicitly recognised India as a nuclear weapons power.
      • As heads of state, Clinton and Bush altered US-India bilateral relations in a fundamental way.
    • The Obama visit:
      • P2P relation: His second visit was more a recognition of the growing importance of people-to-people (P2P) relations and
      • Defence sales to India: The visit also aimed at promoting defence sales to India.
      • During the nuclear deal negotiations, US Congresspersons would often suggest that it was a “123 for 126” deal — that is, they would vote in favour of the 123 agreement in Congress in the hope that India would buy 126 fighter jets from the US.
      • That hope remains as yet unfulfilled, with the French getting the Rafale deal and no decision taken on the purchase of US fighter jets.

    America First policy of Trump

    • The credit for laying the foundation for a new and supportive post-Cold War relationship between the US and India goes singularly to President Bush.
    • Disruption with the arrival of Trump: The mutually beneficial framework that Bush helped create to promote the bilateral relationship has been rudely disrupted by the arrival of Donald Trump in Washington DC.
      • End of GSP: Trump’s “America First” policy offers no space for offering India “special and differential” treatment on any front, least of all trade.
      • Status of the Indian economy from the US perspective: With per capita annual national income of US $60,000, Trump’s America has no qualms declaring India, with a per capita annual average national income of US $2,000 a “developed economy” not deserving of any leniency in trade policy.
      • Clubbing together with China: To club China, a $15-trillion economy, with a $3-trillion India on the trade front is not just stupid but an affront to Indian sensibilities.

    What are the hopes and what could be the outcomes of the visit?

    • No bi-partisan support to India’s rise: It has to be recognised that neither Democratic liberals nor Republican conservatives are any longer willing to be supportive of the Bush-Rice paradigm that views India’s rise in benign and mutually beneficial terms.
      • Inward-orientation in both the countries: Today the relationship seems caught in the pincers between the inward-orientation of rightwing nationalists in both nations.
      • No hope of change: There is no reason as yet to believe that this unfortunate state of affairs will be altered by the Trump visit next week.
    • Stand on Pakistan or Kashmir: Trump has also moved away from the Clinton-Bush framework on India-Pakistan relations and moved closer to approach of wanting to insert the US into the equation on Kashmir.
      • Appeasement of Pakistan: Trump’s motives are no different from those that initially drove Obama-namely, to appease Pakistan in the hope of securing a peaceful exit from Afghanistan.
      • Expect differences to persist: At best, India can hope to limit the damage Trump may do to strategic stability in the region.
    • Visa and investment: There will be much talk about US investments in India and increased visas for Indians going to the US.
      • Corporate interests: Both are driven largely by US corporate interests.
      • Given the direction of the Modi government’s trade policy, one cannot expect any dramatic concessions being made.
      • Defence purchases: The best India can do for the US is to buy more defence equipment and ease up on some trade restrictions.
      • Defence sales to India are an essentially commercial activity and much of it can go on even in the absence of strategic convergence and shared geopolitical perspectives.
    • Brain-drain and need to focus on education: Much is made of Indian Americans heading US multinationals and the Great Indian Diaspora in the US.
      • Outmigration of talent: The continued neglect of education in India is increasing the outmigration of talent, offering the US a reservoir of talent.
      • Drain on national resources: While the Indian elite celebrates this out-migration, the fact is that it is a drain on national resources.

    Conclusion

    In sum,  with the supportive Bush-Rice doctrine defining the post-Cold War US-India partnership virtually abandoned, and the new Trump doctrine treating India as a “developed” economy, demanding parity on trade, bilateral relations have become uncertain and testy. To hide the lack of substance in the relationship the Trump visit will focus on the hype and Prime Minister Modi has perfected the art of diplomacy as mass entertainment.

     

     

  • Explained: Recusals by Judges

    Recently a Supreme Court judge recused himself from hearing a petition filed against the government’s move to charge Omar Abdullah under the Public Safety Act.  The case was finally heard by another bench.

    Rules on Recusals

    • There are no written rules on the recusal of judges from hearing cases listed before them in constitutional courts. It is left to the discretion of a judge.
    • The reasons for recusal are not disclosed in an order of the court. Some judges orally convey to the lawyers involved in the case their reasons for recusal, many do not. Some explain the reasons in their order.
    • The decision rests on the conscience of the judge. At times, parties involved raise apprehensions about a possible conflict of interest.

    Why Judges need recusal?

    • Recusal usually takes place when a judge has a conflict of interest or has a prior association with the parties in the case.
    • For example, if the case pertains to a company in which the judge holds stakes, the apprehension would seem reasonable.
    • Similarly, if the judge has, in the past, appeared for one of the parties involved in a case, the call for recusal may seem right.
    • A recusal inevitably leads to delay. The case goes back to the Chief Justice, who has to constitute a fresh Bench.

    Should the reasons be put on record?

    • In his separate opinion in the NJAC judgment in 2015, Justice (now retired) Kurian Joseph, who was a member of the Constitution Bench, highlighted the need for judges to give reasons for recusal as a measure to build transparency.
    • It is the constitutional duty, as reflected in one’s oath, to be transparent and accountable, and hence, a judge is required to indicate reasons for his recusal from a particular case, Justice Kurian wrote.
    • One of his companion judges on the Constitution Bench, Justice (retired) Madan B. Lokur, agreed that specific rules require to be framed on recusal.
    • The two judges were referring to senior advocate Fali Nariman’s plea to Justice J.S. Khehar, who was then in line to be the next Chief Justice, to recuse himself.
    • But Justice Khehar refused to recuse himself though he admitted that Mr. Nariman’s plea left him in an “awkward predicament”.
    • Justice Khehar reasoned that he did not recuse himself for fear of leaving an impression that he was “scared”.

    What happened in the Judge Loya and Assam detention centres cases?

    • In 2018, petitioners in the Judge Loya case sought the recusal of Supreme Court judges, Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud, from the Bench as they both hailed from the Bombay High Court.
    • The case banked on the written statements of two judges from that High Court, both saying that Judge Loya’s death was from natural causes. The court refused the request and called it a “wanton attack”.
    • Recusal, the court observed, would mean abdication of duty. Maintaining institutional civilities are distinct from the “fiercely independent role of the judge as adjudicator”, the court explained.
    • In May 2019, in the middle of a hearing of a PIL filed by activist Harsh Mander about the plight of inmates in Assam’s detention centres, the then-Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi was asked to recuse himself.
    • In a lengthy order, Justice Gogoi said a litigant cannot seek recusal of the judge. “Judicial functions, sometimes, involve performance of unpleasant and difficult tasks, which require asking questions and soliciting answers to arrive at a just and fair decision.
    • If the assertions of bias as stated are to be accepted, it would become impossible for a judge to seek clarifications and answers,” the court observed.

  • Battling the bug

    Context

    With multiple cities in China under a public health lockdown, global supply chains of various essential products and consumer goods are likely to be affected. This should be particularly worrisome for India, which has a roughly $93 billion total trade and about $57 billion trade imbalance with China.

    Cause of worry turned into a reality

    • Public health experts have worried most about an animal virus-
      • That gets into humans.
      • Causes human-to-human transmission.
      • Has high infectivity and a range of clinical severity.
      • With no human immunity, no diagnostic tests, drugs or vaccines.
    • An emerging virus, called the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), appears to be just that.
    • With the World Health Organisation declaring it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), this outbreak is now a pandemic.

    What is coronavirus

    • Group of animal virus: Coronaviruses are a group of animal viruses identified by their crown-like (corona) appearance under a microscope.
    • SAARS connection: The 2019-nCoV belongs to this group of viruses, six of which, including the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the 2012 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) viruses, were earlier known to cause disease in humans.
      • Genetic similarity with other viruses: Genetic sequencing of the virus from five patients showed it to be 5 per cent identical to the SARS virus.
    • Bats as hosts: Since the SARS outbreak in 2003, scientists have discovered a large number of SARS-related coronaviruses from their natural hosts-bats.
      • Previous studies have shown some of these bat coronaviruses to have the potential to infect humans.
      • Genetic sequencing showed it to human coronavirus to be over 96 per cent identical to a bat coronavirus.
      • Thus, 2019-nCoV clearly originated from bats, jumped into humans either directly or through an intermediate host, and adapted itself to human-to-human transmission.
      • Bats are a particularly rich reservoir for viruses with the potential to infect humans.
      • Examples of these include viruses such as Hanta, Rabies, Nipah, Ebola and Marburg viruses, and others that have caused high levels of mortality and morbidity in humans.
      • India has 117 species and 100 sub-species of bats, but we know little about the viruses they harbour and their disease potential.

    India’s response

    • India’s response includes-
      • Surveillance of arriving passengers at airports.
      • Awareness drives in the border states.
      • Designation of hospitals with isolation wards and the availability of protective gear (e.g. masks) to health workers.
      • SOP: There are clear operating procedures for sample collection and its transport to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, which is the nodal testing centre.
      • A self-declaration mechanism is in place and a 24×7 telephone helpline has been set up.
    • Two areas of concern
      • 1. Promotion of untested medicines: There is mixed messaging promoting AYUSH products that are untested and of questionable efficacy.
      • 2. India- a hot zone of zoonotic pathogens: India has been a “hot zone” for the emergence of new zoonotic (animal-derived) pathogens for over a decade.
      • But we continue to lack the capacity to quickly identify, isolate and characterise a novel pathogen.
      • Example of China: China is a good example of how investments in research and public health will allow it to take a lead on developing diagnostic tests, vaccines and drugs for this new virus. We must do the same and prepare for the future.
    • Disruption in global supply chains and concerns for India
      • With multiple cities in China under a public health lockdown, global supply chains of various essential products and consumer goods are likely to be affected.
      • This should be particularly worrisome for India, which has a roughly $93 billion total trade and about $57 billion trade imbalance with China.
      • Disruption in medicine supply: The Indian pharmaceuticals industry imports about 85 per cent of its active pharmaceutical ingredients from China.
      • Any disruption in this supply chain would adversely affect the availability of medicines in India, which would be required in an outbreak situation.
      • Need to support local pharma. industry: India must, therefore, take steps to correct this imbalance and support the local pharmaceuticals industry in reducing its dependence on China

    Possible scenarios

    • Public health experts estimate that the epidemic will peak in three months.
    • From here on, there are a few possible scenarios, but which of these would play out is hard to guess.
    • 1st possibility: There could be very large numbers of cases and global spread of the virus with a low CFR of 0.1-0.5 per cent, like the bad flu. Or the same with increased CFR, which would lead to significant mortality.
    • 2nd possibility: It is also possible that the outbreak spiralled in China due to a combination of factors not present elsewhere, such as population density, food habits and the Chinese New Year, which sees large population movements.
      • It is also possible that the pandemic may not sustain outside China and die out like the 2003 SARS outbreak.
    • Whatever be the case, surveillance and sensible public health measures will be needed over the next few months.

    Conclusion

    India escaped the 2003 SARS and 2012 MERS outbreaks largely unscathed. This may still be the case with 2019-nCoV, but the laws of probability are likely to catch up soon. It would help to invest, build capacity and be ready.

     

     

     

     

  • System Risk Indicator (SyRI)

    • In a first anywhere in the world, a court in the Netherlands recently stopped a digital identification scheme for reasons of exclusion.
    • This has a context for similar artificial intelligence (AI) systems worldwide, especially at a time when identity, citizenship and privacy are pertinent questions in India.

    SyRI

    • Last week, a Dutch district court ruled against an identification mechanism called SyRI (System Risk Indicator), because of data privacy and human rights concerns.
    • It held SyRI was too invasive and violative of the privacy guarantees given by European Human Rights Law as well as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.
    • The Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs developed SyRI in 2014 to weed out those who are most likely to commit fraud and receive government benefits.
    • Legislation passed by Dutch Parliament allowed government agencies to share 17 categories of data about welfare recipients such as taxes, land registries, employment records, and vehicle registrations with a private company.
    • The company used an algorithm to analyse data for four cities and calculate risk scores.

    What were the arguments in court?

    • After taking into account community concerns, civil society groups and NGOs launched a legal attack on this case of algorithmic governance.
    • Legal criticism mounted, alleging that the algorithm would begin associating poverty and immigrant statuses with fraud risk.
    • The Dutch government defended the programme in court, saying it prevented abuse and acted as only a starting point for further investigation instead of a final determination.
    • The government also refused to disclose all information about how the system makes its decisions, stating that it would allow gaming of the system.
    • The court found that opaque algorithmic decision-making puts citizens at a disadvantage to challenge the resulting risk scores.
    • The Netherlands continuously ranks high on democracy indices.

    How relevant is this for India?

    • Similar to the Supreme Court’s Aadhaar judgment setting limits on the ID’s usage, the Hague Court attempted to balance social interest with personal privacy.
    • However, the Aadhaar judgment was not regarding algorithmic decision-making; it was about data collection.
    • The ruling is also an example of how a data protection regulation can be used against government surveillance.
    • India’s pending data protection regulation, being analysed by a Joint Select Committee in Parliament, would give broad exemptions to government data processing in its current form.
    • India’s proposed regulation is similar to the US in the loopholes that could be potentially exploited.

  • Bangladesh fares better

    Content

    In the last decade, on a range of social development indicators, Bangladesh has fared better than India. So it is highly unlikely that Bangladeshis would want to leave their cherished homeland for India.

    Comparison with Bangladesh on the development indicators

    • Growth rate: This year Bangladesh’s economic growth rate has surpassed India.
    • Social development indicators: In the last decade, on a range of social development indicators, from infant mortality to immunisation, Bangladesh has fared better.
    • India lagging behind the neighbours in quality of life: Undoubtedly, since economic liberalisation, Indians have grown much richer than Bangladeshis, but in terms of quality of life our neighbour largely outshines us.
      • India trails across several (not all) composite indices from the latest Global Hunger Index to the Gender Development Index.
      • Even on the 2019 World Happiness Index, Bangladeshis score better.
      • While, technically, on the Human Development Index, Bangladesh scores marginally less, this is largely because the index merges income and non-income parameters.

    How India’s neighbour forged ahead in social development?

    • Dissolving the inequality and bridging the social and gender distances: In the case of Bangladesh, the most prominent factor has been-
      • Removing inequality: The country’s ability to dissolve inequalities through sustained investment in public services and-
      • Bridging the social distance: The bridging of social and gender distances.
    • Development in Healthcare: Till the Eighties, Indians lived longer than most South Asians.
      • But now, despite being poorer, an average Bangladeshi female child at birth can expect to live for four years more.
      • Fewer Bangladeshi children also die before their fifth birthday.
      • Community clinics: The formula for this success has been relatively simple. Since 2009, the government has constructed well-stocked “community clinics” in every third village.
      • Home delivery of medicines: For four decades, committed cadres of government health workers have delivered medicines and family planning to women in the comfort of their homes.
    • Achievement in Education: On the education front, even though India has a demographic dividend, Bangladesh has achieved a marginal advantage in youth literacy.
      • Further, across income quintiles, Bangladeshi girls have higher educational attainments than boys.
      • Free textbooks: The government provides free textbooks in the government, non-government (NGO) and madrassa-run schools promptly at the start of the academic year, without the chronic delays which plague India.
      • The greater proportion of expenditure on educations: Economist Jean Drèze has aptly described India as amongst the world champions in social underspending. In contrast, Bangladesh despite being a poorer neighbour since the Nineties has spent a greater proportion of government expenditure on education and healthcare.
      • The fruits of these sustained investments have reaped rich dividends.
    • Nutrition: On the nutrition front too, Bangladesh fares better.
      • Thirty-three per cent of Bangladeshi children are underweight compared to India’s 36 per cent as per the demographic health surveys.
      • Similarly, a greater proportion of Indian children are also stunted.
      • Further, the inequality between wealth quintiles is starker in India.
      • A few years ago, the Bangladeshi government, with the help of NGOs, hired a unique cadre of “Pushti Apas” (nutrition sisters) who went door-to-door in their social endeavours.
      • Unlike the Indian Poshan Abhiyan’s focus on vegetarian foods, they did not shy away from teaching mothers to feed growing infants a balanced diet with mashed fish, meat and eggs.
    • Sanitation: Even at the turn of the millennium, at least 80 per cent of Bangladeshi homes had toilets, even if rudimentary.
      • By 2016, 96 per cent of households and 80 per cent of schools in had proper sanitation.
      • Apart from the typical Islamic emphasis on hygiene, local governments not only provide cement rings for free to poor families but they also regularly spread messages through community group discussions, mosques, mass media and schools.
      • Local entrepreneurs have also ensured that with the innovation of plastic pans, the cheapest toilets cost less than Chinese mobile phones.
    • Women empowerment: Bangladeshi women are also increasingly assertive.
      • The 2006 World Bank Survey on Gender Norms found a growing trend of “educational hypogamy”.
      • In sharp contrast to India’s decline, Bangladeshi women also have higher labour force participation.

    Contrast

    • In comparison, India is grappling with the worst unemployment levels in 45 years and sinking economic growth rates. Government ministers should pull up their own socks, instead. Berating our neighbours with the false bogey of illegal immigrants, in light of the Citizenship Amendment Act, is nothing but an unjustifiable distraction. Instead, it would be far wiser for the Indian government to humbly learn the recipe of South Asian success to improve the lives of citizens from the impressive “Shonar Bangla”.

  • Political parties to publish the entire criminal history of their candidates

     

    • The Supreme Court has strictly ordered political parties to publish the entire criminal history of their candidates for Assembly and Lok Sabha elections along with the reasons that goaded them to field suspected criminals over decent people.

    SC’s deadline

    • It ordered political parties to submit compliance reports with the Election Commission of India within 72 hours or risk contempt of court action.
    • The information should be published in a local as well as a national newspaper as well as the parties’ social media handles.
    • It should mandatorily be published either within 48 hours of the selection of candidates or less than two weeks before the first date for filing of nominations, whichever is earlier.
    • The judgment is applicable to parties both at Central and State levels.

    Information should be detailed

    • The published information on the criminal antecedents of a candidate should be detailed and include the nature of their offences, charges framed against him, the court concerned, case number, etc.
    • A political party should explain to the public through their published material how the “qualifications or achievements or merit” of a candidate, charged with a crime, impressed it enough to cast aside the smear of his criminal background.
    • A party would have to give reasons to the voter that it was not the candidate’s “mere winnability at the polls” which guided its decision to give him a ticket to contest elections.

    Why such a move?

    • It appeared from the last four general elections that there has been an alarming increase in the incidence of criminals in politics.
    • In 2004, 24% of the MPs had criminal cases pending against them; in 2009, that went up to 30%; in 2014 to 34%; and in 2019 as many as 43% of MPs had criminal cases pending against them, SC observed.
    • The judgment was based on a contempt petition about the general disregard shown by political parties to a 2018 Constitution Bench judgment (Public Interest Foundation v. Union of India).
    • In this judgment (2018), this court was cognizant of the increasing criminalisation of politics in India and the lack of information about such criminalisation among the citizenry”, SC observed.

    Immediate Reason

    • The immediate provocation is the finding that 46% of MPs have criminal records.
    • The number might be inflated as many politicians tend to be charged with relatively minor offences —“unlawful assembly” and “defamation”.
    • The real worry is that the current cohort of Lok Sabha MPs has the highest (29%) proportion of those with serious declared criminal cases compared to its recent predecessors.

    Why are such tainted candidates inducted by political parties?

    • Such candidates with serious records seem to do well despite their public image, largely due to their ability to finance their own elections and bring substantive resources to their respective parties.
    • Some voters tend to view such candidates through a narrow prism: of being able to represent their interests by hook or by crook.
    • Others do not seek to punish these candidates in instances where they are in contest with other candidates with similar records.

    Significance of the move

    • Either way, these unhealthy tendencies in the democratic system reflect a poor image of the nature of India’s state institutions and the quality of its elected representatives.
    • The move signified the court’s alarm at the unimpeded rise of criminals, often facing heinous charges like rape and murder, encroaching into the country’s political and electoral scenes.

    Way Forward

    • While formally, the institutions of the state are present and subject to the electoral will of the people, substantively, they are still relatively weak and lackadaisical in governance and delivery of public goods.
    • This has allowed cynical voters to elect candidates despite their dubious credentials and for their ability to work on a patronage system.
    • While judicial pronouncements on making it difficult for criminal candidates to contest are necessary, only enhanced awareness and increased democratic participation could create the right conditions for the decriminalization of politics.

  • Ninth Schedule of the Indian Constitution

    A parliamentarian has said in an interview that reservation should be put under the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution.  His comments came days after the Supreme Court ruled that reservation in the matter of promotions in public posts was not a fundamental right and that a state cannot be compelled to offer quota if it chooses not to.

    What is the Ninth Schedule?

    • The Ninth Schedule contains a list of central and state laws which cannot be challenged in courts.
    • Currently, 284 such laws are shielded from judicial review.
    • The Schedule became a part of the Constitution in 1951, when the document was amended for the first time.
    • It was created by the new Article 31B, which along with 31A was brought in by the government to protect laws related to agrarian reform and for abolishing the Zamindari system.
    • While most of the laws protected under the Schedule concern agriculture/land issues, the list includes other subjects, such as reservation.
    • A Tamil Nadu law that provides 69 per cent reservation in the state is part of the Schedule.

    Article 31A and 31 B

    • While Article 31A extends protection to ‘classes’ of laws, A. 31B shields specific laws or enactments.
    • Article 31B also has retrospective operation: meaning if laws are inserted in the Ninth Schedule after they are declared unconstitutional, they are considered to have been in the Schedule since their commencement, and thus valid.
    • Although Article 31B excludes judicial review, the apex court has said in the past that even laws under the Ninth Schedule would be open to scrutiny if they violated fundamental rights or the basic structure of the Constitution.