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GS Paper: GS2

  • [op-ed of the day] Preventing mob lynching

    Context

    The spate of incidents of lynching over the past few years has led to a heightened sense of insecurity among the marginalised communities. The Centre should specify penal action against officials and doctors accused of dereliction of duty.

    2018 Supreme Court Judgement

    • In 2018, the Supreme Court described lynching as a “horrendous act of mobocracy”.
    • The Court exhorted the Centre and State governments to frame laws specifically to deal with the crime of lynching.
    • The SC laid down certain guidelines to be incorporated in these laws including
      • Fast-track trials.
      • Compensation to victims, and
      • Disciplinary action against lax law-enforcers.

    The State laws

    • Manipur bill for the law against lynching:  The Manipur government came up first with its Bill against lynching in 2018, incorporating some logical and relevant clauses.
      • Provision of nodal officer: The Bill specified that there would be nodal officers in each district to control such crimes.
      • Compensation to the victim: The law provides for adequate monetary compensation to the victims or their immediate kin.
      • Punishment for failure to enforce the law: Police officers who fail to prevent the crime of lynching in their jurisdiction are liable to be imprisoned for a term that may extend from one to three years with a fine limit of ₹50,000.
      • No concurrence of state for the prosecution of the police: No concurrence of the State government is required to prosecute them for dereliction of duty.
    • Rajasthan bill: The government has accepted only a few guidelines issued by the apex court.
      • No action against police officers: The bill is also silent on any action to be initiated against police officers who may be accused of dereliction of duty.
    • West Bengal bill: Most other guidelines of the Supreme Court have been adopted by the State.
      • Stringent punishment: Punishment for lynching to death is punishable with the death penalty or life imprisonment and a fine of up to ₹5 lakh.

    What the Centre can do

    • Adoption of the SC guidelines: The Centre should adopt the guidelines provided by the SC to deal with the crime.
    • Action against doctors: Centre would do well to incorporate sections in the law for penal action against doctors who stand accused of-
      • Dereliction of duty.
      • For delay in attending to victims of lynching.
      • For submitting false reports without carrying out a proper and thorough medical examination of the victims.
    • The compensation scheme for victims: Under the compensation scheme for the victims, the amount to be paid to the victims should be recovered from the perpetrators of the crime.
      • Collective fines: Collective fines should be imposed on the villagers where the lynching takes place.
    • Punishment for a political leader for inciting the mob: Centre could even provide for punitive action against political leaders found guilty of inciting mobs.
    • Punitive action against police: Punitive action to be taken against police officers accused of dereliction of duty, as incorporated in the law enacted by Manipur government, could be replicated in the Central law too.
      • Punitive action as a deterrent: It would deter police officials acting in a partisan manner in favour of the lynch mob.

    Conclusion

    Until a zero-tolerance attitude is adopted in dealing with mob lynching, this crime will continue to show a rising trend.

     

  • Agreement to end the Bru-Reang Refugee Crisis

    The Ministry of Home Affairs has presided over the signing of an agreement between Union Government, Governments of Tripura and Mizoram and Bru-Reang representatives to end the 23-year old Bru-Reang refugee crisis.

    Who are the Brus?

    • Reangs or Brus are the second largest ethnic group in Mizoram.
    • Their exodus in 1997 was spurred by violent clashes in Mamith subdivision, a Reang-dominated area, when they demanded creation of an autonomous council that was vehemently opposed by Mizo groups.
    • Around 34,000 people were forced to live in sub-human conditions in tents in Tripura. No solution could be reached all these years.
    • These people were housed in temporary camps at Kanchanpur, in North Tripura.

    Highlights of the Quadripartite Agreement

    • Under the new agreement around 34,000 Bru refugees will be settled in Tripura and would be given aid from the Centre to help with their rehabilitation and all round development.
    • These people would get all the rights that normal residents of the States get and they would now be able to enjoy the benefits of social welfare schemes of Centre and State governments.
    • Under the new arrangement, each of the displaced families would be given 40×30 sq.ft. residential plots.
    • This would be in addition to the aid under earlier agreement of a fixed deposit of Rs. 4 lakhs, Rs. 5,000 cash aid per month for 2 years, free ration for 2 years and Rs. 1.5 lakhs aid to build their house.

  • Suspension of the Internet: What the Rules say, what the SC underlined

  • Women Business and the Law (WBL) Index 2020

     

    The Women Business and the Law (WBL) 2020 index to measure the economic empowerment of women was recently published.

    WBL Index

    • The WBL report released by the World Bank.
    • It is based on the countries’ formal laws and regulations that have a bearing on women’s economic participation, covering eight areas (eg, parenthood, equality of pay).
    • It tracks how laws affect women at different stages in their working lives and focusing on those laws applicable in the main business city.

    India’s poor performance

    • India placed 117th among 190 countries on the index.
    • India, the world’s most populous democracy scored 74.4 on a par with Benin and Gambia and way below least developed countries like Rwanda and Lesotho.
    • The global average was 75.2 — a slight increase from 73.9 in the previous index released in 2017.

    Global Performance

    • Only eight economies scored a perfect 100 — Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Latvia, Luxembourg, and Sweden.
    • Those countries have ensured equal legal standing to men and women on all the eight indicators of the index.
    • No economy in ‘East Asia and the Pacific’, ‘Europe and Central Asia’, or ‘Latin America and the Caribbean’ were among top reformers, the report claimed.
    • Countries in ‘Middle East and North Africa’ and ‘Sub-Saharan Africa’ accounted for nine of the 10 top progressing countries on the WBL Index:
    1. Saudi Arabia
    2. The United Arab Emirates
    3. Nepal
    4. South Sudan
    5. São Tomé and Príncipe
    6. Bahrain
    7. The Democratic Republic of Congo
    8. Djibouti
    9. Jordan
    10. Tunisia

    Significance of the Index

    • Legal rights for women are both the right thing to do and good from an economic perspective.
    • When women can move more freely, work outside the home and manage assets, they are more likely to join the workforce and help strengthen their country’s economies.

  • [op-ed of the day] Let’s not muddle along on how we share natural endowments

    Context

    Governments regulations and restrictions in the markets, believing that policies could artificially restrict either supply or demand, or both, often results in unrealistic or unworkable prices.

    Adoption of the auctioning process to allocate resources

    • Design of process makes the difference: While auctions may be the cleanest way to allot scarce natural resources to private parties, their design makes all the difference.
    • Three things needed to get the desired results from auctions:
      • Clear policy goal: Define clear policy goals for the allotment of the resource whether coal blocks, spectrum or land.
      • The proper process of periodic review: Define a proper process for periodic review of the design itself, since it may not be possible to get everything right in the first instance.
      • Make the process non-partisan: Make the political oversight process as non-partisan as possible, so that regime changes do not keep upending policies.

    What went wrong in spectrum allocation case?

    • Arbitrary tweaks in policy: Arbitrary tweaks were made in the telecom licence and spectrum allocation policy.
      • Which is what forced the apex court to intervene and cancel those licences.
    • The claim of revenue loss: Cancellation followed a  claim by the CAG that the “presumptive” revenue losses may have been as high as ₹1.76.
    • Result of the two events-policy of revenue maximisation: The net result was that all subsequent auctions were designed to maximize spectrum bids.
      • Winner’s curse: The policy finally ended up becoming a winner’s curse, evident in the pile of debt incurred by the telecom sector.
    • Why did this happen? This happened because of the absence of a clear policy goal.

    Real estate sector

    • High land prices: The same goes for real estate, which is struggling right now due to high land prices because the bureaucracy prevents price reduction in land.
      • Unaffordable to middle-income buyers: That make most properties unaffordable for middle and lower-middle-income buyers.
    • Low FSI issue: Urban land prices are high due to artificial constriction of supplies through the fixing of low floor space indices (FSIs) even in land-scarce localities.

    Technology and periodic review of policy

    • Technology can lower costs: Spectrum or land or coal mines are not always in short supply, for new technology lowers costs.
      • Efficient spectrum use: The same spectrum can, with the use of newer technology, be used more efficiently.
      • 3D printing in construction: Better infrastructure and improved building technologies (even 3D printing techniques for mass housing projects in non-urban areas) can lower housing costs enormously.
      • Automated coal mining: Automated coal mining can lower coal production costs, enabling higher profitability even with relatively high auction bids.
    • Need for periodic policy review: Technology can reduce the prices of the resources and hence the periodic review of the prices at which the resources are allocated need to be taken to for balanced pricing.

    Conclusion

    • Policies on the allocation of scarce resources need to evolve based on actual experience and changing technologies and processes.
    • The success or failure of a specific policy cannot be judged purely from a revenue or transparency point of view.

     

     

     

  • Indian Origin Tamils and Sri Lanka’s Citizenship Law

    Recently an MHA spokesperson wrote on Twitter that about 4.61 lakh Tamils of Indian origin were given Indian citizenship during 1964-2008. The reference was to the Indian Origin Tamils (IOTs) of Sri Lanka, and the Lal Bahadur Shastri-Sirimavo Bandaranaike Pact of 1964.

    The Indian Origin Tamils

    • Different from Sri Lankan Tamils who live predominantly in the North and East, the IoTs are descendants of indentured Tamil workers.
    • The British had shipped them to the island in the mid 19th century to work on tea estates in the five hill districts of the Central and Uva provinces.
    • These people now call themselves Malayaha (hill country) Tamils — because of the historical stigma attached to being “Indian” Tamils.
    • At the time of Sri Lanka’s independence, the IOTs numbered around 800,000.
    • They were the backbone of the tea industry, politically active, and keen to ensure their rights in independent Sri Lanka through strategic alliances with unions and left parties.
    • Determined to blunt their political rights, the ruling parties described IOTs as “birds of passage” with no loyalty to the country, as India’s fifth column in Sri Lanka, and as people who stole the locals’ jobs.

    SL’s 1948 Citizenship Act

    • Sri Lanka’s Nov. 1948 Citizenship Act was the first in a series of divisive moves by the Sinhala rulers to consolidate their political base in the majority Sinhalese (Buddhist and Christian) community.
    • It was aimed at excluding IOTs — then as now, the predominant workforce in the upcountry tea estates — whose numbers and growing association with leftist parties were proving to be politically inconvenient.
    • The IOTs that India accepted through the 1964 agreement were not “fleeing” Sri Lanka.
    • Most were, in fact, reluctant to leave the country in which they had lived for three generations or longer.
    • Those that remained, were stateless in Sri Lanka for decades until their status as citizens was settled ironically because the ruling party now wanted their votes.

    What did the Act provide?

    • Under the Act, citizenship could be only by patrilineal descent or registration.
    • For citizenship by registration, umarried persons had to show 10 years of uninterrupted stay in Sri Lanka from the date of application; married persons had to show 7 years.
    • Most IOTs were unlettered and poor, with no documents. Effectively an entire community was rendered stateless.
    • Soon afterward came the Indian & Pakistani Residents’ Act of 1949, which opened a window for those above a certain income level.
    • Only 1,40,000 had been granted citizenship under the Indian & Pakistani Residents’ Act, and 2,50,000 were accepted by India as its citizens.
    • Finally, the 1949 Ceylon (Parliamentary Elections) Amendment was passed, under which only citizens could vote.
    • The IOTs were stripped of voting rights, and the fallout was immediate: in 1947, there were 7 Indian Tamils in the legislature; in 1952, there were none.

    Issues with the Act

    • This Act sharply delineated ethnic differences, and distorted the political system to weight it in favour the Sinhalese majority.
    • This created an intractable dynamic of ethnic outbidding between the two major Sinhalese-dominated parties to attract Sinhalese voters at the expense of the Sri Lankan Tamil minority.
    • This directly contributed to the latter’s alienation, support for secessionism, and the outbreak of ethnic violence and civil war in the 1970s and 1980s.

    India’s response

    • The treatment of Indian Tamils had cast a shadow on India-Sri Lanka relations even before independence; post-independence, the citizenship laws became a major irritant.
    • They were denounced in India, and the Madras legislature passed a resolution against them.
    • In 1947, PM Nehru had tried unsuccessfully to persuade Senanayake to give citizenship to all Indian Tamils who had lived in the country for 7 years prior to January 1, 1948.
    • The two countries corresponded on this issue until Nehru’s death in 1964.
    • Nehru rejected the Sri Lankan position that the “stateless” IOTs were automatically Indian citizens, and would have to be shipped to India.

    Repatriation of IOTs

    • After the 1962 war with China, PM Shastri was eager to mend fences with Sri Lanka. He gave in to Bandaranaike’s demands, and it was agreed that Sri Lanka would accept 3,00,000 IOTs and their natural increase, while India would accept 5,25,000 IOTs and their natural increase.
    • The status of the balance 1,50,000 IOTs was to be decided later.
    • Some 4,00,000 reluctantly applied for citizenship of India; 6,30,000 applied for Sri Lanka’s.
    • By the time the window agreed upon in 1964 closed, only 1,62,000 IOTs had been given Sri Lankan citizenship. In the same period, India gave citizenship to over 3,50,000.

  • Ethnic Unity Law in Tibet

    The People’s Congress of Tibet passed a law that makes ethnic unity in the region mandatory, reflecting the significant role that the autonomous Himalayan region plays in its economic and social development.

    About the Law

    • The law makes it clear that Tibet has been an inalienable part of China since ancient times.
    • It states that it is the common responsibility of the people of all ethnic groups to safeguard national reunification and take a clear stand against separatism.

    Ethnic Unity in China

    • This is not the first time that the phrase ethnic unity has been mentioned by China.
    • In October 2019 the Communist Party of China published a guideline for enhancing ethnic unity.
    • It stressed on efforts to improve the governance of ethnic affairs, guaranteeing the legal rights and interests of citizens of ethnic groups.
    • It called for cracking down on “criminal acts” that sabotage ethnic unity or cause ethnic separation.
    • Before this, in 2016, China began a campaign in the autonomous territory of Xinjiang to promote ethnic unity and called for people to respect the cultures of the minorities who call the region home.

    Why such Law?

    • There are more than 40 ethnic minorities in the region, which account for 95 per cent of Tibet’s population of over three million.
    • Like Tibet, Xinjiang is another region of China that houses multiple ethnic minorities.
    • A similar legislation was passed there four years ago and in recent times, China has faced criticism for detaining at least a million Uighur and other Muslims, along with some ethnic Kazakhs and Uzbeks.
    • China has began “re-education camps” in Xinjiang, a region that has been claimed by China since 1949.
    • China has denied these allegations and maintains that the facilities where the detainees are housed are vocational training centers.

  • Henley Passport Index 2020

    The Indian passport is closer to the bottom, ranked 84th in the world, according to the 2020 edition of the Henley Passport Index.

    Henley Passport Index

    • According to Henley & Partners publishes the ranking and the Index of the world’s passports “according to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa”.
    • The ranking is based on data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), a trade association of some 290 airlines, including all major carriers.
    • The index includes 199 different passports and 227 different travel destinations.
    • The data are updated in real time as and when visa policy changes come into effect.

    India’s performance

    • Since the index began in 2006, the Indian passport has ranked in a band of 71st to 88th. (The number of passports ranked has, however, varied from year to year.)
    • The Indian passport’s 2020 ranking of 84th translates into visa-free access to 58 destinations, including 33 which give Indians visas on arrival.
    • It ranked higher in both 2019 (82, with visa-free access to 59 destinations) and 2018 (81, with visa-free access to 60 destinations).
    • Twenty of the 58 visa-free access destinations in the 2020 list are in Africa, and 11 each in Asia and the Caribbean.
    • Serbia is the only European country to which Indian passport holders can travel visa-free. There is no major or developed country to which Indian passport holders have visa-free access.

    Global performance

    • The top 10 most powerful passports this year are ranked in this order: Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Germany, Italy, Finland, Spain, Luxembourg and Denmark.
    • Japan has been topping the Index for three straight years; according to the 2020 index, its citizens are able to access 191 destinations without having to obtain a visa in advance.
    • Afghanistan at rank 107 is the weakest.
    • Singapore, in second place (same as in 2019), has a visa-free/visa-on-arrival score of 190.
    • Germany is No. 3 (same position as in 2019), with access to 189 destinations; it shares this position with South Korea, which dropped from the second place it held a year ago.
    • The US and the UK have been falling consistently over successive Indices.

  • [op-ed snap] Not ready for school

    Context

    The draft NEP (National Education Policy) document points out that close to five crore children currently in elementary school do not have foundational literacy and numeracy skills. 

    Severe learning crisis: The document cites several possible reasons for this crisis.

    • First reason:  Many children enter school before age six.
      • Lack of options: This is partly due to the lack of affordable and accessible options for pre-schooling.
      • Therefore, too many children go to Std. I with limited exposure to early childhood education.
      • Consequences for the poor: Children from poor families have a double disadvantage -lack of healthcare and nutrition and the absence of a supportive learning environment on the other.
    • Second reason: Lack of developmentally appropriate activities by age and phase.
      • The misplaced focus of ICDS: School readiness or early childhood development and education activities have not had a high priority in the ICDS system.
      • Acting as an extension of pre-school education: Private preschools that have increased access to preschool but are often designed to be a downward extension of schooling.
      • Thus, they bring in school-like features into the pre-school classroom, rather than developmentally appropriate activities by age and phase.

    Three clear trends in ASER-2019 data

    • First trend: Scope for expansion of Anganwadi network.
      • Expansion network: There is considerable scope for expanding Anganwadi outreach for three and four-year-old children.
      • All-India data from 2018 shows that slightly less than 30 per cent children at age three and 15.6 per cent of children at age four are not enrolled anywhere.
    • Second trend: Under 6 students in class I.
      • ASER 2018 data show that 27.6 per cent of all children in Std I are under six.
      • It is commonly assumed that children enter Standard I at age six and that they proceed year by year from Std I to Std VIII.
      • The Right to Education Act also refers to free and compulsory education for the age group six to 14.
      • However, the practice on the ground is quite different.
    • Third trend: There are important age implications for children’s learning.
      • Association with learning output: ASER-2019 indicate the higher learning output associated with age in the same class.
      • In Std. I, the ability to do cognitive activities among seven-eight-year olds can be 20 percentage points higher than their friends who are five years old but in the same class.
      • In terms of reading levels in Std. I, 37.1 per cent children who are under six can recognise letters whereas 76 per cent of those who are seven or eight can do the same.
      • Age distribution in Std. I vary considerably between government and private schools.
      • Private schools in many states have a relatively older age distribution.

    Way forward

    • Understanding the children: Understanding the challenges that children face when they are young is critical if we want to solve these problems early in children’s life.
    • Providing for developmentally appropriate skill: Instead of focusing on the pre-school years as the downward extension of school years there is a need for providing developmentally appropriate skill in these years.
    • Pedagogy: On the pedagogy side reworking of curriculum and activity is urgently needed for entire age band of four to eight.

     

  • Explained: Article 131, on which Kerala has based its challenge to the CAA

    • The Kerala government moved the Supreme Court against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act becoming the first state to challenge the law.
    • It filed a petition under Article 131 of the Constitution and asked for the law to be declared unconstitutional and in violation of Articles 14 (equality before law), 21 (protection of life and personal liberty) and 25 (freedom of conscience and free profession, practice, and propagation of religion).

    What is Article 131 of the Constitution?

    • The Article vests the Supreme Court with original jurisdiction over disputes occurring between states or between states and the Centre.
    • The original jurisdiction of a court means the power to hear a case for the first time, as opposed to appellate jurisdiction, in which the court reviews the decision of a lower court.
    • Unlike the original jurisdiction under Article 32 (which gives the top court the power to issue writs, etc.), the jurisdiction in Article 131 is exclusive, meaning it is only the Supreme Court which has this authority.
    • Under Article 226, the High Courts too have the power to issue writs, directions etc.

    Original jurisdiction

    • Article 131 reads, “Original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. — Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the Supreme Court shall, to the exclusion of any other court, have original jurisdiction in any dispute —

    (a) between the Government of India and one or more States; or
    (b) between the Government of India and any State or States on one side and one or more other States on the other; or
    (c) between two or more States,
    if and in so far as the dispute involves any question (whether of law or fact) on which the existence or extent of a legal right depends:

    • The said jurisdiction shall not extend to a dispute arising out of any treaty, agreement, covenant, engagement, sanad, or other similar instrument which, having been entered into or executed before the commencement of this Constitution.
    • However they continue in operation after such commencement, or which provides, that the said jurisdiction shall not extend to such a dispute.

    What kinds of disputes are covered under Article 131?

    • In ‘State of Rajasthan vs Union of India’, 1977, the Supreme Court ruled that the existence or extent of a legal right is a precursor before a suit under Article 131 is entertained. But mere wrangles between governments have no place in the scheme of that Article.
    • Similarly, in the 1978 case, ‘State of Karnataka vs Union of India’, which involved the Centre’s authority to order an inquiry into a state Chief Minister’s conduct, jurisdiction under Article 131 was held valid.
    • In the present case filed by Kerala, central legislation (CAA) is being challenged. In 2011, a two-judge Supreme Court Bench in ‘Madhya Pradesh v Union of India’ had held such a suit was not maintainable.
    • Later in 2013, another two-judge Bench in ‘State of Jharkhand v State of Bihar and Another’ disagreed with the previous verdict and referred the matter to a larger Bench. Kerala’s plaint relies on the 2013 verdict.