Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: 1951 Refugee Convention
Mains level: Paper 2- Need for refugee protection policy framework in India
The article highlights the issue of the lack of refugee protection framework in India and suggests enacting domestic law to deal with the issue.
India’s record on refugee protection
- India, for the most part, has had a stellar record on the issue of refugee protection.
- But this moral tradition has come under great stress of late.
- New Delhi has been one of the largest recipients of refugees in the world in spite of not being a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol.
Confusion in policies for immigrants and refugees
- Much of the debate in India is about illegal immigrants, not refugees, the two categories tend to get bunched together.
- Our policies towards illegal immigrants and refugees is confused is because as per Indian law, both categories of people are viewed as one and the same and are covered under the Foreigners Act, 1946.
- The act offers a simple definition of a foreigner — “foreigner” means “a person who is not a citizen of India”.
- There are fundamental differences between illegal immigrants and refugees, but India is legally ill-equipped to deal with them separately due to a lack of legal provisions.
- Also, India is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, the key legal documents pertaining to refugee protection.
How absence of policy framework creates problems
- The absence of legal framework for refugees leads to policy ambiguity whereby India’s refugee policy is guided primarily by ad hocism and ‘political utility’.
- At the same time, the absence of a legal framework increases the possibility of the domestic politicisation of refugee protection and complicates its geopolitical faultlines.
- The absence of a clearly laid down refugee protection law also opens the door for geopolitical considerations while deciding to admit refugees or not.
- For example, India’s decision in the recent case of admitting Myanmarese refugees fleeing to India was influence by the possibility of irking the Generals in Naypyitaw.
- However, hypothetically speaking, if New Delhi had domestic legislation regarding refugees it could have tempered the expectations of the junta to return the fleeing Myanmarese.
Why India has not signed convention and protocol on refugee protection
- The definition of refugees in the 1951 convention only pertains to the violation of civil and political rights, but not economic rights, of individuals.
- If the violation of economic rights were to be included in the definition of a refugee, it would clearly pose a major burden on the developed world.
- This argument, if used in the South Asian context, could be a problematic proposition for India too.
- India also need to argue that the North is violating the convention in both letter and spirit, and make its accession conditional on the Western States rolling back the non-entrée (no entry) regime.
- The non-entrée regime is constituted by a range of legal and administrative measures that include visa restrictions, carrier sanctions, interdictions, third safe-country rule, restrictive interpretations of the definition of ‘refugee’, withdrawal of social welfare benefits to asylum seekers, and widespread practices of detention.”
- In other words, India must use its exemplary, though less than perfect, history of refugee protection to begin a global conversation on the issue.
Way forward
- What other options do we have to respond to the refugee situation we are faced with?
- The answer perhaps lies in a new domestic law aimed at refugees.
- The CAA, however, is not the answer to this problem primarily because of its deeply discriminatory nature.
- What is perhaps equally important is that such a domestic refugee law should allow for temporary shelter and work permit for refugees.
- India must also make a distinction between temporary migrant workers, illegal immigrants and refugees and deal with each of them differently through proper legal and institutional mechanisms.
Consider the question “What are the reasons for India’s not singing 1951 Refugee Convention? What are the options India can explore for refugee protection?
Conclusion
Our traditional practice of managing these issues with ambiguity and political expediency has become deeply counterproductive: It neither protects the refugees nor helps stop illegal immigration into the country.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Issue of linking interest rate on small saving with the G-sec yields
The article highlights the issues with linking small savings interest rates with the yield on G-sec and its resetting on a quarterly basis.
Issue of small savings interest rate
- For decades, small savings have constituted an important source of household savings, funded development programmes of state governments and offered a safe and secure source of income to senior citizens.
- Recently, a notification on reducing the interest rates on small savings schemes quickly made headlines and was rescinded after 12 hours.
- For small savers, the pandemic turned into a triple whammy: Battling job losses, higher food prices and a sharp devaluation in the value of their savings and earnings thereof.
- Interest on the Senior Citizens’ Saving Scheme was cut to 7.4 per cent, effective from April 2020, from 8.7 per cent before,
- This was done despite the Gopinath Committee had recommended the rates should never be revised more than 100 basis points in a single year.
Linking small savings rate to G-sec yields
- The suggestion to link small savings rates to G-Sec yields was first made in 2001 by Y V Reddy, then deputy governor of RBI.
- Reddy committee suggested small savings rates should be reset once a year, allowing for a spread of up to 50 basis points.
- Reddy’s recommendations were reiterated by his successor Rakesh Mohan.
- The Gopinath Committee, set up in 2009 gave its report in June 2011 and annual revisions in small savings rates linked to G-sec yields got underway effective April 2012.
- In 2016, however, the government decided to reset them on a quarterly basis.
Why link small savings rate to G-sec yields
- Such linking is premised on the argument that the money collected through these schemes is invested in central and state government securities.
- While the yield on the government securities progressively declined over time, small savings rates remained downwardly rigid.
- This resulted in an asset-liability mismatch that threatened the viability of the NSSF.
- It is also argued that people’s dependence on small savings schemes had significantly declined since formal banking had rapidly expanded.
- Moreover, for those who used small savings as safety nets there were other alternatives such as old-age pension and other similar schemes.
Issues with resetting rates on quarterly basis
- All expert committees that examined the issue had strongly argued against resetting the rates on a quarterly basis.
- The fear was it could result in unfair rewards for small savers in the event the G-sec yields remain artificially low for a certain period of time.
- It did happen in the pandemic year when small savings rates faced the steepest cut in five years.
- The changed policy on small savings is also premised on the belief that markets offer fair outcomes.
- More often than not, that is not true.
- The experience of the past year bears it out.
- While retail inflation spiked, the RBI used every trick in its bag to hold G-sec yields down.
Way forward
- The government could go back to resetting the rates annually, keeping the revision under 100 basis points and allowing small savings rates a spread of at least 50 basis points, not up to 50 basis points, over and above the G-sec yields.
- Also, it may revisit the suggestion made by the Rakesh Mohan Committee to use a weighted average of G-sec yields over preceding two years — two-thirds weight for the later year, one-third for the earlier year.
Consider the question “What was the rationale for linking the interest rates on small savings to yield on G-sec? What are the issues with it?
Conclusion
Adopting the changes suggested here may require setting aside a few thousand crores to fill the resultant gap in the NSSF. But it is worth doing.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: FONOP
Mains level: Freedom of navigation issues
The US Navy has had “asserted navigational rights and freedoms approximately 130 nautical miles west of Lakshadweep Islands, inside India’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), without requesting India’s prior consent, consistent with international law”.
Try this question:
Q.What do you mean by Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs)? What are its legal backings? Discuss its significance.
Freedom of Navigation Operations
- FONOPs are closely linked to the concept of freedom of navigation, and in particular to the enforcement of relevant international law and customs regarding freedom of navigation.
- It involves passage conducted by the US Navy through waters claimed by coastal nations as their exclusive territory.
- It is carried under the US policy of exercising and asserting its navigation and overflight rights and freedoms around the world”.
- It says these “assertions communicate that the US does not acquiesce to the excessive maritime claims of other nations, and thus prevents those claims from becoming accepted in international law”.
Significance of FONOPs
- FONOPs are a method of enforcing UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) and avoiding these negative outcomes by reinforcing freedom of navigation through practice.
- It is exercised by sailing through all areas of the sea permitted under UNCLOS, and particularly those areas that states have attempted to close off to free navigation as defined under UNCLOS.
What about EEZs?
- An exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is prescribed by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
- It is an area of the sea in which a sovereign state has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources, including energy production from water and wind.
- It stretches from the baseline out to 200 nautical miles from the coast of the state in question.
- It is also referred to as a maritime continental margin and, in colloquial usage, may include the continental shelf.
- The term does not include either the territorial sea or the continental shelf beyond the 200 nautical mile limit.
- The difference between the territorial sea and the exclusive economic zone is that the first confers full sovereignty over the waters, whereas the second is merely a “sovereign right” which refers to the coastal state’s rights below the surface of the sea.
- The surface waters, as can be seen on the map, are international waters.
Is FONOP violative of India’s EEZ?
- As per India’s Territorial Waters Act, 1976, the EEZ of India “is an area beyond and adjacent to the territorial waters, and the limit of such zone is two hundred nautical miles from the baseline”.
- India’s “limit of the territorial waters is the line every point of which is at a distance of twelve nautical miles from the nearest point of the appropriate baseline”.
- Under the 1976 law, “all foreign ships (other than warships including submarines and other underwater vehicles) shall enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial waters”.
Back2Basics: UNCLOS
- The Law of the Sea Treaty formally known as the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was adopted in 1982 at Montego Bay, Jamaica. It entered into force in 1994.
- The convention establishes a comprehensive set of rules governing the oceans and replaces previous U.N. Conventions on the Law of the Sea
- The convention defines the distance of 12 nautical miles from the baseline as Territorial Sea limit and a distance of 200 nautical miles distance as Exclusive Economic Zone limit.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Article 25
Mains level: Not Much
The Supreme Court has said people are free to choose their own religion and lashed out at a PIL claiming that there is mass religious conversion happening across the country.
Right to freedom of Religion
Article 25 of the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion to all persons in India. It provides that all persons in India, subject to public order, morality, health, and other provisions:
- Are equally entitled to freedom of conscience, and
- Have the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion.
It further provides that this article shall not affect any existing law and shall not prevent the state from making any law relating to:
- Regulation or restriction of any economic, financial, political, or secular activity associated with religious practice.
- Providing social welfare and reform.
- Opening of Hindu religious institutions of public character for all the classes and sections of the Hindus.
What did the Supreme Court say?
- Instead, a Bench led by Justice Rohinton F. Nariman said people have a right under the Constitution to profess, practise and propagate religion.
- Justice Nariman said every person is the final judge of their own choice of religion or who their life partner should be. Courts cannot sit in judgment of a person’s choice of religion or a life partner.
- Religious faith is a part of the fundamental right to privacy.
- Justice Nariman reminded Mr Upadhyay of the Constitution Bench judgment which upheld inviolability of the right to privacy, equating it with the rights to life, dignity and liberty.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: SARTHAQ
Mains level: Not Much
Union Education Minister has launched ‘Students’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement through Quality Education (SARTHAQ), the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 implementation plan for school education.
SARTHAQ
- SARTHAQ keeps in mind the concurrent nature of education and adheres to the spirit of federalism.
- The plan delineates the roadmap for the implementation of NEP 2020 for the next 10 years.
- States and Union Territories have been given the flexibility to adapt the plan with “local contextualization”.
- They have been allowed to modify the plan as per their needs and requirements.
Envisaged outcomes
- Increase in Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER), Net Enrolment Ratio (NER), transition rate and retention rate at all levels and reduction in dropouts and out of school children.
- Access to quality ECCE and Universal Acquisition of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy by Grade 3.
- Improvement in Learning Outcomes at all stages with an emphasis on teaching and learning through mother tongue/local/regional languages in the early years.
- Integration of vocational education, sports, arts, knowledge of India, 21st-century skills, values of citizenship, awareness of environment conservation, etc. in the curriculum at all stages.
- Introduction of Experiential learning at all stages and adoption of innovative pedagogies by teachers in classroom transaction.
- Integration of technology in educational planning and governance and availability of ICT and quality e-content in classrooms.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not Much
Mains level: Opium cultivation
The Central government has decided to rope in the private sector to commence production of concentrated poppy straw from India’s opium crop.
What is the move?
- The move aims to boost the yield of alkaloids, used for medical purposes and exported to several countries.
- Among the few countries permitted to cultivate the opium poppy crop for export and extraction of alkaloids, India currently only extracts alkaloids from opium gum at facilities controlled by the Revenue Department.
- This entails farmers extracting gum by manually lancing the opium pods and selling the gum to government factories.
- The Ministry has now decided to switch to new technologies after trial cultivation reports submitted last year by two private firms showed higher extraction of alkaloids using the concentrated poppy straw (CPS).
Opium Poppy
- The milky fluid that seeps from cuts in the unripe poppy seed pod has, since ancient times, been scraped off and air-dried to produce what is known as opium.
- The seedpod is first incised with a multi-bladed tool.
- This lets the opium “gum” ooze out.
- The semi-dried “gum” is harvested with a curved spatula and then dried in open wooden boxes.
- The dried opium resin is placed in bags or rolled into balls for sale.
Why such a move?
- India’s opium crop acreage has been steadily declining over the years.
- The CPS extraction method is expected to help cut the occasional dependence on imports of products like codeine (extracted from opium) for medical uses.
Amendments to NDPS Act
- Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are the three traditionally opium-growing States, where poppy crop cultivation is allowed based on licences issued annually by the Central Bureau of Narcotics.
- While roping in private players in producing CPS and extracting alkaloids from it is likely to require amendments to the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985.
- The Revenue Department has decided to appoint a consultant to help frame the bidding parameters and concession agreements for the same.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NanoSniffer
Mains level: NA
A Union Minister has launched NanoSniffer, the world’s first Microsensor based Explosive Trace Detector (ETD) developed by NanoSniff Technologies, an IIT Bombay incubated startup.
Can you name some explosives?
NanoSniffer
- NanoSniffer is a 100% Made in India product in terms of research, development & manufacturing.
- It can detect explosives in less than 10 seconds and it also identifies and categorizes explosives into different classes. It detects all classes of military, conventional and homemade explosives.
- It gives visible & audible alerts with a sunlight-readable colour display.
- NanoSniffer provides trace detection of the nano-gram quantity of explosives & delivers result in seconds.
- It can accurately detect a wide range of military, commercial and homemade explosives threats.
- Further analysis of the algorithms also helps in the categorization of explosives into the appropriate class.
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