Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Schedules of the Constitution
Mains level: Paper 2- Strengthening anti-defection law
Context
The political developments in Maharashtra throw up troubling questions about how the political class is weakening the anti-defection law.
Background of the anti-defection law
- It was enacted as the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India, in 1985, under Rajiv Gandhi’s premiership.
- The law as it was enacted provided for the disqualification of a legislator belonging to a political party if he voluntarily gave up his membership of his party or if he defied the whip of his party by voting contrary to its directions in the legislative house.
- Two exceptions: Initially, there were two exceptions provided in the schedule which would exempt a legislator from disqualification.
- 1] Split: The first exception was a split in their original political party resulting in the formation of a group of legislators.
- If the group consisted of one third of such legislators of that party, they were exempted from disqualification.
- This exception was deleted from the schedule through a Constitution Amendment Act of 2003 because of frequent misuse.
- 2] Merger: The second exception was ‘merger’ which can be invoked when the original political party of a legislator merges with another party and not less than two thirds of its legislators agree to such a merger.
Interpretation of term ‘merger’ and issues with it
- It is this second exception contained in paragraph four of the schedule which has been taken recourse to by a large number of legislators across States and even in Parliament to defect to the ruling party.
- These legislators interpreted for themselves the term ‘merger’ to mean the merger of two thirds of legislators.
- Now, the same is being repeated in Maharashtra.
- But there is a little difference here.
- It appears that the dissidents of Shiv Sena believed that if they get the two third number they can form a separate group and topple the government and then form a government with the help of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
- The law imposes the condition of merger of the original political party.
- However, a recent judgment of the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court ( Girish Chodankar vs The Speaker, Goa State Legislative) that held that the merger of two thirds of Members of the Legislative Assembly is deemed to be the merger of the original party seems to have given them a ray of hope.
- So, the legal position is if the dissidents do not merge with another party they will be disqualified now or later.
Question of disqualification
- Disqualification petitions have been filed by the Shiv Sena against 16 of the dissidents under paragraph 2(1)(a) on the ground that they have voluntarily given up the membership of the party.
- The question of whether they have voluntarily given up the membership of the party is decided on the basis of the conduct of a member.
- In Ravi S. Naik vs Union of India (1994), the Supreme Court had said “an inference can be drawn from the conduct of a member that he has voluntarily given up the membership of the party.
Weakening the anti-defection law
- Unprincipled defection: The ongoing developments in Maharashtra have once again brought before the country the reality of what the Supreme Court also described as the political evil of unprincipled defection.
- But the order of the Supreme Court, on June 27, on petitions from the dissidents in the Shiv Sena, gives undue advantage to the dissident legislators.
- The Court has granted them a longer time to submit replies than the rules mandate.
- This order is going to set in motion certain political developments which will resurrect in a big way what the Supreme Court characterised as political evil.
- The intervention by the Supreme Court too has thrown up some crucial question.
- Kihoto Hollohan case: The first question is whether the Court can intervene at a stage prior to the decision by the Deputy Speaker.
- A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court had held in Kihoto Hollohan (1993) that judicial review cannot be available prior to the making of a decision by the Speaker nor at an interlocutory stage of the proceeding.
- The notice of no-confidence against the Deputy Speaker has added another piece to the jigsaw puzzle.
- Nabam Rebia case: The Supreme Court had held in Nabam Rebia (2016) that the Speaker shall not decide the disqualification cases till the no-confidence motion against him is disposed of.
- The House rules clearly say that the notice of no-confidence against the Speaker/Deputy Speaker needs to be admitted in the first place which is done only by the Speaker.
- But it is the House which takes the final decision on the motion. If the notice of no-confidence does not contain specific charges, it can be disallowed by the Speaker.
- Further, the notice can be given only if the House is summoned.
- When the notice was given, the Assembly was not convened. So, the notice against the Deputy Speaker can have no validity under the rules.
Conclusion
The law, though not perfect, is a serious attempt to strengthen the moral content of democracy. There will be shortcomings in this Bill but as we see and identify those shortcomings we should try to overcome them.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Reproductive rights in India
Context
Contrary to the grandstanding since the overturning of the landmark Roe V. Wade judgment, the truth is that India is not ahead of the West in terms of reproductive rights.
Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act
- Abortion in India has been a legal right under various circumstances for the last 50 years with the introduction of Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act in 1971.
- The Act was amended in 2003 to enable women’s accessibility to safe and legal abortion services.
- Abortion is covered 100% by the government’s public national health insurance funds, Ayushman Bharat and Employees’ State Insurance with the package rate for surgical abortion.
The idea of terminating your pregnancy cannot originate by choice and is purely circumstantial. There are four situations under which a legal abortion is performed:
- If continuation of the pregnancy poses any risks to the life of the mother or mental health
- If the foetus has any severe abnormalities
- If pregnancy occurred as a result of failure of contraception (but this is only applicable to married women)
- If pregnancy is a result of sexual assault or rape
These are the key changes that the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act, 2021, has brought in:
- The gestation limit for abortions has been raised from the earlier ceiling of 20 weeks to 24 weeks, but only for special categories of pregnant women such as rape or incest survivors. But this termination would need the approval of two registered doctors.
- All pregnancies up to 20 weeks require one doctor’s approval. The earlier law, the MTP Act 1971, required one doctor’s approval for pregnancies upto 12 weeks and two doctors’ for pregnancies between 12 and 20 weeks.
- Women can now terminate unwanted pregnancies caused by contraceptive failure, regardless of their marital status. Earlier the law specified that only a “married woman and her husband” could do this.
- There is also no upper gestation limit for abortion in case of foetal disability if so decided by a medical board of specialist doctors, which state governments and union territories’ administrations would set up.
Issues with legal provisions related to reproductive rights in India
- Lack of rights based approach: The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act 2021 is far from ideal and has been criticised for not taking a rights-based approach.
- According to the Act, a pregnancy can be terminated on the following conditions: Grave danger to the physical/mental health of the pregnant woman; foetal abnormalities; rape/coercion; and contraceptive failure.
- A woman’s right to choose to end the pregnancy even in the first few weeks is still not recognised in India.
- Systemic barriers: It doesn’t give the pregnant person complete autonomy in ending the pregnancy, instead making them go through various systemic barriers.
- The final decision falls not on the pregnant person, but on registered medical practitioners (RMP).
- The constitution of a medical board, a requirement by the Act, is considered a barrier by the World Health Organisation.
- Excludes transgenders and non-binary persons: Additionally, it uses the word “woman”, thereby leaving out pregnant transgender and non-binary persons who are biologically capable of bearing children.
- It forces them to identify themselves in the gender-binary ignoring their gender identity.
Social factors and lack of medical facilities
- It is important to look through an intersectional lens, and factor in class and caste privilege.
- Abortion facilities in private medical centres are expensive, available only for those who have the resources.
- Lack of access: Not all public health centres, especially in rural India, provide abortion facilities.
- Most unmarried women end up resorting to unsafe abortions in illegal clinics or at home.
- According to the latest National Family Health Survey 2019-2021, 27 percent of the abortions were carried out by the woman herself at home.
- According to United Nations’ Population Fund’s (UNFPA) State of the World Population Report 2022, around 8 women die each day in India due to unsafe abortions.
- It also found that between 2007-2011, 67 percent of the abortions were classified as unsafe.
- Unsafe abortion was one of the top three causes of maternal deaths.
Discussion on reproductive rights in India are incomplete without mentioning surrogacy.
Issues in the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act 2021
- While well-intentioned, leaves much to be desired.
- The plethora of regulations one must undergo is antithetical to a dignified standard of living.
- Exclusionary in nature: Experts have pointed out that the Act is exclusionary in nature, disregards privacy, and also exploits women’s reproductive labour.
- Only a heterosexual married couple (with certain preconditions) can be the intending parents.
- It strips the reproductive autonomy of LGBTQ+ persons and single, divorced, and widowed intending parents. It can be seen as a violation to the fundamental right to equality.
- Experts also believe that regulations, rather than a complete ban on commercial surrogacy, should have been the way forward.
- Violates right to privacy: The Act requires the intending couple to declare their infertility and reveals the identity of the surrogate, both of which violate the right to privacy.
- The landmark Puttaswamy judgment discusses bodily privacy – the right over one’s body and “the freedom of being able to prevent others from violating one’s body.”
- The current reproductive rights regulatory framework falls short in guaranteeing bodily privacy.
Conclusion
The situation in India is far from perfect and we should take this moment to reflect and learn from progressive practices around the world. We should strive for inclusivity, complete bodily autonomy, and reproductive equity.
UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: BNAP, GNAP
Mains level: Read the attached story
The government is planning a new car assessment programme (NCAP) in India, to be called the Bharat NCAP or BNCAP.
What is Bharat NCAP?
- Bharat NCAP is a new car safety assessment programme which proposes a mechanism of awarding ‘Star Ratings’ to automobiles based upon their performance in crash tests.
- BNCAP standard is aligned with global benchmarks and it is beyond minimum regulatory requirements.
- The proposed Bharat NCAP assessment will allocate Star Ratings from 1 to 5 stars.
- The testing of vehicles for this programme will be carried out at testing agencies, with the necessary infrastructure.
Its implementation
- BNCAP will be rolled out from April 1, 2023.
- It will be applicable on type-approved motor vehicles of category M1 with gross vehicle weight less than 3.5 tonnes, manufactured or imported in the country.
- M1 category motor vehicles are used for the carriage of passengers, comprising eight seats, in addition to driver’s seat.
Significance of Bharat NCAP
- BNCAP rating will provide consumers an indication of the level of protection offered to occupants by evaluating the vehicle in the areas of:
- Adult occupant protection
- Child occupant protection
- Safety assist technologies
- It will serve as a consumer-centric platform, allowing customers to opt for safer cars based upon their Star-Ratings.
- It will also promote a healthy competition among original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in India to manufacture safer vehicles.
- It will ensure structural and passenger safety in cars, along with increasing the export-worthiness of Indian automobiles.
- It will prove to be a critical instrument in making our automobile industry Aatmanirbhar.
Why does India need to crash-test vehicles?
- Indian vehicles have historically not been crash-tested in the country.
- Despite being home to only 1% of the world’s vehicles, India shoulders 11% of the global road crash fatality burden.
What about existing testing standards?
- India’s Central Motor Vehicle Rules (CMVR) mandate a safety and performance assessment, including a basic conformity crash test by agencies like the ARAI and ICAT when vehicles go in for type approvals.
- However, this does not involve a crash test rating.
- Many international automakers have been found to sell products in India which score much lower on safety and structural performance parameters.
- This is done to reduce costs in the price-sensitive Indian market.
- However, safety is moving up nowadays the list of key purchase criteria in India as well.
How will a homegrown NCAP help?
- Global NCAP (GNCAP) crash tests for many best-selling Indian vehicles have dismal ratings, many of them rated zero in a bias.
- The government hopes that by facilitating these tests by in-house agencies, more automakers will voluntarily undergo safety assessments and build vehicles that hold up to global standards.
How will it compare with GNCAP?
- The government wants the two tests to be in congruence with each other.
- It intends to design the BNCAP to resemble the GNCAP, the global gold standard, as closely as possible, including the speed for crash testing at 64kmph.
- Central Motor Vehicle rules encompass standards with respect to pedestrian protection and seat belt reminders among others and will be retained in the testing under the BNCAP.
- The government hopes the move will increase the export-worthiness of Indian automobiles.
UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Road safety issues in India
The United Nations is holding a high-level meeting on Global Road Safety on June 30 and July 1, 2022 to review the progress and challenges.
Road Accidents in India: A lookover
- In spite of several years of policymaking to improve road safety, India remains among the worst-performing countries in this area.
- Total 1,47,913 lives lost to road traffic accidents in 2017 as per Ministry of Road Transport and Highways statistics.
- The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) figure for the same year is 1,50,093 road accident deaths.
Why in news?
- The persistently high annual death toll brings into question the country’s ability to meet Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.6.
- This aims to halve the fatalities and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2030.
Lancet’s findings on road safety
- A new analytical series on road safety worldwide, published by The Lancet, proposes that India and other countries could cut accident-related deaths by 25 to 40%.
- This is based on evidence that preventive interventions produce good outcomes when applied to four well-known risk factors:
- High speed
- Driving under the influence of alcohol
- Not using proper helmets
- Not wearing seat-belts and not using child restraints
Issues highlighted in developing countries
- The structural problems linked to unplanned motorisation and urbanisation remain.
- In India, speedy highway construction takes place without reconciling fast and slow-moving traffic.
- There is a rampant presence of ramshackle vehicles, wrong-side driving, absence of adequate traffic police forces etc.
Why are there so many road fatalities in India alone?
- Weak enforcement of traffic laws: People hardly oblige to traffic rules and find easier to bribe policemen rather than paying hefty challans.
- Speeding issue: More accidents on the highways have been attributed to higher vehicle speeds and higher volume of traffic on these roads.
- Engineering bottlenecks: Issues such as gaps in the median on the national highways, untreated intersections, and missing crash barriers are some of the biggest engineering issues.
- Behavioural issue: Driver violations such as wrong-side driving, wrong lane usage by heavy vehicles, and mass violation of traffic lights, intoxication are the biggest behavioural issues.
- Lack of Golden hour treatment: Lack of rapid trauma care on highways leads to such high fatalities.
Various steps taken by India
- India amended Motor Vehicles Act in 2019, but its implementation by State governments is not uniform or complete.
- A National Road Safety Board was constituted under the Act, with advisory powers to reform safety.
- The World Bank has approved a $250 million loan to support for India State Support Programme for Road Safety.
Issues with implementation
- The focus of State governments, however, remains conventional, with an emphasis on user behaviour (drivers and other road users), education and uneven enforcement.
- Low emphasis is placed on structural change such as raising engineering standards for roads, signages, signals, training for scientific accident investigation, raising policing skills and fixing responsibility on government departments for design, creation and maintenance of road infrastructure.
What can be done to cut death and injury rates?
- The ambitious amendments to the Motor Vehicles Act in 2019 (MV Act) have not yielded significant results.
- Major interventions in India, first suggested by the Sundar Committee (2007) and ordered by the Supreme Court in Rajasekaran vs Union of India have not made a dent in the problem.
Key findings of Sundar Committee
- The Sundar Committee pointed out that India lacked a technically competent investigation arm that could determine the cause of accidents.
- There is little clarity on whether the States have formed such units to aid traffic investigation, or whether the insurance industry has pressed for these to accurately determine fault.
- In the absence of scientific investigation, perceptions usually guide the fixing of liability.
Solutions provided by the Lancet
- The Lancet calculated that 17% of road traffic injury-related deaths could be avoided if trauma care facilities improved.
- This is significant as several accidents take place in rural areas on highways, and victims are taken to poorly-equipped district hospitals or medical college hospitals.
- While positive user behaviour — slower travel, wearing of helmets, seat belts and so on — could save thousands of lives.
- In the short term, slowing down traffic, particularly near habitations, segregating slower vehicles, enforcing seat belt and helmet use and cracking down on drunken drivers could produce measurable gains.
Imbibing road safety: Way forward
- Road safety education
- Better road design, maintenance and warning signage
- Crackdown on driving under influence of alcohol and drugs
- Strict enforcement of traffic rules
- Encouraging better road behaviour
- Ensuring road worthiness of a vehicle
- Better first aid and paramedic care
Do you know?
The ‘golden hour’ has been defined as ‘the time period lasting one hour following a traumatic injury during which there is the highest likelihood of preventing death by providing prompt medical care.
UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: UAPA
Mains level: Terrorism and radicalization in India
A Union Minister has said it was necessary to have certain laws like the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) so that action could be taken against terrorists and those who “behead other people”.
Unlawful (Activities) Prevention Act (UAPA)
- The UAPA is aimed at effective prevention of unlawful activities associations in India.
- Its main objective was to make powers available for dealing with activities directed against the integrity and sovereignty of India
- It is an upgrade on the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act TADA, which was allowed to lapse in 1995 and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) was repealed in 2004.
- It was originally passed in 1967 under the then Congress government led by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
- Till 2004, “unlawful” activities referred to actions related to secession and cession of territory. Following the 2004 amendment, “terrorist act” was added to the list of offences.
Major feature: Designation of Terrorists
- The Centre had amended UAPA, 1967, in August 2019 to include the provision of designating an individual as a terrorist.
- Before this amendment, only organisations could be designated as terrorist outfits.
- Section 15 of the UAPA defines a “terrorist act” as any act committed with intent to threaten or likely to threaten the unity, integrity, security, economic security, or sovereignty of India or with intent to strike terror or likely to strike terror in the people or any section of the people in India or in any foreign country.
- The original Act dealt with “unlawful” acts related to secession; anti-terror provisions were introduced in 2004.
Who makes such designation?
- The UAPA (after 2019 amendment)seeks to empower the central government to designate an individual a “terrorist” if they are found committing, preparing for, promoting, or involved in an act of terror.
- A similar provision already exists in Part 4 and 6 of the legislation for organizations that can be designated as a “terrorist organisations”.
How individuals are declared terrorists?
- The central government may designate an individual as a terrorist through a notification in the official gazette, and add his name to the schedule supplemented to the UAPA Bill.
- The government is not required to give an individual an opportunity to be heard before such a designation.
- At present, in line with the legal presumption of an individual being innocent until proven guilty, an individual who is convicted in a terror case is legally referred to as a terrorist.
- While those suspected of being involved in terrorist activities are referred to as terror accused.
What happens when an individual is declared a terrorist?
- The designation of an individual as a global terrorist by the United Nations is associated with sanctions including travel bans, freezing of assets and an embargo against procuring arms.
- The UAPA, however, does not provide any such detail.
- It also does not require the filing of cases or arresting individuals while designating them as terrorists.
Removing the terrorist tag
- The UAPA gives the central government the power to remove a name from the schedule when an individual makes an application.
- The procedure for such an application and the process of decision-making will is decided by the central government.
- If an application filed by an individual declared a terrorist is rejected by the government, the UAPA gives him the right to seek a review within one month after the application is rejected.
- The central government will set up the review committee consisting of a chairperson (a retired or sitting judge of a High Court) and three other members.
- The review committee is empowered to order the government to delete the name of the individual from the schedule that lists “terrorists” if it considers the order to be flawed.
- Apart from these two avenues, the individual can also move the courts to challenge the government’s order.
UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: POEM
Mains level: Not Much
The ISRO has launched three Singaporean satellites in precise orbit through the PSLV Orbital Experimental Module or ‘POEM’.
What is POEM?
- The POEM is a platform that will help perform in-orbit experiments using the final, and otherwise discarded, stage of ISRO’s workhorse rocket, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).
- The PSLV is a four-stage rocket where the first three spent stages fall back into the ocean, and the final stage (PS4) — after launching the satellite into orbit — ends up as space junk.
- However, in PSLV-C53 mission, the spent final stage will be utilised as a “stabilised platform” to perform experiments.
- POEM is carrying six payloads, including two from Indian space start-ups Digantara and Dhruva Space.
Features of POEM
- POEM has a dedicated Navigation Guidance and Control (NGC) system for attitude stabilisation, which stands for controlling the orientation of any aerospace vehicle within permitted limits.
- The NGC will act as the platform’s brain to stabilize it with specified accuracy.
- POEM will derive its power from solar panels mounted around the PS4 tank, and a Li-Ion battery.
- It will navigate using four sun sensors, a magnetometer, gyros & NavIC.
- It carries dedicated control thrusters using Helium gas storage. It is enabled with a telecomm and feature.
Has ISRO repurposed and used PS4 rocket junk earlier?
- The Indian space agency first demonstrated the capability of using PSLV-C44 as an orbital platform in 2019.
- It injected Microsat-R and Kalamsat-V2 satellites into their designated orbits.
- The fourth stage in that mission was kept alive as an orbital platform for space-based experiments.
- While in that mission, the fourth stage had Li-Ion batteries, solar panels are an addition this time.
- The latest repurposing and upgrade of the fourth stage of the PSLV rocket involves the stabilization of the orbital platform.
UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Snake Island
Mains level: Russia-Ukraine War
Russian forces abandoned the strategic Black Sea outpost of Snake Island, in a major victory for Ukraine that could loosen the grip of Russia’s blockade on Ukrainian ports.
I will give you a trick to remember countries bordering Black Sea. It is ‘GURRBUT’.
Now please take effort to write those names of countries here.
Snake Island
- Zmiinyi Island, also known as Snake or Serpent Island, is a small piece of rock less than 700 metres from end to end, that has been described as being “X-shaped”.
- It is located 35 km from the coast in the Black Sea, to the east of the mouth of the Danube and roughly southwest of the port city of Odessa.
- The island, which has been known since ancient times and is marked on the map by the tiny village of Bile that is located on it, belongs to Ukraine.
Why does Russia seek to control the Black Sea?
- Domination of the Black Sea region is a geostrategic imperative for Moscow.
- The famed water body is bound by Ukraine to the north and northwest, Russia and Georgia to the east, Turkey to the south, and Bulgaria and Romania to the west.
- It links to the Sea of Marmara through the Bosporus and then to the Aegean through the Dardanelles.
- It has traditionally been Russia’s warm water gateway to Europe.
- For Russia, the Black Sea is both a stepping stone to the Mediterranean as well as a strategic buffer between NATO and itself.
- Cutting Ukrainian access to the Black Sea will reduce it to a landlocked country and deal a crippling blow to its trade logistics.
UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now