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Subject: Governance

Important aspects of Society

  • Civil Registration System Report, 2020

    The Civil Registration System (CRS) report 2020 was released at least a month before its schedule.

    What is Civil Registration System (CRS)?

    • The CRS collates data on all births and deaths registered with local authorities across India.
    • The CRS report is released by the Registrar-General of India.
    • It releases its report around 18 months after a year ends.

    Significance of the 2020 Report

    • The 2020 report was released at least a month before schedule.
    • Such data can be of significance during a pandemic as possible covid-19 deaths may not have been categorized as such in official records.
    • The CRS can help us reach an estimate by using the “excess deaths” approach.
    • It is the difference between the total number of deaths registered in a pandemic year and the number of deaths that normally take place in a year.

    Why was the data released ahead of schedule?

    • India and the WHO are locked in a tussle over the latter’s excess death estimates that would give a sense of pandemic-linked fatalities globally in 2020-21.
    • India has reportedly stalled WHO’s efforts to release the data, claiming flawed methodology.
    • WHO is set to release its estimates today, a possible reason that India released CRS data early.

    Why is India contesting the WHO approach?

    • One key objection by India is that WHO has classified it as a Tier 2 country and hence used a different modelling process to estimate excess deaths from that used for Tier 1 countries.
    • WHO says all countries that made available their full all-cause mortality data for the pandemic period were classified as Tier 1.
    • India is in Tier 2 because it didn’t share official data with WHO.
    • Hence, alternative data and modelling methods had to be adopted, adjusting for factors such as income levels, covid-19 reporting rates, and test positivity rates.

    What does the 2020 data show?

    (a) Covid deaths

    • The CRS report for 2020 has recorded deaths of 8.12 million Indians, 6.2% more than 2019.
    • Normally, an unusual increase in deaths would be linked to the pandemic. However, in India, not all deaths are registered.
    • Thus, a rise could simply be because of more families getting deaths registered.
    • The CRS for 2021, which saw more Covid deaths, may not be out until next year.

    (b) Improvements in sex ratio

    • Highest Sex Ratio at Birth (SRB) based on registered events has been reported by Ladakh (1,104) followed by Arunachal Pradesh (1,011), A&N Islands (984), Tripura (974), and Kerala (969).
    • The lowest sex ratio was reported by Manipur (880), followed by Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (898), Gujarat (909), Haryana (916) and Madhya Pradesh (921).

     

     

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  • Loudspeaker Crackdown: Court orders and Govt directives

    Illegal and unauthorized loudspeakers had been taken down across the Uttar Pradesh and their loudness had been capped, under “an existing government order of 2018, and set rules for sound decibel limits and court directions”.

    What is the news?

    • The UP state authorities have taken action since the loudspeaker crackdown began in our country.
    • Notices were served to alleged violators by local police stations citing the order of Allahabad High Court of 2017, and centre’s the Noise Pollution Rules, 2000.
    • The recent UP order asked officials to remove illegal loudspeakers after dialogue and coordination with religious leaders, and to ensure that decibel levels are kept within laid down limits.

    Legal basis of loudspeaker crackdowns

    (a) Orders of 2022, 2018

    • The April 23 order said that two earlier orders passed by the government in 2018 were not being followed, and the situation needed to be rectified.
    • Those earlier orders had been passed to ensure implementation of The Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules, 2000.
    • However, it had come to knowledge that many religious institutions are violating the standard decibel norms and are using loudspeakers in large numbers.

    (b) The Noise Pollution Rules, 2000

    • The 2000 Rules define “Ambient Air Quality Standards in Respect of Noise”, i.e., Industrial, Commercial, Residential, and Silence Zones.
    • It asked officials to demarcate these areas and to ensure that the correct norms were followed.
    • Each police station has been asked to prepare a list of religious institutions using loudspeakers under their jurisdiction.

    What is noise pollution?

    • Noise is defined as unwanted sound. A sound might be unwanted because it is loud, distracting, or annoying.
    • Noise pollution is manmade sound in the environment that may be harmful to humans or animals.

    Objective of the NPR, 2000: To regulate and control noise producing and generating sources with the objective of maintaining the ambient air quality standards in respect of noise

    Important compliance’s under NPR, 2000

    • What are the restrictions on using loud speaker or musical system at night?
      : A person cannot play a loud speaker, public address system, sound producing instrument, musical instrument or a sound amplifier at night time except in closed premises like auditorium, conference rooms, community halls or banquet halls.
    • What is the noise level for using loudspeakers or the public address?
      : The persons using loudspeakers or public address shall maintain the noise level and restrain it from exceeding 10 dB (A) above the ambient noise standards for the area specified or 75 dB (A) whichever is lower.
    • What is the Noise level for a private sound system?
      : The persons owning a private sound system or a sound producing instrument shall not, exceed the noise above 5 dB (A) the noise standards specified for the area in which it is used.
    • What are the prohibitions on violating the silence zone areas?
      A person shall not do the following acts in silence zone

      1. Playing any music or uses any sound amplifiers,
      2. A drum or tom-tom or blows a horn either musical or pressure, or trumpet or beats or sounds  any instrument, or
      3. Playing any musical or other performance of a to attract crowd
      4. Bursting sound-emitting firecrackers
      5. Using a loudspeaker or a public address system.

     

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  • Autism Support Network to give Specialised Care in Rural India

    The Centre for Autism and Other Disabilities Rehabilitation Research and Education (CADRRE), a not-for-profit organization will launch “Pay Autention — a different mind is a gifted mind”, India’s first bridgital autism support network.

    Pay ‘Autention’

    • The initiative shall pave the way for small towns and rural India to access specialised care and support and help create an auxiliary network of champions for the differently-abled.
    • This platform shall also enable mentoring, skilling and meaningful livelihoods for people with autism.
    • In the first phase, the initiative will primarily focus on supporting children with autism, and subsequently, in the second stage, it will focus on young adults, empowering them with life skills and career readiness.
    • The content is designed and delivered in collaboration with specialists from CADRRE who have expertise in training children with autism.
    • The project aims to create a network of grassroots champions, enable early identification, first-level care, teach social skills, ways to ease activities of daily living, hold workshops for sensory and motor development.
    • It also focuses on art and craft, dance, music therapy, physical and mental fitness, communication skills and enable support for academics.

    What is Autism?

    • Autism, also called autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a complicated condition that includes problems with communication and behaviour.
    • It can involve a wide range of symptoms and skills.
    • ASD can be a minor problem or a disability that needs full-time care in a special facility.
    • People with autism have trouble with communication. They have trouble understanding what other people think and feel.
    • This makes it hard for them to express themselves, either with words or through gestures, facial expressions, and touch.
    • People with autism might have problems with learning. Their skills might develop unevenly.
    • For example, they could have trouble communicating but be unusually good at art, music, math, or memory.

    What are the signs of Autism?

    Symptoms of autism usually appear before a child turns 3. Some people show signs from birth. Common symptoms of autism include:

    • A lack of eye contact
    • A narrow range of interests or intense interest in certain topics
    • Doing something over and over, like repeating words or phrases, rocking back and forth, or flipping a lever
    • High sensitivity to sounds, touches, smells, or sights that seem ordinary to other people
    • Not looking at or listening to other people
    • Not looking at things when another person points at them
    • Not wanting to be held or cuddled
    • Problems understanding or using speech, gestures, facial expressions, or tone of voice
    • Talking in a sing-song, flat, or robotic voice
    • Trouble adapting to changes in routine

    What causes Autism?

    • Exactly why autism happens isn’t clear. It could stem from problems in parts of your brain that interpret sensory input and process language.
    • Autism is four times more common in boys than in girls. It can happen in people of any race, ethnicity, or social background.
    • Family income, lifestyle, or educational level doesn’t affect a child’s risk of autism. But there are some risk factors:
    1. Autism runs in families, so certain combinations of genes may increase a child’s risk.
    2. A child with an older parent has a higher risk of autism.
    3. Pregnant women who are exposed to certain drugs or chemicals, like alcohol or anti-seizure medications, are more likely to have autistic children
    4. Other risk factors include maternal metabolic conditions such as diabetes and obesity.

    Prevalence of Autism in India

    • Prevalence and incidence statistics about autism in India is 1 in 500 or 0.20% or more than 2,160,000 people.
    • According to a study, an estimated three million people live with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) on the Indian subcontinent.

     

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  • Death Penalty

    Context

    On April 22, a Bench of the Supreme Court of India, led by Justice U.U. Lalit, decided to critically examine the routine and abrupt way in which trial judges often impose the death penalty on convicts.

    Individualistic approach

    • The challenge before the Court in the instant case of Irfan vs State of Madhya Pradesh was to identify the mitigating circumstances and to ensure a convict-centric approach so that the imposition of capital punishment becomes rarer, fairer, and principled.
    • According to the Court, “a ‘one size fit for all’ approach while considering mitigating factors during sentencing should end”.
    • Mitigation expert: The Bench indicated the need for mitigation experts to assist trial courts in reaching a correct conclusion on whether one should be sent to the gallows or not.
    • The Court seemed to think that an individualistic approach that examines the social, economic, emotional, and genetic components that constituted the offender rather than the offence, would go a long way in evolving a just and judicious sentencing policy.
    • An analysis of the possible reasons to avert the death penalty is reflected in a series of recent verdicts such as Lochan Shrivas vs State of Chhattisgarh (2021) and Bhagchandra vs State of Madhya Pradesh (2021).
    • These reasons might include socio-economic backwardness, mental health, heredity, parenting, socialisation, education, etc.

    Background of the humane and reformist framework

    • The special reason: According to Section 354(3) in the Code of Criminal Procedure, while imposing the capital punishment, the judge should specify “the special reasons” for doing so.
    • It was in Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab (1980) that the Constitution Bench suggested a humane and reformist framework in the matter.
    • Bachan Singh requires the trial courts not only to examine the gravity of the offence but also the condition and the ‘reformability’ of the accused. 
    • Not unconstitutional: The Court, in Bachan Singh, refused to declare the death penalty as unconstitutional. 
    • It abundantly implied that no person is indubitably ‘irreformable’.
    • It had the effect of practically undoing the death penalty provision, if taken in its letter and spirit.
    • Person-centric approach: This person-centric approach, for its materialisation, needs a different judicial acumen that recognises the convict in her multitudes.

    Is the Bachan Singh doctrine followed?

    • The Bachan Singh principle was followed more in its breach than in compliance even by the Supreme Court.
    • In Ravji vs State of Rajasthan (1995), the Supreme Court said that it is the nature of the crime and not the criminal which is germane for deciding the punishment.
    • Several other cases also were decided by ignoring the Bachan Singh doctrine, as noted by the Supreme Court itself in Santhosh Kumar Satishbhushan Bariyar vs State of Maharashtra (2009) and Rajesh Kumar vs State (2011).
    • This egregious judicial error will have to be kept in mind while the Court revisits the issues related to mitigating factors and individual-centered sentencing policy in the Irfan case.
    • Shortcomings of Bachan Sing: Bachan Singh did not, in concrete terms, elaborate on the mitigating factors and the methods to gather them to avert the death penalty.
    • Nor did it explain the issues such as burden of proof and standard of proof in detail.

    Issue of misuse and overuse

    • Misuse of sedition provision: The Indian experience shows that whenever the Court tries to dilute the harshness of penal provisions by a balancing approach, instead of striking down the provision, the instrumentalities of the state (including the police, the prosecution and the court) continue to overuse or misuse the provisions.
    • The Supreme Court endorsed the validity of the sedition law (Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code) with a rider that it could be invoked only when there is an incitement to violence.
    • But the state seldom acts based on interpretation of the law. 
    •  Many were booked for the charge of sedition since then for mere words, innocent tweets or harmless jokes.

    Social implications

    • Disproportionate effect on the poor: In India, as elsewhere, the poor, rather than the rich, are sent to the gallows.
    • Ineffectiveness of legal assistance: In Williams vs Taylor (2000), the U.S. Supreme Court said that failure of the defence lawyer in highlighting the mitigating factors that could lead to avoidance of capital punishment makes the legal assistance ineffective. 
    • Therefore, it infringes constitutionally guaranteed rights.
    • In the Indian scenario, the legal assistance received by the poor facing serious charges is far from satisfactory.
    • Mitigating factors not placed: And in the matter of sentencing too, the mitigating factors are either not placed before the trial court or not persuaded adequately to convince the trial judge to avoid the death penalty.

    Way forward

    • Taking empirical lessons from the fate of Bachan Singh, the Supreme Court may have to now ask the more fundamental question posed and negatived in Bachan Singh — the question of the constitutional validity of death penalty.
    • Comprehensive report: The Court, in the instant case, will have to evolve a legal device for procurement of a comprehensive report dealing with the socio-economic and hereditary backgrounds of the accused from experts in the fields of social work, psychiatry, psychology, anthropology, etc.
    • Violation of Article 21: The Court may have to revisit Bachan Singh itself in so far as it refused to declare the death penalty as violative of the right to life envisaged under Article 21 of the Constitution.
    • Across the world, 108 nations have abolished death penalty in law and 144 countries have done so in law or practice, according to the Amnesty Report of 2021.
    • Judicial errors: In the Indian context, where judgmental error is quite frequent and the quality of adjudication is not ensured, what is required is a judicial abolition of death penalty. 

    Conclusion

    The present matter will have to be referred to a larger Bench, with a view to rectify the foundational omission in Bachan Singh — of not explicitly declaring capital punishment as unconstitutional.

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  • What are the rules for resignation and reinstatement of an IAS officer?

    A decorated Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer and UPSC CSE topper from 2010, who resigned from the service in protest against the “unabated” killings in Kashmir in 2019, has been reinstated.

    What rules apply when an IAS officer chooses to resign?

    • A resignation is a formal intimation in writing by an officer of his/her intention or a proposal to leave the IAS, either immediately or at a specified date in the future.
    • Guidelines of the Department of Personnel, the cadre controlling department for the IAS, say that a resignation has to be clear and unconditional.
    • The resignation of an officer of any of the three All-India Services — IAS, the IPS and IFoS — is governed by Rules 5(1) and 5(1)(A) of the All India Services (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rules, 1958.
    • There are similar rules for resignation of officers belonging to the other central services as well.
    • Resignation from service is entirely different from accepting the government’s Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS).

    To whom must the resignation of an IAS officer be submitted?

    • An officer serving in a cadre (state) must submit his/her resignation to the chief secretary of the state.
    • An officer who is on central deputation is required to submit his/her resignation to the secretary of the concerned Ministry or Department.
    • The Ministry/Department then forwards the officer’s resignation to the concerned state cadre, along with its comments or recommendations.

    What happens after the resignation is submitted?

    • The state checks to see if any dues are outstanding against the officer, as well as the vigilance status of the officer or whether any cases of corruption etc. are pending against him/her.
    • In case there is such a case, the resignation is normally rejected.
    • Before forwarding the resignation to the central government, the concerned state is supposed to send information on the issues of dues and vigilance status, along with its recommendation.
    • The resignation of the officer is considered by the competent authority, i.e., the central government, only after the recommendation of the concerned cadre has been received.
    • The competent authorities are: Minister of State at the DoPT in respect of the IAS, the MHA in respect of the IPS, and the MoEFCC in respect of the Forest Service.
    • Being the minister in charge of the DoPT, the Prime Minister himself takes decisions currently in respect of the IAS.

    Under what circumstances is a resignation accepted or rejected?

    • A circular issued by the DoPT on February 15, 1988 regarding resignation says that it is not in the interest of the government to retain an officer who is unwilling to serve.
    • The general rule, therefore, is that the resignation of an officer should be accepted — except in certain circumstances.
    • The references are made regarding the merit of the disciplinary case pending against the Government servant and whether it would be in the public interest to accept the resignation.
    • In some cases, resignations have been rejected because disciplinary cases were pending against officers.
    • In such cases, concurrence of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) is obtained.
    • The government also checks whether the concerned officer had executed any time-bond to serve the government.

    Is an officer allowed to withdraw a resignation that has already been submitted?

    • Rule 5(1A)(i) of the amended DCRB Rules says the central government may permit an officer to withdraw his/her resignation “in the public interest”.
    • An amendment in the Rules in 2011 states the member is allowed to resume duty as a result of permission to withdraw the resignation is not more than 90 days”.
    • The request for withdrawal of resignation shall NOT be accepted where a member of the Service resigns to be associated with any active politics/ political parties.

    And under what circumstances is the withdrawal of an officer’s resignation accepted?

    • The 2011 guidelines say that if a resigned officer resignation sends an intimation in writing withdrawing it before its acceptance by the competent authority, the resignation will be deemed to have been automatically withdrawn.
    • The officer under discussion had resigned on January 9, 2019, but his resignation was not processed.

     

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  • The post-pandemic world needs better public schools

    Context

    The pandemic has thrown a harsh light on the vulnerabilities and challenges faced by the world in education. There is an immense learning gap due to existing inequalities.

    Need for investment in learning systems

    • In India, we have to accept that unless we mobilise learning resources and institutions at the government level, the divides will continue to expand and learners will continue to fall between the cracks.
    • Systems have to be put into place to find a variety of methods to equip all learners — privileged, poor, middle-class and alternatively-abled.
    •  The challenge is about returning to school.
    • In wealthier nations, schools have always been the first to open and last to close and citizens have benefited from the public school system.
    • In India, across states, there is a sense of despair due to unemployment and lack of financial resources, which has snowballed due to the pandemic, resulting in greater inequality.
    • Sending children to school, as opposed to keeping them at home, is a huge financial investment, particularly in the private school system.
    • Parents have refrained from sending their children back to school due to a lack of funds.

    Viewing education through government school lens

    • The big shift that we as a nation have to make is viewing education through a government school lens.
    • This will only take place if states provide the opportunity for free, compulsory, neighbourhood education.
    • Radical reforms have to be implemented to restructure government schools and ensure quality.
    • The government, both at the Centre and in the states, should build good-quality primary, middle and high schools and provide facilities that the best private schools have to offer.
    • Online learning is not the way forward: We are subsumed by the myth that technology has expanded potential.
    • The concern is that online learning will create greater inequality, not only in the global South but even in the most well-resourced corners of the planet.
    • Online learning is not the way forward.
    • The UNESCO’s International Commission on the Futures of Education states in its report, “the core commitments that should always be remembered are public education and common good”.
    • It says, “This is not the time to step back and weaken these principles but rather to affirm and reinforce them.”
    • We must take the opportunity to protect and advance public education.
    • We cannot allow the government health system and government education to be opposed to one another. Their synergies must overlap

    Conclusion

    Public education is crucial to societies, communities and individual lives. It is the only thing that will enable us to live with dignity and purpose.

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  • ‘Mission Antyodaya’ can help transform rural India

    Context

    This article argues that given the right momentum, the ‘Mission Antyodaya’ project bears great promise to eradicate poverty in its multiple dimensions among rural households.

    Background of Mission Antyodaya

    • The ‘Mission Antyodaya’ project was launched by the Government of India in 2017-18.
    • The Ministry of Panchayati Raj and the Ministry of Rural Development act as the nodal agents to take the mission forward.
    • Key goals: The main objective of ‘Mission Antyodaya’ is to ensure optimum use of resources through the convergence of various schemes that address multiple deprivations of poverty, making gram panchayat the hub of a development plan.
    • Annual survey: This planning process is supported by an annual survey that helps to assess the various development gaps at the gram panchayat level, by collecting data regarding the 29 subjects assigned to panchayats by the Eleventh Schedule of the Constitution.
    • Also, data regarding health and nutrition, social security, good governance, water management and so on are also collected.
    • The idea of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj to identify the gaps in basic needs at the local level, and integrating resources of various schemes, self-help groups, voluntary organisations and so on to finance them needs coordination and capacity-building of a high order.
    • If pursued in a genuine manner, this can foster economic development and inter-jurisdictional equity.

    Infrastructural gaps as pointed out by the Mission Antyodaya Survey

    • The ‘Mission Antyodaya’ survey in 2019-20 for the first time collected data that shed light on the infrastructural gaps from 2.67 lakh gram panchayats, comprising 6.48 lakh villages with 1.03 billion population.
    • The maximum score values assigned will add up to 100 and are presented in class intervals of 10.
    • While no State in India falls in the top score bracket of 90 to 100, 1,484 gram panchayats fall in the bottom bracket.
    • Even in the score range of 80 to 90, 10 States and all Union Territories do not appear.
    • The total number of gram panchayats for all the 18 States that have reported adds up only to 260, constituting only 0.10% of the total 2,67,466 gram panchayats in the country.
    •  If we consider a score range of 70-80 as a respectable attainment level, Kerala tops but accounts for only 34.69% of gram panchayats of the State, the corresponding all-India average is as low as 1.09%.
    • The composite index data, a sort of surrogate for human development, are also not encouraging.
    • Although only 15 gram panchayats in the country fall in the bottom range below 10 scores, more than a fifth of gram panchayats in India are below the 40 range.
    • The gap report and the composite index show in unmistakable terms that building ‘economic development and social justice’ remains a distant goal even after 30 years of the decentralisation reforms and nearly 75 years into Independence.

    Way forward

    • Converge resources: Given the ‘saturation approach’ (100% targets on select items) of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, the possibilities of realising universal primary health care, literacy, drinking water supply and the like are also immense.
    • But there is no serious effort to converge resources (the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the National Rural Livelihood Mission, National Social Assistance Programme, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, etc.) and save administrative expenses.
    • Deploy the data to India’s fiscal federalism: Another lapse is the failure to deploy the data to India’s fiscal federalism, particularly to improve the transfer system and horizontal equity in the delivery of public goods in India at the sub-State level.
    • The constitutional goal of planning and implementing economic development and social justice can be achieved only through strong policy interventions.

    Conclusion

    The policy history of India has been witness to the phenomenon of announcing big projects and failing to take them to their logical consequence. ‘Mission Antyodaya’ is a striking case in recent times.

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  • Settling India’s COVID-19 mortality data

    Context

    Over the last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been busy, in an unprecedented effort, to calculate the global death toll from COVID-19.

    Revision of Covid-19 death toll by WHO

    • Globally from an estimated six million reported deaths, WHO now estimates these deaths to be closer to almost triple the number.
    • The new estimates also take into account formerly uncounted deaths, but also deaths resulting from the impact of COVID-19.
    • For example, millions who could not access care, i.e., diagnosis or treatment due to COVID-19 restrictions or from COVID-19 cases overwhelming health services.
    • India’s stand: India is in serious disagreement with the WHO-prepared COVID-19 mortality estimates.
    • The argument being made by India’s health establishment through a public clarification is that this is an overestimation, and the methodology employed is incorrect.

    India’s Covid response

    • India’s COVID-19 response has been replete with delays and denials.
    • For instance, for the longest time that India’s COVID-19 number rose, the health establishment continued to insist that community transmission was not under way.
    • It took months and several lakh cases before they agreed that COVID-19 was finally in community transmission.
    • The devastation of the second wave showed how unprepared we were to combat the deadly Delta variant.
    •  By the time the wave subsided, India’s population was devastated, and helpless, seeing dignity neither in disease nor in death.

    Conclusion

    The figures ratchet up not only issues of administrative but also moral accountability for governments that they have been previously side stepped.

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  • Anatomy of communal violence in India

    Context

    Communal violence, a complex phenomenon, has been over-simplified to suit a convenient political narrative.

    India’s syncretic traditions and impact of invasions

    • For aeons, India has had syncretic traditions inspired by the Vedic aphorism, “Ekam sad vipra bahudha vadanti” (there is only one truth and learned persons call it by many names).
    •  Because of this underpinning, Indian society has never insisted on uniformity in any facet of life.
    • This equanimity of Indian society was, however, disrupted by invading creeds.
    • The first such incursion came in 712, when Muhammad bin Qasim vanquished Sindh, and as Chach Nama, a contemporary Arab chronicle states, introduced the practice of treating local Hindus as zimmis, forcing them to pay jizya (a poll tax), as a penalty to live by their beliefs.
    • In the 11th century, Mahmud of Ghazni, while receiving the caliphate honours on his accession to the throne, took a vow to wage jihad every year against Indian idolaters.
    • The fact is, ties between the two communities were seldom cordial.
    • There were intermittent skirmishes, wars and occasional short-lived opportunistic alliances.
    • When Pakistan declared itself an Islamic Republic in 1947, it would have been natural for India to identify itself as a Hindu state.
    • It didn’t, and couldn’t have — because of its Hindu ethos of pluralism.
    • India, is, and will always be, catholic, plural, myriad and a vibrant democracy.

    Conclusion

    It’s relevant to recall what Lester Pearson (14th PM of Canada) said: “Misunderstanding arising from ignorance breeds fear, and fear remains the greatest enemy of peace.”

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  • Rape laws are being misused today: Justice BN Srikrishna

    Retired Supreme Court judge Justice BN Srikrishna has said that there is a blatant misuse of rape laws in the country.

    What did Justice BN Srikrishna say?

    • Lesser convictions: Statistics show that even after the amendment of rape laws, there have been less number of convictions.
    • Need for objective analysis: It is time that rape cases be looked at in a very objective manner.
    • Authencity of women’s claims needs to be checked: We need to question — is the woman really subjected to cruelty and atrocities? Otherwise, in the general course of things, the accused is presumed to be innocent unless proven guilty should apply.
    • Tilt of such laws is always against the men: However, in rape cases, whatever the woman says is treated as the gospel truth. But that is not the intention of the law. It is not the way to empower women.

    Various laws for the protection of women

    • Various special laws relating to women include:
    1. Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005
    2. Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961
    3. Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986
    4. Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013
    5. Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006

     Alleged rape cases these days

    • False accusations: Justice BN Srikrishna said that, sometimes some innocent men are being falsely accused of rape and later getting acquitted.
    • Consensual sex is later cried as rape: There are many cases either in a consensual relationship or in co-habitation for a long time, there is a disagreement and the woman cries rape.
    • Tool to preserve honour: There are instances where a secret affair is going on, people get to know of it and in order to come out of the ignominy of it, she cries rape, Justice Srikrishna said.

    Issues with such alleged rape cases

    • Whenever the man is accused of rape, he gets arrested, newspapers carry it on the front page.
    • But when there is an acquittal, it is not carried in the same way. This is terrible.
    • The balance is always tilted in favour of women in such cases.

    Various sexual crimes in India

    • Sexual Abuse/ Molestation/ Rape: Rape is one of the most common crimes in India. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, one woman is raped every 20 minutes in India.
    • Marital Crimes: In India, marital rape is not a criminal offense.  India is one of fifty countries that have not yet outlawed marital rape.
    • Forced Marriage: Girls are vulnerable to being forced into marriage at young ages, suffering from a double vulnerability: both for being a child and for being female.
    • Trafficking and forced prostitution: Human trafficking, especially of girls and women, often leads to forced prostitution and sexual slavery.
    • Online abuse: Women are regularly subject to online rape threats, online harassment, cyber-stalking, blackmail, trolling, slut-shaming and more.
    • Harassment at the workplace: Sexual harassment at workplace, mostly comprising of indecent remarks, unwanted touches, demands for sex, and the dissemination of pornography.

    Various initiative to protect women

    The Government has taken a number of initiatives for the safety of women and girls, which are given below:

    • Nirbhaya Fund for projects for the safety and security of women
    • One-Stop Centre Scheme to provide integrated support and assistance to women affected by violence, both in private and public spaces under one roof
    • Online analytic tool for police called “Investigation Tracking System for Sexual Offences” to monitor and track time-bound investigation in sexual assault cases in accordance with Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2018.
    • National Database on Sexual Offenders (NDSO) to facilitate investigation and tracking of sexual offenders across the country by law enforcement agencies.

    Way ahead

    • Breaking the cycle of abuse will require concerted collaboration and action between governmental and non-governmental actors including educators, health-care authorities, legislators, the judiciary and the mass media.
    • Gender-based violence, an especially violent crime like rape, is a multifaceted problem.
    • Although the incorporation of stringent laws and stricter punishments are important to deter people from committing such crimes, the solution to this is much more than just promulgation.
    • Education of both men and women will lead to change in attitudes and perceptions.
    • It is a mammoth task. We are just doing bits and pieces. A way ahead is obscure but in our sphere with concrete and pronounced steps.

     

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