Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: BIMSTEC
Mains level: Paper 2- Key takeaways from BIMSTEC Summit
Context
The celebrations to mark the 25th year of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) have been accompanied by the announcement of several new initiatives.
Important outcome of BIMSTEC Summit
The summit had several important outcomes: Expanding the grouping’s agenda, deepening cooperation between the member countries and planning systematically for consistency and coherence.
1] Finalisation of charter
- The Bay of Bengal Community was launched in 1997. But its charter, finalised last week, was more than two decades in the making.
- The 20-page document adopted at the fifth BIMSTEC Summit articulates the purpose, principles and legal standing of the organisation.
- It also delineates the process to admit new members – this requires the consensus of the members.
- The emphasis on consensus is important, given the sensitivities of the member countries.
- One important provision in the charter is to keep regular meetings on track and provide enough scope to the BIMSTEC Permanent Working Committee to keep the process energised.
2] Development on connectivity issues
- Amongst the important decisions is the one related to the BIMSTEC Master Plan for Transport Connectivity.
- The region requires seamless connectivity through multi-modal channels that improve links within and amongst the member countries.
- These channels should be in sync with the regulatory frameworks of the member countries.
- There are proposals to extend the trilateral highway project between Thailand, Myanmar and India to Laos and Cambodia. Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal have also evinced interest in the project.
- Digitisation has enhanced cooperation in customs regulations and facilitated and improved cargo clearance procedures. All this will surely enhance investment linkages and improve regional trade.
3] A systemic approach to streamline the evolution of BIMSTEC.
- Establishing an Eminent Persons’ Group (EPG) for formulating a vision document for the region will help in articulating the aspirations of the collective.
- EPGs have been quite useful in the EU and ASEAN.
- For instance, the ASEAN-India Eminent Persons Group (AIEPG) was constituted in 2005 after the Eighth ASEAN-India Summit.
- Its recommendations still guide the grouping’s work.
- In 2011, the EU constituted an EPG to suggest a roadmap to address the challenges arising from the resurgence of intolerance and discrimination in Europe.
4] MoU for legal assistance and mutual cooperation
- The MoU for legal assistance in criminal matters and additional MoUs for mutual cooperation between diplomatic academics and training institutes would help in creating an ecosystem of deeper knowledge-related cooperation.
- The technology transfer facility proposed in Colombo is likely to augment these efforts.
India’s leading role
- India has promised $1 million to set up a Secretariat in Dhaka.
- India has identified several other areas where it will support the collective.
- Delhi will provide a $3 million grant to the BIMSTEC Centre for Weather and Climate, promote collaboration between industries and start-ups, and launch programmes that will help in the adoption of international standards and norms.
- Agricultural trade analysis: Delhi has also suggested a regional value chain based agricultural trade analysis – this will be conducted by the RIS.
- The Asian Development Bank and the New Delhi-based ICRIER have stewarded awareness programmes on trade facilitating measures in the member countries.
- Support to Sri Lanka and Nepal: The pandemic has created fresh challenges and aggravated old ones in the countries of the region, particularly Sri Lanka and Nepal.
- India’s support to these countries, especially in financial matters, could help in reducing undesirable external intervention in the region.
Way forward
- Need for FTA: The early completion of the regional free trade agreement could provide a fillip to the organisation’s efforts.
- Promote research on cultural and civilisation linkages: Besides economic links, the Bay of Bengal countries share a cultural and civilisational legacy.
- The role of institutions like Nalanda University in promoting research on cultural and civilisational linkages and improving the adoption of sustainable practices would be equally significant.
Conclusion
The collective’s fifth summit that concluded in Colombo showcased member nations’ resolve to facilitate connectivity and security and enhance the prosperity of the region.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: LAF corridor
Mains level: Paper 3- Monetary policy normalisation
Context
The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday gave a surprise, with a formal start to policy normalisation. This was contrary to the predominant market expectations of a hold.
RBI on the path of policy normalisation
- Focus on target of 4% +/- 2%: While the MPC voted unanimously to remain accommodative, in a change of language, the focus would now be on “withdrawal of accommodation to ensure that (CPI) inflation remains within the target (of 4 per cent +/- 2 per cent) going forward”.
- Remember, the RBI had become a (flexible) inflation-targeting central bank since FY17, whose primary objective is price stability, that is, inflation management.
- The Liquidity Adjustment Facility (LAF) corridor was narrowed back to the conventional 0.25 percentage points from the earlier extraordinary pandemic widening in late March 2020.
- The cap of the erstwhile corridor was the repo rate and the floor was the reverse repo.
- Now, while the repo rate was held at 4.0 per cent and the latter at 3.35 per cent, the floor of the corridor was increased by 0.4 percentage points from 3.35 per cent.
- There was also a change in the monetary policy orientation, of which the stance is one component.
- The priority for monetary policy now is inflation, growth and financial stability, in that order.
Reasons for unexpected tightening of policy
- Inflation concerns: Despite uncertainty over growth impulses and demand concentrated at the upper-income level households, inflation has increasingly emerged as a big concern.
- Given that inflation is likely to average 6.1 per cent in Q4 of FY22, this increases the risk of inflation remaining above the 6 per cent upper target for three consecutive quarters, necessitating an explanation to the government by the MPC.
- One comforting aspect of this scenario is that household inflation expectations remain anchored, with the median of three months to one year ahead expectations (as of March ’22) rising by only 0.1 percentage points from the earlier January readings.
- Stabilisation of demand: On demand conditions, the RBI scaled-down the FY23 real GDP growth projection to 7.2 per cent (from 7.8 per cent), indicating that a combination of continuing supply dislocations, slowing global economy and trade, high prices and financial markets volatility are likely to take a toll.
- One possible reconciliation with modest GDP growth is continuing weakness in services, which is also borne out by channel checks.
- Certainly, continuing high inflation is likely to lead to some demand destruction, which will act as an automatic stabiliser.
- A relatively loose fiscal policy is likely to offset some of this reduced demand, particularly with continuing subsidies to lower-income households.
- Financial stability: This has multiple dimensions – interest and foreign exchange rates, market volatility, banking sector asset stress, and so on.
- An important objective for the RBI is the management of money supply and system liquidity.
- In a rising rate cycle, with a large borrowing programme of the Centre and state governments, interest rates on sovereign bonds are likely to increase without a measure of support from the RBI through Open Market Operations (OMOs).
- This will entail injecting more liquidity into an already large surplus, which might add to inflationary pressures.
- The introduction of the overnight Standing Deposit Facility (SDF) was a significant measure in this context.
- Unlike the reverse repo facility, the RBI will not need to give banks government bonds as collateral against the funds they deposit.
- This is thus a more flexible instrument should a shortage of government bonds in RBI holdings actually transpire under some eventuality, say the need to absorb large capital inflows post a bond index inclusion.
What are the implications?
- Interest rates will begin to increase but, for bank borrowers, this is likely to be a very gradual process.
- For corporates and other wholesale borrowers, who also borrow from bond markets, this increase is likely to be faster as the surplus system liquidity is gradually drained.
- How this is likely to affect demand for credit is uncertain, given the capex push of the government, some revival of private sector investment and likely continuing demand for housing.
Conclusion
This cycle of policy tightening will present a particularly difficult mix of economic and financial trade-offs, but RBI has demonstrated the ability to innovatively use the multiple instruments at its disposal to ensure an orderly transition.
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Back2Basics: Liquidity Adjustment Facility corridor
- Liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) is a monetary policy tool which allows banks to borrow money through repurchase agreements or repos.
- LAF is used to aid banks in adjusting the day to day mismatches in liquidity (frictional liquidity deficit/surplus).
- The liquidity adjustment facility corridor is the excess of repo rate over reverse repo.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Article 20
Mains level: Paper 2- Right against self-incrimination
Context
The Bill proposes to collect “measurements” of convicted persons, those who are arrested (or detained under preventive detention laws) or those who have executed bonds promising good behaviour.
Dilution of right against self-incrimination
- The Constitution, under Article 20(3), protects an accused from being compelled to give witness against himself.
- This fundamental right has been diluted over the years.
- In 2005, the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) was amended to allow a magistrate to order any person to give their handwriting samples for the purpose of an investigation or proceeding.
- In 2019, the Supreme Court, in Ritesh Sinha v. State of UP, held that such handwriting samples could include voice samples.
- It relied upon its judgment in the Kathi Kalu Oghad case (1962) that held that giving palm impressions or footprints could not be called self-incriminatory because impressions were unchangeable, except in rare cases”.
- Instead, it held that the Constitution bars the compulsory extraction of a statement — oral or written — from the accused, “which makes the case against the accused person at least probable, considered by itself”.
Provisions in the Bill
- While the databasing of convicted persons is not new, the new piece of legislation allows for taking information, including finger-impressions, palm-print impressions, footprint impressions, photographs, iris and retina scan, physical, biological samples and their analysis, behavioural attributes including signatures, handwriting or any other examination referred to in Sections 53, 53A of the CrPC.
- It also mandates the National Crime Records Bureau to store, preserve and destroy the record of measurements at the national level as well as process and share them with any law enforcement agency.
Issues with the Bill
- Right against self-incrimination is unlikely to apply to technologies in use today.
- Wide scope of under new technologies: The logic that was used in 1962 to interpret what would violate the right against self-incrimination is unlikely to apply to technologies in use today.
- The Bill is vaguely worded and the nature of the processing, sharing, and dissemination of data it entails will most certainly involve the use of new and emerging technologies.
- Their application to policing and the criminal justice system has new implications for the right against self-incrimination.
- The compulsory submission of such information could have chilling effects after being subjected to new technologies – in other words, the past of an accused person might be enough to incriminate him.
- Possibility of coercive data collection: The Bill proposes to collect “measurements” of convicted persons, those who are arrested (or detained under preventive detention laws) or those who have executed bonds promising good behaviour.
- Only those arrested for petty offences that are punishable with less than seven years may not be obliged to allow the recording of measurements.
- This rings a warning bell about coercive data collection, especially when seen in the light of the practices used to police oppressed communities.
- For instance, under the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871, many nomadic and semi-nomadic communities were labelled hereditary criminals.
- Despite the Act being repealed in 1952, these denotified tribal (“Vimukta”) communities continue to be treated as criminals by birth through the “Habitual Offenders” provisions in state-level police regulations that allow local police stations to keep records of such persons residing in their area.
- It condemns a section of the country’s population to several cycles of arrest, bail, and acquittal.
- The new piece of legislation could make the practice of history-sheeting, undertaken when a person is merely alleged of a crime, and not convicted, even more coercive.
- Long storage period and no clear process for destroying information: the “measurements” are to be stored at the national level for 75 years, with no clear procedure outlined for destroying the information.
Conclusion
The right against self-incrimination is at the heart of protection against police excess and torture. Record-keeping as mandated by the Bill violates this right. Parliament must make laws that protect against such blatant attacks on fundamental rights and freedoms, rather than enable them.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Challenges facing CBI
Context
The Chief Justice of India (CJI), Justice N.V. Ramana, while delivering the annual (and the 19th edition) D.P. Kohli Memorial Talk minced no words in condemning the utter subordination of agencies to the executive and its disastrous consequences for the cause of justice.
Key takeaways
- Resisting the pressure: The CJI called upon investigators to stand up to unethical pressures in order not to betray the trust reposed in them by the public.
- Strong court: We need a strong Supreme Court and equally strong High Courts to keep our investigators on the straight and narrow path.
- Fixed tenure: Earlier, CBI Directors were changed at will.
- Mandatory tenure was meant to insulate the CBI Director from the caprice of the executive.
- This process has since been expanded to include the CJI in the selection panel.
- Strong leadership: The CBI now has some of the brightest Indian Police Service officers in its higher echelons.
- However, it is not enough if the middle-rung supervisors alone are straightforward.
Should there be an umbrella organisation?
- The CJI had proposed an umbrella organisation that will oversee all investigating agencies.
- This idea was meant to avoid having multiple agencies looking into the same set of allegations.
- Apart from its impracticality, such a novel body could generate its own problems — of turf wars and ego clashes.
Way forward
- There is a need to focus on weeding out the dishonest among officers and rewarding those who have shown and proven themselves to be honest and professionally innovative.
Conclusion
There needs to be a strong and virtuous leader who will not only be honest but also stick his neck out to protect his deputies if and when confronted by an unscrupulous political heavyweight.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)
Mains level: Paper 2-India-Nepal relation
Context
The Nepal Prime Minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, paid a long-awaited visit to India last week (April 1-3). Sworn in in July 2021, this was his first bilateral visit abroad, in keeping with tradition.
Positive outcomes of the visit
- Among the highlights was the operationalisation of the 35 kilometre cross-border rail link from Jayanagar (Bihar) to Kurtha (Nepal).
- The second project that was inaugurated was the 90 km long 132 kV double circuit transmission line connecting Tila (Solukhumbu) to Mirchaiya (Siraha) close to the Indian border.
- In addition, agreements providing technical cooperation in the railway sector, Nepal’s induction into the International Solar Alliance, and between Indian Oil Corporation and Nepal Oil Corporation on ensuring regular supplies of petroleum products were also signed.
- The Mahakali Treaty covers the Sarada and Tanakpur barrages as well as the 6,700 MW (approximately) Pancheshwar Multipurpose project.
- Both sides have agreed to push for an early finalisation of the detailed project report.
- The joint vision statement on power sector cooperation recognises the opportunities for joint development power generation projects together with cross border transmission linkages and coordination between the national grids; it can provide the momentum.
Issues in India-Nepal relations
- Over the years, a number of differences have emerged between India and Nepal that need attention.
- The relationship took a nosedive in 2015, with India first getting blamed for interfering in the Constitution drafting process and then for an “unofficial blockade” that generated widespread resentment against India.
- Revision of Treaty of Peace and Friendship: As one of the oldest bonds, the 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship was originally sought by the Nepali authorities in 1949 to continue the special links they had with British India.
- It provides for an open border and for Nepali nationals to have the right to work in India.
- But today, it is viewed as a sign of an unequal relationship, and an Indian imposition.
- The idea of revising and updating it has found mention in Joint Statements since the mid-1990s.
- Demonetisation is another irritant. In November 2016, India withdrew ₹15.44 trillion of high value (₹1,000 and ₹500) currency notes. Many Nepali nationals who were legally entitled to hold ₹25,000 of
- Indian currency (given that the Nepali rupee is pegged to the Indian rupee) were left high and dry.
- The Nepal Rashtra Bank, which is the central bank, holds ₹7 crore and estimates of public holdings are ₹500 crore.
- After more than five years, it should certainly be possible to resolve this to mutual satisfaction.
- Kalapani boundary issue: These boundaries had been fixed in 1816 by the British, and India inherited the areas over which the British had exercised territorial control in 1947.
- While 98% of the India-Nepal boundary was demarcated, two areas, Susta and Kalapani remained in limbo.
- In November 2019, India issued new maps following the division of the State of Jammu and Kashmir as Union Territories, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
- Though the new Indian map did not affect the India-Nepal boundary in any material way, a new map of Nepal was endorsed by the legislature through a constitutional amendment.
- While it did not alter the situation on the ground, it soured relations with India and added a new and emotive irritant.
Way forward
- The political narrative has changed in both countries and these issues can no longer be swept under the carpet or subsumed by invoking a ‘special relationship’.
- Part of the success of Mr. Deuba’s visit was that none of the differences was allowed to dominate the visit.
- Yet, to build upon the positive mood, it is necessary these issues be discussed, behind closed doors and at Track 2 and Track 1.5 channels.
Conclusion
The need today is to avoid rhetoric on territorial nationalism and lay the groundwork for quiet dialogue where both sides display sensitivity as they explore what is feasible. India needs to be a sensitive and generous partner for the “neighbourhood first” policy to take root.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Demand-side strategies to tackle climate change
Context
A paradigm shift in the way we think about climate action has been reported for the first time in the recent IPCC report through a chapter on “demand, services and social aspects of mitigation”.
Demand side strategies and their impact
- The report shows how, through comprehensive demand-side strategies, carbon dioxide and non-carbon GHG emissions globally can be reduced by 40–70 per cent compared to the 2050 emissions projection.
- This can be achieved through reduced food waste, following sustainable healthy dietary choices that acknowledge nutritional needs, adaptive heating and cooling, climate-friendly dressing culture, integration of renewable energy in buildings, shifting to electric light-duty vehicles, and to walking, cycling, shared and public transit, sustainable consumption by intensive use of longer-lived repairable products, compact city design and efficient floor area use of buildings.
- The IPCC report also shows that individuals with high socioeconomic status contribute disproportionately to emissions and have the highest potential for emissions reductions, as citizens, investors, consumers, role models, and professionals.
- Of the 60 actions assessed in this report, on an individual level, the biggest contribution comes from walking and cycling wherever possible and using electricity-powered transport.
Need for systemic changes
- To be effective, these shifts will need to be supported by systemic changes in some areas — for example, land use and urban planning policies to avoid urban sprawl, support for green spaces, reallocation of street spaces for walking and physical exercise, investment in public transport and infrastructure design for active and electric vehicles.
- Electrification and shifts to public transport also bring benefits in terms of enhancing health, employment, and equality.
- By providing user-level access to more efficient energy conversion technologies, the need for primary energy can be reduced by 45 per cent by 2050, compared to 2020.
- Demand-side changes cannot deliver the net-zero goal on their own.
- But this requires investment in and transformation across every sector, along with policies and incentives that encourage people to make low-carbon choices in all aspects of their lives.
- There is huge untapped potential in the near term through changes across transport, industry, buildings, and food that will take away the supply-side uncertainties and make it easier for people to lead low-carbon lifestyles and, at the same time, improve well-being.
Conclusion
The latest IPCC report puts people and their well-being at the centre of climate change mitigation. The messages are from a global perspective but have relevance to the national context of every country.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Article 27
Mains level: Paper 2- Secularism in India
Context
The High Court of Karnataka has not been able to settle the hijab issue. The petition has been filed in the apex court by a Muslim student against the high court judgement.
Political and Constitutional dimensions of the issue
- The issue of the hijab is political as well as constitutional.
- The top court will examine the constitutional aspect and its judgment will hopefully settle the issue.
- But the political dimension of the hijab issue will continue to trouble Indian society for a long time.
- The Indian Constitution provides for freedom of religion and conscience on the one hand and secularism for the governance of the country on the other.
Understanding the freedom of religion under Indian Constitution
- Under the Indian Constitution, there is a separation of religion from the state as in Europe.
- The essence of India’s secularism is that the state has no religion.
- This is clear from Articles 27 and 28 of the Constitution.
- Article 27 says that no tax can be levied for promoting any particular religion.
- In other words, no public revenue is permitted to be spent in favour of any particular religion.
- Article 28 says that no religious instruction shall be given in any educational institutions wholly maintained out of state funds.
- The same Article says that no educational institution recognised or aided by the state shall compel any person to attend religious classes or worship therein.
- Article 25(2)(a) empowers the state to regulate secular activities associated with religious practice.
- Article 15 prohibits any kind of discrimination on the ground of religion.
- Freedom of religion is subject to other fundamental rights: Above all, freedom of religion is made subject to other fundamental rights, apart from the reasonable restrictions on the grounds of public order, morality and health.
- Thus, the freedom of religion under the Constitution does not enjoy the same status as other secular rights such as equality before law, non-discrimination, right to life and liberty, etc.
Why India needs to be secular
- Theocracy will ensure the disintegration of the country.
- 1] India is a multi-religious country where the largest minority is around 200 million.
- The Government of India had notified as many as six minority religions in the country.
- So, a theocratic state with the majority religion as the state religion is an unworkable proposition.
- 2] Complex structure: Another crucial factor which makes a theocratic state impossible in India is the complex, inegalitarian, hierarchical and oppressive social structure of the majority religion.
- 3] There would be no equality: Since a theocratic state based on the religious texts, in the Indian context, would mean a state which would deny equality before law and equal protection of law to the subaltern class and discriminate against them on the basis of caste, it will be inherently unstable.
- This may lead to perennial conflicts and the eventual disintegration of society.
- Therefore, we reach the inevitable conclusion that India, as a nation, can survive only as a secular state where the state has no religion and does not promote any religion.
Conclusion
Secularism was chosen as the foundational principle of the republic to keep the nation united. Enlightened citizens should realise that if secularism is jettisoned, the hard-won national unity will be in peril. It is the patriotic duty of every citizen to strengthen secularism and thus save the republic.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Grey hydrogen and green hydrogen
Mains level: Paper 3- Green hydrogen
Context
The ongoing tensions between Russia and Ukraine have led to the prices of crude oil shooting to $130/barrel. Green hydrogen is an emerging option that will help reduce India’s vulnerability to such price shocks.
Four deficiencies in Renewable Energy Technologies
- 1] Intermittent nature of RE: RE can only be generated intermittently.
- Battery technology cannot store electricity at a grid scale.
- 2] Financial viability: There are question marks on the financial viability of green power.
- In India, renewable electricity is a replacement for coal-based power, the cheapest form of energy.
- That’s a big constraint on its viability.
- Moreover, the customers of this power – the state distribution companies – are collectively insolvent.
- A business cannot prosper if its primary customers are not financially viable.
- 3] Batteries are not suitable for heavy trucks: While electric cars and two-wheelers get a lot of visibility, much of India’s oil is burnt in heavy trucks.
- Lithium batteries are not viable for trucks.
- 4] Critical minerals: Electric vehicles require large quantities of lithium and cobalt that India lacks.
- These minerals also have very concentrated supply chains that are vulnerable to disruptions.
- Large-scale investments in electric vehicles may create unsustainable dependencies for the country.
Is green hydrogen a solution?
- Intermittent hydrogen in the energy mix can help circumvent some of these problems.
- Hydrogen is an important industrial gas and is used on a large scale in petroleum refining, steel, and fertiliser production.
- As of now, the hydrogen used in these industries is grey hydrogen, produced from natural gas.
- Green hydrogen produced using renewable energy can be blended with grey hydrogen.
- This will allow the creation of a substantial green hydrogen production capacity, without the risk that it may become a stranded asset.
- Creating this hydrogen capacity will provide experience in handling the gas at a large scale and the challenges involved.
- Blending with CNG: To widen the use of green hydrogen, it can be blended with compressed natural gas (CNG), widely used as a fuel for vehicles in Delhi, Mumbai and some other cities.
- This will partly offset the need for imported natural gas and also help flag off the challenges of creating and distributing hydrogen at a national level.
- By bringing down the price of green hydrogen sufficiently, India can help unlock some stranded assets.
- The country has close to 25,000 megawatts of gas-fired power generation capacity that operates at a very low-capacity utilisation level. The high price of natural gas reduces the viability of such electricity.
- These plants could use hydrogen blended with natural gas. Hydrogen should, however, be used to generate electricity after it has served its utility in other avenue.
Way forward
- To catalyse a hydrogen economy, India needs some specialist players to execute projects as well as finance them.
- Participation of private players: Apart from government-backed players, the hydrogen economy will need private sector participation.
- India’s start-up sector, with over 75 unicorns, is perhaps the most vibrant part of the country’s economy currently.
- This ecosystem has been enabled by a mix of factors, including the presence of entrepreneurs with ideas and investors who are willing to back up these ideas
- Creation of refueling network: One challenge of using new transport fuels, whether CNG or electric vehicles, is the creation of large-scale refuelling networks.
- Bringing hydrogen vehicles on the road too soon will require the creation of yet another set of infrastructure.
- Building fleets of hydrogen-fueled vehicles for gated infrastructure can be a good starting point.
- Airports, ports and warehouses, for instance, use a large number of vehicles such as forklifts, cranes, trucks, tractors and passenger vehicles.
Conclusion
The government’s Green Hydrogen Policy sends the right signals about its intent. It now needs to ensure that investment can freely come into this space.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: One Nation One Ration Card project
Mains level: Paper 2- Policy for migrant labourers
Context
Repeated surveys have found that the incomes of migrant households continue to be lower than pre-pandemic levels, even after returning to cities.
Lack of policy for migrants
- In the wake of a nationwide lockdown, India was left shocked by the plight of migrant workers walking hundreds of kilometres.
- They became the focus of large-scale relief efforts by governments and civil society alike.
- The Government ramped up the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) project, announced the Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHC) scheme, set up the e-Shram portal and began to draft a migration policy.
- Despite this, a cohesive migration policy guidance remains elusive.
- Contribution of migrant workers: Today, a third of the nation’s workforce is mobile.
- Migrants fuel critical sectors such as manufacturing, construction, hospitality, logistics and commercial agriculture.
- Despite clear economic and humanitarian reasoning to bring migrants back into the policy discourse, the current policy scenario is at best fragmented and at worst waning.
Structural constraints
1] Politicisation of issue and fragmented policy response
- Migration is a highly politicised phenomenon in India.
- ‘Destination States’ experience a tension between economic needs, which require migrant labour, and political needs, which promote nativist policies that impose domicile restrictions on employment and social security.
- On the flip side, the ‘sending States’ are highly motivated to serve their “own people” because they vote in their source villages.
- This fragmented policy response to internal migration follows from State-specific calculations.
- Development policy in India has bet big on rural development as an antidote to migration.
- This widespread ‘sedentary bias’ continues to influence policy even though migration is an important pathway for impoverished marginalised rural households to find economic security (and social emancipation).
2] Categorisation challenge
- Migrants are a perennially fuzzy category in policy discourse, located inside two larger categories: the unorganised worker and the urban poor.
- Even the e-Shram portal, which has made impressive progress in registering unorganised workers, has been unable to accurately distinguish and target migrants.
- Policy interventions in major urban destinations continue to conflate the urban poor with low-income migrants.
- Hence, slum development continues as the primary medium for alleviating migrant concerns, while in reality, most migrants live on worksites that are entirely out of the policy gaze.
3] Gaps in the data
- Migration policy discourse is seemingly paralysed by the now well-acknowledged failure of official datasets to capture the actual scale and the frequency of internal migration in India.
- Data systems designed to periodically record only one spatial location have posed great challenges to welfare delivery for up to 500 million people who are part of multi-locational migrant households.
- The novel coronavirus pandemic has placed a sharp focus on problems such as educating and vaccinating those children who accompany their migrant parents, or ensuring that migrant women avail maternity benefits at multiple locations.
Way forward: Strategic policy guidance by Centre and a platform for inter-State coordination
- Policy in India often emerges from the ground up, taking decades to cement into national law and standard practice.
- We have seen this in education and food security.
- State’s initiatives: In migration too, many States have initiated data projects that can track migrants and generate dynamic real-time data that aid welfare delivery.
- Maharashtra’s Migration Tracking System (MTS), Chhattisgarh’s State Migrant Workers Policy is premised on registering migrant workers at source and tracking them through phone-based outreach systems.
- Multisectoral approach: There is further need for multisectoral approaches underpinned by a strategic convergence across government departments and initiatives.
- Odisha’s Planning and Convergence Department, which offers an institutional mechanism for inter-departmental coordination, is one possible model.
- Important role of the Centre: State-level political economy constraints make the Centre’s role particularly crucial in addressing issues of inter-State migrant workers at ‘destination States’.
- The NITI Aayog’s Draft Policy on Migrant Workers is a positive step forward.
Conclusion
Strategic initiatives to provide migrants safety nets regardless of location as well as bolster their ability to migrate safely and affordably must keep up the momentum toward migrant-supportive policy.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Right to equality
Mains level: Paper 2- Marital rape exception issue
Context
Justice M. Nagaprasanna of the Karnataka High Court on March 23, 2022, in the case of Hrishikesh Sahoo vs State of Karnataka, pronounced the end of the marital rape exception.
Background of the case
- This judgment was a result of a unique case where a woman had filed a criminal complaint of rape against her husband due to the repeated acts of sexual assault she had to face.
- Marital rape exception to Section 375: The police registered her complaint under Section 376 notwithstanding the marital rape exception, a charge sheet was filed and the Sessions Judge took cognisance and framed charges under Section 376.
- This led to the husband approaching the High Court seeking to quash the criminal proceedings.
- In a nuanced and far-reaching judgment, Justice Nagaprasanna refused to quash the charge of rape against the husband.
Violation of rights of woman
- Violation of the right to equality: Justice Nagaprasanna held that if a man, being a husband is exempted for his acts of sexual assault, it would destroy women’s right to equality, which is the very soul of the Constitution.
- Discrimination: He held that the Constitution recognises and grants equal status to women, but the exception to marital rape in the IPC amounts to discrimination because a wife is treated as subordinate to the husband.
- The Constitution considers marriage as an association of equals and does not in any sense depict women to be subordinate to men and guarantees women the fundamental rights under Articles 14, 15, 19 and 21 the right to live with dignity, personal liberty, bodily integrity, sexual autonomy, right to reproductive choices, right to privacy, right to freedom of speech and expression.
- n Independent Thought vs Union of India (2017), the Supreme Court of India diluted it and removed the exception to marital rape to a wife not below 15 years and made it 18 years.
Historical roots of the principle of exception
- The exception to marital rape in common law was due to the dictum by Chief Justice Matthew Hale of Britain in 1736 where he argued that by marriage, a woman gave up her body to the husband and was accepted as an enduring principle of common law, due to which a husband could not be guilty of raping his wife.
- This was therefore translated into criminal codes, including the Indian Penal Code which India adopted.
- This principle has now been completely abolished.
- In the United Kingdom, in 1991, the exception to marital rape was done away with in the case of R. vs R. The House of Lords held that where the common law rule no longer represents what is the true position of a wife in present-day society.
- The court held that a husband’s immunity as expounded by Chief Justice Matthew Hale no longer exists.
Conclusion
The Karnataka High Court, by holding that the exception to marital rape in Section 375 is regressive and in violation of the constitutional guarantee of equality, has now truly pronounced the death knell of the marital rape exception.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: COP26
Mains level: Paper 3- Power generation tariff issue
Context
We need to shift to a two-part tariff for solar and wind to incentivise private investments.
Background of power generation tariff in India
- The two-part tariff has been in vogue since 1992.
- It applies to thermal and hydro generation.
- 1] Fixed component: The first part is a fixed component – the cost that a generator incurs.
- This is not linked to the amount of power generated.
- 2] Variable component: The second part varies with the quantum of generation.
- It does not apply to renewable generation — solar, wind, and also nuclear.
- Under the two-part formula, the variable cost is calculated on the basis prescribed by the regulatory commissions.
- This is based on the cost of fuel — coal or gas or lignite — as the case may be.
- The fixed cost is also determined by regulatory commissions and it has a graded payment system depending on the extent to which the plant would be in a position to generate.
- The point here is that when a generator is in a position to generate, it gets to recover the fixed cost (or some part of it), irrespective of whether it actually generates power.
Single-part tariff for nuclear, wind and solar
- In contrast, solar and wind generation and also nuclear are still governed by a single-part tariff.
- The single-part tariff applies to nuclear power stations for various reasons including the fact that given the technology, a nuclear generator does not usually increase/decrease the generation at a quick tempo, but maintains a steady stream.
- In any case, nuclear power accounts for only about two per cent of the entire generation, so let’s leave it aside.
- On the other hand, solar and wind generation account for about 10 per cent of the generation today and going by the statement delivered during COP26 in Glasgow, we want to ramp it up to 50 per cent by 2030.
Issues with single-part tariff for wind
- Must run status: The renewable sector has been given a “must run” status.
- This means that any generation from renewables needs to be dispatched first.
- The problem is that “must run” runs counter to the basic economic theory that in order to minimise total cost, dispatch should commence from the source offering the cheapest variable cost and then move upwards.
- With a single-part tariff, whenever the renewable generator is asked to back down for maintaining grid balance, it is paid nothing.
- With a single part tariff for renewable generation, the entire cost is variable and at Rs 2.5 per unit for solar generation, it is not the cheapest source.
- There are several NTPC coal-fired pit head plants whose variable costs are far lower, for example, Simhadri (Rs 1.36), Korba (Rs 1.36), Sipat (Rs 1.43).
- For the older solar plants, the tariff could be well above Rs 3 per unit and for wind-based generation, it is even higher, averaging around Rs 4.5 per unit.
- Therefore, the SLDCs often flout the principle of “must run”, since the distribution companies would save money by asking the renewable generator to back down while keeping the tap on for a coal-based generation.
Solution
- Two-part tariff for solar: The solution to this problem is to apply a two-part tariff for solar and wind generators as we do for hydro plants today.
- Lowest variable cost: The overriding principle is that the percentage allocated as variable cost should ensure that renewable generation has the lowest variable cost so that there is no violation of the “must-run” principle.
- At the same time, the fixed cost component should not be kept so high that it hurts the consumers.
- A fine balance between the proportion of the fixed and variable costs will have to be maintained.
- It would also ensure a certain minimum return to developers even if they are not generating during certain hours, as in the case of coal and hydro plants.
- Proper environment: If we are serious about having a renewable generating capacity of 450-500 GW by 2030, we need to create a proper environment and ensure adequate returns to invite fresh investments into renewable generation.
Conclusion
The switch from a single to a two-part tariff structure for renewables has to be made right now as we are at the cusp of ramping up our renewable generation and it takes time for matters to get streamlined as we have seen in the past.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Criticism of AFSPA
Context
The Centre on Thursday significantly reduced the footprint of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), 1958 in the Northeast, withdrawing it entirely from 23 districts in Assam; and partially from seven districts in Nagaland, six districts in Manipur, and one district in Assam.
Background of AFSPA
- AFSPA was adopted in 1958 during the early days of the Naga uprising to apply to what was then the state of Assam and the union territory of Manipur.
- The counterinsurgency campaigns against the Nagas were counterproductive.
- In the following decades, as new states were formed in Northeast India, AFSPA was amended to accommodate the names of those states.
Provision under AFSPA, 1958
- AFSPA allows civilian authorities to call on the armed forces to come to the assistance of civil powers.
- Sweeping powers to armed forces: Once a state — or a part of a state — is declared “disturbed” under this law, the armed forces can make preventive arrests, search premises without warrants, and even shoot and kill civilians.
- Approval of central government for legal action: Legal action against those abusing these powers requires the prior approval of the central government — a feature that functions as de facto immunity from prosecution.
Issues with AFSPA
- Critics charge that it effectively suspends fundamental freedoms and creates a de facto emergency regime.
- In 2012, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court to investigate as many as 1,528 cases of fake encounters that allegedly occurred in the state between 1979 and 2012.
- Supreme Court appointed a three-member commission to inquire into the first six of the 1,528 cases in the petition.
- Its interim judgment of July 2016 said that “there is some truth in the allegations, calling for a deeper probe”.
- In the court’s view, AFSPA clearly provided the context for these killings.
Demand for changes and repeal
- When the Supreme Court pronounced AFSPA constitutional in 1997, it also recommended some changes.
- Among them was the stipulation that a “disturbed area” designation be subjected to review every six months.
- In some parts of Northeast India, AFSPA is now routinely extended every six months. But there is little evidence that any meaningful review occurs at those times.
- In 2004, the then central government set up a five-member committee under former Supreme Court Justice Jeevan Reddy, which submitted its report in 2005 recommending the repeal of AFSPA, calling it “highly undesirable”, and saying it had become a symbol of oppression.
- Subsequently, the Second Administrative Reforms Commission, headed by Veeerapa Moily, endorsed these recommendations.
Conclusion
One must welcome the government’s announcement to reduce the number of such areas. But not to consider the repeal of this law, which is now almost as old as the Republic, is a missed opportunity to reflect on why this law has or has not been successful, and to learn from this history and strengthen the foundation of our democracy.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: BIMSTEC
Mains level: Paper 2- BIMSTEC -challenges and opportunities ahead
Context
The fifth summit of the regional grouping, the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), held virtually in Colombo on March 30, has advanced the cause of regional cooperation and integration.
Colombo package
- Economic challenges: Representing a fifth of the world’s population that contributes only 4% of the global GDP, can this multilateral grouping trigger accelerated economic development?
- It was clear that BIMSTEC first needed to strengthen itself — by re-defining its purpose and rejuvenating its organs and institutions.
- The eventual result is now seen in the package of decisions and agreements announced at the latest summit.
Achievement of Colombo Summit
- 1] Adoption of Charter: Adopted formally, it presents BIMSTEC as “an inter-governmental organization” with “legal personality.”
- BIMSTEC’s purposes: Defining BIMSTEC’s purposes, it lists 11 items in the first article.
- Among them is acceleration of “the economic growth and social progress in the Bay of Bengal region”, and promotion of “multidimensional connectivity”.
- The grouping now views itself not as a sub-regional organisation but as a regional organisation whose destiny is linked with the area around the Bay of Bengal.
- 2] Reduction in the sectors of cooperation: The second element is the decision to re-constitute and reduce the number of sectors of cooperation from the unwieldy 14 to a more manageable seven.
- Each member-state will serve as a lead for a sector: trade, investment and development (Bangladesh); environment and climate change (Bhutan); security, including energy (India); agriculture and food security (Myanmar); people-to-people contacts (Nepal); science, technology and innovation (Sri Lanka), and connectivity (Thailand).
- 3] Adoption of the Master Plan for Transport Connectivity: the summit participants adopted the Master Plan for Transport Connectivity applicable for 2018-2028.
- It was devised and backed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
- It lists 264 projects entailing a total investment of $126 billion.
- Projects worth $55 billion are under implementation. BIMSTEC needs to generate additional funding and push for timely implementation of the projects.
- 4] Signing of three new agreements: Finally, the package also includes three new agreements signed by member states, relating to mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, cooperation between diplomatic academies, and the establishment of a technology transfer facility in Colombo.
Challenges
- The pillar of trade, economic and investment cooperation needs greater strengthening and at a faster pace.
- Absence of FTA: Despite signing a framework agreement for a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in 2004, BIMSTEC stands far away from this goal.
- Lack of legal instruments: The need for expansion of connectivity was stressed by one and all, but when it comes to finalising legal instruments for coastal shipping, road transport and intra-regional energy grid connection, much work remains unfinished.
- There needs to be mention of the speedy success achieved in deepening cooperation in security matters and management of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR).
- Focus more on new areas: BIMSTEC should focus more in the future on new areas such as the blue economy, the digital economy, and promotion of exchanges and links among start-ups and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
- Step up the personal engagement of political leadership: The personal engagement of the political leadership should be stepped up.
- The decision taken in Colombo to host a summit every two years is welcome if implemented.
- Greater visibility: BIMSTEC needs greater visibility.
- India’s turn to host the G20 leaders’ summit in 2023 presents a golden opportunity, which can be leveraged optimally. Perhaps all its members should be invited to the G20 summit as the chair’s special guests.
- Simplify the groupings name: The suggestion to simplify the grouping’s name needs urgent attention.
- The present name running into 12 words should be changed to four words only — the Bay of Bengal Community (BOBC).
- It will help the institution immensely. Brevity reflects gravitas.
Conclusion
BIMSTEC is no longer a mere initiative or programme. The question to address is whether it is now capable of tackling the challenges facing the region.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: CBI
Mains level: Paper 2- Reforms in investigative bodies
Context
The image of the institution of police is regrettably tarnished by allegations of corruption, police excesses, lack of impartiality and close nexus with the political class.
Police and investigation agencies need social legitimacy
- The police and investigative agencies may have de-facto legitimacy, but as institutions, they are yet to gain social legitimacy.
- Police should work impartially and focus on crime prevention. They should also work in cooperation with the public to ensure law and order.
- The CBI possessed immense trust of the public in its initial phase.
- But with the passage of time, like every other institution of repute, the CBI has also come under deep public scrutiny.
- The need of the hour is to reclaim social legitimacy and public trust.
Issues affecting the system and causing delay in trial
- Lack of infrastructure, lack of sufficient manpower, inhuman conditions, especially at the lowest rung, lack of modern equipment, questionable methods of procuring evidence, officers failing to abide by the rule book and the lack of accountability of erring officers.
- Then there are certain issues that lead to delays in trials.
- They are: Lack of public prosecutors and standing counsels, seeking adjournments, arraying hundreds of witnesses and filing voluminous documents in pending trials, undue imprisonment of undertrials, change in priorities with the change in the political executive, cherry-picking of the evidence, and repeated transfers of officers leading to a change in the direction of the investigation.
Way forward
- Break the nexus with political executive: The first step to reclaim social legitimacy and public trust.is to break the nexus with the political executive.
- Reform of the police system is long overdue in our country.
- The Ministry of Home Affairs has itself recognised the glaring need for the same in the “Status Note on Police Reforms in India”.
- Comprehensive law: Our investigative agencies still do not have the benefit of being guided by a comprehensive law.
- Independent and autonomous investigative agency: The need of the hour is the creation of an independent and autonomous investigative agency.
- Umbrella organisation: There is an immediate requirement for the creation of an independent umbrella institution, so as to bring various agencies like the CBI, SFIO, and ED under one roof.
- This body is required to be created under a statute, clearly defining its powers, functions and jurisdictions.
- Such a law will also lead to much-needed legislative oversight.
- Separation of prosecution and investigation: One additional safeguard that needs to be built into the scheme, is to have separate and autonomous wings for prosecution and investigation, in order to ensure total independence.
- Annual audit of performance: A provision in the proposed law for an annual audit of the performance of the institution by the appointing committee will be a reasonable check and balance.
- Strengthening state investigative agencies: There is no reason why state investigative agencies, which handle most of the investigations, cannot enjoy the same level of credibility as that of the national agency.
- The proposed Central law for the umbrella investigative body can be suitably replicated by the states.
- Ensure women’s representation: An issue that needs addressing at this stage is the representation of women in the criminal justice system.
- Often, women feel deterred in reporting certain offences due to a lack of representation.
- Relations with community: Relations between the community and police also need to be fixed.
- This is only possible if police training includes sensitisation workshops and interactions to inspire public confidence.
Consider the question “The police and investigative agencies may have de-facto legitimacy, but as institutions, they are yet to gain social legitimacy. In the context of this, examine the challenges faced by the police and the investigative agencies in India and suggest ways to help them gain social legitimacy.”
Conclusion
It is imperative for the police and the public to work together to create a safe society. Ultimately the police must remember that their allegiance must be to the Constitution and the rule of law and not to any person.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: IPCC
Mains level: Paper 3- Vulnerability to climate change and ways for adaptation
Context
The footprint of the Covid-19 pandemic across the sectors of the economy has instilled a new reckoning for resilience and sustainability on the economic, social and environmental (ESG) front.
IPCC reports suggest adaption for resilience
- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its latest report on climate impacts, vulnerability and adaptation last month.
- The report suggests that adaptation to climate impacts in the near to medium term can help communities and ecosystems become resilient against the threats from current and future levels of warming.
- Ecosystem-based adaptation, for instance, is recommended for taking care of communities and social well-being, while restoring forests, lands and marine ecosystems.
- The report details the variability in projected climate impacts and the vulnerabilities that can be expected across regions the world over due to differences in the range of warming, geographical location, demographics and the unique biophysical, social and cultural contexts.
- Cost-effective adaptation: It depends on a host of enablers on which global partnerships need to deliver.
- Enablers include international cooperation, inclusive technology, financial flows, knowledge sharing and capacity building, with institutions and innovations to support policy development and on-ground implementation.
Gaps in the literature, acknowledge the uncertainties in climate science
- The IPCC has been consistently drawing attention to the lack of adequate science from and on developing countries.
- These countries have in turn been asking for the inclusion of what is broadly termed as “grey literature” or non-peer-reviewed literature in the IPCC process.
- Good science encompasses the formal and the informal, theory and empiricism, the traditional along with the modern.
- It relies on evolution through acknowledging the gaps and unknowns, the negatives and positives of past knowledge.
- The understanding of adaptation finance, adaptation costing, and mapping of climate impacts and adaptation needs of communities in geographically remote locations, for instance, could improve with suitable sourcing of information.
Way forward
- Sustainable development, inclusive of climate resilience, calls for an ensemble approach — one that places contextually appropriate emphasis on tackling climate change impacts and development needs in a world with growing challenges.
- The pathway to be adopted is one of an integrated risk assessment approach, where solutions are interventions that impact the immediate, near and medium-term outcomes for developing economies.
- Striking the right balance is at any time a choice driven as much by enablers (capabilities, lifestyles and values, financial flows, technical know-how) as by constraints (warming levels, poverty, inequality, lack of health and education).
Conclusion
The pandemic highlighted the need for balance in nature-people relationships, even as it tested the ability of the developing world.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Identification of Prisoners Act 1920
Mains level: Paper 2- Issues with the Criminal Procedure(Identification) Bill
Context
The Union Minister of State for Home Affairs introduced the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill 2022.
Purpose of the introduction of the Bill
- The Bill aims to replace the Identification of Prisoners Act 1920 that has been in need of amendment for several decades.
- The criticism and the need for amendment was predominantly in respect of the limited definition of ‘measurements’ as under that Act.
- Back in the 1980s, the Law Commission of India (in its 87th Report) and the Supreme Court of India in a judgment titled State of U.P. vs Ram Babu Misra had nearly simultaneously suggested the need to amend the statute.
What are the issues with the provisions in the Bill?
1] Definition of ‘measurement’ includes analysis of the data
- The definition of measurements is not restricted to taking measurements, but also their “analysis”.
- The definition now states “iris and retina scan, physical, biological samples and their analysis, behavio[u]ral attributes including signatures….”
- It goes beyond the scope of a law that is only designed for taking measurements and could result in indirectly conferring legislative backing for techniques that may involve the collection of data from other sources(For instance, using facial recognition).
- At present there are extensive facial recognition technology programmes for “smart policing” that are deployed all across the country.
- Such experimental technologies cause mass surveillance and are prone to bias, impacting the fundamental rights of the most vulnerable in India.
2] Power of the police and prison officials widened
- The existing law permits data capture by police and prison officers either from persons convicted or persons arrested for commission of offences punishable with a minimum of one year’s imprisonment.
- Parallel powers are granted to judges, who can order any person to give measurements where it is in aid of investigation.
- While the judicial power is left undisturbed, it is the powers of the police and prison officials that are being widened.
- The law removes the existing — albeit minimal — limitation on persons whose measurements could be taken.
- It is poised to be expanded to all persons who are placed under arrest in a case.
- Here, the proposed Bill also contains muddied language stating that a person, “may not be obliged to allow taking of his biological samples”.
3] Storage and retention of data for a long period
- The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shall for a period of 75 years from the date of collection maintain a digital record, “in the interest of prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of any offense”.
- The provision permits the NCRB to, “share and disseminate such records with any law enforcement agency, in such manner as may be prescribed”.
- The NCRB already operates a centralised database, namely the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS), without any clear legislative framework.
- The existence of such legislative power with a technical framework may permit multiple mirror copies and parallel databases of the “measurements” being stored with law enforcement, beyond a State Police department which will be prosecuting the crime and the NCRB which will store all records centrally.
- For instance, in response to a Standing Committee of Parliament on police modernisation, Rajasthan has stated that it maintains a ‘RajCop Application’ that integrates with “analytics capabilities in real-time with multiple data sources (inter-department and intra-department)”.
- Similarly, Punjab has said that the “PAIS (Punjab Artificial Intelligence System) App uses machine learning, deep learning, visual search, and face recognition for the identification of criminals to assist police personnel.
- Hence, multiple copies of “measurements” will be used by State government policing departments for various purposes and with experimental technologies.
- This also takes away the benefit of deletion which occurs on acquittal and will suffer from weak enforcement due to the absence of a data protection law.
- The end result is a sprawling database in which innocent persons are treated as persons of interest for most of their natural lives.
Conclusion
To protect individual autonomy and fulfil our constitutional promises, the Supreme Court of India pronounced the Justice K.S. Puttaswamy judgment, reaffirming its status as a fundamental right. The responsibility to protect it falls to each organ of the government, including the legislature and the union executive.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Tenth Schedule
Mains level: Paper 2- Exemptions to anti-defection laws
Context
In its verdict in the Goa MLAs case, Bombay High Court has misread the 10th schedule of the Constitution, which was meant to prevent horse trading among legislators.
Understanding the Paragraph (4) of Tenth Schedule
- Paragraph (4) is an exception to the Tenth Schedule’s main provisions.
- It operates only when the defectors’ original political party has merged with the party to which they have defected and two-thirds of the members of the legislature belonging to that party have agreed to the merger.
- Under this provision, the merger of the original political party has to take place first, followed by two-thirds of the MLAs agreeing to that merger.
- The basic premise of the February 25 judgment is that sub-paragraph (2) is distinct from the parent paragraph, and a factual merger of the original political party is not necessary.
- This does not square with the content, context and thrust of paragraph (4), which contemplates the factual merger of the original political party — in this case, the INC.
- The court’s view — the merger of the 10 MLAs of the Congress Legislative Party with the BJP should be regarded as the Congress itself merging with the BJP — goes against the letter and spirit of the Tenth Schedule, paragraph (4) in particular.
Process for the merger: 2 conditions need to be satisfied
- 1] Merger alone is not enough: The opening words of sub-paragraph (2) — “for the purposes of sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph” — clearly mean that to exempt a member from disqualification on account of defection, and for considering this member’s claim that he has become a member of the party with which the merger has taken place, a merger of two political parties alone is not enough.
- 2] Not less than 2/3 members should also agree: Not less than two-thirds of the members should also agree to such a merger.
- The lawmakers made it tough for potential defectors to defect.
- The words “such merger” make it clear beyond any shadow of doubt that the merger of the original political party has to take place before two-thirds of the members agree to such a merger.
- The members of the legislature cannot agree among themselves to merge as the court has said, but they can agree to a merger after it takes place.
Conclusion
The anti-defection law was designed to eliminate political defection. However, the judgment of the Bombay HC seems to assume that paragraph (4) of the 10th schedule is meant to facilitate defection. This judgment is likely to open the flood gates to defection. The Supreme Court must intervene quickly.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Read the attached story
Mains level: Exit and Opinion Polls in India
Every election season, we find television channels flooded with opinion polls and subsequently exit polls after the casting of votes.
What are Opinion Polls?
- Opinion polls are similar to surveys or an inquiry designed to gauge public opinion about a specific issue or a series of issues in a scientific and unbiased manner.
- This term has got wide recognition for assessing outcomes of elections in India.
- In most democracies, opinion and exit polls are common during elections.
- In India, the ECI allows the dissemination of the exit poll results half an hour after the end of polling on the last poll day.
How are they conducted?
- Interviewers/reporters ask questions of people chosen at random from the population being measured.
- Responses are given, and interpretations are made based on the results.
- It is important in a random sample that everyone in the population being studied has an equal chance of participating.
- Otherwise, the results could be biased and, therefore, not representative of the population.
Need of such polls
- Popular opinion: Polls are simply a measurement tool that tells us how a population thinks and feels about any given topic.
- Specific viewpoint: Polls tell us what proportion of a population has a specific viewpoint.
- Opportunity to express: Opinion polling gives people who do not usually have access to the media an opportunity to be heard.
Issues with such polls (in context to elections)
- Authenticity: Critics have often questioned their authenticity.
- Manipulation of voters: This largely manipulates the voting behavior.
- Sensationalization by media: The media, on the other hand, invariably opposes the idea of a ban as seat forecasts attract primetime viewership.
- Ridiculing the public mandate: The exit polls largely disrespect public opinions inciting confusion regarding the election mandate.
Why does it persist in India?
Ans. Exercise of Free Speech
- The opposition to the ban in India is mainly on the ground that freedom of speech and expression is granted by the Constitution (Article 19).
- What is conveniently forgotten is that this freedom is not absolute and allows for “reasonable restrictions” in the same article.
Limited restrictions that we have in India
- RP Act: The Indian Penal Code and Representation of the People Act, 1951 do contain certain restrictions against disinformation.
- Restrictions on A19: While the Constitution allows for reasonable restrictions on freedom of expression, its mandate to the ECI for free and fair elections is absolute.
- Supreme Court interpretations: The Supreme Court (SC), in a series of judgments, has emphasized this requirement.
- Basic structure doctrine: It considers free and fair elections is the basic structure of the Constitution (PUCL vs Union of India, 2003; NOTA judgment, 2013).
Examples of restrictions
- Restrictions are imposed in many countries, extending from two to 21 days prior to the poll — Canada, France, Italy, Poland, Turkey, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, to name a few examples.
- In India, all political parties too have opposed these polls, demanding a ban — except when they are shown as winning.
Why does the ECI feel that opinion polls interfere with free and fair elections?
- Prevalence of paid news in India: Having seen “paid news” in action, it apprehends that some opinion polls may be sponsored, motivated and biased.
- Opacity: Almost all polls are non-transparent, providing little information on the methodology.
- Propaganda: Subtle propaganda on casteist, religious and ethnic basis as well as by the use of sophisticated means like the alleged poll surveys create public distrust in poll process.
- Disinformation: With such infirmities, many “polls” amount to misinformation that can result in “undue influence”, which is an “electoral offense” under IPC Section 171 (C). It is a “corrupt practice” under section 123 (2) of the RP Act.
- Betting: The polling agencies manipulate the margin of error, victory margin for candidates, seat projections for a party or hide negative findings.
Call for a ban in India
- The demand for a ban on opinion polls is not new.
- At all-party meets called by the Election Commission in 1997 and 2004, there was unanimous demand for a ban.
- The difference of opinion was only on whether the ban should apply from the announcement of the poll schedule or the date of notification.
Moves by ECI
- In 1998, the ECI issued guidelines that were challenged in the SC.
- A five-judge Constitution Bench asked the ECI how it would enforce these decisions in the absence of a law.
- Realizing its weakness, the ECI withdrew the guidelines.
- Unfortunately, this left the constitutionality of the issue
Way forward
- Independent regulator: Ideally a body like the British Polling Council would be a viable option. India could set up its own professional, self-regulated body on the same lines say Indian Polling Council.
- Mandatory disclosure: All polling agencies must disclose for scrutiny the sponsor, besides sample size, methodology, time frame, quality of training of research staff, etc.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- India-UK FTA
Context
In May last year, Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Boris Johnson announced their shared vision for a transformative decade for the India-United Kingdom partnership. These words have now been made real.
Transforming India-UK partnership
- Doubling bilateral trade: The two leaders had declared their ambition to more than double bilateral trade by 2030, which totalled over £23 billion in 2019.
- Reduce barriers to trade: They directed their governments to take rapid steps to reduce barriers to trade.
- FTA: The groundwork necessary to begin work on a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) had to be prepared by the end of 2021.
- Both governments have already taken action; for example, unlocking the export of British apples to India and enabling a greater number of Indian fisheries to export shrimp to the U.K.
- The big next step was the launch of FTA negotiations last month.
Trade relations at present
- Bilateral trade: The bilateral trade between the two countries stood at 15.5 billion USD in 2019-20. India has engaged with the UK in sectors like pharma, textiles, leather, industrial machinery, furniture, and toys.
- Britain is among the top investors in India and India is the second-biggest investor and a major job creator in Britain. Recently, the Serum Institute of India has announced setting up its research facilities in the UK.
- Indian Diaspora: Around 1.5 million people of Indian origin live in Britain. This includes 15 Members of Parliament, three members in Cabinet, and two in high office as Finance and Home Ministers.
- India is already a big investor in the U.K. — especially in dynamic sectors such as fintech, electric vehicles, and batteries.
- India has an extraordinary opportunity to transform its economy and society in the next 30 years, as it hits its demographic sweet spot, at the heart of the Indo-Pacific region where half the world’s people live and 50% of global economic growth is produced.
Benefits of FTA
- A U.K.-India trade agreement will stimulate growth and employment in both countries.
- Lower barriers coupled with greater regulatory certainty would incentivize new small and medium-sized enterprises to export their goods and services.
- An agreement also means Indian and British consumers see improvements in the variety and affordability of products.
- Strategic reasons: The British Government’s Integrated Review of our overseas policy, describes the world we are in; messier, with the more geostrategic competition.
- It is one in which two dynamic democracies such as India and the U.K. need to work closely together to promote open economies.
Consider the question “Colonial prism has long distorted the perception of India-UK relation. However, both the countries stand to gain by finding a fresh basis for sustaining bilateral relations. Comment.”
Conclusion
An FTA would mark a new way of working between the U.K. and India. It gives a new framework within which the two countries can grow and flourish together, putting the colonial economic relationship where it belongs — in the history books.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: FRBM Act
Mains level: Paper 3- Fiscal consolidation
Context
The fiscal deficit for the year 2022-23 is higher than what was recommended by the Fifteenth Finance Commission. However, if we consider the direction of consolidation, it is towards a reduction in the fiscal deficit.
The budget focuses on capital investment
- This year’s Union budget projects an increase in capex by Rs 3.14 lakh crore, as compared to the budgeted numbers of the previous fiscal.
- Given the economy’s savings-investment profile and macroeconomic uncertainties due to the pandemic, private and household investments are likely to be reactive to the general economic environment.
- Achieving sustainable recovery: For the government, making capital investment in such uncertain times assumes a much higher priority and is equally indispensable for achieving a strong and sustainable recovery from the pandemic.
- Increasing share of government: As per National Accounts data, gross fixed capital formation by the general government (Centre and states) has shown an increase as a percentage of GDP from 3.48 in 2011-12 to 3.82 in 2019-20, while other sectors, particularly households, the share fell from 15.75 per cent to 11.39 per cent during the same period.
- The fiscal stance taken in the post-pandemic budgets for higher capital spending, including the budget of 2022-23, is likely to further enhance the general government share in overall capital formation.
- Important role of the States: it is also important to recognise that two-thirds of the general government’s capital expenditure is undertaken by states and in this context, the announcement of the Rs 1 lakh crore interest-free loans to the states to increase public investment has been a significant step.
- Since states taken together have a higher share in the country’s public capital spending, effective absorption of this additional borrowing facility will be critical for higher public investment.
Three broad trends on Fiscal Consolidation
- 1] Increase in taxes: The increase in taxes by Rs 5.71 lakh crore between 2020-21 (the first year of the pandemic) and 2022-23 shows that the fiscal challenges have eased, but remain present as we navigate economic recovery in uncertain times.
- 2] Reduction in revenue deficit: Between 2020-21 and 2022-23 (BE), the reduction in revenue deficit has been substantial — from 7.3 per cent to 3.8 per cent of GDP.
- 3] Revenue deficit dominates fiscal deficit: Compositionally, revenue deficit continues to be more than 55 per cent of the fiscal deficit and the management of such a deficit has few important considerations for revenue expenditure, that is, interest payments and allocation under various centrally sponsored and central sector schemes.
- Role of CSS in revenue deficit: Aggregate allocation under centrally sponsored and central sector schemes (CSS) as per the 2022-23 (BE) is Rs 3.83 lakh crore and the interest payment cost of the Union government is Rs 9.56 lakh crore.
- Beyond scheme-wise allocations, it is also important to consider CSS allocation as an issue of macro-fiscal management issue at the Union and state level, especially when it is contributing to the high revenue deficit of the central government and binding state resources for matching contribution, thereby increasing states’ deficit.
Understanding the direction of fiscal consolidation
- The fiscal deficit for the year 2022-23 is higher than what was recommended by the Fifteenth Finance Commission.
- However, if we consider the direction of consolidation, it is towards a reduction in the fiscal deficit.
- Though in the medium-term, the fiscal story is about supporting recovery, it is also true that there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution to fiscal consolidation and debt sustainability.
Conclusion
The direction of fiscal consolidation rather than a specific quantified path in an unprecedented time like this is probably the most appropriate consideration.
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