Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Code of conduct for Lok Sabha Members
Mains level: Paper 2- Disruption of legislatures and ways to deal with it
Context
Last week, a newspaper reported that the government is considering curtailing the monsoon session of Parliament on account of disruptions.
Reasons for disruptions
- In 2001, a day-long conference was held in the Central Hall of Parliament to discuss discipline and decorum in legislatures.
- The inputs of participants of conference helped identify four reasons behind the disorderly conduct by MPs.
- Inadequate time: The first was dissatisfaction in MPs because of inadequate time for airing their grievances.
- Unresponsive attitude: The second was an unresponsive attitude of the government and the retaliatory posture of the treasury benches.
- Adherence to norm: The third was political parties not adhering to parliamentary norms and disciplining their members.
- Lack of action: The absence of prompt action against disrupting MPs under the legislature’s rules.
Suggestions
- Enforcement of a code of conduct for MPs and MLAs: The Lok Sabha has had a simple code of conduct for its MPs since 1952.
- Newer forms of protest led to the updating of these rules in 1989.
- Accordingly, members should not shout slogans, display placards, tear away documents in protest, play cassettes or tape recorders in the House.
- A new rule empowers the Lok Sabha Speaker to suspend MPs obstructing the Houses’ business automatically.
- But these suggestions have not been enforced so far.
- Increase in working days: As recommended by the 2001 conference, there should be an increase in the working days of Parliament.
- The conference had also resolved that Parliament should meet for 110 days every year and larger state legislative assemblies for 90 days.
- Successive governments have shied away from increasing the working days of Parliament.
- Our legislature should meet throughout the year, like parliaments of most developed democracies.
- The concept of opposition days: In the United Kingdom, where Parliament meets over 100 days a year, opposition parties get 20 days on which they decide the agenda for discussion in Parliament.
- The main opposition party gets 17 days and the remaining three days are given to the second-largest opposition party.
- Canada also has a similar concept of opposition days.
- This can also be done in India.
Conclusion
More strengthening of our Parliament is the solution to prevent disruption of its proceedings. It is the only mechanism to ensure that disrupting its proceedings or allowing them to be disrupted ceases to be a viable option.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Right to privacy
Mains level: Paper 2- Surveillance and its impact on democracy
Context
The Pegasus revelations reflect an attack on Indian democracy and Indian citizens.
Role of government in protecting the fundamental and human rights of citizens
- The surveillance of the target group in India through Pegasus raises doubts about the functioning of democracy in India.
- Constitutional duty of government: The government has a constitutional duty to protect the fundamental and human rights of its citizens, irrespective of who they are.
- There is clear evidence that the rule of law has been undermined.
- More evidently, this reflects extremely poor governance.
- The Intelligence Bureau, the Research and Analysis Wing, and the National Security Council Secretariat should have forewarned the government and citizens against such surveillance seriously violating privacy and fundamental rights.
- The Supreme Court, in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), declared privacy a constitutionally protected value.
Violation of human rights
- India is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
- Article 12 provides that everyone has the right to the protection of the law against arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence.
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, also signed by India, in Article 17 states, “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.”
- In K.S. Puttaswamy, the Supreme Court noted India’s commitments under international law and held that by virtue of Article 51 of the Constitution, India has to endeavour to “foster respect for international law and treaty obligations…”
- The Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 is a fallout of this commitment.
Recommendations on digital communication technologies
- The annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) in 2014 made recommendations on “digital communications technologies”.
- Judicial oversight: The UNHCHR report stated, judicial involvement that meets international standards can help to make it more likely that the overall statutory regime will meet the minimum standards that international human rights law requires.
- At the same time, the report stated that judicial involvement in oversight should not be viewed as a panacea.
- Independent body: The report also recommended an independent oversight body to keep checks.
- Effective remedy to victim: The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights requires states parties to ensure that victims of violations of the Covenant have an effective remedy.
- Role of business: The report also dealt with the role of businesses and stated that when a state requires that an information and communications technology company provide user data, it can only supply it in respect of legitimate reasons.
- Earlier, due to concerns of member states, the General Assembly adopted Resolution 68/167 affirming that rights held by people offline must also be protected online.
- The resolution also called upon all states to respect and protect the right to privacy, including in digital communication.
Conclusion
Indians have a right to call upon NSO to terminate the agreement, if any, with the Indian government or any private player and to cooperate with citizens to unravel the truth.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Abraham Accords
Mains level: Paper 2- Opportunities for India in middle east
Context
An Egyptian scholar, Mohammed Soliman, has recently written about the significance of what he calls the emerging “Indo-Abrahamic Accord” and its trans-regional implications to the west of India.
About Abraham Accord
- Abraham Accord, signed in August last year in Washington, signifies the normalisation of Israel’s relations with the UAE and Bahrain.
- The UAE and Bahrain were followed by Sudan and Morocco in signing the Abraham Accords.
- Although Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994) had established diplomatic relations with Israel earlier, the Abraham Accords are widely seen as making a definitive breakthrough in the relations between Israel and the Arabs.
Factors in favour of accord
- Depth of trilateral relationship: Although India had relations with UAE and Israel for many years, they certainly have acquired political depth and strategic character recently.
- Converging interests: Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s assertive claims for the leadership of the Islamic world and hostile stand against India on several issues, indicates converging interests between India, the UAE, and Israel.
- One of the unintended consequences of Erdogan’s overweening regional ambition, his alienation of Israel as well as moderate Arabs, his conflict with Greece, and his embrace of Pakistan is the extraordinary opportunity for India to widen India’s reach to the west of the Subcontinent
- Cooperation: There are many areas like defence, aerospace and digital innovation where the three countries can pool their resources and coordinate development policies.
- India’s extended neighbourhood: The notion of a “Greater Middle East” can provide a huge fillip to India’s engagement with the extended neighbourhood to the west.
India-Turkey relations
- Hostile approach on Kashmir: Turkey has been championing Pakistan’s case on Kashmir after India changed the territorial status quo of the state in August 2019.
- Blocking NSG entry: At Pakistan’s behest, Turkey is also blocking India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
- The new geopolitical churn is also driven by Pakistan’s growing alignment with Turkey and its alienation from its traditionally strong supporters in the Arab Gulf — the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Opportunities for India in extended neighbourhood to the west
- Relations with Greece: The renewed territorial disputes between Turkey and Greece, and Turkey’s quest for regional dominance has drawn Greece and the UAE closer.
- Greece has also looked towards India to enhance bilateral security cooperation.
- Greece’s European partners like France, which have a big stake in the Mediterranean as well as the Arab Gulf, have taken an active interest in countering Turkey’s regional ambitions.
- Erdogan’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks to overthrow the current political order in the region, has deeply angered the governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
- India’s relations with Egypt: If there is one country that can give substantive depth to the Indo-Abrahamic Accord it is Egypt.
- Located at the cusp of Mediterranean Europe, Africa, and Asia, Egypt is the very heart of the Greater Middle East.
- Independent India’s engagement with the region in the 1950s was centred on a close partnership with Egypt.
- If Delhi and Cairo lost each other in recent decades, India can rebuild the strategic partnership jointly with the Egypt government which is calling for the construction of a “New Republic” in Egypt.
- The notion of a “Greater Middle East” can provide a huge fillip to India’s engagement with the extended neighbourhood to the west.
- The familiar regional institutions like the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation might endure but are incapable of addressing the region’s contradictions.
Consider the question “Amid Turkey’s quest for regional dominance and hostility towards India, the deepening engagement between India, the UAE and Israel can be converted into a formal coalition on the lines of Abraham Accords” Comment.
Conclusion
The opportunities that are coming India’s way to the west of the Subcontinent are as consequential as those that have recently emerged in the east.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Article 21, 22
Mains level: Need for preventive detention
Preventive detention, the dreaded power of the State to restrain a person without trial, could be used only to prevent public disorder, the Supreme Court held in a judgment.
What is Preventive Detention?
- Preventive detention means detaining a person so that to prevent that person from commenting on any possible crime.
- In other words, preventive detention is an action taken by the administration on the grounds of the suspicion that some wrong actions may be done by the person concerned which will be prejudicial to the state.
PD in India
A police officer can arrest an individual without orders from a Magistrate and without any warrant if he gets any information that such an individual can commit any offense.
- Preventive Detention Law, 1950: According to this law any person could be arrested and detained if his freedom would endanger the security of the country, foreign relations, public interests, or otherwise necessary for the country.
- Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) 1968: Within the ambit of UAPA law the Indian State could declare any organization illegal and could imprison anyone for interrogation if the said organization or person critiqued/questioned Indian sovereignty territorially.
What is the difference between preventive detention and an arrest?
- An ‘arrest’ is done when a person is charged with a crime.
- In the case of preventive detention, a person is detained as he/she is simply restricted from doing something that might deteriorate the law-and-order situation.
- Article 22 of the Indian Constitution provides protection against arrest and detention in certain cases.
Rights of an Arrested Person in India
A/c to Article 22(1) and 22(2) of the Indian constitution:
- A person cannot be arrested and detained without being informed why he is being arrested.
- A person who is arrested cannot be denied to be defended by a legal practitioner of his choice. This means that the arrested person has right to hire a legal practitioner to defend himself/ herself.
- Every person who has been arrested would be produced before the nearest magistrate within 24 hours.
- The custody of the detained person cannot be beyond the said period by the authority of magistrate.
Exceptions for Preventive Detention
Article 22(3) says that the above safeguards are not available to the following:
- If the person is at the time being an enemy alien
- If the person is arrested under certain law made for the purpose of “Preventive Detention”
Constitutional provision
- It is extraordinary that the framers of the Indian Constitution, who suffered most because of the Preventive Detention Laws, did not hesitate to give Constitutional sanctity.
- B.R. Ambedkar was of the opinion that the freedom of the individual should not supersede the interests of the state.
- He had also stated that the independence of the country was in a state of inflancy and in order to save it, preventive detention was essential.
Issues with preventive detention
- Arbitrariness: The police determinations of whether a person poses a threat are not tested at a trial by leading evidence or examined by legally trained persons.
- Rights violation: Quiet often, there is no trial (upto 3 months), no periodic review, and no legal assistance for the detained person.
- Abuse: It does not provide any procedural protections such as to reduce detainees’ vulnerability to torture and discriminatory treatment, and to prevent officials’ misusing preventive detention for subversive activities.
- Tool for suppression: In the absence of proper safeguards, preventive detention has been misused, particularly against the Dalits and the minorities.
What has the apex court recently rule?
- Preventive detention is a necessary evil only to prevent public disorder.
- The court must ensure that the facts brought before it directly and inevitably lead to harm, danger or alarm, or feeling of insecurity among the general public or any section thereof at large.
- The State should not arbitrarily resort to “preventive detention” to deal with all and sundry “law and order” problems, which could be dealt with by the ordinary laws of the country.
- Whenever an order under a preventive detention law is challenged, one of the questions the court must ask in deciding its legality is: was the ordinary law of the land sufficient to deal with the situation?
- If the answer is in the affirmative, the detention order will be illegal.
Upholding the Article 21
- Preventive detention must fall within the four corners of Article 21 (due process of law) read with Article 22 (safeguards against arbitrary arrest and detention) and the statute in question, Justice Nariman ruled.
- The Liberty of a citizen is a most important right won by our forefathers after long, historical, and arduous struggles.
Conclusion
- The constitutional philosophy of personal liberty is an idealistic view, the curtailment of liberty for reasons of State’s security; public order, disruption of national economic discipline, etc.
- They are envisaged as a necessary evil to be administered under strict constitutional restrictions.
- India is a large country and many separatist tendencies against the national security and integrity existed and existing and a strict law is required to counter the subversive activities.
- The number of persons detained in these acts is not a very large and due attention is made before preventive detention.
- Having such kind of acts has a restraining influence on the anti-social and subversive elements.
- The state should have very effective powers to deal with the acts in which the citizens involve in hostile activities, espionage, coercion, terrorism, etc.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Gilgit Baltistan
Mains level: Issues with PoK
Pakistan has finalized draft legislation to incorporate Gilgit-Baltistan, the region known before 2009 as Northern Areas, as a province of the country.
Gilgit-Baltistan: History of the region
- Gilgit was part of the princely state of Jammu & Kashmir but was ruled directly by the British, who had taken it on lease from Hari Singh, the Hindu ruler of the Muslim-majority state.
- When Hari Singh acceded to India on October 26, 1947, the Gilgit Scouts rose in rebellion, led by their British commander Major William Alexander Brown.
- The Gilgit Scouts also moved to take over Baltistan, which was then part of Ladakh, and captured Skardu, Kargil and Dras.
- In battles thereafter, Indian forces retook Kargil and Dras in August 1948.
Accession with Pakistan
- In November, 1947, a political outfit called the Revolutionary Council of Gilgit-Baltistan had proclaimed the independent state of Gilgit-Baltistan.
- It declared GB was acceding to Pakistan only to the extent of full administrative control, choosing to govern it directly under the Frontier Crimes Regulation.
- It was a law devised by the British to keep control of the restive tribal areas of the northwest.
- Following the India-Pakistan ceasefire of January 1, 1949, Pakistan entered into an agreement with the “provisional government” of “Azad Jammu & Kashmir”.
- Much of its parts had been occupied by Pakistani troops and irregulars and were later taken over by Pak defence and foreign affairs.
- Under this agreement, the AJK government also ceded administration of Gilgit-Baltistan to Pakistan.
Not being incorporated as a province
- In 1974, Pakistan adopted its first full-fledged civilian Constitution, which lists four provinces —Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakthunkhwa.
- Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Gilgit-Baltistan were not incorporated as provinces.
- One reason ascribed to this is that Pakistan did not want to undermine its international case that the resolution of the Kashmir issue had to be in accordance with UN resolutions that called for a plebiscite.
- In 1975, PoK got its own Constitution, making it an ostensibly self-governed autonomous territory.
- This Constitution had no jurisdiction over the Northern Areas, which continued to be administered directly by Islamabad (the Frontier Crimes Regulation was discontinued in 1997)
- In reality, PoK too remained under the control of Pakistani federal administration and the security establishment, through the Kashmir Council.
Reasons behind
- The main difference was that while the people of PoK had rights and freedoms guaranteed by their own Constitution, which mirrors the Pakistan Constitution.
- However the people of the minority Shia-dominated Northern Areas did not have any political representation.
- Although they were considered Pakistani, including for citizenship and passports, they were outside the ambit of constitutional protections available to those in the four provinces and PoK.
Why GB is in focus now?
- Pakistan began considering changes to its administrative arrangements with increasing Chinese involvement in strategic development ventures.
- GB was vital to those projects, given that it provides only land access between the two countries.
- Since 2009, it has had a namesake legislative assembly.
Suppression of a movement
- There is anger against Pakistan for unleashing sectarian militant groups that target Shias, but the predominant sentiment is that all this will improve once they are part of the Pakistani federation.
- There is a small movement for independence, but it has very little traction. Some factions argue for its accession with India.
- While some reports have suggested that Pakistan’s decision is under pressure from China, wary that Gilgit-Baltistan’s ambiguous status might undermine the legality of its projects there.
Significance for India
- Gilgit-Baltistan is an integral part of India by virtue of the legal, complete and irrevocable accession of Jammu & Kashmir to the Union of India in 1947.
- The area’s strategic importance for India has increased in light of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor agreement.
- India is also concerned of a two-front war (with China as well as Pakistan) after the standoff in Eastern Ladakh last year.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Fortification of food
Mains level: Under-nutrition issues
In a pushback against the Centre’s plan to mandatorily fortify rice and edible oils with vitamins and minerals, a group of scientists and activists have warned of the adverse impacts on health and livelihoods.
Food Fortification
- Food fortification is defined as the practice of adding vitamins and minerals to commonly consumed foods during processing to increase their nutritional value.
- It is a proven, safe and cost-effective strategy for improving diets and for the prevention and control of micronutrient deficiencies.
Types of food fortification
Food fortification can also be categorized according to the stage of addition:
- Commercial and industrial fortification (wheat flour, cornmeal, cooking oils)
- Biofortification (breeding crops to increase their nutritional value, which can include both conventional selective breeding, and genetic engineering)
- Home fortification (example: vitamin D drops)
Advantages offered
- Health: Fortified staple foods will contain natural or near-natural levels of micro-nutrients, which may not necessarily be the case with supplements.
- Taste: It provides nutrition without any change in the characteristics of food or the course of our meals.
- Nutrition: If consumed on a regular and frequent basis, fortified foods will maintain body stores of nutrients more efficiently and more effectively than will intermittently supplement.
- Economy: The overall costs of fortification are extremely low; the price increase is approximately 1 to 2 percent of the total food value.
- Society: It upholds everyone’s right to have access to safe and nutritious food, consistent with the right to adequate food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger
Issues with fortified food
- Against nature: Fortification and enrichment upset nature’s packaging. Our body does not absorb individual nutrients added to processed foods as efficiently compared to nutrients naturally occurring.
- Bioavailability: Supplements added to foods are less bioavailable. Bioavailability refers to the proportion of a nutrient your body is able to absorb and use.
- Immunity issues: They lack immune-boosting substances.
- Over-nutrition: Fortified foods and supplements can pose specific risks for people who are taking prescription medications, including decreased absorption of other micro-nutrients, treatment failure, and increased mortality risk.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Haldibari- Chilahati Rail Link
Mains level: Not Much
The freight trains have started commuting via the restored Haldibari (India) – Chilahati (Bangladesh) rail link.
Haldibari- Chilahati Rail Link
- The Haldibari – Chilahati rail link between India and then East Pakistan was operational till 1965.
- The distance between Haldibari Railway Station till the international border is 4.5 km, while that of Chilahati is around 7.5 km till the ‘zero points’.
- This was part of the Broad-Gauge main route from Kolkata to Siliguri during the partition.
- Trains traveling to Assam and North Bengal continued to travel through the then East Pakistan territory even after partition.
- However, the war of 1965 effectively cut off all the railway links between India and then East Pakistan.
- The link was reopened in 2020 for the movement of passenger and goods traffic.
Other railway links between India and Bangladesh
As of now, five links connecting India with Bangladesh have been made operational which include:
- Petrapole (India) – Benapole (Bangladesh)
- Gede (India) – Darshana (Bangladesh)
- Singhabad (India) – Rohanpur (Bangladesh)
- Radhikapur (India) – Birol (Bangladesh)
- Haldibari (India) – Chilahati (Bangladesh)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Kuthiran tunnel
Mains level: Not Much
The Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways has inaugurated the Kuthiran Tunnel in Kerala
Kuthiran Tunnel
- Kuthiran Tunnel is a Twin-tube tunnel at Kuthiran in Thrissur District of Kerala.
- It is located on National Highway 544, owned and operated by the National Highways Authority of India.
- It is Kerala’s first-ever tunnel for road transport and South India’s Longest 6-lane road tunnel.
- Kuthiran gradient is situated in the Kuthiran Hills, situated in the western part of Anaimalai Hills. The hills are a notified Peechi- Vazahani wildlife sanctuary.
- It will drastically improve connectivity to Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
- The road will improve connectivity to important ports and towns in North-South Corridor without endangering wildlife.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now