From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Read the attached story
Context
On October 31, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court noted that the two-finger test is a sexist medical practice that re-victimizes and re-traumatizes rape survivors. The Court also issued directions to the Union and state governments to implement the 2014 guidelines of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for health providers in sexual violence cases.
The two-finger test involves the medical examiner inserting their two fingers into the vagina of a survivor to note the presence or absence of the hymen and the so-called laxity of the vagina.
What is the expert doctor’s opinion?
Misogynistic belief: While a hymen can be torn and its orifice may vary in size for many reasons unrelated to sex, the origin of the two-finger test lies in the misogynistic belief that a torn hymen is an indication that the survivor is habituated to sex and therefore, cannot be raped or is more likely to make false claims about being raped.
What is the law against such infringement of bodily privacy?
SC prohibited test in Rajesh v. State of Haryana 2013 case: “Medicalization of consent” where women’s bodies are given precedence over their voices. Recognizing this as an invasion of privacy and a violation of a survivor’s dignity, the Supreme Court prohibited the test in Lillu at Rajesh v. State of Haryana (2013).
Guidelines for medico-legal care for survivors of sexual violence: Shortly after, in March 2014, taking forward the recommendations of the Justice J S Verma Committee Report, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare issued guidelines for medico-legal care for survivors of sexual violence. These guidelines explicitly prohibited the two-finger test and discussed the need for training medical examiners to respond to the needs of the survivors in a sensitive and non-discriminatory manner.
Why the practice of two finger tests still persists?
Lack of political will: Nearly eight years since the guidelines were issued, the two-finger test still remains a reality. Its prevalence is a reflection of the complete lack of political will to address the issue.
No pan-India comprehensive review: While fragmented pieces of narratives and research indicate that the two-finger test continues in rape cases to date, it is incumbent upon the executive to undertake a comprehensive pan-India review to assess the nature and extent of the problem.
Change in format and unclarity: The changed format (introduced after the passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013) of the medico-legal certificate used by doctors in rape cases did not require them to make a note of the finding of the two-finger test. However, according to the lawyers, this did not mean that the test was not happening anymore. Some says they it was no longer being recorded as such but was still being conducted.
Poor medical infrastructure: The continued existence of the two-finger test is a result of the overall poor state of forensic medicine infrastructure in India.
Lack of awareness: Lack of awareness amongst the medical community about the unscientific nature of the two-finger test.
What is the opinion of the court?
Government must enforce the protocol: The Court commenting on the sorry state of affairs and issuing directions to the government on enforcement of the protocol including the emphasis on workshops and the medical school curriculum is significant.
Holding a person, a guilty of misconduct: The Court took a step further by holding a person conducting the two-finger test on a rape survivor guilty of misconduct. It is unclear if the Court was making a reference to professional misconduct on part of the medical examiner.
What should be the way forward?
Caregiving to victim: Medical practitioners must see themselves as caregivers when handling sexual violence cases.
Awareness about legal system: Medical practitioners should be made to understand as their role in the criminal legal system, specifically towards rape survivors.
Training of medical examiners: The training in medical school must prepare medical examiners for their role in the justice system.
Police should play an active role: The institution of police should be sensitized on the continued use of the two-finger test in rape cases.
Modules on sexuality: Training and workshops designed for doctors needs to include modules on sexuality and discrimination.
Conclusion
Two finger test is further traumatizing the victim of rape. Despite the directives of courts years ago and unscientific nature, two finger test continues. Women empowerment is not only about the earnings and livelihood its also about the right to privacy and dignity of life.
Mains Question
Q. What is two finger tests? what is the law against the two-finger test? give the reasons for continuation of two finger test?
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Biosphere reserves, WNBR,
Mains level: Issues of concerns and efforts of conservation, India's efforts in biodiversity conservation
Context
November 3 will be the first ‘The International Day for Biosphere Reserves’, to be celebrated beginning 2022. The World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR) was formed in 1971, as a backbone for biodiversity conservation, ecosystem restoration, and living in harmony with nature.
What is biosphere reserve?
Protected area: A biosphere reserve is an area of land or water that is protected by law in order to support the conservation of ecosystems, as well as the sustainability of mankind’s impact on the environment.
Serves as a Platform to study: They are places that provide local solutions to global challenges. Biosphere reserves include terrestrial, marine and coastal ecosystems. Each site promotes solutions reconciling the conservation of biodiversity with its sustainable use.
Learning places for sustainable development: Biosphere reserves are ‘learning places for sustainable development’. They are sites for testing interdisciplinary approaches to understanding and managing changes and interactions between social and ecological systems, including conflict prevention and management of biodiversity.
Biodiversity conservation programs are carried out: To carry out the complementary activities of biodiversity conservation and sustainable use of natural resources, biosphere reserves are traditionally organized into 3 interrelated zones, known as: the core area, the buffer zone, and a transition zone or ‘area of cooperation.
The core purpose: The purpose of the formation of the biosphere reserve is to conserve in situ all forms of life, along with its support system, in its totality, so that it could serve as a referral system for monitoring and evaluating changes in natural ecosystems. Each reserve aims to help scientists and the environmental community figure out how to protect the world’s plant and animal species while dealing with a growing population and its resource needs.
What is the process of recognition as Biosphere reserve?
All biosphere reserves are internationally recognized sites on land, at the coast, or in the oceans.
Governments alone decide which areas to nominate. Before approval by UNESCO, the sites are externally examined.
If approved, they will be managed based on a plan, reinforced by credibility checks while remaining under the sovereignty of their national government.
Worldwide: There are 738 biosphere reserves in 134 countries, including 22 transboundary sites.
In India:
Presently, there are 18 notified biosphere reserves in India. Ten out of the eighteen biosphere reserves are a part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves, based on the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme list.
In India, the first biosphere reserve was designated by UNESCO in 2000, namely, the blue mountains of the Nilgiris stretching over Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.
You must know- UNESCO Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme
The MAB programme is an intergovernmental scientific programme.
It aims to establish a scientific basis for enhancing the relationship between people and their environments.
It combines the natural and social sciences with a view to improving human livelihoods and safeguarding natural and managed ecosystems.
It promotes innovative approaches to economic development that are socially and culturally appropriate and environmentally sustainable.
What is World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR)?
Dynamic network of cooperation: The WNBR, an amazing network of sites of excellence, is a unique tool for cooperation through sharing knowledge, exchanging experiences, building capacity and promoting best practices.
Fosters harmonious integration of people and nature: Its members are always ready to support each other. It fosters the harmonious integration of people and nature for sustainable development through participatory dialogue; knowledge sharing; poverty reduction and human well-being improvements; respect for cultural values and society’s ability to cope with change – thus contributing to the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
A tool to develop sustainable approach: The Network is one of the main international tools to develop and implement sustainable development approaches in a wide array of contexts
The principle of Living with harmony: The best concept for ‘Living in Harmony with Nature’ that exists in the United Nations system, is the WNBR, making these places more important today than ever before, where humans are thriving and relearning how to live with nature.
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Coronal Holes
Mains level: Not Much
Recently, NASA tweeted an image of the sun seemingly ‘smiling’. NASA explained that the patches are called coronal holes, which can be seen in ultraviolet light but are typically invisible to our eyes.
What are Coronal Holes?
Coronal holes are regions on the sun’s surface from where fast solar wind gushes out into space.
Because they contain little solar material, they have lower temperatures and thus appear much darker than their surroundings.
Here, the magnetic field is open to interplanetary space, sending solar material out in a high-speed stream of solar wind.
They can last between a few weeks to months.
The holes are not a unique phenomenon, appearing throughout the sun’s approximately 11-year solar cycle.
They can last much longer during solar minimum – a period of time when activity on the Sun is substantially diminished.
How are they formed?
It is unclear what causes coronal holes.
They correlate to areas on the sun where magnetic fields soar up and away, without looping back down to the surface as they do elsewhere.
What do they tell us?
These ‘coronal holes’ are important to understanding the space environment around the earth through which our technology and astronauts travel.
In 2016 coronal holes covering “six-eight per cent of the total solar surface” were spotted.
Scientists study these fast solar wind streams because they sometimes interact with earth’s magnetic field, creating what’s called a geomagnetic storm.
These storms can expose satellites to radiation and interfere with communications signals.
Back2Basics: Geomagnetic Storms
Geomagnetic storms relate to earth’s magnetosphere – the space around a planet that is influenced by its magnetic field.
When a high-speed solar stream arrives at the earth, in certain circumstances it can allow energetic solar wind particles to hit the atmosphere over the poles.
Such geomagnetic storms cause a major disturbance of the magnetosphere as there is a very efficient exchange of energy from the solar wind into the space environment surrounding earth.
In cases of a strong solar wind reaching the earth, the resulting geomagnetic storm can cause changes in the ionosphere, part of the earth’s upper atmosphere.
Radio and GPS signals travel through this layer of the atmosphere, and so communications can get disrupted.
Prelims Only | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Indian Constitution - historical underpinnings, evolution, features, amendments, significant provisions and basic structure
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Paharai tribes
Mains level: Not Much
The National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) has now cleared the way for the inclusion of the ‘Pahari ethnic group’ on the Scheduled Tribes list of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
Who are the Scheduled Tribes?
The term ‘Scheduled Tribes’ first appeared in the Constitution of India.
Article 366 (25) defined scheduled tribes as “such tribes or tribal communities or parts of or groups within such tribes or tribal communities as are deemed under Article 342 to be Scheduled Tribes for the purposes of this constitution”.
Article 342 prescribes procedure to be followed in the matter of specification of scheduled tribes.
Among the tribal groups, several have adapted to modern life but there are tribal groups who are more vulnerable.
The Dhebar Commission (1973) created a separate category “Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs)” which was renamed in 2006 as “Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs)”.
How are STs notified?
The first specification of Scheduled Tribes in relation to a particular State/ Union Territory is by a notified order of the President, after consultation with the State governments concerned.
These orders can be modified subsequently only through an Act of Parliament.
Status of STs in India
The Census 2011 has revealed that there are said to be 705 ethnic groups notified as Scheduled Tribes (STs).
Over 10 crore Indians are notified as STs, of which 1.04 crore live in urban areas.
The STs constitute 8.6% of the population and 11.3% of the rural population.
Who are the Paharis referred to in this article?
The proposal called for the inclusion of the “Paddari tribe”, “Koli” and “Gadda Brahman” communities to be included on the ST list of J&K.
The suggestion for the inclusion had come from the commission set up for socially and educationally backward classes in the UT.
The J&K delimitation commission has reserved six of the nine Assembly segments in the Pir Panjal Valley for STs.
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Indian Rhino
Mains level: Not Much
The horns of rhinoceroses may have become smaller over time from the impact of hunting, according to a recent study spanning more than five centuries.
About Indian Rhino
The Indian rhinoceros also called the greater one-horned rhinoceros and great Indian rhinoceros is a rhinoceros native to the Indian subcontinent.
It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and Schedule I animal in the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
It once ranged across the entire northern part of the Indian Subcontinent, along the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra River basins, from Pakistan to the Indian-Myanmar border.
Poaching for rhinoceros horn became the single most important reason for the decline of the Indian rhino.
Why are Rhinos poached for horns?
Ground rhino horn is used in traditional Chinese medicine to cure a range of ailments, from cancer to hangovers, and also as an aphrodisiac.
In Vietnam, possessing a rhino horn is considered a status symbol.
Due to demand in these countries, poaching pressure on rhinos is ever persistent against which one cannot let the guard down.
