Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Raja Ram Mohun Roy
Mains level: His contributions
One of the most influential social and religious reformers of the 19th century, Ram Mohan Roy, born on May 22, 1772 in what was then Bengal Presidency’s Radhanagar in Hooghly district, would have turned 250 years today.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833)
Early life
- Born into a prosperous upper-caste Brahmin family, Roy grew up within the framework of orthodox caste practices of his time.
- Child-marriage, polygamy and dowry were prevalent among the higher castes and he had himself been married more than once in his childhood.
- The family’s affluence had also made the best in education accessible to him.
- The waning of the Mughals and the ascendancy of the East India Company in Bengal towards the end of the 18th century was also the time when Roy was slowly coming into his own.
Academics
- Roy knew Bengali and Persian, but also Arabic, Sanskrit, and later, English.
- His exposure to the literature and culture of each of these languages bred in him a scepticism towards religious dogmas and social strictures.
- He spent considerable time studying the Vedas and the Upanishads, but also religious texts of Islam and Christianity.
Religious belief
- He was particularly intrigued by the Unitarian faction of Christianity and was drawn by the precepts of monotheism that, he believed, lay at the core of all religious texts.
- He wrote extensive tracts on various matters of theology, polity and human rights, and translated and made accessible Sanskrit texts into Bengali.
- Rammohun did not quite make a distinction between the religious and the secular. He believed religion to be the site of all fundamental changes.
- What he fought was not religion but what he believed to be its perversion.
Roy, the first among liberals
- Even though British consolidation of power was still at a nascent stage in India at the time, Roy could sense that change was afoot.
- Confident about the strength of his heritage and open to imbibing from other cultures what he believed were ameliorative practices, Roy was among India’s first liberals.
- He was simultaneously interested in religion, politics, law and jurisprudence, commerce and agrarian enterprise, Constitutions and civic rights, the unjust treatment of women and the appalling condition of the Indian poor.
Establishment of Atmiya Sabha
- In 1814, he started the Atmiya Sabha (Society of Friends), to nurture philosophical discussions on the idea of monotheism in Vedanta.
- It aimed to campaign against idolatry, casteism, child marriage and other social ills.
- The Atmiya Sabha would make way for the Brahmo Sabha in 1828, set up with Debendranath Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore’s father.
Abolition of Sati, educational and religious reforms
- He campaigned for the modernisation of education, in particular the introduction of a Western curriculum, and started several educational institutions in the city.
- In 1817, he collaborated with Scottish philanthropist David Hare to set up the Hindu College (now, Presidency University).
- He followed it up with the Anglo-Hindu School in 1822 and, in 1830, assisted Alexander Duff to set up the General Assembly’s Institution, which later became the Scottish Church College.
- It was his relentless advocacy alongside contemporaries such as Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar that finally led to the abolition of Sati under the governor generalship of William Bentinck in 1829.
- Roy argued for the property rights of women, and petitioned the British for freedom of the press (in 1829 and 1830).
- His Brahmo Sabha, that later became the Brahmo Samaj, evolved as a reaction against the upper-caste stranglehold on social customs and rituals.
Perils of non-conformism
- Roy, who was given the title of Raja by the Mughal emperor Akbar II, was no exception to the societal enmity.
- Roy was also often attacked by his own countrymen who felt threatened by his reformist agenda, and by British reformers and functionaries, whose views differed from his.
Conclusion
- Roy’s work in the sphere of women’s emancipation, modernising education and seeking changes to religious orthodoxy finds new relevance in this time.
- He was among the first Indians to gain recognition in the UK and in America for his radical thoughts.
- Roy was unquestionably the first person on the subcontinent to seriously engage with the challenges posed by modernity to traditional social structures and ways of being.
- Rabindranath Tagore called him a ‘Bharatpathik’ by which he meant to say that Rammohun combined in his person the underlying spirit of Indic civilisation, its spirit of pluralism, tolerance and a cosmic respect for all forms of life.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Phytoremediation, hyperaccumulators
Mains level: Soil Health Management
A study published in the JNKVV (Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwavidyalaya) research journal concluded that heavy metal pollution of soil is “emerging at a speedy rate” in India due to industrialisation.
How does soil get contaminated?
- Soil contamination can happen due to a variety of reasons, including manufacturing, mineral extraction, accidental spills, illegal dumping, leaking underground storage tanks, pesticide and fertiliser use etc.
- These toxic heavy metals are then absorbed by food crops and other plants before they eventually make their way into our food chain, directly affecting human life along with ecology.
Detoxing the soil
- Many technologies have emerged to remediate this soil pollution.
- But these methods have been deemed lacking in terms of sustainability as they come with a large cost and have adverse effects themselves.
Novel technique: Hyperaccumulators
- Turning toward more sustainable and eco-friendly technologies, scientists have developed methods of “Phytoremediation”.
- It is a remediation method that uses living organisms like plants, microalgae, and seaweeds.
- One particular way to remove toxic heavy metals from the soil includes the use of “hyperaccumulator” plants that absorb these substances from the soil.
What are hyperaccumulator plants?
- Phytoremediation refers to the usage of “hyperaccumulator” plants to absorb the toxic materials present in the soil and accumulate in their living tissue.
- Most plants do sometimes accumulate toxic substances.
- Hyperaccumulators have the unusual ability to absorb hundreds or thousands of times greater amounts of these substances than is normal for most plants.
- Most discovered hyperaccumulator plants typically accumulate nickel and occur on soils that are rich in nickel, cobalt and in some cases, manganese.
Where are they found?
- These hyperaccumulator species have been discovered in many parts of the world.
- They include the Mediterranean region (mainly plants of the genus Alyssum), tropical outcrops in Brazi, Cuba, New Caledonia (French territory) and Southeast Asia (mainly plants of the genus Phyllanthus).
How can they be used to remove toxic metals from the soil?
- Suitable plant species can be used to ‘pick up’ the pollutants from the soil through their roots and transport them to their stem, leaves and other parts.
- After this, these plants can be harvested and either disposed or even used to extract these toxic metals from the plant.
- This process can be used to remove metals like silver, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, mercury, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, lead and zinc; metalloids such as arsenic and selenium; some radionuclides; and non-metallic components such as boron.
- But it cannot be used to remove organic pollutants from the ground due to metabolic breakdown.
Advantages of phytoremediation with hyperaccumulators
- One of the primary advantages of phytoremediation is the fact that it is quite cost-effective in comparison with other remediation methods.
- The only major costs attached are related to crop management (planting, weed control, watering, fertilisation, pruning, fencing, harvesting etc.).
- This method is also relatively simple and doesn’t require any new kinds of specialised technology.
- Also, no external energy source is required since the plants grow with the help of sunlight.
- Another important advantage of this method is that it enriches the soil with organic substances and microorganisms which can protect its chemical and biological qualities.
- Also, while the plants are growing and accumulating toxic heavy metals, they protect the soil from erosion due to wind and water.
Limitations of hyperaccumulators
- For all its advantages, this kind of phytoremediation with hyperaccumulators has a big drawback: it is a very slow and time-consuming process.
- The restoration of an area with this process can take up to 10 years or more.
- This comes with a large economic cost, proportional to the size of the area under rehabilitation.
- The plants to conduct this rehabilitation must be carefully selected based on a large number of characteristics or they could act as an invasive species.
- They could grow out of control and upsetting the delicate ecological balance of not just the area under rehabilitation, but also the entire region it is part of.
What can be done for their better utilization?
- Due to this reason, scientists only propose using species that are native to the region where the phytoremediation project is undertaken.
- This also has other benefits: these plants will already be acclimatised to the region and there will be no legal problems concerning the procurement, transport and use of seeds.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: AI chips
Mains level: Read the attached story
Market leader Nvidia recently announced its H100 GPU (graphics processing unit), which is said to be one of the world’s largest and most powerful Artificial Intelligence (AI) accelerators, packed with 80 billion transistors.
What are AI chips?
- AI chips are built with specific architecture and have integrated AI acceleration to support deep learning-based applications.
- These chips, with their hardware architectures and complementary packaging, memory, storage and interconnect technologies, make it possible to infuse AI into a broad spectrum of applications.
- There are different types of AI chips such as application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), central processing units (CPUs) and GPUs, designed for diverse AI applications.
What is Deep Learning?
- Deep learning, more commonly known as active neural network (ANN) or deep neural network (DNN), is a subset of machine learning and comes under the broader umbrella of AI.
- It combines a series of computer commands or algorithms that stimulate activity and brain structure.
- DNNs go through a training phase, learning new capabilities from existing data.
- DNNs can then inference, by applying these capabilities learned during deep learning training to make predictions against previously unseen data.
- Deep learning can make the process of collecting, analysing, and interpreting enormous amounts of data faster and easier.
Utility of AI chips
- The adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) chips has risen, with chipmakers designing different types of these chips to power AI applications such as:
- Natural language processing (NLP)
- Computer vision
- Robotics, and
- Network security across a wide variety of sectors, including automotive, IT, healthcare, and retail
Are they different from traditional chips?
- When traditional chips, containing processor cores and memory, perform computational tasks, they continuously move commands and data between the two hardware components.
- These chips, however, are not ideal for AI applications as they would not be able to handle higher computational necessities of AI workloads which have huge volumes of data.
- Although, some of the higher-end traditional chips may be able to process certain AI applications.
- In comparison, AI chips generally contain processor cores as well as several AI-optimised cores that are designed to work in harmony when performing computational tasks.
- The AI cores are optimised for the demands of heterogeneous enterprise-class AI workloads with low-latency inferencing, due to close integration with the other processor cores.
What are their applications?
- Use of AI chips for NLP applications has increased due to the rise in demand for chatbots and online channels such as Messenger, Slack, and others
- They use NLP to analyse user messages and conversational logic.
- Then there are chipmakers who have built AI processors designed to help customers achieve business insights at scale across banking, finance, trading, insurance applications and customer interactions.
What firms are making these chips?
- Nvidia Corporation, Intel Corporation, IBM Corporation, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and Apple Inc. are some of the key players in the AI chip market.
Major breakthroughs
- Nvidia, which dominates the market, offers a wide portfolio of AI chips including Grace CPU, H100 and its predecessor A100 GPUs.
- It is capable of handling some of the largest AI models with billions of parameters.
- The company claims that twenty H100 GPUs can sustain the equivalent of the entire world’s internet traffic.
- IBM’s new AI chip, announced last year, can support financial services workloads like fraud detection, loan processing, clearing and settlement of trades, anti-money laundering and risk analysis.
Scale of global market
- The Worldwide AI chip industry accounted for $8.02 billion in 2020.
- It is expected to reach $194.9 billion by 2030, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 37.4% from 2021 to 2030.
What can be expected in the future?
- AI company Cerebras Systems set a new standard with its brain-scale AI solution, paving the way for more advanced solutions in the future.
- Its CS-2, powered by the Wafer Scale Engine (WSE-2) is a single wafer-scale chip with 2.6 trillion transistors and 8,50,000 AI optimised cores.
- The human brain contains on the order of 100 trillion synapses, the firm said, adding that a single CS-2 accelerator can support models of over 120 trillion parameters (synapse equivalents) in size.
- Another AI chip design approach, neuromorphic computing, utilises an engineering method based on the activity of the biological brain.
- An increase in the adoption of neuromorphic chips in the automotive industry is expected in the next few years.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Look Out Circular
Mains level: National security imperative
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that a Look Out Circular (LOC), which prevents one from travelling abroad, must be supplied to the person at the time of being stopped at the airport and that the reasons should be communicated to the affected party.
What is a Look Out Circular?
- It is a notice to stop any individual wanted by the police, investigating agency or even a bank from leaving or entering the country through designated land, air and sea ports.
- Immigration is tasked to stop any such individual against whom such a notice exists from leaving or entering the country.
- There are 86 immigration check posts across the country.
Who can issue LOCs?
- A large number of agencies which includes the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Income Tax, State police and intelligence agencies are authorised to generate LOCs.
- The officer should not be below the rank of a district magistrate or superintendent of police or a deputy secretary in the Union Government.
What are the details required to generate an LOC and who issues it?
- According to a 2010 official memorandum of the Ministry, details such as First Information Report (FIR) number, court case number are to be mandatorily provided with name, passport number and other details.
- The BOI under the MHA is only the executing agency.
- They generate LOCs based on requests by different agencies.
- Since immigration posts are manned by the BOI officials they are the first responders to execute LOCs by stopping or detaining or informing about an individual to the issuing agency.
- The LOCs can be modified; deleted or withdrawn only at the request of the originator.
- Further, the legal liability of the action taken by immigration authorities in pursuance of LOC rests with the originating agency.
How are banks authorized?
- After several businessmen including liquor baron Vijay Mallya, businessmen Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi fled the country after defaulting on loans, the MHA in 2018 brought changes to the 2010 guidelines.
- It authorised the chairman, managing director and chief executives of all public sector banks to generate LOCs against persons who could be detrimental to economic interests of the country.
Is there any other clause under which any individual can be stopped?
- The 2010 Ministry guidelines give sweeping powers to police and intelligence agencies to generate LOCs in “exceptional cases” without keying in complete parameters or case details.
- This was against suspects, terrorists, anti-national elements, etc. in larger national interest.
- After the special status of J&K under Article 370 was abrogated in 2019, LOCs were opened against several politicians, human rights activists, journalists and social activists to bar them from flying out of the country.
- The number of persons and the crime for which they have been placed under the list is unknown.
Are individuals entitled to any remedial measures?
- Many citizens have moved courts to get the LOC quashed.
- As per norms, an LOC will stay valid for a maximum period of 12 months and if there is no fresh request from the agency then it will not be automatically revived.
- The MHA has asserted that LOCs cannot be shown to the subject at the time of detention nor can any prior intimation be provided.
- The Ministry recently informed the Punjab and Haryana HC that the LOC guidelines are a secret document and the same cannot be shared with the ‘accused’ or any unauthorised stakeholder.
- It cannot be provided or shown to the subject at the time of detention by the BOI since it defeats the purpose of LOC and no accused or subject of LOC can be provided any opportunity of hearing before the issuance of the LOC.
Precedence set by the Judiciary
- In January this year, Delhi HC quashed an LOC against a Delhi businessman generated at the instance of the Income Tax department.
- The court said no proceedings under any penal law had been initiated against the petitioner” and the LOC was “wholly unsustainable.”
- It said that there cannot be any unfettered control or restriction on the right to travel and that it was part of the fundamental rights.
- Delhi HC has also asked the Director of the CBI to tender a written apology.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: IHCI, hypertension
Mains level: Burden of NCDs in India
The IHCI project has demonstrated that blood pressure treatment and control are feasible in primary care settings in diverse health systems across various States in India.
India Hypertension Control Initiative (IHCI)
- It is a multi-partner initiative involving the Indian Council of Medical Research, WHO-India, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and State governments.
- It aims to improve blood pressure control for people with hypertension.
- The project initiated in 26 districts in 2018 has expanded to more than 100 districts by 2022.
- More than two million patients were started on treatment and tracked to see whether they achieved BP control.
The project was built on five scalable strategies:
- Simple treatment protocol with three drugs was selected in consultation with the experts and non-communicable disease programme managers.
- Supply chain was strengthened to ensure the availability of adequate antihypertensive drugs.
- Patient-centric approaches were followed, such as refills for at least 30 days and assigning the patients to the closest primary health centre or health wellness centre to make follow-up easier.
- The focus was on building capacity of all health staff and sharing tasks such as BP measurement, documentation, and follow-up.
- There was minimal documentation using either paper-based or digital tools to track follow-up and BP control.
Prevalence of hypertension in India
- Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading cause of death among adults in India.
- One of the major drivers of heart attack and stroke is untreated high blood pressure or hypertension.
- Hypertension is a silent killer as most patients do not have any symptoms.
- India has more than 200 million people with hypertension, and only 14.5% of individuals with hypertension are on treatment.
Success of IHCI
- Blood pressure treatment and control were feasibly controlled in primary care settings in diverse health systems across various States in India.
- Before IHCI, many patients travelled to higher-level facilities such as community health centres (block level) or district hospitals in the public sector for hypertension treatment.
- Over three years, all levels of health staff at the primary health centres and health wellness centres were trained to provide treatment and follow-up services for hypertension.
- Nearly half (47%) of the patients under care achieved blood pressure control.
- The BP control among people enrolled in treatment was 48% at primary health centres and 55% at the health wellness centres.
Contributing to its success: A data-driven approach
- One of the unique contributions of the project was a data-driven approach to improving care and overall programme management.
- The list of people who did not return for treatment was generated through a digital system or on paper by the nurse/health workers.
- Patients were reminded either over the phone or by home visit (if feasible).
- This strategy motivated a large number of patients to continue treatment.
- In addition, programme managers reviewed aggregate data at the district and State levels to assess the performance of facilities in terms of follow-up and BP control.
- Patients were provided generic antihypertensive drugs costing only ₹200 per year.
- In addition, E-Sanjeevani, a telemedicine initiative, facilitated teleconsultations.
Back2Basics: Hypertension
- Hypertension also known as high blood pressure (HBP), is a long-term medical condition in which the blood pressure in the arteries is persistently elevated.
- High blood pressure usually does not cause symptoms.
- Long-term high blood pressure, however, is a major risk factor for stroke, coronary artery disease, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, peripheral arterial disease, vision loss, chronic kidney disease, and dementia.
- High blood pressure is classified as primary (essential) hypertension or secondary hypertension.
- For most adults, high blood pressure is present if the resting blood pressure is persistently at or above 130/80 or 140/90 mmHg.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: QUAD
Mains level: IIU fishing and related issues
In order to check China’s illegal fishing in the Indo-Pacific region, the Quadrilateral Security Alliance (Quad) has planned to launch a satellite-based surveillance initiative.
What is the news?
- The leaders of Quad are reported to be getting ready to unveil a maritime surveillance initiative to protect exclusive economic zones in the Indo-Pacific against environmental damage.
How will the proposed maritime surveillance system work?
- The initiative will use satellite technology to connect existing surveillance centres in India, Singapore and the Pacific.
- This will help establish a tracking system to combat illegal, unregulated and unprotected (IUU) fishing.
- The satellite-enabled dragnet will track IUU fishing activities from the Indian Ocean and South-east Asia to the South Pacific.
- The idea is to monitor illicit fishing vessels that have their AIS (automatic identification system) transponders turned off to evade tracking.
- The move by the Quad security group is also seen to be aimed at reducing the small Pacific island nations’ growing reliance on China.
Why is illegal fishing seen as such a big threat?
- The unregulated plunder of global fishing stock poses a grave threat to the livelihood and food security of millions of people.
- Globally, fish provide about 3.3 billion people with 20% of their average animal protein intake.
- According to an FAO report, around 60 million people are engaged in the sector of fisheries and aquaculture.
- While the economic loss from illegal fishing has been difficult to precisely quantify, some estimates peg it around USD 20 billion annually.
Threats posed by IUU Fishing
- Illegal fishing has now replaced piracy as a global maritime threat.
- In the Indo-Pacific region, like elsewhere, the collapse of fisheries can destabilise coastal nations.
- It poses a much bigger security risk, as it can fuel human trafficking, drug crime and terror recruiting.
Why is China in the dock?
- The 2021 IUU Fishing Index, which maps 152 coastal countries, ranked China as the worst offender.
- China is considered responsible for 80% to 95% illegal fishing in the region after having overfished its own waters.
- It, in fact, is known to incentivise illegal fishing with generous subsidies to meet its growing domestic demand.
China and distant-water fishing (DWF)
- China’s DWF fleet has almost 17,000 vessels and is the largest in the world.
- Vessel ownership is highly fragmented among many small companies and the fleet includes vessels registered in other jurisdictions.
Issues with Chinese IUU Fishing
- Chinese are often accused of pillaging ocean wealth with great sophistication and with little regard for maritime boundaries.
- China also uses them to project strategic influence and to bully fishing vessels from weaker nations.
- China uses destructive practises such as bottom trawling and forced, bonded and slave labour and trafficked crew, alongside the widespread abuse of migrant crewmembers.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Storage gain in wheat
Mains level: NA
Punjab’s state procurement agencies (SPAs) are seeking a waiver of ‘storage gain’.
What is ‘storage gain’ in wheat?
- Wheat, considered a ‘living grain’, tends to gain some weight during storage.
- This is known as ‘storage gain’ and it mostly happens due to absorption of moisture.
- There are three parts of the grain — bran (outer layer rich in fibre), germ (inner layer rich in nutrients) and endosperm (bulk of the kernel which contains minerals and vitamins).
- The moisture is mostly absorbed by the endosperm.
Who compensates whom for ‘storage gain’?
- State procurement agencies, which purchase and store wheat at their facilities, are required to give one kg wheat extra per quintal to the Food Corporation of India (FCI).
- While 20% of wheat, procured by the FCI and the SPAs, is moved immediately after procurement.
- It is usually on the remaining 80%, which is moved out after July 1 every year that storage gain has to be accounted for due to longer storage duration.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Tailored approach to cooperation and competition
Context
The ongoing discords between the Centre and states over issues ranging from the allocation of financial resources to fixing of GST rates has once again brought to the fore issues pertaining to our federal structure, the resolution of which is essential for the country’s growth.
Combination of cooperative and competitive spirit
- Positive competition: It is undeniable that cooperation is key to the smooth functioning of federal design.
- However, if it is coupled with positive competition among the states, then the overall result would be large-scale economic development across the country.
- The competitive aspect of federalism can positively be harnessed by encouraging states to adopt each other’s best practices.
- Exclusivity and mutualism: Indian federalism today enables the Centre and states to function with both exclusivity and mutualism.
- Vertical and horizontal level: Cooperation between the Centre and states is required at both vertical (between Centre and states) and horizontal (among states) levels and on various fronts.
- What does it mean? This includes fine-tuning of developmental measures for desired outcomes, development-related policy decisions, welfare measures, administrative reforms, strategic decisions, etc.
Steps in the direction of cooperation
- Recent efforts in this direction, such as according greater leeway to states in the functioning of the NITI Aayog, frequent meetings of the prime minister with chief ministers as well as with chief secretaries and district magistrates, periodic meetings of the President of India with governors, and the functioning of “PRAGATI” to review the progress of developmental efforts have generated the requisite synergy between the Centre and states.
- Positive efforts of states towards attracting investment can create a conducive environment for economic activities in urban and backward regions alike.
- Healthy competition coupled with a transparent ranking system would ensure the full materialisation of the vast but least utilised potential of the federal framework.
- Sector specific indices: In this direction, NITI Aayog’s initiatives such as launching sector-specific indices like the School Education Quality Index, Sustainable Development Goals Index, State Health Index, India Innovation Index, Composite Water Management Index, Export Competitiveness Index, etc. could prove to be a great contribution.
- Central efforts toward synchronisation of cooperation and competition can be observed in the implementation of the 14th and 15th Finance Commission reports, which have greatly contributed to resource devolution.
- Recent reform measures in the form of the New Labour Code and other amendments/enactments by the legislature also exhibit this trend.
Conclusion
The rising stature of the Indian economy on the world stage can only be strengthened by a tailored approach to cooperation and competition. The mandate to marry the two would inevitably be the collective responsibility of the Centre and the states. Any ideological differences between them will have to be inevitably put on the backburner for the great Indian federal structure to succeed and prosper.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Structural interventions by State for creating high wage jobs
Context
The recent decision to deduct off-budget borrowings from state borrowing limits reminds chief ministers to be good policy ancestors.
Financing welfare state
- In A Brief History of Equality, economist Thomas Piketty suggests that “the world of the early 2020s, no matter how unjust it may seem, is more egalitarian than that of 1950 or 1900, which were… more egalitarian than those of 1850 or 1780”.
- But how the welfare state is financed matters.
- Changes in state borrowing limits: Adjusting state borrowing limits for their off-budget borrowings leads to transparency because they are routinely breached through vehicles for schemes whose bill comes due far in the future.
- The confiscation of future spending — interest payments crowd out expenditure and revenue expenditure crowd out capex — matters because our prosperity problem is productivity, wages, not jobs.
5 Structural interventions that can create high wage jobs
1] Reduce regulatory hurdles
- States control 80 per cent of India’s employers’ compliance ecosystem of 67,000+ compliances, 6,500+ filings and 26,000+ criminal provisions.
- State governments that rationalise, decriminalise, and digitise their compliance ecosystem will reap lower corruption and higher formality.
2] Fix government schools
- The most powerful tool for social mobility and employability is free and quality school education.
- State governments that undertake a significant overhaul of school performance management (the fear of falling and hope of rising for teachers) and governance (the allocation of decision rights around resources and hiring) will create an unfair advantage in human capital.
3] Converge education and employability
- States should set up skill universities that create qualification modularity (between certificates, diplomas, advanced diplomas, and degrees), delivery flexibility (equate online, apprenticeships, on-site and on-campus classrooms), and pray to the one god of employers.
- Degree apprentices innovate at the intersection of employment, employability and education.
- State governments that remove barriers in their path will see their population of employed learners exceed full-time learners.
4] Devolution of money and power
- Cities drive productive job creation — New York City’s GDP is higher than Russia’s.
- It took 70 years after 1947 for the budget of 28 states to cross the central government’s budget.
- The combined budget of state governments now exceeds Rs 45 lakh crore, but 2.5 lakh municipalities and panchayats have a budget of only Rs 3.7 lakh crore.
- Governments that devolve money and power from state capitals to their towns will avoid the curse of megacities and create the competition that drove China’s growth (they have 375 cities with more than a million people versus our 52).
5] Civil service reforms
- State governments must sell their 1,500+ loss-making public sector units, cut civil service compensation to less than 40 per cent of budget spending, and replace expenditure with capex.
- Moving from outlays to outcomes needs a new human capital regime for civil servants via seven interventions; structure, staffing, training, performance management, compensation, culture, and HR capabilities.
Shifting resources to protective and productive version of states
- Nobel Laureate James Buchanan said any state had three versions — the protective state (police, rule of law, defence, courts), the productive state (common goods like roads, power, health, education, etc.), and the redistributive state.
- Too many state governments accept the status quo in the first two and “innovate” in the third version.
- It’s time to shift resources to the first two.
Conclusion
Chief Ministers ought to create high wage jobs, and not borrow money future generations will have to repay.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Pegasus
Mains level: Whatsapp snooping
The Supreme Court has said its technical committee had so far received and tested 29 mobile devices suspected to be infected by Pegasus malware.
Why in news?
- It was alleged that the government used the Israel-based spyware to snoop on journalists, parliamentarians, prominent citizens and even court staff.
What is Pegasus?
- Pegasus is a spyware developed by NSO Group, an Israeli surveillance firm that helps spies hack into phones.
- In 2019, when WhatsApp sued the firm in a U.S. court, the matter came to light.
- In July 2021, Amnesty International, along with 13 media outlets across the globe released a report on how the spyware was used to snoop hundreds of individuals, including Indians.
- While the NSO claims its spyware is sold only to governments, none of the nations have come forward to accept the claims.
Threats created by Pegasus
- What makes Pegasus really dangerous is that it spares no aspect of a person’s identity.
- It makes older techniques of spying seem relatively harmless.
- It can intercept every call and SMS, read every email and monitor each messaging app.
- Pegasus can also control the phone’s camera and microphone and has access to the device’s location data.
- The app advertises that it can carry out “file retrieval”, which means it could access any document that a target might have stored on their phone.
Dysfunctions created
- Privacy breach: The very existence of a surveillance system, whether under a provision of law or without it, impacts the right to privacy under Article 21 and the exercise of free speech under Article 19.
- Curbing Dissent: It reflects a disturbing trend with regard to the use of hacking software against dissidents and adversaries. In 2019 also, Pegasus software was used to hack into HR & Dalit activists.
- Individual safety: In the absence of privacy, the safety of journalists, especially those whose work criticizes the government, and the personal safety of their sources is jeopardised.
- Self-Censorship: Consistent fear over espionage may grapple individuals. This may impact their ability to express, receive and discuss such ideas.
- State-sponsored mass surveillance: The spyware coupled with AI can manipulate digital content in users’ smartphones. This in turn can polarize their opinion by the distant controllers.
- National security: The potential misuse or proliferation has the same, if not more, ramifications as advanced nuclear technology falling into the wrong hands.
Snooping in India: A Legality check
For Pegasus-like spyware to be used lawfully, the government would have to invoke both the IT Act and the Telegraph Act. Communication surveillance in India takes place primarily under two laws:
- Telegraph Act, 1885: It deals with interception of calls.
- Information Technology Act, 2000: It was enacted to deal with surveillance of all electronic communication, following the Supreme Court’s intervention in 1996.
Cyber security safeguards in India
- National Cyber Security Policy: The policy was developed in 2013 to build secure and resilient cyberspace for India’s citizens and businesses.
- Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In): The CERT-In is responsible for incident responses including analysis, forecasts, and alerts on cybersecurity issues and breaches.
- Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C): The Central Government has rolled out a scheme for the establishment of the I4C to handle issues related to cybercrime in the country in a comprehensive and coordinated manner.
- Budapest Convention: There also exists Budapest Convention on Cybercrime. However, India is not a signatory to this convention.
Issues over government involvement
- It is worth asking why the government would need to hack phones and install spyware when existing laws already offer impunity for surveillance.
- In the absence of parliamentary or judicial oversight, electronic surveillance gives the executive the power to influence both the subject of surveillance and all classes of individuals, resulting in a chilling effect on free speech.
Way forward
- The security of a device becomes one of the fundamental bedrock of maintaining user trust as society becomes more and more digitized.
- Constituting an independent high-level inquiry with credible members and experts that can restore confidence and conduct its proceedings transparently.
- The need for judicial oversight over surveillance systems in general, and judicial investigation into the Pegasus hacking, in particular, is very essential.
Conclusion
- We must recognize that national security starts with securing the smartphones of every single Indian by embracing technologies such as encryption rather than deploying spyware.
- This is a core part of our fundamental right to privacy.
- This intrusion by spyware is not merely an infringement of the rights of the citizens of the country but also a worrying development for India’s national security apparatus.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Project Wardec
Mains level: Not Much
The Army Training Command signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Gandhinagar-based Rashtriya Raksha University (RRU) to develop a ‘Wargame Research and Development Centre (WARDEC)’ in New Delhi.
What is Project WARDEC?
- The project ‘WARDEC’ will be a first-of-its-kind simulation-based training centre in India that will use artificial intelligence (AI) to design virtual reality war-games.
- The Wargame Research and Development Centre will be used by the Army to train its soldiers and test their strategies through “metaverse-enabled gameplay”.
- The wargame models will be designed to prepare for wars as well as counter-terror and counter-insurgency operations.
Where will the centre come up and when?
- The centre will come up in a military zone in New Delhi, confirmed RRU officials privy to the development.
- The RRU will join hands with Tech Mahindra to develop the centre in the coming three to four months.
- The RRU, an institute under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), specialises in national security and policing.
- Located in Gandhinagar’s Lavad village, it is an “institute of national importance” – a status granted to it by an Act of Parliament.
How will these simulation exercises play out?
- Soldiers will test their skills in the metaverse where their surroundings will be simulated using a combination of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR).
- In metaverse, the players will get a realistic experience of the actual situation.
- If a weapon weighing 5 kg drops or the air pressure falls, they will feel it like anyone would in a live situation, real-time.
- The game would play out player versus player, player versus computer or even computer versus computer.
How will the centre help the Army?
- The Army intends to use the war-game centre to train its officers in military strategies.
- Indian Army will provide data to set the backdrop of the gameplay, so that participants get a realistic experience.
- In Army, it is often said that the enemy can ambush you from 361 directions, where 360 sides are around the soldier, and one is above in case there is an airdrop.
- So, wargame simulation helps the Army think of all possible scenarios.
What promise does AI-based wargame simulation hold?
- Apart from the armed forces, the BSF, CRPF, CISF, ITBP and SSB can also use the metaverse-enabled simulation exercises for better training.
- The use of AI can provide a totally immersive training experience as it can simulate a battlefield close to reality and map several eventualities in the probable event of a war.
How many countries use such wargaming drills?
- Since the 9/11 attacks, use of information technology-enabled wargaming is preferred by several countries like the US, Israel, the UK to prepare for possibilities in case of terror attacks or war.
- In March 2014, several world leaders, including former German chancellor Angela Merkel, former US president Barack Obama and Chinese president Xi Jinping had played a war simulation game.
- It was during the Hague Summit about how to react in case of a nuclear attack.
- In that case, the target of the nuclear attack was a fictional country named Brinia.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Constitutional battle between governor and the government
Context
The Supreme Court’s action in ordering the release of A G Perarivalan, a convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, has resulted in mixed reactions.
Background
- After the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the assailants were tried under the notorious Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987 (TADA).
- All 26 accused were given the death sentence by the Special Court for various offences, including under TADA (1998).
- Fortunately, the SC held that the offences under TADA were not made out since there was no case to proceed for acts of terrorism.
- It also modified the death penalty for 22 persons and confirmed the same only for Nalini, Perarivalan, Murugan and Santhan (1999).
- Petition for mercy under Article 161: They petitioned the governor of Tamil Nadu for mercy under Article 161.
- The then governor of Tamil Nadu dismissed their petition without any advice from the cabinet.
- The Madras High Court ruled that the governor cannot exercise the power of pardon without the advice of the council of ministers.
- The cabinet advised the governor to give reprieve only to Nalini Sriharan and rejected the case of the other three, including Perarivalan.
- Perarivalan and the two other convicts appealed to the president with a mercy plea under Article 72.
- Two successive presidents of India – K R Narayanan and APJ Abdul Kalam — did not pass any mercy orders.
- But all of a sudden, their mercy pleas were rejected after a delay of 11 years by President Pratibha Patil.
- When they were about to be executed, the convicts moved the Madras HC challenging the execution of the death warrant issued against them.
- The cases were transferred to the SC, which decided that the president’s action in not considering the mercy plea within a reasonable time was improper and since the three prisoners had been on death row for 11 years, it was a fit case for commuting their sentence to life imprisonment.
- Meanwhile, on February 19, 2014, the TN cabinet advised the governor to grant reprieve to all seven accused.
- Once again, all of them applied for remission from the governor.
- The state cabinet also advised the governor to grant pardon.
- WhenPerarivalan’s mother, filed a case for parole, the court noting the inordinate delay observed: “the Governor of T N, a constitutional authority, cannot sit on the state’s recommendation on the release of all seven life convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case for so long” (July 2020).
- The court was informed that the governor was awaiting the final report of the CBI’s Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA).
Role of MDMA
- The role of MDMA itself came up for criticism by the SC in January 2018 and it observed that the agency did not appear to have made “much headway”.
- The court observed that the question of reopening the case against them will not arise as they had been already convicted for murder and conspiracy.
- Article 20(2) of the Constitution guarantees that no person can be prosecuted and punished for the same offence more than once.
Use of powers under Article 142 by the Supreme Court
- Once again, the process of granting mercy to the seven accused began with a resolution passed by the T N Assembly on September 9, 2018.
- On the same day, the state cabinet advised the governor to give reprieve to all seven prisoners.
- On being compelled by the court, the governor stated that the matter was to be dealt with by the President.
- It was at this stage the matter went back to the SC.
- It was finally decided that the authority to grant pardon is with the governor and he is bound by the advice of the state government.
- The court also ruled that the action of the governor in delaying the matter for more than 2.5 years was unacceptable.
- Exercising its power under Article 142 as well as considering all the relevant circumstances, the SC ordered Perarivalan’s release.
Limitations on governor’s power
- Giving reprieve to persons sentenced to the death penalty, even in the exercise of the plenary powers by a governor, has limitations.
- In 1978, Parliament amended the Criminal Procedure Code and introduced Sec 433A by which in such cases, prisoners cannot be released from prison unless they had served a minimum of 14 years in prison.
Reformatory penal system of India
- India’s penal system is undoubtedly reformatory and not retributive.
- The SC ruled on this issue by stating “a barbaric crime does not have to be visited with a barbaric penalty.”
- It is also surprising that the successive governments at the Centre appeared to be guided in this case by geopolitical considerations rather than this country’s laws.
Conclusion
The question now is whether the six other prisoners will receive the same relief or will there be a confrontation between the state government and governor once again. Let us hope that wisdom prevails and the governor’s office is not manipulated for narrow political considerations.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Public health and management cadre
Context
In April this year, the Union government released a guidance document on the setting up of a ‘public health and management cadre’ (PHMC) as well as revised editions of the Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) — for ensuring quality health care in government facilities.
Background
- The need for a public health cadre and services in India rarely got any policy attention.
- Limited understanding: The reason was that even among policymakers, there was limited understanding on the roles and the functions of public health specialists and the relevance of such cadres, especially at the district and sub-district levels.
- However, the last decade and a half was eventful.
- The initial threat of avian flu in 2005-06, the Swine flu pandemic of 2009-10; five more public health emergencies of international concern between years 2009-19; the increasing risks and regular emergence and re-emergence of of new viruses and diseases (Zika, Ebola, Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic fever, Nipah viruses, etc.) in animals and humans, resulted in increased attention on public health.
- National Public health Act: In 2017, India’s National Health Policy 2017 proposed the formation of a public health cadre and enacting a National Public Health Act.
- The COVID-19 pandemic changed the status quo.
- In the absence of trained public health professionals at the policy and decision making levels, India’s pandemic response ended up becoming bureaucrat steered and clinician led.
Different cadres and its implications
- Lack of career progression opportunities: At present, most Indian States (with exceptions such as Tamil Nadu and Odisha) have a teaching cadre (of medical college faculty members) and a specialist cadre of doctors involved in clinical services.
- This structure does not provide similar career progression opportunities for professionals trained in public health.
- Limited interest: It is one of the reasons for limited interest by health-care professionals to opt for public health as a career choice.
- The outcome has been costly for society: a perennial shortage of trained public health workforce.
Public health cadre
- The proposed public health cadre and the health management cadre have the potential to address some of these challenges.
- With the release of guidance documents, the States have been advised to formulate an action plan, identify the cadre strengths, and fill up the vacant posts in the next six months to a year.
- A public health workforce has a role even beyond epidemics and pandemics.
- A trained public health workforce ensures that people receive holistic health care, of preventive and promotive services (largely in the domain of public health) as well as curative and diagnostic services (as part of medical care).
Revised version of IPHS and significance
- This is the second revision in the IPHS, which were first released in 2007 and then revised in 2012.
- The regular need for a revision in the IPHS is a recognition of the fact that to be meaningful, quality improvement has to be an ongoing process.
- The development of the IPHS itself was a major step.
- The revised IPHS is an important development but not an end itself.
- In the 15 years since the first release of the IPHS, only a small proportion — around 15% to 20% — of government health-care facilities meets these standards. .
- If the pace of achieving IPHS is any criteria, there is a need for more accelerated interventions.
- Opportunities such as a revision of the IPHS should also be used for an independent assessment on how the IPHS has improved the quality of health services.
Implementation challenges
- The effective part of implementation is interplay: policy formulation, financial allocation, and the availability of a trained workforce.
- In this case, policy has been formulated.
- Financial allocations: Then, though the Government’s spending on health in India is low and has increased only marginally in the last two decades; however, in the last two years, there have been a few additional — small but assured — sources of funding for public health services have become available.
- The Fifteenth Finance Commission grant for the five-year period of 2021- 26 and the Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission (PM-ABHIM) allocations are available for strengthening public health services and could be used as States embark upon implementing the PHMC and a revised IPHS.
- Availability of trained workforce: The third aspect of effective implementation, the availability of trained workforce, is the most critical.
- As States develop plans for setting up the PHMC, all potential challenges in securing a trained workforce should be identified and actions initiated.
Conclusion
The public health and management cadres and the revised IPHS can help India to make progress towards the NHP goal. To ensure that, State governments need to act urgently and immediately.
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Back2Basics: Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS)
- IPHS are a set of uniform standards envisaged to improve the quality of health care delivery in the country.
- The IPHS documents have been revised keeping in view the changing protocols of the existing programmes and introduction of new programmes especially for Non-Communicable Diseases.
- Flexibility is allowed to suit the diverse needs of the States and regions.
- These IPHS guidelines will act as the main driver for continuous improvement in quality and serve as the bench mark for assessing the functional status of health facilities.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: GST Council
Mains level: Read the attached story
The Supreme Court has held that Union and State legislatures have equal, simultaneous and unique powers to make laws on Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the recommendations of the GST Council are not binding on them.
What is the case?
- The apex court’s decision came while confirming a Gujarat High Court ruling that the Centre cannot levy Integrated Goods and Services Tax (IGST) on ocean freight from Indian importers.
Key takeaways of the Judgment
- The recommendations of the GST Council are the product of a collaborative dialogue involving the Union and the States.
- They are recommendatory in nature. They only have a persuasive value.
- To regard them as binding would disrupt fiscal federalism when both the Union and the States are conferred equal power to legislate on GST.
Basis of the Judgment
- The court emphasised that Article 246A of the Constitution gives the States power to make laws with respect to GST.
- It treats the Union and the States as “equal units”.
- It confers a simultaneous power (on Union and States) for enacting laws on GST.
- Article 279A, in constituting the GST Council, envisions that neither the Centre nor the States are actually dependent on the other.
What are the articles added/modified to the Constitution by the GST Act?
(1) Article 246A: Special Provision for GST
- This Article was newly inserted to give power to the Parliament and the respective State/Union Legislatures to make laws on GST respectively imposed by each of them.
- However, the Parliament of India is given the exclusive power to make laws with respect to inter-state supplies.
- The IGST Act deals with inter-state supplies. Thus, the power to make laws under the IGST Act will rest exclusively with the Parliament.
- Further, the article excludes the following products from the scope of GST until a date recommended by the GST Council:
- Petroleum Crude
- High-Speed Diesel
- Motor Spirit
- Natural Gas
- Aviation Turbine Fuel
(2) Article 269A: Levy and Collection of GST for Inter-State Supply
- While Article 246A gives the Parliament the exclusive power to make laws with respect to inter-state supplies.
- The manner of distribution of revenue from such supplies between the Centre and the State is covered in Article 269A.
- It allows the GST Council to frame rules in this regard. Import of goods or services will also be called as inter-state supplies.
- This gives the Central Government the power to levy IGST on import transactions.
- Import of goods was subject to Countervailing Duty (CVD) in the earlier scheme of taxation.
- IGST levy helps a taxpayer to avail the credit of IGST paid on import along the supply chain, which was not possible before.
(3) Article 279A: GST Council
- This Article gives power to the President to constitute a joint forum of the Centre and States called the GST Council.
- The GST Council is an apex member committee to modify, reconcile or to procure any law or regulation based on the context of GST in India.
(4) Article 286: Restrictions on Tax Imposition
- This was an existing article which restricted states from passing any law that allowed them to collect tax on sale or purchase of goods either outside the state or in the case of import transactions.
- It was further amended to restrict the passing of any laws in case of services too.
- Further, the term ‘supply’ replaces ‘sale or purchase’.
(5) Article 366: Addition of Important definitions
Article 366 was an existing article amended to include the following definitions:
- GST means the tax on supply of goods, services or both. It is important to note that the supply of alcoholic liquor for human consumption is excluded from the purview of GST.
- Services refer to anything other than goods.
- State includes Union Territory with legislature.
Back2Basics: GST Council
- The GST Council is a federal body that aims to bring together states and the Centre on a common platform for the nationwide rollout of the indirect tax reform.
- It is an apex member committee to modify, reconcile or to procure any law or regulation based on the context of goods and services tax in India.
- The GST Council dictates tax rate, tax exemption, the due date of forms, tax laws, and tax deadlines, keeping in mind special rates and provisions for some states.
- The predominant responsibility of the GST Council is to ensure to have one uniform tax rate for goods and services across the nation.
How is the GST Council structured?
- The GST is governed by the GST Council. Article 279 (1) of the amended Indian Constitution states that the GST Council has to be constituted by the President within 60 days of the commencement of the Article 279A.
- According to the article, the GST Council will be a joint forum for the Centre and the States. It consists of the following members:
- The Union Finance Minister will be the Chairperson
- As a member, the Union Minister of State will be in charge of Revenue of Finance
- The Minister in charge of finance or taxation or any other Minister nominated by each State government, as members.
Terms of reference
- Article 279A (4) specifies that the Council will make recommendations to the Union and the States on the important issues related to GST, such as the goods and services will be subject or exempted from the Goods and Services Tax.
- They lay down GST laws, principles that govern the following:
- Place of Supply
- Threshold limits
- GST rates on goods and services
- Special rates for raising additional resources during a natural calamity or disaster
- Special GST rates for certain States
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Article 142
Mains level: Read the attached story
The Supreme Court has exercised the power conferred on it under Article 142 of the Constitution to order the release of former Prime Minister’s assassination convict.
Supreme Court frees Perarivalan
What is Article 142?
Article 142 titled ‘Enforcement of decrees and orders of the Supreme Court and orders as to discovery, etc.’ has two clauses:
[1] Article 142(1)
- The Supreme Court in the exercise of its jurisdiction may pass such decree or make such order as is necessary for doing complete justice in any cause or matter pending before it.
- Any decree so passed or order so made shall be enforceable throughout the territory of India.
- It may be in such manner as may be prescribed by or under any law made by Parliament and, until provision in that behalf is so made, in such manner as the President may by order prescribe.
[2] Article 142(2)
- The Supreme Court shall have all and every power to make any order for the purpose of securing the attendance of any person, the discovery or production of any documents, or the investigation or punishment of any contempt of itself.
History of Article 142
- When a draft Constitution was prepared by the drafting committee and placed before the Constituent Assembly, Article 142 was actually numbered as Article 118.
- It was placed before the Constituent Assembly on May 27, 1949 for debate but got adopted on the same day without any debate.
- This was possibly because everyone agreed that in order to ensure judicial independence, the highest court of the country must be empowered with plenary power to do complete justice.
Articles invoked in Perarivalan Case
- In the case of Perarivalan, the Supreme Court invoked Article 142(1) under which it was empowered to pass any order necessary to do complete justice in any matter pending before it.
- It held that it was not a fit case to be remanded to the Governor for his consideration under Article 161 of the Constitution.
Important instances when Article 142 was invoked
- Bhopal Gas tragedy case: The SC awarded a compensation of $470 million to the victims and held that “prohibitions or limitations or provisions contained in ordinary laws cannot, ipso facto, act as prohibitions or limitations on the constitutional powers under Article 142.”
- Babri Masjid demolition case: The Supreme Court ordered framing of a scheme by the Centre for formation of trust to construct Ram Mandir at the Masjid demolition site in Ayodhya.
- Liquor sale ban case: The Supreme Court banned liquor shops within a distance of 500 metres from National as well as State highways in order to prevent drunken driving.
Try this PYQ from CSP 2019:
Q.With reference to the Constitution of India, prohibitions or limitations or provisions contained in ordinary laws cannot act as prohibitions or limitations on the constitutional powers under Article 142. It could mean which one of the following?
a. The decisions taken by the Election Commission of India while discharging its duties cannot be challenged in any court of law.
b. The Supreme Court of India is not constrained in the exercise of its powers by laws made by the Parliament.
c. In the event of grave financial crisis in the country, the President of India can declare Financial Emergency without the counsel from the Cabinet.
d. State Legislatures cannot make laws on certain matters without the concurrence of Union Legislature.
Post your answers here.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NATO
Mains level: Expansion of NATO
After nearly three months of debate within the two countries, Finland and Sweden have formally applied for membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
What is NATO?
- NATO is a military alliance established by the North Atlantic Treaty (also called the Washington Treaty) of April 4, 1949.
- It sought to create a counterweight to Soviet armies stationed in Central and Eastern Europe after World War II.
- Its original members were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
- NATO has spread a web of partners, namely Egypt, Israel, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland and Finland.
Expansion of NATO: Transforming Europe
- The war in Ukraine has already changed the geopolitics of Europe and the world.
- The admission of Finland and Sweden to NATO would bring about a transformation in the continent’s security map by giving NATO a contiguous long frontier in western Russia.
- Finland and Russia share a 1,300-km border — and doubling it from the present 1,200 km, parts of it in northern Norway, Latvia and Estonia, and Poland and Lithuania.
- In addition, Sweden’s island of Gotland in the middle of the Baltic Sea would give NATO a strategic advantage.
- Furthermore, when Sweden and Finland join NATO, the Baltic Sea — Russia’s gateway to the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean — would be ringed entirely by NATO members.
Why Nordic countries are willing to join NATO?
- Although the debate over joining NATO was ongoing in both countries for nearly three decades, Russia’s annexation of Crimea pushed both towards NATO’s “open door” policy.
- Still, there was little political consensus in either country, especially in Sweden where the Social Democrats have long been against the idea.
- However, February 24 changed everything the date on which Russia invaded Ukraine.
A knee jerk reaction?
- If Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was meant to deter NATO’s eastward expansion, the war has had the opposite effect.
- If admitted, Sweden and Finland will become its 31st and 32nd members.
Russian response
- Back in March, Russia had evoked a threatening response to take retaliatory measures by stationing its nuclear and hypersonic weapons close to the Baltic Sea.
- Russia denounced the problems with Finland and Sweden but the NATO’s expansion at the expense of these countries does not pose a direct threat to us.
- But the expansion of military infrastructure into this territory will certainly provoke their response, warned Mr Putin.
- Sweden had already said it would not allow NATO bases or nuclear weapons on its territory.
Hurdles for Finland, Sweden
- At the moment the main obstacle to their applications in Turkey, a member since 1952 and which has NATO’s second-largest army after the US.
- Turkish president Erdogan has objected to their applications on the ground that the two countries had provided safe haven to the leaders of the Kurdish group PKK.
- Many Kurdish and other exiles have found refuge in Sweden over the past decades.
- PKK is an armed movement fighting for a separate Kurdistan, comprising Kurdish areas in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.
- Neither of these countries have a clear, open attitude towards terrorist organisation.
What could Turkey gain?
- Turkey is expected to seek to negotiate a compromise deal to seek action on Kurdish groups.
- Erdogan could also seek to use Sweden and Finland’s membership to wrest concessions from the United States and other allies.
- Turkey wants to return to the US-led F-35 fighter jet program — a project it was kicked out of following its purchase of Russian S-400 missile defense systems.
- Alternatively, Turkey is looking to purchase a new batch of F-16 fighter jets and upgrade its existing fleet.
How does this affect Turkey’s image in the West?
- Turkey is reinforcing an image that is blocking the alliance’s expansion for its own profit.
- It also risks damaging the credit it had earned by supplying Ukraine with the Bayraktar TB2 armed drones that became an effective weapon against Russian forces.
Is Turkey trying to appease Russia?
- Turkey has built close relations with both Russia and Ukraine and has been trying to balance its ties with both.
- It has refused to join sanctions against Russia — while supporting Ukraine with the drones that helped deny Russia air superiority.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Marital rape issue
Context
On 11 May, two judges of the Delhi High Court handed down separate judgments in RIT Foundation v Union of India.
Background
- Section 375 of the IPC defines “rape” as when a man has sex with a woman without her consent.
- Exception to Section 375 of IPC: An exception to Section 375 provides that it is not rape for a husband to have sex with his wife, regardless of consent.
The two judgements
1] Violation of rights:
- In his judgment, Justice Rajiv Shakdher concluded that the marital rape exception violated the rights to life, equality, non-discrimination, and freedom of speech and expression under the Constitution.
- There is no reasonable basis to distinguish between married and unmarried women.
- Marriage is a relationship of equals, and women do not forfeit their agency and sexual autonomy upon marriage.
2] Issues with Constitutional validity of exception
- Justice C Hari Shankar took a different view, concluding that the marital rape exception is constitutionally valid.
- First, the judge held that it is the wrong starting point to assume that a husband who has sex with his wife without her consent “commits rape”.
- 1] Exclusion from definition argument: The judge noted that the effect of the exception to Section 375 of the IPC is that any sex between a husband and wife, whether or not consensual, is excluded from the definition of rape.
- That analysis does not bear scrutiny.
- It makes little difference whether the starting point is that non-consensual sex within marriage should be characterised as rape or, for example, sexual assault.
- The critical question is whether it is unconstitutional to exclude non-consensual sex from the definition of rape.
- 2] Preservation of marital institution argument: The judge held that the marital rape exception was “aimed at preservation of the marital institution, on which the entire bedrock of society rests”.
- The difficulty with that proposition is obvious — is it the policy of the law that marriage is to be preserved at all costs?
- If so, does that withstand constitutional scrutiny?
- 3] Impact argument: the judge rejected the challenge to the martial rape exception based on the right to equality on the spurious assumption that the impact on a woman who is raped by her husband cannot “be equated with the impact of a woman who is raped by a stranger”.
- No evidence is cited in support of those claims.
- They also defy logic. Being raped by someone in whom you have reposed trust is likely to have an indelible emotional impact.
- 4] Reluctance to file complaint: The judge concluded that, as a practical matter, a “majority of Indian women” would be reluctant to file a complaint of rape against their husbands in any event.
- Even if that were true, it is no reason to disempower, by the operation of the law, women who do have the resolve to make a rape complaint against their husbands from doing so.
- 5] Creation of new offence: Justice Shankar held that it is not within the court’s power to create a new offence, and striking down the marital rape exception would have that effect.
- There is no question of creating a new offence — the court would simply be striking down an exception carved out of an existing offence.
- The only principled basis for the judge’s objection is that it may be unfair to punish someone for rape for conduct that was excluded from the definition of rape when it was undertaken.
- But that is not a reason to avoid striking down the marital rape exception.
- The easy solution is for the court to declare that its judgment will apply only to conduct after the date of the judgment.
Conclusion
Whether the marital rape exception violates fundamental rights under the Constitution is a question that falls within the Court’s core competency. There is only one reasonable answer to that question.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Abortion rights
Context
The leaked Roe vs Wade draft opinion has been in the news for its possible impact on abortion rights, but it also paves the way for the erosion of gay rights in America.
Background of abortion rights cases in the U.S.
- Almost 50 years earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Roe vs Wade(1973) that it was unconstitutional for states to ban or restrict abortions before fetal viability.
- Later, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania vs Casey (1992) reaffirmed Roe’s central holding on viability.
- In December 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded oral arguments in Dobbs vs Jackson Women’s Health Organization, an ongoing case that looks at a 2018 Mississippi law (The Gestational Age Act) that bans most abortions after 15 weeks.
- Keeping Roe and Casey in mind, lower courts permanently enjoined the Mississippi law, but the case eventually moved up to the Supreme Court, with the following question: are all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions unconstitutional?
- This question (and the court’s acceptance to answer it) is at the heart of Roe and Casey because the Roe court had already decided that answer in the affirmative back in 1973; and this was re-affirmed in 1992 by the Casey court.
- The leaked first draft of the court’s majority decision in Dobbs, however, departs from precedent and signals a completely different turn.
Originalist reading of the US Constitution
- A running theme in this first draft of the Dobbs judgment was the court’s emphasis on originalism.
- The very first page of the draft says that “the constitution makes no mention of abortion”.
- On page 9 it reads “the abortion right, which is not mentioned in the Constitution, is part of a right to privacy, which is also not mentioned.
- An originalist reading of the Constitution and an application of similar reasoning as the one applied in this draft opinion (minus the emphasis on protecting “life or ‘potential life”) could invalidate all rights for gay and lesbian Americans.
Implications for other rights
- Gay rights do not have any place in American history and tradition; it is quite the opposite with American history.
- Simply put, a rollback of Roe and Casey could allow state legislatures across the country to re-instate bans or restrictions on gay rights such as limitations on same-sex couple adoptions or sexuality education in schools.
- Moreover, because the Constitution makes no explicit mention of “privacy”, “sexual orientation”, “gay”, “lesbian”, or “gay rights” anywhere, these rights could be challenged further.
- The constitutional recognition of same-sex marriage is, after all, only a recent phenomenon, both globally and nationally.
- In 1992, the Casey court affirmed what was already decided two decades ago in Roe — namely, that women in America had the “liberty” to an abortion under the Fourteenth Amendment.
- However, the Dobbs draft ruling discards this right to “liberty” just as it does the right to “privacy”.
- By specifically re-defining “liberty” and calling into question its applicability in the case of abortions, the court paves the way for potentially reviewing other “liberty” rights not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution — such as the right to travel ( Kent vs Dulles, 1958), the right to inter-racial marriage ( Loving vs Virginia, 1967), and the right to engage in same-sex activity in private ( Lawrence vs Texas, 2003), among others.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that if 50 year-old constitutionally guaranteed rights could be revoked today, then more recent and similarly, situated rights could also be revoked under an originalist reading of the Constitution.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Delimitation Commission
Mains level: Paper 2- Challenges after delimitation freeze ends
Context
Four years from now, when the delimitation of the constituencies will take place, India’s electoral democracy will stand on an existential crossroads.
Historical background of North-South tension
- There was a time, not all that long ago, when English speakers in the south of India routinely referred to our north as ‘Upper India’.
- The Imperial Legislative Council, with its Central Legislative Assembly as the Lower House and the Council of State as the Upper House, being located in Delhi pushed that upperness further up.
- Later, the Constituent Assembly continued the ‘India’s north as India’s peak’ image.
- Role of Congress: The Indian National Congress was from the very start, aware of the need for India’s regions to be seen as equal, bereft of any asymmetry.
- Its very third session after Bombay (1885) and Calcutta (1886) was held in Madras (1887, and many times later).
- The All India Kisan Sabha, the peasant wing of the Communist Party of India, likewise, which had first met in a ‘founder-conference’ in Lucknow in 1936, met at its fifth session in 1940 in Palasa, Srikakulam.
- These considered arrangements embody the opening Article 1 of our Constitution: India, that is Bharat.
What would be the Impact of delimitation
- A delimitation of the constituencies that will elect Members of the Lok Sabha, following the population figures returned by the next decennial Census, is to take place in 2026.
- Need to increase number of members: We cannot have, should not have, the same number of Members of Parliament — 543 — representing a vastly increased population in the Lok Sabha.
- Mathematically speaking, the higher the number of people per constituency, the lower the impact each voter has on parliamentary representation — clearly an undesirable situation.
- Reduced representation to States that stabilised their population: Re-arranging and standardising the number of people per constituency through the scheduled delimitation exercise will inevitably lead to a reduced representation for States that have managed to stabilise their populations, and to a higher representation for States that have not stabilised their populations.
- Considering the Census data for 2011, almost half (48.6%) of our population (of approximately 1.38 billion) is contributed by the States of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh.
- Issues with population-based marking: A population-based marking out or re-arrangement of constituencies, as envisaged in Article 82 of the Constitution, will have the effect of giving more MPs to the States and Union Territories that have let their numbers grow, and will give markedly less MPs to those that have held their numbers in some check.
- Realising the anomaly that a delimitation based on Census data would cause, a delimitation freeze was put in position by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi through the 42nd Amendment of the Constitution in 1976.
- This was extended by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee through the 84th Amendment.
- It is this extension that is to end in 2026, placing us at a crossroads.
Way forward
- There are two alternatives before us:
- 1] Onother freeze: One, we go in for another freeze, this time not for any specific period but for until all States have achieved population stabilisation.
- 2] Mathematically equitable formula: Two, we request demographic and statistical experts to devise a mathematical model along the lines of the ‘Cambridge Compromise’ based on a mathematically equitable “formula” for the apportionment of the seats of the European Parliament between the member-states.
Conclusion
The population-stabilising States of India that is Bharat, which include all the southern States, must continue to enrich our legislative and parliamentary processes as they have been doing since the time of the Imperial Legislative Council, with no penalties having to be paid for their sense of responsibility. We need to limit population, not representation.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Various articles mentioned in news
Mains level: Death penalty
The Supreme Court has invoked its extraordinary powers to do complete justice under Article 142 of the Constitution and ordered the release of A.G. Perarivalan in former PM assassination case.
Among the factors that sustained Perarivalan’s long battle was the determination and commitment of his mother, Arputham Ammal, who emerged as the face of an anti-death penalty movement, and the sympathy and empathy that he received from people from all walks of life.
What is the news?
- A Bench led by Justice L. Nageswara Rao, in its judgment, took into consideration Perarivalan’s long jail term for over 30 years to order his release.
- The court held that the TN Council of Ministers’ advice to pardon Perarivalan was binding on the Governor under Article 161 (Governor’s power of clemency) of the Constitution.
- The advice of the State Cabinet is binding on the Governor in matters relating to commutation/remission of sentences under Article 161.
Note: As per Article 161, the Governor of a State shall have the power to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or remissions of punishment or to suspend, remit or commute the sentence of any person convicted of any offence against any law relating to a matter to which the executive power of the State extends
What branded Perarivalan as a murderer?
- He had bought two 9 volt battery cells on behalf of the bomber.
- These were used to make the bomb explode.
- This confession statement taken under Section 15(1) of TADA to establish his link with the assassins and his knowledge and role in the assassination.
Why was this a case for Governor?
- Perarivalan was not a death sentenced convict.
- Earlier, the apex court had commuted his death penalty to life sentence for murder in 2014.
- The Governor had no business forwarding the pardon plea to the President after sitting on it for years together.
- Had this been a death penalty, the case would have been different.
Why did the Supreme Court intervene?
- Governor’s delay to decide Perarivalan’s pardon for more than two years has compelled the apex court to employ its constitutional powers under Article 142 to do justice to Perarivalan.
- After all, the court said, a Governor’s non-exercise of power under Article 161 of the Constitution was not immune from judicial review.
What is Article 142?
- Article 142 provides discretionary power to the Supreme Court.
- It states that the court in the exercise of its jurisdiction may pass such decree or make such order as is necessary for doing complete justice in any cause or matter pending before it.
- Such decree shall be enforceable throughout the territory of India in such manner as may be prescribed by or under any law made by Parliament.
- It is usually used in cases involving human rights and environmental protection.
Other legal aspects of this pardon
- The Court dismissed the Centre’s argument that the President exclusively, and not the Governor, had the power to grant pardon in a case under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code.
- The court had said that such a contention would render Article 161 a “dead-letter”.
- This would rather create an extraordinary situation whereby pardons granted by Governors in murder cases for the past 70 years would be rendered invalid.
Back2Basics:
Pardoning powers of the President
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